A Cod Supper, Prime Minister
Added on 10 June 2011
Finishing off Current Crime Novel (CCN) with view to getting it to agent by the end of the first week in July. He'll have a read, hopefully doesn't make too many suggestions, but might do, you never know, I get them done, and then he's in the position to take it out into the publishing world at the end of the summer, when the editors are all back at their desks, eager and excited to see the new piles of shiny books awaiting their return. Large sums of money and celebratory glasses of champagne will inevitably follow. Or small sums of money and a glass of cave. Or no money and a cup of tea.
Not that I like champagne. Someone else can drink the champagne, or I can just shake up the bottle and spray it round the room and piss people off.
The next online novel - which I expect some three or four million people are eagerly awaiting - will follow the completion of CCN. It will, like my previous two online novels, feature the Prime Minister and the machinations of government, although unlike the previous two, it won't feature renegade barbershop legend, Barney Thomson.
Not sure at this stage how it will go writing about David Cameron. The trouble with David Cameron if you're a satirist or comedian or - like me - a guy who writes stuff, is that he looks like a politician, sounds like a politician and acts like a politician. You may think he's a two-faced, unscrupulous sack of Obama's ass-sucking fuckwad, but he's still got Professional Politician written all over him.
My fellow band member Richard was sitting on a train a couple of years ago, when he realised that Cameron was in the seat behind. He was travelling from London to Manchester, a couple of aides for company, no noticeable security. Richard, with a certain amount of spunk, got up and asked Cameron a couple of questions about property tax. This is the point where you want your comedy politician to:
- tell you to fuck off
- answer confidently, but in fact talk a complete load of nonsensical gibberish
- look incredibly flustered and dribble spit onto his chin
- turn with annoyance to one of his assistants looking for an answer
Caught off guard on a train, Cameron calmly answered the question, and the follow-up question, and, like a true politician, managed to tell Richard exactly what he wanted to hear.
How do you make jokes about that?
On the other hand, of the four options listed there, Gordon Brown would have chosen option five. All of the above.
Gordon Brown looked like a bloke who should have been selling you a bag of chips, while telling you that the chips were going to be shite, but that it wasn't his fault, it was the fault of the previous bloke who used to sell the chips and there was nothing he could do about it. One always felt slightly embarrassed when watching coverage of the G8 or wherever, and we were represented by a Fish & Chips Front Of House Sales Representative. But he made good fodder for Barney Thomson stories.
As did his predecessor, who delivered most of his pronouncements like he should have been on an American evangelical channel.
But Cameron. He looks like what he is: a man paid to run the country, and look sincere about it even when he's fucking people up the arse.