This article is taken from the December/January 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issue for just £10.

We are staying at a hotel, because Bozzo wants to get to know the people he works with. They’re called MPs, and he says it’s their job to do what he says, but sometimes they think it’s not. So he says if they all go away together and have a few drinks, they’ll get the idea. Cazza says I have to come in case Bozzo decides he wants to get to know any of them too well. She says if he talks to any ladies, I have to wee on their handbags.

Yesterday they all sat in a big room while Frosty talked to them about his plan for war with France, and they all cheered, and then Rishi said they couldn’t afford it, and they all booed. 

In the evening, they played a game called Charades. Rishi did “Room At The Top” and then Liz did “Anything You Can Do”. Saj stood up to do one, but everyone shouted “Atlas Shrugged” and he sat down again. 

Gavin who isn’t our friend any more did “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” while looking straight at Bozzo and then nice Dessie Swayne, who always feeds me pork scratchings, did “Common People” by pointing at all the young MPs. After that everyone said it was probably time to stop.

This morning I’ve woken Bozzo up early for a walk. We meet a group of MPs on the drive. 

Indoor toilets in Teesside by 2050!

“Ah, chaps, morning ramble?” asks Bozzo. “Spot of fresh air to work up an appetite?”

“Well, yeah,” says one of them. “That and you’ve got us staying in the youth hostel down the road.”

“Oh yes,” says Bozzo. “Well, there wasn’t room for everyone here, and Jacob said you Northern types would be more comfortable there. He thought you might find ensuite bathrooms intimidating.”

“We do have plumbing in the Midlands, you know,” one of them says. 

“Levelling up already, eh?” says Bozzo. “That’s the spirit. Twenty thousand new hospitals, a million new nurses, and indoor toilets in Teesside by 2050!”

As they walk away, I can’t help noticing that they’re looking at him the way Cazza did when he explained about not being able to redecorate again.