The Most Feminist Government in History – a novella by H.P. Baxxter
Leopold Bloom slowly shuffled along Republic Street, dejected.
It was another Thursday morning. Thursday, the worst of a bad lot. Too far away into the week to look new and too far away from the weekend.
Not that he enjoyed weekends. Not since the new government had enacted The Feminist Statute.
He was woken from his reverie by the gruff voice of a local warden, with braless mammaries hanging like twin torpedoes down to her ample waist. Bras had been abolished by the new Feminist Government.
She had drawn her taser (new rules) on a terrified young man, whose mobile phone was ringing.
It was a tune he knew and loved, but which was on the Forbidden List – Cheri Cheri Lady by Modern Talking. The Feminist Commission had declared it too sexist. It had made the playing of the tune illegal, even for private consumption.
Even the words of the national anthem had had to be changed. The motherland was now the “guardianland”. The Special Feminist National Symbol Commission had complained about the implication that women must all bear children. But it had made sure all the verb endings were in the feminine form.
It was a grammatical shambles, but the Great Leader had vowed to have the most feminist government in history, and he was not one to break his promises.
The dozens of shops selling frilly lingerie and swimwear along Republic Street had all been closed down. Piccinino had gone out of business. The Museum of Archeology had commissioned Caqnu’s men to add a concrete penis to the Fat Lady, to symbolise Female Empowerment Since Prehistoric Times.
Even the bronze Independence Monument was modified, this time by the re-opened Drydocks. The pert breasts had been examined by the Feminist Commission and judged to be bra-supported. They were therefore ground down and replaced by two pig iron slugs welded onto the figure’s chest.
Wire mesh had been bolted onto the legs to represent unshaven leg hairs. Workmen – workPERSONS – had just added another strip on the figure’s upper lip.
Leopold arrived at the office, and settled down to his usual dreary routine. At nine he needed to visit the gents’, now renamed the people’s. Toilets at the office were now unisex, and the Feminist Government had passed a bill making wall urinals mandatory for both sexes.
Restrooms all over the nation were in a mess, but the evening news always showed smiling cleaning ladies – cleaning STAFF – praising the new Feminist Government and the Girl Power it had given them.
Leopold did his business, carefully avoiding the copious puddles, and looked at the mirror as he dried his hands. His beard now reached to his chest. Ladies’ shaving implements had been banned on the second day of the Feminist Government’s Legislature. But some ladies, who had been labelled unprogressive conservatives by the new government, had resorted to using their husband or boyfriend’s trusty Wilkinson or Gillette. So they were eventually banned as well.
Then there was the body odour. The government had banned the importation of toiletries bearing sexist adverts, which meant that shampoos, perfumes, lotions and the whole lot was out.
New factories had been built, with Chinese help, to produce substitute patriotic Maltese progressive bodycare products, but they stank so much you were better off using washing-up liquid. Of course that had been banned too, because all the adverts featured housewives.
Leopold sighed and wished his hand had withered before he had voted for the Most Feminist Government party.
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Hilarious. Leopold learned his lesson. Don’t vote for asshole concepts. Better still, don’t vote for assholes.
Brilliant!
Excellent story, Baxxter. Can I add my bit?
Poor Leopold. How can he take five years of this?
His only source of daily cheer lied on his way to and from work, driving round the Kappara roundabout, in the North Republic.
There, the Most Feminist Government had installed a monument consisting of a pair of gigantic tits, duly made of silicone.
This was the North’s response to the Colonna Mediterranea which had been erected in the Republic of the South several years before, under a conservative government which had deprived women of all their rights.
The Republic of the South was now ably governed by Silvio Parnis, one of the most talented members of the Great Leader’s Most Feminist Government. He had been credited with the organisation of the Feminist movement after his very successful coffee mornings at the Palace in Rahal Gdid.
The Republic of the North in the Most Feminist State was being run by Justyne Caruana, from her office in Gozo, where the Most Feminist Government was implementing a strict policy of “Xoghol f’Ghawdex ghall-Ghawdxin.”
God forbid that our wardens should be brandishing their tasers at the drop of a hat, Baxxter. What with hairy armpits and all. Never mind the tache and the few stragglers on the chin.
Rather have my tooth pulled out minus the happy juice.
Baxxter. I bow my head in awe.
This piece is Premio Strega material.
Alberto Moravia stuff.
Thank you for it.
Outside this blog it is a sheer waste of time.
Most of them out there cannot understand a thing.
Yet, they all have a vote.
It’s democracy, you know.
This is great.
Anything You Can Do – a novella by Min(imum) Weber
Frank was woken up by the Irving Berlin song which was now played every morning on New National Radio. He preferred it that way. After all, a melody was always sweeter than the repetitive monotone of conservative alarms. And now, since the New Government passed the New Laws, New National Radio was always playing “Annie”, the 1946 musical, at that hour of the morning. People had to feel the Spirit of the Times, the Zeitgeist.
He liked it also because it served to wake up his own Annie, his Newly Liberated Wife. He had to admit to himself that despite the misgivings he had at the beginning, he had now started to appreciate the Great Leap Forward that Feminism brought in its wake and had become an ardent supporter of the New Way. It was good to live in a feminist world.
Annie was still snoring. Now she could do it unashamedly. Not only snoring … but he preferred to overlook such details … after all, those were her odours … hers … the odours of his heroine … He touched her softly on the shoulder and she turned no more than two degrees toward him, merely to acknowledge his existence, certainly not to wake up.
“Honey”, whispered Frank sweetly to her ear. “It’s time for wakey-wakey. I’m going to get you your corn flakes and an orange juice, but you have to rush, sweetie pie, or you’ll be late … You know Janice won’t be too glad if you’re late again.”
Janice was Annie’s boss. Since the New Laws had been passed, the middle class had become populated by women. Which was not a bad thing in itself.
Frank got used to staying at home. Yeah, a stay-at-home husband who tends to the cooking, cleaning and the garden. It wasn’t that bad, mind you. Annie was the breadwinner and he ate that bread won with so much sweat and hard work.
He came up with the corn flakes and the orange juice, but Annie had already left the bed and gone under the shower. He heard her sing her favourite Cindy Lauper song and smiled to himself. He adored her voice. So feminine. So potent.
Then it suddenly dawned on him that HE was terribly late for his appointment at the Hormone Replacement Clinic.
It was his biweekly testosterone replacement appointment, which, since the New Feminist Laws had been passed, had become mandatory for all married men.
“Shoot, Annie!” he said, oblivious to the Irving Berlin pun engulfed in his euphemism … “I’m late for the replacement appointment … I’m sorry darling, but I can’t wait for you to come out of the shower to kiss you good day … I’m going to have a shower downstairs and then I’ll rush to the clinic … Oh my! Oh my!”
And off he sped to the Santa Venera clinic … He had no choice really: the one in Madliena had been recently closed for refurbishing, and he didn’t fancy going to the nouveau-middle-class clinic at Santa Lucia, were all the canvassers of the Minister of the New South gang up to enjoy their replacement sessions together. Gosh, what people. They can talk only about pills in sinks and old ladies.
But at Santa Venera he would meet the right crowd and enjoy it. If he might be lucky enough to meet Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando who, since the change in government, had been engaged as Consultant for Hormone Replacement in view of his Botox experience. He admired Jeffrey – such a man! His testosterone levels were so high he had to go to the clinic once every two days, not weeks. Not even Franco Debono managed to reach those summits of manlihood. Indeed it had recently been reported by The New Malta Today that owing to his oedipal complexion, Dr Debono needed to go to the clinic only once a month.
Crossing the doorstep of the Santa Venera Clinic, Frank felt satisfied. Life was beautiful under the Feminist Government, he said, despite all the scaremongering of the Nasty Party in Opposition. First person he saw upon entering was Jeffrey and he ran up him, shook his hands and jumped into a deep conversation with him about Botox and the Future of Malta.
But that’s another story …
“…the Feminist Government had passed a bill making wall urinals mandatory for both sexes.”
Well, that certainly won’t be in line with the northern European frame of mind:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/06/stop-stand-up-urination-for-men-swedish-politicians-urge.html
The Swedes, by the way, are also the people who are going cashless faster than any others. No nation on earth is as naive as the Swedes. Not even the nejxin of cindrins.
Irridu izjed Baxter … imqar sakemm tasal u tghaddi l-elezzjoni generali.
How dare you use that sexist word ‘MANdatory’? Persondatory, please.
The name Leopold Bloom clicked a bell in my ageing mind and thanks to Google everything fell into place.
“Bloom is introduced to the reader as a man of appetites:
Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”
(James Joyce, Ulysses)
I salute you, Mr. Baxxter.
Bravo Mr Baxxter. Hope this will get you a Granta. Now please write a big fat novel about how Joseph Muscat and his team will be The Most Patronising Government in History.
Ooh, that’s a big ask, because Joseph Muscat is only eight months away – at most – from becoming prime minister, and I have my day job and my life to run.
I was meaning to write a sort of Day After Tomorrow-type story. Because – make no mistake – it will really be a whole new world after he’s elected.
Make sure to include the hyenas. There will be plenty.
Great side-splitting fun!
Bravo!
Sad the story ended so abruptly; I was getting into the Brave New Girlie World.
So shouldn’t Joseph have said, in his speech to the multitudes, that his most feminist government will not resort to ‘robbing Petra to pay Paula’?
Love it. Reminded me of Adrian Mole.
More like The Two Ronnies’ “The Worm that Turned”. Still funny after more than 30 years.
“The dateline is 2012, England is in the grip of a new regime of terror…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcMd1F1acSo
“The Special Feminist National Symbol Commission”
This Commission is not that far-fetched and Labour governments are very apt to enact something like this.. I still remember the Dental Association of * because it could not use the word Malta as Mintoff decided on a whim to have the word Malta to be banned from use by NGOs and businesses from their names.
Funny that, when his supporters go on about the business success of his baby AirMalta.