THE FAMOUS FIVE GET INTO TROUBLE

by David "Enid Blyton" Pleasant

SUMMER HAD ARRIVED and school was over until September, and once again the five had come together to the countryside to chat in their favourite orchard and discuss their plans for the long holidays to come.

"I know," said Michael, ever thoughtful, and squinting through his glasses at a piece of paper he had pulled from his anorak pocket, "why don't we go fishing in the big lake beyond Westminster Green?" 

"Oh, Michael," lilted Stephen, far more practical, "you know perfectly well that we can't fish! We don't even have the tackle needed. We would have to ask the villagers for it. And, anyway, the girlies will soon get bored unless they catch something in the first few minutes, and you can jolly well be sure that isn't going to happen!"

"Who are you calling a girlie?" piped up Theresa, the tomboy. "I can fish as well as any public schoolboy, if not better. I may not be as good at gutting fish as Michael, but I can wait around aimlessly for hours on end doing nothing just as well as the next young man. Whoever that may be." 

"Well I'm not going into the village to ask for favours," rasped Stephen. "All those men hanging around with each other all day long and into the evening. It's not natural, that's all I say, there's just not lovely for you," he went on, lapsing into his Welsh drawl. 

THE EARLY JULY SUN WAS LOWERING ITS head over the meadow beyond the orchard where the five were gathered in their peaceful contemplation of the buttercups and marigolds, except for Liam, who was playing with his collection of tin soldiers, marching them up and down hills in his boyish imagination, making the sound of machine gun fire through his teeth, although the soldiers were in fact replicas of those from the Napoleonic wars.

THEY WERE ALL BEGINNING to think it would be best to go home for tea, scones and perhaps some crumpet for Theresa and Stephen when Andrea lisped her opinion rather timidly. "If we don't have this tackle you are talking about, and if David and George from the big farm have gone off to their mummies' houses for summer, then we really ought to go into the village and jolly well tell the locals to help us! Surely they understand this fishing business!"

"You foolish filly," barked Liam. "The locals are upset with all of us townies after they allowed Boris from the stables to borrow the bicycle and he never returned it! And they certainly won't allow us to get near deep waters!"

LONG SHADOWS WERE BEING CAST as a chill started to creep across the soft turf of the meadow before the five managed to decide what to do next day, which was always the problem for these children during the long recess. 'Children's heads on pillows without plans for 'morrow will ne'er sleep' was a truth to be remembered for these forty days. But Michael broke the silence as they were standing up to go home: "Wait! I know," he chirruped, "Let's all stand for leadership of the Conservative Party!" Beaming, he continued, "None of us has any charisma, any charm, any glamour, any ability or any possibility of winning a general election, but it will be a wizard way to start off the summer holidays!" Michael looked at the astonished faces around him. "Just think," he continued, "we can go into the village and dress up and have ribbons and things and people will make cakes and there might be dancing late at night, and..."

BUT LIAM'S VOICE MOVED IN TO BRING home the truth, ringing with some of the gravity he had inherited from his Scots father: "Ay," he said. "There may be many of these things, but demographic analyses I have been looking at on this bally new-fangled tablet device I have here suggests we are all doomed, and none of us will be going off to camp again, except perhaps for Theresa. And that won't last for long either."

DEWCH AR GYMRU

HAVING MANAGED, SOMEWHAT AGAINST the odds, to reach the age I now possess, I am rather proud of the fact that I have managed to convince (at least) myself that I am a reasonable person in both my domestic views and my opinions on local and world politics, something which may not have seemed apparent as the path I would forge when I was younger.

IT IS THEREFORE WITH SOME DISTRESS that I feel I am being tarred with a brush bristling with badger hair and primed for others rather than me; and this is simply because I defend a system based on individual rights, precedence, jurisprudence and personal and social responsibility over one bound by nominations, party listings, unelected officialdom, nepotism, and favour.

THE CURRYING OF WHICH IS ACCEPTED in most of the European countries who, at least until recently, have seemed not to mind who decides on the wattage of their light bulbs, on the sell-by dates on their yogurts, on the amount of elastic allowed in any given bikini top or on how powerful their vacuum cleaners, toasters or electric kettles may be.

IF I WISHED TO HAVE a Herman von Rumpoy, a Durão Barroso, a Donald Tusk, a Jean-Claude Juncker or a Martin Schulz telling me I was not allowed to buy a set of heat-based curling tongs for my wife's birthday then I would at least like the possibility to choose which anti-curling candidate to vote for. But we do not have that choice in the European Union. We are told who is in charge. 

THOSE NOMINATED TO RUN THE UNION, from which Britain will fortunately be able to escape, albeit never having been more than a 65% member, have no idea what they are doing, and the predominantly left-wing people who support this absurd idea must surely understand that the problem with international socialism is that sooner or later one runs out of other people's money. 

BEING LEFT WING MEANS caring; it does not mean taking money off everyone and keeping most of it for a bunch of unemployable politicians who spend on average more money on travel, hotels and "down time" than they do on producing much-needed reports to further the cause of aid to regions of Europe which once were relatively healthy and are now slipping back into the poverty and despair of the nineteen fifties.

WALES IS NOW IN THE SEMI-FINALS of the Euro 2016 competition. Wales is, according to all statistics, one of the European Union "regions" (sic) which has received most money per capita from Brussels. Wales beat Belgium this evening. I am sure this was merely a footballing phenomenon, in no way connected to the fact that all of the European money sent to Wales, particularly to the depressed "region" of South Wales, was unable to stop closures of libraries -- a fundamental resource for the unemployed, for young job seekers and for elderly people -- across the unpronounceable towns in the area. And Wales voted out, presumably because the money never reached the people who needed it.

WHERE ALL THIS MONEY WENT, OF COURSE, is a mystery beyond our comprehension, as they sometimes say. Yet money from the taxes of the people of these regions "in the good times" had been used to subsidise bullfighting in Spain, to support "traditional regional cultural activities."

NONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE these absurd decisions are directly responsible to the people who contribute to their wages nor to the people to whom they decide to grant money. This means that the money for the European superstate apparently comes from no one and from nowhere for those who receive it and goes nowhere and to no one in terms of comeback and justification of expenses from those who grant it. Anyone can do what they like with the money as long as they fill out the forms correctly.

THIS IS A RECIPE FOR BOTH CORRUPTION and medium term economic (and financial) disaster and ruin. And now we are seeing the beginning of it. And those who have seen through the wafer-thin curtain around the worst robbery of public funds in peace-time memory by the shabbiest bunch of retrograde sneaks are being looked at in the same light as the fools who voted for Brexit thinking that this would stop foreigners coming to Britain.

BRITAIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND ALWAYS will be open. In 1966 in my state primary school in Liverpool there were three Polish children, one Lebanese boy, a Nigerian girl and a beautiful Russian girl who stole my heart and kept it for a couple of years or so until I managed to forget her. Rather that, than cynical politicians stealing my money forever.

THE TEDDY BEARS' PANIC

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY, as the song goes, you would hardly get a surprise to see the panic that Britain's decision to leave the European Union has provoked among the foreign ministers of the six founding nations, aware as they are, no doubt, that there may be some intelligent and honest politicians and people lurking in other "member states" (sic) who have now seen that it is possible to leave the union and still be alive the next day and may wish to follow.

THUS, LIKE LITTLE TEDDY BEARS off on a picnic, Paolo Gentiloni from Italy, Didier Reynders from Belgium, Jean-Marc Ayrault from France, Bert Koenders from the Netherlands, Frank-Walter Steinmeier from Germany and Jean Asselborn from Luxemburg went a-wandering in the woods to presumably find some manner of avoiding further exits from their corrupt club.

INTERESTING IN THIS PANIC-PROVOKED situation is the similarity between what I am describing as a Teddy Bears' panic and the lyrics to the song I am quoting. "They love to play and shout, they never have any care;" goes the song, a description almost perfect for our Eurocrats, and then the ominous warning to children everywhere, one that Britain has fortunately understood: "It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home."

EUROS 2016

I NOTICE TODAY, SATURDAY 25th of June 2016 -- incidentally the day that my European Union/British Passport has expired -- that there is some dissymmetry in the fact that only one full day after what is being popularly called "Brexit", Britain is still in the unlikely position of having three of its four footballing nations playing in the Euro 2016 competition.

SCOTLAND IS, AS USUAL, THE EXCEPTION, having used her seventeenth-century opt-out clause to withdraw from football in the nineteen seventies, although allowing any Scots who show talent the freedom of movement to go and play football in England, where there is money.

OF COURSE LATER TODAY, barring some sort of absurdity, this state of affairs will be reduced to a mere two teams, England and Wales, paradoxically the two nations who voted most strongly to leave what is mistakenly referred to as "Europe" in a lot of the vulgar press coverage of the event.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH in either of these teams winning this competition, but, as strong as my glee in the vote on the historic day of the 23rd of June was, it would be stronger still to see the egg on the face of the unelected corrupt bunch of swindlers and crooks who run the arrogant, aloof European Union if the criminal François Hollande has to hand over a trophy to the captain of either one.

(My photo shows European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker taking a break from drinking brandy and discussing the rules of fair play with Michel Platini)

FLYING DOWN TO RIO

PERHAPS LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I enjoy a little bit of the Olympic spirit once in a while, and, as has been revealed in Sunday Mornings passim, I fully expect none of this to be on display in the pestilent city of Rio de Janeiro later on this summer. Although I am pleased to express my surprise at the speed of construction of the Olympic Village, above.

MY DISTRUST OF THIS YEAR'S OLYMPICS is not simply because of the legacy of Brazilian legend Jean-Marie Faustin Godefroid "João" de Havelange, former president of FIFA, member of the International Olympic Committee and once described as "the most corrupt man who ever lived", nor by the fact that the former President of the Brazilian Republic, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva and the current one, Dilma Vana Rousseff, have been or are being hauled over the coals for charges of corruption in the extreme.

NO, IT PERHAPS HAS MORE to do with the recent spate of doping scandals in sport and the fact that the Olympics this year are going to be held in a city where it is easier to acquire drugs than it is to find clean drinking water.

YET ON A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL, I am amazed that drug-taking should be deemed illegal in sport. When I see some of the "events" that these athletes practice it is extremely difficult to imagine any sane human being wishing to indulge in them without some form of consciousness-changing stimulant.

WHY ELSE WOULD SOMEONE wish to do the pole vault, charging along a track with a flexible pole and hurtling twenty feet into the air then crashing onto a bouncy castle without the side protection parts? Or speeding down a hundred-and-fifty yard snow piste and flying off into the air with a couple of plastic planks tied to one's feet? Wearing spandex and a Smurf costume to ride a bicycle? And why a grown man would want to enter the 10,000 metres race, running round in circles for half an hour is beyond me.

I HAVE ALWAYS ASSUMED that these people were on drugs and that trying to prevent them from taking whatever it is that they need would be as foolish as attempting to get a jazz musician to play without (at least) a little hashish. Sport today is entertainment, as it used to be in Ancient Greece, when chaps and ladies would delight in watching naked men indulge in Greco-Roman wrestling after a few glasses of wine (all round). And, to be honest, not very many tennis fans care what Maria Sharapova has inside her body, as long as she can inspire someone to want to carry out a good backhand smash, as seen above.

IN FACT, I WOULD GO SO FAR as to say that sport in general, and the Olympics in particular, should take its lead from American football, basketball and ice hockey, and introduce drug-taking as a compulsory element. One can imagine the possibilities of sponsorship and the entertainment value of, say, the 400 metres hurdles on marijuana, the cocaine triple jump event, the 4 x 400 metres passing the joint, the heroin synchronised swimming or the legal high jump.

OF COURSE, THERE MUST ALWAYS be safety concerns: javelin and hammer throwers should be restricted to methadone, speed should be kept out of some pool events, and opiates, acids and such derivatives should not be allowed in the Marathon, as, in their confused states, even more athletes might get lost than usually do. 

(My last photos show a non Olympic event that will, coincidentally, be taking place over the summer. This is the three-legged bicycle race in which major British political figures will compete to see which of them (if any) still have a job when parliament reopens next September. Unfortunately, Andrew Mitchell (bottom), former chief whip of the Conservative Party, was disqualified when found not to be respecting rules over helmets.)

BOOM BANG A BANG AND BUST

ONCE AGAIN, I FEEL FORCED out of semi-retirement after yet another Eurovision Song Contest has been held, showing, as is always the case, how our European songwriters are capable of reflecting the pulse of our individual nations and of our collective identity much in the same manner as the troubadours and poets of old, whose balladeering and scribing revealed a remarkable rapport with the people.

WE WERE INFORMED OFFICIALLY that the winner of the competition was Jamala, from the Ukraine (above), with a song about the movement of and forced deportation of the Tartar people from the Crimea under Stalin, a sad moment in European history which deserves to be remembered in her touching ballad "1944". 

OF COURSE, UGLY RUMOURS ARE CIRCULATING that the current leader of Russia, Vladimir "Ras" Putin, is not very happy about the song, nor indeed about Eurovision at all, as, so it is reported by unofficial sources, he stated "It was all a long time ago, and everyone is happy now." Indeed, if the mood of the lyrics to the Official State Russian song, "Believe" written and performed by Sergey Lazarev and Putin himself, on piano above,are to be believed, Putin may have been announcing some hidden aspects of future Russian foreign policy: "Thunder and lightning, it’s getting exciting/ Light up the skyline to show where you are".

BUT AS USUAL WITH EUROVISION it is the also-rans that will really make the headlines in the future. Fortunately, most of the entrants will be forgotten forever unless they return to compete again or end up hosting the show, but there are occasionally some signs that certain contestants will be around for the long haul.

GERMANY DID BADLY YET AGAIN, with repeat contestant Angie Merkel and 'Donner und Blitzen' a somewhat depressing song about the forced movement and deportation of Syrian people into Europe and then out again, into Turkey. The song admittedly has some cheer involved at the end when the deported Syrians, now living in Turkey, come back into Europe when Turkey joins the European Union. My rehearsal photo shows Angie and her set designers working out where to put the Syrian dancers on stage.

THE USA WAS INVITED TO PROVIDE a special guest for this year's show, and as per usual the Americans showed the Europeans what a true performer can do when given the means that only the greatest financial superpower can summon up. This was Donald "The" Trump, with his haunting, Jim Morrison and The Doors style ballad "Get Out Baby, Now You're Fired", about the unfortunate forced movement of and deportation of Mexicans from California and Texas and how the USA closed its doors to any immigrants except leggy, busty supermodels who were prepared to marry millionaires.

BRITAIN WAS AGAIN A LET-DOWN, with the popular smiling duo Dave 'n' Georgie and their song "Stay". Although many commentators saw this as a paean to union and harmony, others saw it as a cynical mock-lament about the forced movement of and then deportation of hundreds of thousands of Eastern and Southern Europeans to factories, shops and hospitals in the south of England, only for them to be told that they had to go home again when unemployment benefit was eliminated in the country.

FOR MANY, HOWEVER, THE TRUE winner was the runner-up in the BBC's choice of song, which was the charismatic Bojo Jojo and his Shakespeare tribute "Out Out Damned Spot", which some believe will represent the UK in next year's event. The clever lyrics, taken from Macbeth, deal with one man's urge to form a new dynasty and enact the forced deportation of Dave 'n' Georgie from the British parliament.

TRICOTEUSE HOLLANDAISE

LIKE ANY OTHER SENSITIVE human being, I am in a state of dismay over the recent events in Paris, but am even more moved by a concern over the fact that this is the sixth time this year that (apparent and alleged) terrorists have been able to pierce the protective sheath around the French state and slaughter innocents willy-nilly.

SHIFTY FRENCH PRESIDENT FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE may have a nice line on poetic discourse, as well as being excellent at keeping a low profile when the chips are down, but it is clear -- as it should have been to the French people when he was elected -- that he is simply not up to the job of looking after the most pervious nation on the continent.

I AM PREPARED TO ACCEPT that the French do not mind having a leader who is an out-and-out thief, as has been the case with most of their recent presidents, because this seems to satisfy their Latin ancestry, but to my mind it is to say the least unorthodox to expect a man who cannot decide which of his mistresses he wishes to shag to be able to direct a war.

A WAR, AS HOLLANDE pointed out in a flowery albeit badly delivered speech yesterday, which France would once again win. Hollande is a lawyer by training, has never had a proper job in his life, and obviously knows nothing about history.

IF HE DID, HE WOULD KNOW that when France threatens war no one is shaking at the knees. France lost World War II; France lost World War I; France lost the Franco-Prussian War; and France even managed to lose the French Civil War shortly after the French Revolution, when they ended up being governed by a Corsican who turned the Republic into an Empire.

WE ARE HEARING A GOOD DEAL about France's absurd, and never implemented, claims to egalité, liberté and fraternité prevailing over the terrorists and their aims at destroying civilisation. Anyone who has been on the streets of Paris in recent years knows that, far from being the "city of lights", it is light years away from civilisation. And that it is about time we had a little more securité and CCTVé