Since yesterday's posting, I never expected the effects of Oswine's Great Budget Announcement to have such an immediately drastic effect. Naturally, in the tried-and tested song-and-dance tradition for which they're justly famous, the magic mushroom-chewing Redistributionist politicos have been pontificating about the terrible injustices and catastrophic disasters which are about to befall the Poor (which is simply a euphemism for their workshy, benefit-saturated, Redistributionist fellow-traveller friends) following the measures announced by the Custodian of the Empty Chest. Woe, woe and thrice woe, children. Get your hankies out. Three cheers for the Prince of Wails!
There's also been the customary droning about the lavish rewards to the Rich (which is simply a word that Redistributionist politicos and theorists use to describe people who have even more Holy Groats stashed away than they do, and which they haven't managed to pilfer for themselves), but this is routinely predictable stuff.
What has made yesterday's financial broadside so entertaining and exciting is the sudden increase in the crime wave overnight. By midday today it's already come to the point where the resources of the Costumed Thugs have been stretched to their limits. They're only human, after all…
The reason for this outbreak of lawlessness is quite straightforward, although somewhat surprising: Oswine has decided to tax the meagre pensions of the retired elderly gentlefolk of the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria; consequently, the latter have – with much groaning and the creaking and cracking of arthritic joints – emerged from their chairs, and taken some action to supplement their ever-dwindling reserves of cash.
As I walked by the Costumed Thug Headquarters in the beautiful seaside settlement of Streonaeshalch this morning, I saw fifteen members of the theatrical constabulary frogmarching – or rather, frogcrawling – an elderly hoary-headed gentleman to the safety of their refuge from the Wicked World. I ventured inside the building, purred and rubbed around some costumed ankles for good measure in order to glean some feline insight. From all accounts, the elderly gent had been selling magic mushrooms without a license, so that he could make good the deficit in his own depleted pension. Imagine my horror.
As I took my leave, I saw another cohort of uniformed gangsters bringing in another elderly citizen – this time it was an old lady. I quickly gathered that she'd deliberately allowed her dog to make a political statement in the street. If the politicos were going to steal yet more of her pension, she was going to jolly well make sure they pay for it; they could clean up after her pooch. She was defiant and unrepentant. I already hear the sharpening of the Fluffy Axe…
Oswine has sown the whirlwind; what is he now reaping?
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