Walk like an Eejitian ..

I am going to tell you a story which you will never have read before, unless you enjoyed the story so much you have set to read it again – I hope you do because stories need lots of reading to squeeze the real story out of them.

The story is about the land of Eejit, the land of upside down pyramids, massive bogland wastes and the famous Stinks,  a land where the only habitable region is a sandy kilometre either side of a dried up river bed.  Some writers have ventured to this land and returned to Europe with their heads turned to mince and being chastised by the folk, who think they are proper writers, as just producing gibberish (which is, after all, the written language of the country of Eejit) so in that, at least, these ‘proper’ writers are right. 

The late Spike Milligan was one of those who travelled to world of Eejit, translating many of their most famous poet’s works into English to share their genius. His translation of Eejit’s most famous poet laureate, Fred Fernnacapan’s ‘Owed to a Wood Worm – two shillings and sixpence’ (25p in English... some things just do not translate well from Eejit) is hailed by many as the finest translation from the original Eejit. I print the translation here, in full, so you can experience the genius and elegance of Mr Milligan’s translation:

Tell me little woodworm

Eating through the wood

Surely all that woodwork

Can’t do you any good

Heaven’s little woodworm

You’ve eaten all the chairs

That’s why poor old granddad

Is sitting outside on the stairs.

(Silly Verse for Kids – Mr S Milligan)

So offended were the literary people, stuffy politicians, ignorant Lords and Queen of the Great British Empire by Mr Milligan’s championing of Eejit’s great literary works, they stopped him from being a member of the British Empire and forced him to become Irish by way of an insult to his works; even though Mr Milligan had faced death and injury on behalf of the British Empire in a war against stupid, serious people with no sense of humour except to think destroying countries was ‘good for a laugh and highly profitable for their bestest chums’. Sadly the same sort of people who think destroying countries is ‘good for a laugh and highly profitable for their bestest chums’, now run the British Empire. The Eejit word for these sort of people is, ‘£*^$”%!’. The polite translation is “people who are so stupid even the Eejitians look down on them” the actual meaning of the word is far, far ruder and would need a lot of Anglo Saxon sweary words to do it justice; words not suitable in a book such as this where peacefulness and moderation seek to live side by side and be encouraged in others.

This story is about one of those work a day men and women who never feature in stories or at least never as the hero or heroine. The people who do all the jobs you would never want to, even if you were to be paid a million squid pounds Eejit (about £10 Sterling). This story has, at its centre, a little man with a long name – it should be noted that long names are the norm in Eejit. The man’s name translates as:

“Sydney, Colin, Aloysius, Thomas Snotgobbler”

And known to his friends as ‘Scats’ which, so called, intelligent people from the British Empire will tell you means ‘a large cat poo’ in English but is far friendlier in Eejitian, literally translating as ‘solid in what they produce’ or as we would say ‘trustworthy’.

It is clear if I continue to explain all the differences between the meanings of English sounding words and the actual Eejitian, this book will end up as a boring treatise on the Eejitian language rather than an interesting story about Sid Snotgobbler and the Eejitians. Neither am I one for all those foot notes in explanation popular amongst some British Empire authors, as I find them distracting, annoying, they ruin the story and sometimes become the story. If you wish to understand the subtleties of the Eejitian language, I suggest doing your own research and hard work rather than leeching off mine, a good start would be to read Fred Fernnacapan’s  “@:;-+  £%!’£  ^*&()+=%” published by the EUP.

We have established that Scats was trusted by his friends and seen as a solid member of their community but not much about Scats himself as to what did he look like, was he married, what did he do?

In order the replies would be:

• Average height, undistinguished, mousey brown hair, blue eyes, a man of few words
• No, though his Mum is getting worried he is a homosexual and she’ll never have grand children
• Those nasty horrible jobs you would never dream of doing such as unblocking someone’s half blocked nose, unpicking rotten meat from between their teeth, excavating their ear wax or removing belly button fluff

Ah! The strong, silent, misunderstood type you may be already thinking, the quiet hero of so many stories yet you are getting as cold as the last packet of peas at the bottom of the freezer. Scats was simply normal. Like many men he was shy and tongue tied around women – hence no wife. He was embarrassed that he was ‘quite bright’ in a land where a low IQ, constantly talking about the types of sand, man eating sparrows and the dangers of the boglands was thought the high point of any conversation and hence Scats said as little as possible following the old Eejitian saying of ‘A wise man says nothing so as not to be embarrassed by pointing out the stupidity of his fellows’, hence a man of few words. This in turn was a doubled edged sword as his frequent silences marked him as highly stupid in his friends’ eyes and thus highly respected. Scats never read any of the tabloid papers so popular in Eejit, even in big print, and his lack of interest in or knowledge of their headlines – Prime Minister blames dead cat for latest economic crisis – marked him out as not just truly stupid but illiterate, a real hero to his friends. They could not comprehend he did not read them because they were simply a load of made up nonsense, avoiding what was actually the case; the Prime Minister was an eejit. There is a fundamental truth in dealing with the terminally stupid; you can never win, no matter what.

As for work, Scats was a member of the Eejitian diplomatic corps and represented his country in the foreign embassies in the Eejitian capital, Panfridegsoplos. Smiling through gritted teeth as his Eejitian elders made bad deal after bad deal with the British Empire then congratulating themselves for once again selling Eejit down their own dried up river bed. The latest diplomatic success had been the Eejitian’s foreign minister agreeing to pay the British Empire to bomb Eejitian oil fields because of the terrorists the Britsh Empire put there in the first place to defend them had gone bad, then negotiating with the British Empire oil companies for them to be paid compensation, by the Eejitian Government, for the British Empire bombing of their own British Empire terrorists and damaging the British Empire Oil Company’s plant in the process.  This was up there, in Scats mind, with the Government paying the British Empire for the water from their own Eejitian boglands on the grounds the Eejitian river bed was all dried up.

Courtesy the Eejitian tabloids, such as ‘Black Hole’ or the ‘Repeating Record’, all his friends thought the Eejitian Government had been very clever and out foxed the British Empire yet again. Scats knew someone was making money out of the Eejitian’s stupidity and it was not just the British Empire. Behind the high mud brick walls he saw the high quality houses with swimming pools, flush toilets with toilet paper the Eejitian ministers lived in, the Saville Row suits they wore ‘off duty’, the Landrover Discoveries on the drives, a far cry from the rusty, smoky, always breaking down,  30 year old Skoda’s and Brabant’s which were their normal ministerial cars or the scabby, skid marked, worn out Arab robes they wore in public when peeing against trees to show they were men of the people.

Where as his fellow employees in the diplomatic corps thought the way to the top involved continuously suggesting ever stupider ideas to their bosses, so as to keep them in the eye line of their bosses for the next promotion, Scats stayed silent. Most of his bosses in the diplomatic corps thought Scats silence, just like Scats’ friends, meant Scats was terminally stupid; yet at the top most levels concerns were beginning to be raised, maybe Scats was not terminally stupid after all and he was that most dangerous of all employees, an intelligent one, one who would need watching. The problem arose as to who would watch him as the Eejit police and security services were, logically, even more incompetent than any other branch of Eejitian Government. The choices would be to let Scats into the ‘big secret’ which would be OK as long as Scats did not have a conscience or it was easily bought, have him killed which would more probably mean the suicide of the Eejit Government’s assassin due to their incompetence, just keep an eye on him for evidence of intelligence or promote him sideways as they knew an Eejit when they saw one. They eventually decided to promote him sideways to their Dublin Embassy, the eejits, as undersecretary for commerce on the grounds as he did not speak English or understand commerce; thus he would not have a clue what was actually going on with the ‘big secret’. They thought if he did rumble what was going on, he would see sense and do what they liked to call a ‘Milligan’, that is seek Irish citizenship, which is exactly what any Eejit person should do rather than being exposed to all and sundry to the embarrassment of being ‘highly intelligent’. Maybe to encourage him to seek asylum in Ireland they could set him up with an Irish lass to teach him English, fall in love and then marry him. This is typical of all Eejit Government thinking, even among the smarter ones: surely even you, dear reader, can see a major flaw in the Eejit Government plan for Scats in Dublin?

Maybe you are a Black Hole or Repeating Record reader?  In which case may I kindly suggest you are wasting your and my time by reading any further as there are no tales of how a man eating sparrow killed my Granny, discussions of how fine is a fine grain of sand or headlines on the latest scheme to ensure the dried up Eejit river bed remains dry so the sand does not get wet. If you have not got the hint yet you are truly beyond stupid and should look for a career in the Eejit Government, they need folk just like you.

Scats was more than bright enough to work out what the Eejit Government was doing but the chance to travel, to live in Milligan’s adopted land and learn his language was more than compensation for their Eejitian cunning plan. The 300 Euro a week salary, European clothing and travel by air were just bonuses. Now if he could only work out just what was the point of socks, he would be less nervous.

His Mum and friends came to Panfridegsoplos air field to wave him away. The Eejitian Government called it an air field and were partly right in it was a field and there was plenty of air all around it but any resemblance to what you are I would recognise as an air field was missing. Baggage handling was carried out by camel, towing the aircraft was done by camel and the tea was indirectly heated by camel. This meant the airfield did not smell of aviation kerosene but of camel. If they could have  used a camel to start the aircraft they most surely would have but wind from a camel was not powerful enough to spin up the engine – pungent most certainly but not powerful.

Scats climbed into the battered and gaffered taped together Dakota aircraft of Eejitian Airways for the short hop to Malta in his normal Eejitian robes. Part of his briefing had been he could not change into European style dress until in Malta, leaving his concern of what to do about ‘socks’ still hanging in the air. He sat down as best as possible on a bucket seat along the sides which marked the aircraft’s previous use as a parachutists plane for the French Foreign Legion while goats and chickens were packed into fill all the remaining space – now he could understand the logic of not putting on the European style clothes until Malta as the aroma of goat and chicken shaded the incessant overtone of camel. Through the window he could just make out his mother and friends waving from under the patched bit of canvas which served as the airport lounge. There was loud camel like coughs as the engines came to life and vibration became the overriding sensation. The goats and chickens responded as goats and chickens are likely to do when stressed all of a sudden which just added to the atmosphere on board. The aircraft seemed to take off then bounce again off the ground before Scats could see the ground leaving itself far below. As he looked over the Eejitian boglands he could see all sorts of industry and enterprise, previously unknown to him, busily polluting away, huffing big black clouds of sulphur and carbon dioxide into the air and heinously poisonous chemicals into the waters of the Eejitian boglands. 

A thought came to him – maybe this was why we had to import safe drinking water from the British Empire into Eejit, our own natural supply was now undrinkable, poisoned by the very same British Empire companies’ production systems. With that thought tucked away he tried to stop his own sick adding to the already deathly aroma inside the aircraft and hoped for this reason Malta was not too far distant. He concentrated on working out just what socks were for, maybe his evil brains said, they are for throwing up into.

The Eejitian plane landed on an abandoned RAF airfield nowhere near Malta’s international airport and he was told to get off smartish while the engines were kept running. No sooner than Scats and his baggage were off than the plane turned into the wind, filled his face with grit and sods then lumbered into the air goats, chickens and all leaving a hint of camel on the air. Scats looked around and saw someone waving from a half ruined aircraft hanger.  He walked over and the man introduced himself as Serious Humpledump second officer at Eejit’s Malta consulate, Scats was shown to a room and told to get changed into his European gear and leave his robes where they were. As they were leaving Serious poured petrol over the robes and set them alight raising another aroma of camel on the Malta air. Scats jumped into the consulate’s five year old Skoda amazed to find it was air conditioned, had all its windows in place and no gaffer tape to be seen. As they drove down into Valletta Scats eyes were out on stalks as he took in such wealth and riches as he had never before seen. Luckily, his amazement meant he asked all the stupid questions which would be expected of an Eejitian such as, “All these houses have flushing toilets, never!” or “I have never seen so many different sorts of cars before” or “You mean all these shop fronts are not fakes?” This in turn helped form the idea in Humpledump’s mind that his superiors concerns that Scats might be intelligent had no basis in fact, he was just another hick Eejitian and safe to move on to Dublin.

After two days in Valletta being briefed about the arcane ways and habits of Westerners and at last finding out just what is the point of socks, Scats was issued with an Eejitian diplomatic passport and a Ryan Air Ticket to Dublin. He was guided through the jaw dropping show of wealth in the airport by Humpledump to the Ryan Air Desk and then taken in hand by the nice lady who looks after VIPs for Ryan Air, walked him to the departure desk, gave him a complimentary glass of water and told him the expected two hour delay of the flight to Dublin was perfectly normal service for Ryan Air; anything longer was just the passenger’s tough luck, as was starvation, dehydration or impending insanity due to a lack of any information from Ryan Air as to which year your flight was likely to take off, let alone month or day. Welcome to Ryan Air customer service, Scats, but it was still miles ahead of Eejit Air in most respects; no sharing the cabin with goats and chickens, for example.