On The Run

Regular readers of this blog will have “heard” me speak about my Polish (ex)neighbours before. Particularly daddy Pole who liked to wear shorts so tight it was like looking at a couple of vacuum packed faggots stapled to an all-in wrestler’s crotch.

Well, there have been developments.

They disappeared a couple of months ago amidst loud telephone conversations in their native tongue that we could hear quite plainly by standing on top of the kitchen counter and pressing a stethoscope to the wall. The conversations sounded stressed and urgent. They were obviously trying to book last minute flights at the nearest international airport. We assumed they’d decided to cut their losses in recession hit Britain and were heading back to their motherland.

Once they were gone we thought no more of them except to occasionally reminisce whimsically about the stressed faggots.

And then we received a letter from a debt collecting agency last week enquiring very stiffly if we knew of their exact whereabouts (the family and the faggots).

It seems they’d racked up quite a bit of debt and had decided to jump ship before the bailiffs arrived to confiscate their Nintendo Wii.

Not sure how I feel about it really. Part of me – possibly the slightly xenophobic part of me – feels a little put out that they came to this country, made good with our products and services and then left without paying their dues.

But the biggest part of me, if I’m honest, thinks good luck to them. Keep your heads down and keep running!

I’d like to think of them growing ridiculous moustaches and wearing incongruous sunglasses on the Costa del Sol somewhere. Possibly having dealings with the European underworld or local mafia. Obtaining new identities, false passports, new dental records. Maybe even having eye transplants like Tom Cruise in Minority Report – though I admit this might be taking things a little bit too far.

I also find it amusing (though it’s an awful joke) that this dear Polish family have absconded without paying council (poll) tax... even though it’s effectively cocking-a-snook at the local authority that pays my wages.

Anyway, I’m checking the Interpol web site regularly now.

Keeping an eye out, keeping ‘em peeled. Scanning the Most Wanted lists.

I’d recognize those freshly pressed faggots anywhere...

The Shame

America elects its first black president...

For the last 7 days Europe and America has been commemorating the anniversary of the D-Day landings, a time when nations pulled together to stand against bigotry and racism. ..

And yesterday Great Britain awarded the BNP two seats in the European Parliamentary elections.

The entire nation should hang its head in shame.

I mean, who in their right mind voted for these BNP idiots? Anybody care to own up?

No. I didn’t think so. Which makes their election all the more puzzling.

How has it happened?

Is an economic downturn all it takes for people to lose their thin veneer of humanity and jump on the bandwagon of bigotry?

Can people not see the appalling danger in any ethos that has at its heart the xenophobic desire to “save [insert the name of any country here] only for me and mine and people who look like me and mine”?

Plainly not.

History is evidently an ineffectual teacher.

Worse.

History is an appallingly ineffectual supply teacher. It means well. It wants to teach us really important stuff but its authority is completely lost on us. We just want to muck about at the back of the class, go out to break early, bunk the day off and then moan and blame other people when everything eventually goes tits up.

My wife’s reaction to the news was to wonder aloud if maybe it was time we got out of this country.

Mine was to opine that if the BNP got any more toe-holds people like us – proud liberals – might not have any choice in the matter.

From now on I’m going to be keeping one eye on the political landscape and one on the cheap suitcase shop at the top of town.

The reputation of the UK is currently staggering beneath the weight of a long knife in the back. I’d hate to be there if it ever topples over.

Engerland?

So it was St George’s Day yesterday and the whole occasion hit me as a bit of a paradox.

Firstly – unless I went around in a zombiefied state yesterday (perfectly possible) – I seem to have totally missed any notification that it was St George’s day from the news media. This seems to me to be entirely wrong. I think a little bit of national pride can be a good thing and we should justly celebrate our Englishness one day a year just as the Irish quite rightly enjoy a good rave up on St Patrick’s Day. It’s about time the English stopped mooching around in their hoodies and behaving like the cross of St George is some kind of criminal brand.

OK. Soapbox dispensed with.

And then on the way home from work last night I came across a huge bunch of people obviously doing the above with unrestrained gusto outside a town centre pub. And I promptly went back to wishing my fellow countrymen would spend the entire day mooching around in their hoodies and trying not to be picked up on the local CCTV cameras.

It was ugly. It was bullish. And it made me feel ashamed.

Can we English not exhibit national pride without making it look xenophobic, aggressive and something akin to football thuggery?

And what or where is this “Eng-er-land” of which they so raucously chant?

I don’t want to live in Eng-er-land!

It sounds, well to be honest, unappetizingly Neanderthal. A bit backwards and inbred. A land of beer gutted, ruddy faced pie eating brutes who discordantly sing “God Save The Queen” while at the same time giving anyone with a home counties accent a good kicking for being “a bit of a sneering toff”.

I know, I know. I’m being a snob.

Why shouldn’t the common people (of which I am one) celebrate St George’s Day the common way (10 pints of ale and a gristle pie)? After all England isn’t just about Ascot, the Boat Race and Vaughan Williams, is it? It’s also about football and darts and fish & chips. And chavs. And underage pregnancy. And Big Brother. And men who walk around shirtless at the first sign of sunshine in April in a desperate attempt to get a fast-track tan only to succeed in making themselves look like pigeon-toed irradiated sides of beef.

But for Lord’s sake, where is the sense of pride in our pride? Where is the sense of self respect? Where is the noble aspect, the aspiration? The inspiration?

Surely celebrating our national identity should be a chance to hold our heads up high – not merely to lift our beer bellies up out of the gutter while we spew several cans of Special Brew and a hastily masticated kebab down the drain?

When on earth did St George become synonymous with Bacchus? Or worse still, the BNP?