No. 1209: The winners
Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for an imaginary extract from Hansard which captures the rich and rare flavour of our Upper House at full moon.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby (Lab): The time has come to send a message of defiance to the Commons and to try to curb its predatory instincts. It is time the peers asserted the prestige and authority of this House. Let us tell the country: 'The curlew shall be saved.'
Lady Trumpington (C) asked what people who shot curlews did with them. Did they eat them or use their feathers?
The Earl of Swinton (C) said he had once eaten curlew and it tasted like old boots.
True or false? True, alas or hurrah, and the result of a full moon that waxed only a few months ago. Perhaps because the moon was new last week, lunatic inspiration was at a low level among the entries. Not all the winners printed below (£8 to each of them) were very Hansard-like, but they all captured the right note of earnest madness. The bonus bottle of the Famous Grouse Scotch Whisky goes to Robin Ravensbourne. Let us hope that he isn't, like his Noble Lord, averse to Scottish liquid.
It is said that there is scant possibility of the Duke of York's ever coming to the throne, but the possibility, though minimal, is there. It is said that the Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon is a maiden of impeccable purity and this assertion I should in no way seek to deny. But the truth is that she is Scottish — with all the dread Spectator 3 April 1982 implications of that ineluctable fact — and that Scottish blood must inevitably flow in the veins of any offspring with which she and her Royal spouse may subsequently be blessed. I need, hardly alert Your Lordships to the patent pc!" posed thereby of a backstairs Jacobite usurpation of the realm and the calamitous consequences thereof. It has ever been the custom of the House of Hanover to emphasise its Englishness by marrying only German Princesses. Let not this salutary tradition be breached! (Robin Ravenshourne) Opening the debate on the Marine Wildlife Protection Bill, Lord Bramble (C) said that octopi, despite their poor public image, would be, included among the protected species. 101' Snape (SDP) objected that, the word octoPlis being derived from Greek, not Latin, the plural should properly be octopoi, or perhaps octopodes. Lord Snell of Wigan (Lab) said that, not having had the benefit of a classical education, he was in no position to arbitrate between the Noble Lords, but personally he was no upholder of foreign plurals and would prefer octopusses, though whether with two s's or three he was uncertain. Lord Bramble (C) replied that three s's would be letting the cat out of the bag with a vengeance. (Laughter.) Lady Melkstolle of Borthwick (SDP) suggested that the Bill be given a second reading, with a dictionary.
(Peter
Lord Purseprowde: ... a degradation Peterson) Lord should receive wages like a hotel servant, a practice that might lead to hote', servants becoming Members. And what sane person would want creatures sitting in the Lower Petthate rsa: Chamber who have never been worth a shilling: except it had been solicited by fawning and toadying, and who, given £500 per annunir would have inclination for nothing but devising the quickest and most foolish means .°f dissipating it; rascals who would defray a million pounds on National Education and thirty thousand on the Civil List instead of, as we mercifully have it, the other way about? If such penurious persons are to be sent to Parliament in great numbers, how are the interests of men with wealth and property to be fairly represented? 11 would all result in jobbery — something hitherto quite unknown in British politics as now constituted! Lord Foglamp: As members o(fStathnilsey1-1S:iws; should be aware, the exact age of the earth has never been categorically determined. MMy. ancestor, the fourth Earl, worked on this. He found that if he stood in the exact centre of his greenhouse — no, I'm wrong, it was one of MY the under-gardeners who stood in the middle • • • Lord, the point is, the age of this planet is a mystery. Creates a problem about the Present' you know. We may be years out. I asked the Astronomer-Royal ... The point is, oyster; shells. An old life-form, you see, long buried,. under the sea. Why was it at the very bottom 01 the Chain of Being? Anyway. Analysis of the barnacle deposits shows up the errors almds conclusively. And, I regret, calendar reforni. Urgent, imperative and long-delayed. The Bishop of Cerebral Palsy: I support ' noble friend. If he will only support the motion to open Joanna Southcott's Box - Lord Foglamp: Superstition! The Lord Chancellor: Order, please! We proceed to the debate on postilions' hours and wages. B Lord Amboys objected that, i D be l e nso a ms e i -t ma i the gillic could not enter the Chamber to put 1115 (R thatag might' leg in the man-trap as he was not a Peer of the Realm. He would not, he added, have any objection to a live bear, horse or dog being admitted for such a purpose. (Cries of 'Shame) The Duke of Atholl argued that a horse would have to be shot, whereas for a Highlander a broken leg was an everyday triviality. The Bishop of Rochester said that he had lost a leg to a crocodile while engaged in evangelical work in his youth and volunteered, in the interests of religion and the defence of property, to insert the insensible wooden replacement in the man-trap.
(George Moor)
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