Billy the Kidder

Naive econopoet, no not Milton Keynes, but Robert Owen, of Newtown nonetheless, mid-Wales - where the spireless dreamers are - famelessly built a model village, but at full-size, due to a dimensional reading error. I blame the draughtsmen. You can't trust the chessmen either.

The unfortunate inhabitants of his rom-com pipedream, were fair paid, housed, fed, watered, teached, free-healthed, nurseryed, and free-electricked. But this was 1785. These days per capita GDP is astronomically higher. Still, he was quite good at sayings.

Now, quite often, secondary industry is dependent on primary industry. And sometimes tertiary depends on it as well. But from a bit further away. Happy plankton out of sight. Zones of affluence quintessentially contiguous with zones of deprivation bla bla you failed that Geography course bla. Where wasn't I? Oh yes, at the lectures. Wel, heddiw we are going to do tertiary philanthropy, with guest the first, transnational no-collar racketeer monopolist software pirate, Billy 'the kidder' Gates. Nawtre, Billy bach, I've always hated you - on instinct mainly - but now I've done the research and discovered just how truly disgusting you really are. A very warm welcome to Llanfihangel-y-Creuddun! -

BTK:- Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a fishing rod, and you've missed a sale. Force a man to buy your fishing rod and you're onto something -

REJ:- I thought that was Sir Allan Sucrose's -

BTK:- It may bear a superficial resemblance to the original memeware. Sue me.

REJ:- Wel, we've quite a charge list. Theft, racketeering, blackmail, genocide by omission, arson -

BTK:- arson?! -

REJ:- Ooops! - diawl twpsyn! - that's Nick Clegg. When he was a disaffected youth. -

BTK:- Sorry, I've not heard of him -

REJ:- Wel, don't bother. He'll be different by the time you've looked him up. Hmmm...Beth shall we dechrau with? -

BTK:- How about my charity work? The Bill and Bill's bird Gates foundation -

REJ:- I just looked it up! It says 'All lives have equal value'. I have just wee'd myself -

BTK:- ?

REJ:- Nawrte. So far you have redistributed 60 billion dollars, from the world, to yourself. -

BTK:- Look, I don't make the rules -

REJ:- Or follow them. Still, if you can buy-pass them like Al Capone -

BTK:- That is a terrible slur! He could only buy the mayor. I do countries -

REJ:- Who do you see in this mirror? -

BTK:- The Good Samaritan. He had money. There is no such thing as society -

REJ:- Thatcher's grandchildren would seem to agree. But some countries have proved difficult to blackmail, haven't they? -

BTK:- If you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime -

REJ:- I'm thinking of Brazil, Cuba, Equador, Venezuela, -

BTK:- You could do how my charity makes me money if you like. Might be a bit subtle -

REJ:- We may have different ideas about what is subtle. For instance, if I could, today, save ten million lives, just by pressing a button, but instead made a motherofpearl xbox and ponced about in a private jet showing it to people, what would that make me? -

BTK:- er...is it a saint?...

REJ:- No Billy. It's a ffwrch of the first order. Of uni-testicular Austrian proportions -

BTK:- I'm sorry, I don't speak Welsh -

REJ:- Trust me you don't want to. You're not anti-trust are you? -

BTK:- No one's going to check legalese, Richard. You know that -

REJ:- Shall we put something in for the IT geeks? Or just say yours is shit and there's better free stuff? -

BTK:- Not if I can help it -

REJ:- Something stinks to high heaven -

BTK:- Perhaps you should change the litter tray. It is quite full -

REJ:- Yes I think I'd rather do that than talk to you. The details are open source -

BTK:- We'll see about that. A crime on every desk -

REJ:- Wish Sioned would let me have a cat.