The Guardian reader's guide to why he's exempt from the class war

MICK Lynch has said it’s time the working class acted in their own interests. Here Guardian reader Julian Cook agrees but says class war shouldn’t apply to him.

I’m on your side, comrades

You may do mindless manual labour while I have a responsible job in arts administration, but I’ll be with you manning the barricades. Unless we’ve got a big exhibition by Titian to organise. Then I’ll be too busy to overthrow our oppressors.

We don’t want to get carried away

Class war is good, but we don’t want to start confiscating private property or taking money from merely well-off people like me. I suggest taxing the super-rich like Philip Green, giving more money to nurses and youth clubs, and maybe a nice Olympics ceremony like in 2012. I think that’s more than enough.

Working class people are a bit ‘rough’

Much as I support the class struggle, I can’t help but notice that rude people are frequently of social grades C2, D and E, like the workmen who mocked my folding bicycle. I think people like that should stay oppressed.

We should resolve conflict like sensible adults

With more rail strikes due, the government and unions should sit down round a table and discuss it like sensible grown-ups. Obviously this is totally unrealistic with a determined union leader and a vehemently anti-union government, but saying it makes me feel I’m above petty politics and on a higher intellectual plane. Like Buddha. Yes. I’m like him.

Some middle class people work bloody hard, actually

I may not be chained to a machine in a factory, but at work I’m frequently snowed under with emails and sometimes I go all morning without my cup of Java. So if a mob turns up to take over my detached house, I’ll call the police. I know they’re fascist agents of the state, but we’ve just had a top-of-the-range wood burner installed.

Some of us would be more use in an administrative role

I’ve got several certificates in office administration, so I’d be more use to the revolution doing things like ordering stationery. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid to fight in the class war, just more in spirit than with an actual gun.

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Bring some Toilet Duck: Your guide to surviving Britain's shit-filled rivers and beaches

BRITAIN’S excellent water companies have decided to fill our waterways with raw sewage. Here’s how not to get a hideous disease next time you go for an outdoor swim.

Watch out for floaters

Goggles are handy to see the wonders of aquatic life. However, with the UK’s waters full of chunks of shit, goggles are now are an absolute necessity. They’ll give you a better chance of avoiding massive turds bobbing toward you like some menacing faecal jellyfish.

Bring some Toilet-Duck

With water treatment companies treating the UK as one giant toilet, you’ll need to as well. Chucking a few bottles of bleach into the water should kill most of the germs, leaving you to splash about in bits of used bog paper. It’s gross, but disinfected, like chlorinated chicken. But a billion trillion times worse.

Know your area

If you don’t know where your sewage is processed, for the love of Christ find out. You don’t want to be rubbing shoulders with your own turds – although to be honest it’ll be hard to identify a glob of that jalfrezi from last night. Far worse is the thought of swimming in an entire town’s-worth of poo, which is quite a good incentive to take up jogging instead.

Bring toilet paper

Ever marvel at how quickly you manage to get through toilet paper at home? After a dip in effluent, you’ll need to wipe shit off your entire body and not just your anus. So bring numerous rolls of the stuff in case you run out. Nothing screams ‘fun-filled day at the beach’ like returning home with a binbag of soiled toilet paper to flush down your own toilet.

Every cloud

With our ecological safe havens and places of leisure befouled by excrement, make the most of the opportunity. Got ‘one in the bomb bay’ while out for a dip? Simply lower your trunks and let fly. After all, what’s one more turd bobbing about in the Channel?

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