Society Offenders Who Might Well Be Underground

For all the dead-eyed warden's urge to deport first and ask questions later, in cases involving police indiscretion the wheels of British justice continue to bowl along at a rather leisurely pace. Tumbledown Tessie herself set up an inquiry into police spying during her stint as Minister for Windrush-Cleansing, and the old boy in charge has been criticised for its doddering pace of work and for refusing to publish a list of those enemies of the people who were placed under surveillance. The reasoning behind the refusal appears to be that the police did not bother to distinguish between groups that were monitored with such thoroughness that officers personally penetrated the activists, and groups that were merely mentioned here and there in the paperwork. As an afterthought, the inquiry will be looking into what Britain's leading liberal newspaper calls "monitoring of grieving families". In Standard English, this refers to attempts by the police to unearth or manufacture material for a smear campaign against the friends and family of a lynched teenager. However, the first public hearings have been postponed until next year, so the acquittal of the officers involved is not expected until approximately the middle of the next decade. Much delay has resulted from the usual fervent concern to protect the innocent, with the police applying to keep secret the identities of undercover officers. Despite the sterling success of Tumbledown Tessie, her predecessor and the Liberal Democrats at increasing child poverty, it does not appear that Britain's infantine resources are dying at a sufficient rate to supply new identities in the necessary quantity.

Soft Power Sell-Off

If there's one thing the Conservative Party hates more than spending taxpayers' money for the benefit of taxpayers, it is spending taxpayers' money for improvement of wogs. Lacking the wherewithal to bomb its beneficiaries like a proper ministry, the Department for International Development is further hampered in its patriotic duty by the fact that its profiteering arm is prohibited from spending money inside the UK, thereby depriving NHS contractors of their nest-eggs and placing hard-working railway managers at risk of starving in the street. Accordingly, Pincher Mordaunt has announced that she would like the department to stop all pretence of being an office of state and simply hire itself out to the military-industrial complex for the facilitation of war and profit. A spokesbeing for the dead-eyed warden was extruded to proclaim that, as always, present policy remains unchanged and there are no plans to change it; which of course leaves eminently open the plausible possibility of its being changed without all the treacherous noise and bother that planning would entail.

Downsizing Defence

One of the most important attributes of a modern military force is the ability to move quickly and seize opportunities as they arise; hence the best army in the world (Britain's, for those who came in late) has not rested content with politicians' promises to hand over chunks of the state education system for recruit farming. Following on from last summer's exciting news about quad bikes, the army has been advertising in a gaming magazine with the infotaintalising tidings that fighting unruly wogs abroad and contributing to law and order in the Emergency Protectorate of Brexitannia are both largely a matter of pressing buttons. It is true that over a fifth of gamers are aged between eight and seventeen, which makes them only slightly more mature than the present Secretary of State for Wog-Bombing; but it remains unclear how specific the advertisement managed to be about little Gavin's precise path from the field of military glory to the former great office of state.

Who Needs Concorde? We've Got Dakotas

Memorialising the Holocaust is all very well, of course; but even leaving aside the unsanitary fact that genuine Zionists were often accompanied to the camps by less reputable victims, the liberation of Auschwitz was carried out by Soviet troops and therefore, at this moment of Cold War renewal, can hardly be considered part of the war proper. Hence, no doubt, the hurry to get on with the genuine rah, huzzah and rah-rah-rah that is the approaching anniversary of D-Day. Aside from some forgettable business at Stalingrad and Kursk, the Normandy landings three-quarters of a century ago marked the beginning of Europe's liberation from the Nazi yoke, and the British Commonwealth of Imperial War Museums is determined that Europe should have yet another chance to show its gratitude. Attendance is expected from what Britain's leading liberal newspaper tactfully refers to as "many Allied heads of state", which appears to translate as the Trumpster, his head-tribble and a tabloid-pleasing spatter of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It remains as yet unclear whether anyone from Her Majesty's present Government will be interested in commemorating the defeat of an authoritarian and racist régime whose leader spent a good deal of time ranting in a bunker about the will of the people and giving orders that were impossible to carry out. Nor has the British Commonwealth of Imperial War Museums indicated what proportion of the festivities will celebrate the steadfast refusal by one Winston Churchill to countenance the landings before June 1944, which prolonged the war by at least a year and helped to ensure that there was so much more Holocaust to commemorate.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Incisors lxvi-lxxix

Much earlier, or else considerably later, the Father of Teeth came upon a hospice, where prospective corpses were kept as comfortable as was consistent with their heirs' ability to keep up with the fees. By the side of each bed sat a compassionate member of staff, whose role it was to reassure the departing customer that their life had not been entirely in vain.

In the first and largest ward were the richest and most prestigious clients. Here the staff were hardly required, and indeed there was barely room for them among the various relatives and other business partners. Among their numerous privileges, the wealthiest clients were permitted to witness the moulding of their monuments in the best non-degradable plastic. The Father of Teeth passed through, sucking his gums loudly and eliciting much disapproval and the clandestine chuntering of half a dozen bodyguards.

The next ward was reserved for the hard-working and dutiful, who had sired or squeezed out large families to carry various milligrams of genetic code gloriously into the future. Here the relatives were equally numerous, standing about as if they themselves constituted some sort of justification for the lives and sufferings of those on the verge of oblivion. The Father of Teeth went up to one of these worthies and told him that, thanks to the sterling efforts of his dying grandmother, a degenerate ape-like thing a million years hence would bask in the privilege of hereditary flat feet; the grandson himself, however, would have no such memorial, as the flat-footed gene was carried only via the distaff. Distraught at the prospect of his grandmother's demise, the grandson called across one of the exit custodians and requested that the Father of Teeth be ejected from the premises.

The custodian laid hands upon the Father of Teeth and escorted him out through the largest ward of all, which contained those destined to be entirely forgotten by posterity: the poor, the modest and the excessively intelligent. Having no legacy to leave, these inmates were considered unworthy of the staff's attention, and were by and large left to die in peace; from which the Father of Teeth concluded that even those who do less than the usual amount of harm may occasionally gain a just reward.

Poverty in Motion

On the list of most urgent priorities for the British political class, the chore of placating the provincial proles tends to rank rather low: probably somewhere between keeping the air breathable and enforcing the taxation laws on people who are patently above them. Hence the careful reasoning behind the superficially demented decision to entrust a major announcement about transport in Greater Manchester to the present secretary of state for transport. The brilliant Chris Graybeing, whose major achievements in his present post include timetable chaos and massive price rises on the railways while hitting cyclists with car doors on the road, has heard from some nice people at Network Rail that a tram network would be just the thing to relieve chronic capacity problems in central Manchester. A pilot project in south Yorkshire came in three years late and five hundred per cent over budget; from which the brilliant Graybeing has no doubt learned the inevitable lessons that subsidies are too high, fares too low, and the profits of the private sector insufficiently prioritised. Nevertheless, a few hundred million from the Brexit dividend have been pledged, thereby gladdening the heart of the mayor, who was imprudent enough to hint that, despite the government being sometimes vaguely involved in the maunderings of Chris Graybeing, the promise might not have been made entirely in fun.

Still More Majestic Shalt Thou Compromise

Among the most valuable of British values is, as we know, the propensity to compromise, as demonstrated by our long and unusually gentle history of deported Jews, scorched Catholics and starving shirkers. What, if not our mannerly instinct for the other chap's point of view, enabled us once to conquer half the world by military force, and brings us now to the very precipice of a glittering global empire spanning Westminster, the Falkland Islands and the more cosmic reaches of the Farage Falange? In accordance with these civilising national instincts, some rich tax dodgers have been panting to praise a rich tax-dodger for spraying a few platitudes over the Women's Institute. The chancellor had a bit of an ooze on the BBC, and the ever-emollient Amber Rudd complimented the monarch on her wise words. Doubtless the former Home Secretary was thinking of the compromises she herself has had to make between deporting every wog in the country and deporting only those wogs who have the bad manners to be British citizens. The Prime Minister, who regards her own policies as the will of the people and anyone who dissents as a citizen of nowhere, was apparently too choked with emotion to grind out a personal response, but a spokesbeing was extruded to imply that others should always show great respect for the Prime Minister's point of view. Meanwhile, it is to be hoped that no members of the master race are tempted by the compromising precedent of 1649, when an untrustworthy and incompetent leader discovered to his cost that taking back control from Parliament can be a real pain in the neck.

Felonious Accommodations

One of the more reliable indications that the Government doesn't particularly care about something is that the relevant department is placed in the charge of Chris Graybeing or the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove. Such is the Conservative Party's interest in justice that the hilariously misnamed Ministry has been fortunate enough to endure them both, with expectably brilliant results. Graybeing tried to rehabilitate offenders by refusing them access to books; the probation service has been turned to the redemption of some private companies' profits; the courts have suffered an IT meltdown; and sex offenders are being put up in hotels without proper monitoring because there is no room in the prison system and the Government has not seen fit to train sufficient staff. A report by Her Majesty's inspectorates of prisons and probation also notes that safeguarding checks are not being carried out, that not enough is being done to protect children, and that a third of released offenders are not visited at home. The Minister for Profitable Incarceration said that convicted sex offenders in hotels are really quite rare and in any case perfectly safe; in all fairness, they are almost certainly less numerous than the homeless people expiring within yards of the House of Expenses Claimants, and the relevant services have, after all, spent time under the care of Messrs Gove and Graybeing. The Minister said that the Government would work very hard to get somebody to do something about it; so presumably HM Inspectorate of Prisons and HM Inspectorate of Probation can look forward to being privatised in the near future.

Not Enough Bobbies on the Meat

It is a credit to the Conservative Party's now vestigial instinct for realism that they dropped Security and Stability from their aspirations at last year's rah-and-blah; but they have been a little reticent about possible recipients of the leftover Opportunity. Now the head of counter-terrorism policing at the Metropolitan Police is worried about the effects of British independence from the Euro-wogs on intelligence and data-sharing, despite Tumbledown Tessie's assurances that everything will be fine unless the enemy refuses to co-operate. Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu is also concerned that the country's stability and security might somehow be negatively affected by right-wing rhetoric less moderate and reasonable than that of Tumbledown Tessie or the Rothermere Daily Stürmer, and he is apparently experiencing some difficulty in finding officers with sufficient intestinal patriotism to go intimately undercover with the gammon in the name of Queen and country. Such a defeatist outlook is, of course, entirely unworthy of the greatest police force in the world; and it is to be hoped that a charitable view will be taken when the Home Office decides to detain the Assistant Commissioner until he can justify his residence in Britain while in possession of a complexion that is at best semi-Windrush.

Northern Powerhouse

The uncompromising Britishness of the shale-fracking industry is attaining unhoped-for levels of ineffability in Yorkshire, where the operator has been unable to prove its financial resilience even to its understanding chumlies in the Conservative Party. As a result of tripping over this rather low bar, held down on its behalf by backwards-bending ministers, Third Energy has so far been unable to reap its earth-shaking rewards; but this has not prevented the company's machines and vehicles running at the Kirby Misperton well, attended by protestors who in turn are attended by the police. Thanks to the prevailing religious orthodoxy against giving the provincials any say, let alone share, in taxpayer-funded works, a wind or solar project might well attract protests too; but there would at least be a chance of one day producing clean energy. At the moment, without having fracturised a single bedrock or lit a single bulb beyond the five-watt IDEA! above some fat little heads in Whitehall, the site is achieving pollution levels equal to the flatulence levels of a suburban supermarket.

Flobblobblobbloblations

Not all the nonsense spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury is a product of his flawed earthly will; at least one variety, which tends to emerge at a rather ungodly hour of the morning, is barely related to his language centres at all. The practice of glossolalia is supposedly a gift of prophecy and a sign of divine favour generally accompanied by the ability to cast out demons, heal the sick by laying-on of hands, pick up snakes and drink poison with impunity; which doubtless explains why the CEO of the Church of England regards it as "not something to make a great song and dance about" and "not usually an immensely ecstatic moment". Nevertheless, two stalwarts of Britain's leading liberal newspaper, where facts are sacred, have just about managed between them to copy and paste part of a New York Times report of a 2006 neuroscientific study. The authors claimed that their research supported evangelical claims of possession, on the dubious grounds that the brains of people engaged in glossolalia showed relative inactivity in the frontal lobes, which are associated with volition and self-control. It is certainly natural enough that the Creator, in ensuring that we come to Him of our own free will, would wish to bypass the means by which we exercise choice.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Carnassials lxxiii-xci

Shortly beforehand, the Father of Teeth came upon a group of responsible citizens comfortably seated on a hillside. They were watching a decency spectacle in the valley below, which was so entertaining that it made the blood run from their eye-sockets and down the folds of their faces to congeal in glistening, blackened frames around their fixed and gleaming grins.

The spectacle was thus truly decent, and featured men, women and children, all of whom were modestly clothed and did not use bad language under even the most deserved agonies, in case members of the audience should be offended.

The Father of Teeth approached one of the spectators, and waved a tentative claw before the red-black orbits. "Can you see all right?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"We can't take our eyes off it," was the reply.
"Does it please you?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"It is a most decent and edifying spectacle," said the spectator, "for it is happening to them and not to ourselves."
"And who are they?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"Why, those most suited to the role, of course," said the spectator, blinking in surprise and dislodging crunchy granules of dark maroon, which the Father of Teeth was quick to capture among the zigzagging lines of his palm.
"A spectacle of unsuitables would scarcely be decent," said the spectator, in a tone that lectured and yet soothed at the same time, for the spectator hoped in due course for advancement to the status of commentator. "It is the decency of the spectacle that improves us, like all great art, by stimulating pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will."
"Indeed," said the Father of Teeth.
"Indeed," said the spectator. "Our pessimism of the intellect convinces us of their pain. Our optimism of the will convinces us of our immunity."

So the Father of Teeth went down into the valley, in order to take a closer look and be all the more convinced. But he found only dead and reeking meat, which had very little to say one way or the other, although it twitched a bit here and there while the spectators applauded.

Natural Enemies

Among the more outrageous charges laid against the Trumpster administration is lack of concern for protecting wildlife. Since the Trumpster administration is largely run by the hydrophobic tangerine tribble perched on the man-baby's upper gluteus, one would have thought that even the most dogmatic pusher of anti-American facts would scruple to repeat such scurrilities. However, so great is the malignity of the Trumpster's persecutors that a federal judge has felt the need to intervene. Despite the political risk associated with appearing to favour a régime of communistic regulation, the judge found four female activists guilty of non-profitable interference with the integrity of a wildlife reserve. Rather than taking something away from the refuge, or even developing it into oblivion as necessitated by the American way and the law of God, the conspirators left things behind, with the confessed intention of aiding migrant swarms to undermine the Christian state of Arizona. Understandably enough in the face of such unnatural proclivities, the nature of their punishment is yet to be determined.

There Is No Alternative

Since the Japanese are apparently no longer prepared to endure the security and stability that comes with owning Britain's independent nuclear industry, Her Majesty's Government faces a cruel dilemma. Either they can go on chucking money at fracking companies, in hopes that the resulting earthquakes and methane sprays will be justified with a bonanza of shale oil as light, sweet and crude as a Conservative campaign leaflet; or they can abandon the plebs to the cold and the dark. The frackers' only slightly earth-shattering performance so far might seem to indicate the latter course; yet that too would be fraught with difficulties. Allowing lights to go out all over England could well cost votes, particularly if ministers failed to ensure that the power cuts were appropriately targeted against shirkers, scroungers, citizens of nowhere and opponents of the people's will. Given the complexity of the calculations involved, and the oft-proven inability of Her Majesty's Government to calculate feasible trajectories for extricating finger from sphincter, it is difficult to see much promise in this scenario either. Such, alas, are the paradoxes of power.

Metaphor Runs Rampant on Britain's Roads

Evidently it's the week for ghastly old bigots to walk away from car crashes. A few days ago the last wheel came clattering off Tumbledown Tessie's pre-wrecked 1918-model Dave and Dom jalopy, which was promptly crushed into merited oblivion by a belatedly-conscious House of Commons; nevertheless, the dead-eyed warden remains as crude and unbending as ever. Today the Duke of Edinburgh was involved in a collision in which two people suffered "minor injuries," and the Archbishop of York was moved to offer an unctuous petition to the mean little Established God who keeps the Archbishop, the Prime Minister and the House of Windsor safe from the wrath of the serfs. Good things are said to come in threes, which of course means that only the truly heartless will be hoping to see Philip Green or Rupert Murdoch projected head-first through a windscreen before the weekend is out.

Mentioned in Dispatches

Yesterday's terrorist attack in Nairobi may possess more human interest than was at first supposed, despite having taken place in the Rest of the World. Not only were a Briton and an American killed along with a dozen nonentities, but the scumbag press has reported that a member of the SAS was involved in the security operation after the attack. Since the prepubescent Minister for Wog-Bombing was too busy to claim that he himself was that soldier, having had rather a hectic time of it yesterday helping to prop up the ever more fragrant corpse of Terminal Tessie, his department extruded a spokesbeing to comment that there was no comment. Whether the spokesbeing's repertoire stretched to the customary "knowing smile" is regrettably not a matter of public record; but patriotic Britons will be proud of their compatriot who stayed behind and braved the Mau Mau in order to sustain the interest of our free and cantankerous press for almost two whole days in a story that is almost merely African.

Little Things Hitting Each Other

Foreigners, scientists and suchlike disreputable persons are considering the expenditure of eighteen thousand million pounds on a machine for putting some very small objects inside a very long tunnel and then ramming them together at considerable speed. The resulting energy discharges will then be analysed, hopefully to the enhancement of humanity's understanding of the universe. Since the ghastly Euro-wogs are sadly lacking in the mainland's buccaneering British scepticism about the concept of planning things before throwing large sums of money at them, the project has not yet been definitely confirmed; and in any case completion is not expected for another forty years or so, by which time those parts of British Empire 2.0 which remain above sea level will doubtless be concerned with more significant questions, such as whether Margaret Thatcher is consubstantial with the Faragean Incarnation, and whether witches are best drowned in salt water or fresh.

Gove Slurries Around

In light of the Government's record of serial law-breaking on air pollution, it's only natural that the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove should wish to distract attention away from traffic fumes by emitting a belch or two about slurry. Famously used some years ago to decorate the tangerine-faced proto-Farage Robert Kilroy-Silk, the liquid equivalent of Conservative Party policy is a major source of ammonia, so the jabbering homunculus has promised to introduce voluntary controls and to reward farmers for not being naughty, rather like the late Head Boy giving tax breaks to the virtuously married. In deference to the urgency of the situation, the jabbering homunculus has promised to wait six years before this rigorous new régime is imposed. Meanwhile, in order to minimise the risk of mere experts turning up and giving ministers a headache, emissions from intensive livestock farms are not being monitored at all.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Premolars xvii-xxxix

Later that day the Father of Teeth came upon the breeding pits, and saw the pregnant women whooping and squealing as their feet were stirruped and their swellings massaged, while the obstetricksters donned their ceremonial cagoules in veneration towards the breaking of the waters. The Father of Teeth wandered from breeding pit to breeding pit, and grinned down upon the women until he was requested to stop because there was enough screaming already.

"Why do they scream so loudly?" inquired the Father of Teeth.
"From mere exhilaration," the obstetricksters assured him; "they are possessed by the joy of the bundles they squeeze out."

Indeed, the joy of the bundles was nearly equal in volume to the exhilaration of the breeders. Urgently in need of quiet, the Father of Teeth made his way past the breeding pits until he came to the intricate system of pipes whereby the bundles of joy were delivered unto the world. Teams of obstetricksters, assisted by some of the stronger women, had equipped themselves with long poles and were straining and pushing at something inside the pipes.

"Why do you push so strenuously?" inquired the Father of Teeth.
"Simple overproduction," the obstetricksters explained; "there is so much joy that the pipes become blocked, so the bundles need hurrying along."

Even as he spoke, a bushel of bundles was sent screeching and tumbling into the pipe, efficiently filling up what small space the team had cleared.

"One could almost believe," observed the Father of Teeth, "that the world might be suffering an excess of joy;" for which deadly insult the obstetricksters menaced him with their poles, and the women shrieked and clawed at his eyes until he finally took the hint.

Let Us Make Ourselves Quite Clear

Yet further dividends of Britain's approaching independence from the Brusso-Strasbourgian oppressor are making themselves deliciously felt in the education industry, where Euro-wog staff have at last started taking Her Majesty's Government's politely understated hints. In the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands there will be no need for brainy proles; providing more than the most basic education to those destined for life as hewers of water and haters of wogs would be a waste of resources better spent on tax cuts for the deserving. Even more positively, many of the efficiency savings in the juvenile resource training sector have been in the teaching of modern languages, which will have incalculable benefits when it comes to purifying the tongue spoken by Shakespeare, Ethelred the Unready and Oswald Mosley. It is to be hoped that the departing queue-jumpers have picked up sufficient buccaneering entrepreneurialism to start teaching English in their own countries, thereby facilitating the smoothness of any future negotiations with the mainland.

Shelter for the Deserving

After decades of languishing beneath the Euro-wog yoke, Britain's glorious resurgence as a global superpower has taken yet another great leap forward. Overseas territories which provide aid and comfort to tax-dodgers have been squealing about a new requirement to make public the identities of their clients, and with its usual forthright mix of pluck, gumption and decency the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns has gloriously caved in. The Government was in any case reluctant to impose the new rule, but its hand was forced by Parliament which, as we now know, does not represent the will of the people and whose treacherous taking of control must be defied at every opportunity through the stabilising strength of Tumbledown Tessie. Always a martyr to its own generosity as long as someone else is paying, the Government has given the fiscal heavens an extra three years to compile their registers, on the grounds that many Caribbean islands have suffered a degree of disorganisation because of hurricanes, and in some cases no doubt because of those national emergencies which can result from the arrival of a few dozen Windrush exiles.

Soft Touch

We are all well aware that Her Majesty's Government, and the Conservative Party in particular, has virtually no problem whatever with migrants and coloureds provided they know their place; but this paternally enlightened attitude has not always met with a commensurate degree of respectful gratitude. The Ministry for Profitable Incarceration has fallen victim to unionised troublemakers who claim that cleaners, security guards and receptionists, and outsourced ones to boot, should receive the same sick pay and holiday entitlements as real people, not to mention a living wage. There have even been threats to expose the Ministry to the wrath of the known enemies of the people in the judiciary, on the grounds that almost all the workers in question are from deportable backgrounds. Nevertheless, despite the threat of strike action it remains as yet unclear how much gammon stands ready and boiling to aid British justice by rushing up to the plate.

The Price of Purification

True to its zeal for slashing through the red tape of Eurocracy with the blade-free machete of Britishness, Her Majesty's Government has decreed that any Euro-wogs who wish to continue polluting the racial purity of the civil service will have to pay for the privilege themselves. Although the fee has been set at what hard-working ministers consider an affordable rate, it is not so affordable that Her Majesty's Government feels inclined to make a contribution; particularly as, true to form, the minions of Tumbledown Tessie neither know nor care how far the civil service has already been infiltrated. Naturally, the Stalinist malcontent who deputy-heads the civil service union drew a wholly spurious parallel with the recent war-games in Kent; and it can only be a matter of time before some other enemy of the will of the people demands that queue-jumpers be subsidised out of the imminent extra squillions which by rights belong to the Nationalist Health Service.

Democratic Decency

No scroungers we, nor are we shirkers,
But ordinary British workers.
We do not try to jump the queue,
But vote our pay-rise smoothly through.
Deport a law-abiding Brit?
We shudder at the thought of it.
We always keep our discourse civil
And never call opponents evil;
So why do plebs and police not leap
When, having sown, we start to reap?

Cookie Gammon

All in the Brain

Individuals tend to become susceptible to radicalisation and extremism when they suffer social exclusion. An international team of researchers using the most sophisticated neuro-imaging techniques have discovered what most of us found out in the school playground: that human beings are herd animals with a strong urge towards conformity and acceptance by their peers. Conveniently, the new study also proves beyond reasonable doubt that the radicalising effect of "other variables, such as poverty, religious conservatism and even psychosis" is negligible or even nonexistent, since no-one has ever suffered social isolation just because they were poor or heretical or behaved oddly. Thus western policymakers will now have yet another reason to abandon their strenuous efforts at alleviating poverty and improving mental health, in favour of more sensible and moderate measures such as all-out war on nonconformity. It remains as yet unclear what measures will be taken against wealthy parents who isolate their children in exclusive environments which encourage the belief that there is no such thing as society; but for the moment we can at least be thankful for what science can achieve provided it knows its place.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: II Bicuspid xlix-lxxviii

Later the Father of Teeth was on his way to the sugar factory when he found a purpose-peddler in front of the gates. A great queue had formed as people crowded around to receive a meaning for their lives. Wielding a rubber stamp in each hand, the purpose-peddler thumped out meanings with great speed and dexterity, imprinting the word FAMILY on almost every brow because that was the stamp in his right hand, and the word NATION on almost all the rest, although occasionally, by way of a change, he would swap one or other of these two rubber stamps for the one reading GOD, or the one reading APPLAUSE or one of the dozens of others messily arrayed in the racks on his stall. So rapidly did he work that the purpose-peddler could give meaning to the lives of perhaps forty or fifty petitioners a minute, yet the queue continued to lengthen even as those imbued with purpose wandered off to nurse their aching heads and fight over the meanings of the meanings assigned to them.

Since the crowds around the purpose-peddler were packed solid, the Father of Teeth joined the queue and waited the few hours necessary to find himself within sight of the factory gates. "You're blocking the way," he said to the purpose-peddler, who made no reply but readied his rubber stamps while indicating with a flick of his head the traditional bottomless bucket into which petitioners, in accordance with custom, deposited their virtually non-obligatory cash homage to his charity. Grinning with his black gums, the Father of Teeth grabbed the purpose-peddler's wrists and twisted them until, with a slight gasp and two discreet clicking noises, the release of both rubber stamps was conclusively motivated. The Father of Teeth took one of the rubber stamps and fiddled with the letters, while the crowd stood watching in silent awe. At last the Father of Teeth grabbed the purpose-peddler by the neck and lustily impressed him with the modified rubber stamp. The letters were so clearly marked that the purpose-peddler had to sit down and shake his head a few times before asking what word they spelled. On this question, unfortunately, no two people in the crowd could agree: some said the word was GOD, and some said it was FAMILY, and quite a few said it was JUST A BIT OF FUN, although they didn't seem greatly amused.

"What does it say?" they shouted after the Father of Teeth, who had sneaked through the gates of the sugar factory and was making his way surreptitiously to the caries dispensary. At the sound of their yells he turned and bawled something back at them. It sounded like "roadblock", but they couldn't be sure.

Mission Even More Accomplished

Allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria will continue to be taken as seriously as expediency requires and will result in the usual escalation of righteous bombast and civilian casualties within the customarily accepted parameters of international thuggery. The Fox News chickenhawk John Bolton, whom the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble have appointed national security adviser faute de pire, has warned the beast Assad that the World Cop's eye does not sleep even though his truncheon may be elsewhere employed; and if the beast Assad did not know before, he has surely realised by now that chemical weapons are unequivocally contrary to all acceptable international standards of behaviour, except when used against Iran by such warriors for freedom and democracy as Saddam Hussein. For the World Cop, of course, any given event or non-event may legitimately be utilised as an excuse to bomb anything or anybody; so even should America's peacemakers be re-deployed to Iran in pursuit of Bolton's febrile supercaliphatuous visions, the people of Syria no doubt feel safer already.

Salve, O Popolo d'Eroi

Sniggers of triumph are undoubtedly resounding through the corridors of Whitehall today, as it appears that the beastly Euro-wogs have blinked first in the battle of opportunity to pull back control of Global Britannia's invisible chain. The Italian government has announced that, in the event of a clean-break Brexit, a bunch of migrants will be permitted to jump the queue, to the incalculable detriment of the enemy's moral and economic standing. This latest indiscretion by the beastly Euro-wogs cannot help but benefit the war effort on the mainland, where Her Majesty's Government continues so strong and stable that it regards a few dozen refugees in the Channel as a national emergency. Indeed, not only is the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands forcing the invaders to pay for the privilege of remaining in their own homes; it also does not scruple to deport British citizens whenever the whim occurs. One feels almost sorry for the lesser breeds who hope to prevail against such valour, such decency, such stern and silent pride.

For Queen, Country and Capita

While a return to the glories of National Service (conscription, in Standard English) cannot be far away, the army has thus far had to content itself with privatising its recruitment process, with the predictable result that recruitment targets have not been met in any year since the profits started flowing in. Fortunately, a cunning plan is afoot to attract more millennial stereotypes, utilising the iconic imagery of Lord Kitchener's invitation to Messrs French and Haig's patriotic meat-grinder. The army proclaims that it sees people differently, much as it wishes itself to be seen as something that mostly carries out humanitarian missions to villages torn by the armies of lesser breeds. Meanwhile, the pubescent Minister for Wog-Bombing delivered an inspirational soundbite assuring a breathless nation that military service is a comradely adventure in upskilling for livability that should appeal to those "seeking to make a difference as part of an innovative and inclusive team" - in short, that cannon-fodder is corporate fodder just like anyone else. Still, given the likely state of the Recrudescent Imperium over the next few years, it is no doubt only reasonable that the organisation soon to be responsible for breaking strikes, putting down food riots and dealing forthrightly with enemies of the people should be allowed to present itself as a source of opportunity, stability and security.

Within Our Means

Although the magic money tree can always be shaken to bribe a few Orangemen, Her Majesty's Government has been exercising commendable thrift with women of other colours. Deeply concerned at the possibility of wasting British taxpayers' money on helping British citizens, the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns has been charging victims of forced marriage overseas for the cost of their repatriation. The Ministry condescended to stop billing children after the Guardian reported that Foreign Office loan sharks had confiscated the passport of a seventeen-year-old victim and were trying to extort £814 from her to get it back; but charges still apply to those aged eighteen or over. Naturally, having stressed the need for compassionate and humane behaviour in every situation and asked the appropriate officials for some advice that is not improper, the Foreign Secretary himself is the very picture of deniability.

With Mighty Hand and Outstretched Arm

In his capacity as estate agent and landlord to the chosen people, the Lord of Hosts has certain obligations to his tenants; not least in the matter of pest control. After only seventy years of hinting, a convenient answer to the Palestinian problem seems to have been created, in the form of antibiotics-resistant bacteria whose efficacy has been admirably showcased by recent incidents in Gaza. According to Britain's leading liberal newspaper, Israeli troops shot large numbers of people in the passive voice and the new infections mean that the survivors' wounds cannot be quickly closed, which means that patients spend more time in hospital, have less chance at successful reconstructive surgery and suffer greater risk of amputation. Nevertheless, Britain's leading liberal newspaper has taken some small interest in the problem, as the shortages which Gaza somehow contrives to suffer despite the ministrations of the Righteous State have exacerbated the risk of infection, to the extent that it may spill across the checkpoints and begin to trouble the master race.