Anakwastank, D.C.

Just what are those silly Americans up to now?

I mean, honestly.  We let them go independent and invoke the power of democracy, and that has somehow led to them being held hostage by one faction of one party who think that only healthy, vigorous people should be entitled to go to hospital.  It doesn't sound very democratic to me.  Maybe it's time for their oh-so-sacred constitution to be amended.  Or is it too late for that?

As soon as they started talking about national insolvency, Henry started crowing about getting Penobscot back.  ‘Who or what, pray, is Penobscot?’ I naturally enquired.  Apparently it is a town on the Atlantic coast that Henry’s great-great-great-great uncle Van Weierherr fled to from New York when it all went balls-up in 1781, with his eleven beautiful daughters and all moveable worldly goods in tow.  Then it transpired that the Yankee Doodles had moved the border again and all twelve Weierherrs had to leg it to a really, really God-forsaken place called Crapsticks, Nova Scotia.

But why stop at Penobscot? I asked.  Cousin Bingo has a rather roomy missile frigate; we could sail it into New Haven and reclaim all the Constables and Gainsboroughs and Van Dycks and what have you from the Yale Center [sic] for British Art.  Then down to the so-called District of Columbia to see how this Tea Party like having their tea thrown about.  And while we’re at it, we’ll make them return every ‘WELCOME TO’ town-sign with a name stolen from us.  The Essexes and Sussexes alone would probably fill an oil tanker, so perhaps this is not my best idea.  Maybe instead we can make them paint them out, and replace them all with the original Native American names, Passamaquoddy and Quinnipiac and Nangasakit and Wampanoag and so forth.  Washington itself, having been stolen from County Durham, would revert to Anakwastank, which I like rather better.

We await the outcome of all this democracy with some trepidation, but more than a hint of glee.

Why do we bother?  They seem to be doing a perfectly good job of wrecking the place themselves.