THERE’S so much to dislike about all the terrible people who’ve decided to paralyse London for two weeks. They lie there in the road, in their tinfoil facemasks and their red hoods and their hazmat suits, with oxygen tanks on their backs, assuming normal people will work out what all this stuff means. Yeah. That […]
THERE’S so much to dislike about all the terrible people who’ve decided to paralyse London for two weeks.
They lie there in the road, in their tinfoil facemasks and their red hoods and their hazmat suits, with oxygen tanks on their backs, assuming normal people will work out what all this stuff means.
Yeah. That the person wearing it is mad.
I know this symbolism makes perfect sense when you’re 18 and sitting in a hemp-infused tent.
But it looks idiotic to people who are not, what’s the word, stoned.
And then there’s all the “woke” nonsense. Standing on one leg on a plastic yoga mat on Westminster Bridge. And staging a lesbian wedding. And sobbing because you’ve just watched a documentary starring John Cusack and you think a tidal wave’s coming.
And what good is this doing?
Not much, because all the people in government departments working tirelessly on cutting the world’s carbon emissions can’t get to work because their route is blocked by a degenerate’s yurt.
All of it is eye-rollingly embarrassing. It makes me despair for the future they have planned as much as they despair of the future we’ve given them. But what really causes my nose to itch and my teeth to move about is their hypocrisy.
We have to assume that because they have two spare weeks to stand on one leg in Westminster, they don’t have jobs. Which means they are taking cash from the Government.
And where does the Government get that cash? Well, the truth is, a huge chunk of it comes from oil companies.
So who’s paying you, Mr Swampy, to mooch about with your bongo drums and your dreadlocks? BP. That’s who.
And there’s more.
That high-visibility jacket you’re wearing. And your shoes. And that terrible tent you’re living in. And the screen on your mobile phone. And the stickers on your laptop case. All of it is made from oil and gas.
You stand there with your placard saying fracking is suicide but you don’t realise, because you’re a halfwit, that without fracking there’d be no ethane. And without ethane, there’d be no elasticity in your underpants. So they’d fall down all the time.
And without oil, there’d be no yoga mats either.
These people want the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero in six years’ time.
Well, why don’t they lead by example and get rid of everything in their life that is made from oil or gas.
No more phones. No more clothes. No more yoga. And when it’s time to go home, no transport to get you there.
TWO minutes after the lifeless carcass of Hessy, the humpback whale, was hauled from the Thames Estuary, people began to speculate on what kind of man-made activity had killed him.
The thrashing prop of a ship carrying nuclear waste, perhaps? Or a fungicide dumped into the sea by a heartless farmer? Or that old bleeding-heart favourite, climate change?
The latest theories are that Hessy died of starvation — or after being struck by a ship.
No one, as far as I can see, has suggested that maybe, just maybe, Hessy died of old age.
THE Institute of People Who Know What’s Good For Us has decided that in future, no television show will be eligible for a Bafta unless it’s got a properly diverse cast of characters.
That’s an issue for historical shows like The Tudors – and if anyone were to make a documentary on the Neo-Nazi movement, they’d probably struggle to fill it with the right amount of transgender people.
It’s OK for my new farming show, though, because although most of the cast is made up of fiftysomething male countrymen, two are from Wales and one is Irish. And the director is a Scot.
THERE has been much hilarity this week at news that, throughout the Cold War, Britain’s nuclear defence system relied on the Automobile Association and reverse-charge calls from phone boxes.
Seriously.
If Russia had launched its missiles while the Prime Minister was in his car, his driver would have been contacted over the AA’s radio system and would then have driven as fast as possible to a phone box so Harold Macmillan could use a reverse-charge call to launch our bombers.
And then what?
Well, I used to drink in a pub in North Yorkshire and, in a back corridor, there was a weird grey box linked to the early- warning radar station at nearby RAF Fylingdales.
“If that goes off,” said the landlord, “I have four minutes to tell all the farmers in the area to get the sheep into their barns.”
I pointed out that this would be impossible and the landlord agreed. “So if it goes off,” he said, “I’ll get all the customers into my wine cellar and we’ll drink the lot.”
AN extraordinarily skilled surgeon has managed to reattach a 15-year-old girl’s jaw after she fell off her horse and landed on a fencepost.
X-rays show the shattered bone was so far from the skull it wasn’t even in the same postcode.
But now it’s back where it belongs and I wish Emily Eccles a happy and long life.
With no horses in it.
She claims the accident happened after a backfiring car spooked her nag.
But that seems unlikely, as no car has “backfired” since about 1927.
More likely, the horse was frightened by a leaf, or a paper bag, or a breath of wind, or a gate, or a cloud, or a spot of rain. Or any of the other million things that cause the damn things to panic and throw people off their backs.
SOCIAL media gets a lot of bad press – but the truth is, it’s the only place left where you can find truly great comedy.
Yes, there are still funny men on the radio and on television but they are too constrained these days by the terror of giving offence.
Every morning, though, I go to WhatsApp and someone will have sent me something that makes me literally burst out laughing.
None of it could possibly be said or shown in public.
It’s often outrageous but it’s targeted at me and friends who think the same way.
Other people can’t be offended because they can’t see it.
Because of that, it’s the last secret resting place of the famous British sense of humour.
CLIMBING to the top of Ayers Rock will soon be banned after government officials in Australia agreed it is a sacred Aboriginal site.
We see similar things going on in America and Canada. All over the world these days, it’s felt that if you are a recent arrival to a country, you must respect the traditions and beliefs of those who’ve lived there for centuries. You can’t just turn up and insist they accommodate your weird clothes and your peculiar religions and your unusual chanting.
When you get off the boat, you must realise the traditional way of life has to be respected.
Unless of course you’re coming to the UK because here, our traditional way of life doesn’t matter at all.
