Compromising with the Guinea Pig Folk

I don't know why we keep trying to get on with the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby.

Every year, we get together to try to reach "common ground". Every year the Marston Vale New Religions Forum gets together for crisis talks as to how we can stay together. Every year I can't remember why we formed the Forum in the first place.

The Guinea Pig Folk's demands are as simple as they're unachievable. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with apologising for the time we accidentally ate their Guinea Pig gods thinking they were tapas. It was a simple mistake, and we bought them some more, after all.

But they demand that if we're going to get along in a mood of amicability, we should adopt their Guinea Pig Language. Which is, frankly, just whistles and grunts. So we won't. We get told we must abjure tea lights. And they tell us to sack the Moon Gibbon Worshippers as the Moon Gibbon, being a notorious eater of wombles and the Moon, is probably not safe around guinea pigs.

And frankly we listen to them, and we say we understand their views - because we are nice liberal people - and we want to work for unity, and the future continuance of the Marston Vale New Religions Forum. And then we go off and light some tea lights, and the Moon Gibbon People get upset at New Moon, just as they always do. And then we all tell each other we'll meet up next year. And then we all threaten that we won't.

These days, frankly, we just seem to get together for the sake of the argument. If the Marston Vale New Religions Forum didn't exist, we'd just have to wish each other well and then mostly just ignore each other. And who's gonna feel good about that?