The Archbishop of Canterbury on... those thieving twats at the British Museum

WAKING with something of a morning head, after a late evening with the Little Sisters Of The Poor who are renowned for their thirst, I learn that Sir Michael Parkinson has died. 

A great shame. He is remembered for his interviews with Muhammad Ali, David Niven, Jimmy Stewart and Dame Edith Evans among others, and for his consummate skill in drawing out their real selves.

However, it says something about us as an island people that we remember most the interview in which he was glowered at, bitten on the leg and then wrestled to the ground, losing a shoe in the incident.

I admit it was my first TV appearance in the capacity of Archbishop, and I may have taken too liberal advantage of the refreshments in the green room. It remains, however, the most watched moment in BBC history, of which I am justifiably proud.

With a sigh, I breakfast on kedgeree and peruse a periodical. Therein I read that the British Museum has seen items from its collection stolen, with a staff member subsequently dismissed for the theft.

Tease my tits with a tattoo gun, stolen, you say? Well, there’s a turn-up. Fuck’s sake, you’re the fucking British Museum! Every thing you’ve got is stolen, plundered, looted, and pillaged, starting with the Rosetta Stone and going on to the fucking Elgin Marbles! The contents of your storeroom are dodgier than Arthur Daley’s fucking lock-up! How you can sack anyone with a straight face for doing exactly what you did to have a fucking museum in the first place beats me!

Elon Musk, who had challenged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight, has apparently withdrawn from the proposed bout.

Just as well there’s fuck all of importance going on in the world right now so that there’s room to report the back and cocking forth of this story! State of the fucking world, eh? Famine, drought, a massive cost of living crisis, climate breakdown and in the midst of it all, this pair of twats sitting like goblins on billions of fucking dollars pulling faces, flinging their shit and beating their fucking chests like a pair of toddler baboons! I hope they have a fight and end up biting each others’ fucking balls off!

Education secretary Gillian Keegan,has been criticised for suggesting employers won’t ask pupils about their A-levels in a decade’s time.

I swear on Mary Magdelene’s clit that this fucking government is an exercise in seeing who can say the stupidest, most irresponsible thing for a fucking laugh to leave as big a mess as possible for the poor pricks who replace them. Brilliant, Keegan. Tell schoolkids who’ve been boning up, sweating cobs, busting fucking guts and wading through a pile of post-pandemic shit, mostly of your excreting, that exams don’t really matter a fuck as long as you’re an obedient, underpaid, worn-down cog in the fucking employment machine! I bet you don’t want kids getting too educated, do you, especially in subjects like recent British political history! Arseholes!

Finally, it seems that Britain is to suffer the effects of Storm Betty, with heavy rainfall in large parts of the country while in Canada towns are being evacuated as wildfires rage.

Am I gonna have to build a twatting ark, or what? You know, God, it’s a goat’s bollock of a job getting arses on pews these days. There’s more and more people sharing my long-held doubt that you actually fucking exist! You know what might help? Some sort of gesture, like instead of sitting there on your fat, omnipotent backside like a cunt while it pisses down pointlessly in fucking Coventry, knock the rainclouds over the Atlantic so it pisses down in Canada instead! I mean, you bang on in the Old Testament about what a shift you put in creating the world and how fucking grateful we should all be, you’d think you’d give a fuck about the malfunctioning weather system you installed! Take some responsibility for your shitty handiwork, you lazy fucking wanker!

As we leave the concert, a revelation strikes me: I, Rishi Sunak, am Britain's Taylor Swift

From the diary of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s most gamine prime minister

YOU cannot watch the Eras tour and walk away unchanged. But I admit I wasn’t expecting the revelation that Taylor and I, with a few minor differences, are the same. 

But as I sat there, over the high-pitched screams of thousands of teenage girls and my own even higher-pitched scream, it suddenly hit me: I am Taylor. Taylor is me. 

Young, talented, mould-breaking? Check. Weighed down by the bad relationships of her past? Check. Rising over all obstacles to triumph and bask in adulation? Check, though she’s a little ahead of me on that one. 

Do I sometimes feel like an anti-hero? Regrettably, yes. Do I believe karma will defeat my enemies? Bitch, I’m Hindu. Am I perhaps the least appreciated multi-millionaire in my country? Can there be any doubt? 

I’ll admit I have fewer eras than Swift. I’d say the pandemic was my 1989, when I became an incredibly popular household name with hits like Furlough and Eat Out To Help Out, immediately followed by my own personal Reputation as I battled the haters. 

Where are we now? Perhaps Speak Now, where I eschew working with collaborators to prove myself? With the transcendent triumph of my Lover era yet to come? 

‘What the fuck is this now?’ Akshata said in the car. ‘Taylor? The white lady we just saw now? She is a foot taller. Before the heels.’ 

‘It’s not about height,’ I explain. ‘It’s about indefatigability. About taking all the world throws at you and standing strong. My taking ownership of classic Conservatism and her rerecording of her old albums: just the same.’ 

There’s silence for a long while as the LA freeways roll past. Until my wife says ‘But you couldn’t get us backstage? For a meet-and-greet?’ 

‘No,’ I say, quietly. ‘Her people wouldn’t take my calls.’