I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush

Just to clarify, I did NOT write this. It is By Terry Jones, one-time Monty Python member, and was published in the Observer on Sunday January 26, 2003.

Terry Jones

The Observer

I'm really excited by George Bush's latest reason for bombing Iraq: he's running out of patience. And so am I! For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is. As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one. Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours. They'll come up with endless red tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people. Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently that's been a little difficult. Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that all I need to do is run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want! And let's face it, Mr Bush's carefully thought-out policy towards Iraq is the only way to bring about international peace and security. The one certain way to stop Muslim fundamentalist suicide bombers targeting the US or the UK is to bomb a few Muslim countries that have never threatened us. That's why I want to blow up Mr Johnson's garage and kill his wife and children. Strike first! That'll teach him a lesson. Then he'll leave us in peace and stop peering at me in that totally unacceptable way. Mr Bush makes it clear that all he needs to know before bombing Iraq is that Saddam is a really nasty man and that he has weapons of mass destruction - even if no one can find them. I'm certain I've just as much justification for killing Mr Johnson's wife and children as Mr Bush has for bombing Iraq. Mr Bush's long-term aim is to make the world a safer place by eliminating 'rogue states' and 'terrorism'. It's such a clever long-term aim because how can you ever know when you've achieved it? How will Mr Bush know when he's wiped out all terrorists? When every single terrorist is dead? But then a terrorist is only a terrorist once he's committed an act of terror. What about would-be terrorists? These are the ones you really want to eliminate, since most of the known terrorists, being suicide bombers, have already eliminated themselves. Perhaps Mr Bush needs to wipe out everyone who could possibly be a future terrorist? Maybe he can't be sure he's achieved his objective until every Muslim fundamentalist is dead? But then some moderate Muslims might convert to fundamentalism. Maybe the only really safe thing to do would be for Mr Bush to eliminate all Muslims? It's the same in my street. Mr Johnson and Mr Patel are just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other people in the street who I don't like and who - quite frankly - look at me in odd ways. No one will be really safe until I've wiped them all out. My wife says I might be going too far but I tell her I'm simply using the same logic as the President of the United States. That shuts her up. Like Mr Bush, I've run out of patience, and if that's a good enough reason for the President, it's good enough for me. I'm going to give the whole street two weeks - no, 10 days - to come out in the open and hand over all aliens and interplanetary hijackers, galactic outlaws and interstellar terrorist masterminds, and if they don't hand them over nicely and say 'Thank you', I'm going to bomb the entire street to kingdom come. It's just as sane as what George W. Bush is proposing - and, in contrast to what he's intending, my policy will destroy only one street.

Declaration of Revocation

This has been going around the internet in various forms since 2000 or so. It's often attributed to John Cleese. It is not by him. Snopes.com has an article giving the details. As with all things which circulate, it mutates quite often.
I'd like to invite my American readers to write a rebuttal. I have seen one on the internet, and was not very impressed.

Declaration of Revocation

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Gordon Brown, MP, -for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect :

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ’U’ will be reinstated in words such as ’favour’ and ’neighbour’ ; skipping the letter ’U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ’doughnut’ without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ’Z’ (pronounced ’zed’ not ’zee’) and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You will learn that the suffix ’burgh’ is pronounced ’burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as ’Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed." There will be no more ’bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won’t have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ’u’ and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ’World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call ’French fries’ are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat’s Piss," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat’s Piss." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

Ship's Navigator Seeks Career Change

You're supposed to go around the lighthouse, -give it plenty of clearance.
Wrong side.

Addendum: This happened on June 8th 2007, off the port of Newcastle, Australia.
The worst storms in living memory hit the area, on land nine people lost their lives.
Pasha Bulker, a coal carrier, was awaiting its turn to load in the port, along with fifty or so ships offshore. The grounding on the reef off Nobby's Beach was not navigational error, it seems, more the overwhelming forces of nature. The coastguard had sent out a call to the waiting ships make way further out to sea.
Pasha Bulker, in ballast, high sided and presenting a huge sail area to the sixty mile per hour+ winds, failed to heed that warning and was unable to hold position.
After 25 days she was hauled off the reef, and towed to harbour, two giant staples stitching a crack in her hull. The official report has not yet been published.
More pics HERE

This is NOT the Pasha Bulker, but it's a guide to the sort of weather a ship like that encounters.

Veg.

Potatos, to be more precise.

Run, Giraffe, Run

Red Dirt Girl posted a beautiful picture of a gazelle, titled Run, Gazelle, Run!
Here's my reply.

Aurora Australis, from space,

Duck Escapes Bathtub.......

No comment.

UPDATED!

An update is necessary.
I have been accused of Photoshoppage.
So, I'd better explain. First, thanks Red Dirt Girl and Rod, for believing me capable of such a feat, truth is my photoshop skills are non-existent.
"Twelve years and counting —On January 10, 1992, 28,800 turtles, ducks, beavers and frogs packed in a cargo container — called Floatees by the manufacturer — splashed into the mid-Pacific, where the 45th parallel intersects the International Date Line (44.7°N, 178.1°E). During August- September, 1992, after 2,200 miles adrift, hundreds beached near Sitka, Alaska. Twelve years later, in 2004, beachcombers were still finding the bath-time critters."
Now it's fifteen years... The first ducks to cross the atlantic are drifting towards Europe, expected to hit the beaches of Cornwall, and Normandy any time now. Dr Curtis Ebbermayer has been tracking them, and other drifting cargoes, which have become an unexpected tool in tracking ocean currents. ""It's amazing what a duck can teach you," Ebbesmeyer says. "There was one container load of turtles, ducks, beavers and frogs, twenty-nine thousand in a single container that went overboard in the middle of the Pacific," he says.

The small, plastic adventurers were accidentally dumped into the ocean in January 1992. Pushed by winds and currents the ducks were carried to Alaska where thousands washed ashore.

But hundreds more would have been swept up thru Bering Straight and so far north they would be frozen in the Arctic icepack. Moving slowly with the ice across the Pole, Ebbesmeyer predicted the frozen flotilla would take five or six years to reach the North Atlantic and thaw."
Here's a link to a website.
It's worth noting the manufacturers offer a reward for each drift-duck returned with details of its capture position and date.
However, they are worth much bigger money on ebay. Allegedly $1,000!
I'd like to claim the giant one in my blog was a mutant ocean wanderer. But if I'm honest, I'll confess it is part of an art installation on the Loire Estuary, in France. The artist's site is HERE.

Fruit.

(I had a pic of a truckload of spilled apples here, but somehow I lost it. These are potatoes, pretend they're apples, okay?)

Cider!!!!
The picture made me think of another fruity incident:- Harry Chapin, long ago, sang a song about a crash in Scranton, Pennsylvania. On his Album, Verities and Balderdash.

On March 18, 1965, on Moosic Street in Scranton, a tractor-trailer carrying 15 tons of bananas lost control in rush hour traffic, hitting cars, houses, and wire poles before crashing into a home. The driver, Eugene P. Sesky (35), was killed and over 15 people were injured.

In 1974, Harry Chapin ( more famous for his song "Cat's in the Cradle,") told the story of the tragic events of 1965 in the city of Scranton, in his song "30,000 Pounds of Bananas."



It was just after dark when the truck started down
the hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

He was a young driver,
just out on his second job.
And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits
for everyone in that coal-scarred city
where children play without despair
in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
about thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, just about thirty thousand pounds .

He passed a sign that he should have seen,
saying shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend.
He was thinking perhaps about the warm-breathed woman
who was waiting at the journey's end.
He started down the two mile drop,
the curving road that wound from the top of the hill.
He was pushing on through the shortening miles that ran down to the depot.
Just a few more miles to go,
then he'd go home and have her ease his long, cramped day away.
and the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes the smell of thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights
delights went through him.
His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down.
But the pedal floored easy without a sound.
He said Christ!
It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now.
He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide,
riding on his fear-hunched back
was every one of those yellow green
I'm telling you thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

He barely made the sweeping curve that led into the steepest grade.
And he missed the thankful passing bus at ninety miles an hour.
And he said God, make it a dream!
as he rode his last ride down.
And he said God, make it a dream!
as he rode his last ride down.
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
and Blue-Crossed seven people.
it was then he lost his head,
not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
And he slid for four hundred yards
along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas.

You know the man who told me about it on the bus,
as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania,
he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head,
and he said (and this is exactly what he said)
Boy that sure must've been something.
Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas.
Of bananas. Just bananas. Thirty thousand pounds.
of Bananas. not no driver now. Just bananas!




A woman walks into her room where her child lies sleeping,
and when she sees his eyes are closed,
she sits there, silently weeping,
and though she lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania
She never ever eats ... Bananas
Not one of thirty thousand pounds .... of bananas

- Harry Chapin

Stop Press:
Having looked into this further.
Harry Chapin wrote this song less than ten years after the man died. There was a widow and children.
After being criticised for the song, Chapin said he would donate the proceeds from the record to the widow and children. They never got a penny.

I found a comment elsewhere:-
"As a native of Scranton's South side, I remember the day, and the man in the truck. His name was Gene Seski. Gene loved playing guitar and keeping an eye on neighbors kids. I know he watched me, and my brothers, a few times for my parents. He would also walk across the parking lot in the snow in Hilltop Manor barefoot. He was my inspiration to become a truckdriver, which I am still today after 20 years."

If you hear that song again, spare a thought for Gene Seski, a man who played guitar, looked after neighbours' kids, walked barefoot in the snow, a father, a husband, a real person, who was killed by a brake failure, never got to see his children grow up, his grandchildren too.
It's too easy just to hear the song and let it run by as a thing of fun, of comedy. Why are bananas funny?
This song isn't a funny song about a lot of bananas. When you look a little more closely, it's about a man dying.