MATHEW ST LATEST: JASE PHONES COVERUP TO RETURN AND BOOK HIS PLACE FOR MTV....BUT COVER UP SAYS NO!

THE chattering classes report an unusual telephone conversation between the Harbarrowboy - safely exiled in Spain - and Colin CoverUp, unsecurely tied to his desk in the Municipal Buildings in downtown Dale Street.

Apparently the conversation went something like this...

Jase: Eh up Col, how's it going, ba gum?

Col: Jase, why are you ringing me?

Jase: I want t'come back ont' Wednesday so that I can go t' MTV awards in Munich on't Thursday. Dago doc says ma ticker is tickety boo, although appen I've got touch of skin cancer now. But that there MTV show is going to be a crackin gig, tha knows, there's loads of champagne and them there dancing girls and 'ollywood celebs we can run shoulders with and.....

Col: I don't think that would be 'appropriate'.

Jase: Why not mucker? It was ma bloomin' idea to bring MTV t'pool int' first place and ah'm not missing this fookin trip, for love nor money. Snoop Dogg is on!

Col: Who?

Jase: Snoop Dog! Ya know, fo' shizzle, ma nizzle!

(long, long pause)

Jase: Hello, Col! Are you still there, matey? Summat up?

Col: Yes, Jason.

Jase: So is tha' alright with you then mucker, if i come back in on't Wednesday? I'll do a bit of paperwork first for an hour or so, go and 'ave me lunch and then fook off to Berlin? There's a lot of work to do to get ready for 2008, tha knows. Peoples to see, places to go.... Matey.

Col: No Jase, I am afraid that would not be a sensible move. You know, the Leader of the Council's view about all this. And anyway, he is very busy now, doing all that extra homework with all the various reports he has been given.

Jase: Well bah the Christ, if thou is not for letting me back to work on the morrer, I shall ave to sling me hook and take three more weeks off on't sick! So there! And evil rottweiller McElhinney can do his worst! He can hire all t'taxis he wants to scuttle around to my gaff ont' wirral handing out notices demanding that ah'm to report for medical exam! But I won't be there, see! Ha, ha! Ah'll be at th'acienda! Eatin' lolly ice!

(Jase hangs up phone)

Col: Jason? Jason?

(to be continued....)

THE COMEBACK KID - DUE BACK ON WEDNESDAY.

THE Harbarrowboy is due to return to the Fun Palace this Wednesday.

That's according to his ceremonial stand-in, Donald Bullshitter, who has been going around "reassuring" everyone that good old Jase will be 'back soon'.

That's not the word amongst councillors or the ruling Lib Dem Exec Board who have been told that Jase will never darken their door again.

What worries us is, (if Jase does by some miracle return), where is he going to lay his sun-tanned torso?

Now that he has sold his detached house on the Wirral, will he move temporarily into one of the other two houses on Merseyside which he has has put up for sale?

Will he be looking for a B&B in Anfield?

Or will he be bedding down for the night in his office at the Fun Palace?

That can't be good for his health with a heart condition.

If you would like to offer Jase a bed for the night, give him a ring at his office on Wednesday morning. Tel: 0151 233 4447

Then you can also make sure he has turned up for work on time.

Of course, if Jase isn't able to answer the phone, you might conclude that Donald Bullshitter has been bullshitting again.

FOR SALE: JASON'S £499,950 HOUSE ON THE WIRRAL

West Road, Noctorum, Wirral

We are delighted to offer for sale this superb DETACHED EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE situated in a popular area of Wirral only a brief distance to local facilities and schooling, enjoying the benefit of gas central heating and double glazing. The accommodation briefly comprises: Spacious Entrance Hall, Ground Floor WC, Large Lounge, Dining/Sitting Room, opening out into a large Conservatory, Snug/Study, Spacious Breakfast Kitchen with integrated appliances, Utility Room and to first floor there is a Landing, Four Bedrooms, the master affording an En-Suite Shower Room plus well appointed replacement four piece Family Bathroom. Externally there is an audio/visual intercom system and electric gates, long driveway extending to ample off road parking and turning space, larger than average garage with remote control door, principal lawned gardens to side plus raised timber decking feature.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT:Karl Tatler , Heswall

(re-assuring that all the money in the world can't buy taste, though, isn't it? eds)

Alternative descriptions of Jason's house are invited....

WHAT'S NEXT FOR JASE, AFTER CREAMING IT FROM LIVERPOOL'S CAPITAL OF CULTURE?

THIS is going to be hard to swallow...

But we can exclusively reveal that the Harbarrowboy is buying a Spanish ice cream factory while on his sickie!

Seems Jase has finally decided he has taken enough of a licking at the Culture Company.

So the Harbarrowboy has instead opted to (banana) split from Liverpool.

He didn't want to be gradually frozen out by the fireman Bradley (surely not? eds).

According to usually reliable sources (shouldn't that be sauces? eds), Jase has slowly begun to melt away from Merseyside.

(That's enough! eds)

He has already sold one of his homes - a large detached, according to the Daily Post - on the Wirral.

But the Harbarrowboy has two other properties on Merseyside which he intends to sell to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile Jase has been slowly recuperating from his obviously extremely serious and grave heart condition while at his sprawling hacienda on the Costa del Crime.

He has been relaxing (see our exclusive photo, right, eds) by regularly logging on to the Liverpool subCulture web site to catch up on Culture in the city.

But he has also found some time to extend his already bulging property portfolio in readiness for when his departure from the Culture Comedians is officially announced.

Jase has identified a local ice cream manufacturer as a sound business proposition.

(He's the next Alan Sugar, this fella Harbottle - after all, there's blazing hot sun all the year round, so the locals are bound to want two or three icies every day. Result - he's a multi-millionaire in no time at all! Brilliant! eds)

In order to buy the factory, Jase has had to scrimp and save to stump up enough cash from his lifetime of struggling at the coal face at the Culture Company's Millennium House Fun Palace (that's enough sick jokes, eds)

Any suggestion that the poor Harbarrowboy has been creaming off council tax payers money would be totally wrong. That possibility is wafer-thin.

As is the disgraceful claim that he has gotten fat on all that Liverpool lolly and is now splashing out in the Spanish sunshine.

Or that Jase has been sprinkling hundreds and thousands on to his new bizarre new enterprise.

(Right, that's it! eds)

All together now, "Just one cornetto..."

HAS JASE ALREADY DONE A RUNNER, EVEN WITH HIS DODGY TICKER?

FEVERISH speculation concerning the whereabouts and intentions of Culture Company barrow boy Jason Harbarrowboy.

Jase's up-for-sale house on the Wirral is now boasting a 'Sold' sign and he has finally been granted Spanish dual nationality.

His wife and daughter have already fled to the Costa del Crime and Jase is reported to have joined them while on sick leave with a dodgy ticker.

One attractive theory has it that Jase will now go on the sick for six months, while sheltering in the shade of his hacienda.

Then he will persuade some pliable cardiac consultant to testify that his heart condition is stress-related - thus allowing Jason to quietly and reluctantly hang up his gold jewellery with a huge pay-off from the city council.

And the sympathy of the entire city and no stain on his reputation (shurely shome mistake? eds)

Then he can settle back into his hammock, top up his perma-tan and sip pina coladas until Kingdom Come - thanks to the generosity of the people of Liverpool.

"Difficult job very well done, invaluable contribution, Culture now moved into delivery phase, Redmond in charge, terribly sad, ill-health prevented Jason playing active role, nothing to do with Mathew Street mess, wish him well, sorry to see him go, hope he gets better soon, huge pay-off will help cushion the blow," goes Colin Cover Up's prepared script.

All of which neatly prevents the Harbarrowboy having to take any of the responsibility for cocking up Culture and wasting the city's best opportunity for a generation.

It is also alleged that the rottweiller McElhinney, (ooooooooh, that evil bastard is back on the scene, is he? eds) who is in charge of the city council's inHuman Relations Dept, has promised not to pursue Jase's sickness claim, or to insist on forcing him to take regular medical examinations back in Blighty, or to stake out his casa with private dicks seeking evidence of him partying late into the Spanish sunset with Cockney ne'er do wells and unidentified blondes.

No surprise really - after all, this lot are all members of the cabal, piss in the same pot and will look after each other, won't they?

On the other hand, Jase could be back in charge of Culture next week. (Gawdhelpus, eds)

Then again, he has probably already been given his ticket to ride.

Two tickets to one of the cultural highlights of 2008 for the best picture caption!

JASE IS OFF SICK - GET WELL SOON!

OUR great friend Jason, the Harbarrowboy, Harbrow is currently off work from the £114million Culture Company through sickness.

For the last four months, Jase has been trying to keep secret a heart problem - which accounts for his latest absence from the Fun Palace.

His heart condition (he hasn't got one, eds) would of course give him a convenient excuse to reluctantly leave the Culture Company stage, without a stain on his fantastic public reputation. (do you think? eds)

So that makes the next move a bit more interesting for his employers, the city council, doesn't it?

Perhaps fireman Bradley will finally have his demand for Jase's head come true? Completely fortuitously, of course.

Meanwhile KenUnworthy is taking some time to find some expert legal opinion on the city council's Mathew Street debacle report (as we predicted, eds), so they are now planning to leak it next week.

MATHEW STREET DEBACLE SHOCK - NO ONE TO BLAME, BUT SCAPEGOAT FORDE

Stand by for some classic council skulduggery this week as the report on the Mathew St debacle is published.

The internal report will stand reality on its head by clearing both the Harbarrowboy and Cover Up of any blame or responsibility for the worst public relations disaster since Storey appointed Henshaw as chief exec.

Neither of course will be held to blame for cancelling Europe's biggest street music festival.

We hear that the finger will instead be pointed at Events chief Lee Forde who resigned from the £114million Culture Company in protest at Harbarrow's incompetence and the risk to public safety posed by cut-backs.

All the signs are that Forde will be made the convenient scapegoat for Harbarrow and Cover Up's incompetence and lack of judgement.

Of course it's easy for this pair of overpaid incompetents to take a pot shot at Forde now that he has left the council.

He has already vowed to take them to an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal - so he will be fair game for whatever dirty little tactics the council can dream up to try and escape blame.

Expect all kinds of ridiculous allegations, carefully and selectively leaked to the gullible local media by the little Harbarrowboy and his grinning accomplice, the Smiling Assassin, Hasitall.

They will do anything to try and blacken Forde's name so they can appear whiter than white.

The council's report, which is due to be published by the end of the week, was today handed to "acting" City Solicitor, Michael KenUnworthy, aka the bald legal eagle.

'Cover Up' has decided to wait for expert legal opinion on the report's contents before he gives the order for it to be selectively leaked first to the Echo (then the DPost and then Radio Merseyside, trailing behind in a poor third place).

So he will be a long time waiting for expert legal opinion from KenUnworthy.