... is Labour MP Mike Amesbury. I found out about this pugilist politician from a feature on my Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet. On the home screen of this handy device, it displays the icons of the main apps I have chosen to put there. Swiping to the right brings up additional screens that I have created. Swiping to the left, however, brings up a page curated by Google in which they display various snippets culled from newspapers, websites, YouTube etc of topics which they think might interest me. They have never actually bothered to ask me what I would like to see but it is mostly relevant so I tolerate it.
This is a bit from tonight's offering and my attention was immediately drawn, not to the story of the fisticuffs but those dangling dots, the ellipsis, at the end of the unfinished strapline. Google does this because it wants to jam in as much content as it can onto the screen. As a result, the most fascinating part of the story has been cropped.
I could, I suppose, click on the picture and read the details. Sky News would undoubtedly fill in the gaps in a moment. I could search online for additional information. But that is not the Ramblings way. We work with what we are given. Mr Amesbury punched a man in... in what? This, gentle reader, is what we shall ponder.
This is like one of those smug Radio 4 panel games where the jovial host invites his guests to finish the sentence in the most risible fashion they can concoct, with ensuing hilarity all round. But I need no guests. Here are a few of my suggestions
Mike Amesbury punched a man in ....
- A fit of jealousy
- The saloon bar of the Dog and Duck, Runcorn (his constituency, if you didn't know)
- his dressing gown [Mr Amesbury's or that of his antagonist? Ed]
- the early hours of Saturday morning,
- spite of them having just enjoyed a man-hug and a bag of crisps on the pier at Blackpool
- lieu of accepting the rent on the allotment of which Mr Amesbury is the owner
- order to prove to some doubters that he "still had it in him"
- time to the fast movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto
- a senseless act of violence to draw attention to the lack of police on the streets
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Readers! Can you do better in our "What did Mike Amesbury punch a man in?" competition. Send in your entries to the usual address enclosing a stamped but not addressed envelope2 The winners of the funniest comments will be given the chance to meet Stephen Fry!3 The Editor's decision, should he ever get around to making one, which, quite frankly, is a bit of a long shot given one thing and another, is about as final as it is likely to get unless anyone else wants to step in.
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Footnotes:
1. John Prescott won undying fame for his duel with an egg-throwing voter in the 2001 General Election.
2. Don't bother writing your address on it, we won't be sending it back ,
but any stamps that can be steamed off will go to the "Pay the Ramblings
Editor a living wage "appeal.
3. We will notify you of the country, and if possible, the city, that Mr Fry is believed to be staying in and supply a weblink to a travel agency from which you may obtain tickets for travel. We are, sadly, not able to assist in the financing of any arrangements you may make, nor can we guarantee that Mr Fry will be there, or that he will consent to meeting you if you should happen to be in his immediate vicinity, nor that his bodyguard will not "do an Amesbury" on you if you do rush up saying "I won the Ramblings contest".