by
Frank Hatton

We are a comparatively small island by world standards, and many of the folk who are well known here are virtually unknown outside of our shores. Among these is the name of Tommy Cooper, a comedian who tragically died at the height of his career. He was a very unusual entertainer, in that he posed as a magician who was unbelievably inept at his profession, but between his failed tricks and illusions, he kept up a stream of very funny jokes and observations on life. Quite often however, if one examined his remarks, there was a subtle poke in the eye for some news item or statistic. One of these was an observation on road accidents, when he pointed out that 20% of all road accidents were caused by drunk drivers, and on this basis, the remaining 80% of the accidents were caused by drivers who were sober. Hence, if everybody only drove their car when they were drunk, then the accident rate would go down. It is this sort of stupid application of logic that one is faced with almost daily by what at first sight appears to be an intelligent politician or social worker. To give an example of what I mean, there is no doubt whatsoever that this country is being slowly overwhelmed by an influx of both legal and illegal immigrants. They will pass through many countries in order to reach our shores. One could well ask the reason they do this, and the answer is extremely simple. We are the softest touch in Europe. Once they arrive here, they are granted all sorts of benefits, like housing, money, medical treatment, and many other ‘freebies’, all paid for by the ever suffering tax payer. However, I read in the newspaper recently that a leading figure in our country had observed, ‘That the influx of immigrants to our country was an answer to the problem of maintaining our state pension payments to our senior citizens’. This is the sort of unbelievable logic I mentioned earlier. We are no doubt running into a problem on this issue, because the percentage of older folk is increasing quite sharply, and as the state pension is funded by the tax payer, it follows that the balance between people drawing pensions, and the folk paying taxes will ultimately be such, that there will not be enough money to go around. So, this wise soul suggests that the extra people coming into the UK will hopefully pay the taxes to meet this shortfall. I suppose this person has never seen, or heard of the old ‘chain letter’ con trick, where you are asked to send a sum of money to the first names on a list which is enclosed with the chain letter, and it goes on to say that in a very short time you will be receiving untold wealth, as and when your own name reaches the top of the list. What you are not expected to discover, is that the number of the population is not a bottomless bucket, and there are just not enough people to enable the thing to work out. Unless of course I have missed out on some dastardly scheme whereby 90% of the population will be killed off just before they reach pensionable age!!!! I was particularly pleased to read in my newspaper that your Mr Bill Bryson is about to return to England to live. He first came to this country in 1973, married a British nurse, and stayed here until 1995 when he took his wife and four children to live in New Hampshire in order that they could benefit from the different culture, but, it would seem that Bill Bryson now regards the move as having served it’s purpose, and wants to bring his family back to Britain. However, his wife wishes to live near London, whereas he wants to settle in a rural area. I do hope for his sake that he wins the difference in opinions, as in my view, London is so much changed in it’s population, that the place is nothing like it used to be. In fact, if any of you good folk who read this monthly article, know, or have contact with the good Mr Bryson, you can tell him I would highly recommend my local area of Christchurch in the county of Dorset. He does know it well, as he used to live and work here, plus it is quite close to the county of Hampshire on this side of the pond. I live in hope Mr Bryson, I feel you would make a wonderful drinking partner, in my local pub. A Mr Hobson lived in the town of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire in the long distant past, and was engaged in the business of hiring horses. Primarily, these were for the purpose of folk wishing to travel to London, a journey of around 60 miles. It would seem that Mr Hobson was a very conciensious soul, and always wished to ensure that his horses were hired out in a strictly rotational sequence, so that the last horse to have done the journey, went to the back of the queue, and the most rested of the horses went to the front. Hence when one wished to hire a horse from Mr Hobson, your choice had to be for the horse that was next in line to be hired out. Hence the origin of the expression ‘Hobson’s choice’. This country has recently suffered an outbreak of ‘Foot and Mouth ‘ disease, and while it is doubtless an extremely serious situation, most of the governmental departments appear to be pulling in different direction in terms of the best solution to the problem. There is one school of thought that feels the prohibiting of all traffic, other than that which has been suitably disinfected, is the best answer. Others are engaged in slaughtering whole herds of livestock, solely on the basis that they are near to an infected area. Hence farmers are seeing valuable and healthy stock destroyed. Financially, this is crippling our farming industry, and while the government is making very sympathetic noises, and promising them fast financial support, thus far, the only sign of any aid is coming via appeals to the general public, and donations from large businesses. there was also a sum of £500,000 ($725,000) from our Prince Charles. I suppose we will just have to hope that the government will get their act together soon, but, it does seem that they bear a strange resemblance to a decapitated chicken running around the yard. They make some very encouraging remarks, but nothing actually gets any better. To my simple mind there is within this situation a relationship to the words of ‘Bluebeard’, who when asked how many women he had killed replied, “How the hell should I know? I’m a murderer, not an accountant” In that our government have the philosophy, ‘ Our job is to govern the country, not to help people’ Frank Hatton

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