The Wicked Queen Smerkel and the Two Boys from Athena.

Once upon a time there was a wicked Queen called Smerkel. She was very clever and very powerful and ruled over an Empire known as Euroland. Queen Smerkel had a friend call Christine Le Gard du Nord who was incredibly rich. In fact Christine was so rich she had more money than could be ever be imagined. It was said she had so much money the people gave her a title, the ‘Head of the IMF’. (The infinite money fund). Christine kept all her money in a large pit that was so big it apparently had no bottom. Every week she had her hair done and it shone like silver. Some said it was actually threaded with real silver, it shone so brightly.

Now Queen Smerkel had a weakness; Free lunches. She loved free lunches. She loved them so much she would invite Christine and her posh friends from all over Euroland, to come and have Free lunches at every opportunity. Of course to keep the people happy she would say that the Free Lunch was for a reason. For example once she said it was to discuss something called ‘Ukraine’, and on another occasion something called ‘Climate Change’. It always worked because Smerkel realised that, if after the lunch, she issued something called a statement that said; ‘ We are dedicated to doing something about it.’ , everything would be fine.

Christine also had a weakness. She was mean. She was so mean, that even though she had a bottomless pit of money, she once leant the poor people of HELLenic Land (which actually is more like Heaven Land) so much money, at such a high rate of interest, that they could never ever hope to pay it back. So when Smerkel said to Christine ‘ We are having a problem getting money for the Free Lunches as, quite rightly, some of the people have spotted we are ripping them off.’ Christine said, ‘Don’t worry I’ll get your money. I know of a group of people in HELLenic Land (which actually is more like Heaven Land), who haven’t worked for years and get money every week for doing nothing. It’s called a pension. They are mostly Little Old Ladies dressed in black and they spend it on ridiculous things like food and Grand Children. Not on sensible things like Silver Hair doos. It’s easy, we just get the people of HELLenic Land (which actually is more like Heaven Land) to take some of the old ladies’ money and give it to us and then the Free Lunches are a given.’

At the same time, unfortunately for Christine, in HELLenic Land (which actually is more like Heaven Land), in a place called Athena, lived two boys called ‘Sipi Dipi Do Da’ and ‘Far From Crackers’. Sipi Dipi was always smiling and Far From Crackers was very clever, especially with money. The two boys were very popular with the people of HELLenic Land (which actually is more like Heaven Land) and when the Little Old Ladies heard about Christine’s plan they said to the two boys, ‘You two go to Smerkel and tell her we are not giving her our money and she can stick her Free Lunches down Christine’s bottomless pit.’

So Sipi Dipi and Far From Crackers went off to Euroland. They were greeted by Queen Smerkel and Christine who gave them lots of Free Lunches and said ‘If you give us the money from the Little Old Ladies you two can have Free Lunches, for ever.’ Sipi Dipi was very impressed but couldn’t understand why suddenly he couldn’t smile. Then Smerkel took Far From Crackers to one side and said. ‘If you don’t play ball we will take away your motorbike.’ Now Far From Crackers loved his motorbike and immediately phoned the Little Old Ladies and told then what Smerkel had said. ‘ Don’t worry, said the littlest and oldest of the Little Old Ladies, we have spoken to your Uncle in Ruskiland, the very wise Ras Putin, and he says he will get you a new motorbike and enough fuel to run it for a lifetime.’

When Far from Crackers told Sipi Dip he immediately started smiling again. So both boys told Smerkel and Christine that much though they would like to have Free Lunches for ever they owed it to the Little Old Ladies to say no. Smerkel was furious, as was Christine. In fact they were so furious they issued a statement that didn’t say they were ‘dedicated to doing something about it.’ In fact it said ‘ There is a lot of work to be done.’ This was unheard of, as everyone knew they never did any work anyway. So who was going to do it?

So, did the tale end happily ever after? Well, as they say in all the best American Mini Series…..’To be continued…..’