Tessa Jowell (minister in charge): "Fuck me, how do we top that fucking glorious extravaganza in Beijing?" and then, as a sniggering aside, "not that I'll be in office, of course."
Sir Kenton Toenail (permanent secretary, DCMS): "I'm afraid money's a bit tight going forward, minister...and, er, we've spent so much on marketing and pre-paid redundancy packages for the spin doctors and IT consultants that there's very little left for the talent."
TJ: "Very little? What do you mean? We've been scalping London council tax payers and the National Lottery for years already, and we're building everything with the cheapest labour possible and in a complete shit hole part of town which cost us nothing to acquire. There must be some money left over?"
Sir Toenail: "Well, the good news is that we've persuaded the Band of the Coldstream Guards to march up and down for five minutes playing the Dad's Army theme and the Hornchurch Girls Pom-Pom Troop will do us a turn if the Department of Transport turns a blind eye to them not having an MoT for their coach."
Clint van Hornbeam (chief executive, VacuousDigitalMedia PR): "I think we can save the day, minister, with a webcast tableaux showing highlights from British history - the Crusades, the Black Death, beheading Charles I, the Highland Clearances, Internment in Ulshter, oh, and an episode of Love Thy Neighbour intercut with adverts for Angel Delight as the highlight. All very cheap, we've got the rights to the lot, and we'll bung some impoverished don a few quid to write something that gets it all to hang together. Oh, and we're talking to Diddy David Hamilton and Paul Burnett to do a bit of DJ-ing."
TJ: "Yes, that's more like it. Britain's still got something to show those bloody Chinese! We're not a busted little no-mark nation after all. Three cheers for Mr van Hornbeam - where would the country be without ruthless peddlers of re-heated celebrity tat?"
Tea trolley arrives and there is an adjournment.
