The Woman's Weekly

There was a day when the Woman’s Weekly magazine was well…. The Woman’s Weekly. Ah yes, halcyon days… it had the odd recipe, the knitting pattern and handy hints for ironing and the correct way to arrange your good man’s slippers of an evening.

Why to the good die young? What do we have now gentlemen? What is keeping our wives and girlfriends up to the minute with the latest they need to read as a successful parent and homemaker?

Yes, you’ve all seen them. I talk of things like Bella, Chat, Take a Break. Oh the horror, oh the inhumanity of it all.

Take time out for a moment dear Guttersnipes and go and look at your charming newsagent’s shelf of these things, there are about 20 of them and they all have these Real Life stories. Real Life? Jesus:

- I’m Shrinking! The Cuppa that led to 10 years of torment
- Killed for her lucky pants
- Neighbour bit off my nose

That dear Guttersnipes is merely the selection from this single edition


and there are 20 of these a week… ???

Given that this has 4 stories of people who frankly the genepool won’t miss and there are about 20 of these magazine where the hell do they find 80 people per week to fill these rags? Real Life? Thank the heavenly Lord I don’t appear to have a real life.

Then there’s the diets…. Oh pale waltzing lord the diets, apparently you too can eat all you want and wash it down with a pint of lard thanks to the miracle of the whatever the feck it is this week.

We get 20 WINNING WAYS TO GET SLIM AND STAY SLIM and oddly none of these 20 winning ways seems to involve moving more than you eat.

We have COMFORT FOOD WITHOUT THE CALORIES! Or alternatively ladies you could realise that if your latest young Guttersnipe has dumped you then ice cream and chocolate fudge is not going to bring him back… you’re going to stay single for a while, and when all that ice cream goes straight to your hips you’ll stay single for longer.

Look ladies, if you’re fat then move more than you eat. Simple!
I need something to read…

Wicca

Oh finally… today my divorce has come through… to quote Mel Gibson:

FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOM!

On this note I am going to recount a tale of the former (I stress not current, at time of writing) Lady Guttersnipe. Cast your mind back 4 or 5 years and we were in the process of buying a pleasant marital home. Three bedrooms, detached, conservatory, leafy cul-de-sac, everything a Desperate Housewives wannabe could want.

At this time the former Lady Guttersnipe developed a bizarre interest in Wicca.

So.. while Guttersnipe was busy sorting out mortgages, insurance and the like as well as frequent negotiations between estate agents and the sellers, the former Lady Guttersnipe had gathered herself an oak branch, a key and a ribbon and set about making a Talisman of Prosperity.

Yes you read that right… a Talisman of Prosperity.

Cutting a long story somewhat shorter our offer (or more accurately my offer) was accepted and the purchase duly proceeded.

Now ask yourself what did the former Lady Guttersnipe attribute to the success of this purchase? Was it the Talisman she had made and placed dutifully under her pillow for the correct 5 days in July? Or was it that fact that your good Guttersnipe actually gave the sellers the full asking price?

You can see where this is going can’t you?

The Big Issue at Hand

One has to applaud anyone willing to work to earn their keep. The more people working the better in Guttersnipe’s opinion. However one has to draw the line somewhere… and that somewhere is usually outside the train station in an orange vest.

I speak of course of the scruffy prole trying to sell me the Big Issue.

I have bought the Big Issue once, I was young, naïve, I was at university and appearing as that sort of leftie persuasion gets you the girls. Yes I am that shallow… sue me.

I am older and wiser now and as such I do not want to read the Big Issue, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me.. it’s not going to happen. The customer has spoken and apparently I’m led to believe the customer is always king.

What gets right up my snipes is the following example of a conversation:

“Big Issue Sir?”
“No thank you”
“Can you spare me any change?”

I’ve just declined to give the unwashed miscreant a pound or whatever it costs these days (and as soon as it became more expensive than Andrex I lost interest) in exchange for a magazine, what makes these people think I’m going to fork over my hard earned honest living in exchange for absolutely nothing at all?

Really… this doesn’t happen if you’re buying a car. You don’t get the chap at the dealership going:

“New Aston Martin sir?”
“No thank you”
“Well would you have £103,000 you could spare me?”

And where does this idea of spare money come from? Spare money?? How do I know if that money will not be required? I haven’t finished living my life yet. By all means guys, go through my pockets when I’m dead but for now I just don’t know.

They wear this orange thing stating “Working… not begging” well that’s just right royal bollocks.. it should say “working but still begging”.

And another thing (you start saying that a lot when you get older) I’ll walk past one of these parasites on my way to work at about 8.30 in the morning (yes for you students out there, there is an 8.30 in the morning as well) and I hear….

“By my last Big Issue Sir?”

The last one? Has he managed to sell out in a mere hour and a half? Holy hell… hire this man, his sales technique must be fantastic. If I employ him will I be a multi billionaire in the space of a fortnight?

Or could it be that he is just talking absolute arse. Checking back at 5.00pm and hearing the same thing proves this to be the case.

Ban them I say… I’m sure if you check the statistics there must be a good percentage of road fatalities caused by people crossing the road to avoid the orange leech of doom.

Smug Fecking Parents I

Readers of The Spleen might find this surprising but your good Guttersnipe has something in common with the Labour Party. That being I would dearly like to see certain kinds of motorist bulldozed into a scrap yard and swiftly dealt with in the crusher.

Who could these unfortunates be? Joyriders? BMW drivers? Drivers of white vans? Nope… I speak of course of smug fecking parents!

If it’s one thing guaranteed to get my blood boiling on the roads it’s some smug arse fecktard advertising his fertility with a fucking “Baby on Board” notice!

Oh thanks for letting me know… I was just about to ram you off the fucking road as a quick method of overtaking but now I’ll ease down.

Just fuck off…. Just fuck off with your fucking little diamond to let us know that young fucking Tarquin is being transported to see another part of your tedious fucking life!! Do these people hang the warning on prams? Just imagine the carnage that must ensue when all the motorists pile over the zebra crossing because they were not suitably warned about the presence of a child.

Just fuck all of you… the purchase of one of these signs should come with a free surprise castration done in the back of Halfords.

But there are worse…. It’s bad enough that some simpering twat advertises the result of the one fucking time he’s got laid in this manner but then we get… “Princess on Board”

Oh for fuck’s sake!

If she is a fucking princess that would make the adults a King and a Queen wouldn’t it?

SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DRIVING AROUND IN A FUCKING MICRA???

YOU ARE ROYALTY… FECKING LIVE A LITTLE!

See the sign and kill the car Guttersnipes, they should be trophies rather than warnings.