Banking - A Fairytale?

Once upon a time there was a beautiful garden tended by a devoted and caring gardener.

In the middle of the garden stood a huge oak tree which had been there for as long as anyone could remember. The tall oak was the life of the garden and it attracted many red squirrels who made their homes in its leafy branches.

Each Spring the oak tree would soak up the sun and, nourished by the warm rain and rich soil in the garden, it would grow and then by the summer time produce a bountiful crop of acorns.

The squirrels fed on the acorns and, each autumn when the tree shed all its acorns as it preprared to shed its leaves
and shut down for the winter, the squirrels worked feverishly to gather up all the nuts which fell to the ground to make sure they had enough to tide them over the barren months to come.


One day a gang of fat cats got into the garden and they quickly climbed the tree to take a look round at what was going on. They saw all the squirrels working tirelessly to gather nuts and they sniggered at their antics. The cats were far too fat and lazy to work but came up with a wizard plan to ensure they could eat well throughout the year.

They called all the squirrels to a meeting and told them: "Listen, if you give us some of your nuts to look after we will put them into a magic nut machine we have and it will make them grow bigger. The magic machine will make every nut you give us grow three per cent larger."

"Goody!" shrieked the squirrels, and they agreed. What they didn't know was that there was no magic nut machine. What the fat cats did instead was to take all the nuts they had been given down to the furthest corner of the garden where there was a compost heap crawling with mice. Here they challenged the mice to games of hide and seek, using the nuts they had brought to bet on the results. Now the cats, being cats, almost always caught the mice and so they almost always came away with large winnings which they insisted were paid in freshly caught salmon and gallons of double cream.

The squirrels continued to work away every day, oblivious to what the fat cats were doing. Even if they had known, they wouldn't have been able to join in because they didn't have enough nuts left to gamble with - they had handed over all their surplus to the fat cats.

The fat cats' scheme worked so well for them that they soon amassed stockpiles of salmon and cream and still had some of the nuts given to them by the squirrels left over. That gave them another idea and so they called another meeting with the squirrells and said to them: "Listen, instead of just getting by over winter, why don't we lend you some nuts so you can eat a little better? For every nut we lend you, however, we will want a seven per cent bigger nut back."

Now the squirrels liked the idea of having a comfier Christmas and thought they would just have to work harder to come up with the bigger nuts demanded. It never occurred to them that all they would be doing would be borrowing their own nuts from the fat cats and paying for the privilege! Finally worn down by persistent pressure from the fat cats they agreed to the idea and started borrowing.

Now all the frantic exchanging of nuts and the gambling down at the compost heap attracted the attention of some rats in the neighbouring garden. They saw what a good scam the fat cats were running and wanted to join in but the gardener knew they were trouble and he determined to keep them out. He put poison down for the rats and chased them off whenever they appeared. But sadly, one dark and rainy day, the gardener died.

It was indeed tragic for the beautiful garden because, with the gardener dead, only his pets were left to look after it. Chief among these was the gardener's evil
cat, Moggie, and it was she who decided to take charge. Now Moggie was an arrogant, stupid and selfish cat who believed that the garden could look after itself. She would not listen to anyone, believing that only she could be right, and so, when the birds who lived in the garden tried to patrol it themselves and keep it safe, she chased them away.

Sure enough, soon after Moggie took over, the rats invaded the garden and she did nothing to stop them - "market garden forces!" she would bellow from the comfort of the gardener's palatial house. Once in the garden, the rats began copying the fat cats, lending nuts to the squirrels, gambling and generaly getting fat themselves on the profits. Meanwhile, Moggie spent her days looking down on the rapidly deteriorating garden, all the while smiling a self-satisfied smile and thinking that she was right and the garden could look after itself.

Eventually, Moggie grew so old and so senile that the birds and the squirrels were able to chase her away and she went to live in a bigger house down the road. Of the other pets left behind, a devious young rabbit who no-one had ever taken notice of before started jumping up and down all of a sudden and saying that he would do all that the birds and the squirrels wanted if he were to take charge, for he claimed to be one of them. He said he was on their side and so he was allowed the tend the garden - he was Blair Rabbit.


Sadly, what the birds and the squirrels didn't know was that Blair Rabbit was a liar. All he wanted was to be in charge and he didn't care two hoots about the birds and the squirrels. In fact, not only was he not one of them he was, in reality, a great admirer of Moggie and so, once at the helm, not only did he not stop the lending and the gambling he said there should be much more of it. He told the squirrels: "Why just get by over winter? Why just get by at any time? Why not have as much as you want, if not more, all the time? Borrow more nuts and then you can gorge yourself all year round!" Then he told the fat cats that not only could they play hide and seek with the mice, they could gamble on any games they wanted to.

And so the squirrels began borrowing more and more nuts from the fat cats, guzzling them all year round. "This is the life," they thought. "Why didn't we think of this before? We can have as much as we want and more, just by borrowing from the fat cats. Prudence and financial management are for the birds!!" The fat cats, meanwhile, started challenging the mice to swimming and shouting competitions, as well as to their usual games of hide and seek, and, as before, they bet on the outcomes.

Then, one day, a pack of dogs moved into the garden and they made their home down by the compost heap. They chased away all the mice and when the fat cats and the rats came calling to play they were waiting. The dogs said they would also gamble with them on the games but as they were bigger, faster and more ferocious than the fat cats and rats they would agree to pay out much, much more to them if they lost. The fat cats and the rats began drooling at the thought of how much more salmon and cream and other goodeis they could get and, even though they already had more food than they could ever eat in a lifetime, they accepted the wagers - and for the first time they bagan to lose!

The dogs were far too quick and cunning and could easily win swimming and shouting contests, let alone games of hide and seek - something which should have been obvious from the start - but still the fat cats and rats kept on betting........and losing.

They lost so much that eventually they only had enough food left to tide them through the coming winter. Admittedly, it was enough to ensure each of them enjoyed a banquet every day, but that was not enough for the fat cats and rats who were by now used to the high life so they decided to ask all the squirrels for the nuts back they had lent them. Of course, many of the squirrels had borrowed so much that they couldn't repay the fat cats and the rats. Many of them had to give the fat cats and the rats their homes in lieu of payment while others just starved to death once they had given back all they had.

Soon the garden was littered with the bodies of dead squirrels and empty dreys which no-one could afford to buy. Eventually, things became so bad that even the fat cats and the rats ate through their stockpiles and they too were faced with starvation.

Now just before all this happenend Blair Rabbit had left the garden and been put in charge of looking after all the carrots in a neighbouring farmer's fields. The fat cats passed food over the fence to him and at nights they let him sleep in their luxurious beds in return for the help he had given them.
In his place, his brother had taken over - Brown Bunny. Now Brown Bunny had a huge job ahead of him, trying to stop the rot and bring life back into the garden. The birds told him he had to stop the fat cats and rats gambling with the dogs. They told him he had to make the fat cats and the rats live more frugally and not stockpile salmon and cream. Some even told him that the starving fat cats and rats should be left to die as they had caused the famine in the first place. There were even those who said that the fat cats and rats should be punished, or at least banished from the garden.

Brown Bunny, however, like Blair Rabbit and Moggie before him, believed that the garden could not survive without fat cats. He thought that if they went, all the squirrels would die. Besides, he thought, he had to stay well in with the fat cats or else there would be no-one to feed him and offer him a bed for the night once he retired?

So Brown Bunny came up with his plan to save the garden. He decided to bring all the fat cats and rats into the gardener's house. He also ordered that the squirrels should all donate a proportion of the nuts they planned to eat each day to the fat cats so that they could be well fed. That way, he thought, the fat cats and the rats could go out and gamble in the garden and loan money to the squirrels but if anything ever went wrong again and they lost they could always come back to the house and be looked after.

And they all lived happily ever after...........well, the fat cats and the rats did!



The moral of this story is clear:


BE BLOODY CAREFUL WHEN FAT CATS GET THEIR PAWS ON YOUR FUCKING NUTS!!!

P.S. The first person to say cats don't eat nuts gets it!!