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Ground breaking
Sep. 14th, 2005 04:12 pmThere's nothing more guaranteed to bring out middle-England Thatcher-voting ex-council house man than the threat of his car running out of petrol. I'm sure that if Thatcher had introduced a constitution under which she became President for Life and Galtieri became consiglieri, then enshrined in that constitution would have been the obligation for petrol stations to stay open 24 hours a day, never to run out of petrol, and to give Ford Cortinas priority at all times.
Today was meant to be some kind of "mass action" around Britain's refineries. The English have a peculiar version of mass action. It consists of 20 policeman turning up to prevent a man with a dog, dressed as a clown (the man, not the dog), attempting to stop 32-ton trucks going in and out of the refineries, by using, presumably, the power of laughter. Just in case any of the drivers looked like collapsing with mirth, the police stood around looking menacing in order to return the situation to the deserved level of gravitas.
I was wondering why the truckers didn't adopt their old block-the-motorways and Trafalgar Square tactic, last seen in September 2000 and the last time that I have seen Blair and Brown looking seriously frightened. You can do what you like to Thatcherman's pension, but take away his chance to drive a car at will and you risk electoral slaughter.
Now I know why. Listening to the Radio 5 travel bulletins throughout the day, it was clear that the truckers don't need to block the highways and byways of Britain; they are quite capable of blocking themselves. The M2, the M20, the M25, the M61, the M5 and the M4 were all blocked either partically or completely at some time in the past 12 hours, owing to either roadworks, a lorry spilling its load, an accident, or, mysteriously in the case of the M20, "an incident". I have to assume that this was aliens landing, having recognized that any nation consisting of people willing to pay more than £60 to see a sporting event who then do their level best to convince the umpire that it is raining and that said event should be stopped, were clearly likely to be a pushover when it came to an invasion. Foolishly, they landed on the M20 and are only just now getting past the Bexley by-pass.
Meanwhile, Trafalgar Square has been shut since May, because Livingstone uses it every day to celebrate something or other. If it isn't winning the Olympics, or the Ashes, then it's an "England welcomes the prime minister of Rwanda/Albania/Mongolia" day.
Today was meant to be some kind of "mass action" around Britain's refineries. The English have a peculiar version of mass action. It consists of 20 policeman turning up to prevent a man with a dog, dressed as a clown (the man, not the dog), attempting to stop 32-ton trucks going in and out of the refineries, by using, presumably, the power of laughter. Just in case any of the drivers looked like collapsing with mirth, the police stood around looking menacing in order to return the situation to the deserved level of gravitas.
I was wondering why the truckers didn't adopt their old block-the-motorways and Trafalgar Square tactic, last seen in September 2000 and the last time that I have seen Blair and Brown looking seriously frightened. You can do what you like to Thatcherman's pension, but take away his chance to drive a car at will and you risk electoral slaughter.
Now I know why. Listening to the Radio 5 travel bulletins throughout the day, it was clear that the truckers don't need to block the highways and byways of Britain; they are quite capable of blocking themselves. The M2, the M20, the M25, the M61, the M5 and the M4 were all blocked either partically or completely at some time in the past 12 hours, owing to either roadworks, a lorry spilling its load, an accident, or, mysteriously in the case of the M20, "an incident". I have to assume that this was aliens landing, having recognized that any nation consisting of people willing to pay more than £60 to see a sporting event who then do their level best to convince the umpire that it is raining and that said event should be stopped, were clearly likely to be a pushover when it came to an invasion. Foolishly, they landed on the M20 and are only just now getting past the Bexley by-pass.
Meanwhile, Trafalgar Square has been shut since May, because Livingstone uses it every day to celebrate something or other. If it isn't winning the Olympics, or the Ashes, then it's an "England welcomes the prime minister of Rwanda/Albania/Mongolia" day.
