Scoop Satire: A Canterbury Tale

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Image via Historic Tale Construction Kit

The Scoop Team were cleaning out our offices earlier today and what should we find at the bottom of the filing cabinet but an illuminated manuscript from the thirteenth century?

It seems to be some sort of horribly bootlegged version of the Canterbury Tales, penned by one Ailfrid of Mule. The scanner's broken but we've typed out some of the more interesting bits.

UPDATE: TradeMe auction pending ($15 reserve).

THE CANTERBURY TALES
By Ailfrid of Mule

Pt. VII – The Commy∫ioner’∫ Tale

THEN SPAKE a Dame by name of Bazely;
A Pious Wommyn who had haphaz’dly
The notaries of Manukau attack’d
For Corruption foul and Offices lack’d
So did she recommend Recourses
‘Gainst Legal Ayd (tho’ wanting Sources)
“I have a tale to quell thy mirth,”
She told the crowd, “of quaking earth,
of courtiers quizzical and cowardly;
and the Divine Right of Gerrye Brownlee;
A tale of Na∫ional legislators:
The other Canterbury Crusaders.”

They listen’d rapt to her declaim,
“’Twas on a flat and boringe plain
That I was sent upon a Quest
(Tho’ lumpy now, and more of interest)
To end the drought that irked the squires:
resource managemente of the shires;
The peasants’ reeves gone aft agley
With that Fisher Kinge, ‘Democracy’;
And naught to do with any quibbling
the Minister of Environmente’s sibling,
Nor the estate of Master Carter
in Hurunui (‘upon the Garter!’)

“With haste I sought to reinstate
Without meddlesome magistrate
Six honest men of Wit and Wick
- The kind the Voters never pick -
Despite the rabble’s disagreeing
I thus restored the Chain of Being.
But suffer’d that Realm another affliction,
One still outside my Jurisdiction:
In the Year of Our Lord deux mille-et-huite
The Lenders all did wail and bleat
For the Invisible Hand so sure did shudder
As if in Epileptick judder.”

Then flocking to the Halls of Labour
The Lenders begged the merest favour;
That should they lose all of their bets
Could Gov’nment please pay those debts?
For, they confessed with burning ears,
Theyr bookes, it seem’d, were in arrears.
Then Labour did with National’s backing
back the backers where wits were lacking
Whyle gray heads, bowed sagacious’ly,
Prais’d fyscal responsibilitie.
Who would have thought with business brisk
They’d reap rewards and damn the risk?

But National chivalrous as ever
The one-and-half billionne didst weather;
With sympathie and also thankes
Else John Keye feared a Run on Bankes.
The Scheme remained - such avarice
Could surely never happen thrice.
Yet still there was discord in Heav’n
For Hell itself didst spew objection
Before the dawn one Sabbath morn
with dirtye bigge cracks o’er my lawn;
‘A portent!’ cried I, for signs were legionne,
‘We must a Prince to rule our regionne!’

A stoppe-gappe measure for riven pasture,
A Fissure-King for this Disaster.

Our Honoured Members sprang to action
Spurning facts and even faction
With Laws writ by Malthusian mind
To counter deadly Plague of Swine.
There were no slain, no Quarantyne
Just cots and mugges of Ovaltyne
But Parlyamente in finest hour
Did hurl aside its vested Power;
‘All Haste!’ bellowed those in the Right,
‘We must rebuild sans oversight;
The Nation’s laws are naught but Bunyans
That slow the Progress of these Ronyans.

Then that most Loyal Oppositionne
Accquiesed without divisionne
And granted them impunity
For sake of Nationale Unity
With but a single brave Green knight
One Doctor Graham, much polite,
Who raised some small pointes of contentionne
About the Rule of Law’s suspensionne:
‘Six months in, can we review
And tell the Publicke what you do?’
Tho’ no accord, they joined the pact;
The Response & Recoverie Act.

“The honour it was all agreede
Should go to Brownlee once of Bede
Whose eminente and wise opining
Conjectur’d Crown lands ripe for Mining
He’d little change and soon decamp;
His mark the size of Postage Stampe.”
“So come we bye to Brownlee’s chambers”,
She hailed the Minister’s retainers
As fellow pilgrims, lobbyistes all
Swarm’d in his Office and out the hall:
“We’ve plucked the pheasants, unstopp’d the meade
And fucke the peasants, now what dost thou need?”