The Idler, Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Blighty starts

to rival

Hong Kong

 

BORING old Britain. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, threatens to "squat" in No 10 Downing Street if parliament throws him out.

The blonde pole dancer refuses to say exactly what her relationship was with Boris while he was Mayor of London but insists there was no financial hanky-panky.

Boring investigators are meanwhile looking at the financial side of any hanky-panky there might have been involving Boris and the blonde pole dancer.

The streets of London are blocked by the tents of thousands of climate change protesters who plan to stay there another couple of weeks.

The clock ticks toward "no deal Brexit". The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that this would lead to government borrowing of £100 billion a year (R1 859 billion), levels not known since the 1960s.

Speculation swirls that Bojo has already set it up with the right-wing government of Hungary for them to veto a Brexit extension. Meanwhile opposition MPs are canvassing to turf Boris out – which would set up the Downing Street squatter scenario.

Hey, this begins to rival Hong Kong.

 

 

Failed check

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "I planned to get rid of my guns, sell them to the government. But they failed the background check."

 

 

Zombies

 

READER Jill Adams sends in a horror poem – zombies and so forth – which she composed to frighten her children and punish them for rolling their eyes at her. Here goes:

 

If you go down to the woods today

You're in for a big surprise

If you go down to the woods today

You'll see hundreds of staring eyes.

Eerily rolling around on the ground,

Making a squishy, squashy sound.

Slimy eyeballs starting to rot,

Some straight from their sockets

Bloody and hot!

But if you think that this is gory,

Hold on now for the rest of the story!

For farther in the woods so deep

Where zombies roam and never sleep,

Forever wandering alone and dead

With empty sockets in their heads

Are all the children, a gazillion and three

To whom mummy said: 'Don't roll your eyes at me!'

Who listened not, and rolled them back

And for their cheek, their sight do lack –

For late one night so dark and creepy

When horrid children were oh so sleepy

In crept a zombie with a rusted spoon

And gouged out their eyes as he rasped a tune:

'One for my brekkie, one for my snack,

Come cheeky brat – into my sack'

And out of the window, never coming back!

So listen kids, and listen good

Behave like mummy thinks you should

For if at her you roll your eyes,

You might be in for a wicked surprise

So tonight when you lay down to sleep

I pray that you your eyeballs keep,

And awake tomorrow in your bed –

Not forever wandering with the eyeless dead!

 

Jill says her kids are old enough not to be frightened by it and just think their mum is a little weird.

Oh, I don't know. I was terrified. In fact it took them two days to get me down from the mkuhlu tree where I took refuge after reading it.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

THIS Scotsman got arrested for making nuisance phone calls. He kept reversing the charges.

 

 

Last word

 

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers