The last-chance spittoon

 

'So, Piglet.'

'So, Pooh.'

'COP 26.'

'Happening right now.'

'What does it refer to?'

'Whom, Pooh.'

'Whom?'

'Specifically, PC Jamie MacGillivray of Coatbridge.'

'Ah...you mean he's in charge of security--'

'He is security.'

'Goodness...big responsibility.'

'Oh, yes...all that sitting around...listening.'

'Sitting and listening?'

'That's what each one-cop security contingent has to do at these farragoes. Listen to all the speeches and arrange them in rank order.'

'I see.'

'So, next time, whoever comes top starts off and whoever comes bottom tries to make themselves heard amid all the departing Range Rovers and bijou jets.'

'Ah...so I suppose whoever comes bottom would have to change their tune for next time, to avoid--'

'Can't be done.'

'No?'

'Speeches have to stay the same, by law.'

'Oh, I see.'

'They have to declare that everyone is...now, what's the phrase?...gobbing in the last-chance spittoon.'

'Good grief.'

'Plus a lot about our children's children not forgiving them.'

'How will they know they won't forgive them?'

'Oh, they'll jet into the future, turn up all breathless, ask "So how's the forgiveness thing?" and a bunch of semi-skeletons in the red wastes will say "Nul points" and they'll jet back just in time to see PC MacGillivray draining the last of his thermos.'

'I see. Still, it begs the question...'

'Just one?'

'For now. I mean, if all the speeches stay the same, no-one can change their place in the order next time.'

'Ah, now, that's a matter of taste.'

'Taste?'

'Oh yes. Rhetoricorically-wise, Cop Twenty-Six might be, well, differently attuned to, say, Gendarme Vingt-Sept or Polizist Achtundzwanzig...or indeed يىگىرمە توققۇز ساقچى .'

'I'm sorry, Piglet?'

'Cop twenty-nine...in Uyghur.'

'Hmm...but the chances of Uyghurs having any say in climate--'

'About the same as having any say in how they draw breath.'

'Nul points?'