The world's your lobster

Reuters

MY PARTY: Gordon was a little upset when Joe's G20 response arrived in the mail.

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Joe Bennett

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OPINION: I've just spent Earth Hour propped up in bed waiting for my electrically heated outdoor swimming pool to get hot enough to boil a lobster for supper.

And while waiting  I've reached a decision. I'm not going to attend the G20 summit in London. That will disappoint millions, I know, but I simply can't be bothered.

What finally made my mind up was the legend BYOB on the invitation from that dreary Gordon Brown.

If I'm going to fly halfway around the globe to dispense wisdom like some sort of oracular lawn sprinkler, the least I expect is to be well catered for in the drinks department. Especially now they've got those ludicrous laws about liquids on planes, so that every last tube of pile cream has to go into its own little plastic bag. How many atrocities do you think that's prevented? Exactly.

Its aim, of course, is to suggest to the craven hordes that mummy is doing everything she possibly can to keep them safe, while in actuality mummy is just covering her own backside and simultaneously buggering the hordes about in a bid to render them even more craven than before.

Standard practice for authorities down the ages, but I just can't be bothered with it.

Instead, I'm going to have an imaginary summit of my own here in bed. I had one with the pope a few years back at which I gave him a spectacularly unattractive piece of my mind. And I couldn't help noticing that a few months later the old boy handed in his chasuble for good and ever. Doesn't voodoo work along similar lines?

So I've instructed the dog to line up the world's leaders outside the bedroom like third formers waiting for a vaccination and then to bring them in one at a time to see the school nurse, aka me. We'll have the whole business sorted out before you can say crack that crustacean.

"Ah Gordon, good of you to come. Care to ditch that tie and snuggle under the duvet? Okay, have it your way. I was just hoping to hear how you planned to resuscitate your post-imperial economy. It's relied for rather too long on posh chaps in the City moving money around and they in turn have relied for rather too long on a reputation for Victorian probity that's now been permanently exploded by the shenanigans at Northern Rock and RBS and who knows where else.

"You've tipped billions in the banks, you've dropped interest rates to nil and you've tried quantitative easing, which is a quaint euphemism for setting the printing presses at the Royal Mint running day and night. None of it's worked. So what now? Come on, come on, the hour of the lobster approaches. Cat got your tongue, has it? Very well, just stand in the corner and keep an eye on the pool. Next!

"How lovely to see you again, Barack. What I was wondering is whether you've got any ideas other than the ones that have got your country so fantastically into debt that your dollar seems just a teensy weensy bit wobbly. Did you notice, by the way, that the Chinese and the Russians have suggested trading oil in a different currency? Old Sadders tried the same trick a few years back, a fact not entirely unassociated with your predecessor's most notorious overseas excursion.

"So anyway, what fresh ideas have you got? No, don't look over at Gordon. Come on. Anything?"

I glanced up at the pool. Little bubbles were winking at its rim and sparkling in the floodlights.

"Very well," I bellowed to the waiting dog. "Send all the world's leaders in at once."

Crikey, you never saw a sorrier lot of sadsacks in your life, all of them sheepishly looking at their shoes.

"Right," I said. "This is now an open meeting. Has anyone got any idea how to fix the current economic crisis? Speak up."

THEY shuffled. They squirmed. They stayed shtum as a cemetery. Then up spoke a jaunty little chap. He mangled his vowels something horrible but I admired his pluck.

"I'm going to build a cycleway the length of the entire little country that I happen to be temporarily boss of. Like everyone else I haven't got a blind idea what to do about the bigger problems, so I thought a cycleway would keep us busy for a bit and if the clouds ever clear we'll have something to remember the bad times by and to attract the sort of tourists who like their vacations laced with a little self-flagellation."

The other leaders all sniggered behind their hands and lifted eyebrows to each other.

"And that," continued Mr Jaunty, "is the same reaction I've had everywhere."

"Well, you won't get it from me," I said. "Your cycleway is the only concrete practical suggestion I've heard so far from anyone. Care to split a lobster? The rest of you are dismissed."

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