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I don’t hate Europe and my fellow Europeans, I just hate Brussels and the EU because it is such an artificial construct. It is like a 1950s SiFi Movie where the ‘spaceship’ is very obviously a cardboard cut-out and moved at right angles. For those who thought Blue Peter was rough and Blakes 7 questionable, 1950s SiFi was the total pits just like the EU and similarly unrelated to reality !

I don’t know why but earlier on as I was reading some stuff on the latest EU eurofolly, I sort of drifted back on a cloud of memories to my 1950s childhood and thought I might inflict these on the world at large…

Being a 1950s Schoolboy

I would not claim that living in Wandsworth, my brother Michael and I were part of the 1950s Zeitgeist or the ‘Beat generation’ despite not being that far from Chelsea, neither did we “Look Back in Anger”. It was however, a pretty whiz time and I can remember Trams, Trolley Buses and Beer from the Ram Brewery being delivered by horse drawn drays, milk being delivered in glass bottles which were ever useful on Guy Fawkes for rockets, plus two postal deliveries a day and Telegram Boys on bright red motorbikes.

Going on holiday with my brother Michael to South Wales where we had family and it being a steam train and because I insisted on looking out of the window, I ended up greeting my Uncle and Aunt, thinly disguised as someone from a ‘Minstrel Show’. I think I can remember my Aunt remonstrating with the Guard at Bridgend Station about the state he had delivered her nephew in, lots ‘lick the hanky’ wipe the face followed.

The Outside World

Yes we were working class of Anglo/Irish origins who for the first 11 years of our lives, were dominated by St Joseph’s RC Primary School, the parish church of St Thomas’s West Hill, the mainly Irish community we lived in and our Irish Grand Parents in Oakhill Road. We were very aware of the outside world but frankly, surrounded by Uncles and Aunts who lived just around the corner, it was a fairly protected existence.

However and looking back, the trouble with my Mother (the Irish side) and indeed her sisters, was that they were all ‘aspirational’ which led to the odd foray into foreign parts.

Bad Visits…

In this context, the EU reminds me of being a child and when your Parents took you on a visit that it was obvious from outset that you would HATE.

You were told to behave, had to wear your ‘best clothes’ and pockets were checked for contraband such as Conkers, string, noxious substances of uncertain origins, pen knives in fact, all the kind of stuff that any 7 year old would pack in his corduroy trousers. Plus you had to ‘understand’ that they were not used to children…never a good sign.

Once there, you would bite your lip, avoid cuffing your brother openly restricting yourself to sly digs only and pray for…well just about anything to happen that meant you could go.

You watched your Parents being ‘nice’ and totally unnatural in their behaviour in the presence of these total Dorks. After a time, you would start first quietly, the “Can we go…” routine with the Parents.

If they were not responsive, they then got “Stage 2″ which according to circumstances, varied but a few good farts and sudden uncontrollable scratching, normally produced the desired result…and failing that, the sudden threat of projectile vomiting always worked.

The EU

The EU is just like that. We want to leave and yet our political Leaders prodded no doubt by the Sir Humphrey s in the Foreign Office and caught in an Alien Tractor Beam no doubt, insist that we stay. And in the EU, not used to children is now, “Not used to Democracy” in any shape or form.

Can anyone come up with an equivalent of a few farts, extreme scratching or projectile vomiting so that we can leave the EU and they will be delighted to see us go ?

I don’t mind sending a Christmas Card to the EU President even if it was Tony Blair but, I don’t want to be part of it and neither do I suspect, most Britons.

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