ISSUE NO 2 FEBRUARY 2006
THE JOWELL IN THE BROWN
The old adage declares that, if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. The Jowell evidently ignored this wisdom of
the ages and 350.000 carefree £££s started to drift artfully round the global money markets, colliding eventually with her domestic mortgage arrangements without her really knowing or understanding anything about this in her busy, busy life. Yes, we all know how easy it is to sign up for a mortgage, especially when the sum of money involved is such a trifle and, in between the ministerial boxes, the washing up and especially, it seems, the laundry, it is almost inevitable that an oversight will occur. Luckily Tessa had a supportive husband who could help her in her confusion, especially, apparently, with the laundry. He is obviously a very nice man, much appreciated by others, who take a lot of trouble with the wrapping when they want to give him a gift. It is so distressing and even tragic that this very nice man should have to suffer the indignity of being Jowell-jettisoned at a strategic moment. Where will he go now? Dubai? Doubtful! Some villa in Italy? He really did deserve a better and more financially secure future like the rest of us.
GOD HELP US
The appearance of our leader on the Parkinson horror show appears to have generated some controversy; for some it is the long awaited objective confirmation that he has finally lost all his marbles; for others, it represents a demonic attempt to hijack God to the Iraq war and even to suggest that God was the true agent of the initiative; yet others feel that the sight of the leader on a chat-show diminishes his personal stature and brings into disrepute the very office of the Prime Minister. Blair's ventures into the demotic are not without their interest: our old friend Ynot, who is to return from Tora Bora shortly, would certainly have disapproved. Leadership for Ynot has to be remote and distant from the ever muddled multitude, fickle, capricious and subject to vulgar instincts. He would certainly not have approved of bringing religion from the private to the public sphere or of invoking a Christian God in this sensitive age of multiculturalism and polytheism. Yet Blair is a Christian and so we can expect him to pray to his God and God, for all we know, might, in Blair's own view, answer him. The Almighty after all is not such a bad source of advice: being everywhere always, omniscient and omnipotent, He must be a front-line service for those who know how to communicate with Him. But as it is for Abraham deliberating about the sacrifice of Isaac, communications from God is uncertain and human agency thus reasserts itself as the true source of our decisions and actions.
THE TWHATAADSA
It seems that some readers were over-excited by my reference to this new genus (pronounced twatadza) and could not find the weed in their horticultural reference books. They should not worry. It seems likely that the weed will continue to grow and indeed flourish in the troubled waters of our times, where the word and the deed are unwed and the sofa and the bed sickly over the native hue of resolution.
NEW HOPE FOR INSOMNIACS
If I could make a private confession: I used to suffer from insomnia, like some readers of On Target, even though my most passionate relationship is with the unconscious state which I am always reluctant to leave. In my youth I used to read Hegel to cure the problem. Although I have the greatest admiration for this brilliant dialectical wizard, his orchestrations of History would rock me to sleep in no time. But now a new product is on the market and guarantees the deepest sleep for the most angst-pickled of subjectivities.It is called Jack Straw's Oratorical Medicine, Som for short. Som makes Horlicks seem like a stimulant. It is available in two strengths, short and long. It should be handled with extreme caution and it is dangerous to exceed the stated dose or use for too long a period. Counter-indications from prolonged exposure include abulia (chronic loss of will power), accidie (loss of will to live) and homicidal and self-immolatory yearnings of abnormal intensity. Used prudently, som will cure insomnia. For even faster relief, try looking at his picture.