The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

The Secret

He awoke in silence and darkness, listened and strained his eyes. He heard nothing and saw only the darkness. Then there were whispers.
"He has heard," said the first whisper.
"He has seen," whispered another.
He knew they were silently approaching, their hands closing invisibly on his ears and eyes. "I heard nothing," he cried, in hope of mercy.
"But what did you see?" asked the second whisper.
"Only the darkness," he said.
"Then you know," whispered the first; and he awoke in silence and darkness and was never heard, never seen again.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Doing Even More of Even More

Having been forced by legal action to publich its national cleanup plan (those with nothing to hide have no reason to feel accountable to the proles), the Government has retaliated after its usual fashion. The Conservative manifesto included a pledge to "continue to do even more to tackle air pollution", which makes nearly as much sense as Michael Gove's concept of averages; and of course, under the present religious orthodoxy the spending of public money on anything except Trident and tax cuts counts as doing worse than nothing. By a benign coincidence, the Government's new, dynamic initiative means that blame for the country's illegal levels of air pollution will henceforth fall upon local councils, which have been opportunified to clean up their act with a fifty per cent cut in air quality grants.

Friday, January 29, 2016

His Ways Are Not Our Ways

A Commons select committee has blasphemously imperilled its reservation in the Empyrean by seeking to know the mind of God through questioning of His servant, the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair. Being democratically accountable to nobody but the beliefs in which he believes, his reverence has refused to be questioned in public over his dealings with Colonel Gaddafi; and the Northern Ireland committee is Satanically determined to discredit the miracle whereby the terrorist-sponsoring mad dog was transformed into the Mandela of the Mahgreb by Tony's healing touch. Specifically, the committee seeks the forbidden knowledge of how far, if at all, Gaddafi was pressed for compensation over his régime's involvement in supplying the Provisional IRA with weapons. Given that the Reverend Blair's régime supplied weapons to all sorts of undesirables and was also rather intimately involved in the birth of Islamic State, it's easy to see that certain ethical and theological paradoxes may be apparent to those less spiritually accomplished than the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Running Backwards to Stand Still

One of the surest ways to be listened to in government, of course, is to advise the government to do exactly what it intended doing all along, or else - should the government happen to be composed of blustering schoolboys, jabbering cretins and self-pitying thugs who might fail to grasp the subtleties of that approach - to advise the government to do more of whatever it is doing already. Evidently such is the reasoning of the Committee on Climate Change, which has advised the Clegg-pledging token filly at the Department for Exacerbating Climate Change that the UK's carbon budget is the only non-corporate budget in the country that won't need tightening. New policies will be needed to meet the target of a 57% cut in emissions over the next sixteen years, and of course the Bullingdon Club and its henchbeings have made a jolly start with all the green crap they've ditched. Should the token filly's future climate policy be patterned after the Osbornomic miracle, it can only be a matter of time before climate change is solved by blaming it on the wogs and scroungers who are weighing the country down and causing hard-working British families to sink into the sea.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

If That Was a Man

In between rounding up nonagenarian camp guards and temporary radio operators, the Righteous State has marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by publishing a handwritten plea from Adolf Eichmann against his death sentence. Eichmann claimed that the prosecution had overstated his role in organising the Holocaust, which involved the extermination of six million proto-Israelis and five million insignificant others; and he requested that a distinction be drawn between leaders and those "forced to serve as mere instruments". To his credit, Eichmann appears to have felt it beneath his dignity to plead that his activities during the Holocaust were part of a peace process; which may be why the death sentence was proudly and no doubt righteously carried out a couple of days after the note was written.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Cherie's Pickings

A health tourist with a terrorist-type name is contemplating whether to return to the Maldives, where he is serving a thirteen-year prison sentence, or submit himself to the tender mercies of those compassionate G4S people and perhaps be put away in a house with a red door. A United Nations working group has ruled that Mohamed Nasheed, the democratically elected and thus former president of the Maldives, did not receive a fair trial; but since the charge was terrorism rather than tax-dodging, it is unlikely that Her Majesty's Government will be overly eager to take Nasheed's side, rather than "pushing for reform" as in Saudi Arabia and other fledgling democracies. Providing legal representation for the government of the Maldives is none other than the Reverend Blair's consort in avarice, Cherie Booth, whose law firm provides "strategic counsel to governments, corporates and private clients", with the neediest cases doubtless taking due priority.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Weapons Development

Given the attacks and instability that defence and security spending has achieved from Libya to Yemen, it should surprise nobody that the British government is lobbying to place weapons of war under the rubric of international aid. The immediate purpose is to enable various government departments to use bits of the aid budget in mitigation of the Osbornomic miracle; but it cannot be long before Britain's Head Boy and his arms-dealing chums add the "OECD-approved" label to their exports. The benign credentials of this radically reformative merchandise should already be self-evident by virtue of its being clearly labelled Not to be used for internal repression; but it seems this is not enough to satisfy the present bureaucratic definition of international aid. There are even some who claim that the overall purpose of aid spending should be the relief of poverty, which hardly seems conducive to the judicious immiseration of noisy wogs, the greasing of Conservative Party donors, and suchlike humanitarian ideals.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

The Upturn Continues

At least forty-five more British jobs have been saved off Greece, providing further vindication for the Conservatives' let-'em-drown policy and eliciting further pious words from across the European Union. Fatalities in the Aegean this month outnumber those during last January and the previous January combined, thus proving yet again that our wog disposal centres are too luxurious, that our social security system is too generous, and that we were and remain correct in undertaking the various crusades which have created the situation from which the hordes are swarming. The Turkish prime minister proclaimed that the crisis "is not a German crisis, a European crisis or a Turkish crisis"; naturally, it goes without saying that it's also not a British one.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Precision Timidity

Since it now has the Republican presidential monkey-house to make it look moderate, the US military has extruded a spokesbeing to give an update on the crusade against Islamic State. It appears that Mission Re-democratise Iraq grows ever more accomplished, with Mission Pacify Syria only slightly less so, and that only because of unwarranted interference by the beastly Russians. Just like previous Mission Re-democratise Iraqs, the present adventure is the most precise air campaign in history; so much so that until a short while ago the forces of democracy were unable in good conscience to admit having inflicted any civilian casualties at all. Now it turns out that one or two regrettabilities have in fact eventuated, but the freedomisers are ignoring most of them because they lack credibility in the eyes of people who claim you can conduct nearly ten thousand airstrikes against an enemy in civilian uniform and still avoid killing civilians. One monitoring group has identified reports of more than eight hundred damaged collaterals attributable to the US and its allies, which is lower than the beastly Russians' bag in Syria and too low for the good Christian folks who think health care and gun control are symptoms of Kenyan Stalinism.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Fair Play

Certain ungrateful and unintegrated elements of liberated woggery have been abusing the legal system, and Britain's Head Boy wants it stopped, and stopped now. Aided by law firms whose materialistic cynicism extends to offering "no win, no fee" conditions, various beneficiaries of the recent crusade in Iraq have made allegations of murder, torture and abuse against British - British! - armed forces personnel. The Government now intends to act against those who pursue fabricated claims; such claims being, in the Government's vocabulary, a tautology along the lines of fraudulent benefits claimant or failed asylum seeker. Law firms found to have concealed relevant information, said the thing that was not, or engaged in other conduct unworthy of the Reverend Blair and his heavenly hosts, will be sued for wasting taxpayers' money that might otherwise have been pumped into G4S or Trident; because after all, there is a war on, you know.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Unholy Pastimes

In his capacity as lickspittle-in-ordinary and weapons pimp to the House of Saud, Britain's Head Boy will undoubtedly be gratified by the grand mufti's ruling against the game of chess, which for clear-headed sanity approaches the more esoteric ravings of Mad Tessie May. Intoxicants, gambling, idolatry and divination were all forbidden by the Angel Gabriel when he dictated Muhammad's recital; and Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh has classified chess under gambling, much as Mad Tessie May would probably rule it a psychoactive substance. A more moderate attitude is prevalent in Iran, where the game was forbidden after the Islamic revolution but later reinstated by the notorious liberal apostate, Ayatollah Khomeini. For the grand mufti as for the barking old cat lady, what matters is not so much the pretext as the underlying moral purpose; namely, that life in the present should never be made more bearable in case it distracts from the official promise of jam tomorrow. According to al-Sheikh, chess is also "a waste of time and money and a cause for hatred and enmity" and is thus the polar opposite of any known symptom of the three main Abrahamic delusions.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

A Red Rag to John Bull

Those reliable people at G4S, with whom the Home Secretary has almost no family connections whatsoever, have been accused of housing asylum seekers in properties with distinctive red doors, thereby allowing the marauding swarms to be singled out for various object-lessons in British tolerance and hospitality. It is difficult to believe that G4S would be capable of the Olympian degree of efficiency required; nevertheless, a report in the Murdoch Times stated that several human locusts among the swarming hordes had received some unwanted re-decoration, doubtless at the hands of hard-working families with legitimate concerns. Mad Tessie May was busy plotting to slap a £1000 fine on anyone daring to employ any wogs who may escape being kicked into the sea; so it fell to her nasty little minion James Brokenshire to express the depth of the Home Office's grief. Brokenshire claimed to "expect the highest standards" from the likes of G4S; which demonstrates with embarrassing clarity how well the Home Office is doing at attracting the brightest and best. Anyway, Brokenshire has ordered some underlings to look into the matter, and if any evidence is found that cannot be buried in a wog disposal centre Brokenshire will no doubt look very sternly upon those reliable people at G4S before throwing them more public money and letting them continue exactly as before.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

One Day They'll Thank Us

International do-gooding has its little ironies, as few can know better than the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair. Just think: you invade a country, destroy its infrastructure, kill tens of thousands of people, ruin the lives of millions more, purge everyone who might know anything about running the place, impose a gang of corrupt sectarians as proxy rulers, toddle off with the cash and then, for no apparent reason at all, the process of democratisation suddenly stalls. The UN, whatever its delusions about human rights being compatible with Britishness, can produce fairly reliable information about the transgressions of the more uppity wogs; and a report into the activities of the Fighting Sons of Tony includes claims of rape, slavery, executions in various styles including those of NRA (shooting), the House of Saud (beheading), the old-time Christian witch-hunter (burning alive) and à la Rachel Corrie. Indeed, things are looking so bad that even should the Fighting Sons of Tony start buying their weapons from British suppliers, it is conceivable that Whitehall would find their behaviour a little disappointing.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Dead Subtle

The softness and subtlety of Britain's diplomacy towards Saudi Arabia has brought results so soft and subtle that only the empty suit at the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns can detect them. The perfectly sane mullahs of Saud appear to be proceeding as scheduled with the executions of three juveniles, the youngest of whom was fifteen at the time of his arrest. Doubtless the improvement is thanks in large part to Whitehall's expressions of mild disappointment at the judicial massacre of forty-seven people early this month. The empty suit has touted the cases as examples of what can be achieved by sucking up to the right sort of Islamic fundamentalists; and for once it appears hard to disagree.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Lost in Translation

Some kind soul has reminded the Home Office that among the many undesirable characteristics of the migrant hordes, inability to speak a civilised language is frequently prominent. The Home Office had been plotting to cut the pay of its interpreters, who indulge the whims of the refugee swarms by implying that they might be allowed to stay here without even speaking enough English to read the Rothermere Daily Stürmer. Initially "postponed" until Mad Tessie May could be reassured that not all interpreters have cats, the pay cut has now been adjourned until the Home Office can organise a "fundamental review of interpreter services"; at which point no doubt Mad Tessie May will get her own back and then some, and interrogators will be ordered simply to act more assertively and speak more loudly until the human locust understands.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

We Don't Need Your Sort Around Here

Mad Tessie May has decided that certain so-called working people are bad for our Britishness, and accordingly plans to start deporting taxpayers as of this coming April. Non-EU wogs who are paid less than £35,000 a year will be deemed part of the scrounging, swarming hordes and kicked out so that the Osbornomic recovery can proceed without undue interference from teachers, IT professionals and charity workers. Nurses have been temporarily excluded from the list of social supernumeraries, but may be reinstated at any time should the back-bench baboons become restless over their investments in the healthcare profiteering industry. So thoroughly sensible is this latest purge that even the moderates among Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are having qualms: a former Deputy Conservative minister and New Labour's director of public prosecutions have both ventured the tentative opinion that proceeding without looking more closely might well be economically inadvisable.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Feel the Love

With the world convulsed by war, poverty, economic crisis, climate change and the banning of the Lord's Prayer before Star Wars, the Anglican church is showing its usual brand of moral leadership by attacking equal marriage rights. The US Episcopal church, which recognises and performs same-sex marriage, has been punished with a three-year suspension on the grounds that Scripture "upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union", besides the occasional concubine or daughter. Liberals are angry that LGBT Christians received no mention in the official statement, and conservatives are angry because the ban is insufficiently vindictive. It is thought in some quarters that the homophobia of the African churches derives in part from resentment towards their former colonial masters in Europe and America, in accordance with the Saviour's instructions against loving one's enemy.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

An Unfortunate Oversight

At some point last year, Mad Tessie May suffered a lapse in concentration and somehow ended up commissioning an independent review of conditions in her wog chastisement and disposal centres. The report was delivered in September, but has only been published today; and the Home Secretary extruded her flunkey James Brokenshire to comment on it, being herself a little busy having chunks of carpet removed from between her teeth.

The report recommends a ban on imprisonment of pregnant women, and a "presumption against detention" for victims of sexual violence and PTSD, and those with learning difficulties. Obviously, placing such arbitrary limitations on those nice people from Serco and G4S will be terribly traumatic, and will also serve as a pull factor for the marauding hordes. Wars will be prolonged, despite Britain's Head Boy's heroic salesmanship for the weapons industries, because the human locusts' urge to enter Britain will cause an unwonted boom in the market for self-inflicted rape and shell shock. Potential terrorists will queue for hours to be kitted out with learning difficulties, and of course they'll all be breeding like rabbits. The report even proclaims that there is no correlation between the present expansion of the wog disposal industry and the number of people lawfully deported; as if those nice people from Serco and G4S had ever concerned themselves with keeping the law, let alone enforcing it.

Anyway, according to James Brokenshire everything has already been thought of, and all the report's sensible recommendations are ready to be pushed through even as we snigger. Measures are in hand to minimise both the number of wogs being disposed of and the delay between the coming hither and the kicking hence; and concerns about the mental health of detainees will be dealt with once ATOS has certified them fit to swim back home.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

It's Freedom of Speech, So Shut Up

One of the Thatcher régime's more forgettable flunkeys has ordered Oxford students campaigning against the glorification of Cecil Rhodes to shut up and have a bit more respect for free speech. Chris Patten was minister for something or other while the old bag was doing all she could to help Rhodes' beleaguered intellectual heir, that nice Mr Botha; now, as chancellor of Oxford University, Patten has told the bolshie students to stop shouting about racism and imperialism because it isn't what Nelson Mandela would have wanted. British values and British universities are not about tolerating intolerance, except from those who can afford considerably more than £9000 in tuition fees; and anyone who thinks otherwise can go and study somewhere else. British values mean facing up to history, which no doubt explains why we hear so much about the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau uprising, the 1943 Bengal famine, and so forth; what facing up to history does not mean is getting rid of statues, although it is unclear how much shouting Chris Patten has done in favour of aiding Europe's Vergangenheitsbewältigung by restoring all those effigies of Hitler and Stalin.

Had the combatants in Oxford but the vision to realise it, the answer to the Cecil Rhodes dilemma is simple enough, and could in fact be applied to all of our most worshipped historical criminals. Most statues stand on a rectangular plinth, of which the three sides not occupied by names, dates and sententious mottoes generally go to waste. Historical balance can be restored quite easily by engraving the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence, in not more than ten lines each, on the left and right sides of the plinth, while the back may be used for the bibliography.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Casting a Damper

Given the recent flooding, a less brilliant climate change denier than Owen Paterson might have decided that there would be better times to remind the public of his existence. Paterson, it will be remembered, was Britain's Head Boy's choice of Environment Secretary the last time large areas of the country were inundated; or perhaps it was the time before, or the time before that. Paterson, who shares the scepticism in which the Euro-wogs are held by so many of the Stupid Party's more representative minds, has been squealing with indignation over his Head Boy's decision to face both ways in the referendum. Ministers will be obliged to defend government policy, to the extent that the Bullingdons bother to formulate a policy beyond the usual rah-rah, yah-boo and oink-oink; however, ministers who wish to permit the Euro-wogs to secede from the mainland will be free to explain why they are against government policy should the question arise in Parliament, except during set-piece gas exchanges. This perfunctory pretence at pandering is not nearly enough for the Paterson, who proclaimed that those who were free to explain their thinking were being gagged, and that those who agreed with government policy would have an unfair advantage because they would be permitted to agree with government policy. There must have been a calamitous rise in the Cabinet's collective IQ the day Paterson was sacked; indeed, it took nothing less than the appointment of Liz Truss to keep the intellectual flood-waters at bay.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Trust Me, I'm a Salesman

Between achingly sincere social media tributes to David Bowie - an alien-looking, sexually ambiguous creative type from Brixton, and therefore a natural Conservative hero - Britain's Head Boy has been attending an event about poverty, although it is not entirely clear whether he spoke in favour or against. In any case, he made use of the occasion to have a bit of a snivel about the nasty old BMA and the way it has been misleading junior doctors who, like so many proles, are much too myopically greedy and thick-headed to work things out for themselves. Apparently the BMA has been telling the prospective Big Pharma serfs that the Government wants to impose dangerously long hours, cut their pay and privatise the NHS, when all the Government really wants to do is impose dangerously long hours, cut their pay and privatise the NHS. The situation is all the more tragic in that the BMA is setting itself up against, of all people, Jeremy C Hunt, the Minister for Homeopathy and News Corporation, whose career of competence, rectitude and veracity speaks for itself. The BMA propaganda, burbled Britain's Head Boy, will cause all sorts of trouble for patients and is "simply not true;" and of course Britain's Head Boy knows all about the distinction between truth and untruth, to say nothing of giving people with health problems a good kick in the teeth. He did, after all, spend a good deal of time and energy, both before and during the Lansley clusterfuck, waving his dead child around and making various NHS-related promises that turned out to have - what shall we say? - a whiff of the Clegg-pledge about them.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Blood Money

Human rights groups, the Euro-wogs, the United Nations and other forces of Stalinist repression have isolated themselves yet further from the mainland by complaining about Britain's trade in weapons with a bunch of head-chopping Islamic fundamentalists. All instruments of death sold by Britain are, of course, clearly marked Not to be used for internal repression or anything nasty, and this has hitherto proved more than enough to salve whatever rotted, reeking organ of commercial self-interest serves Whitehall for a conscience. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia's attacks on Yemen have provoked the Campaign Against the Arms Trade to warn the Government that it may be in breach of international law, even though a flunkey at the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns declared six months ago that no evidence suggested the Saudis were breaching the law; or anyway, no evidence that the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns cared to believe. CAAT's legal case is being handled by the law firm Leigh Day, which has also brought lawsuits on behalf of Iraqis who claim to have been abused by British forces, and has therefore been accused of "ambulance chasing". If there's one thing that makes the Conservative Party squeal with righteous indignation, it's the idea of someone else profiteering from human pain.

Saturday, January 09, 2016

Not Quite the Thing

Despite the glittering progress of our democracy - from the olden days, when failure or crookery in public service meant at least temporary ejection from the gravy train, to the present and continuing careers of Graybeing, Hunt and the brilliant Duncan Smith - it seems there still remain a few who believe that circumstances can arise in which a minister, even a colonial minister, might care to consider their position. The minister in this case is the Northern Ireland secretary, a scrounging toff by the name of Theresa Villiers. Since Britain's Head Boy has decided that the Government will be facing both ways on the referendum, Villiers seems likely to campaign in favour of allowing the Euro-wogs to secede from the mainland; which in the opinion of the Social Democratic Labour Party would risk stoking sectarian tensions and causing severe economic damage. It would certainly never do for anyone in Villiers' migrant-bashing, Muslim-baiting, wog-bombing, banker-smooching party to risk anything of that sort.

Friday, January 08, 2016

Backsliding From Britishness

Regrettably, it appears that the Heathen Chinee are not quite so far advanced towards our own apex of culture as they recently appeared. The thirty-six-metre, gold-painted statue of Mao Zedong which was erected a few days ago is being dismembered amid carping from the forces of antiquated leftism. One unreconstructed Communist even argued that the cost of the effigy should be spent on "improving local education", an attitude which certainly will not help the Heathen Chinee into the teacher-trashing echelons of the Bullingdon Club any time soon. Another source said that the statue was being demolished because it was on a farmer's land, which may indicate a rudimentary instinct for copying the British policy of removing everything from farmers' land, including wildlife, trees and topsoil, with results that are even now evident among the paddy fields of Cumbria. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Heathen Chinee still have a long way to go.

Thursday, January 07, 2016

Hush, Dark Gate

Hush, dark gate.
No creak, no shriek;
Slip, sneak through.

Dig, break, chew
Thin, rotten coffin;
Grin, full ghoul.

P Upton Richards

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Best for Britain

One of the most important functions of a statesman is, of course, to provide leadership and direction on matters affecting the nation as a whole. On the question of whether to allow the Euro-wogs to secede from the mainland, thereby turning the EU into a competitor and England into a North Atlantic tax haven with the moral atmosphere of North Korea, Britain's Head Boy has descended magnificently to the occasion. Several of the more idiosyncratic minds in his Cabinet - notably Chris Graybeing, the brilliant Iain Duncan Smith, and a scrounging toff called Theresa Villiers - are "staunch" Europhobes (they are not, you will note, hardline); so Britain's Head Boy has very honourably decided that the Government will face both ways on the referendum and that therefore he will have no need to resign if either side loses.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Catching Up

Entrepreneurs and lesser folk among the Heathen Chinee have taken a great leap forward in public art by erecting a 118-foot statue of Mao Zedong. Its location is in Henan province, which is one of the country's poorest regions and was among those worst affected by Mao's bureaucratic famine; so the steel and concrete statue has been painted gold all over, just to rub it in. This could well be another encouraging sign that the Heathen Chinee are beginning to emerge from their decades-long darkness of central planning, green crap and population control: despite its comparative lack of Middle Eastern princelings and rich Russian thugs, Henan province is somehow managing to emulate the civic rationality and architectural good taste of London under the Bullingdons.

Monday, January 04, 2016

They Didn't Send a Video, After All

Beheadings and crucifixions, it would seem, are disappointing and a bit disproportionate but understandable, provided they are carried out by a legitimately constituted state operating in a state system. In the absence of objections from the Bullingdon Club, it has fallen to a former British ambassador and a minion to the empty suit at the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns to formulate our great nation's reaction to the executions in Saudi Arabia. The former ambassador also noted that Iran executes more people than the Saudis; but somehow failed to remember that China, to which the Bullingdon Club is so eager to flog off our energy industry, probably executes more than both put together.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Not Up to Speed

Responsibility for the inundations in the Northern Poorhouse lies squarely with local beadles, who missed the opportunity to strengthen flood defences when the Government increased the chocolate ration from thirty grammes to twenty grammes. Having happily slashed funding and booted out staff for five years, with the cheery connivance of their Deputy Conservative enablers, the Bullingdon Club were warned by the Association of Drainage Authorities that local councils would have no choice but to cut flood defences. However, the warning became instantly outdated when a gleaming, sebaceous tentacle of the Osbornomic miracle overturned all the cuts in the autumn statement, which gave the local councils simply weeks to undo the damage of half a decade and get everything shipshape before the damp set in. Not being fully run by G4S and Serco, it appears they weren't up to the job. Now really, in all fairness, whose fault is that?

Saturday, January 02, 2016

Firm But Fair

Some close friends and favoured customers have celebrated the secular new year wth another forty-seven counter-terrorist measures, including the compulsory anatomical curtailment of a prominent Shia cleric. Iran was moved to proclaim, truthfully enough, that "the Saudi government supports terrorists and takfiri [radical Sunni] extremists, while executing and suppressing critics inside the country", and warned of serious repercussions; which according to Britain's leading liberal newspaper constituted an escalation of religious and diplomatic tensions in the region, although the extent to which it will undermine the pacific effects of our wog-bombing is as yet unclear. The executions themselves were hardly more than routine for Saudi Arabia, which has been chopping off more heads recently; doubtless because the democratic solicitations of Britain's Head Boy and his chums have helped ease the Saudi royals towards their present attitude of enlightened moderation.

Friday, January 01, 2016

Happy New Year

A frumpy ball of yellow gas
In shabby suburb found;
Blue ball of mud, revolving as
It made the hapless round.

And as the miserable muck
Along its way did scrape,
Emerged by rather rotten luck
A noisy mutant ape.

The globule, on its route, would come,
According to the law,
To points at which it had been some
Few billion times before.

At one such point along the route,
There squeaked a monkey-cheer:
"Another happy, resolute
And prosperous New Year!"

Samuel Grimsnipe