|
Andrew Macdonald 26 January 2004 19:58 "I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."
I was just about to send you a stiffly worded electric letter pointing out
that the author of the above was not someone who appears to have been named
after an eye testing chart, but was in fact Chief Joseph. But just before I
do, I thought, I'll do a quick check with Google, and bugger me if they aren't
one and the same person. I guess he very sensibly changed his name when
he realised that it was a lot easier to write Joseph than
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt. You can see his point, can't you?
Something may be stirring down Winwaloe way. It's just possible that
he's shaken the bastard mackerel, those blighted spawn of a night of star
washed, Sharps soaked lust at The Tinners (is there any other sort?), out of
his cassock and started to crank up his masterplan. (I've just had a
thought - if the bastard mackerel got themselves a good lawyer, I reckon they
could get their fins not just on Dunmanifestin and the rest of the
saintly acres, but the hiden millions in Swiss bank accounts as well.)
On reflection I saw the first signs in Brighton last summer, then I found
there's one on Liverpool Street Station, and now there's one slap bang in the
middle of Norwich - The West Cornwall Pasty Company. Is it a plot to
keep all the ems out by poisonning them before they get down there?
Preferable, I suppose, to them getting down there, having a pasty and then
spending the next fortnight throwing up everywhere.
Anyway, we have the right to know. And they've got sun-dried tomato and
peccorino ones. And seared tuna nestling on a bed of crushed
Desiree potatoes infused with thyme and drizzled with a balsamic vinegar and
shallot jus ones. And kumquat and snot ones.
Right, time to go and prise the top off a bottle of Mr Chimbley's India Pale
Ale.
Vile Jelly 27 January 2004 09:32
Well, that was the whole point. Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt was just this bloke
who happened to like the nice valley that he and his family had lived in for
generations. Unfortunately for him, some people from out of the area decided
that they liked the valley too and as they had far more money they'd have it.
The point of the quirtation being that the words spoked thistly were at the
end of his futile attempt to get justice/freedom/his home back. Of course, the
yanks gave him none of these but did rename him Chief Joseph, which obviously
made up for the inconvenience. Thenceforth, the whole sordid incident was
enshrined in the american constitution as the Right to Life, Liberty and The
Pursuit of the Extinction of the Indigenous Population.
No idea where all these pasties up north are coming from. Swindon probably.
[Of course, as you are in East Angular, almost the whole of the UK could be
defined as the West Country from your point of view!]. You had better check
the small print on the label although I doubt that Cornish pasties are likely
to fall under the EU AOC rules. They are unlikely to be coming from this far
west as everything is being shut down. So, far this year (all 4 weeks of it)
Redruth Brewery and Furniss Foods, two of the biggest employers in
Redruth/Camborne, have gone into receivership.
One begins to suspect that the Cornish 'economic miracle' is not so miraculous
as the creative skills of the statisticians who claim that business is booming
thanks to the increase in tourism.
PS. Talking of Winwaloe, he seems the sort of toff who'd go to the
ballet/opera/whatever so maybe he has spotted the Cornish Bakehouse Pastyrie
which is supposed to have been set up in Covent Garden. He'd better check his
portfolio of West End properties as it looks like the Symons Clan have run out
of things to own in St. Ives and are now making their move on the hamlet of
London!
Andrew Macdonald 28 January 2004 12:10
How very unlike our own dear British Empire.
I have absolutely no plans to get close enough to one to read the small print.
It says West Cornwall, so obviously there's a pasty mine somewhere with
hitherto unexplored seams which they are exploiting. Those green marks
on the zawns ain't copper, they're the pasty fillings. Probably kumquat
and snot.
Or else he's flooging The Big Issue in Covent Garden. However we shall
await an incisive, trenchant, and thoruoghly top-drawer review from the
saintly savant in due course.
Are the Symons heading staight for the Great Wen, or are they going to buy
their way across England as they go? Anyway, we're probably safe here -
they'd never get across Essex in one piece. And have they put a bid in
for the Tate?
Always sad to see one go (except possibly St Ostle), but what was Redruth
Brewery like?
Vile Jelly 28 January 2004 15:04
Yes, but at least we were honest and upfront about it. We called it an empire
and didn't insult the rest of the planet's intelligence by pretending that the
whole process was in any way for the good of all (or, in deed, anyone but us).
What's the yanks' and aussies' excuse for how they behaved (and continue to
behave)? Did you ever see the two documentaries the brothers what done the
classic american civil war prog did? I presume that they must have had a
'creative differences' incident thereafter as they both separately produced a
docu-series about the american conquest. One was called The Wild West and the
other just The West. Anyway, they were both dead good and there is a bit in
one of them where they are interviewing a talking head historian called
Michael Her Many Horses, who was/is a Sioux. They've been talking about all
the punch-ups as the yanks tried to expand into the plains and they get to the
Little Bighorn and he looks at the camera and says, with just a frisson or two
of feeling!, something along the lines of 'I would have loved to be there when
they smashed the smug white arrogance off their faces. That little half hour
it took to do them all in '. An admirable man and clearly one with a
worthwhile agenda!
I also liked the comment (from another native american historian) elsewhere about
the Little Bighorn. As they put it, Custer had followed this mass of
tracks, his native scouts had reported back that they had seen the largest
encampment they'd ever seen on the plains. Custer went charging in with a
couple of hundred men and said 'Bugger we're surrounded by thousands of
indians, everyone leg it'. Which tended to confirm the locals view that
the whites were mentally defective!
PS. The spoor of the symonses is hard to track. The best way to find out if
they are operating in your area is to check on various establishments and see
if the quality has gone down and the prices have gone up.
PPS. Redruth brewery not officially defunct yet. It's in administration or
receivership or it has been received by administrators or some such. You're an
affluent businessman, you'll understand these concepts. I haven't seen a
hostelry of theirs down here but then Redruth is in the midlands so maybe they
have pubs up north. They do bottles and cans 'cos I've seen them in the local
shops.
Andrew Macdonald 28 January 2004 15:51
I think "honest" and "upfront" in this context are
possibly over-egging the custard, or over-buttering the parsnips, or worse,
upsexing the dossier. Think "the white man's burden" and the
smokescreen of bringing religion, civilisation and trousers to people all
over Africa, India, Canada and all points of the compass who already had
perfectly good working examples of all three anyway, simply to disguise the
activities of Clive, Rhodes, and all the other rogues, charlatans, snake oil
salesmen, whisky drummers and derelicts who helped paint the globe pink.
Sadly, I missed a lot of the civil war prog, and keep thinking of getting it
on video or dvd or something, and the other two seem to have passed me by
altogether. Probably never got shown this far east.
I'm always a bit suspicious of breweries who put beer in cans, but good luck
to them anyway and I'm sure that now the receptionist is in charge, everything
will be all right.
Vile Jelly 29 January 2004 10:02
Yes, but we didn't bother to disguise the fact that this was what we were
doing. You'll remember the good old late 19th century atlases of the world (or
hadn't they been published yet when you were at skool?) which came in two
glorious colours; pinkish red for THE BRITISH EMPIRE and some other
non-descript shade for the bits of the planet we didn't want or weren't worth
bothering about. None of that 'spheres of influence', 'mutual defence
agreements' and 'economic alliances' cobblers. It was ours and we weren't
embarrassed to advertise the fact. Compare and contrast with the feeble
attempts in the 20th century of the Americans to pretend that they don't do
'empires' and they just happen to be in
Korea/Chile/Guatemala/Vietnam/Grenada/Iraq/etc. because the military were
visiting their sick maiden aunt when a punch-up broke out!
PS. They do it (or did) in bottles as well. I suppose now that the accountants
have sunk their claws in they will have to change the name to
Redruthlessjobcuts Brewery.
Andrew Macdonald 30 January 2004 10:11
Be that as it may, you have to admit that our lot didn't achieve their targets
in the knights in shining armour league tables.
Yes, somewhere I have still got my old skool atlas complete with pink bits (or
was that some other publication in the bottom of my desk?) complete with
Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and all the rest, and a splendid thing
it is too. Phillip's School Atlas, I think.
Hutton. There, that's my entry for your latest competition to find a new
synonym for whitewash.
Vile Jelly 30 January 2004 17:04
But that's my whole point, we were being Shites in Nining Armour and didn't
bother trying to insult anyone's intelligence by pretending otherwise. The
British Empire; it was an empire and it belonged to the British. QED. What
irks me is the holier-than-thou attitude of the likes of the yanks and aussies
who sneer at brutal british imperialism as if they haven't done it themselves.
Oh no, sirree bob, they're enlightened democrats. Any member of the relative
indigenous population will tell you that!
F'r instance, did you know that the Union General Philip Sheridan evicted the women
& sprogs and torched the properties of the civilians in the
Shenandoah Valley and the Confederates presided over the deaths by
disease and starvation of over 13,000 POWs at Andersonville camp in
Georgia nearly 40 years before Kitchener came up with his 'cunning plan' for
ending Boer resistance in South Africa. When the commandant of Andersonville
was hanged after the end of the civil war he protested his innocence on the
grounds that 'he was only acting under orders'. So, that means the americans
beat the Nazis to Nuremberg by 80 years!
PS. Why didn't you have your own skool atlas and doesn't Phillip want his
back?
PPS. I don't know why people are getting so uptight about the Hutton report.
What were they expecting from someone who is 'a lord' and who has made his
fame and fortune in that famously egalitarian industry 'the law'. Besides if
there has ever been any form of government in this country that's told the
truth it's news to me. Even the great Winston Churchill spin-doctored,
suppressed and lied through his teeth on occasion during WW2. And I'm sure we
all remember Maggie's 'The Belgrano was heading on an intercept course for the
Task Force' statement to the Commons.
|
I (that’s me) own the copyright in all the content of this site (except where otherwise acknowledged). You can read it, download it, transmit it and reproduce it only for your own personal use. You are not allowed to bugger about with it. If your computer explodes as a result of accessing this site and its contents, it’s nothing to do with me, mate! Copyright Vile Jelly Publications 2001-2009. All rights (and some wrongs) reserved. |