Welcome to Part Twenty-Two of our current Tale for Our Time - my contemporary inversion of Anthony Hope's 1894 classic The Prisoner of Zenda. John Wilson, a Colorado member of The Mark Steyn Club, has been enjoying it:
This tale is picking up speed like Joe Biden's dementia. Can't wait for more. Does the author have any idea where it's heading, or can we compare its trajectory to Joe Biden again?
Well, the final episodes are not yet written, so in theory our hero could end up getting on a flight to Delaware and settling down happily ever after in Joe's basement. Just ahead of that thrilling denouement, in tonight's episode of The Prisoner of Windsor, Britain's second-longest-serving Home Secretary finds the job is getting to her:
"There was this bloke," she said to me. "You wouldn't know, but he was an obvious nutter. Claimed that forty years ago he'd been gang-raped by members of the House of Lords when he was twelve in the House of Commons tearoom after hours. Does that make any sense? But because no one wanted to go near the 'Asian'-" She made extravagant and contemptuous air quotes. "-the 'Asian' grooming gangs we had to find some other paedos to look as if we were taking seriously. So we told the Crown Prosecution Service to take a gander at the tearoom bloke. The peelers told him he was very credible. Next thing you know he says he also attended human sacrifices in the smoking room of the Palmerston Club. All these peers, after buggering the billy-ho out of the little tykes, then ritually slaughtered them and drank their blood. Does that sound remotely plausible, even for the House of Lords? But the sodding Met had run out of Top of the Pops presenters who'd copped a feel back in 1972..."
To listen to the twenty-second episode of The Prisoner of Windsor, please click here and log-in. If you're late getting started on this current Tale, you'll find the story so far here.
Tales for Our Time began as an experimental feature we introduced as a bonus for Mark Steyn Club members, and, as you know, I said if it was a total stinkeroo, we'd eighty-six the thing and speak no more of it. But I'm thrilled to say it's proved very popular, and is now in its fourth season. If you're a Club member and you incline more to the stinkeroo side of things, give it your best in the comments section below. But, either way, do join me tomorrow evening for Part Twenty-Three of The Prisoner of Windsor.