Finally, in October, there was convened the plenary session at which Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet was to be relieved of his high office. Autumn had set in quite early this year, and the dignitaries and nabobs and aldermen, who purposively trooped or apologetically sidled through the double doors into the City Hall’s vestibule, bore the harried look of entitled persons who have been subjected to a buffeting by gales. Sodden hats were lifted from balding heads, dripping anoraks and gabardines and waxed coats peeled from arthritic shanks, brollies shaken out and furled, all such soaked appurtenances now burdening the braided arms of the flunkies who bore them thence gently to steam next to the aged radiators in the cloakroom of that palace. —
Hawksmoor Perroquet, City Hall
There now ensued one of those tiresome grey interludes during which the minutes for the previous meeting were read out, followed I think by one of those grey and tiresome minutes during which the interludes for the previous meeting were read out; this occasioning some tiresome grey disputes over grey and tiresome areas among the tiresome grey people in that grey and tiresome chamber; this being followed by a fatiguing monochrome episode during which certain statements of conflict of interest were evinced, this occasioning some fatiguing monochrome disputes over monochrome and fatiguing matters among the fatiguing monochrome people in that monochrome and fatiguing chamber; following which the Lord Mayor - a personage in a tricorn hat, distinct from Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, who needless to say was not in attendance on the occasion of his usurpation - stood and made certain announcements of a dismal, pettifogging nature, which occasioned an amount of pettifogging and dismal rancour among the dismal, pettifogging people in that pettifogging and dismal chamber. Verily, as the prophet saith, all, all was beige. —
tricorn hat
At last, upon the conclusion of all this drab and mundane procedural business, that wispy-bearded mundane and drab emeritus Alderman Oldphart got up upon his legs, and proposed the removal of the Mayor, —
Alderman Oldphart
“ … inasmuch,” piped the Alderman in the purest castrato, “as he has sullied his office and the reputation of our City. Not only has he betrayed a lamentable lack of leadership in his response to the conflagration which overtook those abandoned souls in Little Mogadishu, for which he alone in any case must assume the ultimate responsibility; moreover I have recently learnt from my esteemed colleagues,” and here Alderman Oldphart deigned to gesture with an exquisite courtesy of thumb in the direction of Messrs Justice Shallow and Justice Silent, “that is to say that I recently learned that our esteemed colleague the Mayor had many years ago a wife and egg whom he abandoned, which was most shameful and unbecoming in someone holding the high office with which he has been entrusted by this City.” —
Alderman Oldphart
Following this peroration, remembered ever after for the almost Periclean quality of its deliv, Alderman Oldphart yielded the floor to Mr Justice Shallow, who greatly obliged all present by calling for a coughing break. —
Mr Justice Shallow
“ … inasmuch as, if the motion to remove the present incumbent be passed as I trust it will be, this City shall find itself in want of a body to fill the place by this means vacated, the entelechy of our City having its own natural horror vacui. Moreover, whereas it has pleased us upon a previous occasion to elect to this office an individual of the avian persuasion, inasmuch as it is not on account of any specifically avian property of his that our esteemed colleague has derelicted from his duty, I do not see why we should not persist with this experiment in diversity. Accordingly, I do herewith propose that the House do elect as the new Mayor of our City the crow that has lately made a name for himself among us, that is to say Mr Ian Corby.” —
entelechy, Ian Corby
“Very good,” said Alderman Oldphart, “now, inasmuch as it is my understanding that Mr Ian Corby has been apprised of the motion which was to be and now has been put before the House, I have the presentiment that Mr Ian Corby may in fact already be among us. Perhaps if Mr Ian Corby would care to show himself …” —
Ian Corby
And so it continued. Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, drunquen and drugged and scoping the proceedings on one of the widescreens set up at the back of the Shouty Cunt in Gloucester Road, viewed with befuddled bitterness the winning and emollient ways of Mr Ian Corby. —
The Shouty Cunt
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