Cyprus-Forum.com

[rick-kendall]

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays guitar all summer, come winter the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

THE BRITISH VERSION. The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays guitar all summer, come winter the squirrel is warm and well fed. A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper and calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while the others less fortunate, like the grasshopper are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, which cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper has to suffer while others have plenty. The labour party, green peace, animal rights and the grasshopper council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house.

The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, Ken Livingston rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich of the back of grasshoppers. And calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay “his fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter London.

In response to pressure from the media, the government drafts the, economic equity and grasshopper anti discrimination act, retrospective to the beginning of summer; the squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. he is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper didn’t want to work !

The grasshopper is provided with a council house financial aid to furnish it, and an account with a local taxi firm, to make sure he is socially mobile .the squirrels food is seized and re distributed to the more the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.

the local authority takes over his old home and utilises it for temporary home for asylum seeking cats who hijacked a plane to get to Britain .as they had to share there country of origin with mice .on arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain’s apparent love of dogs .

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempt bombing, but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon while in custody. Initial move to then return them to there own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by mice .the cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrels food. though the spring is still months away ,while the council house he’s in , crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house .he is shown to be tacking drugs , inadequate government funding is to blamed for the grasshopper drug " illness" .

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for there treatment since arrival in the UK.
the grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drug habit, he is imprisoned but released immediately, because he has been in custody for a few weeks, he is placed in care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him, within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry that will eventually cost £ 10,000,000 and state he obviously, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for the lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain’s multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of an overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of the government to address the root cause of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for a resignation of a minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because there rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

the squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking , the bombing ,the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on there credit cards to cover losses , their taxes are increased to pay for law and order , and they are told they have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.


THE END

[Crivens]

Nice. Ahem, let me amend the end slightly...

Turns out that the grasshopper did not die, but thanks to the NHS (which squirrel has basically been paying for dutifully all his life through massive taxes) he was saved on the operating table.

Mainly because of luck, huge amounts of government help, and the long existance that can come from a life with no stress, the grasshopper makes it to a ripe old age and ends up in a retirement home. That costs him nothing. His next door neighbour in the home is squirrel, who has an identical room and treatment. Unfortuantly squirrel had to give up his home (as in sell it and give all the money to the retirement home) to get his room. Squirrel dies when grasshopper goes mental and kills everybody in a LSD crazed flashback.

Grasshoppers kids have a fine life thanks to all the money squirreled away by their dad due to dodgy deals and illegal activities. Unfortuantly squirrels kids are broke because all their inheritance either went to the government or was lost looking after their dad. To get by they do odd jobs, like cleaning cars and windows, for next to nothing for the local family who have the most money and boss everyone about. Yep the grasshoppers.

Finally the grasshopper clan decide they have had enough of britain with the way it is being run (eg. all the tropical butterflies that are coming into the country and stealing *their* jobs) and move to Cyprus. Luckily the houses that the government gave them because they squated in them for so many years (Google that one; probably the most outraged I have ever been) had made a fortune so they could afford amazing houses.

But the grasshoppers did not like Cyprus. For some reason the government was not so nearly as nice to them. Plus considering the grasshoppers came from a long line of insects that used to plague the world, then they could not understand why they were not elevated to a more higher social standing. So they went back to the UK. After all the UK government had been paying them money to be out of work for the time they had been out of the country, so might as well spend some of it there. Yep it is illegal, but there are ways and means if you are a grasshopper.

Cheers

BTW I am a welsh squirrel, and that is why I live here now.

[zan]

All this because the squirrel did not say to the grasshopper, " Brother, I know you have not got the instincts of a squirrel but come, let us gather food together and I will store it for you. You can then come to me and get food for yourself and your family throughout winter".

[Crivens]

But the squirrel did say that to the grasshopper, but the grasshopper laughed in his face and said why bother?

Either that or this is the same grasshopper that rented my squirrel sister's old house, refused to pay rent for ages claiming that the council would be paying it (which the council squirrel said they could do nothing about, even when a hidden tape was given to them with said grasshopper admitting exactly what he was doing and even saying my sister should have more children to get more out of the government). When my sister, her boyfriend, and a couple of big squirrelly mates eventually got them out of the house then they found the place was totally trashed and covered in grasshopper s**t. Nice. Only took 3 months to completely sort out apparently.

Sod that, when I was a kid we used to go to the dump and collect grasshoppers in jars. Put the lid on, then chucked them. Shame that we cannot do that in real life.

Cheers

[devil]

Sod that, when I was a kid we used to go to the dump and collect grasshoppers in jars. Put the lid on, then chucked them.

What a waste of good, nourishing, delicious food.

[Southerner]

Brilliant Rick, where did you get it?
This could probably be most places but I can think of one in particular.
Nothing like not calling a spade a spade.

[rick-kendall]

somebody posted it on my guitar forum!
6stringheaven.com ages ago and i found it the other day.