Section UK.
(A Novel Proposal, Tim Barker, 2001)
The lunatics have taken over the asylum. The asylum is the United Kingdom and it’s in the hands of a bunch of Mental Health patients. The Prime Minister is a Paranoid Schizophrenic and getting deeper and deeper into the Occult which would be quite upsetting for the Archbishop of Canterbury if it wasn’t for the fact that he himself is decidedly delusional. This doesn’t stop the faithful from praying for the P.M.’s salvation. This eventually comes, according to the Archbishop, as the Second Coming. Jesus appears as a young Asian woman from Croydon who happens to suffer from multiple personalities, believing she’s Mohammed, Allah, Buddha or Jesus depending on the day of the week. Meanwhile the Home Secretary is a psychopathic serial killer using his criminal mind and insider knowledge to commit the worst crimes this century before being discovered by the head of the MET. However, said head is retarded and becomes an unwitting accomplice to the dastardly detective’s deeds by acting on disinformation cleverly formulated by his superior to get the hounds off the trail.
The Queen meanwhile still hasn’t retired and is now
completely senile. She doesn’t even know who Charles is and it’s all she can do
to manage a wave when wheeled out on state occasions. The economy comes and
goes with the Governor of the Bank of England’s mood swings who’s a manic
depressive. He’s been to see the Chief Medical Officer for help but he turned
him away saying he had enough problems of his own as he’s a self-diagnosed
hypochondriac. The media should be having a field day with the loony tunes
running the country if it wasn’t for the fact that the head of the BBC is
slightly psychotic. He’s more interested in leading his coven of which he’s
particularly proud of his successful new addition, the Prime Minister and wife
who seem to relish the sacred sex rituals. The Editor of a major broadsheet
newspaper is desperately trying to nail down the secret sects running through
the Establishment and is, in fact, displaying all of the signs of an obsessive
compulsive. Her behaviour manifests as numerous tapes of phone conversations
and cuttings displayed on every free wall space both at home and at work but
she just can’t piece it all together. The madness is even permeating the world
of Sports as it turns out that the Manager of the English football team is a
New Age acid casualty espousing non-violent action on the pitch and reciting
bad poetry in interviews. This would be quite worrying for the Vice Chancellor
of Oxford, his old tutor, but fortunately he’s catatonic and oblivious to all
the jolly japes.
As various crises come raining down on the Elite of U.K.
life such as the invasion of Northern Ireland by Quakers, the introduction
of mandatory psychological testing for all employees and the abolition of
tea and cucumber sandwiches we see the lunatics banding together eventually
coming out as winners in the race for stability and all things British. The
stiff upper lip may quiver slightly but that’s just the medication. In a final
twist it emerges that the whole story is simply a role play in a Mental Health
institution but the patients succeed in creating a society which makes more
sense than the crumbling world around them.