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So, obviously Hugo you have a well-developed sense of self-importance. Would I be pushing it to suggest that the way you see it is that you come first and then the Everythingers, who you say you want to represent, come next?
Where on earth did you get that ridiculous idea from?
Oh, I don’t know, maybe everything you just said about how the Constitution is only for the upper-class, like you.
No, really, Troy, you’ve completely overestimated the importance of the losers. After me, I see the National Party as the next most important thing, though it’s not a close run thing, and then the remaining Everythingers come in a very distant third and last place. And only because I can’t think of anything else that matters to fit in between.
You’re sick, Hugo. I’d never put the People’s Party before Everythingers. They’re the whole reason for wanting an opportunity in government. I’d turn my back on the party before turning my back on the voters.
My, how noble of you. I’m sure Monty Havajack would be mortified to know how little you care for him and the party he leads. Everyone values loyalty.
You couldn’t be more wrong about Monty. He’s a man of honor who serves Everything because it’s his duty. You just don’t know him like I do and so you fail to see what an inspirational leader he is. You underestimate him at your peril.
Troy, I know Monty much better than you’ll ever know and I most definitely know never to underestimate him. I may call him Monty the Moron in public, but he has hidden depths that make him a formidable opponent in this campaign.
Well, actually, Hugo, and this absolutely is just between you and me, The Citadel haven’t been completely open with Everythingers and the media. Monty Havajack’s actually been in a coma for the past 15 months.
Yes, that’s not been the best kept secret by any stretch of the imagination.
You know he’s in a coma and yet still see him as a formidable opponent…oh, have you heard he’s going to be making a recovery. Oh yes, I see how that would make him very dangerous for you.
Are you kidding me, Troy? Coming out of the coma is the last thing his team wants. As long as he’s unconscious, he can’t say anything stupid. Just look at my event in Fudginaw last night. Apparently, I got caught up for 20 minutes debating whether I’d rather fight a duck-sized sabretooth tiger or a sabretooth tiger-sized duck. I emphatically advocated for the sabretooth tiger-sized duck match-up, or so I’ve been told. I mean what was I thinking? You’d always want to fight the duck-sized sabretooth tiger in that scenario. I’ve already had a reporter from ENN on at me today, trying to trip me up on Bicker over whether I’d rather spend the night with a Beyonce sized NewJeans or a NewJeans sized Beyonce – how am I supposed to answer that?…that’s some real deep philosophical malarkey right there…I even tried asking QrapGPT how to answer that and it just kept repeating that carrots are five-foot-long root vegetables that were traditionally sharpened to a fine point and used by the knights of the Round Table in combat against the honey badger army of Sauron. Not to worry, though, my people think I saved it last night by extending the event for 45 minutes to jam on the saxophone.
I didn’t know you play the sax.
I don’t. Hang on, you’ve got to see this…someone uploaded it to Smokestack…where was it…ah, I think this is it…yep, listen, I reckon I’m trying to do that solo from Baker Street at this point, you know, the Gerry Rafferty tune. It sounds like an African elephant that’s being savaged by a feral pack of bagpipes, but just look at the heads of those in the front row, swaying from side to side like they’re at a Naylor Biff concert.
Don’t Tell Me That You Love Me, You’ll Make Me Drip.
What? You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren’t you?
No, no, no, Hugo, it’s a joke, Don’t Tell Me That You Love Me, You’ll Make Me Drip is a song from their second album, Citizen Beaver and the Womble of Boom.
Really? Don’t know it. Honestly, I only really like that one, La La La All The Way To Monterey.
That’s not Naylor Biff.
Yeah it is, are you questioning me, Troy?
No, Hugo, it’s just I could have sworn La La La All The Way To Monterey was done by Angus Curtains.
No, it’s definitely sung by a sexy girlie.
Umm, Angus Curtains has long hair and he is a bit of a pretty boy, not that I’ve noticed of course, it’s just something the wife said.
Oh, shut up, Troy, or you’ll miss my favorite bit. Here you go, look at the face of Governor Henty Flange rocking out gently just behind me. She looks like someone sucking an Asian hornet while taking the Eucharist from Pope Brad the First.
Cool pope!
Yeah, a real cool pope! I’d love to be the pope, I bet he gets all the chicks.
Actually, I’m not entirely sure that’s how the Catholic Church works, Hugo.
Of course, I’m going to have to give Governor Flange something for her loyalty. Maybe I’ll make her my ambassador at the Union of Countries or I could probably make a vacancy at the gift shop in the Palace of Sensationist. It’s a real sexy uniform and she looks like she could carry off a peek-a-boo bralette.
You know that’s not going to be popular with the animal lovers?
You’re not talking about that Bish-Bash-Bosh video where she shot her kitten, surely? If you’d taken the time to watch the whole thing, right from the beginning, you’d have seen that scrawny animal flat out refused Henty’s command to recite the two-times table. Cats, like the losers, need to be disciplined.
So, despite that video, you’re seriously saying that if you win the election, you’re going to give some kind of job to Governor Henty Flange simply because she danced along on stage while you massacred who knows how many tunes on the saxophone?
Hardcore loyalty like that must always be rewarded, Troy. You want people around you that you can trust 100% to do what you want them to do. If Henty Flange can bop about a stage for three quarters of an hour while I strangle a variety of noises out of a saxophone, I know I can trust her to do anything to make me happy. You can’t buy that kind of loyalty.
Really?
You’re right, what was I thinking? Clearly, you can buy that kind of loyalty, though it’s cheaper in the short-term to bully it out of people. I remember sharing that gem of wisdom with Fantastico Hobble when we met at the World Wealthy Barstewards Forum a couple of years back.
Fantastico Hobble, the ex-Spottish King’s Administrator? Hang on, didn’t he suddenly resign during the World Wealthy Barstewards Forum?
Yes, a funny story there in fact. We were getting on like a house on fire, Fantastico and me, and I commented how I hadn’t expected a King’s Administrator to be such fun, I’d always assumed they’d be a bit stuffy. Anyway, he seemed genuinely surprised to discover he was the King’s Administrator of Spot. So, after a few phone calls, he found out that three years earlier, during the stag party for his 23rd marriage, his posh boy chums had got him elected leader of the Verdegris Party and, by extension, the King’s Administrator. Despite the endless partying that he’d been enjoying ever since, oddly he didn’t think that him being in such a position of responsibility was a good idea and that he should resign for the good of the nation. Fortunately I managed to talk him out of doing such a crazy and rash thing. Then an hour later, he lost the position of King’s Admin in a bet with one of the strippers over where the ping-pong ball would land.
And that wasn’t at all crazy and rash.
Don’t judge him too harshly, Troy. Realistically he had no choice but to accept Bambi’s double-or-quits challenge to have any chance of winning back HMS Phirephart, Spot Navy’s newest nuclear missile submarine. Obviously he didn’t and that’s how Bambi became the leader of Spot. Sadly she only lasted 49 days, forced to resign after making her Economy Secretary plan the country’s budget using a broken child’s abacus. The dumbass never noticed it was missing a blue bead. After that mess, you can understand why the Verdegris party elected a safe pair of hands candidate to serve as King’s Admin for the remaining two years of the term. It was Charlie the cabbage who came out on top in that leadership election.
Larry the lettuce.
What?
Actually, it was Larry the lettuce. Charlie the cabbage came a distant second in the vote of party members for new leader after readers of The Comet were encouraged to vote for Larry. It’s even rumored they went so far as to fake that notorious video of Charlie in a sleazy low-rent hotel room snorting neonicotinoids with two peeled beetroots, neither of which were his wife.
Right, okay, well I don’t really recall any of that, but the thing that worries me most is that I’m surrounded by even bigger idiots in the National Party. I’m having to carry them on my own, Troy.
In the land of the idiots, the moron is king.