Petitions: not worth the paper they are not written on

Usual suspect

My last post was a tongue in cheek nod to the silly season with a hot gypsy side salad.

Imagine my obvious pleasure to learn that the new British five pound note contains traces of animal fat. The note, made of plastic, is virtually indestructible, unless you decide to burn it. Perchance to leave it in your trouser pocket and expose it to a heavy wash, spin cycle optional, and it will come out pristine and brand new. Hoorah, I hear you say. No more soggy notes and heavy labour matching up friable fragments so you end up with two definable serial numbers: thereafter trotting to the local bank to convince a dozy spotty teller to proffer a replacement. We truly live in wondrous times.

Some sectors of the populace are not convinced. In fact the presence of rendered animal fat has upset the vegetarian fraternity (and sorority) and indeed they have been moved to pen a petition, to wit: The new £5 notes contain animal fat in the form of tallow. This is unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and other clueless sods in the U.K. We demand that you cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use. Apparently over 15,000 signatures have been garnered from folk with nothing better to do. The Royal Mint and government are dearly worried and are considering recalling all five pound notes. All future issues will contain only the finest tofu lightly seared with extra virgin olive oil. ARSE. This will make the notes more palatable to meat eschewing, whining, pansy minorities. Anyway, who gives a fuck about what the Jains want?

This sort of thing is likely to tip your gallant host over the edge into frank insanity and propel me on an incendiary bound frenzy. And let’s be honest, my propensity to ‘burn stuff’ is never too far from the surface at the best of times. Just one more push.