A Stratford Story

Sunday, 27 March 2011
So basically, this is EXACTLY what happened in Stratford. Retold with extreme accuracy. Yep. You should totally believe that...

Assassination on the Avon (or, what happens when you mix Shakespeare and racism...)

Once upon a time, there was a young Baptist by the name of Elizabeth 'Lil Flo' Morris. She was a racist. One day, the leaders of the Something Special division of the KKK (which she belonged to) heard of an outing which had originally been envisioned as a trip for those with a passion for Shakespeare, and they gave her an important mission - to feign an interest in "English", commandeer the trip, and use it as an opportunity to slay some ethnic minorities in England.

She jumped at the chance!

Which is how, a few months later, she found herself inside a cramped minibus, surrounded by mortals with high-vis coats and loud voices. It's a good job they were all white, or she'd have had to slaughter them all!

As it was, she tricked two of them into going the wrong way in the airport, so they got shouted at for not sticking with the group, and stole the boarding pass of another, causing her to have a mental breakdown. Really, they deserved it - they just weren't racist enough!

She decided to keep a low profile for the next day, though - she joined the rest dressing up in the church creche as though she was a child-in-a-teenager's-body just like them, as opposed to the Racist-Old-Woman-in-a-teenager's-body she really was. Soon afterwards, upon learning that he-who-has-more-life-experience-than-you was bringing friends to their secret meeting the next day, the woman with a dragon tattoo had a spaz fit the likes of which has never been seen since Claudia discovered it was legal for her to marry an Asian. ("Interracial marriage?! I'll have to deal with these warped ideas of hers later," the racist had thought to herself on that occasion.)

That night, they attended King Lear. First of all, Elizameth did not approve of this bird that had suddenly appeared in the hair of she-who-likes-Asia; the entire purpose of buying her wondrous new English mousse was so that she could become the first woman to create a nest out of hair! But alas, apparently it was not meant to be.

She scorned the play. Didn't these people know that being racist made you immortal?! (Well, at least in the sense that you would be known for all of eternity as the Racist One.) Honestly, the smell of their mortality was not "Yummy", it made her feel sick!

The third day, she found her target! Although his real name was Dharmesh, it would have been beneath her to actually REMEMBER it, so she nicknamed him Rashmeed Curry. Much easier to remember! However, instead of being able to assassinate him straight after Hamlet like she had intended, she had to wait until after the interview with the almighty Jonjo, since he attended it as well. And then Dharshmeed or whatever his name was decided he wanted to steal a ring from her poor, unsuspecting friend! (At least, that's what the curly-haired racist told herself - see how warped and twisted her mind is?!) She would have to wait, then. Wait until after this "Romeo and Juliet" (that was Shakespeare, right? She was fairly sure it wasn't maths) to take him out. No, not on a date!

She began wondering if she should have just set her sights on the manly-looking black woman. But then, she reasoned, the boys in the group would be angry with her for killing the love of their lives... no, best to stick with Dhrashmeed.

The fourth day, during a visit to Warwick Castle, she was constantly planning how she could pull off the assassination. Maybe she could steal one of those ancient swords... No, it would be too awkward to bring back on the train. Besides, her bare hands and vicious nature had never failed her before! She was overthinking it, she decided, it'd be fine!

She did get some ideas from the torture chambers, though.

And that night, after Romeo and Juliet, her target entered the Dirty Duck, and she immediately went into Assassination Mode. He handed Claudia back her ring (Lil' Flo made a mental note to avoid touching said ring at all costs from now on, just on the offchance that it turned her black or something), and left... the Racist One followed him, sneaking out without anyone else noticing. She tiptoed up behind him, and was just about to deal the fatal blow, when someone came around the corner! It was Mr Cowan, out for a run!

Cursing his bad timing, she slunk back to the pub to drown her sorrows with some Sprite laced with alcohol. Never before had she failed so miserably!

On the final day, she started working off her hangover by turning her body into a human right angle through many cartwheels. According to the laws of physics, this spilts up all of the alcohol molecules in the bloodstream due to the corresponding anatomical split, so it greatly eased the pain. (The pain in her heart of ice - not of stone, because it's less white - that she hadn't been able to slay Rashmeed was still there, though.)

She worked off some more of the hangover through vigorous rowing, while laughing at the pathetic attempts of all others to manouvre the boats - KKK training meant she had rowed the whole way up the Nile, so this was a piece of cake in comparison! The others were so feeble, honestly!

Her depression returned when they boarded the plane that would bring them home. She had failed in her mission - Dharmesh lived! And what was worse, from a few whispered comments that she overheard on the minibus home, the others were starting to suspect her innate racism! So not only had she lost her lethal edge, but her reputation as a non-racist was at stake...

She returned to Something Special with a heavy heart. Upon relaying the tale to her superiors, they kicked her out of the KKK. She was so depressed after that, she ended up renouncing her racist ways and marrying Dharmesh, though she could never remember his name and ended up calling him Rashmeed. And they all lived happily ever after!

THE END

Challenge: SCANDAL

Saturday, 5 March 2011
For that last meme, Mary-Jane challenged me to write a scandalous blog post - as pretty much everyone knows, given that I've been completely stuck for ideas and whining to anyone available to help me think of one! She and I have been trying to come up with possible ideas I could use for it - in fact, here's a list of everything we ever thought of:

1) Tell every secret that I've ever had. In a cryptic fashion, because otherwise that's just insane, but then again if I did do it in a cryptic fashion then everyone would hate me... well, moreso.

2) What I really think of people, ooooh! Except I already do too many of those.

3) THIS. No further explanation is needed, I believe.

4) Crushcrushcrush, except that doesn't work because I don't currently have one!

5) A controversial opinion I have...

May Jay was actually the one who suggested that last one - "to create some debate". Except I don't like debates that much, and I'm all debated out this week anyway! But I quite liked it anyway, and then suddenly the idea grew and it turned into opinions-on-all-controversial-topics-ever, and then we decided it should be a new meme! So behold - if you read this, you must create a post of your own with the same sub-headings, stating your own beliefs on whatever the issue is!

RELIGION

I'm a Christian, that's no secret. I believe that God is real, I believe that the Bible is true, I believe that I need God in my life, and I've seen God work in my life time and time again. For me, this one's pretty simple, which is why it's short despite being the most important to me.

MULTICULTURALISM (ie racism/immigration/integration)

If you were wondering... I based the heading for this one on a French topic we do this year. Lol fail.

However, this is one of the things that I am most passionate about - racism and xenophobia infuriate me. Ignoring Elizabeth and her coffee, what angers me most are the deeply rooted prejudices that say that anyone from the Middle East is a terrorist, anyone from Eastern Europe is a rapist, etc etc. Everyone seems to be so against immigration, thinking that it swallows up jobs that belong to the natives (for lack of a better word), but then, would locals want the menial tasks that they so often undertake? Everyone complains that they can't speak English - but they try, they learn, and how many people in this country can speak any other languages at all? And then there are those trying to escape terrorists in their own land - exactly what is so wrong about that?

Yes, there are those who come to fiddle the tax system. Yes, there are those who come and end up getting drunk and stabbing someone, or committing some other kind of crime. But there are many, many more people who commit those same crimes who have lived here their entire lives. And it's nothing but a stereotype that all foreigners are like that.

Wow, I got completely off track there... back to beliefs! I don't believe that where you were born, the colour of your skin, or your religion should make you a second class citizen. What I believe is simply that all of us are human, and should be treated the same no matter our origins.

SECTARIANISM

Somehow, I feel less strongly about this one despite it having more relevance... or at least, my feelings in regard to this one are a whole lot simpler. Basically I think that sectarianism is a menace. Like I said in the one above, no one should be treated differently because of their religion. I know people who are Catholics, and they are lovely people! Ignorance and hate are poisonous, and it's only a matter of time until they either drain away, or (sadly, this is more likely) weaken our local society to the point where it collapses in on itself, and people start killing each other again. Which is why I strongly believe that sectarians are idiots, totally blinded by hate. I know that some of them have had wrong done to them - but blaming an entire sector of the community for it is just ridiculous. I could go on, but I'd only depress myself. In short: I believe that sectarianism needs to DIE.

HOMOSEXUALITY

I know of at least one person who was completely shocked that I don't tend towards the ultra-conservative viewpoint here, but I don't. I can understand why some people think it's wrong, but that doesn't give them the right to judge - far from it. And personally, I believe that the spate of LGBT teen suicides recently is a much more frightening thought than that gay marriage might be legalised.

ABORTION

I can understand abortion in cases where the mother's life is at risk, but otherwise I believe that it's equal to infanticide. Especially late abortions! Apparently babies have been born prematurely and survived, after a pregnancy of about the same length as one terminated by a late abortion! That just seems wrong on every level, so I'm pretty strongly against abortion.

THE SUPERNATURAL

To anyone who says that the Harry Potter books are the work of the devil - WRONG. Fantasy is the best kind of fiction! However, I don't believe in magic, werewolves, vampires, fae, etc - that's silly! I also think that astrology is a load of nonsense, as are the psychics you see advertised in the paper. However, there have been one or two times in my own life when real life has mirrored a dream I had previously - though nothing on the scale of James! And there are so many records of visions and prophecies throughout history, including those in the Bible, so while I'm very sceptical of all of this, I'm not convinced that there's absolutely no truth in it - just not in the way most people think of it, perhaps.

FEMINISM

I actually dislike super-feminism, they read far too much into EVERYTHING! However, I do appreciate the fact that I now have equal rights to a man, I approve of that. I don't see why feminists see the need to try and reverse gender roles, though, that's just taking things way too far! After all - we don't need to try to be the stronger sex. We're already the smarter sex, having both titles would just be greedy ;)


So, to sum up: I seem to have a mixture of liberal and conservative views here, hmm. And there are several other headings that I could have put in - such as when the pyramids were built, according to May Jay - but these were the ones that were easiest to write about, so yeah! Anyone who actually copies this idea (and I'm not expecting there to be too many) can by all means take out anything they don't really have an opinion on and replace it with something else, too!