Lords Cricket Rules Revised for the Future

Young Lord Stuart Turnip, Second Viscount Lockgate Ct. has just been registered for his formal training in cricket. According to the rather jaked rules of cricket in the quaint American colony of Vir-gin-ia we will be playing with a stand known as a "Tee".

I'm not sure I can wrap my coconut around the notion that the lad is beginning his sport career already at age four. Ah well, I'll drive him unmercifully from dawn til dusk and take all the fun out of it for him. Years later when he's doing the same thing to his progeny trying to recapture his faded glory, he'll remember how I drove him past the point of tears.

I shall commence to the local sporting goods shoppe to purchase 6 cans of "base-balls" and a pitching machine so he can practice fielding grounders directly.

This Weekend: Fox Hunting!

You are cordially invited, this Saturday morn, to attend a day of socializing and sportsmanship as guest of Brigadier A. J. Rossaroni KCMG, of HRM's Royal Eppington Fusiliers, at the estate of his cousin, the Duke of Portland. As honored guest will be Prince Otto of Bavaria.

The Brigadier will be acting as Master of Hounds, and the Blessing of the Hounds will begin promptly at 8 a.m. A 3 pounds sterling cap will be required from all guests.

A note to all participants regarding behavior in and around the main house. The Duke is a solitary man and does not like to be engaged in conversation. If you see him anywhere on the estate grounds, you are instructed to ignore him as if he were not there. And make no eye contact either. Under NO circumstances are you to enter any of his vast underground tunnels and buildings, such as his 174 x 64 foot subterranean ballroom, his 250 foot long underground libray, or the 15 miles of tunnels that criss-cross the estate.

A note to participants is also in order for certain aspects of Prince Otto's behavior. At times he will bark like a dog or complain of painful boils on his feet. Please refrain from drawing too much attention to any such comments. Also, as he hasn't taken his boots off in 8 weeks, he will tend to be a bit maloderous. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but, remember, he IS royalty and, therefore, our better. He also has a particular dislike of peasants, and claims that shooting "one a day" helps him maintain his health. Not that this needs saying, but please do not dress in any way like a peasant while the Prince is present and armed.

All things considered, it should be a marvelous day out in the glorious English countryside. See you all there!

BG Rossaroni KCMG

Detroit Bowlers Roust Peasants of Florida Southern College

So sorry to hear about the travails of Lord Woodpecker-Smyth with the highwayman but I have happier news.

Lord Turnip loves nothing more than his favorite cricketers the beloved Detroit Nine Squad. Today in their impressive first innings of the season they shattered the poor benighted of something known as Florida Southern College. Gads! If you can't get into an Oxbridge university why go?

As I understand it the bowlers from the Detroit Nine hit around several times using the quaint American "Base-Ball" rules which they seem to want to do these days and the score was something like 17-4 (heavens, how could such a low score be entertaining?) and they hit five of what are known as "home runs."

I hope they revert to the familiar Imperial Cricket Conference rules as played at Lords.

Robbed at Gun and Swordpoint!

I was on my way to Lord Turnip's estate at East Whiffenpoof for our weekly game of Whist when our party was beset by highwaymen. As our carriage sped through the earthly delight that is the Whiffenpoof Glen, the impertinent scoundrel pictured above lept from a tree branch and launched a scathing critique of our frocks! Indeed. Although none of us was harmed, including the charming Lady Lime Wedge, the blackguard forced me to surrender both my stereo and record collection whilst he and his confederates escaped to loud rock music.

Lord Turnip Indirectly Responsible For Loss of England's American Colonies

It turns out that Lord Turnip's namesake (aka Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount) utter shame that he was responsible, through his son Charles Townshend, (3rd Viscount Townshend) for the Stamp Act which caused the rough hewn American colonists to rebel against their beloved King.

If only we had come up with a limited federalist scheme for devolving control of domestic affairs to the colonists with limited representation in the Houses of Parliment (Commons only of course).

-

I just hope that Lord Stuart Turnip doesn't become a pirate or a fighter pilot that exclusively flies to protect pirates. Although he claims that he is a good pirate and that sometimes the fighter pilot has to attack the sharks that are attacking the pirates.

Somali Tribesman Runs for President of Former British Colony in Americas

According to grubby proletarian reporters from the Manchester Guardian, a Somali goatherder is running for President of our former colonies in the Americas. This points out a couple of failings:

• We should have beaten them in the 1775-1783 and 1812-1815 wars
• This is a cautionary tale about the folly of democracy . . . GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
• We should immediately re-invade the colonies to liberate loyal tories.

The Duke of Northumberland At It Again!

What! Exclusion of the hereditary peers!!! The next thing you know the MPs will clamor for the dissolution of the Order of St. Patrick!!! Do I detect the not so subtle hand of that arch-commoner-lover, the Duke of Northumberland's hand in this cabal! Shame! Shame!

Woodpecker-Smythe

PS My manservant Sebastian has alerted me that the Order of St Patrick has been dormant for quite some time - I therefore selectively retract my outrage.

An Act to restrict membership of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage; to make related provision about disqualifications for voting at elections to, and for membership of, the House of Commons; and for connected purposes.

[11th November 1999]

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1 Exclusion of hereditary peers

No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

2 Exception from section 1

(1) Section 1 shall not apply in relation to anyone excepted from it by or in accordance with Standing Orders of the House.

(2) At any one time 90 people shall be excepted from section 1; but anyone excepted as holder of the office of Earl Marshal, or as performing the office of Lord Great Chamberlain, shall not count towards that limit.

(3) Once excepted from section 1, a person shall continue to be so throughout his life (until an Act of Parliament provides to the contrary).

(4) Standing Orders shall make provision for filling vacancies among the people excepted from section 1; and in any case where—

(a) the vacancy arises on a death occurring after the end of the first Session of the next Parliament after that in which this Act is passed, and

(b) the deceased person was excepted in consequence of an election,

that provision shall require the holding of a by-election.

(5) A person may be excepted from section 1 by or in accordance with Standing Orders made in anticipation of the enactment or commencement of this section.

(6) Any question whether a person is excepted from section 1 shall be decided by the Clerk of the Parliaments, whose certificate shall be conclusive.

3 Removal of disqualifications in relation to the House of Commons

(1) The holder of a hereditary peerage shall not be disqualified by virtue of that peerage for—

(a) voting at elections to the House of Commons, or

(b) being, or being elected as, a member of that House.

(2) Subsection (1) shall not apply in relation to anyone excepted from section 1 by virtue of section 2.

4 Amendments and repeals

(1) The enactments mentioned in Schedule 1 are amended as specified there.

(2) The enactments mentioned in Schedule 2 are repealed to the extent specified there.

Possibly the best Onion article ever about Applebee's

I salute the author of this masterwork.

Nomination for "That's Ripping": William Wilberforce

Three Cheers for the end of the Slave Trade!

Hip, Hip, Hurray!

Will Wilberforce's struggle against the slave trade wasn't funny but he does deserve a Barrister's Keep salute.

Barrister's Vote: The Ilbert Bill

Yee Fellow Gentlemen please weigh in on the grave matters that threaten our Indian possessions.

Should the foul scalawag Sir Courtney Ilbert of the Viceroy’s legal counsel and his repugnant bill authorizing Indian courts to rape white mothers in public be ridden from Her Majesty’s Empire on greased rails?

Or

Should the noble Empire embrace all of its citizens of any racial group, in the warm brotherhood of democracy as each citizen is empowered with full suffrage and equal rights and protections under the blind eyes of justice?

Full Stop on the Gilligan's Island Writer's Challenge

Ok, because I must have had the "safe search" feature turned to "off" on my yahoo search engine I discovered some things that make me less interested in pursuing the Gilligan's Island storylines. As it turns out there are extensive pornography scripts written about Gilligan's Island characters out there in the shadowy newsgroup world. These stories were probably written in WordPerfect 5.0. and published sometime in the early '90s before anyone ever thought of blogs.

So I'd like to keep this blog something I can work on with a kid in the room so....

Writer's Challenge: The Great Unfinished COG Script

Your mission, gentle reader, is too help finish the masterpiece below. -BG

THE CONSORTIUM OF GENIUS
VS
BAD ACTING

BY
Andy Ross



SCENE 1

Close-up of PINKERTON reading from sheets of paper. Has reading glasses on.

PINKERTON: And if the Consortium of Genius is not given the sum of ONE BILLION DOLLARS by 4pm tomorrow, the entire city will be turned into a giant Mars Bar! Chocolate City INDEED!

PINKERTON Laughs maniacally. He pauses, sighs, and looks up.

PINKERTON: Is it really necessary for me to laugh maniacally here? I'm just not feeling it. And asking for one billion dollars? Isn't that a bit hackneyed? A little bit too Austin Powers?

Cut to DIRECTOR sitting in director chair, wearing a beret and holding a megaphone.

DIRECTOR: Look, Pinky, darling, please let me handle this. I know what will sell with the audience. Your constant interruptions are not helping the creative process. You know, I never had problems like this with Mr. Alan Thicke.

PINKERTON: You directed Growing Pains?

DIRECTOR: No, no, no. It was another ransom video. Thicke is into super-villiany now. Look, Pinky darling, you might be good at inventing death rays, time machines, and mechanical drummers, but I am good at making high quality video entertainment and documentaries.

PINKERTON: I know a thing or two about entertainment, my good man.

DIRECTOR: Do you?

PINKERTON: I am in a band, you know. Anyway, a few years ago, the Consortium did a little "wet work" for a certain NBC executive. Nothing much really. Now, mind you, the end of the Cold War was just an unintended consequence, but you really can't blame us for that.

DIRECTOR: Cold War?

PINKERTON: Harry, who ended the Cold War?

DR. RACHNID is sitting at a table with writing paper strewn about it. He is trying to write some songs for the band and is deep in concentration. He is holding his bass. He is humming and strumming his instrument.

DR. RACHNID: DR. Z did.

DR. Z is sitting across from DR. RACHNID reading a magazine

DR. Z: Not my fault.

DR. RACHNID: Dr. Z, what rhymes with Necronomicon?

DR. Z: What's the context?

DR. RACHNID: I'm writing a love song.

Cut back to PINKERTON

PINKERTON: Anywho, in gratitude, Mr. Tartekoff let COG do a pilot. For the life of me I can't figure out why it wasn't picked up, but check out my awesome performance for yourself.

PINKERTON gets a dvd and puts it in a convenient dvd player. Cut to video in which we see an apartment door open up showing PINKERTON holding a pizza box.

PINKERTON (very poorly acted): Did you order a pizza?

FEMALE VOICE (off camera - sultry): I certainly did.

PINKERTON removes lab coat and is nude (shown from waist up - thank God). An arm extends out from the camera's POV and pulls PINKERTON out of shot as we hear really cheesy 70's porn music. Shot cuts to static. Cut back to lab.

PINKERTON (embarrassed): Oops, wrong disk. Uh, I was in grad school at the time...

PINKERTON rifles through a drawer

PINKERTON: Ah, here it is.

(my intent at this point is to show a video clip of their "Pilot" which will give them an opportunity to play a song. I'm thinking a Letterman/Leno type of show)

Chew on This Yee Fobs!

What makes a Gentleman?

In Victorian times.....

The gentleman's aura was predicated on quasi-feudal appeals to social
hierarchy. In the mid-Victorian period these traditional credentials were deliberately modernized, rationalized, and improved through, for example, civil service, public school and university reform. What described the gentleman was therefore both rationalzed and empirical (the predictable outcome of an elite education) and thoroughly mystified (an indefinable tone ambiguously derived from blood, breeding, or both). In this fashion the character of the British gentleman became a powerful descriptive basis for a myth of disinterested governance by an Oxbridge elite, a crucial means by which upper-class and aristocratic power was maintained. [From Goodland, Lauren M. E. Victorian Literature and the Victorian State: Character and Governance in a Liberal Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2003. ]

Today

Well-bred Trotskyite Crank puts Idiot Archbishop in His Proper Place

Pardon the interuption of politics and religion which are two subjects never to be mentioned in polite company. But, I wanted to shout hail and hearty thanks to Christopher Hitchens. Mr. Hitchens is the son of a Royal Navy Officer who though a proud Tory allowed his son to become a disgraceful Trotskyite.

Despite his athiestic and leveling tendencies Christopher Hitchens occassionally says something favored in my corner of the Barrister's Keep and because he's a very clever man his words are well put assault on the idiotic babblings of the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowen Williams, who recently expressed sympathy for Sharia law applying to Britain's Muslim population.

Hitchens had this to say about that dross:

Picture the life of a young Urdu-speaking woman brought to Yorkshire from
Pakistan to marry a man—quite possibly a close cousin—whom she has never met. He takes her dowry, beats her, and abuses the children he forces her to bear. She is not allowed to leave the house unless in the company of a male relative and unless she is submissively covered from head to toe. Suppose that she is able to contact one of the few support groups that now exist for the many women in Britain who share her plight. What she ought to be able to say is, "I need the police, and I need the law to be enforced." But what she will often be told is, "Your problem is better handled within the community." And those words, almost a death sentence, have now been endorsed and underwritten—and even advocated—by the country's official spiritual authority.

Three cheers for the rule of law!

BALDERDASH! An Affront to the Aristocracy!

I say gentlemen, please attend to the timely lesson in this article from the "inter-news" and ensure you are not taken in by similar schemes! Poor Sir Paul, hopefully this platinum haired harlot hasn't relieved him of his last sovereign!

Writer's Challenge: Scene Two, Gilligan Eyes Revenge!

Fuming after his treatment by Admiral Fisher, Gilligan [portrayed by Tim Roth] is thumbing a well-worn copy of the Communist Manifesto when out of the corner of his eye he notices an obviously drunk Mrs. Howell [portrayed by Deborah Kerr] in a darkened corner of the pub, alone and crying.

Seeing an opportunity for mischief on behalf of the downtrodden international proletariat, Gilligan moves over to Mrs. Howell. “G’morning Luv, fancy a drink?”

Mrs. Howell is sobbing, does not look up. She wails: “Why Thurston? Why did you have to go away?”

Gilligan, seeing Mrs. Howell’s distraught state is suddenly humanized and offers her his handkerchief. “I say dearie me, it ain’t so bad.”

Mrs. Howell begins wiping her tears and then blows her nose in a wildly exaggerated manner. “Thank you. You are very kind. You see its my husband Thurston, he’s off in India and I have lost all his money.”

[Picture of the 1903 Dehli Durbar with Lord Curzon and Lady Curzon seated on elephant.]

Thurston Howell is not in this shot . . .

Kitty Doesn't Want to Play!

Don't ask me how I came across this picture. It is genuine.

The caption reads . . .

You are a South African bush pilot. You fly in some critical medical supplies, enjoy a quick lunch at the hospital. It's a stifling 100 degrees in the shade and you're eager to get back up to the cool, high blue yonder.
On the way back to your plane, you discover that the only bit of shade, within 1 mile, has become very popular. . . .
You start calculating the distance to the plane door and wonder . . . "Do I feel lucky today?"

Robotica!

Tally-Ho! This Interweb link will lead the gentle reader to the most extensive collection of information on and about Victorian-era robots to be found outside of Whitehall.

Brigadier Rossaroni, KCMG
- Auspicium Melioris Aevi

Writer's Challenge: Casting Call, scene one "You're With Me, Leather"

Scene: Gilligan sitting at a barstool at a seaman's dive in Spithead. He is desperate to woo the favors of Ginger who is dressed in a tight bodice with giant hoop skirt. He has been pitching woo for several hours when in walks Admiral Jackie Fisher who turns to Ginger and says "You're with me, Leather". Ginger gets up and proceeds from the pub with Admiral Fisher.

[Laugh track roars with laughter]

Cast: Gilligan [played by Tim Roth] dressed in 19th c. Royal Navy uniform

Admiral Fisher: [Played by Bernard Hill] dressed in 19th c. Royal Navy uniform

Ginger: [pick from the following]Clockwise: Hellen Mirren, Elizabeth Hurley, Julie Christie,Kate Beckinsdale, Helen Bonham Carter, Kate Winslet, and Sarah Bernhardt.

Ok, this was a shameless excuse for me to search for pictures of lovely English actresses.

BK Writer's Challenge: Reimagine Gilligan's Island in Victorian or Edwardian Times

Writer's Challenge #1

Now, you have seven cast members. Plunk them in a late 19th or early 20th Century Imperial British milieu.

What issues would they face? e.g., taming the natives, a lack of quinine.

For this literary effort we must get past the notion of the era that the captain always goes down with the ship, aka the Birkenhead Drill:

To stand and be still

to the Birken’ead Drill

is a damn tough bullet to chew.

[Sniff] Thanks Rudyard, always makes me choke up.

Some Issues:

• Who would play the characters if cast today (in a British production)?




• Would they have enough alcohol to survive?




• How would the repressed mores of that era have stiffled Mary Ann's burgeoning sexuality?




• What quackery would the professor profess?




• What class conflict would emerge between Gilligan and Thurston Howell?

I'll be fleshing out this idea over the next few days.