Guantánamo Bay
Chalet 27
Guantánamo Bay Resort
Guantánamo Province
Cuba10th May
2009
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Dear
Mick,
I hope your
new job is going well.
As you know,
our whole family was delighted when you got that
high profile post to monitor the behaviour
standards of politically influential people in
the UK. We realised at the time that you’d
need to be seen as beyond reproach. However, some
of us were very surprised and worried when we
learned that all your close relatives would also
be positively vetted to check that none of us
might potentially cause media embarrassment.
Our worst
fears seemed confirmed when Aunt Mary; brother-in-law
George; sister Audrey and I were arrested by
Special Branch, driven to Brize Norton and
bundled onto an American Air Force plane.
One of our
guards then let slip that we were heading for
internment at Guantánamo Bay.
Aunt Mary was
stoical. She reasoned that it would be damaging
for you if the press learned of her thirty years
as a hooker. Also she was relieved to get away
from all those people hounding her for the
thousands she owed in gambling debts.
George was
less resigned. Although he’d spent years in
prison for burglary, he’d heard that
everyone got regular electric shocks to their
private parts in Guantánamo and was worried how
that would affect his prostate problem.
Audrey tried
to be encouraging, pointing out that mains
voltage in Cuba was only 110 volts as compared to
240 volts in the UK, but I knew she was anxious
too. Due to the speed at which we’d left the
UK, she’d made no arrangements to look after
the cannabis factory in her cellar.
Initially, I
wondered why they’d arrested me. OK, I drink
too much, and you’ve fairly described me as
a con artist and serial adulterer, but that
didn’t make me any different from the MPs
and senior public figures you’d be
investigating.
Aunt Mary
thought that was probably the point. She said
they’d created your job to stop people who
should be setting a public example from behaving
with less honesty, integrity and morality than
the lowest of us plebs. The public were sick of
those at the top thinking they’d got a
divine right to get away with bloody anything and
treat the rest of us with contempt.
It was then
that an officer came to talk to us. He explained
what we’d already guessed that we were being
kept out of the way so we couldn’t be an
embarrassment until you moved on from your job.
It appeared, however, that they’d closed
Guantánamo Bay as a detention and interrogation
camp and reopened it specifically as a secret
internment resort for politically embarrassing
relatives of honest and decent British and
American public figures.
It’s now
like an all-expenses-paid holiday camp.
They’ve replaced water boarding with water
skiing, and the only torture is watching American
TV – and that’s optional.
As I sit here
watching the sun set over the Caribbean, sipping
a Cuban rum cocktail and smoking an Havana cigar,
I can reassure you that I'm very pleased with the
way things have turned out. Aunt Mary, George and
Audrey also send their best wishes and say
there’s no need for you to rush to change
jobs.
Your favourite
brother,
Arthur.
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