Following in the footsteps of Lionheart!

I have just returned from a visit to Beaumont Palace in Oxford, which is the birthplace of King Richard I, Coeur de Lion. Richard, you will remember, became embroiled in someone else's war in the Middle East and then bankrupted the country, two old English traditions which our current government proudly upholds to this day!

My American friends have been telling me about how their country has once again been following in the footsteps of the Motherland, which always gives me a warm feeling inside. They have enjoyed watching the public outrage about the massive bonuses that Britain's useless bankers have been awarding themselves and have decided to have a pogrom of their own. America's public enemy number one is AIG and the celebrity chat-show guest, 'Special' ten-pin bowler and occasional President Barak Obama has said that he will use 'all legal means' to get the bonuses paid back. To which all of America replies, 'All legal means?? Why stop there? Where's Dick Cheney when you need him? Cart the bastards off to Morocco for a bit of waterboarding and they'll soon pay it back!' My own advice to Barak would be to study the history books and take comfort from the true lesson of King Richard I. It doesn't matter if you spend your life in an endless round of futile battles, or if you wreck the country's finances and cripple its people with ruinous taxes, because in a few centuries you'll just be a minor character played half-heartedly by Sean Connery in a bad Kevin Costner movie with an awful theme song.

Gambling

I had the pleasure of attending the Carling Cup final at Wembley Stadium last week. Not to watch the football, naturally, but to show my support for the corporate entertainment industry at this difficult time. I did notice that one of the teams, Tottenham Hotspur, is sponsored by Mansion, which is a gambling company. The other team, Manchester Untied is sponsored by AIG, another gambling company and one which is now proudly owned by the American Taxpayer.
Gordon Brown himself made a trip to America to visit his ‘good friend’ Barak Obama and congratulate him on his new acquisition. I thought that Gordon’s speech to Congress went well for him as he had received nineteen standing ovations, and I said so to my nephew Harry, who works for the Labour Party. Harry was less impressed and explained that they had only applauded when Gordon said something nice about America. He says the same thing happens when a rock and roll band plays a concert and says that “insert name here is the best venue we’ve ever played!” This ruse is apparently enough to guarantee a big cheer. So well done to Gordon for being in touch enough to steal a trick from the popular music business!
The meeting with the President didn’t go quite as well with the President finding it difficult to remember who the rime Minister was, or why he was there. Downing Street have denied the rumour that Obama mixed Gordon up with the leader of the Scout Troop who he met on the same day. I must say I am a bit disappointed in the President – I mean, deep down we always knew that he knew and cared about the rest of the world little more than poor old George W. Bush but we thought that at least he would be able to fake an interest. We like phoney sincerity in Britain – that’s why we kept electing Tony Blair.

I was pleased to hear Gordon use the phrase, “Let us build tomorrow, today!” To let you into a little secret , I suggested the phrase to one of my friends in the Labour Party when he approached me for some ideas. Actually, I stole it from an old exhibition I went to on a visit to America back in the fifties. Back then they thought that the world of tomorrow would involve moon bases and Jetson style flying cars rather than a new Depression but there you go.

It wasn’t a very interesting trip, although I do remember visiting a lake called Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in New England. Apparently, Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, in the language of the Nipmuck People, means Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.

Business as Usual

It has been a reassuring week. I had been getting a bit worried about all that 'change' stuff in America, so I am relieved to see that when Barak Obama said 'troops out of Iraq in 16 months' he really meant 'troops not really out of Iraq in 19 months, just like John McCain would have done'. Politics is alive and well in the Land of the Free!

There was also good news from Ireland, where robbers managed to find a bank which still had some money which they proceeded to steal. The British government is rushing to organise a fact-finding mission to see what lessons can be learned on behalf of Britain's criminal fraternity who are on their knees after the drugs and prostitution market collapsed along with the banking industry. Not that the bankers are being paid any less, of course. It is just that the few who are still bankers are having to stay in to avoid the angry mobs and the many more who are now employed as government ministers have to worry about the tabloids finding out. Which makes all the fuss about Fred Goodwin's pension all the more unfair. I'd have thought that Gordon Brown would have thought £16 million was a small price to pay to get Fred out of RBS before he did any more damage to the economy – he was, by the estimation of a friend of mine who works for the treasury, costing the country around £3,000 per second, after all. Unfortunately for Fred he has committed the cardinal sin of the New Labour era – he has generated a bad headline for the government.

Amusingly, Tony Blair has set up a consultancy which will allow him to advise those governments who are willing to pay him lots of money as to how they should run their country. I am thinking of going into the market myself. For a mere £3000.00 per day, I will show you how to raise funds for your political party by selling government policy, honours, seats in the House of Lords and so on, how to use spurious evidence to drag your country into pointless wars and how to run your country's economy into the ground then get out before the shit hits the fan.