Christmas Appeal

Could you help someone disadvantaged this Christmas? Your kindness could make a real difference.

Many MPs can't get by on their salaries and expenses alone. Freebie suits and dresses and spectacles are hard to come by these days. And the long term prospects for many MPs look grim. Have you seen the opinion polls?

Many MPs can't go back to their wives this Christmas, because of their challenging behaviour. Others can't use their second homes as they are being staked out by the paparazzi.

We are looking for people who could adopt an MP this Christmas. These people are often damaged, find it difficult to trust anyone, and have a creative relationship with the truth. They are anxious about political extremists on the left and the right, and are often paranoid or attention seeking, but feel powerless to help themselves. (Obviously, this doesn't stop them from helping themselves.)

Feeding an MP will ensure that they finally get a balanced diet and some vitamins. Caring for an MP could keep them off booze, fags and street drugs. Medical help could address their phobias, syndromes, STDs and incontinence . And a secure environment could protect them from internet trolls, social media, opposition MPs and their own party whips.

We must act now to protect democracy. You can help by adopting an MP. Please help. Send as much money as you can to Freepost Help an MP Christmas Fund, The Glass Large Jar By The Cigars, Stranger's Bar, House of Commons SW1.

Thank you.

image from google gemini

Massive Christmas Radio Times lists everything on YouTube

This year’s Christmas Radio Times is a record-breaking 1,200 pages, and costs £22.

This year’s magazine lists the on-line festive offerings for the first time.  It has traditionally given comprehensive listings for terrestrial TV and some streaming services, but is now bowing to modern media usage.

‘People watch less and less TV, and more and more content on social media apps,’ says analyst Mike Teevee.  ‘The Radio Times was looking increasingly out of date.  The clue’s in the name.  This latest move is interesting.  You could accuse them of trying to print out the internet.  Twelve hundred pages is going to be too heavy for a lot of old folk.  But marks for effort.’

Magazine editor Liz Tings is talking up the festive edition. ‘The Christmas Radio Times is a family tradition.  It’s the issue that makes us all the profit for the whole year, so it’s important that we get it right.  This year, we are helping our readers to navigate all of the wacky stuff on the internet, seeking out the best dancing kitten videos for Mum, car crashes for Dad, and skibidi toilet stuff for the kids.  We’ve done our best to steer clear of all the dodgy stuff on the net, and we have not listed any websites on the Dark Net.

‘We obviously haven’t listed everything on YouTube.  We didn’t have enough pages for that.  But we have listed the Christmas highlights of past years, and our experts have curated the best content for 2025.  Not all YouTubers were able to give us preview tapes, unfortunately.

‘The magazine is now quite big, so it comes with a separate highlights leaflet, so that you find the most popular programmes quickly.

‘We are aware that the magazine will have used lots and lots of paper, so we are encouraging everyone to keep their copy for the New Year.  Page 1,196 gives readers our 2026 work-out plan, so that they can get fit by using the Radio Times, instead of buying dumbbells or weights.  We have a competition to find the biggest Radio Times loser, who will win a year’s subscription – so that they can find out what the magazine is like at all the other times of the year.

image from google gemini

Rail regulator axes super-fast model railway service

Britain's only supersonic rail journey, taking commuters from Manchester to London Euston in under 10 minutes, has been cancelled by the Office of the Rail Regulator in next year's timetable changes.

The imaginary service, operated by 13-year-old Gavin Spectacles from Crewe on his Hornby OO-gauge train set, was axed after repeated pleas from his mum.

"He should be playing football across the road in the Rec instead of sitting in the attic watching them things go round and round," she said. "He's getting anaemic."

However, a Hornby spokes-locomotive lashed out at the rail regulator's decision, saying: "This is precisely the type of muddle-headed thinking in Whitehall which is destroying Britain's model railways - especially as Gavin had just placed a big order with us for a 1964 Diesel Multiple Unit and a cardboard model of Bristol Temple Meads station."

Gavin himself was unavailable for comment, saying he was busy guiding the 10.36 stopping service to Haslemere through Clapham Junction and that it would be "more than his job's worth" were there to be a snarl up.

There was some consolation for make-believe rail mogul Gavin when a public service recruiter offered him a senior position at the Department of Transport.

"Mr Spectacles is exactly the type of perverse, pettifogging nitwit who has headed up the civil service for the past two centuries and made Britain the country it is today," said the agent.

"He can join us as soon as he gets an Oxbridge degree in the most useless and irrelevant subject that they teach."

image from pixabay