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Brussels: A Parable for Our Time
The Lords of the Plan Spatial Plans for Elvish Commissars to ratifyCore Plans for the Dwarf Lords in their gravel pits
Regional Plans for mortal man doomed to comply
One Plan for the Dark Lords who cannot stand the Brits
In the land of Brussels where the Planners lie
One Plan to rule them all and in the Ee-Yu bind them
One Plan to draw them in and to the Regions chain them
In the Land of Brussels where our freedoms die
n the days of Middle Bucks before the Ee-Yu stretched its greedy talons across the land there lay the tranquil parish of Taplow where its mighty trees grew old in the service of the Elven Lords and man lived in peace with them and knew his place in the order of things. Upon the hill known as Hobiton dwelt there wise and industrious humans who guided the simple folk to the wooded north and those of the river plains to the south with firm but gentle hands and who all lived their busy lives in innocence of the dread forces gathering to the south. Then the first whispers spread among them all that the great ones who lived in the place called Rivendell, known by men as Cliveden, were to embark upon the river Anduin, which came to be called Thames in the later ages of man, and were bound for the Grey Havens rumoured to be a city of dreaming spires and would leave Middle Bucks forever. The days of the Lords were over, it seemed, and man was left to ponder his fate and did face the gathering planning chaos already spreading its dark shadow across the peaceful lands with no help at hand.
To the north of the parish, the forest of Mirkwood was despoiled by wandering Orcs who destroyed the great houses nestling in its deeps and built their own foul nests in that part known as Dropmore and spread their strange angular dwelling even unto the outskirts of Rivendell itself. It was rumoured that great furnaces were to be built on the northern outposts of the parish and folk looked silently at each other and wondered at their purpose, feared of the answer. To the south of the parish lived the river folk, where legend had it that Toad, Mole and Ratty once lived before being driven out by the new breed called commuters. These new men, refugees from the west, who were yet bound by bonds of cruel duty to return each day to toil on the underground caverns of the place which came to be called London. In these, the last days of Middle Bucks, the rise of the great powers of Ee-Yu, once called Mordor, in the Deep South claimed dominance over all the land called Albion. A Dark lord, it was rumoured, had risen and spread his rule from the great citadel of Brussels, and moved his shabby minions across the Southern Sea to rule London through his underling Brown-the-White, whose lair lay in Blackhall, and who laboured mightily to bind all of humanity to his master’s dread will through the One-Plan – watched by the unsleeping London Eye of the Dark Lord.
Men had ordered their lives by simple plans bequeathed them by the lords of Middle Bucks and these rules were flexed as needed to meet the simple demands of the people of Taplow but, as the power of the Dark Lord waxed great, these plans were overthrown, victims to the One-Plan. The light of the west vested in Cameron-the-Grey failed to stop the evil of top-downism and the land groaned with the tread of monstrous hordes of Orc-like creatures, the Uruk-Hai, spawned from the vats and vaults of Blackhall and which form the three dread tribes of Bureaucrats, Developers and Planners, whose will and might shall not be gainsaid.
One day, it is rumoured, a hero shall emerge from Albion and take the One-Plan into the very maw of Brussels and cast it to utter ruin.
But that day is not yet…
Fred Baggins