HW: In Tory Party scandal

[Hall, Russell J]

Questions from the clueless

Millenium Dome?
Gamelan?
Porcine Damage to Jets? (Flying Pigs?)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: M Holmes [SMTP:fofp at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 1:14 PM
> To:   BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU
> Subject:      Re: HW: In Tory Party scandal
>
> K Henderson writes:
>
> > For those of us on this side of the pond, what exactly is a "Shadow
> > Secretary of State for Culture."  Is that something like Frank Zappa's
> > position in the Czech gov't?
>
> The Secretary of State for Culture and The Arts is the guy in the
> Cabinet responsible for overseeing all the taxpayer money that's wasted
> on stuff like the Millenium Dome, opera, museums and stuff like that, or
> if you prefer, for ensuring that those who frequent these places don't
> pay the full whack for tickets in the way that ordinary Hawkwind fans
> do.
>
> The Shadow Secretary of State for Culture and The Arts is the guy in the
> other party whose job it is to keep an eye on what the Proper Secretary
> does; criticise him as much as possible; say "Boo hiss!" at the
> appropriate Parliamentary moments and pretend that if only his party
> were elected and he became the Proper Minister, that the Dome would run
> at a profit; that football fans would start attending ballet theatre and
> would become famed for their diplomatic skills abroad; that censorship
> could be safely abolished and that there'd still be no swearing or
> nudity in films and that the renaissance in Gamelan in Britain would
> become a national export to rival the pop industry. This is always
> implied in tones like those reassuring us that the problems of porcine
> damage to jetliner engines would soon be a thing of the past.
>
> In fact you can tell when an opposition party is about to be elected
> because they begun denying that they promised any such thing and
> especially that if they had said any such thing that they definitely
> wouldn't have said that they'd spend any taxpayers money in order to
> bring it about.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> > Grakkl (FAA)
>
> FoFP