The Daily Splash

The Daily Splash travelled back in time to childhood days with family with a trip to Roughside Cottage in Kielder Forest at the weekend. With family and brother’s family in tow they revisted the glories of what was once their holiday home in the wilds of England’s largest man-made forest via a nice drive through Bellingham and Wark.

One thing that is different is the size of the forest which now engulfs the cottage and the hill on which it stands. In 1980 there was a wonderful view across the forest  but now you can see nothing but trees which are towering over the cottage and its garden.

The Daily Splash is still bitter at times when he recalls being dragged away from Manic Miner to stay for a weekend at this ultra-desirable location.

Happily, Roughside still lives up to its name and is still magically unspoilt by such 21st Century developments as electricity and running water and, most scarily, toilets that don’t involve a spade.

Charming.

Jesmond Cricket Club was surprisingly the venue for one of the most exciting events of modern times on 20th June 08—Catherine and Simon’s engagement party. Most of the guests entered into the spirit of recreating renaissance Venice (although, sadly, without any of the orgiastic connotations that that may suggest).

The Bellinis flowed with great abandon and the bar staff served with such skill that it was almost possible to forget the swirling patterns in the carpet for a while and be transported back in time to one of the most sophisticated cities in Europe. The musical entertainment was provided by the Baghdaddies, Balkan-soul-funk- jazz masters who, as usual, were fighting off the groupies (left) between songs. Their music provided the backdrop to some of the most memorable scenes of the evening, when Simon attempted to dance with his mum, who later needed treatment for severe bruising on the feet. The evening reached a climax when Simon and Catherine mounted their trusty cow parade cow and rode off unsteadily into the Jesmond night.

Catherine and Simon were at loggerheads again yesterday when it was discovered that a large number of cow-themed items had mysteriously appeared on the wedding list and been purchased by generous guests. These included a fridge, a full set of cow print bed linen, six Friesian-patterned toasters, a family fun-sized pack of Britain’s Farm Animals and an actual cow.

Simon declared his surprise at the addition of these items, not least because Netto where they have the list does not stock any of them. “We have a pact that the number of cow-themed items will decrease in our house on regular basis, and that no new items will arrive. I was under the impression that I had managed to cure Catherine of her obsession—clearly I was wrong.”

Catherine professed herself as mystified as everyone else. She claimed “since our trip to Brighton to purchase a life-sized mirrorball cow, which now resides in the garden, I have agreed to buy no more cow-related items, I can only assume that the cow memorabilia industry was facing ruin without my patronage and has somehow infiltrated the list.”

Work seemed to be getting easier from now on

Dr Catherine Bertenshaw is pleased to announce she has recently begun a new job – she is now the North East Manager at VETNET, or to give her the full title, VETNET Lifelong Learning Network Regional Manager (North East & Yorkshire), School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

She is very pleased to have the new job although she admits she will miss her special relationship with the famously temperamental photocopier at Houghall College. When asked to comment on what exactly the new job involved she looked slightly shifty and pretended to choke on her cocktail.

“I’m not exactly sure,” she eventually revealed, “but whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than being chased around Houghall by the lawnmower man.”

When asked if she will miss anything else about her old job she pointed out “one thing that is definitely better in real academia is the creative use of coarse language. You haven’t heard swearing until you have sat in a meeting of the AFRD steering group.” Dr Bertenshaw explained that only 12 months earlier she had been hauled before a disciplinary panel at Houghall merely for “gently expressing my opinion on the college’s disastrously run IT system to a junior IT worker.”

Happily the recipient of her impromptu IT lecture has now recovered with the aid of expert counselling and can now hear the word “fuck” without bursting into tears.

Douglas models the 2009 gold lame collection

The fashion world once again flocked to Jesmond, a leafy suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne this week as it was revealed that the next season’s collection of Frank Dandy Superwear pants would be modelled by Simon Douglas.

As can be seen by our exclusive picture the catwalks in Paris and Milan have been missing a trick for years while Simon’s agent was mysteriously untroubled by demands for his talents.

When asked about his Frank Dandy history Simon said “It was on a holiday to Sweden that we first discovered these amazing pants, and I have been wearing them ever since.”

Despite the expense of trips to Sweden Simon has been photographed in no other pants since 2006. Catherine, who had to be restrained during the photoshoot, was drooling too much to be interviewed and was unfit to comment sensibly.

XLR8R in early 90’s glamourous pomp

Fans of nearly-famous 90s heavy metal band XLR8R were in a frenzy today when it was announced that their long-lost classic album, “Hair Today…” had been rediscovered in an attic.

Former bass-god Simon Douglas, now sadly lacking his once-famous tresses, was ecstatic. “This could be what the music world has been waiting for” he said, “we have been putting up with rubbish like Oasis, Keane, Coldplay and Razorlight for long enough – this could represent a long overdue return for heavy metal!”

When contacted for her verdict however, fiancée Catherine declared the masterwork “crap” and claimed she would never have agreed to marry a “greasy long-hair hippy dropout bass-player” if he hadn’t cleaned up his act and got a proper job, and in addition”, she added, needlessly, “all this wailing about nothing and widdly-widdly, Judas Priest-style guitar solos just make me want to tear my own hair out.”

Cathy B the “Topless totty from Teddington” ties all our tongues on her wedding day and gives a sneak preview of the treat in store for lucky new husband Simon tonight. All was not complete however until she got her kit off for the attentions of the Daily Splash snapper.

It’s obvious that there will be many references today to the “fine pair” that Catherine and Simon make but now we have made sure that he is not the only one who knows what a fine pair is hiding under the wedding dress. Lucky lucky boy!

Flower Bertenshaw, former lecturer at Houghall College in Durham, was due to join the space race today. She is pictured below trying on her new NASA-designed space suit prior to leaving from a custom-designed launch-pad in Jesmond Dene. Press photographers and TV crews were on hand to capture the moment this morning when, at just before dawn, Flower appeared, followed by owner Catherine, to set off on the historic journey. Pausing only to sniff some old dog poo, attempt to steal one of the photographers’ sandwiches, dry hump her owner’s leg for three minutes, harass Henrietta the cat, disappear into the bushes to chase a rabbit, thoughtfully alert the neighbours to the presence of the postman and jump into the stagnant waters of the Dene to chase a stick, she donned the suit and was secured into position on the launch platform.

At 4.15am precisely, the launch went ahead as planned , with the rocket’s trajectory calculated to place the capsule containing Flower in a high-Earth orbit, where she was scheduled to carry out several important experiments, including testing the potency of dog fart in space, and trialling an anti-gravity dog hair remover. Sadly for  the Jesmond Space Agency (JESA) the multi-million pound investment was wasted when Flower was discovered later asleep in a pile of dog hair on Simon’s pillow and not, as had been planned, in space.

Great excitement in the Alps

Great excitement has been sweeping the Alpine skiing resorts in recent weeks after the discovery of an amazingly life-like ice statue, thought to be one of the oldest of its kind in existence.

Leading French archaeologist Jean Pastis explained “zees ees sooch an eegziting foond, vee ave neever encoontared sooch an amazing leekness to a reel yooman, even down to zhur ski clozes – vee are bafflood to be honest”.

There was disappointment in store however, when it was revealed that what had been supposed to be an amazingly exciting find actually turned out to have been tourist Liz Bertenshaw from England in the middle of a particularly careful snow-plough turn.

Local art historian and eccentric Joan Douglas today finally acknowledged her eldest and favourite son after appearing to erase his entire existence from history in 2007. The strange conflict with reality occurred when she was displaying pictures from her life in a “box” in an art show examining the way in which we collect artefacts of our lives at the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University.

It was not only the critics that were underwhelmed by the exhibition. Eldest and favourite son Simon pointed out that any reference to him had been erased from the box, while simultaneously contacting the family solicitors to check that the same was not true of her will.

Local Talent scouts remain mystified by this whole article.

Despite the omission Joan has attempted to make good what she claims was an “oversight” through making a generous contribution towards Simon’s forthcoming nuptials.

Attempting to make some sense of the situation, and manfully hiding his sense of abandonment, Simon modestly disclosed today “I can’t really understand the omission to be honest, as a regularly photographed former rock star I would have lent a bit of glamour to the proceedings. It’s widely recognised in artistic circles that not only am I the one with the talent but I’m also the ‘looker’ of the family.”