Staggering Hubris E-Book

Josh Berry

• Herausgeber: Lightning Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 475

Beschreibung

The memoir of Boris Johnson's most classic spad: The 'Rona Years, Vol. 1'A pitch-perfect send-up' Evening StandardUnless you're a woman on Tinder between the ages of 19 and 30 in the Clapham area, or a high-end cocaine dealer operating in South West London, you probably won't have heard of Rafe Hubris, BA (Oxon).Despite that, he's a crucial figure in the life of our nation. As Boris Johnson's most classic special adviser (spad) at Number 10, he helped the UK government skilfully and efficiently control the Covid crisis, containing it for good by the end of 2020.In the first of what will doubtless be many memoirs as Rafe travels his own inevitable journey to the premiership, this fly-on-the-wall account documents his Year of 'Rona in its entirety (and iniquity).Even non-Oxbridge readers (for whom the author has taken care to keep his language as accessible as possible) will come away from this volume struck by how lucky we are to have him. Floreat Etona!**Note for non-Oxbridge readers: this means 'May Eton flourish' in Latin.****Latin is the language of Ancient Rome and its empire.

Leseprobe

RAFE HUBRIS, BA (Oxon) is an advisor to the Conservative Party and thinks his career couldn’t have gone better. Rafe was educated at Oxford University and is incapable of writing three sentences without mentioning it. Rafe spends most of his time not working so as not to get embroiled in something that will lead to more work. Rafe has no regrets. 

JOSH BERRY is a comedian and writer and thinks his career really ought to have gone better. Josh was educated at Oxford University but only acknowledges it while looking apologetically at the floor if someone asks him three times. Josh spends most of his time working on being funny so he can have more opportunities to be funny which will allow him to continue working on being funny. Josh often regrets things even before he has done them.

Published in 2021

by Lightning Books Ltd

Imprint of Eye Books Ltd

29A Barrow Street

Much Wenlock

Shropshire

TF13 6EN

www.lightning-books.com

Copyright © Josh Berry 2021

Cover design by Ifan Bates

Cover picture by Blake Max

Typeset in Bembo and Arial

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

ISBN: 9781785633072

Before we embark on the tier-one chat, it’s important that I put in place some language to stop me from getting sued.

Though the following memoir may well provide a frighteningly plausible explanation of a lot of what went on in 2020, it is to be understood as a comical rendering, rather than a factual retelling. It is parody, not history.

None of what is said in the following pages amounts to an actual claim about someone’s character or something that actually happened in government in 2020.

If it transpires that some of my comical imaginings happen to be true, that is purely coincidental.

JB

Contents

PROLOGUE

JANUARY 2020

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

How are we? I do hope this finds you feeling positive but testing negative.

My name is RAFE HUBRIS, BA (Oxon) (I have a degree from Oxford University). Unless you’re a woman on Tinder between the ages of nineteen and thirty swiping in the Clapham area, one of my 500+ connections on LinkedIn (which I like to think of as professional Tinder) or a high-end cocaine dealer operating in South West London, you won’t have heard of me. Despite this, I am one of the most significant special advisors (spads) to the UK government working today and have been at the coalface(metaphorically speaking) throughout this coronavirus pandemic.

This, the first of what will be many memoirs as I inevitably ascend to the status of prime minister, documents my 2020 in its entirety (and iniquity). The memoir also offers an account of the pivotal role I played in the government’s coronavirus response from when the virus first came to the UK, around mid to late March, to when the UK government skilfully and efficiently controlled and contained it for good by the close of décembre. This memoir really ought to be thought of as the first instalment of what will be many subsequent triumphs. The year 2020 for me is what Wimbledon 2003 was for Roger Federer: the beginning of a legacy.

As I imagine the educators of the future will use this as a cornerstone of the history syllabus, I’ve made a conscious effort to keep the language accessible. Where I fear my writing may be slightly too Oxbridge, I have endeavoured to clarify what I mean in language that is more comprehensible (easy to understand).

Before we begin, I must thank my alma mater: Exeter College, Oxford, and the small comprehensive just outside Slough where I received my secondary education, which some of you may know as Eton College. It’s thanks to both these institutions that the majority of our political operatives act with such a robust and unwavering self-confidence as well as the sort of mind that just makes one better than everyone else. We all owe these institutions the ultimate debt, as without them we simply would not be able to find people clever enough to lead.

Enjoy.

I write vary, vary wall.

Floreat Etona!

Dominus Illuminatio Mea.

Classically,

Rafe Hubris, BA (Oxon)

31 December 2020

(Add me on LinkedIn)

JANUARY 2020

Wednesday 1 January

I wake up feeling more fucked than all of Boris’s marriages.

The Spad New Year’s Party last night, which I have already termed ‘Chango Unchained’ on our WhatsApp chat, was a masterclass in intoxication and debauchery. Everyone got stuck in, even Poppy, who can sometimes be a bit of a wetty. We skied across tables and drank till we were no longer able; I must have got through at least a whole bottle of Perrier-Jouët from the helmet of Lettie’s family’s suit of armour before we all piled into an enormous game of conjugation imbibition. For the uninitiated, conjugation imbibition is a drinking game where participants pick a Latin verb at random out of a hat and have to conjugate it within thirty seconds or face a punitive shot of port. It’s my favourite of all the drinking games because in addition to infallibly ensuring that everyone gets absolutely binned, it also allows you to weed out and evict state school alumni who have sneakily infiltrated your social group but cannot conceal their lack of Latin.

In all my twenty-four classic years on this Earth I’ve never seen a group of people so collectively hammered. And who could blame us? 2019 was a year to celebrate!

We overcame Corbyn and his Bolshevik revolution and successfully duped the northerners into thinking we care about them (lol) to win an enormous election victory; Brexit is in the oven/defrosting/ready to be put in the microwave at some point and we have Boris at the helm.

Sadly, no Boris last night. He’s off with some woman in the Caribbean; the man is incorrigible! But on a serious note, I can think of no one better to lead us into 2020. 2019 was excellent, but I get this feeling in my gut that 2020 will be even better and that I will inevitably play a pretty significant role (hence my decision to start this diary, which I imagine will act as a sort of political highlight reel, like the ones Sky Sports do but for the corridors of power).

I open my WhatsApp chat campaign for 2020 with the pithiest of zingers: ‘I’m hanging more than the Sword of Damocles.’ Sharp wit with an intellectual foundation in ancient Rome, I start the year as I intend to go on: vary wall.

Thursday 2 January

First day in work today.

There’s a new spad in the office, Hugo, an old Harrovian (the Lidl of private schools) and alumnus of Regent’s Park College (though part of Oxford, it’s not technically speaking a proper college, it’s merely a permanent private hall and therefore inferior; I was at Exeter College, which is consistently voted one of the best at Oxford). I would be surprised if he doesn’t snap like a KitKat within the first fortnight.

Dominic Cummings (we all call him Big Daddy Cum Cum) welcomes all the spads back to work with a speech he makes in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He delivers the speech standing on top of a desk.

He keeps saying: ‘We’re turning up the flames under the cauldron to weed out the intellectual homunculi, guys.’

And: ‘Operation recruit the worker bees has been activated.’

When he’s finished, Big Daddy Cum Cum exits, leaving a completed Rubik’s Cube with a note underneath saying, ‘Conventional wisdom is for cunts (Dominic Cummings 2nd January 2020)’ in his wake.

Matt Hancock, at the behest of no one, then gets up to say a few words.

Hancock has the natural authority of a man who’s just been left by his girlfriend for his brother on the way into an end-of-year presentation he’s written on the back of a cigarette packet, having forgotten to do any work for it. Practically no one is listening to anything he’s saying, and he just gently tails off to a heavy, cement-like silence.

We all get a group email in the evening telling us to read Big Daddy Cum Cum’s blog from ‘[email protected]’ (the alias Dom uses to make us question conventional notions of offence). Like all things I get told are important reading, I skim the blog and see something about the importance of ‘misfits and weirdos’ and ‘people from William Gibson novels’ in government and no more ‘public school bluffers’. I don’t recall reading any William Gibson novels at Eton, but I’m sure I could spin something off the cuff to make it look like I had if I needed to.

I welcome Hugo to the spad WhatsApp chat before bed, telling everyone to ‘be nice to Hugo, because Big Daddy Cum Cum has said it’s out with public school bluffers, so he probably won’t be around for very long’. Classic Rafe ‘Big Dog’ Hubris chat, you love to see it.

Friday 3 January

I’m sat on Boris’s table at lunch.

He is genuinely an absolute riot.

He regales us with his cherry pie story, which I must have heard at least half a dozen times but somehow it gets funnier with every telling…the timing…the Thai accent he does…it’s the platonic ideal of an anecdote.

Everyone starts drifting back to work leaving just me and Boris together. I still get a little nervous around him – he’s so funny and charismatic and popular with women, I don’t want to say anything that makes him think I’m not classic.

He sits trying to flick peas into the bras of female spads on nearby tables and I float the idea of trying to do something to mark getting Brexit done… I suggest a ‘Bong for Brexit’ on Big Ben.

This sets Boris off on a journey of plosive alliteration culminating in the words ‘Bollocks’, ‘Boris’ and ‘Burst’ and him humping the side of the table. I’m genuinely crying with laughter.

It’s 3.23pm and everyone else, other than the staff, has gone. My Tinder flashes up as Boris polishes off his third Eton Mess. He effortlessly negotiates my phone out of my hand and before I know it is flicking through ‘Tilly, 23’ from Clapham’s photos.

‘Christ, those jugs… I’d dip my balls in a bath of acid just to be in the same room as them,’ he comments, a droplet of drool falling from his open mouth onto the table.

Within five minutes he’s arranged a date for me at Bluebird tomorrow night. He is a wizard.

‘Bluebird to help mend your blue balls,’ he chuckles.

‘Right, I make that 3.30, weekend time. Good luck tomorrow, old boy, get Sexit done.’

What an absolute top chap.

Saturday 4 January

Tilly arrives at Bluebird in a top the neckline of which has what I would call ‘a strong gravitational pull’. I pray that my Milky Way ends up in her black hole. We get chatting, the Whispering Angel is flowing, I’m being my usual self-deprecating self and subtly slip into conversation that my flat is only a very short Addison Lee ride away in Clapham, just in case there’s some sort of emergency and we desperately need to find a bedroom or something…a classic Hubris line.

The date is going wall, vary wall in fact.

I decide to take things to the next level when she comes back from the loo, and flick one of the peas from the plate of food in front of me into her bra. I launch the pea with the composure of Tiger Woods on the eighteenth of Augusta; it arcs elegantly through the air and settles definitively between her ample cleavage.

For some reason, Tilly does not join me in whooping to celebrate my short game; instead she looks at me with a mixture of disgust and confusion, as if I’ve been completely inappropriate.

I offer to fish out the pea but she tells me she doesn’t think ‘we’re on the same page’ and leaves!

The gall.

Women are genuinely a fucking enigma. They want affection and yet you give it to them and suddenly it’s ‘inappropriate’.

I’m also forced to cover the entire bill with my money. My own money. The money that belongs to me! I always split the bill on dates because I firmly believe in twenty-first-century feminism (where it can save me money) so she has literally stolen from me! I split the bill unless the girl is an absolute smoke show like Lily James or Susanna Reid who I would literally take out a high-interest rate loan and sell one of my kidneys to date.

As I’m paying seventy-three pounds fucking eighty, I clock Lettie and Poppy drinking at the far end of Bluebird. I can’t bear to talk to them and acknowledge this grotesque failure.

I leave quietly before they manage to catch sight of me.

Sunday 5 January

I get a tasty email from Big Daddy Cum Cum in the evening. The email is simply a link to an unlisted YouTube video of him in a parka saying something I can’t make sense of over some whiny guitar (presumably some sort of nod to Oasis??). On my third watch I realise the Big Daddy is using Pig Latin to convey a hidden message. Using all the power of my superior Oxbridge brain it takes me two minutes to decipher the message:

The first ten spads who email me with the words ‘Conventional wisdom is for cunts’ will be promoted.

I fall on my laptop, almost breaking the keyboard in my zeal to send the email, which receives a reply from [email protected] within seconds.

Spad,

You have successfully deciphered my hidden message designed to make you think more deeply about language and unplug yourself from the Matrix.

You are now promoted from drone bee to the much more prestigious worker bee and will be working as an interviewer for the innovative spads of tomorrow.

You will receive your iPad and Rubik’s Cube on arrival at Number 10.

Conventional wisdom is for cunts.

Classic Dom, Classic Dom,

Osama Bin Laden

This is hugely exciting news.

I change my Tinder bio to read: ‘Very high up in government, but still willing to let you go down on me.’

No matches tonight.

Monday 6 January

I stroll into Number 10 with the swagger of the stockbroker and supposed felon Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wall Street (the greatest film of all time). My hair is perfect, I’m wearing a light-pink shirt with a light-blue tie (school colours, classic) and I’m holding a Pret coffee in my right hand. I absolutely fucking love Pret, it’s one of the things that makes me incredibly proud to be British. I genuinely don’t know what I’d do if that shop went under. I don’t think any of us do…

Other things which stoke my British pride are: the King’s Road, Embargo’s, cocaine, the institution of the Royal Family, the rugby, Henley Regatta, Wimbledon, the Royal Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Barbour, Jaguar, Evian, Hugo Boss and of course Eton College and Oxford University (where I went).

I reach my desk in Number 10 and see, as promised, the Rubik’s Cube and iPad with ‘Worker Bee, Hubris, R’ written on them in Post-it notes.

I scan the office to see who else has received one. Only Poppy in my immediate vicinity. She can sometimes be a wetty but she’s vary good, Poppy; she’s a vary good girl.

She mentions she thought she saw me on Friday in Bluebird. I reply that I was in fact on a successful date with a worldie elsewhere, though it’s understandable to think she saw me in Bluebird – there are lots of tall, square-jawed, conventionally good-looking men in Chelsea on a Friday night. I don’t mean this in a gay way – I’ve never even had a gay thought! I also actually scored zero on the Kinsey scale, which is the most heterosexual you can be.

The iPad, the six-digit passcode of which I correctly guess to be 032113 – ‘cum’ in a basic alphabet/number substitution cipher – has a grid of names and phone numbers along with possible questions:

What could a robot from Mars teach us about the future?

Can you build a bridge to the moon using the contents of a spark plug? If yes, why?

Is it genius because Dominic Cummings does it? Or does Dominic Cummings do it because it’s genius?

The iPad doesn’t specify where these interviews have to take place so I conduct them in Pret. Classic Rafe.

I manage to cleverly get the candidates to keep buying me coffees implying it might mean they’re more likely to get the job if they do.

The first candidate is a misfit but not an intellect and completely freezes when I ask him to explain to me how he knows he is truly in Pret and not just a brain in a vat being tricked into thinking it’s in Pret. He lasts about seven minutes before I thank him for his time and tell him ‘We’ll be in touch.’ We won’t (lol).

The second candidate, by contrast, is brilliant.

He catches the orange I throw at him on entry.

He aces the ‘Is it genius because Dominic Cummings does it? Or does Dominic Cummings do it because it’s genius?’ question by correctly saying ‘Both’.

He also nails the ‘defence of something intuitively morally objectionable’ section, making a surprisingly detailed, very statistically supported defence of eugenics. He must be an Oxford grad…I hire him on the spot.

Wednesday 8 January

The things worth having in this life are usually inherited (like money and land) or received (like pronunciation). Very occasionally, though, one must go out and claim them, like we did with Africa in the nineteenth century (Rafe Hubris, 2020). In this vein I decide to take mine and Boris’s Brexit Bong chat to the next level and reach out to touch base about it via email:

Boris,

Flicking peas into Lettie’s bra and making the girls go yah, no doubt. How are we?

I think we should jump on the back of this Brexit Bong stuff and ride it like a bull. It’s sure to be a great Johnson legacy move, a huge one in fact, almost as big as the girl from Tinder’s tits (no joy on Friday by the way, her chat was incredibly weak, so I sacked her off).

Let’s lock in a time to chat about this; let me know when works for you.

Incorrigibly,

Rafe

Shortly after I press ‘send’, a blood-curdling screech pierces the air. It’s Bully Patel on one of her trips from the Home Office. These trips are invariably bad news as they mean she’s run out of people to butcher at 10 Marsham Street and is looking for prey in Downing Street.

I swiftly post on the WhatsApp: ‘Popcorn-worthy spad butchery from Bully Patel in Number 10. T minus now.’

‘You lazy cunt!’ she screams at Hugo with an artistic savagery. ‘Rewrite the whole fucking thing…now.’

She then throws to the floor the lever-arch file she’s apparently prised from him and turns on her heel.

The most bizarre part of all of this is that Hugo doesn’t even work for Bully Patel. She knows that; she just loves to fuck people up.

A silence falls in the office only for Lee Cain, Big Daddy Cum Cum’s number two, to emerge…he walks over to the lever-arch file Bully Patel has savaged with a terrifying calmness and then proceeds to stamp on the file with both feet repeatedly, all while pointing with two fingers to his own eyes and then back at Hugo. Poor chap, I did say this wasn’t the place for a Harrovian…

Thursday 9 January

Nothing back from Boris. Every time I chase I get the same reply:

I am currently on leave and won’t be replying to emails.

For urgent correspondence please contact [email protected].

Yours,

Boris Johnson

After lunch, though, Boris does get back to me.

Rafe,

I’m all over this like Jennifer Arcuri. Canteen. Tomorrow.

Incorrigibly,

BJ

I have to clench my conventionally attractive jaw extra hard to stop my mouth opening and letting out a giddy yelp of joy at Boris using my email sign-off back to me. I can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

Friday 10 January

Big Daddy Cum Cum has gone rogue and has started incessantly sending emails from his [email protected] account, each one more bizarre than the last.

I receive one as I’m getting off the tube at Westminster with a picture of his face and the words:

Big Daddy Cum Cum is watching you

and underneath that:

DEAD CATS ARE ALIVE CATS

THE FUTURE IS THE PRESENT

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM IS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM (WHICH IS FOR CUNTS).

The rumour on the spad Whatsapp chat is that he’s banned all references to the ‘pre-Cummings era’ in politics and has started giving spads pop quizzes on his ‘essential reading’. All spads are presented with a large folder of Cummings’ key works (known colloquially as ‘the Cum folder’) on arrival in government so that they may enter the same ‘cognitive universe’ as him. There are many accounts from spads who’ve had to endure the Big Daddy’s testing, but the problem with these is that they often cancel each other out.

For example, Felix claims to have been ambushed by the Big Daddy in the Department of Health at 10am on Wednesday, but this was also supposedly when he was grilling Elizabeth on the essays of Warren Buffett in the Home Office. I briefly wonder whether he might be hiring a series of aggressive badly dressed bald men to create complete totalitarian confusion among the spads. What is certain in all this is that failure to pass Big Daddy Cum Cum’s ‘pop quiz’ means ‘re-education’ at the hands of Lee Cain. Having seen what Cain did to Hugo last week I decide to keep a very low profile and slide into lunch at 12.45.

Boris is a no-show; he pings me an email at 2.45 to say:

Rafe,

May have to bail on today, old boy. Currently in the middle of a Telegraph journalist.

Chat on Monday re: Brexit Bongs – Javid will never fund it, so we’ll need to get the public to – good old charity – come to me on Monday with a zinger for Brexit Bongs that explains all that.

Incorrigibly,

BJ

I don’t even feel annoyed that Boris bailed; I just want to make sure I can craft him the best zinger since language was invented (at Eton College).

I promptly leave the canteen and consign myself to coming up with the zingiest of zingers, but my mind is like cement. All I can think of is ‘Boris’s Blue Brexit Bollocks Bursting on Breasts’, which, though vary funny, isn’t right.

It’s seven and still nothing. I’m back home and have invited a few of the chaps from school round for some chang: Rupert, a consultant who works in the City, Henry, a lawyer who works in the City and Dom, a banker who works in the City – a really interesting and diverse group. I’ve also invited Hugo; it’s been a tough week for the old boy…

‘The thing about politics,’ I say to him, chopping up the Columbian snow with my Amex, ‘is it’s all about doing as little as you can but making it look as though you’re doing loads… It’s not about working hard; it’s about someone else doing the work and then you claiming it was yours if it’s good and theirs if it’s shit. Do you follow?’

He nods.

‘Perfect example: imagine hypothetically there was a hypothetical initiative to get the public to hypothetically put money to funding Big Ben going Bong on Brexit day. If I were clever I’d ask you to think of an alliterative pithy zinger to describe that initiative and if it’s good, I’d claim it as my own…hypothetically.’

‘A zinger like Bung a Bob for Brexit Bongs?’ he says.

‘No, obviously not that. That’s crap,’ I say.

It’s not crap, it’s fucking perfect and now it’s mine to send to Boris. I’m pretty sure I came up with it. Even though it came from Hugo’s mouth, he said it in my flat, which I own, which makes it intellect expressed in my property, which makes it my intellectual property.

‘Just be mindful about this stuff, mate; trying to look out for you,’ I say.

‘I really appreciate it mate. Thank you,’ says Hugo.

I rack up a couple of white caterpillars for us both, making sure I keep a mental tally of exactly how much Hugo owes me, and snort the larger of the two through my designated Sellotaped fifty-pound note.

Monday 13 January

Boris absolutely fucking loves the zinger and gives me the green light to announce the scheme. This is grande. This is Ariana Grande. I wonder if Hugo remembers he came up with it but I look over to the old chap and see he’s got bigger problems to be thinking about…Bully Patel has returned from the Home Office and is heavily pasting him for the second time in five days! Normally she would only come over to Number 10 once a month but she must have developed a taste for savaging Hugo.

I sit down at my desk and see the brilliant spad I hired in Pret has arrived and is sat next to me. He’s just as impressive today as I remember him being at interview. He absolutely aces his pop quiz, identifying a quote from page 13 of Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, and correctly guessing what Big Daddy Cum Cum has hidden behind his back. He earns the name ‘The Superprophet’, a rank second only to Lee Cain. I book in a pint with him. As a Tory it’s absolutely essential to stay close to those in power, like one of the greatest Tories of all time, Tony Blair, did with Rupert Murdoch.

The spad chat is blowing up about Love Island, which started last night. I load it up on my phone under the desk with my headphones in to make it look as if I’m working to music when I’m actually listening to all of them talk about which one has the biggest mug and who is whose type on paper. Why the obsession with paper when none of these people know how to read or write?

They really do pick some absolute space cadets for this programme; there’s one jolly good chap on it for a bit of diversity though, which is good. The women might be stupid but some of them are phenomenally fit. I decide to do a bit of horny Tinder swiping and Lettie pops up. Though it’s undoubtedly vary delicate business shagging a colleague, being nothing if not a naughty boy, I swipe right like James Bond.

No match straight away, undoubtedly because she’s yet to see me rather than because she doesn’t want me. All women want me, I’m a male worldie.

Tuesday 14 January

I see on the tube into work that the bushfires in Australia are really bad, apocalyptic even. This is what happens when you ignore the early-warning signs: stuff spirals out of control and you’re left with your cock in your hands apologising endlessly for needless death you’ve caused. Politics is like tennis: done well, it should be proactive not reactive.

I arrive at Number 10 at a ‘gentleman’s nine o’clock’ (9.25) to a large Brexit dossier on my desk with a Post-it note and the word ‘PROOFREAD’ written on it. I decide this isn’t work for someone of my stature and background so wait for Hugo to go to the loo and slip the dossier onto his desk.

The trick is to slip the folder onto someone’s desk to make them think it’s theirs and then take it back when the task is 95 per cent done. You then do the remaining 5 per cent of the work and pass the whole thing off as your own.

The Superprophet notices this move and wryly jokes, ‘Proofreading is women’s work – you should have given that to one of the females.’ He does this with such deadpan delivery that if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was being serious. It’s brilliant. This guy is more than just a superprophet, he’s a super-comedian too! Like Al Murray or something. Our pint can’t come soon enough.

Wednesday 15 January

Another weirdo and misfit interview. This one is neither, he’s just an arrogant cunt. I begin the interview as I begin practically every interaction.

‘I was at Exeter; which college were you at?’

‘Oh, Exeter. That’s an Oxford college, right? Not bad…though it’s hardly Trinity, Cambridge, is it?’

He smirks. I do not. What the fuck is even the point in saying something like that? I fucking hate one-upmanship, especially when it’s from someone who is objectively not on my level. Irrefutably, Eton and PPE at Oxford has produced the most prime ministers, not fucking Cambridge. Prick.

I take an almost sexual pleasure in sending this chippy prick a rejection email as I’m shaking his inferior-signet-ring-wearing hand to signal the end of the interview.

Pint with the Superprophet. He’s there early and has already got me a pint of San Miguel.

‘How did you know San Miguel is my favourite?’ I ask, thrilled about the antics to come.

He simply points at his temple indicating that he used his superforecasting abilities to deduce that that’s what I’d want. Christ he’s good.

The chat is scintillating. He embarks on this incredible satirical monologue comparing the bubbles in a beer which rise to the top, unthinking and unfeeling, existing only to enhance the experience of our taste buds, to the working class in the UK. I guess it’s kind of satire, but also kind of not because on a level the working class are vary much like that; this makes it even cleverer. After about ninety minutes, he tells me that there’s a Jordan Peterson lecture he wants to watch before bed. We finish our pints and part ways.

I get home and flick on Love Island only to see the posh chap has gone. Classic BBC bias. Someone with a background to be proud of sticks their head above the parapet and suddenly they get fucking cancelled.

I try to watch for a few minutes but, without this chap on it, it’s fucking intolerable. It’s just a load of dead-eyed, half-naked poor people being exploited by executives for entertainment… If I wanted that, I could just watch TheX Factor…or porn… At least in porn they actually take their clothes all the way off rather than this ‘deepthroat the banana’ challenge Love Island tease bullshit.

I decide to watch some porn.

Thursday 16 January

Lee Cain is having a bad day today. He’s getting himself a cup of water from the water cooler in Number 10 but can’t seem to keep his hands steady. He tries a couple of times and then screams ‘Fuck!’ at the top of his lungs and storms off, causing several spads to visibly flinch and shudder as he departs.

I get another email from Boris.

Rafe,

I bring exciting news.

I have decided to put you in charge of delivering a Brexit Day party in Number 10 to put all hitherto organised debauchery to shame. I want the party to be so raucous you have to pull out all the stops the following day to keep ministers out of the tabloids. I want people to speak of this party like Roman nobility would have discussed the debauched forays of Caligula. No expense should be spared. This is your London 2012.

Take my number if you need a second opinion on which ‘danger women’ to invite, I’ve got a huge database with all the best ones.

077–– ––––––

Incorrigibly,

BJ

PS Also, have had to sack off Brexit Bongs, old boy; would have loved to have backed it but my hands are tied (not for the first time) (woof).

I’m not even upset at all the work I did coming up with the Brexit Bong zinger going to waste. This is enormous. What an honour. I have Blojo’s number. I can send him memes! The rise and rise of Rafe Hubris continues.

I reply:

Blojo,

Pulling out and not for the first time!

Mate, Zeus and Caligula will sit enviously in Elysium watching the party I will construct. I’m thinking of naming it: Britain Beyond Brexit Booze Bath and Bonanza. Thoughts?

I will not let you down, it will be iniquity in ubiquity, mate.

Incorrigibly,

Rafe

He responds immediately with:

Blojo, I like that. I like that a lot.

Incorrigibly,

Blojo

The feeling that Boris Johnson and I are now friends is so good it’s not even topped by £100 gak.

Friday 17 January

Another weirdo and misfit interview.

This applicant, Henrietta, twenty-six, Westminster, Girton, is literally the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen on and off the internet. She’s what Blojo would call a ‘principle snapper’. An hour before the interview is due to start I slide into her Instagram message requests to reschedule the date professional interview to Bluebird, Chelsea. Classic Rafe. Classic Rafe.

She arrives and I deliver a killer line I’ve been practising under my breath in the Uber Lux on the way in:

‘Walcome to this “worldies and misfits” interview…sorry, “weirdos and misfits”; you are a worldie though.’

The genius of this is that it vary subtly plants the seed in her head that I find her attractive, but it’s subtle enough for her to probably not even be consciously aware of it. I got this from The Man’s Guide to Women, a must-read for anyone who wants to truly understand women written by a couple of incredibly intelligent men.

The conversation is flowing like the River Cherwell.

‘The thing is, I’m the most powerful twenty-four-year-old in the UK right now. Everyone looks at Boris Johnson as the leader, but he always runs the big decisions past me. So what I’m saying is, if you impress me, you’ll do just fine in government… The one thing is, if I do offer you the job, and as I say I do have that power, you probably wouldn’t have time to have a boyfriend. So, you’d have to dump your current one.’

‘Oh I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she says.

I try vary hard not to spontaneously burst into flames before her green eyes (I’ve even noticed the colour of her eyes, I might have to marry her) when she says this.

I offer her the job right there and then and formally end the interview but offer her a drink.

‘It won’t mean I take the job away if you say no, but it also will,’ I say with a wink.

Before long, we’re flirting. Before long, I’m ordering Whispering Angel on the government account. Before long, we’re kissing. Before long, she’s in my bed… I embark on the sex like the 600 horsemen in Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’: boldly, fiercely but with an inevitable futility. Before long, I ejaculate nobly into her jaws of death.

From this moment, my mind and body is immediately awash with an overwhelming feeling of disgust towards this girl. I don’t think I ever want to see her ever again. She keeps trying to rest her head on my chest, it’s absolutely horrific. I tell her I’m really sorry, but I have to be up incredibly early in the morning and I find it absolutely impossible to sleep with someone next to me and given that I work for the government, she has a civic duty to leave. She gets dressed and slips out. I breathe an almighty sigh of relief as the door closes. I don’t think we’ll be getting married.

Sunday 19 January

Lunch at el casa del Mummy and my father in Virginia Water. Will, my older brother, is there with his wife Juliette, who is about seven and half months pregnant so isn’t drinking (a bit wet if you ask me). Everyone’s talking about how amazing Will is for starting a family, buying a house in Teddington and closing in on being made partner at Slaughter and May, all at just twenty-nine.

‘Isn’t Will wonderful?’

‘We couldn’t be prouder of our boy!’

‘Wonderful Will keeps soaring.’

After a good half-hour of this, Mummy asks when they might be seeing a similar return on the investment they poured into my education.

‘Things have been going really well, actually. I’ve been working personally with Boris Johnson to secure arrangements for the 31st of January,’ I say.

‘You’ve been working to finalise Brexit?’ says my mother, her eyebrow raised.

‘Well, I’ve been arranging the party for when we’ve left,’ I say. ‘Boris has personally put me in charge of it and he’s given me his phone number.’

‘Sounds world-shattering,’ says Will.

Juliette tries to stop her lip from curling but both Mummy and my father openly laugh.

Monday 20 January

Big Daddy Cum Cum is standing on top of a table in Number 10.

He’s wearing a cloak this morning and is brandishing a wand (alluding to Voldemort?) to unveil ‘the latest great success in the Classic Dom reign’. It’s a proposed ‘Move Boris’s Chair’ scheme (he loves a linguistic trio), where Boris would have to leave Number 10 and be stationed at Number 12 along with a small cadre of ‘senior bees’. This, Big Daddy Cum Cum argues, would allow Blojo to focus ‘much more ably on predicting the future’.

‘It is known,’ says Lee Cain after every few sentences in support of Big Daddy Cum Cum’s propositions.

This evokes firm opposition from Blojo, who says moving him from Number 10 would be like moving the Queen out of Windsor Castle or Hugh Heffner out of the Playboy Mansion.

‘I’ve always been a vociferous advocate of working in close proximity to prime Number 10 totty; I will not move to Number 12 for that reason, Dom. I’ve also got a jolly comfortable chair here which goes all tippy when I lean back on it.’ He demonstrates this. ‘No deal,’ he concludes.

Big Daddy Cum Cum, perturbed, still on top of the desk, paces around muttering something incomprehensible under his breath (possibly ancient Norse). I notice at this point he isn’t wearing any shoes…After some ten seconds he says, ‘It is the only way. It’s a desk revolution or my departure.’

Boris comes back at him by saying, ‘Look old boy, I’ll give you funds to create the ant colony out of Lego you’ve been asking for, but my chair stays here.’

Cummings strides around muttering at the floor again and finally looks up and says:

‘Very well, it shall be done.’ He gently hops down from the desk assisted by Lee Cain and disappears off into his office. Lee Cain follows and kicks the water dispenser on his way through.

Wednesday 22 January

I hear Poppy and Hugo talking about some bloke who ate a bat in China or something over lunch. They are fucking bizarre over there.

I don’t have time to dwell on the trivial, though. I have serious business to attend to like sorting a red wine shipment for the Brexit party (still nothing back from Blojo about whether the ‘Britain Beyond Brexit Booze Bath and Bonanza’ name is a goer yet). Sorting red wine is proving to be quite fucking difficult as all the good ones are from the EU, and we need to celebrate British culture with this party.

I do some googling and see our national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala so decide to get that and loads of Stella Artois, which I’m pretty sure is British too.

‘Look at the new spad that’s started today. She’s so pretty,’ says Poppy in that way girls do to try and show they’re not jealous.

‘She’s so fit,’ says Hugo.

I look up and see Henrietta and the dread nearly causes my stomach to drop out of my arsehole. As she approaches our table I briefly consider running away but before I can, I hear her say:

‘Hi Rafe, nice to see you again.’

‘Huh? Oh yeah, hey. Henrietta, right? Great to see you too,’ I say.

I look at her and her beauty figuratively slaps me across the face. For some reason she looks like the most beautiful woman on and off the internet again. I decide to unleash the irresistible Hubris charm offensive again and say, sexily:

‘This is Poppy and Hugo, a couple of spads I have the displeasure of working with on a regular basis…I hired Henrietta,’ I say to Poppy and Hugo. I wonder how I could ever have been disgusted by her…she is an angel. Even her tray of food is fit, a fancy-looking salad with an Evian. I think I’m falling in love with her; I think the marriage might be back on.

We all get chatting and she seems to get vary engrossed in conversation with Hugo who is definitely, embarrassingly, trying it on with her. I’m not threatened, there’s no way she’ll go for him, he’s a Harrovian from Regent’s Park! Besides I’m much more senior; no one would choose the cub sat beside them when there’s a lion sat across from them.

‘Henrietta, why don’t I show you back to your desk?’ I say, rolling my sleeves up to just before the elbow, which I’ve read women fucking love.

‘I know where my desk is; thanks, though,’ she says.

It feels like she might be trying to neg me?

After lunch I decide to ‘happen to be passing through the Department of Education’ where Henrietta works, to lock in une deuxième boisson with the old girl: classic Rafe chivalry. I spot her still talking with fucking Hugo who has beaten me to it/her, the prick. My phone buzzes with a WhatsApp from Poppy which reads:

Looks like Hugo doesn’t hang about. Word on the grapevine is that he’s taking her for a drink at Bluebird tonight.

It takes all my willpower not to launch my iPhone X into the cranium of the nervous-looking mousey spad ten feet in front of me. The wedding is fucking off. Hugo is a cunt. Henrietta is a bitch.

I go for a pint with the Superprophet and explain the whole thing.

‘The thing you’ve got to remember about females,’ he says sliding into a second San Miguel, ‘is that they’re more limited than us. Think about it. In the Garden of Eden, God made Adam out of Eve’s rib, then who went and betrayed Adam and fed him the apple? Eve. Females are intellectually and morally stunted, mate, you’d be stupid to give your heart to one. That’s why you have to keep them in their rightful place: the home. They’re just about clever enough to manage a domain that small. Take them out of that and you start getting all these feminists you see now who want us to chop off our own dicks lest we make someone feel uncomfortable. Never forget that,’ he says.

He’s right. He’s so right. I’m not sure about the chopping-off-our-own-dicks stuff but women are deceitful, spineless and stupid. As soon as Henrietta got what she wanted from me, she fucked off.

‘Listen, mate, let me take care of this one for you. I’ve got an ingenious plan.’

‘You’d do that for me?’ I ask, genuinely touched.

‘It has already been put into action,’ he says, pointing at his temple with a look of sage certainty.

What a fucking great guy he is.

I drink just about enough to not think about Hugo and Henrietta at Bluebird and what they’ll be doing to each other’s forearms and/or orifices and drift off into a very drunken sleep.

Thursday 23 January

I arrive at my desk to find a note from the Superprophet.

R,

Everything sorted with the wench. I told Cummings I suspected her of conspiring against the machine. He disappeared her.

For the brotherhood,

TS (The Superprophet)

I feel a twinge of guilt but remember she was a horrible person so it’s for the best she’s gone.

I look up to see Hugo being monstered by Bully Patel, which wonderfully seems to be becoming an almost weekly fixture.

‘You haven’t done it properly. Do it again, you cunt!’

I feel an extinguishing inner peace. Harmony has been restored.

Friday 24 January

I sit at my desk and realise I have nothing to do. I say I have nothing to do, there’s plenty of work I could be doing, but I don’t want to do it, which means I have nothing to do. Having run out of girls to swipe on Tinder (incredulously still nothing from Lettie) I decide to browse the papers and start reading about this ‘SARS-like virus from China,’ in the Times. By the looks of it, it gives you a blocked-up nose and a dry throat… I audibly snort. As a Claphamite I can proudly say I submit my nasal cavity to extremely taxing alpine training at least three to four times a week so I don’t think some poxy virus is going to touch me… I’m with Bupa anyway; we all are.

At this point Blojo sends me a WhatsApp:

Old boy,

I’ve been asked to chair a Cobra meeting and need to take a working lunch (game of tennis at Queen’s) to get out of it pronto. Her Majesty’s government requires your presence as a matter of urgency…;)

Blojo

I don’t need telling twice. I quietly and efficiently gather my things, slip past Big Daddy Cum Cum’s office and I’m on the court with Blojo within the hour.

I have to stop myself falling about laughing as Blojo and I play. He’s such a natural comedian, stomping around, wooden racket from the 1960s in hand, wearing a yellowed vest and some vary questionably stained shorts. We play some points and he’s making me laugh so hard and doing underarm serves when I’m not looking that I end up losing 7–5. We enjoy a couple of beers in the bar afterwards ‘to rehydrate’.

‘The warm-down is incredibly important, old boy,’ says Blojo with a wink, sliding into an Estrella. ‘Without that, everything falls apart. We must not forget the lessons learnt from the ancient Greeks,’ he says, eyes wide, gesticulating with huge, magnetic energy.

He has such an incredible aura, Boris, he’s like an amazing older brother. He’s wise and funny and knowledgeable and women love him. I kind of wish he was my dad. Not in a gay way or anything; it’s just I don’t think my dad really likes talking to me, but with Boris I could chat for hours… He keeps giving the women at the bar the eyes and they love it.

We chat a little about this Chinese virus, or as I call it ‘Kung Flu’ (Blojo loves this).

‘My policy on all viruses is the same, old boy: have a shot of penicillin and you’ll be right as rain. You can’t trust all this journalist nonsense anyway, the whole job is just making stuff up.’

We laugh at how he’s sacked off a Cobra meeting about it to play tennis, imagining how much froth you’d see at the corners of the Lefties’ mouths if they knew.

Saturday 25 January

I wake up with this awful feeling that I’ve been spending loads of money of late,but, on checking my Barclays account, see that my tenants in the flat I own have paid their rent and I’m a very tasty five thousand pounds in the black. You absolutely love to see it.

Monday 27 January

Weirdos and misfits interview. I’m enjoying a breakfast egg-and-cress baguette from Pret.

I get the candidate – young and vary impressionable – to sort some additional bits for the ‘Britain Beyond Brexit Booze Bath and Bonanza’ (Boris has given this name the green light), so I can head back to Number 10 and chill.

‘Make sure the booze shipment arrives for Friday morning,’ I say, coffee in one hand, une petite baguette in the other.

‘Is this part of the interview?’ he asks, confused. ‘It’s just I was expecting us to talk about data and stuff…?’

‘And why on earth would you assume I’d be interviewing you on something you’d prepared for?’ I wryly riposte. ‘Sort this and send me the details when it’s done and if you do well, we might hire you.’

As I wander back into the office, I think about Pret and how it’s seemingly redefining cuisine. Normally for breakfast one might have a piece of toast and some orange juice and yet here they’re offering baguette (which is French for a sandwich) at breakfast time! The mind boggles. Rather like Aristotle and his assassination of Plato’s tripartite conception of the soul in favour of a binary model, Pret is shattering all that came before and paving the way for its own philosophical revolution. The other fascinating question Pret raises of course is, how might one define it? Is it a restaurant? Surely not; you don’t need a reservation to dine there. Yet calling it fast food seems too crude for something of its level of sophistication…

I really don’t know what I’d do if Pret went under.

I don’t think any of us do.

Wednesday 29 January

Today is a big day in Number 10.

We’re signing the Brexit withdrawal agreement and we’ve got a load of Chinese coming for a PR stunt with Blojo to celebrate Chinese New Year, which promises to be absolutely classic.

I spot Poppy on my way out of Westminster tube and we walk into work together.

‘I can’t believe Boris isn’t going to the Cobra meeting today,’ she says. ‘That’s the second he’ll have missed about this virus.’

‘Come on, Poppy,’ I say, ‘surely you’ve seen what the symptoms are? You get a blocked-up nose…big fucking deal.People get blocked-up noses all the time and they’re fine. Also, if it really was a problem there’d be restrictions on people flying into the UK, but there aren’t any, so it can’t be.’

‘I just think this is the sort of thing a prime minister should be taking an active role in rather than actively avoiding,’ she says, lips pursed.

‘I just think this is the sort of thing a prime minister should be taking an active role in rather than actively avoiding,’ I mimic back. ‘Look, Blojo is a top bloke and if he doesn’t think it’s important, then it probably isn’t. Besides, he’s committed to doing Chinese New Year and so he’ll honour that commitment. Blojo’s a good chap like that; he’s not the sort to go back on a promise…unless it’s marital, or one he doesn’t want to keep…’

The outside of Number 10 is teeming with at least thirty little Chinese children (I mean, to be fair, they’re all little – the Chinese, I mean – but in fairness children are as well…).

Hugo and I are stood among the journalists facing the door to Number 10, set to watch a master at work. These press rituals really are where Blojo comes into his own.

The atmosphere is like the moments before the first ball is struck in the Wimbledon final: heavy with anticipation. Roughly ninety seconds after he’s due to arrive, Blojo comes bounding out, pelvis tilted forwards, hair messy, shirt untucked, tie askew, as if he’s just emerged from the store cupboard with a married woman (perhaps he has?!). The Chinese fucking love it. Two of them are in a dragon costume and Blojo gets stuck into painting their eyes.

‘Can you see what I’ve done?’ he says to the children, pointing to his artwork.

They all cheer.

‘Can you really?’ he says, looking into the crowd with a look of playful cynicism on his face. I was hoping for this: a joke about them having squinty eyes, subtle enough that the mathematically adept but subtextually incapable Chinese would miss it, but the English speakers would understand it.

Both Hugo and I crack up. The Telegraph journalist at hand chuckles; the Guardian one looks like he’s sucked a lemon, which is even funnier.

Then, with a flourish, Blojo’s gone. Effortless talent and guile, well worth missing a fucking inconsequential Cobra meeting for.

Friday 31 January

It’s 16:30 and everything is in place for the Britain Beyond Brexit Booze Bath and Bonanza (which as it transpires is a bit of a fucking nightmare to put up in bunting).

I get an email at 17:30 from Hancock, who tells me he ‘might have to stay at the Department of Health a little longer because he’s had an email about some European PPE we’re being offered to fight off this virus’.

I reply telling him that the only place capable of offering PPE is Oxford University.

Within ten minutes he’s at Number 10 heartily slapping me on the back, telling me he thought my joke was ‘ruddy brill’ and explaining that he’s ‘stuck European PPE on the later base’. He grabs a champagne flute and joins the throng.

Everything looks phenomenal (weirdo and misfit from Pret came through for me, you love to see it). There’s heaps of food, booze; the only things missing are the midgets I’d planned to invite along to throw at a target with Ursula von der Lemon’s face on it. Apparently this ‘can’t happen’ because ‘it would look bad if it got out’, which is obviously ridiculous, as anyone who has ever seen a midget thrown onto a great big target will know (see The Wolf of Wall Street): it looks fucking hilarious.

The speeches are short. I say speeches – Big Daddy Cum Cum takes the opportunity to do an interpretive dance piece to the music of ‘Bring Me to Life’ by Evanescence, which I think is supposed to be some sort of metaphor for Britain’s freedom from Belgian bureaucracy. Blojo follows up with a hysterical speech on how we will no longer have to tolerate the French women and their ‘hairy croque monsieurs’, which he finishes by opening a bottle of British champagne with a sword to signal the start of the party.

Within forty-five minutes, everyone is fucked; we peer-pressure Poppy into breaking dry Jan within the first two! Even Big Daddy Cum Cum looks like he’s having a good time, a copy of his own printed blog in one hand, a pint of the beer he brews in his own basement in the other and something close to a smile on his face.

The only person who doesn’t look happy is Lee Cain, who is sat alone drinking from a brown paper bag. I go over to ask if he’s okay but before I can speak, without looking up, he very clearly says: ‘Don’t fucking talk to me, you floppy-haired cunt flannel.’

I end up partaking in some late-night skiing with the spads back at mine. Poppy is drinking Sauvignon Blanc while Lettie, Hugo and I are on le gak. The batch we make our way through is from a delightful chap called Moped Ed who operates in the Fulham area and is sat on some absolute fucking rocket fuel. He’s not literally sat on it, obviously; it hasn’t gone up his arse…although apparently that is how it gets transported I understand…

We’re all about four lines in at this point and we’ve started gushing about how great it is to work together.

‘Whatever happened to that Henrietta girl?’ I ask Hugo, my tongue continuously circuiting round the space between my teeth and the inside of my upper lip by this point.

‘Oh yeah, she got fired, mate,’ says Hugo, running his hands through his hair repeatedly.

‘But, like, are you guys seeing each other?’ I press.

‘God no, mate. No…shagged her and lost interest,’ Hugo says as he tucks into another line.

I suddenly gain a lot more respect for Hugo.

‘You know, for a Harrovian, Hugo, you’re actually quite classic.’