How Bristol works in six not so true facts

This column (not to be taken seriously, please) is written by Eugene Byrne

Bristol itself has no visible means of support 

Aside from café and restaurant staff, nobody of working age living in central Bristol actually ‘makes’ anything any more. When challenged, these people will talk about design and branding, social media, vlogging, SEO, event-facilitating, the arts, circus skills and public relations. Also therapies that have nothing to do with real medicine or indeed real illness. 

This non-economy is, however, relatively sustainable, being for the most part supported by student loans and Heritage Lottery Fund grants. More than 80 per cent of this subsidy remains in the local economy as these people use their money to buy one another’s services. 

Nobody in Bristol talks like that 

The last remaining pure-blood native Bristolian speaker died in Bishopsworth in 2003. Over the years she had sadly watched her tribe of true Bristolian linguists being wiped out by diseases introduced by colonists from London and the Home Counties, and by pavement cyclists. The authentic Bristolian dialect is now only preserved by the Beast T Shirt company. Middle-aged men in golf club bars will often use a bastardised version when they’re trying to humorously impersonate a real Bristolian. 

Bristol Pounds are made of Real Pounds 

Since every currency is fiduciary, that is, based on users’ trust, it has to be backed by something dependable, such as gold or the Bank of England. Bristol Pounds are, in fact, backed by actual Sterling. If they were genuinely local, they would have to be backed by something Bristolian of real and lasting worth, either artisan bread or shares in Bristol Rovers FC. 

Bristol is a major centre for Circus Skills because of the War of Spanish Succession 

An extract from ‘Capten Jehosaphat Scruttock of Bristowe, hys journal.’ (Mills & Boon, 1712):  

Ye First Mate: I say Captain, about this Spanish galleon us jolly pirates have just captured, the Santa Maria de los Habilidades Circenses … 

Ye Capten: Yarrrrr… 

YFM: About your orders – and I quote – “Avast there! Put yon scurvy tub to fire, belike, and make they Papist lubbers walk ye planke”. Isn’t that a bit rash, sir? 

YC: Yarrrrr… 

YFM: To paraphrase your colourful nautical language, I understand that she is to be destroyed, belike, on account of your disappointment that she is not laden with doubloons and pieces of eight and pearl necklaces and the like. Belike. 

YC: Yarrrrr… 

YFM: However, Jeremy (the Second Mate) and I have established she is loaded to the gunwhales (whatever they are) with juggling balls and diablo sticks. These will fetch a pretty price in the back alleys of the desperate cut-throat circus skills district of Bristol. We can establish a respectable Academy of Juggling and Tomfoolery for Young Gentlefolk, plunder their trust-funds, and go legit. What do you say? 

YC: Yarrrrr… 

Bristol will never get a tram, bus rapid transit or any other kind of new public transport system

Since the late 1970s, making plans for public transport systems that never happen has kept a number of council officials and transport consultants in lucrative employment. These jobs are now handed down from parents to children by an hereditary caste whose role is to spend two months each year attending meetings, going on fact-finding trips, and then issuing plans, press releases and artists’ impressions. (And attempting to get through the city’s traffic jams for the remaining 10 months? Ed)  

George Ferguson is not the issue

Bristol’s elected mayor has a lot of critics, many of them quite hysterical. What they fail to understand is that he is not a free agent, but is controlled the Society of Merchant Venturers, who are in turn controlled by the brain of 17th/18th-century slave trader Edward Colston, whose long-term masterplan is to annex South Gloucestershire, and from there take over the world, and ultimately everything else. 

All Bristolians are unwittingly forwarding a grand scheme for ultimate dominance of the universe. Darth Ferguson’s 20mph speed limits are a small price to pay for your great-great-great-grandchildren being governors of entire galaxies on behalf of the Empire. 

Colston’s brain is kept in a bunker beneath Merchants’ Hall in Clifton, where it sits in a vat of life-giving red onion gravy, and is attended by virgins who put a clean wig on it every year on Bonfire Night. True fact.