REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving 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 squirrel 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 squirrel 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 squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house.
The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".
Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London .
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.
The squirrels food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get toBritain as they had to share their country of origin with mice.
On arrival the tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempt bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though Spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house.
He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug illness.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK .
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.
He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost GBP10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a
shortfall in government funds.
THE END
During a conversation at work today the question came up 'If someone you loved was in immediate danger of death from a stranger, and you could only save them by killing the stranger, would you do it?'
I answered 'Yes, absolutely' without any hesitation.
I was then asked,'Ok, so you would be prepared to kill, but if it came down to it, could you?'
Again I answered 'Yes', without any hesitation.
I've been thinking about my immediate response ever since, and I haven't changed my mind. I not only would, but could.
Would I regret it afterwards? Possibly. Possibly not. I hope I am never in the situation where I find out, but having done some real soul searching I am still of the opinion that if I had to kill a stranger to save a loved one I would not hesitate.
Am I alone in feeling like this? After all, women are supposed to be the gentler sex, but there is also nothing more ferocious than a female defending her offspring.
So would you?
Could you?
Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist!! (true story)
Scientists at Rolls Royce built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners and military jets all traveling at maximum velocity.
The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.
American engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the American engineers.
When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's back-rest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin like an arrow shot from a bow.
The horrified Yanks sent Rolls Royce the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the British scientists for suggestions.
You're going to love this......
Rolls Royce responded with a one-line memo:
See below.....
"Defrost the chicken."
... And these guys are trying to police the world ! ! !
PM's sent to all interested people. If you haven't received one, let me know. Some may have gone missing when the site was having problems.
Just been doing the washing up, and my other half has bought Tesco's own Lime and Ginger washing up liquid. Wow, that stuff smells gorgeous. Almost makes your mouth water!
Anyway, it got me thinking about how certain scents and smells can trigger memories. The smell of two-stroke oil takes me straight back to the late 70's when I first got into bikes, for example.
So what smells trigger particular memories for you?
Chris Moyles.
The saviour of Radio 1?
Not on any planet I inhabit, the nasty, un-funny, sexist moron!
:D :D 
hwoar: 
