The Beaker Festival of Brexit Britain

News reaches us that, as the Tory Party's levels of incompetence reach the depths best described as "Jose Mourinho", Theresa May has decided that she wants to hold a "Festival of Britain".

Ever aware that there are whelk stalls all over the country that May and her party of malcontents and philanderers would be incapable of running, and that David Davis couldn't run a party in a brewery if he could even stay awake long enough, we think the Beaker Folk had better do this for her.

So in the best traditions of MK's Winter Wonderland and the New Forest Lapland, we're piling in regardless of talent or vision. Let's face it, that's not done Liam Fox any harm.

The centrepiece of the whole thing will be the giant floating polystyrene map of the United Kingdom in the Duck Pond. It's carefully designed so that Northern Ireland and Scotland can both be towed away if required.

The Tunnel of  Love is a wonder. A go-kart going through an underpass. However we're afraid that we can't allow anyone to use it as Boris Johnson has a block booking. Still, we do also have the "Boris Bridge". With one end on the bank of the pond near Duckhenge, and the other end just floating into space. Frankly, like Johnson, you can swear blind it goes anywhere you like. But, if you do ignore the "Remoaners" telling you that it's a death trap, poorly-conceived and a disaster, you can get in the shopping trolley, and be catapulted over the bridge, waving your Union Jack, and plummet off the end into the mud.

Sorry it's not a proper garden bridge. But the spider plants got caught in the frost. Which is odd. When the experts from the Met Office warned us the temperature was going to drop on Friday night, Michael Gove told us to pay no attention.

The good news is that the Beaker Festival of Brexit Britain will be using hi-tech to facilitate your frictionless entry into the park. All you need is your passports, birth certificates (to prove you're not foreign - some foreigners apparently have British passports these days), vaccination certificates, and your dental records (in case we have to retrieve you from the mud after you've gone on the Boris Bridge). We're hoping that some people will be able to get into the park within a week, at low season.

Those of an ethical nature will be pleased to hear that the Beaker Festival of Brexit Britain will serve only vegetarian food. This isn't really because we're against meat-eating. It's just we're assuming all the sheep farmers will have gone bust, and it will be too expensive to import meat from the Continent. Nevertheless, you can expect a fine range of seasonal British fare. Or, if it's August, basically blackberries. Sadly the "Regional Foods Stall" will be depleted by the loss of EU subsidies. We do however hope to get at least one Cornish Pasty, so we can all remember what they were. And the aforementioned whelk stall will be selling off very cheap sea food that has been turned away after queuing at Hull for a month.

We're really looking forward to welcoming visitors to encounter our most exciting attraction - "The Abyss of Doom". That's not a roller-coaster. It's just what we'll be looking into by then. Still, you can be distracted by the park comedian, Nigel Farage, as he runs around the park in his Union Jack underpants trying to persuade us this is all a really good idea.

But the opening night is going to be great. As a tribute to the wonderful work that this Government has done, we will have a march-past by the entire British Army. Given what we'll be able to afford by then, and the generally nostalgic concept of Brexit, we're expecting this to consist of an undertaker, a green-grocer, an incontinent, a boy with a scarf and his "uncle", all led by a bank manager. You may be wondering why I've not mentioned the shady spiv who always makes money out of dodgy practices, but Jacob Rees-Mogg will be too busy with his offshore interests to worry about our theme park.

The Fesitval of Brexit Britain. Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1951.

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Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk. And now amazingly well-priced.

"Books are my Bag"

We've been asked by the Bible Reading Fellowship, publishers of the fine and now eminently affordable "Writes of the Church", to give a bit of a plug to their campaign, "Books are my Bag", in support of publishers and bookshops.  Bookshop Day is Saturday 6th October.

So here's the poster: you can find BRF at Twitter as @brfonline, Facebook as @thebiblereadingfellowship or using the hashtag #brfauthors

Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

Politics, Technology and Science Roundup

Great excitement as the Tory Party find their conference app has revealed full details of MPs' personal details and whereabouts. Which would suggest that Marina Wheeler at some point has hacked it in an attempt to find out where the heck Boris Johnson was. Apparently user history shows that while everyone else in the world logged in to become Minister for Food Supplies for a few hours, Johnson has just spent the last 24 hours swiping right.

Still, on the bright side I'm now in possession of all the personal details of Michael Gove. Turns out he's a shiny-faced liar whose ambition is a different order of magnitude to his talent, and whose expression resembles one of those scary ventriloquist's dolls. Who knew?

Meanwhile, a professor tells us that particle accelerator experiments could compress the whole world into a sphere 100m across. Michael Gove assures us we're all totally safe, as the Astronomer Royal is an expert so there's no need to listen to anything he says. While Theresa May has assured us that, at that scale, the Irish border will by definition be frictionless. There won't be the space for the infrastructure. And David Davis is reflecting that, if the earth were reduced in scale like that, even he could have raised the energy to travel the 15 inches to speak the EU over the last 2 years.

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Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

The Autumn Egguinox

Well that's 24 hours most of the Beaker Folk could have done with not losing like that.

All comes down to what I'm gonna have to call a non-segguitur in the Daily Eggspress. Warning - that's where this link goes. Don't read it. You'll probably catch Breggsit.

But in the article we are told,

"On the day of the equinox, the length of day and night is almost exactly the same, which has led some to believe it is the perfect day to balance an egg."

What nobody is telling us is precisely how the amount of daylight led anyone to think "I know - what I really need to do is balance an egg". I mean, how do you get from one proposition to the other? There is no obvious connection. But wait. There's more.

"Although it is perfectly acceptable and possible to balance an egg on any other day of the year, this could be a fun exercise to try out with children – preferably with hardboiled eggs."

That's right. According to the Daily Express, someone has the job of deciding on what days it is acceptable to balance eggs. The discovery that it's every day must be reassuring to those Eggspress readers who once accidentally balanced an egg on the Summer Solstice and have been wondering ever since if they committed some dreadful faux pas.

But the thing about the Equinoxes is, they're actually really boring. You've got an average amount of daylight. The sun rises and sets in very average places. The  temperature is a bit above average in September but then it's a bit below average in March. So that balances out.

But it was that or another game of Connect 4. So what the heck, thought the Beaker Folk. Let's have a crack at it. Oh the egg-citement as we started.
12 hours later, covered in yolk, not a single balanced egg. That's when some fool remembered all the own-brand Advocaat we couldn't face last Christmas.

Six hours of increasingly powerful snowballs later, we started making our own from egg yolks, sherry and lemonade.

I'll be honest. It's been a rough day.
But we'll try again in March. And I think I've got the solution. Next time we'll try balancing them on the blunt end.

Writes of the Church

One of those periodic, slightly-more-evident book plugs...

As Christmas comes near what could be a better present than a book that lets your friends, family and "Secret Santa" workmates laugh at themselves and the church?

And what could be funnier (and now at a much more competitive price) than the book that came from the blog that came from this blog, Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews

Get over to Amazon  and see the amazing reviews! The new and improved price! And the book itself - funny in anyone's money.
 

Autumn Equinox - an Apology

I'd like to say sorry to the Beaker Folk we've dragged out of bed to celebrate the Autumn Equinox on the 20th, 21st and now today. We were wrong each time. I blame Autumn Frenzy caused by falling leaves and too much pumpkin for tea.

We've now augured  the auguries, sounded out the sages and read the runes. And Googled it. Autumn Equinox is definitely tomorrow.

Brexit Survivalism

It's weird times. The Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership comments that Brexit has hit the Partnership's profitability. And the Government's Secretary of State for Sticking Pens in Your Own Eyes steps up to tell us that eroded profit margins in a company that imports most of its wares has nothing to do with the pound dropping because the Government is determined to turn us into a low-grade, draughty, Singapore. The party that used to be for business has turned into the party that cares more about defending the delusions of the racists and idiots who lied to a nation.

Having seen the Government's latest attempt to scare the European Union, through telling them how much a No-Deal Brexit would hurt the UK, we thought it was about time we dealt with the subject of Beaker Survivalism. After all, the original Beaker Folk managed to survive -  often into their thirties - without insulin and a ban on roaming charges, so why shouldn't we today?

Now living back to nature is something people have varying abilities at, so we're banding people. Please join the appropriate group according to your own limitations:

 "Good old boys (and girls)" will be studying how to do an appendectomy in the John Lewis Room.

 "Nature Lovers" will be learning how to gut a chicken, in the Farage Garage (the one with the dodgy door)

 "Veggie Experts" please gather in the Rainbow Room for "How to tell a Mushroom from a Toadstool". I'm glad to say Hnaef is back from hospital now after his dry-run the other day. I think "dry-run" is actually his euphemism for the symptoms after eating that Death Cap.

"Dominic Raab" level - please gather in the Daily Express Room for your guide on how to find  your bottoms  with two hands.

The special course on running a whelk stall  has been cancelled. David Davis was to have run this course, but he over-slept.

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Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

The Latter-Day Freemanites

Made a mistake mentioning Glen Freeman, the #smilesontheline man, didn't I.

Next thing I know a bunch of Beaker Folk have set up the Latter-Day Freemanites, a society dedicated to spreading happiness by standing around grinning gormlessly at people. Even as I write I can see one, scaring the traffic in School Lane. They're planning to send missionaries to the darkest, most spiritually-empty places on earth. Flitwick, Dunstable, Nottingham. You know the kind of place.

As their worship centre, they've adopted a little lean-to shed next to the Quivering Brethren chapel. Which is going to be interesting on Sunday, as the Brethren walk quiveringly to church, being grinned at by the Grinning Brethren.

It's gonna be a long weekend.

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Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

Ban this man from the Tube

Picture the scene. A summer's morning in Harrogate, in God's own county. My companion and  I were off to York to visit the many wand shops for which the Shambles is now so famous. So, it being a nice day and planning to visit one or more of the fine drinking establishments with which that fair city is blessed, we took the train.

It was one of those trains which has some seats arranged around tables, while others, coach-like, face all in one direction. So naturally we, being inveterate southerners, sat where we could look happily at the seat back in front of us. We were safe from unwanted eye contact. In a happy place.

At the nearest table seats, a man was regaling two women with stories about the history of the line, the peculiarities of the signalling, and the fine details of the loop from Leeds to York via Selby. (I may have made some errors here - I do not claim to be an expert.) After a while we -  and everyone else in the carriage - became quiet as we realised an awful truth.

This man did not know these women.

It turns out that even in Yorkshire, where it is expected that complete strangers should say "hello" if they meet on long-distance footpaths, this was a bit much.  Immediately a Snapchat group was formed by the other people in the carriage, as we discussed the practicability and legality of tying him to the line at Knaresborough.

Which brings me to data consultant, Glen Freeman. Who should be banned from the London Underground.

Mr Freeman sees it as his role to get people to smile at each other on the Tube. Now firstly this is clearly against God's law. The Tube is not a place to smile. Not a place for making eye contact. It is a place to gaze hopelessly at the smiling face of Sadiq Khan as, resplendent in his yellow bikini, he advertises his total failure to improve the cycle network. A place never to be caught out without a convenient device to hold your attention away from other people. These days, normally a phone. But the lack of signal or wi-fi means that paper editions of the Metro and Standard still cling on. And some people still keep themselves really safe from unwanted attention by reading the Bible, Koran or other holy book of choice.

It is not a place to smile or be happy. You don't want to look up from Boris Johnson's latest piece explaining why the whole world is to blame for Brexit and not him, to see another gormless, self-entitled twerp grinning in your direction. This is your miserable time and you're allowed to own it. God didn't make Londoners to be happy.

I'd like us, if you will, to conduct a thought experiment. A man who has adopted Mr Freeman's philosophy of smiling at strangers is stood on the platform at Oxford Circus. It's around 10pm on a Thursday evening. And the first carriage as a train pulls up contains two South London gangs, earnestly comparing post codes. The second carriage holds a bunch of Hoxton Hipsters and another of Bermondsey Barristas, all wondering who's gonna start something and say something rude about the other group's favourite Bolivian Ocelot Coffee.

The third carriage contains a young woman. She has a bag of shopping, and the look of someone who has just broken up with her partner.

Which carriage is our man on the platform going to get in? Whom will he choose to smile at, and encourage to smile back?

And that is why Glen Freeman, and his dangerous ideas, must be banned from the Tube.

Where 2 or 3 Are Gathered

An unlikely trinity was invoked during the intercessions this morning as Norvik prayed for "Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees Mogg and Donald Trump", that they might continue "their good work."

Charlii butted in to suggest that people should offer their own prayers, immediately then commending to the Lord the work of Vince Cable and Chuka Umunna. While a seemingly delirious Chaznay prayed for Sadiq Khan to be forgiven for hovering over London in a bikini.

Before we knew it, the whole Beaker Folk were chipping in with prayers for their own particular political party or agenda, including the Palestinians, "all Zionists", the Revolutionary Communist Party and the cast of Eastenders. The intercessions fell apart into a giant fight.

From now on, prayers for the Government are strictly to be that both the Government and the Opposition be granted godly wisdom.  No more, no less, without written permission from me or Hnaef. I hope that's clear.

On the subject of the notices, Norvik's other unexpected contribution of the day, at 8pm we are having a beetle drive.  Not a rally.

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Want to support this blog? Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you. From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.