Marbles, Elgin, for the use of

It seems that the Elgin Marbles (won fair and square in a contest between Our Bert and the owner of Theodoraki’s Taxis in 1803) are now to be the new Irish Backstop line in the sand when it comes to the negotiation of a EU/UK trade deal.

Yes, this is the story of the week: EU chiefs have demanded that Britain must return the Elgin Marbles to Greece if they want a trade deal. Athens has lobbied and won a new demand in Michel Barnier’s mandate for the “return of unlawfully removed cultural objects to their countries of origin”.

Greece does of course have a perfectly good case. It’s just that the official phrase fonctionnaire – “return of unlawfully removed cultural objects to their countries of origin” – could not fail to catch The Slog’s Eagle Eye.

You see, on that basis of eccentric inclusivity in compiling the definition of “trade”, I want to address the odd query here and there:

• Could we also please take the Nazi rape of French, Italian, Greek and Polish artworks and gold, during the unfortunate unpleasantness of the 1940s, into account?
• We should also like to appoint an independent auditor (something the Brussels Southside Gang have been unable to attract for 60 years) to assess how much the BundesRepublik owes Britain for the destruction of some eight million UK homes during the years 1940-42.
• Male trousers having been invented by the Englishman Beau Brummel during the 1830s – and then culturally appropriated without any fees paid by the sans culottes from Pisa to Paris  – HMG would love to hear from the Boy King in the Elysées Palace on the subject of what level of payment might now be forthcoming.
• There remains the vexed question of the pernicious and unlawful insertion of an arrow in the stereoptical visual equipment of King Harold of England in 1066 during the entirely unprovoked invasion of Sovereign England by the mercenary forces of Guillaume the Conker….a pretender who could not even land on the beach at Hastings without falling flat on his Norman face. We want the arrow back. And if you don’t give it to us, we shall kidnap the Bayeaux tapestry.

What next, we ask ourselves, stifling a yawn.

How about all unlawfully and culturally appropriated words like le weekend, cycling, football, fairplay, brainstorming, burn-out, email, marketing, jogging, camping, networking, smartphone and even ‘bougared’ – buggered? I don’t remember any French officials making an application before legging it with those precious artifacts….any more than we asked about kaput, san fairy-anne, savoir-faire or ciao. Still, I suppose old Monnet would’ve put all that down to Ever Closer Union. I always thought his water lilies were crap anyway.

Oh dear. These people are desperate, aren’t they? “We can’t do it in a year, we can’t start until March, you must obey orders at all times, we want all your fish and unless you give our good friends poor little Greece their statues back and…..and….and….we’ll get back to you on the next one…..”.

Bless. Still, as I say, it’s up to us to help ickle Michel really you know – because this is all our fault anyway and we are the 48% and obviously they have the upper hand really.

Excuse my laying on the sarcasm with a trowel there, but the clodhopping nature of the Remoanoid cortexial arrangement needs lots of dots with arrows before their thinky-thinky can get going. The comments they come up with on social media are not so much the gift that keeps on giving as an infinite Santa’s Grotto of fantasy and illogic. At the same time, the generosity of MPs when it comes to our money is several stops up the line from Philanthropy South:

Just what Barnier the Blagger wants to hear, what? I say, “Good show there Johnny Molotov”.

Anyway, we must give any and all assistance to Monsieur Barmiest when it comes to stitching us up; I mean, why should the Labour Party have all the fun? And clearly, he needs help. As indeed do those who sympathise with him on Twitter. This is David Schneider on the end of free movement:

It would take most of the day to deconstruct this one, so I won’t bother: let it ramble for itself as an example of zero thought, nil content, no evidence fear mongering, hilarious throughout for its assumption that the job of immigrants is to do all the menial jobs that whitey don’t wanna do, yessumbozz.

I’ve left the best advice to the last, because it is the only thing that is likely in even the smallest degree put some marbles back into Michel’s brain, and stop the Barnum Circus from extracting the weewee.

Predictably, it comes from the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:

AEP is right, because this is the only move that will force the Belgian chocolate soldiers to face some heat from their own side’s people with production lines in Stuttgart and Bavaria. Time for some Vorsprung, vielleicht?

It will also end the Commission’s myth of invincibility. And it will focus all British minds on the real task ahead.

Now then all you EU Norsemen, about those goblets and virginities you removed without permission from St Bedes of Sunderland in 746…..