Deep Thought

Today, I would like to talk to one specific person, in the hope that it might illuminate his life and lead him to spiritual fulfilment.

Dear Sir Ian Blair – former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Hello there Sir Ian. I missed you being knighted, by the way. When did that happen? What did you do to deserve it? You haven’t been in any cool films, like Ghandi or Star Trek: Nemesis, so it can’t be that. Maybe it was your brilliant deflection of blame when those police officers you were responsible for shot that innocent guy repeatedly in the head. That was classy. Calling it ‘a mistake’, like ‘Whoops! Silly us! Blew a guy’s head off! Crazy old us!’ Maybe it was that.

Anyway. That’s not really what I want to say to you. I don’t really know anything about running a police force, and I’m sure you do your best, and that there aren’t really giant injustices done in the name of expedience, and that it’s all very above board.

What I do know is this: I know the meaning of life. I do. And you don’t, you silly old top cop knighted person, you. You don’t. And that in itself isn’t so bad; after all, not everyone is going to know the meaning of life itself, and it’s not like it was part of your job description. No, the silly thing was going on Radio 4 this morning and pretending you did. You said you knew the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

You said it was 43.

The annoying thing is, I can’t remember what you were actually talking about. That’s how aghast I was at your mistake. ’43?’ I shouted, drowning out whatever it was you said next in my indignation. ‘FORTY BLOODY THREE?’ It’s a good thing I was stopped in traffic just off the Armley Gyratory, or I may well have swerved into the side of a house. 43? Is the man insane? It’s 42! FORTY TWO! Everyone knows that, don’t they?*

Here’s a tip, Ian. Sir Ian, sorry. Here’s a tip. If you want, you can give me one in return. But don’t make it that one about saying something was ‘a tragedy’ when it was in fact the result of systemic errors in a flawed and politicised system. I’ve already used that a number of times. Make it something cool, that only a knight would know.

Anyway, here’s my tip. Don’t use pop culture references, unless you understand them. They don’t make you sound clever. In fact, when you’re discussing something serious (whatever it was – like I say, the details have been eclipsed by my incredulity at your incorrect evocation of Douglas Adams), it does you no favours to introduce glib, pointless and inaccurate allusions to a book about spaceships and towels.

So there. Thanks for reading, Sir Ian. You may like to check out my humorous comments on Star Wars in earlier blogs. And in the unlikely event that it wasn’t you who made this mistake, and that I wasn’t really listening, and that it was in fact David Blunkett or someone, then I’m sorry. It’s a tragedy. Let’s draw a line under it.

Love, Rob
* Subsequent research has revealed that no, not everyone knows the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Asking around the office, I got answers as varied as ‘47’, ‘23’, ‘love’ and ‘boobs’. So it turns out Sir Ian was relatively close after all. Sorry, Sir Ian.