It happened again last night. There I was, fast asleep at two o’clock in the morning when I was awakened by the sound of a small stone tapping against the window. I was, of course, suspicious. Small stones don’t tend to tap themselves against windows. They require assistance. I turned on my bedside lamp, put on my slippers and picked up the emergency cricket bat I always keep on hand in case of intruders, before walking to the front door. I gripped the handle. I gritted my teeth. I flung open the door and was confronted by the unholy sight of Boris Johnson.
Without hesitation, I used my cricket bat to give him an absolute thrashing. As he whimpered, ‘It’s me! Boris!’ over and over and over again; it never dawned on him that he was being beaten precisely because he was Boris Johnson and not as a result of mistaken identity. After tiring, I threw the cricket bat to one side and let him come in. He thanked me profusely and scurried inside before perching on the couch, at which point he started rocking back and forth.
There’s no point denying it – for some time now I’ve been giving Boris Johnson advice. It is not going well. He emailed me after seeing my ad in the Western Port Times, offering strategic guidance on geo-political matters and basic grooming. We skyped each other shortly afterwards and, after catching sight of the man, I’ll admit I viewed it as something of a personal challenge. However, I’ve begun to regret ever agreeing to help, as he seems determined to turn even the sagest of advice into an unmitigated disaster that makes the Hindenberg look like a minor fender bender.
Gripping his knees and rolling back and forth, he began to mumble. ‘It’s breakfast,’ he whispered. Not again, I thought. ‘Look, I’m happy to walk you through the toaster once more but this is the last time….’ His head snapped up, his red, tear-stained cheeks began to puff. ‘No, no, no!’ he wailed. ‘Not breakfast. ‘Brexit.’ I’ll admit that made more sense. Boris and I had agreed weeks earlier to abandon the toaster in favour of an ‘Up and Go’ to avoid confusion. He explained to me that he’d just been required to return to work against his will. I suspected it was not the first time this has happened to him.
‘I’m having an absolutely beastly time,’ he explained. ‘I tried to prorogue Parliament, just like you suggested, but the Supreme Court said it was blooming well out of order!’ My heart sank. I asked him which imbecile had been so mentally bankrupt so as to suggest cancelling Parliament before he looked at me from beneath his blonde mop and said, ‘It was your idea.’ Incensed, I looked around for my cricket bat before the penny dropped. ‘I never said prorogue. Not in a million years would I suggest something so totally stupid.’ He looked hurt and began shaking his head.
I realized then that, when last we spoke, I had cleared my throat in such a way that, to a dimwitted mature-age Etonian, it may have sounded something like the word ‘prorogue’. Then again, it would also have sounded a little like ‘Poroit’, but I don’t see him growing a little moustache and speaking in a Belgian accent – after all, not speaking in a Belgian accent is kind of what the whole Brexit thing is about. Besides, the only mystery that needs solving right now is how a giant cabbage patch kid managed to take something that was broken and bust it up beyond recognition. In the same way that someone might decide to fix a flat tyre by setting fire to the entire car, so too has Boris managed to louse things up; in spite of my excellent advice.
‘What should I do now?’ he whimpered, a hangdog expression sitting on his face like a wet towel. Desperately keen to move beyond the reach of those European overlords who, according to Boris, were being ‘quite beastly about the whole thing’, the answer was obvious – tow Britain out to sea. Forget negotiating an exit deal; those bureaucratic thanatoids will struggle to find the UK much less cut a deal with it.
I could see he was thinking it over because his lips were moving. ‘But what about Ireland?’ he eventually asked, probably for the first time ever in his entire adult life. I leaned in. ‘Exactly,’ I answered. Granted, towing the old island out to sea might seem a bit like running away, but I told Boris he should think of it more like doing a runner at a restaurant after being served a lousy meal. But as he mulled things over – which he did by rolling his eyes around and groaning, I told him to think about the consequences of leaving.
Indeed, leaving the European Union might be the single biggest over-reaction to getting rolled at Eurovision since Dustin the Turkey got trounced in 2008. But Boris seems determined. It’s just that he doesn’t seem to be much else other than determined. It’s probably not enough. To say nothing of re-imposing an Irish border without any consideration of the consequences. By now, I’d had enough of Boris. Using a muffin to lure him outside, I then shooed him away with a broom handle. Last I saw, he was galloping away on all fours, chasing random cars and barking at the moon. Hopefully, that’s the last I’ll see of him.