Friday, February 16, 2007

 

Shiny happy people


Once upon a time there was a little girl called Patsy. She lived in a neighbourhood just like yours or mine. Patsy was a very bossy little girl and nobody liked her. She wanted people to like her, even more than she wanted them to be scared of her.

Patsy’s daddy gave her a job one day. She was to be in charge of mending all the broken dolls in the neighbourhood. Patsy wasn’t a very hard-working little girl and had no talents, so Daddy gave her lots and lots of money to pay other children with doll-mending skills to do the work.

The children in the neighbourhood all brought their dolls to be mended. One day some of the doll-menders came to Patsy. ‘There are more and more broken dolls in the neighbourhood, and we’re becoming better and better at mending them,’ they said. ‘We need more money because it’s becoming more expensive to do it properly.’

Patsy didn’t like the doll-menders. She was very jealous of them. So she said, ‘I think you just want the money to buy sweets for yourselves. I’m going to start checking up on you.’

She asked her daddy for more money. Daddy was very busy fighting all the other parents in the neighbourhood and beyond, and he said crossly, ‘This is all you’re getting,’ and threw some money at her. Patsy took the money and found some bullies and paid them to spy on the doll-menders. The bullies complained that they had nowhere to rest between spying, so Patsy told them to kick the doll-menders out of the Wendy houses where they were mending dolls and to sit in them themselves. She also gave them lots of paper to make planes with to keep them busy. The bullies loved making paper planes so much that they decided to make the doll-menders make lots of paper planes as well. The doll-menders complained that all this paper plane-making wasn’t leaving them much time to mend dolls. The bullies laughed at them and threatened to hit them.

One day the children in the neighbourhood came to see Patsy. They were crying and carrying bits of their broken dolls. ‘The doll-menders can’t mend our dolls any more,’ they said. ‘They’re either too busy or they’ve died of stress or killed themselves.’

‘Liars!’ shrieked Patsy, stamping her foot. ‘This has been the best week ever for doll-mending!’ She ran inside crying and told her daddy. Daddy made sure that a writer for a friendly newspaper wrote an article about how ungrateful the children in the neighbourhood were.

Soon the doll-menders were all dead, in mental homes or abroad. The streets were full of the broken arms and legs and heads of dolls. Daddy sighed. Even he had to admit that his darling little girl had made a right balls-up of things. He called Patsy, who was sulking in her room (which was decorated very prettily with all the lovely things Daddy’s money had bought her).

‘I don’t think doll-mending is for you,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you another job instead.’

And so, the next day, Patsy stood outside her house and looked proudly at the collection of little boys and girls in shiny police uniforms who were already hiding cameras about the street.

‘This time I’ll get it right!’ she vowed.


(Etc., etc.)

Comments:
Got something to hide Mr Eater? I'm actually watching yer house now, no not via camera thats me in the bushes, you really ought to get curtains you tease.
 
You know, I had that exact same dream last night!

Only in mine there were bubbles blowing all the way down the street and when you looked really closely inside each bubble there was a silently screaming pierrot trying to get out. Other than that, spot on.

Is this a reworking of The Parable Of The Little Girl Who Grew Up To Be Scared of Jane Austen?
 
It's not "Patricia Hewitt: The Early Years" is it?
 
Is this your interpretation of the 1981 Miners Strike? Patsy is Thatcher right? The Doll Menders are the miners and the bullies are the NUM.
Am I right?
 
Is this your interpretation of Beauty and the Beast? It is, isn't it! I knew as soon as Patsy kissed the frog.
 
Crap, I thought I knew what this was a metaphor phor, but now I phink not.

What, pray tell, is a "Wendy house"?

I'll take my answer off the air.
 
'Tis an allegory, all right. Some of you are nearly there. No, Eddie, it's far more contemporary than that.

SafeT: a Wendy house is a buildable hut for children to play in.
 
So if I say "can I stick my Willy in yer Wendy?" is that about houses?

I susport neighbours spying on neighbours as the Gestapo did it and they looked cool in their uniforms and long coats.

ID cards for everyone too and free drink for the old.

Patsy didn't kiss a frog that was Liam Gallagher.
Kylie likes the frogs.
 
OK. I thought broken dolls and surveillance cameras etc? NHS. Not wanting to give money to the doctors. That's why i piked patricia hewitt. Wrong huh?

Well is it an acronym, PAT? Teachers? Damn! Hewitt was my best shot.
 
Right, Daddy is the government; Patsy is the NHS; the skilled doll menders wanting more money are the doctors. The thugs are the hospital administrators and the cameras are just cameras now bristling in the hospital corridors of the NHS's new(er) dystopia.

I'm hanging on to this NHS theory by the teeth and just grrr not grrr letting go. We might arrive at a point when I have to be euthanized and the theory pulled out of my cold, dead terrier mouth.
 
AND she claimed twice the NHS was doing a terrific job. Once, a while back, and lately with the closure of more beds saying it was a sign of success.

It HAS to be, it just HAS to be!
 
You're right, Sam, in every detail except the cameras (she takes on the Home Office brief at the end, you see). You're promoted to Prime Minister. Can you start Monday?
 
Well, I'll have to give notice at my current place of employment first. The kids'll miss me for a while but I expect their daddy will let them watch me on the news.

After further thought, I think I'll decline the position. It would be too difficult to follow Mr. Blair's sterling model of leadership.

I'm glad that was right. I spent entirely too much time trying to work it out. In the end it became about so much more than the puzzle, It was like i was seeking fot just paricia Hewitt bu the meaning of life itself...
 
And reseeking the ability to spell.
 
Bit Brahms, Sam?
 
Bit cream-crackered is all.
 
cor blimey you cockneys are just so colourful.
 
Great story!
 
Ah! Then I'd like one with a small refrigerator for it.
 
And I thought I was getting an insight into your childhood and all.
 
I was going to try to figure it out, but being a Yank, now that I know the answer, I would never have figured that out...I shall have to be satisfied that Sam got it, and...fuck that for a game of dolls.
 
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