46 2GM Saturday November 14 2020 | the times
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My Week Boris Johnson*
Monday
Carrie and the new girl Allegra are
looming over me at my desk. Carrie is
bouncing baby Wilfred on her hip.
“No jokes,” says Carrie, “when you
speak to Joe Biden.”
“But I’m hilarious,” I say, hotly.
The two of them exchange a glance
above my head.
“Gosh,” says Allegra. “What terrible
advice he’s been getting.”
“Dominic and his friends,” explains
Carrie, “are all mad.”
Feel a bit like a naughty schoolboy.
“Such terrible judgment,” says
Allegra.
“Tell me about it,” says Carrie.
“Whereas yours is fantastic,”
says Allegra.
“Not always,” says Carrie,
kissing our child on the head.
Tuesday
Dom Cummings comes
bursting in, dressed as a
character from the
1980s sci-fi film Tron.
“Cycling?” I
hazard.
Dom rolls his
eyes. Then he says
he’s decided who
should be my new
chief of staff, and it’s a
man called Lee Cain.
“And who is that?” I say.
“For God’s sake, Boris,”
says Dom. “He’s been
working for you since last
July. Bald guy. Always lurking
in the background.”
So I start to say, “but isn’t that
you?”, although Dom says, no, he
means the other one.
“Wait!” I say, eventually. “Was he a
chicken?”
“Less so than most,” says Dom,
bitterly.
So I say, no, literally, with the
flapping and clucking. And Dom says
he knows what a f***ing chicken is,
thanks.
“The point is,” says Dom, “He’ll do
what he’s told to do.”
“By whom?” I say.
“Never mind that bit,” says Dom.Wednesday
Dominic Raab has come over to
talk about our future
relationship with America.
Before he can say anything,
though, Carrie and
Allegra come storming
back in.
“You’re mad,” says
Carrie. “That man
is wrong about
everything.”
“But I haven’t
said anything
yet,” says Raab.
Carrie says she
doesn’t mean
him. She means
the guy who Dom
wants to be chief of
staff.
“I have not expressed a
preference,” says Raab.“The chicken!” I say.
“Yes,” says Allegra.
“Chlorinated?” says Raab.
“Can’t you make him shut up?” says
Carrie.
Then Allegra says the whole
cabinet hates Dom already, and this
will make it even worse.
“Wait, do they?” says Raab,
sounding alarmed.
“Two Doms,” I say. “Totally
different people.”
“It’s because he thinks they’re all
idiots,” says Allegra.
“I must admit I hadn’t appreciated
the full extent of this,” says Raab,
wonderingly.
“It’s because he tells them,” says
Carrie, looking at him with disgust.Thursday
“That’s it,” says Cummings, bitterly.
“We’re both going.”
“Fishing?” I say.
Dom just stares at me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I thought this was
about your hat.”
Dom says it’s actually about the
way I’ve decided not to let Lee Cain
be my chief of staff after all. Then he
says it’s actually really bad, because
Lee is a communications genius. So I
say that our communications recently
have been famously terrible, though.
Although Dom says they’ve actually
been great, but we just haven’t been
so good at telling people.
“Anyway,” says Dom. “Perhaps my
work here is done. Like I predicted in
my blog.”“Oh did you?” I say, because I’ve
never read his blog, even once.
“Not yet,” admits Dom. “But I will
have done.”Friday
Dom has gone. He left this afternoon,
wearing a suit and carrying a
cardboard box. And I think we all
know that could easily have been the
other way around.
Anyway, some influential
backbenchers have requested a
meeting, now he’s out of the picture.
Some of them have never forgiven
him for calling them “useful idiots”,
because they definitely weren’t useful
on purpose. Others are still smarting
about the way he drove to Durham
and discredited the lockdown they all
disagree with.
“Listen folks,” I tell them all. “This
government is back on track!”
Everybody cheers.
“No more peculiar bald men,” I
continue, “banging on about Brexit all
the time!”
Nobody cheers.
“Sorry!” I add, to Iain Duncan
Smith, but it’s too late, and they all
leave, muttering darkly.
“Trust me,” says Carrie, after
they’ve gone. “From now on, Tory
politics is going to be a lot less
adversarial.”
“Or else,” agrees Allegra, looking up
from the list she’s working on of all
the other people they’re going to take
out next.
*according to Hugo RifkindThe death pit for gladiators, Christians
and wild beasts in the centre of Rome
took eight years to build.
Keen modelmakers should not
take quite so long to build the Lego
version of the Colosseum, although it is
the Danish toy company’s largest set.
The £450 model consists of 9,036 pieces
and is aimed at builders aged 18 and
over.
The amphitheatre was built about
AD72-80 by the emperors Vespasian
and his son Titus. The model is more
than 10.5in high, 20.5in wide and 23.5in
deep, with arcades and the hypogeum,
the underground area where gladiators
waited to perform for the spectators.
The set goes on sale on November 27.
Rok Zgalin Kobe, its designer, said:
“Hopefully, people will be inspired to
learn more about the original through
the experience of building the Lego
model.”The Lego Colosseum will be made
from 9,036 pieces and costs £450Lego experts
can build
Rome in a day
Mark Bridge