LABOUR JOY AS TAINTED PARTY INTRODUCES ITS NEW TREASURER

"Apparently" the one of the Marx Bros with the blond hair that couldn't speak, and blew the car horn, is dead.

EXCLUSIVE: Minor celebrities used as motivational bait for call centre staff condemned to thinking it must be worth it

We would have pissed ourselves laughing if it wasn't for the rug.
The value of celebrity has never been seen so finely honed as it is for loans.co.uk.
The Watford-based loans company obviously have to compete in the highly competitive call-centre employment market. If you are in the UK, their ads for competitive loans with honest cricketer Phil Tuffnell are shown on TV, usually in the daytime.
Definitely when the horse racing is on Channel 4.
Anyway, credit being what it is, the company have done really well.
So how does loans.co.uk uniquely reward its staff at their Watford offices against its call centre rivals when they beat a target?
Pay? Not really.
Holiday? Not really.
Pension? Not really.
Some bird or bloke off the telly or who was in a pop band comes in and you have your picture taken with them?
Er, yes.
I can't explain it, and sadly couldn't nick the pics either, so you'll have to click the header on this post and then click the gallery of celebrities and staff. Even Archer is in on the deal.
Please use your back button to come back to E.R.
It's gold. Imagine if they had a union.
Union guy: ''We'd like 4%, free coffee, a water cooler, and David Blane in a freezer for a week.''
Management guy: ''You're in dreamland. We can give you 2% and half an hour of Debbie McGee.''
Union guy: ''Come on, we're not mugs. What about Daniels? McGee is only celebrity by association, everyone knows that.''
Management guy: ''Well, behind every great man... well... ok, here's how it is: 2%, and because we've had a good year, Paul Daniels and Debbie Mcgee, matinee show once a month, including the bit where he saws Debbie into three pieces, pics but no autographs.
It's as far as we can go. You know how tough the loans market is...."
Union guy (smiling): "Ok, goddamit, you gotta deal!''

BOOKS WORTH KILLING TREES FOR #1

This week: Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami.

Five second summary: Bloke approaching mid life crisis opens existential gateway that provides answers to why everyone he knows is dying, the meaning of life, and why he loves a 15-year-old psychic schoolgirl.

The bit from the book:
"Everything before is nothing compared to the exacting detail and sheer power and invulnerability of today's web of capitalism. And it's megacomputers that make it all possible, with their inhuman capacity to pull every last factor and condition on the face of the earth into their net calculations.

Advanced capitalism has transcended itself. Not to overstate things, financial dealings have practically become a religious activity. The new mysticism. People worship capital, adore its aura, genuflect before Porches and land values. Woshiping everything their shiny Porches symbolize. It's the only stuff of myth that's left in the world.

Latter day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right or wrong has been subdivided, made sophisticated. Within good there's fashionable good and unfashionable good, and ditto for bad. Within fashionable good there's formal and then there's casual; there's hip there's cool, there's trendy there's snobbish. Mix n match. You can now enjoy hybrid styles of morality. It's the way of the world - philosophy starting to look more and more like business administration.

Although I didn't think so at the time, things were a lot simpler in 1969. All you had to do to express yourself was throw rocks at riot police. But with today's sophistication, who's in a position to throw rocks? Who's going to brave what tear gas?

C'mon that's the way it is. Everything is rigged, tied into that massive capital web, and beyond this web there's another web. Nobody's going anywhere. You throw a rock and it'll come right back at you."

All of E.R.'s best books are recommended by Beryl, who has read all the best books, even the ones they've burnt. E.R. breaks copyright law in the name of promotion and education. Dance Dance Dance is published by Vintage books, and available from good book shops, and many famous online retailers.
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and owns the copyright to everything above. He's like, wise? And Japanese? Yeah?

''GETTING IT'' MORRISSEY DISMAYS FANS WITH REWORKED ''HAPPY'' SETLIST AT RECENT GIGS

The setlist."Yesterday".

COUNTDOWN TO QUARTER OF A TRILLION DOLLARS CELEBRATION BEGINS - ''apparently''

Britain and America were preparing to celebrate their 250th billionth dollar spent on the war with Iraq very soon.
It might not be in your name, but it's you that paid for it.
You can keep up with the progress thanks to E.R.'s war cash counter at the bottom of the page (right at the bottom, scroll, baby, scroll) for this momentus occasion.
While New Orleans' poor remain homeless and eating ready meals, and in the UK public services and schools face ''modernisation'' (ie private contractors) in the name of efficiency, it's amazing where both the UK and the US have found one quarter of a trillion dollars from in the past three years.
And funded two missions to Mars!
The war works out at almost 3,000 dollars a second, or $150k a minute. Even E.R.'s high production values can't compete with that kind of cash burn.
War and space are the Keynesian stalworts of capitalist governments. They say they don't have state industries, but when it comes to making sure we have an enemy and a dream, fear and ambition, then they know it's money worth spending.
''Apparently'' there's not really going to be a party or any celebrations for spending 250 billion dollars on an illegal, failed war after all.
Sorry.

AND TAKE YOUR CHOCOLATE SALTY BALLS WITH YOU...

Update on the departure of Isaac Hayes from South Park because he was "upset" about an episode that took the piss out of his very own tax-free Scientology...
A new episode sees Chef joining a weird cult and saying he wants to have sex with kids.
A fitting end.

SIGNS "SUGGEST" BUSH POPULARITY MAY BE ON THE WANE AT LAST

Indeed.
This pic was contributed to E.R. by Wanksy. Thank you!

The not so usual suspects

A teacher accused of hitting a child but who was never prosecuted today won her fight for her DNA and fingerprints taken at the time to be destroyed from police records.
E.R. hopes this right will also apply to the UK's 24,000-plus innocent kids who also have never been prosecuted, but who are dna-coded and have fingerprints on police files.
Child or adult, no process exists to have your fingerprints or DNA removed, even if you are never committed of any crime.
If current rates of dna record-taking levels continue, 5 million innocent people will have their DNA on police files by 2008, when ID cards are introduced.
E.R. would like to thank the class of 3B for posing for the picture. They are all innocent, of course, apart from the trouble maker on the far-right, who has been done a couple of times for driving without consent, possessing a firearm, and drug trafficking. Bless.

Archbishop of Canterbury admits Creationists are backward loons that belong in the dark ages

That's 120 million Americans* then - including the President.
* Fact. In the most recent survey of US religious beliefs, 48% of Americans do not believe in evolution, but that man is descended from Adam, and the world was created 11,000 years ago in seven days. President Bush has increased state financial support by several hundred million dollars for religious groups with Creationist beliefs since he came to office. Darwin is banned in some schools.

REMEMBER ME?

Early afficionados to E.R. will remember this little fella, well on his way to catching bird flu, so he was.
In the five days that Britain has talked about loans and the budget, bird flu in humans has spread to Burma, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, and Gaza.
US scientists have confirmed that since coming into contact with humans the virus has already mutated into two distinct strains. This makes the likelihood of further mutations high.
You can watch the virus spread across continents via birds and people with a lovely (but fiddly) interactive map provided by the BBC news website. Click the title of this post for the link.
No eggs were harmed in the making of this post, but in true army style we did smash his brains in with a bunch of soldiers once the cameras had left.

7 UK 'JIHAD BOMBERS' PLANNED ''TO NUKE OR BOMB'' BLUEWATER THE UK'S BIGGEST ''SHOPPING'' CENTRE

Hmm maybe these guys aren't all bad...

BUDGET LATEST:GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO WORLD ENERGY CRISIS, GLOBAL WARMING, MELTING ICE CAPS, CLIMATE CHANGE, DROUTS AND RISING POLLUTION

40 quid on 4x4's. That should sort it.

I SAW THIS AND THOUGHT OF YOU

Like a Night Club in the morning, you're the bitter end.
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you're clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrows
are lousy coz of you.
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain
You're certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.
You're like a dose of scabies,
I've got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!
People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I'd consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You've got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.
Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our smartie,
you're no use to anyone.
Like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive's face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race?
You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.
You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You're heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.
Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.
What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat?
They can't find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT.

LYRICS OF ''TWAT'' COPYRIGHT JOHN COOPER CLARKE. See more of the Bard of Salford at www.cyberspike.com/clarke/

''PEOPLE'S PRINCESS'' DIANA FOUNTAIN SHRINE - MP'S VERDICT JUST IN

"It's shit," they said, basically.

HAVE A GO AT SIR ALAN, HE DOESN'T CARE (and neither do those other old people)

No wonder Sir Alan is smiling. He's beyond all this, just slagging off people from behind his Amstrad (its-almost-a-computer) phone. He slagged off colleges for turning out idiots that can't run a pizza stall. They've got all upset and want an apology. From the evidence he's seen from Britain's ''executive'' elite trying to get a job with him, it's a fair assumption. E.R. would suggest that the piss up in the brewery he is thinking of arranging may go poorly too. But slag him off all you like, he don't care. He'd just say ''bollocks'' and go and eat a meat and chips.

PRESS IN CONFUSION OVER LABOUR LOANS SLOGANS

So far it's been called:
''LORDS FOR LOANS'' scandal
''CASH FOR HONOURS'' scandal
''LOANS FOR HONOURS'' scandal
''PAY FOR PEERAGE'' scandal...

How about just ''CASH FOR CUNTS'' and be done with it.

Ten things to do when they play Hurt by Johnny Cash on the Breakfast Show

There you are, opening the morning's post and finishing off the toast, when XFM, having been playing songs with lyrics like ''ooh do you, do you do you want me?'' and ''not very pretty I tell thee'' go and finish off the breakfast show with ''Hurt'' by Johnny Cash.
Obviously the great country fella is long gone, but he knew what he was doing when he propped himself up from death's door to deliver that little ditty to the world.
However, I'm not sure if XFM's playlist is quite polished enough if they expect that to get you to work on a Tuesday morning.
Here's ten things, tried and tested by E.R. over ten arduous days, to do the next time you hear it...
1. Get naked from the waist down and run to the nearest figure of authority and shout: ''Here's MY empire of dirt, you can have it ALL!'' and then bend over.
2. Drink a bottle of your favourite spirit, neat.
3. Get out pictures of previous romances and tear them in half, sobbing, preferably, and ideally after drinking the bottle of spirit and everything else alcoholic nearby. (pictured)
4. Shout at the radio ''Take it easy grandpa, dying is for losers''
5. Think the Crash Test Dummies have got a bit better since last time you heard them.
6. Play a Leonard Cohen album to cheer yourself up.
7. Learn all the words to ''Hurt'' and then perform it at closing time in an almost empty quiet pub as loud as you can and then fall over.
8. Take someone very important to the Ivy restaurant where you have no way of paying the bill. Drink far too much wine during the meal, then drink half a bottle of their finest brandy. Demand the bill, and insist that you will pay. When the bill arrives, say you will pay with a song, start singing ''Hurt'' and slowly strip, finishing with the finale you've already tried at the bus stop in suggestion 1, above. Wait to see if anyone asks for the bill, then quietly leave.
9. Listen to Radio 4 instead. It's just as depressing.
10. Laugh uncontrollably all day, forgetting to blink.

People you wouldn't think I've met, but I have#4

Mr Blobby, Clerkenwell, November 1993. He was baking a Christmas cake and set the room alight. He kept ''Babe'' by Take That off the Christmas number one spot a month later. Small gay sweaty Shakespeare actor inside. Weird.

And you thought your credit card had problems...

In honorary boot pissing style, George Bush chose the third anniversary of the war in Iraq to finally pick up the tab for his illegal, failed war.
George yesterday shifted a further three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollars spent on Iraq to the US national debt, sending it to its highest ever level in history - despite there being no recession and the only threat to the US economy being an already dreadful balance of payments record fuelled by cheap imports.
Hiding behind news coverage about the anniversary, President Bush signed a bill that means costs are hushed away for someone else to worry about.
This prevents George from having to raise taxes, but sends his country into 9 trillion dollars of debt that will still be hanging around the neck of the world's largest economy long after boot pissing Bush and his oil-shareholding supporters do up their flies and leave office with a sack full of cash.

Wine glass confirmed as being ''empty'' before being ''half-empty'' - new pics

New evidence confirmed that the wine glass taken into custody last month for being ''half-empty'' had in fact been ''empty'' at some point before its arrest. The evidence could shift popular opinion in favour of the glass, which did not deny being ''half full'' and was subsequently arrested at the E.R. offices last month. The legal system is expected to have a field day pissing in our boots when the case comes to court, but only after they have read all the books ever written for the Da Vinci code case, looked at all of prince charles' diaries, talked about footballer Ashley Cole and mobile phones, and done a load of other stuff that was ''very important'', and ''expensive'', ''apparently''. The case is expected to come to trial some time in 2027.

Hobnob eating slipper wearers that listen to CDs are new subversive consumers

The government's new monthly ''shopping basket'', which is used to judge inflation and consumer trends, will no longer include slippers, chocolate covered biscuits or CD players.

These goods are too peripheral to be part of the lives of typical Britons, as MP3 players, i-pods, quick-fit-fitters, digital downloads, camcorders, flatscreen tvs, wineboxes, menthol cigarettes (presumably because they go well with weed), night club lager, and cafe meals take their place.

So if you wear slippers, eat chocolate hobnobs and play CDs, even Chris De Berk, you're off the radar.

WEMBLEY BROUGHT INTO 21ST CENTURY

It's late, overpriced and doesn't work.
The good news is that Bon Jovi may not be able to open the stadium in 12 weeks time after ''a bit fell off'' today and the site was evacuated.
The stadium is also unlikely to be ready for this summer's planned Rolling Stones gig, and even August's football charity shield.
It's bollocks

''Let them drink Coke''

News that huge Coca Cola drink plants are causing water shortages and even droughts in some parts of India due to their huge impact on local water supplies is a new piece of Capitalist Enviro Mentalism.
Every litre of Coke needs about 2.8 litres of drinking water for its manufacture. Where Coke factories supply huge regions of India, local reservoirs already stressed by Global Warming have been emptied by the huge demand leaving local (poor) people who can't afford the bottled stuff, unable to get water.
An unhealthy fizzy drink pepped with addictive caffeine and sometimes carcinogenic sweeteners, means nothing but a drought for locals who can't afford to drink it.

The rich can drink the poor dry.

Evil stalks the earth, and it is the real thing.

This man isn't taking it...

...he's going up the Arse. Or at least that's the rumour. There is Sol Campbell, giants, and now Nicola Zigic who may be heading for Arsenal in the summer. And yes, Nicola whatever his name is IS officially the WORLD'S MOST MASSIVE footballer, who will be towering over Peter Crouch like a bully over his victim's kitkat at the school vending machine.
At 6ft 10in E.R. is worried that manager Arsene Wenger is taking the side's reputation as the 'Harlem Globetrotters'' of football a little seriously. But with 55 goals from 77 appearances at Red Star maybe the big Serb lad will be a MASSIVE hit at Ashburton Grove.

ISAAC'S WIDE SHUT

The news that Isaac Hayes has left South Park due to an episode that took the piss out of the ''church'' of ''scientology'' is indeed a shame.
Hayes' soul-brother-elder was a great foil to the white kids that are, after all, the basic instincts of SP creators Trey Stone and Scott Parker.
There are rumours the Paramount Comedy Channel, owned by the makers of Cruise's next blockbuster - had been leant on by Scientology sympathisers - and Cruise himself - because of an anti-Scientology episode.
The channel has cut the episode, though it says in honour of a Chef tribute, rather than censorship, and that it will be shown at a later date.
The episode itself sounds brilliant - with Stan being taken for the new Ron Hubbard by the religion's followers.
Let's face it, if religion is the opium of the people, then being into Scientology is a bit like being addicted to Tizer.
Rumours of a blacklist and Hayes's departure were enough for the creator duo to take out an advert in Variety arguing they would never stop their rampages against religion, and the more anyone leant on them, the worse they would behave.
They are notorious self publicists, but even they must have wondered whether they were hearing things straight when Hayes told them he was leaving because the show was inconsiderate to the hurt it might cause personal beliefs after the Cruise parody.
This is a show where Jesus once machine-gunned down Iraqis and Satan took one up the arse from Sadam Hussein.
He has been there for 15 series.
Hayes has let himself down, not because he had had enough at insulting people, that would be fair enough.
But he let himself down because he waited until he himself was insulted to pick his moment.
That has made him look nothing more than a sulky bully, who has just gone quiet because you've held up a mirror to face them.