THE EDINBURGH RASCAL - ISSUE 7

Issue 7, November 2012

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the edinburgh rascal, issue the seventh, second month of two thousand and twelve

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Front cover illustration by Kim Cruickshank.

Check out her blog at http://kimcruickshank.blogspot.com/

Aftair my dear couzin Jeffrey becom afflictéd with a sudden attaque of Gout, eez fingairs av been temporairally incapassitéd. Zee editairs of Ze Rascool av kandlee asked moi to take his plaice, and I av grassfully agreed.

From reading this unintellectual merde­rag intermittently ovair thee last few months, it has become clair to me that there is a strict anti­French bias at werk. Pour moi, mes amies, it completely ovair­looks the links between arrr grett countreez.

For a start, ze French, and ma famille in particulair, has been, like the "raisonable" English Monsieur Tiptone writes about, especially invested in the philosophie of "le pragmatisme".

During the Dreyfus affaire, the De La Roches alternated between being anti­ Semites and, when it became fashionable for a time, Zionistes. And during the Second Wehrld War, my grandfathér was a devoted militia­man for the Vichy government before becoming one of the chief barbérs after the liberation.

Of course, there eez a great contra­ intellectuale bias in England. I know this from ze caliber of your philosophérs ­ A.C Grayling is a boring fart with a face like an embalmed archbishop, currently getting paid £105,000 a week to speak about Wittgenstein to the idiot spawn of investment bankérs. In your desperation to try and scrounge some more attractive minds, you have given ze world Melvyn Bragg and Alain De Botton (a Switzerlandér in disguise!),

specialistes in makeeng Cliff Notes­for­ dummies versions of the historie de philosophie.

In sharpp contraste, radical philosophérs such as Andre Glucksmann are given talk radio shows in France, putting thee lefties back in thair plaice with incredible style and vairve. Politicians are economistes too, and Dominique Strauss­Kahn is of course by far sexiér than any equivalent Brit can be, whilst being a very provocotieev thinkér also.

En conclusione, there are things that you Rosbifs can learn from us, and from Normans to now, we have to work ensemble. Bind togethér to fight the real enemies ­ ze Algerians, and ze Germans!

See the ways that we can get away from more

Euroskepticisme ­ Mr Sarkozy is cracking down on ze fashonne choi­ sez of Mozlems women, as well as promising to vacuum away the scum from les banlieus... here is certainly a lesson for Monsieur Cameroone in tackling the street urchens in Hacknee! Away from thees, the glorious Le Pen family are having round­table discussions with regardes tactiqual book burning.

AC Grayling, embalmed bishop who learns by eating les livres

I cannot envisage thees happening ­ yew Haggis muncheening clods are far too sluggeesh to understand!!

An hoo cares about a triple­Á ratting, it sounds like some kind of brakdown récovery servécé. At least we av something you cúnt take away. In lés wordès of the ministairé from le Départmente Officiale du Mange, "your cheese is not fromage, your wine is not vin, and your women are not les belles femmes, so pffff."

SALUT.

MICHAEL GOVE BIBLES SENT OUT TO SCHOOLS

HOSPITAL PATIENTS FACE NON-STOP ERIC PI CURRY ANDREW LANSLEY ON THEIR TVS

Every state school in England is to be sent a copy of the St. James Bible with an intrudction by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove. The Department for Education estimates the cost of the scheme at £375,000. The project has stalled over lack of funding ­ 1,000s of the Bibles are said to be lying in a warehouse abroad...

Patients in NHS hospitals across the country are having to watch the health secretary addressing them every three or four minutes on monitors above their beds.

The Conservative cabinet minister's face appears on bedside entertainment systems on a continuous loop saying that their care "really matters to me" and asking them to thank NHS staff.

In some wards with multiple beds, the screens have the effect of a television showroom, reported the Independent.

It was reported that the only way to turn the health secretary's recorded message off, patients first had to register under a system which sees patients charged more than £5 a day to access TV, email and phone services.

The health secretary says it is a "useful message"...

The Arrival of the Post‐Satire Epoch?

General Secretary of the Central Politburo of the USR, Marty Peacock, speaks: Gallant Comrades of the General Union of Consumers! A great spectre haunts the face of modernity. All humour shall fall flat at the mighty invisbile hand of recalcitrant reality. Real news items have declared war on the

The new H ban on br chefs from Pakistan a Banglades a shortage to man the that make £3.2 billio industry.

E the Secret for Comm Local Gov coined the 'Curry Co teach Briti how to fill gap. It is a the new co will offer d cooking 'I will aid cu integration

ICKLES' TORY STUDENTS BURN COLLEGES EFFIGY OF OBAMA

Home Office ringing in m India, and sh has caused e of workers e restaurants e up the UK's on curry

Eric Pickles, tary of State munities and vernment, has e idea of olleges' to ish people l the labour also believed olleges, which degrees in Indian' food, ultural n...

Members of the St. Andrews University Conservative Student Association had to apologise after burning an effigy of Barack Obama at a bonfire night celebration.

Matthew Marshall, president of the St Andrews Conservative Association, admitted that it had been “stupid” because “President Obama is an important ally to the British government,” he said.

The same union have previously burnt effigies of Gordon Brown and Nelson Mandela, who they denounced as a 'terrorist' in the 1980s.

This followed a party in November at which drunken members of the Oxford University Conservative Society ­ many of whom are likely to go on to serve as Tory MPs ­ sang Nazi songs and made jokes about killing Jews.

BABIES MUST HAVE FULL PRICE TICKETS FOR 2012 OLYMPICS London 2012 organisers are facing a backlash from prospective parents who have learned they will need tickets for their newborn babies – even if they were not conceived when the highly prized seats were bought.

The situation, which has been described as "ridiculous" and "bloody stupid" by angry ticketholders, has arisen because most tickets went on sale last April – 15 months before the Games.

The 2012 organisers have said every person, no matter how old they are, must have their own ticket or they will not be allowed in. Parents carrying newborn babies that do not have their own ticket will not be allowed in.

For events where childrens tickets (£1) are sold out, parents must fork out £95 for their babies in order to be allowed in. . .

ancient art of satire, pouring forth a torrent of implausible happenings that seek to annihilate the possibilities of the imagination. In light of this assault from the ruling classes on the very foundations of our ability to survive, the USR arranges here a range for your perusal. When these become the Truth, what then, for us? What then? Mockery is pointless. As the USR, we stand firm for a rational, proactively dull reality. Join our fight.

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Well my fellows, winter rouses itself for one last hurrah. The wood pigeons grow fat on the scraps of our system and the Red library cards of old give way to the Blue, modernity unashamed by its aesthetico‐politico affiliations.

The Meadows balds. Trees that stood for a century are ripped up by the wind, their stumps still clinging to the land, monuments to their own former glory. Oh stumps, I intone as I carress those concentric rings exposed so mercilessly to the glares of strangers. Never seen before, they had seen so much. New trees, so flimsy they lie strapped in to three attendant support sticks, encaged against pissing dogs, emerge like middle fingers, upheld in contempt to the passers by.

Scotland is poised uncertainly in its certainty, readying itself for a question it does not know the answer to. It is nostalgia that fuels the identity of change.

OXYMORON is a good friend of mine.

Ras@gcmaiall.com e h t r fo theedinburghrascal Write Email us:

www.therascal.org.uk The Edinburgh Rascal is brought to you by a motley opensource tools. We delight in the whimsical and revelcrew; a bevy of fools with in the cynical. If you wish to join us, join us. We await your submission, forever in perdit ion.

For we are the rascals. See us creep, hear us weep; watch our outpourings on paper ­ conjoined, for we own a stapler. Await declarations, abate rational inclinations.

See ya around, Jimmy.