You’ve heard the line, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Well the same applies to humour.
I’m talking about a letter that appeared in the Guardian five years ago in which the writer – supposedly a customer service representative for the Inland Revenue Service – responds to an unseen acerbic letter from a dissatisfied taxpayer, supposedly a Guardian columnist.
“Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay “go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services”, a moment’s rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to “stump up for the whole damned party” yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles” and “dancing whores”, whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system”.
It began as a spoof letter from the Inland Revenue written for Jobs & Money by back-page columnist, comedian Chris Addison. But, plucked (unauthorised, we’d add) from the Guardian’s website, it has found its way into countless emails and websites across the world. You’ve may even have seen it in your own email box, telling you it’s a “real” letter from the taxman.
Of course, acerbic, incisive and sarcastic letter-writing is not always confined to the complainant – here, an Inland Revenue customer relations employee responds to a complaint politely but with unexpected underlying dark humour.
I might as well supplement any previous blasphemous posts with photographic evidence. So here goes.
Photo above, caption below.
An interesting nativity scene outside the publicity-seeking church at the Catholic University. What the wooden guy is doing with the tin saxophone is beyond me. Note the pharmacy bag. It’s in every photo of this thing and it pisses Magda right off. And if you look close enough you will see…
In the midst of all the wooden actors, a camera pointing straight at Baby Jesus, or at least his crib.
A nice looking ass. Spare me your groans.
And presiding over the madness a nun, who looks real and about to jump from the church’s bell tower. Meanwhile, across town…
The King Sobieski throws long, although one suspects his receivers have hands of stone.
Sarah Palin seems to be enjoying herself at this turkey farm. So does the farmer in the background as Palin gives an interview to a local television station. The turkeys getting buthered don’t seem to be having quite as much fun.
For many years, the border between Poland and Russia was volatile. Due to a political shift, a farmer found that he was no longer a Russian, but had become a Pole. Thrilled, he told his wife, “Thank God ! No more of those freezing Russian winters.”
What was their secret? Gin. On any given Saturday night they consumed enough martinis to fuel an assault helicopter. But also they were capable of understanding a concept that we seem to have lost, which is that people who disagree with you politically are not necessarily evil or stupid. My parents and their friends took it for granted that most people were fundamentally decent and wanted the best for the country. So they argued by sincerely (if loudly) trying to persuade each other. They did not argue by calling each other names, which is pointless and childish, and which constitutes I would estimate 97 percent of what passes for political debate today.
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
Then read this story, which gives one a broader overview of the current situation in Poland.
The author’s observation of Warsaw as being dotted with cranes holds true a few months later, altough I’ve been told the building boom the city has experienced in recent years is starting to cool.
Oh, I haven’t personally seen this commercial yet, and my ears would definitely have perked up had I heard someone speaking English.
