[JohnW]

Most of the Rest of The World 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 the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm & 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 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 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 to live in a country of such wealth where the grasshopper is allowed to suffer while others have plenty. The labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and the grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrels' house.

The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We shall overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor MacDonald 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 costs 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 Summer. The squirrels' taxes are reassessed. he is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing to his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court that 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 so that he can be socially mobile. The squirrels food is seized and redistributed 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 retrospective 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 tried to blow up the airport as they discovered Britains' apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon while in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were then abandoned because it was feared they could face death by mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, even though Spring is still months away while the council house he is in crumbles around him as he hasn't bothered to maintain it. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug illness.

The cats seek recompense from the British courts for their treatment since arriving in the 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 a 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 mil and state the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation centre 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 he government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drugs 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 the minister responsible.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them that there were mice in the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, dogs and victims of the hijacking, bombing, 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