This week’s WTF?! can best be described as like a fly landing in your pint or a long-anticipated scoop of Mr. Whippy’s (other ice cream is available) sliding off a waffle cone to be consumed by ants; upsetting at first, but ultimately quite funny and pleasant.
Right, that’s our obligatory laboured sunshine metaphor out of the way. Let’s get on with it…
How To Do The UKIP
Well, it’s only gone and bloody happened, hasn’t it? The British public, sick of Dave, Nick and Ed’s antics, have decided that the daily farce we know as politics needs a new character to liven things up. Enter stage left tweed-clad jester Nigel Paul Farage, an Englishman with a proper English name and the leader of UKIP.
Evil hat? Check. Evil mug? Check.
In case you decided to stick your fingers in your ears and close your eyes over the past week because you’ve finally decided you can’t take anymore of this ridiculous ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ posturing and would rather live a life of blissful obliviousness, Normal Nigel’s UKIP hoovered up a (relatively) massive 23% of the votes in last week’s local elections, putting them third behind Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 25%.
Nick Clegg, a man increasingly taking on the look of someone who’s done something particularly taboo on a night out and is now living to regret it, was left to brood over the Lib Dems achieving a meagre 14%.
It’s probably not coffee in that mug…
All of which means that there are now four main parties spinning lies, spewing hatred and grabbing hold of your legs, kicking and screaming like a petulant child, in order to win YOUR votes. Four is a bigger number than three, so this can only be presumed to be a good thing.
It also means that all the parties are going to try that little bit harder to be a bit more like Nigel and his pals. But how does one go about acting more like Nigel Farage? Here’s a handy print out and keep guide, just in case Nick, Dave and Ed happen to be reading, or if you happen to find yourself in the midst of a terrifying throng of UKIP supporters and have to adapt to survive.
A UKIP rally, last week.
Ditch The Boring Suits: You might think that a politician would benefit from looking smart and authoritative, but Farage’s rise has apparently proved that dressing like an extra from an episode of Midsomer Murders set at a farmer’s market is the proper sartorial route to take.
Suits, you see, represent the done-up-to-the-collar, expenses-claiming, shady side of politics. By dressing a bit like a folksy clown and grinning all the time, you can appear different, even though you’ve actually claimed £2 million in expenses yourself. Simple!
Badmouth Europe at Every Turn: If there’s one important lesson to take away from the local elections, it’s that Europe is so last year. Voters are increasingly turning back to the warm bosom of Blighty, burrowing their heads so that the nasty world outside might go away and leave us in peace.
Farage, even though he happens to be a Member of the European Parliament, has done a sterling job of playing on our built-in fear of our continental cousins, but why not go one step further?
Regale voters with the time you ate a dodgy paella on the Costa Del Sol and spent the week being sick before explaining how you’ve never been sick after eating a good old fry up (you were just hungover from quaffing Champagne, some disgusting French muck that pales in comparison to the homely textures of English sparkling wine).
Oh, and mention straight bananas. Nothing speaks to the public like the potential reshaping of beloved fruits at the savage hands of European bureaucracy.
That EU lot are BANANAS for messing with our Great British fruit, HAHAHA!
Be One Of Us: Nigel Farage’s most appealing characteristic, by far, is just how normal and like one of ‘us’ he is. He’s not like those other politicians. Never mind that he was a City trader in a previous life and happens to have enjoyed £2million in expenses, Farage-y is one of the lads!
But how does one become one of the ‘lads’? Dave made a good effort back in 2010 by claiming to have met a ‘black man’ once, but he’ll have to ramp it up to hit Normal Nigel’s levels of normalcy. An effective way to do this is to have a good old read of The Sun or the Mail and mention whatever it is they happen to be concerned about today, facts be damned. This is a good way to get your face on the telly so people can see how concerned you are about the ‘issues that affect them’.
The most important personality trait to adopt, however, is an unwavering commitment to not accepting blame for anything. If someone happens to look or act different, blame them. This is foolproof and guaranteed to win you the votes of people who want to be involved in politics but aren’t quite sure where to read the rest of your policies beyond the blaming bit.
And there you have it; your very own guide to winning the hearts and minds of the Great British public without doing that much at all. You could, of course, come up with a comprehensive manifesto providing solutions to the problems of today, but who can be arsed with that?
Copyright Infringement Doesn’t Count For Big Corporations
Scrap everything we just said; stealing memes and fads is illegal, as evidenced by the fact that the creators of Nyan Cat (which appears to be some kind of terrifying amalgamation between a short-lived Digestive variant and a feline, created for the purposes of interstellar travel) and Keyboard Cat are suing Warner Bros. for stealing their creations for a videogame.
Kids these days, eh?
To be honest, we don’t see the problem. The internet is a free and open platform where content should be shared freely without fear of massive and overblown reprisals at the hands of multinational corporations, where music and movies flow like cheap English sparkling wine at a UKIP soiree, wouldn’t you agree, Warner Bros?
Oh, hang on, no, this is the same Warner Bros accused of abusing copyright laws to get sharing sites shut down and that happens to be in cohorts with the massive companies bankrupting normal people for downloading a single song, a song that might have provided a shred of enjoyment in a world where the unregulated gambling of the rich has led to years of misery for the poor. Never mind – sue away, YouTubers!
The World’s Sexiest Physics Experiment
Despite the vast array of scientific discoveries and breakthroughs we’ve bestowed upon the world – y’know, the internet, that kind of thing – Britain is still somewhat viewed as the loveable loser of the science world. Ask someone to think of a British scientist and the reply is likely to be ‘that bloke off the telly with the hair who sometimes appears on high-quality science t-shirts’, ‘that bloke who did the Beagle’ or a blank stare of confused discomfort.
Albert’s a British name, right?
That’s all set to change, however, with Britain’s investment into – not our words, but the words of The Guardian – the world’s HOTTEST nuclear physics experiment. Phwoar!
The Guardian weren’t lying either; the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research will be doing all kinds of saucy physics stuff, like studying of atomic nuclei and subatomic particles that have never been studied before. They’ll also be studying elements produced on the surface of exploding stars. Like we said before – phwoar!
An Uplifting Note For A Sunny Day
Enjoying the sun? Well, ponder this; as you enjoy that cold beer or ridiculously overpriced ice cream, a whole raft of ‘previously’ tropical diseases like malaria could be heading your way as a result of Britain’s increasingly hotter, wetter climate. Enjoy your day!
Well, that’s that, another glimpse into the news abyss that we’ve all survived and supposedly come out of stronger. If you’re concerned by any of the news in this week’s WTF, direct your comments to our Facebook or Twitter pages.
Everyone else, make the most of the lovely weather and consider investing in a brand new political t-shirt, which’ll keep you cool and make you look all clever-like at the same time. Nice!
