Pithy retorts out of stiff upper lips
As if it is not hard enough keeping up with current affairs in our own country, sometimes along comes an international event or five for which one has to stretch the brain matter to understand an entirely new and unfamiliar concept.
First, we had to come around to the term Brexit, and now Old Blighty’s political system has thrown the word ‘‘prorogation’’ in our poor dear faces.
So, Britain’s newly unelectedby-public-vote Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has decided to go proroguing their parliament. And so to Google I went for clarity.
While a complex situation, at least the word has a relatively simple explanation – a suspension of parliament. In this case, Johnson will suspend parliament until two weeks before the October 31 Brexit deadline in order to block a no-deal Brexit, leaving opposition MPs without a voice.
While crowds have taken to the
streets in protest, some have taken to social media to express their feelings. And you have to hand it to the Brits for their command of the language for converting this situation into some of the classiest insults that side of the equator.
One person tweeted: ‘‘the United Kingdom, the original Eton mess’’.
Comedy writer James Felton explained the process like this: ‘‘The past few years has been like watching drugged-up monkeys fighting for control of a clown car that is on fire, today [the day Johnson announced his prorogation plan] was like watching one of the more aggressive monkeys take the wheel, snort another line of cocaine, announce he has just figured out the child locks and floor it.’’ Chaos in the circus indeed.
In times of great turmoil, you can always trust an Englishman to pour himself a good stiff cup of tea before raging. Actor Hugh Grant, normally seen as a mild-mannered fop, tweeted: ‘‘You will not f... with my children’s future. You will not destroy the freedoms my grandfather fought two world wars to defend. F... off you overpromoted rubber bath toy. Britain is revolted by you and your little gang of m ........... prefects.’’
I mean, a week ago, if you had told me to think of which person on the globe reminded me of an ‘‘overpromoted rubber bath toy’’, I wouldn’t have been able to think of anyone. But now that it has been said, Johnson seems the perfect candidate and I shall never think of anyone else next time I see a yellow duck floating between the bubbles.
Obviously, on Twitter, no-one gets away with having a strong opinion, so there were those who supported Grant by saying: ‘‘Hugh Grant! I am experiencing love, actually!’’. Detractors who criticised him were called ‘‘balloonfaced gammons’’.
One woman could not believe she was living in a time where she relaxed by watching TV shows such as Chernobyl, The Handmaid’s Tale and documentaries about serial killers.
I would hazard to say that at this moment in time, the two most reviled and polarising figures in Western democratic nations are Johnson and United States President Donald Trump. They are awful and creating so much disruption to people’s lives that I feel relief when people insult them in comedic fashion.
A couple of years ago, I rounded up some of the best I had seen for Trump, including that he was ‘‘an ambitious corn dog that escaped from the concession stand at a rural Alabama fairground, stole an unattended wig, hopped a freight train to Atlantic City and never looked back’’.
And more briefly, ‘‘a haunted bidet’’, ‘‘a parking cone with emotional issues’’, ‘‘a mangled apricot’’ and a ‘‘malignant corn chip’’.
So while the two leaders in illfitting suits continue to compliment one another on how magnificent they are, I can only compliment the activists and people who can keep me smiling with their creativity. Your protest placards and words help us through grim times.