THE HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND THE ONE THAT CAME STRAIGHT AFTER IT.

Chapter 1.

Setting the background to the end of the century and the story of how American got itself a New Enemy.

At the end of the Twentieth century everybody was very happy because Communism was over. Communism as you might remember was a system set up by a man with a very big beard to make sure that nobody starved to death but nobody got rich.

Everybody loved Communism except the rich but after a while more and more people wanted to get rich so they didn’t like Communism either.

You might remember the first rule about humans is the best way of getting them to do something is to tell them they can’t do it.

Two good examples of this were Prohibition on alcohol and Sex.

People were told not to do either of them so the first thing they wrote in their diaries was “Must remember to drink too much alcohol and have a Sexual Revolution later on in the Century” And so they did.

Well this worked very well with Communism too.

As soon as people were told not to get rich what do you imagine was the first thing they wrote in their diaries for later on in the century?

Well to cut a long story short it was decided to get rid of Communism.

This made the rich very happy but it made the poor very sad and the man with the very big beard was gone so nobody cared about them anymore

except a few Rock Stars but people only listened to them when they were singing so with Communism out of the way everybody started to get rich.

People got rich by investing in Dot Com companies, which were like any other company except they were on The Internet.

At the time people didn’t understand The Internet but they did understand money so they gave a lot of their money to people called Dot Com Millionaires who got so much money they became Dot Com Billionaires

Which was basically the same thing except richer.

Now people were very happy with this. They might not have gotten rich themselves but their money helped to make other people rich and so they felt they were getting closer to becoming Millionaires themselves.

Now you might remember that the people didn’t understand The Internet so after a few years they lost all their money but it had given them a taste for business so when they got more money they started investing in everything they could find. People started paying attention to the Stock Market and listening to business analysts and soon people forgot there was ever such a thing as Communism or for that matter, the poor.

Now we approach the end of the Twentieth Century and everybody was very happy making money and the place where people made the most money was America and it is to that country we now turn for the next part of our story.

You might imagine that the end of Communism would be good for America because Communism and America had been such great enemies for such a long time and indeed at first most Americans were delighted but soon they discovered it wasn’t a good thing at all it was in fact a disaster! At the beginning of the Twenty First Century Americans discovered something about themselves they never knew before. They loved fighting. They realised that from the moment their country had started they had been fighting someone, whether it was the Native Indians, the British, the Mexicans or whoever they had been having a bash at someone for almost two hundred years and as soon as the Second World War was over a wet week they began fighting the Communists and now that that war was over too they had no one left to fight and this felt strange and many Americans didn’t know how to respond.

At first they went into denial and started imagining enemies such as Aliens from outer space and began warning people about this danger in such films as “Independence Day” and “Mars Attacks” but nobody believed Aliens from space were a threat so then some Americans started fighting with their President because he had oral sex in his office when he was supposed to be working but this was no use either because nobody believed that oral sex was a threat to America’s interests either and they began to try oral sex for themselves (You might remember the sexual revolution we mentioned earlier).

So when the Twenty First Century dawned Americans felt they had everything, wealth. Dot Com Millionaires and a new President who didn’t have oral sex at all but one thing they didn’t have was anyone to fight with.

But their prayers would soon be answered. Far across the World people were getting ready to be America’s next enemy, they blew up an American battleship and America’s Embassy in Africa and they said “Now are we your new enemy?”

But American was so busy fighting Aliens and their President’s pants that they never noticed they had a new enemy so the new enemy decided they had better get America’s attention the next time if they were to be taken seriously.

Now we have to go away from American for a while and fly off to Arabia.

This was a very rich country indeed. It had most of the Oil in the World and it had very rich rulers who drank whiskey, gambled and had prostitutes and always had a private jet waiting for them on the runway so they could flee their country at the first sign of trouble.

The reason for this was they weren’t elected by anyone and the people in Arabia didn’t like whiskey or prostitutes or gambling and they didn’t like the people who ruled them either.

But if the rulers of Arabia didn’t have the love of their people they did have the love of successive American presidents and at the end of the day that’s all that mattered so when the Americans said can we bring a load of soldiers over to your country the rulers of Arabia said we’ll have the kettle on when ye arrive.

This made the people of Arabia very cross because they were Muslims and they believed their country was the most holy place in the World and if the Americans soldiers came over it would lessen the holiness of it.

Another reason why the people of Arabia were cross with the Americans coming over was that America was a great friend of Israel.

Now most Muslims were never happy with Israel to begin with.

They believed that Jewish people came over from Europe and America and threw out the Muslim people and set up their own state in someone else’s country.

But worse than that they believed that America always took Israel’s side every time there was a row with it’s Muslim neighbours and their own rulers in Arabia did nothing about this except drink more whiskey and gamble even more.

Finally when they heard a story about an American soldier who was Jewish celebrating the Passover only a few miles from their holy places they blew a fuse completely.

There was a very religious man in Arabia who not only disliked whiskey and gambling and Americans, he absolutely hated them.

His name was Osama Bin Laden and he decided to become America’s newest enemy all by himself.

This was a big job for just one man, after all, the enemies America had before this had all been made up of lots and lots of armies and America had beaten them but as Osama Bin Laden said all those other enemies, the Nazis and the Communists and the Aliens from outer space hadn’t believed in God and he believed in God so much he grew a long beard and as we have seen men with very big beards are very important in history.

But Osama Bin Laden still needed an army so he made one up and called it Al Queda which means the foundation because Bin Laden used to build roads for a living and understood that for everything you needed a foundation.

Well the first thing his new army did was to hijack aeroplanes and fly them into buildings in America.

Nowadays planes crashing into buildings doesn’t seem such a big deal but it must be remembered that it was the first time in it’s history that America was attacked by anyone.

For all their might The Nazis or the Communists or the Aliens or even the oral sex president’s pants had not been able to lay so much as a finger on one blade of grass of American soil but now a handful of men from a made up army had made two huge buildings disappear. “Now what do Ye think of that?” said Osama Bin Laden.

And the American’s said “Someone will have to pay for this.”

But the problem was who. You see like Bin Laden most of the Hijackers were from Arabia and they couldn’t make war on that country because as we have seen America was great pals with the people who ruled it. “Wait a minute” said the president (not the oral sex one, another one who didn’t have any kind of sex at all though it was pointed out that if he had indulged in this harmless past time a lot less people would have died. Well this president said we have to have a war with someone, can anyone think of another country apart from Arabia we can attack.

Someone mentioned North Korea but that wasn’t popular and someone else said France but while that received some serious discussion it didn’t really solve the problem either. Then someone said “Iraq!” Iraq had made a war on one of Arabia’s neighbours years before and that was why there were American soldiers in Arabia but none of the Hijackers were from Iraq and the President of Iraq loved whiskey and gambling and prostitutes and his people didn’t like him and he always had a private jet waiting for him in case he needed to flee the country and before he made war on Arabia’s neighbour he had the love of successive American presidents so why did America want to make war on Iraq?

Well for one thing America wasn’t at all happy that the President of Iraq was a friend of the Palestinians who were the people thrown out of their own country to make room for Israel and he never missed an opportunity to tell the other Muslims what a terrible place America was.

But the reason they wanted to make a war on Iraq was that it had almost as much oil as Arabia so they wouldn’t have to use nuclear power and the Americans loved oil as much as they loved anything and the idea of getting it so easily made their skin go all bumpy.

Well the non oral president told everyone that Osama Bin Laden and the president of Iraq had been friends all along and that they were making more bombs to attack America with.

Well after the hijackings most Americans were suffering with their nerves so bad that if you burst a balloon near them they would have to go straight away to change their underpants.

But to be told now about more attacks pushed them over the edge completely and they said to the president “Ok go on make war on whoever you like and tell us when it’s all over.

We’re just going to hide under the stairs now.”

Well The Americans did indeed invade Iraq and they got rid of the President whom nobody liked and they were very close to lots of oil and their skin did go all bumpy and they came out from under the stairs to have a look at what happened.

Well the people in Iraq didn’t like the Americans anymore than they liked their old president so they started killing them and the Americans didn’t like this at all and said “Why are you killing us?”

And the Iraqis said “Well if you don’t like being killed there is one way to avoid this.”

“What way is that?” asked the Americans.

“Leave our country” said the Iraqis

But after thinking for a while the Americans decided that they would not leave Iraq until people stopped killing them. So the longer they stayed the more the Iraqis killed them but this conundrum was not grasped at the time and was not clearly understood till much later, a bit like people believing that the Earth was flat or the Moon was made of cheese.

So at the end nobody was happy.

The Americans got close to their oil but they found there wasn’t as much of it as they thought so they had to use nuclear power anyway.

The People in Arabia still didn’t like America or Israel or their own rulers and the man with the very long beard Osama Bin Laden still didn’t like whiskey.

But the most important thing of all was America had found someone new

to fight.

Globalisation and how to pretend your company is on a diet

As we have seen in the previous chapter at the beginning of the Twenty first Century American had found a new enemy and even though at first the idea of fighting a new war seemed like a lot of work Americans were told that this was their duty and like everything else they were told, they usually just settled down and got on with it.

However like everything in life, indeed like oral sex itself, fighting a war is much more fun if you do it with someone else so America started looking around to find anyone who would join them in their new war.

Now while you might imagine every other country in the world would be falling over themselves to share America’s new enemy this wasn’t the case at all.

Apart from Israel nobody was really interested in fighting at all so America had to tell them that this wasn’t a real war and all they had to do was to have extra policemen at airports and pass new laws making it easier to get rid of foreigners.

“Well why didn’t you say that in the first place.” Said all the other countries “We were going to do all those things anyway.” So before the people in any of these countries could say a word of protest America had lots of friends in it’s new war.

To make the war as attractive as possible they gave it a name It was called The Global War on Terror.

Osama Bin Laden was a bit cross at this because he though the name of the war should include his name and he kept sending video messages to this effect and the Americans had to explain to him that if they called the new war The War on Osama Bin Laden and he were to suddenly die or get tired of fighting wouldn’t the name sound a bit silly without him?

But Bin Laden said “How dare you. I would never do such a thing”

But the Americans said they never put people’s names on their wars so The Global War On Terror stayed as it was. But he did have the consolation of knowing that he was responsible for starting a whole war by himself with a made up army to fight America and then American had to pretend this was a real war with a real army because they needed someone to fight so that was that.

Well everything was going along fine until American decided to make a real war on Iraq and then it needed real soldiers so it went to it's new friends and said

"Hey we need you folks to come up with an army cause we're all going to war"

“You didn’t say we had to join a real war said the new friends with one voice.

“You said it would be a made up war with a few extra laws and policemen.

“We’re not having anything to do with your real war on Iraq.”

And before any of the people in any of these countries could say a word America had lost almost all of it’s new friends. But a few stayed behind, mainly because America paid them money or because they were British and had signed a secret agreement years before to do anything America asked them to.

Well one of the other countries that stayed friends with America was Ireland and it is to there we now turn for the next part of our history.

At this period of history Ireland had a new name. It was called the Celtic Tiger.

Changing the name of the country had one big effect.

After years of being poor suddenly Ireland became rich.

And everybody said

“If this is what happens when you give your country a new name Why didn’t we think of doing this years ago?”

Now that Ireland was rich it was allowed to join America in it’s Global War on Terror.

The Prime Minister of Ireland was delighted with this because it made him feel important but the people weren’t too happy but as we will see in this period of history nobody cared much about what the people thought about anything.

Well when the Prime Minister of Ireland asked “What do you want me to do in the war?”

The Americans just said “Nothing much, just don’t say anything bad about the war or America and let us use your airports.”

“Is that all?” Said the Prime Minister?

“That’s about it.” Said the Americans “And we’ll give you something in return.”

“What?” asked the Prime Minister.

“Advice on how to get richer” Said the Americans.

Now up until this period in Ireland people did business in order to get money to buy food and clothes and houses. Nobody except a few people thought about getting rich but with the end of Communism and the new name for the country now everybody wanted to make money and this advice from the Americans could not have come at a better time. The first piece of advice was not how to make lots of money but how to make as much money as possible and if you owned a business you could do it like this.

Stage one. Fire as many people as possible and get the workers who were left to do all the work of their absent colleagues.

This mean you had to pay less wages and increased your profits.

The second stage was for people who really wanted to make the most money they could possibly make. And this was how they could do it.

Fire all of their staff completely and hire a whole new staff from a different country who would work for less wages.

This meant you could make even more money.

And it was given a new name. Because it came from the same country that invented The Global War on Terror it was decided to call it Globalisation. This was another clever device invented in this period it was called Product Branding and meant if a company made two very different things they would give them a similar name so people would recognise them and if they liked one thing they would usually buy the other thing too.

People that liked Globalisation usually liked The Global War on Terror too.

Now while all this was very popular with the owners of companies it didn’t go down too well with everybody, remember the Rock Stars from the first chapter not to mention the workers who lost their jobs and their families too.

But Communism was gone and the only man with a very long beard was busy fighting a war so nobody cared much about the people.

But another piece of advice that came from America was how to make people loosing their jobs feel like a positive experience so they started to tell everybody that they must pretend that their company was really like a body that had gotten overweight and they needed to trim away some of the fat and get lean and mean. This was given a new name. It was called Downsizing.

As we have said nobody listened to whet the people had to say about this so there are no records of their responses. However after a while they began to notice that the bosses of the company never pretended to be the fat that got trimmed away and they often gave themselves more money when the workers were gone but when they said this nobody listened to them so they said it to the Rock Stars who got very cross on behalf of the workers but people told them they weren’t allowed to talk on behalf of anybody because they were so rich and in fact nobody was allowed to talk on behalf of the poor at all and that people were only allowed to talk on behalf of the rich and they were called Economists and they said that everybody who thought they were poor up till now were actually rich all along. And that the Bosses were really their friends and they only wanted to look after the people.

And the bosses and the rich would have a new name in the future they would be called CEOs. Nobody knew what this name meant but as we have said nobody cared what the people thought anyway. But the Economists didn’t tell the people that they worked for the CEOs too and that they had to say nice things about them or they might turn out to be the fat that needed to be trimmed themselves. And then the Economists came up with a piece of advice of their own they said why not pretend that you are not living in a country at all. Instead of being a citizen in a country you had to pretend you were a worker in a huge company and it was called Ireland Inc and before anyone had a chance to think about this they changed the name of the country to Ireland Inc and made all the citizens workers and made them think that if they weren’t making lots of money that they were overweighed and might get trimmed away. Well this was called very sensible at the time. And all the CEOs kept their companies on permanent diets and everyone was so grateful to them because in the Twenty First Century nobody wanted to be fat.

How Everybody Loved Democracy but nobody loved the Politicians or How the Monkey was separated from the Organ grinder.

The key to understanding this period of history is to pay a brief visit to the previous century, The Twentieth. At that earlier time people were always very cross with each other and having rows about this and that and the reason they behaved like that was they believed in Ideologies. Now this belief meant that you got an idea into your head and you wouldn’t let it leave and if you met anybody with another idea you had to have a fight with them. So someone who was a communist had to have a row with someone who wasn’t and someone who was very religious had to have a fight with someone who didn’t believe in God and so on. Now these rows and fights got bigger and bigger and eventually they grew into three big wars called the First and Second World Wars and The Cold War and at the end of them people were so knackered from fighting that they decided to stop having Ideologies and believe in something that they all would like. Well the thing they all agreed to believe in was money and they agreed also that they wanted as much of it as possible so they went about making up a new system to make this work.

The first thing they decided to do was to love democracy because democracy had been the enemy of Communism and Communism was the enemy of making money and Communism was an Ideology and democracy didn’t have any Ideology. Complicated yes but remember what we said about people not being able to grasp simple things at that time and making simple things very complicated. This was all very well But it created another problem while everybody loved democracy nobody loved the people who made it: The Politicians, because The Politicians of all the creatures in God’s garden most needed love and they became desperately clingy in their search for it and this was such a turn off for everybody.

Well this made The Politicians very sad and they went to some of their friends called Spindoctors and asked them for help in making people love them.

Now the Spindoctors did not weave cloth or make sick people better but they did cover things up and they had a nice bedside manner so the Politicians though that after the Spindoctors were through with them the people would absolutely adore them.

But they hadn’t counted on the fact that the Spindoctors hardly ever told the truth about anything and this made the people not like the Politicians even more and so in desperation the Politicians were seriously contemplating giving up politics altogether when just in the nick of time an unexpected stranger stepped in to offer them assistance.

The CEOs. They said to the Politicians.

“We will be your friends and we will love you and to prove it we will give you little presents even when it isn’t Christmas or your Birthday.”

Well the Politicians were so delighted with this and they said

“How can we ever repay you for this kindness?”

And the CEOs who were very humble people just smiled and said

“When the time comes you will know how to repay us.”

So at the end everyone was happy. Even the Spindoctors got a new job their task was to make sure that nobody knew that The Politicians and the CEOs were friends because they might get jealous and want the CEOs to give them little presents too.

This was called very sensible at the time and was even given a name. It was called Consensus.

Well the Consensus worked for a long time and was very popular with everybody but one day the Politicians came running to the door of the CEOs and demanded to be heard. “Calm down, calm down” said the CEOs “Now tell me what’s wrong”. Well the Politicians blurted out how they couldn’t be friends with the CEOs anymore and how this was making them very sad, sad enough to gie up politics altogether.

“Oh don’t do that” said the CEOs. “But tell us why can’t we go on being friends like before?” “Because” said The Politicians between tears “Because everyone is so jealous of our friendship and they want to wreck it. They think That because I get little presents from you that when you say jump I say How high.

“They’ve even started to call us names”.

“What names?” asked the CEOs

“Well they’re calling you the Organ Grinder,” There was a pause for a sob

“And me the Monkey”

Well when they heard this the CEOs started to laugh and laugh till bits of snot flew from their nostrils and the Politicians had to hide down behind the backs of chairs to avoid being hit.

“Is that all that’s worrying you?” asked the CEOs.

“I never met such cry babies in all my life if people calling you names brings you out in tears how will you ever cope with life when you grow up. And for a moment it looked as if the CEOs would start laughing again and that more bits of snot would start appearing but luckily they didn’t.

“Well the way I see it” said the Politicians “The only way out of this problem is for us to stop being friends”

“Nonsense” said the CEOs “I have a much better idea”

So the CEOs sent the Politicians straight back to their houses and straight to bed and told them to get a good night’s sleep and everything would be all right by morning.

Well the Politicians did just that and while they were asleep that night the CEOs got on the phone to their friends in the Newspapers and the TV and the Radio and they explained to them how the people were jealous of the friendship between the CEOs and the Politicians and how they had begun to call them nasty names.

Well when they heard this the Newspapers and the Radio and the TV started to laugh but luckily there was a phone between them so no bits of snot hit anyone.

But the Newspapers and the Radio and the TV said “Not to worry, Not to worry we’ll sort this little problem out faster than a snot can leave a nostril”

And the CEOs were comforted to hear that because they knew just how fast that could be so they went to bed that night and could barely wait to see what their friends in the Newspapers and the Radio and the TV would do the next day.

Well the CEOs were woken up the next day by the phone ringing.

It was the Politicians they were very cross. They said

“Have you seen the Newspapers and the TV and the Radio today?”

“No” said the CEOs

“Well have a look and you’ll see what we mean” said the Politicians.

Well the CEOs did indeed buy a paper and watched a TV programme and listened to the Radio and this is what they saw and heard.

There was a big competition between all the Politicians to see which one was the best. You could decide between the Politician with the big nose or the one with the funny looking glasses or the one with the very loud voice and when you had decided which one you liked the best you could vote for them.

The CEOs smiled to themselves because they knew straight away what the Newspapers and the Radio and TV were up to. They knew that the people were used to watching TV programmes where they were introduced to a group of people who were very ordinary and were asked to decide which one of these people they liked best and when they had done that they were asked to vote for their favourite person. These TV programmes were very popular at the beginning of the Twenty first Century and were called Reality TV and the CEOs though if people were interested in ordinary people who did nothing how much more would they be interested in the Politicians who were not ordinary and did lots of things.

And so it came about just as the Newspapers and the Radio and the TV intended and as the CEOs wanted.

Everyday there was a story about one politician or other, one day it might be the one with the big nose or the next day it might be the one with the loud voice or whoever but the stories were all about how they were doing this thing and saying that thing and having all sorts of rows with each other and it really looked as if they could do things by themselves and didn’t need to be told by the CEOs and pretty soon people forgot all about the CEOs which was exactly the plan. And as for the Newspapers and the Radio and the TV they were so delighted about the way things were going they called into see the CEOs and asked them if they had anything else they wanted solved.

“Well it’s funny you should ask that” said the CEOs.

And so the very next day the Newspapers and the Radio and TV started telling the people how it was their own fault that the hospitals and the roads and the schools were all broken and that paying tax was a very bad thing and every once and a while they told everyone about one of the CEOs who might give some money to children or to sports or old people and everyone was meant to think that the CEOs were very nice people and they were never to mention the Politicians and the CEOs in the same sentence cause they were very separate people who lived their own lives and had nothing to do with each other. And after a while the people began to believe them because all the Newspapers and Radio and TV were saying the same thing and at that time everyone believe what they read and saw on Television.

And so everyone was very happy again. The People because they were being entertained, the Newspapers and the Radio and TV because they had a new job to do and the Politicians because they were loved again but the people who were most happy were the CEOs who remained friends with the Politicians and nobody called them the Organ Grinder anymore.

So they laughed and laughed till enough snot flew out from their nostrils to fill a lake.

Religion or How Everybody got Very Cross

Just before Ireland changed it’s name to the Celtic Tiger and got rich everybody in that country loved Religion.

When the Church told people to give their money away to the poor the people usually did it and said “thank you very much” to the Church for reminding them to do this.

The Church would also say to the rich,

“Give your money away too”

“To the poor?” the rich would ask.

“No to us” the Church would reply and usually the rich did that because as we have said at that time everybody loved religion and would do anything the Church asked them to.

The Church also said to people,

“Don’t ever do sex unless Ye’er married and want to have children. People who do sex for any other reason are very bold.”

And of course they people listened to what the church was saying and didn’t do sex. Now there were stories that the Church had loads of money and when people asked them

“Hey why don’t you give some of your money away like you ask us to?” The Church would only reply “We have no money at all, sure we’re as poor as Church mice”

And people would assume that the Church knew what it was talking about because they saw Church mice all the time at Mass and they would say nothing more because they loved the Church and didn’t want to say anything that would upset it. And there were other worse stories about how the Church would abuse little children but they never said anything about this because as we have said they loved the Church and they knew these stories would hurt it.

Well all this was called very sensible and went on for an awfully long time until as we have seen Ireland changed it’s name and got rich and the Church said , “Well now that ye’ve got lots more money I suppose ye’ll be giving it away to the poor as usual?” “Not bloody likely!” said the people, “This is our money and we’re giving it away to no one”. Well, the Church was taken aback by the sudden change of tone from the people and asked them what happened to make them change their tune so quickly.

Well the people knew the real reason that they had suddenly fallen out with the Church and that was that their money had given them new confidence and they felt they didn’t need the Church anymore and they certainly didn’t want to be told by anybody what to do with their money. And what’s more they wanted to do lots of sex and they didn’t want the Church telling them not to. But they decided not to say this.Instead they said, “Because Ye’re rich and Ye never give any money away and because Ye abuse little children.” Well if the Church was taken aback by the earlier response this floored them completely they didn’t know what to say. So they just said nothing and the people said, “Now, what did I tell you wasn’t I right all along?” And when the Church found it’s breath it just said, “No it isn’t true we did give our money to the poor and we never ever abused anyone” But everybody knew this wasn’t the truth and it only made things worse for the Church and nobody believed anything else they said from then on. Well that was the beginning of everyone getting very cross. The Church wasn’t talking to the people and when the people talked to the Church it was only to say as many hurtful things against it as they could think of and by the time we come to the Twenty First Century nobody was talking to anybody and everybody kept what they had and nobody gave anything away.

But people still loved Religion so they had to find themselves a different Church that only told them how to be happy in themselves and not worry about things and have clean minds and bake weird bread after Mass and the people loved these new Religions because they had nobody telling them they must give their money away, except that is to the New Religion itself and they didn’t mind this because they got weird bread in return. So nobody loved the Church anymore and every time they wanted to kick their pet dog because they were cross about something and they discovered they didn’t own a pet dog they just kicked the Church instead. The Economists didn’t like the Church either not because it didn’t give money to the poor but because The Economists believed that no one should give anything to the poor only to the rich even though they already had too much to begin with but remember what we said about people not being too bright at this time and easily fooled.

So all this was called very sensible and things went on like this way for an awfully long time.

The Big War with The Young People and How A Fart Changed The World.

Once again we must go back a few years to a time before the Twenty First Century in order to understand what was happening.

In the middle of the Twentieth Century there was a big war going on. This war was not the Cold War but was even more important for everybody. It was a war between the Young People who were known as Teenagers and the Old People who were known as Farts, or Old Farts and it was called the Generation Gap.

The Teenagers were fighting for freedom, to be allowed to play music that they liked and wear clothes they liked and stay out all night if they wanted and the old people or Farts wouldn’t let them because they didn’t like freedom and didn’t like the music that the young people listened to or the clothes that they wore and they wanted everyone to be in bed by Ten O Clock.

The war went on for many years but in the end the Teenagers won not because the Farts suddenly started liking their music or clothes but because they had all died so there was no one left to fight with.

But by then the Teenagers were no longer Teenagers they had become Farts themselves and they didn’t have the energy to listen to music and stay out all night and everyone thought their clothes were awful. But they still believed in freedom even if they were too old themselves to enjoy it.

But now there was a whole new generation of Teenagers and because they had the freedom to do whatever they liked. They did it.

The new generation of Young People even thought that because they were allowed to do anything this meant that everyone liked what they did. And what they most liked doing was watching themselves. They thought that everyone else was fascinated with seeing them so they arranged it so that everybody could watch them on Television every night doing things such as going on holidays, getting drunk or just sitting in a house for three months doing nothing. The Young People enjoyed this a lot and gave it a name. They called it Reality TV and only Young People were allowed to be on it.

Now there was only one problem with Young People at the beginning of the Twenty First Century. They had no imagination. The previous generation of Young People had been so busy fighting their big war that they used up all the creativity for two generations in the period known as The Sixties.

So by The beginning of the new century the Young People hadn’t an ideas between them on how to make anything except money so they asked someone older what they might do (Old People and Young People were talking to one another again and no longer called each other Farts, except when they were cross)

Well the Young People said to one Old person that they met,

“You had such great music and pictures and designs when you were young how did you do it?” and the Old person replied “Well you have to remember the first rule of human beings.” “And what’s that “ Asked the Young People.

“The best way of getting people to do something is to tell them they can’t do it. We had the Old farts telling us we couldn’t listen to our music or wear our clothes or stay out late so the first thing we put onto our diaries was Must remember to listen to our music, wear our clothes and stay out so late it’ll be the following fortnight before we come home.

So the more the Old farts told us not to do those things the more we wanted to do them and do them well, so we made great music wore cool clothes and got up to all sorts of things when we were out all night.”

“I see.” said the Young People “that might work, can you tell us not to do Reality TV and any of the other things we like doing so it will make us want to do them well?”

“I wish we could” said the Old person “Oh how I wish we could” He said thinking of all the Reality TV that was on at that time. “But you see we are different from the Farts that came before us. We believe in freedom so nobody from our generation can tell you not to do what you like.”

Well the Young people were very disappointed to hear that because privately they were getting a little bored watching themselves doing nothing and they though people telling them to stop doing it might spice things up a bit.

“But I have something here that might help you” said the Old person.

“What’s that” asked the Young People.

“My Old record collection” said the Old person.

“Yeugh!” said the Young People.

“No, before you say that, just listen to what my plan is.” Said the Old person.

“If you have no ideas of your own you can borrow some of mine. Just listen to my music and see what you think of it”

So the Young People listened to the Old person’s music and they liked it.

In fact they liked it so much they started copying it and soon the world was full of copy music from The Sixties but because the Young People had no imagination or ability to create, their copy music was awful so they went back to the Old person and asked him what they could do.

“Well your music is indeed frightful “ Said the Old person. “But I might be able to help you”

So he told them to call the music by a special name Kitsch and another name Ironic and yet another name Post Modern and that way it sounded better than it actually was and people started listening to it and even though it was still awful it was now Kitsch so it was ok to like it.

Now the Young People began to copy all sorts of other things from The Sixties like the clothes and the hair styles and the art and when it turned out awful as everyone expected it would they simply called it Kitsch and it became good again. Well the Young People were so delighted that they went back to the Old Person and thanked him for his ideas and asked him if there was anything they could do for him, anything at all, anything.

And just as the Old person was about to ask them to stop making Reality TV they said.

“Except stop making Reality TV of course”

So the Old Person just said “No nothing at all, run along now and enjoy your music and clothes and stay out as late as you want.”

And so they did and this was thought very sensible at the time and like the Reality TV programmes it went on for an awfully long time indeed.

How Shopping Kept People Alive

Once upon a time people went out shopping when they had run out of food or their clothes were falling apart or they needed a new house and as they were on their way home with their food and new clothes to their new house they were stopped by some Marketing people who asked them what they had been doing and when the people said they had been getting food and clothes and a new house the Marketing people stood back in astonishment.

“Are you Insane?” they asked. “Do you want to die?”

“What do you mean?” asked the people. “Who is going to die?”

“Why you are” Said the Marketing people “Don’t you realise you have a serious deficiency in certain life maintaining elements?”

Apparently the people didn’t know this and they asked what were the certain elements they were lacking and the Marketing people gave them a list of the things they needed. Well the people were so grateful that had been saved from certain death and they dropped everything and ran straight back to the shops to acquire the vital elements and they included an I-Pod and a TV with plasma screen and a futon.

“Are we safe now?” They asked the Marketing people

“God no” Said the Marketing people “Whatever were you thinking?

“These things wouldn’t keep you alive for a day.”

And they gave them another list of vital elements that they needed if they didn’t want to die. And the people went straight back to the shops to buy Frozen Pizzas and jumbo packs of breakfast cereals and smoothies and they showed them to the Marketing people who were appalled at their ineptitude.

“Give me your credit cards” They asked the people. But the people didn’t have any credit cards so the Marketing people said “How do you expect to survive without a credit card? Do you have a death wish or something?”

No the people didn’t have a death wish so they went out straight away and got themselves a credit card and brought it back to the Marketing people who took it to the shops and bought some emergency survival equipment such as an MP3 and patio umbrellas and a broadband receiver

An dht people were so grateful and thanked the Marketing people for saving their lives and the Marketing people said “Well if you really want to thank us go straight out to the shops again and buy some D.V.Ds, C.D.s and install digital TV. And the people thought about this for a second and then Marketing people screamed at them

“Are You stupid? Do you want to die right now? Go get those things immediately while you still have time”

And you should have seen how fast the people ran to the shops to buy those life saving elements that allowed people to live in the Twenty First century.

And every time the shop keeper saw the people coming back to buy something they increased the prices of everything because they knew if the people wanted to stay alive they must buy and buy and never look at the prices. This was called very sensible at the time and late into the night when the people were at home worrying what new element they might need to stay alive the sounds of laughter could be heard coming from the houses of the Marketing people and the laughter was so loud that the people thought it was the sound of terrible monsters coming to kill them in their beds so they immediatly ran out of their houses to the nearest shop to buy anything that might keep them alive throught the night.

We should not laugh at these people like the marketing people did as they lived at a time when people were not as intelligent as they are today and knew no better how to behave.

HOW PROPHETS GOT INTO THE MOVIES

At The begining of the twenty first century everybody loved to read the Bible.