Grace Under Pressure 2

  And let's kick it off with a appropriately titled little dittie. This is The Waterboys and the toe tapping 'November Tale'  

Furious Brexiteers up and down the land have got a right old hard on at the prospect of the current fishing rights dispute escalating to a full scale war with cross channel rivals France. Rattling his metaphorical sabre with the same level of enthusiasm he managed for NHS workers during the Covid Clap, until it began to class with the new series of The Repair Shop on TV, 62 yr old Pat Riott explained his rapidly rising Gallophobia. "I feel I am channelling (did you see what I did there) the spirit of Henry V just before the battle of Agincourt and have decided to take this fight to the next level by making a unilateral stance in refusing to buy French sticks, eat garlic, drink champagne or even listen to Sasha Distel."  "After leaving the EU with all the grace of a sulky child, its only to be expected that we should now act like a petulant teenager if we dont get all those things we agreed too and a whole lot more that we didn't. And if those bloody Frenchies think t...

So here's hoping that a simple change of brand name will work wonder for the beleagured world of Facebook. Well that must be Mark Zuckerberg's thought, even if his choice of new name, 'Meta'  turns out to be the feminine form of the Hebrew word for death! After all we all remember the magical effect a simple brand name alteration has on Marathon, Opal Fruits and even Jif. Athough to be honest a really good deep clean is something Facebook really needs if the stories of whistelblower Frances Haughan are to be believed This rebranding does of course raise multiple questions. Will life in the Metaverse be just like living in The Matrix? Will it allow people to actually taste the images of lunch people have uploaded? Will it mean that any of my virtual friends will ever actually meet me in person? Will it stop your Mum misusing emojis? Will it stop your Gran from sending very uninspiring inspirational quotes? Will Nick Clegg still be in charge? Will it make Mark Zuckerberg ...

Attendees at the Milton Keynes Halloween Fest were left terror struck on Thursday night when a first timer to the event scared the bejeeeezus out of everyone by turning up to the gathering dressed as Priti Patel.  In previous years it has been the staple fan favourites of Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, a Zombie, the clown Pennywise and masks worn in the film The Purge that have made up most of the home made Halloween costumes seen at the gathering and taken home the prize for the scariest costume. This year there was only one winner. Speaking to Grace Under Pressure, regular attendee, Freddie Crew Gar  explained “Most Halloween costumes that you see here are pretty good.  You know immediately who it is supposed to be but you are always aware that it is just a costume being worn by a person pretending to be a maniac. Whereas with that Priti Patel outfit you were actually more convinced that it was a maniac trying to pretend to be a human. She just walked in and the whol...

Rishi delivers the first challenge With his firmly on the pulse of the zietgeist, £90 sandal wearing chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced that a new Squid Game style tournament is to be created, with the eventual winner actually getting a foot on the property ladder. Assuming they still have any feet left after the increasingly violent games. It is expected that E4PlusOne Extra will secure broadcast rights to the event which is expected to be staged somewhere in the north of England as part of the governments levelling up process. Extended highlights will be shown on its sister channel E4PlusOneExtraExtra and probably be hosted by Bradley Walsh as he's in everything else at the moment. An estimated 50,000 couples are expected to enter the property based event, tentatively titled 'Dislocation, Dislocation, Dislocation' which will have increasingly more deadly rounds involving popular pastimes from childood. These will including Skipping, Hide and Seek,  Tag / It, Hopscotch...

After releasing pictures of his new buffed up body on Instagram a few days ago, macho man Rylan forgets to activate the Photoshop app for his next sexy snap.  

Many people have a change of career during their working life but who would have thought that Harry Maguire would have chosen the 90 minutues of Sunday's match against arch rivals Liverpool to reveal his new vocation as a living statue You've seen them at Covent Garden, outside theatres and even dotted along pedestrianised shopping streets but not even the Match of The Day armchair experts could have predicted that Maguire was going to choose the 'Theatre of Nightmares' rather than the nearby Lowry Theatre for his professional debut. And what a range he had too. One that had the critics from the Liverpool Echo absolutely raving. First came a cross from Trent Alexander Arnold, and Maguire simply didn't move a muscle. Then there was a one two between Salah and Mane and Maguire froze on the spot. A beautifully timed pass over the head of the defence by Jordan Henderson and Maguire stood his ground, a perfect picture of immobility.  Finally bringing the whole performanc...

Even though he has tested positive for Covid and needs to self isolate for 10 days, Ed Sheeran continues to torment music lovers around the globe by threatening to release more new material from the confines of his bedroom. In an Instagram post Ed revealed 'Hey guys. Quick note to tell you that even though I have tested positive for Covid, and am self-isolating and following all government guidelines, through the miracle of technology I am still able to inflict more songs on an already troubled world. Sorry.'   Epidemiologists are still not sure what kind of 'infection' Sheeran has picked up that requires him to release more aural wallpaper even though most people acknowledge its all been downhill since 'The A Team'. Radio 2's go to medic, Dr Sarah Javis, has described this endless stream of Sheeran songs as the greatest threat to the world since the last Kayne West release. BT engineers are hopefull they will be able to lower a Wifi proof dome over ...

  Insider sources at Buck House have revealed that the past few days have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for the Royal Family and especially for the Prince of Wales who is reported to have suffered the contrasting emotions of being worried but also very very excited at the news his dear Mama had been taken into hospital for ‘checks’. This comes hot on the heels of news that sent Charles into a sudden spiral of depression last week when the Queen announced, that following her doctors advice, she was giving up alcohol so that the next 20 years of her reign would be more productive.   Charles who spent the day in very close proximity of the nearest toilet, for fear of putting his TennaLady pads to the test, is reported to have described the level of anticipation as 'like when one watches ones England team's involvmement in a penalty shoot out, hoping against hope one can finally that final step, but seeing ones hopes repeatedly dashed. By a German. One's Mama is lik...

  Twins Matthew and Charlotte Staines were absolutely delighted yesterday to discover that a bidding war had developed on eBay for their younger sister Beatrice. This should not be mistaken for the kind altruistic attempts of Matthew and Charlotte to assisit 6 month old Beatrice in making her first eBay sale but rather the more sinister realisation that Matthew and Charlotte had in fact listed their screaming and shitting sibling for sale on the world best known internet auction site. Speaking to Grace Unde Pressure, Matthew revealed, "the idea of a little sister did seem appealing at first until Mummy actually brought her home from the hospital, after which she promptly forgot that she already had two other adorable children. Suddenly it was Beatrice this and Beatrice that and she only needed to smile, burp or fart to neccesitate another thousand pictures being snapped and loaded onto Facebook. She's even got her own TickTok account for heavens sake." "Then there wa...

 Well this is your Elbow...   You are the only thing, in any room you're ever in     Oh long before you and I were born Others beat these benches with their empty cups To the night and its stars to be here and now and who we are

Despite Boris Johnson announcing plans to turn the UK into the greenest country since well erm Greenland, one 42 yr old  from Hucknall is not ready to install a heat pump just yet. Whilst admitting that these energy alternatives are much better for the environment than the gas guzzlers most of us have at home, having just finished a four year Open University degree course just to understand how to make his gas boiler come on and off just when he wants it too, Barry Batterton intends to make the most of his new qualification. Speaking to Grace Under Pressure's climatically controlled correspondent, Barry explained, "Trying to work out what all the symbols, letters and numbers were supposed to mean was like trying to solve the Davinci Code without the insight of Tom Hanks. The first year was spent trying to stop the heating coming on during the entire summer months. I spent the next 12 months trying to get it to come on at all."  "Year three, well  it was just on 24/7 ...

With the words 'mental health' and 'well being' assuming the top 2 positions in the most used words of 2021, enterprising entrepeneurs up and down the land have proved that getting money right out of Middle England's wallets is easier than stealing candy from a child.   I mean which one of us can, hands on heart, admit that faced with the life changing trauma of not finding any organic kumquat drizzeled in raspberry jui on the shelves in our local Waitose, we have not suffered a mental health collapse of such magnitude that it has resulted in rushing to receive a ground coffee enema or needing to stroke a decidedly uninterested 'stress dog'.  Or perhaps we might have felt the compulsion to invest in a candle that has been somewhere in the vicinity of Gwyneth Paltrow's clacker, listen for hours on end to the sound of whale farts or soak in a homeopathetic solution that has been diluted more than the the governments pre election promises. With health scams...

With 60 cyclists failing to escape the combined aural torment of having to listen to both Ed Sheeran and Coldplay, despite achieving power outputs that would put Olympic cyclists to shame, Prince William's impromptu audition to be the next James Bond has divided critics. Whilst the car and hot bird on his arm ticked several of the required boxes for any 007,  rocking up to his Earthshot thingymajig, in an outfit that might well have received a custodial sentence in the 2021 Fashion Crime awards, did not help William's cause, with even Royal sycophant, Wichalas Nitchell, describing the ensemble as a poor Steve Jobs lockalike. Palace sources suggest that William is desperate to land the role of 007 after becoming really pissed off to discover that Harry and Meghan are being lined up to star as super heroes as part of the ever expanding the Marvel Universe, roles they would be perfect for given that they already live in a fantasy world of their own.  At the time of going to press...

Captured on super speed high definition digital format, this is how I plodded my way at a pedestrian pace around the Thoresby Leaf Kick yesterday  Whereas in my head I was actually doing this for the whole 10 miles...

With yet another free Sunday morning in the diary it was a chance to slip into my lycra leggings once again, this time to run the Thoresby Leaf Kick. Set within the grounds of Thoresby Hall this was a multi distance event with runners and walkers able to chose from 5km, 10km, 10 mile and half marathon distances, some of which you could run / walk whilst being pulled round by your dog. Because of the variety of distances to chose from it inevitably meant that the number of entrants for each run would be limited, so much so that arriving at the start I did begin to wonder if I could actually manage the unique feat of appearing in both the top and bottom 10 within the same race. As it turned out a late flurry of runners ensured I did neither. Under an overcast and misty sky that threatened and occasionally delivered light rain showers, we set off from right in front of Thoresby Hall, heading out onto a relatively flat route that wound its way through the woods, trails, bridal paths and fi...

After only a single play of her new video on Youtube, divorce lawyers up and down the country have been inundated by calls from frustrated women who want out of their relationships if it means they will end up just like Adele. Speaking to Grace Under Pressure's very own relatable relationship reporter , Sharon Biggins explained, "Easy On Me, supposedly details Adele’s anguish and pain at her own divorce, but just look at her. Shit she's lost shed loads of weight, her hair, make up and clothes are fantastic, she's driving a classic car and as for that voice well, what a set of lungs she has."  "I mean she even gets to throw litter from her car like she's got no concerns for the planet at all. I saw a clip of it on Breakfast time and even with Charlie and Naga talking all over it, I just had to call a solicitor immediately and start putting me first and just hope my child understands just why Mummy did what Mummy did one day. Althought I probably won'...

Earlier this week I had my first little jolly out night running with Natalie and Nic, two people I had stumbled across via the local running groups social media pages.  With the days getting shorter and the limited availability to get into my lycra whilst the sun was still shining, having others to run with at night offered a sense of security, companionship and also a chance to explore different route. Because this wasn't just running at night on the lighted streets around Hucknall,  but venturing off through the local woods, forests and golf courses.  And what fun it was, trying not to trip up, dodging low hanging branches, not quite avoiding flooded areas and scaring myself to death as disturbed wildlife and birds suddenly scurried or flew away in the darkness. It was a slower pace than normal, tryIng to illuminate the way with my multiple lights whilst also trying to prevent my glasses from getting steamed up in the light rain that fell. Bu what it did mean was that I...

Are you unable to tell your Ben Wallace from your Stephen Barclay? Do you mix up Michael Gove and Jacob Rees Mogg? Can you tell George Eustace from well anyone else in the Tory party? No, well fear not because just as MP James Grey is allegedly unable to tell one person of South East Asian heritage apart from another, so owner of the Pampered Poppadom take away, Burnya Ring, is struggling to identify any of the one dimensioinal, suit sporting, blue tie wearing, identikit Conservative party MP's from another Speaking to Grace Under Pressure, Burnya Ring remarked "I know they are different people but to be honest don't you think, well you know that 'they' all look and behave the same. And I'm not being offensive or politically stereotyping just because they have all been to private school, support hunting and swindle most of their earnings away in off shore accounts to avoid tax." "I'm sure one or two of these 'tories' are very nice people ...

 I wonder  how often something new can instill a sense of nostaglia and invoke a trip down memory lane? Predicted to be 'the next big thing, The Lathums are the latest musical sensation to emerge from my home town of Wigan. The latest sensation you all cry in utter disbelief suggesting that Wigan has never produced anything sensational, apart from me that is!, Well I assume you have forgotten The Verve, Kym Marsh, Limahl, Rck Astley and last but not least the ukelele maestro George Formby. The Lathums are the next off the production line and have already seen their debut albumn enter the charts at no 1, with their jangly guitar based songs proving infectious. This acapella version of a wonderfully uplifting dittie called 'Just how beautiful life can be'  is made all the more special by the accompanying video, filmed in Wigan Market, a place I would pass through many times whilst growing up. A trip down memory lane that brings back many happy memories of being lucky enough...

  With a shortage of qualified butchers and abatoir staff (do you need a certificate to know how to swing a hammer?) meaning that thousands of pigs are going to be slaughtered (as opposed to just killed for the dinner table) knitters and crocheter's up and down the land are all threatened with the potential prospect of dropping stiches in a moment of porcine panic. Speaking in an exclusive to Grace Under Pressure, Redetta Castoff explained, "Me and the ladies from the Fellowship Guild have been busy making blankets since January last year just to make sure we have every pig covered. Literally in multi coloured wool of various designs. Now we fear that we might have a blanket overload, which will be an utter swine to get rid off." "At first we hoped it was just someone telling porkies, you know trying to spin a yarn, just to give us the needle. Maybe one of our rival gangs, 'Pigs in Clover' or our nemesis group 'Happy as Pigs in S%$t'. But when re real...

With nothing in my diary, a little jolly around Carsington Waters seemed a pleasant way to start a crisp autumn day. So with TOM doing whatever TOM normally does on a Sunday morning I headed off to purposefully plod the path, or part of the path, that circles this man made resevoir. Under the shadow of the six giant wind turbines on the hillside at Brassington, the trail is what one might describe as undulating. There is nothing too steep and at least the constantly changing undulations are interesting unlike the flat section of the route which are how can I put it, well not particularly interesting or inspiring. And although 5 miles could never be classified in running terms as a 'long run' its enough for me inbetween my organised fortnightly jollies that seemed to be puncuating the calendar till the end of the year.  There were not many people out at 8am, a few other runners going the opposite way and a very enthusiastic whippet that acted as a running companion for a short s...

Here is yet another world exclusive Grace Under Pressure offers a handy dandy guide to the Nextflix sensation Squid Game, for those who have not watched it but who want to pretend they have so as to not feel excluded from social media chit chat on MumsNet. Just begin by telling people it’s from Japan or China or Taiwan or somewhere like that. Just try to make references to anything else you have ever seen from south Asia without actually giving the game away that you don't even have Netflix. Cultural references to Gangnam style, Battle Royal, sushi, the 1988 Olympic Games and K Pop boy bands like BTS should keep you on safe ground.  If you are desperate say that it reminds you of a Chinese Hunger Games but  without Jennife Lawrence.  Say it’s all a result of Brexit. Remind people of the Cod Wars of the 1970's, and say that this is a more modern version in which British and French trawler men battle it out to see who can catch the most cephalopods via a series of fiendis...

Current Newcastle manager Steve Bruce says he hopes he doesn't lose his head in all the excitement following the take over at the club by a conglomeragtion from Saudi Arabia. Currently languishing one place off the foot of the Premier League, Newcastle's desperation to rid themselves of the Mike Ashley era has resulted in the revelation that trying to balance human rights and football club ownership isnt always a black and white issue. BBC armchair pundit, Alan Shearer, was quick to dismiss the rumour that new replica kits might cost an arm and a leg but did admit that the team's defence had got away with murder last season. Should the team's fortunes not improve quickly, Mr Bruce can expect to receive a one way train ticket to London to meet with fifteen loyal associates of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Saudi embassy to discuss recent results and to ponder possible options during the transfer window. At the time of going to press Grace Under Pressur...

In a historical, ground breaking, medical breakthrough, a vaccine has finally been developed in order to protect children against malaria. After more than a century of trying, the vaccine, called RTS.S, first developed six years ago, has now been authorised for use by the WHO in the battle against one of the biggest scourges on humanity. Even though malaria is prevelant mainly in sub Sarahan Africa, South East Asia and parts of Central America, where it is responsible the deaths of tens of thousands of children and infacts a year, it is widely expected that distribution of the vaccine will follow the established proper pattern of distribution. This will involve offering a double dose and booster to everyone in the UK, USA and other developing countries, before proceeding to school children. And then if there is any left, hopefully we can manage to ship a couple of crates of it to Africa before its expiry date.  Speaking to Grace Under Pressure, mosquito expert, Professor Ivor Bean ...

Once again just when you thought it couldn't get any worse Boris Johnson has shown everyone just which direction his moral compass is pointing. Faced with the decision whether to remove the £20 Universal Credit uplift for thousands of families who might be forced to choose between staying warn or staying fed, or choose to close the tax loophole that are regularly exploited by fat cat doners to Tory party funds, Boris has shown what levelling up really means. Addressing the fawning and frothing masses, Mr Johnson explained the thinking behind his decision. "Phwah, whiff waff, blah, blah, blah, just because something is morally the right thing to do, it doesn't neccessarily mean that it should morally be done. And sometimes doing the unpopular thing, although very unpopular with loads and loads of people, will be very popular with all your mates and ex school chums." "Post Covid we all have to tighten our belts, and this means difficult decisions must be made. U...

Captured on grainy CCTV images, pictures are just emerging of Chancellor Rishi Sunak banging his head on a wall at the Conservative party conference after discovering that all his sterling attempts (did you see what I did there!) to reboot the flailing British economy could have been abandoned and billions of pounds saved if he has only realised that the best way to suddenly boost creativity, output and productivity across every possible sphere of work was simply to induce a social media outage. After Facebook and its associated tentacles went off line for six hours the other day, after an initial period of confusion and vacant expressions, people working at home and back in the office suddenly decided, that with nothing else better to do, they might as well do some work, resulting in what experts are calling an unprededented frenzy of productivity. The cause of the outage on the inter web, which also affected Instagram and Whatsapp, has been confirmed as “something technical”, t...

Millions of people with nothing interesting going on in their life were left in limbo yesterday, unable to tell people who are not even remotely interested, about the really uninteresting things they have been doing.  Unable to post picture of what they have cooked at or ordered in a cafe, deprived of the chance to express opinions on subjects they know absolutly nothing about, and prevented from posting their latest preening pouts to an uncaring and often scathing public, life has literally not happened for those stranded in the vanity void created by this latest social media outage. Incapable of Facegraming, powerless to InstaWhat and helpless without being able to AppBook any of the incredibly dull details of their empty existances, the outage resulted in an unprecedented number of calls to the emergeny services with people unable to cope without access to a virtual world.  Mental health and well being experts are already predicting that the resutant aftercare required for ...

In a global exclusive, the utter hypocrisy of the M25 climate change protesters can be revealed by Grace Under Pressure this morning via an almost believable expose in which one supposed tree hugger was filmed recklessly inhaling oxygen and exhaling greenhouse gases.   In a secret under cover filming operation, Phewitsot Ere, who recently glued his hand to the M25, was caught by one of Grace Under Pressure's eagle eyed roving reporters publically pumping toxic CO² into the atmosphere, accelerating the very global warming he claims to want to stop. “I recognised his face off the telly after seeing him stopping all the traffic on the M25 as part of the Insulate Britain campaign. Well the traffic that was still moving on the M25 that it," our covert camera clicker revealed. "And with all that huffing and puffing he was discharging CO² like it was going out of stock." “It’s all well and good going on marches, letting off flares, looking like you've not had a wa...

There are many things that might force me to try and run a little bit quicker. Back in days of yore it was the challenge of beating fellow Bramhall Runner Joseph Connor whereas here in Nottingham it is trying to keep up with what are becoming familiar faces at local events and in particular my current nemesis who I shall call 'Elizabeth'.  There is also personal pride and at least trying to come somewhere close to a previous time I have run on the same event. But nothing enourages me to get a wiggle on more that trying to finish a run before the torrential downpour forecast by Tomas Shaffenaker drops on my head.  Welcome to the Curbar Commotion 2021,  an almost 10 mile jolly organised each year in aid of the local Curbar Primary School and which as you can see from the profile below cannot be described as flat   I have run it twice before in 2018/9, slightly quicker on the second attempt, and so knew vaguely what to expect, even though I have tried to erase from my ...

 One of the most familiar and popular songs ever recorded but done in a very different way. Something smooth and sublime for a Saturday morning. This is the fabulous 40 Fingers and their version of...well I am sure you will recognise it.     

Having assured the nation that he has succesfully saved Christmas, Boris johnson has now set his sights on being the saviour of Easter in what many are predicting will be a death defying act. An unamed source inside Downing Street has confirmed that before every major seasonal festival, life in Britain will go absolutly tits up due to one or more completely avoidable crisis that will be made 1000% worse by not following he science, poor communication and a policy of only locking the stable door after the house has bolted. A perfect scenario for  Boris to once again 'save the day for the entire nation. "It's a new tradition that will soon become established in folklore ", explained our mole. "Boris and Jesus are already interchangable in many people's minds. Both are blond, blue eyed, both party loving animals with series of failed relationship that resulted in an unknown number of children. We will simply blame everything that has happened on someone...