The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Roots cccxvii-cccxlix

Nevertheless genuinely concerned for his fate at the hands of their infinitely merciful Creator if he should be permitted to persist in his errors, the inquisitors had handed the prisoner over to the secular arm with the usual plea for mercy. The instruments of the secular arm were sharp with zeal and hot with enthusiasm, and the sacred strappado and blessed bastinado were employed with creditable rigour. Yet nothing could persuade the prisoner to accept these compassionate persuasions and recant, for he had been taught that the prospects for his eternal future depended on maintaining, despite the most terrrible torments and unto his uttermost demise, those very errors which the inquisitors burned to expunge.

Meanwhile, those charged with his salvation had discomforts of their own, for at that time and place an excessive concern for personal hygiene was considered an unpardonable worldly vanity. All the inquisitors, as well as the instruments of the secular arm, were infested with lice, fleas, ticks and other favourites of the Creator, including tapeworms which could attain the length and fullness of a particularly well-motivated confession; and the inquisitors in addition wore scratchy shirts and coarse robes to mortify their evil flesh. Besides these everyday tribulations, the second most senior inquisitor was martyr to a small but highly carnivorous species of toadstool, whose spores the Father of Teeth had creatively mutated and then whimsically applied to the rearward side of the holy man's venerable scrotum..

"Don't fidget," said the senior inquisitor as the prisoner was hoisted by his bound wrists upon the sacred strappado.
"Sorry," said the second most senior inquisitor, whose perineum the toadstools had by now thoroughly tonsured.
"Remember that your present fleshly ills are but due and deserved preparation for the discipline of purgatory and the eventual joys of paradise," said the senior inquisitor.
"You are misinformed," said the Father of Teeth, who was straddling with some difficulty the bulbous abdomen of a blood-sucking tick upon the saggy slope of the senior inquisitor's pallid and pendulous left buttock; "one of the few mercies the Creator ever showed was depriving His creatures of the knowledge of why they suffer - though of course mercy wasn't the reason He did it."

But the senior inquisitor had not ears to hear, and was aware only of a brief quasi-flatulent whisper somewhere down below. "Have a care," he warned his subordinate; and the instruments of the secular arm, misinterpreting his words, released the sacred strappado prematurely, causing the prisoner an undeserved interval of impenitent unconsciousness as the Father of Teeth, much to his own relief, shifted to side-saddle.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

It is the infallible Mark of true Leaderſhip, beſides the very Brand of indubitable Nobility, that a Man ſhould have Cognizance of the proper Words to uſe, when Calamity ſhould ſtrike and rayſe the Horrid Spectre of Panick and Diſorder among the Herd. Thus it was that our great Monarch Henry the Fift, upon the Field of Agincourt, inſpired his Serfs and Squires by ordering the Maſsacre of ſurrendered beaſtlie French; thus it was that the great Engliſhman, Sir William the Conqueror, pacified the northern Peaſantry with Fire and Sword, until the whole Land lay quiet beneath the fragrant Mattreſs of Peace ſtuffed with the ſoft feathery Down of Law and Order. Our own dear Leader hath ſhown himſelf worthie of ſuch exalted hiſtorick Company, with a new Epiſtle to thoſe Parents, who have patiently borne the Privations of the Woo Han Peſtilence, ſuch as being ſubjected to the Temptations of Idleneſs, or ſuffering the rank Inconvenience of being unable to find a Nurſing-wench with appropriately ſized Fixtures. Some few millions of Parents there are, it is true, who have moſt baſely uſed the Plague and the burying of their demiſed exceſsive Off-ſpring, for a flimſy tranſparent Excuſe to ſhirk the ſeeking of honeſt Labour; but it is yet a further Mark of Nobility, that the Leader of our glorious Realm ſhould obſerve and praiſe the native Virtues, before ſeeking Remedy for the Vices. I cannot help but think, that this Miſsive ſhall be judged by Hiſtory as a Turning-point in the Fortunes of this Adminiſtration, and I have moſt profitably occupied the Forenoon in compoſing a draft Epiſtle to the Migrants, which I truſt will improve Morale among the ſwarming Hordes and encourage due Deſiſting from their preſent barbarous Behaviour, by means of official Circulation among the Priſons with all Rights reſerved.

Milked Spillage

Beastly Euro-wog shysters have handed down a vexatious verdict against that great British company, Royal Dutch Shell, ordering its Nigerian subsidy to compensate the local lesser breeds for the pollution caused by major oil spills a decade and a half ago. Although any sensible statute of limitations would have seen the spills relegated to the same cobwebby corners of our island story as the slave trade, a Dutch court rejected Shell's claims of sabotage on grounds of, if you please, insufficient evidence, and ordered compensation to be paid. The unelected enemies of the people even had the effrontery to decree that Shell must install detection systems on its sites rather than relying, as from immemorial tradition, upon the mutual trust and goodwill of the natives and their corporate benefactor. It remains as yet unclear how many tax-sheltered livelihoods will be devastated, how many suits will be forced onto the streets, and how far boardroom bonuses will be diminished.

Deviationist Revisionism

Though its cultural copy-book is already badly blotted thanks to its inability to dismiss the Hillsborough disaster with the same Johnsonian insouciance as the Murdoch scumbag press, it appears that the city of Liverpool is plotting further offence to mainstream Britishness with a decade-long project for a woke Marxist waterfront. The International Slavery Museum, which opened in 2007 unsurprisingly bereft of the for-once-appropriate Imperial honorific, is to be expanded in yet another attempt to blacken the downtrodden memory of the Empire's wealth creators. In the wake of recent unconstructive attitudes to lives that matter with knobs on, some called for a slavery museum in London, where real people might have noticed; so patriots will doubtless be relieved that the museum's re-writing of Britain's moral history remains confined to the liverish backwaters of the quasi-foreign provinces.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

I heare the moſt diſturbing Tidings, namely that our noble Prime Miniſter hath been induced to proclaim his own Self reſponſible for the Actions of Her Majeſty's Government and to ſtate, with a weak apologetick Frenchneſs of Demeanour, that the ſayed Government hath done all it could againſt the Heathen Depredations of the Woo Han Peſtilence. This is a moſt cowardly puſillanimous Proclamation, which hath cauſed a Swelling of my ſeverall Gouts and Goitres, ſuch as to burſt aſunder ſundry Guſsets even before Luncheon, which is by no means my Cuſtom. This moſt untimely and diſguſting Acceſs of Foppiſhneſs hath unqueſtionably been forced upon our great Leader by the Machinations of ſome unmanly Adviſer or Vizier in the French Style, for never ſhall I believe that ſuch foul Sentiments were bred of his owne mighty Britiſhneſs. For if the Government were reſponſible, then to what abject State would our Countrie come, and to what Nature or Faſhion of Realm might we hope to aſpire thereafter? How could any free individual Subject of the Crown be ſaid to have ſtayed alert, helped out by eating out, or took it on the Chine, were Her Majeſty's Government to hold its own Self reſponſible for every ſignificant Demiſe that reſulted from ſuch enterpriſing and buccaneering Activities? Nay, if the Powers of Government rob Her Majeſty's moſt enterpriſing Subjects of their Liberty, how ſhall the very March of Hiſtory be allowed to continue on upon its inexorable Path along the Road of hiſtorick Glory, without the precious Balm of Liberty to bind up the Wounds of unpredictable Fate and call forth that pious Reſignation to the Divine Will, that is the Birth-right of every communicating Member of the Anglican Church? It is a moſt profound and weighty Queſtion, which would be the better for due and full Conſideration by appropriately qualified Perſons, antecedently unto the Ejaculation of any further raſh and ill thought out Sentiments.

Death Spike

Long in decline, Britain's hedgehog population has moved several steps closer to final extinction with the announcement that the brilliant Chris Graybeing has taken personal charge of its protection. Apparently in an effort to distract simple-minded journalists from the Government's continuing lack of interest in keeping the planet habitable, Graybeing went all of a tizzy about the nation's callousness towards its favourite animal. "We worry about whether we are going to damage the habitats of badgers and bats," he blathered, consigning to casual oblivion years of blithe Conservative badger-gassing; although admittedly a sincere concern for spiny creatures is expectable enough in the natural party of the prick. Nor is Graybeing's concern for hedgehogs a mere momentary whim, for among his more significant achievements as Minister for Trucking was a road sign warning drivers of the animals' presence. In a typically Graybeing touch, only four local authorities applied to use the sign, and all four were denied permission.

Trade Away

Despite Scotland's rebellious rejection of British independence in the 2016 referendum, the House of Fraser department store chain is getting into the spirit of things by terminating a long-lived institution and sacking a lot of people. Although Frasers Group has attracted the attention of HMRC for its entrepreneurial approach to the furlough scheme, inability to reach a deal over the tenancy for the building will mean the closure of Edinburgh's Jenners department store, which has been operating since 1838. The fact that it shares its name with the founder of vaccination adds a particularly tactful touch to its demise at a time when the Union is attaining such world-beating casualties in other departments.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Deuteronomy 7 i-xii

Speaking through Moses before the invasion of Canaan, God orders the Hebrews to destroy the inhabitants utterly, to make no pacts and show no mercy, and not to permit their children any intermarriage with the natives, lest the sons of the master race should be turned towards other gods and thereby inconvenience their Father by obliging Him to destroy His chosen people. God reminds the Hebrews that they are His favourite toy, though not because they went forth and multiplied more efficiently than anyone else. He also reminds them of the exodus from Egypt, and repeatedly states that He will destroy those who hate Him.

As in many cases less divine and meritorious than His own, the Father's concern with racial purity is shown to be rooted in His personal insecurities. The only way in which He can hope to maintain control over His wayward children is by denying them all knowledge of other cultures and other gods; and as befits the god of empires He seems particularly worried that such forbidden wisdom will be transmitted through the wiles of exotic foreign females. Immediately afterwards, God invokes with paternal insouciance the presumably privileged status of the Hebrews as His "treasured possession," despite their chronic dearth of offspring. Not for the first time, God makes mention of the exodus from Egypt, which He personally delayed in order to demonstrate His own power. It is doubtless in a similar spirit that He speaks of His steadfast love, while in the same breath thrice proclaiming that He will break any toy that displeases Him.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

To the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe yeſter Eve for the fifty-ſeventh clandeſtine Meeting of the Liberal Society of Maſqueleſs Patriots, where the Proclamation by our noble Prime Miniſter, regarding the ſuperior Deadlineſs of the Woo Han Peſtilence following a Yeare of Expoſure to the Engliſhneſs of our Britiſhneſs, met with unanimous and voluble Approbation, with the exception of my Lord Swygge-Spycedwyne who was paſsed out and marinading his Jowles in a Chamber-pot. The ſayed Statement obſerves the past Yeare of precautionary Meaſures taken, the patriotick Defiance of mere Apothecaries Nurſes and Surgeons, the prophylactick Effectualneſs of Applauſe and of dining in Reſtaurants; and then noting the Exceſs of Mortality, the Corſes of imprudent Expendables piled up in the Streets, and the vindictive and ſlothful Dying of the ungrateful Poore, our noble Leader putteth forth the onlie conceivable Anſwer to the Conundrum: namely that the Heathen Peſtilence hath toughened its Self againſt our Britiſh Mettle and hath become a more buccaneering and entrepreurial Plague, than thoſe comparatively minor Afflictions which affect the leſser Breeds. Indeed it is a moſt elegant and ſcientifick piece of Reaſoning, from which manie uſefull Leſsons are indubitably to be learned, moſt eſpecially concerning our naturall Britiſh Diſpoſition to Conqueſt. For it may be left to the Imagination to imagine, what Effect ſuch an improved Peſtilence might wreak upon the effete prophylactick Forces of the beaſtlie French.

Despite Extensive Coverage

Even after nearly a year of shrieking infotainment from sensible and moderate right-wing media properties, much of Britain's adult population remains confused or baffled by pestilential jargon. More than forty per cent have trouble with words like epidemologist and antibody, and about eighty per cent would have difficulty explaining a polymerase chain reaction test, despite the journalistic community's titanic educational efforts. Fotunately, the pedagogical press has not striven entirely in vain. Comprehension improves significantly when applied to terms which are political and meaningless rather than defined and scientific, with a mere thirty per cent of free British subjects failing to realise how the police-state slogan stay alert might apply in a medical emergency.

Unholy Dealings

Three men have been convicted by a Vatican court of the most serious offence a Roman Catholic can commit. A former president and two legal consultants of the Institute for Works of Religion received prison sentences for embezzling the Vatican's pious profits from the sacred sale of real estate. All of the heinous criminals denied having done anything wrong, although it remains as yet unclear whether they did so on the grounds of helping the Vatican resist the temptations of worldly wealth. In any case they must be cursing their bad luck in having been found guilty of quasi-Semitic financial crimes, rather than the comparatively trivial canon-law misdemeanours of child abuse, cruelty, kidnapping and rape.

Beastly Foreign Bodies

A swarming horde of asylum seekers, which the Ministry for Wog Control has contained at an army barracks, is very selfishly and un-Britishly spreading disease among itself in order to spite Her Majesty's Government. Despite the dirty foreigners being warehoused nearly thirty to a room, the Covid-19 virus has somehow been allowed to spread among them, which clearly indicates the workings of some fiendish alien malice. Nobody knows how severe the outbreak is, because Her Majesty's Government does not indulge such petty concerns. Nevertheless, when ordered not to leave their plague-bubble, the residents (inmates, in Standard English) proceeded to manifest those irresponsible and destructive attitudes which have so recently led directly to monstrous epidemics of unkind politics and statue-stomping Stalinism. Presumably speaking from a room with fewer than twenty-eight people in it, the charmingly-titled minister for immigration compliance summoned sufficient courage to pronounce himself incredibly disappointed at such disobliging behaviour.

Fossil Fools

Even though she traded no slaves and started no wars, the pioneering palaeontologist and geologist Mary Anning is to be commemorated with a statue. A crowdfunding campaign by a young resident of Anning's native Dorset has raised the funds to commission the piece, although it remains as yet unclear what the squealing cultural crusaders of anti-woke will feel about it. The idea of honouring a scientist is bad enough; but Anning was also a lower-class female woman of the opposing gender, whose discoveries have until now basked and frolicked in their proper place within the cosy reputations of wealthy males. More monumentally still, the district's present MP once removed a Remembrance Day wreath from the Cenotaph on the grounds that the donors, Extinction Rebellion, were undermining the spirit of the rah-rah by trying to prevent more wars; so it is to be hoped that his delicate sensibilities are not unduly offended.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Our noble Miniſter for Hutts, Hovels, Vagrants and Miſcellaneous Statuary hath conceived a moſt ingenious Propoſal for the Healing of the Nation, once the horrid heathen Slaughter wrought by the Woo Han Peſtilence hath wrought the full Meaſure of its ſlaughterous heathen Horridneſs. Namely, that the Malcontents and Subverſives who infeſt the Realm ſhould be induced towards an appropriate Perſpective, upon the Subject of thoſe heroick Creators of Wealth and buccaneering Entrepreneurs, whoſe great moral Character and patriotick Explorations brought Proſperity to our Kingdom and Piety to the Godleſs. To which noble End, no Statue or Image of a Slave-trader may now be broken, diſmantled, dethroned or otherwiſe removed, without due Permiſsion from the proper Authorities. For it is ſurely more fitting for dutiful Citizens to meditate upon ſuch wholeſome and healthy Topicks as the Glory of ſhared Liberty and the Miracle of prudent fiſcal Governance, than to dwell upon the baſe worldly Concerns, ſuch as mere Shelter and Boddily Suſtenance, which ſo frequently obſeſs the narrow animaliſtick Intelligences of the leſser Breeds. And it would be an unforgivable Cruelty to thoſe vaſt Multitudes of Homeleſs and Starving which exerciſe the Charity of our great Nation, that they ſhould paſs from Cradle to common Grave without true Knowledge of their ſuperior Heritage and good Fortune, that the almighty and merciful God created them Britiſh and not Niggers.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Cavities ccliii-cclxix

In an entirely unrelated incident, the Father of Teeth therefore came upon a grand palace, with crenellated merlons and luxuriant turrets, but without a single window or door. Inquiring among the locals, he learned that the palace was the home of the king's favourite son, who had been confined there in case his curiosity led him to learn of the wickedness of the world, and thence to a life of pessimistic asceticism.

Inserting his most adamantine molars, the Father of Teeth approached the palace and chewed a hole in one of the walls, and soon enough the Prince emerged, blinking in the harsh sunlight and staring at the pullulant crowds. Fearful footmen and nervous nursemaids did their best to usher him back indoors, but the Prince's curiosity was too great to resist and he walked out into the streets, accompanied by a whimpering whirlwind of servile disapprobation.

"What is that?" asked the Prince, pointing at a wrinkled woman who hobbled along with the aid of a stick and complained incessantly about her relatives, her neighbours, her aches and pains, and nowadays in general.
"That is old age, your Highness," he was told.
"And what is that?" asked the Prince, pointing at a leper whom the Creator of the universe had seen fit to deprive of several fingers and part of his face.
"That is sickness, your Highness," was the reply.
"And what is that?" asked the Prince, pointing at a street-urchin's corpse from which the vultures were enthusiastically dragging various messy bits of offal, while the passers-by held their robes delicately out of the way, for in their culture the spattered flesh of dead beggars was considered a sartorial disadvantage.
"That is death, your Highness," said the servants.
"Among other things," said the Father of Teeth.

After a ghastly, grinning silence, the Prince turned to his servants. "And what is that?" he demanded, indicating the Father of Teeth.
"We have no idea," they said; "and now perhaps your Highness would condescend to re-enter the palace and never have to look upon all these nasty things again?"

But the Prince had already looked upon the Father of Teeth, which is not an experience to be retreated from unscathed. He did eventually become a wandering ascetic, instructing his followers to escape the ills of the world by treating the world as an illusion; and by the time the Father of Teeth passed that way again the Prince was long dead and lovingly delineated in seventeen immense stone statues and several libraries' worth of improving if contradictory scrolls. The windowless and doorless palace had been converted into a mausoleum for the Prince's father, in order that the leavings of the king's old age, sickness and death could lie untouched by the vultures, which nevertheless flapped and hopped among the crumbling crenallations, glaring down upon the world's ills and making disrespectful noises.

Green and Pleasant Landfill

Despite appearances, not all of the superannuated toxic waste in England and Wales is claiming expenses at the Houses of Parliament, or even pursuing a career in pseudo-journalism. The Brexitannic mainland contains some twenty-one thousand old landfills, of which about thirteen hundred are categorised as containing hazardous material. Mere experts have calculated that, although a mere seventy-five toxic waste dumps are located under housing (doubtless tending towards the affordable end of the scale) and only thirty-six under parks or playing fields, nearly eight hundred are leaking merrily away within half a kilometre of bodies of water. In accordance with Britishness, some of the older landfills were created in the good old days before red tape and regulation, so nobody knows what's in them; while years of efficiency savings have made local councils and the Environment Agency too efficient to bother finding out.

Low Bar

British values are once more on flamboyant display in Hong Kong, where a barrister of the master race has fought for his personal freedom to prosecute pro-democracy troublemakers. David Perry went to court himself in order to take the case, after the Hong Kong bar association took the fiendishly slanted view that no attempt had been made to hire local lawyers. Since the UK has been enthusiastic about democracy in Hong Kong ever since the colony was handed back to the Heathen Chinee, various establishment pillars on the mainland are huffing and puffing about the continued involvement in Hong Kong courts of judges and lawyers from the master race. On the one hand, such involvement may bring British law, and its continuing blithe irrelevance to Her Majesty's Government and its chums, into some sort of disrepute. On the other hand, to deprive Hong Kong of this last remnant of Britishness might destroy for all time any chance of self-improvement for the natives.

Not You-Foes, But You-Whaps

Perhaps not coincidentally now that the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble are about to be forced from their planetary throne, the CIA has declassified 2700 pages of documents on UFOs. Cunningly, an outdated format has been used, making the documents difficult to utilise for any earthly purpose; although the agency has taken the significant patriotic step of making up its own acronym (unidentified aerial phenomenon, rather than unidentified flying object), which will doubtless have far-reaching consequences. Last year the US Department of Kicking Ass created a task force for the detection, analysation and catalogification of UAPs which might pose a threat to national security; though doubtless owing to the inconvenient document format, it remains as yet unclear what stage of research has been reached concerning the Trumpster's head-tribble.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

It hath been ſayed abroad to-day by the Criers, that the Deaths in our noble City from the Woo Han Peſtilence are now in exceſs of an hundred thouſand, which unqueſtionably conſtitutes a great Cataſtrophe, given the Quantities of beaſtlie French who might be deterred from our ſacred Shores by ſo vaſt and formidable a Phalanx. And one muſt alſo not forget the Fields untilled, the Guſsets unembroidered, the Tithes unpaid, the Babes in Arms which will ſtarve for want of Motherly Care and thus become doomed to an indolent and unproductive Demiſe, far removed from the buccaneering Heritage of entrepreneurial Britiſhneſs which is the inalienable Due and Birth-right of every Native Son of theſe Iſles with ſufficient Pluck and Gumption to amaſs a proper Inheritance. Yet ſtill any true Patriot will marvell and rejoyce, that our ineffable Realm hath ſuch Degree of Vitality, that in Times ſuch as theſe the Race can breed an entire hundred thouſand Expendables.

Pompeo Circumstance

Less than a fortnight after Britannic independence attained its soggily effortful, middle-aged orgasm, the beastly Euro-wogs are already falling prey to the consequences of their infidelity. The Trumpster's furriner-handling fat man has cancelled a trip to the mighty Benelux dictatorship after Euro-wog politicians made adverse comments about last week's Putsch in Washington DC. Officially the pretext for the cancellation is a sudden and unexpected need to co-ordinate the transition to Biden's administration; but the beastly Euro-wogs must nevertheless be kicking themselves at having fanatically driven from their shores the honestly-broker Atlanticist bridge with the special relationship. Today they can only imagine what might have been, if only Britain were a bit less global than it is now.

If You Can't Nuke Them

Though inexplicably denied the Nobel Peace Prize despite an enthusiastic nomination by Boris Johnson, the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble clearly have not given up hope. In valedictory tribute to freedom, democracy and British values, they have designated as terrorists the enemies of Westminster's favourite fundamentalist head-choppers. Like the head-chopping House of Saud, the Houthis have been accused of targeting civilians and routinely imprison and torture dissenters during the ongoing disaster in Yemen; unlike the head-chopping House of Saud, they cannot afford to throw large amounts of money at buccaneering British arms dealers, which makes them very bad people indeed. Nevertheless, the Trumpster's diplomatic coup elicited a whine of indignation from the Lesser Milibeing, who would doubtless have preferred to see the administration march out with a kick to the Chagossians.

Bad Theology

Text for today: II Kings ii-xvii

After suffering a fall, King Ahaziah sends messengers to ask the god of Ekron whether he will recover. The angel of God orders Elijah to intercept the messengers and tell them to inform Ahaziah that he will die from his injuries because he has consulted the wrong deity. The king sends two units of fifty soldiers with their captains, who find Elijah on top of a hill, and Elijah calls down fire to consume all the men. A third captain asks for the lives of himself and his men, and Elijah condescends to go with him and deliver his message of doom in person.

Since a sparrow cannot fall to earth without God's approval, presumably Ahaziah harboured a shrewd suspicion as to Who was ultimately responsible for his little accident. Nevertheless,the Father's vanity is outraged by the king's understandable decision to consult someone other than the source of his affliction, and in the eyes of God's worshippers the name of the deity of Ekron remains notoriously demonic to this day. Rather than sending His messenger straight to the king, God has Elijah perch on a hilltop and burns a hundred and two men to death because their captains neglect to grovel when asking him to come down. It was no doubt the memory of such brutal, ostentatious and vindictive displays of power which caused a later generation to see Elijah's reincarnation in Jesus of Nazareth.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

I have it on the perfecteſt Authoritie, that certain ſtaunch ſtout Fellows throughout our great Nation, are walking the Streets and accoſting Whores after a Faſhion befitting our noble Prime Miniſter himſelf, were his famous libertarian Inſtincts permitted their Due. Alas, that the Cares of State and the booriſh Preoccupation, upon the Part of a few mere Nurſes and Apothecaries, with preſerving the miſerable low Exiſtence of ſome ſeverall thouſand Expendables, ſhould have gained ſo unhealthy an Aſcendancy over the refined Faculties of ſo induſtrious and foreſighted a Stateſman. It is to be hoped by all patriotick Engliſhmen, that the Death-toll among the ſubverſive Claſses may prove ſuch as to deprive the Forces of Sedition of any undue Advantage at the next Elections. For it would be a moſt tragicall Irony, ſhould the fundamental Principles of our Democracy prove ſo weak and ſoft, as to be trampled beneath the foppish ſlippered Feet of a heathen Peſtilence, with the hideous Fangs of treaſonous Treachery ſtill ſtuck faſt in the Blood-ſpurting Throat of Liberty, and the Limbs of the Law tied faſt by the beſtial Chains of vexatious Office, which wind in horrid Coils about the Freedom-ſpraying Teſticles of our ineffable Britiſhneſs. Truly I fear ſome dread Conſpiracy of French and Niggers, and may this Teſtament preſerve my modeſt and underſtated Memory, as a Martyr of our great and holy Cauſe, if I ſhould be dragged off to the Torture or otherwiſe not ſurvive this fateful Night.

So Long, Suckers

O what can be wrong with poor Don?
Why all of this mad carry-on?
His fans were all singing,
His Johnson was swinging,
Yet all MAGA-mojo seems gone!

O what is this terrible scene?
The swamp still undrained and unclean?
No henchpersons true?
The Senate turned blue,
Instead of God's own tangerine?

O what is the matter with Trump?
We bellowed with him at the stump,
We fiddled his figures,
And killed him some niggers,
And now we've been thrown on the dump!

Larp Whiteman

Universal American Values

Following a violent act of terrorism, investigators have issued a warrant for the arrest of the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble. The violence was most likely intended to cause distraction by making a already unstable situation worse; fortunately, despite the god-bothering fanaticism of its leadership the government of the affected country responded in a restrained and sensible fashion. Like the Trumpster and his head-tribble and their British allies, those issuing the arrest warrant are fans of the death penalty in cases of premeditated murder, although it remains as yet unclear whether they share the World Cop's penchant for executions in cases of mental illness or epidermal coloration of the non-tangerine shade.

Mint at the End of its Tether

With the country being run, if run is the word I want, by people who would be happy to provide change for a nine-pound note all in nine-shilling bits, it is only to be expected that the Royal Mint should have given up the cumbersome and outdated practice of counting, which has been causing such unwarranted inconvenience to the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble. A coin issued to celebrate the demise of a notorious Socialist features a topper-clad Invisible Man and a tripod with four legs, apparently because the designer had no interest in reading the works he had been hired to evoke and relied on book covers and film posters. A spokesbeing defended the coin by stating that the coin had been issued and, in case the author's shade still felt insufficiently insulted, conflated the title of one of his best books with that of the most recent Hollywood molestation.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

A moſt conſtructive Meeting at the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe, wherein the Claſsically Liberal League of Maſque-free Patriots hath reſolved, by unanimous Vote, that all Blame and Ignominy for any Inconvenience to its Memberſhip muſt reſt upon the Surgeons and their Nurſes and Apothecaries, upon the traytorous Greed and Narrowneſs of Perſpective which characteriſe the lower Orders, and alſo upon the Radicals, the uppity Niggers and the beaſtlie French, and that further ſtaunch and ſtalwart Debate will be required in order to determine the preciſe Proportions and the neceſsary Puniſhments.

Meanwhile our noble Prime Miniſter hath once more triumphed over the Woo Han Peſtilence in all its ſubtil Oriental Fiendiſhneſs, by ordering all baſe unworthie Fellowes and their various unhygienick Whores and Broods, to remain within their Hovels and not to emerge, unleſs called forth by urgent Buſineſs ſuch as the Profit of a legitimate Creator of Wealth, excepting in other Circumſtances. Clearly ſuch deciſive and uncompromiſing Meaſures will ſerve to ſow Confuſion in the Ranks of the Heathen, and to prepare the Nation for a final Aſsault for God, Queen and Countrie before the Elapſe of many more Weekes, Moons or Yeares.

Orthodox Medicine

Not even the factions of Christianity are so riven by mutual hatred as to lack a few features in common; and among the most consistent and universal points of agreement is the heretical and blasphemous nature of the Saviour's pronouncements in the first eight verses of the sixth chapter of Matthew's gospel. Far from encouraging modest silence and unprofitable solitude, the churches have traditionally imposed collective worship, ostentatious piety and noise, the better to police their adherents and maintain a cash flow commensurate with the Deity's moral welfare. Accordingly, the Greek Orthodox church has decreed that the feast of Epiphany will be celebrated in defiance of the materialistic requirements of earthly powers and the fleshly demands of mere physical health. Unlike western Christianity, wherein the feast celebrates the arrival of the Magi and their wealth, the Orthodox faction uses the day to commemorate the Saviour's cleansing from His presumably non-existent sins and His formal adoption by His Father in heaven, who proclaimed Himself well pleased at the empty ritual even though comparatively few people seem to have died as a result.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Carnassials ccxxiii-ccxxxvii

Unfortunately, however, the Father of Teeth promptly encountered an optimist, whose conversation was so uplifting that when opportunity presented itself the Father of Teeth hired an eighteen-wheeler with which to run him over. Smirking brokenly, the optimist was taken to an intensive care unit where various tubes were inserted into him and various machines beeped and sighed; for the optimist had been in the habit of justifying his optimism by noting the Creator's provision of such healing contrivances, while tactfully skimming over the question of Who had ensured their necessity.

When the Father of Teeth turned up far outside visiting times, with a wreath of flowers and a rattling bag full of shiny detachable dentition, the optimist still had not recovered his accustomed vivacity. The Father of Teeth sat in the waiting room, eating the flowers and idly scraping away the epidermis of the hospital's commercial administrator, until the duty receptionist intimated that the resulting noise levels might inconvenience the more sensitive patients. Nevertheless, after chewing his way through some tedious bureaucratic formalities, whose shrieks demonstrated a voluble disregard for patient welfare, the Father of Teeth was permitted access to the optimist's chamber, on condition that he proceed with discretion and that he not bite anything expensive.

"Of course there is nothing wrong with optimism in itself," the Father of Teeth assured the recumbent meat. "Still, one must always take care to be optimistic about the right things." Then, inserting his seventeenth least contaminated fangs, he chewed a tunnel through one of the dents in the optimist's cranium, squeezed himself in and started precision-gnawing the neural connections.

Later, having opened the optimist's thorax and sawn off the top of his cranium, the pathologist was doubtless much improved to discover the masticated and macerated cerebral matter which spelled out the words EVERY DAY AND IN EVERY WAY I AM GETTING BETTER AND BETTER in the hospital's most tasteful corporate typeface. Indeed, the pathologist's assistant was so encouraged by the sight that he laughed all through the next three nights and was left with a life-long twitch.

Concrete Benefits

While the patriotic Conservative voters of Dover squeal their fury because British independence is happening in their backyards and not those of lesser breeds, a hole has opened up beneath a nearby airport runway which was hastily conscripted into national service as a lorry park. Officials have confirmed that it isn't a sinkhole, and since politicians have kept prudently clear of the area for months it seems unlikely that this particular low-level vacancy is a minister of the Crown. Sabotage by the forces of woke Nazi-Soviet citizens of nowhere has not been explicitly ruled out; and while investigations continue the hole is to be filled in with something slightly less thick, white and fragile than the indignant patriots of Dover.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

To the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe yeſter Night for the Occaſion of the annual Belch-in to bleſs the new Yeare. My lord Swygge-Whytewyne was much moved, having received the Rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the Royal Chamber-pot, ſecond Claſs, from the very Hands of Algernon, ſeventeenth Son of the Marqueſs of Imbybe-ffynefyſhe and the perſonal Under-Secretary to the parliamentary Vice-Chancellor in Ordinary to the ſecond moſt honorary Adviſor to the proſpective junior Miniſter for private Motions. In return for my own Pledges of faithful and unfailing Service to God and Countrie, I myſelf received the Promiſe of great Honours to come, ſubject to ſome neceſsary ſmall Adjuſtment in the fiſcal Balance of the Realm, which I am aſsured will be much expedited by the prompt and efficacious Auditing of my own practical Contributions to the Proſperity of the legitimate Faction of Government. Even the moſt fanatick Partiſans of Her Majeſty's Loyall Oppoſition muſt indubitably admit, that this moderate and ſenſible Pace of ſocial Progreſs herald a new Dawn of buccaneering Peace and enterpriſing Proſperity, as ſoon as our noble Prime Miniſter can deſtroy the beaſtlie French, get the uppity Niggers back to their legitimate God-given Labours, and foil the traytorous Machinations of the Woo Han Peſtilence and its aſsociated Conſpiracies of aſsorted ſubverſive and peſsimiſtick medical Practitioners.