"Bloody Hell!" I exclaimed in disgust. For I had lodged my posterior so tightly into the throne, to free myself was a wickedly difficult manoeuver. I shook it to the left and I shook it to the right, but all to no avail. I was flustered.
"Thompkins! I'm..." I sighed, exasperated. Thompkins appeared forthwith. "...stuck." I whimpered.
"Oh dear," said Thompkins, grabbing hold of my arms and pulling. "You have got yourself in a sticky wicket, Your Majesty."
"Confound it all, man!" I cried. "It's not my arms that are stuck. It's my bloody arse!"
Thompkins then grabbed me by my midsection and we cavorted about in a sort of sailors' jig. It was not altogether unpleasant. Under other circumstances... But the ministers were waiting and I could tarry no longer. With a Herculean twist of my body I at last popped free. In doing so, I lost my balance and fell to the floor, taking Thompkins with me. We lay there for a moment, utterly flummoxed.
Now that I look back on it, the entire dreary morning was made up of events such as this. The look of astonishment on the faces of the ministers when I arrived at Lancaster Hall; how was I to know my hairpiece was askew? The hideously awful cup of tea I was served there; I spit it out immediately and unfortunately, in the process, drenched Lord Timsbury. The whole business of having to sign my name to all those depressing dispossession and imprisonment orders; my hand was veritably racked with cramps afterwards. And the ministers, those appalling old waxworks, kept intoning the most ridiculous rigmarole about sovereignty and rule of law and who knows what. It was all so monotonous, I must have dozed right off. Next thing I knew, Thompkins was tapping my shoulder and the room was empty.
"Where is everyone?" I blinked.
"Gone, Your Majesty" said Thompkins. "Gone for fish and chips."
"Fish and chips? Without me?"
"You're expected back at the castle, Your Majesty. For veal and prawns."
"Such is the end of empire," I sighed to myself.
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