And once we were Kings…
Envy – Cameron Goes Christmas Begging to Chinese Market
Wasn’t it lovely to see our leader Big Dave, generous to a fault this week, taking his mates off on a jolly to shop with our new best friends, the Chinese; we used to be a big nation, these days we have to sing on our knees for a Number 49 with chips.
The press though, weren’t interested in what deals Dave was trying to cook up, but whether he would be allowed to risk the subject of human rights which they conveniently ignore in China.
For instance, China’s idea of planning permission often entails flattening neighbourhoods with bulldozers and sod the affordable housing quota. The Chinese version of Grand Designs is sponsored by JCB and Lego.
Of course Dave has only been let out of detention recently for daring to talk to the little orange man in a sari just over a year ago. Having had the hard word – “you get no Wonga from us if you talk to silly peace loving man” – Dave has dropped him faster than a fat bird snogged at a late night party.
Largely because the little man and his friends don’t buy our velly Blittish Range Rovers in their thousands – actually made by an Indian company – he can fight his own battles for now and it’s back to kissing Chinese arse for Dave.
Politics and business rarely sit comfortably together but it was impossible not to smile as Dave insisted sternly that the Chinese really could give a stuff about what we thought about them flogging and hanging a few here and there.
The real message he brings home is “if you don’t like it son we’ll have those Mercedes instead!” They know who’s boss these days and who has to bend over and “give you good time” now.
Gluttony
Plod has suddenly descended on my little cricket club after several of us recently decided we had been abused many decades ago by the notorious dictatorial Chairman at the time, our current Presidente, the villainous El Haighy.
El Haighy’s alleged crimes are those of inflicting serious bodily damage on aspiring young athletes with strange liquids purchased free of tax and smuggled back to the UK by his accomplice, daughter Janice. (Please don’t call her a mule…Ed)
Brain altering substance abuse, physical torture, tax-evasion and smuggling could get El Haighy some serious clink time. Will the Villas survive the loss of its iconic spiritual leader since the 1930s?
The devious old bugger used to invite those of us daft enough to a Christmas Day drinks session which began after Her Majesty had addressed the nation.
Now the Chairman addressed his very own flock as we rolled up with promises of free booze, released from sat with the family watching some crap movie as Grandma farted, snored and eventually collapsed from poisoning by QC Sherry.
This was on offer at Mr Patel’s VG store every Christmas, £1.99 a gallon and good enough to run your mower on.
It could have been the beginnings of a cult had wife Dot not shooed us out each year before we splattered the Axminster.
Janice’s part was in her role of international travel agent, spending her year roaming the world for exotic liqueurs to pour down necks accustomed to little else than Tetley’s bitter and Skol lager.
Each year, resplendent in new slippers, El Haighy would search his drinks cabinet before pulling out some liquid that looked as if it had a tree growing in it and some exotic reptile life too.
“Try this…it’ll put hairs on your chest” he would say and, of course, we did although we waited years for the hairs. Most of the stuff we drank burnt a passage to our stomachs and made our eyes roll from side to side.
Try, as we eventually had, to rise to two feet, we were like punch drunk boxers and just as eloquent.
They were some of the best Christmas Days of our lives as, no matter how many drinks we poured away down the sofa, into El Haighy’s old slippers or Dot’s plants; come pub time few of us could walk or talk and eyes were misty from endless tales of yester-year.
The back step out of El Haighy’s was like a ten metre diving board as eyes focused on the night sky, hands clasped the door-frame and the cold night air felt like a Frank Bruno right hook.
If you survived the launch onto the driveway, the hallucinatory effects of too much tree liquid made negotiating the sleepy neighbourhood streets seem like attempting to cross the M1 on a Friday afternoon.
Our “pub” was the new cricket clubhouse and if it had snowed this meant potential death from exposure as the RAF was unlikely to send a Sea King to the Villas in search of teenage drunks.
Most of us could only crawl across the field, having garden hopped through old Harry Lycett’s junk yard like imaginary commandoes, cutting our way through bushes and old fighter planes and scaling the fence to collapse in heaps in the field.
Of course El Haighy had motive in his madness as Boxing Day we always played rivals Buttershaw St Pauls and he always drummed into us the necessity of a good night’s sleep before a game; most of us slept so well we slept through Boxing Day in its entirety.
Will Plod take a dim view…could we have played for England…does he still get new slippers every year…watch this space.
Pride
Once again on the subject of talking a good fight, the UK remains one of the world’s largest overseas donors; this despite the fact that we are basically broke and will be for generations, especially if Fatty Balls ever gets back into power.
Still, it’s always those less well off that have the capacity for generosity…take my experiences as a paper boy for instance.
With some uncanny foretaste of my future life as a bank employee, I too viewed my annual “bonus” as an absolute right, having humped sacks of papers around every Sunday morning all year.
So as Christmas approached I would methodically start a knocking-up campaign staring in early December thinking I may as well get in ahead of the Samaritans or the Salvation Army as they were far better dressed than me.
Hard knock, hand out…”you’re not getting your paper till I get my tip!” Easy-peasy?
As the weeks passed by I knew the ones who were not going to cough up; those in the big houses with the flash cars on the never-never, hiding behind the Next curtains.
Feigning deafness to my ever-aggressive knocking was futile as I devised a plan of escalating retribution starting with the occasional rip in the paper to a full blown dunking in a soggy bush and ending with the occasional (No! Ed); the message landed eventually as I ticked them off, one by one.
So just remember when the paper boy, milkman or window cleaner roll up in the next few weeks, its not only bankers that get bonuses and these guys actually deserve them.
This from a man that each Trick or Treat night plunges his house into darkness and ignores any knock whatsoever.
Greed
Further conclusive proof that politicians of both sides are largely spineless and witless has been the energy bills fiasco with both claiming victory over the other whilst bills go up anyway and energy company CEOs can barely contain smiles at the futility of our protests.
Interesting to see Energy UK’s spokesperson the same Angela Knight that previously represented the British Bankers Association; what next for the defender of such noble enterprises?
But if charity really does begin at home then spare a thought for the most vulnerable, our elderly, the haves and the have-nots.
Surely in the age of social media, the thousands of pensioners who have no need for their winter fuel allowance – especially the ex-pats – ought to be pressured into offering theirs to the less well-off? Help a neighbour for Christmas…surely not that hard?
Wrath
George has spoken from on high…there will be more tough times ahead with difficult choices to make. May I offer one piece of advice should you ever seek to save a quid or two if considering a greenhouse to grow your own in these hard times.
Never, ever choose one that can fly unassisted unless you really wanted to have a career in search and rescue and always liked jigsaw puzzles.
Annually, mine starts to shake its foundations at the very first windy day, swaying from the hips with more rhythm than I ever mustered on the dance floor, bobbing up and down as if to “Twist & Shout”.
The other day it started to pop like a corset that had lost the battle, with frames flying everywhere and locals passing the adjacent snicket ducking for cover to avoid decapitating.
Eventually pieces were retrieved and, with numbing hands this weekend – for it never flies off in summer – I shall get my Junior socket set out and try “put you together…again”.
Wickes here I come!
Lust
So there I was at the garden centre buying yet more clips for the rebuilding of the airborne greenhouse, yet having to walk with fingers stuffed in ears to drown out the shit Christmas music amongst a sea of Chinese made snowmen.
If we are, indeed, in austere times somebody ought to have told the queue in front of me laden with China’s finest crap, credit cards swishing like a Methodist druggie trying to spend his banking bonus.
Sloth
Having been knocked off the top for barely a week by British Gas, good old Sky have regained their special place in my heart for levels of customer service that a baboon would be ashamed of.
Behind the glossy façade and a plethora of highly paid presenters lies a stinking mass of apathetic morons, the majority of which can barely speak English…although a few of the football pundits on Sky Soccer Saturday are in the same boat.
They can turn a simple request into a chain of emails bordering a novel.
Bloody rubbish Mr Murdoch!
There…that feels better…time for a beer!
Leave a Reply