Brave farce

10:26am Friday 25th July 2008

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A TOURIST attraction in Scotland banned visitors from south of the border on one day last week and instead spent the time destroying “English” items such as bone china and important books.

The Edinburgh Dungeon said the one-day ban was in revenge for the Battle Of Falkirk, fought 710 years ago, in which the Porridge Wogs got their usual battering at the hands of God’s Own People. In this case, 6,000 of William Wallace’s idiots came up against half a dozen of Edward I’s archers. The result? Longbows, 6,000; face-painted, skirt-wearing Nancy Boys, 0.

This seems to have displeased the Jocks to the point that they thought that they’d “celebrate” another miserable defeat by scoring some cheap publicity for their museum.

The obvious point here is what would happen if an English museum decided that they’d have a day of burning kilts and stamping on shortbread. I think we know – the Thought Police would be around sharpish, clubbing the curator and spraying CS gas in the face of the old lady serving lemon drizzle cake and cups of tea.

As it happens, some sad individual actually complained to the Lothian and Borders police about the event, and much time was therefore wasted investigating a perceived slight. I can only think that it was someone from Carlisle. No one else could care less.

THE PONCY middle-class columnists of the national press have been hurtling into print to condemn Boots the Chemist for getting a security guard to ‘arrest’ a 12-year-old girl and then summoning three policemen to interrogate her over the alleged theft of a pot of nail varnish.

Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t see what they’re complaining about. This kid wandered into the store, unwrapped the £7 nail varnish and painted one of her nails. It wasn’t what Mrs Bentley tells me is called a tester; it was a valuable product.

What if I wandered into an off licence and popped the top of a can of wife-beater before deciding whether to buy it or not? I’d be banged up quicker than an English museum curator who’d been burning kilts.

To be fair, the store didn’t actually help itself with its moronic NuLabour-speak comments after the incident: “During the recent event at our Folkestone store, we worked with Miss Gilbert [the accused] and subsequent local law enforcement to ensure an effective resolution was met.”

What does that mean? Why can’t they just speak English? And burn a few kilts?

I MUST admit that I occasionally get tired of trying to defend Margaret Thatcher.

I know that her policies caused much hurt, particularly in the former coalfields, but when you survey her body of work in the context of British history, 1975-2008, then I honestly believe without her input we’d all still be driving Morris Marinas and living in run-down, pebble-dashed council houses, while rubbish lay uncollected in the streets and inflation ran at unheard of levels. (Hang on, scratch the last two points.) I think what annoys me most is the lazy, left-wing abuse of a frail, 82-year-old woman. Only last week I had a barney in the snug bar of The Shivering Whippet with a spikey-haired, wannabe Trotskyist who was railing at the assembled stoodents about the plans for a State Funeral for the Blessed Margaret.

She did this, she did that, she was responsible for gassing miners and introducing compulsory euthanasia for pensioners. On and on he went. In the end I had to pull him up.

“So how old are you?” I asked. “23,” he said. “Right,” I said. “So you were five years old when she stepped down. You didn’t actually experience a single minute of her rule, yet you’re happily bragging about how you’ll dance on her grave. Frankly, sonny, you’re just a fraud.”

And that’s the problem. A whole generation of Guardianistas has grown up with this image of the Bogey Woman lodged in their lentil-fed brains. If they were there, like I was, and had to get on their bike to find work, like I did, then I’d listen to their opinions. Instead casual venom is the order of the day; in my case it was two winters on oil supply boats off Shetland and a summer on the door of a night club in Gibraltar.

As expected, the letters pages of The Guardian have been frothing at the mouth. Here’s a few choice comments: “The country owes her a 19-gun salute. Yeah, but she can have a blindfold as well.” “A State funeral would be a farce. But how about nationwide street parties or perhaps auctioning coffin nails? I’d pay good money to hammer the lid down.” “Give her a nice marble tomb – in the shape of a public toilet.” “A State funeral? A televised public execution would be far, far too good for her.”

Well, I guess we can all see the intelligent comment and careful thought behind those comments.

OF COURSE, what really hurts the Lefties is that it’s Gordon Brown’s government which has given the nod to a suitable celebration. But, to be honest, they’ll do anything now. It’s like the last days of the Roman Empire.

Why do you think that so many Labour MPs voted against the reform of their expenses? It’s because they know that within two years they’ll be out of a job. Let’s get our snouts in the trough while we’ve still got a chance. After that, it’ll be back to lecturing scrotes at the local polytechnic. And dancing on the grave of an 82-year-old woman.