There's something about our illustrious prime minister that reminds me of Billy Bunter. Billy Bunter? Who on earth is he? I can hear some of you saying - especially North Americans and more youthful visitors to this blog.
He was an early star of children's television on the BBC. He attended posh Greyfriars School with other posh boys and he was a very greedy, idle boy who made viewers laugh with his antics. He liked nothing more than secretly chomping cream buns and he had many tricks up his sleeve to avoid hard work or punishment.
Like Eton School - Boris Johnson's alma mater, Greyfriars is a traditional fee-paying establishment for the sons of the moneyed middle classes. The boys live in a bubble, hardly aware of life in the real world. They have their own vocabulary - "Crumbs!", "Gosh!", "prep", "rugger", "tuck" and "beastly" for example.
As BoJo walked in his green wellingtons around the flooded South Yorkshire village of Fishlake yesterday, he seemed just like Billy Bunter - hardly able to relate to the lives of the ordinary people he met. Listening does not come easily to him. You just knew that he'd have much preferred to be scoffing another cream bun behind the cricket pavilion.
How on earth British people can have any faith in this bumbling self-obsessed buffoon is beyond me. The fact that he is likely to continue as our political leader after the forthcoming General Election fills me with both despair and shame. What is happening here in my beloved homeland? It never used to be like this...
"I say, keep that beast Coker off! I wasn't in his study when he found me there, the
suspicious beast! I wasn't after his cake! There wasn't any cake, and I never touched it,
and I had hardly a mouthful when the brute came in! I say, you fellows - ow! Oh crikey!"
Can't believe the quick series of prime ministers you had lately.
ReplyDeleteI wish The Micro Manager was in charge. I'd vote for her. You'd be like Denis Thatcher.
DeleteYou'd be making big mistake on that one.
DeleteIt's like the US all over again. Sort of.
ReplyDeleteIn miniature. In an historic setting.
DeleteHey, the US is historic! Just less so. :)
DeleteYou said: "What is happening here in my beloved homeland? It never used to be like this..." I find myself saying that almost daily, only I'm living in a different country.
ReplyDeleteI think Johnson and Trump must be related - they have such similar character traits.
DeleteTake heart, the Brits are doing a lot to keep us entertained Down Under.
ReplyDeleteWe are living in a sitcom.
DeleteAhhh...it's not easy to please everyone, Yorkie.
ReplyDeleteStrawberry growers perhaps? Who dislikes strawberries?
DeleteI'll abstain from any political comment (it is not my place) although of course I closely follow what is going on in my "second Heimat". But I can see why you were reminded of Billy Bunter!
ReplyDeletePlease feel free to comment. I won't mind.
DeleteI loathed Billy Bunter on TV as a child. It didn't make me laugh. Him and Mr Pastry were watched while parents laughed and I cringed inside...........bit like watching any politician on TV now!
ReplyDeleteGirls were very thin on the ground in Billy Bunter's world. I guess you preferred skipping, ribbons and kittens in those days Sue.
DeleteSadly I do remember Billy Bunter and others like Cardew the Cad. lol
ReplyDeleteLucie Attwell was another who drew chubby little children.
Briony
x
I must say that I had never heard of Cardew the Cad before. When you think about it, such programmes were very distant from ordinary people's experiences of life.
DeleteDoes that mean that I am not ordinary? LOL
DeleteYou are the real Brighton Belle!
DeleteWhen you look back on the type of entertainment we endured as children all those years ago, it makes me cringe. Perhaps Boris was a big fan of Billy Bunter, and used him as a rôle model?
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, someday, we'll all look back on the unbelievable idiots who currently vie to politically "rule" the UK, with their totally unrealistic promises, and we'll hang our heads in shame !
I'm not allowed to vote in the upcoming election because I've been out of the country for more than 15 years - and for once I'm really rather glad !
Sadly, we may be about to leave The European Union. This will have a hurricane-like effect on Britain's economy. So how can the political parties make so many expensive promises? The national coffers may have already run dry. I just don't get it.
DeleteYou have forgotten Elizabeth Bott, the first rebellious female? Actually Billie Bunter was a historic figure of literature and we should applaud the author )
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXiZHXkG-ac
Applaud Frank Richards for his contribution to Literature? That's like applauding Adolf Hitler for his contribution to World Peace... I might be exaggerating ever so slightly.
DeleteI was willing my hundreds of ancestral relatives in Fishlake churchyard to rise up out of the water and pull him under, except they had the sense to build the church where it's dry. I'm impressed that you committed that Billy Bunter passage to memory. Can you quote Biggles too?
ReplyDeleteBiggles? One of my personal favourite extracts that encapsulates the friendship between Algy and Biggles is from "Biggles In The Terai", when Biggles and Bertie find Algy injured in the jungle. Algy greets them with:
Delete"Am I glad to see you! You were a long time finding me."
Biggles's reply ends with: "You talk as if you expected us."
To which Algy replies: "Naturally. I knew that when you heard I was missing you wouldn't be long getting to India."
That simple, unshakeable faith that Biggles would come for him, and would not give up until he found him, says everything about the unbreakable bond between them.
That isn't quite what they said to Boris when he turned up in Fishlake.
DeleteWhenever I see Boris the word 'buffoon' comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteRussia comes to mind for me.
DeleteI was liked the woman in South Yorkshire who basically told Boris off while she continued slogging through her clean up. Get very tired of cack-handed politicians trying to use other people's devastation as a photo-op.
ReplyDeleteBilly Bunter does seem an apt comparison (I, sadly, remember the character).
They edited out some of the earthier exchanges. A Fishlake farmer said, "I thought all the ****ing pigs had drowned!" while another resident simply said, "Why won't you publish The Russia Report you ****er?"
DeleteI'm not quite sure what made Billy Bunter funny to so many people. I found it rather cringe-making. I remember Cardew Robinson and his 'invention' Cardew The Cad but I can't remember anything about him apart from him being tall and wearing a striped cap.
ReplyDeleteI bet you remember Jimmy Edwards though! Were you related?
Delete(I know I have joshed with you about this connection before.)
I can remember Jimmy Edwards very well indeed. You have indeed joshed with me on this subject. Jolly good word that.
DeleteMaybe the planets are aligned in Dumbshit Evil Leader mode. I see no other explanation. None at all.
ReplyDeleteThat alignment appears to be frozen into the locked position.
DeleteI don't know Billy Bunter at all, but I certainly agree with your assessment of BoJo. I think Labour would be in a much better position if it had better party leadership.
ReplyDeleteI admire Jeremy Corbyn but the right wing media have slathered him with poop. We need Keir Starmer or Emily Thornberry or maybe Jess Phillips or Rebecca Long-Bailey...sadly it won't be in time for this poll.
Delete...or Hillary Benn.
DeleteWell, it's not entirely the media. Corbyn has made some serious missteps. I mean, I'm pretty liberal, but I don't want Corbyn as a PM.
DeleteFrom my viewpoint he has been honest and true. I have not seen these "mis-steps" you refer to. However, I do think it is time for a new Labour leader. It seems that it is going to take a Tory victory to reach that renewal.
DeleteIf your country is no good for me to emigrate to and mine no good for you to immigrate to, what are we to do then? All I know is, when the two buffoons are gone by one means or another, both of our governments and our people better pull out all the stops to make great changes so that this kind of thing never happens again. I truly fear for our Constitution and our Democracy! MANDATE TERM LIMITS!!
ReplyDeleteI know lots of things Professor P. Thyme but I don't know what "MANDATE TERM LIMITS" means. The trouble is with Buffoon and Mini-Bufoon is that they have infected politics with a disease that may prove incurable.
DeleteSadly there is no viable alternative and I feel equally dismissive about Corbyn. The man is a liability and, while he insists on being Labpur leader, he is losing votes for Labour. I am seriously worried that this country is heading for a 1930s Germany where no one party has the majority and too many parties will fragment the vote so that some charismatic idiot will creep in by stealth and do lasting harm.
ReplyDeleteI think we have already got that charismatic idiot Addy. He bowls small boys over when playing rugger with them and has at the last count said "Get Brexit Done" eleven thousand four hundred and eighty seven times as instructed by Demonic Cummings.
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ReplyDelete