A Rees-Moggmas Carol

A Rees-Moggmas Carol

by Sam Redlark

Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset, emerged from his chambers dressed in his powder-blue, Conservative Party-issue pyjamas, to the disquieting spectacle of his household staff idly milling about in the hallway, evidently in a state of considerable distress.

“I say, what's going on?” he enquired brusquely. “Why aren't you all busy with your respective duties?”

“Oh, it is a terrible thing, Sir,” said Miss Billingsthwaite, the head housekeeper, lowering her head and pulling deferentially on the lace hem of her maid's cap.

Her sentiment was echoed, with slight variations, along the disorderly parade of servants.

“Well spit it out then, woman, before the estate falls to ruin!” exclaimed Rees-Mogg.

“Oh Sir, it's Tiny Tim, who is the youngest boy of your deputy washerwoman, Mrs Collybird. He clambered into the funnel of one of your stovepipe hats, so he did, to clean it, Sir, as per your instructions. An'way now he is stuck firm and no 'mount of butter will free him. Mrs Collybird fears that he will be fated to spend the rest of his life wedged up inside that hat, like a frightened snail, Sir.

She simpered under the blank, judgemental stare of her employer, in the hope of stirring in him some vestige of his better self.

“Where is Mrs Collybird?” demanded Rees-Mogg. “I do not see her among you.”

“Retired to her cupboard, Sir. To sob away her grief at the loss of her youngest child, Sir.”

Rees-Mogg's expression remained frozen, but a small change behind his eyes suggested that he had reached a decision on the matter.

“Clearly this issue needs to be addressed pragmatically, by a person who greatly exceeds your respective social stations,” he observed.

The servants stared back at him dumbly.

He clapped his hands together several times, while bringing his arms forward, as if he was shooing away a gaggle of inquisitive geese.

“Back to work all of you,” he said, raising his voice authoritatively. “I shall resolve this matter within the hour.”

~

The MP's study had recently been re-panelled, using wood from ancient groves that had been felled to accommodate the High-Speed London to Birmingham Rail Network. The varnish coating on the wainscotting had yet to darken, and exuded the mellow Autumnal glow of a dying sun.

Pondering the wisdom of shortening the travel-time between the city of London and the north of England, Rees-Mogg rang a small handbell on his desk. A few minutes later he was greeted by the odious, yet familiar, sound of his manservant, Gove, dragging his gout-swollen penis along the threadbare carpet of one the corridors that was reserved for the domestic staff. Shortly after, the steward emerged from behind a secret door that had been disguised to resemble a bookcase, his lips puckered like a badly-knotted balloon that refused to deflate.

“Gove, it would appear that a child has taken up residence inside one of my hats,” said Rees-Mogg. “Ensure that he is charged an appropriate rent for the duration of his stay, back-dated to November.”

“Very good, Sir,” replied Gove, tugging on a greying forelock.

He made to leave, but was halted mid-turn by a sharp rebuke from his master.

“That is not everything, Gove. A quantity of butter has been expended in a futile attempt to extricate the boy. Be sure that the full cost is deducted from Mrs Billingsthwaite's pay. Furthermore, I understand that the boy's mother spontaneously relieved herself from her duties without first seeking the 30 days notice required in order to desert one's post. Ensure that her wages are docked and that she is formally reprimanded for her insubordination.”

“Very good, Sir,” wheezed Gove.

Shifting his inflamed trouser ballast, he hobbled across the room, where his trembling hands fumbled with the bookcase, in search of the volume that would induce the secret door to open.

~

It had become customary for Rees-Mogg to enjoy a small glass of ruby port, around the hour of 11pm. He served the beverage himself, as he did not believe that a person educated in one of the state schools would be capable of competently performing such a task; a suspicion that he felt was confirmed by the writings of Pliny, the Elder.

As he brought the decanter down from its shelf, he became cognisant of a muffled commotion occurring within the pantry. Upon opening the door, he was confronted by the baffled visage of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

“I think that I, um, sat on your Stilton,” said the dishevelled figure as he lumbered into the kitchen, dragging behind him a long chain of children of various ages, who were holding hands with each other.

“Is this your brood?” enquired Rees-Mogg.

“So I'm told,” bumbled the Prime Minister. “I don't recall giving birth to any of them.”

“Mister, can I pull one of your Christmas crackers,” said a presumptuous, wide-eyed girl.

Rees-Mogg regarded the child sternly over the rims of his spectacles.

“Well that depends. Do you have £50?”

“No Sir, I don't have anything like that,” said the child.

“Then you must sell some stocks and shares, until your have earned the required sum,” lectured the MP. “After that there will be the small matter of references, one from the provost of your school and another from Lloyds of London.”

“I don't have any of that,” mumbled the child.

“Well then, you have learned a very valuable lesson concerning the dangers of dreaming above your station.”

“If I, um, may interject,” blathered the Prime Minister. “I've been asked to, um, warn you that, um, you'll be visited by three Christmas ghosts. It's an EU directive. They might be, um, some forms that they want you to sign. Just tear them up and ignore them. Anyway, um, I must be off.”

Johnson opened a random wood-panelled door and was immediately bathed in a soft, yellow glow.

“That's the fridge, Prime Minister,” said Rees-Mogg.

“No matter,” replied Johnson, waving away the MP's concern, as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Rees-Mogg eyed the line of expectant children before him.

Pondering on the best way to remove them from his sight without causing a scandal, he racked his brains for an appropriate quote from Titus Andronicus, that might suggest a prudent course of action. Finally his rictus mouth shifted a few degrees, changing his expression to one of conniving amiability.

“How would you children like to work eighteen-hour days in a Dickensian blacking factory?” he enquired.

~

Rees-Mogg was dozing peacefully in his tasselled night-cap, when a green-tinged phantasm began to manifest beneath the brocaded canopy of his four-poster bed.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” announced the spectre in a well-elocuted tone that implied good schooling.

“Let me just put on my spectacles,” said the MP.

He squinted at the apparition.

“I say, is that you, Stinker?”

The ghost looked surprised.

“Why, yes it is... hold on is it?... Moggy, is that you?”

“My god, Stinker. I haven't seen you since the post-graduation buttock-caning ceremony at Eton,” exclaimed Rees-Mogg. “How the devil did you swing this gig?”

“Daddy pulled some strings after that unsavoury business in the city,” said the ghost, ruefully. “Anyway, it's a busy night for me. I get to visit the usual mob. Reminiscence about old times.”

“So what's the state of play here?” enquired the MP.

“I take you back to a moment in your past. It's a formality, really. The only time I send the police around afterwards is when the client is poor or, you know, not originally from these fair isles.”

“It must be a terrible cross to bear, not being able to trace one's lineage back to the Battle of Hastings,” sighed Rees-Mogg.

Around him the room began to dissolve. He felt himself being pulled backwards through a maelstrom of rotating newspaper headlines, while a montage of popular hits from bygone decades, introduced by the radio DJ, Dave Lee Travis, played obnoxiously in the background.

As reality settled around him, he became aware that he was standing in a bedroom, decorated with heavy oak furnishings and antique silver objects. A small boy was hunched over a desk, writing by candlelight.

“It looks strangely familiar, but I can't place it,” he said.

“The year is 1981,” said the ghost. “There you are at your desk, at the tender age of twelve years old, penning a letter to the BBC, demanding that they pay the £18 you requested in exchange for an interview, and threatening them with legal action if they do not cough up. You were so happy then.”

Rees-Mogg gazed fondly upon the recovered image of his lost childhood.

“Yes, yes I was,” he replied, stoically.

“Anyway, we'd better be off,” said the ghost.

If anything the music that sound-tracked their return journey was even more objectionable than before.

Back in his own time, Rees-Mogg climbed into bed. He was just beginning to doze off, when the air around him seemed to tauten. There was a crackle of electricity that was accompanied by the strong smell of ozone. A shimmering oval-shaped window opened in front of him, framing the image of a middle-aged man in a suit.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Future,” he declared.

Rees-Mogg checked the pocket watch in his pyjama top.

“I was expecting the Ghost of Christmas Present to arrive next,” he said.

“He must be late,” said the man in the mirror. “This a brief courtesy call, so I won't keep you long. In the future I am your accountant. I wanted to let you know that all of your investments are doing well. It was a very good idea to move your money outside of the UK.”

Rees-Mogg squinted at the oval window, in an attempt to discern something of the room his accountant occupied.

“I say, is that chair behind you made from human bones?” he enquired.

“It is,” replied the man. “You have a keen eye Mr Rees-Mogg, or should I say Emperor Rees-Mogg. In the future, all items of furniture manufactured in the UK are made from children's bones. The skeletons of the under-tens represent one of our nation's biggest and most successful industries.”

“The legs on the chair seem a little bowed,” observed the MP.

“That will be the rickets,” said the accountant. “Most children in the UK have the disease, along with scurvy. Oh, and I hear that measles is making a strong comeback in the slums.”

A haggard look took hold of Rees-Mogg.

“My god... that is simply appalling...,” he said. “And nothing is being done about this?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“We must import the bones of stronger children from elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile those soft-boned children in the UK should be made to undergo a punitive regime of cross-country runs to toughen them up.”

“I will pass your recommendations on to his, I mean your Royal Highness, when we next meet,” said the accountant obsequiously. He reached forward and appeared to press a button. Immediately the shimmering window collapsed in on itself and vanished.

Rees-Mogg was about to settle down again, when he heard a heavy stumble outside his room, followed by an uncultured knock.

“Enter,” he called.

The large, burly man, who ambled into the bed chamber was the living embodiment of Karl Marx's lumpenproletariat.

“Good morning to you, Sir,” said the brawny figure in an offhand manner that raised the hackles of the recumbent MP. “The Ghost of Christmas Present at your service. This will just take a moment of your time.”

“You're late,” said Rees-Mogg, regarding the man with displeasure.

“Yes, I am. My apologies for that, Sir.”

“And if I am not mistaken you are also the CEO of Serco, and therefore not technically a ghost.”

“Why, it's astute of you to recognise that, Sir,” beamed the man. “The contract for Ghost of Christmas Present was up for renewal last year. They didn't put it out to tender. It was decided instead to award it to Serco.”

“If I may ask, how did you gain access to my home at this late hour?” enquired Rees-Mogg.

“Well, there again, Sir, it was Serco who was contracted to provide home security to all properties owned by of members of parliament,” said the man. “Flimsy devils those locks are. Fall apart in your hands, they will.”

The MP's embedded expression of disgust suddenly lit up with a spark of inspiration.

“Look, I'm in a bit of quandary,” he said. “There's a charity called Unicef who are claiming they will be sending out food parcels to children in the UK for the first time in their 70 year history. It's a terrible look in the press. Makes the government seem callous. What would you say if I tossed a few million your way? In return you would give the impression that you were feeding the hungry children of Great Britain. You wouldn't actually do it. Heaven forbid, no. Just make it look like you are.”

Again, the big man smiled broadly.

“Why sir, I would be delighted to. In fact it may interest you to learn that the Serco company motto is “The appearance of activity”, in Latin of course. I like to think that our company is the exception to the rule that you get what you pay for.”

“Very well, I'll see to it that my valet, Gove, draws up a contract in the morning,” said the MP. “Help yourself to a candied partridge on the way out.”

After the man was gone, Rees-Mogg sank down into his duvet, luxuriating into the warmth of the Kakapo-feather stuffing. It had been a profitable and memorable evening, he reflected. Now with the last of the ghosts gone, only sleep remained to haunt his future.

~

He awoke late the following day feeling refreshed, and filled with vim and vigour. Springing from his bed he performed 20 star jumps than dashed to the window, flinging it wide open, and extending his upper body into the cold bracing air, as if he was the carved figurehead of a 17^th century merchantman.

Below, in the street, an unkempt urchin dragged a small toboggan over the snow-covered body of a little girl, who had frozen to death while selling matches the previous evening.

“You boy down there,” cried Rees-Mogg. “What day is it?”

“Why Sir,” it's Christmas Day,” replied the youth. “Also the Prime Minister has decreed that the calendar be dialled back a full 17 decades to the year of our Lord, 1850.”

The MP's face broke out into a broad smile.

“Then why aren't you at work boy?” he cried. “Get along now before I notify the authorities.”

He retreated back into his room, vigorously rubbing his hands together, ignoring the stifled cries that were emanating from the stovepipe hat in the corner.

The Diary of a Chelated Magnesium User

By Mark Sadler

To all outward appearances I resemble a respectable citizen; if not a pillar of the community then, at very least, some kind of metaphorical supporting structure, such as a door or window frame; the kind of person who you can unequivocally trust to return a set of borrowed socket wrenches, or to mow your father-in-law's lawn, while he is in hospital with kidney stones.

I hold down a steady job and remain on good terms with my co-workers. I abide by the edicts of my local neighbourhood association, no matter how absurd this shifting collage of by-laws might become. Once a week I engage in three minutes of tepid sexual intercourse with my partner, conducted in the missionary position, for the express purpose of procreation. During this act of physical lovemaking we both wear surgical-grade face masks, to minimise the transmission of COVID-19 to any offspring that may ensue.

Where my life deviates from the norm is in a habit that I picked up while serving abroad in the Navy. Every day, I consume anywhere between 400 to 450 mg of chelated magnesium.

This morning I slip through the colourful strip curtain of a butcher's shop and ask the jolly red-faced man, dressed in a stripy blue and white apron, behind the counter, to cut me a 200mg piece of magnesium.

“Would you like it chelated sir?” he enquires, with stiff formality, as if to indicate his pre-emptive disapproval.

“Of course,” I reply, dry mouthed.

He responds with a raised eyebrow. Afterwards his attitude towards me changes and becomes distinctly frosty.

“Even the flanks, sir?”

“Yes, if you would,” I confirm, adding nervously “I realise such a thing is as at odds with current morals.”

The butcher sucks in his lips, as if he is attempting to inhale his own mouth.

“It is not for me, a humble butcher, to judge how a man takes his magnesium. After all, it is not in breach of any earthly law, that I know of, for a man to consume magnesium in chelated form. Though I cannot, for the life of me, fathom why such an affront to our Lord is not illegal.”

I pay him and slip the package, wrapped in greaseproof paper, into my pocket.

Knowing that, as soon as I leave, he will be on the phone to the police, who will no doubt drag me downtown on some made-up charge, I hasten through a maze of side streets, populated by boutique jewellers and high-end designer clothing stores. It seems as though everyone I pass has taken note of my ruddy complexion that radiates good health and, having inferred my secret, is now silently judging me. A police car rounds a bend in the road ahead. As it crawls slowly towards me, I duck inside a kebab shop where I mime being winded from the exertion of opening the door, watching the reflection of the car in the menu above the counter, as it idles past.

In a nearby smoothie bar, attached to a yoga studio, I wash down my prize with a kale and wheatgrass concoction, attempting to steady my nerves, knowing that what I have swallowed is only enough to tide me over until the afternoon, when I will be forced to hit up another magnesium butcher. A few months ago, while on a court-mandated rehab kick, a fellow chelated magnesium addict described to me the process that allows the supplement to be extracted from rounds of premium Dutch cheese. The procedure is laborious and requires specialist tools that are difficult to purchase anonymously. On analysis it is more practical to buy chelated magnesium on the street from licenced butcher shops with good food standards scores.

Lined up alongside me on a row of stools, tastefully upholstered in red leatherette, are my fellow chelated magnesium users, sitting bolt upright and alert. Their general topic of conversation is always the same: Bright-eyed accounts of recent bicycle-assisted ascents of Mount Kilimanjaro, or marathons undertaken while wearing antique diving suits to provide a modicum of challenge.

I arrive home to discover the housekeeper, Mrs Winscombe, waiting in the hallway alongside a huddle of suitcases.

“Something of yours has been found,” she announces cryptically. “Something that cannot be overlooked. Myself and Mr Winscombe have tendered our resignations and will be leaving here within the hour.”

I beg her to reconsider.

“Now that your secret is out, I think it best for all concerned that we remove ourselves to a place of employment that is more in keeping with our principles,” she remarks judgementally.

Upstairs, I find my wife distraught. A secret stash of chelated magnesium, that I concealed inside a small toy van, has been discovered by my eight-year-old son, who ate it, mistaking it for Kendal Mint Cake. In my absence a doctor has been summoned. He has prescribed a greasy cheeseburger to offset the effects of the supplement.

“You're a monster,” screams my wife, as she pummels my broad, muscular chest with her tiny fists.

Later, as I sit alone, I become aware of my son hovering in the doorway in his pyjamas.

“I just want you to know that I love you dad,” he says, as his eyes well up with tears. “Even though your life choices fill me with a sense of residual shame that my young mind is unable to process, and that will require decades in therapy to get the measure of.”

Filled with remorse, I promise him that I will do better; knowing, all the while, that I will repeat today's cycle tomorrow, minus Mr and Mrs Winscombe to lay out my clothes and polish my shoes.

My addiction to chelated magnesium has left me with lower blood pressure, a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes and a dark void where my soul should be.

The Ancient Greek gods grapple with the fallout of COVID-19

By Mark Sadler

I want to make it clear from the outset that this a 100% blame-free zone. As far as I can recollect, during the celebration of the Winter Solstice, we as a pantheon, came to a tacit agreement that a plague might liven up what was looking to be an otherwise rather boring 2020.

Having been forced to self-quarantine on the summit of Mount Olympus for the past eight weeks, I think we can safely conclude that this strategy has backfired.

Each of us suffered in different ways:

Enforced beach closures have prevented Poseidon, who holds dominion over saltwater, from accessing his second home on the bottom of the Aegean Sea.

Eros, in his role as chief overseer of love and sex, has struggled to cope with a rise in demands for advice from couples who are attempting to maintain long distance relationships, along with other couples, at the end of their tether, who have been forced to spend rather too long in each other's company.

I have been prevented, by social distancing guidelines, from indulging in my pet hobby of metamorphosing into the likeness of a swan, and impregnating some innocent maid with my bastard offspring, prior to abandoning her to raise the child as a goatherd.

Like I said, we have all been forced to make sacrifices.

Again, I do not wish to apportion blame. All we can say with certainty is that one, or perhaps several, of our number, thought that it would be amusing to instruct our intern, Prometheus, to capture the morning breath of Hades in a stoppered bottle, and then release it outside the wet fish market in Argos.

In hindsight, when this decision was made, we had all imbibed one too many thimblefuls of ambrosia. It should have perhaps been a sign that our judgement was impaired when we cheered as Hera climbed up on the giant relief map of Ancient Greece (which incidentally is terribly out of date) where we idle away our hours toying with the lives of mortal men, moving them around like pieces in a board game. When Hera subsequently fell off the table, having stumbled midway through her well-observed imitation of a Spartan stripper, we should have definitely called it a night.

On a side note, a figurine representing Achilles, that was scattered during Hera's fall, ending up being broken in half under her high heel. This breakage has had life-changing consequences for the real Achilles.

There also remains the delicate matter of the city of Troy, which is currently enveloped beneath a gigantic pair of ladies underwear. Might I suggest that now is as good a time as any for their owner to reclaim them. Again, no judgement. All I ask is that you think of the ramifications before table-dancing on the map of prophecy.

In dark times such as these, where the leaders of mortal men founder, and their apothecaries race to assemble double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials of new blends of medicinal herbs, people will naturally look to the gods for guidance.

Could it be that, where hydroxychloroquine has failed to impact upon the spread of the pestilence that is referred to as COVID-19, a solution might be provided by a sun-bronzed, square-jawed specimen of Greek manhood, with a chiselled physique, dressed in little more than sandals and a loincloth, ready to embark upon a dangerous quest for a cure, fighting giant monsters across a chain of arid Mediterranean islands, before returning home to marry a princess, who is also his mother?

It's just a thought.

Ordinarily I would cast one of my illegitimate children in the role of hero. Unfortunately, none of my offspring seem to be very keen on going out at the moment, so I have been forced to outsource the position. I suppose that, given our home nation's reputation as the birthplace of democracy, it is only fitting that we distance ourselves from nepotism and the 'chosen one' model of hero-selection and place these decision in the hands of the hoi polloi, who can be blamed if anything goes wrong.

I am pleased to announce that, following a public vote, the flame-haired troubadour, Ed Sheeran has been chosen for the role of people's champion. We already have a PR firm working on raising his mythological profile. They are going to build him up as the bad boy of Mediterranean folklore. Meanwhile, I have arranged for some paparazzi to photograph him sneaking out through the back entrance of an apartment that belongs to the Oracle of Delphi.

I have also managed to secure transportation for the journey, in the Platonic form of the ship of Theseus, which is currently a Norwegian-registered cruise liner called The Sunset Voyager, incorporating two cinemas, a full-size basketball court, and an unlimited seafood buffet. Unfortunately the port authorities on several mythical islands have said that they will not allow the ship to dock during the pandemic.

There remains the issue of deciding upon a suitable end-destination for the quest. Many of the usual mainstays (the Fountain of Youth; the factory where they produce golden fleeces) have been designated as non-essential businesses and will remain closed for the duration of the lockdown.

Another unresolved difficulty has been rounding up appropriate monsters for Sheeran to do battle with. The obvious candidate, the hydra, is currently on a list of critically endangered species. Sadly, the financial penalty for cutting off even one of its heads places it well beyond our current monster budget.

As far as other monsters go, Medusa recently posted on social media claiming that she is self-isolating more than usual; the Harpies won't get off their perch for anything less than half a million euros; and Charybdis and Scylla apparently got married last year in a civil partnership, and have retired to Cornwall to run a donkey sanctuary. I've put out a casting call but, so far, the only respondents have been Frankenstein's Monster and an agent representing some of Doctor Who's lesser known adversaries.

Despite these setbacks, our champion will still face many challenges, albeit of a strictly bureaucratic nature. These will include mercurial travel restrictions and the possibility of two-week periods of mandatory quarantine after crossing national borders.

On this subject I would like to make it clear that this quest (working title 'The Sheeraniad') is not an opportunity for you indulge in your own personal amusement by throwing an Archimedes' screw in the works. Ed Sheeran's people have informed me that their artist remains committed to a busy schedule, and any world-saving quest must adhere to a strict, pre-agreed itinerary. I will take a very dim view of any attempt to create unnecessary obstacles. If I find out that one of you has conspired to wreck the Ship of Theseus on an island of man-eating trolls, disguised by magic as beautiful women, then I will raise the matter formally with Human Resources.

So that's we stand at the moment.

I suggest that we all convene for a Zoomchat on Thursday morning, if that is convenient for everyone.

~ Zeus

An open letter to cognitively-impaired patients who I met when I worked at the hospital

By Mark Sadler

You pulled up a chair alongside my desk on the neuro ward, and enquired after the whereabouts of a business colleague from your clouded past. When I gently reminded you of your inpatient status, you told me that you would be happy to wait until he returned to the office.

This biographical moment, that you cling to with such pure conviction, won't come around again in your lifetime. The man who you are waiting for has moved on. I would like to find the words that would convince you to lay down the burden of your work; to cut your losses and run. Shuffle back to your room in your slippers. Stare into the TV, while you pan your ebbing consciousness for glimmers of lucidity; the face of the wife who you still occasionally recognise when she visits.

I went onto the male bay in the ward, to determine whether you were sufficiently compos mentis to sign a release form, allowing access to your doctor's records. You regaled me with tales of your recent battles with Roman soldiers. I tried to reassure you: You are a hospital patient in the early 21^st century. Your family will come to visit you this afternoon. They're here every day. I see them through the wired glass. You nodded in agreement. As I departed with the form unsigned, you called out after me: “They were right bastards to us.”

I enquired who the bastards were.

“The Romans,” you responded.

I wanted to ask you something: Is it even remotely possible that I am man in his 80s with dementia? Or a teenager who fell off the roof of a derelict building and caved-in his skull, so that, post-surgery, it looks like it's been planed at an acute angle? Has that brain damage, however it occurred, formed an alliance with my modest career ambitions, manifesting in the mistaken belief that I am an in-house temp in a provincial hospital?

It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a patient wandering off a ward, sitting down at a desk in front of a computer, with everyone around too busy to notice. One sharp blow to the head, one rogue prion, and you too could be back in 1^st century Britannia, fighting the invading armies of Julius Caesar.

The job has the punch-drunk quality of a lucid dream. Relentless work bludgeons the delicate fringes of the senses, browbeating the personality into stark retreat. The comically-teetering stacks of files and loose notes, occupying the In and Out trays, are like some errant trope from an office-themed cartoon strip, awaiting an off-colour reference to the fall of the twin towers.

Those 15 volumes of medical notes, that collectively tell the story of a single case of childhood cancer, stand taller in a stack than the patient herself, if she could still stand up.

Who is the saner individual: The person who attempts to bring a semblance of order to this burgeoning chaos, or the patient who swallowed their earbuds after listening to The Stereophonics? Jesus Christ, have you heard The Stereophonics? Removing their music from the world, by whatever means you have at your disposal, seems like the action of an enhanced rationality, reconfigured to deal with the unfathomable ordeals that await us in the new millennium.

When the sedatives the junior doctor prescribed to calm you down, instead had you climbing the walls, I gave you the teddy bear that another patient hand-knitted for the ward in thanks. I left you silently cradling it like a child. When I returned, five minutes later, you had torn its head off.

None of this seems real. There's an agency nurse who thinks she can assess the condition of patients by standing outside their rooms and starring through the walls. There's a Christmas tree made from rubber gloves that have been painted green. It looks like the disembodied contents of a mass grave. A bald kid with leukaemia wants to know the Christian and surnames names of all the tropical fish in the tank on the children's ward. He wants to know their relationships to each other, like a family tree. I dreaded his return; his expectation that I would remember the tapestry of lies that I wove with his tacit encouragement, in the hope that it would somehow contribute to his recovery. I needn't have worried. I never saw him again. People wander in and out of here like sketchy presences in a dream.

I saw you standing at the window in your dressing gown, your mouth agape, as if old age had frozen you, warped in position, like an old tree. I was attempting to push a ten-foot-tall wheeled cage, filled with crated medical notes, up a snowy slope in the car park. Weight, gravity and muscle power had settled into an uneasy stalemate, the cage stationary on the incline, my shoes slipping on the ice underfoot, going nowhere, like in Scooby Doo when they attempt to flee from a monster in terror, but their feet can't gain traction and they end-up running on the spot.

It seems ridiculous; surreal. Did it really happen? Or was I the man at the window, attempting to reconcile the dim memory of a cartoon with some foggy present-day notion of my medical quarantine?

You followed one of the haematologists into the pathology lab, in your back-fastened hospital gown, shuffling between the narrowing gap in the security doors before they could swing closed, Maybe that's how we all got here. We just wandered in and began sorting through the incessant tides of samples from the outlying doctors surgeries. On my first day I joined a group of crowing middle-aged women, dressed in white lab coats, holding up a specimen, a body part suspended in fluid, debating whether it was a penis or a big toe, until someone correctly pointed-out than penises don't have nails.

You don't have to be mad to work here, except you probably do. It's a defence mechanism.

Had a hand gently guided me away, back to some sterile room, where a whiteboard on the wall above a bed, displayed my name in marker pen, it would not have surprised me.

Popular European Tourist Attractions named after the Stars of Social Media

By Mark Sadler

The Brandenburg Gate (Berlin, Germany)

This imposing neoclassical monument, consisting of tall rectangular arches, went unnamed until 2014, when the globe-trotting Instagram star, and functioning alcoholic, Branden Hieddle was photographed posing in mock ecstasy between its mighty columns, employing a recently-purchased baguette as a substitute phallus / electric guitar.

“I like to imagine that he was miming the opening chords of Looking For Freedom, by David Hasselhoff, which played such an important role in the reunification of Germany,” said Max Junkers, whose two brothers were killed while attempting to escape from East Berlin.

He continued:

“We knew, when communism fell, that, in addition to uncensored access to the music of The Beatles, Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd, we would also be exposing ourselves to a generation of American males who had co-opted the beautiful Teutonic word 'schlong', and applied it shamelessly to any vaguely shaft-like object of sufficiently-flattering length and girth. Branden Hieddle is the living embodiment of these freedoms. It is apt that an icon of Germanic architecture should bear his name.”

In an Instagram post that he later deleted, Hieddle modesty accepted the accolade, declaring:

“Although I was born many years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I feel that I played a pivotal role in overthrowing communist rule in East Germany.”

The Bridge of Sighs (Venice, Italy)

When two Californian girls, both named Sigh, met in middle school, little did they know that their burgeoning friendship would blossom into a post-graduation trip around Europe, funded by donations to their OnlyFans accounts.

Venice resident Alida Serlio said: “When I saw the two blonde women, pressed up against the windows of the covered bridge that crosses the Rio Palazzo canal, cat-calling the passing gondoliers, attempting to push pieces of panini through the stone grill to feed some adorable swan chicks, and bursting into tears after agreeing to be each other's maids of honour, I knew that our anonymous, centuries-old bridge had at last found its name.

The Ancient Agora (Athens, Greece)

Who else, besides the ever-astute Cambridge Professor of Geology, Mabel Heyes, could have predicted that the high-speed make-up tutorial YouTuber, Agora Best, would have such a belated impact upon the nomenclature of classical Greek architecture?

The quaint, temple-like structure that dwells within the shadow of the Parthenon gets its name from a remark made by Rachel Pendry – a former Starbucks barista, turned activist - who, in 2016, suggested to Ms Best that, having turned 24, she should henceforth be known as “Ancient Agora.”

Noting that the word 'Agora' in Ancient Greek means “an open space used for public gatherings and markets,” Pendry added “More like open 24-7, to all comers, Agora.”

Further over-salting the open wound, Pendry then pointed across Athens in the approximate direction of their hotel and declared: “Westward, Ho!”

Athenian tour guide, Kostas Bantas, said: “People visit the Ancient Agora to remind themselves of the Greek tragedy of two former girlfriends-for-life, who have since drifted apart, and who don't even follow each other on Facebook anymore.”

The World War I battlefields of Flanders (Flanders, Belgium)

There is a small corner of a foreign field that is forever tagged with the cack-handed graffiti of the Canadian hipster street artist and Snapchat habitué, Dick Flanders, aka 'Dick Flan'.

When interviewed about his achievement, Flanders boasted:

“I recently watched a documentary about World War I with my family, and was able to point out numerous locations of historical significance that I had tagged during my excursion around the 20th century battlefields of Europe. I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet, but even I was in awe at the scale of my tagging. Never before have so many landmarks of the two great wars been spray-painted by so few. My grandfather was so moved that, for the first time in two years, he rose to his feet unaided, hobbled across the room, and punched me in the mouth.”

The Belgian art critic and onion farmer, Alain Prigent, remarked: “Practically everyone who hears of Mr Flander's battlefield graffiti has felt a compulsion to physically strike him in some manner. His work remains a powerful testimony to the ability of art to unify us, despite our many differences.”

The Eden Project (Cornwall, England)

New age lifestyle YouTuber, and Chi whisperer, Gemmah Eden, has been rightly criticised for being slow to jump on the vagina-scented candle bandwagon. It all seems a far cry from her glory days of a few weeks ago, when she was widely celebrated as a trendsetter, and identified as one of the 21st century's most important women in the pages of Teen Vogue.

The Eden Project was, by far, her most ambitious venture - An interconnected sequence of immense geodesic domes that allowed her to experience the English county of Cornwall without being menaced by seagulls, or being forced to interact with the local population.

Recent visitors to the now abandoned structure describe it as being filled with plants reputed to exude healing energies, and home to a small population of hyper-allergenic cats.

A range of inner-beauty products inspired by Gemmah's time in Cornwall are available to purchase through her website.

The Verona Arena (Rome, Italy)

Astonishingly, this first-century Roman amphitheatre, famed for its gladiatorial games, went unnamed until 2017, when Verona Bolding – an Instagram model, known for her minimalist approach to getting dressed - and her cameraman / aspiring boyfriend, fended off the attention of eight local men who were attempting to acquire her phone number.

“Not since the time when a troupe of gladiators squared-off against a herd of charging zebra has such a spectacle been witnessed in the arena” claimed Roman historian, Giancarlo Verdone, who witnessed the skirmish.

The contest was declared draw after Verona was removed from the arena by her photographer, having only given her number to five of her admirers.

The self-declared “future Oscar winner” was later taken to hospital for the treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, sustained while attempting to lasciviously straddle the Trevi Fountain.

Catch COVID-19 and Carry On

By Mark Sadler

When some of my friends in other countries ask me why Great Britain has one of the highest COVID-19 death tallies in the world, I cannot help but feel a swelling of national pride in my English chest. Once more, our scaled-down empire is punching well above its weight.

So, what is our secret? Well, what if I were to tell you that it's all down to the same jovial, make do and mend spirit that carried our ancestors through two world wars: That Anglian breed of irrepressible pluck, that can only be contained underneath a flat cap, worn in tandem within a voluminous pair of trousers, similar to the kind that my great-grandfather was born in, and sported his entire life.

Call me a sentimental old fool if you want. Can I help it if I hear an on-hold music rendition of William Blake's Jerusalem, whenever I think of our heroic healthcare professionals, working on the front lines of the pandemic with inadequate, or non-existent, personal protective equipment, repelling wave after wave of COVID-19 with nothing more than endless choruses of And When They Ask Us, from the musical Oh, What A Lovely War.

My English heart literally grows three sizes, and then bursts in a cloud of Union Jack confetti, when I receive word of National Health Service staff being threatened with disciplinary action, if they fail to “Keep Mum” regarding the absence of essential medical supplies and apparatus. We can't have these head-shaking doomsayers, chipping away at the public morale during a time of national crisis, now can we?

What better way to lift flagging spirits than with a catchy slogan on a poster? For example: “Catch COVID-19 and Carry On” with its iconic accompanying image of a small child dragging the bodies of their parents to a waiting plague cart.

Who among us can say that we have not been stirred into a reckless act of potential self-sacrifice by the handsome moustache and authoritative stare of Lord Kitchener, as he points from posters in the windows of our nation's well-populated funeral parlours, proclaiming: “I want you... to breed herd immunity.”

During the early weeks of the pandemic, our nation's brave pensioners were marshalled into a headlong charge towards the invading virus, later dying in their thousands so that others might develop a resistance. This selfless act was nothing less than the passing of the baton from the sons and daughters of the greatest generation, to a generation who were unclear on what a baton is used for exactly, and who have decided, since then, that it must be some kind of old-fashioned selfie stick.

All across Britain, bold volunteers, with no experience of flying World War Two-era fighter aircraft, are climbing into the cockpits of Spitfires and engaging COVID-19 in aerial dogfights above the picturesque white cliffs of Dover. While below, Dame Vera Lynn waves from the doorway of the rose-covered cottage, where she crochets floral face masks to make up for the shortfall in our hospital intensive care units. 

Beyond our shores, on the sparkling, sapphire-blue waters of the English Channel, our mighty fishing fleet sails to the rescue of the white blood cells who fought a courageous, but futile, battle against the virus on French soil, and who are now stranded in Dieppe.

Every Thursday, at 8pm, we emerge from our homes to clap for our medical carers, in the process crushing god only knows how much COVID-19 between our applauding palms. Everybody is well aware now, that the best way to eliminate the virus is to pulverize it like a mosquito.

When long chains of triangular bunting are filtered through the hands of our neighbours, and suspended from house to house, up and down our streets, in a zig-zag pattern, it feels like we are sharing more than just the residual COVID-19 living on our bare skin. We are relearning how to be a community. One that dry-coughs in unison.

Let's be honest: Do we really need a genuine commitment to mass COVID-19 testing? After all, it was mass-testing, in the form of school exams, that created the generation of experts who our government has been studiously ignoring since January. Those of us who didn't attend Eton learned everything that we needed to know about epidemiology from the school of hard knocks and, with the exception of the many people who died, it never did us any harm.

As of today, us proud remaining Brits stand unbowed all across our green and pleasant land, parts of which have had to be quarantined and repurposed as temporary cemeteries. By forgoing the luxury of living grandparents, and dialling the course of our great nation backwards to a simpler time of rickets and measles, the UK has socially distanced itself from the COVID-19 outbreak by a good seven or eight decades.

The rapper COVI 9ineteen wants to know why people have suddenly stopped buying his records

By Mark Sadler

Listen, I got one question I wanna ask y'all: Why ain't none of you buyin' my records no more?

Back at the beginnin' of January, it seemed like 2020 was goin' to be a billboard year for COVI 9ineteen, the reignin' king of the north-eastern US seaboard alternative hip-hop scene.

Y'all couldn't get enough of my new album 'On Perm'nent Lockdown', out now on GVR - Get Ventilated Records - filled-up to the brim on both sides of the vinyl with diamond cuts like Da Plague (featuring PaM Demic), I Wear No Mask, Fool (Carcosa Mix), Shake Hands Like A Man, Coughin' And Splutterin' an' Da Plague (slight recurrence). Seventeen rhymin' tales taken from the hood 2019 cultural exchange programme, where rappers like myself were privileged to experience life in European hoods in France an' Italy, gainin' insights into different communities, learnin' how to rhyme in a foreign language, attendin' local museums an' art exhibits, an' dinin' out on croissants an' weird-ass pasta. There ain't no vaccine been developed that will protect yo' ears from these verses an' beats risin' from the streets, leafy Parisian boulevards and picturesque Italian bowlin' courts. Or so I thought.

March rolls aroun' an' suddenly nobody wants anythin' to do with COVI 9ineteen. I'm gettin' calls from record shops tellin' me my new material is offensive and they won't be rackin' it. You were okay with it in January. Seriously, what gives?

What'd I say to piss y'all off so bad that none of you out there is attendin' my concerts? Case in point: My show at the Kinchen Brothers Peach Cannery Arena, in Augusta, Maine, where I had to unlock the venue myself, an' switch on all the vendin' machines in the lobby. Even then nobody turned up. After an hour of waitin' I walked off the stage in disappointment, convinced I musta got the wrong date.

'Nother thing: I've been readin' some real nasty sentiments expressed against me on social media. People been talkin' some slanderous nonsense, sayin' how my mother was a Chinese bat, an' wantin' to dose me up on Hydroxychloroquine. Shit, the President of the United States is sayin' he goin' to kill me with disinfectant. Word to the man in the oval office: You can't disinfect the pure truth.

Listen, if any y'all got a legitimate beef wit' me, then you need to take it to the floor. You an' me'll go head to head in a war of words, sanctioned by an acredited rulin' body like The Nevada Federation of Hip-Hop Skirmishing, or The Worshipful Company of Battle Rappers, established in 1842, in the UK - Shout out to my crew in London, tearin' it up in St Paul's Cathedral.

If I learned anythin' from the hip-hop game, it's that most problems can be solved by coupla bare-chested men, draped in layers of gold an' platinum chains, standin' six inches apart, pitchin' rhymes they created on the fly in one 'nother's face.

By the way all you social media trolls referrin' to me as COVID-19. The name's COVI. C.O.V.I.

COVID 9ineteen was my father, who was also a rapper. Rest in peace pops. I'd pour a forty out on the kerb, if the queue to the mart didn't run all the way round the block, with everyone weirdly spaced apart, an' givin' me the stink eye when I suggested bringin' it in and showin' the love.

When I think about it, all this is kinda similar to what went down in the middle of 2019, when my label suddenly got cold feet 'bout releasin' my record Wildfire Down Unda – a concept album detaillin' life in the Australian hood.

Or before then, in the summer of 2014, when I released ISIS, an' the lead single Heads Gonna Roll was abruptly bumped from radio playlists.

Even right as far back as 2007, with the unleashing of my debut record, Subprime, I was causing controversy and upsettin' people. I 'member there was all these headlines splashed 'cross the papers blamin' Subprime lendin' for sparkin' a global recession. What was I supposed to do if people were sharin' the record back and forth. I wish more people brought it!

Why y'all keep turnin' yo' backs on old COVI 9ineteen? Seriously, the situation is vexing me like an all-night lover of the matriarchy.

One of my homies tol' me the reason I keep fallin' on my face commercially, is I'm consistently ahead of my time, but only by a few weeks. Weird thing is, he might have a point: A few days ago I was sat down with a pair of gov'ment agents askin' me what I thought might be happenin' in the world a coupla of months from now and makin' notes. At the end of the interview, one of them asked me to write down what I thought the lottery numbers were goin' to be next week, and who would be winnin' the Superbowl next season, “assumin' that there is a next season.”

I tol' him that it's goin' to take some kind of global virus outbreak to stop the National Football League in its tracks.

Anyway, I hope this clears a few things up and we all friends again.

Peace. Out.