Right, just to let you lot know, i'm pretty much offline (aka Isle of Wight) for Christmas, so NPC replies are going to be even longer in coming :D
Just think of it as a narcoleptic plague <_<
Meanwhile, here's a bedtime story of an old fable:
REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the
cold.
THE END
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE U.K. VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press
conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be
warm
and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold
and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper;
with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with
a table laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a
country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so,
while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council
of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house.
The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill
with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall
Overcome".
Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the
squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an
immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share"
and
increases the charge for squirrels to enter central London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the
Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the
beginning of the summer.
The squirrel's taxes are reassessed.
He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as
builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for
contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to
furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be
socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more
needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly
imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start
building a new
home.
The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a
temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to
Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival
they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain 's apparent love
of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking
and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police
fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.
Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned
because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise
and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the
squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council
house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to
maintain
the house.
He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed
for the grasshopper's drug 'illness'.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment
since arrival in UK .
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary
to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released
immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.
He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and
supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched
robbery.
A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and
state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is
increased.
The asylum-seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching
Britain 's multicultural
diversity and dogs are criticised by the
government for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the
press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root
causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic
experience of prison.
They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were
infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the
United Kingdom.
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing,
the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on
their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for
law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65
because of a shortfall in government funds.
THE END
:blink:
This would be the sort of bedtime story that has children deciding that life really isn't worth living, yes? Or possibly that turns them into the sort of warped, twisted, cynical individuals that grow up to become roleplayers...
This has now been forwarded across my whole department at work (Sod the IT departments view on spam mail)
Servicemen around here will appreciate the story