And the Winning Picture is? Er, 'old on a mo, I had it somewhere...

I mused a while back about what would really go on behind the scenes when auditors were called in to investigate affairs at the Vatican. I thought that was the end of that particular story but somehow it has struggled back to life, albeit in a very different setting. For last night, at the Oscar ceremonies in LA the stars were not the actors, directors or best boys (whatever they are) but the accountants, from the rather large firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers who somehow managed, in the finest traditions of Laurel and Hardy, to mix up the results for Best Picture. After the entire cast and crew of La La Land had made their tearful acceptance speeches and the rest were tearing up their invitations in disgust and preparing to leave, an amazing volte face from the beancounters behind the scenes resulted in Moonlight receiving this most prestigious of movie awards instead (cue fresh round of tearful acceptance speeches, I hope the supply of paper hankies lasted out).

Producers will be at their desks (or beside their pools) this morning, barking out instructions to get the exclusives on this sensational story which is certain to be the winning picture at next year's Oscars. I see Tom Cruise as thrusting young ambitious accountant Jim Price, with Meryl Streep as the wiser and more mature Eleanor Waterhouse who teaches him all she knows about how to count ballot papers whilst Julia Roberts plays the shy but brilliant computer expert Alice Alison Cooper whose bubbly and kooky personality so distracts Cruise that the whole count is nearly jeopardised - but there's a twist! (which I haven't actually thought of yet but give me time).

Here's a sample of my award-winning* screenplay.

Interior. Night. An office overlooking the glittering lights of LA. Price is hunched over a thick file of papers.

Price: Papers, papers, nothing but goddam ballot papers. God, I hate the accountancy business but I have to make it, I just have to.

Cooper steals up behind, puts hand on his shoulder

Cooper: Take it easy Jim. You know you can do it. I've been working on a brilliant new program to add up the papers but it needs your touch to make it work.

Price: I thought accountancy was all glamour and going to the Vatican to audit Cardinals. I never knew it was so tough

Cooper: You gotta believe Jim. 

Waterhouse prowls in looking mean.

Waterhouse: Are those papers counted yet, Jim? The Academy is waiting you know.

Cooper: He's so close Miss Waterhouse, so close. You don't know the pressure he's under.

Waterhouse: You think I never counted ballot papers? I've checked them with bullets flying overhead, I've checked them even though my parents were both dying of starvation, even when all the townsfolk begged me to stay to see off the bad guys, even when the asteroid was about to collide and I was the only person who could stop it. I've struggled against oppression and hatred to get papers checked. [music swells] I'm an accountant and I check papers, it's what I do. And before this night is out, Jim Price, you'll be doing it too!

Price: I will! I will count them.

Waterhouse: And here's how we make sure we get the right result, Jim. You put the winner into this envelope - marked 1 for coming first. You put the loser into this envelope - marked l for loser. Got it?

Cooper: It's so simple, it's beautiful. What could possibly go wrong?

Fade out.


* its only a matter of time

Yahoo wakes up

A week, as Harold Wilson once observed, is a long time in politics. In the frenetic, always-on world of IT it is a vast amount of time. Imagine then my interest, if that is the right word, in an email that arrived this morning from Yahoo informing me that there may have been a breach of data security affecting my account in 2015 or 2016.  For I wrote about a very similar data breach some five months ago and took such steps as I deemed necessary to ensure the integrity of my personal data (almost none at all because I don't use Yahoo for anything personal). And now they have finally got around to informing me of another identical issue and apparently I am supposed to do something about it. Jolly decent of them or a flagrant contempt for their users and their security? [You don't want this to be an online poll, do you? It's tricky to set these things up, you know: Ed]

The Wrath of Doris

Storm Doris struck the UK with full force today and beautiful Ruislip was not spared, as this shocking picture of the devastation shows.

As usual, absolutely no sign of any Government assistance. We're on our own with this one but we shall emerge stronger and more resolute, I give you my pledge.

Update a few days later: I suppose I had better record that Doris had a nasty sting in her tail. We discovered substantial damage to a flat roof over an extension to our house, fortunately no major problems inside, but requiring a rebuild.  

The Met Throws A Wobbly

The Metropolitan Line was not on good form today. Two weeks ago there was a long gap in the service into town, exactly matching the time I wished to travel and they only bothered to tell people on the platform at Ruislip Manor after I had pressed the button on the Information panel to speak to a member of staff. Today exactly the same thing - nothing ran into London for some 20 minutes, nothing showed on the platform electronic displays or on my phone app that shows a much wider range of movements, not even to show trains ready at the terminus, Uxbridge; but this time nobody bothered either to answer the information panel (which broadcast the sound of a ringing phone for very long time; whether this a real phone or just a sort of placebo sound effect to calm irritated passengers I cannot tell) or make any announcements. And exactly as last time, on arrival at Harrow-on-the-Hill our train was promoted to be a "fast", saving some of that precious time lost hanging around the platform for me but making the journeys of anyone hoping to stop off before Finchley Road even longer.

Ah well, the problem would be bound to be fixed five hour later on my return, eh? Wrong. There was no now service between Baker St. and Aldgate; fortunately trains were running north but were packed about as full as could be. Today I broke my journey at Preston Road to visit a newly home-from-hospital Mother-in-Law [That's a lot of hyphens, they don't grow on trees you know: Ed] but kept an eye on the trains to make sure of the final leg. And just as well that we left when we did for not long afterwards this was the joyful news:

The various reasons for today's pleasantries were given as signal failure at Finchley Road, security alert at Moorgate and finally the absence of control staff. Yeah, maybe they were trying to commute in via the Met and gave up.

Who Ate All The Pies?

This familiar chant from the football terraces was gloriously realised last night in South London, where Sutton United went down 2-0 against Arsenal in the FA Cup. Step forward and take a bow (or bend a little from the neck anyway, not sure if the waistline can take a fullscale bow), the goalkeeping coach (and one of the substitutes) Wayne Shaw. Unable to hold out until full time and secure in the knowledge that he would not need to take to the field, Shaw was captured on a primetime BBC broadcast upholding all the values of the plucky non-league team he represents.

Sutton gained promotion last year from the league that the team I support, Wealdstone, play in and they were very impressive then. They put up a battling performance last night and can be proud of it. But alas, I fear that they will be remembered for feats of gastronomy rather than goalscoring for a long time to come.

Update:
It transpires Mr Shaw ate the pie deliberately as some sort of betting / publicity stunt and has been fired from his position at the club. Hmmm - one-off pie or continuing involvement with semi-pro soccer at a leading club? Tough call. 

Telling It Like It Isn't

There is no need for satirists today; merely check the daily headlines and the stories just write themselves. Here, in a nutshell, is the short diplomatic career of the National Security Advisor to the President of the USA.

"Did you have contacts with the Russians before your appointment?
"No"
"But did you"
"I certainly did not"
"I think you did"
"Didn't, didn't, didn't."
"It seems like you definitely did"
"Well that's where you're so wrong because I didn't"
"We have pretty good information that you did"
"You weren't there and I was; er, not that I was there, but if I had been there then I would have known a lot more about it than you"
"Go on, admit it you did though"
"Absolutely not. I deny that completely. It was another boy somebody else my evil twin brother, look it wasn't me, I was miles away at the time doing my homework at my office." 
"But it was you and we can prove it, can't we?"
"Umm - its not fair, they made me, I didn't mean to."
"That's not good enough. Did you have contacts?"
"Umm. yes"
"I can't hear you"
"Yes, yes I did"
"So why did you tell everyone you didn't"
"I inadvertently gave the wrong information. AND IT WASN'T MY FAULT, OK"
"No need to shout. Now go away, hand in your monitor's badge and don't do it again"


Yup. To inadvertently give the wrong information is totally different from lying, even when you have been asked the same question many times on many different occasions. It's one step closer to admitting culpability than 'being economical with the truth', I suppose.

Khan: Defeat by the Mamelukes "Fake News"

from our special correspondent, still in Karakorum, but getting quite keen to come home

As reports continued to arrive from the front line in the Syrian desert of a massive defeat for the armies of the Golden Horde, inflicted by the Mamelukes of Egypt, newly-elected President Genghis Khan went on the offensive. Speaking to a selected group of shepherds, Khan invoked the wrath of the gods on those who disseminated untrue reports. The main part of his speech, based on the comments of his audience afterwards, appeared to be as follows: "Fake news, bad, not real, we won really, it's not fair, they cheated, they attacked when the sun was in our lads' eyes, we fought fair but they hit us when we weren't looking, everyone knows the Mongols are the greatest fighting force and we're going make them great again, er, greater than they used to be, those Mamelukes haven't heard the last of this, they're gonna regret being Egyptian, just they wait until I can raise another Horde and march them two thousand miles across the deserts and mountains 'cause this time my men are gonna whip ass, not that they didn't whip ass last time, they absolutely did, we won that battle and massacred all them Gyppos, and anyone who says our boys were slaughtered is just asking for it, and I've asked my very good friend Ivan the Terrible to lend a hand, not that our boys need any help, we can beat the whole world with both hands tied behind our backs, which is what I gather most of the survivors have right now, but I didn't say that, that's fake news, this was a glorious victory and we're gonna burn Cairo to the ground. And that'll show them Muslim terrorists. One day. Maybe."

Later the President was observed to have stopped foaming at the mouth and his tribal shaman said that, after he inhaled from the entrails of a freshly slaughtered goat, he looked much more like his old self. [The president or the shaman? Ed]

Presidential spokesman Zarn "the Slicer" Spicer added "This was the biggest victory for any army in the history of the world. Period. We killed at least two million of them, and that doesn't include the ones hiding under plastic sheets, whatever they are, and did not lose a single man, I say again, not one man. The guys with the battle wounds who staggered back into Baghdad screaming about being wiped out, they are all cheats and liars and were not even there and and they have a political agenda to damage the President who is the greatest military strategist in the universe."

Asked where the Horde now was, Spicer claimed "They are on their way to wipe out everyone else in the known world, OK? We'll be hearing from them pretty soon." He declined further questions.