Through
the Looking Glass Revisited – for Lewis
Carroll
with
guest stars: Priti Patel as Alice
Al
Johnson as Humpty Dumpty
“Mirror,
Mirror on the wall ,who is the smirkiest of them all?”
The story so
far:
Pretty Petal
has fallen through a trap-door in the backroom of her parents'
Newsagents, where she has been looking for the 'Ultra' edition of the
Conservative Review. As usual she lands on her feet but she is aghast
to find that her worst nightmare has been realised - she is wandering
in a forest of red-tape and regulation. She flails to left and left
but cannot find her way out. Then she hears a voice
“Wiffle,
waffle, woffle, I'm King of the world; I'm world King; I can do
anything...”
Pretty
Hopeless emerges into a clearing where an egg-shaped person with a
shock of blonde hair sits on a wall.
“I know
you” announces Petal “The Cumquat calls you his 'Chubby
Marionette'. You're Dumpy Humper”
“Harrumph”
Dumpy murmurs to himself “This is not a good start”
Then turning
to Pretty he says
“ I can
assure you, young Glistening Otter, that Cumquat advises but Humper
decides; well at least I think that's what he said. Anyway, what's
your name oh girl of colonial disportation”
“ My
name is Pretty Ambitious, Fat Mop-Head”
“Well
that's a stupid name.” said the Humper dismissively “A name must
have a meaning. Pretty Ambitious means nothing to me.”
“It
seems to me that Dumpy Humper is a name without meaning” said
Pretty defiantly.
“Au
contraire, e contrario, puella bella.” responded Dumpy (
Dumpy liked to lapse into a foreign language when he was uncertain,
as it showed how clever he was)
“Dumpy refers to the proportionality between my height
and my rotundity, which (as you will have noticed) is perfection
itself. Humper speaks for itself, I think.” (Dumpy
was pleased with this riposte)
“When I came through the forest I heard you say
wiffle, waffle, woffle, Mr Humper. What does that mean?”
“When I use a word” Dumpy Humper replied ”It
means just what I choose it to mean...neither more nor less.
For example, when I say 40 hospitals it actually means 6
hospitals or when I say 'Do or Die' it means 'I am going to fob you
lot off with a load of baloney.'
'Wiffle, waffle woffle' means 'I don't like your
question and I'm not going to answer it'; and so on.
Of course, I have to pay some words more than others,
according to how hard they work for me – 'Spaffing, bumboys,
piccaninnies, letterboxes' are particularly expensive as I use them a
lot.
“That's rather good. I like that...” said Pretty
Cunning reflectively “So when I say 'immigrant' it can mean all
those people I want to keep out of Wonderland, for one reason or
another, but it doesn't refer to Ugandan Asians, like Mum, Dad and
Me.
Or when I say I'm taking a 'holiday' it means that I am
going to meet Bibi 'the bastard' Netanyahoo?”
“By Jove, you've got it.” said the Humper
appreciatively “It's the same with 'Turks' sometimes I use it to
put the fear of Mogg up people by telling them that 'we're all going
to be run over by marauding Turks'. Sometimes I use 'Turk' as a term
of endearment for my dear old Great Grandad Ali Kemal Bey, who hails
from Istanbul.”
“By the way, coming from Uganda, I don't suppose you
would like to climb up here and join Old Dumpy in some 'Ugandan
Discussions'* I suppose?”
“I'm afraid I don't speak Swahili” replied a bemused
Pretty Awful.
(Pretty
is too young to know that 'Ugandan Discussions' is posh boy code for
sexual shenanigans)
“Oh that's disappointing” frowned Humper “ Then
perhaps I can persuade you to join my 'cabinet'. I think that it
would be amusing to have a representative of the Ugandan Tottyship
nearby. You could even sit next to me instead of Cumquat (He
always smells unwashed)”
“What's a cabinet” enquired Pretty Useless.
“It's my box, in which I keep people, who do exactly
what I say; or rather, exactly what Cumquat says.”
“It sounds just right for me” mused Pretty Devious
“And can I make words mean exactly what I want them to, like you?”
“Of course, Pretty Unscrupulous; well that's settled.”
said Dumpy Humper clapping his hands. As he did so he started to lose
his balance. “ Cripes this wasn't supposed to
happen...Cumquat...Cumquat... Cumquaaaatt...where are you?...”
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*Editor's
note:Ugandan discussions"
is a euphemism for sex coined during the early 1970s by the satirical
British magazine "Private
Eye".
The basis of the term arose at a party in London
hosted by Neal
Ascherson at which Irish moralist and journalist Mary Kenny, during
her early, wild phase, spent some time upstairs with a former Ugandan
government minister. On rejoining the other guests, Kenny explained
their absence by saying they were "upstairs discussing Uganda".
