Newspaper Excuse Of The Week

If, like me, you spend your life reading newspapers, you will be familiar with the Financial Letters pages. A place where dozy twunts who haven't read the small print moan to the national press about a bank/insurance company/loan shark being mean to them. The national press then steps in and the bank/insurance company/loan shark backs down...

The villain of the piece normally ends up giving them a refund AND a £100 'apology payment' to make up for the mean-ness.

Best defence I've ever read from a reader (Daily Mail, naturally) as to why they are being hard-done by and the insurance company is very much in the wrong:

"My car went to the garage for repair of damage caused by another motorist. While this was going on, I was overseas adopting an orphan. This meant my attention may not have been as sharp as it should have been..."

WHAT?! Is that a valid excuse now?

"Sorry I got drunk and run over that pensioner. My attention may not have been as sharp as it could have been - I was thinking about my next trip to Malawi"

It might work as an excuse for why Madonna hasn't had a decent album since Ray Of Light, but as a get-out-of-jail-free excusing people from insurance fraud and all kinds of other naughtiness? Surely not...

"Myra Hindley, how do you plead?"
"I'm sorry, but my mind was all over the place. You see, there's this little kiddie in Zimbabwe that I've got my eye on..."

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Runny Yellow News #4

You know when someone says they've hurt their ankle just weeks before they were supposed to take part in the marathon? And you're listening to their tale of woe, all the time thinking that they're lying out of their lazy, cowardly, good-for-nothing backside?

Erm...

I've hurt my ankle just weeks before I was supposed to take part in the marathon.

Seems a bit pointless lying to you. So I won't: I'm relieved as all hell.

I'm happy as larry; as a pig in shit; as Lorraine Kelly having her fanny tickled. I'm the complete OPPOSITE of Annette Crosbie*. I'm over the moon. Let joy be unconfined. I no longer have to put myself through the torture of running TWENTY-SIX ACTUAL SODDING MILES through the streets of Brighton, in the general direction of death itself. There is no way I could have survived. The furthest I'd managed to run during my training was a mere ten miles. This, you will note, is not twenty-six miles. It is ten miles. Ten miles = NOT EVEN HALF A MARATHON.

I don't know how Dame Lady Bex got on with her training, but I can imagine that not too many tears were shed when I sent the following email in the general direction of Wolverhamptonesshire:

"I have a small feeling that I am going to have to pull out of the marathon. Now, normally I hate pulling out prematurely. However, this time, I feel it is probably for the best. You see, the other day I woke up and found myself limping like fuck; my ankle feeling as if it was going to snap if I put any weight on it... I literally couldn't walk, Sir. I couldn't put ANY weight down on my ankle at all. It's my left ankle, too, Sir... Which has always been my favourite and by far the prettiest."

"Ended up at the hospital, and the fucking useless doctors took blood samples (they thought it was an infection - it wasn't) and took X-Rays (they thought I'd broken it - I hadn't). They didn't have a pissing clue, Sir. Basically I'm taking painkillers (which I had to buy myself - they didn't even give me them, the CUNTS!) and I've got to go to a Fracture Clinic on Wednesday to see if they can figure out what's wrong with it. It's a bit worrying that I went away from the hospital not having a clue why I could no longer walk!"

So... Fracture Clinic treated me as if I was interrupting their highly-important task of thumbing themselves. No use whatsoever. They've referred me to Rheumatology; passing me around like a wannabe WAG at a Premier League, Premier Inn spit-roast. It seems nobody actually wants to figure out what the problem is.

I can walk with very little pain now. No thanks to those hospital bastards. But if I manage to bollock up my ankle WHILE SLEEPING, Christ knows what damage I could do while on a TWENTY-SIX MILES death-sprint.

I wanted to run the marathon so that I could actually achieve something in my life. Well, I also embarked on the challenge of training with a view to losing the pizza gut and luring many a-gent with my new-found, marathon-induced sexiness. (Oh yes, I now have the body of Little Eddie Upcott. Except slightly more monkey-like and, you know, a lot more legal!)

But that was just a happy side-effect. The main reason behind setting myself this RIDICULOUS challenge was so that I could tick something off my Important List Of Fings Wot I Want To Achieve.

Well, spit in my face and call me Bobcat. Why didn't I think of it before?! I don't need to run the marathon to tick something off my Important List Of Fings Wot I Want To Achieve.

I just need to write a new list! One that is spookily missing the bit that used to say 'Run A Marathon'.

Maybe now it says 'Have A Relaxing Holiday In Paris'...?

Yes.

Time to write a new list, methinks.

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*Annette Crosbie. One Foot In The Grave miserablist. Looks like a haggard old bulldog in a petticoat, licking the piss from a hedgehog's prickly cock-tip.

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