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Anorak News | We Can be Great

We Can be Great

by | 13th, October 2006

“TALLY-Ban Harry!” went the cry over Windsor. Into the valley. Once more into the breach!

But on Monday we learnt that Prince Harry Baseball Cap might not get to do any actual fighting with the Army, and certainly not in a dangerous place like Afghanistan.

Having survived Army training and no small amount of polo and lap-dancing, Harry wants to serve. But, as the Express reported, he may be denied.

And to add to his “humiliation”, the Express noted that though Afghanistan might be too dangerous for Harry, it is considered a safe enough place for Princess Anne to tour.

And we interject. There is no humiliation in being a lesser man than Anne. Aunty Anne is a fearsome fighter, having proved too tough for Mark Phillips, a Captain in the 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards. She is more than a match for the Taliban and though she might not win the war, her presence in foreign parts will certainly cause the enemy to sit up straight at Tiffin and not twirl their beards in a menacing and wholly unhygienic manner.

Better news for Harry is that soldiers are all well and good but when it comes to really settling an argument you can’t beat a massive bomb.

And on Tuesday one went off in North Korea. “The moment that shook the world,” said the Times’s front-page headline, and we shuddered. The paper heard statesmen react with outrage to North Korea’s emergence as the world’s ninth nuclear power.

“World powers ponder North Korea sanctions,” announced the Telegraph. It told of “frenzied diplomatic activity”. And spoke of a draft UN resolution that “calls for a ban on all trade in military and luxury goods with the communist state”.

That will hurt. No designer clothes and pomade for North Korea’s leader number one. Kim Jong-il’s bouffant hair-do will yield under the pressure. And no imported military muscle. Not that the North Korea needs it: it’s got the bomb.

And while we trembled and the Sun asked “How do you solve a problem like Korea?”, the Government was on the case.

The problem was in hand. A plan had been formulated and honed. And on Wednesday Caloline Flint, minister for fitness, told us that everything will be OK. Do not be scared. It’s not a nuclear grenade. It is a kiwi fruit.

“People can’t afford to take a risk with food they’ve never seen before in case their children won’t eat it when they get home,” said Caroline in the Mail.

Caroline went on: “If they can be shown how to prepare it in the supermarket, and their children like it, then they know it won’t be money down the drain.”

So to go with the weekly trawl around the supermarket, the obese drudge will be invited to pop over to see a Government–sponsored fruit carve open a “lemon” or even a “gooseberry”.

The great unwashed will then more fully understand what is meant by a “pear-shaped figure”, “orange-peel thighs” and how to not give a flying “fig” about any of it.

But after oranges for lemons, we all learnt that no matter what you eat, you will die. And, more precisely, you will all die on October 31st 2, 252,006.

The Sun had spotted the work of a team of researchers, led by Dutchman Jan van Dam, of Utrecht University. News was that we have a defined shelf life. And that our demise will follow a “wobble” in the Earth’s orbit.

“Will a wobble wipe us out?” asked the Mail. And we say that it will. The wobble will interfere with the Earth’s orbit and cause the planet to be too far from the sun to support human life.

The Mail said humans are “overdue a wave of extinction”. But why wait? North Korea should do us all a favour. Trick or treat, Kim Jong-il, saviour of planet Earth? Trick or treat?

At least on Friday we realised that the future can still be every bit as rosy as the past. David Beckham was back.

Dave might not be able to run all that fast, beat a decent opponent for skill or take a penalty, but he is the best England footballer by a mile.

So having been dropped from the England football team after the World Cup, David is now all set to make a triumphant return. No more will England lose to Croatia. No more will they take two bottles into the shower. No more will the lads venture onto the field of play with their faces unmoisturised, untanned skin open to ageing wind, rain and sun.

“Come and get me – I am only a phone call away,” said Dave in the Star.” A source in the Beckham camp said: “He would really love to play for England again and is ready, willing and able to help the side get back to winning ways.”

Hurrah! Sure, England never got beyond the quarter-finals of a competition with Dave in the team, but what looked then like failure now appears as a glorious era of success and adventure.

We can be great again…

Picture: bbdo



Posted: 13th, October 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink