Royal Prerogative

It’s fairly certain there will be another general election within the next few months, and increasingly likely that it will result in another hung Parliament.  Constitutionally, the Queen is required, by convention, to call upon the leaders of the parties, in turn and in order of their representation in the House of Commons, to attempt to form her Government.  This has proved difficult enough recently, and won’t be any easier next time.  In fact it could prove impossible. 

So what happens then?  There are no historic precedents that I’m aware of.  Another election?  Same result.  Another one?  You get the point – we’d end up with an election at which nobody could be bothered to turn up.  And we’d still be without a Government.  Some might say that’s no bad thing; indeed when I lived in Italy in the sixties it seemed to be the norm, and Belgium went without one for at least a couple of years a while ago.  But it wouldn’t do for us, would it, eh?

Fortunately Z and I have come up with a simple solution.  Her Majesty will form her own Government.  She will continue to be Head of State, and of course Parliament will continue to be the Legislature*, but she will appoint her own Executive. 

But where to find the appointees?  We humbly suggest she looks to her own family.  We’ve drawn up a list of proposals for a few key Cabinet posts, and would welcome feedback before we forward the final recommendation to the Palace.

Prime Minister: Charles.**

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Anne.

Home Office: Camilla.

Foreign Office: William.

Defence: Harry.

Education: Kate.

Transport: Andrew.

Culture: Edward.

 

Unfilled posts include Health, Justice, Energy, Environment, Local Government, and Work & Pensions.  There are plenty of spare minor royals out there though.

 

*The Whip system will be abolished and MPs instructed to vote purely as representatives of their constituents’ interests and according to their own consciences, if any.

** We considered abolishing this position, but that would risk taking us too close to the American system, and besides, it’ll keep him out of mischief.

Fantasy Brexit Cabinet

Prime Minister: Boris Johnson

Home Secretary: Nigel Farage

Foreign Secretary: George Galloway

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Nigel Lawson

Work and Pensions: Alan Sugar

Health: Jeremy Hunt

Transport: Ranulph Fiennes

Energy: Joan Collins

Education: Michael Gove

Culture: Tim Rice

Justice: Ian Duncan Smith

Minister Without Portfolio: Jeremy Corbyn

 

 

Gentleman? Moi?

Country Life magazine has published a list of 39 characteristics which define a modern gentleman.  I’ve always wondered whether or not I'm one of those , so I printed it off and scored myself, using a three-way marking system – ‘Yes’, ‘No', and ‘?’ (don’t know/ sometimes/ not applicable/can’t remember/not saying).

Here are my self-scores:

Yes: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8-10, 14-17, 21, 23-26, 28-30, 32-33, 36-38

No: 3, 18, 20, 22, 31, 34

?: 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 19, 27, 35, 37

I left out 39, because it’s meaningless.

There are, of course, some qualifications, which you can have hours of harmless fun matching to the answers:

• Except Paris-Charles de Gaulle.
• I did once train a dog, not very well.  One’s gardener trains the roses, surely?
• Tweed suit?  Only worn by cads, surely?
• Nobody has yet died from eating one of my omelettes, as far as I know.
• What, pray, is the distinction between an emoji, an emoticon and a sticker?  Insufficient information.
• Rooks exist only in the plural, crows in the singular.  Or the other way round, I can never remember.
• What does a gentleman wear on his feet in Puerto Rico then?  Oh, no, sorry…
• I tend not to wear flowers, it’s not 1967 you know.

 

Time for a joke?

I haven’t done one of these for yonks, so here’s a golden oldie you’ve almost certainly heard:

A man is stranded on a desert island.  After a few days, when he’s starting to feel a bit lonely, one morning he sees a beautiful girl emerging from the sea in a skin-tight wetsuit.

The girl says:

“Fancy a drink?”

Speechless, he nods, and she unzips her suit a bit and produces a bottle of malt whisky.  They each take a swig, then she unzips a bit more and says:

“How about a nice cigar?”

Out comes a superb Cuban Corona.  He lights it from his campfire and takes a delicious puff.

Finally the girl unzips the wetsuit yet further, smiles and asks:

“You want to play around?”

The man can’t believe his luck.

“You mean – you’ve got a set of golf clubs in there?”

Boom Boom

What’s Funny?

The conversation had got round, as it so often does, to the best-ever British sitcoms; ‘Gavin and Stacey’, ‘Only Fools and Horses’, ‘Porridge’, all the usual suspects.  And so, naturally, on to the best comics (British too, these people don’t do American).  Again, no surprises – Morecombe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Ken Dodd …  They’d been to see Ken at one of his three-hour standupatons a few years ago: “And not a single swearword!”  They all agreed that swearing and comedy never mix: “Completely unnecessary.   Uncalled for.  Offensive.”  Yadayadayada.

I silently slightly disagreed.  I can think of several brilliant jokes which just wouldn’t work without the judiciously placed swearword.  (Alexei Sayle’s story of the two bee-keepers, for one.)  I couldn’t tell them (the jokes or the people), of course, but it did set me thinking.  What is it that makes us laugh?

I realise that I blogged about the philosophical underpinnings of this question a few posts ago, so I’m not going to go there again.  (I hear the relieved ‘phew’s and the unclenching of grinding teeth.)  But I still want to know.  I laugh at Buster Keaton but not at Charlie Chaplin, whereas you might do the opposite, so funniness isn’t an objective attribute.  In fact, I can find something or someone hilarious one day, and just irritating the next, so it’s not even to do with me or my relationship with the funnything, at least not in any durable sense.  It seems to be something independent, out there in its own right, like a draught.

Sorry, I said I wasn’t going to go there, and then went.  But I least I managed to stop myself before I got on to neuroplasticity.

The Only Word Is Exxes

“I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here. 

The sketch is attractive, your authored material stylish.
nonetheless, you command get got an nervousness over that you wish be delivering the following.
“unwell unquestionably come further formerly again as exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this hike.”

What I loved about this particular spam comment (which originated, as always, from Russia) is that it purports to link to a tanning salon in Braintree.

And its ‘found’ poetry.  The bastard child of Ezra Pound and William Burroughs after a good night in?  I particularly like “case you shield this hike.”

I HATE SPAM.  But just occasionally it throws up a gem.  Another recent one praised the insight, erudition, eloquence, etc. that I’d evinced in a photograph of a butterfly.

The real purpose of this post, of course, is to see what spam comments it attracts.  I’ll share the best, if any.

The Golden Screw

(By popular demand from Z):

 

Once there was a boy who had a golden screw where his navel should be.  The wisest men and women in the village could not explain this, nor find any means to remove the screw, despite consulting the cleverest mechanics and trying the most precise tools.  Eventually, in desperation, they called upon the services of a professional magician, who studied the problem for many days and at last said:

“The boy must go deep into the forest and locate a particular tree, which I will describe to him.  He must dig beneath the roots of this tree and find a golden screwdriver.  He must take this to the castle of the Princess and show it to her.  She will kiss him, and he will then be able to remove the screw.”

The boy followed the magician’s instructions, and after overcoming many perils came into the presence of the Princess.  She smiled and kissed him.  He took the golden screwdriver and undid the screw in his navel, and his arse fell off.

I Have Absolutely Nothing To Say

But it’s still early, the Marlborough Pinot Noir is getting better by the sip, there’s nothing on the telly, it’s 106 miles to Chicago … (sorry, The Blues Brothers took over my brain there for an instant.)

I found a book called “Wrinklies’ Wit & Wisdom” which someone wittily gave me five years ago.  Ninety nine per cent of it is crap, but here are a few that amused me:

Interviewer:  To what do you attribute your long life?

Sir Malcolm Sargent: To the fact that I haven’t died yet.

Bob Monkhouse:  The doctor said ‘I have good news and bad news.  The good news is: you’re not a hypochondriac.’

And a probably apocryphal Queen Mother quote:

(to her daughter):  A glass of wine with lunch?  Is that wise?  You know you have to reign all afternoon.

One-liners

A man walks into a bar.  He says "Ouch!"
(Apologies for the misprint in earlier editions of this post.)

*

I dreamed this one:
I bought a tin of rat poison.  In the small print it said "Rat Not Included."

*

Q: Why did Madam Blavatsky cross the road?
A: To get to The Other Side.

Come on, you can do better than that ...

I'm sure you've heard this one, but ...

I was shucking the peas to go with the rissoles I'd made from the remnants of the roast chicken, when this sprang to mind from my schooldays:

A man sits down in a cafe and peruses the menu.  When the waiter arrives to take his order, the man says: "Pissoles and chips, please."

The waiter is aghast.  "I beg your pardon, sir?"

The customer points to the menu.  "That's what it says here.  Pissoles and chips.  And that's what I want."

The waiter peruses the menu, then his face lightens.  "Oh, I'm terribly sorry sir, there's been a typing error.  That P should be an R."

The customer shrugs.  "All right, I'll have R-soles and chips."

Thought it was time for another joke

A man walks into a bar and places a frog and a rat in the counter.

"What's this?" says the barman.

"Just watch," says the man, and places the frog on the bar piano stool.  The frog immediately begins to play the accompaniment to a Puccini aria, not very well.  The barman is impressed.

"That's nothing," says the man, and gives the rat a nudge.  The rat starts singing the aria in a beautiful tenor voice.

"Wow, what an act!  You could make your fortune with that," says the barman.

Just then an impresario enters the bar.  The barman draws his attention to the remarkable performers, and after some persuasion the man gives another demonstration.  The impresario is highly impressed, and offers the man fifty thousand pounds for the act.  The man ponders this.

"Well," he replies at last.  "I'll take twenty-five thousand for the rat.  But I couldn't possibly part with the frog."

After some haggling, the impresario settles for this and leaves with his new acquisition.  The barman is perplexed.

"But - why did you sell that beautiful singing rat but insist on holding on to the frog?  He's not even a very good pianist."

"No," says the man.  "But he's a brilliant ventriloquist."