Winter of discontent

In our winter of woes, with both the globalised economy and the Arctic ice cap collapsing, it is nice to be able to identify some green shoots, like the sadly maligned Norman Lamont, even if not a full glorious summer. The then Mr (now Lord, proving one can rise above anything) Lamont's Monday was a Black enough backdrop to make any white fragment of bindweed root appear to herald a glorious harvest, but at least it gave rise to the parthenogenesis of the sainted George Soros, whose mortal remains are unlikely to be found beneath any car park and whose canonisation proves one can rise through anything, though large quantities of money definitely aid ascent.

George Soros, fingering something

There is, however, strong suspicion that the mortal remains of King Richard III may have been uncovered beneath a car park (modern equivalent of a stable?) in Leicester. One of our MPs has called for him to be given a state funeral if it is indeed he, as an arrow in the back, 'severe trauma' to the skull, and a curved spine suggest it may be. DNA testing will of course prove things in the modern way. The legitimate male line of the Plantagenets was extinguished in 1500 with the execution of Edward Earl of Warwick, but fortunately there is a 55-year old Canadian furniture-maker, Michael Ibsen, to act as a kind of modern Perkin Warbeck (executed at the same time as Warwick).



Norman Lamont as Laurence Olivier, Sunday evening

Never mind the brouhaha about whether, at her eventual demise, Lady Thatcher should be accorded such an honour, the combined reignition of the Wars of the Roses and the Plantagenet-Tudor battles will put that well in the historical shade.

Our modern Hanoverians, latter-day beneficiaries of a Revolution Glorious in so distinctively British a style (though even in Plantagenet times the rising middle class was proving troublesome), can smile serenely above these superseded historical rivalries, but there has yet to be a statement from the palace.

Those troubled that, in our straightened times, we cannot afford such carnivals can be reassured that, according to the MP, the cost of the state funeral will be offset by the expected increase in tourism.

For all those disappointed by the failure of London 2012 to generate a economic philip to their businesses, this will be the compensation, the true legacy, and for our political masters that much sought-after and elusive kickstart to the economy.