Thursday, July 19, 2007
Birth of a Nation
'Britain became separated from mainland Europe,' runs a BBC news story, ' after a catastrophic flood...' Catastrophic? I'm sorry to add to the corporation's woes but this is as clear an example of BBC bias as you are likely to find. The europhiles see this event as catastrophic when, obviously, it was the best thing that could have happened, allowing us to take French holidays without having to mix with the French on a daily basis. I suggest we construct a great mythology around this flood, creating a religion of national birth and destiny. Perhaps, in answer to British prayers, a god, looking not unlike Boris Johnson or, if you prefer, Gordon Brown, or, as I would prefer, Frank Field, swept the mighty waters southward to the dismay of thousands of gesticulating French people. Anyway, this glorious flood now seems to have turned us into this sceptered isle some 200,000 years ago. When I became the first hack through the hole - the Channel Tunnel - it was said to have happened 8,000 years ago. I did try to stop the miner Graham Fagg breaking through to the French side, but, as he so poignantly put it, 'It's a bit late now.' It is, always, too late.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Amos has an appropriate biblical name but writes crap science. If it didn't happen there might have been a publication called It's Crap Science! and he would be appointed editor-in-chief.
ReplyDeleteWithout the French we would have had no Agincourt, no Trafalgar, and probably no Eurovision song contest. Or this, from Nelson: 'To serve my King and destroy the French, I consider as the great order of all, from which little ones spring; and if one of these militate against it (for who can tell exactly at a distance), I go back and obey the great order and object, to down - down with the damned French villains! My blood boils at the name of a Frenchman! Down, down with the French! … is my constant prayer.' Marvellous.
ReplyDeleteVery sound, Rumi...
ReplyDeleteA propos the BBC's current (well deserved and long overdue) meltdown, I nominate Mark Thompson's stubble-covered chops to feature in the Hell In A Handcart set of commemorative stamps. Damn it, the man is Director General of the BBC and he can't even use a razor!
Without that flood, it is impossible to imagine how different the world would be. The importance of the existence of the English Channel for humanity cannot be overestimated.
ReplyDelete