Select your leaders carefully
and shun the ones that dance
for when a boss just wants to strut
each day’s a wasted chance –
to make this world a finer place
you’d choose someone whose thoughts have grace.
GIF image: Tenor
inspiration: Safety from
Random Word Generator
he doesn’t swing a pocket-watch and sing
you’re feeeling veeeery sleeeeepy but instead
posts pics of perfect people, paradise
not found without his phony foodstuffs fed
or lost until we buy his products twice –
trance these days is where we dream the world
is what it seems, when what it really is
seems like a dream of what the world could be
except for dreams of what is really his
dressed up to seem like dreams of you and me.
image: Flickr
inspiration: hypnotised from https://randomwordgenerator.com
My local branch
of the primate tree
now say they have no
knowledge of me –
exchange, says
you, ain’t robbery!
image: YouTube
stimulus: Monkey from https://randomwordgenerator.com
It is my sacred duty, as your elected leader,
never to leave you all in the proverbial
dark but always
instead to keep you fully informed
regarding absolutely anything and
everything you need to know unless of course I
consider that – like rubberneckers at a car crash –
there is really nothing here for you to see.
image: Signs by Post
stimulus: Indirect from https://randomwordgenerator.com
Pending workable test, track and trace
Let’s party all over the place –
Use plenty soap,
Cross fingers and hope,
Keep Stay At Home signs just in case!
stimulus: PLUCK from https://randomwordgenerator.com
Wednesday
Concern is growing that this coming weekend could see rival groups battling over the bronze statues in Bafflesby Town Square, especially if the weather turns out nice again.
It is feared that the long-standing controversy about who gave our beloved borough its distinctive name may be about to boil over once more. The two candidates face one another, as always, from their respective stone plinths.
Local tradition has it that Bafflesby came from the ancient Briton Barfa, a tribal chieftain best remembered for his spirited but doomed attempt to block Roman road-construction programmes in the area. Ten centuries after his gory demise, when the invading Normans demanded taxes to fund their fancy castles and churches, the legend arose that King Barfa would return from a long sojourn upon the Isle of Aldilidl and rescue his people.
If he ever came back it was unreported and, if he did, it was to no avail. Forced to forget Anglo-Saxon – having long forgotten Latin – we had to learn French instead. But the power of Barfa’s legend persisted and to this very day every protest march on behalf of the unfairly disadvantaged starts at his statue and follows its stern gaze towards whatever wrongs are to be righted, whichever injustices and oppressions must be overthrown.
That gaze appears to rest upon the statue of Sir Basil FFlesby – occasional philanthropist, serial philanderer, gentleman philosopher – who many claim to be Bafflesby’s founding father and originator of its name. He it was who built the magnificent Fflesby Hall – the major visitor-attraction to our town – from the fortune he made ferrying slaves to the cotton and sugar plantations of the New World and carrying the products of their forced labours back to our home markets.
Sir Basil, known simply as Ba to his devoted family, somehow found time to write several books on political economy and also gave his name to Fflesbyism – an unshakeable belief in the innate superiority of the moneyed classes and their natural fitness to rule in perpetuity – a brutalist philosophy which has adherents to this very day, surprisingly many of whom have very little money at all. Fflesbyites who, in other words, could aim for a bigger slice of the cake if they could only bring themselves to be Barfans. But some traditions, it seems, fly in the face of common sense .
So, given that the urge to defend very little is disproportionally powerful, what does not surprise is that trouble can be expected on Bafflesby’s streets this weekend. Shop windows, freshly decked-out for their post-lockdown re-opening, have had to be boarded up. The town council has invested in several coachloads of private security officers who will form human barriers around both monuments to protect Bafflesby’s historic heritage, whatever that happens to be on the day.
We asked town mayor, Councillor Colin ‘Cully’ Culper, for his thoughts on the heightened tension in the town. ‘We are prepared for anything and everything,’ he said with a polished smile, pouring himself a very generous whisky. ‘Strictly by way of celebration,’ he added, downing it in one. ‘I’ve just been told they’ve got the very last strip of duck-tape in place! Same stuff you’re standing behind, as it happens.’
Looking down, we noticed the name Culper running across the carpet in all directions. ‘My brother’s firm makes it,’ said the mayor in reply to our unspoken question, ‘so I know it’s the best damn duck-tape bar none! We’ve used up a whole truck-full dividing the Square into two-metre, um, squares and expect the demonstrators to maintain social distance at all times. Two birds with one stone, you might say, a cheep way to keep both virus and violence at bay – if you’ll pardon the pun! And then, if anything does go wrong, those fake newspapers can’t say it was our fault. Well, they can but they won’t make it stick – unlike Culper duck-tape, if you’ll allow a cheeky advert. Press freedom, my arse! Present company excepted, of course, you guys are a beacon of truth in a fog of lies.’
Clearly delighted with his poetic turns of phrase, Mayor Culper poured himself another large drink and waved the decanter in our direction. A little intimidated by all the family duck-tape, we declined. Did he, by any chance, have a personal preference in the town-name controversy? He shook his head slowly.
‘Strictly neutral, of course, but between you and me they’re barfing up the wrong tree with that Barka chappie. Know what I mean, all that people about him being a man of the piffle? What I heard was old Barfa develops a taste for plundered prosecco and Roman slave-girls and ends up in a designer villa with natty hypocausts and naughty floor-tiles and the whirl’s first-ever worldpool bubble-bath. So much for da great rebel hero, yeah? Not exactly a martyr to victimhood, was he? No, you won’t find it on Widipekia, that’s local knowledge! Handed down by word of mouth, see? Do yourself a favour when the pubs open up again and get yourself down The Dancing Bear. Ask anyone in there, come closing-time, and they’ll tell you all about bloody Barfa!’
The mayor went on to deny he was a closet Fflesbyite, as some had suggested, dismissing such claims as the politics of envy. ‘And, anyway, I no longer need to make money,’ he added, ‘because nowadays my money makes money for me!’ Ethical investments, we wondered? ‘Now you’re talking political correctness,‘ he laughed, ‘so all I’ll say about my investments is that they’re certainly right for me!’
We wished him continued good luck for the weekend. ‘May the best man win,’ he grinned, ‘or woman! Wouldn’t want the equal-opportunity brigade breaching my social distance, now, would I? Oh, that reminds me, do you need any duck-tape?’
Thursday
An incredible sight greeted Bafflesby street-cleaner Hugh Broom (64) early yesterday morning when two bronze statues scheduled for bird-dropping removal in preparation for the large public gathering expected this weekend were not where he expected them to be. Instead, he found two empty plinths. ‘I gave them a bit of a tidy,’ he later commented, ‘but it wasn’t really the same, was it? You just do your job to the best of your ability, I suppose, come what may. On the plus side, it did give me a bit more time to clear all that loose duck-tape out of the drains so there won’t be another flood if it pisses it down. I think the weather forecast is quite good for Saturday but you never know in this country, do you? I mean, what kind of idiot buys duck-tape that doesn’t stick? Some faceless pen-pusher, no doubt, what gets off scot-free while the likes of you and me get it in the neck every bloody time! Writing this down, are you? That’s Hugh with a gee aitch …’
A police spokesman confirmed that they were making inquiries into the statue disappearances. It was also hoped that people would stay away from Bafflesby Town Square on Saturday morning as there will be very little, if anything, to see.
Friday
In what amounts to a worldwide scoop for this newspaper, we are delighted to report that we have tracked down the missing statues to the secluded garden of a Bafflesby home. Sensational news of their whereabouts came as a 71 year-old sculptor, Polly Tapping, walked into our office late yesterday afternoon and said she wanted to make a clean breast of her crimes.
Our first thought was that Polly had mistaken us for the police station but she soon made it clear she wanted a much wider audience. She preferred to talk in her back garden, she said, and was happy for us to make a recording. What follows is an unedited transcript of our conversation:
Tuesday
Business returned to Bafflesby yesterday as shops opened their doors to customers for the first time since lockdown. Mayor Culper was keen to take full credit for the queueing system in the Town Square, where the two-metre rule was enforced by a large quantity of duck-tape. ‘It just goes to show the value of getting ahead of the game,’ he commented, perhaps mindful of the widespread criticism that he tended to take action after an event and only jumped on a bandwagon when other people had pointed it out to him. ‘And tomorrow,’ he promised, ‘I am going to present Polly Tapping with the keys to the kingdom, as we call Bafflesby round here.’
This newspaper – unlike far too many others in these trying times – has a firm policy of seeking out good-news stories. We are therefore pleased to report an overwhelming consensus of opinion amongst Bafflesby residents that the huge influx of visitors to Baffle Bay over the weekend was a disgrace or an outrage or even, to several people we canvassed, a disgrace and an outrage. Such a measure of agreement has, alas, been rare in recent years and any cessation of local hostilities – however temporary – is surely to be welcomed.
It seems that most of these sun-worshippers were, as Bafflesby folk might put it, ‘not from round here’. Why else would they not have read and heeded our clear and unequivocal warning in last Wednesday’s edition, also published on the Come to Beautiful Bafflesby webpage?
Our usual warm welcome to Baffle Bay and its wonderful, world-famous seven-mile stretch of soft sands and rolling dunes with the elegant River Baffle gliding majestically past the historic walls and quaint quays of Old Bafflesby Town into that glorious estuary with its unforgettable views is on hold this weekend as some facilities will be closed.
For whatever reason, this message didn’t appear to get through. There they were, in their hundreds and even thousands, sweltering in the sunshine while contributing very little to the local economy. To find out why, we sent our roving reporter to the beach with his voice-recorder on a high setting to pick up sounds two metres away.
What follows is a faithful transcript of his recorded conversations:
As we said at the start, this newspaper is committed to publishing positive and uplifting stories in difficult times. One such story we hope to bring you in future weeks and months is that our esteemed national government, guided at all times – as it so frequently reminds us – by the science, will be in a position to enlighten ordinary citizens like those who were interviewed above as to the precise scientific principles and practices that have so successfully informed its every action.
The Bafflesby Bugle
image: BBC.com
