Thanks for the tip Lol, just bought shares in Shell and await your first outing ;O)
With apologies to Darcy Dog on another forum
I thought the following just about sums up this whole thread.
Subject: The Squirrel and the Grasshopper
REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The
shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies - out in the
cold.
THE END
THE BRITISH VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks
he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press
conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper,
are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the
shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his
comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a
country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so
while others have plenty. The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights
and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the
squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special
from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir
singing "We Shall Overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with
Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of
grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to
make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to
enter inner London .
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the
Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to
the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is
taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court he grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to
furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be
socially mobile. The squirrels food is seized and re distributed to the
more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly
Imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the
squirrel's food, though Spring is still months away, while the council
house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to
maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs.
Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug
illness'. The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their
treatment since arrival in UK .
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary
to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released
immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is
placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise
him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched
robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost
GBP10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is
increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for
enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by
the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies
of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the
obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair
arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison.
They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were
infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in
the United Kingdom .
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing,
the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional tax on their pension funds, their extra taxes being required to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 whilst all government employees negotiate to keep their normal retirement age at 60 thus allowing those that make the decisions to retire earlier than the average whilst the rest of us work longer to pay for it.
The reason given is because of a shortfall in government funds.
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