Ask and ye shall receive....

......a slap in the head for bothering me.

It's time to update those old chestnuts that tend to get automatically wheeled out whenever we're faced with an annoying problem. They serve no purpose other than to make the listener feel even more frustrated about their situation and tempted to give the utterer of the saying a quick, stinging flick on the nose.

Here's some of my own interpretations for your consideration.

Too many cooks
.....have websites, magazine columns, TV shows and tie-in cook books. Turn the camera off and get back into the kitchen where you belong and cook me a meal that I can a) afford, b) actually want to eat, and c) is not made using only the finest Valhrona chocolate, Andeluvian goat lips or some other stupid ingredient I have to hire a sherpa to find and a bank manager to cough up the money for.

A Rolling Stone gathers
.....far too much money for strutting around on stage like a geriatric piece of beef jerky when he really should shut up singing, stop shagging models young enough to be his children and retire. Quietly.

A bird in the hand is worth more than
.....a poo splattered on top of your head after tweety flaps off into the sky

Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do
....to amuse yourself on long haul economy-class flights and in doctors' waiting rooms. Preferably with nothing to hand but a 1981 Readers Digest, a Tickle-me-Elmo with both eyes missing and a cheese sandwich stuck under the coffee table.

Give a man a fish and he'll feed for a day. Give a man a
......remote control and you won't hear from him for hours.

A problem shared is a problem
..... hand-balled on to some other poor sod.

England expects that every man should do his duty
......but hopefully not in his pants.

We shall fight them on the land, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall
.......put those pesky refugees into a 'processing internment facility' on Christmas island to rot longer than David Hicks, unfortunately.

'Tis better to have loved and lost
....than to still be a dateless virgin at 43 who believes that Michael Jackson is a well-adjusted, single bloke still looking for a mature, heterosexual life partner or that Pete Doherty just needs a nice hot bath.

All that glistens is not .....a boogie on your shoulder, is it?

I think therefore I...... will be praying fervently that John Howard doesn't get voted in again by the hordes of mental pygmies out there who actually believed that he influenced interest rate increases and George Bush could remember what his name was.

You had me at Hello..... so this time can we at least sit down and find out each other's names first?

I am not an animal!.....I just look and act like one (Tommy Lee)

Frankly my dear, I don't give ...... a fat rat's clacker to charities who phone me up just as I'm mid-way through dishing out the evening meal, putting my child in the bath or just about to water the garden/hang out a load of washing/read the mail/have a long session in the loo.

To err is human. To forgive is... pretty bloody silly in this age of litigation and payouts.