I usually find the Big Issue good reading, but this week John Bird's excelled himself with a really funny piece on ranting. It's a full-page article, but one of the best bits is this (I think):
"The most memorable rant I ever had was to a woman who looked and sounded like Mrs Bucket (of 'Keeping Up Appearances')... the Mrs Bucket lookalike in a smiling flower-adorned way asked me if I wanted to buy a little charity flag from her. She held up her charity can and the flag with the accompanying pin. You could tell she assumed it was a done deal. But she had not reckoned with my declamatory mouth.
I launched into a 15-minute denunciation of the evils of capitalism, and charity and the whole social and class system that she seemed to represent. I told her that her and her type would be swept away in an avalanche of social turmoil and that her days were numbered. She waited until I stopped and then smiling sweetly said: "I presume Joe Stalin would not thus approve of a little donation?"
I bought the flag..."
"The most memorable rant I ever had was to a woman who looked and sounded like Mrs Bucket (of 'Keeping Up Appearances')... the Mrs Bucket lookalike in a smiling flower-adorned way asked me if I wanted to buy a little charity flag from her. She held up her charity can and the flag with the accompanying pin. You could tell she assumed it was a done deal. But she had not reckoned with my declamatory mouth.
I launched into a 15-minute denunciation of the evils of capitalism, and charity and the whole social and class system that she seemed to represent. I told her that her and her type would be swept away in an avalanche of social turmoil and that her days were numbered. She waited until I stopped and then smiling sweetly said: "I presume Joe Stalin would not thus approve of a little donation?"
I bought the flag..."
