Railroaded

This Tree/Liberationist Administration in the lovely kingdom of Northumbria is really going places! Following the Great Credit Disaster (carefully and lovingly prepared from an ancient recipe by recently disgraced and light-fingered cook Guffo the Brown), there are No More Holy Groats Left, and consequently there are more people occupied in the industry of unemployment and mischief than those honestly engaged in ploughing, butchering, baking bread, fishing and making swords and tables.

Amid these times of austerity, a bright light of hope beams its beneficence upon the Kingdom. This luminescence comes in the shape of Dagwald Caedmeron - Chief Cock and Bluebottle Washer of the aforesaid Administration, whose sublime destiny is to steer the troubled Realm through these difficult and straitened days, and to lead it to the Land Of Unimaginable Promise. Hooray for Caddy and his friends! Feaxede the Fox and I are so delighted with the news, that yesterday, we decided to push the boat out and celebrate with a commemorative chicken carcass. The memory lingers in my alimentary system..

The source of our rejoicing is the Great News that Caddy Boy has announced that there's going to be a New Road built, linking Northumbria with the Mercian Danegeld Badlands and Essex - the noble kingdom of the East Saxons. It's going to be a highly efficient road, which will significantly speed up travel between these disparate kingdoms and usher in a New Age of Trade and Prosperity. The technology is fascinating; there are going to be grooves carved into the road, designed to accommodate the wheels of carts, which come as a standard gauge of three and a half bushels (I think). This gauge was established by the ancient Romans many thousands of centuries ago, when their roads were constructed to carry their chariots and to bring supplies of pizza, courtesans and olive oil to the Empire.

What is even more exciting is the technology they're going to use to create these grooves. They will command all the dedicated supporters of the Tree, Liberationist and Redistributionist Factions to walk in one very long line for the entire length of the journey, letting their knuckles drag by their sides. This technique will be more effective than thousands of men armed with picks..

Despite my initial enthusiasm for this lovely news, I can't help but wonder where the money is coming from to finance it - especially since there's no more in the pot. It could simply be that Emperor Jose Borracho - the Supreme Pontifex Maximus of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) has dipped into his debt fund black hole, and slipped Caddy Boy a few trillion Negative Holy Groats... It's just the sort of thing he'd do..