Reading the Banns

I'm not sure if they actually do "Read the Banns" - the proclamations of marriage - any more in churches given that the last time I was actually in a church was in 1991 for my sister's wedding.

Well in any event, some 21 years after that wedding, I'm having one of my own. Yes you read that right, Mrs Dracunculus is going to become the real Mrs Dracunculus in September.

You might ask, after having lived together for 18 years, why we are bothering. Well quite frankly it's for tax reasons. We're both getting to the stage where there's the odd grey scale just by your left horn, the twinge in the wing joint and thing that goes "ping" in your back that's your bodies' way of telling you that you're quite a long way from having hatched. Now as we're not currently married if either of us shuffles off this mortal coil and goes for that audition with the Choir Invisible the remaining one will be landed with a monstrous inheritance tax bill for the half of the house the other one of us owned. If you're married, everything just transfers to the surviving partner with nothing to pay.

So you can see we're doing this for the noblest of motives, keeping our cash out of George Osborne's grubby hands.

Yesterday we did the modern equivalent of reading the banns which is called "giving notice". This involves schlepping down to a registry office which is all painted institution beige and waiting the obligatory local government 10 minutes past your appointment time whilst sundry tattooed landwhales crawled through the door and went "wanna register a baby so I can get me benefits, innit" at the receptionist. Once seen we get asked a bunch of questions some of which I could see the relevance of (like "are you related" - this is Norfolk we are talking about here^*) and some I could not, like "What was your father's profession" - I mean what has that got to do with anything?

Half an hour later we're done and 70 quid poorer and in three weeks we get out chitty that says we can do that "I do" stuff.

However whilst I was waiting to see the registrar I was watching one of those little TV Screen advertising thingies which was flashing up adverts for wedding car hire, funeral services and the like. One was for, I kid you not, wedding insurance. You can insure your wedding, I assume from being jilted at the altar or something. Anyway this advert said the average wedding cost £20,000.

Ours won't, mainly because it's us plus my sister and brother in law as witnesses in Swampland reg office first thing on Saturday morning when it's 50 quid instead of 250; then back to behind the water pipes for Tattinger and nibbles.

Who said romance was dead.



^* Chatting to the registrar apparently they have had cousins asking to marry. "We had to get the books out" she said - apparently it's two blood lines of separation.

Sums all done

Well so much for getting back into blogging. My excuse has been my Open University degree course with a couple of exams that needed doing, the last of which was yesterday so that's it for a while now so I can come back in here and whitter on about nothing in particular.

Anyway can you all hear that screaming noise up and down the country? Yes? Well that's the sound of thousands of useless council employees being torn from the state's teat and thrown into the street as the crushing realisation dawns on them that the real world really doesn't need a "children's play diversity co-ordinator" or a "street furniture compliance officer", hopefully one of them is that utter twat of a "refuse officer" at a certain Norfolk borough council who unilaterally decided that I now have to traipse half a mile to the main road with my binbags as they can't get the bin truck to my door because of "health and safety" of the fucking binmen!

Well quite frankly good fucking riddance to the lot of them and all those media luvvies at the Beeb who are going to get the boot as well. Anything that basically gets government pared back to the absolute essentials only is a plus in my book and making up a load of non-jobs is no way to warehouse the surplus population. After 13 years of ZaNu Labour throwing cash at anything to shore up their vote we're bust, borassic, broke and other things meaning we have no money starting with "B". However I would be neglectful in my duties as a dragon if I did not come up with a few more draconian suggestions of my own.

Overseas Aid Budget to be cut to, oh lets say £0. If people want to help out the little brown babies then there are plenty of charities out there to give money to. I don't want to help the little brown babies and I definitely do not want to assist President Mwumumumumba of Corruptionland fund new marble lavatories for his presidential palace.

TV Licence Fee. New fee is £0. The Beeb will survive, you make all those nice costume dramas that you can sell. Why should I fund a left-leaning monolithic broadcaster. Pay your own way and stop raping my wallet of 150 quid a year you bastards.

Those banks you bailed out: Sell them. See I'm prepared to take my chances as well. I noticed that shares in Banko Di Haggis are around 50p these days so UK PLC might even turn a profit.

And finally - leave the EU. Keep the money we send to these bastards and cut VAT to 0 (want to know why Darling only cut VAT to 15% - the EU rules said it couldn't be any lower as that would disadvantage the Froggies). The VAT cut will hugely stimulate the economy, get businesses flooding in here and generating jobs (and tax revenue) plus a whole layer of administrative arseholes who collect this regressive tax are now no longer needed.

Oh and Mr and Mrs Vatman? Don't think your new job is sitting on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle. Here's a shovel and there's some sea defences that need shoring up, come on, put your backs into it.

Next Week: Fixing the incapacity benefit problem by releasing a hungry leopard into the room. Anyone who can manage to run away from the leopard does not need incapacity benefit and anyone who doesn't won't be needing any benefits any more.