New Vertical View

There's something otherworldly about the Zeppelins as they silently and calmly float across the London Sky. Like a scene from War Of The Worlds, this ominous, phallic airborne presence has suddenly appeared as if from nowhere, without warning.

The addition of the glass-bottomed swimming pool to the underside of the Zeppelin is a stroke of genius. After a decade of cheap flights, everyone is overly familiar with the horizontal cloud level perspective of aeroplanes. The sub aquatic vertical view is a new and quite exhilarating experience for even the most seasoned jet-setter.

However, the operating company do need to rethink their effluence prevention policy. The bluey inky clouds generated by a chemical reaction to urine or fecal matter only help to obscure the wonderful view. As a fellow sky-swimmer said to me in the changing rooms after my last visit; what's a spot of piss at 8000ft?

Tramp Ramp Scam

The ramp is advertised as thus: 'Homeless People: Win a Home'. The details specify that to qualify you need to be a certified homeless person. The aim of competition is to clear the river, using a stolen BMX and the ramp provided. Anyone doing so will automatically win a brand new house in Shad Thames.

What is not advertised is the fact that an identical competition is being advertised and run on the other side of the bridge; with entrants being simultaneously set off up their respective ramps. Even if the tramps do manage to make it further than half way across the river - they will be confronted, mid-air, by another tramp attempting the same feat but in reverse. The resultant collision more often than not leading to the concussion and subsequent drowning of both tramps.

Asked what the point was of this cruel excersize, Esther Porkdrink responded: 'The homeless crisis has become simply intolerable. Now can I interest you in a hot pork beverage?'.

Fail To Plan, Plan To Sail.

Captain Perseverance Brimshaw is now almost 95 years old. He started planning his maiden voyage aboard the Queen Mary in 1935 at the fair age of 22. All throughout his childhood Perseverance was an impeccable planner. It is a miracle that he ever actually made it through school as he would regularly plan the contents of his bag and pencil case with such microscopic precision that his gargantuan organisational effort would take all night and he would often only leave the house after being carted out by the family's long suffering butler, Smithers.

His self-funded maiden voyage aboard the Queen Mary was going to be no exception. If he really was going to be the first nautical expedition to circumnavigate South Amercia, through the Panama Canal and round Cape Horn, unaided, unstopping and powered entirely by steam; then he was going to plan every last detail and the details of every detail ad infinitum in a Zeno like marathon of analysis.

And so the planning continues and, unbeknownst to Perseverance, the top deck of the boat has since been converted into a bar that is regularly frequented by tourists, Asians and middle managers.

Bullingdon Boris

The Mayor of London, the London Assembly and the Greater London Authority were established by the passing of the Greater London Authority Act 1999. The Mayor and the London Assembly constituted a unique form of strategic citywide government for London with governance over an £11bn budget and responsibilities for areas such as policing, housing, the environment and transport.

Then on Monday 5th May, Boris Johnson took over, voted in by a mainly drunk, stoned, mentally ill or absent London electorate. He immediately fired all 700 civil servants and instead installed his very own hand picked committee of 10 Old Etonions; including Ralph Perry-Florquin Le Moule Rothschild (Chief Champagne Officer); Sebastian Prigg 3rd Baron of Altrincham (Master Of Ceremonies); William The Conqueror (Caretaker) and 'Picaninny' (a Chihuahua owned by Tara Palmer-Tomkinson responsible for Policing and Boat Races).

Talking about the election victory party Boris commented: "The party ended up with a number of us crawling on all fours through the hedges of the botanical gardens, and trying to escape police dogs ... once we were in the cells we became pathetic namby-pambies."

The Home For Forgotten Stars

Now nearing its 35th year, The Home For Forgotten Stars is in danger of becoming as forlorn and forgotten as its downtrodden residents. Its grubby concrete exterior only masks a shabby decaying interior. Stained, sticky carpets of indeterminate colour lead in every direction to 70's wallpaper of indecipherable design. These rooms display all the signs of retrenchment; a palace of terminal decay, its sad inhabitants in a state of irreversible decline.

Rocking back and forth are an array of ex-Eastenders and ex-Grange Hill actors who all tend to congregate, violently spitting out occasional mockney lines; 'I toldya girwlsa awl cheats din-I Robo' blurts out Robert Kenly who played '6th Form Boy' to Neil Rogers, or 'Robo' as he was then, and is still, referred to.

In the darker recesses of the building, through reinforced Plexiglas portholes, you can sometimes hear the murmurings of Doctor Who scripts, sometimes a line from 'Rentaghost' and if you're really lucky the mad soliloquies of Gary Coleman.

The Church of The Lowest Common Denominator

The founding principal of the Church is to emulate the life of the poorest and most destitute that you are aware of. In the late C19th it was the rural poor of Scotland or an urban destitute of London's East End that Eugene and his flock emulated. In today's age of global communication the subject of the church's devoted assimilation are the most miserable denizens of Somalian refugee camps.

With literally nothing except, ironically, the grand Victorian river-front palace in which they abide, the 'LCDs' suffer terrible hunger, thirst and health problems for their faith. Many suffer from Kwashiorkor (swelling of the abdomen due to severe protein malnutrition).

The more fundamentalist of the Church have been known to hire London thugs from the local underworld to 'act' as Janweed Militia and occaisionally raid the Church beating and subjugating the congregation.

Imperialist Square

I've started off the new year with a new route to work from disembarkation from the boat. The boat now docks at Embankment, rather than Savoy Pier, which encourages a more westerly peregrination through Trafalgar Square. What struck me was how many statues of imperialist military figures there still are in the square.

This statue of Sir Henry Havelock was nearly removed in 2003 (at the suggestion of Red Ken) and replaced with something more relevant. Obviously the real reason was that it was deemed insensitive that we still publicly celebrate figures like Havelock; who collaborated in what would today be considered an 'illegal' war in Afghanistan and led several draconian extinguishes of rebellious Indians in 'mutiny' against imperial rule.

He was also a dedicated Christian and distributed bibles to his troops.

Hurrah!