Apologies

Not just for not blogging lately. The usual excuse: too much work, blah, blah.

No, i want to apologise to the world. You may or may not know or care, but there have been "celebratations" to mark 200 years since slavery was abolished. Apparantly, there are a number of people out there on planet stupid who think that i owe them an apology for people i never met enslaving people they never met. Granted, slavery in all its forms is a terrible thing, but i have never enslaved anyone (unless you count that woman i have handcuffed in my cupboard). Am i responsible/ culpable for men in stupid clothes who rode the high seas?

Maybe better to concentrate on the slavery that still exists today, thinly disguised as giving poor people the chance to live. I talk of workers paid $10 a day to build luxurious apartments in Saudi Arabia for mega-rich Sheikhs to sell on to their mega-rich celebrity friends; eastern European girls being shipped to Britain to work in the sex trade.

But, as dear old Delbut has a concience, i have been busy arranging a "let's get around the table and be nice to each other" conference. Theme of the meeting was: "Let's all touch hands and say sorry".

I hand wrote invitations and sent them out to people i thought need to apologise for everything. "Where should i start?" i said. "Stop talking to yourself and get on with it", i replied.

Eventually, i had a list and invited people to a secret place in...well, i can't say, it's secret.

The event turned out to be a bit of a potted history of the world, with participants from around the globe. In order, everyone got up and said their bit.

A nice bloke from Milan started. He apologised for the Roman invasion of Britain. It was agreed that the benefits of what they brought us far outweighed the bad bits and we thanked him for being able to crap in a proper toilet, rather than a hole in the field.

Lars, from somewhere cold apologised for the raping and pillaging of North Yorkshire and trying to halt the tide. We agreed that the raping and pillaging was naughty but the attemt to stem the tide was valid, as now, parts of the north-east coast have eroded and fallen into the sea. It was agreed that they should have tried harder.

Next was a rather smelly bloke from Normandy. He said sorry for invading southern Britain while old Harlod was busy shooing awayLars's folks from Hull. Apology accepted.

On behalf of the Welsh folk, i apologised to the English people of Shropshire and Herefordshire for our - although cunningly well thought out - invasions across the border. Oh, and for giving the world Shirley Bassey.
The English then apologised for: Invading Scotland, Wales, India... list too long but practically everywhere.
Collectively, the English and by default, the Welsh/Scots for the potato famine in Ireland. The Irish then spoke of their sorrow for sending so many people to America and all but killing off the Indians on their travels west.
Which brings me to Brian. I invited Brian from Plymouth. ( for you Americans. That's where you were born) He said sorry for sailing to America and giving the flu to a bunch of Indians. But did like to point out that if it wasn't for them, Thanksgiving day would not have been invented. No excuse, we all said. Repent. He cried a bit but did as he was told.
Then came Troy. he's from California. He wanted to express his grief for the San Andreas fault. We said it's not his fault. He said it was - he missed the irony in our joke (God, even the French bloke got it) - we took pity and he sat down.

I thought about all the other wrong-doings in the world and just gave up. Too much to apologise for. We all agreed to leave the pub and go away and think about our actions in the future. But not before we ate a hearty dinner of beef (sorry cows), served by under-paid wenches (sorry women) with loads of wine (sorry itinerant grape pickers)


To all my readers. Sorry for making you read this.