Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Cooped Up

Yet more bad news from the Flatland banking sector: the Chicken Bank has discovered that a load of its golden eggs are smashed, and can't even make an omelette out of them. It acquired them a few years ago as a job lot when it took over the Flatannia Building Society. The FCA (Flatland Chicken Authority) definitely has egg on its face, having only recently touted the Chicken Bank as a suitable purchaser of a clutch of high street bank branches. So, as usual, victims must be found, and the holders of subordinated bonds and Permanent Egg-Bearing Securities will be well and truly plucked. Executives sitting in the Chicken Coop will, of course, receive their customary large bonuses.

A new Governor of the Bank of Flatland has been recruited at great expense from Mooseland. His role, it appears, is to issue loads of banknotes when nobody is looking, so as to meet the government's burgeoning debts. Meanwhile, the Chief Circle is playing host to a group of eight nations, together with assorted hangers-on, liggers, bloodsuckers and general detritus. The meeting will, of course, be a load of hot air, whilst the attendees pose for contrived photo-ops. Even the Bilderbergers will appear more sincere than this assembly of Janus-faced satraps.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Circular Warming

(The messenger entrusted with carrying this despatch was unaccountably delayed by twelve weeks.) A semi-annual ritual has just taken place in Flatland - we have moved our clocks an hour forward to Flatland Summer Time (FST), so as to celebrate the passing of winter and the forthcoming summer. In reality, however, Flatland is perishingly cold, possibly on account of emanations from Northland, where President Input is prone to cutting off supplies of energy to any nations who criticise his kleptocratic regime. Our leading scientists are deeply puzzled by all this - for years they have been regaling Flatlanders with horror stories along the lines of:
The entirety of Flatland will heat up to such an extent that crops will fail, and the population starve to death.
Then they add more wood to their central heating boilers in order to stave off the cold. Something is not right, and a meeting of the Senate has been called to discuss what can be done. The issue of Circular Warming has polarised(!) our community. Some believe every syllable of wibble issuing from the scientists' mouths, whilst others mutter sotto voce that perhaps these selfsame boffins have been smoking exotic substances that induce hallucinations. Finance in Flatland remains in turmoil - a number of nations are much happier to borrow than to repay their creditors. A prominent example is Silverland, whose lady president Cristina Churchner clashes noisily with any judge (foreign or domestic) who rules against her crackpot state. Her most strident demand is for Flatland to cede a group of benighted islands, none of whose inhabitants wish to become Silverlanders. Clearly her support for the democratic process is selective, to say the least. With luck, she will have her leg bitten by a patriotic penguin, and forget about her absurd demand.

Warmly by the Throat

As so often, there is a spot of bother in Flatland. As is well known, female Flatlanders are basically needle-shaped. One of our more-prominent citizens - an Octagon, no less - was dining with his voluptuous wife, fondly admiring with his hands what he took to be her slender waist, when it transpired that he had been inadvertently throttling the good lady. She subsequently took off in a huff without even issuing the obligatory Peace Cry, and her location is currently unclear. Unfortunately some footage of the incident found its way to PC Plod, who insists upon playing and replaying the heaving of the lady's embonpoint, under the pretext of crime investigation.