Chapter Four

The exciting novel, Two Enclaves, continues.

The small call-centre in Mumbai was staffed by one undersized, lowly qualified, Indian gentleman by the name of Panjandrum Singh, who presided over a small bank of Artificial Intelligence (AI) droids and a large number of Artificial Stupidity (AS) bots.

The AI and AS programs had been designed in their entirety by Panjandrum and were programmed to mimic the full range of processes formerly on offer by the EU.

It was with this establishment that Bonson was to communicate on the befuddled matter of Brexit. Conveniently, negotiations could be conducted entirely by phone. Inconveniently, Bonson’s phone was out of credit, out of juice and out of range. Without hesitation, he scooped up Igor’s phone which was on the hall table, legged it to the front door and grabbed his bike for the short ride to the ruined site of The Houses of Parliament, which was the nearest place where it would be possible to pick up a signal. Just as he was about to open the door, a magazine popped through the letterbox. This triggered an undignified scuffle, as Igor and Grease Bog fought their way down the stairs, vying to be first to get to the latest edition of Hansard.

Over the years, Hansard had changed significantly and was now published as a comic strip and delivered on a fortnightly basis. Alongside parliamentary matters (which were few) it featured golden-oldies comic strips such as: ‘Dennis the Menace’ ‘Thaggie Matcher School milk Snatcher’ ‘Depredations of The Beast of Bolsover.’ ‘The Villainies of The Wicked Witch of Widdicombe’ and many other riveting tales of derring-do .

Joris Bonson moodily jostled his way past the other two, ensuring that the bike ran over Igor’s foot and clipped Grease Bog on the left buttock.

‘Nincompoops’ he muttered, as he cycled through the door.

There was a great deal of hustle and bustle amidst the ruins of Parliament. There were upward of 40 honourable members, who were juggling their mobile phones and bumping into their compatriots as they petulantly sought a signal. There was also the usual coterie of demoralised, disgruntled or deranged statesmen and women endlessly crossing the floor.

Speakers’ Corner, which had once been located in Hyde Park, now operated from a platform of rubble on the east side of the house. It attracted a variety of speakers, including – Grease Bog who visited at least twice a day, often dressed in a toga, with a laurel wreath on his head. Nobody at all had the slightest idea as to what sort of dogma he was spewing forth because, in addition to the ‘speaking only in Latin’ thing, GB had, in the style of the great orator, Demosthenes, taken to declaiming with pebbles in his mouth. Like Demosthenes, he hoped that this would improve his delivery of the spoken word. Unlike Demosthenes, it did not.

Bonson had finally secured a phone signal and set about the laborious task of connecting with the EU. He had dialled the 32 digit number three times, before the distinctive tones of Panjandrum Singh, launched into the usual claptrap.

“Honourable ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most glorious European Union. We respectfully request that you employ the simplest of tactics in addressing your required assignment for the day, by depressing on your keyboard one of the following numbers:”

With that, he reeled off about a hundred and thirty numbers, together with the associated activities that they represented. This operation took about 40 minutes , during which time, most people had dozed off, only to be awakened by the thuderous rendering in muzak at maximum volume, of not only the EU anthem, ‘Beethoven’s Ode to Joy’ but his entire 9th Symphony.

Thirty five minutes later, another click and instructions to press ‘1’ for EU opening times – and so it went on.

Finally, after three hours and twenty three minutes, by which time, those who were still hanging on, had lost the will to live, they were almost there:”

“ …………. In the event that Brexit has triggered a General Election please press ……..

This last instruction tipped Bonson into an extreme state of agitation. He turned as white as a polar bear and started to tremble.

“SHIT”, he screamed.

He had suddenly remembered that in October he had called a General Election for the 12th of December – and today was ? Today was

“SHIT”

Today was the 11th of December

Panic stricken, Bonson pressed a few random buttons on Igor’s phone; terminated the call, mounted his bike and streaked off as fast as he could, back to Clowning Street.

“Shit, shit, shit.” he muttered as he mentally ran through the Herculean task with which he was faced and the vast number of things that would have to be put in place when he got home. He pedalled furiously.

“Cripes!” His head reeled, as he calculated that it would be eight months of work condensed into 8 hours.

Arriving home, he barrelled through the front door, crashed up the stairs and tore into the small conference room. There, he found Igor and Grease Bog, hurling insults at each other over a game of snakes and ladders, each accusing the other of cheating. In point of fact, both of them were cheating - outrageously. Igor was going up the snakes as well as the ladders, whilst G.B was deliberately side-stepping the squares which depicted a snake’s head.

Bonson harrumphed loudly and thumped his fist on the conference room table, upsetting the board and scattering dice and counters across the room.

“Come on you two, dunderheads, lickety split. We’ve got a general election to win, there’s no time for shilly-shallying."

“Facta non verba,” muttered G.B peevishly. (Deeds not words)

This did not impact on Bonson, who appeared to have lapsed into some kind of reverie, acting as though he was in a far distant land. He was, in fact, revelling in the sweet dreams of yester year when, in the winter of 2019, he Joris Bonson, had exploded into Parliament, with an absolutely whopping majority of 659. This was all the more remarkable given that there were, in total, only 650 seats.

In his trance-like state, he was no longer the tired, aging politician of latter years. He was the mighty Joris Bonson from the golden age of politics and he had orders to issue because he’d just devised an absolutely brilliant plan for the future, the core strategy of which would be based entirely on falsehood.

From the way in which he puffed out his chest, pulled in his stomach and raked his fingers through his hair, it was quite clear that he was regaining his equanimity.

He turned to Grease Bog.

“ I want you, Egg Head, to produce a manifesto, pronto. So get cutting and pasting. I don’t care from whom you filch it, and I’m not bothered how many extravagant promises you make but it’s got to be a real show-stopper, one that jumps off the page, smacks you in the eye and belts you in the mush. One that can fool all the people all the time."!

Grease Bog seemed quite animated by the prospect of taking on this task. He could feel his creative juices flowing and was already mentally constructing page after page of extreme right-wing drivelling doublespeak. He shot off to his room to seek out his fountain pen.

Turning next to Igor, Bonson gesticulated wildly and screamed:

“Rotten boroughs. Go find me some, NOW ... Oh, and if you have a spare moment, be a good chap and bung together some lealets."

(To be continued…)

A Simple Letter

"Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud

All men make faults".

William Shakespeare

You would think that in the 21st century, a transfer of £50 to an individual in the U.S.A, would be the work of an instant.

You would be wrong.

Although it has been considerably easier of late, sending funds to a prisoner in Ely State Prison can still be a frustrating ordeal, that takes time and energy, and requires sharp wits and a tractable disposition.

My early experience of this procedure was infuriating. Some state prisons had the facility to offer electronic transactions; Ely State Prison did not and the inmates’ friends and families were consequently involved in endless rigmarole, especially those who lived outside the US.

It was first necessary to obtain a US money order which you can only get from the States, or from a US airbase in the UK. This particular problem was overcome by a UK couple, who were associated with the charity that had put me in touch with Bill, of which I was a member. They travelled frequently to the US on business, and whilst there, purchased a number of money orders to bring home with them after each visit. It must have cost a fortune. For a charity member to purchase an order, it was necessary to contact the charity by mail, enclosing an official money order request form, a (Sterling) cheque and a self addressed envelope. On receipt of the order, it had to be filled in by the sender - a horrible undertaking because there was so little space within which to answer the multitude of questions and you were under constant threat of the order being invalidated. Once completed, the order could be despatched to Ely Prison Authority who, when they felt like doing so, would process it and pay it into Bill’s account.

The proceedings could spin out for anything up to three weeks, before the funds were finally made available to Bill. It was exasperating how much money was leached off during the whole operation: bank commission, fluctuations in commercial exchange rates, postal charges and prison administration fees. The final stage in this unhappy business was cruel and humiliating . Each transaction was subject to the deduction of $5 to be put towards the costs of the inmate’s funeral.

Bill has no official source of income, no direct access to his bank account and no relatives to offer him support. His mother and father are both dead, and the whereabouts of his only brother is unknown, he was last heard of five years ago, at which time he was in gaol. Bill surmises that by now, he could well be dead. Bill also cites a couple of elderly relatives, but none communicates with him and again, he is unsure whether they are dead or alive.

For this reason, he is totally dependent on donations from outside sources. Luckily, he now has several staunch penfriends who send him regular amounts but is hasn’t always been the case. When I first wrote to him in 2011, he had lost a very dear penfriend who provided vital financial support. Bill was so broke that he was reduced to selling his desserts to other inmates.

His outgoings are considerable and include toiletries, warm clothing and comfortable footwear, to supplement the thin orange jump suits and canvas shoes which are prison issue and offer little protection against a Nevada winter, spent in a cold cell. Other items that have to be budgeted for are stamps, artwork materials and as many edibles as he can afford from the prison shop. Prisoners in Ely are always hungry as the meals served by the prison kitchen are meagre and unappetising.

There is also other, more onerous expenditure. Bill has a television and an MP3 player and both have limited life spans. There was a problem two years ago, in the run-up to Christmas, when his TV broke down and he had no funds available to replace it. Happily, his penfriends pulled together on this one and he was able to enjoy TV over the festive period. He has no access to the internet but he can receive correspondence on his MP3. I have been employing this means of communication as it is easy and cheap. I write a letter once every two weeks and send it to Corrlinks, an organisation which, after vetting them, forwards electronic letters to prisoners.

I have recently had the good fortune to meet, online, another of Bill’s penfriends, a lovely lady, named Jennifer, who lives in the US and whose kindness has made it possible to expedite fund transfers I now send the money electronically to Jennifer who then draws the requisite amount out of her account and writes a check which then has to go to the prison authorities, before arriving in Bill’s account. This process is a lot less cumbersome than the previous method.

If you are interested in writing to Bill, please don’t hesitate to do so. He can’t emphasise too strongly how much it means to those on death row to receive a letter or postcard, something ‘easy on the eye that brings pleasure to the heart’ (his words). He would be ecstatic at the receipt of a simple country scene, seascape, or perhaps a foreign city. His favourite postcards are works of art, especially Picasso and the modernists.

Postcards must be put in an envelope and must not exceed 10 in number. Bill’s prison number, #0016830 must be clearly printed on the back of each postcard.

Bill’s address is:

William Leonard #0016830

Ely State Prison,

PO Box 1989

Ely NV 89301

U.S.A

This address must appear in the bottom right hand quarter of the envelope and your own address in the top left hand quarter. Any deviation from this will result in the letter being returned to sender or destroyed.

Everyone Needs a Sister - in-Law

I used to have three sisters-in-law. Sadly, two passed on.

Now I have one.

I remember the day when my brother announced that he was bringing his girlfriend round to meet us.

He said her name was Judi, and then went on to entreat us,

Not to go over the top or make a complete fuss.

It's magical having a sister-in-law

This bolt from the blue filled me with curiousity,

But I tailored my questions carefully, since my brother was not known for his verbosity .

I asked him what she was like. He paused, and said that she had good legs, could hold a tune and that her voice was solid.

I had no idea what he meant by that, but assumed that it was a compliment and not something horrid.

I decided to press on with the questions, as his description of her was scanty and in no way torrid.

I ventured further and asked him if she was pretty,

He considered for a moment and then replied,

“Well yes, in an odd sort of way.” That was all he would say, which was a pity.

I should mention that my brother was a musician,

Who inhabited a different planet, and was by his own admission,

Of an eccentric disposition.

Although he wrote brilliant music and was a gifted intellectual,

He wasn’t schooled in home care, his domestic skills were ineffectual.

That first meeting with Judi went well. I saw what my brother meant by her ‘odd sort of prettiness.’

I noted that she had a beautifully modulated voice, a wonderfully expressive face and an aptitude for wittiness.

And although she was stylish and alluring, she showed a reassuring trace of grittiness.

We hit it off and a friendship ensued that was bolstered by her capacity to drag humour from the darkest situation.

Displaying stoicism, in the face of disappointments, remorse, regrets, heartbreak and tribulation.

Together, we have lived through golden days and carefree years, when our lives appeared to be right on track,

But there have been other, stygian times, when together, we have travelled to hell’s portal and back.

We have known dreadful days, when darkness will not cede to dawn and everything is black.

I know that Judi’s always there for me, fighting my corner and affording completely non judgmental support.

Please don’t think I am making her out to be some kind of saint , ‘cos she ain’t.

But she’s never fallen short.

Maggie Smart

Everyone should have a sister-in-law, Darlin'

Even Stalin