UKandSpain

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Classic Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering  grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The end


The British Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The BBC  shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table laden with food.

The British are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer while the ants have plenty. The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the Transvestites With Starving Babies Party and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house.

The BBC, interrupting an Rastafarian cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome." Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama that the ant has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by Camden Council.

The ant moves to France, and starts a successful agribiz company funded by the EU. The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.

Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost £10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of the government to address the causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana growing operation and terrorize the community.

The end




Being British
Being British is all about driving in a Japanese or German car to an Irish pub for a German or Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing a Chinese takeaway, Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign!


 
True letters of complaint that members of the public have sent to their local council

My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus growing on it.

I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.

A lot of the people in my local area have dogs that make a lot of noise, but it's the dogs mess that I find hard to swallow.

I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.

My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?

I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.

Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.

I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.

50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and 50% are plain filthy

I am still having problems with smoke in my new drawers.

The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.

Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.

Our kitchen floor is damp. We have 2 children and would like a third so please send someone round to do something about it.

I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.

I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.

This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can't get BBC2.



If you come across anything funny that could be included on this page, just email it to:
Funnies@UKandSpain.com