Back to the past in the future

1 April 2017, 20:49 | Updated: 1 April 2017, 20:53

A YouGov poll last month asked over 2,000 British adults what they want to see return in the wake of Brexit.

Top of the list for those that voted to leave the EU was a time machine to take the country back to how it was in the good old days before the bloomin' internet and bloomin' teenagers and bloomin' newfangled litres and grams.

Of the available options posed, what the leavers most want is a return of the death penalty.

The pollsters did not ask what they want the death penalty for, so let's assume it is for everyone they don't like the look of.

That would be a long list. We are going to have to get bigger graveyards. Perhaps we could stack the dead on top of one another, or bury them standing up.

The number two most important thing Brexiteers would like to see the return of is - and I swear I am not making this up - their old dark blue passports.

Not that they are going to use them to actually go anywhere, 'cos it’s all foreign over there and they don't make tea like you get at home.

They'll keep them in a drawer and look at them every now and then and have a British patriot-gasm right there in their front room, all over the antimacassar.

Third on the to-do list for Mrs M, now we have got our country back, is a return of good old fashioned pounds and ounces.

They want to go back to the sensible way of measuring things that were not divided up into multiples of ten.

Leavers want to return to when there were 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling and two ha'pennies and four farthings to the penny.

That way was much better than this decimal rubbish we have got today - all you had to do was be able to multiply 2 and 4 and 12 and 20 to figure out how much stuff was.

Back then there was 16 ounces to the pound and 14 pounds to the stone and 2240 pounds to the ton.

That made sense. Instead of multiplying by ten - you got to multiply by 16 and 14, so you knew instantly that when you had 17 pounds of something , that was 272 ounces.

Much more preferable than bloomin' round numbers and the ten times table.

God didn't give us 14 fingers for nothing, you know.

Those that voted to leave also want the return of corporal punishment in school. This is allied with a desire to bring back hanging. If you can't execute unruly teenagers, then old folk should be able to cane them, as a compromise.

They want to thrash the modern world right out of them.

Leavers want to say, "take THAT you young people with your hair styles and your Beatles music and your sexual shenanigans”.

And they want them to say "thank you sir, may I have another"...and they'd bloomin' well get another too, and no mistake.

They also want the old incandescent light bulbs back 'n' all - 'cos they want to see the suffering in the miscreants' eyes when they are getting their punishment.

Never mind that those bulbs are detrimental to the environment. To Hell with the environment.

They won't be around long enough to see the climate change, and the sea rise, and they're dying of smokers cough anyway, so what's a little extra pollution?

Speaking of which, leavers say: why can't they smoke in pubs like they used to?

Bloomin' moaners put a stop to that - what's a bit of cancer going to do to you? Never harmed no one.

Leavers want to go back to some imagined idyll, when everyone knew their place, when men wore hats, dinner was turnips and corned beef and the loudest thing in the house was the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

Well, that time's up granddad - try stepping into the 1960's before your time on this earth is over. You never know, you might like it.

On the plus side - if you don't like it, it'll give you something else to grumble about.