The MOBGA crowd are back. Make Our Britain Great Again. You know the gang, always harking back to times when life was, if we’re being honest, much worse, and almost physically climaxing at the thought of how well we all did in The Wars.
If you’ve been living under a rock (social isolation makes this infinitely more plausible), the BBC decided this week to air an instrumental version of patriot song ‘Rule Britannia!’ at The Last Night Of The Proms, thereby swerving lyrics such as:
“Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves”
Which, given the state of that sentiment, is maybe a good thing? They also dropped the lyrics from ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, with the (highly arrogant, look away now) verse
“The nations not so blest as thee
Must, in their turn, to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish great and free:
The dread and envy of them all”
No wonder the MOBGA mob were up in arms, decrying the move all over social media. After all, this is the lot who are so permanently vexed that they’ve forgotten that those in World Wars we fought fascism and right-wing ideologies. We were the liberals! You’re praising a bunch of (relative) lefties while screaming about snowflakes smothering your freedoms, but the brave soldiers were the very people you claim to be against!
I digress.
In a month where
- Thousands of young people’s futures were almost ruined due to a dodgy A Level algorithm
- We’re, ya know, still going through a pandemic
- The Government have essentially shoved two unlubricated, begloved fingers up to NHS workers
it took the BBC’s fair-minded decision to lure our bloated ham of a Prime Minister out of hiding, quickly don a red and white high vis to emulate an overweight England flag, rush to an industrial working class backdrop and be interviewed telling everyone that “it’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history”. We’re cringing at the present, too, pal, if that’s any comfort.
This whipped up the right further still, causing them to collectively soil themselves, jumping at the chance to treat the BBC as though they’ve introduced a rule where you have to kill a puppy before you can watch the Antiques Roadshow. We were then treated to Nigel Farage singing Rule Britannia and revealing that he doesn’t in fact, have any top teeth.
Instead of calling him a prick on here for 800 words, which I’m sure you can all imagine in your own heads, I’ve decided on a few suggestions for alternate songs we should sing on The Last Night Of The Proms. Do let me know your preferred choice. See you there!
Fat Les, ‘Vindaloo’
Still patriotic for those of you who want a hint of nationalism in your… prom? Very rousing. Excellent music video. Lily Allen’s dad sings it, and there’s football bravado to disrupt the middle classes. What more do you want? I’ll tell you what more I want: Keith Allen getting on stage and an entire crowd screaming, “We’re gonna score one more than you!” Between that and Harry Maguire getting arrested for just about everything, it’ll be like the Euros were never postponed.
‘The Wheels On The Bus’
I just love the thought of the proms crowd singing this on the Beeb. Also, start singing it now – you can’t help but start laughing. It’s so silly. Also, much like ‘Rule Britannia’ and the other one, nobody actually knows the words after the first verse.
Pulp, ‘Common People’
Bring Jarvis back to tell everyone to rent a flat above a shop. I want the roof blown off the place.
Stormzy, ‘Big For Your Boots’
This is pretty apt for all the nationalists who keep flicking through a book of British history and reading every seventh page. The people that have some sort of impression that other cultures wanted the British Empire to invade their countries and not put anything back where they found it, are the same people who’re scared when people on a dinghy land on our shores. Let’s get them telt:
“You’re getting way too big for your boots
You’re never too big for the boot”
Oasis, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’
Instead of feeling like you’re in the Royal Albert Hall, everyone should feel like it’s closing time in the only club in your hometown and you’re all gonna get in a big circle with your arms around each other and belt this out as loud as you can while the DJ is packing his stuff away. There should be a girl crying, a fight that’s just been broken up and everyone should be really, really shitfaced.
As the law states, the big lights in the Albert Hall should come on to reveal the debris just as Noel sings the last “I heard you say”. This is the law. I don’t make the rules.