Airport Cupcake Scare

Security Agencies to Crack Down on Home Baking?

In the wake of a recent security scare in which a “woman” was caught red handed trying to bring two cupcakes aboard a plane at Las Vegas airport, security services the world over are now on the alert for attempts by “people” to smuggle bread crumbs, scones, vanilla essence, waffles and other bomb-making equipment aboard aircraft.

In further moves to crack down on what is emerging as a plot involving millions of terrorists to bring civilisation to its knees, thousands of websites publishing recipes for cakes and potentially deadly flans are being shut down.

Meanwhile, the alleged ringleader of the global, Al Cakeater, terrorist organisation has been moved to the top of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list.

Known only as “Mr Kipling,” he was believed until yesterday to have been a made-up character. But he is notorious  for making exceedingly good “cakes” and is now being sought in connection with the discovery of a number of “cake baking” factories in Barnsley and other locations in the UK that for a number  of years have been operating right under the noses of the British Security forces.

Ashen-faced Roger Stalin (13) MP for Gestapo in Yorkshire announced  that he has been fully briefed on the Confectionary Threat by his American colleagues in the Senate group, BOOR (Bumptious Officialdom and Overreaction). He  told this reporter that he is, “Ashen-faced at this latest horror emerging from the People’s Republic of America.”

He went on to say: “Things are even worse than we thought. We all knew that every one of us was under threat of being turned into cat food at any minute but the sheer scale and magnitude of the horror is only just coming to light. It is sobering to think that at any moment someone could walk onto a plane armed with self-raising flour and a small carton of whipped cream. These ingredients are lethal – all one has to do is add three kilos of nitroglycerine, bake in a slow oven for forty five minutes, then add a sprinkling of icing sugar and one has a lethal cocktail capable of blowing Neasden off the map!”

Accordingly, security forces across Britain have been moved to full BTA (Brown Trouser Alert), with the suspension of all civil liberties as an unavoidable measure for ensuring the continuation of our traditional freedoms (except baking). 

The alert will be downgraded to “Loose Bladder” once the immediate threat has been dealt with – probably some time in the twenty-third century.

Officials are also considering an all out ban on McVities HobNobs, with stiff sentences for those caught in possession. 

As Mr Stalin explained: “These devices can be lethal. A trained operative well schooled in the Ninja arts could easily take a pilot’s eye out with one skilfully flung piece of confectionery or wave one about in a threatening manner and thus hold an entire plane to ransom. We also know for a fact that several tons of HobNobs were recently shipped in cargo planes bound for Saudi Arabia and other destinations all over the Middle East. Who’s to say they won’t end up in terrorist training camps?”

We will keep you informed of developments as this new drama unfolds.

Meanwhile, the breaking news is that a similar scare took place at Heathrow this morning on a plane bound for Brussels and a man known as David Cameron and claiming to be a ”Prime Minister” was arrested.

In his briefcase were found plans and documents labelled “Economic Strategy” but which officials quickly recognised as a recipe for disaster.

Corporate Cartel Seeks Reliable Maniac – Part Two

Cartoon by the cartoonist Bob Stokes

Employment news

(click here for Part One)

The post-Stalin Soviet Union let everybody down by embarrassingly collapsing suddenly in the face of a puff of wind just after billions had been spent promoting it as a threat sufficient to place the entire planet on a permanent war footing.

Thus ended something of a Golden Era for MIC and its partner the World Debt Emporium, which had succeeded in persuading governments to run up vast debts so as to buy weaponry capable of wiping out the entire planet three times over, even when once would have been quite sufficient.

Since then, MIC has cast about for a new Ruthless Dictator to provide the key fear factor. Success in this regard has been mediocre at best and the new target of being able to wipe out the Earth five times over has consequently been placed in jeopardy, thanks to a succession of extremely disappointing performances from subsequent appointees.

Saddam Hussein, for instance, while he was quite good at murdering his own citizens, completely failed to amass armies on Europe’s borders. He neglected too to build missiles capable of reaching further than Iran despite all the funding and technical help given him by his employers. This in turn caused embarrassment for certain Western politicians who told everybody he had.

Hussein then went completely mad and invaded Kuwait without permission. This was something no-one could have foreseen a sadistic megalomaniac would do. Indeed, he had been dutifully slaughtering his own citizens and waging war on Iran in the normal way right up to the point where his behaviour became unacceptable. Consequently he had to be forcibly removed from his post. As any trainer of pit bulls will tell you, if it shows an inclination to slip its leash and turn on you, you have no choice but to put it down.

Osama Bin Laden proved very adept at killing and, with the help of media PR campaigns, terrifying people the world over on very scant resources but again he failed to convince people he had the capability of launching an invasion. While he managed to boost sales in ancillary industries such as surveillance equipment and enabled certain governments to curtail the rights of their citizens, he never provided a target that anyone could point lots of expensive missiles at. In the end, someone made the mistake of claiming that he had been killed and that finished him as a threat.

With Kadfahi in Libya also struggling to terrify the western world, MIC is now seeking someone who will do the job properly.

Various candidates are already being considered but the way is clear for any cheap politician who feels he can bring some creativity to the role to apply.

Candidates should have the following qualities

• must look swarthy
• must have own beard or moustache and/or look wooden
• must not speak English
• must be a dedicated psychopath – willingness to murder own citizens and thus render them “in need of protection” is essential.
• must be a supporter of psychiatry – a psychiatrist himself or under treatment from a psychiatrist. Experienced psychiatric experts will be provided to advise him on the drugging of his citizens or the use of Electro Convulsive Torture (ECT), brain washing and mind control
• must be dim
• must be dictatorial
• must be ruthless
• must have some previous experience of politics, with proven skills in the arts of back-stabbing, killing political opponents (or friends) and vote rigging an advantage.

Candidates do not have to be presently in power in their country as all necessary help will be provided to get them into power quickly once they are chosen for the Ruthless Dictator role

Possession of own weapons of mass destruction is also an advantage but not essential. High-interest loans to purchase these from MIC’s out-of-date stockpiles will be provided and can be repaid by taxes extracted from the successful candidate’s own citizens.

Equally an advantage but not essential, the candidate will have familial or commercial ties with western business interests or banking or be an asset of western intelligence services.

The job offers considerable perks for the right person, including a billion dollars in a Swiss bank account held in escrow until he has successfully completed his tenure.

Tenure is usually for ten years after which his employers will assist his smooth transition into retirement by faking his death, referring him to a plastic surgeon and relocating him to a luxury villa in South America.

All applicants should apply in writing to The Safe House, Dead Letter Box 9, [address deleted for security reasons]

[Click here for Part One of this Article]

Corporate Cartel Seeks Reliable Maniac – Part One

Employment news

The peace-loving corporate multi-national, MIC (Military Industrial Complex) is urgently seeking to fill a vital executive position that has unexpectedly become vacant.


MIC (motto: “Delivering the payload 24/7”) today announced that the successful appointee to this vital and varied role, which bears the title of Ruthless Dictator, will be responsible primarily for restoring morale to the MIC’s philanthropic arm, the NATO charity, mostly by giving it a reason to exist and/or blow some people up.


NATO is currently preoccupied with its benevolent work in Libya but there are rumblings of discontent among its major benefactors. Many of them feel that the threat posed by Libya has been disappointingly half-hearted and nowhere near scary enough. Unless Gaddhafi can get his act together and amass warlike hordes poised to invade Europe, or at least create the impression that he has, there is a danger that orders for MIC’s lovingly crafted state-of-the-art weapons of mass genocide will dry up.


MIC, famous for winning many awards from governments such as the coveted “Immunity from Prosecution,” “The Keys to the Exchequer,” and “The Queen’s Award for Economic Blackmail” today issued a brief statement through its spokesperson, Joe Satan (15), head of its Department of Warmongering.


The statement said, “The performance of recent appointees to the Ruthless Dictator position has not justified the trust placed in them. Therefore we are looking for a new broom, someone with a fresh approach. We must avert the catastrophic prospect of running out of bogeymen to frighten people with because that would cause a drastic decline in consumer demand for our products. If an epidemic of peace breaks out, jobs will be lost throughout the industry, thousands of shareholders will lose their Porsches and the economies of the United States and her Trans-Atlantic province,Great Britain, will be irreparably damaged.”


The plight facing the NATO charity is a case in point and exemplifies the problem with which the entire MIC conglomerate is struggling. An effective Ruthless Dictator (R.D.) competently fulfilling his (or her, as this is an equal opportunities position) duties is essential for the maintenance of healthy sales figures. Without an R.D. who is up to the task, what marketing experts refer to as MIC's Unique Selling Proposition, ("We blow people up for their own good") is compromised. The average tax payer then becomes uncooperative about his (or her) role in supplying MIC with money.


Then a mealy mouthed, pinko-liberal minority of no more than 80% of the population start making a big song and dance about killing people with whom they have no quarrel and have in fact never even met. The government can then be forced to spend tax payer's money dealing with a pandemic of reasoned arguments before it gets out of hand.


MIC may even be be forced to think up another Unique Selling Proposition but in that regard is right out of ideas as it tends to be notoriously difficult to think up good reasons for shifting stocks of WMDs before they're past their sell-by date.


Indeed, not only MIC is jeopardised by this fear shortfall. Fear of external threat, in so far as it keeps the public’s attention off what its own government is doing, has been the keystone of successful governments for thousands of years, while a good excuse to kill some foreigners and dismember their children has always been a vital component of international diplomacy. Without these familiar tools governments will not know what to do. They face the grim prospect of people wondering why they need them, of not being able to blame someone else or even being in a position of having to answer intelligent questions from their citizens and other enemies.


It is generally felt within MIC and its public relations offices in the White House, Downing Street, Brussels and so forth that the rot set in with the late and sorely missed Soviet Union.


Until the end of the highly profitable sales drive known as World War Two, the Ruthless Dictator position was filled by a number of highly qualified and very adept incumbents such as Messrs Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini.


After the phasing out of Hitler and Mussolini and the unfortunate death of Mr. Stalin, things have not quite been the same.


(Continued in Part Two)

Imperial Governor's Historic Address to the Nation - That Speech in Full, Part Five

Students of history will observe that over the millenia not much changes in the world of politics and the similarities between the modern era and the politics of Ancient Rome are quite startling. Indeed, even less has changed than you might think. This article was originally written shortly after the coming to power in Britain of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I have tweaked it a bit and broken it up into installments. Here is Part Five 

part one

part two

part three

 part four

CAMERONIUS CONSERVITUS ADDRESSES THE NATION 

Part Five

I come now to the vexing matter of the barbarian hordes pressing upon our borders or landing on our beaches by dead of night in small boats. Euphemistically referred to as “Itinerant Workers” or “Immigrants” or “Refugees,” these hordes from Eastern Europe then proceed to ravage the land by stealing our jobs, eating our pets and raiding the Treasury and making off with large piles of cash (“benefits”).


We already have enough trouble with indigenous tribes such as the Vandals, Yobs and Hoodies disturbing the peaceful order of the province (and by “peaceful order” I mean of course “mayhem”) and so we are taking steps to embrace these desperate people and find them a valuable place within the economy. As I pointed out earlier, any great civilization needs slaves and while we have been working hard through our traditional economic mismanagement to home-grow our own, there nevertheless remains a shortage and these new arrivals should cover the short-fall nicely.


This may mean some of you may have to sacrifice yourselves to the greater good by taking early retirement at fifteen or sixteen on account of the fact that people who demand wages can be replaced by people who don’t, but we are taking steps to ensure that those with five or six decades of time on their hands don’t get bored.


Thus we are stepping up army recruitment in preparation for the commencement of another war, whose manufacture and inception traditionally falls upon each new government. For those who don’t want to get shot at for a living or are uncomfortable with the idea of killing people with whom they have no quarrel, rest assured we will keep you entertained: the BBC (Britannia Broadcastus Crappus) is preparing new series of classics such as Neighbus, Eastendus and Up Yer Forum to keep you amused, or at least beyond caring.


And if that doesn’t quite hit the spot, remember the products of the Pharmacopeia are as ever at your disposal if you still need to dull the edges a bit.


Remember too that the DSM is also at your disposal, with the Hoaxacopeia’s new mail-order system making insanity even easier. Simply browse the DSM in the comfort of your own hovel, pick any disorder that appeals to you and a cure will arrive by return of post.


If you have trouble deciding – and let’s face it one is rather spoiled for choice – your local priest of the temple of Dementia will only be too happy remove from you the trouble of making a decision by picking a brain disease for you.


And in closing, a final word from me before I return to affairs of state: given all this good news and the Promised Land that is, as ever, just around the corner, it may come as a surprise to many of you - except perhaps the adherents of rebel factions such as the Majoritus Silens and Votem Apathia or followers of Conspiricus Theorus - that the Emperor could be displeased about anything.


Well, the word from the seat of Imperial power (which must remain hidden for security reasons) is that Caesar Nefarius Vexus is none too happy with the rumblings of discontent that emanate from these lands.


Despite everything that has been done for you: the drugs, increased leisure time, mental hygiene and.........er, drugs, you are still not happy. And if you are not happy the Emperor is not happy – unless you refrain from voicing your misery.


Well, perhaps you could make an effort by smiling occasionally.


And if you could also refrain from throwing dung at my chariot every time I drive through the Forum on my way to the Senate, that would be appreciated too.


Cameronius Conservitus
Imperial Governor

part one

part two

part three

 part four

Imperial Governor's Historic Address to the Nation- That Speech in Full, Part Four

Students of history will observe that over the millenia not much changes in the world of politics and the similarities between the modern era and the politics of Ancient Rome are quite startling. Indeed, even less has changed than you might think. This article was originally written shortly after the coming to power in Britain of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I have tweaked it a bit and broken it up into installments. Here is Part Four. 

 part one

 part two

 part three
part five

CAMERONIUS CONSERVITUS ADDRESSES THE NATION 

Part Four

Which brings me to another matter of concern: the heretical new creeds that are sweeping the province and stirring people up into refusing to drug their children and heaping sarcasm upon every utterance of the Media Hysteria. 

Such dangerous creeds as the Nutritium and Dianetix are everywhere and a tad too popular for the Emperor’s liking. They threaten to disrupt entirely the Imperial programs so favored by the Emperor and his Illuminati, some of which I have alluded to here and which collectively are known by the epithet “Slumbrus Acquiesens.” 

We can’t have people just running around destabilizing the status quo by irresponsibly tossing new ideas about willy-nilly, even if they do make sense - and especially ones that undermine the Pharmacopeia and Hoaxacopeia in their efforts to make money for the Temple of Dementia, of which the Emperor himself and his chums are, as you know – or at least suspected - the primary shareholders. I ask the people therefore not to listen to scientific arguments or believe everything they see with their own eyes, nor to rely on their own common sense or good judgment if they can possibly avoid it, for such behavior, being listed in the DSM under “Ipso Facto” (a tendency to base one’s conclusions on facts) will surely get them into trouble, if you get my drift………

The leaders of these new cults, such as the infamous Doous Afava and the annoying Sensibal Dietts will soon be brought to book and rebuked for their troublemaking ways, probably by being nailed to the tree that stands in the main square of the Forum. 

We have in this country as you know a fine tradition of free speech and that right should not be misconstrued by some venal twist of logic to imply freedom of action. People can speak all they like, provided they do so quietly and do not assume they have a right to do things, such as publishing books or addressing audiences.

While we are on that subject, let me lay to rest the unfairly accurate criticisms leveled by the aforementioned Sensibal Dietts at the Hoaxucopeia’s Chemicus Imbalens theory. The validity of said theory has been proven time and again by a string of advertisements in the Media Hysteria and, besides, it was developed by hours of research at the exalted Academy of Ludicrus Fibs which, being a very impressive building with lots of books in it, is not really to be questioned by anyone with an eye on his political career. 

Undeterred by the overwhelming weight of public relations in favour of the Chemicus Imbalens theory, Mr. Sensibal persists with his perpetual and vociferous carping and moaning and tiresome cries of “where’s the evidence?” 

Evidence, quite obviously, has nothing to do with it but Mr. Sensibal has insisted on pointing out, quite seditiously, that an examination of the brains of corpses during recent “studies” at his renegade Academy at Betta Thanpils, revealed that the brains of an inordinate number of residents of the Province are contaminated by high doses of poisons such as lead, mercury, cadmium, strontium and wine – not to mention drugs – and quite often glow in the dark. 

“It is hardly surprising,” he has stated, hysterically, “that people’s brains have chemical imbalances when we keep shoving dangerous chemicals into them that don’t belong there. And given that they have been poisoned, forced into slavery, taxed, fed an endless diet of bad news by the Media Hysteria and told they are bonkers by the Hoaxacopeia, it is hardly a source of wonder that they do not on occasion feel all that chirpy. This is no reason to poison them with even more chemicals, even when said poisons are addictive and guarantee the Pharmacopeia tons of repeat business.”

The Hoaxacopeia’s rebuke has been swift and decisive. A spokes-priest for the Temple of Dementia, Devius Bonkus said: “Sensibal Dietts’ Temple at Betta Thanpils is rubbish. He is not accredited by the Temple of Dementia and his eyes are too close together so if I were him I’d learn to shut up.”

He then went on to warn that traditional ritual of Smearem Discreditem, which tends to be quite effective in subduing populist troublemakers, particularly when the danger arises that people might start paying them some attention, is “coming Mr. Sensibal’s way in the very near future. Let’s hope he takes the hint.” 

Well, I think that lays Mr. Sensibal to rest once and for all. So let us move on briefly to the matter of education.

Plans to bring education, education, education to all the people of these islands are moving ahead quite smoothly. Once again, we have the cunning minds of the Temple of Dementiab(sub-temple of Dumandumma) to thank for new, innovative education methods with which we hope to keep illiteracy levels rising on a healthy trend.

This year we will be issuing certificates to every school child who can hold a pencil and get out of bed in time to attend the exam, attesting that they have “passed everything with an A,” which saves on the administrative costs of things such as marking exams and teaching and proves that we have been successful in issuing certificates. 

It also removes from children the unfair stress of having to achieve something and sets them up well for a life of slavery, drudgery, penury, soldiery and other worthwhile careers. The system is also proving successful in keeping young minds out of the dissident clutches of the peddlers of “information” and “facts,” such as Sensibal Dietts, by removing from them the ability to read either Sensibal Dietts’ publications or the works of other malcontents such as the warning labels on the products of the Pharmacopeia or the products of Poisonus Additivs and other food manufacturers.

 part one

 part two

 part three

part five

Imperial Governor's Historic Address to the Nation- That Speech in Full, Part Three

Students of history will observe that over the millenia not much changes in the world of politics and the similarities between the modern era and the politics of Ancient Rome are quite startling. Indeed, even less has changed than you might think. This article was originally written shortly after the coming to power in Britain of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I have tweaked it a bit and broken it up into installments. Here is Part Three. 

click here for part one

click here for part two
click here for part four

CAMERONIUS CONSERVITUS ADDRESSES THE NATION 

Part Three

Plans are afoot to consolidate these gains and to carry them to fruition. I will be relying heavily, as I have been instructed, upon some of the nation’s most influential agencies.

Among these are the aforementioned Pharmacopeia and its network of apothecaries and dispensaries (Britannia branch) under the aegis of general manager Oblivius Senslus, the renowned inventor of child doping. Mr. Senslus announced recently plans to triple the profits of the Temple of Pharmacopeia and extend its membership to include everybody in the province from birth. As you know the Pharmacopeia’s role in furthering the imperial idyll of a land basking in the golden silence and inactivity of the graveyard has been heroic.

The Pharmacopeia’s sister organization, the Hoaxacopeia, a branch of the Temple Psychobabbylon of the goddess Dementia, is also making similar, coordinated strides forward. Her high priest, Devius Lunatix, recently announced publication of a mighty tome which is designed to assist the Pharmacopeia in carrying forward its mission of “Euphorium et Oblivium,” while raking in the sesterce. 


The Tome is entitled the DSM, the Diagnostix et Statistix Mendacicon, and lists over three million “agues of the psyche” which can only be cured by giving the sufferer large amounts of the pills and potions churned out by the Pharmacopeia, the so-called Serius Sideffex I mentioned earlier. For this service the Pharmacopeia has promised the Hoaxacopeia a “juicy slice of the profits.” 

I’ve had a preview of this new holy book and it is something of an eye-opener I can tell you. It is written in terms so simple almost anyone can understand it, provided they have had twelve years of training at the Hoaxucopeia’s Academy of Ludicrus Fibs. 

It is very clear from a quick glance through the holy book that the land is in the grip of a plague that afflicts the brain (known as “Chemicus Imbalens”) and which has already infected almost everybody, for scarcely a person in the land (apart from the priests of the Temple of Dementia apparently) does not have the symptoms of one or more of the “agues” listed in the book. Such agues include:

• The Vapors,
• The Fevers,
• The Humors,
• Depressium (feeling of being fed up, suffered largely by followers of Televisium)
• Optimisum
• Possessium Demonix 
• Slavery Resistance Disorder
• Infantium Irritatum (behaving childishly – mostly suffered by children)
• Amphora
• Abacus
• Orgy Disorder (inability to enter into the spirit of things at public events such as orgies, crucifixions and stonings).
• Sandalium Nervosum (wearing sandals)
• Discus

Fortunately for all of us the Pharmacopeia just happened to be on hand with the full panoply of its Serius Sideffex. Talk about a stroke of luck!

Even more fortunately, the priests of the Temple of Dementia have been working on more cutting-edge research and have developed a branch of necromancy known as Bunkum, whereby the future mental health of children can be accurately divined by examining the brains of dead monkeys. With this new technology they have been able to accurately predict that all children will need to be sedated by the age of four (Docilis Infantium) and the esteemed Devius Lunatix has informed me that copius funds will have to be forthcoming from the Treasury so as to ensure mandatory treatment is available to them for life (Medicatium ad Delirium).

There are those who allege however that there is neither proof nor science behind any of the agues in the DSM, that Devius Lunatix and his henchmen made them up so as to persuade the masses to go “peacefully and without protest into the malleable state of Oblivium.” 

To denounce this allegation, I can truthfully say that I asked the priests and mages of Dementia about it and they have all promised me, hand on heart, their publication is most definitely based on truth and science and that they will let me have their research notes just as soon as they de-kludge the office and find them.

Well, that’s good enough for me. I am but a layman in matters of the psyche after all and must trust the wise heads the emperor has ordered me to trust. Funds will therefore be made available for the mental hygiene of the province.

The program is already underway and producing miraculous improvements in the mental health of the Britons, according to the provincial agency Disingenuus Statistix and as attested by a dramatic increase in the number of people taking their medication and a decline in the consumption of cheaper but less addictive, illegal drugs.


click here for part four

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The Imperial Governor's Historic Address to the Nation - That Speech in Full (Part Two)

Students of history will observe that over the millenia not much changes in the world of politics and the similarities between the modern era and the politics of Ancient Rome are quite startling. Indeed, even less has changed than you might think. This article was originally written shortly after the coming to power in Britain of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I have tweaked it a bit and broken it up into installments. Here is Part Two. 

Back to Part One 
Forward to Part Three

CAMERONIUS CONSERVITUS ADDRESSES THE NATION 

PART TWO

As you know, a great deal of heroic mendacity and manipulation, not to mention drugging, went into re-establishing the Empire along with a great deal of human sacrifice, which I am sure the sacrificees would have been only too pleased to make, had they been given a choice.


It has been pointed out to me that, unfortunately, empires - or indeed human sacrifice - are difficult if not impossible gigs to pull off if you hang around waiting for permission because there is always the danger that you won’t get it. 


While the willing self sacrifice of large numbers of human beings would be convenient, one would be naïve indeed to expect it from what is, let’s face it, a rabble motivated largely by self-interest. We must reluctantly accept the fact that the contribution of the majority of human beings to the great schemes dreamed up by the brilliant minds of the Hiddum Agendum must of necessity be limited to the role of victim. 

Those blessed by the gods must be left alone, after all, to execute unhindered by the anguished squeals of the riffraff and hoipolloi, the tasks the gods have set them, which mainly involve the Reductio ad Subjugatum of those not blessed by the gods, whose sorry and inferior ranks include, as it so happens, almost everybody. For that reason Soporifix, the god of mass anesthesia, gave us the twin blessings of the Televisium and the Media Subserviens.

Great success has therefore been achieved in thrusting the Pax Neworldorderus on the plebs of all nations and those who have survived can now enjoy the stability and prosperity which that Pax guarantees, with artificial limbs and antidepressants for all – except, of course, those who are still being shot at, those who are afraid of being shot at, those being shot at by people being shot at or people afraid they might be shot at, the dead, the poor, the plebs, the middle classes and the millions of slaves that are necessary for the existence of any great, enlightened civilization. 

This culmination of decades of coordinated hard work by Imperial Agencies such as the Drugus Addictus, the Media Hysteria, the Dubius Economix and the high priests of the Emperor’s beloved Temple of Psychobabbylon, has established an Empire every bit as worthy as Caligula’s Rome, except with drugs.

Click here for Part Three


Back to Part One 

The Imperial Governor's Historic Address to the Nation - That Speech in Full (Part One)

Students of history will observe that over the millenia not much changes in the world of politics and the similarities between the modern era and the politics of Ancient Rome are quite startling. Indeed, even less has changed than you might think. This article was originally written shortly after the coming to power in Britain of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I have tweaked it a bit and broken it up into installments. Here is Part One:

CAMERONIUS CONSERVITUS ADDRESSES THE NATION

PART ONE

Ave Britons!


As you know, I have been chosen by His Majesty the Emperor for elevation to the high office of Imperial Governor or, as we refer to it in Britain, Prime Minister. My appointment has been duly ratified by the ritual of the Dupem Electus and I and my cohorts of the Coalitium Desperandum have accordingly taken over the reins of power of this troubled Province.


This my inaugural address to the multifarious tribes clinging precariously to life in these adeptly impoverished islands, the traditional Platitudinus Bollux, so let me first pay tribute to my out-going predecessor, Gordonicus Laborius, popularly known as Gordonicus the Terrible, who so recently fell - or was pushed - onto his sword.


Gordonicus brought to the task of provincial management the wonderful gift of dourness so in keeping with the mood of the times and oversaw for many years a smooth transfer of the province's wealth into the Imperial coffers. The transfer was presented in such a masterly way that Britons the length and breadth of the land were convinced the whole time that someone was managing affairs on their behalf and submitted to the pillage of their islands with such acquiescence not a drop of their blood was shed - except abroad, which doesn't count.


Gordonicus, I am told, will be working in retirement upon the traditional Scratchus Backus in which the merchant elite and money lenders award most lavishly the outgoing Governor for services rendered during what was, from their perspective, a most successful tenure. He will also be publishing his memoirs, provisionally entitled "I Was Really a Great Statesman" or "It Was All Somebody Else's Fault." A preview of the manuscript suggests that Gordonicus has some scathing things to say about his predecessor,  Anthonius Lytoous, whom he blames for just about everything in the time-honoured way.

It seems appropriate at this juncture to address you, the plebian masses, directly now that I am a few weeks into my tenure and things are trundling along as smoothly as a loose chariot on a sharp incline and before the high hopes that attended my assumption of the governorship have completed their traditional evaporation.

The first thing I should point out – and let me be very clear about this – is that when I used the term “reins of power”, I was of course speaking symbolically.

I have discovered that my high office does not actually wield power as such, except the power to follow the dictates and edicts of his majesty Caesar Nefarius Vexus and the Illuminati of his imperial council, the Hiddum Agendum.

Truth be told, I did not know until I succeeded to office that there was an emperor or a Hiddum Agendum. Honest, I didn't!

I look back with some nostalgia upon the halcyon days I spent in the Oppositium. My responsibilities were joyously confined to heaping scorn upon the hapless Gordonicus, looking smug on the steps of the Senate and dreaming up policies that sounded different to the ones that already had the slave-galley of state holed below the water line and sinking fast. Ah! Ignorance has in truth a lot going for it and can at times be truly blissful as many of you are no doubt aware  - although I’m not sure how I managed to miss the blindingly obvious.

Almost everybody else in the country except yours truly had already sussed out that we now enjoy a Constitutional Democracy: trappings and quaint rituals kept alive for the tourists, the sole surviving function of which is to ratify and enact the edicts of the Emperor.

This knowledge has been let loose upon the land and delivered into the hands of sixty-four million people who have no right to it - and many of whom did not want it -  thanks to the irresponsible agitations of the renegade faction, Conspiricus Theorus. All this has plunged the slaves, artisans, plebs and small merchants of the land into sullen resentment and has the activists among them hurling abuse at the Televisium or resorting to public blogging. 

But why on earth did no-one think to mention it to me? Imagine my disappointment upon striding victoriously through the doors of the governor's mansion, Numerus Decem, thinking I was going to be in charge of something, to be told that my job was to follow orders!  I can imagine that the ousted Gordonicus is having a quiet chuckle at my expense now that I am well and truly lumbered.

But such is life. I couldn’t be expected to know everything and there was scant time in my busy schedule to acquire an understanding of economics, the real world in which we live or indeed the people in it. Besides we have hundreds of years of history to attest to the fact that these are not necessary skills for the leaders of nations.

Be all that as it may, now that the Emperor has made Himself known to me and the realities of life have been impressed upon me in no uncertain terms, I have had to make some minor adjustments to the plans I and my co-Governor, Nickus Cleggus, made when we thought we would be in actual control of a sovereign nation.

The main, very tiny, adjustment in our thinking has been to switch from making decisions and trying to run things to not making any decisions or actually doing anything unless instructed by the Emperor or his primary agencies such as the World Debt Emporium or the Complex Militaria Industria.

Fortunately, many of our policies, known as the “Adjustmens Cosmetix,” were pretty much more of the same policies already used by Gordonicus and his predecessors: political and economic measures that had proven so successful in the bloodless subjugation of Britannia, her giving up the will to live and her consequent incorporation into the Empire.
 

As such, these policies already bore the imperial stamp of approval and His Majesty quite likes people to come up with creative ideas as to how to dress up the verbiage surrounding, or indeed concealing, them. It is quite an art to make the same fundamental policies to look and sound different yet again but apparently I managed it. This was why I was chosen to get elected: the Emperor wants regional administrators who are able to soak up the wrath of the natives on his behalf and at least look as if they are to blame. Apparently I have that look about me.

So very little had to change then, beyond our dropping any big ideas we may have had about our station in the great scheme of things and once we did that, we managed to slot haplessly but nevertheless disappointedly into the smooth-turning cogs and grinding stones of the Imperial mill.

Our huge, sweeping vision that so fired the public imagination and set a majestic new horizon before the nation, to “balance the books by cutting all non-essential services such as hospitals, schools and the police and driving the citizenry of this great nation into penury,” had to go – well, at least the “balancing the books” bit, which we have been informed is actually impossible. The rest of our Great Vision remains inviolate.  We shall therefore press ahead obliviously with sweeping reforms that, like all the best reforms, will avoid bringing actual change into the equation, except of course where we are able to make things worse. 

We are confident therefore that we can reverse the failures of Gordonicus whose tenure saw the province plunge to fifteenth most powerful in the Empire. We fully intend to see Britannia sweep to sixteenth or seventeenth position, although ultimately the fortunes of any province depend pretty much on whom the Emperor happens to like at the time – if anybody.

Be all that as it may, it falls to me now to address you as your Governor and to brief you on all the great strides forward that have been made by the Empire to which you find yourselves subjugated and my immediate plans for this Province.

There is much positive news to convey to you, news which, while it may not give you cause for celebration, will at least convince you to keep your heads down and refrain from rocking the boat.

The Guild of Usurers and their global network of Debt Emporia have continued to prosper beyond all the dreams of avarice, while the agents of Onerus Incumtax, the Imperial Proconsul for Threats and Extortions, have come up with increasingly ingenious ways to crowbar from the plebian purse money the aforementioned plebs would otherwise have frittered away on food and clothing.

The apothecaries of the Pharmacopeia, from whose ubiquitous dispensaries flood forth magic pills and potions, known in the popular parlance as Serius Sideffex, have flung open their doors to the nation’s children and thus prosper beyond all imagining. Or at least they would, did not those very pills and potions remove from their beneficiaries the onerous capacity for imagination.

It is a similar success story for the manufacturers of fortifications, tridents, claymores, slave collars and gravestones, all of who report soaring profits.

Which brings us to our peacekeeping operations: Britannia’s auxiliaries continue to brave friendly fire in their selfless and indeed often pointless sacrifice in support of the legions of the Complex Militaria Industria, which campaigns tirelessly against the barbarian hordes who under their leader Holdus Toransum threaten at any moment to sweep down upon the Empire and force upon us the ignominy of not invading anybody. That support, I might add, puts to shame that forthcoming from other provinces such as Gaul and Germania, which seem quite unable to enter into the spirit of the thing. 

Detractors may argue that our peacekeeping efforts have resulted in prolonged and incessant warfare but that surely is a small price to pay for true peace, by which we mean of course giving the populace something to think about other than stringing up their lords and masters, who can then go about their business of amassing wealth, feasts, orgies and bacchanalia in peace.

Besides, the peaceful sandal maker of today could easily become the blood crazed terrorist of tomorrow unless we take firm steps to prevent it – preferably before the idea has even entered his head.........

Click Here for Part Two of this historic address