Whilst I'm (still) writing the sequel I thought I'd give away the first two chapters of The Royal Factor because that's the sort of person I am. I hope you enjoy them (and then buy it!). It can't be that bad as I'm still being trolled by a member of Waterstones staff.
I'm thinking for the big screen adaptation: Steve Coogan as the PM and Stephen Mangan as Terry, the talent-show impresario and impotence sufferer. What do you think?
I wrote the Royal Factor entirely whilst commuting and fellow victims of Southeastern Railways might appreciate this excerpt from the acknowledgement:
"...Southeastern Railways, without whose delays and extra time given on or behind broken-down
trains, broken-down signals and broken-down staff, this novel would have taken
many times as long to write."
The blurb
The Prime Minister is in trouble. He needs to improve his popularity, fast. An
opportunity comes along to show his passion for the people - using misdemeanours
carried out by some members of the Royal Family as an excuse to depose them –
and then replacing them with a family chosen through a TV talent show. Surely
Britain will love that? How could he go wrong?
In fact, he could go wrong
in many ways: principally by tricking the Royal Family into leaving the country,
blackmailing a talent-show impresario into developing the ‘Royal Factor’ and
then influencing the result so that a family devoted to tanning beds and
creating a police state wins the competition.
Britain is outraged and
people show their feelings through riotous protest. The PM is left with only one
option; he must secretly recover Her Majesty from her cruise ship, moored off
the USA, and get her back before a ‘dethroning clause’ kicks in and the country
descends into civil war.
The Royal Factor uses a combination of fact,
fiction, romance and comedy to explore popular culture, politics, the monarchy
and the cult of celebrity. Viagra misuse, the Sex-Offenders Register, lunatic
chauffeurs, enforced marriage of a gay man to a woman and the fact that the PM’s
best friend is the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition also feature…
THE ROYAL FACTOR
The Royal Factor is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used entirely fictitiously. This book in no way represents the views,
opinions or actions of any member of the Royal Family, politicians or members
of the entertainment industry.
1
Lassiter, Whitehall’s most excitable civil servant and press adviser, paced
frantically up and down the PM’s office: “We can’t go on like this, we simply
can’t. There’ll be a revolt,” he moaned
and then sat down on a chair in the corner of the office staring at the carpet.
The PM looked at him over the top of a copy of The Sun.
“I can’t find
it, what are you on about?”
Lassiter jumped
up as if he was about to attack the PM and snatched the paper from his
hands. He turned the pages manically and
slammed it down on the PM’s desk with a degree of frustrated violence.
“There, there,
on the front page!” he shouted, pointing at the offending article.
“I can’t see
through your finger Lassiter, you’ll have to move it.”
Lassiter
withdrew the offending finger.
“Ah yes, ‘The Royal condom copter caper’, is that
today’s vital knowledge?”
“Yes, yes!”
screamed Lassiter.
“Well high
spirits and all that,” said the PM distractedly, thinking about his imminent
weekly phone call with the extraordinarily irritable Governor of the Bank of
England, Sir Alex Medway. Sir Alex was probably going to shout at him again,
his preferred method of communicating economic policy issues.
“High spirits?
High spirits? They dropped them from a helicopter!”
“Don’t
helicopters drop stuff to the starving? And aren’t condoms useful in the third
world? I’m sure it was just a bit of
practice,” replied the PM.
Lassiter was
hyperventilating. It took him nearly a
minute to get the following statement out: “The condoms were dropped onto
Westminster Cathedral. The headquarters
of the Catholic church in England…”
“Ah,” said the
PM.
“The cardinal
is, well you can imagine.”
“I can’t
actually. How is he?”
“He’s very, very
pissed off. Very, very, very pissed off. Not only can this be seen as a direct
challenge to the Roman Catholic church’s views on contraception, it’s also
remarkably environmentally unfriendly,” Lassiter spat at the PM.
“OK, I can see
that contraception is an issue but I don’t think the environment will register
as a major contributor on the Catholic pissed-off meter,” said the PM, in a
matter-of-fact manner. He wanted
Lassiter to go away and deal with this whilst he worried about having his
backside flayed by Sir Alex.
“This is an
issue on so many levels.” Lassiter continued.
“This will seem like a step back to the dark ages of religious
persecution.”
“Oh come on
Lassiter, they didn’t have helicopters in the dark ages…”
“Before you make
light of this any further Prime Minister, I would like to remind you that
Catholics do have the vote in the United Kingdom, along with women and people
who live in council houses. You cannot
allow this to spiral, for your own sake.”
There was a
knock at the door.
“Come!” said the
PM. A young woman stepped in. “There’s a
phone call for you sir.”
“Bloody hell,
that’ll be Sir Alex,” said the PM.
“I’m afraid
not,” said the secretary. “It’s the Pope, calling from the Vatican.”
“…and zis sort
of activity ist alzo ver bad for ze enwironment…” and then the PM heard the
phone go down at the other end.
“I can’t believe
it, he put the phone down on me! The Pope actually put the phone down on me!
Only Mrs PM ever does that,” lamented the PM. Lassiter had been listening in.
“We must get the
Queen to issue an apology immediately, and get some soldiers down there to clear
up all the johnnies,” said Lassiter.
The PM
sighed. Lassiter had passed him a note
during the call with the Pope saying that Sir Alex was holding on the other
line. He would be even angrier now that he had been kept waiting and, such was
his focus on financial issues, he was likely to have forgotten who or what the
Pope was; the PM would be unable to use the excuse that he was held up by the
Vicar of Rome. The office intercom buzzed and the PM pressed a button to hear
his secretary: “Sir Alex on line one sir.
I’m afraid he’s not happy, again.”
The PM picked up
the phone resignedly and was immediately put in mind of himself as a boxer,
pinned into the corner of the ring by several opponents, his ears, eyes and
nose bleeding.
“Right Mr Prime
Minister,” started Sir Alex in broad Yorkshire tones, “I was hoping to talk to
you about these bloody interest rates or lack of them, but I was held up trying
to get through town after some twat tipped a load of rubberware all over the
left-footers’ place.”
“Yes, I am aware
of that Sir Alex…”
“Well you need
to do something about that bloody family, they’re making a mockery of my
knighthood. Hope you do better on that
than the economy. Don’t s’pose you will though, you’re a bloody shambles you
lot. Bye.”
“He’s put the bloody
phone down on me as well now!” said the PM. “Must be my day to be ‘dissed’, as
the young people say.”
Lassiter went
and sat down at the PM’s desk looking at messages on his mobile phone.
“We’ve got every
newspaper, station and website from every country in the world, particularly
the Catholic ones, wanting to know what we’re going to do about this. And they know that you’ve spoken to the Pope,
they want to know what you said, what he said and whether you apologised?”
The PM got up
and opened a cabinet. He opened a
decanter and poured himself a scotch. “Fancy a drink Lassiter?” he asked.
“It’s a bit
early isn’t it?”
The PM sat down
at his desk with his glass and ruminated.
“OK, first of
all, what the Pope said: much of it was incomprehensible so I don’t really know
what he said and we shouldn’t describe the conversation anyway. What I said?
As you heard, I couldn’t get a word in edgeways so that takes care of
whether I apologised or not. Let’s get
whatsisface on the phone; have our people spoken to his people?”
“Who is
‘whatsisface’ sir?”
“The Queen’s
press man, the fat chap with the huge arse, what’s his name?”
Lassiter looked
offended by the PM’s base description of the Queen’s senior press adviser.
“Sir Reginald
Tandy.”
“Yes, get Reggie
on the phone please.”
Several minutes
later, much to the surprise of the PM, Sir Reginald could be heard on the
loud-speaking telephone.
“Good morning
Prime Minister.”
“Morning Sir
Reginald. I’ve got Tim Lassiter with me; I think you know each other?”
“Yes, he’s my half-brother.”
“Ah,” said the
PM, regretting his ‘huge arse’ comment from earlier. He carried on,
deliberately avoiding looking at Lassiter or Lassiter’s backside to compare
sizes. “OK, you know we’ve had the Pope on here, not a happy Pontiff, and I
dare say you’ve had the press on to you as well, what are you saying?”
Sir Reginald
took a deep breath. “It’s a difficult one.
Whoever did this has clearly over-stepped the mark. We’re thinking of claiming post-traumatic
stress disorder.”
“Has whoever did
it really got post-traumatic stress disorder?” asked the PM.
“No.” Answered
Sir Reginald. “But they could have.”
“Well so could I
after being ripped to shreds by the Pope and then having my already bruised
bollocks stamped on by the Governor of the Bank of England but I haven’t so I’m
not going to say I have. And it’s
insulting to those who really do have it. And it sounds like you don’t know
even know which one of them it was!”
“They are not
like other families, half of them have helicopter licences and turning into
Hercule Poirot to establish who did this is not on my agenda. How exactly is
the Bank of England involved in this?” replied Sir Reginald.
“It isn’t. It’s just that after I was bollocked by the
Pope I was bollocked by Sir Alex for not keeping control of the Royal Family.”
“Oh right,” said
Sir Reginald. “I still don’t understand why the Governor of the Bank of England
is advising you on the activities of my employers?”
“He’s not. One of your mates tipped half a ton of
contraceptives on a cathedral, which resulted in traffic restrictions and Sir
Alex ended up paying overtime to his chauffeur. Anyway, enough of this, I’m not
going to go all Ollie Cromwell on you Reggie but I would like Her Majesty to
issue an apology.”
“OK, it’ll have
to wait until later, she’s gone racing.”
“Not good
enough, we need it now. Can’t you get
Charles to issue one?”
“He is rather
busy currently...”
“Look, I
couldn’t give a Royal cuss about how busy he is wandering the country, telling
everyone that their buildings are a pile of shite, I want you to get a Duchy
Original apology sorted from the old man so I can get on with running the
country and he can get on with producing expensive biscuits for peasants! Do
you understand?”
“I’ll ask him
and let you know.”
“Yes
please. And let me know by lunch time
what he’s going to do. Goodbye.”
The PM turned
off the loud-speaking phone. As ever there were too many things to do, the
pressure was relentless. The teachers
were threatening to strike again, there were a couple of wars that he had
inherited going on somewhere or another and there was a delegation of
bee-keepers outside his office with a petition to get the Government to fund
research into the shrinking bee population.
He’d got a bee
caught in his pants as a boy and had had to show his stung penis to the school
nurse, it was the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to him. He was
worried that being seen with a bunch of militant bee-keepers might prompt one
of the class of ’71 to give this little titbit to a tabloid. He was quite happy
for bees to suffer a bit but he needed all the potential votes he could get
right now and little animals were at the heart of his strategy.
The PM had a
certain charm. It had got him everywhere
he had been so far, which was lucky as he had no interest in education, health,
finance, defence or even politics for that matter. He simply didn’t know that much about any of
them, but he really, really liked being PM.
He had to use his charisma to ‘take people with him’ as he liked to say
Maybe he strayed into manipulation now and again; he had supportive and clever
advisers that either liked doing things for him (and he looked after them in
return) or he had to get something on them. The Cabinet and civil service were
littered with former drug-taking, porn-film acting, defrauding and
philandering, yet sharp-brained people that knew their future lay with the PM
and, unless he agreed with their next career move, were not likely to have much
of a career at all once Lassiter had discussed a few previous sins with the
red-tops. The PM hated doing this but if he wanted to remain PM he had to have
an overall strategy in place and manipulation and fear was at the heart of
it. Now and then he needed to supplement
it with a ‘bolt-on’ mini strategy, such as bees, because he had come to realise
that the middle classes, with all their lovely votes, were far more able to
understand badger tunnels, bat boxes and the scarcity of sparrows than the Euro
debate, fiscal policy or the Middle East, which was handy as this was his
position too.
With bees he
felt that he was at least making a small personal sacrifice. Since the penis-stinging incident he was
frightened at the merest hint of a buzz.
It was unlikely the bee-keepers were bringing any bees with them but nevertheless
they might have one caught in a fold of clothing. Maybe he should ask them to check, but that
would look a bit odd. An idea came to him and he pressed the button on his
office intercom. Samantha, one of the
secretaries answered.
“Sam, are those
bee-keepers here yet?”
“Yes sir, shall
I bring them in?”
“No! Er no,” he
toned his voice down. “I’m a bit worried about security today; can you have the
security people give them an extra check?”
“OK sir but
we’ve had no warnings about potential security problems today, or have they not
come through to us out here?”
Typical Sam, he
thought. Always a bloody argument.
“Sam please,
just get them checked.”
He switched off
the intercom but Sam forgot to switch off hers.
“Bloody hell,”
she complained. “What’s up with him today? He wants me to get those old biddies
strip-searched in case they’re tooled up. The security blokes will think I’m
taking the piss, like they did when his Mrs wanted everyone who was an Aries
checked…”
The PM had had
enough by this point and he called one of the other secretaries by phone.
“Tracey, can you
do me a favour? There’s going to be a
review of secretarial posts and I need you to check your job description. Can you ask Samantha to do this too? I would ask her myself but she’s left the
intercom on loudspeaker and I can’t get a word in edgeways. Oh, and can you ask her to add a bit just
into hers? Something like ‘a significant
part of the role of being a secretary to the PM is doing what you’re bloody
told?’ Thank you Tracey.” And as he put the phone down he heard an “Oh shit!”
over the intercom and a satisfying click as it was turned off.
2
The PM smiled to
himself after his short meeting with the bee people. Not only were there no bees concealed about
their persons, he had agreed to fund a study into the bee-population decline -
for just £2 million. It was an absolute
bargain compared with the number of votes it could bring in once Britain opened
up its papers the next day and read how he was standing side by side with Britain’s
bees and their valiant, masked keepers.
He made a mental note to get Lassiter to work up a list of other animals
that were in some sort of difficulty and, after recognising one of the
bee-keeping activists as none other than celebrity-pub-chef Sheridan Shandy, he
decided to brief Lassiter to get him a bit more celeb action too.
The thought of
Sheridan Shandy had made him think of lunch.
It would have been nice if the pot-bellied, somewhat annoying, cook
could have gone into Number 10’s kitchens and knocked something up for
him. However, it would take until dinner
time next Thursday to get him security cleared so it was not to be. And anyway, he had a working lunch with the
Chancellor and Home Secretary to discuss something of major importance to them. Bloody sandwiches again, he thought, which
the Chancellor would inspect closely and put back on the plate after half the
fillings had fallen out and then gorge the rest. A couple of weeks before, when one of the
secretaries had taken the unwanted sandwiches out to the secretaries, one of
the girls' fog-horn voices was overheard: “Christ almighty Tracey, these
sarnies look like they’ve been fingered more times than you!” He had laughed so much that two items on the
Government's Action against Poverty initiative had to be postponed until the
next meeting.
“So Chancey,”
the PM said to the Chancellor, “what’s on your mind?”
The PM smiled
surreptitiously at the Home Secretary as they both knew exactly what was on the
Chancellor’s mind: hoi-sin duck wrap or prawn-salad sandwich? The Chancellor
picked up the duck wrap and the filling fell out of one end. He put it down and picked up the prawn
sandwich.
“It’s this,”
said the Chancellor as he demonstrated what he was masticating like a socially
unaware washing machine. “We think that you ought to be thinking more about the
social effects of depression.”
“Isn’t that a
Department of Health matter?” asked the PM.
“Why would that
be a health matter?” asked the Home Secretary.
“Well correct me
if I’m wrong but depression is surely a matter for the NHS, or have you decided
to give some taxpayers’ cash to depressed people to cheer them up a bit?”
“Ah!” exclaimed
the Chancellor, and laughed, expelling not inconsiderable quantities of a
saliva and prawn emulsion on to the remaining sandwiches. “You mean medical depression, we’re talking
about economic depression; you know where ‘men and machinery remain unemployed
for long periods’.”
“Ah,” said the
PM too and looked around the sandwiches for one that had not been contaminated
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“What we’re
saying is that we think economic problems could be so great that they could
lead to civil unrest, or even quite 'uncivil' unrest, ahem,” said the Home
Secretary.
“Yes, save the
jokes for conference, eh Homey? Actually please don’t, there’ll be media there,
and people, ratings are bad enough as it is.” He liked to call the Home
Secretary ‘Homey’, especially as his sexuality was by no means certain. He desperately wanted to appoint a woman Home
Secretary so he could refer to her as ‘my Ho’ but as there weren't any women
who wanted the role currently he had to stick with Homey.
“That's your
view too Chancey?” asked the PM.
“Yes. Things could get really tough for a lot of
people. And I mean really, really tough.
We’re talking about no jobs for years in some places, apart from Tesco’s, and
that will drive some people to take some really tough action.”
“Like what?”
asked the PM.
“Fighting,” said
Chancey, moving back to the remains of the duck wrap.
“People have
always fought, why does that worry you so much?”
“On its own not
so bad but if you combine it with stealing, looting, murdering and the
efficient organisation of this lethal cocktail via the internet you have a
formidable challenge for any civilised society.
It might surprise you to know Prime Minister that back in 1936 there was
no internet…”
“That wouldn’t
surprise me at all, there was no hoi-sin duck wrap then either,” said the PM,
pointedly.
“The point I’m
trying to make Prime Minister is this, we need to be prepared for the worst.
Crime figures are getting worse and protests more violent and pitched against
specific middle-class targets. In the
last month there has been a repeat of second-home burnings not seen since the
80s in Wales, only this time across the UK, along with co-ordinated vandalism
of Jaguars, Mercedes and BMWs again across the UK, on particular nights,” said
Chancey.
The Home
Secretary added, dramatically: “I’m afraid Prime Minister, we may not be safe
in our beds.”
“Right,” said
the PM. “What do we do about it?”
The Home
Secretary did a sort of gurning thing that he did when he was in a tight spot
and said: “I’m afraid I’ve absolutely no idea.”
The PM was about
to tell him, in a meaningful way, that he ran a department that was supposed to
have lots of ideas when not only Lassiter but Mrs PM burst into the room.
“I think you’ll
find that I was first ma'am, and it’s urgent,” Lassiter said to the first lady
of Downing Street, and as they both rushed towards the PM, the first lady stood
on Lassiter's foot.
It transpired
that Lassiter’s message was rather urgent.
However, he was unable to speak immediately as the pain in his toes
prevented him from doing so.
“Darling, I’ve
just been to palmistry class with Tamsin, absolutely marvellous! Do you know you can map out someone’s career
from just one line on someone’s hand? It really has modernised so much.”
“Prime
Minister,” Lassiter tried to interject, “You really…”
“And tell when
their career is about to end.” continued Mrs PM, pointedly looking at
Lassiter. “It’s so fascinating, come on
Homey, hand over your paw!”
The Home
Secretary did as he was told and the first lady began to examine it in some
depth.”
“Yes Lassiter,
what is it?” said the PM, whilst Mrs PM was distracted.
“The Prince of
Wales has issued an apology.”
“Well that’s
good news isn’t it?”
“Well not
exactly sir, he said ‘Sorry’…”
“What else did
he say?”
“I’m afraid
that’s it.”
“Oh,” said the
PM.
“Oh,” said Mrs
PM. “Looks like Homey’s in for a spot in the wilderness. Rather like you dear if you don’t sort out
those bloody Royals.” And she flounced
out.
“Ok,” said the
PM when he’d checked that Mrs PM wasn’t about to return suddenly.
“Homey, hang on
please, I might need your advice here.
It’s not a Treasury matter so Chancey you can go off and count the money
or whatever it is you do when you’re not with me.”
He motioned
Lassiter to come and sit down with them.
“So is there
some protocol I’m not understanding here? Do they usually just say ‘Sorry’ or
are they taking the Michael?”
“They’re taking
the Prince Michael, PM. Not only did Charlie say just ‘Sorry’, the Duke was out
on a visit today…”
“Ah yes,” said
the PM. “One of those occasions where he
claims that something was made by Indians or the hosts have got ‘slitty eyes’.”
“Indeed PM, the
very same. He was asked by a journalist
from the Daily Mirror to comment on
one of his family dropping hundreds of condoms onto a Catholic cathedral.”
“Oh God,” said
Homey in a strangulated tone.
“What did he
say?” asked the PM.
“He said that in
his view, and as the Americans would say, that whoever did it ‘had a lot of
spunk’.”
“Right,” said
the PM. “Let’s talk about the Duke
later; if he hadn’t have said that he would have said something equally
unfortunate later anyway. Why has Charlie
just said sorry? I thought he subscribed to every religion going?”
“Indeed he does
PM, but it appears that he doesn’t much approve of the cardinal, they have
clashed over the whole Royals not marrying a Roman Catholic thing.”
“But I thought
that Charles was supposed to be so mellow? And cardinal religious-type people
all forgiving?”
“I think I can
help here,” said Homey. “Yes you’re
right, on the face of it they are both types that you would expect would be in
violent agreement over anything.
However, the cardinal objected to Charles remarrying.”
“Ah,” observed
the PM.
“And,” Homey
went on, “When HRH protested the cardinal said that he took it back…”
“So why are they
at each other’s throats still then?”
“Because, he
said that he took it back and then told the Catholic
Herald that he’d had his fingers crossed behind his back when he said it.”
“How do you know
all this Homey?”
“I’m a Catholic,
I know the cardinal.”
The PM inwardly
groaned when he realised that these petty squabbles between the Catholic Church
and the Royal Family were going to eat into his own newspaper coverage. In his mind he could see the pictures of him,
grinning with bee-keepers, being replaced by pictures of a smiling Duke with
photo-shopped packets of condoms sticking out of his hat band.
“I don’t want to
think about it now, this whole bloody Royals versus the Catholics thing, it's
getting on my tits. What am I doing tonight Lassiter?” asked the PM.
“Mrs PM has
invited round some of her ‘celebrity’ friends,” he emphasised the word ‘celebrity’
as if he was talking about a bucket of excrement, “for dinner.”
“Oh shit,” said
the PM.
