Britain, Britain, Britain, so good they named it thrice. Britain, the land that invented the toadstool, has an underground tunnel linked to Chile and has had hot running water for three years now.
Britain, discovered by Sir Archibald Britain in fifteen-oh-ten, is a pretty decent country with almost no crime or homelessness, is home to comedic team Mark Lucas and Andy Williams, as well as almost seven thousand other inhabitants in the nine populated towns. Britain is now available with deleted scenes and accompanying commentary. It was the British who kindly invented the telephone kiosk so that drunken louts could have a place to vomit late at night and teenagers could practise their violence before bed time. Everybody is welcome in Britain, it's open 8 till 7 Monday to Friday and is fast becoming the place to invent Saturdays for.
It is Britain where the only thing that lasts is rust and the only thing that really matters is celebrity. In Britain, anyone can become famous as long as they are very well known. It is Britain where it is hoped that the fad for built in obsolescence will soon become obsolete. It is Britain where the BBC sincerely hope they have not spoiled your enjoyment too much and where the haughty rules of etiquette are made to deliberately trip up unwary snobs.
Britain, where reality shows now account for more than 90% of reality; a place where 15 minutes of fame will soon be legal tender for 15 minutes of ordinariness in this frivolously topsy-turvy land where the gormless appearance has been perfected purely for tax reasons. Britain is also the land where the public are not afraid to pull the beards of policemen if they find themselves experiencing something strange, just in case they are Jeremy the beagle.
Britain, a country by which all others set their standards, is the only country that has literally owned the majority of the world, but has since been granted visiting rights by all its previous colonies, having been forced to hand them back after a computer error in the late 1830’s. Britain was sold to France two years later for ten francs and the promise of a French snog, destroyed in eighteen thirty two, and rebuilt a week later, only slightly taller, with no one noticing the apparent difference. Coventry, the capital, was later sacrificed to the Luftwaffe during the blitz, after a bartering agreement between some very important families.
It was Britain where the laugh was invented and Britain where gardening was first taken seriously. Britains taught the first Eskimos how to build igloos and Britains with time on their hands invented the game of solitaire. Sadly, it is also Britain that allows only one gay in each village due to somewhat archaic buggery laws. Despite this, Britains have shaped the world for centuries now; people like Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Da Vinci and Ludwig Von Beethoven, all British, have left their indelible mark upon the world’s fashion industry.
Britain has been called heaven on earth and it's easy to see why. Legal aid is offered to the unemployed, spaghetti is available in different lengths and there's fresh and breaking news every day! Britain is great when it's swathed in yellow-patterned laminates, is better when it has rows of booths illuminated by red ‘Festival of Britain’ light fittings and is most definitely best when its greatest cafe is run by the effusively Italianate, Lorenzo Martini-Smith…one of those homo-sapiens.
Britain, where, to make life more enjoyable, a renaming frenzy has taken place so that ‘debt’ is now called ‘credit’, the ‘War Office’ is now the ‘Ministry of Defence’ and ‘slavery’ is now officially called ‘employment’. The ‘telephone’ is now known as a ‘landline’, the ‘television’ is now known as a ‘terrestrial’ and the humble ‘playstation’ is now the marvellous ‘PS1’.
How Britains miss this sceptred isle if they ever go off and live elsewhere, like Mars. For a start, you can't get a decent cup of tea up there because liquids boil at a ridiculously low temperature in the vacuum and they still can't find any water there anyway.
Britain, where ladies flounce in crinoline and still repose en mass in the afternoon, dutifully cooled by their personal punkawallahs. Where cotton, slaves and arrogance can still be purchased cheaply at jumble sales, as can lime cordial, which is the national beverage and is reverently imbibed four times a day.
Britain is where the only permissible gift available for Christmas is black shoe polish and where the only place you can buy a fully charged battery is from a mermaid. It is Britain where women are officially equal to men and so are obligated to burp and pick their nose after each meal, except on Wednesdays, which is the national holy day and the day upon which the national sport, carpet bagging, is obligatory.
Britain is pleased to announce to its citizens that it is continuing with its ridiculous house price increases, keeping householders ‘happy’ whilst maintaining them as asset rich but monetarily poor, so that they can be kept working until they drop, just to pay for the follies initiated in the greed-infested Thatcher era.
Britain is home to the blind and subservient who placed hopes of a better future into the hands of two products of the most exclusive public schools money can buy. Not that you'll recognise them as such; to you, they'll be Tony and Dave, just regular guys who listen to Pink Floyd or The Smiths. In reality, they're both into the Status Quo, propping it up and keeping the Establishment happy, rewarding the wealthy and powerful with titles, safe in the knowledge that their backs will soon be scratched. We British thought the days of being run by an Eton/Oxford Mafia were extinct, but we were wrong. The powers that be have simply sent in a political Changing Rooms team to do a makeover, and now we’re all adopting the new cladding and decking.
Britain, where extra strong mints are illegal, but strong men can mince all day with veritable impunity. Where two tents can be bought at a discount price, but not by those who are too tense to sleep under canvass. Britain, where, if you go into a bar and ask for a double entendre, the barman will give you one. Britain, where accidents can happen, but mistakes cannot be rectified afterwards. Britain, where all men aged under 35 are named Rhett Butler and quite frankly don’t give a damn.
In Britain, people can jaywalk absently across the road whilst pressing little buttons implanted in their palms, they can crash their cars whilst eating sandwiches they aren’t enjoying but they cannot technically ignore people they claim not to have seen whilst doing so.
Most Britains are quite fragile and will feel pain if hit by lightning more than once. Even the best British athlete cannot wear concrete boots under water for more than three minutes without dying and although we Britains may not like it, most dead people decide to stay where they are for reasons not yet known to us.
Britain, a harmonious mixture of ne’er-do-wells, where most people still believe man landed on the Moon and that Elvis Costello is still alive. Britain, where most still enjoy listening to the music of St. Winifred’s School choir of a balmy summer’s evening, yet others have never even heard of music. Some Britains write nonsensical drivel for hours on end and the remainder spend almost as many hours needlessly reading it. Most Britains are not complete idiots but many, who can afford it, go to college to gain their final module in idiocy, purely in the interests of completion.
Britain, where George Best was the best but where Jade Goodey was not a goodie and Jason King was never the king.
Britain has no oceans of its own and so it has been granted island status to help the newly invented surfing industry take off.
In Britain there is a campaign to legalise herbs for health purposes and to re-categorise murder because all the prisons are full. Smoking cannot damage your health as long as there is a meal in the same room or the smoke is from herbs and 24 hour drinking is now mandatory for over 18s.
Britain, which does not have its own television industry, but where all programmes are imported specially from America. Britain, so far up the arse of America’s war industry, that the light at the end is now just a distant dream.
Britain, Britain, oh, Britain!