This novel is something a little different for me. It is a satire set in the
UK at the present moment. There are striking parallels between these days and
the 1930s. There’s a lot of racist people around who are crawling out of the
woodwork as they have been encouraged by the implications of the Brexit vote.
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Tompkins admired the house which was around three hundred years old and had an ivy-covered exterior. The birds were happily chirping in the pale afternoon sun. He strode down the driveway and hammered on the front door of the house. A breeze blew Tompkins’s straw-coloured locks as he waited for his compadre, Stalky Stark, to answer his summons.
“Tomcat, how the devil are you,” said Stalky, from an upstairs window. He was tucking his shirt hurriedly into his trousers.
“I say, what, have I interrupted something?”
“Well, yes I suppose, Esther’s gone up to town with the kids, so I was just giving the au pair a good rogering, as she was panting for it, or that’s how I interpreted it, anyway. I will be down in a second. Unless you want to come up and have a go?”
“Well, thanks for the offer, but I have something important to communicate with you, Stalky, so perhaps we could go for a walk, out of earshot of the hoi-polloi?” Stalky Stark climbed out of the window and came down the substantial black drainpipe in a manoeuvre he’d repeated many times over the years. As they walked, Tompkins outlined why what Stalky was doing was wrong. It was about a minute before Stalky spoke.
“Dash it you’re right, the struggle is more important than shagging the arse off some Albanian tart every few minutes” he said.
“She’s from where?”
“Tirana, wait you don’t think she’s part of the opposition, do you? Is that why she’s always so willing and then asks me what my plans are when I am in an aroused state?”
“Almost certainly, she’s pumping you for information while you’re pumping her for, well, pleasure I suppose?”
“I have to get rid of her, don’t I?” said Stalky.
“Tuesday night’s run to Belgrade, she’d better be included otherwise, no more pigeons for you, you’re risking the whole operation.”
“Quite understand, so they’re closing in on us, aren’t they?”
Julian Worker UK Blog 