A cross-dressers’ fable

Once upon a time, there was a red king and a blue king. One day, the blue king knocked the red king down. He had such fun that he did it again and again. After a while, the red king decided he had to stop being red. So he put on some jazzy blue and pink clothes which were hand-me downs from his cousins in America, and he started knocking the blue king down over and over again instead.

This made the blue king very cross indeed. He told everyone that the red king was still red under his new blue clothes. But important red people shouted that blue was disgusting and made them feel sick, and everyone was now pink anyway and would never talk to any blue people ever again. So the blue king went out and bought himself some pink clothes. This made blue people very sad, but the blue king thought he looked so nice in his new pink outfit that he stuck out his tongue at them and said he didn’t care.

Then the person who had first had the idea of dressing the red king in his blue and pink clothes went away. So the blue king said that everyone would now see that the red king was really red after all. But the red king then put on blue clothes instead. Lots of blue people thought the red king was now blue and so he was now their king. This made the blue king so cross he rushed out after closing-time to buy blue clothes which he immediately put on, even though they didn’t quite fit because they had been bought in such a hurry. But people could still see the pink clothes underneath, just as they could see that underneath his new blue clothes the red king was still red.

So when they looked one way, they saw a red king who was trying to pretend he wasn’t red by wearing blue clothes; and when they looked the other way, they saw a blue king who was trying to pretend he wasn’t blue by wearing pink clothes but then had put blue clothes on top. And so everyone wondered which of these kings had a colour which wouldn’t run in the wash. And no-one knew the answer.