Your Leader Appears To Be An Ice Cream

Written while shaking uncontrollably with the fear of an imminent nuclear attack by Logan Bluetooth

Fate, like the sea, is a harsh mistress, or so I’m told on the rare occasion that someone of the fatalistic persuasion manages to somehow penetrate my network of ruthless capitalistic acquaintances. Oh, how I loathe these weak-minded merchants of dross. But Logan, everything happens for a reason. Good lord. Inevitable predetermination and an entire lack of free will surely dictates that I wouldn’t be wrestling with the tantalising options of either sodomising the fatalist with a wine glass or verbally sodomising them with the acerbic wit I’m so well known for. No, as an advocate for plutocracy, I subscribe to the Sarah Connor (of Terminator fame) school of thought – there is no fate but what we make. So if something like an army of homicidal self-aware killing machines is going to be a problem for you, go and shoot the idiot that invented them before he invents them.

Seething hatred for fatalists aside, I still harbour a firm belief in cause and effect. The Mobar Gazette was launched almost a year ago with very little fanfare and even less cocktail sausages and canapés. And while most of our writers are dotted around the globe in various exotic locales, for tax purposes our headquarters are rooted firmly in the United Kingdom. Since the gestation of this publication, however, certain events seem to have conspired against us. A crippling recession, an increasingly annoying public demand for openness and accountability, and a socialist government hell-bent on taxing the absolute suitcase out of the wealthy – the very people who made this country what it is today.

So as the stench of rising unemployment wafts through the window along with the shrill (and also unemployed) caterwauling of protesters outside our offices, and an 80p in the pound tax rate thumps its red fists against our front door, we say enough is enough. I simply cannot endure another moment of this quasi-socialist madness. Eoinín has been brainwashed by the whingeing of the population and now spends his days writing juvenile complaint letters to anyone who will listen. Peter feels that the abundance of CCTV in London is severely impacting upon his extra-curricular activities. We long to reside in a nation with perpetual sunshine, dangerously loose morals, an intoxicatingly violent competitive national sport, low or non-existent tax rates, freakish animals, rampant alcoholism, and a relaxed attitude to just about anything you can shake a didgeridoo at.

So we’re moving to Australia.

Situated just above Antarctica and a little to the left, mainland Australia is roughly the same size as France. It was discovered in 1896 by Sir Donald Bradman, a wealthy, opium-addicted British industrialist and hater of cats. Bradman had originally set sail from the motherland in search of new sources of spices, slave labour and a good location for timeshare apartments for British retirees. Instead, Bradman happened upon a large, relatively uninhabited landmass which, as far as he and his crew could see, held no attractions other than Rooland, a poorly maintained amusement park set up by the native inhabitants. Undeterred, Bradman and his crew set about slaughtering the locals and claiming the strange new land for the British Empire, recognising that one can never have too many tax havens with an abundance of sunshine and a distinct absence of morals.

And so, in the grand tradition of Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Jersey and the Republic of Ireland, a shady tax haven using tourism as a legitimate front was born. Entrepreneurs, professional sports stars, chief executives and war criminals flocked to Australia to hastily stash their ill-gotten booty in the myriad shell companies that had sprung up with the blessing of Queen Elizabeth II. It remains a perfect example of what all tax havens should aspire to be – a living, breathing, fully functional tax dodging entity that appears to be nothing more than a vapid cultural vacuum with an addiction to the precious capital of south east Asia.

We first learned of the existence of Australia last week, after being approached by representatives of President Kevin Rudd. They gave us a promotional video, and while the production costs weren’t extremely high, it had us convinced. The fact that Gordon Brown is slashing the UK’s nuclear arsenal while our close neighbours Iran are arming themselves to the teeth and threatening to blind us with enriched uranium has also had a slight influence on us, in that we’d like to be beyond the range of an inter-continental ballistic missile during business hours. So the offer of minimal tax, champagne on arrival and what is ostensibly immunity from most Australian laws really couldn’t have come at a better time.

Unfortunately for you, dear readers, a trans-hemispherical move of business premises is not without its difficulties. And as tempting as it is to leave party guru Hans Öffmeinbürger in charge of things while we’re in transit, we just couldn’t afford the various lawsuits that would invariably arise in the wake of four long weeks of articles along the lines of Dummkopfs That Hans Hates Because They Are Ugly Und Fornicate With Farm Animals, or whatever it is that he normally writes. Therefore, for the next month or so, the Mobar Gazette will be publishing excerpts from the International Drainage Commission’s 16th Annual Symposium on the effects of tidal movements on government foreign policy and industrial relations legislation. For those of you about to be thrust into autumn, mind out for the leaf tigers. We shall see the rest of you connoisseurs of low standards in about a month.