Here are a couple of my faves:
and just to show that I'm not bias here's a pro trump meme:
There were a lot of serious make-you-think kind of one's that were good too, but this blog is not a serious make-you-think kind of blog. Although I did have some seriously depressing thoughts yesterday (more with Brexit though than this) I tend to wash over that with silly jokes. This attitude used to get me in trouble a lot, because there are times where you shouldn't make jokes, but instead of confronting these issues, I just surrounded myself with comedians who make money out of this particular character default.
So this was my tweet yesterday:
And actually I got a load of people offering to lend me books on having a new baby and moving house, even though I just kind of said it for a joke. But funnily enough no one offered me a book on world apocalypse. And that's when I had my epiphany: there is a gap in the market for books that explain complex political issues to todllers.
I'm quite good at explaining stuff to my 2 year old, like yesterday when filling the car with petrol and he said "what you doing?" I said "I'm giving the car some special car juice" and he got that. If only I was also an expert on political matters this would be perfect. But I thought I'll give it a go.
So here are some potential chapter titles for my new book:
world wars for whippersnappers
middle east for minors
Ireland for infants
Brexit for babies
trump for toddlers
So here's a bit of work in progress from the chapter Brexit for babies. There's stuff I need to work out, like I kind of used U.N. when I mean E.U. but I can't think of such a good metaphor for the E.U.
Once upon a time there was a street called Europe street, where lots of families lived. After school the children would all play out. One of the families was called the Britain family. The big sisters were twin girls England and Wales (England was born 10 minutes before Wales and was the bossy one). Then they had a little brother, Scotland who often disagreed with England, and the baby brother Northern Ireland, who sometimes felt closer to step-sister Ireland than the other siblings.
A very long time ago The Britain family had a big fight with the German family. Germany started it and they were very nasty, but lots of families on the street got caught up in it. That was a sad time for everyone and after that Uncles and Nans (the UN) got together to make sure this kind of silly squabbling didn't happen again. To be fair, the German family were very sorry and now they try and do nice things to make up for it, like clean the street and look after the kids who other people sometimes don't want to play with.
So, some ground rules were set for the children on the street, like play nicely and don't ride you bikes on other people's drives unless they say you can. But over time more and more families wanted to join in with the after-school street-games and more people wanted to be in the group that decides things about the street games. Because of this some of the rules got a bit more complicated and a bit more petty. Like "no ball games" was sort of a sensible if a bit dull rule, but the Britain children had a problem with it.
"My mum and dad both say it's fine for us to play ball games on our own drive," they said to the Uncles and Nans. But the Uncles and Nans said "the street rules are no ball games whatsoever."
"But that's silly! It's our drive we can do what we like on our drive, as long as mum and dad say so," Britain whinged.
"We don't like your silly rules," England said provocatively. "We don't have to be part of your silly street rules."
"You're right, you don't," said one uncle. "But if you're not part of the street rules you won't get to be part of all the lovely things we do, like ice cream van Friday."
"Hmmm."
England didn't like to admit it, but she did secretly love ice cream van Friday, where everyone gave a bit of their pocket money to the uncles and Nans, and they made sure every kid got a 99 with a flake.
England's mum and dad had quite good jobs, so the Britain kids got quite good pocket money and they got £1 per tooth from the tooth fairy, whereas some kids on the street only got 10p per tooth. England suspected the Uncles and Nans were taking less ice cream money off the poorer kids and they were a bit angry about this.
"I don't know how much a 99 with a flake costs, but I suspect we could afford a double 99 with 2 flakes for what we give the Uncles and Nans."
So the Britain children got together to chat about what they should do. The twins, England and Wales, said "Lets ignore the stupid Uncles and Nans, we should just do our own thing."
The little brother and the baby brother disagreed.
"But we love our friends and we love ice cream van Friday. I know its a bit annoying not to play ball games but there are lots of other games we could play." The big sisters didn't listen to the little brothers, they were the oldest and the loudest.
"We're not part of the street club anymore," they shouted down the street.
There was a stunned silence.
After a long pause The Uncles and Nans said "Alright if that's what you really want just leave. But no more joining in with street games, no more swapping football stickers with any of the other children and no more ice cream van Fridays."
England had a moment of doubt... It would be kind of embarrassing to change our mind now. Scotland was sad, they'd had their ups and downs with bossy old England but deep down they still wanted to be Brother and Sister, but they also wanted to be part of all the street fun. It seemed like they had to pick a side, which was all a bit unfair.
No one wants to be eating a double 99 with a double flake on a sunny Friday, with kids that refuse to play with you. That sort of takes away the fun.
