A Modern Day Parable

[Bizarra]

A squirrels tale

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

THE U.K. VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the

summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference

and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper;

with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a

table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so,

while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house.

The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with

breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing "We shall overcome".

Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the

squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed.

He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish

it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially

mobile. The squirrel’s food is seized and re distributed to the more needy

members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building

a new home.

The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary

home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried

to blow up the airport because of Britain’s apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.

Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned, because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people’s credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the

squirrel’s food, though spring is still months away, while the council

house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain the house.

He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers" drug "illness’.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since

arrival in UK.

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.

He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise

him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state

the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for

grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is

increased.

The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain’s

multicultural diversity, and dogs are criticised by the government for

failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press

blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison.

They call for the resignation of a minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the

burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their

credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and

order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END

[Phoenix999]

A scarey parable

I say "death to all lazy useless grasshoppers"

[Norfolk n Chance]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state... then we can ban grasshoppers and cats!!

[Raistlin]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state...

You mean it's not...

In my mind Holmfirth is already free

[Bizarra]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state...

You mean it's not...

In my mind Holmfirth is already free

Free Holmfirth with every £1 spent

[Raistlin]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state...

You mean it's not...

In my mind Holmfirth is already free

Free Holmfirth with every £1 spent

I would offer your a glass of something for that comment but it was the "Last of the Summer Wine"

[Norfolk n Chance]

Oh god what have i started?!

[Bizarra]

Oh god what have i started?!

Quoth God, when he saw Adam & Eve getting it together

[Phoenix999]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state... then we can ban grasshoppers and cats!!

Yes I agree.... then we can put a ban on the Yorkies moving down here and taking our jobs ;)

[Raistlin]

It's reading things like this that makes me want to push for Yorkshire to become an independent state... then we can ban grasshoppers and cats!!

Yes I agree.... then we can put a ban on the Yorkies moving down here and taking our jobs

Easy...