Progressive Pilgrims

Some servants of a megalomaniacal Bronze Age djinn have hurried the US presidential election campaign into standard supernatural territory by calling for the restoration of the country's soul by the business-as-usual candidate. The group of Abrahamic and Sikh leaders called for a return to the wog-bombing, climate-changing moral clarity that characterised US politics before the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble got those little orange paws on the levers of power. The Trumpster, it appears, is insufficiently familiar with Scriptural values, being notoriously opposed to arbitrary government; disapproving of massacres; favourable towards equal rights for women and non-heterosexuals and the sons of Ham; innocent of concubinage; and disinclined to re-write history.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Numbers 30 iii-xv

God decrees that oaths, vows and pledges made by women are valid only when the women's husbands and fathers are not opposed to them. If a woman makes a vow while unmarried and living with her father, and the father expresses his opposition on the same day as he hears of the vow, then the vow does not stand. If a married woman makes a vow and her husband expresses his opposition on the day he hears of it, then the vow does not stand.

Clearly God believes that women, like oxen, asses, slaves and other livestock, bear no responsibility for their actions and are bound not by their own word but by that of their owners. A further indication of how seriously God takes a woman's vow lies in the condition He imposes for the master's veto, which must be exercised within an arbitrary time limit without regard for any other circumstances.

With the smugly patronising air common to bullies and tyrants who think they are being magnanimous, God proclaims that He will "forgive" those women whose vows are overruled: something which a ruler who was noted for exercising reason and mercy would arguably not need to point out. The vows of widows and divorced women are subject to no such indulgences: these women are defiled by having no owner, and God makes a point of reminding them that their vows will stand against them until they get back in their proper place.

Constructive Dismal

The brilliant Chris Graybeing has caused a considerable gain in intelligence and security by resigning from the parliamentary committee on intelligence and security. As the Cummings administration's candidate for chair of the committee, Graybeing was parachuted in and promptly lost the vote to a fellow Conservative. The traitor was instantly purged from the Parliamentary Brexit Party, but the brilliant Graybeing was left in the confusing situation of having failed calamitously with no resulting promotion. This has never happened before; Graybeing's brilliant record as transport secretary, when he granted a ferrying contract to a company with no ships, and as minister for hanging and flogging, when he kicked the probation service to bits and forbade the sending of books to prison inmates, is nearly as luminous a demonstration of British meritocracy as the career of Boris Johnson.

Un-British Activities

With unclean hordes swarming to our shores every day and only one or two having the good manners to wash up drowned among the perfidious French, the forces of metropolitan élitism continue to do all they can to create a hostile environment for the hostile environment. Even now that the Recrudescent Imperium has taken back control from the suffocating red tape of the Nazi-Soviet dictatorship in its bunker at Brusso-Strasbourg, the Ministry for Wog Disposal continues to be persecuted by activist lawyers actively advocating for the application of, if you please, the law of the land. Have the enemies of the people no sense of decency, at long last? Is there no limit to the perverseness of their unpatriotic depravity?

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

There hath been much well-juſtifyed Indignation this Week paſt, concerning the traytorous Diſinclinations of a noted Orcheſtra and its aſsociated Warblers, who are rumoured to be contemplating the Removal from their next Performance of any Trace of patriotick Sentiment. I have it from reliable Sources at the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe, that the Muſical Conductor hath a ſtrange foreign Name and is further ſuſpected of ſtill worſe Unmanlineſs, and thus it was propoſed to commence the great Event with the great Hall feſtooned in the Flag of the beaſtlie French, and onlie foreign Lyrics to be ſung on pain of a ſudden and horrid Finnish with melodick Inflections of unſpeakable Fiendiſhneſs. Some Luminaries of the Facially Defiant Anti-Maſque Club were reſolved there and then to beſiege the Hall and ſet up ſuch a Chorus of true Britannick Feeling, that the very floating Mattreſses of the migrant Hordes in the Engliſh Channel ſhould all ſhiver with Dread and Envy. Other Perſons have ſuggeſted abſurdly that the Reaſon behind this humiliating Diſplay of Poltrooniſhneſs may have been to preſerve the good Health of the Warblers, as if the Woo Han Peſtilence had not long ago been vanquiſhed from all the important Houſeholds, ſuch that our noble Prme Miniſter appeareth in ſeverall Minds as to whether the Wearing of Maſques at the Diſcretion of the individual Conſcience might conſtitute too ſtringent and inflexible a Rule. It is aſsuredly a very Diſgrace unto the Nation, that our great Anthems and Jingles can be conſtrained to a puſilannimous Silence, upon the mere tremulous Miſgivings of thoſe with inſufficient Faith in the Verſe and the World-beating Potency of its Œſophagus-ſcowering Britiſhneſs.

Healthy Spiritual Climate

Humourless forces of militant atheism at the Charity Commission are probing a London church run by a bishop with the commendably topical name of Climate Wiseman. Besides the financial clouds that so often pursue the unworldly and immaterial, the Commission will also be looking into the bishop's recent sideline in plague protection kits. Wiseman has admitted to sales of over a thousand bottles of cedar and hyssop and scarlet yarn at £91 per faithful and his money, and claims quite correctly that the formula is based on the Bible. The mixture is recommended in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus, although it remains as yet unclear whether Wiseman's cures also included killing birds and dunking other birds in their blood, or shutting up houses for a week if the walls are the wrong colour, or slaughtering lambs and placing their blood upon the ears, thumbs and toes of the afflicted. Wiseman also proclaimed that the Covid-19 virus can be cured by faith: an assertion which only the crudest construal could possibly take literally as long as an invisible barrier to the powers of darkness is available for cold hard cash.

BP Never Shall Be Slaves

Subversive and un-British doings are afoot at the British Petroleum Museum, where someone with a funny foreign name has got himself up as a director. A bust of the museum's founder, whose wealth derived partly from slave labour in the West Indies, has been removed from its pedestal and placed in, of all things, some sort of context. It is unlikely that even this traitorous de-rahrahfication of our glorious island story will be enough for the insatiable warriors of woke, who continue to demand the deportation of liberated artefacts to an uncertain future in Africa. Nevertheless, with fitting entrepreneurial Britishness, the museum has so far condescended to enter negotiations with Benin on the possibility of loaning Nigerians back some of their heritage.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

I had reſolved upon a Voyage into Calais among the beaſtlie French, in order to gather Intelligence concerning the Diſpoſition of their Armies; for it is well known amid the innermoſt Circles of Her Majeſty's Government, that the Enemy hath achieved a moſt unfair Advantage in diplomatick Statecraft, by the fiendiſhly cunning Expedient of arriving at Meetings with their Papers all prepared and their Documents thoroughly peruſed before-hand, like blatant Cheats at an Examination. It is a moſt unchivalrous ſort of Conduct, and no leſs a Diſgrace to the Honour of the Foe was the Incident which at laſt prevented my Sojourn, namely the Arrival on Calais beach of a deceaſed juvenile of inferior Race, which but for a fortunate Tide might have waſhed up at Dover inſtead. To what thin Rag or Scrap of Hope may we cling for the Harmony among Nations, when we have barely begun to recover from the Woo Han Peſtience and already our vindictive Enemies begin to tarniſh the Silver of our Seas with unclean Litterings of the migratory Swarm? It is true that the Corſe in queſtion was a ſmall one, but the period at Sea would indubitably have enhanced its Preſence and poyſonous Miaſmata with gaſeous Bloating and ſeverall Varieties of noxious Leakage, to the unſpeakable Detriment of any ſenſitive Britiſh Conſtitution.

Accordingly I betook me inſtead to Scotland, where as befitteth a Paragon of Induſtriouſneſs, our noble Prime Miniſter was upon his ſixth or ſeventh Holiday of the Year accompanied by one or more relevant Whores and Broods. I was unfortunately unable to gain a confidential Audience although I followed the eminent Entourage from Berwick to Lerwick at the Coſt of ſome Diſcomfort and ſeverall Bearers. However, I hear from the moſt reliable Sources that our dear Leader continues deeply concerned, that the Nation's more expendable Children ſhould return immediately to their accuſtomed Labours, although there remain many ungrateful and intranſigent Perſons among the lower Claſses, who threaten obſtinate Refuſal and entire Diſcombobulation of the great Stateſman's maſterly Precautions. For it is only by obſerving of the Exceſs Mortality among the Expendables that we may hope to determine the Safety of ſending the Heirs to the Country's Greatneſs back to Oxford, Cambridge and Eton. Yet alas, be he ever ſo Britiſh, in his entire Lack of a diſintereſted and altruiſtick Viſion your ſpoyled and pampered modern Expendable might almoſt as well have been borne unto the ſwarming Horde of migrating Cockroaches.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Roots cclxxxix-cccxiv

If there's one lesson I've learned from life, said the Father of Teeth disingenuously, that lesson is: if you want a job done properly, you should do it yourself. Even the Creator of the universe, that senile old bungler, once knew that much. In the beginning He did everything Himself, creating the world and the flesh and the serpent just the way He wanted them, and for quite a long time afterwards everything went just the way He anticipated. Perhaps that was the problem, said the Father of Teeth: His attention span isn't the greatest at the best of times, and after a while He simply became bored. That was when He decided to introduce automation, so He wouldn't have to worry about creating every last amoeba and flea and head-louse, to say nothing of human beings, whose fault it all was, apparently. Since the job was entirely beneath Him and the sexless angels would have had no idea what He was talking about, He came to me in the shape of a burning root canal and ordered me to get on with it. Well, said the Father of Teeth, if a job is worth doing it's worth assigning to someone who can do it, so I gritted my gums and went all the way back to the old days, when there was nothing on earth to be found except the primal ooze, which was globberng and bubbling with annoyance because the moon had been recently formed and the tides kept going in and out all the time and keeping it awake. I won't pretend, said the Father of Teeth, that the primal ooze was particularly pleased when I turned up again, since of course I was partly responsible for the moon's formation, though I never meant it to be so oversized; but that is another story altogether. I told the primal ooze that the Creator wanted a more efficient system that would mean less interference from head office and more freedom of action for the lower forms, and the primal ooze chewed it over for a while, allowed the thought to percolate and encrust and dilute and seep with disgusting leisureliness; and eventually, when I was just about ready to go back to some even older days and try to inject some alacrity into the pre-primal proto-ooze, somewhere amid the bubbling and the globbering a protein appeared, and then lots of them, and soon enough after that one particular protein began to replicate itself. It was the wrong one, of course, said the Father of Teeth, which explains all that's happened since and then some, and that's when I learned that delegation isn't everything, and if you want a job done properly you shouldn't necessarily leave it to primal ooze, especially primal ooze with a grudge. And hindsight, said the Father of Teeth, is all very well.

National Religion

A find of "international historical importance" has been left in the letterbox of an auction house in Bristol and, since international historical importance is money, was promptly sold off for a quarter of a million plus change. The item in question was a pair of spectacles worn by Mahatma Gandhi, who used to dispose of his old pairs by giving them away; these particular glasses date from his time in South Africa, where he worked for British Petroleum and campaigned for the rights of Indian immigrants not to be treated like kaffirs. Although the commercial spectacle in Bristol might not have met with his approval, the great-souled one would certainly have been happy to see his relic passed on through the good offices of a nation with an urge towards a mythical past and a healthily enforced caste system.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Deſpite my conſiſtent Warnings of Treachery and unobtruſive Hints at mine own Willingneſs for the Nation's Sake to ſtep into one or ſeverall Pairs of dead Miniſters' Shoes, our noble Prime Miniſter hath betook himſelf on Holiday, it may be preſumed with one or more of his numerous Whores and Broods. Without the ſemi-Divine Guidance of his mighty Brain, and the far-ſighted Pluck and Gumption of his entrepreneurial Heart, to ſay nothing of the great diplomatick Bottle-neck beſtowed by his heroically ballooning Proſtate Gland, it is onlie naturall and inevitable that ſubordinate Miniſters will continue entirely unmindful of the true Victims of this national Criſis, falling to Diſcord and unauthoriſed Meaſures in order to demonſtrate their illuſory Independence of Spirit and to ſecure their own Poſitions againſt my ſatanically ſubtil Manœuvres. Thus one Miniſter hath moſt ſcurrilouſly and outrageouſly proclaimed, that those depraved and diſsipated Hovellers who refuſe timely Payment of their Rent, ſhall have a full further Calendar Month in which to waſte their Reſources on Gaming, ſtrong Drink and Tattoos. It is true that a Miniſter of more reſponſible Attitude hath attempted to balance this Heliogabalian Profligacy by aboliſhing the Penſions for the Families of thoſe Surgeons, Apothecaries and Nurſes who periſhed during the Peſtilence from a Surfeit of Applauſe; but difficult Choices are nevertheleſs in Store. With not five Weeks left before next Quarter-day and the Peaſantry continuing reſtleſs and belligerent, I ſhall have Bailiffs ſitting idle until Chriſtmas while my Eſtates go untended and my Wardrobe unrepleniſhed but for Stockings and the leſs colourful Waiſtcoats.

Levelling Up

Thanks in large part to the freedomising soft power of the Recrudescent Imperium, juvenile resources in Yemen are gaining valuable experience of family values and the labour market. Children are being sent out to work, to beg or to be sold into matrimony, because the war so profitably prosecuted by Whitehall's favourite Islamic fundamentalist head-choppers has provided a gastro-intestinal incentivisation for families to divert their assets away from such communistic, un-British priorities as healthcare and schooling. In the south of the country, the miracle of market forces has managed to keep the pandemic running unchecked and the public's attention fully focused on the economy: a nearly perfect herd immunity policy.

Surprised By Kitsch

Although the Church of England has so far modernised itself as to ordain women except where misogynists forbid it, and to confine its gay-bashing to the non-celibate, there is still arguably some way to go. Since God has drifted into the habit of neglecting His real estate in the northern powerhouse, one Yorkshire church has decided to thrust its way into modernity by replacing its eroded mediaeval statues with graven images from the Chronicles of Narnia. Produced as recently as sixty-five years ago by a prolifically patronising academic bigot, the Narnia books resonate such robust wisdom as: the idea that mediaeval absolutism is the best form of government (the series passim); the idea that comprehensive education causes bullying, and the implication that bullying is encouraged by those who try to find out what motivates it rather than simply thrashing out six of the best (The Silver Chair); the idea that dying in a train crash is good for you (The Last Battle) and, perhaps worst of all, the idea that "always winter and never Christmas" is somehow an undesirable state of affairs (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). Both The Last Battle and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader also feature some swarthy foreign types who trade in slaves (doubtless Narnian servitude relies more on the old feudal spirit) and who pretend that their god is the same as the real one. "The story has much resonance for today," gushed the local vicar, whose bishop has already dropped in to mumble the magic words that give the theme park its place in Eternity.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

It is a Truth univerſally acknowledged, that there is no Thing ſo ſaps the moral Fibre of the lower Claſses, than an Exceſs of good Health. Without the harſh Incentives of imminent Starvation and incurable Diſeaſe, the naturall Man inevitably gaineth Aſcendancy over all that is great and noble, and all too eaſily forceth out the Britiſhneſs which maketh our Soldiers, Miners, Chimney-ſweeps and Nigger-drivers the Envy and Terror of the World, and thoſe who lack the Quality neceſsary for the Reſponſibility of Command and Ownerſhip ſlide thereby into the horrid Slough of Vice and Idleneſs, and become a Burden to the Community and a Diſaſter to themſelves. It is doubtleſs as a Reſult of ſuch Conſiderations, which I have mentioned upon ſome few dozen Occaſions during our lengthy Correſpondence concerning my Employment at the more exalted Levels of Government, that our noble Prime Miniſter hath taken the ſuperbly ſtateſmanlike Deciſion to aboliſh Publick Health in England. Mine own Intelligence hath led me inexorably to conclude, that the recent Woo Han Peſtilence was aided in its ſubtil and nefarious Progreſs by that traitorous Cabal of Surgeons, Nurſes, Apothecaries and other Immigrants, who drained the Life's Blood of the Nation by continually demanding Applauſe from Hands that would have been better occupied in conſtructing affordable Hovels for hard-working Families and ſchooling the next Generation of entrepreneurial World-beaters by generous wielding of the pedagogical Rod.

Freedom Tastes Like Chlorine

Snowflakey do-gooders have demonstrated their anti-Atlanticist values by protesting the conditions of American farm animals. Since the Conservatives pledged not to compromise Britain's food hygiene standards once free of the Euro-wog yoke, the RSPCA is naturally concerned that the Cummings administration is about to open the national gastro-intestinal tract to all manner of fouled pork and polluted fowl. The charity has produced a video warning against consumption of the world's greatest meat because of the migrant-child conditions in which the contributors are kept: pigs can be imprisoned in stalls without room to turn around, while chickens must receive a posthumous baptism in swimming-pool water after spending their lives "literally sitting in each other's waste". A less charitable commentator than your correspondent might observe that there can be few more appropriate images for mainstream politics on either side of the Atlantic than flocks of modern dinosaurs enthroned clucking and squawking in their neighbours' excretions; although in fairness the RSPCA have apparently found no real evidence that significant numbers of chickens voted Trumpster.

Bad Theology

Text for today: James 1 xiii-xvii

The epistle of James was rejected by some early theologians for its lack of guidance on those matters of church bureaucracy and the nature of Christ which make the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline epistles such hypnotic reading. Instead James concentrates on obedience to the Jewish law: an emphasis which might displease the church fathers, but would certainly gain a degree of approval from a rabidly chauvinistic and stridently reactionary Jew such as Jesus.

Undeniably there are difficulties. James states outright that God is not the source of temptation, thereby flatly contradicting the Lord's Prayer as well as the Saviour's own statement that God has deliberately created a world in which temptation is necessary. One might argue that James is merely re-stating the Saviour's observation that God uses selected human beings as a temptation delivery system, so that He may in good conscience inflict upon them the punishment for His own sadistic crimes; but James goes on to state that the real source of temptation is human desire.

This is entirely in accordance with the Saviour's view of any wish that does not coincide with His own; but the question remains how James can assert that God, without Whose sanction a sparrow cannot fall to earth, is somehow disengaged from the vital and virtuous process of condemning people to the eternal flames. James states immediately afterwards that God is unalterable in His dictatorial rigidity, thereby eliminating the argument that He has simply changed His mind since the Saviour's time.

Presumably the statement on temptation refers only to the elect, since these are not the ones whom God has chosen to take the blame for His machinations. God does not tempt, or allow to be tempted, those He has predestined for His kingdom; therefore, when such people pray to be spared temptation their prayers will come true and their faith will be justified. As for the chaff, they can blame themselves and suffer while their loving Father stokes the waiting fire.

And Then There Was Korea

Britain has been having a bit of a rah-rah for the seventy-fifth anniversary of Mr Churchill's victory over Japan, which made the world safe for peace, freedom, Stilton cheese and the white race. The Imperial Haystack had a blather which condemned the Japanese for distracting British heroes from Mr Churchill's victory over Europe, while the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition noted forensically that the war in Asia was "particularly cruel," presumably compared to such anti-communist trifles as the siege of Leningrad rather than to the Holocaust. He also proclaimed the importance of unity and pulling together, as opposed to getting rid of racist right-wing juntas in eccentric island nations. Remembrance and contrition for the three-month delay in ending the war, imposed by Mr Churchill's chums in Washington at the cost of thousands of lives, do not appear to have troubled the celebrations.

Callous

The mayor of Calais has recommended that the Cummings administration calm down, which under present circumstances appears nearly as realistic as recommending the Ninety-five Theses to Bloody Mary. Beset by its own incompetence on all sides, from the inconvenience of holidaymakers to the comparatively minor matter of our world-beating Covid-19 death toll, Her Majesty's Government has little other choice, if it wishes to retain the approval of the great British public, than to point and squeal about the beastly Euro-wogs who are not doing enough to protect our global might from the swarming migrant hordes. The mayor of Calais even registered some concern over the request by the Ministry for Wog Control for the Royal Navy to send out a few aircraft carriers and show the rubber dinghies the true meaning of British fair play. Calais, which was a British possession as recently as 1558, is evidently haunted by folk memories of the good old days when England was ruled by a hysterical absolutist with a no-nonsense attitude to dissent and a liking for bonfires of the expendable.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Woe to this poor Countrie, that it ſhould ſuffer Peſtilence and migrant Swarms and the ſcheming Machinations of the beastlie French, and that all this ſhould not be enough to ſlake the Flames of unlucky Fortune and dowſe the ſtinging poyſonous Thorns of Ingratitude in our ungrateful and inſubordinate Populace. Thoſe reckleſs and diſruptive Students from the inferior Claſses, whoſe final Examinations have neceſsarily been far leſs rigorous in their Standards owing to the fortuitous Demiſe of ſo many Teachers, have raiſed ſuch a Hullaballoo and Cry at the ſuppoſed Injuſtice of their Lot, that the weekly general Meeting of the League of Facial Defiance had to be cancelled for fear of the maſqued indignant Mob. Theſe future menial Servants, private Soldiers and other front-line Perſonnel of to-morrow muſt have a moſt inflated Conception of their Value to our great Civiliſation, which is robuſt enough to award every Subject his due in Hope and Opportunity for the next thouſand Years once purged of all Elements of treacherous Diſloyalty and ſpiritual Rambunctiouſneſs.

Decent People's Burden

Even those undefiled by historical expertise will occasionally admit that the colonial experience as undergone by the lesser breeds was not always the uplifting and civilising process carried out by the British Empire. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Germans engaged in some very unsportsmanlike conduct against the peoples of what is now Namibia, and the two countries are now negotiating the terms of a possible formal apology and compensation. The Germans are wary of the word reparations in case it sets a precedent for claims by Poland, Greece or Italy over crimes committed during Mr Churchill's victory over Europe; the idea of crimes against Russia being self-evidently a contradiction in terms. Meanwhile, the mainland has dealt with its own little indiscretions in the characteristic national spirit of pragmatic fair play, alternating regretful noises with echt-Kipling blather while expending generous quantities of time and the British taxpayer's property waiting for our victims to die of old age.

Tried and Tested

Outside the dank orifices of the Cummings administration itself, there are few who have endorsed the Government's handling of the pandemic with such forensic enthusiasm as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition; which makes it all the more laudable that one or two members of the shadow cabinet are expressing suitably nuanced concern over yet another handout from the British taxpayer to those brilliant boffins at Serco. Since Serco are mostly famous for tracking the movements of dead people, their qualifications when it comes to keeping the statistics onside need hardly be belaboured; and naturally, given the company's record of public service under both right wings of our great democracy, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition did not condemn the hiring outright. The shadow health secretary, from whom much has undoubtedly been heard somewhere or other during the past few months, merely gave vent to a bit of an urge about the technicalities of the process. His friendly reminder to the Government was co-signed by the Blairite thuggette Rachel Reeves, who is doubtless worried that the Conservatives are not being tough enough on the freeloading furlough-surfers.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Once more the beaſtlie French are muddying our Wives and ſqueezing the Breath from our Gates, perfidiouſly ſeeking to ſubvert our invincible maritime Supremacy by diſpatching ſwarming Hordes of Turks to rape our Grandmothers and give to Fire and Sword our ſilken Undergarments. I have it from a moſt reliable Source at the Admiralty, that the benighted and barbarick Mussulmans are croſsing the Channel by the Dozen, frequently afloat upon no more than the inflated Bladders of their leſs fortunate Countrymen, or a pneumatick Odaliſque. Yet deſpite ſuch primitive Veſsels they conſtitute a Terror and a Peril to our gallant Fiſhermen, who flee ſcreaming from the unhallowed Spectacle with the very Lice tumbling dead in ſtark Horror out of their whitening Beards. Not a Whit leſs than the full and entire Reſources of the Royal Navy will be required to purge this rank Criminality from the Waters of the Empire. And in this ſimple Fact lies the very Fiendiſhneſs and Perfidiouſneſs of the ſcheming French; for what better Moment to attempt a ſneaking Attack upon our Shores than when our invincible Seamen are buſy ſplattering the Heathen with Chriſtian Spunk? There is no denying the Vulnerability of our Coaſtline in the Wake of the Woo Han Peſtilence, when even now Her Majeſty's Government is toſsed upon the furious Horns of a great Dilemma, being forced to the terrible moral Choice of whether to open the Publick-houſes or to re-commence Child Labour. Aſsuredly it is a moſt griſly Taſk, the like of which no true and ſtalwart Briton ſhould ever be compelled to undertake. Why, one might with equal Fairneſs demand that an able Seaman chooſe between his Grog and his Cabin-boy.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Enamel clxxxvii-ccxxi

Later, however, the Father of Teeth emerged noisily from beneath the floorboards of the death-chamber, splintering the parson's nethers and scaring the grieving relatives into fits, while the wheezing grey thing on the bed boggled in terminal terror.

"Are you an emissary of the Creator, come to bear away my spirit?" it asked.
"Not in the least," said the Father of Teeth.
"Then," wheezed the grey thing on the bed, "have you come to offer me unholy bargains, in order to prolong my life and corrupt my soul with worldly pleasures?"
"Far from it," said the Father of Teeth.
"But the shadows are gathering," wheezed the grey thing on the bed. "Where is the tunnel? I was informed that there would be a luminous tunnel, with all my most eminent forebears waiting to pay their respects." The Father of Teeth leaned over comfortingly and displayed a grinful of cavities in their abysmal profundity, but the grey thing on the bed did not seem greatly solaced.

The grieving relatives were mostly quiet by now, the majority having been carried off by heart attacks and cerebral accidents and the like, or suffocated under the parson; but one beefy nephew was still thumping and kicking with belligerent persistence. The Father of Teeth squatted and bit off something small but necessary, whereupon the noise was stilled.

However, the grey thing on the bed displayed no concomitant access of serenity. "If you cannot ease my passing nor prolong my life, you creature of unhallowed halitosis," it wheezed, "can you at least tell me something of its meaning?"
"That depends on who you ask," said the Father of Teeth; "to your employers you were no doubt an expendable resource and scheming peril, to your wife a meal ticket with some tedious fleshly urges, to your children an absent threat and punitive stranger, and to your government and your lawyers a useful dupe."
"That's all so subjective," wheezed the grey thing on the bed; "what of its ultimate meaning?"
"Meanings change," said the Father of Teeth, "just like manners and morals and monkeys. Your life has spanned a mere handful of decades during which you have effected nothing special in a civilisation which is in any case destined to collapse and leave to the memory of posterity only the material imperishability of what it threw away. If immortality is meaning, then the meaning of a used plastic bag is more ultimate than yours. Then again, in as much as bacteria have a purpose there is meaning in biodegradability."
"Monkeys?" wheezed the grey thing on the bed indignantly.
"The Creator of the universe insists on chronic changeability," said the Father of Teeth. "Placing the lust for Eternity into finite and temporary creatures was hardly the most tasteful of His jokes; but then He is a whimsical old bugger, and He never could make up His mind."
"But I have made all due arrangements for an airtight lead-lined coffin to await the resurrection of my flesh in a nuclear-proof bunker half a mile underground," wheezed the grey thing on the bed, and this information proved useful to the Father of Teeth when he passed that way again in a hurry some fifty-one thousand two hundred and seventeen years later, and remembered just in time to avoid banging his head on the reinforced titanium sepulchre.

The Liberty Belfry

In yet another sign that electoral norms are undergoing radical change, a US presidential candidate has cancelled a rally despite being potentially rabid. The candidate for the Libertarian Party, which believes that modern America is insufficiently controlled by private corporations, was bitten by a bat while out campaigning, and has been so traumatised by the event that she now believes hydrophobia to be a disadvantage even at rallies in the Deep South. This belief has been most recently discredited by the electoral success of the hydrophobic head-tribble whose diarrhoeic defecations form the landslide majority of the Trumpster's mental activity; but fortunately the Libertarian Party has not defied present political trends so far as to be affected by mere reality. The physical condition and psychological state of the bat remain as yet unknown, and are presumably a matter of some concern to animal welfare workers.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

No ſooner have the Cheeks of our ſtout Yeomen regained their accuſtomed healthfull Mottling of red, white and blue, than certain Scotch Clans ſubverſively reawaken the Wrath of the Peſtilence with their perſiſtent Hooting and Skirling, while our economick Rivals bend the national Ear with querulous Demands that we ſhould ſhare the Secret of any ſucceſsful Treatment, in utter Defiance of all natural Juſtice and Laws of Competition. It is of courſe a regrettable Fact of human Nature, that thoſe Perſons who have attained the greateſt moral and cultural Superiority, are the very Perſons againſt whom is directed the hoſtile Paſsion and deſtructive Naſtineſs of the undiſtinguiſhed Rabble. If any one ſhould doubt the univerſal Verity of this indubitable Truth, he need only obſerve the Opprobrium and Billingſgrate hurled by every embittered Sawbones and ſlatternly Nurſe at the luminous and upright Figure of that great Stateſman, our noble Prime Miniſter. In ſimilar Faſhion, the more the leſser Breeds witness the World-beating Achievements of our ſacred Realm, the leſs are they inclined to accord us the ſporting Chances merited by the ſuperlative Britiſhneſs with which the Divine Plan hath endowed us. Accordingly, while awaiting the Announcement of my Appointment to the Houſe of Lords I ſpent much of yeſterday and today writing to the Prime Miniſter with the urgent Suggeſtion that we ſhould utterly cauteriſe the Plague with an immediate Naval Bombardment of Woo Han and the Scotch, and offering to go one-Eighth Shares in the Firſt Lordſhip of the Admiralty with any other willing and reaſonable Buyers.

Sticky Little Trigger-Fingers

That most precious American institution, the school massacre, may be in mortal peril thanks to the continuing assault on national values by the forces of rampant white-genocidal Islamo-communism. The attorney general of New York is suing for the dissolution of the Non-compos Riflemen of Academia on the blatantly political grounds that its financial practices resemble those of the Trumpster Party. Besides corruption, nepotism and illegal diversion of charitable funds, the leadership of the Nucular Republican Army is accused of fostering a "culture of non-compliance and disregard for internal controls," leading to a financial orange alert eminently worthy of the hydrophobic head-tribble and its tangerine dangler. However, the Nigger Regulators Association says that it has sued right back, raising the possibility of resolving the matter like normally reasonable Americans.

Tough Decisions, Painful Sacrifices

British fair play is as rampant as one would expect among the nation's top entrepreneurs. Sixty-four of the hundred biggest companies have ensured that the most deserving shoulders are spared the greatest burden, keeping executive pay and perks at the accustomed levels while fleecing the taxpayer for handouts. Most of the firms which did condescend to ration the fat cats' treats did so in a manner sufficiently feeble and tokenistic to forestall accusations of instituting a board-room Holodomor. Nevertheless, uncharitable voices were quick to point out that controversy might well result should we ever run out of humbler witches to hunt. "If we want to protect as many jobs as possible and give the lower paid workers who have got the country through this crisis the pay rise they deserve," said the director of one think-tank, "we will need to rethink the balance of pay between those at the top and everybody else." Fortunately, when faced with a choice between redistribution of wealth and administering yet one more kicking to those further down the social scale, the great British public tends to vote Conservative.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

For ſeverall Weeks paſt the Streets have been filled with official Exhortations to all patriotick Subjects of Her Majeſty, that we ſhould forſake the tedious diſhonourable Security of our Homes and partake in proper ſafety of the rambunctious Pleaſures of the Summer, provided that all Perſons maintain a Diſtance equalling the average Longitude of a well-grown Bullock, or a fairly mature Sheep when at Stool or religious Worſhip. In Places where ſuch Diſtance is impoſsible or utterly inconvenient to maintain, or in Boroughs where more than a third Part of the Electorate hath for the paſt Twelvemonth been in continuous Poſseſsion of a Houſe with a Fire-place or Hearth capable of accommodating a Cauldron, the liquid Capacity of which exceedeth half a dozen Imperial Gallons at the Boil without overſpilling the Rim, the Extent of the Precautions to be taken is left to the perſonal Diſcretion and Pluck of each free Subject of the Crown, except in certain Circumſtances of erotick Diſcombobulation. During the hot Weather laſt Week I took dutiful Advantage of theſe new Liberties to go and take the Waters at Bournemouth, where I was much encouraged by the vaſt Quantities of broiling purple Blubber ſprawling and wobbling upon the Sands. For as long as the great Engliſh Holiday retaineth its thouſand-year Complexion, we cannot but perſiſt in our Faith that thoſe who ſurvive this Peſtilence ſhall inherit the ſunlit Uplands of a moderate and leiſured, yet world-conquering Liberty.

Britishness Betrayed

Liberals believe that travel broadens the mind; right-wingers fear this is true. Doubtless this partly accounts for the Cummings administration's likely intention to punish recalcitrant expatriates for having the gall to remain in Europe instead of flocking back to the sunny uplands of the hermit kingdom. Ever since Britain went global, the Parliamentary Brexit Party's share of the vote among expats has declined sharply; even in last year's general election more than fifty per cent voted Labour, possibly because their exposure to the mainland media's treatment of the issues was diluted in the less free, fair and cantankerous atmosphere of Nazi-Soviet propaganda. In anticipation of expats going native, their voting rights have traditionally been removed after fifteen years' residence outside the country; the last three Conservative manifestos have pledged to remove this curtailment, but the Cummings administration are the last people to feel bound by promises to those who behave like beastly migrants.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Psalm 137

Lamenting the master race's defeat and exile in Babylon, the psalmist boasts of the Israelites' refusal to humour their conquerors by singing their native music. The idea of singing praises to God in a foreign country was anathema to the Jews, who had not yet been informed of God's omnipresence and thus assumed that He was a purely local deity. Given that the exile was God's punishment for excessive tolerance of foreign customs, the Israelites naturally assumed that the Babylonians' wish to learn more about their culture was motivated entirely by mockery and malice.

The psalmist then recalls Jerusalem, wishing paralysis and muteness on himself should he forget the city of God's official residence. Since the exile in Babylon entailed national and cultural impotence as well as self-censorship, it could be argued that these exhortations show a certain passive-aggressive priestly irony, calling down a curse that had already descended in return for a sin which no Israelite, and certainly no composer of official propaganda, was likely to commit.

Finally the psalmist celebrates the prospect of violent revenge, calling on God to remember the Edomites who encouraged the Babylonians in their sack of Jerusalem. The last line of all, blessing those future persons who will smash the heads of Babylonian infants against the rock, connotes the gleeful slaughter of the people of Seir by King Amaziah (II Chronicles 25 xi-xvi), who predictably received God's approbation for the mass murder but then came to grief through multiculturalism. After the Second Vatican Council, these lines were censored from the Roman liturgy as being incompatible with the Gospels, presumably on the grounds of insufficient violence. Certainly the all-encompassing genocide which the Saviour envisaged would be impracticable if carried out solely by hand.

Healthy Atmosphere

As Her Majesty's Government liberates the realm from the burdens of green red tape, it is only natural that the market's benevolent hand should consistently place waste incinerators among the homes of more expendable subjects. The Government is seeking to reduce landfill; and since it has no interest in recycling and the Heathen Chinee are taking an unhelpful stance on buying morally superior rubbish, the next best option is the pyre. Converting litter into air pollution will free up more land for grouse moors, golf courses, shale fracking and affordable homes for Conservative donors; and if the pollution affects nobody of consequence, so much the more efficient. Indeed, what with the pressure on crematoria from the pandemic and other acceptable mortality, besides society's incessant need for new witch-hunts, the nation's demand for cheap and rapid combustion can only continue to burn.