I’M All for Persecuting the Nation’s Bloaters, but Not in Public Places

By Robert McNeil

THIS column has called frequently for more state interference in the lives of our fallen citizenry. Human beings, by and large, are untrustworthy and sleekit, forever manoeuvring to get one over on their fellows. You say: “Maybe it’s just the company you’ve kept, Bob. You cannot judge everybody by a few bad apples. You would like me. I’m decent and kind.”

Well, I’m sure there are some exceptions, but they only prove the rule. Human beings are a ghastly crew, who must be made to be more ethical. In particular, the state must make greater efforts to infiltrate that most anti-social of phenomena, the family. Here, walls are put up against the outside world while, inside, stifling atavistic selfishness festers in exclusive micro-communities that the state will one day have to destroy, if mankind is to move to the next evolutionary stage.

Be that as it may, even this column balks at new measures adopted by NHS Ayrshire and Arran. And, for once, I have deployed a word accurately. That word is “measures”. For nurses armed with measuring tapes are scouring malls, supermarkets and community centres in the exotic district, and stopping anyone who looks portly. Personally, I’m all for hounding the nation’s bloaters. But surely it must be done discreetly, with a knock on the door at two in the morning?

This public humiliation of our waddling brethren is astounding, and the sort of thing you’d expect in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – except that there, all the men would have had moustaches. Here, once cornered, the Bunter is bludgeoned with diet and “lifestyle” (vomitometer reading: 11) advice or told they’d better attend special slimming classes.

Recalcitrant lardlords are exposed to fearful threats that, if they don’t hand over all their pies and ice cream, they’ll die of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, syphilis and strokes. Leading pro- obesity campaigners reacted with fury, spitting out bits of cake as they foamed at reporters during a press conference hastily convened by the Fatty Liberation Front.

Leading FLF activist Harold O’Barrel said: “Hmwff fwmmf gwmmf wmmf. I’m sorry, I had a sausage roll stuck under my tongue there. Where was I? Oh yes. We’re furious aboot this invasion of oor personal liberties, like, ken?

“What is happening to this country when ordinary, upstanding bloaters cannot waddle the streets without being measured, cajoled, and told things for their own good? We are arranging an immediate meeting with the Prime Minister, Broon, and have ordered lashings of shepherd’s pie and a vat of oven chips – and not McCain’s either.”

In other parts of the country, however, dafties emerged to defend the stop-and-measure move, saying they knew best. Wallace O’Chelsea, of the Campaign For More Decency, Ken?, claimed bloaters were putting pressure on the nation’s pavement network.

“It’s costing ratepayers a fortune to repair the things that facilitate walking. What are they called again? Pavements? Aye, that’s it. Pavements. Ordinary, slim people who can say no to a packet of crisps are having to subsidise those who cannot look a cake in the eye without wanting to lick it. Well, enough is, you know, what’s the word again? Oh aye, that’s it. Enough. Enough is, no, I’ve forgotten it again. Never mind. You get my gist.”

Mary Scanlon, the Tory health spokeswoman, said the persecution would boost the number of people with access to information about bloating.

However, unusually, fragrant Mary is wrong. It will do nothing of the sort. All it will do is boost the number of people too scared to leave the hoose. And, right enough, that can only be a good thing.

Is Gordon running a tab for us?

BROON’S mad Britain thing has had Scotia Minor laughing into its beer. Which is just as well, since one of his ministers – called Liam Byrne; obviously, a descendant of Alfred the Great – has called for all citizens to get doon the boozer to celebrate their Britishness.

It’s a cack-handed way of trying to capture this Carry On Blighty caper, with which Broon is bizarrely obsessed. He wants to mothball some fantasy from his youth, that deceptively golden era shortly after England won the Second World War, when everyone from John of Groats in the north to Newcastle in the south were one people, and not a fractious rabble divided into posh punters in the shires and chippy poltroons in tenement slums always greetin’ aboot being bled dry by scroungers centred around the Thames.

That said, the nation agrees with Andrew Marr, who said going for a pint was the first decent suggestion Broon’s Britishisation Project had made. Cheers, Broon! To the end of the unequal Union!

Still smelling the whiff of Auld Nick up here, Charlie

HOW noble of the Church of Englandshire to apologise to Big Charlie Darwin for having slagged him off for his intriguing theory. Big Charlie is deid noo, of course, and sits on a little cloud up in Heaven playing his harp. But, still, an apology is a good way of saying sorry. I can’t abide these “Ooh-look-at-me-I’m-so-harsh” galoots who complain about apologies made centuries after the event. It’s the thought that counts. At least, I think it is.

Darwin’s theory of evolution was a ground-breaking intellectual contribution to knowledge, enabling us to understand how we got to where we are today (think creeks, absent paddles etc). However, at the time, the English kirk reacted petulantly, disliking in particular the fact that Darwin had proved the Bible was a load of old codswallop. In an official position paper, drawn up by leading bishops, it said: “And look at his beard. It’s probably got bits of old food in it. And he wears these daft wee specs. It’s our betting that he smells of poo as well.”

Yesterday, a church spokesman said: “Yes, we’re sorry about all that. Although we do not back his theories, we have evolved to a new level and would just like to apologise for the stuff we said about his beard and glasses.” However, in Scotland, a spokesman for the Campaign for Increasingly Small Factions of Believers insisted: “We still think Colin Darwin’s theories were written doon by the Antichrist, like. If you look closely at the photiegraphs, you can actually see bits of food in his beard.”

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