Soft-soaping

Blowfly-minded
Retardate worm
Clown of the House

Idle vapourings of a mind diseased
I would cut the honourable gentleman’s
throat if I had the chance

His brains could revolve inside a peanut shell
for a thousand years without touching the sides
Kind of animal that gnaws holes

Member not fit to lick
the shoes of the Prime Minister
Energy of a tired snail returning
home from a funeral

Shut up yourself, you great ape
Snotty-nosed little boy
You are a cheap little twerp
Ridiculous mouse

Could go down the Mount Eden sewer and come up
cleaner than he went in
Dreamed the bill up in the bath
Frustrated warlord



Phrases deemed 'unparliamentary language' and banned from New Zealand parliamentary debates, as listed on Futility Closet, 30th October 2013. Submitted by Marika.

I hope...

I hope you always get your squash to water ratio wrong;
the new carpet in your office means that you constantly get static shocks;
you approach someone in the street and you both move to the same side
and the top comes off your salt pot and you get too much on your chips -
not loads, just too much for them to be nice.

I hope you’re offered a Revel and get the coffee one;
the next delivery you’re to receive between 8am-6pm arrives at 5.59;
in the middle of the night you need a wee, and in the dark end up standing on a lego brick
and you make toast one day, really looking forward to toast and jam,
and don’t have any jam.

I hope you accidentally get given a foreign coin in your change;
you discover the milk is off only once you’ve added it to your tea;
you can’t play your favourite pentatonic song because you’ve removed the black keys
and you ask for The Wicker Man on dvd for your birthday
and get the Nicolas Cage remake.

I hope your tattoo artist can’t spell Britain.



Selected from tweets with the hashtag #Edlmisfortunes. Semicolons have been added to the first two lines of each stanza; 'and' has been added to the beginning of line 4. Submitted by Angi Holden.

Of godly life and sound learning

Totter legged and pilled priest; stinking
knave priest; scurvy, stinking, shitten boy;
Polled, scurvy, forward, wrangling priest;
Runagately rogue; prick-eared rogue;
Drunken-faced knave; copper-nose priest;
Wrangler and prattler; Scottish jack;
Jack sauce and Welsh rogue; black-coat knave.



Insults suffered by members of the clergy in 16th and 17th century Britain, taken from a review of The Plain Man’s Pathways to Heaven: Kinds of Christianity in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640 by Christopher Haigh. Submitted by Marika Rose.