The pond has to be more than herpetological studies - inevitably it reflects what amuses the pond, and surely the current Brexit crisis is marvellous entertainment in a traditionally slow month …
Oh sure a proper scientific approach would see the pond diligently studying the current reptile election campaign, full of traditional classic reptile EXCLUSIVES …
An analysis shows? Where might one find that analysis? Just look down a little, and over to the right:
You see? How tiresome and predictable it is …
How exciting it is instead to watch "Bercow makes a stand," "Bercow holds his own", "Bercow delivers the goods", "Bercow and the Tories of Zinn", "Bercow and the Curse of the May", "Bercow Flies Again" …
Don't take the pond's or Biggles' word for it …
How exciting it is instead to watch "Bercow makes a stand," "Bercow holds his own", "Bercow delivers the goods", "Bercow and the Tories of Zinn", "Bercow and the Curse of the May", "Bercow Flies Again" …
Don't take the pond's or Biggles' word for it …
Now everyone knows that what makes a good movie is a good villain.
You can't have a good show without a decent baddie, and of late the pond has been entranced by Rees-Mogg.
Sadly others have fallen by the wayside - apparently Boris picked up a gig as a circus clown and Nigel Farage was lost to sight when he disappeared up his fundament - but Rees-Mogg has still been hard at it.
Some like to hate Speaker Bercow, but the pond thinks of him as more the sort of hale well-met fellow that might be found in Falstaff's circle.
Rees-Mogg is a different kettle of fish. The pond has been scouring Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare and elsewhere for comparisons. There's something about the languid supercilious sneer that lurks in every Rees-Mogg word that makes him the sort of fellow any reader of Austen would dread …
Don't take the pond's word for it … sure it's a jump across time, but the pond finally came to remember Tim Roth in Rob Roy …
So and thus!
And there in a nutshell is why the pond had to abandon prattling Polonius for the moment and go with the bromancer …
What happens then? Yes, it's a Saturday matinee cliffhanger, and no one, especially the bromancer, has a clue, but that's what makes it exciting …
Of course the one thing the pond can guarantee is that there will be no mention of one of the main causes of the chaos and the confusion. If the pond might borrow a headline from another occasion …
Yes, Chairman Rupert and his media world have been hard at it for some time, holding their own, so to Bazza speak …
And now the Ozymandias syndrome has kicked in hard …
Never mind the "News of the World", that was another scandal for another day, but the bromancer looked upon the work of his Chairman, and the servile lap dog Tories, and lo, was full of despair ...
A trace of sympathy for the EU?
Actually if the pond might be so bold and take a stroll down memory lane, the bromancer was infatuated with Rees-Mogg.
How he loved the villain, how he wept with delight to sit at his feet and learn the arts and ways of villainy …
Of course that was then … but only May last year?
How quickly the movies keep the action moving these days, and so we must fast forward back to the present bromancer ...
Go on, then, jump … because, you see, Rees-Mogg is holding the safety net, and as any fan of Rob Roy knows, if there's a hanging or a killing to be done, everything will turn out well …
Time for another flashback to bromancer then ...
Indeed, indeed, whenever you spend any time in Britain you'll notice how biased against Brexit most of the media is …
Oh sure there were others baying at the moon … but it was the Sun wot done it ...
But now the pond must return to the present for another gobbet of bromancer gobbling and gabbling away ...
And yet, only last May, if the pond may make a pun, it all looked so glorious in prospect …
Ah the remoaners, and yet, the current bromancer is doing more than his fair share of sighing and moaning …
In all this, the pond is only in it for the entertainment value.
If Britain chooses to become an isolated island, a little Greece trading on lost memories of empire, driven essentially by a hatred of the foreign and those filthy Europods, what's it to the pond?
It just means there are Bell cartoons to be found at the Graudian ...
Speaking of the Graudian, at various points they too have noticed that it was the Sun wot done it …
More super stuff here …
Well it's been good fun, and then there's Tuesday to come, though likely it will only be another cliff hanger, with the sequel to come in March, but for the moment there's a last small gobbet of the bromancer bemoaning and berating and beating the frail Brexit breast ...
Hang on, hang on, Rees-Mogg is quite happy to have a no-deal Brexit … and so is Boris … and so does every lover of movies where villainy must reign supreme …
Wasn't the bromancer himself, if the pond may recall the happier times last May, dancing with delight at avoiding the so-called divorce bill, and oh how the EU would suffer, and wasn't the way time favoured the Brexiteers, and surely Rees-Mogg was the man of the future, and the movie was certain to do boffo box office biz ...
And now, having gone on at such length, the pond must ankle the scene.
But in leaving, it should really note that there are other literary figures seeking attention. Luckily the pond can leave them in the safe hands of the infallible Pope, as he revives fond memories of Dickens and Scrooge, with more infallible papery here …
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who is greatly enjoying the spectacle of the Headless Chooks of Brexit - it’s definitely the funniest show in town. Sure, it may result in economic disaster, famine, plague, the break-up of the United Kingdom and the reinstatement of Feudalism, but you gotta larf, right?
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure which is the more rib-tickling aspect of the whole shebang. Is it the complete clusterfuck the Tories have made of trying to exit the EU? Or is it the assumption on the part of so many nostalgics that as soon as Britannia is freed from those odious foreigners, the subjects of the Empire will hurry back to Mother, desperate to once again supply herder with cheap goods and services in return for wise counsel and the occasional gunship patrol
Sadly, I suspect that those who dream of Empire may be disappointed. The rest of the world has moved on, and the best that can be hoped for is a trickle of food parcels from a few survivors of the 1940s keen to once again supply Home with packets of tea, tins of dripping and the odd can of pineapple.
So why - apart from suddenly noticing what’s actually been occurring (or not occurring…) for the last two years - is the Bromancer suddenly clutching his pearls and swooning at what may befall the Old Dart? Surely the Chairman isn’t expressing doubts, after so many years of doing everything possible to bring about the current debacle? And why no mention of Rees-Mogg? Has the Bro lost faith in his leadership qualities, simply because he’s been revealed as a minor supporting character in a P G Wodehouse novel who can’t even organise a decent plot against a completely hopeless Prime Minister?
I certainly hope that the Bro continues to report on Brexit in the lead-up to 29 March, and that his hysteria continues to mount accordingly.
Pretty much says it all, Anony, but just a few small comments I'd interpolate.
Delete"to once again supply herder with cheap goods and services"
And gold, mate. It was Victorian gold that financed Threadneedle Street and the English 'City' (not in any sense to be confused with the City of London which is quite a different beast).
"completely hopeless Prime Minister"
Well, not as bad as Cameron, and way, way better than Boris would (have) be(en). After all, the Bro says that May shows "an indifference to humiliation". Interesting. I would have thought that if you were "indifferent" to it, then it simply isn't humiliation at all.
Finally, the Bromancer: "British politics is facing a shocking crisis, as complex and dangerous as anything the great nation has seen since WWII."
Pray tell, what "complex and dangerous" situations has the (once upon a time) "great nation" faced since WWII ? Not the Falklands, surely, and if not that, what ? It's been much more a case of Britain taking a "long march down through the failures of relevance".
GB, you need to make a distinction between an existential crisis and a political crisis. Existentially, you are correct, but politically there are several which stand out, though I will note two in particular - Suez in 1955, when Britain had to choose between alienating the US, or submitting to their will and in so doing admit that they were no longer a global power of consequence, and the state of permanent crisis that marked John Major's tenure, especially in 1992-93, when he was mired in European difficulties - ironically trying to secure the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which aimed at closer European integration. 25 years later the opposite side of the same coin is destroying another Tory government. While I would be predisposed to say yay! about that, 25 years ago, the Tories tore themselves apart leaving the field open for the poisonous bullshit that was "the Third Way", so my enthusiasm for whatever will follow the evisceration of the Conservatives is somewhat dampened at present.
DeleteBe that as it may, the best line in the whole thing is Sheridan's description of Britain as "by a distance Europe's most successful nation". Of course, in the absence of any success criteria, this is mere Humpty-Dumptyism, as the Bromancer could mean literally anything by that. But by any reasonable set of criteria - GDP per capita, human development, balance of trade, educational attainments, happiness, debt to GDP, crime and punishment, whatever - Britain lags behind Northern Europe generally, and in many cases is at or about the EU average. Average equals most successful! Woot! Everyone gets a participation ribbon!
Quite so, FD, I do have a tendency to equate "political crisis" with music-hall melodrama. But on that basis, the UK has been in a state of "political crisis" almost continually since WWII. Including the Suez thing which I tend to overlook since it happened just when I'd become a teenager.
DeleteBut that's at least in part because I reckon that any rational assessment had the UK as no longer a 'world power' since some time before WWII. So, indeed no real 'existentsial crises' but almost continual 'political crises' on both sides of the political divide. Including "thatcherism*" and "Third Way" along the path.
Yes, I was quite entertained by the Bromancer's 'great Britain is still great' rant. Sure, it's still a sizeable economy, but it isn't much of a leader about anything nowadays.
* we all remember: "She promised to follow him to the end of the Earth; he promised to take her there."
Thinking about it later, FD, but I kind of recall that the US pressured Britain over the Palestine/Israel situation - I have this vague kind of recall that US pressure effectively allowed the Jewish terrorists/freedom fighters to basically get away with the assassination of Lord Moyne. Plus a few other things around that time.
DeleteRegardless, there was American pressure that surely was showing Britain its dependent situation. Wikipedia has it this way:
"Britain was at this time [late 1940s] negotiating a loan from the United States vital to its economic survival. Its treatment of Jewish survivors generated bad publicity, and encouraged the U.S. Congress to stiffen its terms. ... U.S. President Harry S. Truman put extensive pressure on the British government over its handling of the Palestine situation. The post-war conflict in Palestine caused more damage to Anglo-American relations than any other issue."