Review of 2011 - Part 2

Taking you back, back, back...

Frank Bender, clearly.

First things first (to please my core readership, both of them), let us remember Frank Bender (16.06.41 -28.07.11), American forensic artist and overt heemasex who died aged 70. Also; Alan Fudge (27.02.44-10.10.11), Fudge was an actor with a list of credits as long as a factory conveyor belt: Matlock, M*A*S*H, Wonder Woman, Cagney & Lacey, Baywatch, Beverley Hills 90210 (the unsuccessful version set in West Yorkshire, apparently the world wasn’t ready for the everyday angst of hickies, buying single tabs and the masculinity-challenging issues of teenage boys growing up in an town with a lasses name) and Falcon Crest. Anyway, he had a vaguely amusing name which lends itself to bumming euphemisms and that’s why we’ll all miss him. You especially.

Right, that’s buggered up me chronological formatting now hasn’t it? It has got all the puerile jokes out of the way at the beginning at least, let's get down to business.

Ronnie Gill!

Cuddly Dudley (22.05.24-15.07.11) was Britain’s first black rock n’ roller, “Bristol’s answer to the Big Bopper”. He was also a promotional cocker spaniel for the Chicago Tribune and it was in this guise that Dudley really hit paydirt. Taking the ‘fistee’ half of a puppet act with Roy Brown, the two became fixtures on the Ray Rayner & Friends morning show for years,  then the tensions that inevitably foment between any double act ultimately brought the curtains down on their gig. Brown was envious of playing second fiddle to a poochified prop and increasingly took his frustrations out on Dudley’s tradesmans. Such was the toxic state of their relationship by the end the pair actually cited “sphinctal differences” as the reason for their split. Brown continued to work as a solo artist, he put on weight, wore a flying helmet and made a fortune with a ‘minge and paki’ routine in the UK. Dudley ended up endorsing incontinence pants for dogs (Dog-Gone - For a Merrier Terrier!) and was eventually put down by his agent when the work dried up.

Cactus Pryor (b. 07.01.23) is dead. The broadcaster passed away in August aged 88. Cactus wasn’t his real name of course, it was Richard, but who wants a comedy name like that holding them back? Cactus it was, and thus he had a prosperous career in the American south and even landed parts in a couple of John ‘Marion’ Wayne films. Pryor’s dad was called Skinny, they were all at it weren’t they? Ha’peths.

Dead! Cees de Wolf (17.12.45 - 22.07.11) was a footballer who played for Ajax Amsterdam but will always be most remembered for inventing the ‘rap name’. He was born Willem Hurben Skurben but changed his name to fit his image when his predilection for Kangol, gold jewellery and campaigning for a Europe-wide cull of wild dogs became his defining characteristics. Canny player though but.

Speaking of rap names - Heavy D (d. 08.11.11) found love, but didn’t know what to do with it. Not at first anyway, then he found a super Valentine Warner recipe. Rah!

William ‘Stetson’ Kennedy (05.10.16-27.08.11) was an American author and civil right activist who infiltrated the KKK and exposed their secrets to a wider audience. He was the first to let on about the absolute truth of the Marlboro packet design, for example, and their strict “no socks” rule. The nickname ‘Stetson’ came about because he could never get the shape of his hood quite right, bit of banter from the chapter dressing room there. Classic. 

Got a quick couple of Dirty Ronalds for you here before we move on, they tried dying quietly but they don’t get away that easily: Ronald Searle (03.03.20 - 30.12.11) was the man behind St Trinian’s and Ronald Wolfe (08.08.22 - 18.12.11) gave us On The Buses. Wooargh! Awright darlin’? Cor! Phwoar! Dolly birds. Strumpet. Knockers. Skirt.

Look Reg - milkers!

It's RIP to Geertruida Draaisma (25.02.02 – 12.08.2011) who, despite being born in Makkum and thus suffered an inability to pronounce her vowels properly, lived to be the oldest person in the Netherlands and was just shy of her 110th birthday when she died it in a tragic key-losing accident.

Steve Jobs (24.02.55 – 05.10.11). Yeah, remember when Steve Jobs died and people queued for days to attend his funer…no, let’s not go down that route. Right, Steve Jobs, erm - the man who invented apples. Yes, the man who brought the Pink Lady into the world. The man responsible for Rizzo in Grease. The man who changed the way we live our lives. The man who gave us all a little red cox.

Whatumoana Paki died in September. The Maori elder, consort to Maori Queen Te Atainrangikaahu and father of King Tuheitia Paki was also the 2011 winner of the Name That Guarantees A Mention In A Divvy’s Blog award (runners up this year include Conrad Schnitzler (d. 04.08.11), Royal Copeland (d.08.08.11) and Christopher Mega (d. 30.10.11). Hard lines lads, better luck next time, if you’re Buddhists). Royal consort, imagine that, “aye, spunked a new king up the Queen last night me like,” you’d have to be chuffed with yourself there, bragging rights or what? That's unless the Queen was a whinging munter. Yeah, what if she was a bit of a brute and sometimes you couldn’t bring yourself to climb aboard, not even grimacing your way through a little joyless one for crown and country? Can you turn a Queen down if she fancies a bit of the other? I don’t know much about the rumpy-pumpy protocol of the aristocracy but I reckon you’d have to bow to ‘Her Royal Fadgesty’ whenever her footman tells you she’s frisking for it.

Klugman

Jimmy Savile (31.10.26-29.10.11) was found dead in his Leeds flat aged 84. I wrote to Jim’ll once to ask if he could fix it for me to spend a night in a hospital morgue. I didn’t get a reply. That’s the BBC for you, Noel Edmonds is allowed to kill as many people as he likes but I’m not allowed some ‘quiet time’ with a packed lunch and my Quincy annual.

Talaat Sadat (1954 - 20.11.11), the nephew of Anwar Sadat was an Egyptian politician, lawyer and political prisoner but was always most famous for having five A’s in his name and being cited as a formative influence on the similarly-vowelled Bananarama. They even had a number three hit in 1983 with a song they wrote about him - Robert De Niro’s Waiting. Only joshing, it was 1988’s Nathan Jones really.

Gammon?

Joe Frazier (12.01.44 - 07.11.11) famously yarked Muhammad Ali and spoilt his unbeaten record in 1971’s Fight of the Century. Smokin’ Joe had specially designed gloves so he could have a sneaky gasper when he was on the defence. When in-fight smoking was banned by the WBA and WBC in 1971 Frazier took to using snuff disguised as smelling salts between rounds. A true champion.

Speaking of heavyweights I should also mention the demise of boiler-suit devotee and inventor of the hamburger, Kim Jong-il (16.02.41 - 17.12.11) and the man with the golden gun, the man with the violated bum - Muammar Gaddafi (d. 20.10.11). The mad dog and the eat dog. The dear leader and the rear bleeder. Enough has been written about them elsewhere, let's not feed the trolls. They only do it for attention.

Socrates, another enthusiastic smoker also died in 2011 aged 57. The Brazillian midfielder, intellectual and doctor of medicine might've liked a drink but that didn't stop him from co-founding the Corinthians Democracy movement to run against the military government. His death was mourned and his life was celebrated. See, it's not always better to be a baddie. Something for you to think on there. Roll credits.

The Hapiru

Lower Egypt Peter Sutcliffe Lookalike Competition (Dressage)

c.1800 BC - 1100 BC (Before the Co-Op)

Depending on the sources in which you find them referred to, the Hapiru (Mesopotamia), Habiru (Sumerian), Apiru (Egypt) or Hackypoo (Letterbocks) was the collective name given to rag-taggle band of nomads, rebels, outlaws, mercenaries, slaves, migrant labourers and general heed-the-baals who knocked about in the Fertile Crescent before it became a track on Bad Religion's 1992 album Generator.

'Fertile Crescent' – f’nar, knnrk, pfff. Like a wonky fadge, man.

So they were radgies, basically; lawless, socially inferior big kids. People on the fringes of settled society. Throcktonians. They'd tarmac your kibbutz (badly) if the price was right, chin people (and everyone they kna) over the slightest transgression - real or imagined, twoc a camel train just to get a chase off the sand bizzies and claim ancient lands from the people of Wa’al-botl.

Scholars are divided on many aspects of the Hapiru but they all agree that they depinitely, depinitely existed. Ancient texts discovered in the Witchy’s Wood area document tales of ritual fires, drinking rites and violence against existing tribal boundaries. The nearby ‘Devil’s Rock’ hints at a darker (and larger) underbelly: regretful teenage hairstyles, temple vandalism and bizarre love triangles*.

Of course all this was all a long time ago and the Hapiru in their original form are long gone, but closer inspection reveals traces of them wherever you look, providing you look in the right places. They’re not so peripatetic these days, preferring to stay in permanent camps around the flats and in the Briar Badlands. The ancient shrine to their god, ‘the Centurion’ was destroyed in a withering battle with their bitter enemies the Coouncil, but its essential tenets live on in the community’s commitment to being chorers, drink-munchers, starters and pagga-havers. 

Ya gan, like?

They walk among us: lock up your dogs, leave a light on and divvint say nowt to nee-one -  else ye be biblically ladged.

2011 - Part 1

I know what your favourite bit of 2011 was - all of it. Know why? Because it's a passage of time and that's what you like, isn't it? Passages. 

Yes, that's my introduction. Don't blame me if you choose to read on.

January

Sexy Cora (23) was a German porn actress and Big Brother contestant who died of a heart attack during breast implant operation. She was hospitalised in 2009 after attempting to set a new world record for the number of noshes performed in one day. Her target was 200 pork lollipops but she was taken to A&E after only 75 when she began suffering from 'der sperma uberglucken'. What a puff. The record still stands at 187 and is held by Wrinkled Whore of the bus stop, Walbottle, Newcastle upon Tyne.

February

February is the most difficult month to die in so congratulations are due to Gary Moore who succesfully struck the devil's chord on the 6th at the age of 58. You know, Gary Moore - Skid Row, Thin Lizzy, Travelling Wilburys? No? Err, Ferry Aid? Gary Moore, man! Gary Moore, the guitarist - Parisienne Walkways, Corridors of Power? The one with the face that looks like a cauliflower. Yes, him. He died in February in Spain, he saw the the beginnings of the Arab Spring on the telly and thought the muzzers we're going to get him, even though he was a Moore himself. Geography, spelling and onomatology weren't on the curriculum when he was at Fretboard University.

No Moore: Micky Flanagan Snr

March

March saw a bumper crop of notable deaths. Haulage wizard Eddie Stobart deserves a quick mention for making his drivers wear a shirt and tie, he also named each of his rigs like in Thomas the Tank Engine but drew the line at giving them plasticine faces and having Ringo Starr narrate each trip. Ringo wanted too much.

Knut died aged only 4 at Berlin's Museum of Natural History; equally loveable and controversial, he proved that polar bears are ultimately bottlers in the game of life. It's no wonder glacier mints aren't the force they once were.

Nate Dogg was only 41 when his heart failed to regulate. His prediliction for fried egg sandwiches finally caught up with him, Dr Dre warned him he be illin' with that shit. 

Mount up!

In London, Smiley Culture died from a 'self-inflicted stab wound' during a police raid on his house. Internet rumours that he was interrupted whilst making a cheese toastie were never substantiated.

April

John Sullivan's death was significant in that it also heralded the end of Nicholas Lyndhurst's career, surely? Geordie stereotype Neil Tennant once claimed that the Electronic song Getting Away With It was inspired by Rodders' career. There's always a chance of something like Goodnight (Again), Sweetheart I suppose. Fingers crossed eh, 'Dave'?

The Welsh poet Elerydd (William John Gruffydd) also passed in April, he died of shame after suddenly learning of his nationality. His most celebrated work is copied in full below by way of a tribute:

Saucepan Of My Fathers

Leeks and sheep,

A daffodil.

Dragons and cawl,

Rhyll.

May

This was the month sport took a pasting: Whispering Ted Lowe potted the eternal black. Henry Cooper dropped his last H. Seve Ballesteros shanked himself into the celestial rough. Randy Savage became one of the few American wrestlers not found dead in a hotel room, he did go by heart attack though so he still got the traditional WWE funeral ceremony; his cremation was sponsored by Doritos, available exclusively on PPV and featured a run-in from the Gobbledy Gooker.

All of these were outshadowed, however, by the undisputed Own Goal of the Month: Osama bin Laden, the rogue midfield general of the September XI, was finally tackled by a pod of American seals in Abbotabad, Pakistan. After succesfully evading capture for some 10 years he let his guard slip when he bought a rare Lego Jihad Training Camp set on eBay using his own name and address. It wasn't even in mint condition. Schoolboy that Osama son, schoolboy.

Downfall

June

This month features accompanying music by Alan "Mr Fabulous" Rubin and Clarence Clemons in the horn section.

Ryan Dunn ploughed his motor into a tree for the lulz. He always seemed the most likeable of the Jackass lot, well, least hateful anyway. Steve-O snuck into the coffin the night before the funeral, planning on a brilliant "I'm not dead!" stunt, but he slept throughout the ceremony and those in on the jape thought it was funnier to bury him alive rather than interrupt proceedings. 

Happier Times

There's just one more thing about June, Peter Falk - pneumonia.

July

Bad month for the arts this, Cy Twombly (scribbles) and Lucian Freud (dirty bits) carked it for starters. Shares in Pentel dropped to a three year low.

Amy Winehouse fans reacted to the news of her death by instigating the unusual tribute of tab-leaving, it's a better offering than an empty bottle of booze though. Still, she liked her ciggies and drink and it never did her any harm did it?

Don't be soft - have a tab.

And finally (after a quick nod to Carmella's dad from the Sopranos) we remember Wurzel, the former army corporal supported Lemmy's warts on guitar for over ten year whilst boffing Aunt Sally on the sly whenever Motorhead played near Scatterbrook farm. Here he is wearing dungarees and a hard hat with "Die You Bastard" written on it:

Very Metal

That's it for part one, check back later this year to find out what Colonel Gadaffi, Gary Speed and Heavy D have got in common. You'll never guess.

Peter Butterworth

Welcome to paradise.

 

Best known, of course, for his work in the Carry On films (although he also played the role of 'Betting Man' in the infamous 1954 picture The Gay Dog - a film about illegal dog bumming competitions held on the western outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne, see previous post) Peter Butterworth enjoyed no little success and was instantly recognisable by sight, if not name, to millions.

Butterworth usually played mild-mannered eccentrics: chiselling camp site owner Josh Fiddler, the randy Admiral with wandering hands in Carry On Girls, Pepe the hotel manager in Carry On Abroad - "sausage, beans and chippings!". His characters might’ve been a bit mischievous at times but they were never any bother, he had one of those faces that prevented him from playing the real villains, like a wistful conker with a glint in its eye - not completely lived in, but definitely looking like it had kipped on your settee a few times after a night out on the light ales down Ye Olde Racist Pigge.

He married the actress and impressionist Janet Brown in 1947 who later became famous for her impersonations of Margaret Thatcher. There were rumours that Butterworth struggled to come to terms with his wife's success and he infamously commented in one interview "if she's the Iron Lady then she'd better start doing my fucking laundry", Butterworth apologised for this "uncharacteristic outburst" and blamed the bibulous research he’d been doing for the role of the toby jug in the title sequence of Never The ‘Twain, the marriage survived.

Butterworth died of a heart attack in 1979. He was found in his hotel room during a run of Aladdin in Coventry, he had been playing ‘T’Widow Wankey’ – a bawdy, Lancastrian take on the traditional panto role. The remainder of the run was cancelled out of respect and Butterworth was buried in Danehill cemetery, East Sussex. And that was it, his legacy was secured in his film work, the Carry On films became an integral part of the lusty British traditions of innuendo, big tits and comedy sound effects and have continued to be shown ever since their heyday.

Then, in 2009, he surprised everyone by making a comeback ITV’s Britain's Got Talent. It was his biggest part yet - the Hairy Angel, Susan Boyle.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butterworth.

As Susan Boyle, Butterworth captured the hearts of the nation with his ability to hold a tune whilst in character as a batty auld Scotch crone. He might not have managed to crease the poisoned veneer of BGT judge Amanda Holden but his version of I Dreamed A Dream set him on the road to stardom a second time over.

Butterworth (Boyle), or Su-Bo (Bu-Bo) may have lost the Britain’s Got Talent battle - finishing runner-up in the final to dance troupe Diversity, but ultimately won the war. His first album achieved record sales for a debut and earned him £5m in his first year back in the limelight, he has released a further two albums since and now enjoys global fame having appeared on network television in the USA, Japan and Australia – never once breaking out of the “beardy wee wifie wha’s daft in the heed” character. He learned that in rep, the young ‘uns these days wouldn’t have a clue.

See - death isn’t the end after all. Big Dave Cameron was a Beluga whale you know. He kept the looks but lost the perma-grin and swimming ability and now spends a fortune on rouge (“Keep it ruddy, ya?”). So now you know, but sometimes the big answers only lead us to bigger questions: What were you? Who were you? What will you return as next time? Sweet or salted? Open or wrapped? Complicated this life lark, innit?

Galen of Pergamon

Galen, yesterday.

September AD 129 – c. 201"Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity" - Steve McLaren.

Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy, and logic. He wasn't a total square though - he was also the first person to successfully turn on the Bunsen burner gas and blame someone else, his write-up on the subject, 'Who's Boffed?' (AD 132) was his first published work and is still in print today.

Galen's father, the celebrated Pergamon minstrel Alexandra van Galen, died when his son was 19. This left Galen independently wealthy and his first action was to take the 1st Century equivalent of a gap year. This meant travelling widely in order to further his studies, not tooling his way around South America, growing dreadlocks and posting photos on facebook of him and his horse-faced mates up a mountain tagged with comments like 'peasant cocktails = good times' and 'chilling with the locals, laughs actually'.

Feet back on the ground, he settled at the great medical school of Alexandria long enough to learn the various schools of medical thought, making himself unpopular with other students due to his habit of reminding the teacher about homework and tests, like a big swot. Despite his love of studying he only graduated with a 2:2, much to the delight of his classmates, before returning to Pergamon to take the job of physician to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia.

Galen made his name as a practising physician in Rome, having moved there in 162AD after a clash of personalities with John Fashanu. Again Galen found himself to be unpopular, this time among the medical community in the city who were jealous of his abilities as a physician. He was branded 'Gay Len' because of his combined interests in hygiene and anatomy, the smear campaign affected Galen so much he felt obliged to leave Rome, returning only at the behest of Emperor Marcus Aurelius after the breakout of the Antonine Plague which also became known as the Plague of Galen (and later still, the AIDS).

Galen's main interest was in human anatomy and despite the prohibition of human dissection under Roman law he made a major contribution to medicine by using pigs and primates for his research. His interest in the respiratory system started by accident when he was giving an impromptu puppet show using a pig carcass and a pair of bellows and noticed the effect the articifial ventilation had on the passed porker. This is also thought to be the origin of the Pinocchio story.

Galen's understanding of anatomy and medicine were principally influenced by the theory of humorism; advanced by Greek physicians from Hippocrates onwards, the theory held that an imbalance of any of the four fluids or 'humours' in the body would affect the health and temperament of the person. The four humours of Hippocratic medicine were slapstick, stand-up, improv and highlighting something then asking "what's all that about?”. It was this fourth humour - the McIntyre Humour (thought to narrow the eyes and make the head wobble) that attracted the most criticism and eventually led to humorism being discredited in the mid 16th Century by Andreas Vesalius in his book ‘Pull Back and Reveal’, a collection of printed descriptions and illustrations based on human dissections and mother-in-law jokes.

The full importance of Galen’s contribution to medicine was not appreciated until long after his death. His written output was so vast that it continued to reveal secrets for centuries after his death - he wrote on the benefits of colonic irrigation, invented and discredited homeopathy, collaborated (by correspondence) with Leonardo da Vinci on the air ambulance and was working on a prototype of the elastoplast at the time of his death. He wasn't always on the money though, he was less successful with the treatise 'On the benefits of an additional phallus' and his experiments on synthesising blood from a mixture of piss, honey and beetroot juice are best left on the page. Can't win them all can you. Pint of 'blood' anyone?

Beau Brummell

Davva is?

7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840

Educated at Eton and Oriel college Oxford, George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell rose to the rank of Captain in the Tenth Light Dragoons before leaving the army when he was stationed in Manchester, he didn't like the rain and bread and dripping made him feel bilious, the final straw came when was sounded out for a guest appearance on the Coronation St penny opera as Betty Turpin's fancy man, he hated low-drama and wrote to Granada declining the role, saying he "wouldn't put even my cane up her hot pot", the role eventually went to a young Paul Shane, he didn't mind a bit of rise n' shine in the name of entertainment. 

Brummell returned south and set himself up in Mayfair, initially he lived within the means he had inherited from his father who died in 1794, but the lifestyle of his flash mates began to turn his head and he started living in an increasingly extravagant fashion. Soon he was spending all day at Ye Olde Gamblery, betting on cock fights whilst eating larks tongue pasties and drinking fine port from a crystal goblet he had kept for him behind the counter. His evenings were spent with the Prince Regent and the architect John Nash, drinking and womanising. Nash was particularly well endowed and had a scandalous reputation as a cad, 'nashing lasses' was a popular and highly competitive pastime among the group.

Noted for his understated dress and meticulous attention to personal grooming, Brummell established the mode of men wearing fitted, tailored clothes; favouring dark suits and full-length trousers. He bathed daily, fastidiously brushed his teeth and shaved his whiskers. This sense of style soon caught on among his wealthy friends in Mayfair. 

Circumstances changed for Brummell in 1811 when he called the Prince Regent a "lardy get" after he snubbed him at a house party Brummell co-hosted with his fellow Mayfair dandies Cuthbert Kid n' Forbes Play. This was a key event in Brummell's story as he immediately lost favour with Prince George and by extension his social circle. He became something of an outcast and was forced to spend more time in the areas surrounding Mayfair, his reputation and appearance ensured he wasn't ostracised from society completely, however, and he soon attracted a new crowd around him.

His acolytes became known as 'Brummers', they dressed in the same fashion and hung around the same parts of town. This term gradually came to describe the men-about-town who socialised in the same drinking dens, but as the term grew in popularity it gave rise to the mondegreen 'bummers' which attracted a whole different element to Brummel's new patch; Soho has never been the same since, with its pink pavements, salad bars and proliferation of YMCAs.

In 1816, tired of having his signature look aped and being pestered by his debtors, Brummell nicked off to France. Here he completely reinvented himself, not only learning how to pronounce 'onion' properly but also developing his Continental look: a combination of Rockport boots, tracker bots tucked into white socks and stripey jumpers, inventing each item specifically for the ensemble. He also took to smoking with his Gauloises inside his hand, the 'invisible technique' - this was soon adopted by the gentlemen thugs of the time, on hearing this Brummell responded by switching to snuff, a decision that would cost him a fortune in hankies.

Brummell died in France having spent his final years in debtor's prison and an asylum for the insane, his interest in fashion had long since waned and his personal hygiene had gone the same way. The French, man. France.

So, was he the ultimate Dandy? Personally I think that was the one where Desperate Dan got his name after thoroughly irrigating Korky the Cat's colon whilst eating a cow pie off his back? LOL. Brummell did popularise the wearing of ties and trousers, we might still be wearing knee-high britches if it wasn't for him, no wonder there's a statue of him in Jermyn St, think of all that extra tailoring he's responsible for. Then again, fancy wearing a pair of britches to work tomorrow? Didn't think so. Just remember that next time you're complaining about the price of Woo Woos down on Old Compton St.


Status: Dead
Lookalike: Liam McGough (Big Brother 8)
In Three Words: Champagne boot polish

Cutty Sark

Afore

1869 - date

 

Named after a character in the Robert Burns poem Tam o' Shanter, a 'cutty sark' was the short skirt worn by Nannie Dee (who is also depicted in the ship's figurehead). The name was a compromise: having seen the plans and realising what kind of craft they were getting, parents Scott & Linton's original choice of 'Salty Scrubber' was reconsidered in favour of a more oblique reference to dirties so as not to offend the conservative sensibilities of the day. That must've been a proper blueprint, eh lads?

She was built specifically to outsail the clipper Thermopylae, known not only for its speed but also the original mast which was small, withered and useless but retained as a feature of the ship at the insistence of Captain S. J. Joy. Cutty Sark's first captain, John "Jock" "White Hat" Willis (born Throckley, Newcastle upon Tyne) was infamous for his lack of personal hygiene and his 'in the kegs and down the legs - only fakes visit the jakes' philosophy won him few friends among his crews and earned him the nickname 'Captain Arseflea' amongst the men, if not to his face. Such was his reputation that he preferred the soubriquet "White Hat" - even though it was a reference to the poor circulation he suffered in his bell end.

Cutty Sark enjoyed a formidable reputation for speed early in her career and was said to be the fastest ship of her size. Fast and loose. In her years as a tea and wool carrier she experienced the lot - mutiny, murder, diabolical shipmates, cholera, a snapped rudder, a string of tempestuous relationships leading to hull syphilis and at least one aborted life boat. The ongoing repairs she underwent in these years gave her a taste of the benefits of judicious carpentry, this would inform the choices she made in later life that took her into darker waters.

The advent of steamships at the turn of the 20th Century meant Cutty Sark was forced into finding other work to keep herself afloat; she became a boat of the night around the meditteranean and South Africa and even enjoyed brief stint as a reggae toaster in the Caribbean, scoring a hit with "Di 'Ornpipe" recorded under her own name. It was in the West Indies, in 1922, that she met and married Captain Wilfred Dowman, the newlyweds returned to their native England, Cutty Sark took work as a training ship in Kent and supplemented her income endorsing her own brand of whisky. This is how she saw out her active days until eventually weighing anchor for good in a Greenwich dry dock in 1954. 

Dotage can be a difficult stage for some, especially a ship of the world. Always conscious about her looks, the onset of old age and ample time to dwell on it persuaded Cutty Sark to undergo a succession of surgical procedures; Dowman disapproved of cosmetic carpentry and it became an issue that festered and didn't come to a head until 2007 when she announced yet another round of treatment; Dowman snapped, calling her a "wooden wench, a doxy and a 'Trigger's broom'". Cutty Sark ignored his protests and went ahead with the deck tuck as planned, Dowman was furious - he was a natural oak man, the couple separated.

Cutty Sark lurched straight into a brief and disastrous affair with a Captain Ahad, the destructive fling culminated in a disastrous night in with a takeaway which left her with severe burns to her whole body and Ahad, always a mysterious figure, disappearing without trace ("in a cloud of smoke" -  that's what a two-bit hack would say if they were cack-handedly trying to anthropomorphise our naval heritage). Her future now lies in the hands of a team of dedicated professionals who are trying to get the old girl patched up and on parade in time for the Olympics, the public love a traditional old English slag don't they - Lady Godiva, Princess Di, Liz McDonald, your mother. I bet Seb Coe will be there for her grand re-opening, the dirty bastard.

After

Status: Zombie

Lookalike: HMS Peaches Geldof

In Three Words: Baby Got Stern