Are your secrets safe with us?

After the scandal this week of the government losing 25 million peoples sensitive personal details do St Mary’s club members need to be alarmed?

Since it became clear to the general committee that, after club stalwart and meticulous record keeper, Secretary Lillian (Bill?) Collins’ death a few years ago, we no longer had the slightest clue who belonged to our club, where they lived, or even their phone numbers. Club Secretary, the sinister SS style leather jacketed, Gay Brewer, has been building up a dossier on every one of you. “Ha ha! So what,” you say, but what if this information were to get into the wrong hands?

With our increasingly puritan Government seemingly wanting to regulate every pleasure, from smoking and drinking to eating and maybe even sex (don’t worry Clair they won’t make us do it – only stealth tax it, we won’t be any worse off!) are there any members who need to worry?

HM Customs & Excise must already be suspicious about the increase in imports of Balti Mix from India and reclaimed pork fat products from Denmark. What if they were to find out that it was all being consumed by Polledri, Annie and Kipper? The Health Minister would insist on an obesity tax, sending the price of Pepperami through the roof! With the recent deluge in the press of reports of binge drinking and anti alcohol stories (you may well scoff but that’s how it started with smoking – you’ll all be sat shivering in the rain drinking outside with smokers soon!) how soon before Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith puts two and two together and realises that Mel Partridge and Steve Fraser know exactly where all the B.O.B. went, or Dave Hiltons dependency on Thatcher’s Gold, Martin Joyce’s fondness for Natch and Steve Millers Blackthorn intake have directly contributed to the summer’s massive increase in cider sales. There will be questions in the House and as a direct consequence, Alistair Darling – should the Dracula-esque Sweattie still be in the job by then – will be slapping more duty on alcohol in next years’ budget.

That’s the smokers, eaters and drinkers amongst you kurwa, (this weeks swearing will be in Polish in line with HM Govt kurwa immigration policy) but what about the sex addicts out there? Are Matt Stone and Fordy’s trips to ‘The Office’ safe? Will Village be paying extra for his internet excursions? Can Longman afford to be taxed by the inch?

Is all this scaremongering? After all, there’s no way our club could be as careless as the government. Now. . . . . . where are those shares certificates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?

If you should see a tall woman in an ankle length leather coat behind you taking notes – be very afraid.

The Continuing Adventures Of Three Fat Chamy & The Man with no Dupki

Last time I wrote we were just off to the meet Village and co. and I had been swallowed by a shirt.

We arranged to meet Village’s party in a bar which, from day one, Sid had called Bar Salamader. It was on a corner at the far side of the waterfront and its big blue sign curved round the corner presenting ‘Bar Sa’ to anyone walking towards it. Village couldn’t find it. He was in Bar Samaritaine but couldn’t find Bar Salamander anywhere. We called him names, said he was stupid, after all he couldn’t miss it, it had a big blue sign over it! It had a typically Gallic waiter with a big Walrus moustache who spent his day avoiding customers’ eyes and spent most of his time busily doing nothing! He was Mint! – Unless you wanted a drink of course. Anyway, we indignantly marched towards it, stopping the traffic, fans from all around the world stopping to gape, point and laugh and young children gleefully following ‘that shirt’.

There was, of course, no Bar Salamandre, only a Bar Samaritaine. The waiter was there though.

We found Village in another bar but they wouldn’t serve us – they were too busy! Marseilles was rammed. White O2 shirts mingled with the Gold of Australia, the Green of S. Africa, the black of Fiji & the All Blacks and the Shitfer shirts of the Welsh. The sun beat down out of an azure sky on the Golden sandstone of the buildings of the Old Port and the World’s Rugby colours poured out of bars and splashed over the pavements of Marseilles (poetic innit). All moving in one direction – to The Game.

We were swept into the Metro. Ken, as our tour bitch/gofor was dispatched to get tickets. As in metros round the world, there were ticket machines on the concourse. Various seven and eight year old children were buying tickets with ease. Now, Ken, who funnily enough IS a rocket scientist, couldn’t work the machine. (No, honestly! You know how on TV you watch rockets launch satellites and all the men in mission control are chewing their nails, watching their life’s’ work precariously stuck on top of a large bomb, praying that its not all been for nothing and it won’t blow up on the pad or crash back to earth? Well Ken’s one of them - and it did! I wonder why?) You see he tried to put notes in a machine with a picture of coins on it. The children, who had gathered round to laugh at my shirt, picked themselves up off the floor and showed him how to put notes in the machine with a picture of a note on it (shame they don’t work for aerospace eh Ken!) Tickets in hand we were off, back into the multicoloured tide.

Once near the stadium we started on the most important task loading up with alcohol (we’d been let in on a secret the French didn’t want us to find out – all the beer in the ground was non-alcoholic. Something that not everybody was aware of ‘cos after the game I heard a Taff say that he’d better slow down for a bit cos he’d had six pints in the ground and was starting to get pissed!! – Gnojki!) All around us were patronising antipodeans in gold, who tried to allay our fears by assuring us they didn’t think the Wallabies would put more than thirty on us this time as England had shown some improvement. (tee hee hee) By now our party included Village, Adrian and Tom Hill, Andy and George Thyer. None of us expected what was to follow.

Our tickets were in pairs, Sid as usual pretended that the draw was fair but ended up sitting with his brother-in-law Alan. However he messed up somewhere ‘cos they got the crap seats! It was time to go to the game. Before we joined the mass of humanity I thought it prudent to water the garden and joined a queue in the bar for the toilet – it took half an hour. When I got outside, Village with his usual panache said, “F*** that, I just pissed in the potted plant!”

After a brief diversion when we tried to get in with the corporate troughers, Ken and I took our seats in the stadium. We were front row directly behind the goal. The suns blazed out of a sapphire sky, the immaculate pitch, just yards in front, was St Mary’s green. Above us to the left the flags of all rugby nations stood out rolling in the warm breeze above an escarpment of white and gold. A cerebral snapshot to be remembered forever. We stood and bellowed the anthem (even, though he won’t admit it, that dyed-in-the-wool Taff, Ken) then resigned to our fate sat down. People all around me were still being distracted by that shirt.

What followed was the slow acknowledgement of that the England team were able to compete, followed by an increasing hope of a chance. The back-row were superb, everywhere the Australians were hounded into mistakes. Sheridan was immense, the front five destroyed the Wallabies scrum and for once, a referee had the guts to penalise them for being crap rather the punishing a side for having the gall to be better. Mike Catt spilled the chance of a try right in front of us. By half time I thought we could do it. We had started out with a view to enjoy the day and hope that England weren’t embarrassingly annihilated, now the palms had started to sweat, the knot had started in the stomach. Despite the time spent travelling to Marseilles, the cramped, shite hotel, the expense of the ticket and that bloody ridiculous shirt, I was willing the game to end. What we had travelled so far and waited so long to see, I wanted over! Minutes to go, we are winning, we deserve to triumph. The final Australian effort, an attack down the left, seventy nine minutes gone. Blood pumping, stress inducing. Whistle goes; we’re on our feet, the end? No! Penalty, far out near the touchline. Usual bloody Australian last kick victory, surely he can’t get that. Silence. The shadow steals over the ground from the Grandstand on the right. Stirling Mortlock’s shirt, still lit, burnished by the setting sun. Silence from seventy thousand souls. The strike is good. The ball, torpedo like, arcs towards the posts. Today God is an Englishman – it slides (or is Divinely pushed) right. An Eruption of noise, for once the neutrals – even the French, are on our side! We’ve beaten the Aussies. England are in the semi-finals of the World Cup. Aussies Go Home!

Finally Today’s Favourite words try saying them slowly;

Subjugate Chagrin Conquest Bludgeon Vanquish Recidivist Nefarious Peculator

Lugubrious Pietistic Transportation. Adios Gnojki (Wow Spanish and Polish!)