A Christmas Carol
I got a message on Facebook while I was over in Basingstoke looking after my mum. I was there to oversee her transition from the hospital to her home and I was not doing it very well. She looked very frail, her muscles had wasted to nothing and even standing was a struggle, never mind walking which she would have to do if she were to stay in her home. It did not look good.
The message on Facebook was from my friend Mike and he was asking me to write him a comic. Mike writes a regular satirical comic called The Brexit which is a sort of Beano-meets-Trumpton-in-the-House-of-Commons. No, it works. Seriously.
This was going to be slightly different. It was the special Christmas issue: a version of a Christmas Carol starring Ebenezer Johnson as a privileged and graceless bully who is given a chance to reform by the ghost of his former school friend whom he had persuaded to fuck a pig. Sadly, this was just fantasy - David Cameron is alive and well, albeit in hiding in a shed. And Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister. No foolin' - the fucking Prime Minister.
It was a very hectic time and very stressful. There was a lot going on and it was all very emotional and I was very pleased to sneak out of the house to do a bit of writing, to get away from the bellowing TV, away from the oppressive heat. Away from all the feels. And nothing felt better than bleeding my spleen all over the state of British politics.
The structure was obvious, the casting clear. Scrooge had to be Boris Johnson. Dickens' original story was a cautionary tale about a capitalist literally needing the intervention of three supernatural agencies in order to learn to share. Seriously, Scrooge does not want to let that shit go: he sees a phantom door-knocker, his dead partner, travels back in time and sees himself and meets fucking Santa and he's still not convinced. Only being taken by the bony hand of death itself and being shown his grave gets him to flick a couple of coppers at a dying crippled boy.
Boris Johnson though is made of sterner stuff. I thought he would find no redemption whatsoever in this spectral interlude. Indeed, he'd find it bracing, like strolling up Parliament Hill on a winter's morning in yesterday's clothes and wearing a stranger's knickers. You can't call it a walk of shame if you have no concept of shame. Johnson would be emboldened by the misery, the horror, the injustice. And it would make money for him and his cronies. Just them, though.
In the end I got it right. I wrote a number of alternative endings but the Tory's victory meant Mike never had to use them. Ebeneezer Johnson's story made sense. And the violent rapine of British culture would continue.
It was a welcome release to write about it and I'm sure there was a lot more swearing in the original script than the completed one. Mike's images look incredible and the whole thing was a joy to do.
And when I left Basingstoke my mum was looking a hell of a lot better.
So, I'd like to wish each and everyone of my readers (!) and the readers of The Brexit a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Though I think the latter might be a bit unlikely. God Bless Us One And All And Pull The Ladder Up.
The message on Facebook was from my friend Mike and he was asking me to write him a comic. Mike writes a regular satirical comic called The Brexit which is a sort of Beano-meets-Trumpton-in-the-House-of-Commons. No, it works. Seriously.
This was going to be slightly different. It was the special Christmas issue: a version of a Christmas Carol starring Ebenezer Johnson as a privileged and graceless bully who is given a chance to reform by the ghost of his former school friend whom he had persuaded to fuck a pig. Sadly, this was just fantasy - David Cameron is alive and well, albeit in hiding in a shed. And Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister. No foolin' - the fucking Prime Minister.
It was a very hectic time and very stressful. There was a lot going on and it was all very emotional and I was very pleased to sneak out of the house to do a bit of writing, to get away from the bellowing TV, away from the oppressive heat. Away from all the feels. And nothing felt better than bleeding my spleen all over the state of British politics.
The structure was obvious, the casting clear. Scrooge had to be Boris Johnson. Dickens' original story was a cautionary tale about a capitalist literally needing the intervention of three supernatural agencies in order to learn to share. Seriously, Scrooge does not want to let that shit go: he sees a phantom door-knocker, his dead partner, travels back in time and sees himself and meets fucking Santa and he's still not convinced. Only being taken by the bony hand of death itself and being shown his grave gets him to flick a couple of coppers at a dying crippled boy.
Boris Johnson though is made of sterner stuff. I thought he would find no redemption whatsoever in this spectral interlude. Indeed, he'd find it bracing, like strolling up Parliament Hill on a winter's morning in yesterday's clothes and wearing a stranger's knickers. You can't call it a walk of shame if you have no concept of shame. Johnson would be emboldened by the misery, the horror, the injustice. And it would make money for him and his cronies. Just them, though.
In the end I got it right. I wrote a number of alternative endings but the Tory's victory meant Mike never had to use them. Ebeneezer Johnson's story made sense. And the violent rapine of British culture would continue.
It was a welcome release to write about it and I'm sure there was a lot more swearing in the original script than the completed one. Mike's images look incredible and the whole thing was a joy to do.
And when I left Basingstoke my mum was looking a hell of a lot better.
So, I'd like to wish each and everyone of my readers (!) and the readers of The Brexit a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Though I think the latter might be a bit unlikely. God Bless Us One And All And Pull The Ladder Up.
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