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The Ant and the Grasshopper
CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he\'s a fool, and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering
grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in
the cold.
THE END
THE BRITISH VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he\'s a fool, and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be
warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like
him, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the
shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant
in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table
laden with food.
The British are stunned that in a country of such
wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so
while others have plenty.
The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the
Transvestites With Starving Babies Party and the
Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the
ant\'s house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian
cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking
news, broadcasts them singing \"We Shall Overcome.\"
Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama
that the ant has got rich off the backs of
grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on
the ant to make him pay his \"fair share\".
In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic
Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act,
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant\'s taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined
for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.
Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly
imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by
North Tyneside Council.
The ant moves to France, and starts a successful
agribiz company [funded by the EU].
The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing
up the last of the ant\'s food, though Spring is still
months away, while the government house he is in,
which just happens to be the ant\'s old house, crumbles
around him because he hasn\'t bothered to maintain it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot
is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will
cost 10m pounds.
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the
Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of
government to address the root causes of despair
arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of
immigrant spiders, praised by the government for
enriching Britain\'s multicultural diversity, who
promptly set up a marijuana growing operations and
terrorize the community.
CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he\'s a fool, and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering
grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in
the cold.
THE END
THE BRITISH VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for
the winter. The grasshopper thinks he\'s a fool, and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be
warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like
him, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the
shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant
in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table
laden with food.
The British are stunned that in a country of such
wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so
while others have plenty.
The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the
Transvestites With Starving Babies Party and the
Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the
ant\'s house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian
cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking
news, broadcasts them singing \"We Shall Overcome.\"
Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama
that the ant has got rich off the backs of
grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on
the ant to make him pay his \"fair share\".
In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic
Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act,
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant\'s taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined
for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.
Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly
imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by
North Tyneside Council.
The ant moves to France, and starts a successful
agribiz company [funded by the EU].
The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing
up the last of the ant\'s food, though Spring is still
months away, while the government house he is in,
which just happens to be the ant\'s old house, crumbles
around him because he hasn\'t bothered to maintain it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot
is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will
cost 10m pounds.
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the
Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of
government to address the root causes of despair
arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of
immigrant spiders, praised by the government for
enriching Britain\'s multicultural diversity, who
promptly set up a marijuana growing operations and
terrorize the community.
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