A visit from Saint Boris

A visit from Saint Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

bastardised by the Shark Fisherman of Wales

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Boris soon would be there;

Wilfred was nestled all snug in his bed;

While visions of sugar-plums danced in his head;

And Carrie Symonds in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,

With an obese 56 year old driver so slow like a dick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Boz

Slower than beagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now, Sunak! now Hancock! now Raab and Gove!

On, Patel! on, Sharma! on, Barnard Castle!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and fat Johnson too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Bozo came with a bound.

He was dressed all in semi-sexual fox fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a meddler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, he'd been on the sherry!

His fat saggy mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a crack pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a huge round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; spaffed with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his hose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a Scots' thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

"significant return to normality" by Christmas

I don't think that there will be a significant return to normality by Christmas. You couldn't get a more abnormal time of year. Non Christians running around like headless chickens buying presents to jump start the economy. 

I think Boris Johnson may be gone by Christmas. He has lost whatever appeal and jollity he may have had to the Upper & Brexit Classes. His alleged brush with death has made him a more serious fellow and whereas before, his schoolboy jokes would be greeted by guffaws of laughter from the school benches behind, you can now hear Matron's pin drop as he makes another verbal gaffe. Is his pater Stanley still in Greece or has he returned to the UK like migrant refugees through Bulgaria?

 The UK has not been normal for a very long time. The 1970s were as close to normal as you could get and the abomination of today is an insult to those who left their chopper bikes on the ground and dashed in to the corner shop for a curly-wurly. From Thatcher to Major, from Blair to Brown, from Cameron to Johnson via May, the chopper has rusted and the curly-wurly is stale. 

During pandemic lock down people have had the opportunity to evaluate if there is any point to their pointless existences. Getting the whip out on a population still scared shit less by the great toilet roll stampede of April 2020, maybe isn't such a good idea. Get out there folks and stuff your half price pizza through your 3 ply mask. Get out there and mingle, 2 metres away, 1 metre away or if your football team gets promoted mingle as close to the next person's backside as you possibly can.

Lets's twerk for Britain and let's get this goddam shit show back on the road. Wagon's Roll!!    

De-sensitising the Welsh

Dwi di benderfynu na un o fy rholiau i ar y cyfryngau cymdeithasol ydy mynd i di-sensiteiddio y Cymry. Mae'n dangos pa mor 'touchy' i ni achos does 'na ddim gair Cymraeg am di-sensitise. Dwi'n un o rain sydd yn gegrwth pan dwi'n gweld pile on gan twitter Cymraeg yn erbyn rhywun sydd wedi bod mor ffôl ag edrych y ffordd anghywir arnom ni. 

Mae'r rhestr o dramgwyddau yn rhi hir i restri fan hyn. Os i chi yn un o rheina sydd rhaid ymateb i bob 'sleight' fyddwch yn gwybod yn iawn am bwy dwi'n sôn. O Rod Liddle yn sôn am y tywydd a'r Guardian yn deud pethau am gaws bythynnod a hiliaeth honedig yn Ogledd Cymru. Mae 'na wedi bod gymaint o dramgwyddau bach dwi'n anghofio nhw gyd rŵan. Y tro diwethaf i mi ymuno mewn pile on oedd yn erbyn y comedïwr Omjid Djalili pan wnaeth o sylw am arwyddion Cymraeg yn Sir Gaerfyrddin ag dim ond achos o ni yn meddwl ddylse comediwr wybod yn well. Cheap laughs di rheina yn de?

Mae o yn seicolegol dealladwy pam rydym yn ymateb fel hyn. Rydym yn lleiafrif yn ein gwlad ein hunan (honedig) rheina sydd yn siarad Cymraeg. Mae'r iaith dan fygythiad enfawr ac wedi bod ers canrif a mwy. Dydy gôr ymateb i bob sylwad am yr iaith ddim yn mynd i achub yr iaith. Mae o yn anfon ni yn fwy amddiffynnol amdano fo, mwy ofnus a mwy cecrus. 

Os ydych wedi byw rhywle arall yn y Deyrnas Gyfyngedig neu tramor mi gewch chi bersbectif gwahanol ar Gymru fach ond os ydych wedi byw a bod ar hyd y blynyddoedd yn eich milltir scwar heb ddylanwadau allanol mi all y byd edrych yn lle ymosodol a fygythiol iawn. 

Ydy'r Cymry yn gallu gwneud hwyl ar ben ei hunain? Ydych chi'n meddwl basa fo'n beth iach i wneud, er lles iechyd ein henaid fel cenedl? Neu ydych chi'n meddwl taw annibyniaeth ydy popeth ag mi gawn chwerthin ar ein hunain unwaith ein bod ni'n faterol dlotach? Atebion ar gerdyn post os gwelwch yn dda ac anfonwch i Sïon Corn yn Gastell Coch.

Mae fyny i chi wrth gwrs beth rydych yn gwneud ond fel mae dyn yn heneiddio mae o yn sylwi pa mor ffôl ag emosiynol mae o wedi bod yn gôr ymateb i bethau bach ddi bwys.

Cesspit Britain

I begin this blog post with a quote from the previous one.

"When I have been a tourist in other lands, I am the tightest, meanest bastard on God's earth, looking for the cheapest deals and the cheapest food. My bum bag is welded to my torso and if you want to know where the local population of moths have gone, they have congregated around my wallet. I cannot be the only one. The people carrier loaded up at home. Everything you could possibly carry on your wagon as you head off to Bermo or Borth like the Beverly Hillbillies. How can I blame you?"

Today the Spoons have gone back and the judgmental liberal "I'm better than you brigade" of whom I am a fully paid up member have been battering social media with posts about cesspit Britain going back to its pre-lockdown hellhole of the pubs being open. 

I come at this from a slightly different angle to the rest who are angry with Tim Martin for laying off his workforce and telling them to go and work in Tescos. I come at it as somebody who believes the alcohol culture is destroying us as a civilisation.

I am going to try and unpick this as an amateur sociologist and even more amateur psychologist. When you have been unemployed for sixteen years, you can't afford to be professional anything.  

Referring to the above quote, I have frequented Wetherspoons pre lockdown, between Christmas and New Year and this for the food. The food is cheap and you can have as many refills of tea and coffee as you like. I wouldn't go in there to drink alcohol. I went to three different spoons in this period, Cambridge, King's Lynn and Norwich. A breakfast in the first two and a ham, egg and chips in the latter. On my unemployed man's budget I can't afford to eat in more salubrious places nor can many of the drinkers afford to drink in real ale establishments or free houses. It is easy to judge and pour scorn on the Primark pogrom but who is to say that those who were queuing at 6.00am this morning were not queuing for company.

As a society we have been traduced, reduced and atomised by what we have in our purses and wallets. The comfortable and complacent can afford to stretch back their arms and yawn and throw acerbic comments about on social media.
I am a lower middle class snob. I will admit it and when the ire is upon me I will turn my fury at anything I feel is eulogising the lowest common denominator. 

What separates us in cesspit Britain is our level of education. The gammony racist, prejudiced drinkers in the Spoons have not had the benefit of our liberal artistic education. They have been brutalised. Often leaving school at a young age to try and make their way in avenues of little opportunity. Certainly not the boulevards of Paris.  

If Black Lives Matter and the Save our Statues protestors were able to sit down and have civil discourse rather than using the police as whipping posts for their chagrin and anger perhaps some progress would be made. The people protesting on both sides are not your Jacob Rees Moggs's.

There is a huge class divide in the United Kingdom and it will become larger and more evident post lockdown as we observe the disparate parties retreating to their respective corners while Stanley Johnson flaunts his position to fly off to Greece. 

We have been pitted against eachother. If you are a liberal arty farty, loony lefty, green lives matter kind of person think for a moment how a gammony, brexit right winger might have come to their political views and narrow outlook on life. They haven't had the wider opportunity to engage and debate with the wider world because the world in which they live has become narrower and narrower. The so called 'white flight' from London to Essex.

It suits yer Jacob Rees-Moggs and yer Nigel Farage's that the common 'white' man is anti refugee and prejudiced against others from the same social class as them because their pile of gold accumulated at Westminster and the European Parliament is safe. They had a kick arse education and like many of their class are using it to ferment discord amongst the lower classes.

Racism is a class issue. You don't get many upper class racists. At least not openly. Exit David Starkey. There are probably Cecil Rhodes types who believe in white superiority but they wouldn't be out in their football lads alliance colours pissing on memorial stones. 

If yer common and garden, brexity gammony, right wing spoons drinker could turn his ire against the Russian oligarchs who have bought up large swathes of West London or the Saudian Arabian princes with penthouse suites in Mayfair and Park Lane then maybe their prejudice would be directed in a more fruitful direction but to hate on others of the same social class as you but of a different colour is about as useful as queuing up at Wetherspoons at 6.00am. Oh I'm sorry, I forgot that you were lonely.