With Christmas a mere 10 days away, the UK is abuzz with the new party game to be enjoyed by all the family after the ritual demolishing of the turkey, which we Brits devour with much abandon just in case they suddenly join the EU. (Coming over here, basking in our cranberries…)  It’s called What Does Brexit Mean, Auntie Sylvia? (And if Auntie Sylvia knows, she’s the only damn person in the entire country to have much of a clue).

Now, I know what you’re going to say: Brexit means Brexit!  But if you express that in mathematical form, it’s:-

x = x

when x is a factor under consideration of knowledge knowable naturally only to worthless scholars, or FUCK KNOWS for short.

And as much as this is the official Government line, even Theresa May doesn’t understand it, which is why she decided to express it in colour as a Red, White and Blue Brexit.  Which on reflection could denote a Cuban Brexit, a Bermudan Brexit, a Cambodian or North Korean Brexit, or, of course, a Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Brexit.  Though I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.

But then it suddenly occurred to me: where, in this highly-sophisticated era of cutting-edge technology, do the ruling elite disseminate their political messages?  That’s it!  Though sadly, I have to report the only fact I gleaned from the side of a bus is Weetabix means Weetabix.

So it’s anyone’s guess as to what we’ll end up with.  Hard, soft, medium, sunny side up (not available), over easy (definitely not available), drifting off alone into the North Sea kind of Brexit (likely).  Transitional, edge-of-cliff Brexit, just a light trim or cost me an arm and a leg Brexit.  Or perhaps a superciliousfragileexitexpeditingvoters Brexit. With knobs on. (Given that the knobs are driving this in the first place).

Thus, the only thing that’s a surety is a fact so simple, once you see it you wonder how you ever missed it.  It is:-

TM

_____________         = xpm

a barrel

And now the shipping forecast.  The general synopsis at five to midnight.

Refugees

Rising

Patience

Falling

Brexit

Soon

Downing Street    

Squally, turbulent, outlook hysterical

May

Fog

North UK

Rockall

South UK

Affluent, backing Tory

Corbyn

Dull

Electorate

Depressed

Dogger, Fisher, German Bite

Clapham Common, Grimsby, Sauerkraut, intermittently Merkel

Sausagepastie

Soggy, wind 5 or 6, decreasing later

UKIP

Extreme front

Voters

Poor, veering Far Right

Americans

Turning Trump, becoming bonkers

The world awoke this morning to discover it had been turned into a cartoon, with Donald J. Duck having been elected as President of the United States of America.

Puffed-up in both appearance and behaviour, with a large beak, tiny wings, and extravagant plumage on top of his head, Mr Duck is known for his short-temper, bullying, and semi-intelligible speech. Typical of his kind, using his mouth for dredging, he is of the fresh variety, who is unafraid to play with cats without their owners’ permission.

He campaigned on a platform of Mickey Mouse policies and quackery.

In his victory speech he was generous in thanking his family, including Huey, Dewey and Ivanka (who’s married to Jewey).

Mr Duck’s cohorts are habitually found in swamps, amid large populations of loons.

RIP satire.

HYMN TO XENOPHOBIC BRITAIN 

And did those feet in modern time,

Walk upon Europe’s pastures green,

And was the holy lamb of God

With cumin, cooked in open air tureens.

*

And did the Far Right asinine

Shout ‘foul!’ upon on our crowded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded there,

In Calais’ tents, as trash in French landfills.

*

Bring me my bow of burning gold;

Bring me my gallows of desire;

Bring me my spear; O crowds unfold!

Bring me my bulldozers of fire!

*

I will not cease from mental Right,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem

Elsewhere from England’s dark and peasant Land.

*

PUBLIC SAFETY WARNING

Millions of people have been scared out of their wits in the latest incidence of scary clown sightings sweeping the US.

Reports of two particularly bloodcurdling specimens spotted on campus at Washington University, St Louis, on Sunday evening resulted in mass panic as each attacked the other, with the certain outcome that the victor would terrorise billions of people for the next four years, or until the end of time, whichever is the soonest.

Witnesses described how one of the perpetrators, large in stature with a grotesque mask, preposterous hair and tiny hands, jumped out from behind a lectern and alarmed the other clown – who was plainly suffering from delusions of grandeur – as he followed her around threatening to incarcerate her.

This phenomenon has also been noted in the UK, where the public have been similarly spooked by a whole host of unnerving figures, including a court jester – ironically, with no sense of humour – sporting ill-fitting clothes made of sackcloth, a grisly beard housing old lentils, and shoes far too big for him, who strikes terror even into his fellow clowns.  Another goes under the guise of ‘Nigel, The Prize Fool’, never seen without a shiny red nose and a glass full of ale, who is forever retiring from the world stage before returning for never-ending curtain calls.

THESE FIGURES ARE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT APPROACH THEM

MORE TO THE POINT, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT VOTING FOR THEM

aka A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare

Cameronius loves Junckerio and Junckerio loves Cameronius, although only in an ironic way.  Govio loves Borisius Johnsonio – at least he does until the magic love drops wear off – while Borisius Johnsonio used to love Govio but now loves only Borisius Johnsonio, leading Govio to suddenly knife him in the back with a very expensive John Lewis silver stiletto 64 million people paid for without meaning to, which he keeps up his sleeve in case of emergencies.

Farragio, in love with Adolphio, prefers Ukipius to any of them, and in order to enforce his wishes upon the Royal Court, gives an ultimatum to all the subjects in the land to choose between Cameronius and life in Europea, or a long, lingering, lonely death with no friends adrift in the North Sea, by 23rd June.

Meanwhile, complications arise in the Forest of Light Relief, where a collection of talentless celebrity craftsmen, led by Bigginsio, King of the Fairies, who is always keen to play Bottom, are tasked with performing an entertainment to be watched by Biggius Brotheronium and 5 hapless plebiscites who plainly lost a bet. Bigginsio is, however, removed from the production after going off-script to make a very funny joke about a fellow craftswoman’s aversion to being carted off to the death camps and gassed to death. Which turns out not to be very funny after all.  But then, he is an ass.

The good citizens of the land vote to stay in Europea, while the bad citizens of the land, who outnumber the good citizens, even though they have a collective IQ of 3, vote to leave.  Cameronius, having stated he would remain Duke whatever happened, rescinds his title and tells Junckerio they can no longer be together.

The climax of the summer ensues: the race to become Duke of the Tories. Govio and Johnsonio, Liesander Foxglove (an idiot, named after his fondness for inscribing ridiculous proclamations on the sides of public wagons), Stefano Crabbe (a bearded idiot nobody’s ever heard of), Titania Leadsom (a tit) and Mayhem, Ice Queen of the Tories, notorious for her hand-stitched-by-artisans footwear, and her bespoke jewellery designed by the surprising accessories success story of the year, B&Q, all vie for the Dukedom.  Govio and Foxglove lose in the first round, while Johnsonio removes himself from the contest before everyone else does. Stefano Crabbe, having run on a family ticket, catches crabs from sexting someone not in his family (though he thought she was just the ticket), and Titania Leadsom is revealed to be too much of a clotpole even for an Elizabethan comedy.  This leaves Mayhem, Ice Queen of the Tories, as Duke of The Tories by default.

Thankfully, most nightmares come to an end, though this one just runs and runs. Junckerio promises to exact revenge on Mayhem for Cameronius’ betrayal, Govio is sent into exile, and Johnsonio, Liesander Foxglove and Davidius Davidius (a court jester), form an uneasy pact to ensure all the peace and considerable spoils of the past 40 years are totally and utterly reduced to pixie dust.  Bigginsio attempts to revive his inexplicable popularity by playing the back end of a donkey in Christmastide entertainments, and the good citizens of the land pack up their possessions to make for the run-down castles of the Poitou-Charentes, leaving behind only a note addressed to 17.4 million bad citizens of the land:-

“All for your delight we are not here”

EXEUNT

It can’t have escaped your notice that the UK has recently been rocked to its core by the shocking inadequacies of a number of high-profile elites, who – in their astounding arrogance and efforts to pursue their own selfish career advancement without even a passing consideration for millions of others – have brought this place to its knees.  But that’s enough about Top Gear and the England football team, there’s also been a story brewing in British politics.

For, after more than 40 years, the British public have voted to leave its place in Europe.  Which on the plus side, means we can now fulfil a long-standing manifesto pledge from the Monster Raving Looney Party and tow Britain to the position of the South of France.  (And if you lived somewhere you only know it’s summer by looking at the calendar, you’d be cheering too).

On the slightly less plus side (you won’t find any negativity from me in this column), the country has not only shot itself in the foot, the backside, the other foot and the head, it’s also pulled the rug out from underneath it and driven itself into a brick wall with one of the last batch of imported red, white or blue Fiat 500s we’ll ever see. (Bloody Italian cars, coming over here and driving around in our colours…)

What swung the result?  Turkeys.  Turkey joining in the EU on 12th of Never 2099, turkeys leading the Leave campaign (who subsequently, on winning, have all disappeared, having stuffed their political careers with a result they didn’t want and didn’t expect), and 17m turkeys in the British electorate, who believed the gobbledegook the turkey elites painted on the side of a bus. (£350m a week to the NHS!  Vote for Christmas!)

David Cameron (remember him?) has been roundly criticised for holding the referendum in the first place but, as he argues, it’s a matter of democracy, and who better to know about that than a Prime Minister who has been governing a country in which 75% of those who expressed a preference at the last General Election preferred to express their vote for anyone but the Tories.  Thus his mandate (we’re shortly to have a womandate, but more about that in another post) is so small, it befits belonging to a man who has virtually nothing to offer any date, unless we’re talking column inches. On the other hand (not sure which hand that is, but it’s certainly not the one on the left), this paves the way for more questions to be posed to the British public in the name of demos, for instance:-

1.     Should Poles be repatriated because they’re magnetic?

 2.      Should magnets be expelled because they’re attractive?

 3.      Should hanging be mandatory for Guardian readers?

These are the questions consuming anyone who is concerned about sovereignty.  Accordingly, we’ve taken our country back: straight back to the 1960s, where racism and sexism did a brisk trade, and xenophobia (the fear of Buddhists) was mandatory.  (NB: It was Enoch Powell who inserted the ‘Tory’ into ‘mandatory’ with his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968, which almost seems as if it’s tomorrow).

Anyway, for those of you interested in the stats, but too afraid to ask as you’re packing your bags to emigrate, here’s a handy explanation:-

The turnout was 71.8%, with 53.4% voting to turnout, while 46.6% voted to turn in.  1.1 million people were subsequently found to regret their Leave vote, saying they didn’t realise their vote would count (true), they didn’t think Britain would vote to leave (true), and they hadn’t yet got up to X in the alphabet (likely).  Cornwall, which voted decisively against staying in, neatly added a P.S. to the result, pleading to continue to receive the millions in EU funding it’s enjoyed for years. (I don’t know what they’re putting in the pasties, but I suspect it’s Pastis). Protests by the Remain camp were immediately convened to persuade those in power to disregard this non-binding referendum, with the call growing louder for a Brexit Exit. Which is hardly sporting at all, considering the pound is now the worst-performing currency in the world, billions of pounds of investment have disappeared overnight, global companies are fleeing the UK to pastures new, and science, sport and the arts are, without EU funding, withering on the British vine – all of which is ushering in a long, punishing recession.  So what’s not to like?

Summary

Brexit Negatives:  People are poorer, the British Isles is breaking up, we’ll still be paying enormous amounts to the EU – even though scientific research is dead, TV and film are dead – and the British passport is now a passport to nowhere.

Brexit Positives:   We can now legally buy bananas by the pound, even though imports of bananas will be curtailed since they’re far too bendy, and anyway, the pound has gone bananas.*

* Shortly to be known as ‘the pound has gone Bramley apples’.

P.S. Don’t forget to order my new book on how the British political class reflects the people it serves: Dummies for Dummies, only £796.99 (that’s €4 to you).

In a somewhat odd turn of events, although it says Spring on my calendar, when I look out of the window I see flowers instead of snow.  (There could be a simple explanation for this: in trying to decipher a letter from the hospital to my GP recently, depending on which scale they’re using, I’m either asymptomatic or dead.  Though for the purposes of this post, let’s just assume it’s the former.) And with it being 2015 – so I’ve been led to believe, but you should never really trust anything governments tell you – it’s apparently time for a General Election.

Accordingly, without further ado, or writing to the The Times in the traditional manner (these days only the 1% can afford to subscribe to the thing), I am delighted to announce that I’ve just seen the first kitchens of spring.

What’s that, you ask?  Am I a little cuckoo?  (No, it’s just the way I’m standing. © Morecambe and Wise, 1976).  Far from it, dear reader!  Just peruse any national newspaper online (quite a few of them are still free, even ones with words in them) and hundreds of pictures of an array of culinary accessories, American refrigerators and counter tops (NB. Does the PM have counter terrorism tops?) leap out at you, with the motley leaders of the motley main political parties affecting to appear relaxed in the foreground of a room they’ve just this minute located since the photographer arrived, whilst clinging to a mug (no, not the Deputy Prime Minister, how dare you think such a thing), and smiling at his wife.  Or smiling at the mug and clinging to his wife, depending on how attractive the tabloids have rated her.  (Very Important Stat before a General Election, obviously.)

These ‘top politician at home’ photographs are accordingly pored over by journalists, with their John Lewis and Fortnum and Mason catalogues to hand, helpfully telling us how much the politicians’ appliances cost, and the name of the cow that produced the milk for the £186 a kilo Tibetan goats’ cheese, hand-crafted by sherpas for 8p a week, which can be spotted on the top shelf of every Tory MP’s shiny Smeg.  Obviously, the message is that you can tell a lot about a professional politician from (one of) his kitchen(s), as the Labour leader, Ed Milisecond, discovered from the backlash which followed from his decision to be snapped in his servants’ kitchen – all bare walls, empty counter tops (which is counter to normal counter top behaviour) – instead of the family kitchen downstairs, in which he sits at the end of every day at his designer table, bacon sandwich on a collectable Liberty fine bone china plate, with his head in his hands.

And so, as I studied Politics, and thus am aware at degree level no less of how important kitchens are in the political arena, I’ve decided to share mine with you.  But first…

…many people have expressed curiosity as to why I didn’t go into politics myself after university; they all receive the very same response: a cry of: “What kind of girl do you think I am???!!!” and a swift expunging from my list of Facebook friends.  However, I do know it’s of interest as to what exactly one studies on a politics degree, so here’s a summary of what we were taught at my alma mater (objectively rated in the top 3000 universities in the country, a whole 3 places up from McDonalds Hamburger University in East Finchley, where you can supersize your degree for an extra thirty thousand quid to build a new research centre for acne).

WHAT YOU LEARN ON A POLITICS DEGREE

1.     How to lie (obvious, but important)

2.     How to claim expenses

3.     Where the subsidised bars are in the House of Commons (to the nearest 25)

4.     Advanced criminal accounting (crucial for home-switching to best effect)

5.     Where to source the best floating duck house

6.     How to obfuscate when asked the same question 900 times on a political programme (Paxman, You’re A Political Animal, Aren’t You? BBC, 1989 – 2014)

7.     Body Language, with particular reference to not touching your nose every time you say something

8.     How to rub people up the wrong way after a couple of cheap bottles of vintage claret in the subsided bars, with particular reference to police statements

Anyway, back to my kitchen.  Well, working as a political satirist (didn’t you know?  Tsk.  It’s my day job), it’s obviously vital for me to have a politically neutral scullery.  And so I have a blue kettle, a red clock, some yellow bananas (somehow appropriate, methinks), and a few green herbs.  As for anything purple, well, you won’t find anything remotely reminiscent of UKIP, no matter how hard you look.  (Although I have been known to have a couple of kippers for breakfast.)

Thus, you can rest assured that everything you read on this blog is 100% independently researched academically, and assiduously analysed with empirically-collected data.  As for who I shall be placing my cross next to on the ballot paper, well, there’s something I learned in the third year of my politics degree, which I regard as the pinnacle of my education, and will carry with me until the day I die; it’s how to spell:-

NONE OF THE ABOVE

A Few Lines On Today’s Royal Tidings (where’s the Poet Laureate when you need them?)

The Duchess of Cambridge once more up the duff,
An heir and a spare, let’s hope that’s enough.

And once more the retching, the head down the pan,
It’s really not easy being a republican.