Dear reader, we start again were we left off, the Prince informing our colleagues of the depth of his imperial reach, and the destiny that he holds in his hands! The priceless and all- powerful element Victorianinium, named in honour of his most famous relative who’s light shines in all eternity upon the coloured peoples of this word as a beatific anointment of civilisation. What else does he hold in his hands? Stand avast and wait for this next palpitating piece of predestidiginacious perfidy….

The Prince, beamed at Clarrie, ‘and that brave Knight, you have done with aplomb’. 

‘But’……. Ces said; ‘what if evil powers get their hands on this piece of paper? The lights will go out all over Europe’!  The Prince, held the hilt of his sword, and  bellowed; ‘unless smote, this power will DESTROY EVERYTHING’!

The room went dark again, and we all paused, thinking that in spite of the most surreal circumstances, life had given us another chance to make a principled stand, as we tried at Tuvalu. Perhaps now we could right the wrong and allow reason to triumph over petty self interest?

Perhaps now we had an opportunity to once again, attend a World Leaders Summit and carry our celebrated float, the papier mache island made of ice in the kiddies paddling pool? 

And perhaps this time, with an island made of pre-cast concrete, impregnated with sugar, and hydrochloric acid (this was Cec’s idea) we could have a very realistic model depicting the actual disintegration of all life, land and everything in one spectacular seething maelstrom. To present at a World leaders Summit and grab global attention into a sinking island just going up in a conflagratory POOF! Just to prove our point, that climate change is an existential crisis, and  Greta Thunburg is a confounded nuisance. We could prove climate change and reach out to our own constituency of very old delusional fundamentalist hypocritical white men, and thus achieve SALVATION!  The Prince, rather than being an object of ridicule had now become our Elder Statesman. A Prince with international connections at the very highest level. Our lightning rod. Our annointed sepulchural Vice-Regal mace.  To open up via the imperial panoply of dvine right, and  allow the world to see the light.  To realise, the perfidy of their pettiness.    WE all stood hushed, galvanised by the potential of this new element and what it could do for HUMANITY!

“Excuse me? Prince, er’, Ces corrected, ‘Your Royal Highness,  how come you were entrusted with this responsibility?  We thought you were too busy shagging with your socialite mates in New York and keeping Fergie from the headlines’, 

‘Hush’, the Prince motioned, ‘that was just a ruse. A clever ruse devised by MI5 so that no one would suspect. Not even Vladimir, that  I the “Royal Buffoon’, would be capable of such global reach, and our enemies”.  The Prince paused, pulled out in one deft movement his solid gold cigarette case, without offering any of us as much as a fag- end he whipped a Sobrani out and lit it… Drawing long and langerously, he then tilted his head upwards to allow an exalted plume of smoke to come issuing from his vice regal lips.  The same lips that had caressed the aforementioned Fergie. Those same lips that had licked and touched the nubile, ( in the interests of public decency and royal prerogative this part of the text has been censored. If you should like a copy of the unedited text please refer to The  “presidential privates”, the indebted, unpublished extract from the Clinton Papers).   The Prince turned to us, in a extasy of wisdom, 

“What happens to clever Princes? You know’.  And like Ka-Ching when. confronted with the image of ‘Winnie the Pooh’, the Prince motioned a knife across his throat. 

‘I get it’!  Ces wryly scoffed. “You’d be as welcome as  a bloody pork chop in the proverbial bloody synagogue, or a Royal Dunny without a Royal flush, beggin yer pardon your Highness’.  We all laughed; Cec never lost his humour even in a royal scrape.   He pointed to a map in which all the bits of Empire not coloured roseate pink were marked, “ EVIL”, the Prince, clutching the scabbard of his ceremonial sword glowered;  “They shall learn to their cost, that the might of Britannia, is not stemmed by the perfidy of neo-globalism”!!

We all sighed, and before you could say; “Anyone for tennis”? The Prince pulled out a bottle of Dom Perignon 38. “TO OUR QUEST!!”, the Prince Roared. 

‘THE QUEST’, we all cried, 

And just as we raised our glasses, savouring the first whaft, we heard a shuffling sound from behind the map.  To our amazement, rather apologetically emerged  Ka-Ching holding a bag, of all things chips.  ‘What the eff roared Clarrie, the secret’s out’! No sooner than the knighted veteran had said it, something more shocking still, took place before our very eyes… Emerging from behind the sail cloth stashed rudely in a pile in the corner of the room,  none other than the former Foreign Minister of Australia Alexander Downer.

He wiped the dust from his shoulders and knelt before his highness, “Your Majesty” , 

The Prince turned about, his face ashen: “IT’S YOU’!

The former Foreign Minister stood bolt upright, and proffering a Boys Scout salute whilst holding out his right hand, and grinning from ear to ear, announced, “At your SERVICE your Royal Highness’!

The Prince was stunned. He looked as though he were about to EXPLODE.

‘Get out of my shadow you.. you…. you, YOU PATHETIC LITTLE CREEP!!’, 

The Prince then fulminated…

‘There’s one thing I can’t stand is a TOADEY’. 

And then just for effect he fulminated; “A royal toadying arse-licking SUCK-HOLE”!

Downer, slid sideways pretending he hadn’t heard. 

‘So sorry, just checklng the wiring’,  he mumbled as he probed the dusty floor.

There was a deathly silence, the game was up, we had been eavesdropped, and we could only just grasp at the trouble we now found ourselves in. 

To be continued

What will happen? 

Will Alexander come up trumps or will Ka-ching cash in his chips? 

Will he do so in Mandarin or in Cantonese?

What is the Cantonese for Hong Kong bookseller?

Find out inthe next nail-biting epsode of

‘A bookseller short of a literary festival’  or… 

‘A Downer in the scheme of things’.. 

In our next thrilling installment of pcbycp’s 

Cocburn and Poole…