Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

To-day the Streets of our great City are filled with Cryers and Pamphleteers all proclaiming the News that the innate Freedoms and Liberties of our Britishneſs are ſoon to be made ſubject to yet further Reſtriction, which is doubteſs a neceſsary Sacrifice in order to outflank the perfidious Welſh and to confuſe thoſe few Surgeons, Apothecaries and Nurſes who ſtill remain to pollute our National Diſcourſe with their peſsimiſtick Subverſiveneſs. Once more the Woo Han Peſtilence hath enſured we muſt be confined to our Manſions and Palaces, with onlie our Servants to attend our Neceſsities, and with no better Paſtime to beguile the weary Routine than conſidering the likely Conſequences for our fiſcal Well-being ſhould the Peaſantry be ſo idle and inconſiderate as to indulge in exceſsive Demiſing. The Pamphleteers are ſomewhat more ſucceſsful than the Cryers in their Diſsemination of the grave Tidings, on account of their Freedom from the Neceſsity of drawing deep Breaths, and thereby inhaling the miaſmatick Stench from the heaped and rotting Corſes of the Undeſerving, by which melancholy yet inſpiring Spectacle is demonſtrated once more the Triumph of a free and fearleſs Preſs.

Gas Trouble

If there is one thing we need at this supreme historical moment, it is another reason for Turkey and Greece to start fighting each other. Unlike non-Muslim nations such as the liberators of Iraq and Afghanistan, Turkey has an appetite for fossil fuels which may put it on a collision course with other countries, and the EU has added to the trouble by giving financial backing to a new gas pipeline in the eastern Mediterranean. At least one NGO has called for the whole business to be scrapped, on the grounds that pumping the Aegean's gas reserves into the atmosphere might violate even the pathetically inadequate restrictions set forth in the Paris climate agreement. Nevertheless, despite the promising prospects for selling weapons to one or both sides, the likely response of the newly-independent Global Britain, with its famous immunity to international treaties and its titular prime minister's ancestral Ottoman hatred for Western values, remains as yet unclear.

Virtuous Broadcasting

In our mother of democracies, the only legitimate function of journalism is either to praise the Government or to hold it sternly to account for not being right-wing enough. Accordingly, the new broom at the BBC is determined to sweep away all signs of political bias, such as the metropolitan elitist prejudice in favour of treating wogs and pooftahs as though they were normal human beings. It remains as yet unclear whether BBC journalists will be permitted to demonstrate bias in favour of corporations, landlords, wog-bombing, family values, the Church of England or other non-controversial British institutions. Fortunately, the new broom is himself a failed Conservative councillor and sometime deputy chairbeing of a local party cadre, so his own innate immunity from political bias is entirely beyond question.

Force for Good Suffers Blocked Pipe

Vexatious lefty lawyers are readying yet another treacherous attempt at sabotaging one of Global Britain's few successful industries. Where the new, independent economy is concerned, the selling of weapons to Islamic fundamentalist head-choppers is rivalled for profitability only by banking scams, inability to perform the basic functions of a non-failed state, and contributions to the Conservative Party. Nevertheless, there are those who would hinder the House of Saud's continuing rampage in Yemen even though it is being carried out with weapons bearing Her Majesty's Government's statutory warning about the consequences of improper use. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade has filed for a judicial review, citing the "widespread destruction of schools, hospitals and homes." Though it is of course unfortunate that these exercises in moderation were undertaken without due recourse to such civilised methods as academy status, privatisation and bailiffs, it should be clear to any non-partisan eye that the head-chopping House of Saud remains unwavering in its progress towards British values.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

There remaineth but ſmall Room for Dubiety, that the inſidious Woo Han Peſtilence hath ſtruck back in renewed Fury of its Oriental Fiſts, in deſpite of all Precautions ſuch as collective Worſhip according to the Rites of the Church of England, and reſtricting of the Gluttonies of the Poor. Therefore it muſt be that we have failed in Faith and Humility, ſince as Anglicans and Subjects of Her moſt Britannick Majesty, with Laws againſt Vagrancy which can impoſe Fines of £100 upon the Unpropertied, we may take the Love of our Neighbours as granted. But alas, our merciful God continueth His great Chaſtiſement, in ſuch Generoſity of Meaſure as to ſtrike Terror even into the Antichriſt at Rome, who hath been obſerved upon ſundry Occaſions without that demonick Maſque which conceals from his Dupes that hideous Maw of forked Tongue and ſlavering Fangs, through which the Great Beaſt proclaimeth his unſpeakable Doctrine, that the Tithes and Monies of true Chriſtians belong at the Vatican and not the Bank of England. It is doubtleſs in the inadequate Perſecution of ſuch abominable Hereſies and Blaſphemies, along with the worldly Pride ſtill manifeſt in the ſuperfluous Cleanlineſs of many Hoſpitals and Aſylums for the Poor, that the Cauſe and Provocation of our preſent juſt Puniſhment is to be found.

Food and Mood

Interesting times call for interesting measures; and now that the strutting Caudillo of the Farage Falange has been forced aboard a bandwagon started by a black man, even some of the plucky little underdogs in the Parliamentary Brexit Party are wondering whether keeping Britain's children hungry is quite as much in their interest as it seemed. One minor apparatchik gave Marcus Rashford "huge credit" for his campaign to continue free school meals into the holidays, while naturally also standing in awe of the Cummings administration's infallible ethical judgement that the hostile environment of the scrounger safety net is as much as the poor deserve. Meanwhile, the chair of the Johnsonianly-named Commons liaison committee admitted that the world-beating populists might have "misjudged the mood of the country" on the let-'em-starve issue, although he still intends waiting for the Party and the Cummings administration to magnetise his moral compass. Apparently it may sometimes be justifiable to feed hungry children, provided one obtains due consent from the British racial overmind, and provided one's future in the House of Lords is not thereby unnecessarily imperilled by any wholly non-Stalinist purges.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Genesis 4 iii-xvii

When Cain and Abel attempt to propitiate the landlord who evicted their parents, Cain's offering of produce from the ground is rejected in favour of Abel's animal sacrifice. God lectures Cain that he must rule over sin, and Cain kills his brother. God responds by cutting Cain off from the ground which is his living, and Cain emigrates to the east of Eden. After a period of wandering, he founds a city.

God arbitrarily rejects Cain's sacrifice, presumably because it does not satisfy His taste for blood. Cain's subsequent killing of Abel may be seen as a well-meaning effort to satisfy God's insatiate lust: it is not Abel's spirit but his blood which God hears crying from the ground. Asked where Abel is, Cain responds with the literal truth: he only knows where Abel's body is, and no theologian would maintain that the body is the person. Cain then asks pointedly, "Am I my brother's keeper?" - an implicit rebuke to God for failing to take care of His own. Infuriated at Cain's insolence, God denies him his living and sentences him to exile and homelessness, setting a mark on him as a warning to anyone who thinks of laying hands on God's property.

Having "settled in the land of Nod," a Hebrew idiom for wandering, Cain founds a city. He achieves this civilised state because he has left God's presence, which at this time evidently did not extend very far beyond Eden. Presumably the people among whom Cain settled were the creations of those other gods whose existence is implied at Genesis 3 xxii, or else had evolved naturally, outside God's notice, while He was absorbed in playing with His theme park.

Black Ops

Not enough of Britain's taxpayer-funded snoopers are from ethnic minorities, according to the head of GCHQ. Ahead of the game as ever, the national security agencies actively enforced a colour bar until some point in the 1980s; presumably late in the decade, since the exact date is apparently dangerous enough to still be covered by the Official Secrets Act. Nowadays the lack of non-white spooks is presumably the result of recruiting from such hotbeds of British institutional non-racism as public schools and Oxbridge, which gave us the likes of David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Nevertheless, the dearth of diversity may prove dangerous in the future, as it will add to the difficulties of infiltrating politically correct organisations at home and uppity colonies abroad.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Were any further Demonſtration required, of that Inadequacy of moral Perſpective which diſtinguiſheth the leſser Breeds, there could ſurely be no better Example than the recent Agitation by an uppity ſporting Specimen, that the ſuperfluous Iſsue of the profligate Undeſerving ſhould receive endleſs Banquets and Feaſts at the Expenſe of the Tax-payer. Doubtleſs the horrid Conſequences of ſuch indiſcriminate and ſentimental Attempts at Charity are hidden from the ſight of this benighted Pugiliſt by the naturall Depravity and Darkneſs of his inferior Race: the inevitable Foſtering of Dependency and Idleneſs, the Breeding of an entire Generation of indolent and paraſitick vampyre Cockroaches draining the Life-blood of the Boddy Politick, and the final and ultimate Defeat of our invincible Spirit of entrepreneurial Pluck and Gumption, ſuch that within a few ſhort Yeares the World might find itſelf ſufficiently ſtarved of Britiſhneſs, as to enter a new and terrible Dark Age of unciviliſed Barbariſm.

And withal, deſpite the increaſed Leiſure-time of thoſe Young who are relieved of the tedious Neceſsity for expending their Energy and nervous Force in the ſluggardly Conſumption of mere Suſtenance, not a ſingle Subſcription hath been raiſed, nor charitable Benefit held among them, to provide our noble Prime Miniſter with proper Wherewithal to hire a Nurſe of Quality for his lateſt Baſtard. Truly, as may be obſerved in the Perſiſtence of the Woo Han Peſtilence, the Sins and Omiſsions of the Unworthy are ſuch as to merit the harſheſt Penalties in the Power of Heavenly Juſtice.

The Right Sort of Slant

Not all migrants are equal. Just as Britain's self-declared status above international law cannot be compared with the treacherous machinations of the Heathen Chinee, there is a world of moral difference between the job-stealing illegals who come over here, staff the NHS and blatantly pay taxes, and people who give birth to the likes of Priti Patel. Doubtless this explains why the Ministry for Wog Control has shown relatively few symptoms of foaming Farage Falange patriotism when announcing the possible arrival of half a million Hong Kong migrants within a year, with an option on a million or more in the next five. Not only will these quasi-Heathen Chinee gain second-class citizen status provided they can pay for it, but after five or six years the Ministry for Wog Control will have the choice of declaring them asylum seekers and kicking them out, perhaps just in time for some local elections if we still have them by then. Meanwhile, the Heathen Chinee will find out precisely whose lapel the opium flower is pinned to.

Entitled

A thug, a braggart and a bore,
A corporation's money-whore,
A larded arse upon a seat,
A boor in triumph and defeat?

A liar every other word,
A crude, conniving, thieving turd,
A taker of the biggest bribe,
A sex-pest to the porcine tribe?

A merry cripple-kicking lout,
A jolly garden-bridges tout,
A catchy name by which is meant
A grinning, crass incompetent?

A slimy smarmy oozing type,
A yapper of the racist tripe,
A petty-minded little squit,
A canting British hypocrite?

Not a scrounger, not a shirker,
Not a robber in a burqa,
Not a horde that needs a wall,
And hardly really scum at all.

Clark Middleton Fitzcap

Vicious Cycles

As the beastly Euro-wogs continue their inevitable falling-away from the rigorous standards of the mainland, denizens of the Nazi-Soviet empire of Brusso-Strasbourg are beginning to endure the just and awful consequences of cutting themselves off from Westminster. So repressed and persecuted are the motorists of Amsterdam that many of that benighted city's inhabitants have taken to cycling, without even the British Conservative Party's expedient of getting one's chauffeur to follow in the limousine in case one's little fat legs get tired. The cycling swarms are tying their machines to bridge railings, causing congestion in the streets and prompting the city council to put up flower baskets as a deterrent. Self-evidently, such alien and authoritarian measures could never be imposed in the nation that cocked up Operation Market Garden: although many British bridges still have railings despite the Government's fervent enthusiasm for the liberty to endanger others, our own most recent and grandiose attempt to combine civil engineering with horticulture was a typical triumph of Johnsonian efficiency.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Alas, deſpite my ſeverall dozen Offers to Her Majeſty's Government, to lead a modeſt Miniſtry or a regimental Battalion of Gun-boats in putting downe the continuing Celtick Inſurrection, the dread Serpent of Treaſon is ſtill ſuffered to perſiſt in the horrid Hiſsing of its ſubverſive Whiſpers while burying its crimſoned Beak in the Pancreas of our Patriotiſm and tramping our Bleſsed Union beneath the Heels of its Helliſh Hooves. When within the Space of a Day no leſs than ſeventeen of my moſt paſsionate and patriotick Miſsives had received only the quieteſt poſsible Anſwer, I was minded to ſubject the Meſsenger-boys to dutiful Chaſtiſement; but ſo afeared were the idle Tykes by the ſudden Apparition of my capacious and manly Guſset, that I could ſcarce baniſh them from my Preſence before all fled the Potency of my Wrath. Still it remains my true and pious Hope, that I may play my merited Role in enſuring that the depraved Fiend of rampant Welſhneſs may ſhortly be vanquiſhed. For it is as clear as the unbleared and all-diſcerning Eye of our noble Prime Miniſter, that the precious Union of our Kingdom muſt never be ſacrificed upon the barbarous Pagan Altar of Brythonick Unbritiſhneſs, while there remaineth in any Engliſh Veins a ſingle Drop of that Blood of the Plantangenets, which did ſo much in former Times to harry the beaſtlie Norman French from our ſacred Anglican-Saxon Shores.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Bicuspid clxiii-clxxii

In an entirely unrelated incident, however, the Father of Teeth came upon yet other ruins, where ragged denizens scrambled to hide as he approached. Twice gangs of thugs tried to introduce him to the district strongman, and once a band of children tried to overpower him for eroto-cannibalistic purposes, and the Father of Teeth had to macerate many an ulcerated cavity before they became discouraged.

Almost every upright wall was painted or daubed or scrawled with a design or motif consisting of a circle with two dots and a curve inside. Before these smiling symbols the people would leave offerings of food or, when they couldn't find food, would pick out their healthiest child and cut its throat.

"Why are you doing that, madam?" the Father of Teeth inquired of one devotedly sawing mother as her least hydrocephalic son's blood rouged a smile of stone.
"To nourish my optimism, of course," the woman replied. "Do you not see the vile conditions under which we live, and does pure reason not inform you that optimism is indispensable? But surely, O benighted and unenlightened stranger, with a grin like that on your face you must have sacrificed enough to nourish your own optimism within measurable distance of near-sufficiency?"
"I have no optimism," said the Father of Teeth; at which the woman let fall her recent sacrifice, bared her own not inconsiderable gums and tried to stab the Father of Teeth in the eye.
"Fiend of blasphemous ingratitude," she shrieked, "how dare you profane our blessed vista with your pessimistic presence?"

Slapping away the rusty blade, which was wielded in a hand so devoid of meat as to make detachment, ingestion and incorporation into the cell structure of the Father of Teeth a fundamentally un-economic proposition, the blasphemer proceeded upon his thankless way. Near the centre of the ruins he came upon a tower, which contained no ivory because the elephants were long extinct, but which was covered all over with smiles, like a fertility fetish with an approving pox. The front door was blocked by a large mound, from which tiny red ants streamed busily in great numbers. "Now there, my optimistic friend," said a voice, "is the model of a functioning society."

Raising heavenward his bloodshot orbs, the Father of Teeth descried a little fat man leaning out of a window on the tower's top floor. "A place for everyone, and everyone in his place," the little fat man called down blithely. "Each born to his allotted function, which function he discharges without question for the maximum efficiency of the whole, and God save the Queen. With this enlightening example before our very eyes, are the grounds for our optimism not unimpeachable in the extreme?"
"Whatever their function, these creatures are mostly female," said the Father of Teeth, "and I fear that distance is lending your view a little more enchantment than the market will bear." Reaching up with his seventh most snaggled gnashers he dragged the little fat man bodily through the window. This was a protracted and untidy business, for the window had been made rather narrow in order to preserve the little fat man from pessimistic influences. At last, nevertheless, the Father of Teeth's seventh most snaggled gnashers got him through for the most part, and the Father of Teeth deposited him with precision and some incidental disarrangement of the vertebrae upon the mound by his front door. Here the red ants efficiently proceeded to dedicate him, bit by bit and bite by bite, to the greatest good of the greatest number.

In two hours the little fat man had no eyes, but enough of him remained to scream for further information as to his present circumstances and likely prospects.
"Every day and in every way," said the Father of Teeth, "you are getting better and better."

Traffic is a Two-Way Street

Despite its relaxed attitude to child poverty, Her Majesty's Government has long proclaimed its distaste for child slavery and trafficking and claimed, as usual, to be in the forefront of world-beating in the business of tackling these horrid crimes in which Conservative Party donors are at most indirectly involved. Tumbledown Tessie made a good deal of noise about the issue, presumably because somebody told her that child traffickers are mostly Negroes, Arabs and others of the wog persuasion. As would have been self-evident to any government capable of planning beyond the next news cycle, this means that many of the trafficked children are guilty of a similar dusky hue; and this in turn means, of course, that once they reach the age of eighteen they treacherously and deceitfully turn into asylum seekers. Fortunately, the Ministry for Wog Control has taken all due precautions: of nearly five thousand victims of trafficking recognised between 2015 and 2019, the grand total of those given leave to remain was five hundred and forty-nine adults and twenty-eight children. Doubtless because of its protective instincts, the Government has been rather cagey about how long the children were allowed to stay before qualifying for firm and fair treatment under the hostile environment.

Where Charity Ends

Do-gooders and metropolitan élites have joined in a vexatious conspiracy of anti-Britishness to shift the blame for the national housing crisis away from where it properly belongs and onto the martyred shoulders of governments which refuse to build houses. The Ministry for Wog Control admits that the country's refugee deportation system is broken, despite a decade of government by the Conservatives and their little yellow fags; and some friends of the Home Secretary recently dropped in on some asylum seekers' emergency accommodation to express their legitimate and understandable concerns. Happily, progress continues to be made: it is no longer considered necessary in British society to distinguish "bogus" asylum seekers from the rest, and the Ministry for Wog Control is massing its boot-boys for a cleansing purge which will make several thousand cockroaches homeless just as the winter sets in.

Bare-Faced Britishness

Lest any should still have the effrontery to claim that democracy is declining in the native land of the hypocrite, a family of palace-dwelling, benefits-claiming immigrants has stood up to the plate with a straight bat and shot that particular fox right into the back of the net. In case the moral lesson behind the Supreme Leader's eye-opening visit to Durham was still blurred for some, our more titular head of church and state has toddled along to a mask-free rah-rah. Ever eager to give a good example, Her Madge did not deign to show her face among the plebeians reduced to poverty by her goverment's gleeful callousness; let alone to manifest her august presence among the carers and hospital staff overworked and under-compensated thanks to her government's corrupt incompetence. Just to lubricate the lesson with one more gratuitous glob of Britishness, Her Madge's little excursion was to Porton Down, where one of her grandchildren pinned a couple of gongs on people for pointing at Russia when some nerve gas was discovered near a British germ warfare laboratory.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Much valiant and voluble Speeching at the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe this Eve, as the News came abroad that ſome traytorous Welſh Upſtart hath cloſed off the Province entire and baniſhed all true Engliſhmen from the making of Holy-days and Feſtivities therein, upon the tranſparent falſe Pretext of attempting to curtail the Woo Han Peſtilence. It was inſtantly agreed, that ſuch brazen Impudence and unconſcionable Blaſphemy againſt the Liberty of the Nation merits nothing leſs than the ultimate Penalty, and ſeverall Members were ſo moved with moral Indignation and happy Anticipation of Drawings and Quarterings, that their Faces became quite purple and my Lord Fyne-Whytewhyne was carried off in great Agonies of the Bladder, amid urethral Diſcharges of a moſt aſsertive and wide-ranging Character. In due courſe a Petition was drawn up, pledging all proper Aſsiſtance in quelling the Celtic Rabble and teaching the Glendowerite Dog not to raiſe his puny Hind-leg againſt the mighty Oak that is the Engliſh Vacationer, the ſacred Document being ſigned by every one preſent in whatever Fluids and Leakages were moſt readily to Hand. There can be little Doubt, that even in the buſy Halls of Weſtminſter ſo forthright and uncompromiſed a Meſsage will not eaſily be ignored.

Warped Drives

Since Britain is ruled by Regency louts, operates submarines that can acquire a Scotland-sized target solely by collision, and whines obsessively about being unable to control its own borders, it is natural that the head of the delusionally named UK Space Agency should be having a bit of a burble about putting the first filly on the moon within four years. Equally, since Britain no longer considers itself bound by international agreements, it is only expectable that it should be signing solemn compacts with NASA and the lesser breeds, and virtually inevitable that the delusional head of the UK Space Agency should gibber about being "a country that does the right thing." As with Brexit and the pandemic, there is no limit to the capabilities of a great enterprising power provided one takes care not to leave the realm of advertising, so the delusional UK headspace of the agency waffled that the whole jolly rah-rah was so British as to be "like Star Trek, isn't it." I am not well-versed in the Roddenberry cosmos, which doubtless explains how I managed to miss the episodes in which Spock is deported as an alien, Sulu assaulted as a plague-spreader, Chekhov clapped in irons under suspicion of smearing the Captain's chair with Novichok, and Uhura casually informed that she was never a Federal citizen after all and had best toddle off back home.

Credit Where It's Due

Out of all the world's copious supply of nuclear-powered silly-haired man-babies, only one has had the moral fortitude to stand before his people and apologise for his failings. He spent a "sizeable portion" of his speech at a major military parade expressing sympathy with his people; he admitted that his efforts have not always been worthy of their trust; and he didn't even denounce Washington or South Korea for the Tojo-style punishment beatings which did so much to bring the North to its present unenviable position. As the leader of a small but plucky nation that punches well above its weight in military might and boasts an economy and living standard which are well within anticipated post-Brexit parameters, Kim Jong-Un has shown greater qualities of leadership than either the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble or the coarse buffoon currently serving as the Cummings administration's front-man.

Bad Theology

Text for today: II Chronicles 21

When King Jehoshaphat dies, he has seven sons. He bestows wealth and fortified cities on them all, but hands over the kingdom to the eldest, Jehoram, who promptly murders all his brothers. Jehoram's wife, a daughter of King Ahab, leads him to disobey God's commandments, but God refrains from destroying him because he is a descendant of King David. After a while God changes His mind and sends a threatening letter via the prophet Elijah, following which God stirs up the anger of the Philistines and the Arabians, who invade the country and carry off all the king's possessions. Not to do things by halves, God then strikes Jehoram with an incurable disease, and after two years of intestinal mortification he excretes his own bowels and dies in agony, to be mourned by none. In His infinite wisdom and mercy, God ordains that he should be succeeded by Ahaziah, who is evidently no great improvement.

The nature of God's mercy is clearly demonstrated in His treatment of Jehoram and his brothers. God does not lift a finger to save the six virtuous princes, all of whom are descendants of King David, all of whom are better than Jehoram in God's infallible estimation, and any one of whom would presumably have refrained from incurring God's wrath had he been placed on the throne instead. Without God's wrath there would have been no need for Him to stir up the Philistines and Arabians, and no need for the suffering of God's chosen people which the invasion must have involved. Rather than spare His people by allowing one of the virtuous brothers to ascend the throne, God permits the vicious Jehoram a full six years in which to provoke His outrage, and then punishes the entire kingdom for His own dereliction of His fatherly duty to protect His children.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

With typicall Courage and Fortitude of Britiſhneſs, our noble Prime Miniſter hath once more confounded his Enemies and utterly diſcombobulated thoſe Traytors and Peſsimiſts who would undermine the naturall Supremacy of our Glorious Realm and deliver it for ever into the ſcruffy Hands of leſser Breeds. As the heathen Woo Han Peſtilence continues its cleanſing Onſlaught againſt the Unwaſhed and Unenterpriſing and thoſe who failed the Country in its Hour of great Neceſsitie by inſufficient Attendance at Reſtaurants, our dear Leader hath taken the ſignificant and deciſive Step of appointing a certain faſt Filly of the Houſe of Stratton, to ſtand Guard between his own auguſt Perſon and his Adoring Publick. For what could be more naturall, in the preſent unprecedented Situation, than that the Common People ſhould wiſh to ſhake Hands with their Deliverer and poſsibly obtain ſome Relick or Memento from his Perſon, to protect themſelves againſt future Peril? Were it but one or two poor ſuperſtitious Fools, and excluſively of the fairer Race, no Man could doubt his Alacrity in accepting their humble Tribute; but when the Affectionate Mob may number in the Hundreds of Thouſands, and may include great muſcular Bevies of ſtrapping Males and Matrons, then alack! even that Populiſt moſt gifted with the common Touch muſt from mere Duty rein in his naturall Deſire for Communion with the Humble and poſsibly Diſeaſed, and look firſt to his own mere phyſical Welfare. And ſuch is indubitably the Purpoſe and ſubtil Scheme behind the Appointment of the aforeſaid Filly; for that infallible Inſtinct of Gentlemanlineſs, which conſtitutes an ineſcapable Component in even the moſt corrupted and diluted Varieties of Britiſhneſs, will infallibly enſure a Degree of Control, and a wholeſome Reſtraint in the Inflicting of ſentimental Violence, which it may be ſaid without Flattery or undue Sycophancy, will ſerve as an Example to Ages hereafter of the Courage and Fortitude of Britiſhneſs during the Annunciation of Her Majeſty's Birthday Honours.

His Purity Unstained

Among the weapons deployed in the Trumpster's battle with the Chinese plague was a drug derived from the cells of an aborted foetus; and not even from one of God's abortions, but from one of those mad-science baby-murders laughingly undergone by intellectually-limited incubators led astray by medical Satanists. The Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble have done everything they can to prevent scientific research on embryonic stem cells and to remove abortion rights, up to and including the nomination to the Supreme Court of a rabid cultist from the Roman rape-and-paedophile club; fortunately charges of hypocrisy, child-killing and cannibalism are unlikely to be forthcoming in this case. The foetus in question was from the Netherlands, and therefore presumably a Protestant, which will certainly count as a mitigating circumstance; and the course of drugs which put the tangerine back in the Trumpster is in any case available only to people whose moral character runs into at least the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hydrogen Bums

Among the great scientific blessings of living under the Cummings administration is of course the fact that progress can march ahead unimpeded by the mere present-day state of mere earthly science and technology in the merely real and present universe. Since the Conservatives have put Britain some seven hundred years behind the times in dealing with the climate crisis, the Supreme Leader and his acolytes are rumoured to be getting all enthused about hydrogen, which has the vast advantage of being largely untried and therefore largely unfettered by factuality's treacherous bonds. Among the more famous commercial uses of hydrogen is the German civilian zeppelin Hindenburg, whose disastrous crash in 1937 did for the age of the airship more or less what the Conservatives have done for the concept of governance in Whitehall. The Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen, which had been used instead of the far less flammable helium because the USA refused to sell helium to a violently nationalistic régime with a history of tearing up international agreements at will. If we really are on the brink of a new age of hydrogen, it is certainly fortunate that the Cummings administration includes no volatile gas-bags.

Cut Crowns

Since British arms sales to the head-chopping House of Saud have continued unabated through the rampage in Yemen, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the occasional mass execution, it is only natural that decent British parliamentarians should be worrying about some Saudi royals. A couple of Conservatives and a token hanger-on from the ex-Deputy Conservatives have asked permission of Whitehall's favourite fundamentalists to review the conditions under which the former crown prince and another deserving case are being detained. The leader of the trio expressed horror that the descendant of someone fairly important could be treated in so undignified a fashion, and shook a warning finger at the head-chopping House of Saud for undermining its own reputation as a promising beginner in British values. Apparently it remains an open question for some whether the head-chopping House of Saud's ideas of limited and specific human rights violations are sufficiently aligned with those of the British mainland.

Leading By Example

Although Her Majesty's Government has long disapproved of critics politicising non-political issues, notably the policies of Her Majesty's Government and subsequent foreseeable disasters, when it comes to lesser breeds the moral imperatives are self-evidently different. Dominic Raab, Minister for Wogs, Beads and Trinkets, has made clear the Cummings administration's dislike of racism, human rights violations and breach of international law, provided only that these grave transgressions are committed by the Heathen Chinee and not by the Conservative, Unionist and Brexit Party. In case his own towering moral authority did not adequately demonstrate the ethical and intellectual difference between the white saviours of Uighurdom and the yellow peril, Raab hinted that Global Britain might deprive the Heathen Chinee of the economic benefits of our sunny post-independence uplands, or even boycott the Winter Olympics, or get the Duke of Cambridge to boycott them on Raab's behalf. So desperate has the situation become that Raab even claimed at one point to have some sort of interest in evidence, which is certainly not something the Cummings administration has ever much bothered with at home.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Much Rejoycing yeſter Night at the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe, when we learned that the Governor of our American Colonies hath now fully recovered his accuſtomed Vitality and Britiſhneſs of Demeanour, and hath gone about in his Coach to receive the Reverence and merited Adoration of his relieved Publick. When my Lord Lylack-Wynebybbe conveyed the happy Tidings, there aroſe a great ſpontaneous Cheering from the ſeventy-ninth Meeting of the Claſsical Libertarian League of Bare-faced Anti-Maſquers, upon finding themſelves ſeated upon that golden Throne of moral Authority and Rectitude, whoſe ſedentary Occupation is the treaſured Privilege of the Righteous and entrepreneurially Foreſighted. The mere Fact, that ſeven in every Dozen of thoſe having had recent Intercourſe with the Governor, have themſelves become infected with the Woo Han Peſtilence, merely demonſtrates the unrelenting Determination of the cunning Heathen to ſet the whole of Weſtern medical Science upon the wrong Track, namely the groteſque Superſtition preached by certain Dutchmen, that various Particles and Animalcules ſo minuſcule as to be inviſible to the God-given Eyeball of Mankind, can induce fatal Damage and Decay in a pure-bred Britiſh Organ. I have to-day written ſerverall dozen Letters, to the effect that it would not ſurpriſe me to learn, that these Hollandiſh Lens-grinders have their Part in the international foreign Conſpiracy to take back New Amſterdam and form a treacherous Grand Alliance with the beaſtlie French, and I remain in imminent Expectation of good news from the Miniſtry of War.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Incisors xcii-cxiv

Due to unforeseen circumstances, however, the Father of Teeth was interrupted by the tumultuous arrival of a large and noisy female. Her melodramatic effusions, ballooning figure, grey tangle of hair, large protruding eyes and fluorescent lilac dress all instantly proclaimed her a fortune-teller.

"I am the subject of persecution," she intoned; "an unholy and unbelieving mob has torn down my tent, shattered my crystal ball and taken unpardonable liberties with my blessed receptacles."
"Did the stars not predict this impudence?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"The power to read the stars," said the woman haughtily, "is not given to be used for our own sake, but only for the good of others."
"Precisely," said the Father of Teeth; "and if the stars had shown you the fate of this mob after its defilement of your business address, no doubt you would have found some way to warn each and every participant of their encroaching doom, and recommend some profitable course of action by which the whole unfortunate business might be avoided."
"Does this mean," said the woman, "that you are prepared to set yourself straight with the spirits by undertaking some small but apocalyptic act of justice on my behalf?"
"Perhaps you would oblige me with a cold reading?" asked the Father of Teeth.
The woman gamely took the proffered claw and squinted at the palm, in which the crooked and convoluted lines dodged and intersected with more-than-statistical flexibility. "This is most irregular," she complained, relinquishing the gnarled digits with obvious relief; "I can find no proper life-line, and there appear to be several lines of fortune which all run parallel and cancel each other out. However, I can confidently predict a visit to the dentist in the near future."

The Father of Teeth bestowed upon her a prolonged view of his most authentically ancient commemorative plaque. When the vapours had cleared, the woman gasped: "Had the mob not deprived me of my cards and crystals, no doubt I would have attained a more purely factual insight. Will you not therefore aid the fates in their inscrutable benignity, and inflict upon those vandals the doom they have incurred?"
"Cross my palm," said the Father of Teeth, holding it out again; and with a shudder the woman placed a few coins upon the sordid surface and, when the palm's unpleasant presence persisted, a few more.
"Your wish?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"To see the mob destroyed, and smashed to its constituent atoms, in the interests of just and proportionate karmic balance, and to prevent their unnecessary suffering in future lives."

At this point the mob, having caught up with the woman and observed her handing money to the Father of Teeth, shrewdly added purchase of immoral favours to the multiple counts of fraud with which she was already charged. When she left the Father of Teeth, in sure and certain hope that a thunderbolt would strike down her enemies, she was somewhat astonished to find herself seized, hauled before the judge and sentenced to the pillory, the ducking-stool, a considerable fine and compulsory sartorial training. Having delivered her to the court, the mob immediately broke up into its constituent parts, few of whom had many worries about their debts to her in future lives.

"I predict," said the Father of Teeth, confidently but with due regard for discretion, "a certain dissatisfaction with the working-out of the contract."

Stifling Heritage

Thanks to the extremist activities of the fiend Sadiq Khan, as predicted by Lord Goldsmith of Not-A-Racist-But during the 2016 campaign for mayor of London, the city's unique atmosphere has been hideously subverted. Under Boris Johnson's tenure the capital's air quality remained persistently at illegal levels, whether because Johnson is above the law, or because he is lazy, or because of what our free, fair and cantankerous media are pleased to call his "libertarian instincts," or simply because anything that mostly harms plebs and wogs can't be all bad. In a crypto-terroristic betrayal of this Churchillian approach, the policies of the fiend Khan have ensured that almost no expendables are now undergoing improvement by nitrogen dioxide, even while still in school. Not satisfied with bringing the city practically into line with the Nazi-Soviet Diktat of the Brusso-Strasbourgian bureaucrats, the fiend Khan has gone so far as to threaten the capital with World Health Organisation strictures which are even more foreign than those of the beastly Euro-wogs. It is surely a sign of how far we have fallen that so vicious an enemy of British values has escaped deportation for so long.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

How can mere Humanity hope to penetrate the ſacred Veil, which ſeparates and ſhields from our worldly Apprehenſion all Knowledge of the Eternal Plan? Truly myſterious and enigmatick are the Ways of the Almighty, who hath beſtowed His moſt holy Permiſsion upon the heathen Woo Han Peſtilence to afflict none other than the Governor of our American Colonies, deſpite his Dedication to Liberty from the Tyranny of Maſques, and deſpite the noble and courageous Actions of that eſtimable manly Man in enforcing the Divine Puniſhment upon the ſexual Perverts, uppity Niggers and Baby-murdering Whores which infeſt that great and vacant Country. Yet to preſume an Inſight into the Will of our Creator were a moſt ſinful and blaſphemous Vanity, deſerving of ſevereſt Cenſure and conſiderable Penitence. Therefore it appeareth we muſt aſsume ſome private ſecret Sin which hath found the great Stateſman out through the All-ſeeing Empyrean Optick, although none but the moſt malicious and depraved Purveyors of Falſehood and Billingſgate will give Credence to the perſiſtent Rumour that he once payed Tax to the Sum of ſeven hundred and fifty Thalers, againſt all civiliſed Conceptions of fiſcal Reſponſibility.

Black Mail

Royal Mail is celebrating Black History Month by painting four whole postboxes a colour that isn't on the Union Jack and decorating them with paragraphs about prominent black people. A prominent white employee congratulated Black History Month on its inclusive credentials and boasted about the number of black people employed by Royal Mail "from the mailbag to the meeting room," although he doesn't seem to have specified the exact proportions. The gesture provoked predictable derision from the kind of people who probably think free British housing should be given to benefits claimants, Irish and dogs, and whose obsession with warrior wokeness prevents their recalling that the Royal Mail has been in the vanguard of this race relations thingy ever since the first modern postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued to commemorate the unpretentious cheapness of Negro labour.