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From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
Thank you for sending me the Bastion Report. It looks a bit
long; could you summarise it for me please? And, by the way, this chap who
wrote it, Eugenic Bastion (strange name!) - who is he?
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for
National Security
Minister,
Eugenic Bastion is the code-name of one of MI6's most
skilled agents who has penetrated some of the organisations within the
waterways movement which threaten national security. Posing as an employee of
British Waterways, he has been taking part in their public discussions on the
internet and, more clandestinely, has penetrated some of the subversive
organisations that lie below the surface.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
The waterways movement, a threat to national security? MI6
must have gone off their heads!
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for
National Security
Minister,
Not at all, Minister. Just because the waterways
movement appears so harmless, all sorts of subversive organisations are
using it as a front. For example, take the so-called Tuesday Night Club, under
its mysterious Commode D'Or, "Knees" Hardship. On the excuse of exploring the
lesser-used bits of the waterways they are actually photographing secret
military research establishments. For example, they've discovered that the
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, adjacent to the Kennet
& Avon Canal, is a dummy designed to fool potential enemies, and the real
one is hidden up one of the Cambridgeshire Lodes. Incidentally that information
is top secret, so please eat this memo before reading it.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
I've started reading the report, and I see what you mean.
I'm very worried by this organisation UKWN, the Underground Knowledge of
Warfare Network, and its leader, Loose Packet.
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for
National Security
Minister,
So were we at one stage, Minister. Then we found it was
simply a crank organisation with a dummy name. Their real objective is the
re-introduction of capital punishment for crimes like hanging the stern rope on
the tiller pin and wearing bowler hats and red spotted neckerchiefs.
Far more serious was what we found out about a plan by South
American Drug Barons to build a canal to connect to the British inland
waterways for the supply of drugs. It's called the Nitts, Stuffs, Panama and
Colombia Canal, or NSPCC.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
Thank you for the information. So the UKWN isn't as
dangerous as it sounds. Is Def Jamieson one of their people?
By the way, what is a "tiller pin"? If it's what I think,
why would anyone hang a rope on Betty Boothroyd's leg?
I share your concern about the NSPCC. What are we doing
about it?
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for National
Security
Minister,
While Def Jamieson has some sympathy for some of the aims of
Packet and his colleagues, we now think he's probably a harmless crank who'd be
quite happy if he could persuade all boaters to live in his version of history
rather than their own.
On the other hand there is another man whom we think might
well be dangerous, and possibly an agent of the European Union. His name's Long
David and he poses as a clergyman in the North of England while running off to
France regularly on the excuse of boating. He runs a campaign for Free
Binaries. We're not sure what they are, but distrust anything involving the
word "free".
Somebody about whom we haven't made our mind up is a man
called Stort, who runs a barge called "Honks". We're not sure whether he's a
harmless eccentric or a dangerous subversive, but he certainly has strong links
outside the UK. He appears to be a Canadian with a Dutch Barge, which is pretty
suspicious to start with. And he, along with Loose Packet and "Tiny"
Warwick-Castle, seem to have penetrated the Interminable Wittering Association,
a hitherto-harmless organisation which they may be trying to subvert to their
own ends. We're not sure whether their associate Julie-Ann T'Other is involved
as well. Incidentally one of the reasons that we decided that Def Jamieson is
harmless is that he seems no longer to be a member of the Army Council of the
IWA.
You also ought to know that the IWA has a provisional wing
called the Workers Revolutionary Group whose spokesman on the net goes under
the codename Martian Floodgate. We're keeping him under surveillance as
well.
With regard to the NSPCC, we've recruited a specialist
operative who's gone underground to investigate it. He's called Shorn Knee'll.
He first came to our notice when he discovered the truth about the Cape to
Cairo Grand Imperial Canal, which Her Majesty's Government had managed to keep
secret for over a century. You might like to read his report of it at
this reference. After that we
thought it was safer for us to employ him rather than risk him finding about
any other projects that we didn't want revealed, like the secret bunker in
Northamptonshire where the Royal Family would be evacuated in the event of
invasion by the French.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
Have you gone out of your mind? Invasion by the French? What
on earth makes you think that's a possibility?
Oh, and that chap Stort. Is that Sir A.Drain Stort?
David
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for National
Security
Minister,
Re your query about possible invasion by the French. I've
checked the file, and we have felt that to be a danger for some time, ever
since one of our agents heard they had a dangerous revolutionary leader called
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Re Stort : A.Drain Stort is indeed his name, and he is
sometimes Sirred, but perhaps not as often as he's ab-sirred.
There is another group we're interested in, who seem to be
getting together a private navy of vessels with linked names : "Rum Puss" and
"Felis Catus". We know that the Government's financial backers at B&Q and
Black and Decker are very worried about the former of those.
Then there's a chap called Percy Buttyphone Morgan. On the
surface he seems harmless, but we're a bit worried in case he's related to
Rhodri Morgan and so a threat to the Government.
And there's a woman called Milly who's married to a
Councillor who isn't a member of New Labour.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
Re Morgan and Milly: these sort of people are a major threat
to civilisation as New Labour knows it. It essential that they be kept under
the tightest surveillance.
I see mention of some other people with a boat called "Blue
Herring". What do we know of them?
And there's that awful person who poses as "Sir David
Fletcher". He's clearly trying to undermine confidence in a senior public
servant. He must be a really dangerous character.
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for
National Security
Minister,
Re "Blue Herring" - we've decided they are harmless.
Although their name is Votes, they don't have any - at least not on this side
of the Atlantic.
As for the bogus "Sir David Fletcher", there is no need to
worry. He's an under-cover agent of DEFRA.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
DEFRA? The Defence Expenditure Frustration Removal Authority
?
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for National
Security
Minister,
No, Minister, the Department of the Environment, Food &
Rural Affairs. Their mole in uk.rec.waterways is doing a splendid job. By
posting such a load of half-baked ranting satire under the pseudonym "Sir David
Fletcher", he's building up sympathy for the real Chief Executive of BW, while
at the same time giving the Government the chance to argue that the users want
Fletcher to have a pay cut, and BW to lose the subsidy it was promised in the
1968 Act, without the opportunity to raise income from developing its property
portfolio.
Humphrey.
From : Minister for National Security
To : Permanent
Secretary
Humphrey,
I begin to see. So it saves the Government money to give to
the wealthy as tax cuts, and at the same time gives BW an excuse to push the
cost of the maintenance responsibilities it was committed to by the same 1968
Act onto the private sector. Like McDonald's and Microsoft.
David.
From : Permanent Secretary
To : Minister for National
Security
Yes, Minister.
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