-Jesterminutes 4 – The EU Hokey Cokey

As through this world I’ve wandered

I’ve seen lots of funny men;

Some will rob you with a six-gun,

And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie

I thought to get the ball rolling and the adrenalin flowing as we close in on June 23^rd, Jesterminutes should open with a well-loved traditional English folk song, which according to Nigel is now banned following the issuing of  EU directive, SKREW/U/BRITZ, which outlaws the singing of raucous patriotic ballads in Pubs and pulling pints when pissed. So pull up your Bulldog underpants, loosen you St George’s tie; think Wembley 1966; and give it the max.

Also in this issue

• Alice at the ‘T’Party
• Celebrity book at bedtime
• Brexit Boffins Quiz
• Boris searches his conscience

The Wild Gover - (tune trad)

I’ve been a Wild Gover

For many a year

And I’ve pissed people off

Throughout my career.

I pissed off the teachers

U pissed off the Heads

I pissed off True Blues

The Pinkos and Reds

And now I’m returning

In charge of the law

I’ll piss off the judges

Of that I am sure

Oh it’s no, nay, never

No, nay, never a bore

When you play with Wild Gover

It’s never no bore!

Now I’m heading for Brexit

With nobs at my side

Baldy Man and Grayling

Are along for the ride

Spliffy, Lord Bumnose

Are yesterday’s men

BoJo’s well ready

To storm number 10.

And it’s no, nay, never

No, nay, never a bore

Don’t you love the Wild Gover

He’s never no bore… etc. etc.

I would like to make clear that this traditional ditty was not penned by yours truly – the grammar is atrocious

The Hon. Gover

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Alice in Wongaland

The story so far: Alice*, the callow, but ambitious MP for ‘Somewhere-up-North’ has been chosen to serve in the Government run by a dunce of an English nobleman, Dave “Hogshead” Cameroon **. At her first Ministerial Meeting Alice escapes the attention of the Baldy Man from Work & Pensions by retreating to No.10’s garden. She espies a strange and worried looking Rabbit; the Rabbit nips smartly through the hedge into the garden of no.11. Alice decides to follow. She has almost caught up with the Rabbit when he plunges down a burrow with a sign reading ‘Secret Hole in the Economy’. Alice enters the Hole and finds herself in freefall. “I must be back in 2008,” she thinks to herself. Alice stops with an almighty bump and finds that she has landed in a strange and surreal place called "Wongaland".  This is a record of the many and wongaful meetings Alice had in that never-never land.

*Ms McVague’s Alice is deliciously enthusiastic, headstrong and vainglorious.

** Mr Cameroon effortlessly plays the self-deluding, dull Toff.

A Split in the Tea Party

“Hatter why are you so cross?” enquired Alice

“I’m not cross; just at a loss at the dross, Peptics and (Euro)-sceptics, who are spoiling the T Party. George is in Gover’s out. The Shoe lady is in, but May be either in or out. Dormouse Dave just sleeps through it all.”

“Where’s the March Hare” asked Alice?”

Exactly, the March Hare is not here and it’s his party!” replied the hatter mournfully.

“Oh no things go from bad to worse!” exclaimed the hatter as Tweedledum and Tweedledummer hoved into view.

Tweedledum     Tweedledumber

“O’Bummer’s a Kenyan anti-imperialist.” proclaimed Tweedledum

“No! No! No! Let me speak.” Interrupted Tweedledumber

“O’ Barmy’s a perverse lame duck.”

“Anti-Imperialist!” returned Tweedledum

“No, Lame Duck!” repeated Tweedledumber

Tweedledum broke off in mid argument as he espied Alice sitting at the Hatter’s side.

“Yo! Young Alice. You’re looking like a glistening wet otter, to coin a phrase of mine.” Tweedledum chortled lasciviously.

An affronted Alice replied “Why don’t you say what you really mean?”

“Oh, I rarely say what I mean and even more rarely mean what I say.” mused Tweedledum

“Surely that’s the same thing?” suggested Alice.

Indeed it is not,” corrected Tweedledum.

When I say ‘I have no interest in ruling Wongaland’ I really mean ‘I want the top job more than anything in the world and will not stop until I have it, no matter what the cost to the T. party or the country.’ “

“So when you say ‘I don’t want the top job’ you are neither saying what you mean nor meaning what you say.” said Alice thoughtfully.

“Exactly so.”

“So there is no truth in anything you say.” Observed Alice

“What a naïve, ignorant girl you are,” said Tweedledum in his most patronizing voice.

” I am a Flaubertian. Flobbers believe ‘There is no truth only perception’.”

Sensing his chances of another amorous conquest slipping away, Tweedledum hurriedly added

“But I did tell the truth when I said you glistened deliciously like a wet otter!”

(To be continued)

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Celebrity Book at Bedtime 2 – David Lidington, Minister of State for Europe prepares the next generation of voters for life without Brussels

  The Rt. Hon.David Lidington MP.

Rupert Bear in “Nutwood goes it alone”

“That’s it,” says Algy

“We’ve had enough,

With Yurowood

We must get tough!” 

Podgy Pig pipes up

“Too much red tape;

We can’t grow pig food

Just Oil seed rape.”

Constable Growler joins in

“What Nutwood needs

Is Law and Order

We must restore

Our Badger Border.”

Faragy Fox jumps up

“Nutwood needs true honest leaders

Yurowood is run by

No good bleeders!”

On a push-bike Boris Bear appears

“Follow me Nutwood

I’ll lead the way.

Just do as I do

Just say what I say!”

Billy Goat Gove muses

“What a motley crew!

Boris in charge

 Will never do.

Boris Bear is just a clown

His Brexit’s always out

And his trousers always down

Rupert rashly rushes in

“Fact is for us

In Old Nutwood

The influence of Yuro

Is overwhelmingly good.”

“A fig for your facts!”

Boris and Fargy cry

“We prefer fabrication;

We prefer to lie”

 

The Brexit Boffin’s History Quiz

Who said “When I am dead and opened, you will find Calais written on my heart.”?

Was it

a)        Mephistopheles having visited the Calais immigrant ‘Jungle’

b)        Theodore Hook, Bubbles of 1825, in John Bull  (1825)

c)        John Whittingdale after a night with Madame Whiplash, 69 Rue du Perv, Calais, France

d)        Queen Mary 1 of England

Correct answer will be published in next edition of Jesterminutes

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Boris searches his Conscience before going Brexit

To Brexit or not to Brexit? That is the question

Whether it is more advantageous to connive and bluster

With cynical lies and outrageous fabrications

Or to take arms against Suave David Cameron

And by opposing EU end him? To lie, to cheat

To cheat some more, and by that lying

We end the heartache of a thousand nights

Waiting for the Premiership, Which I am

Rightful heir to. T’is a consummation

(like that with Petronella)

Devoutly to be wished.

To lie; to cheat –

To cheat – a chance supreme

To deal the Knave Osborne a

Mortal blow!

To cheat! Ay; t’is lovely grub

For by that cheating, who knows

What greater connivance I can effectuate

Before I shuffle off this mortal coil?

Yet, must I pause. There’s the respect

Which rabid Brexit Tories demand

For who could bear the whips and scorns of members

Unless flirtatiously teased by

Fledgling Priti Patel or unseasoned Amber Rudd?

The press’ contempt, where presently there is adoration,

Would be heaped upon me

Were I not to throw in my lot with doltish Grayling and hideous Gove.

To grunt and cavort with Farage

T’is undiscovered country

Though I have embedded a thousand worse.

Is this venomously unconscionable?

No! Conscience does make cowards of us all.

Let my naked ambition

Have his head as freely

As my Johnson!

Fair Helen of McIntyre, in our love child

Be all my sins remembered.

I have screwed so many I cannot keep the score

But to screw the nation would be so much more!

I am indebted to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose disingenuous buffoonery is a constant inspiration; and, of course to the Prince of Denmark, without whose bi-polar episodes Shakespeare would have produced a not very interesting play.

Peter Jeffries 25.iv.16