Are you a McFittie, or maybe a spong?

The Friday THING Life:

Life and Other Bits: LANGUAGE experts tell us that teenagers use only 800 words. ONLY? If they had said eight or maybe 18 we might have agreed, and most of those owe their origins to the grunts and snorts of the cavemen.

They do, though, have a language of their own. A nutter, for instance is a spong; if you’re chenzed you are tired or completely ratted and a McFittie is not, as you might think a fat-free vegetarian burger but a sexy guy.

Where do these “words” come from? They sound as if their etymology swims in three Friday-night cocktails, two bottles of Diamond White cider, eight Bacardi Breezers and half a bottle of Stolichnaya 40 per cent proof Russian vodka.

How many centilitres of alcohol is that? Pretty smashtacular you’ll agree.

And so do the Tories. They think that the way to reduce how much booze we drink is to tell us on the bottle, how many centilitres is too many. Mind you the nutty (or spongy) wing of the party also wants to put what they call “information on social norms” on the bottle. At least it’ll get the kids reading before they hit one another over the head with them. Education is a wonderful thing.

So hands up those who know what a centilitre of booze looks like. Does it favour a unit (much loved by the health professionals probably because nobody knows nor cares what that is either)?

There are, as I am sure you know, 56.8261 centilitres in a pint.

So, if you want to be a McFittie not a spong and get chenzed 'til you lol (laugh out loud) ask for a 56.8261 centilitres of Old Peculiar tonight, it’ll cost you less than a Flim (a fiver to you and me).



DID Charlie Parker know what he was letting himself in for when he left the calm quiet of a very senior civil service desk job to take over as chief exec of Oldham Council?



Suddenly from having no public face except to business bigwigs and national and regional movers and shakers, Charlie now finds himself in the firing line for all that is wrong in Oldham (a pretty long list that puts Magna Carta to shame).

Charlie is even expected to carry the can for things that happened before he had set foot in Oldham and had begun to climb the golden salary stairs.

The politicians must be in a bunker somewhere hiding while poor Charlie takes the flak. Only Mark Alcock puts his head over the barricade from time to time to shout “grit” or that’s what it sounds like before disappearing faster than Oldham’s grit bins.


FINAL WORD: Sex is good for a man’s heart, we are told (lucky us), but all it does for women is to improve their sense of smell. So take the socks off, put the underpants in the wash — and don’t get under the duvet, just in case.