'Adventures In Self Esteem'

An Interview with Sir Mole Cleethorpes

"Sir Mole Cleethorpes, we often wonder don’t we?"

"Yes, we often wonder about all manner of things. I certainly do, so might you be more specific?"

"I can almost certainly try."

"I believe in your potential."

"Thankyou Sir Mole."

"Not at all, cunty."

"What then do you feel is the biggest threat, not to our country, lets think bigger than that. What do you feel is the biggest threat currently to humanity?"

"I could say a multitude of things in response.."

"Yes.."

"War, climate, the destructive mentality of some, not all, humans. Not myself. I believe in peace and I believe in wanking my cock. But what I am going to choose to say is ignorance. Look at the world that appears around you – how is it so many countries and Governments and organisations have at the helm, ostensibly as leader, an utterly ignorant git? A person so catastrophically certain they have all the answers, so terrified they’ll be accused of looking weak or like they don’t know what they’re doing, so desperate to look tough.."

"Decisive."

"Macho."

"Yes."

"Even Thatcher, of the Margaret variety, insisted on being photographed in a tank – look at me – I know how to do this – flash this image across the entire civilised world – I have prevailed in battle.."

The Falklands?

"Vote for me and you’ll never not have enough weapons and her electoral opponent, Mr Kinnock, saying shortly afterwards ‘I warn you.’ A vote for this woman is a vote to entrench privilege and inequality and millions of utterly ignorant people voted for her anyway."

"The image to which you refer is of course tremendously powerful. Victory had been delivered. Mrs Thatcher.."

"In a tank. Yes, well this chimes a particularly disgusting chord with me.."

"Because of course your Headmaster.."

"Drove about my school in a tank, yes."

"One simply wonders how he ever got away with this?"

"Well – in any dictatorship suppression of truth is vital and of course a technique he had long since mastered. We would be warned a day or two in advance of any school inspectors coming in and he would hold a whole school assembly on this theme – a presentation very much along the lines of ‘tell anyone what really goes on here and you’re dead.’ Whereupon he would crush a beetle or torment a spider or fire a shotgun, just to reinforce his threat."

"A very powerful message."

"Yes – well as they say “keep people afraid then the politician/newspaper/gangster is powerful and our Headmaster was very much a gangster in all but name."

"But your fellow pupils presumably were not ignorant of this fact? They could see this?"

"They were not ignorant, no."

"Perhaps one could then argue that in this case the biggest threat was not ignorance, but fear?"

"Fear, yes. Well I would be prepared to change my previous answer."

"Fear of speaking out – against the type of man who just wanted to see the world burn?"

"They do say that some men just want to see the world burn but not true in my Headmaster’s case.."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because when we burnt his house down he wasn’t happy."

"Sir Mole Cleethorpes, thanks ever so."