Islam and give Sharon carte blanche against the Palestinians. But it’s okay; he hates the Arabs too. This guy has a consistent belief system totally based around race, religion and sexuality; Nordic/Aryan/ Christian/straight equals good … everything else is just shades of evil.’
‘Who is he? What’s his name?’
‘His name is Lawson, umm … Briarley or something.’
I was only half listening. It was while Phil was talking about this that I thought of it; my big idea. I knew what I was going to do. If they did let me onto the show with that anti-Semitic fuck, I knew exactly what I was going to do to him.
It was perfect! Mad, bad and dangerous to contemplate and it probably meant I was a bit mad, too, but hey; fire with fire. My mouth went dry and my palms felt suddenly pin-pricked with sweat. Oh, fuck, I thought. What a sweet, beautiful, terrifying idea. Did I really dare?
‘Okay, I’m going to have to consult on this,’ Debbie announced.
I clicked back to reality. Debs was going to kick it upstairs. Sensible woman.
‘Fine by me,’ Phil said. He looked at me and I nodded. ‘But we need a decision by Friday at the very latest; tomorrow would be better.’
‘We’ll have one,’ Debbie said. She pushed back on her desk, her big, black, leather executive chair rolling over the wooden floor. We were excused, obviously.
‘Debbie?’ I said, getting up.
‘What?’
‘I want you to make it very clear to whoever else you talk to about this that I really want to do it. I mean, really want to do it. I think it’s important.’ Phil looked at me with a frown, then smiled at Debbie.
‘I’ll let you know,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, I think we’d all really appreciate it if you avoided offending any major ethnic or religious groups. Could you do that for us?’
‘We can certainly try,’ Phil said merrily.
‘Fuck.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Phil said as we walked away down a broad corridor lined with framed plaques, discs, awards and letters of thanks and endorsement, none of which were mine. ‘This is a feature, not a bug.’
‘You weren’t making any of that up in there, were you?’
Phil grinned. ‘Course not, you silly sod.’ ‘Sod’, which I was under the impression had dropped off most people’s List Of Plausible Invective around about the early seventies, was Phil’s most powerful expletive. ‘I’ll call the Breaking News people before we hit the pub.’ He frowned at me as we stepped into the lift. ‘Didn’t realise you’d be quite so keen.’
I wasn’t going to tell him about my idea. Best if he didn’t know for his own sake, apart from anything else. ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Keen Ken; that’s what they call me.’
‘No they don’t.’
Three
DOWNRIVER, UPTOWN
‘‘What I said was, these namby-pamby Holocaust revision people didn’t go remotely far enough. It wasn’t just the Holocaust that didn’t happen, it wasn’t just the death camps that were faked; the whole of the Second World War is a myth. Occupation of Paris? Battle of Britain? North African Campaign? Convoys and U-Boats? Barbarossa? Stalingrad? Kursk? Thousand-bomber raids? D-Day? Fall of Berlin? Singapore? Pearl Harbor? Midway? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? None of it happened! All special effects and lying. Guys of a certain age; you remember thinking how close those Airfix Spitfires and Lancasters looked to the real thing you saw in the film footage? That’s because they were just models too ! All the old airfields, the concrete tank traps, a few so-called bomb-sites; they were built after the war.’
The girl looked uncertain, then she laughed. ‘That’s insane.’
I clinked her glass. ‘That’s the point. And besides, I said, what sort of chicken-shit Neo-Nazis are these people anyway? They should be saying, “Sure we killed six million; wish it had been more”, not splitting hairs about whether it was one million or two million and whining about the fucking Führer being
‘Who is he? What’s his name?’
‘His name is Lawson, umm … Briarley or something.’
I was only half listening. It was while Phil was talking about this that I thought of it; my big idea. I knew what I was going to do. If they did let me onto the show with that anti-Semitic fuck, I knew exactly what I was going to do to him.
It was perfect! Mad, bad and dangerous to contemplate and it probably meant I was a bit mad, too, but hey; fire with fire. My mouth went dry and my palms felt suddenly pin-pricked with sweat. Oh, fuck, I thought. What a sweet, beautiful, terrifying idea. Did I really dare?
‘Okay, I’m going to have to consult on this,’ Debbie announced.
I clicked back to reality. Debs was going to kick it upstairs. Sensible woman.
‘Fine by me,’ Phil said. He looked at me and I nodded. ‘But we need a decision by Friday at the very latest; tomorrow would be better.’
‘We’ll have one,’ Debbie said. She pushed back on her desk, her big, black, leather executive chair rolling over the wooden floor. We were excused, obviously.
‘Debbie?’ I said, getting up.
‘What?’
‘I want you to make it very clear to whoever else you talk to about this that I really want to do it. I mean, really want to do it. I think it’s important.’ Phil looked at me with a frown, then smiled at Debbie.
‘I’ll let you know,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, I think we’d all really appreciate it if you avoided offending any major ethnic or religious groups. Could you do that for us?’
‘We can certainly try,’ Phil said merrily.
‘Fuck.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Phil said as we walked away down a broad corridor lined with framed plaques, discs, awards and letters of thanks and endorsement, none of which were mine. ‘This is a feature, not a bug.’
‘You weren’t making any of that up in there, were you?’
Phil grinned. ‘Course not, you silly sod.’ ‘Sod’, which I was under the impression had dropped off most people’s List Of Plausible Invective around about the early seventies, was Phil’s most powerful expletive. ‘I’ll call the Breaking News people before we hit the pub.’ He frowned at me as we stepped into the lift. ‘Didn’t realise you’d be quite so keen.’
I wasn’t going to tell him about my idea. Best if he didn’t know for his own sake, apart from anything else. ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Keen Ken; that’s what they call me.’
‘No they don’t.’
Three
DOWNRIVER, UPTOWN
‘‘What I said was, these namby-pamby Holocaust revision people didn’t go remotely far enough. It wasn’t just the Holocaust that didn’t happen, it wasn’t just the death camps that were faked; the whole of the Second World War is a myth. Occupation of Paris? Battle of Britain? North African Campaign? Convoys and U-Boats? Barbarossa? Stalingrad? Kursk? Thousand-bomber raids? D-Day? Fall of Berlin? Singapore? Pearl Harbor? Midway? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? None of it happened! All special effects and lying. Guys of a certain age; you remember thinking how close those Airfix Spitfires and Lancasters looked to the real thing you saw in the film footage? That’s because they were just models too ! All the old airfields, the concrete tank traps, a few so-called bomb-sites; they were built after the war.’
The girl looked uncertain, then she laughed. ‘That’s insane.’
I clinked her glass. ‘That’s the point. And besides, I said, what sort of chicken-shit Neo-Nazis are these people anyway? They should be saying, “Sure we killed six million; wish it had been more”, not splitting hairs about whether it was one million or two million and whining about the fucking Führer being
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