The Clowne Blog. Number 40
It was a nasty wet day, the rain was bouncing off the ground like machine-gun fire. I looked foward to a peaceful day drawing the cartoon and working on my feature pages, when the editor came out and smiled at me.
“You have three children under five do you?” he asked.
I grunted, he knew I had, what did he want?
To my sighful “yes” he said, “there’s a beautiful baby contest this afternoon at Chatsworth Park, they want a judge, you are just the man!”
Sensing a poisoned chalace I tried to argue, but it was no good.
I drove in the teeming rain to the park, the contest was to be a big event but the rain, and the fact the contest was under canvas in a muddy field, had reduced the show to just ten mothers and babies, all but one of which were crying and howling.
“Well?” a posh woman cried “that’s mine, I am Lady —, a close friend of the Duchess, so I do expect to win.”
I spent ages looking at the babies (out of spite) only one gave me a lovely smile and put his arms out and cried “mister”, it was also the one black baby here. It was no contest, he won it.
“What about my little girl?” a woman growled, but the posh “lady” pushed her aside and grabbed me with her strong arms, “why did you pick that filthy little n…..?” she screamed “Is there something the f…… the matter with you?”
“It is the only baby with any personality…” I tried to say before a brolly hit me. “N….. lover!” a woman spat. The posh woman pushed me over into the mud…I attacked back and ran to my car carring the black baby and the cup and telling the black mother to run!
We got to my car and drove off, spraying mud at the mad women.
When I got back to the paper the editor had a big grin on his face. “Lady …….. wants you sacked!”
“Where’s the tripefighter!” I snarled, and wrote exactly what happened and told the editor to publish it or have my job.
On Friday the article was front page. The Duke of Devonshire lost no time in seeing me to tell me that Lady …….. was banned from Chatsworth, and that can he have the address of the winning baby to apoligize. He was genuine, for all his wealth, he was a warm sincere man.
The black baby ended up going to university, Lady ……….’s boy ended up in prison.
I had made the right choice.
—
That was a defining moment in my life and began to turn me into a working class left-winger and a writer to many British left-wing papers.
Today I see the political parties via each other for the most racist policy. The Tories demonizing gypsies and Labour making both anti-Jewish Campaign posters and making Muslims feeling alien in their own country. And all parties are anti-immigrants. We even have a supposingly anti-european party called UKIP which in fact is a racist party. Anti-immigrants does not mean white Australians for example, but Africans and Albanians. Lady ………’s crowd have won and her nasty little views have become the norm here.
How many of these so called politicians would pick a black baby now?
—
Anyway, it’s been a strange week. A fat man whose craptrap has resulted in thousands dying through aids has died a god. A prince who sells weapons of war to countries to kill their citizens with is getting married, and a prime minister who is partly responsible for the death of many Iraqians wants to be re-elected and is standing against a racist xenophobe who looks like a vampire.
Frankly, they can all go to hell. The Pope, The Prince, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee. F*** them all!
—
The Clown from Clowne.
Comments (23)
you’ll feel better tomorrow, will you???
Loved the baby story…good for you. As for all the things going on in current affairs..it is weird…the Pope, the Prince’s doomed wedding, Prince Ranier’s death…..and in the US, famed lawyer Cochran dying too….so much going on…but frankly, I don’t give a shit about any of it either. It’s almost the weekend…that is all I am worried about
Have a good day, LP. ~jacki
For whatever reason, violent movies will always be made. Unfortunately, as time goes by, movies will continue to push the edge, becoming more and more violent. It’s a shame.
As long as we have politicians, we will have racism and other social problems.
Jim
Glad to see you’ve worked through all this crap without gettin’ hostile.
politicians seem to be in a race to see who can be the most irrelevant
ahhh….a breath of fresh air! You just earned yourself a new subscriber!
And George Dubya is still president…
Strangely, because of people like you, I still have hope.
(Is that you, in the profile pic??)
Peace and Love…GFW
If was the Editor in Chief, I’d a made sure that story made it to page one.
Oh, wonderful then. I’m sure your mother would approve.
Good on you you say what you think, and on all of this I agree . I think over here they would choose the black baby just to show there was no prejudice. Keep up the good work and It was Bush who forced England and Australia to join him, after saying his was the greatest country mwhy did he need their help he is full of bull shit, and our daft prime ministers fell in with him against the majority of people in each country .The Iraqis say they want the westerners out, why not leave them to it ,instead of letting all the poor others, who are only doing their duty to their Country to be klilled. Cheers marj{v]
Glad about the winner! Negative thinking begets negatives, be it in the political world, or otherwise. I love this quote from Gandhi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Positive energy can spread as well as negative–what do you want?
Thank you for visiing me. I don’t know how you found me,unknowingly I must have left a trail of pineapple pieces.
Liked the way you spoke out.
I also read the poem re the dragon.Each time a dragon dies a phoenix rises out of the ashes.
note: as you can see your tip was helpful.*grin*
A whole day with multiple babies. OMG, I would go NUTS! You are a better man than me.
Nice to meet you.
Ah, good to see you’ve nothing controversial to say *cough*
As for the baby pageant, it would have been a simple call. Good on you.
I don’t understand the Pope mania either. Saintly or not, I wouldn’t go out of my way to look at a dead body.
You are an amazing writer, not that you havent heard that a million times before. Rain like machine gun fire, I hope never to have to hear that, hearing gun shots is enough and firing the pieces at the artillery shows is quite a feat but painful to the ears. Spraying mud at mad women, perhaps they are lost from their true place hehe (mud wrestling). I am joking, at the least so I don’t get mud thrown at myself (I could probably easily duck it though anyway). I commend you on your courage of the last line of fucking them all, if its wise I don’t know and I don’t want to judge though it seems most of the time we do it with an ancient instinctive intuition. Honestly, I feel somewhat of an anger of at the sudden outpouring, if truely people cared as they did (now) the world would be a lot less shitty now. Half of it seems more like a neccessity of public relations to appease the masses. However, I do commend the pope for he was a good man and there are many more out there that deserve praise but honestly I think praise gets to people a lot and fucks them over most of the time.
M.A.
I liked the baby story; thank you for sharing it.
You have a very nice blog, and I wish you a great weekend.
Hugs.
A man notices a blonde sucking on the bottom of a Coke can. Curious, he asks her what she’s doing. “Duh! It says for best taste drink by date on the bottom.”
In days of old when a man observed and was sickened by what he saw in the world around him and felt helpless to change it, he joined a monastary. Just a thought, Terry. I feel your disenchantment and I also hear your hurt. I would never go to a convent to put a wall between myself and the ugliness of the world no more than you would be a monk *smile*. Tomorrow is another day, my dear, and dandelions are appearing in unlikely places.
Have a good weekend!
A very interesting read! I stopped by for a visit, and had to stay awhile to read once I caught your John Lennon quote. I enjoyed your thoughts so much I’m going to subscribe!
That is a wonderful outcome to your baby contest!
nice story was the baby’s name Jesus by any chance ? just curious anyway in ur pic it appears ur wings are up around ur neck ??? bad flight that nite? just curious & ur left wing appears a little more developed than ur right wing upon observations thanx clown interesting finish too ! magi
You have asked me to put in line breaks before…I dont know why I do not insert them right from the start. I wonder what my aversion to breaks is…hmm.. I am going to consider that. Have a good one! ~jacki