Quotes of 2008

Here is a little collection of my favourite quotes from 2008. I am fairly sure that I have remembered them correctly and that none of them happened in dreams but I can't guarentee it so don't expect to find any of them on Wikipedia. Then again...

“Of course the UK economy will continue to grow this year. Those who say otherwise are guilty of talking us into a recession...oh, wait.” Gordon Brown.

"The fundamentals of America's economy are strong. Not like in my day – back then we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and lick the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife." John McCain

"You have to understand that I was completely strapped for cash" - Max Moseley

“You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s tail will still not be uncurly” – John Major declaring his opposition to the first woman to stand for vice-chairperson of the Huntingdon Cricket Club

“Those who talk about the exchange rate are irresponsibly risking a run on the pound...oh wait.” Gordon Brown

“The country is groaning and moaning and screaming for change. Just like you would be after a night with me, baby” Bill Clinton telling the pretty girl in the front row why he endorses Barak Obama.

“You can’t let Sarah Palin be Vice President. A good VP needs to be a strong, experienced character, especially when the President has little executive experience himself. I mean, George W Bush didn’t have much experience when he became President so he appointed Dick Cheney as his VP and look how well that worked out.” Joe Biden.

"This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq. They had a whip-round and got you these for a surprisingly reasonable price" – Iraqi shoe-thrower Muntadhar al-Zeidi

"You can put lipstick on a pig, as many of you lonely farmers have discovered" - Barak Obama on the stump in Alabama.

“You know what they say about the difference between a hockey-mom and a pitbull – that’s right, a pitbull has more foreign policy experience” – Sarah Palin

“I am proud to have been the Chancellor who abolished Boom and Bust…oh wait.” Gordon Brown.

All Nationalities Welcome....Especially Lapps and Poles

I visited the allergy unit at my local hospital today to deliver a small donation. It is a cause that is dear to my heart as my own sister suffers from hayfever and diabetes. It is important to keep her spirits up, I think, so I buy her little presents. Nothing special, you know, just flowers and chocolate. She's a bit asthmatic as well – I suggested that she take up tennis, just for a bit of a wheeze.

When I got home and read the paper I had a bit of a shock. The headline read, “Lapdancing clubs have been set up by schools, minister admits.” My first thought was that perhaps this was a welcome outburst of entrepreneurial spirit by the schools in question. Then I thought that perhaps it was a work experience project. I was outraged – haven't these people heard that banks all over the city have been sacking staff and cutting bonuses? Who the hell can afford lapdancers these days?

To my relief, I discovered that I had misunderstood. It was merely a bit of disgracefully poor grammar and they meant that lapdancing clubs had been opened next to schools. The poor use of English is something which angers me. Some people don't even know the difference between a colon and a comma. Those of us who had the benefit of a public school education and three years at Oxford know that a colon is used to inform the reader that what follows proves and explains, or simply enumerates elements of what is referred to before while a comma is when you are knocked unconscious for a long time after a bang on the head.

Feathering the Nest

There has been a welcome outbreak of entrepreneurship in the States A chap called Rod Blagojevich (pictured to the right) has shown commendable enterprise in these hard times by attempting to raise a bit of pocket money by selling off a seat in the Senate which used to belong to Barak Obama, who no longer needs it now that he is running the “Office of the President-Elect”. Incidentally, I understand that John McCain has got himself a new podium sign saying “Office of the President not-Elect” and Hillary Clinton has had one made up which says “Office of the President, Vice President, Secretary of State-Elect”. Some would say that Mr. Obama is being a bit presumptuous but President Bush seems to have lost interest in the whole running the country thing and has taken to playing dodge the shoe with his Iraqi friends.

Anyway, Governor Blagojevich's inventiveness has not been appreciated as the Feds seem to think that flogging seats in the Senate is a bit crooked. Of course we in Britain banned the practice back in 1832, when John McCain was still having his first mid-life crisis. But what about the cash-for-honours affair? I hear you ask. Well, the difference was that instead of being paid for seats in the Upper House of Parliament, the Labour Party merely accepted loans which they won't ever pay back, it being 21^st century Britain after all.

The whole Chicago episode might even cause problems for the President-Elect himself, as Blagojevich had been having conversations with Barak's chief of staff, a man called Rahm Edwards. And what a fine job Rahm's parents did in naming him. Impressive imagination.

Save the Cheerleader.....

Gordon was generally deemed to have made a bit of a fool of himself when he claimed in the House of Commons that he had 'saved the world' no less. The story was that this had been a slip of the tongue - he had meant to say that he had saved the banking system. However, my sources tell me that he actually meant it. Indeed, if you listen very carefully to the recording you can hear him say, 'we not only saved the world, we also saved the cheerleader!' Alert readers will remember George W Bush's college cheerleading days. A coincidence? I think not!

Gordon's global leadership has been accepted even in Germany, from where the last few pockets of resistance to the Era of Gordon have been pursuing their quixotic campaign to convince us that spending trillions of borrowed money that we don't have might not be the best idea. The Germans have agreed to sign up to Gordon's Single European Financial Stimulus Plan. I am not sure they have quite got the hang of saving the planet, though. They are insisting on spending money that they actually have rather than borrowing money that they can't afford to pay back. Oh well, they'll soon learn.

Luckily, George Bush seems to have got the right idea and is now preparing to start throwing money at the American automobile industry. This is in answer to prayers said in churches across that great nation for divine intervention to save the big car makers. A correspondent of mine wrote to me this week about a moving sermon he had heard in which the pastor reminded his flock of that Bible passage in which Our Lord cast the moneychangers from the Temple, after which they were given cushy jobs in Pilate's administration and had considerable success in reconstructing the Jerusalem camel trading industry upon which so many Judean jobs depended.

Oh God!

I read a story this week about a little 12 year old girl in Devon who got into trouble with her school for insisting on wearing a purity ring. Apparently this isn't a euphemism but rather something that young people sometimes wear to symbolize their commitment to abstain from sex. The girl, or rather her parents, think that this amounts to religious discrimination. You remember that bit from the Sermon on the Mount (and I make no apologies for using the King James Version). It comes just after that bit about the meek.

“And Blessed is she who dost wait for the One and who gaineth the approval of her father and doth marry before lying with a man, and who doth symbolize her commitment by purchasing a ring which doth look great and which can be purchasethd online for a reasonable price”

The school refused on health and safety grounds, citing the many ring injuries suffered in Devon every year. Ironically, none of these were caused by abstinence.

My own religious beliefs are old fashioned Church of England. During my political career, of course, I always managed to keep my religious beliefs to myself, never allowing exhortations to love thy neighbour to interfere with completing the latest arms deal or cutting unemployment benefits. Only once did I have doubts – I dabbled with Atheism back in the Sixties. Sadly, my faith just wasn't strong enough and I soon lapsed. Even now I can't quite bring myself to believe that Richard Dawkins really exists. Luckily, today's politicians have more faith than I did, which is why they can keep a straight face when they suggest that the way to fix a recession brought about by reckless borrowing to buy things we couldn't afford is to encourage everyone to buy things they can't afford with money that they have borrowed recklessly. It makes me giggle every time. And that is why I am not Prime Minister and Gordon Brown is!