Don’t laugh, but I bought OK! Magazine a few days ago. For shits and giggles, you understand. I couldn’t bring myself to read (if that’s the word) it until this evening, when I realised I should probably update this thing.

Several things hit me, but the most striking was Kerry Katona’s OK! Diary. Apparently, Kerry Katona is some kind of celebrity mogul. Apparently, to some people, her opinions are worth reading about. I know, I’m shocked too. I quote:

SHUNNED BY THE KITTENS
Atomic Kitten are reforming… It’s mad because I got a phone call from the manager asking if I wanted to be involved. I said yes, but then I never heard anything back so I don’t think they were into the idea.

Funny that. I wonder if she watches Fonejacker… I know I’ll be keeping an eye for a new series, anyway. Another gem:

WHO NEEDS PHONES?!
David Beckham has apparently bought Brooklyn an iPhone, which is totally ridiculous. Why does an eight-year-old boy need one? My girls haven’t got one yet – we’ve said that they can when they’re about 12. I’ve not even got one!

…yes, I’m totally sure that’s through choice. I bet she’d have hundreds couriered to her house on velvet cushions, should she develop the slightest inclination. After all, money is no object if you’re a Beckham or a Katona.

The fact is that getting Kerry Katona to “write” an opinion page about celebrities is about as apt as getting an apricot to write a book called “My Life As A Vegetable”. Mind you, you might suspect a trace of irony in the apricot autobiography. I have to admit, I always thought the Iceland adverts were made by Heron. It’s like employing Michael Jackson to advertise Baby Gap.

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to us.

Ye verily, adoring followers, Teasmade Revenge is one year old today(-ish), Wednesday 16th January 2008. Yes, one whole year old. Kudos for us. I mean, I never thought I’d see it past five months, but now there are two of me. Wow. Hurrah. Etcetera.

So what are we doing to celebrate? Well, there’s a brand new archive. Oh, and this:

Ten Things You Never Knew About Teasmade Revenge

1. TR is best viewed in Mozilla Firefox – or from the centre of the earth. Remember to take your swimmers – the lava’s beautiful this time of year, really good for splashing around in.

2. Minnie and Grim both have part-ownership of a dog that looks curiously like a badger, sounds like a badger, and who loves nothing better than rolling in the fetid, rotting remains of a not-too-recently-deceased badger. Funnily enough, her name is Badger.

3. TR very nearly caught a deadly computer virus once, but it was fought off bravely with some Tixylix and a bread knife. This fact was brought to you by Tixylix, the cough syrup that cares.

4. Chuck Norris tried to open up a can of whoop-ass on us once, and failed miserably. This anecdote is usually left out of those Chuck Norris “Yo’ Momma”-style chain emails.

5. We here at Teasmade Revenge can categorically state that we did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

6. GrimSqueaker likes Fair Trade bagged tea, whereas Minnie prefers a luke-warm loose-leaf Earl Grey. Both take milk, no sugar, and prefer their revenge served steaming hot, thank you very much.

7. TR is very much like a squirrel, in that both contain traces of nuts. However, at least it’s gluten-free, which is more than you can say for a squirrel. Glutinous little bastards.

8. Very few animals were harmed in the making of this website.

9. The reason that TR hates Russell Brand so much is that he shot Minnie’s grandmother, raped her little brother and went on a killing spree round her local branch of Dorothy Perkins. Unfortunately, the video footage of this atrocious carnage was eaten by Badger, after a particularly good rotten-badger-fest, and nobody could stop vomiting for long enough to stop her.

10. If you have been in any way affected by the issues aired on this website, the best way to deal with it is to go and buy yourself a clue. If you’re at all religious, you might like to take a good hard look at that as well.

Thanks to Beerbottle for his invaluable assistance in fetching these amazing truths from the depths of TR’s dirty little nappy-heap. Hope you manage to get the blood and faeces off your hands without having to resort to anything heavy-duty.

After a recent conversation with a high-ranking official in my capacity as web monkey (Me: “Hi – I’m Interactive.” Him: “Hello! Nice to meet you. I’m xx xxxx.” Me: “Yes, I know.”) I have begun to realise to what extent society is losing its hold on the social mores of yesteryear. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve been reading Debrett’s Etiquette for Girls.

With this in mind, I’d like to list a few of the modern niceties we appear to have adopted – and their true meanings.

“Excuse me one moment – my mobile’s ringing…
…appropriately, my ring tone is Iron Maiden’s Run To The Hills.”

“Dear Sirs, I write to apply for any runner positions you have open. I enclose my CV with a list of relevant experience.”
I hope you enjoy the knowledge that I have a BA, MA and a PHD when you get me to go and buy fags for you at a bargain rate of £0.23 per hour, you complete and utter bastards.

“Thank you for your application for the position of Runner. Unfortunately…
…we have given the job to the Managing Director’s feckless halfwit son.”

“Oh no, I can’t – I’m on a diet.”
I’m not on a diet. I just don’t like eating in front of you, in case you judge me.

(Man opens a door for you, a woman) “Why thank you”
Sexist pig.

(Man fails to open a door for you, a woman)
Arsehole.

“London Lite / Metro!”
Take a paper. Take half a dozen. I have mouths to feed, and they pay me in nuts and used sellotape.

“Excuse me Miss, can I check your train ticket?”
If you’re white: I want to stare down your top
If you’re black: I think you’re a terrorist

If you’ve spotted any more gems lurking amongst your daily grind of Ps and Qs, email me at minnie.bygott@teasmaderevenge.com.

What’s going to happen in the next year, you wonder? We here at TR are quite quite certain that it’s all going straight down the bogs, and I intend to prove it. This time next year, you’ll be thanking me for my tremendous insight, as I unleash the first ever…

Teasmade Revenge New Year Predictions

• In January, the Carphone Warehouse advert comes tragically true as mobile phones across the country become more intelligent than their masters, growing legs and revolting against oppressive txtspk.
• February sees world leaders coming out of the closet in their dozens, with relationships between America and China improving dramatically, and a man suspiciously like Gordon Brown seen surfing Soho in leather chaps.
• On the 7th of March, someone types “Google” into Google and the internet implodes. Later on in the month, it is finally scientifically proven that Red Bull really does give you wings, after two dozen lab rats make a daring escape with a scientist’s half-eaten Mars bar. It is never found, despite lengthy forensic testing.
• In the style of many recent boy- and girl-band reunions, April sees the long-awaited Nazi Party Reunion Tour. However, limited popularity means that the tour ends prematurely on the west coast of France.
• Aliens make their first appearance on Earth in May – however, they land in Mablethorpe (aka Area 52), and nobody notices. Also in May: someone finds Maddy, but it turns out just to be a duck covered in tin foil.
• June will be the first month to get its own planet, after an attempt to build the world’s biggest fondue set goes horribly wrong.
• The hottest July on record means that base metals melt instantly, diamonds crack, the ground is enveloped in flames and – most irritatingly of all – chewing gum starts sticking to everyone’s trainers.
• In August, Pakistan finally holds a general election, to loud accusations of vote fixing. However, George Bush Jnr. says in an official statement that he’s just pleased that Daddy is having an active retirement.
• Nothing happens in September. Well, it does, but we’re all brainwashed like in Men in Black and all we remember is something about wallpaper and badgers. Let’s not ask too many questions, okay?
• Acid rain continues to destroy rainforests in October, after over-zealous new-age tree-hugging campaigners forget to leave their LSD at home.
• It’s my mother’s birthday in November, and as a present I get her name engraved on the surface of the Moon. However, the jeweller accidentally does it on the wrong side, so I never manage to prove it.
• December is such a mad month for Christmas shopping that high streets across the country begin to bulge at the seams, with small explosions in Newcastle and Birmingham, and literal carnage on London’s Oxford Street. Many shoppers are forced to eat their way out of Selfridges.