G4S-on-Sea Security Fiasco

Anger erupted and uproar was roared this week when it was revealed that G4S-on-Sea platoon will be unable to provide the number of security guards needed to make the Olympics interesting, I mean safe. Captain Mainwaring, CEO of the lamentable platoon, and also a banker, said he was aware only nine days ago of the problems. I have obtained a transcript of that fateful meeting:

MAINWARING: "Right, gather round, men, I have a top secret mission for the platoon. We have been awarded, after an open and transparent bidding process, and rigorous contractual negotiations, the contract to provide security for the Olympic Games. Pretty impressive honour, eh?"

SERGEANT WILSON: "Do you think that's wise, Sir?"

MAINWARING: "Oh, don't be ridiculous, Wilson. That's defeatist talk".

WILSON: "I'm most awfully sorry, sir, it's just.....well.....do you think we have enough men?"

MAINWARING: (livid) "Have enough men?! We are Blighty's finest provider of security solutions for a wideranging customer base. We specialise in outsourced business processes. Of course, we'll be.....

PRIVATE GODFREY: "Excuse me, Captain Mainwaring, I'm terribly sorry but could I be excused? My sister Dolly and I polished off a delightful bottle of sherry last night and I'm afraid......(tails off)

MAINWARING: (exasperated) Oh really, Godfrey, go on if you must. Now.....

CORPORAL JONES: "Permission to speak, sir?"

MAINWARING: "What is it now?"

JONES: "When we provided security for the Sudan Olympics, the fuzzy-wuzzies...."

MAINWARING: (interrupts hurriedly) "Jones, we don't use language like that anymore, this isn't some 1970's comedy show. Didn't you attend the Diversity and Inclusivity Focus Group last week?"

PRIVATE PIKE: (sidling up to Wilson, tugging his sleeve) "Uncle Arthur....Uncle Arthur".

WILSON: "What is it now, Frank?"

PIKE: "You know Mum doesn't like me going to East London because of me chest..."

FRASER: "I tell ye, Mainwaring, it's going to be a shambles, a total shambles. G4S is DOOMED, DOOMED!"

Theme music plays:

"Who do you think you are kidding Lord Coe?
If you think the Games will be well run
We are the boys who can't provide security for your little games...."

(G4S security guards on manoeuvres)

Theresa May MP, Home Secretary, has issued a statement on the debacle:

"'The Government's over-riding priority is to use all resources necessary to deliver a safe and secure Olympic Games but concerns have arisen about the ability of G4S-on-Sea to deliver the required number of guards for all Olympics venues. I have been constantly monitoring the situation and it has only just become clear that Private Godfrey has a urinary tract infection, Private Pike is a stupid boy, Corporal Jones is 124 years old and has a tendency to panic, Walker is a thief, and Fraser is insane. In addition, it is now clear that most of them are, in fact, dead. I can confirm there remains no specific threat of excitement at the Games and the boredom threat level remains unchanged at IMMINENT".

Mrs May then went on to defend the Home Office's apparent inability to organise a piss-up in a brewery.

What is Depression?

What is Depression?


Depression is: mind-sludge, brain-filth, thistle-thoughts, thorns jagging and tearing, barbed-wire in the skull

Depression is: being home to a leprous toad, a putrescent rat, squatting in your soul, seeping foul, noxious fumes into your thoughts

Depression is: pyroclastic flows of misery, magma chambers of broiling fear, lava beds of scalding terror

Depression is: lying entombed in abyssal sediment, rusted and corroded; becalmed and beached on a grey and desolate shore

Depression is: seeking womb-warmth, foetal safety, amniotic comfort, the maternal shield

Depression is: craving monastic solitude, cloistral serenity, turning your face away, hiding under the pillow, loathing the world and its bruised beauty

Depression is: seeing the world through a steel mesh, a black gauze; seeing your life on a film screen, alienated and uninterested, fast-forward to the end.

Depression is: brutal, cosmic loneliness, alone in the Universe, cries fading, unheeded, across the inter-stellar emptiness; galactic grief

Depression is: being flayed alive, eviscerated, exposed to cruel scrutiny and malevolent laughter; nerve-ends quivering in torn, harrowed, scraped flesh

Depression is: limbs encased in concrete, body pressed by iron weights, soul mangled and crushed by geological boredom

Depression is: abject humiliation, avoiding the stranger’s gaze like a wounded animal, imposed servility, crawling abasement, shame-riven, guilt-tossed

Depression is: searching for healing herbs to strew in the chambers of the maimed brain; for aromatic balms and soothing lotions to smear on mind-wounds, soul-lesions

Depression is: the lozenged sunlight on rippling water, the blackbird’s song in the summer warmth, the bluebell’s vibrancy in the woodland glade: seeing all this, recognising all this - but feeling none of it.

Depression is: cupping your hands around the frail, flickering candle-flame of hope, sheltering it from the gusts and tempests that would blow it out and extinguish all light and all hope.