John Ward At the End of the Day

At the End of the Day

The rake’s Progress

You won’t be aware of this, but The Slog is now just four posts away from the 500th ATEOTD.

This genre wanders between the meaning of the Universe, why one’s socks always slip off in wellies, what Æthelred the UnreadyÆthelred the Unreadythe point might be of zips, attaining near-constant Now, and local news here in deepest rural France. So in vthe grand tradition of the Sloggers’ favourite regular, there’s a melange in store tonight. (“Yoooo lacky peepull” as Tommy Trinder used to say)

After having opened most of my packing cases now, it appears I am the owner of seven garden rakes. I wonder if this might be a world record….and if it isn’t, how many I need to buy in order to get an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. Surely it would be worth a few quid to beat any others in the race – for example, Wayne Brucecroc, the little-known Australin rakaphiliac from Wongagoolabong Queensland, whose collection I understand is upwards of eleven?

Dividing the land here by the number of rakes available, it can tell you that the ridiculously plutocratic nature of  my rake totality means I have one rake per 1,714.28571429 square metres. I mean, how decadent bordering in depraved is that?

Even as I write, the People’s Peace-Loving Liberal Democratic Freedom-Seeking Anti-Rake Monopolist Republic of Svengalibekastan is rumoured to be focusing its KGCIAMIB7 Secret Police on the task of seeking out all serial rakists.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Britain, in London’s Tower Hamlets suburb, Muslim mayor Lutfur Rahman today raised the Palestinian flag over his town hall ‘in solidarity with Gaza’….and as if to show his insanity is equal to any of that bollocks, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, wants Courts in his personal City State to have the power to issue an electronic tag recording every pisshead’s alcohol intake every half an hour. Whereas Mr Rahman’ excuse is that he is an ignorant pillock, Mr Johnson has no such get-out: he has obviously read George Orwell’s book 1984, but decided – on infantile power-fuelled reflection – to ignore it. It was precisely this homoaepathic level of ethical grasp that led BoJo to offer help to his insurance swindler Eton schoolmate Darius Guppy in the form of having his critics beaten up. Guppy later went to jail, as indeed did so many of the London Mayor’s mates…although as yet, sadly nowhere near enough of them.

And in other UK news today, the Prime Minister David Cameron plans to play a game of tennis against a close associate of Vladimir Putin, in return for a £160,000 Tory Party donation from this fine gentleman. Dave’s foreign secretary Philip Hammond, however, says that, in the light of the MH17 obfuscation, “the crony group around President Putin” should be especially targeted in any sanctions. Does this mean that they are to be given top-rated sanction status to play three sets against Cameron, and win? We cannot possibly know. All we can say for certain is that 11 hours ago, this very same David Cameron told the BBC that “We will toughen sanctions against Mr Putin until he changes his stance, and Russia behaves like a civilised country”. Love 40 then, and Dave’s serve.

Tonight, the Daily Telegraph has begun a Live Update on the Ebolah virus outbreak. Things must be very Æthelred the UnreadyÆthelred the Unreadyserious indeed when there has to be an update on an outbreak….especially when it appears to be the deadliest Ebolah outbreak “in history” – Ebolah having, as we all know, a very short history.
Worse still, we are told that the British Border controls “are not ready” to, er, as it were, control entrants to Britain who might have the virus. But then, not being ready is the natural British state of things, as proven by Dunkirk in 1940, and long before that Æthelred the Unready, an English King who ordered a massacre of Danish settlers, and was then surprised when the Danes took umbrage and decided to have their revenge by kicking him out.
That’s it from me for tonight. A demain.