In the first of what I hope will become a long-runner, The Slog targets all the syntax, hypocrisy and assumptive drivel of contemporary life….with the gloves entirely removed.

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I went to bed last Saturday night with a gentle question coursing through my mind: what the blithering fuck does ‘alternative arrangements’ mean? Sir Graham Brady, the slowly inflating chair of the 1922 Committee that represents Cro-Magnon Tory MPs, wants to see the Irish backstop replaced by what he calls “alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border”. His proposed amendment to the Withdrawal Bill is gaining widespread support in the House, and as of yesterday has the Government’s backing.

But I have yet to see what these alternative arrangements are. 

Next year will see the 300th anniversary of the maddest Stock Exchange rush of all time, The South Sea Bubble. People paid good money to buy shares in a company whose mission statement was, “trading to the South Seas and with other parts of America, and for the encouragement of fishing”. It sounded very grand and offered limitless potential; but the truth was that the officers of the company knew nothing about the South Seas (let alone fishing in it) and enjoyed a monopoly of trade only with South America….blocked to all British vessels and players thanks to the state of war between Britain and Spain.

It later emerged that the whole thing was a gigantic scam, in which the Government was heavily implicated.

It could be that 2020 is going to be the year of the Alternative Arrangements (AAs) Bubble, something in which the Mayflower crew of cutlass carriers are very heavily implicated indeed. Googling this morning, I found eleven references to what AAs aren’t. The score for what it is, however, remains firmly rooted in zero – itself a philo-mathematical entity that doesn’t exist.

I foresee much potential for AA amendments in the future – ie, things defined by what they aren’t.

Doubtless, the DWP will propose one on female State pensions that aren’t, and another on disability supports that aren’t either.

Lord Mandelson will probably vote for an AA amendment to the Criminal Law Act sub-section referring to the stealing and subsequent attempted fencing of precious northern Irish artefacts.

Gordon Brown could soon be enthusiastic about an AA in relation to political blackmail of a close colleague in relation to African mining rights.

JJ Lewis of Dorchester is sure to go for an AA on surveillance use at The Groucho Club.

Jeremy Hunt will perhaps table an AA Amendment to the laws on media speculation regarding how his Company Hotcourses won London Employer of the Year via the alleged use of forged signatures.

The queue might soon stretch around the world on this one. In the meantime, we eagerly await the content vis a vis what the AAs on Irish Borders are. Perhaps they will turn out to be RAC – Remain Acceleration Chicanery.

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “racism has no place in our society” from an MP and had two thoughts: 1. Oh yes it does, often insidiously – and 2. on the other hand, some black people hide behind their colour?

Most people enjoy that balance of outlook. ‘OUT’ – this new feature at The Slog – is designed to make every Leftlib pc pillock and Neolib skinhead uncomfortable….while evoking a knowing nod from the 70% who still believe that Real is better than Rubbish.

Herewith a finely honed piece of Caledonian satire based on rumours that Alex Salmond is the victim of a Macbeth Sisters’ plot, and Nicola Sturgeon has muff-diving propensities. It made me laugh heartily because it is scurrilous, but I have little idea as to its veracity. It is merely produced here on the basis of public interest, as my lawyers Tryle & Errah inform me that this is the standard excuse.

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Fast forward to 2054, where retro is all the rage and media entrepreneur Jean-Wayne Umbwabo wants to relaunch the long discredited Prime Minister’s Questions, or PMQs.

“It like a damn cryin’ shame dat PMQs disappeared” says Umbwabo, “it were well cool an’ shit wot wiv all dem honkeys leapin’ anna whooppin’ like dey wuz mentul or summink.”

Jean-Wayne and his fellow-founders at Old Shit Rocks got up a petition for PMQs to reappear, and then signed a deal with the House of Selfies to reconstruct a House of Commons replica in today’s Palace of Mecca….but this time surrounded by an open viewing stadium parodying 1970s football terraces. Spectators will be supplied with ample toilet rolls, streamers, banners, bottles and sharpened coins, and encouraged to both obscenely abuse and harm their favourite demon-figures, who will be played by un-pc actors from the Wormwood Scrubbs Mind Remodelling Unit.

“It’s an excellent way for young people to work off their anti-socially dysfunctional mind space,” says IsLambour MP Pat Roni-Singh, “and this way, only the bad people get killed.”

Umbwabo says the new attraction is to be called Pet Hates. BBC Orange and Skyfox are already engaged in a bidding war for the TV rights.

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News is just coming in that Owen Jones has stoned himself to death, following an encounter at Craven Cottage during yesterday evening. Previously, Mr Jones had written that “Gay men must stand behind Muslims under fire from Islamophobia”. But the UK Muslim Council condemned the idea of Islamic men standing anywhere near Gay men.

Police said they did not suspect foul play.

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If we all gave Just One Pound a Week to the TV charity appeals that are a feature of Bank Holiday and Daytime media buying in the UK, the following week there would be charity appeals on TV begging on behalf of all those who gave Just One Pound a Week during the previous week.

“Tugging at the heartstrings and shock tactics are effective ways to appeal for donations – and while that isn’t about to change, charities must be more imaginative in the way they get their message across,” opined Marketing Week. Sadly, the opinion was proffered in March 2013….and applied imagination in the field is getting lower every year.

For myself, I am going to make an escalated complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the lack of diversity in Developing World TV charity ads. The people who star in them are all non-Caucasian and thin. It’s time that fuller-figure whites got a look inn and all this unwarranted cultural appropriation by Whitey was smashed forever.