ELECTION 2019: A MODEST PROPOSAL

Boris’s Brexit: basically, when you think about it, Boris’s Brexit is all about the UK’s right to choose whether we want our kids to stitch footballs for peanuts in sweatshops in Kent.

While the EU want footballs made by trained adults – damn the EU and their regulations! – Boris believes small nimble fingers will build a better Britain.

And who’s to say he’s wrong?

(Everyone)

Maybe child labour is the future? You don’t have to pay anyone under 18 a minimum wage. Kids are cheap. So, we’ll all benefit from reduced costs. Also, kids don’t drive so we’ll have less cars on the road as more of the workforce use public transport. It would be an environmental disaster not to employ children. It’s the green choice. Extinction Rebellion would support it. No need to picket a runway to save the planet when you can support 10 year old children working the assembly line for a brand new Nissan Leaf electric car in Sunderland.

Now, some people may say that Boris has no intention of cornering the global market in furry yellow Mouldmasters footballs. He’s only cosying up to the Hard Brexiteers to get their votes until he’s secured a new five year term. But the haters only say that because they lack VISION – also a common problem of anyone who’s tried heading a rock hard Mouldmaster. However, Boris has proved the doubters wrong before, when everyone thought he would not get the EU to sign a new deal, and he can prove them wrong again! Back Boris!

But won’t parliament stop Boris if he tries to restore good old fashioned child slavery just like we had when Queen Victoria was on the throne? Won’t they talk about universal human rights and the need for children to have a childhood instead of a steady 9 to 9 job (with 30 minutes break for lunch, unpaid)?

Why, yes. Yes, they will, unless we all vote Tory. That’s why I’m suggesting that everyone across the entire country votes Tory so that there is not a single opposition MP in the House of Commons!

Give me Boris a free reign. No excuses. Let him do anything he wants for five years. And then let’s see how Great Britain will be! 

(And, even better, we’ve all ready got a head start on restoring Britain’s competitive edge on the world stage as Boris has loads of kids)

So, choose Boris’s Brexit! Think of your children and the glorious future that awaits them! You know it makes sense! Back Boris bairns! Vote Tory and, just like Boris, bonk for Britain!

There was no escaping one song this year – Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’. It sold 10 million copies in the US and it stayed in the top 40 in the UK for so long the Home Office threatened to deport it.

With its chorus of “take my horse to the old town road!” most folk assumed the song was inspired by country music. Which it was – but that country was England! I’ve discovered, by checking Google Maps, that Old Town Road is not in Utah but Stoke-on-Trent, just round the corner from Premier Electrical Wholesales and a ceramic tile pottery. It’s as authentically western as John Wayne’s name.

If you want proper country music there was only one place to take your horse – and that place was Nashville. And there was no better country song, and, in fact, no better song this year, than Luke Bryan’s ‘Knockin’ Boots’.

Most people would say it’s awful. That it makes ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. But they would be wrong. It’s BRILLIANT.

Listen to that guitar solo, the way it’s a NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK SAY NO MORE of the fretboard.

Listen to the lyrics. It’s not just a list of cliches that rhyme. It’s more complicated than that. It’s a list of cliches that rhyme that tells a story of a night: a night that begins with getting across town to meet someone; taking her out to get some drinks, then moving to the dance floor, followed by calling her a cab, then starting getting friendly in a backseat, before, eventually, she’s won over by Luke Bryan’s charming ways or suggestive guitar licks or, possibly, rhohypnol and they’re soon ‘knockin boots’! It’s a tale as old as time. If that time was before the #metoo movement rightly suggested getting her drunk was not the height of seduction. But that doesn’t stop this being my song of the year. Even if it doesn’t mention Stoke.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Miley Cyrus – Party Up The Street

For when you can’t afford the taxi to the party at Luke Bryan’s house.

Grimes – We Appreciate Power

Best lead single with the word ‘Power’ in the title since Kanye West’s Power. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that Grimes will follow Kanye into the light and become Sister Grimes the nun in 10 years time.

DC Fontaines – Big

One of my favourite albums of the year. I think they’re gonna be… big! (Did you see what I did there?)

The Slow Show – Eye to Eye

From my favourite album of the year.

Honeyblood – A Kiss From The Devil

Best Scottish album. I’m pretty sure there’s a hint of Gary Glitter’s Rock & Roll Part 1 to this one. You can definitely imagine the Joker dancing on the New York stairs to this song.

Foals – In Degrees

Would have been best album of the year if they’d released one ‘best of’ album instead of splitting it into two parts.

Fat White Family – Feet

A Spotify discovery, which is getting rarer as my wife shares my account and listens to One Direction and The Greatest Showman and my new discovery’s tend to be Louis Tomlinson singing Les Miserable.

Blake Shelton – God’s Country

Someone’s been listening very closely to Bon Jovi’s Young Guns 2 soundtrack.

Miley Cyrus – The Most

Final song on her album. Final song on this list. If you get the chance, watch her Glastonbury set. But not in front of your granny, unless your granny was a trooper and swears just like one.