Tale guide

September 2021 - News from the Old Country

I am very pleased to report that everything in the United Kingdom is going swimmingly. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be keeping everything together in the good old RSA!

But let’s address the elephant in the room. First up, the weather! The summer came and went in a matter of days. There really wasn’t enough time to pack the winter gear away. But we’ve had two weeks in Autumn of temperatures around 18 degrees – we’re told it’s a proper heat wave!

We did have two braais, one of which was in the rain.

Now that’s out the way it appears that the Americans pulled out of Afghanistan without telling their mates in Downing Street, so the British parachute battalions had to get out quick, leaving lots of folk in the desert without a camel, so to speak. But we are assured that ‘they’ve’ got this, and the remaining loyal supporters will be brought out and settled on the island shortly.

Everyone thought the brotherhood between the USA and the UK had been broken in Kabul, so the Ausies stepped up and got the three of them to give each other a super military hug.

But that has stuck a spoke in the French wheels and their nose is seriously out of joint. But number ten has assured them that we can still be friends.

There has been a lot of confusion with the introduction of robots (traffic lights), for flying machines and no one knew for sure whether we were coming or going for quite a while.

In the beginning they switched on the green light, but after folk set off, they changed to the red one which tended to cause a few accidents and made everybody really fearful of flying.

I noticed that a lot of SAFFAS made a plan (as they’re wont to do) and came to the UK via Ireland and thus avoided the red light. That must come from years of ignoring robots back home!

There was a lot of debate throughout the summer holidays, as to whether 12-15 year old’s should be vaccinated. Just as the kids went back to school the decision was taken to go ahead. Apparently, they are not particularly vulnerable to the virus anyway and they should be safe over the next six weeks in which the antibodies will build up and take effect.

Last month everyone woke up to find we don’t have enough heavy-duty truck drivers in the land because many of the jobs were filled by Europeans who can no longer get work visas since Brexit. But the good news is that the trucking companies are paying big tom for drivers, so much so, it pays for medical staff to become truck drivers.

Seeing that the medical profession has been the most overworked and underpaid profession in the land and the best they got as thanks for saving the nation from Covid was a standing ovation, one can hardly blame them if they take a ride.

All hell broke loose last week when someone figured there wasn’t enough carbon dioxide in the country, so we run the risk of animals not being slaughtered nor meat being treated for a long shelf life.

Warnings abound that the price of heating the homes and offices in the winter will grow more than 50%, many energy suppliers are likely to go bang and there is a risk that supermarket shelves will be empty leading up to Christmas.

Inflation is busy climbing and this, together with the removal of the additional pandemic’s support allowance that has been helping the unemployed in particular, muddle through, is going to leave a lot of people worse off than they were before Covid.

So, it seems that the combination of a lack of gas and drivers could result in our first ever Christmas without a turkey.

Commentators have suggested that some folk will have to make a decision whether to have heat or eat!

No worries, as they say in the trenches, we’ve been summoned for a booster jab come the weekend.

That should entitle us to some sort of ‘platinum covid passport’ with which we can fly somewhere where the sun shines down on an abundance of food.

Do you think that South Africa could be a possible option?

So, if you think you have a totally incompetent government and things couldn’t get much worse than they are in sunny SA, think again.

This lot is blundering onwards and upwards as well.

I couldn't help but add the very latest advice that 'Jolly Hockey Sticks' gave to the United Nations - "We have to grow up. You must remember Kermit the Frog who said it was difficult to go green. Well he was wrong. Its easy to go green!" 

And we thought we were going to a first world country!🤩