Monday 10 March 2008

OUT-CANUTING CANUTE

We hear on today's broadcast news that our devoted Supreme Leader is in constant contact with the emergency services to ensure that everything possible is done to minimise storm and flood damage.

Why Gordibroon - or BroodyGord as he is known in the Burrow - imagines that his personal involvement will make a ha'porth of difference to the performance of our professional coastguards, lifeboatmen, fire services and police, except to distract them from more urgent tasks to take a superfluous phone call from No 10, we cannot imagine.

However, the government spin machine obviously sees a benefit in assuring the witless sheeples that their trusty shepherd is on watch day and night, hence his increasingly haggard and hunted look on Prime Minister's Question Time [which could aptly be re-named "Twenty Questions - No Answers".]

It seems that we have an even more mediocre megalomaniac premier than his self-obsessed predecessor. Whereas T Blair would doubtless have aspired to subdue the agitated waters with a lofty wave of the hand and an exhortation to "Be Still", Gordo rings everybody up and says "Here I am! Let me know if you have a problem."

The biggest problem would be if he actually set out to do anything more. The apparition of Broody turning up at the Burrow with a ladder to replace our drifting slates has got the Beadle worried. We are thinking of putting up a notice saying "Prime Ministers not welcome here", along the lines of those canny folk who used to carry cards saying "If I am admitted to hospital, I do not wish to be visited by Mrs Thatcher".

Armed with a large tray of pink gins, Dame Barbara is already at work on her latest blockbuster: Don't Leave it to Gordon".

19 comments:

zola a social thing said...

Lifeboat folk are NOT professional.
God damit the lifeboat folk I respect and I will not allow you to label them as "professional".
They are different.

anticant said...

Oh dear - knuckle-rapped again!

"Professional" was intended as a compliment. Having lived for ten years near to Walmer Lifeboat Station, Anticant knows only too well how magnificent they are. RNLI is one of his regular Christmas Charities.

Anonymous said...

No knicker waving or bullying of Anticant in the Burrow [or elsewhere].

By Order

zola a social thing said...

What can I say?
We do what we can.
That is it really.
oops that was Anticant.....

Anonymous said...

Come back, Zola. All is forgiven! Indeed, I shall rely on you to kayak upstream and rescue me from the Burrow rafters in my sodden woollen stockings if the floods erupt at their worst. Anticant and Dame Barbara have already decamped in the Rolls to higher ground, with Wooffie. Ben and the Beadle will have to swim for it.

Anonymous said...

As the plot - and the storm clouds - thicken, I have amended my title to: "Don't Leave it to Gordon - Zola to the Rescue!"

It's a rehash of "Mill on the Floss" without the weepy bits.

Anonymous said...

Zola for Prime Minister. Now THERE'S a thought!

Bodwyn Wook said...

/Dutiful/ is the more-conradean worthier adjective -- these american "professionals" of to-day at least are a load of polecat-ferrets:

http://bodwyn.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/as-matters-stand-now-calculus/

Anonymous said...

Makes me think of this.

Oh and I'd love one of those cards about not wanting to be visited by Thatcher in hospital...

zola a social thing said...

At least Freddy boy tried to stop the likes of Broon from flogging horses. Anyway Trousers you are a hopeless Romantic.
Anticant, at least, tries, at least, to be a pragmatist.
Fuck we are all doomed.

anticant said...

Of course we are. None of us are going to live forever. So we must just make the most of each day - be serious, though not solemn, and have some fun.

Free drinks all round, please, Ben.

[BTW Zola, Mrs Malaprop has now descended from the roof, her stockings still dry, so there is no need for you to anticipate an emergency call at present.]

zola a social thing said...

Anticant : you are out of dtae here.
Mrs Malaprop descended as I was waiting to catch her if she slipped. And she did.
Mrs Malaprop has now wet knickers.
That much I can tell you.

Anonymous said...

Zola, needless to say, is the biggest Romantic of all, with his sentimental addictions to various -isms, musical nostalgia, football, Dame Barbara's epics, and a nostalgic vision of an England that neverwoz.

A foaming silver tankard awaits you in the Snug, dear Zola.

Anonymous said...

No wet knickers in the Burrow.

By Order

Anonymous said...

Or in my chaste chapters!

zola a social thing said...

This sounds to me like Narziss and Goldmund.
Can I be Goldmund?
Can I, Can I.
Fuck it will be anyway if I want.

Bodwyn Wook said...

I Gather from 'Radio 4' that it is raining "to beat Hell" again to-day....

BY-The-by, I have sent around the animal-migrations programme-link to the mob here, and they all seem to like it lots -- esp the bit about monarch butterflies now leaving highland Mexico. They'll be here in a bit -- and we always watch their migration South in September. That's a long way to go (forth AND back!) for little butterflies!

TO-DAY It is sunny, forties (fahrenheit) and nicely thawing, the red-winged blackbird males are all territory-ing around and the local pig-farmers have not yet hauled the cover off of the manure pit, so it actually /smells/ early-springy!

Merkin said...

Best article of last year was LavvyBloo's on MPB about the brave lifeboat men.
Pity it is no longer there.

trousers said...

Maybe she could repost it somewhere merk? I presume/hope she has it saved.