Hamish McShanks

Ham Shanks Secret Diary – w/e 11^th Feb 2007

‘Had an accident in the last three years that wasn’t your fault?’, ‘Need a personal Injury lawyer to fight your corner?’, ‘Struggling with debt? Want a convenient homeowner loan?’, ‘Is shopping for car insurance driving you mad?’, ‘No, No, No and Nooooo it fecking isn’t, but listening to these wretched adverts most certainly is driving me crazy!’

Convalescing at home can be quite difficult, well it can be if you are stupid enough to switch the television on. Now I know what you’re thinking ‘well switch it off then Ham, nobody is making you watch’ and you’d be right, up to a point. I did try listening to the radio but there are just as many adverts on most radio stations. It’s no better if you pick a BBC station, they spend as much time advertising their own shows as the commercial stations do advertising Cillet fecking bang or attempting to convince us of the merits of wings on sanitary towels.

I tried reading a book, but as I was regularly hacking up large claggy lumps of sputum from my respiratory tract the pages tended to stick together in a rather unpleasant manner. Yes I know, you really didn’t want to hear that, but I’m just explaining why I reverted to torturing myself with television.

I know I’ve ranted about adverts before but there has been a definite change in the target demographic for daytime television ads. It used to be young mothers that were pursued, lots of ads for nappies, baby food and the likes. A strong emphasis on the right type of coffee bean required for that ‘richer, smoother taste’ at your next coffee morning. Ironic really, considering flavour is so palpably absent from all instant coffees. Even the sight of some dishy male actor is only going to work for a limited period of time, once the customer has tasted the product they know that it’s piss.

However, times are a changing. Advertisers finally realised that most mothers are far too busy looking after their kids to actually watch telly. They’ve no time to be sitting on the sofa with a cup of rank brown sludge watching crappy TV ads when there are nappies to be changed, vomit to be cleaned up, bottles to be sterilised, clothes to be washed and of course children to be watched. It’s never ending with bairns; clearly the Muppets who thought up the ads overlooked this minor detail.

So now it would appear they are targeting unemployed, accident prone, debt ridden homeowners. Particularly those who require personal injury lawyers and cheap car insurance (as long as they have four years or more no claims bonus) It would seem that being marooned on a desert island is also a prerequisite for certain companies?

Fed up and confused I flicked aimlessly until I happened to stumble on to the ‘Parliament’ channel, yes I know, but I was unwell and running a fever. Mercifully there were no adverts, however my relief was short-lived. Ten minutes of watching our much vaunted democracy in action, and I was ready to cry.

Where was the cut and thrust of debate we had been led to believe sets our democracy apart from cruel regimes like Saddam Hussein’s and George Bush’s? The place was fecking empty! Acres and acres of plush green leather seating and nary a person to be seen. There was one spindly, sad, grey looking individual standing at the despatch box reciting a dreary monologue with all the panache of a tin of pilchards.

The camera panned across the chamber and I took the time to count everyone that was present. This didn’t take long as there were only six members in total. That’s including the Speaker and the member for Dullsville talking at the despatch box. The remainder appeared to be suffering from Narcolepsy. Not bad work if you can get it. I’d love to be paid to snooze all day, I did actually try that once, I painted ‘eyes’ on the inside of my glasses so I could have a sneaky kip at work. Sadly I didn’t get a £56k salary and an expense account, I got a written warning.

I was about the switch off and get started on my ‘Dear MP you are a lazy bastard’ letter when I noticed the seats were suddenly disappearing very fast ‘Oh aye what’s happening here then?’ I mumbled as the chamber filled to bursting point in about sixty seconds flat. Pilchard man still appeared to be nattering away, unaware of the sudden increase in audience. You couldn’t here him though as the whole place was filled with noisy chatter, it sounded like a school playground.

A presenters voice, hushed and reverent, indicated that Prime Ministers Questions were about to start. The Speaker raised his hands in a weary manner ‘Ooordaaaah OOOOrdaaah’ the rabble settled down and Swiss Toni got to his feet ‘ho ho this should be a bit more entertaining’ I chuckled, rubbing my hands together in anticipation. It didn’t start well, the first few questions seemed to be Labour MP’s sucking up to ‘Daddy’ and I was about to flick over when David Cameron got to his feet.

He launched into a tirade about fuel prices or something like that; to be honest I can’t remember exactly what because it all descended into complete farce anyway. Big Toni completely dodged the question, bizarrely responding by having a pop at the leader of the oppositions hairstyle? Citing greasiness and dandruff as the major issues of the day. Druggy Dave wasn’t going to take this lying down and after forcefully pointing out that his dreds were part of his Rastafaria faith he once again pressed Toni to ‘answer the fucking question maaaan’.

Swiss skilfully dodged for a second time, on this occasion citing the good work his government had done in eliminating dandruff since 1997 and how the ‘party opposite’ had an exceptionally poor record on hair care. He invited the honourable gentleman to ‘come and have a go if he thought he was hard enough’ before giving him the finger, bending over and baring his backside. Pandemonium ensued.

Ok so I’m exaggerating, but it might as well have been like that. It certainly seemed like two spotty teenagers having a stand up barney in front of their pals. Ok they were using phrases like ‘right honourable gentleman’ instead of ‘bawbag’ but it was still basically handbags at twenty paces.

I just hope that none of the dictators in these countries where democracy movements are oppressed ever tune in to this keech. They don’t need thumbscrews, just show the aspiring freedom fighter PMQ’s and they will give up anyway! ‘Ok my friend, you waaant democracee, heere eet ees’ sound of betamax video player cranking up, swiftly followed by agonised screams ……

Don’t worry; I’m back to work next week, no more political commentry.

Citizen Shanks