June 2007

June 1. Strip 207.
A royal romance.
As of the time of writing (August 14th) , this romance is back on again. By the time you read this, it probably won’t be. Unless it is again. It all depends on whether the Daily Express has a slow news day or not.

June 4. Strip 208.
Some bloke called Fayed.
Mohammed Fayed, owner of Harrods. His son, Dodi, was tragically killed with Diana in that accident in Paris. Deep down in his heart, the poor guy must know he has some responsibility for the whole sorry affair as the car involved was his, the drunken speeding chauffeur was his and they were leaving a hotel he owned. Instead, he’s concocted a marvelously complicated conspiracy theory blaming the Royal family and assorted British security agencies which leaves him in the clear, and promotes it every Monday on the front page of the Daily Express. (None of the other papers ever follow those stories up. I wonder why.) I don’t deny the man his grief, but it's got twisted into something very odd.

June 11. Strip 211.
Daddy! Nooooo!!!!
When I noticed that the local branch of WHSmiths had created a new section in its book-store called ‘Tragic Childhoods’, and it was twice the size of ‘Biography’, I decided that enough was enough. This is simply the pornography of misery.

June 18. Strip 214.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Tikka Masala is the English national dish. I’m not kidding, it was invented in Britain when Indian restaurants adapted their dry Chicken Tikka dishes to the English taste by adding a sauce and coming up with a hybrid that we took to our heart.

June 25. Strip 219.
Wimbledon.
There are three things that guarantee rain in Britain. They are Wimbledon Fortnight, Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week, and a barbeque being lit anywhere.

June 27, Strip 220.
Thou shalt not smoke.
I don’t smoke. I never have smoked. I lost my father to self-inflicted lung cancer. But ever since the smoking ban in public places started, I’ve been sorely tempted, just out of sheer orneriness. Up to now there always used to be smoking sections and non smoking sections in restaurants and theatres, and that’s worked fine. Now it’s all changed. Thou shalt not smoke even in semi enclosed areas like railway platforms, or shopping centres, and even specialized smoking rooms for those who have no self control have been outlawed. Some pubs have erected draughty bus shelters outside their premises so that desperate nicotine addicts can smoke in the wind and the rain in full view of everyone else. It all strikes me as an absurdly draconian solution to a mildly irritating problem. And, of course, it makes smoking cool and rebellious again, which is exactly what it shouldn’t be doing.

June 29, Strip 221.
Intentional retro.
In reality Brad would be using a tiny digital recorder to make his bootleg with, but who knows what one of those looks like? Hence the enormous reel to reel tape recorder