Settling the Bill

Yesterday was a deeply sad day in the ongoing saga of the Redistributionist world. And how would I - a mere cat in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria - know this? - Simply because the soothsayers have told us so. And they must be right, as they are the champions of objectivity, truth and fishpaste. Hmmm.... these spotty mushrooms are very unusual tasting..

Yesterday was the State Funeral in the Northern Kingdom of Goryo of Holy Emperor and Lovely Leader King Kong Bill, the messianic Redistributionist shepherd of his devoted flock, who died recently at the tender age of one hundred and ninety six. His infant son, King Young 'Un has been assiduously groomed - once potty training has been accomplished - to step in his late father's blue suede shoes (he was a devotee of the cult of Elvey Preslode), and continue the noble work of redistributing the wealth of the land from the hard-working, starving farmers into his back pocket, and to support and maintain his oversized and over-fed army of uniformed synchronised dancers.

The funeral will be conducted for the next twenty years, and by all accounts has so far been a highly organised programme of spontaneous grief, orchestrated by the Emperor's courtiers and acted out by a sample of the country's finest actors and actresses. It was very moving, and my bowels acted in sympathy. I feel much better now.

What this Cat had failed to realise was that King Kong Bill had a divine pedigree - or so some of the carefully-selected members of the crowd spontaneously read out to the awaiting soothsayers' lackeys. He has come down from heaven. And now he's gone. So terribly sad. I'm feeling hungry...

If the Lovely Leader King Kong Bill did have a divine pedigree and came down from heaven, it makes me wonder why he didn't bypass the unpleasant and nasty process of death; surely he could have taken the noble route and ascended..

And if he was so special and heavenly, he certainly didn't do any divine things like feeding the five thousand - or bringing a message of peace and rescue from above. If he had, the dancing army would be a lot smaller, and the poor farmers would be fed and happy.. And there would have been genuine tears of sorrow, rather than the exhibitions of artificial desolation and onion tears.

It doesn't add up. I'll have to ask Edweird the Milliner about it - he's a Redistributionist Dear Leader, too. I wonder what part of heaven he and Edweird the Spheres came from...?

Feline Festive Greeting

Apart from the recent news of the sudden illness of the potty-mouthed Queen Hillida (who is currently a guest of - and being closely monitored by - the Northumbrian Herbalist Service), things have been fairly quiet here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria. This owes to the fact that it's now the Festive Season of Christmas, when the Church celebrates the incarnation of the Redeemer, and the ordinary Northumbrians revel in the excesses to which they're accustomed throughout the year.

The politicos have - for a short time at least - ceased from their hidden agendas, rivers of rhetorical drivel and their theatrical posturings, and each one has returned to one of their fifteen residences (at taxpayer's expense, of course), where they can get under the feet of their harassed spouses. Bless. I'm going to miss them to the same degree in which I pine for sickness and diarrhoea, but I have to admit that without their monumental shallowness,fathomless ignorance and delusional hubris, life here would be a great deal less entertaining.

Fortunately for this Cat, the weather isn't as severe as it was last year, so there's plenty of scope for me to explore my feline territory and check out the local wildlife. It's party time for cats, too! My vulpine friend Feaxede is continuing his archaeological research in the municipal dump, and will also be conducting a house-to-house survey of the chicken and goose consumption in the parish. For academic interest, naturally. He's clever like that..

Caedmon is working as usual, and at the end of his day - when the cattle are in the shelter of the byre and supplied with enough fodder for the night - he'll be joining the throng in the Abbey for the Christ Mass. Doubtless the mead will take a hit when he returns with his friends and puts his feet up. I'll probably pretend to be asleep.

Over the season I'll be taking some rest, so blogging will be light and sporadic.

It just remains for me to send my Christmas greetings to everyone and wish you all a special New Year - whoever you are. Thank you for passing by!

Synch and Drink

Since the demise of King Kong Bill in the long ago and faraway land of Goryo, reports are reaching the soothsayers of the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria of remarkable scenes of grief at the loss of their Redistributionist Dear And Lovely Leader. So terribly sad. What's for lunch?

The subjects of that distant shore are renowned for their obligatory cultural uniformity, and several hundred million of their overfed soldiers have performed fan dances in the vast open squares of the Imperial Palace to entertain the emaciated and starving local populace - every choreographed move in perfectly measured and graceful synchronicity. Lovely.

The Goryo Kingdom has reported that out of grief at the loss of this Divine Redistributionist Leader, the sun, moon and stars have all failed to deliver their customary light; birds have failed to flap and flit, flutter and chatter, and have even stopped delivering their colonic payloads, and the skies have wept inconsolably. Whatever.

There have been reports of carefully organised outbreaks of spontaneous mourning by carefully selected throngs of people; they've perfected the art of synchronised misery to such an elevated standard that the Organising Committee of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) Games are seriously contemplating the idea of including it as a new sporting event, alongside synchronised bricklaying and finger dancing. Sounds fascinating.

In the meantime, the Goryo Kingdom's Provisional Interim Council - administered by seventeen thousand leading overfed generals from the Dear And Lovely Leader's army are grooming the new Emperor-in-training - King Young'Un - in the finer points of Redistributionist scholarship, so that when he is big enough, he can assume the mantle of leadership. The little one's nappy is fortunately changed by a subcommittee of six hundred military officers, but the decision-making process is somewhat ponderous, since no one has ever been taught to act on their own initiative. Such independence is regarded as devilish and foreign..

There are rumours abroad that Edweird the Milliner is planning a trip to that lovely Redistributionist wonderland to see what tips he can pick up for a potential Northumbrian government here. It'll be very popular here; I can foresee synchronised mead drinking in next year's Games..

Goryo Gosh

Word soon gets around in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria - even news from the distant shores of the world. It mainly travels at the speed of light and diarrhea through gossip traded in the markets - along with the fish, meat and vegetables. Of course, the minions of the soothsayers are ready ears as they haunt such places, and they quickly seize the latest piece of hot news and pass it on for public consumption to their fiction-peddling employers.

The latest story to grace our ears concerns the long-ago and faraway Northern Kingdom of Goryo - an exotic land, ruled by Emperors of a Redistributionist persuasion; for the last seventeen thousand years it has been ruled by King Kong Bill. The latest piece of news is that their Beloved Emperor has passed away whilst being transported in sumptuous luxury to his winter palace.

King Kong Bill - like his paternal predecessor King Song Dung - was the archetypical Redistributionist, who happily redistributed all the wealth of the country (amassed through the hard work of the peasants) and redirected it into his enormous army and his own back pocket. Because of this administrative oversight, the myriads of citizens of his kingdom starved or froze to death, but out of devotion and fanatical loyalty they loved him dearly, and referred to him as their Dear And Lovely Leader. King Kong Bill had bizarre habits and interests and took a twisted delight in pulling the wings off butterflies and the legs off poor spiders, but his one claim to normality was a particular interest in Occidental entertainment - which he decreed to be strictly off-limits to the serfs under his lovely and benign rule - under the pain of torture and death - at tax-payer's expense, of course.

There's been a spontaneous outpouring of carefully-rehearsed grief in Goryo for the entertainment of the public officials and the assembled soothsayers. In many respects it's a kind of competition similar to the Ð Factor, where the idea is to outperform all rival contestants in ferocious intensity and dramatic effect. Very artistic. So terribly sincere.

Edweird the Milliner - the Great and Beloved Leader of the Redistributionist Faction - has been quick to lead a similar outpouring of grief over here in our lovely Kingdom. Having looked up to the Dear And Lovely Leader as a model Redistributionist mentor and paragon of virtue, he'll certainly miss him.

But it's always best to keep nepotism in the family; the three-month-old son of King Kong Bill - King Young'Un - has been skilfully groomed to step into his lovely shoes. Bless. He simply has to overcome the hurdle of potty-training. I think we should allow him about thirty years for that; Redistributionism doesn't encourage initiative..

A Stitch In Time

It may not have escaped the notice of most Northumbrians that over the last few years their lovely country has become the playground of a new class of indigenous species, whose social attitudes betray an underlying phobia of classic Northumbrian values like hard work, trustworthiness and integrity. Such creatures - unlike we members of the animal kingdom - consider it completely unnecessary to go to the trouble to work, hunt, forage and feed themselves by honest methods: it's the blessed prerogative of the Northumbrian State to feed them and maintain them in the luxury of aimless indolence. Their children - lacking from their parental exemplars the benefits of a Christian education and the self-restraint that accompanies it - are uncontrolled feral miscreants, whose respect for niceties like law and authority are in equal proportion to their microscopic horizons and aspirations. Needless to say, they provide a great deal of constructive work for their educators, not to mention the Costumed Thugs; appearances of such fiendlets in the Moot houses are frequent events. One can see the length of the queues each morning. Their parents lack either the will or the inclination to deal with their own little problems, and choose to leave it to the all-providing State. Bless.

These are the fruits of fly agaric-fuelled Redistributionist social theory, which has systematically been unleashed on the population for three thousand years through a variety of political and social initiatives, which have been carefully and lovingly crafted to re-shape the traditional Anglo-Saxon social and cultural landscape into the shape of their maniacal fantasies. They predictably distance themselves from the their legacy to the Northumbrian Kingdom.. It's so terribly sad.

But once more, Dagwald Caedmeron - the Heroic High Priest of the Tree Faction and Great Leader of the Tree/Liberationist Administration - has unveiled his latest Wonderful Plan to the sound of trumpets to the assembled window-licking hordes. Hooray for Caddy Boy and his Broken Northumbria Programme! We're so pleased. Christmas has come early.

Caddy Boy is going to spend billions of imaginary groats (there's no cash in the Treasury Chest, since the Redistributionists blew it on their magic mushroom fantasies and to support their ne'er-do-well friends) to pay for diversity consultants, homeopathic administrators, fish quota accountants, dog log vigilantes, pigeon psychologists, climate change co-ordinators and an impressive array of support services to help those problem families and their children (if they can catch them), and re-educate them in parenting and good manners, disipline and behaviour. He believes that a child caught early will spare a great deal of heartbreak later in life...

These mushrooms taste very nice.. I wonder what they are?

Pigge's Bogus Particle

Signs and wonders in the lovely country of Northumbria continue to unfold before our very eyes, leaving the population in the grip of perpetual excitement. The chewing of fingernails is an increasingly popular pastime among the knuckle-dragging hordes. It's not really surprising: unemployment is at an all-time record high (or, at least, since the last statistic was carefully collated), and the Great Credit Crisis of the entire civilized world (which doesn't include the Vikings and Huns, who are but savages) is biting hard into the posterior of the public consciousness.

But, no matter. We have entertainment a-plenty, and the bulk of it is generated by either the Ð Factory, popular fiction storytellers in the Tree/Liberationist/Redistributionist politico factions and of course, those tried-and-tested fantasists, the soothsayers. Who could ask for anything less?

The latest craze to emerge from the fly-infested swamplands of the human narrative is a new obsession with the Pigge's Bogus Particle. This strange contrivance is the crazed product of the addled consciousness of alchemists, who are paid enormous sums of money to discover for the benefit of Dark Ages Man truths that most Anglo-Saxons could take as commonsense. Or plain nonsense. Whatever.

Somewhere in a secret location in the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) is a land-locked land of mountains and goats. Within those great hills, a den has been carved deep into the caves, where an assortment of alchemists - aided and abetted by unending supplies of hallucinogenic mushrooms - carry out their clandestine work. Every now and then, they emerge from the foul-smelling darkness to release a piece of profound wisdom for the waiting soothsayers, who reverently devour every word, sagely pretending to understand what these troglodytes are talking about. In turn, the soothsayers relay a peculiarly mangled and chewed version of their newly-acquired information to the kingdoms they represent. Everyone is deliriously happy: the alchemists have created the illusion that they're Onto Something Great and Worthwhile, while the soothsayers are irritatingly self-satisfied because they have some new esoteric piece of wisdom to impart to the Ignorant Unwashed, thus furnishing them with the illusory notion that they have something significant to say. Hooray for the sons of Mercury! Bless.

Pigge's Bogus Particle - as this Cat understands it - is a missing piece of knowledge that would enable them to understand how to manufacture gold from pig manure. They have managed to fool Emperor Jose Borracho - the Supreme Allied Commander-In-Chief and Beloved Panjandram of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) into believing that this glorious knowledge is within a hair's breadth of attainment. The implications of this are self-evident: once the technology to transmute gold from pigpoo is in operation, the King can put more gold into his treasury. The Great Credit Crisis would - of course - continue as before.

This Cat has reason to suspect that the alchemists are just stringing Joe Boy along. They've been doing it for years..

Result!

It was a thrilling occasion, and myriads of ecstatic Northumbrians assembled from all seventeen quarters of the lovely Kingdom to witness the annual spectacle. Your Cat has been as fascinated as ever at the unfolding weekly drama, as the finest of the Realm's aspiring songsters waged mortal combat over the last few weeks to stake their claim for the coveted Ð Factor. Such fun!

Much to everyone's surprise, the eventual winner of this sudden-death play-off was a hastily assembled collection of young girls attired as bargain-basement courtesans, referred to as 'Little Minx'; they were pitted against Maerkers Goblins - a young man with an impressive voice and an engaging manner. Despite his evident prowess as a singer and performer, Maerkers' regional speech was barely intelligible to the assembled hordes, who therefore assumed he was some foreigner of exotic speech, diet and customs. Consequently the innate Northumbrian xenophobia kicked in, and the girls won the acclaimed award. Notoriety and obscurity await them - along with an opportunity to play Salome, and sing and dance before King Alhfrith and the potty-mouthed Queen Hillida. I hear the sharpening of axes already.

Dagwald Caedmeron - flushed with his astounding recent imaginary successes at the Court of Emperor Jose Borracho and his half-witted henchman Hermit the Rumphole - has been greatly pleased with the outcome, and has hailed the Ð Factor result as a great achievement for Northumbria. I'm not sure how it can be, but since he's such a witty, wise and worthy representative of our great Kingdom, I'm prepared to defer to his instinctively sound judgement...

Nevertheless, the Redistributionist Faction - along with their bosom pals Guardy-Ann, Beeby See and the Windy Pedant are furious, and the machinery of the Diversity Commissariat has ground into ominous gear. They're deeply unhappy that Goblins was outvoted by the Little Minx quartet, and they're determined that the result is contested on the grounds of equality and fairness. Edweird the Milliner has already called for a Public Enquiry. It's going to be very interesting when the mothers and grandmothers of these girls get wind of this. They'll give him hell in a handbag...

Caddy Boy's Virtual Victory

These are momentous days for the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria - or, at least, that's what the soothsayers Beeby See, Guardy-Ann and Dellimell are telling us. Repeatedly.

In the widening vortex of the Great Debt Crisis which has overtaken the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire), certain of Emperor Jose Borracho's provinces have encountered problems with the Greeks and the Romans, who are so full of debt that they're fit to explode, bringing down the Empire's financial system with them. Which is nice.

To salvage the Holy Roman Empire's Ducat - a fictitious piece of brass currency, adorned with Borracho's head on the one side and a bull's backside on the other - the Emperor has kindly invited the Franks, Westphalians, Allemans, Vikings, Bulgars, Northumbrians and seventy thousand other tribes to cough up from their own treasuries to rescue the doomed coinage, which is rapidly becoming of less value than the smallest colonic offering of his pet hound. Not all of the tribes and kingdoms of the Empire have adopted the Ducat, however: some (like the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings) have continued to trade in their own groats or strings of beads, thus maintaining the semblance of some control over their cash.

To avert this Great Tragedy, it has been decreed from above that all the participating tribes of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) cast their crowns and their coinage at Joe Boy's malodorous feet, thus allowing him to continue in his opulent lifestyle (at taxpayers' expense of course), throw lavish banquets for his myriads of parasitic friends, and gently impoverish his captive subjects to a perpetual state of penury through vastly increased rates of taxation. Sounds like a plan.

Since the the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria doesn't trade in the Ducat, there's no apparent reason why King Alhfrith's treasury should be used to bail out the profligate Greeks, Romans and other money-wasters, and Dagwald Caedmeron - the Chief Cock and Bluebottle-Washer of the Tree/Liberationist Administration - has made some bellicose noises about protecting Northumbrian interests. This has certainly come as a surprise to his detractors, who have always believed that he was one of Joe Borracho's most sycophantic fans.

The soothsayers are reporting that he has managed to isolate Northumbria from the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire). Edweird the Milliner - the slavering Redistributionist Great Leader - has accused him of being partisan and selfish, pandering to the self-serving interests of the Evil Moneylenders. But this Cat suspects he's said this more out of a need to be seen to say something rather than out of conviction.

When Caddy Boy returns, there will be dancing and partying in the streets of Northumbria, and a great deal of ale and mead will be consumed in celebration. And no one will see anything different when the dust settles. Another great triumph..

The Answers' Chancers

Another fresh supply of finest human ordure has leaked into the Northumbrian consciousness, and its accompanying stench has caused a rush on the sale of clothes pegs for sensitive snouts. This stink revolves around the Glorious Northumbrian Educational System, where The Children - freshly indoctrinated into the finer points of Redistributionist theology and rhubarb - leave their kindergartens, waving special pieces of vellum, entitling them to all the promise of a shining career in further education, where the very finest nuances of the aforesaid Redistributionist theology and herbage await their tender and excitable brains. Hooray for knowledge! I'm so envious.

Every year, the results of the astonishing successes of the Kindergartens in the advancement of Education are paraded before an increasingly anaesthetised public, and like summer birdsong, the cheery litany of rapidly descending educational standards strikes up from certain disgruntled quarters, while the gruntled educational pundits valiantly attempt to fight their corner. Thus far, those who raise such perennial objections haven't been put to the edge of the sword as anathematised heretics, but I reckon it's only a matter of time..

The soaring successes of kindergartens in their educational achievements certainly looks mightily impressive, and goes a long way to perpetuate that fondly-held tenet of Sacred Redistributionist belief that each new generation is infinitely more brilliant than the previous one that spawned it. This dovetails into the Sacred Theory of Improvement - a vital part of the Redistributionist Creed, which derives from ancient Greek philosophers, buckets of retsina and Aesop's Fables. Such a premise explains why many Children expect to walk into highly-paid executive appointments without any further study: propelled by their own delusions of brilliance, they expect The Very Best. Now. It's all so very sad; if a cat could weep, then I surely would.

Tragically for the Redistributionists and their Tree and Liberationist country cousins, their flagship Educational System has fallen flat on its tender posterior. It has come to the cold light of day that those Clever People who set the questions which determine whether or not the children receive their coveted piece of vellum, have been giving the answers in advance to the kindergartens, so that the children know how to respond to the questions set before them. This has gone far to explain the astronomical attainment of the Kindergartens.

I'm sure Caedmeron will ably take the matter in hand..

Gone West

The Northumbrian machine of cheerfully oppressive stupidity continues to grind. Following the silly remarks made by Hieronymus the Clack's Son, suggesting that Public Sector Employees publicly exercising their vigorous inactivity should be spit roasted over an open fire - and the ensuing furore - another similar incident has taken place.

During a routine inspection of my feline territory I recently gathered from gossip that a young mother, travelling in a westerly direction with one of her infant children in a horse-pulled cart, started to remonstrate with her fellow-passengers, all of whom were either Vikings, Moors, Ethiopians, Bactrians - or an assortment of other exotic nationalities with strange languages, religions, garb, habits and dietary propensities. This was a spontaneous and heated outburst of frustration, resentment and bad attitude - seasoned with not a few anglo-saxon Anglo-Saxon turns of phrase, and served on a hot plate. The intended audience looked on in bemusement; those whose command of the Anglo-Saxon tongue was adequate enough to comprehend her diatribe listened in slack-jawed disbelief.

This graceless and foolish barrage of bilious ill temper was faithfully recorded by a nearby scribe for the benefit of posterity (hooray for attentive eyes and lugs!), and the matter was duly reported to the Costumed Thugs and the Soothsayers, who immediately went into paroxysms of ecstasy. Bless.

Seventeen thousand Vikings, Moors, Ethiopians, Bactrians - and an assortment of other exotic nationalities with strange languages, religions, garb, habits and dietary propensities were mortally offended, and the resulting cadavers had to be buried without the benefit of a Christian funeral. It's very sad.

But - justice to the rescue! All is not lost. The young mother was subsequently thrown into an oubliette, where she gracefully rots in squalor and a notoriety more befitting Judas Iscariot or Herod; her children were courageously seized from her, duly rescued from the danger of being parented by an opinionated and potty-mouthed exemplar. They now languish in some orphanage somewhere, and are now learning the art of criminality from the State without a mother's love. The sigh of relief through the Kingdom was palpable. Another good job well done.

Klack's Son and Mouth

There's been a most awful stink here in the lovely country of Northumbria, and I really don't know how best to relate it all to you, dear reader, but attempt I must, as it's something you need to know.

In this blessed Realm of King Alhfrith - a provincial backwater of the filthy and bankrupt Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) - we're frequently delighted by the services of Entertainers, who are a class of Northumbrians, Ultima Thulians and Hibernians who are paid substantial amounts of holy groats by the Kingdom to keep the long-suffering populace distracted from the tedium of living an increasingly impoverished and depressed existence. (This strategy is referred to in the Latin tongue as panem et circenses. It worked well for quite a long time.)

One such popular entertainer is Hieronymus the Klack's Son, who amuses legions of drudges in the Kingdom by testing chariots and various breeds of horses with his disreputable friends, and reporting on their performance in a jocular and sardonic turn of speech. This kind of thing is particularly popular with the male humans of the population, as horses and chariots are an increasingly fashionable obsession among those who are least able to afford them - or indeed the very oats to feed the beasts. Now, the Klack's Son (normally known as 'Klaxo') is a soothsayer's lackey, renowned for being astonishingly generous with his forthright opinions, which are generally expressed in a robust and vulgar subtlety of speech and expression. How coarse.

During the Public Sector Employees' Day Of Extraordinary Inaction the other day, Klaxo opined that the striking kindergarten supervisors, diversity coordinators, homeopathy consultants, dog log spotters, environmental inspectors, climate change propaganda officers et alia should be skewered on pikes and roasted over an open fire with marshmallows. Turn and baste regularly with pork dripping, add seasoning and herbs according to taste, and serve piping hot with a flourish. Serves fifteen people. His companions were seen to visibly gasp when these pearls of wisdom dripped from his sage and frequently open chops.

Since then there have been several billion complaints about Klaxo's comment from those of a sensitive and deeply Redistributionist nature, and the entire Kingdom is in unholy uproar, the flags have been at half mast, Beeby See has solemnly and hysterically declared a Day Of Mourning, and the entire land has resounded to the strident sounds of ploughshares being been beaten into swords. Happy days.

As I step over the millions of corpses littering the streets of those who were Mortally Offended, picking my way carefully through the graves which are being dug for the decomposing victims of this verbal atrocity, I really wonder what the fuss was all about...

Pulling O'Daffy's Legacy

Since the capture of Spiv O'Daffy - the pampered, psychopathic son of the late and unlamented Murmur O'Daffy - the previous Great Beloved Despot of Cyrene - things have been getting quite interesting in the lovely country of Northumbria and in the wider world.

As the advancing hordes of Holy Roman Empire-backed mercenaries, brigands and armed thugs steadily wrested control from Murmur's grasp in their bid for the Cyrenian throne and unlimited olive oil and dates, his ninety first son Spiv - the one hundred and thirty seventh in line to the coveted Cyrenian throne - was making good his escape in the sandy wastes of the Trables nightclubs, in the vain hope of obtaining entry into the fabulous land of Timbuktu, where he hoped to merge with the local populace as a travelling incense herder or fly warden. Sadly for Spiv, this was not to be, and he was duly apprehended by the Cyrenian constabulary, and is now awaiting trial for stealing women's undergarments from washing lines, and pulling the wings off butterflies. He is being treated with customary Cyrenian hospitality, and he has two remaining fingers to prove it.

This has all been a terrible embarrassment for the Northumbrian Redistributionists, and particularly for their intellectual kindergarten - the Yorvik School Of Esoterics; when Murmur was running the Cyrenian show, he was idolised as a Great Hero of the Redistributionist Cause, as he skilfully and masterfully exercised their time-honoured principles, redistributing the wealth of that benighted sandy land into his own back pocket. Because of this adulation, his son was courted and fêted by the Yorvik School Of Esoterics as an intellectual paradigm with whom they could do business. And he also generously granted them several billions of ducats - which amounts in Anglo-Saxon currency to several billions of holy groats. At the time, the School was well pleased with its outstanding intellectual achievement, and in return for the favour granted him a doctorate in Redistributionist fly-swatting.

But things aren't always what they seem. With the passage of time it appears that Murmur and his family were merely murderous thugs who enjoyed the infliction of pain and suffering upon their fellows, and Murmur became a Nasty Piece Of Work overnight - hence the hastily-hatched war to depose him. The Redistributionists were terribly sad and upset about this - not because O'Daffy and Son had deceived them and let them down, but simply because they lost face in view of the general ignominy and disgrace attached to the accursed O'Daffy name. Guffo The Brown and his silver-tongued predecessor Tondvig the Blur had lost a valued friend and associate in their cause. And the Yorvik School Of Esoterics have had to publicly say 'Oopsy Daisy' and swallow humble pie by the boatload.

We live and learn: Redistributionists don't...

One More Day In Fairyland

Yesterday, Oswine - the Supreme Allied Commander-In-Chief of the King's Purse - made his State Of The Nation speech in the Witangemot, and to a boisterous throng of assorted politicos, Redistributionist drunks, cut-throats and the deluded and criminally insane, he announced that the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria wasn't out of the woods by far. There were going to be more Cuts in Public Expenditure, and the economy of the realm was going to pass through times of Unparalleled Darkness before the golden, welcome light of Solvency and Prosperity would once more blight these blessed shores. He says he's going to borrow more billions of groats to help the Kingdom tread water - or sink gracefully, according to one's perspective. Guffo the Brown - the previous Head Honcho and Rescuer from the Ravages of Solvency - was observed to have smiled, but I later heard that he'd merely passed wind..

Sober stuff indeed - especially since the entire Northumbrian show is in debt to the discordant tune of seventeen thousand gazillions of holy groats, which by my calculation should be cleared - after the interest is paid off, naturally - by the time the entire earth has aged by ten million years, and Caedmeron will be a fossilised set of bones, languishing in a chalk down somewhere. I don't think any of the creditors are likely to be around to receive the finishing payment - unless they're blessed with unnaturally long life expectancy. Good times are just around the corner! Hooray for Ossie!

Undeterred by this apocalyptic gloom, the Great Mass of Disaffected Public Sector salary-drawers are taking to the streets of the towns and the cities, parading their prowess for immaculate Anglo-Saxon spelling and punctuation on roughly-scribbled placards declaiming their detestation of the Tree/Liberationist Administration for proposing to make them work longer and pay extra for their opulent taxpayer-funded pensions. How dare they? Oh, the wickedness of such a thing. I feel sick..

Intoxicated and blinded to the foolishness of their actions (or inactivity) by their unearthly sense of superiority and entitlement to something Far Better than the Great Unworthy Masses whose taxation pays them and enables them to see out their twilight years in the modest villas of Tuscany, they continue to vent their spleens against the machinations of Government. Meanwhile, their mentors - the Trade Guild Barons - urge them on to greater degrees of self-sacrifice while they themselves decide how to spend their generous salaries.

I was chatting with my master Caedmon about this, and he put forward the view that those who take such steps are the product of poor parenting and bad exemplars; he also suggested that if they had an appreciation of Divine Grace, they'd be thankful for every scrap they have, and wouldn't assume that the world owed them everything with cherries on top.

As a kitty, I don't need Divine Grace, since I'm not responsible for the fallen human condition. But I'm certainly thankful for what I have - and for the endless fun and entertainment these clowns give me...