Five things you didn’t know until now

metoday4There are seven deadly sins, Four Horsemen to an apocalypse, eight furlongs in a mile, six forms of unconditional love, nine lives for a cat, and two dancers required for a tango. But tonight, The Slog reveals the Five Facts that could change your life. 

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1Although there are seven days in a week, nothing and nobody in the World alliterates them in quite such a banal and brainless manner as Twitter.

These would be my radical alternatives to what we have now:  Sodoff Sunday,  Mendacious  Monday,  Tosspot Tuesday, Woolly Wednesday, Thoroughlycrap Thursday, Farcical Friday and Sleazy Saturday.

It’s important, I think, to maintain a sense of mordant reality.

2Under the current “rules” of engagement for Brexit, if you multiply the number of possible relationship variations by the number of EU Member States, and then multiply that total by the number of  arseholes in Washington, NATO, Westminster, Brussels and the European Central Bank – then allow a day to sort each issue out – the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union will take place in the year 4023 AD.

Has there ever in history been an EU issue sorted out in one day?

3In their 2010 election manifesto, the Conservative Party said it would ‘not allow the poorest people in Britain to pay an unfair price for the mistakes of some of the richest’, ‘bring law and order to our financial markets as a necessary step to restoring confidence’, ‘build a political system where people have more power and control over their lives’, ‘safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a Parliament’, ‘create a powerful Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) to take over the
Financial Services Authority’s consumer protection role’…..and many other things.

Eight years on, the achievement to aspiration score for these policies is 0%. According to Remainers, this means there should a be a re-run of the 2010 election because the politicians lied. Speaking for myself, I think the 1833 General Election should be run again, given that the Duke of Wellington lied his arse off throughout the proceedings. And don’t get me started on that Robert Peel and his “purely temporary” Income Tax thing.

4 London houses over 8 million residents, who collectively speak over 300 languages. But whatever their babble, every last Londoner needs to know that it is strictly forbidden for any British resident or citizen to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour. Many’s the time I have sought out the services of thespian costumiers with the object of hiring such attire in order to create a national security incident.

The problem is that, within a few yards of exiting such establishments, I fall over and cannot get up again. It is, in fact, so much easier to cause a nationwide media panic by entering the Palace of Westminster with a deadly unauthorised camera designed to wipe out all 650 MPs with flash photography.

5The Italians hold the record for the most number of draws in World Cup soccer history with 21. Every Italian player is factory-fitted with backwards running legs as standard, and it is against the law in Italy for any footballer to make a forward pass when his side is in the lead.

This was the sole piece of legislation Mussolini was unable to abolish during his period as Il Duce. “I made the trains run on time” he said in 1937, “and our soldiers ran from gunfire in good order a tutta velocità. But once the football score is 1-0, nothing will make an Italian footballer venture into the opposing half”.