Wednesday 9 December 2009

A Message from B Panda



Hello, Bugger the Panda here.

Before any of you reach for the RED BUTTON and report the blog to the News of The World and me to the SSPCA, let me explain. It is all Gordon Brown’s fault!

I am a Glesca Panda and I bet you didn’t know that such a thing exists! Yes I was born and raised in Glesca Toon actually in the Ibrox area of Sunny Govan. I am really an Ibrox Panda Bear.

We have been indigenous to Ibrox for over three thousand years! The weather was quite good then and bamboo flourished well but, as the climate changed we had to adapt and we did quite well. A lot of people think that Ibrox was named after badgers but really it was named, by short sighted weegies on the Electric Soup, after us Pandas.

We came up the Clyde in a dugout canoe and have just blended into the landscape by becoming nocturnal and generally keeping our heids low.

Things have changed recently most all for the better and your human government has played its part, albeit unwittingly, in letting us come out of the shadows. For one thing we have rights and elfinsafety has definitely helped too. I had a pad in Ibrox, thanks to somebody called Purcell and the GHA but I live in Shanghai now. I do miss home and fish suppers. Better than the Bamboo twigs I get here. I used to attend Ibrox Stadium, when they had a reasonable team some years back and, in order to blend in, I even learned to play the flute. That’s me below playing the scales.


I joined a Flute Band in order to get some dosh and blend in. I told them that my 'apron' was from an ultra secret Orange Lodge and they swallied it. This, I think is a perfect example of what Stephen Hawkins calls Social Darwinism, in reverse.

I’m a pining Panda for Glesca Toon, especially week-ends in the Merchant City when everybody gets dressed up in fancy claes and gets blootered. I join alang wae them and can get a right guid swally with nobody looking sideways at me. The wine bars are the best, everybody there is soo PC. The Clenched Buttocks ones say bugger all to me normally but often they, the good looking female ones, buy me a nice red claret or two. You would be amazed how often I score. If they ask who I am and I am not in a good mood I snarl my name to them and then the word “off”. They do so usually. In fact by 11 o’clock in the Merchant City I look the most normal. Often as I stagger back to my pad, well lubed, the Polis stop their Panda cars and gie me a lift. They think it is all very funny, very a propos, I just keep the geggie shut and fart quietly in the back seat. I think next day, everybody I have seen or talked to must wake up, think, and then say naw, it was all due to the drink. So far, so good.

So how come I am in Shanghai if I am a true Ibrox bear? Easy, I got blootered one Hogmanay and got lost. I ended up in Paisley and then Glasgow Airport. Wandering about the place was dead easy, airside as well, since John Smeaton took over running the whole airport, everybody in a uniform was pissed. John should stick to politics, I think.

Anyway, I woke up in Heathrow with no ticket or passport. Have you ever heard of a Panda with a passport? So what did the Wombats, aka the UK Borders Agency PLC do, they put me on the first flight to China, stunning punts! From there it was straight to the Zoo or the hills of Chengdu so I chose the Zoo, at least I can get out of it easily enough. The British Embassy has been as useful as chocolate teapot but I need some Shekels and a fake passport to get a flight home please, somebody. Come to think of it, I wonder has that royalty cheque from the WWF arrived yet, or has Big Al Gore snaffled that too?

So here I am eating bamboo, pining for a decent curry and a nice bottle of red thinking deeply about the political landscape in my native land, as you do. Home thoughts from abroad eh? Maybe later because now, I am going to tell you about China.

When you arrive at the new Shanghai airport, Pu Dong, you can take the Maglev into Shanghai. It takes about 7 minutes, costs about €4 and the top speed is over 430 kph. It can go over 500 kph but is restricted for timetable reasons. See below if you don’t believe me.

If you can’t see clearly, it reads 431 km/h

The Maglev was built by Siemens and is the not only the first they have sold in China but the last as the cunning Chinese are currently engineering it and will soon be building their own, better one. They have to find some use for all the electricity for the new coal burning power stations they are building. One a week, it is said.

In fact it has been calculated somewhere that if the UK shut down tomorrow, the reduction in CO2 emissions would be redressed in one week by the increase in Chinese output.

There are about 22 million people in Shanghai and it is the business centre of the PRC (People's Republic of China).

Internal flights within China are about one third of the price in the rest of the World or even less. There is no Air Tax, especially for Pandas.

The overnight TGV between Shanghai and Beijing takes 9 hours and a bunk, with pot noodle costs about €50. That is for 1,500 km and the trains run on time. The Chinese bought a couple of them and then made their own faster ones.

They are now planning a new second tier cities strategy. These are cities whose name you will not know and who already have well over 1 million inhabitants, Chengdu and other similar cities. These new super cities will be linked with a railway system running at over 500 kph thereby making surrounding towns, within 1 hours train ride, suburbs of the city and within commuting distance as well as allowing fresh produce from the country to be transported into the city daily. Ticket prices will be accessible to the ordinary Chinese, especially as the economy switches from export to domestic consumption. All those balance of payment surpluses from the export led boom are being directed to infrastructure.

Shanghai boasts a downtown that would put any city in the UK to shame. Restaurants, luxury housing, expensive cars and motorway systems all ready with construction working round the clock, seven days per week.

It hosts the second biggest habitable structure, nicknamed locally the lever. It is well over 300 metres tall and if transported into Denmark, where the Global Warming Conference is being held, would be the highest point in the country. The view from top, over the Bund, is spectacular by day or night.


At night the city switches on every possible light bulb on and would be a great reference point for a passing alien spacecraft.

See below


In case anyone thinks that this is all an internal Chinese bubble, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the biggest bank in the World and registered in London has quietly moved its principal working office back to Hong Kong but remains, for the moment registered in London. So when Gordon finally buggers up the City, on the cards from what I read, HKSB will be working under a different regime and paying different taxes to RBS, Lloyds etc and Barclay. That is, if they still exist.

To sum it all fellow Pandas and countrymen, you are buggered. I say you because I am staying here and will play the market from here. Can someone send me Enster Fish Supper Parcels please?

What’s that you say, why is it all Gordon Brown’s fault? Well in one part, the economic part is all axiomatic, Brown destroyed it all for you. He also caused me to be called what I am.

How so, easy.

I was due for baptism in the Govan Parish Church in late February 1951 by one Minister called John Ebenezer Brown. Ahead of me for the sprinkling of LK (Loch Katrine silly) was one James Gordon Brown. As ma Mammy passed me into the hands of the Rev, and was about to tell him my name, snotty pee’d in an arc into the baptismal font and Mammy dropped me on my head.

“Bugger” she said, and Bugger I have always been.

Now if had been the other way round and Snotty had been dropped, He would have been Bugger Brown, which I think would have been very appropriate, don’t you?

Catch you all later

Bugger!

29 comments:

Dramfineday said...

Ha, Ha , ha loved it - one coal fired power station per day being opened and yon hysterical environmental reporter for the Herald howling that this (one) power station in Scotland was killing farmers in Malawi.........you couldn't make it up, but he did.

Well done BP - oh dear have I given the game away?

Demetrius said...

This may sound daft, but the name Ebenezer makes me think. There are only certain family groups in which the name is common in Scotland, and there are some interesting possibilities about the Brown genes if it applies in his case.

subrosa said...

Gentlemen, I shall leave the writer to respond as he/she surely will. :)

Anonymous said...

Drafineday

Hello and good evening from Shanghai where it ost certainly is warmer than Ibrox.

In fact it is 1 coal station per week not per day but it is all relative.

The Chinese also have a very unique approach to their investments in Africa and elsewhere where they source their strategic raw materials.

If the countries who accept Chinese gold think they have won a watch then they are about to be hit right between the eyes.

The worst characteristics of colonialism, especially the Belgian rapacious kind will be dumped on them,

I don't know if Malawi has taken Chinese money but if they have, God help them.

Anonymous said...

Demetrius


Ebenezer was his middle name and as for genes, apart fro the possibility of a Jewish conversion I a thinking Scrooge.

Maybe that tight presbyterian upbringing made Gorgon so free with our money?

Spending money like a drunken Panda?

Anonymous said...

Sorry non Pandas I have just spotten a foxes paw through the bamboo shoots of my midnight snack.

If the UK was to disappear the drop in World CO2 production would be redressed by 1 year's Chinese expansion.

Ayrshire Scot said...

Bugger

lol, loved it. All hats off!

Anonymous said...

Are you by any chance Ayrshire Scot, one o they arching people and if so, did you ever see me?

Anonymous said...

marching people

bugger

Ayrshire Scot said...

Bugger

I am Ayrshire Scot

"marching people"?

Anonymous said...

Wae a flute, like me?

Ayrshire Scot said...

Bugger

I have played the flute on occassion, but never in the context of organised God Save the Queen mouth breathing kuckle trailing.

Ayrshire Scot said...

knuckle, bugger

Anonymous said...

lookin for a square go are ye?

Anonymous said...

Just keep the heid Ayrshire Scot, eh?

If yer up for a rammy, why not take out on Spud Murphy?

He need peeled fur shoor!

Ayrshire Scot said...

Bugger

keep, give, all the same, lol.

I meant "knuckle" to correct my typo not for a square go, you look feral.

Keeping the heid, Bugger. But quite "vexed" and concerned. Check the scented gardeners Xmas card spot.

A bit of peeling may be in order though.

Yours aye

Anonymous said...

Do you have a link for that?

Just sipping some Chinese White Wine (distilled) AKA Sweet and Sour Electric Soup.

Great for hand to hand combat or loading up the next moonshot.

G Laird said...

Dear Subrosa

Did that panda jump the queue to get a pad in Ibrox?

You mentioned Steven 'bin laden' Purcell was the panda a drinking buddy from the Station Bar, Yoker?

Looks sus to me.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

subrosa said...

Ayrshire Scot, I do wish you wouldn't encourage this Panda. There's always a slight erm... problem with those who are baptised with Loch Katrine water.

subrosa said...

Very possibly George, some folk will resort to behaving like animals won't they.

Anonymous said...

I think the keeper is saying

"Don't feed the bear"

Bugger

Anonymous said...

George

Of course I jumped the queue.

Are ye daft man?

Do you think I'd have any chance of gettin a Cooncil Hoose in Glesca looking as I do and playing the flute in an Orange band?

Silly Boy George!

Bugger

subrosa said...

Evening Bug, most interesting article.

I've learned quite a bit from it too. China's expansion and the fact that they're so sensible ordering just one of something from others, analysing it then producing it better themselves.

Reminds me of my physics teacher. 'You can build on the knowledge of others as long as you trust it'.

Anonymous said...

SubR

Buy one build hunners. That's the Chinese way!

Bit like RBS, own 3 and loan 97.

I may be a Bugger but the Chinese are cunning buggers

subrosa said...

I wouldnae say that Bug I'd say very sensible. My granny would have approved of their initiative. She was all for enterprise.

We're so lazy here. Nothing is ordered from UK because it's cheaper from abroad.

Is it any wonder our home-educated engineers go to places like China etc? They're ignored back home.

That's how much respect politicians have for the people who manufacture. They'd rather be in the 'cocktails at 6' company of financiers.

Anonymous said...

What I didn't say in the article is that the Chinese will be building a fleet of aircraft carriers soon.

They bought one from the Ukrainians via Macao. It was bought from Ukraine with a wad of petro-dollars as a "floating casino" and then somehow disappeared before it docked in Macao.

I have it on good authority, via the Panda Net, that it is lying somewhere up the Whang Ho under a bloody great tarpaulin whilst they disassemble it and see how it works.

Bit like what they did with the AK 47 and all the Russian tanks.

So stand but for a Chinese aircraft carrier visiting you in the near future.

Anonymous said...

SubR

I' off down The Bund for a wee swally of Tsingtao beer and a carry out Sweet and Sour.

Not be long, the subway is not very crowded at this time of night.

15 mins then.

Anonymous said...

back

Where has everybody gone?

You nip out for 1 drink, 1 wee swally and everybody buggers aff!

Fair weather posters that ye all ur!

Anonymous said...

Aff tae ma scratcher then.

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