Tinkety Tonk

The other day I was on the tube journey from hell. Readers from London will know what I’m talking about; the carriage is rammed and airless, complete strangers are forced to eat each other’s armpits and then ‘Bird Flu Bertie’ plonks himself down opposite you.  

The government catch phrase, ‘Catch it, Bin it,  Kill it’ means nothing to these eejits. No, Bird Flu Bertie prefers to use his own mantra of ‘Spray it, Spread it, Kill them’ as he sneezes with gay abandon.

To cap it all, on my journey from the bowels of hell all I had to read was a copy of the Daily Mail.  I scanned the pages for anything I’d be interested in – which lasted precisely two stops – and then I faced a terrible conundrum: should I gaze aimlessly around the carriage and risk making eye-contact with the oxygen starved, rush hour raging passengers or should I read an entire copy of the Daily Mail?

I took a deep breath (which proved to be a big mistake as Bird Flu Bertie had just taken the opportunity to sneeze again) and began ploughing my way through all of the articles I had turned my nose up at before.

By the time the train reached Finchley Road I’d realised that asylum seekers are to blame for everything – they probably even invented bird flu. I’d learnt that Gordon Brown is the devil incarnate. I wanted to bring back hanging and flogging and I’d become the Queen Mother’s greatest fan.

Now this last development was by far the greatest cause for concern. My entire life I have been a dyed in the wool republican.

It’s not really my fault. As a young child my dad would rock me to sleep singing Irish republican songs. No ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ for me.  I would slip into the land of nod with classics like, ‘Up the long ladder and down the short rope, to hell with King Billy and God bless the pope’ ringing in my ears.

However, on my tube journey from hell the Daily Mail were serialising the newly released official biography of the Queen Mum and – once I’d read every single sports review, advert and letter of small print – I had no choice but to dive on in.

And now I want to take this opportunity to take back all of my past digs at the Queen mum. She might have been a drunken old sot who ran up a small country’s national debt in gambling bills (footed by us) BUT I have to confess she was also something of a legend.

The article was littered with quotes from her, quotes which made me laugh out loud (not to be advised when alone on the London Underground by the way as there is the very real risk of being sectioned). Below are some of my favourites:

When writing to her niece during the second world war she signs off with: ‘ Tinkety tonk old fruit and down with the Nazis!’

In another letter on the subject of the first Labour government in 1924 she wrote: ‘I am extremely anti Labour. They are so far apart from fairies and owls and bluebells and Americans and all the things I like.’

What a genius and completely random way of putting things. If only our politicians would follow suit. Think how much more fun PMQs would be if David Cameron were to stand up and utter something like: ‘Gordon Brown, the tax increases that you are proposing are just like Angel Delight, traffic wardens, earwigs and all the other things I find perfectly beastly.’

And Gordon Brown were to reply: ‘Tinkey tonk, old fruit and down with the Tories!’