Home Alone (2)

The Memsahib has been in Hong Kong for the past week and is now in Injah. I am, for the second time in a fortnight, left to my own devices.

The more astute amongst you might wonder how it is, under the circumstances, that I remain manifestly sober?

I would be the first to admit that this is an unforeseen and indeed unheralded occurrence. Standard Operating Procedure is that once She Who Must Be Obeyed leaves Springheel Towers, I draft a list of useful, instructive and rewarding things that I wish to do, then ignore it and get drunk instead.

Now, in part, my sobriety is because I can find nobody to misbehave with. The pool of reprobates grows, at my age, ever smaller. And it seems that the sub-group of those willing to put up with your intrepid correspondent is smaller still. Regrettably, people seem to find the prospect of an evening with a paranoid and hostile misanthropic drunk an unalluring one. Bah! Milksops, to a man.

It is under such unpromising circumstances that the true mettle of a drunk shows. Normally, one would simply bite the bullet, crack the bottle, and set to single-handedly until oblivion embraced one.

But these are not normal times. Springheel is a busy man, hedged about with care, burdened with responsibility. In a time of National Crisis, it would not be right for me to place my own interests, and the interests of my addictive personality, before the needs of the state. When the Call comes for Britain's Hardy Sons to flock to the Colours and march off to fight the Foe, it does not do to be lying insensate on one's drawing room floor, reeking of cheap brandy and cheaper champagne. One must take up the struggle with the Foe with clear eye and firm hand, not shaking like a palsied, rheum-eyed wretch.

Thus it is that I stand, sober and vigilant, ready to defend God, Queen and Empire. I man my post, waiting hopefully, patiently, for the moment when the parcel of rogues, traitors and trumpery knaves that constitute the current government are driven like mangy curs from office. Only then can I "stand down", setting aside my Webley revolver and tin helmet, my battered tin mug and packet of lend-lease spam sandwiches. Only then can I finally relax, no longer straining my ears for the warning sound of an imminent Labour Party broadcast, or watching nervously for a stray photograph of Gordon Brown. For it is then, as the music swells and the sun bursts through the clouds over Blighty, as an old, pipe-smoking countryman bends once again to set alight a pile of abandoned tyres, as clear-skinned Gals wipe one perfect tear of joy from their sparkling eyes, as a lone Spitfire victory rolls over the downs, as chirpy cockneys beat strangers unconscious on the streets of London, it is then, I say, that I will know that the worst has passed. That Blighty has survived the worst that democracy could throw at it and managed to remain ignorant, insular and reactionary. And then (and only then) will I know that my work is done.

And of course, I should add that I drank myself unconscious last weekend, when the Memsahib had a party.