“Well, what do you think?”
I looked into the LCD Views editors’ eyes, trying to read their thoughts, Slowly a smile spread across their faces.
“Damn it Standing, I like it! I like the cut of your jib, but you are going to need my joke Swiss army watch. Here, I haven’t used it in years, I hope it still works.”
“What’s this big red button?” I asked as I pressed it….water sprayed from the watch into the editors’ eyes.
“You best leave now Standing, to catch your flight.”
Upon landing in the Virgin Is (USA) I hunted around for a fixer.
I explained I needed a small fast boat to take me to Thomas Island under cover of darkness.
“You can’t be serious? No one has ever returned from that island alive. It would be a one way trip!”
“Ok, I’ll take a single ticket, that should be half price, correct?”
That night with no moon, we set out for Thomas Island. The boatman was nervous:
“You know who lives there don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “That is why my country is depending on me, I need to get in to see and photograph the A4 sheet of the Brexit plans, they will be in the safe or on a notice board in the news room.”
The boatman drops me 25m from the shore. Just the right distance with my RLSS competent swim badge.
It’s so dark I can’t see a bloody thing, so I roll into a ditch just up from beach and wait until daylight.
I’ve overslept, the sun is up and shining brightly. I gingerly look over the top edge of the ditch and I see this stunning woman rising out of the sea wearing conch shells in all the wrong places!
I hear the engine note of a speed boat, she runs and dives into the ditch beside me. I rearrange her conch shells so they are all in the right places.
“Do you speak Engleeesh?” I ask
“Yes, I’m from Deptford, what are you doing here Standing, this is my mission. Whoever gets that A4 sheet of the Brexit plan will make it big time in the main stream news media.”
We start to discuss terms, I suggest……no deal is better than a bad deal.
“Don’t be such a fool,” she says.
“Who opens a negotiation with that premise?”
Before I could answer, I feel a bang to my head and I collapse unconscious.
I awake in a room lying strapped to a table with a strange looking pointy thing hanging from the ceiling. To my left in pride of place is a life size statue of Theresa May all covered in gold with a silver anchor chain hung around the neck.
In walks the evil genius and the owner of the island.
“Aaah Mr Standing, we meet at last”
“Dacre you won’t get away with it.
The British people will see through your evil Brexit cult and you will be finished for ever,” I squeaked.
Dacre smiles an evil smile and throws a big lever by the wall. The big pointy thing in the ceiling starts to hum, suddenly a beam of red laser light starts to cut the table, slowly travelling towards my conch shell.
A CNC cutting machine! Oh, that is cunning.
“Dacre, do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr Standing, I expect you to die,” smarmed the evil Brexit genius as he leaves me alone in the room.
Suddenly I remember the joke watch the LCD Views editor loaned me.
I pressed all the buttons and then in desperation I pressed the big red button.
The water sprayed on to the laser light and the CNC machine instantly stopped due to electricity and water not being the best of friends.
Hours later, I manage to free myself and search for an escape route.
Upon running past a noticeboard I see the A4 Brexit plans with scribbled words in the margin (Mad Max, deep and meaningful, seamless border) written by David Davis.
I take a photograph and run onwards.
Time to text the secret rescue code to the orange satsuma visiting the Pentagon: ‘Virgin Islands ban guns’.
I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long. Within half an hour ten helicopters emblazoned with the NRA logo and brandishing every possible rifle, machine gun and rocket grenade launcher used for hunting squirrel, descended upon the island.
I held up a conch shell…..to show I was friendly.