Due to inclement weather the Scottish Revolution took place in Asda. God exists, like the plasma screen television, since Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond has met him/her/it. And he/she/it has no objection to gay marriage. Poor Alex! His best material comes from the black and white era. He hasn’t got a laugh on his own since the last election. That’s why they called me in. The world loves a good joke, and I am pleased to assist Big Eck in this matter until life takes another course. In my incapacity as jester to the Scottish Government my task is to transform St Andrew’s House from a virtual morgue into a celestial house of joy. I’m expressing myself rather too simply. It cannot be said often enough that jokes are important. Jokes are our rescue. Jokes are our life-raft in a sea of fratricidal love towards all. The inalienable right to be funny will be enshrined in the new cultural constitution of the untied kingdom.
I don’t write every ministerial joke y’unnerstond – it’s also a question of setting the tone, and a certain amount of spot-checking – but so long as I can spread damage and humiliations of all sorts around the parliament, I am happy. I have contributed to the Great National Rebuilding. A little. Somewhat. I can sleep like a log, dreamlessly. Recently I have been having vehement phone conversations with journalists who wish to bother me about a Labour video which puts the imagined words of Big Eck into the mouth of actor portraying Hitler. ‘Why aren’t you laughing?’ they demand to know, when the ‘joke’ in question is the product of a fairly obvious and unmistakable fatigue. I cannot say precisely why sloth permeates the entire opposition, but it does. I have the unenviable task of observing them in action at close quarters, and it is like being forced to eat a sack of soot with a spoon. “The thirst that from the soul doth rise…” – that’s my own case exactly. Who wrote that? No matter.

Last Thursday after First Minister’s Questions I was accosted by Portia, who is employed by one of the other parties to whizz around Holyrood and talk in whispers. Portia and I have history, but I don’t want to enlarge upon that. She used to live with her parents in a castle in the Borders, but I got fed up of all the coming and going. Some people love driving. I don’t. She asked if I fancied a large one, but in a tone of voice that made a reply unnecessary. We practically sprinted to the nearest watering hole. What do you think of our new leader? Portia inquired, aiming a double gin at her tonsils. Portia’s new leader has a face formed in the shape of two cushions, which, disturbingly, since her elevation, has been framed by a haircut borrowed from a young Mary Quant. The woman can talk, it cannot be denied, and someone had encouraged her to deploy dramatic arm-waving and, from time to time, the heaving bosom, for which she is equipped, but in all this exertion her coupon never for one moment changed its expression. Nietzsche asks, “What destroys more quickly than to work, to think, to feel without inner necessity, without a deep personal choice, without joy?” I spent the latter half of the session wondering how young one can die of old age, but, suddenly fancying my chances, I lied. Marvellous, simply marvellous, I cried. Uniquely proficient. Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy. I called for more gin, and we cosied up. Giving me an alluring gaze, Portia invited me back to inspect her new flat. I said, is it within walking distance? She said, it depends how long you’ve got, darling.