Welcome, welcome, to the endgame of Britain! Our beloved Queen just checked-out as the whole country's about to collapse into a Phil & Holly-hosted Squidgame; where we die for a chance to clear our Great British Gas Bill. Aspiration Nation. Coming soon to ITVbe. Once the coverage stops, natch. Indeed it’s hard to escape the idea that - what with no official cause-of-death yet released - and much like celebrities who died just ahead of the Trump and Brexit wins - that Queenie didn’t simply see what was coming, like: “Ugh, fuck this shit for a pack of corgis” ...before topping herself. But let's get to the specifics. The Economy’s about to envelope. Our currency is tanking. The Pound Sterling is now at its lowest international value (vs USD) for 37 years. Some doubt the data and seriousness surrounding this. If they had a billion for every one of those years, perhaps they could Test and Trace it. The one beacon of hope we have/had was the idea we might be able to quickly re-join the Single Market or issue a couple million visas to Europeans desperate to earn some comparatively-valuable pounds. But we are now on course to have our living standards overtaken by Slovenia next year. And Poland by the end of the decade. We are at a point of no return. Put simply: why would Eastern Europeans come here now to fix our labour shortage when frankly they'll have a shitter life and have made no money when they *do* come to their senses and leave? In the crosshairs of this, people tire of the Monarchy. Because when there’s social mobility, wage growth and adequate support services, it’s not hard to turn a blind eye to the ridiculous inequality of it. Then it’s history. Then it’s Well, If I Work Hard Maybe *I* Could Have A Palace. A little harder when you’re on your third dick of the morning because your gas bill tripled and you’re reminded: not only has this family been given YOUR money every year since forever, for nothing more than winning the fucking Vagina Lottery; but now Andrew has paid his way out of 'embarrassment' and King Charles will not pay the 40% Inheritance Tax. These are inarguably both situations that would land you and I crown-deep in the shit. We are being financially punished for matters outside our control while they escape the consequences of basic Law and Order. Amusing, then, to see the great minds of Britain get up-in-arms about Phil and Holly jumping the queue to see the Queen. “Oh what!?! They think they’re better than everyone else?” they cry. “They get to go ahead of us!? On what basis!” others chime, without so much as a smidgen of Siri's self awareness that you are QUEUEING TO PAY RESPECTS TO A MONARCH YOU’VE BEEN BRAINWASHED INTO THINKING IS BETTER THAN YOU. Still, not everyone's a loser in this. Somewhere in Soho there's a PR agency chalking up Phil & Holly (NOT better than you / "bad") and the Monarchy (MUCH better than you / "good") as a perfect whiteboard example of why you need to pay that little bit extra for the Elite package. Also in the ‘funny’ in-tray, consider this: In this post-Covid contracts media landscape and, yes, against the backdrop of our usual Class warfare - someone in Buckingham Palace Events Management raised their hand and said: “You know what ALL this is missing? A VIP fast-lane.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, British Republicanism is growing. From 13% in the 90s to a quarter of the population now. The age-old argument has been the Windsors are essential for British tourism. People come here for our history, Kings, Princesses and Castles. That may be about to change, though perhaps not in the way we thought... If the pound keeps falling at the rate it is now (and as the FT are predicting) we could become a destination-of-choice regardless of the Royals! Bankers be damned and Automotive be gone... Fuck Business. It'd be entirely fitting if we re-emerged from Brexit (with a devalued Pound) as little more than a Union Jack adorned cafe from Magaluf; with the same cretins who got us into this mess fretting about Polish people coming over 'ere, takin' our jobs, finding themselves securely *in* employment... ....serving mojitos to Polish guys in Hawaiian shirts on a lads hol. Anyway, as Michael Jackson said, shortly before dying, This Is It. This is the endgame. And as we circle the drain and slump our heads in our hands, the rest of the country sits, bewitched by the type of news coverage that could make a North Korean dictator blush. And to be honest that feels right. It feels entirely fitting. That after all the bluster decorating the bullshit, after all the empty, nationalistic Boosterism and symbolism obfuscating the substance - that our impending doom might be masked by Royal fanfare. My personal feeling is... maybe Queenie was right? Maybe shit's about to get *so* bad it's simply not worth sticking around for. Even if you're a billionaire. Maybe the prizes for Phil & Holly's Squidgame should actually just be, err, death? I mean, faced with the choice of the next decade of declining standards and murderous poverty OR applying for that shit, you'll forgive me if I shrug "fuck this shit for a pack of corgis"... ...and join the queue.
