THERE THERE MY DEAR

FURTHER TO MY SUMMERTIME DREAM involving my meeting with David Cameron, no doubt inspired by the sounds I heard from outside as I dozed early one morning, I have this last night had a dream in which I met Gordon Brown. Judging by the time of the morning when I experienced this nightmare, it must have been provoked by the sound of the rubbish being collected and emptied.

ONE MAY SEE SUNDAY MORNINGS PASSIM to have a fair idea of my opinion of Mr Brown and his wishy-washy approach to politics in general and running Britain in particular, but in this dream I was remarkably understanding and friendly to our Prime Minister. The situation was a lunch encounter in an upstairs room over a pub in what felt like Fleet Street. Brown and I had to walk up a narrow, spiral staircase in order to come to our table. Mr Brown made the ascent in tears, “greeting like a bairn”, I seem to recall my stating to him, as he knew he was not going to win the next election.

THE UPHOLSTERY WAS THAT SICKLY GREEN VELVETEEN that pub decorators seem to enjoy, there was hardly any room to sit down comfortably anywhere in this tiny room, and David Cameron was sitting reading The Telegraph right in front of our eyes as we came into the room, looking like something out of a Magritte painting that I imagined, in the dream, to be entitled “Man waiting for Soup”. Gordon burst into tears, rushed to a corner table and hid his face in the white tablecloth. Cameron seemed not to have noticed our ascent.

TWO LADIES, HOWEVER, HAD. They came back from the bar (I presume) carrying fully-adorned Chicago prohibition speakeasy cocktails, complete with parasols, feathers, sparklers, and cherries. They looked at the crumpled, blubbering figure of Mr Brown in horror. I explained to them that he was going through a bad period. One of the lasses, a slutty-looking, tatty-haired Mancunian chewing gum, said, “These seats are ours. So shift.” I woke up convinced it had all really happened.