Tuesday 28 October 2008

News direct meets Sir James Dyson

After the humiliating debacle of the Reese "Chinny" Witherspoon interview I am pleased to be able to announce that News direct is finally back on track interviewing the people that matter, the movers and shakers of our 21st century world.

Today's honoured guest is none other than Sir James Dyson, inventor of the.....coloured plastic vacuum cleaner and other coloured plastic ...errrrr....stuff.
Not useless stuff though like, Oh I don't know, a signed DVD copy of legally blonde 2.
No! Sir James Dyson invents stuff! Well not so much invents stuff as copies stuff already invented in funky coloured plastics.
Which is why it is my immense pleasure to welcome Sir James dyson to News direct.

News direct- Sir James, your worship, such a great pleasure to meet a man of quality for a change. You wouldn't believe some of the people they make me interview. Not quality members of the aristocracy like you my majestyiousness.

Sir James Dyson- Please call me James.

Nd- Oh thank so much your holiness...oops, James. It really is a pleasure to meet you ....James...sir.

SJD- Thank you. Can we get a move on I'm flying to Shanghai this evening.

Nd-Oh of course your lordshipyness, I mean James......... Jimmy. Jimbob. The Jimster.The Jimeister........ The Jiminator, you know like the terminator!
Obviously I'm not saying you are an evil cyborg sent from the future to destroy mankind!
You're not are you?

SJD- No I'm not. Can we get on please?

Nd- Get on what? Oh sorry "get on" as in get on with the interview. I thought you wanted us to ge....anyway, where did I put those quessssssss.............tions? Where did I put themmmmmmm.
Can you stand up a minute please your Jimmyness?

SJD- Why?

Nd- I think you're sat on the in depth interview I prepared.

SJD- You mean this crumpled piece of paper is your "In depth interview"?

Nd- Yeah, can you just pass it over please? Thank you your lordshipness......ness.

SJD- Jesus!

Nd- Jesus? I thought you said it was Jimmy?

Nd- No I didn't say it was Jesus and I didn't say it was Jimmy either!

Nd- You did! When we first started you said "Don't call me your holinessnessnessss, call me Jimmy boy or Jimbo, as in Rambo."

SJD- I said call me James.

Nd- Well anyway lets not quibble over names and titles, we all have them. I was voted third best robotic dancer at the Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi school of advanced wood working and embroidery. You don't hear me bragging about it and insisting people use my "Official title"
We are quite alike you and me Jimcat.

SJD- Can we get on please, I really do have to be in Shanghai this evening.

Nd-Hey what would you call Shanghai, if it had like no tall buildings?

SJD- Pardon?

Nd- What would you call Shanghai if it had no tall buildings? It's a joke, go with it you'll love it!

SJD- I don't want to go with it.

Nd-You don't want people to think you're a man with millions but no sense of humour do you? Go on enjoy yourself, you've worked hard you deserve at least some fun. Go on.

SJD- Ok I don't know.

Nd- Don't know what?

SJD- Your joke thing.

Nd- Do it properly!

SJD- I don't know, what would you call Shanghai if it had no tall buildings?

Nd- Lowhai!!!!!

SJD- What?

Nd- Lowhai!!! Oh no ... Hang on I got it wrong, it should have been Shanglow!!!!!!

SJD-Ok.

Nd-Shanglow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SJD- Yeah very good.

Nd- See what I did? I changed hai at the end of Shanghai into low! Shanglow! not "high" low!!! No tall buildings! low!

SJD-Very clever.

Nd- It was wasn't it! The way I changed it round like that, I'm really good at stuff like that.

SJD- I'm very impressed but could we get on with the interview, I really do have to be in sha...

Nd-Shang....low?

SJD- Well done, yes.

Nd-We better push on then if you have to be in.....Shanglow this evening. We can't have you late for....Shang.....low!

SJD- Stop it now.

Nd- Sorry.

SJD- Questions?

Nd-Right, wheres my bit of paper? Right then lets get started! Jimmy me auld mate Jimmy, What first gave you the idea to make yellow and grey Vacuum cleaners you could see through and sell for an absolute bloody fortune?

SJD- That wasn't what I did.

Nd-Yes it is.

SJD- No it's not.

Nd- Is.

SJD- I invented a revolutionary bagless vacuum cleaning system.

Nd-That's what I said.

SJD-Just move on, next question.

Nd-Next questionnnnnnn......el nexto questerinooooooooo.........let meeeee.......seeeeee. Ah yeah heres one under the strawberry jam stain. What is the funda..mac funda... mutionn? Fundicaltick, no. Can you see what that says?

SJD-Where?

Nd-Just there written underneath that inconvenient jam stain. I swear I will sack that secretary one day! Grrrr.

SJD- "What is the fundamental urge behind invention?"

Nd- Errrr...is it showing off to girls?

SJD- What?

Nd-The fundamental urge behind invention, is it showing off to girls?

SJD- Are you asking me or telling me?

Nd-I'm asking you, I think, I'm not sure I'm lost.

SJD- Well if someone were to ask me that question I would have to say that I believe the fundamental urge behind invention to be the quest for unknown knowledge, a desire to seek out and create solutions to the problems we all face in our everyday liv.........

Nd-Like the ape in "Dr Snugglesworth's big adventure"

SJD- Pardon?

Nd- Like the ape in "Dr Snugglesworth's big adventure."

SJD- What?

Nd- You said the fundamental urge behind all invention is the desire to seek out unknown knowledge.

SJD- Yeah.

Nd-Like Dr Snugglesworth.

SJD- Who's Dr Snugglesworth?

Nd- The ape in Dr Snugglesworth's big adventure.

SJD-And why is this relevant?????

Nd- Well Dr Snugglesworth was an inventor too, He invented a machine that could take him anywhere in the universe that had bananas! Come to think of it I think the fundamental urge behind Dr Snugglesworth's amazing inventiveness was the urge to eat bananas! That crazy ape would swap his own top hat for a banana!

SJD-Right that's it I have had enough now, I really can't waste anymore of my time talking to you! I have to be in Shang....

Nd-Low???

SJD- Idiot!

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Man! I feel like a woman

Sometimes mother nature can be a cruel and sadistic jester. We have all seen the photos of two headed piglets, hair covered babies, bearded ladies and perhaps most disgustingly of all, the nine legged Octopus.
Although most people are familiar with these types of accidental oddities, they do still have the power to shock and repulse us for somewhere deep within our primitive being we unconsciously think, there but for the grace of god go I.

But what about the mistakes of nature that aren't as obvious or as visible as a six testicled dog, a black orange or a carrot shaped like Toulouse Lautrec?
What about the psychological typos mother nature has made on the great key board of life?
The psychopaths, sociopaths, bipolars, anorexics, schizophrenics, multiple personalities, neurotics and Manchester united fans?
What about these poor unfortunates? Are we as a society meant to ignore them, lock them up or ridicule them? Or are we as human beings meant to care for these people as we would a dog born with two dicks?

We here at News direct believe that every living creature upon this small blue planet of ours deserves respect and understanding and it was in this heady atmosphere of the nobility of life, that News direct sent me forth into the world to discover everything I could about that most misunderstood of creatures, the Transsexual.

Of all natures freaks, transsexuals are probably the least understood by the general public. In ancient times, as in modern, they were often castigated and shunned by their uncaring communities.
That is not to say there were not places within the ancient world that did not shun these poor unfortunates, Asia in particular had vast pockets of transsexual friendly territory.
Indeed in some places within ancient Asia this toleration gradually evolved into veneration, these half male, half female creatures became living symbols of the duality of nature and the perfumed examples of the ying and yang concept prevalent in many differing forms across the continent.

When early European sailors first made contact with these exotic lands they were amazed and then mystified by these strange temple denizens, so much so that early accounts of them are said to have been the basis of the mermaid myths, for the humble sailors not having adequate words to describe what they had seen could only whisper in shocked fascination about a creature they had seen with the top half of a woman and on the bottom just a huge powerful tail!

So it was with this same sense of awe and a little trepidation that I began my research into the curious phenomena of the modern day transsexual.
Untold hours of internet research had thrown me from Chix wit dix.com to bedicked bitches! and then perhaps most bizarrely of all to a site devoted to lovers of narcoleptic ladyboys called Tranquil transsexuals.com.
Although these vast repositories of free girly boy filth gave me some idea as to what I was getting myself into it was not really the angle I was searching for, for as regular readers will know, we here at News direct are nothing if we are not sensitive.

This is why I was delighted to come across (No pun intended! No really! I hadn't even realised it was a pun! I hate puns, they are so easy to throw out there. I would never pun during a serious investigative story like this one. To fill this article with filthy puns and sniggering knob gags is way below my dignity and anyone who suggests I would deserves nothing but my contempt and never ending enmity.
That's the trouble with people nowadays, all they want is cheap degrading puns and childish knob gags, well I for one don't believe that's what the internet is for, I believe it is here to nurture us and lead us with digital dignity into a dazzling future of byte based knowledge. It wasn't like this in the beginning you know, the internet nowadays is just full of sick perverts and Star wars geeks not the noble seekers of truth, justice and knowledge like you and me, no most people are only online for the German pissing porn and pictures of cats dressed as Hitler.)
the website of an organisation called Time for a change! Which as their website said was "A charitable organisation set up with donations from the United nations, The European union and various Transsexual porn companies all with the intended aim of making transsexualism more acceptable within the mainstream of society."

The international headquarters of Time for a change! was located in the picturesque olde worlde charm of a Doncaster industrial estate, just off the A630 near the new carpet warehouse show room.
The headquarters was not what I was expecting at all, instead of a modern steel and glass office building with smiling receptionists and bland corporate art, all I saw before me was a small factory unit on a wind swept industrial estate.
But closer examination of the plaque confirmed to me that this was indeed the world headquarters of Time for a change!
There was no door as such so the conundrum of where to knock was solved by me banging my cold hand on the large roll down metal door before me.
Until my banging was rewarded with the sound of gears followed by the slow upward scroll of the aluminum wall.

As the wide door inched slowly upwards I bent myself double and tried to steal a glimpse of what I would soon be granted for free, but disappointedly all I could steal was the sight of a cold concrete floor and a shiny pair of red six inch stiletto heels crushing the lipsticked filter of a now smoked cigarette.
Two long minutes later and the door had crawled high enough for me to bend underneath its corrugated facade and meet the stilettoed chair woman of the charity, Miss Fontana St Clairveux, a statuesque six foot five blonde wearing a tiger print mini dress and a warm red smile.
"Mr Astley?" she asked in a pleasant dark brown voice.
Standing straight, I thrust my hand straight into her large paw and said "Yes, please call me Rick."
Miss St Clairveux smiled a slightly amused max factor smile and waved her huge hand in the direction of a old sofa crammed into a small corner of the large lock up "Would you like to take a seat Rick?"
I looked across the frozen concrete floor to the surreal homely corner and then managed to nod before making my way across to the sagging leather settee lit only by a single standard lamp.

I sat down at the closest end and then grabbed the arm tightly and bounced up as Miss St Clairveux placed her self heavily next to me.
"Oh sitting right there are you?" I smiled, nervously.
"Well I feel it's more intimate don't you?" She said as she twirled the hair above my ear with a red painted nail.
I leaned my head away from the toying nail and after clearing my throat said "Well yeah It's certainly....errr intimate, is it hot in here or is it just me?"
Her red taloned hand stroked heavily upon my thigh as she sighed a marilynesque "Well Mr Astley, some like it hot."
I looked round the room, hoping for a glance of some unknown rescuer I knew would never race across the pitted concrete and whisk me away to a land were uncomfortable situations are known only in fairy tales and myths.
"I don't" I squeaked, while trying to remove the hand now tightly gripping my inner thigh.
"You don't what Mr Astley?"
"I don't like it hot."
"I'm sure there were a lot of things you didn't like until you tried them."
"Nope everything I didn't like before I tried it, I didn't like after I tried it either, with the exception of spam and peanut butter fritters strangely enough."
"Come come Mr Astley, I'm sure a man like you could get to like most things if you just had the courage to try them."
"No I'm quite set in my ways, I still refuse to call marathons, snickers, thank you anyway."
Miss St Clairveaux leaned in even closer and for a moment I felt the moistness of a warm lip on my ear before she breathed into it "I'm only teasing you Mr Astley, you're not my type at all."

The deep rumble of her laughter echoed heavily through the lock up as she shuffled her self up to the other end of the sofa "I'm sorry for teasing you, but I just wanted to dispel the notion that all transsexuals are voracious man eaters out to corrupt innocent straight men."
I wiped my sweat laden brow with my jacket sleeve "Oh yeah I knew what you were doing, as soon as you started I thought to myself, I bet she is trying to dispel the notion that all transsexuals are voracious man eaters out to corrupt innocent straight men."
"Well Mr Astley, you are obviously a man of the world."
"Oh yeah, I've been around, I was in the boy scouts for ten years. You don't spend ten years in the forces without learning a thing or two about the world!"
Miss St Clairveaux leaned forward and I quickly leaned back "I do like a man in uniform."
Still leaning back I managed "I'm not in the scouts now!"
"Shame."
"I had to leave after the incident with the scoutmaster's poodle, a Polaroid camera and a loose woggle."

After ten more minutes of me putting Miss St Clairveaux at her ease I began to delve into the intricacies, secrets and mores of the transsexual world.
"So when did you discover you were a woman? Did you realise suddenly that you like to talk a lot and buy shoes?"
"No I didn't just discover I was a woman, I have always been a woman."
I gave her a puzzled look before the clarity of understanding drifted across my features "Ohhhhh I feel such an idiot!! I thought you were a tranny!!!" I moved closer up the sofa towards her "I thought because you were running this tranny thing that you were one! And you must admit you are quite a big girl! Jesus I feel such an idiot! I do like it hot!!!!!"
"You misunderstand me Mr Astley What I meant to convey to you was that even when I was very young I always felt like I was a girl trapped inside a boy's body."
"Oh right, so you are a tranny?"
"Yes Mr Astley I am a transsexual."
"Oh in that case I don't then"
"You don't what?"
"I don't like it hot."
"You see Mr Astley, this is what my organisation is all about. We want to dispel the common myths associated with transsexuals and present ourselves to the world as we actually are, just normal everyday people."
"Oh ok, so what did you do before you......errr you know......you becam....decocked."
"Well before I began living full time as a woman I was in a very high powered testosterone fueled business making high powered life and death decisions everyday, oh and by the way I haven't decocked."
"What did you do?"
"I was a junior colourist at Toni and Guys in Rotherham."
"Why haven't you decocked yet"
"Not all transsexuals.....decock, as you so delicately put it. I enjoy having a cock and would be lost without it.
"But what about doing...sex, you know if you wanted to do it with a ....you know ...a man."
"Well that is why I had my balls removed and my scrotum made into a vagina."
"You had your sac made into a vagina?????"
"No you idiot! You see this is the kind of ignorance we are constantly fighting against."
"Yeah I knew that I was just giving you the chance to demonstrate what it can be like, you know when you have to talk to idiots and people who aren't very smart and stuff."

Miss St Clairveaux smiled and then with a hand swept casually through her long blonde hair she asked "Is that it Mr Astley? Do you need anymore?"
"Errrrr no not really, If I do need anything else I'll just do what I usually do."
"Get back in touch with me to arrange another interview?"
"No I'll make it up."
"Oh right."
"Fancy a quick pint?"
"I'm a lady I don't drink pints, but I will join you for a banana daiquiri and Taboo splashed with Cointreau and Malibu in a tall glass over ice."
"You're on! But you're buying and if there are any hot chicks in the pub, your my sister right."

Meeting Miss St Clairveaux taught me that when all is said and done people are just people, some are tall, some are short, some are ginger, and some even have one leg. But overall the biggest lesson I learned from my meeting with Miss St Clairveaux was never try to out drink a transsexual, they drink like squaddies.