A Modest Fucking Proposal
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| Matt helps Colin reconcile his need to smoke and practice |
People often ask me, 'have you ever killed anyone?' That's classified of course, but I will say this, my Obergruppenführer said I was the bravest man in his battalion. Which is why I was so upset to hear that in the U.S, unmanned drone operators who pilot the robot death planes, thousands of miles away from the battlefield are being considered for medals for bravery. I would have thought that killing someone, thousands of miles away from the battlefield with no actual risk to yourself would have been considered the definition of not brave. What's next, being awarded actual medals of honor for playing Medal of Honor? If so then I demand a Victoria Cross for the carpal tunnel syndrome I developed playing Call of Duty on the Xbox. It'll look really nice up there on my mantelpiece, next to my Iron Cross.
Who am I kidding? I can't afford a mantelpiece, fucking Tories.
One of the reasons I know that David Cameron is an incompetent twat is that I have read his autobiography, 'Why I'm an Incompetent Twat' by David Cameron. I think it was ghost written by Katie Price. It's not just his butter face, potato head and Fisher Price hair that fail to impress me, it's that he truly thinks that the poor in this country somehow are the cause of our financial woes. Too much help for grannies and single mums, that's why we're skint, get a job granny. Can we finally agree that we need a vote of no confidence in this fucknozzle and his buddy Osborne, and replace him with the new iPhone Tory Prime Minister app, it can do all the things he does; imitate human emotions, implement failed right wing policies, privatize hospitals, and it's only £2.99. Replace him with anything frankly. Replace him with Margaret Thatcher's care assistant. Replace him with an ice cream dildo. Two years into his reign of error and how much worse can it get? It can't get much worse than people calling for Boris Johnson to replace you. That has to hurt. That's like people calling for Daniel Craig to be replaced as James Bond with Rowan Atkinson.
We are now being told that we are in a double dip recession and that austerity is required until at least 2020 in order to straighten the books. That's austerity for you and I of course, not the rich. They need their cash. They aren't feeling the pinch at all, zero pinch at the top. Corporate profits are through the roof and their taxes are down because they need as much of their money as possible to create the jobs for the rest of us. It's called the trickle down effect, also known as, don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining. This isn't austerity, it's a robbery. Up to £20 trillion of wealth is stashed in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, not taxed at all by anyone. That's bigger than the GDP of the the U.S and Japan, combined. Just taxing 30% of it would probably wipe out all the debt held by most of Europe. £6.3tn of it is owned by a mere 92,000 individuals. You could fit them into Wembley, and then mug them as they left. This money has been flowing out of the U.S, Russia, Saudi Arabia and here of course, and into these international financial twilight zones for years. Across Europe we are transferring more and more of the remaining wealth to our zombie financial system and sticking a for sale sign on anything that's left, in a race to the bottom, in the hope that China might want to buy what's left. Meanwhile social unrest increases, food prices are up and huge parts of the world are going hungry. They are even having a Malnutrition Summit next week.
So here's my proposal. I have learned from a very resourceful American friend of mine (I think he was a mason, he knew a lot of things) that a multi millionaire, preferably a fatty boom batty multi millionaire can be a delicious food particularly if he is fried in batter, but I daresay would be just as tasty boiled, braised or baked. I'm Scottish so my first stop is always batter.
Your average multi millionaire might weigh on average about fifteen stone. That's enough meat for say fifty kebabs, decent sized kebabs, depending upon how active the subject is and what their diet is. Obviously Andrew Lloyd-Webber is going to be much better value than Simon Cowell for example, not to mention that Andrew Lloyd-Webber would be much more delicious on a panini with some emmental and cherry tomatoes than Simon Cowell; Cowell looks like he works out, way too stringy. You see, the rich eat much better quality food, and more frequently, than the rest of us and would therefore provide some of the best quality meat on the market. Now naturally the older multi-millionaires present a bit of a problem, lets face it, no one wants to eat Paul McCartney, but I have a proposal for this too, one which also incorporates a long held ambition of mine. A reality show called Bombskare Celebrity Force Feed. Not only would we fatten up these older, stringier millionaires into a decent herd of spam to help feed the hungry masses, but we could also have a hit T.V show on our hands. Don't tell me you wouldn't tune in to watch a Ska band force-feed sticks of butter to Mick Jagger. That's classic television. We would be able to use more mundane, anonymous multi-millionaire meat for famine relief. We could call it emergency mince. That would be your Usmanovs, your Hindujas, but for your high profile multi millionaire, there would be a huge market. Who wouldn't pay through the nose for a Bono burrito? There would also be a new market in cookbooks. Just think, Delia Smith shows us how to cook the billionaire Rueben Brothers on a barbecue with peppers, or even better, Gordon Ramsay cooks Gordon Ramsay in virgin oil of Jamie Oliver. Yum.
Now, you might be thinking this seems overly vindictive, and let's face it, insane. What's wrong with the rich you ask? What's wrong with people who are successful? It's not their fault that they own everything and are grotesquely wealthy. Wait, there is madness in my method. I am not talking about the rich, I am talking about the mega rich, the zero point one percent. By discouraging the acquisition of obscene levels of wealth, we compel the owners of the world, these masters of the universe to give some of the cash back. We will compel them to be philanthropists or else, into the blender, flick of the switch, billionaire smoothies! How much money do people like Lakshmi Mittal or Roman Abramovich actually need? How many football clubs do you need? How many houses and cars? These people are richer than Croesus and wouldn't even notice if 30% of their wealth was used to provide a civil society for everyone else. They could be allowed to choose what to spend their money on, who to give it to. If they want to use it to build a space program for badgers, that's fine. At least it would be getting used by someone, instead of sitting doing nothing in Switzerland. We could set an upper limit of taxation at say, £100 million, which seems like a lot to me. They would still be rich. But anyone with more wealth than that gets put in the curry. Just think, people like Richard Branson or that cunt that owns Top Shop but gave it to his wife in Monaco so he didn't have to pay tax here in the UK, would have to give away their money to charity or else be diced and lightly fried, perhaps with onions. After all we're not savages.
You may think I am being naive. These uber-rich can simply move their wealth around the globe to places where it can never be taxed like the Caymen Islands or Switzerland. But this brings me to the final part of my proposal. We invade Switzerland. It's well established that war is fantastic for the economy. Look at the wonderful building programs across Europe in the 1950's, and our economy could definitely use a stimulus. Carpet bombing Switzerland would be massively stimulating, it would revitalize our ailing bomber industry, and we could get revenge on them for Roger Federer and for them staying out of The '39. It would be an easy war, winnable unlike our war on terror, because I don't think the Swiss armed forces are particularly well armed, not if their knives are anything to go by. Most importantly we could free up this missing international loot and fix the world. It'd be a Keynsian paradise. Unless I'm missing something.
Thanks to everyone who came down to our gig at Studio 24 here in Edinburgh, what a night it was. As usual it was a hot and sweaty night with insufficient air but it was a belter nonetheless. Who needs air? We did a particularly outstanding cover version of Sublime's 'Date Rape', featuring Colin on vocals. We had our buddies Big Hand up to perform their classic tune 'Big Hand' with yours truly on lead vocals. It was a great set and for a change we got to play a proper two hours. We could have played more but we were worried about people's health, it was rather warm. We've noticed a trend of people getting their kit off in an effort to distract the band as we are trying to perform our set. Nice try losers, but it didn't work. We were all business that night, and anyway who wants to look at dancing half naked female bodies drenched in sweat when they could be looking at my gorgeous Les Paul Gold Top with double cutaway and P90 pickups, truly a work of art. Boobs are nice but they don't really sound like anything whereas this thing is spectacular and it sounds amazing. I only have it out on occasion. Like my boobs. Esperanza were sounding amazing on the night too. Big thanks to them for coming through for the night.
We also played on the Sunday at the Kelburn Garden Party down in Ayrshire, our first time back there since 2008. It's a magic spot, like having a festival in the village from The Prisoner. We were scheduled to be playing at the same time as The Banana Sessions which didn't make a lot of sense to us so we dragged our feet a bit going onstage until they had finished their set. We had Captain Waz on kit, and our compadre Ali Wales on percussion too. Ryhthmtastic! Nice beer down there too.
We played in Govan in Glasgow at a fundraiser for the Galgael project, a project dedicated to revitalising the Govan community through it's traditional link to boatbuilding. It's a fantastic project which really helps the local community, and is one which is under threat from the slash in public spending. It's one of those projects that you just can't believe they would pull their funding, and yet here we are. The local community is already pretty depressed thanks to their local football club going bankrupt, the name of which escapes me. Thanks to everyone down there who made us feel welcome, and thanks to Lorraine McCauley and The Borderlands who invited us down.
We played at Kendal Calling down in the Lake District, our first time there. It's a fantastic festival in a stunning location and it was the first time in a while that we have played to an audience that had never heard us before and had no idea what to expect. So a crash course in the mysterious ways of Scottish Ska was provided and sixty minutes later, a couple of hundred new converts. Such is the way of Ska. Inexplicable and awesome.
We played the main stage at Belladrum which was great fun. Plenty of complimentary Carlsberg, suitably chilled and crisps ranging from Ready Salted to Worcester Sauce. I find that salt and alcohol are very important before a gig. Unfortunately BBC Alba didn't film our set which is a pity, because it was a beauty. They could have put it on after the Lottery, it might have cheered people up. But I guess we're not 'Scottish' enough for them, which is racist. The following afternoon we made an appearance at MacSorleys as part of Jamaican Independence Weekend, which was appropriately enough on Jamaica Street in Glasgow. It was probably our smallest stage yet, with half the band tucked away against the wall on the other side of the PA with no line of sight to the rest of the band. As a result there was a temporary breakdown of the chain of command and we lost control of the brass section. I remember thinking during the solo section of Triplet Fiasco, the horns have gone 'broken arrow', we need to call in SWAT. They were quite severely off message with their jazz noises and louche timing. Luckily order was restored. There was a problem with monitoring so we set up an elaborate texting system so that they knew when the changes were coming up. Futuristic.
Most recently we played at the Fringe By The Sea for the fourth consecutive year with Beezer, the only Weezer tribute band known to humanity that features the ubiquitous Ali Wales and Graeme Young. We love this gig, it's in the spiegeltent, the crowd is fantastic, the sound is great, and it's always a sell out show. We had our friend Mikey Pepper on the kit, who played a blinder even though this was his first gig in a while, as he has been seriously ill. Thankfully he is on the mend, Ska being the final part of his treatment. The highlight of the show was probably when we brought all the kids in the spiegeltent up on stage with us for Triplet Fiasco. Also, once again, someone broke the floor. It's a tradition now.
Our next date is RecFest down in Ashington with ahr Tony Eastlake which is going to be good and then we'll be making a short appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival. When the Book Festival wanted a band to play on the last day, naturally they contacted Bombskare because of our sophisticated literary subtleties. We are notorious readers, we love books, mad about words; everything from Jonathan Swift to Gore Vidal. Our music was once described as like being punched in the face by an Alistair MacLean novel. Not to mention our poignant romantic lyrics and philosophical melodies, and of course the world famous Bombskare literacy programme which has been making significant strides in recent years; Colin has almost finished 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing', bless him. Our final festival gig for the year will be the Audio Soup Festival in East Lothian which was great fun last year.
On a final note, we were very sad to hear that Jon Lord died. Little known fact is that after he left Deep Purple in 2002 we asked him to join Bombskare, right around the time that Barry was leaving the band. He declined naturally, because he was retiring due to illness, and also I think because our material was a bit difficult for him. Farewell Mr Lord, we never knew ye.
Who am I kidding? I can't afford a mantelpiece, fucking Tories.
One of the reasons I know that David Cameron is an incompetent twat is that I have read his autobiography, 'Why I'm an Incompetent Twat' by David Cameron. I think it was ghost written by Katie Price. It's not just his butter face, potato head and Fisher Price hair that fail to impress me, it's that he truly thinks that the poor in this country somehow are the cause of our financial woes. Too much help for grannies and single mums, that's why we're skint, get a job granny. Can we finally agree that we need a vote of no confidence in this fucknozzle and his buddy Osborne, and replace him with the new iPhone Tory Prime Minister app, it can do all the things he does; imitate human emotions, implement failed right wing policies, privatize hospitals, and it's only £2.99. Replace him with anything frankly. Replace him with Margaret Thatcher's care assistant. Replace him with an ice cream dildo. Two years into his reign of error and how much worse can it get? It can't get much worse than people calling for Boris Johnson to replace you. That has to hurt. That's like people calling for Daniel Craig to be replaced as James Bond with Rowan Atkinson.
We are now being told that we are in a double dip recession and that austerity is required until at least 2020 in order to straighten the books. That's austerity for you and I of course, not the rich. They need their cash. They aren't feeling the pinch at all, zero pinch at the top. Corporate profits are through the roof and their taxes are down because they need as much of their money as possible to create the jobs for the rest of us. It's called the trickle down effect, also known as, don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining. This isn't austerity, it's a robbery. Up to £20 trillion of wealth is stashed in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, not taxed at all by anyone. That's bigger than the GDP of the the U.S and Japan, combined. Just taxing 30% of it would probably wipe out all the debt held by most of Europe. £6.3tn of it is owned by a mere 92,000 individuals. You could fit them into Wembley, and then mug them as they left. This money has been flowing out of the U.S, Russia, Saudi Arabia and here of course, and into these international financial twilight zones for years. Across Europe we are transferring more and more of the remaining wealth to our zombie financial system and sticking a for sale sign on anything that's left, in a race to the bottom, in the hope that China might want to buy what's left. Meanwhile social unrest increases, food prices are up and huge parts of the world are going hungry. They are even having a Malnutrition Summit next week.
So here's my proposal. I have learned from a very resourceful American friend of mine (I think he was a mason, he knew a lot of things) that a multi millionaire, preferably a fatty boom batty multi millionaire can be a delicious food particularly if he is fried in batter, but I daresay would be just as tasty boiled, braised or baked. I'm Scottish so my first stop is always batter.
Your average multi millionaire might weigh on average about fifteen stone. That's enough meat for say fifty kebabs, decent sized kebabs, depending upon how active the subject is and what their diet is. Obviously Andrew Lloyd-Webber is going to be much better value than Simon Cowell for example, not to mention that Andrew Lloyd-Webber would be much more delicious on a panini with some emmental and cherry tomatoes than Simon Cowell; Cowell looks like he works out, way too stringy. You see, the rich eat much better quality food, and more frequently, than the rest of us and would therefore provide some of the best quality meat on the market. Now naturally the older multi-millionaires present a bit of a problem, lets face it, no one wants to eat Paul McCartney, but I have a proposal for this too, one which also incorporates a long held ambition of mine. A reality show called Bombskare Celebrity Force Feed. Not only would we fatten up these older, stringier millionaires into a decent herd of spam to help feed the hungry masses, but we could also have a hit T.V show on our hands. Don't tell me you wouldn't tune in to watch a Ska band force-feed sticks of butter to Mick Jagger. That's classic television. We would be able to use more mundane, anonymous multi-millionaire meat for famine relief. We could call it emergency mince. That would be your Usmanovs, your Hindujas, but for your high profile multi millionaire, there would be a huge market. Who wouldn't pay through the nose for a Bono burrito? There would also be a new market in cookbooks. Just think, Delia Smith shows us how to cook the billionaire Rueben Brothers on a barbecue with peppers, or even better, Gordon Ramsay cooks Gordon Ramsay in virgin oil of Jamie Oliver. Yum.
Now, you might be thinking this seems overly vindictive, and let's face it, insane. What's wrong with the rich you ask? What's wrong with people who are successful? It's not their fault that they own everything and are grotesquely wealthy. Wait, there is madness in my method. I am not talking about the rich, I am talking about the mega rich, the zero point one percent. By discouraging the acquisition of obscene levels of wealth, we compel the owners of the world, these masters of the universe to give some of the cash back. We will compel them to be philanthropists or else, into the blender, flick of the switch, billionaire smoothies! How much money do people like Lakshmi Mittal or Roman Abramovich actually need? How many football clubs do you need? How many houses and cars? These people are richer than Croesus and wouldn't even notice if 30% of their wealth was used to provide a civil society for everyone else. They could be allowed to choose what to spend their money on, who to give it to. If they want to use it to build a space program for badgers, that's fine. At least it would be getting used by someone, instead of sitting doing nothing in Switzerland. We could set an upper limit of taxation at say, £100 million, which seems like a lot to me. They would still be rich. But anyone with more wealth than that gets put in the curry. Just think, people like Richard Branson or that cunt that owns Top Shop but gave it to his wife in Monaco so he didn't have to pay tax here in the UK, would have to give away their money to charity or else be diced and lightly fried, perhaps with onions. After all we're not savages.
You may think I am being naive. These uber-rich can simply move their wealth around the globe to places where it can never be taxed like the Caymen Islands or Switzerland. But this brings me to the final part of my proposal. We invade Switzerland. It's well established that war is fantastic for the economy. Look at the wonderful building programs across Europe in the 1950's, and our economy could definitely use a stimulus. Carpet bombing Switzerland would be massively stimulating, it would revitalize our ailing bomber industry, and we could get revenge on them for Roger Federer and for them staying out of The '39. It would be an easy war, winnable unlike our war on terror, because I don't think the Swiss armed forces are particularly well armed, not if their knives are anything to go by. Most importantly we could free up this missing international loot and fix the world. It'd be a Keynsian paradise. Unless I'm missing something.
Thanks to everyone who came down to our gig at Studio 24 here in Edinburgh, what a night it was. As usual it was a hot and sweaty night with insufficient air but it was a belter nonetheless. Who needs air? We did a particularly outstanding cover version of Sublime's 'Date Rape', featuring Colin on vocals. We had our buddies Big Hand up to perform their classic tune 'Big Hand' with yours truly on lead vocals. It was a great set and for a change we got to play a proper two hours. We could have played more but we were worried about people's health, it was rather warm. We've noticed a trend of people getting their kit off in an effort to distract the band as we are trying to perform our set. Nice try losers, but it didn't work. We were all business that night, and anyway who wants to look at dancing half naked female bodies drenched in sweat when they could be looking at my gorgeous Les Paul Gold Top with double cutaway and P90 pickups, truly a work of art. Boobs are nice but they don't really sound like anything whereas this thing is spectacular and it sounds amazing. I only have it out on occasion. Like my boobs. Esperanza were sounding amazing on the night too. Big thanks to them for coming through for the night.
We also played on the Sunday at the Kelburn Garden Party down in Ayrshire, our first time back there since 2008. It's a magic spot, like having a festival in the village from The Prisoner. We were scheduled to be playing at the same time as The Banana Sessions which didn't make a lot of sense to us so we dragged our feet a bit going onstage until they had finished their set. We had Captain Waz on kit, and our compadre Ali Wales on percussion too. Ryhthmtastic! Nice beer down there too.We played in Govan in Glasgow at a fundraiser for the Galgael project, a project dedicated to revitalising the Govan community through it's traditional link to boatbuilding. It's a fantastic project which really helps the local community, and is one which is under threat from the slash in public spending. It's one of those projects that you just can't believe they would pull their funding, and yet here we are. The local community is already pretty depressed thanks to their local football club going bankrupt, the name of which escapes me. Thanks to everyone down there who made us feel welcome, and thanks to Lorraine McCauley and The Borderlands who invited us down.
We played at Kendal Calling down in the Lake District, our first time there. It's a fantastic festival in a stunning location and it was the first time in a while that we have played to an audience that had never heard us before and had no idea what to expect. So a crash course in the mysterious ways of Scottish Ska was provided and sixty minutes later, a couple of hundred new converts. Such is the way of Ska. Inexplicable and awesome.
We played the main stage at Belladrum which was great fun. Plenty of complimentary Carlsberg, suitably chilled and crisps ranging from Ready Salted to Worcester Sauce. I find that salt and alcohol are very important before a gig. Unfortunately BBC Alba didn't film our set which is a pity, because it was a beauty. They could have put it on after the Lottery, it might have cheered people up. But I guess we're not 'Scottish' enough for them, which is racist. The following afternoon we made an appearance at MacSorleys as part of Jamaican Independence Weekend, which was appropriately enough on Jamaica Street in Glasgow. It was probably our smallest stage yet, with half the band tucked away against the wall on the other side of the PA with no line of sight to the rest of the band. As a result there was a temporary breakdown of the chain of command and we lost control of the brass section. I remember thinking during the solo section of Triplet Fiasco, the horns have gone 'broken arrow', we need to call in SWAT. They were quite severely off message with their jazz noises and louche timing. Luckily order was restored. There was a problem with monitoring so we set up an elaborate texting system so that they knew when the changes were coming up. Futuristic.
Most recently we played at the Fringe By The Sea for the fourth consecutive year with Beezer, the only Weezer tribute band known to humanity that features the ubiquitous Ali Wales and Graeme Young. We love this gig, it's in the spiegeltent, the crowd is fantastic, the sound is great, and it's always a sell out show. We had our friend Mikey Pepper on the kit, who played a blinder even though this was his first gig in a while, as he has been seriously ill. Thankfully he is on the mend, Ska being the final part of his treatment. The highlight of the show was probably when we brought all the kids in the spiegeltent up on stage with us for Triplet Fiasco. Also, once again, someone broke the floor. It's a tradition now.
Our next date is RecFest down in Ashington with ahr Tony Eastlake which is going to be good and then we'll be making a short appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival. When the Book Festival wanted a band to play on the last day, naturally they contacted Bombskare because of our sophisticated literary subtleties. We are notorious readers, we love books, mad about words; everything from Jonathan Swift to Gore Vidal. Our music was once described as like being punched in the face by an Alistair MacLean novel. Not to mention our poignant romantic lyrics and philosophical melodies, and of course the world famous Bombskare literacy programme which has been making significant strides in recent years; Colin has almost finished 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing', bless him. Our final festival gig for the year will be the Audio Soup Festival in East Lothian which was great fun last year.
On a final note, we were very sad to hear that Jon Lord died. Little known fact is that after he left Deep Purple in 2002 we asked him to join Bombskare, right around the time that Barry was leaving the band. He declined naturally, because he was retiring due to illness, and also I think because our material was a bit difficult for him. Farewell Mr Lord, we never knew ye.
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| Colin admiring some wood |
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| Andy pretends he has a giant wooden penis. Hilarious. |
Labels: bombskare, scotland, Scott McCafferty, ska
posted by The Reverend Scott McC at 2:34 am
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