prices when the price of oil rose and when it fell. Let’s remember that forecourt petrol sales in the UK have actually fallen by 20 per cent over the past five years – a sign of the damaging impact that peace in Northern Ireland has had on the economy. It’s estimated that the oil companies have ripped British motorists off by £300 billion. To put that into perspective, that’s enough to fill the petrol tanks of almost a dozen cars. Despite BP being responsible for the Deepwater Horizon accident, the worst oil spill in US history, their profits have more than tripled this year. This seems reasonable; maybe there’s just more of a market for dead pelicans than anyone knew.
Skint Britons are switching to mobility scooters to get round the high cost of motoring. Worries they’ll block the pavements have led to immediate complaints from cycling groups. They may only be designed to go at 6 mph, but I got one up to 30 on the downhill. Only for a moment, though, then the caravan jack-knifed. OK, mobility scooters may not be that quick, but dey certainly get all dat sweet Day Centre pussy cumin to da TV Room winda, kna-wha-am-sayin, bro? If the price of petrol goes any higher, people might be forced to walk to the shops.
Lots of new road building has been announced. The most expensive road project will be the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge. Is this a priority? People are losing benefits but students at an elite university can soon visit a poisoned monkey and be back home in time to smash up a tea room. It will take three years for these roads to be re-built; think of all the things that could happen in three years – in three years that girl who ran off with her maths teacher will be on her seventh Nuts cover after having been voted out of Celebrity Big Brother for not being able to add up the shopping budget, but at least when she finally throws herself in front of traffic on the A1 it will be nice and smooth.
They always announce the cuts first, then the spending the next day – like a violent husband waking up the morn-ing after and trying to make it up to you by buying you a road. No one has a job, so where are they going to on these roads? I suppose no matter how penniless people get they will still want to live as far away from their in-laws as possible. It appears that there are ten potholes for every mile of road in Britain. That’s pretty dangerous – I’d recommend putting your Scotch into a beaker with a stopper before setting off.
More 20 mph speed limits are to be rolled out. Good, it’s safer. Although journeys might take a little longer, we can just use the extended driving times as a chance to catch up on texts and emails. It’ll mean more speed cameras but if you get flashed just do what I do. Rig up a magnetron from an old microwave to your car battery and fire it at the big yellow box to fog the film . . . even if it doesn’t work, this lump now growing on my head means I look nothing like the photo they’ll have of me at the DVLA.
You’ll be fined if you use your mobile while driving, even if you’re playing Mario Kart on your iPhone to practise your driving skills. Eighty drivers were sent police warnings after using mobiles to snap an accident on the M1 while driving. That’s wrong. Far better to pull over, then change into your US cop costume, sneak up to the wreckage and stride purposefully from the flames like a T-1000. There’s also to be a £90 fine for smoking at the wheel. They won’t get me; I’ve just had my giant briar pipe electroplated as there’s nothing in the rules about driving while playing the sax.
Recent research shows that one in eight drivers can’t see properly in the dark. There’s a simple solution – people with glasses should only be allowed to drive solar-powered cars. I sometimes drive when I’ve forgotten my glasses. It’s not dangerous, as I’d know if I were about to hit someone by the panic in the sat nav’s voice.
And speaking of dangerous driving, George Michael fell out of a car door on a busy motorway! Great to see him taking a break from singing to get back to what he does best. Poor George. He now has no choice but to do another world tour as it’s the only way he can fund his next insurance premium. The police investigating the accident were looking for an explanation, then they saw George and went, ‘Ah, right.’ He’s set to be the first person to be banned from travelling in the passenger seat of a car.
In much the same way as travellers favour a St Christopher, Middle Eastern truck bombers now clutch an effigy of George before driving at US embassies. I guess there was only so long George could look at the white line in the middle of the road whizzing past without wanting to hop out and attempt to snort it. There’s been a suggestion that George tried to commit suicide. I don’t believe it. After all, if he really wanted to hurt himself he’d have tried to park. It will be difficult to charge George with any kind of offence, as although he was caught on a speed camera going over the limit he has the unusual loophole defence that he wasn’t in a car at the time.
George’s car needed work after the incident, requiring a new honky-honky horn and a bit more custard in the radiator. He was rushed to hospital, regaining consciousness just long enough on his trolley to plough it into an A&E vending machine.
*Hopefully, you’re reading this on a Kindle or similar so it’ll seem a lot less hypocritical of me.
The Batman villain The Scarecrow produces a fear gas that gives his victims terrifying hallucinations. I was laughing with my kid the other day, saying that Batman got hit with the fear gas on an early mission and everything else is just the effects of the gas on him. The larger-than-life villains are just local teenagers being beaten to a pulp by this madman. He probably doesn’t even put his costume on. The Joker is just some children’s entertainer who gets regularly victimised during his flashbacks and The Penguin is a local pigeon.*
Really we’ve all had a blast of the fear gas. If you see a Muslim on a plane and think terrorist, that’s a delusion. People walk about thinking they’re going to be mugged or raped, and do you know why? They’re pumping us full of fear gas, man, and it gets into the house through your TV. That’s why in the Western world, in these times of plenty and no real threats, we’re governed by stress, the hormonal response to danger and famine.
Politics nowadays isn’t so different from the way things were during the time of the Roman conquests. After their military victories the Romans held parades called ‘Triumphs’, in which the leader of a conquered territory would be paraded through the streets of Rome, symbolising in his person his defeated people. Compare this to Saddam and Gaddafi, and their very public deaths. Why did the Romans conquer? To provide popular support for their leaders and benefit financially from other countries’ resources.
The Romans would enlist local leaders into their service by offering them money and patronage. It’s not so different from David Cameron’s relationship with our modern Romans. Oh, and the Romans aren’t the Americans by the way; they’re the corporations. The corporate interests that control the US thus control much of the world, like a modern empire. We’re just one of those tribes whose leaders have struck a deal, so we ignore the plight of the imperial slaves who make our phones and we ignore our own people when they starve on our streets.
And, of course, we think of the Romans as this civilising force because we’re a product of the Romans. They were barbaric brutes who crucified their enemies and got the popcorn out for prisoners being mauled by lions and bears. Similarly, we think of the corporate US as a democratising, civilising force because we grew up under its cultural occupation and have internalised its values.
There are the literal meanings of words and then there are the doctrinal meanings. The doctrinal meanings are what things are understood to mean within the system and are often different
