Griffin? Save us!

Something unusual happened on the funbus yesterday. We got to talking about politics.

I’m quite a political animal but I’ve always shied away from writing about it on the blog for two important reasons. The first one is that you can’t win – the English readers will know all this stuff already and anyone from further afield won’t have a clue what’s going on.

The second one, more crucially, is that politics is just plain boring to practically everyone. I love it but I’m very conscious that it has nothing to do with real lives and is just a soap opera for highbrow types who would sooner die than watch an actual soap opera (actually it’s more like a pantomime lately but let’s gloss over that). I have heard vicious rumours that there’s more to politics than that, but I don’t believe them. Allegedly it also has something to do with who runs the country, how much tax we should pay, what that money gets spent on and whether you want a big state or a small state and whether decisions about people's lives should be made at a local or centralised zzzzz…

WAKE UP! See what I mean? Nobody cares.

But anyway, Mikey, Cornish Rob and I ended up discussing politics despite all that and the reason was that Nick Griffin was hit by an egg yesterday lobbed by protestors. Here he is, as it happened.

For those who don’t know, Nick Griffin is a fat shifty looking bigot who spews his reactionary views to anyone who will listen while alienating everyone he comes into contact with.

Oh no, hold on, that’s Peter Griffin isn’t it?

Nick Griffin on the other hand is a fat shifty looking etc. etc. who also happens to be the leader of the British National Party, a far right extremist political organisation that believes in legalised hunting of black people, deporting Polish people to Siberia, making Jim Davidson the Lord Chancellor and playing the national anthem six thousand times a day in between televised executions of socialists, satirists and sex offenders. And in case any members of the BNP are reading this and feel a bit litigious – only kidding fellas!

Still, I wonder if he and Peter Griffin are related?

We had an election last Thursday and because a certain proportion of the voters in the UK are a bunch of ignorant racists, a certain proportion of our members of the European Parliament belong to a political party which is ignorant and racist. This has led to lots of hand wringing about how we have to have a political system which ensures that people whose political views we don’t approve of aren’t represented. Which is of course is we got into this mess in the first place, but never mind niceties like that because something really must be done.

And the best way to defeat racist and ignorant ideas is clearly to pretend they don’t exist while simultaneously saying we really must have a debate with these people. So the BNP tend to be well and truly kept away from the broadcast media. Mikey was (very sensibly if you ask me) saying that this was a crazy approach and we all agreed that the more coverage was given to his offensive views the more the public would turn away from them. And that idea, combined with the image of Nick Griffin wearing a broken egg, is when I had my brainwave.

They should have Nick Griffin on the new series of Celebrity Masterchef.

A TV show where a bunch of Z list celebs try to prove they have rudimentary culinary ability by cooking a dish from random ingredients before being sent scuttling off to a professional kitchen is the perfect vehicle to introduce the British National Party to the mainstream. Just think of the hilarious consequences (by which I of course mean “opportunities for political enlightenment”) that would ensue.

Here are some things I think he’d be likely to say:

- “So, I’m going to break the eggs and segregate the yolks. Sorry, I mean separate. They must be kept separate at all times. I SEE RIVERS OF YOLK.”
- “My roulade is going to be made with this Swiss chocolate. Not dark, no! Never dark! White. IT HAS TO BE WHITE.”
- “I fully endorse the campaign against food miles. All my ingredients are British. BRITISH INGREDIENTS FOR BRITISH MEALS FOR BRITISH WORKERS.”

Here are some things I can’t imagine him saying in a million years:

- “So, take all your ingredients and mix them together really well until you have a cohesive whole.”
- “Tonight I’m going to be cooking my personal favourite, Polish food. Many’s the night that Mrs Griffin munches a steaming kielbasa at the dining table.”
- “And now time to use my favourite culinary implement – the melting pot.”

I also have good news and bad news. The good news is that Donald Pleasence, our favourite funbus driver is still alive and hasn’t been sacked. We haven’t caught sight of his smiling face and gleaming dome for over three weeks and, inconceivably, we’re all missing him.

“You should ask ‘have a nice Dave’ what’s going on.” said Mikey as we prepared to alight this evening.

“No, he’ll think I’m a berk” I said, “You do it. He likes you more than he likes me.”

“All right. I bet he’s been sacked or gone back to South Africa.”

“I reckon he’s been moved onto another route because they’ve had complaints.”

So Mikey asked ‘have a nice Dave’ and between “ta da”s he told us that Donald had been on holiday and returned to work on Monday. And we all discovered something new – that we were all a bit relieved that we hadn’t seen the last of him. We also learned something else, which is that ‘have a nice Dave’ calls Donald Pleasence “Mouth”. How many nicknames can one man have? And I bet all he really wants is to be called “Boss” or “big man”.

The bad news is that I was hoping to do something a bit special to celebrate my 100th blog post. I know it might seem premature but it will be upon me before you know it. So I contacted my friend who is the subject of the “Vaseline story” (henceforth to be known as “Project Vaseline”) and asked them ever so nicely whether they’d consent to me finally sharing their beautiful experience with the world to mark the special occasion.

I’m afraid it didn’t go well and the answer, again, was no. I tried to find out what the problem was, since nobody would know who it was about unless they already knew the story. The reply came back and as I read it I could feel the temperature in the room drop by five degrees “If you don’t understand without me explaining it to you I don’t think an explanation will help you comprehend why.” It was like being told off by my mum all over again.

So there go the centenary celebrations. Any idea what I can do instead?

Anyway, that’s all for now. Tune in next time when I will be telling the story of my career as an accidental nudist.

P.S. Thanks to the excellent recent blog post by the Jules I’ve come up with a band name for Mikey – The Topless Ninjas. And the ungrateful bastard doesn’t like it!

P.P.S. Still no word from my Croatian stalker. Bunch of arse.