Saturday 2 June 2012

England's Dreaming


It’s Jubilee weekend.   I appreciate that most of you will know this, but there may be one or two people who have been dwelling in a bunker deep underground, living off tins of Spam and drinking their own piss. For the last six months. 

The supermarket preparations for this jubilee have made the Easter, Christmas and Halloween Overkillfest look as understated as Hitler’s claim that he hadn’t always strived for the best interests of European Jewry.   When I noticed the creeping red, white and blue seeping into the our stores, I made the decision that, as a civilised protest, I wasn’t going to buy anything with a Union Jack on it, or the word ‘Jubilee’ in the title*. 

Initially this didn’t have many serious repercussions, as most products came in both packing options: Monarchy Sycophantic or Republican Standard. However, the seep became an epidemic, and ultimately an invasion.  Where the Nazis failed, Asda succeeded – an explosion of banners and bunting celebrating the unending reign of  a German leader. 

I’ve had to change my shopping habits as, one by one, my usual weekly consumables succumbed to the three-coloured peril. Thank fuck for the World Food aisle.  Any Union Jackerry there would look like blatant war-mongering imperialism, so has remained taint-free. Admittedly, my diet now mainly consists of salt fish and halva, but I at least can enjoy my stomach pains from a moral high ground.

I’ve been accused of being a killjoy, a contrarian and unpatriotic over this. I’m as patriotic towards England as the next man. Or woman.** I’ve also been accused of having no respect for history or tradition, which, quite frankly, is bollocks. And I’m determined to prove this. So, I shall spend my Jubilee weekend showing my love of history and tradition by learning to play God Save the Queen on guitar. The Sex Pistols’ version.  With my amp turned up to eleven. 

Happy Anniversary your majesty, you vinegary old leech.  

*Which was a fucker during my Derek Jarman filmathon
** This is true. I’m in a room with two Kiwis, one of each gender

1 comment:

  1. I was gutted that my bi-annual Marmite purchase fell within these fervent Monarchfrotting weeks. I tried to put it off but had to concede to the increasingly frantic knife jaggling's failure to yield workable results. I now have to spend the next few months staring at a red lidded, Union Jack draped jar of "Ma'amite". (Their fucking 'joke' not mine.)

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