A great email from Mike Gundy

Mark,

Hope you and yours are well?

Well indeed from your Christmas missive all seems calm on the surface, but who know what depraved depths an Artist must stoop to - all in the name of Art of course?

{ I feel sure that a man of your worth would be able to fully justify such things even before the most conservative Judge anyway...}

Sorry not much time for phone calls at the moment, finally managed to get back into School - third time lucky.

Two Universities cancelled the course I enrolled on, the second one after two weeks of Lectures [and whom - rather amusingly, are harassing me for payment. So far polite discourse has not dissuaded them from pursuing the bill. Whilst I abhor violence especially if it is happening to me - except in cartoons, This particular case might require necks be non-violently wrung.]

So after much ado, I and my half-trained team of fellow UnderGrads searched an Institution each, and finally found a Uni offering the course, and willing to take a bunch of us in: University of Wales Newport.

Now Newport is what ya'll stateside would call a fly-over place, it has really good connections everywhere - mostly so that people can get away....but there is this

This is the last class of Term, however the semester doesnt end until February. so Christmas will be spent fretting about about exams, assignments, and where does all the knowledge "go", when I spend time learning it, and then cannot remember?

I started this awhile ago and there was a main point to this email - I think it was along these lines:

The two most modern and impressive things which stayed with me from my fist VSO stint in Montserrat were the Navy Destroyers that visited. I always though what an amazing amount of effort. Imagine if this had gone into something good?

Then when I visited the US and the incredible Supermarkets [ok I really liked sink waste disposal units too, but that is a distraction]

So much convienience, spolit for choice, and really good-quality comfortable underpants. dirt cheap.

True they are a ways out of town, but that didnt seem to stop poor people really enjoying themselves, once they got there....

I digress a little again, the end of the cold-war, the coming of the Clinton Era, the dawning of new light, a real possibility of Peace and Prosperity, but no, squandered wasted and bollocks'd up, "swords to ploughshares" dashed on a blue fucking dress.

Then the rise of a new profitable bogeyman, puts the dealers of back in business, bigger, better more profitable than ever....

But finally, bankrupt and exhausted the opportunity for P&P comes around once again...

Here due to cutbacks, Aircraft Carriers are being built without aircraft, Destroyers are being mothballed -here is the chance to really win hearts and minds and combine my two favourite pillars of modernity.

We will turn swords into shopping trolleys, make the ships into floating Supermarkets and bring groceries unto these blighted backward retro-ist fanatics.

We will accept payment in kind, along the lines of "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, give a man a gun - and he will eat for the rest of his life [however short-lived that may be]"

So a weapon as payment entitles one to a weekly shopping list

"Smart Trolleys" that skim the earth and make deliveries to Caves in Afghanistan, with exactly what they need.

Use Satellite technology and drones to locate and pick up the recyclable bags in hidden enclaves.

...and there will be jobs, groceries don't check out and bag themselves -oh wait... hmm ok, shelf-stacking, trolley collection, yes that's it

For a brighter future, please pass it on...

Anyway, so do have as much fun that your upbringing/social mores/Religion or local Laws allow, and are applicable to this time of year.

MIke

P.S Hehe! - since "England Lost" the staging of the World Cup to "Russia" all of a sudden there is news of a Russian Spy in the House of Commons.

How did the Romans put it? "give them bread, and give them circus" [and even the cynical will be happy]