As regulars will know, this series of sketches was written during the Referendum campaign in 2016 and a few of the references may be unfamiliar to some. I should probably get around to citing such references in a glossary.
I am enjoying the comments from FSB readers and have had quite a few useful suggestions which I’ll be considering in my next edit. I’ve changed the title following one such suggestion.
The idea is to get this published for the 10th anniversary of the Referendum next year.
I’m still in need of a pen and ink cartoonist and if you happen to know of somebody who fits that bill, I’d be very grateful for a referral!
Brexit Redux - Life in The Bunker
Part 5
The instruction to "keep his head down and shut up!", some weeks ago had rankled with Captain Nigel "Bonkers" Farage. In fact, it more than rankled. It had seriously disturbed his otherwise easy going, affable nature. It had upset his equanimity, curdled his bowels, and left him with a profound and unstoppable urge to shout loudly at anybody in sight. A few pints of British Resistance Bulldog Brewery's Extra Special Spitfire Ale, hadn't calmed him. In fact it had revved him up, and he was on the lookout for a fight.
Stubbing a fag out on Private Carswell's head, he marched towards the new British Resistance HQ, built on what was left of the last Remainian outpost in Northern Land. Spotting a female he vaguely recognised, probably a local wench who'd wandered through the lines, he thought he might distract himself, briefly, from shouting at people and test his old charm.
"Hello my dear. What's a lovely girl like you doing in a place like this?".
"I'm not your lovely girl, and I'm going to have your damn job is what I'm doing! And if you put your hand there again, I'll also have your damn house and a sodding big settlement in damages.".
Farage, froze. Not used to such emphatic rejection, he positively quivered. Becoming jelly-like in the arm and leg departments whilst reverting to a very dim, primal instinct, he realised that this must have been how the fabled leader Gordon Brown had felt when, behind the opposition lines, in a long-lost Northern battlefield, his staff had left him to deal with a genuine voter. Utterly terrifying.
He panicked. "Terribly sorry and all that. Have we met?". Introductions over, Captain Farage, suppressed an urgent and profound cry of pain, caused by a fairly expensive shoe striking him somewhere between short leg and the slips.
He retreated to the nearest bar, making a mental note to cross off any woman called Suzanne on his list. He wondered, not for the first time, who was on whose side in this ghastly campaign.
Over the way in the Remainian HQ, Captain ‘Call-me-Dave’ Cameron was congratulating himself on a splendidly organised tactical restructuring of the redeployment of the available resources, albeit relocated somewhere a little further back than they had been before, under the present circumstances, given all of the variable thinggies under consideration at the time. His latest ADC from the Civil Service had been working overtime on the Press Release.
He was determined to believe it hadn't been such a bad few days after all. Matron May appeared at his side and he drew comfort from this, although he noticed that she was wearing hardly anything of one of the oddest uniforms he'd ever seen.
Black, red and frilly, with little cover on top, and a gap between where the black material finished, and some pink bits appeared in the bits above where her her knees were. It occurred to him that she looked less like Florence Nightingale and more like a crack-addicted, colour-blind hooker of very many hard winters. He shrugged of the disturbing image in his mind.
Matron May was at pains to assure him that she had the recovery of Sergeant Osborne well in hand, and that, whatever the doctors might say, she was certain that he would, one day, be able to resume his position, whatever this may be.
Taking his eyes off Matron May's alarming embonpoint and knobbly knees, Captain Cameron considered his prospects.
The phone lines to the German Chancellor and the little fat chap in Paris had been busy recently and there'd been a lot of talk about solidarity and the common enemy. He was no longer quite sure who the common enemy was. He was still a little wobbly after the bomb blast perpetrated by Colonel Iain "Quietly" Duncan Smith, which had cost his trusty Sergeant Osborne most of his limbs, and left the Remainian forces attacking each other with an energy he hadn't yet witnessed in their efforts to oppose the British Resistance.
Captain Cameron knew that his fate depended on the ability and the will of a powerful force beyond his realm of command. Uneasily, he picked up the red phone.
"Hey Barack! My man! Are you busy next month? Good, good, listen I've got a great idea! No, it's a really great idea. Yeah! Yeah! No, but...I know it's not looking good for the legacy. Hey, you think you've got problems! I know...yeah, I wouldn't hand over to her either,...but, .. yeah, I know he's even worse. What? He'd make you look better? Yeah, I suppose if you look at it like that I'd vote for Trump! Anyway - If I can swing it for you and Michelle to get the grade A1, five star, complete with horse-drawn carriages, plus a sit-down meal with the top monarch on the planet, how'd you like to pop over here next month? Of course, bring the rest of the family - hell, fill the damn plane! But don’t forget, over here we say ‘queue’ not ‘line’! OK? So it’s ‘back of the queue’…Got that?’……