REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and
improving his house and
laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and
laughs and dances and plays
the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the
cold.
THE END
THE BRITISH VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies
for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away. Come
winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference
and demands to know why the
squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less
fortunate, like the grasshopper, are
cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the
shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a
video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with
food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a
country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Labour
Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights
and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's
house. The BBC, interrupting a
cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts
a multi cultural choir
singing "We Shall Overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with
Trevor McDonald that the squirrel
has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate
tax hike on the squirrel to
make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to
enter inner London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic
Equity and Grasshopper Anti
Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The
squirrel' s taxes are reassessed. He
is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders
for the work he was doing on
his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the
grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish
it and an account with a
local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrels food is
seized and re distributed to the
more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly
imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel
has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes
over his old home and utilises
it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to
get to Britain as they had to
share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they have tried to
blow up the airport because of Britain's
apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and
attempt bombing but were
immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of
salmon whilst in custody. Initial
moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it
was feared they would face death
by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples
credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the
squirrels's food, though Spring is
still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him
because he hasn't bothered to
maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government
funding is blamed for the
grasshoppers drug 'illness'.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since
arrival in UK.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to
get money for his drugs habit. He
is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a
few weeks. He is placed in the
care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few
weeks he has killed a guinea pig in
a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state
the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid
for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking
cats are praised by the government
for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by
the government for failing to
befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press
blame it on the obvious failure
of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social
inequity and his traumatic
experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed
when the government failed to
inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the
burglaries and robberies
have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses,
their taxes are increased to
pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond
65 because of a shortfall in
government funds.
THE END
-----no claim to ownership