Published on 10 March 2008 as part of my Letter from Britain newspaper column in South Africa. Not much has chnaged on these issues since then.
I sympathise with my wife.
Years ago she accepted my heart. Now she is saddled with the rest of my body parts - including a gramophone record face that snores at night on the pillow next to her.
Unsurprisingly I am a deep sleeper and she is a light sleeper.
That explains why she was wide awake a few nights ago right through Britain's most violent earthquake in 25 years whilst I slept on untroubled next to her.
To me the earthquake, which measured 5.2 on the Richter scale, proved empirically that there are no ghosts in our house because not a single skeleton fell out of any cupboard.
However, it also proved that women are more awake than men. My wife even sensed the earthquake beforehand.
And so the question arose: Seeing that women have been ruling the world as micro regents for so long, has the time not arrived for a woman to once again rule Britain?
A Margaret Thatcher. Someone with prescience and an ear for political earthquakes.
Half of the male bunch currently in control of Britain are tragically hard of hearing and the rest come from the Ministry for National Ignorance.
Prime Minister Boredom, apologies, Gordon Brown is a man off undeviating indecision and ambiguity that rings clear as a bell - a man who, in 2007, half-heartedly hinted at an election and then ran away. He was so indecisive in the case of Northern Rock, the troubled bank situated in the heartland of his party’s supporters, that he dithered for many months on private sector solutions and then nationalised the bank with government guarantees of £100 billion.
Yes comrades, Northern Rock is a glorious victory for the proletariat! Our People's Bank is a milestone in the Cultural Revolution against all despicable capitalists - particularly those recalcitrant individuals who would have used their detestable capital to disadvantage our dearest compatriots in the Northern Rock region. Away with Richard Bransonism! Viva superior socialism! With central planning our People's Bank will be victorious in the competitive struggle against all underhanded capitalist banks!
Dear reader, we apologise for this unsolicited interruption.
More than one third of Britain’s total production today emanates from the financial and business sectors - to a large degree due to tax incentives for non-domiciled residents which created massive capital inflow. The multiplier effect of these people and their money has been phenomenal.
In a recent war to gain votes all political parties suddenly agreed that the tax incentives for non-domiciled residents, most of whom by sheer coincidence have no voting rights, should be withdrawn once they remain longer than seven years in the UK.
In 2006 South Africa almost approved a law that would have precluded foreigners from purchasing houses in South Africa. The reason behind that was that some South Africans complained that they were being priced out of the housing market. Fortunately the South African government saw the light because foreign inward capital flow is indeed similar to an easy export product at minimal cost. Yes, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is not just a beautiful face.
Now, at a time of tales of recession and nationalisation, similar complaints from locals in Britain have led to a point where Britain now actively encourages capital flight. According to the Lord Mayor of London the net loss of the non-domiciled withdrawal of incentives, just in the Square mile of the City, could amount to £1.2 billion.
How could these Martians in control not sense the financial earthquake? How could they ignore the negative multiplier effect, the impending decline of London as a financial centre, the repositioning of head offices in London as branches of head offices from elsewhere - and that Britain would become nothing more than a book entry from elsewhere?
We interrupt this imperialistic Letter from Britain.
Workers of Britain, unite!
Just like Comrade Fidel Castro chased away the hated foreign capitalists from his soil in 1959 and transformed Cuba into an economic paradise, our heroic leader, comrade Gordonov Brownski, today delivers to you a new dawn for a progressive future! Away with the treacherous non-domiciled reactionary oligarchs! With our brave central planners we will chase these money schemers to the far corners of Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Geneva and Monaco! We will drive all shipping oligarchs back to Athens and those American financial vultures back to their nests in Wall Street!
Comrades, house prices will fall so that you can afford housing. Our People's Bank, Northern Rock, will support you with financing. Restaurants and hotels will not be crowded any more with abominable non-domiciles. No, those entities will stand empty for you, our beloved proletariat.
Rest assured that unfaithful private doctors will lose their contaminated non-domiciled support and will return as loyal government labourers to the heart of our beloved National Health Service. As you know, comrades, our outstanding government pays excellent salaries to all 1.4 million state workers in the National Health Service, including medical doctors. Comrades, take pride in this outstanding body - the fifth largest employer in the world - where you now have to wait a mere 45 to 77 weeks for a trauma or orthopaedic procedure such as a hip operation.
Comrades, here at the Westminster Politburo there are rumblings from below and we know that this is the wave of patriotism, collectivism and proletarian internationalism beneath our feet.
Comrades rest assured, we are there for you. From now on you can sleep in tranquillity.
Rest in peace.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Friday, 12 October 2007
Report from Battle Zone Marseille on the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War
First published as Lettr from Britain in South Africa on 12 October 2007.
It is relatively unknown that the most well-known propaganda photograph of World War II was taken in St. Peter Port, the capital of the Channel Island Guernsey – the only patch of Britain where the swastika ever fluttered.
In 1940 a German military band, followed by 400 German troops, marched past the front door of Lloyds Bank in Guernsey, providing the Germans with triumphant photographic evidence of their occupation of British soil.
This reminded me of the Prussian soldier, Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz – a man with a long name but a short message: War is the continuation of politics by other means.
I would have wanted to add that international sport is the continuation of war by other means but, dammit, George Orwell stole a march on me when he wrote in 1945 that international sport was mimic war.
I can therefore probably only add to Orwell and Guernsey 1940 by stating: Mimic foot soldiers march through mimic wars.
And so, with the greatest humility, I herewith report on my role and that of mimic soldier, Hannes, in the events that took place in the Battle Zone Marseille over the first weekend of October 2007 during the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War.
On our Air France flight I swore I saw another mimic soldier reading the French military magazine, Le Drapeau Blanc (The White Flag), with a front page article on arm exercises to hold up your hands three times longer.
We flew to Marseille, which became the birthplace of the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, when 500 volunteers marched from there to Paris singing the Marseillaise as a rallying call to arms during the French Revolution.
And so it came to pass that, right there in Marseille, Hannes and I noticed a slight French schizophrenia.
Introduce yourself and the French will gently respond that they are enchanted to meet you by saying “enchanté”. Unfortunately French mimic soldiers have a more antagonistic message to foreigners when they sing their anthem and boom out the refrain:
To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march!
Let us march!
Until impure blood
Waters our furrows!
I must confess that I am actually quite fond of my blood circulation and I was therefore glad that, over our weekend in Marseille, the French were obliged to battle against New Zealand on faraway foreign acres of furrows. Nonetheless, on the night after the French victory at the Battle of Cardiff there was such a din of blaring hooters in the streets of the South of France that I expected at any time to see 500 French volunteers forming battalions and advancing towards Paris.
During the time Hannes and I saw action in Marseille we experienced excellent logistics (trains, buses and underground connections) but the mustering of mimic troops was so intense that we landed in our first scrum in the double-decker train on the way to our clandestine support for England in the mimic clash against Australia.
I can report back that the English victors were so overcome with joy that 500 of them immediately stormed out of the Stade Vélodrome and marched on Paris singing the inciting song: We Bonked Matilda, We Bonked Matilda!
In the dark hours before the battle between South Africa and Fiji, Hannes and I soothed our nerves with a few fizzy adult beverages in Marseille’s Old Harbour – a misnomer really because the Germans bombed the old harbour out of this world in the war.
But then, what you don’t see is what you get in France.
However, I did actually see something special in action in the Old Harbour - Darwin’s theory of evolution.
With intense superficial research I discovered two new offshoots from Wise Man (Homo Sapiens) namely mimic soldier Rugby Man (a considerate species herding according to group colour) and Vuvuzela Man (an inconsiderate, cross-eyed species of green and gold loners with long plastic trumpets and South African accents).
Vuvuzela Man sits in enclosed spaces, such as restaurants, and compensates for his obvious Freudian male physical shortcomings by blowing on very long plastic trumpets, called Vuvuzelas, chasing away Rugby man with a monotonous loud fanfare that rhymes with I’m-an-idiot! I’m-an-idiot!
Could someone not please capture the African inventor of the Vuvuzela, tie him up for 80 minutes (preferably by his Freudian physical shortcomings) and blow two Vuvuzelas incessantly in his ears?
Hannes, my brother in mimic arms, gave Vuvuzela man a scowl that was strong enough for a push over try under the goalposts against the whole Fijian scrum.
In the end South Africa did not have to make use of Hannes’s scowl to beat Fiji because South Africa had their secret attack weapons Lucky Ball® and FiveCannonTry™. Fiji’s star player was Verrihitaklar Andayelokaarti.
The victory brought about great collective effervescence among all South African mimic troops but, at the same time, it created collective despondency among all those wretched wounded Australian mimic soldiers who had spilled over in support of Fiji from the previous day’s Battle against England.
It was poignantly sad to experience so closely at hand so many tragic cases of Australian NBDV (National Brain Defect Virus).
The Battle against Fiji was extremely tiring – even for the 30 players - but Hannes and I were at such a peak in our watch fitness that we survived the ordeal and were able afterwards to celebrate with thousands of other mimic soldiers at several liquid victory festivities hosted at pavement oases.
As I write this report the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War is, of course, still raging in France.
I sincerely hope that, as mimic soldiers, our humble military mimic service and tactical inputs in Battle Zone Marseille will have contributed to World Peace – or, at least, victory for our own forces.
I predict our official V-day on 20 October 2007.
We must remain courageous and not lose spirit.
Remember, fatalism is a dying philosophy.
It is relatively unknown that the most well-known propaganda photograph of World War II was taken in St. Peter Port, the capital of the Channel Island Guernsey – the only patch of Britain where the swastika ever fluttered.
In 1940 a German military band, followed by 400 German troops, marched past the front door of Lloyds Bank in Guernsey, providing the Germans with triumphant photographic evidence of their occupation of British soil.
This reminded me of the Prussian soldier, Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz – a man with a long name but a short message: War is the continuation of politics by other means.
I would have wanted to add that international sport is the continuation of war by other means but, dammit, George Orwell stole a march on me when he wrote in 1945 that international sport was mimic war.
I can therefore probably only add to Orwell and Guernsey 1940 by stating: Mimic foot soldiers march through mimic wars.
And so, with the greatest humility, I herewith report on my role and that of mimic soldier, Hannes, in the events that took place in the Battle Zone Marseille over the first weekend of October 2007 during the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War.
On our Air France flight I swore I saw another mimic soldier reading the French military magazine, Le Drapeau Blanc (The White Flag), with a front page article on arm exercises to hold up your hands three times longer.
We flew to Marseille, which became the birthplace of the French national anthem, the Marseillaise, when 500 volunteers marched from there to Paris singing the Marseillaise as a rallying call to arms during the French Revolution.
And so it came to pass that, right there in Marseille, Hannes and I noticed a slight French schizophrenia.
Introduce yourself and the French will gently respond that they are enchanted to meet you by saying “enchanté”. Unfortunately French mimic soldiers have a more antagonistic message to foreigners when they sing their anthem and boom out the refrain:
To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march!
Let us march!
Until impure blood
Waters our furrows!
I must confess that I am actually quite fond of my blood circulation and I was therefore glad that, over our weekend in Marseille, the French were obliged to battle against New Zealand on faraway foreign acres of furrows. Nonetheless, on the night after the French victory at the Battle of Cardiff there was such a din of blaring hooters in the streets of the South of France that I expected at any time to see 500 French volunteers forming battalions and advancing towards Paris.
During the time Hannes and I saw action in Marseille we experienced excellent logistics (trains, buses and underground connections) but the mustering of mimic troops was so intense that we landed in our first scrum in the double-decker train on the way to our clandestine support for England in the mimic clash against Australia.
I can report back that the English victors were so overcome with joy that 500 of them immediately stormed out of the Stade Vélodrome and marched on Paris singing the inciting song: We Bonked Matilda, We Bonked Matilda!
In the dark hours before the battle between South Africa and Fiji, Hannes and I soothed our nerves with a few fizzy adult beverages in Marseille’s Old Harbour – a misnomer really because the Germans bombed the old harbour out of this world in the war.
But then, what you don’t see is what you get in France.
However, I did actually see something special in action in the Old Harbour - Darwin’s theory of evolution.
With intense superficial research I discovered two new offshoots from Wise Man (Homo Sapiens) namely mimic soldier Rugby Man (a considerate species herding according to group colour) and Vuvuzela Man (an inconsiderate, cross-eyed species of green and gold loners with long plastic trumpets and South African accents).
Vuvuzela Man sits in enclosed spaces, such as restaurants, and compensates for his obvious Freudian male physical shortcomings by blowing on very long plastic trumpets, called Vuvuzelas, chasing away Rugby man with a monotonous loud fanfare that rhymes with I’m-an-idiot! I’m-an-idiot!
Could someone not please capture the African inventor of the Vuvuzela, tie him up for 80 minutes (preferably by his Freudian physical shortcomings) and blow two Vuvuzelas incessantly in his ears?
Hannes, my brother in mimic arms, gave Vuvuzela man a scowl that was strong enough for a push over try under the goalposts against the whole Fijian scrum.
In the end South Africa did not have to make use of Hannes’s scowl to beat Fiji because South Africa had their secret attack weapons Lucky Ball® and FiveCannonTry™. Fiji’s star player was Verrihitaklar Andayelokaarti.
The victory brought about great collective effervescence among all South African mimic troops but, at the same time, it created collective despondency among all those wretched wounded Australian mimic soldiers who had spilled over in support of Fiji from the previous day’s Battle against England.
It was poignantly sad to experience so closely at hand so many tragic cases of Australian NBDV (National Brain Defect Virus).
The Battle against Fiji was extremely tiring – even for the 30 players - but Hannes and I were at such a peak in our watch fitness that we survived the ordeal and were able afterwards to celebrate with thousands of other mimic soldiers at several liquid victory festivities hosted at pavement oases.
As I write this report the Sixth Rugby World Mimic War is, of course, still raging in France.
I sincerely hope that, as mimic soldiers, our humble military mimic service and tactical inputs in Battle Zone Marseille will have contributed to World Peace – or, at least, victory for our own forces.
I predict our official V-day on 20 October 2007.
We must remain courageous and not lose spirit.
Remember, fatalism is a dying philosophy.
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