A Viscount Speaks

O tempora! O mores!

What ho, chums!

Chaps, I survived my time in clink by clinging to the thought of being re-united with my dear, darling lady wife and children.  When my randy Bahamian cell-mate, De-Angelo, was stealing my food and demanding unmentionable favours, it was only the thought of my charming family back in Sussex that kept me going. 

It makes it all the more depressing to report, therefore, that on returning to Crouchback Castle, I  discovered the following:

• Adebayo, our Nigerian stable hand, had taken over my quarters in my absence and was styling himself “Viscount Adebayo Crouchback” and was even boffing my wife and daughter on a nightly basis;

• Coutts were demanding immediate re-payment of £625,000 in loans taken out by Adebayo to pay for a "Lagos-style gangsta bling-bling extension to the East Wing";

• My eldest son, Frederick Pelham Crouchback, had impregnated a fourteen year old Romanian gypsy;

• My youngest son, Henry Horatio Halthorp Crouchback, had converted to Islam and was swearing jihad on the Percys of Northumberland whom, he says, insulted him at a shooting party;

• And, probably worst of all, I found that my dear, darling doggie woggie, Byng, had been throttled and eaten by a party of Korean tourists who cornered him in the East Garden in July.

In earnest, chaps, I think I preferred the attentions of De-Angelo.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

 

The election is hotting up

What ho, voters!

I say, chaps, isn't this leaders debate malarkey frightfully exciting?  I anticipate something monstrous happening tonight.  I think old Scotch Gordon is finally going to go berserk and land one on Cameron on national television!  Some sort of Glaswegian kiss right on Cam's big pink moon face!  Golly, I hope so!

It's not all fun and games though.  I've had to lay down strict instructions that none of the below-the-stairs staff at Crouchback Castle be permitted to watch the event.  I had hoped that such a prohibition would not be necessary but regrettably several of the more bolshie servant girls have taken to exclaiming over that "nice Mr Clegg".  I can't sit down for supper without one of them prattling on about "ooh, he is very attractive, Jean, he'd get my vote!  I wouldn't mind being number 31 so I wouldn't!"

Of course, partly this is mere teasing since they know very well that I will be marching every last one of them into the polling station on 6th May and ordering them to mark their X - which doubles as their signature for most of them - next to Conservative.  However, I shall have to be rather more subtle this time since in 2005 I got into the most frightful lather when a local journalist spotted me leading my crocodile of servant girls into the polling station and promptly splashed a most outrageous headline over the front of his newspaper: "LOCAL TOFF ORDERS STAFF TO VOTE TORY: Viscount Crouchback threatens refuseniks with whip".

Absolute rot, of course.  I only whip the lads. The girls I prefer to rodger quietly in the wine cellar.  Nevertheless, I shall have to tread with caution this time. 

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Let's get the slaughter started!

What ho, hunters!

Great controversy in my part of the world, chaps.  Sussex CCC used a marksman to kill a nuisance fox on the cricket square.  Chap walked straight up to the wicket and slotted the bastard!  Bloody good show!  Of course, the usual lunatics are up in arms.  All Brighton's pinkos, homos and bohos have been weeping in the streets.  Sod 'em!  The oiks had better get used to foxes being terminated with extreme prejudice because once the Tories are back in power it will be open season on the horrible little pests!  No more loopholes and chicanery, just an out-and-out blood fest!  I and all the bounders at the CL&C are salivating at the mere thought of it.  Tally ho!

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Aristocracy dead? Not in Sussex, it's not!

What ho, proles!

Golly, a chum of mine had mentioned something about old Stoker sounding off in the newspapers but it wasn't until I got back to England and read the interview for myself that I realised quite what an oaf he'd made of himself!  Stoker, I am afraid, is one of those hideous individuals who feels guilty for having had the good fortune to be born into a noble family and vast wealth.  He torments himself by agonising over the plight of the poor old proletariat.  Good heavens, he even self-flagellates by flying Ryanair!

Do not misunderstand me.  I fully appreciate the importance of economy.  But one seeks economy at the expense of one's serfs rather than of oneself.  If Stoker was clever, he would pay his builders 10% less and use the money saved to fly properly.  But the batty old cove prefers to act the martyr.  Lefties everywhere, you see - even amongst my type.  Nowhere is safe!

Stoker even says:

“The aristocracy is not dying. It’s dead! Coffin’s nailed down, it’s in the ground. It doesn’t exist, except that people have titles.”

Absolute rot!  Ask the newly formed Crouchback Sussex Yeomanry Militia whether the aristocracy is dead!  Ask those plucky sons of the shires who have pledged faithfully "to defend my Lord Crouchback until the last drop of blood has left my body so help me God" whether they reject the ancient idea of noble privilege!  Perhaps Stoker ought to take a trip down to Sussex and see how it's done, what!

It just goes to show, chaps.  You can't trust anyone.  It's not always the obvious types you have to watch out for.  Remember Blunt.  Remember Burgess.  Pukka chaps, but traitors.  Keep your eyes peeled.  

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

Dickie Drax steps forth in Dorset

What ho, voters!

Are there any south Dorset constituents amongst my readership?  I jolly well hope so because you have a marvellous new Tory candidate - Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax .  No, I'm not making that one up.  Dickie lives at Charborough House, which has been his family's seat since Elizabethan times, and he can trace his aristocratic lineage back to 1439.  (I know, a bit of a nouveau, but what one can one do!)

He's a splendid chap and is perfectly capable of imagining the plight of the proletariat (as Minette Marrin so cogently put it in her Sunday Times column at the weekend).  As he says himself: "I do come from a very privileged background, but it shouldn’t make any difference at all.  It is what is in your soul that counts".

Quite so.  Readers, make sure you mark a cross next to Drax.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

P.S. Do click on the Mail link and have a peek at Dickie's magnificent wife, Zara.  I think you'll agree that she is a perfect example of horsey English boffability.  Let no one tell you that the Eyeties and Frogs have finer women than our own! 

P.P.S. I know what is in my soul - a deep-seated hatred of oiks!

I say, look what we have here!

What ho, oiks!

Democratic politics in the modern age can be awfully dispiriting for a nobleman.  One gets used to witnessing a procession of plebs and charlatans ease their way up the slippery pole whilst truly pukka chaps look on enviously from the outside.  There has not been a blue blooded Prime Minister of England since the 14th Earl of Home in 1963*, and at times I despair of ever seeing another.  But then just as one is about to give up hope, one opens up one's copy of The Times of a morning and reads this:

He is the only party leader who owns a moor, deer forest and country estate in the Highlands. Lord Pearson of Rannoch arrives for our interview clutching a scarlet briefcase embossed with a gold coronet and the initials P of R. This peer of the realm seems like the ultimate Establishment grandee.

His exercise regime consists of taking his pointers to look for grouse in the heather, crawling through peat bogs with his rifle in search of stags and fishing for trout in his pools. He hasn’t heard of Twitter and he has “the bless-ed Maxine” to send his e-mails. “I prefer plus fours to pinstripes,” he says. “Unlike David Cameron, I am not going to give up stalking nor am I going to resign from White’s.”

I say, now that is the spirit!  P of R?  What magnificent vulgarity!  Lord Pearson - as you doubtless guessed - is merely an appointed peer rather than a proper peer, and he confesses to being somewhat nouveau, but anything he lacks in the pukka stakes is more than made up for by the exemplary breeding of his right-hand man, the magnificent and patrician Lord Willoughby de Broke.  21st Baron Willoughby de Broke (who is a jolly good chum of mine) was educated at Le Rosey (Europe's Eton, say some) where he learned life's most important lesson: that the Hun, the Frog and the Eye-tie are never, ever to be trusted.  

This splendid duo are set to build on the good work of the estimable (though rather MPSIA**) Nigel Farage.  Farage is stepping down as UKIP leader and plans to have a jolly good crack at unseating the ghastly new Speaker of the House, John "Jew Boy" Berkow, in Buckinghamshire.  All right-thinking Englishmen will be praying that he succeeds. 

I've dabbled with UKIP in the past, but was always put off by the slight air of Poujadism that surrounded them.  However, if superb specimens like Lords Pearson and Willoughby de Broke continue to fly the Union Jack with such gusto, then I might just have to re-think my position.

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

*Incidentally, young Frederick ran into ADH's grand-daughter in London last month and reports that she is an absolutely cracking young filly.  Any red blooded young males reading this are well advised to have a bash if you run into her. 

** Minor public school, I'm afraid

There lurks a thief in the night

What ho, proles!

I read with some amusement today's report that the Duke of Northumberland faces a challenge to his title from a delusional New Zealander (of all people). 

Kevin Percy, a former Olympic hockey player, who claims his ancestors include Harry “Hotspur” Percy who was immortalised in Shakespeare’s Henry V, claims that he is the rightful heir to the estate. He has written to the Queen to seek her support for the exhumation of the 5th Earl of Northumberland, who died in 1560, to see if the remains match his own DNA. Mr Percy said: “I’m 74 and I can think of nothing worse than going to my grave without knowing I’ve done my best for my family and our bloodline".

Well, naturally I had a good chuckle.  Poor old Ralph has been subjected to a torrent of similar challenges ever since making the foolish decision to permit Harry Potter to be filmed at Alwnick Castle.  I said to him at the time: "Ralph, I know you love films, but a prole is a prole is a prole - and artistic proles are proles nonetheless".  He didn't listen, of course, but I bet he wishes he had.   

My amusement did not last long, however, for it suddenly struck me that a fellow calling himself "Aucklander" has recently begun to frequent this blog.  I wonder whether Mr Kevin Percy is a fan of the blogs of noblemen?  Listen well, sir, for I shall say this only once: If you think you can strip me of my Viscountcy, then you can think again.  No colonial cur will ever turf me out of my Castle or pillage my possessions or assail my wife.  No, sir, not before you have embedded your sword into my belly and prised the keys to Crouchback Castle from my cold, dead hands. 

There will be no midnight hakas in the Castle courtyard while I still draw breath on this earth.  No Lady Crouchback will ever sport a tramp stamp and trakkie dags.  No, sir! Be away with you now, scoundrel.  Remove thy covetous eyes from this glorious corner of Sussex before I order my hounds to rip you from limb to limb.  Away, I say!  Away!

Yours, etc

Viscount Crouchback

The shires are rising at last!

Warmest Monday greetings, dear readers!

I have kept my counsel on the Liz Truss affair.  Having boffed a few fillies during my time, I am loathe to criticise a chap or chapette for enjoying a spot of extra-marital hanky panky.  A good looking gel like Liz is perfectly entitled to a quick rogering from time to time.  However, I cannot help but sympathise with the local Norfolk Tories - the so-called Turnip Taliban - for jolly well sticking it to David Cameron and CCHQ.  I know from my own experience that the degree of central control exerted by the party hacks in London is quite extraordinary nowadays.  It has produced the intolerable situation whereby some of the most high-born noblemen in the shires are being bossed around by ghastly little grammar school oiks who believe that their 2:1 in PPE from a horrid little Oxford plebs' college like Pembroke or Lincoln is sufficient to bestow them with some gravitas.  It is not.  They were born oiks and they shall remain oiks no matter what ridiculous figure they claim for their IQ. 

CCHQ ought to consider who it is dealing with:

The elegant Stradsett Hall sits beside a lake of gently gliding swans. But the tranquillity of this 1,000 acre Norfolk estate could not be more deceptive.

For this is the home of Sir Jeremy Bagge, the self-appointed leader of a group of Tory rebels who are proving the most intractable enemy David Cameron has yet had to do battle with. 

And:

Trouble is, the Notting Hill lot have picked a fight with the wrong part of the world. This is rural Norfolk. Actually, given that the number of local landowners can be counted on the fingers of one hand, it's feudal Norfolk. 

I say!  These are my type of people!  Oh yes!  And consider what an eminently sensible fellow Sir Jeremy seems to be!

Sir Jeremy repeatedly says he has nothing against women.

"Sorry, no, I have never said I'm anti-women. I have got absolutely nothing against women.

"Who cooks my lunch? Who cooks my dinner? How did my wonderful three children appear? Women, you can't do without them. My god, take my wife."

What does she do for a living? "What does she do? She looks after me. Looks after the children. Runs the house." 

Quite so, sir!  Quite so!  Indeed, you give me great urge to have a jolly stern word with Lady Crouchback, who for decades has been shirking her duties and foisting them upon housekeepers and cooks at very great cost to the Crouchback trust fund.  I would go so far as to say that the indolent mare requires a damned good thrashing from the heavy end of a walking stick.

Good God, could it be?  Has the day of reckoning arrived?  After a century of horrendous proletarianisation, of Lloyd-George and Attlee and Blair and the steady erosion of aristocratic privilege, could it be that the shires are finally rising at last?  By jove, I think it could be!  I think the day is at hand!  I think the noble class has finally had enough!  I think I need only stretch out my fingertips for the ancient weal of nobless oblige to curl snugly into my hand once more!  Readers, I urge you to make haste to your nearest nobleman and petition his good favour.  I shall be forming a west Sussex militia this very week and I urge all yeomen of sturdy torso and sound mind to sign up immediately.

Yours, excitedly,

Viscount Crouchback

The perils of the mass franchise (Part Two)

Serfs and Proles,

Several of you have raised interesting questions about the reintroduction of a property qualification to the franchise. Darwinia - South African filly with a penchant for golf - writes:

the vote to the super rich??? dont be silly. do you want beckham, "sir" alex ferguson and amy winehouse's vote. can they even make an X?

You raise a good point, my dear girl, but do please make an attempt to spruce up your typing in future.  At the very least I expect capitalised letters at the start of sentences.  Remember who you are conversing with, my dear: this is not some petit bourgeois Transvaal golf club full of crude Boer farmers knocking back kegs of brandy and coke; no, this is A Viscount Speaks, the world's only noble blog.  Hideous South Africanisms cannot and will not be tolerated in such a rarefied environment.   

Riki Tiki Tavi (I hope you're not a Maori, old fruit?  Horrid brutes.) raises a similar point:

The man has point. While we may frolick in your benign governance what the devil would you do about the oligarchs and the plebs. What chaos would 300 or so footballers cause? We may have to watch the X factor in perprtuity by gods. how would you control those jumped up oiks?

Quite so.  Quite, quite so.  You are absolutely right, my dear chap.  I had not considered the utter havoc that could be caused by nouveau riche barbarians being handed the vote in my future feudal utopia. 

I therefore add the following qualification: not only must one's estate be valued in excess of £500,000 (admittedly a rather trifling sum, but I do not wish to disenfranchise my drinking buddies at The Hare and Crown, most of whom have decidedly sound political views) but so too must the estate of one's father and grandfather.* 

This, at a stroke, removes from the franchise all those horrid little footballers and pop stars and other ghastly specimens who clawed their way out of the council estates by virtue (or rather by vice) of their mediocre talents being so disgustingly over-rated in this rude age.  

Blondy2 raises a different point:

And what about those upstart, bourgeoise civic builders, Crouchy? Where do they fit in? You know, the Cobdens and Brights of this world; the kind of fellas who started all this extended franchise malarky, and who ripped control of the new municipalities from you lot. It was the poor old Duke of Beaufort who copped-it down in my neck of the woods. The highest of High Tories he. A friend of yours, surely.

There will be no place for civic builders in my feudal utopia, old fruit. Indeed, all those ambitious types with a penchant for politics - the Jack Straws of this world - will be re-classified as builders.  Not civic builders.  Just builders**.  They will be set to work adding fortifications to Crouchback Castle to keep all the plebs out.  When they have finished those, I shall send them along to Lord Emsworth's estate to add a few fortifications there, too.  And when they have finished those, I shall set them to work building a bloody great wall along the middle of the country - say, from Worcester to Cambridge - to keep the northern barbarians from ever again descending upon the southern shires.  This wall will be named Crouchback's Wall, and will be visible from space. 

I trust that these alterations to the constitution of Crouchbackland meet with your hearty approval.

Yours, etc

Crouchback

* Exceptions will be granted to rugger players, ex-Guards, and those bona fide English yeomen who can trace their shire lineage back to (at least) the 13th century. 

** LIke Stalin, I believe that a spot of hard labour can be most rewarding for the silken-skinned intellectuals, do-gooders and pious liberals of this world.  I envisage a series of Gulags to the north of Crouchback's Wall. 

The perils of the mass franchise

Weekend greetings, dear readers!

Good Heavens, what a lot of fuss about Nick Griffin!  To think that such a peculiar little fellow could have the world's media at his fingertips.  He's a rum cove, no doubt - possibly the oddest-looking one-eyed politician since Gordon Brown. 

But I do wish that the chattering class bien pensants who have been so volubly expressing their outrage! at Griffin's sudden arrival on our television screens would reflect upon the fact that the BBC only extended the invitation because the BNP won one million votes; and they only won one million votes because millions of proletarians in northern slum towns are - for reasons that quite escape me - permitted to vote in British elections. 

Pray, why is the property qualification no longer extant?  It served Britannia most satisfactorily.  When only property owners could vote in this green and pleasant land, the electorate returned sublime specimens like Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone, and Salisbury.  These men won wars and planted the Union Jack in the farthest corners of the globe.  But since any old pleb was permitted to mark an X next to their chosen candidate's name, we have had a ghastly litany of knaves, fools and wretches foisted upon us: MacDonald, Attlee, Heath, Wilson, Major, Blair, Brown.  What a shambolic collection!

The lesson is simple.  Her Majesty's Government must reintroduce the property qualification for the franchise: only owners of estates worth in excess of £500,000 should be permitted to vote in an election.  This would, at a stroke, solve sordid little problems like the BNP.  It would also ensure Conservative rule for perpetuity.  It might even enable the Tories to ditch the class traitor Cameron and to install instead an upstanding shire nobleman as Prime Minister - someone like, say, my dear son, Frederick Pelham Crouchback.

I beg my countrymen to return us to a simple, gentler age.  Let peasants plough; let proletarians manufacture; let squires debate; and let noblemen rule!

Yours, etc

Crouchback