Sunday 12 May 2013

Monday, 14th November, 1836

With a little over six weeks remaining of the voyage, people are beginning to get a sniff of the new settlement and what will happen when we arrive.

Endless meetings with Gilles (or, as I prefer to call him, "Mr Moneybags") Fisher, the half man, half rabbit and Scoop Stevenson, ace newshound.

They keep telling me that, despite what I was lead to believe at the job interview, as Governor I do not have limitless power within the colony and must share decisions with Fisher, in his role as Colonial Resident Commissioner. I said that I would happily share half the power, if Fisher agreed to share half of the arguments with Mrs Hindmarsh every time she interferes, but he seemed to think that this was not within his purlieu.

Scoop Stevenson has let it be known to all and sundry that the Proclamation of the New Colony is soon to be written and suggestions will be welcomed.

Welcomed, bollocks! As welcome as a fart in a bottle.

 Apart from the obvious: "Why can't we all just get along?"  the trite: "With great power comes great responsibility." and the platitudinous: "A smile is a curve that connects us all", there have been several stand outs in the ranks of the half witted.

My daughter Mary handed me a sheet of paper that seemed to be mostly about making the new colony a place where horsies and ponies can run wild and free and a girl can hold hands with a boy when ever she wants, without the girl's father getting all cross. I discarded it without much regret.

Mrs Gorton, mother-in-law, God help him, of Scoop Stevenson - is most interested in the welfare of the natives and has come up with a draft of a poem to be read as a part of the proclamation. It seems to depend upon the conceit that ebony and ivory keys can live side by side in perfect harmony on her pianoforte keyboard and "Oh Lord, why can't we?"

I have to say that I have heard with my own ears Mrs Gorton's idea of "perfect harmony" on the pianoforte keyboard and if that is what we are using as a basis for our  relationship with the natives, then they haven't a prayer.

Charlie Howard outdid himself with a dissertation on Judges 18:7 Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in any thing; and they were far from the Zidonians, and had no business with any man. in the process going through the history of the tribe of Dan and their settling in Mount Ephraim.

The thing was 48 pages long. 48 pages! I suppose the advantage of only working Sundays is that you get the other six days to sit in your cabin and scribble. Even so, 48 pages! The man must be a writing machine. Of course he has the advantage of working for quantity rather than quality and not having to write sense.

One young man, Thomas Oakley, announced to me that "I needed to connect with the young ones, because they are our future." It would seem that these young ones don't want to hear all that old fashioned talk. They want to be free. They want to do what they want to do! (he said) As a result he has given me a copy of a proclamation that is, he says written in the language of the youth of today.

I append it here as an example of the God be buggered, damned, arse ridden stupidity that I have to put up with every single day of the week from the complaining, self satisfied nincompoops and oafs that make up the best and brightest of this new colony, may they all rot and leave me in peace!


Draft Proclamation by Thomas Oakley


How dost do my nibs and noddies, rum dutchesses and judies?

We've heaved our peters, pogues and rogers on Andrew Miller's lugger here to the new terra firma and now what'll it be? 


Will it be nuts for us? Or will it be dick in the green?


My coves, we can twig it plummy and be down as a hammer if we are flash to every move of Old Nick's policies and give each other a rank pull.


No clanker, no gammon, no randle. I'm smoking you, so hang it on swell nobs.

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