Let’s start the new year with a long overdue editorial. Although, I have to say that right now I feel too exhausted to rant effectively – my return to work after the blissful freedom offered by the Christmas break seems to have been more traumatic than ever this year. Despite my tiredness, I was still able to note the publication of the New Year’s Honours List and I couldn’t help but notice that, once again, my name wasn’t on it. I ask you, what do I have to do get even a measly British Empire Medal? Apart from making a whacking great contribution to Tory party funds, obviously. Simply in terms of services to sleaze, I’ve surely gone above and beyond over the fifteen plus years this site has been online. I mean, come on, f you can get a knighthood for ‘masterminding’ a Tory election victory, then surely writing stories about demoniacally possessed toilets, George Osborne finding a dead prostitute in his hotel room and David Cameron’s secret past as a porn star (to name but a few) should earn me at lease an MBE? Damn it, Barbara Windsor has been made a dame for services to bingo and being groped by Sid James in 1969, (her noble sacrifice of throwing her breasts in the path of his wandering hands saved countless young women from being felt up).

But would I really want to be on that honours list? Well, there’s a part of me which would like to be offered something like that just so that I could tell the establishment to ‘fuck off’ by turning it down. Except, of course, that nobody ever gets the chance to do that publicly as, apparently, you get sounded out before the list is ever made public – honours are only announced for those they know will accept them. So you’d have to play your cards very close to your chest. Unlike me. I did the same thing when I was in the Sixth Form at school – I was once sounded out as to whether I wanted to be a prefect. Foolishly, I said yes, but only so that I could tell the Headmaster ‘no’ and denounce the fascistic prefect system to his face, (traditionally, those to become prefects would be called to the Headmaster’s office to be officially ‘made up’ and given their tin badges). Needless to say, having misplayed my hand, I was never called. Getting back to the point, the answer is, obviously, that I have no desire to be part of this archaic system of awards which is so out of touch with reality that it persists in using the term ‘Empire’ in the titles of the honours themselves, despite the fact that the sun set on the British Empire decades ago. Really, many of us would really rather not have the UK’s imperialist past celebrated in this way. (To his credit, Prince Philip did try to have the offending term removed back in the sixties, but was defeated by the forces of the establishment).

Don’t get me wrong, I actually have nothing against the concept of people who have made outstanding contributions to their discipline or community having their achievements recognised through a national awards system. It is just the current system which I have a problem with. For one thing, it is far too political, with too many awards being made for political services to the ruling party, which is hardly surprising since the awards system lies within the gift of the government of the day, Ideally, the awards system should be entirely independent of party politics and be based upon merit, rather than patronage. Sure, parties should be able to nominate candidates, but the process of deciding who actually gets the awards should be left to an independent body. Let’s face it, they couldn’t do any worse than the current system when it comes to selecting worthy recipients for honours.

Just look at some of the past recipients: Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, Stuart Hall OBE, Rolf Harris OBE, for instance. Even Leon ‘He wasn’t a sex offender – honest’ Brittan had a life peerage. Would you really want to be in the company of that lot? You have to ask what the OBE actually stood for in their cases – ‘The Order of Buggering Enthusiastically?’ Or maybe the ‘Order of Buggerers Extraordinary’? Which, presumably would make a CBE ‘Commander of the Buggerers Extraordinary’ and the MBE ‘Member of the Buggerers Extraordinary’. Perhaps there’s a parallel system of honours of this kind for the establishment paedophiles the conspiracy theorists claim exists – to the rest of the world their awards look just like the normal ones, but in reality they are part of an induction into the upper echelons of state buggery. (Speaking of the conspiracy crackpots, I’ve had to stop looking at their sites as it was doing my head in. Reading one in particular was like being inside the head of someone as they finally descended into total madness, completely losing touch with reality – according to them nothing is real. Every news story is faked – Shoreham air crash, Glasgow bin lorry tragedy, even the recent terror attack in Paris. All of these ‘events’ were staged by ‘them’. For what purpose is unclear).

But to get back to the point, as I’m not likely to get any honours any time soon through our present discredited system – and frankly wouldn’t want to keep company with some of recipients – maybe I should set up my own system. It isn’t as if I don’t have form for that sort of thing: when there were those spurious online satire awards which I refused to dignify with my participation, I set up my own ‘Sleazy Satire Awards’ – The Sleaze won every category. So, perhaps it is time to set up a ‘Sleazy Honours’ system – recipients could become part of the ‘Order of Sleaze’. Unlike the official system, we’d be quite open about the fact that sleaziness is a criteria for receiving an award. No hypocrisy in the ‘Order of Sleaze’. Moreover, we’re also perfectly open about the fact that brown envelopes bulging with high denomination bank notes are also a perfectly legitimate criteria for nomination for an honour under our system. So, next honours list time, if your name isn’t on the official list, consider dropping us a line – and a wad of cash – and you could become part of the ‘Order of Sleaze’. Until then, keep it sleazy.

Doc Sleaze