Pundy's Christmas Message

Every year the Queen addresses the nation. That’s a lot of addresses for an old-age pensioner with a writer’s cramp so this year I thought I’d give her a break by jumping in first and doing it on her behalf.

The Christmas festivities start here in the UK just after the Autumn Sales (about the second week of October) and last until the January Sales. This Festive Calendar was set down in Ancient Times when Christmas was actually a Pagan festival. Since then it has been a Roman Festival, a Christian festival and is now a post-Christian out-of-town-shopping-centre Festival.

Our Queen speaks in a posh voice (not as posh as it was in the Fifties or Sixties. More Estuarial Posh now as the monarchy has successfully adapted to the television age) so this post should be read in a posh voice in your head.

“Dearly beloved,

Once again we come together as a nation to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God, in a prolonged shopping bonanza unmatched in human history.

As I look down on you from my throne it is with quiet, but justified, satisfaction that I am able to recount the many triumphs of my Government in the year that is drawing slowly – thanks in large part to Global Warming – to a close. Indeed, as I look out upon the grounds of Windsor Castle I am amazed to see that the roses are still in bloom and that the grass is still growing and in fact needs cutting, an oversight which I am sure will be attended to at the end of this broadcast.

This year my Government has played a major part in bringing peace, democracy and Christianity to many parts of the world that were hitherto pagan. Iraq in particular has benefited from the imposition of democracy and the removal of a cruel and vicious dictator. Of course, peace in that country has come at a regrettable cost in terms of the loss of human life but it is a price worth paying, especially by the Iraqi people themselves. Similarly, in Afghanistan your Majesty’s armed forces have played a vital role in restructuring that country and bringing stability and a hitherto undreamed of prosperity to its once-servile population. Our special relationship with our former colony America has greatly aided in the implementation of your government’s strategy in this regard.

On the wider international stage we are pleased to have participated in the opening up of the Nuclear Club. No longer the preserve of an exclusively white, Aryan minority we have welcomed new members in the shape of Israel, India, China and Pakistan. Such a broadening of interests can only add to the stability of the world. Shortly we expect to embrace North Korea, Iran and, one day perhaps, Al Quaeda, into the fold.

Closer to home we have all benefited from major improvements in the Educational System, the National Health Service and the Chelsea Flower Show. My Government is prepared to raise even more taxes – from which, you will be pleased to learn, I am largely exempt – by stealth or otherwise to ensure that these improvements continue. I am also delighted to report that for the vast majority of my subjects (especially those living in sparsely-populated rural areas), crime is down, and our streets are safer. Within this Sceptred Isle our beloved Chancellor has banished poverty to the pages of history. In addition, I am pleased to report that racism and sectarianism are all but eliminated in many parts of our United Kingdom. Needless to say, safeguarding our democratic way of life remains a major plank of my government’s policy and we are prepared to take any steps, however draconian they may seem at the time, to protect your rights as my subjects under this great and enduring monarchy.

As I look back on the fifty and more years I have ruled over you I feel sure that all of you feel as I do, namely that, in the words of the late Harold Macmillan (one of my favourite Prime Ministers who had such exquisite table manners and was so forgiving of his poor wife’s infidelities) “You have never had it so good.” Nor are, indeed, likely to again.

As head of the Church of England – the one true church – I have no hesitation in bestowing my blessing upon you all. As we pray together so shall we die together. God bless you all.”

(Off mike: Where’s that bloody gardener? That lawn’s a disgrace. One has never seen such long fucking blades….”)