Glad to join a protest with my friends and fellow lodgers Theodore Cat and kafkaa roach against the use of Peter Mandelson as a diarist in The Spectator. (See below). But then we all thought: why stop at the diary? Why not take over the whole magazine? We would rename it Cosy Moments and restore the proud motto first coined by P G Wodehouse's Psmith: Cosy Moments will not be muzzled! It would become a Mandlefree zone. To be on the safe side against other unwanted intruders we would write the whole thing ourselves. We are forming a consortium to make a bid for it. Please join it as a backer, especially as a Mystery Backer, because nothing can call itself a Consortium without a Mystery Backer. So far we have had a big offer of funds from a Miss Gaddafi of Libya.
Our protest follows.
The Editor
The Spectator
Dear Mr Nelson,
We are lodgers in the household of Richard Heller, who describes himself as a man of letters although few are answered. We hope this one will have a better fate.
We write now on his behalf and ours to beg you to cease publishing Peter Mandelson as a diarist in The Spectator – or at least give some advance warning so that the three of us can interdict the edition before it reaches Richard. Any appearance by him always has a terrible effect on him, and consequently on us. He paces furiously for hours on end, muttering imprecations. We are forced to lock away his cabinet of strong cordial waters and his firearm and his last remaining valuable bibelots. One of us always stands guard over his piano to avoid distress to the neighbours. He abandons his customary nosegay of light cocktail melodies in favour of random discords such as Scriabin used to crash out when pursued by his bookmaker.
We have acquired a rich vocabulary in Richard’s household and most of his imprecations against your diarist were familiar. “A very conceited person with a great deal to be modest about… a baleful and emetic presence in national life… a face which on the Chief Weasel would frighten spectators of ‘Toad Of Toad Hall’, even the Friday night audience at the old Glasgow Empire…” But this diary appearance elicited new imprecations which could not be repeated in a family journal such as yours.
We can see no motive to use him as a diarist, except perhaps as a deep and desperate plot to drive voters away from Keir Starmer, whom he purports to advise. He offers you nothing in content and even less in style. Even with the vocabulary of Nero Wolfe we could not convey the depths of our indifference to his purchase of a doughnut or the response of his trainer, even one with a titled relation.
Each of us are ready to offer you an alternative diary should you be incomprehensibly tempted to use him again, and I am certain that our rates would come in well below his.
As you probably know already, Mortimer Mouse is the world’s leading optimistic philosopher.
you probably also know that kafkaa roach is a celebrated vers libre bard, cousin of the even more famous archy only his output is much quicker because he has trained himself to dance over the keys of richard’s laptop rather than headbutt those of the old portable typewriter of mr marquis
Theodore Cat has had many interesting past lives, any one of which would provide better material for a diary than Mandelson’s drab doughnuts. Even a poet of kafkaa’s talent was unable to do them justice when he attempted to repeat his cousin’s life of mehitabel.
For that matter, Richard could produce you a better diary than Mandelson and he comes cheaper than any of us.
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