False Friends

There's been a great deal of interest shown by the Northumbria soothsayers in the activities of various plain-clothed costumed thugs.

For example, it appears that one such gentleman infiltrated a group of naïve youths who are active disciples of His Holiness Bishop Georges Moonbat, the fly agaric-chewing religious leader of the Manmade Global Warming cult. These youths had been planning a raid on a major stockyard from which all supplies of firewood are obtained; their intention was to occupy the store, thus preventing tradesmen and householders from buying it to heat their workshops and homes. In this way they imagined that they would save the planet from apocalyptic desolation and destruction. Whatever.

The plain-clothed costumed thug joined their starry-eyed ranks, having cultivated the beard and the requisite amount of pustules. He grew his hair long, joined their meetings, wore the same kind of beads and clothes as his new friends, learned their patois and displayed the same measure of fanatical enthusiasm for their plans and objectives. He even formed serious relationships with some of the girls in the group – but I'm puzzled as to why the size of his feet didn't betray him..

In the meantime, he was busy secretly passing on information to other plain-clothed costumed thugs while discreetly visiting his old haunts. The project went disastrously wrong for the youths' plans when costumed thugs arrived at the stockyard and arrested them in the act of their trespass. They duly appeared before the Moot, but after a few days the case fell down with an audible thud when the plain-clothed costumed thug admitted before the Moot what he'd been doing. He felt sorry for them.

Justice had been compromised. The pimply disciples of Moonbat felt understandably let down and betrayed when this came to light.

The plain-clothed costumed thug is now the subject of an undue amount of interest, and the poets are already writing verses about his exploits. Caedmon isn't interested, however.

But it got me thinking about the Witangemot. After all, it's populated by the same kind of false friends, who win the trust of the populace by talking like them, pretending to be interested in them, and making all manner of empty promises. They hide behind their factions, pledging much but ultimately delivering  their only commodity - disillusionment in cartloads - to the starry-eyed masses. They're like the maggot that Caedmon found in his apple the other day. Everything looked nice on the outside – until the inner activities came to light…