SNOTTY IN RETIREMENT.

"No more than two garments in the changing room."

Hello, Gordon here, Prime Minister Emeritus,  and as I said, not for me the glittering prizes of the speaking circuit, Oh, no, not like some people I could mention. Who have NohVaaahl-ewes.  No, I always said it would be charity work for me. And here I am, my first day, volunteering in Oxfam, Kirlcaldy, or wherever the fuck this shithole is,

No, no, I'm sure it's a very nice place, full of people I put on the dole and made homeless, it was the right thing for the country. And, more than ever, they need my help and that's why I am here, sorting out the bri-nylon shirts for them, some of them, you know, they're not too bad at all, a bit smelly and sort of yellow under the armpits,   rather like a tired old government full of thieves and arseholes but, Hey, beggars can't be choosers. And that's what we are now, thanks to me, a nation of proud beggars in second-hand clothes, forced into driving little MickyMouse cars, because of the price of petrol, I don't drive, myself, being too stupid, and so the Mrs, who looks after me, dropped me off here at ten o' clock, we don't open earlier, because the old people who work here are often up all night being incontinent, or having nightmares about means-tested benefits and can only manage to totter in here at ten, and anyway, that's the time that their bus passes start working, thanks, I might add, to me, eleven million pensioners lifted in to poverty, meanest pension in Europe, that's what we can do, together, as Labour, Och, would you listen to me, sounding-off like I was still prime minister. Which, of course, I am.  But nobody is to know, until I have helped Mr CallMeDave and Mr IAgreeWithHim sort out this pickle they've got themselves into, with the NoMoney business, Don't know what they're complaining about. When I took office on that bright, glorious May morning in nineteen-ninety-seven, there was plenty of money, burnt a treat, it did. And anyway, they can always get Mr King to print them some more.

 There's quite a lot of stock, here, it's almost as if it was worthless, like the government bonds, and the pound; there's these things, here, piles of them, all folded-up by the volunteers, hankies, they're called, can't imagine what they're for, one of the  nutter volunteers - they've all been out in the Sun too long, you know, apart from me, or else they've missed their medication, which is someting they shouldn't do -  said they were for blowing your nose into but I can't see the point of that, why would you do that when there's so much hunger in the world, best to just eat those bogies right up and afterwards wipe your fingers on your tie, like  I do. It's the right thing for the country. And the world. Which I saved. And don't you forget it. Talking of which, I phoned my friend President Obama, the other night, to offer him some advice on the global situation but it must have been a crossed line because all I could hear was some rather unpleasant coloured people,laughing and swearing at me. I must get my new government to look into these communications difficulties. Only not Mr Blunkett, the blind bastard. Or Mr Reid. Maybe my old friend Peter Mandelson, he's very good at communications.

Well, there's some Danielle Steele books just come in and some Wilbur Smith, too, so I'd better go and dust them off, put those sticky wee price labels on them  - although I do think two pounds ninety-nine is a bit stiff, even if the money does go to tne savages  out in Africa  -   and put them over here with the James Galway cassettes and the pink bedside lamps, funny how one generations's sought-after and hard-won belongings are so swiftly revealed as worthless trash but still, that's the miracle of economic growth, or Boom, which I invented and Bust which is nothing to do with me. Look around, if only there was a poet, here, like my former young friend, stanislav, how he might mock these greasy Brevill sandwichmakers, these made-in-Taiwan brass plaques  and magazine racks, displaying Constable's England, blurred wee prints of Mr Breughel's Hunters In The Snow, once delighted-in, now discarded,  like a reviled and useless prime minister. It's one of the great strengths of the family, you know, of which I have a young one, that when parents die the children can't even be arsed to look at their parents' treasures but just fuck them all off down the charity shop, quick, so they can get the house sold-off, before Mr Osborne wants a chunk of it. The embellishments of family life, ghastly, cheap and vulgar, hastened away by grasping kin, to charity shops it's a sort of a metaphor, really, for people who aren't up to the job, and just cling on, being a nuisance. But I'm not like that, I still talk to my father, John, up in Heaven, he made me what I am, I owe it all to him; well, I owe quite a lot to you, too. But you've no chance.

I think I'll like working in Oxfam, I've already made some new friends 

 My new Cabinet at a working lunch. I was in charge.

and they all do exactly as I tell them to. It's an onerous responsibility on me, me being barking mad and a criminal lunatic but I had a wee fish supper with the manager  the other night and he said that after he'd had a good go at being in charge and  when the place was about to go bust then I could be in charge. But to start off I'd better just come in two half-days a week. Taking things easy, that's the thing for old people like me, with a young family. Divorce, what, me and Sarah-George, no, well, she hasn't mentioned it to me, anyway.

Well, I must rush, I'll just go and Hoover round those people, the ones trying to look at the books. Best to let them know who's Boss of this charity shop. (Me.)

And then I'll go home and have a wee sit-down, and hold my willy, for a few years.