Catch21’s alternative to the Queens Speech
People of Britain; what a year it has been. Of course, every review of the year starts off with the belief in the last 365 days being something of note. I am pretty sure that if literally nothing had happened this year, it still would have been one hell of a year. There are many reasons for this and I think mainly it is so we don’t lose the sense of this crazy little country’s history. Or as the actual Queen might say – ‘ones own sense of history’.
In Britain this year, we have seen the best and worst of our society. The worst came in the form of Karen Matthews and the hideous kidnapping plot she forged involving her daughter to try and win sympathy and copious amounts of cash. The best came in the form of...well...That girl who won the X Factor? Amazing pair of...lungs. Hell of a voice.
After the ‘election that never was’ last year, Gordon and his merry men have stumbled from crisis to crisis this year, crisis’s that were out of their hands, trying their best to manage a free society and completely clueless-cum-paranoid set of bankers that are taking us on an all expenses paid trip to ‘recession land’ as opposed to Lapland. But have no fear; the Prime Minister is always there with his cheery disposition to keep the nation upbeat even in our darkest economic hour. Meanwhile the leader of the opposition continues to kick back and...Well... wait for something to take the opposite position on. He seems like a man not sure whether to try and win the next election or just wait for the other guy to lose it. And of course Nick Clegg, well, he’s just happy being Nick Clegg I think®.
The world once again has soldiered on in the fight against terrorism as have the terrorists soldiered on in their fight against the fighters who fight against them. I wonder how many of the morons have forgotten they are trying to bring back the Caliphate yet. I’m pretty sure some of them can’t even spell Caliphate. On the plus side (if there is a plus side in war) I really feel that the UK in particular has reached a watershed moment in elevating our perceptions of the armed forces to a higher status than we previously held them in our esteem. This is never a bad thing, as after all these guys and girls embody the idea of bravery.
Just for a change in terms of world affairs, it was the Americans that dominated the news. Undoubtedly the story of the year would have be New York getting its first ever blind Governor. It was amazing. I didn’t sleep for a week afterwards. I joined the masses going crazy, singing songs about hope and change that would come now for millions across the globe. Oh and the first ever African-American President was elected in November.
But seriously, what a great day the election of Barack Obama was. Regardless of political colours, we have to marvel at the campaign he ran and how he was able to build on the general need for change there was in the US. I felt sorry for Hillary Clinton though. As Michelle Obama said in a speech at the Democratic National Convention, she managed to put ’18 million cracks in the glass ceiling’ and yet she could not break it. How do you put 18 million cracks in a piece of glass and not manage to break the damn thing? Next time I buy windows – I’m going to see her.
In February, Russia also held an ‘election’. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as what happened towards the end of the year in the USA, but like many of the questions raised in the debates that raged there, it all came down to a question of experience. The Russian people (or Vladimir Putin, depending how you want to diplomatically play it) thought that it was wise to elect a man who had never once been elected to office or held a political portfolio. I hear old Medvedev was one hell of an assistant to Putin though. He made a mean cappuccino my sources in Moscow tell me.*
The cultural phenomenon of the year has to have been the Beijing Olympics. This had everyone gripped, not necessarily for the sport, but due to the suspense that came from wondering whether China would start culling dissidents left, right and centre or if terrorists would simply blow the whole thing up. In the end it went relatively smoothly, leaving Lord Coe and Mayor Boris Johnson with puzzled looks on their faces as to how the hell London 2012 is going to follow the human machine that was the preparation for Beijing. Naturally, Coe came out with a typically stoical British answer, ‘It will be a different type of games’. Boris, being Boris, decided to simply go in front of a camera and be beamed to the entire world claiming ping pong was in fact invented on ‘the dining tables of Eton College’, called ‘whiff whaff’ and paraphrased a popular football song stating that ‘whiff whaff was coming home’. Good Lord.
So what will 2009 bring? Well personally I’m hoping we invent a tactical nuclear missile that we can deliver directly down Robert Mugabe’s throat and finally rid the world of this waste of humanity. Time to do some liberating in Zimbabwe methinks. In the UK we will probably finally have an election and I predict a small Conservative majority. Economically I sadly think unemployment will be closer to 4 million than 3 million however the Americans will probably see a way out of the mess by the 3rd quarter of the next financial year so we will follow suit thereafter. It’s going to be a tough year in a lot of ways but we will solider on and ultimately soldier through. We seem to be good at that.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and I wish you all a bearable New Year.
Big love from all at Catch21.
® = ...and Nick Clegg is a cool guy!
*= My Sources in Moscow do not exist. My office is a sauna next door to the Department for Children, Schools and Families. These are not the surroundings of someone who has sources. Unless you are Seymour Hersh but he is by all accounts extremely bad ass.
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