I wasn't planning to write a
daylog today but a combination of events have driven me to distraction and I feel that I have to get this off my chest. Just five minutes ago another one walked past my window. That's got to be at least the tenth one today. For the benefit of
American and
International noders, I'm talking about
donkeys. For the last few weeks the UK has been increasingly plagued with
stray donkeys, mainly clustered in urban areas.
Of course the public is used to the occasional donkey, for instance in the employ of South London street vendors (the so-called 'rattle-me-spoonies') and the increase in sightings was initially greeted with amiable curiousity. In every café and tramp's nest you could overhear endless conversations speculating on the cause of the donkey plague, or relaying the latest internet rumour in hushed tones.
The prevailing theories that have been circulated in the media are that either the donkeys are being droplifted in containers by the French, in vengeance for some perceived diplomatic slight. This is backed up by the abrasions around the necks of many of the animals, suggesting onions were hung around them until recently.
Ian Duncan Smith's Conservative Party have been doing the rounds accusing the government of negligence, at first throwing their weight behind the 'French' theory, but now taking every opportunity to spread their new 'Firemen's Strike' theory. (Their rationale being that disgruntled coastal firemen, who still traditionally use donkeys to carry buckets and hoses to beach-side incidents, have been massively overbreeding their pack animals and bussing them into inner city car-parks.)
The tabloids have jumped on the bandwagon, with the Daily Mail ("FOUR LEGGED ASYLUM SEEKER SHITS", October 29th) asking for Jack Straw and David Blunkett's resignations and Cherie Blair's... erm, for Cherie Blair to "admit that she's really an evil skeleton in a rubber mask". The Mirror ("SMASH THEIR F***ING HOOVES IN", November 21st) have taken a vigilante slant, with Bobby Davro, Charles Dance and Popstars's Darius touring the country on a DONKEY CULL FOR BRITAIN campaign bus, handing out fire axes and special Weetabix-sponsored donkey traps to baying crowds of puffer-jacketed rat-people.
The most ridiculous response however has been from Mike Oldfield, who claims that the donkeys are a fulfillment of some centuries-old prophecy by some Nostradamus-like crackpot who only see seems to have heard of. This has widely been seen as a publicity stunt to shift copies of his latest quadruple-album, a synth-prog-opera recorded in a submarine lair and entitled "The March of The Aquarian Soothsayers in The Fey Majestical Age of The Donkeys".