What Ho Proles!
It’s been a time. Indeed, at the risk of sound too familiar, I’d say it’s been a ruddy long time since I struck you last behind your knees with my walking cane of political good sense. The world has changed considerably since I last dragged an unconscious man’s heels across your turf and buried him beneath your begonias. Lots of water under the bridge, pigs up the alley, and a good deal of quality manure spread around Aunt Harrot’s string beans. Lots of quality metaphors lost to the cause. Lots lost in this paragraph but there you go. The price of democracy is the death of metaphor. And you can quote me on that.
I say it’s been a time but we’ve not been idle. My Man has gone out and bought himself a moustache, worn it through the summer, before razing it in the autumn in the hope of promoting grown in the spring. As for me, I have undergone a transformation of my very own. I don’t mean anything an extreme as a moustache. What I’m referring to is a hardening of my views and a new blooming of my ambition. You’ll find a much changed Jacob P. Murgatroid sitting in his slippers and dictating this in his dragon embroidered kimono. He has been encouraged to return to his memoirs at this time by the hand of a particularly prescient Fate. But I know what you’re thinking. You’re all sitting there, comfortable in your little council owned hovels, thinking: with the first black president taking office, the last thing the world needs is a white bread country squire. But you’d be wrong. So very, very wrong.
Obama’s victory is the chance for all people of ethnic minorities to stand up and make their voices heard. Too long has this country of ours ignored the concerns of the landed gentry, the land owners, the business titans, the Murgatroid Family. Obama’s victory is a victory for all of us who have felt the oppressors heel, sniffed their socks, and indeed, tasted their very boot polish on the tips of our tongue.
What has happened to me since last you read about my exploits? Well, I ask, what hasn’t happened to me? My memoirs were due to be published this year but the powers that be soon put a stop to that. Many lumps of stringed wax were sacrificed to long Westminster nights as political heavyweights assessed the harm that my confessions might make if they ever saw publication. The conclusions they reached might not be ready by public eyes for another forty years but I can show you what they mean in real terms. I have been the victim of the security services taking an interest in my affairs and My Man has bagged himself more than one MI5 agent snooping around the estate.
In fact, the sound of constant gunfire has made it quite difficult to come to terms with the new Tory Party that Daisy Cameron has been creating in his mother’s image. It’s hardly the sort of place a man of quality tweed likes to be seen but I say it’s better that a man work inside the Party to influence reform that stand outside with the street urchins.
There will come a time when people will seek me out and I intend to be there when they do their seeking. In the meantime, I’ll be here for a while. I hope you’ll join me again in my lonely vigil.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Meet Obama Murgatroid
Monday, October 01, 2007
Tory Conference
What Ho Proles
I’m up here in Blackpool at the Tory conference, though I have to confess that things are not going well. I thought I should grab this chance to write to you in case I don’t get another. As I speak, My Man is fighting a rearguard battle to keep the hoards of proles from breaking down my boarding room door. Excuse my typing. I’m writing what might be might despatch from the living side of the great divide.
I don’t honestly know how they spotted that I was an old-style Tory. The day had gone so swimmingly and I would never have expected these new Tories to turn so mean quite so quickly. But that’s the problem with proles when they take the blue rosette. They don’t know their own minds. One minute they’re necking the traditional alcohol and the next they’re taking offence at the merely suggestion that they don’t wash, are poorly educated, and have neither the breeding nor wits to be true Tories. Oh yes, I might have also hinted that they occasionally have sexual relations with members of their immediate family.
But don’t blame me. I say that Dilly Cameron has brought all this on himself. I’m all for modernisation, but it must be the right modernisation. Like the way I’ve allowed my estate managers to modernise the fences around my land by running a bit of electricity through them. That’s modernisation that’s both practical and traditional. Telling people that we’re all equal in the Tory party was a sure recipe for disaster. And who came up with this idea of the poor improving their lot? Who’s lot do you think they’re going to improve it with? My lot. That’s what.
There goes My Man again. His screams are frightening even when heard from the safety of a wardrobe.
In a minute, I’m going to see if I can climb down the drainpipe and get to the Bentley. We parked it a street away in case this sort of thing happened. I know I should never have come north, the moment I caught the scent of fish and chips outside the Watford Gap service station.
For the moment, I remain,
I’m up here in Blackpool at the Tory conference, though I have to confess that things are not going well. I thought I should grab this chance to write to you in case I don’t get another. As I speak, My Man is fighting a rearguard battle to keep the hoards of proles from breaking down my boarding room door. Excuse my typing. I’m writing what might be might despatch from the living side of the great divide.
I don’t honestly know how they spotted that I was an old-style Tory. The day had gone so swimmingly and I would never have expected these new Tories to turn so mean quite so quickly. But that’s the problem with proles when they take the blue rosette. They don’t know their own minds. One minute they’re necking the traditional alcohol and the next they’re taking offence at the merely suggestion that they don’t wash, are poorly educated, and have neither the breeding nor wits to be true Tories. Oh yes, I might have also hinted that they occasionally have sexual relations with members of their immediate family.
But don’t blame me. I say that Dilly Cameron has brought all this on himself. I’m all for modernisation, but it must be the right modernisation. Like the way I’ve allowed my estate managers to modernise the fences around my land by running a bit of electricity through them. That’s modernisation that’s both practical and traditional. Telling people that we’re all equal in the Tory party was a sure recipe for disaster. And who came up with this idea of the poor improving their lot? Who’s lot do you think they’re going to improve it with? My lot. That’s what.
There goes My Man again. His screams are frightening even when heard from the safety of a wardrobe.
In a minute, I’m going to see if I can climb down the drainpipe and get to the Bentley. We parked it a street away in case this sort of thing happened. I know I should never have come north, the moment I caught the scent of fish and chips outside the Watford Gap service station.
For the moment, I remain,
Sunday, September 16, 2007
September
What Ho Proles!
My, how you’ve aged! You’re all looking a lot older since I last saw you. A bit pale too. Been enjoying this fine English summer? It’s not stopped raining here at C–– N––. I’ve been cooped up here in Murgatroid Central, suffering a prolish insurrection, of all things. We crushed it, of course, with some heavily artillery and some light skirmishes involving the Murgatroid Light Huzzars. But the things with proles if that you can’t take your eye off them for a moment without their believing they’re free to do what they choose with whosoever they choose.
Beyond that, there’s very little to tell. Mary, the Hall’s house maid, recently found herself ‘with child’, as they say. Suspicion duly fell on the village’s red headed population, if you see what I’m saying, though a father has yet to step forth and receive his lashing.
You might be wondering about The Honourable J.P.M… Well, my memoirs are now complete and stand at a rather healthy 90,000 words. They will be in your local library at some point in time and I expect you all to demand extra copies, including versions for the blind, the deaf, and for the terminally liberal (they come with cloth covers and untearable pages).
I just wanted to pop in and give you the QT. And with that, I wish you good day.
Keep on with whatever you’ve been doing while I’ve been away. I’m sure you’re doing a somewhat adequate job.
My, how you’ve aged! You’re all looking a lot older since I last saw you. A bit pale too. Been enjoying this fine English summer? It’s not stopped raining here at C–– N––. I’ve been cooped up here in Murgatroid Central, suffering a prolish insurrection, of all things. We crushed it, of course, with some heavily artillery and some light skirmishes involving the Murgatroid Light Huzzars. But the things with proles if that you can’t take your eye off them for a moment without their believing they’re free to do what they choose with whosoever they choose.
Beyond that, there’s very little to tell. Mary, the Hall’s house maid, recently found herself ‘with child’, as they say. Suspicion duly fell on the village’s red headed population, if you see what I’m saying, though a father has yet to step forth and receive his lashing.
You might be wondering about The Honourable J.P.M… Well, my memoirs are now complete and stand at a rather healthy 90,000 words. They will be in your local library at some point in time and I expect you all to demand extra copies, including versions for the blind, the deaf, and for the terminally liberal (they come with cloth covers and untearable pages).
I just wanted to pop in and give you the QT. And with that, I wish you good day.
Keep on with whatever you’ve been doing while I’ve been away. I’m sure you’re doing a somewhat adequate job.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Stuck
What Ho Proles!
Okay, let’s the cut the pretence, shall we? You can all see that I’m suffering from writer’s block. It’s why I’m so quiet. I sit here, day after day, week after week, staring at the screen. I have so much to say but no way of saying it. Writer’s block. Writer’s block. Bally writer’s bally block…
Sigh…
I’ve never believed in it before. It’s something that I was told the prole writers catch occasionally, but only when they’ve been too friendly with their goats. We men of refinement are not expected to suffer from such a common complaint. We are educated to higher degrees of insight than the common lot. We are eloquent, full of anecdote and whimsy. We are the masters of the word; words do as we say, come when we call, and deploy in lines of staggering intellect.
Or so I’m let to believe.
So, I’m still blocked. My holiday away in the Indies was supposed to have cured me. It did, for a while. Except when I try to write. I’m still stuck. I’m still blocked. I’m frightened of finishing my memoirs. I feel history pressing down on me, demanding a volume of such genius that it will do proper credit to the great Murgatroid name.
There, I’ve said it. I’ve made a staggering declaration of weakness. But is there any cure for writer’s block? I find I simply can’t conclude my memoirs. They are sitting here frozen on my machine. How to I proceed?
How?
70,000 words and no way on.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Okay, let’s the cut the pretence, shall we? You can all see that I’m suffering from writer’s block. It’s why I’m so quiet. I sit here, day after day, week after week, staring at the screen. I have so much to say but no way of saying it. Writer’s block. Writer’s block. Bally writer’s bally block…
Sigh…
I’ve never believed in it before. It’s something that I was told the prole writers catch occasionally, but only when they’ve been too friendly with their goats. We men of refinement are not expected to suffer from such a common complaint. We are educated to higher degrees of insight than the common lot. We are eloquent, full of anecdote and whimsy. We are the masters of the word; words do as we say, come when we call, and deploy in lines of staggering intellect.
Or so I’m let to believe.
So, I’m still blocked. My holiday away in the Indies was supposed to have cured me. It did, for a while. Except when I try to write. I’m still stuck. I’m still blocked. I’m frightened of finishing my memoirs. I feel history pressing down on me, demanding a volume of such genius that it will do proper credit to the great Murgatroid name.
There, I’ve said it. I’ve made a staggering declaration of weakness. But is there any cure for writer’s block? I find I simply can’t conclude my memoirs. They are sitting here frozen on my machine. How to I proceed?
How?
70,000 words and no way on.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Sanity Sweet Sanity
What Ho Proles!
Bank Holiday Monday and I look back on a few weeks of bliss since I had my nervous breakdown in January.
You might have been wondering what happened to me but I’ve spent two months away in the Caribbean, enjoying the cricket, and otherwise learning to live like a native. I tell you that I feel quite odd not having neither sand between my toes nor a mango within easy reach.
When I’m not feeling the stress of jet lag, I’ll tell you about my breakdown. There are some amusing elements to it, though the outcome was far from humorous. However, my mood is now much calmer and I think I’ve discovered a kinder side to the Murgatroid personality.
That’s why I think I managed to control my temper, nor fire My Man on the spot, when I came home yesterday morning and discovered that he’s been living the high life. He seemed quite put out by my return and it took a good ten minutes for him to relinquish my dressing gown. I think in the long term I might have to reconsider his employment. I won’t need him as much, you see, as I’ve discovered a new pleasure to be hand by being self-sufficient.
Dr. Gruber, my medical man, suggested that my nerves had been fraying for a while and a total collapse was only to be expected given my tendency to direct blame to my staff. Part of my cure has been to see the consequences of my own actions. And I feel a better man for it. From now on, this blog is going to change. I’m a new man, a new Murgatroid, and a new type of Tory.
Your humble and now officially sane servant,
Bank Holiday Monday and I look back on a few weeks of bliss since I had my nervous breakdown in January.
You might have been wondering what happened to me but I’ve spent two months away in the Caribbean, enjoying the cricket, and otherwise learning to live like a native. I tell you that I feel quite odd not having neither sand between my toes nor a mango within easy reach.
When I’m not feeling the stress of jet lag, I’ll tell you about my breakdown. There are some amusing elements to it, though the outcome was far from humorous. However, my mood is now much calmer and I think I’ve discovered a kinder side to the Murgatroid personality.
That’s why I think I managed to control my temper, nor fire My Man on the spot, when I came home yesterday morning and discovered that he’s been living the high life. He seemed quite put out by my return and it took a good ten minutes for him to relinquish my dressing gown. I think in the long term I might have to reconsider his employment. I won’t need him as much, you see, as I’ve discovered a new pleasure to be hand by being self-sufficient.
Dr. Gruber, my medical man, suggested that my nerves had been fraying for a while and a total collapse was only to be expected given my tendency to direct blame to my staff. Part of my cure has been to see the consequences of my own actions. And I feel a better man for it. From now on, this blog is going to change. I’m a new man, a new Murgatroid, and a new type of Tory.
Your humble and now officially sane servant,
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Problem With Tories
What Ho Proles!
Spring will soon be upon us, so it’s already that time of year when the poor start arriving at the Hall, asking if they can help till the fields. It’s a most pernicious nuisance, seeing the woe begotten types come trudging up the driveway. I don’t know how they manage to get over the electrified fence and keep the guard dogs at bay, and My Man’s time is completely taken up with chasing them away. What I spend on shotgun shells during March and April has been known to fund small revolutions in certain Middle African states.
However, with Spring comes the renewed optimism that I might soon be called upon to stand for election in this great country of ours. It’s about time that we had a change in government. The current state of things reminds me of the great bard’s words in his Lear.
When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build:
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
You might say that I’m an old fashioned Tory in that I’m not one to have bawds and whores building churches. In fact, if I had my way, not a penny of lottery month would go towards such schemes. Which is quite unlike the police of the current administration. If there’s anything that the lottery now funds which isn’t built by bawds and whores, then I really think we should be told. I’m pretty damn sure that neither bawds nor whores understand the first thing about civil engineering.
Which brings me neatly around to Tories.
I’ve been looking around at the types of people who have become Tories in recent years and I’m rather disappointed by the sort of chap we’ve been attracting. Oh, they’re Toryish in their principals of low taxation and pro-business, but where’s all the charisma of the old guard? Where are well rounded characters of Churchill and Wellington? Tories need not be men (or indeed women) whose definition of happiness begins and ends with a discussion on interest rates. They should be people who are living proof that being a Tory brings happiness because we are in touch with the life spirit.
What precipitated this outburst was a few minutes of Tory TV I happened to watch last night, and a bloody good sleep was had by all. One might make excuses because it was the night after the budget but can one really discuss the nature of a two pence cut in income tax for so long without losing the will to live? It is of my confirmed opinion that most of this new breed of Tories are a terribly dull lot and I’ll be trying my best to involve myself with them as little as possible.
Spring will soon be upon us, so it’s already that time of year when the poor start arriving at the Hall, asking if they can help till the fields. It’s a most pernicious nuisance, seeing the woe begotten types come trudging up the driveway. I don’t know how they manage to get over the electrified fence and keep the guard dogs at bay, and My Man’s time is completely taken up with chasing them away. What I spend on shotgun shells during March and April has been known to fund small revolutions in certain Middle African states.
However, with Spring comes the renewed optimism that I might soon be called upon to stand for election in this great country of ours. It’s about time that we had a change in government. The current state of things reminds me of the great bard’s words in his Lear.
When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build:
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
You might say that I’m an old fashioned Tory in that I’m not one to have bawds and whores building churches. In fact, if I had my way, not a penny of lottery month would go towards such schemes. Which is quite unlike the police of the current administration. If there’s anything that the lottery now funds which isn’t built by bawds and whores, then I really think we should be told. I’m pretty damn sure that neither bawds nor whores understand the first thing about civil engineering.
Which brings me neatly around to Tories.
I’ve been looking around at the types of people who have become Tories in recent years and I’m rather disappointed by the sort of chap we’ve been attracting. Oh, they’re Toryish in their principals of low taxation and pro-business, but where’s all the charisma of the old guard? Where are well rounded characters of Churchill and Wellington? Tories need not be men (or indeed women) whose definition of happiness begins and ends with a discussion on interest rates. They should be people who are living proof that being a Tory brings happiness because we are in touch with the life spirit.
What precipitated this outburst was a few minutes of Tory TV I happened to watch last night, and a bloody good sleep was had by all. One might make excuses because it was the night after the budget but can one really discuss the nature of a two pence cut in income tax for so long without losing the will to live? It is of my confirmed opinion that most of this new breed of Tories are a terribly dull lot and I’ll be trying my best to involve myself with them as little as possible.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Truth About The Sea Nymph
What Ho Proles!
This prolonged silence of mine is getting too much. There have even been rumours circulating in the press that I’ve taken up with a Polynesian sea nymph and was recently seen loitering around a bar in the West End known to be frequented by showgirls. They’re all lies, I tell you.
The reason I’ve not put up any more chapters of my Memoirs is that I’ve been made aware of certain legal requirements should I ever want my life story published. So, although I’m still writing and breeched 70,000 words in magnificent style the other day, I’m now wary of doing myself a great disservice. Did Harry Potter appear for free online before the world discovered the magic of a boy and his pet owl? And should the world be given advance warning about a Tory and his duck? Well, precisely… The question of rights is an important one and I wouldn’t like to dissuade a publisher from taking an interest in me because I’ve already put out my meat’s juice for the world to taste in draft form. I’m taking a leaf from Lord Jeffrey’s book. Even God didn’t get a sneak peak of his latest and he co-authored the damn thing.
Of course My Man has insisted that I persist in giving you the beef for free but you might know that I’d stand up to his socialist nonsense. He’d have me turn the Hall into a drop-in centre for local tramps or start picking up hitchhikers in the Bentley instead of driving into them at high speed. What is a man to do?
I think the way around this is to occasionally write one of these updates and see how things go from there. My Memoirs have come between us and I’d like to begin again. As I told the people who come looking for work at the Hall yesterday: mistakes have been made, shots have been fired, but I’m sure we can begin again and resolve these problems in a less bloody manner.
Now then. As you were.
Pip pip.
This prolonged silence of mine is getting too much. There have even been rumours circulating in the press that I’ve taken up with a Polynesian sea nymph and was recently seen loitering around a bar in the West End known to be frequented by showgirls. They’re all lies, I tell you.
The reason I’ve not put up any more chapters of my Memoirs is that I’ve been made aware of certain legal requirements should I ever want my life story published. So, although I’m still writing and breeched 70,000 words in magnificent style the other day, I’m now wary of doing myself a great disservice. Did Harry Potter appear for free online before the world discovered the magic of a boy and his pet owl? And should the world be given advance warning about a Tory and his duck? Well, precisely… The question of rights is an important one and I wouldn’t like to dissuade a publisher from taking an interest in me because I’ve already put out my meat’s juice for the world to taste in draft form. I’m taking a leaf from Lord Jeffrey’s book. Even God didn’t get a sneak peak of his latest and he co-authored the damn thing.
Of course My Man has insisted that I persist in giving you the beef for free but you might know that I’d stand up to his socialist nonsense. He’d have me turn the Hall into a drop-in centre for local tramps or start picking up hitchhikers in the Bentley instead of driving into them at high speed. What is a man to do?
I think the way around this is to occasionally write one of these updates and see how things go from there. My Memoirs have come between us and I’d like to begin again. As I told the people who come looking for work at the Hall yesterday: mistakes have been made, shots have been fired, but I’m sure we can begin again and resolve these problems in a less bloody manner.
Now then. As you were.
Pip pip.
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