It is 1987. The world is a strange place. Kylie has just released her first single and Rudolf Hess has died. Are the two events connected? Nobody can say for sure but many of us just know.
Platoon won the Oscar for best picture, Hurricane Charlie has swept through Ireland and the UK causing damage and deaths and Senator Gary Hart has dropped out of the US Presidential race after his affair with Donna Rice, mother of Damien, is exposed.
There are massacres in Hungerford, England and in Melbourne when gunmen go rampaging through the streets, cutting down innocents. There is much talk of why. Were these men insane? Did they hear voices? Could medication and counselling have prevented these disasters? The answer is, no. For years the cover-up has ensured that the real reasons behind it were never known to the public. Now is the time for the exposé. 1987 was the year in which the global cake shortage made the world go crazy.
Such has been the extent of the hush-job that most people don’t even realise that it happened. But I do. As a man who loves a bit of cake it is etched into my brain. You might ask why I haven’t spoken out before but I saw those who tried to speak out and what they did to them. I’m no fool.
Ask the workers of the Gateax factory in Finglas who were required to come to work every day but instead of making delicious swiss rolls and the like they merely sat around doing crosswords, playing chess and discussing the issues of the day, such as ‘Would Ireland qualify for Euro 88′ and Johnny Logan’s success in the Eurovision Song Contest, a source of much pride for the country at that time.
If you went into the supermarkets you could find no apple pies, no battenburg, no tiramasu, no black forest gateaux, no chocolate cake, no pavlova, no Victoria sponges, not even a bit of gur cake. Weddings had no wedding cakes – brides and grooms were convinced by those seeking to continue the cover-up that their guests would prefer jelly and ice-cream instead.
I struggled through that year, I have to tell you. Artisan bakeries were strictly forbidden to produce any kind of cake at all and even eggs were rationed to prevent people from making them at home. Finally I could stand it no longer. I thought about who might be brave enough to make this scandal public. Politicians? No. Spineless cunts the lot of them. Priests? Too busy rimming young boys. TV personalities? What personalities?
The only answer was those who were willing to lend their name to any old thing. Pop stars. This was the era of the charity record. Whenever there was any kind of disaster someone assembled a load of singers and made a record about it. Who can forget Bono, Christy Moore and Dickie Rock’s outraged tune at the resignation of Garret Fitzgerald as leader of Fine Gael – The Return of the thin white Dukes?
So one by one I contacted them and begged them to help make the issue public but this was one they weren’t touching with a 10 foot barge pole. Limahl, Paul Weller, Bros, Jermaine Stewart, the lead singer from Living in a Box, Colonel Abrahams, Atlantic Starr, Johnny Hates Jazz, Climie Fisher, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and even Boy George, smacked out his head as he was, all point blank refused to help. Miserable fuckers. Here we were, the cake eating public who had made them famous, asking for a little help and they refused. All we wanted was some off-key singing to some terrible Midge Ure written song and they were saying no.
I kept at it and at it but every time the answer was negative. I was at my wits end. That was until I found one brave soul. One man who would stand up and be counted. Who would rise above. Who would overcome. A man whose insistence on bringing the world’s attention to the cake shortage would ultimately cost him his career. A man who had been riding high in the charts but who would never again enjoy that kind of success. A man who reworked one of his old hits to fit the cause at hand.
So while today you can enjoy all the sweet desserts you want you should spare a thought for him. Without him you’d be cake free and that is no kind of existence for anybody. It may not have been much but his small effort made those who had caused the shortage to think again and go back to withholding grain from African countries instead.
So today, Fergal Sharkey, I salute you – and how right you were, ‘A good tart these days is hard to find’.
Ah fuck, now I’ve that whiny load of singing-through-his-nose-crap stuck in my head….
You’re a cunt Major.
That’s a fact.
Unquestionably.
For the love of God.
No way. Fergal Sharkey brought out a song call ‘A good heart these days is hard to find’ that very same year.
That has ruined my day you fucker
I hope your computer gets some king of Super AIDS virus
Surely there must be some sort of rules, or even a gentleman’s verbal agreement, on the limits around build-up to punchline ratio?
SG that would be assuming he is a gentleman, I think that would be a huge leap of faith.
Sorry to be a pedantic cunt but wasn’t that song released in 1985
Would somebody take J5 to the corner and explain this to him? Ta.
Unkool – you bang on about cake for ages and then you deliver a punch line about a small open pie with a fruit filling – completely different…..
What’s to get, RN? It’s just a crazy coincidence is all.
You have me thinking of cake I think I might make sponge Lemington’s today emm hmm and eat them all myself.
Sorry to be a pedantic cunt but wasn’t that song released in 1985
Hence the bit about him reworking an old hit.
And Dec – that’s just too pedantic.
J5 – heh, you love them. You know you do.
No J, it’s that… you see, it’s not really, well… em, yeah cool you’re totally right, it’s a crazy coincidence.
Marzipan is the work of perverts.
J5, i think he might have bad hearing, he could have misheard the lyrics of the song.
You should really double-check the details before you put up posts like this Twenty.
It could be a spelling mistake either but I don’t really see what Fergal Sharkey’s song about Good hearts would have to do with a world Cake Shortage in 1987.
Twenty, what the hell is going on?
………..Tumbleweed………
She keeps Moet et Chandon
In a pretty cabinet
‘Let them eat cake’ she says
Just like Marie Antoinette – Freddie Mercury* (1974)
*real name: Freddie Shitstabber
That fucking song caused the heroin epidemic…
Johnny Logan, where is he now ?
Dustin the Turkey fails to get into the Eurovision Finals. This must be a severe blow to the singing pride of the people of Dublin and Saint bob Geldof.
A but the Undertones had many such hits…
‘I’ve got a croissant called Kevin…?’
‘Chocolate teenage chips all through the night…’?
‘Jammy, Jammy oooh Jammy, Jammy…?’
‘It’s Scone to Happen…?’
Marzipan is the Devil’s smegma.
I reckon Dustin failed ‘cos he was a little bit too ‘Dublin’. Next year, we should look a little bit further, say Limerick.
Are ya listening Nailerz?
There’s a lovely wee Fillipino number living about 4 doors down from me.
Great value tart I’m told.
Elvis started the whole trend with ‘In the Gateaux’…before eating it.
Sex Pistols came along with No Bun
Lung, you forgot Teenage Cakes
I think you’ve stumbled upon an opening in the market there Twenty. There simply aren’t enough songs about cakes being written.
Only one that springs to mind is ‘Oliver’s Barn-brack’, by Elvis Costello, and that’s not even a proper cake.
C’mon Phil Collins, Neil Diamond, Radiohead et al. ‘Cake’ – rhymes with ‘Bake’ – It can’t be that fuckin’ hard!
Didn’t oasis jump on the bandwagon with “masterflan”?
cakes are gay
What about Heaven must be missing an Angel Cake, and Donut you forget about Me…
…and Prince sang “I just want your extra time and your swiss”
And David Beckham likes nothing better than licking out the jam and cream from a Victoria sponge sandwich.
Some suggestions;
ARTIST / WHAT THEY SHOULD SING ABOUT
Damian Rice – Depression Cake
Queen – Fairy Cake
Ice T – Teacake
Johnny Logan – Cheesecake
Mick Hucknall – Gingerbread
INXS – Upside-down Cake
Paul Simon went on a very successful diet.
He found there were 50 ways to leave pavlova.
Girls just want to have buns
There’s a depression cake. Jaysus, no wonder it’s not a big seller.
The problem is it makes you depressed, and the timne honoured way to deal with that is to eat cake.
Depression Cake: http://tinyurl.com/6zt7fd
I suppose it’s not really a cake, but then again, Mr. Rice isn’t really an Artist, is he?
Lobo had “me and you and a tiramisu”
Adele – Chasing Donuts
I can’t think of any more. Getting old. Something about Oasis looking back in an gur or something but no, can’t tie it together.
and Blur had “banoffi and TV”
Radiohead – I Sing (Icing)
“Adele – Chasing Donuts”
Not a song title ,its just what she does..
Former Ireland eurovision winners “In your pies” and
“Choc n’ Roll Kids”
sorry ,the fat thing was yesterday…
i’ll get me coat…
The internet needs to go into an incinerator. You’re a pack of utter cunts.
masterflan wins.
Do these things come to you in your dreams Twenty? A disturbed mind…
Word of warning;
Sweetbread – Not a cake!
These puns are all a trifle lame
There was the very real ‘Cut the Cake’ by the Average White Band, not forgetting either ‘Look Wot You Dun-dee’ by Slade, ‘Battenberg out of Hell’ by Motorhead, and the immortal ‘Jaffa loight boy?’ by the Singing Postman.
‘Jaffa loight boy?’
Superb
I love it when the missus gets down on her petits fours, and I give her a good pound cake up the black forest
Only thing is, the cream goes everywhere.
MB, Do you not find the brown derby sometimes?
Christmas and me Birthday only SOS. It’s Out-Of-Bounds the rest of the year.
Christmas Pudding… nice
I’m sorry, I have no cake puns. The sudden memory of Climie Fisher slapped me in the head, beat me up and left me to die in an alleyway where I’ve just woken up with with the bitter, drunken, washed up members of Then Jericho and A Flock Of Seagulls.
Wait! Didn’t Billy Idol sing Pies Without A Glaze that very same year? Why I do eclair Twenty! I think you’ve hit on the seedless jammy underbelly of the 80s!
Tiramisu Nights are the longest…
Dirty Dave made Mississippi mud pie one night.
He used real mud too.
Then for goodness sake don’t eat his spotted dick…
hah, yak.
Or his bum truffles.
Status Quo – Rock cake all over the world
Bay City Rollers – Shang-A-Meringue
Gerry Rafferty – Baker’s treat
Yeah, I know they’re piss-poor. I’m going to shoot meself in a minute.
Luckily I turned down his Chalfonts brulé, last week.
Gerry Rafferty – Baker’s treat
That’s a good one, all the same.
Yeurgh…
Farmer Giles’ famous black cherry pie
Luckily I turned down his Chalfonts brulé, last week.
That was so ganache of you, Major. You ought to be condemned to a life of Gypsy Creaming for that.
Meanwhile Stinking Pete was complaining about an influx of irate French insects in his garden.
“There’s fucking cross ants everywhere”, he moaned.
Feed the little buggers some lemon-merant pie laced with a poisoned doily.
“Marzipan is the work of perverts”
HA! don’t why that’s so funny, just is.
Marzipan is more of building material than anything else. It’s necessary for the construction of icing on a fruit cake I think. Also knows as Almond Icing as far as I don’t know.
My brother and I once poured a load of hundreds and thousands onto the path outside our house and watched in amazement as ants went fucking mental trying to carry them all back to their gaff.
Ants are interesting. Had them in a gaff once. Got them used to having a splodge of jam always in the kitchen. They used to work off it all the time. Changed it to cough syrup one day. A good few of them got wasted but, to be fair to the little buggers, it wasn’t long before they were steering well clear.
Holemaster, did they live in a gaffeau then?
Christ, what am I doing? It’s 6.03am and I’m making banawfulie-pie jokes. I’m going back to bed for a while and when I wake maybe this’ll all have been a Dream Topping.
I hope that has torte you a lesson Twenty…
Please, please, write something new now and end this horror, Twenty.
The hundreds and thousands ant experiment sounds like the inspiration for that ad with the bouncy balls in San Fransisco. Innovators before your time, Holemaster (or did you just do it yesterday?)
will you play anything by Cakin’ Stevens? Its for everyone who knows me.
Oh, fabulous Flannery O’Connor reference, Twenty.
She’s one of my faves.
Jo’s right, please post something new – this is a trifle boring now (fuck)
Right, second use of trifle, it’s OVER, do you hear me!
I would gladly do it again right now outside my office, I don’t care, I am a child. I forgot to mention the bit about petrol from the lawn mower. I feel bad about that, I wouldn’t do that again. Poor ants. I said four thousand Hail Marys for them.
On the plus side, I have learnt (thanks Google) who Flannery O’Connor is, and also that either Medbh has a very subtle sense of humour or has misunderstood this thread completely.
Sorry, didn’t notice any previous trifle reference – I deserve a good kick up the swiss roll.
What do you call a sexy annoyed woman of God?
Hot Cross Nun
What do you call a mental person from near Sallynoggin?
Barm Brack.
Yeah, I know, sorry. I’ll stop now.
Can we have a new topic – Dustin, anyone?
All the usual begrudgers, Frank “Failed-at everything” Mcnamara, Jonny “Big-in-Turkey” Logan, Geraldine “Married-to-an-ugly-rich man” Brannigan, are on the radio giving out about the great Dustin, saying he was an embarrassment to Ireland!
The cheek of them all, considering how Z list and NO list they all are!
Of course, Phil “the Flute” Coulter and Frank Mac thought for years that the Eurovision was their own personal retirement plan, and now they’re all full of sour grapes.
Dustin woz robbed!!
That’s the spirit. Vote No to Lisbon. That’ll teach ‘em.
If a batter burger was a cake what would it be?
Battenberg
You can stop now, HM, there’s a new thread where we don’t have to mention cake.
Which is just as well – what sort of joke is that?
Hurricane Charlie was 86