The Comedy Is Over But The Laughter Lingers On

A time-honoured way of showing up the absurdity and rottenness of any human institution is to set a comedian loose within its hallowed precincts. Usually these excursions are fictional, but with Boris Johnson and the British political establishment the thing played out for real. Johnson may not have been particularly funny but he did a grand job of making a laughing-stock of everything and everybody he brushed up against.

Junk

I dreamed I was searching through a warehouse- or group of warehouses- full of junk- a lot like the shop they have attached to our local recycling centre but far more extensive. The owner was offering glasses of wine to his visitors- but not to me- because I wasn't important enough or had slipped below the radar- and I told myself I didn't mind because it was too early to be drinking. There was a room with a notice on the door saying it contained Jewish artefacts. I went inside and it was completely empty- with bare patchwork walls and a floor of packed earth- like a cabin in the schtetl. I n another room I picked up a revolver that had several pages of manuscript wrapped round it- but of course you can rarely read script in dreams. The final room was hung with brightly coloured posters- a little bit psychedelic, a little bit sexy- all showing a bunch of people, upper body only, in profile facing left- and in each group a woman exposing her left breast. As I left the building I found I was holding a toy pistol (a different one) and thought, "I don't want this," so I slipped back inside and put it down on a table.