Keep Calm and Wank On

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Time stood still as the process to anoint its new lord began. Gunfire informed all the commoners that they now had a new master. Celebrations broke out all over the kingdom and the various realms of the commonwealth. The peasants broke into spontaneous cheer while the royals allowed a hint of a smile to appear on their face. The animal kingdom too was awash with the news of their new protector. The fauna all over the land turned green with delight. The sun, the moon and every other celestial body bowed to their future ruler. A new heir, succeeding a long line of outstanding luminaries, would take his rightful place as the chosen one, leading his people to new heights.  But enough about the appointment of the new Doctor Who!

Speaking of appointment by royal decree, whenever a vacant position in Britain is not filled by shadow chancellor Ed Balls, her majesty the queen personally chokes the life out of a corgi. If there really was a god, Ed would be elected the next Prime Minister of Britain. I’m no economist – even though I once ruined a party by constantly talking about the law of diminishing averages – but even I’m pretty sure that the only thing that will save Britain’s economy is making Ed Balls the Prime Minister. Just think of the tourism revenues! Also, he’d be able to get favourable agreements from leaders of foreign countries because they’d want something to quench their guilt after they impolitely laughed while addressing him. (Hey, you try saying “Welcome Mr. Balls” or “Presenting His Excellency, Prime Minister Balls” with a straight face.) Plus, he’s a bloke’s bloke! You can’t get more bloke-y than having “Balls” as your last name. That’s like a magician called “Cast A Spell” or a terrible cricket player called “Albert Hit Wicket.”  

Speaking of Prime Ministers, what’s up with Britain’s ‘Tony Blair 2.0,’ David Cameron? He continues to burnish his reputation as a wanker without a stiffy by threatening to pass a law banning all pornography on the internet. Just like national security is used as a backdoor to spying on all citizens, Cameron is using his crusade against child pornography to ban all sorts of pornography. That should end well! I didn’t even know Cameron was a graduate of ‘The Kapil Sibal International Institute of Thought Control.’ Apparently, he passed out with five eyebrows, their highest honour. Good luck in keeping horny teenagers (and hornier adults) away from pornography, Speaking from experience, if vigilant parents who know how to use a computer, slow dial-up connections which took an hour to download a single jpeg and password protected pornography sites couldn’t keep them away, then your silly law isn’t going to be able to do that either. Also, if you ban pornography then how will all of her majesty’s subjects look at pictures of Prince Harry? It seems like the only reason David Cameron is so intent on banning pornography is because he doesn’t want people to look at pictures of his face and figure out that he’s a huge asshole. 

Speaking of not letting people in through the backdoor, Cameron’s government also introduced a law – that goes into effect in November – which allows British Embassies in developing countries to ask people planning to enter Britain to deposit a small fortune with them as ‘security.’ Because if there is one thing Britain is good at, it’s returning things to their rightful owner. Hey David, if all those laws that penalise people for ‘flying while brown’ couldn’t keep us out, if being treated like sub-human entities by our own national airlines couldn’t keep us out, if being duped by hundreds of people pretending to get us a legitimate visa couldn’t keep us out, then your silly little law wouldn’t be able to do that either. Also, you started it. If your ancestors hadn’t come to our shores and seduced us with their gunpowder and fancy words for going to the loo, we wouldn’t have to come to your shores and participate in the secret operation to turn Trafalgar Square into an extension of Karol Bagh. The only thing that can keep us out is if your economy turns into shite. Which, to be fair, is something you personally seem determined to achieve.

Speaking of racist people with repressed sexual urges, the good folks at the economist – Britain’s #1 source of empire nostalgia – recently discovered another problem with immigrants. Apparently, Indian billionaires are participating in ‘reverse colonialism’ by buying up all the expensive real estate in Mayfair while spending all their dirty money at Harrods. Yes, because that is what colonialism was all about! Shopping! Not decimating the local population’s indigenous industry and stealing all their natural resources while selling them your overpriced junk. Nope! Neither was destroying their identity and making them feel like second class citizens in their own home. That was just some wild rumour spread by some ungrateful natives! Aren’t you glad we got all that cleared up now?

Speaking of being a presumptuous douchebag, one shouldn’t generalize a whole country based on the crimes of a few. Unless of course, one is talking about immigrants from Bangladesh. Those people come here, take our low-paying jobs, vote in our elections and overcrowd our fledging social services.

If only there was some way we could penalize them for overstaying their welcome.

The cherished myth of the Noble Dictator

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

Ever since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, almost every subsequent election in other parts of the world has had a candidate promising ‘change.’ Like in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, LK Advani tried to be that candidate. Because nothing says change like an octogenarian politician who has spent the last four decades as a member of parliament and has been a prominent member of three governments.

Then it was Nick Clegg, who after a good performance at a debate was hailed as the UK’s version of Obama. Even though Clegg has the wit of a bottle of home-made disinfectant and the charm of a stale box of Pringles. Nobody in England even wants to have a drink with him as constantly hearing about how mass-marketed alcohol beverages are causing malnutrition in Somalia is a real bugger. And all a bloke wants to do after a hard day's work is sit in a pub, make some jokes about how the fat chick flirting with the bartender looks like Wayne Rooney and watch some bleeding rugger on the telly, so shut your pie hole and pass the crisps, Nick. Even insane asylum escapee and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinajad wasn’t impervious to borrowing cheap marketing slogans from the leader of the great Satan. Thanks a lot for ruining all elections, Barry. 

As in everything else it does the Indian media’s Obama obsession borders on the creepy. What they don’t realize is that if Obama was born in India (maybe he is? All irrefutable evidence may point to his being born in Hawaii, but who am I going to believe? My lying eyes or a racist & kooky con artist?) he’d get an engineering degree from an IIT, go abroad to work for an MNC and come back to India ten years later and write a terrible book about the whole experience. And even after Obama has jumped the shark, the media continues to look for a person to fit into their pre-existing narrative. Is it Mayawati? No, she’s turned into a megalomaniac dictator whose goal is to put a statue of herself in every house in the country. Is it Anna Hazare? No, he was already a megalomaniac dictator before most of the popular journalists could misinterpret their first fact. Is it the chief minister of a prosperous state who shall remain unnamed? Never mind. I don’t want letters from those people.

The latest messiah who was unable to deliver us from all evil was Mamta Banerjee. Last year, her ‘poriborton’ campaign was all over the news. She was going to bring change to her home state after three decades of misrule! She was going to turn Calcutta into London! She was going to use her powers to change the axis of the earth and force it to revolve around West Bengal! However, what came as a surprise to no one but the hard working men and women who ask silly questions on television, Ms. Banerjee turned out to be a megalomaniac dictator. Even a horse wearing blinkers could have diagnosed her malignant dictatorship. All the symptoms pointed in that direction: Erratic behaviour. Disregard for public opinion. Paranoia. Not allowing any other leader in the party to develop a following large enough to challenge her authority. Denying reality. Blaming all the problems the people are suffering from on the previous regime or a more powerful outside entity. Her relatives treating the state like their own personal fiefdom. And now, she wants to paint the capital city in her favourite colour! That usually happens when politicians get that funny feeling in their stomach and decide that they are in this for the long haul. Though most dictators come from very diverse backgrounds, they all end up as graduates of the dictator school of hard knocks.

Of course, in India, we love leaders who pretend to be strong and decisive. Nothing gives our emasculated populace a bigger boner than a leader who doesn’t care for other people’s opinions. Consultations are for weak people! Real men take decisions impacting a large number of people based on what they feel in their gut! A large swathe of the country continues to want a benevolent dictator. When history has taught us that those two things do not go together. Even with all the current nominal checks and balances in place, most governments in this country commit highway robbery in broad daylight. Yet, somehow, people believe that a person with unchecked powers will be inclined to combat corruption.

So what if Indira Gandhi placed her sycophants in every position of consequence and sowed the seeds for the systematic rot we see now and every action of hers was determined by the need for self-preservation, but hey, at least the trains were on time.

If Nick Clegg is Obama 2.0, then Gordon Brown is definitely Joe Biden!

 
O Blimey! We are in serious shite now!

The British are still having elections!

Things got terribly exciting for the British journalists yesterday when Gordon Brown committed a ‘gaffe’.

He was talking to a sweet old lady (sweet by British standards. In Britain anybody who doesn’t get drunk and beat up their husbands or have bad teeth is referred to as ‘sweet’.) who asked him “All these eastern Europeans are coming in, where are they flocking from?”.

Instead of answering her by saying “East Europeans? They come from Africa, of course!” or telling her to shut her gob, the Prime Minister said some boilerplate about immigration and then asked her about her grandchildren.

Well, that was that.

Afterwards, while heading back to his car, the following happened:

But Mr Brown was still wearing a microphone provided by Sky News, which recorded him turning to his aide Justin Forsyth, and pronouncing: “That was a disaster.”

He added: “Whose idea was that?” He then blamed “Sue” – Sue Nye his longest serving aide and friend.

He was then asked by the aide what Mrs Duffy had said.

He replied: “Everything, she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour.”

Basically he called his whole base (working middle class who are worried about “them immigrants stealing me job” ), bigots.

Although, when I first heard that Gordon Brown had called someone a bigoted lady, I thought he had run into David Cameroon. 

This is probably the first mildly interesting thing to happen to Gordon Brown.

Now, since anything that happens in this election has to be compared to the 2008 US Presidential elections, because that was the only election that happened on earth ever, the sweet racist lady is now Britain’s Joe the Plumber. Damn. I hate that guy!

Anyways, sweet racist lady, Mrs. Gillian Duffy, now has an agent. and stands to profit to the tune of £250,000.

That will buy her a lot of East European maids, won’t it?

Strangely, for the first time, all the brown people in Britain are going “Wait, someone said something racist and it wasn’t about one of us? That’s a bloody miracle!” In fact, the were missing racism so much they decided to go to the airport, just to be racially profiled, for old times sake.

While the rest of the world does something important, it's election season in England!

   From L to R: Peter Pan, Gandalf  the Grey and the Wizard of Oz

Everyone in England has got their knickers in a knot these days. No, not because some rogues in some far-off colony want their independence, like in the good old days, but because in three weeks they have to stop drinking for a bit and go to a bloody voting booth and caste their votes to elect one of those sorry arse politicians to the sodding parliament.

In three weeks, Britain might even have a shiny, new Prime Minister!

Now, they had a brilliant idea. To have a debate on teevee, with all the candidates, just like they do in America. Thankfully, they didn't take other ideas from American Democracy like having a two-year election for a four year term or choosing Vice-Presidential candidates through the reality show Project Running-mate.

The British debates were boring, compared to their American counterparts. Not one person winked or shouted "Drill, baby, drill" and apparently, they don't give a broken tooth about Joe the Plumber! And no one was offering a kilo of rice at 2 bucks a pop. 

Here are the top three contenders:

1. Gordon 'Big Ears' Brown

He is the current incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party. This is the first election the Labour is fighting under his leadership. The last three were fought with Tony Blair at the helm. Unfortunately for him, neither is he as charming nor can he lie as well as Blair. Analysts predict that he is going to lose badly, because the economy is shite and after thirteen years of Labour, the people want a change (Yeah, you're gonna be hearing this word a LOT. Better get used to it). He has a huge man-crush on President Barack Obama and wants to bone him very badly, as all British PM's are constitutionally mandated to have unrequited feelings for their American counterparts.  If he loses the election, he'll probably retire into some remote British village with his wife & kids and open up a bed & breakfast, since due to his insanely boring personality, he really can't make that much money on the lecture circuit. 

2. David 'David' Cameroon

He is the front-runner for this election, and current leader of the opposition. It is his election to lose. And since he has been acting like he already won the election since last year, he is probably going to come up short. He is a 'compassionate conservative', which means a conservative who does not say racist things in public. If he were writing this blog post, he would have thanked you for reading it. He would have also reminded you that he loves all minorities, even those poor, gross Lesbians who live down the street. He understands how difficult this economic recession has been for everyone, as he has had to fire his fourth butler too, which has made things very difficult at Cameroon manor. Thank the lord for his own personal fortune, otherwise he would have had to live like an immigrant. Which would have been an absolute travesty! Unthinkable, innit?

 3. Nick 'The Kidd' Clegg

As the leader of the Liberal-Democrats, he is the 'wild-card' in this whole shebang. Due to Gordon being such a fuck up, and David being, well, David, experts are predicting that Clegg might be instrumental in deciding who forms the next government, because the election results might yield a hung parliament. Nick is famous for always spewing facts at anyone who cares (or for that matter anyone who doesn't care). He is sort of a wanker. That is why no one in England wants to go drinking with him, as constantly hearing about how mass-marketed alcohol beverages are causing malnutrition in Somalia is a real bugger. I mean, for fucks sake, all a bloke wants to do after a hard day's work is sit in a pub, make some jokes about how the fat chick flirting with the bartender looks like Wayne Rooney and watch some bleeding Rugger on the telly, so shut your pie hole and pass the crisps.    

Anyways, after yesterday's debate, everyone and their grandmother thinks that Nick Glegg is going to be the Prime Minister, because not only is he supremely confident & speaks 'truth to power', all the grannies and single mums in England want to take him home and do things to him which you absolutely do not mention in polite society. Also, since he talked about hope & change, he is being billed as the next Obama because after Nov 4, 2008 every election has to have it's OWN Obama, otherwise no one will care. Thanks, Barry, for ruining all elections, forever. 

Gordon Brown got some good reviews too because he managed to get in a few zingers and was also endorsed by Dr. Who (aka The Doctor. Because I don't want to get hate mail from those people.)  and the only working person in the whole of England, Harry Potter's mom.

These three got another two debates before they finally go to the polls after which everyone in Britain can go back doing whatever they do, like spreading sex diseases through the bookface and then stabbing each other to death.

Ah, Blighty. What would we do without you?

(No don't answer that. It was supposed to be a rhetorical question.)

Lastly, if anyone manages to 'steal' this election, just remember, I AM NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY TWITTER DISPLAY PIC.

Right, ho!

 

[All pictures via Reuters]