I think I have found the perfect pet for our lovely neighbours. It’s Barney the five-year-old parrot, a new addition to the Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary in Nuneaton who has been quarantined after insulting the sanctuary’s visitors with his abusive language.
It all started when Barney (obviously not being in a good mood after his previous owner; a lorry driver, had dumped him and moved to Spain) called a vicar a ‘wanker’! When the mayoress who was also present, came to the vicar’s rescue and told the foulmouthed bird to watch himself, he responded by telling her to ‘fuck off’. After which he turned to the two police officers standing by and said, ‘And you two wankers can fuck off as well.’
Bless

This post contains materials that some readers may find offensive.

I’ve lived in England for eleven years now. I’ve learnt the language, I’ve learnt to blame the French for all that is wrong in the world, I have my tea with milk, I’m ok with our bathroom sink having separate taps for hot and cold, I have even learnt to make-do with only a bath and no shower and therefore have accepted coming out of the bath with soap bubbles clinging to my body and drying myself with a towel (that regardless of all the strategic drying poses that I come up with, still smells like cat piss after only one usage) hell this year I even got hay fever and didn’t complain (well not much anyway) but there is still one thing that I just can’t get my head round: wiping one’s bum with toilet paper.
How do they do it? It’s just impossible. I always think how hard can it be? The answer is very. No matter how many times you wipe (I did say before that this was not one for the faint hearted so if you can’t handle this kind of talk please refrain from reading now. So as I was saying no matter how many times you wipe) THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING! I feel so guilty using up all those rolls of toilet paper. Think of all those trees that have been sacrificed for yours and my bum.
But what is one to do about this? Are we to take Aftabehs around with us everywhere we go, carrying them around in huge handbags or rucksacks? I don’t think so. Because apart from it making us look stupid, in the current state of affairs it is also damn right dangerous. Just picture this: an Iranian walking down the street looking a bit shifty, carrying something a bit bulky a bag. Suddenly their phone rings. In the process of reaching inside the bag to fish out their mobile, the spout from the Aftabeh pops out and the next thing they know they are flying through a white or dark tunnel (depending on whether they’ve been good or bad in life) with five shots having been fired into their head at point blank. Although now I’m thinking it would probably just be a white tunnel because even if they don’t automatically become martyrs, we all know that cleanliness is next to godliness and dying for cleanliness must be just double-super-godly and enough to earn a person a semi detached, three bedroom house in heaven’s equivalent of St John’s Wood.
So basically we have no other options but learning to wipe. I have tried asking my friends about it before but none have been very forthcoming with tips. They say don’t worry; everyone uses a lot of toilet paper. But I’m convinced there is something that they are not telling us. Because if everyone does it the same as I, then I am well and truly surprised that there are still any trees left in the world.
So here I plead with the British public to please please share your great knowledge of bum wiping with us ignorant Iranians. I know this is going to be hard for you and probably quite unpleasant too but think of the planet, and your children, and your children’s children and I’m sure this task will suddenly become a lot more fulfilling.
I think maybe the government should do something about this too. Forget having to pass an English language test for becoming naturalised, how about a few compulsory bum wiping lessons (maybe not having to pass a test at the end of it though because I’m sure some people would find that a bit degrading). They could maybe even have specialists at Heathrow airport giving all the Iranians a crash course in bum wiping (before they officially enter the country) and give them a kind of diploma or something at the end. So when they get to passport control, they have to present their passport, that little card they filled up on the plain with their address and stuff and also their bum wiping certificate.
I know this is going to be tough for the Home Office to deal with, especially now with all this hoo-hah about identity cards, the last thing they need is more paperwork. But I’m sure this is something that in the long run everyone will really benefit from. And I’m also sure if word got out, there will be loads of volunteers to help with this too. You just have to go to where one of these new motorways are being built and get some of those dreadlocksy guys that chain themselves to trees and just say, ‘Look, instead of limiting yourselves to these few trees here, wouldn’t you rather save entire rainforests?’ It’s just commonsense really, isn’t it? It would probably be a good idea to get some celebrities onboard too to help with cool-ifying the matter and also fundraising and stuff like that.
Or maybe they should forget about the certificate and just in the airport, all along the line that says ‘People with dodgy passports’ (or something like that) have professionals constantly demonstrating the art of bum wiping on huge monitors; really drilling it into their heads for all of that hour and a half that they have to wait.

O how I dread going to the supermarket for our weekly shopping. We went yesterday and my eyes still haven’t recovered from being subjected to all those super-bright lights bouncing off super-shiny products. Aren’t supermarkets spending thousands of pounds every year on market research into what makes people want to shop? So why is it that I still sooner rub my head against a pebbledash wall for an hour an a half?

I really don’t understand why anyone would want to have one of those call-waiting services on their mobile. I mean to me that is just torture. It’s bad enough having to deal with one phone call at a time let alone two or three. Now-a-days it seems people are just terrified of being unavailable for two minutes. But why? Have the seven deadly sins turned into eight with the new one being absence?
These days there are so many ways to get hold of a person. You can email them, text them, page them, call their home, call their work, call their mobile, leaving behind a trail of messages as you go along so when they check them they can tell exactly when and how you had tried to contact them (working your way through the world of technology like a fat slug that has visited through the night, adorning the carpet with its slime while making its way from the cat flap towards the leftover cat food).
One would think that having all these options would be quite satisfactory to a person. But oh no they still want more. What if they are, god forbid, out in the street without access to their email, have forgotten their pager at home and are on the phone to someone? What if someone else wants to contact them at that precise moment and they can’t? Surely for committing such a great sin they will be sent straight to hell with the likes of my husband who does not even have a mobile and me, the sinner of all sinners who sometimes hears the phone ring but lets the answer phone get it; sacrilege! So what is one to do in a situation like that? The answer is Call-waiting Service. So ok that’s fine. Get the service. I’m not one of those people that think everyone should think and live like them. See, I’m a reasonable person. While you get angry with me for taking a day to answer your email, I can live with your availability disorder and your crazy, talking-to-me-and-three-other-people-at-once-on-your-mobile-while-haggling-with-the-busdriver-over-your-fare-and-also-having-a-right-go-at-the-little-old-lady-looking-for-her-senior-citizen-bus-pass-in-her-purse (yes I know, she should have done that while she was waiting in the bus stop instead of just standing there making baby-faces at her poodle) thing. Yes I can live with all that and maybe even find it quite amusing sometimes to get a glimpse into your crazy existence. It’s all good and well if I’m the one who has called you and caught you in the middle of a phone-frenzy. But I have to draw the line somewhere and that is when you are the one that has called me.
So I’m sitting at home, minding my own business, watching a squirrel watching two crows watching a magpie (or whatever it is that I happen to be doing, something pretty important no doubt) and you ring me, and I answer! Then halfway through the conversation you say, ‘Sorry, I have another phone call. I’ll be back in a second.’ And I shout, ‘You put me on hold and I swear I’m gonna come over right now and smash that pretty little phone of yours into pieces while laughing out loud as it pathetically pleads with me; squeaking its ridiculous ring tones one after another for one last time.’ But unfortunately you’ve gone before I have even started my shouting (not because I was slow in my response but because for some reason when you hear that phone ring, you immediately turn into a robot that is deaf and blind to all that is happening around her in the world with only one mission, ‘Must get that phone’) and so I don’t even get the satisfaction of hearing you cry because I have insulted your mobile. Meanwhile, the crows, the magpie and the squirrel have dispersed and I’m left standing there looking like an idiot staring into nothingness. Why do you do this to me?

Turns out the most in demand people in Britain are plumbers. We have been trying to get a plumber to come and put a shower in our bathroom for the past two months and it’s just not happening. They are all busy. Actually, I’m sure we could find one if we just opened the Yellow Pages and started calling up all the plumbers in there, but we don’t. Because we don’t just want any old big bummed, tea guzzling, biscuit munching, sausage fingered individual to come and mess around with our pipes. We want someone that has some qualifications or was recommended to us by someone who has worked with them or has had work done by them, someone that preferably wears glasses and overalls, has very delicate hands and a few grey hairs maybe and will treat our bathroom with the respect that it deserves.
Yes we love our little newly bought flat.

There are only two ways to stop a suicide bomber from detonating his bomb.
1. Get God to come down to earth personally and say to him, ‘You’ve been punked mate.’
2. Stop doing what is making him want to blow himself up.
I don’t think this shoot to kill policy is going to do anyone any favours. I mean it’s not really going to stop a suicide bomber from going ahead with his mission, is it? Either way he is going to die for what he believes in and become a martyr. On the other hand we have to rely on these police men and women whose biggest challenge up to now was making sure the drunks on Saturday night did not pee in the streets while crawling their way back home, to make split-second decisions about whether or not to shoot the dark skinned man with a rucksack running to catch a bus or a train. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the British police and every time I have come into contact with them they have always been very nice and helpful but this does not mean that I want them to carry guns and be told to shoot at suspects.
And I’m not saying this because I’m scared for myself or anything like that because I am neither a man nor dark skinned, nor I like carrying rucksacks, nor I ever really have a reason to run for a bus. So this should probably make my world a safer place but I still don’t like it.
Well anyway, can everyone just stop blowing themselves up please? It’s getting a bit silly now.

I’m thirty and still getting spots! What’s that all about?

This is what I woke up to this morning.
Fuck off (the kid)
You bloody fockh off (the dad, sounding a bit drunk. At eight in the morning?!!)
You fuck off (the kid)
You (long pause. I could just picture him standing in their hallway two floors up desperately trying to keep his balance with one hand on his hip and the other one stretched out with his index finger towards the kid trying to look and sound authoritative. I could also predict what he was going to say next) You (short pause. And he did not disappoint) You Fockh off.
It suddenly occurred to me how much what they were doing sounded like Taarof.
Fuck off
No please you fuck off
I insist you fuck off first
No please you go ahead and fuck off first. Really I’m in no hurry
I was having a little chuckle to myself in bed when I heard a third voice, the mother or the sister or someone making a very fair and valid point.
Why don’t you both bloody well fuck off?
They say things have a way of working out and in this case it was very true. So if you were worried about this father and son’s relationship and wondering which was the one that gave in at the end and fucked off, you need not to worry yourself any longer because this little comment from the mother or sister was more than enough for the father and son to instantly put aside their differences and become allies against their new mutual enemy.
You don’t tell us to bloody fockh off.
You fuck off yourself.
Umm I love the sound of obscenities in the morning.