Ever since the Redistributionist Faction assigned me the task of coaching Edweird the Milliner to improve his standing in the political life of the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria (didn't I tell you about that? – I thought I had…), I've noticed some considerable improvements in his standing before the electorate, and I'm certainly pleased with the outcome so far. Please pardon my modesty.
Naturally, it comes as a complete mystery to me as to why the Redistributionists should elect to choose a common-or-garden moggy to groom their Great Leader for stardom and greatness; perhaps it's because I'm endowed with a measure of astuteness and impartiality that evades the stock-in-trade human contenders for the post. Needless to say, the rewards from my work are lavish, since they've been redistributed from the Northumbrian public purse into their treasure-chests. If Dover sole, smoked salmon and caviar are good enough for a Redistributionist politico and a trade guild baron, they're certainly good enough for me!
One fundamental priority I've implemented is to seriously attempt to make Edweird the Milliner look vaguely human and sane when under the public eye. This has been a severely difficult task for me to achieve, but in our daily coaching sessions (one hour, full fish expenses paid) I've managed to accomplish a breakthrough; Eddy Boy now knows how to pull the correct face when presented with a hedgehog pie, and also how to appear when he starts to attempt to eat it.
Part of the syllabus I've set for Eddie is also eye and mouth training. This has also been something of an upward struggle, since these two features of his physiognomy have habitually struggled in mortal combat with each other on the arena of his face. One mark of the improvement that my training has managed to accomplish is that now, his eyes roll inwards while his mouth is closed, and conversely, his mouth contorts into its customarily peculiar shapes while his eyes look ahead. This is by no means the fulfillment of my training sessions, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Such is the measure of my success thus far that already Eddy Boy's popularity has already soared in the esteem of the electorate, and among his colleagues, only a few thousand voices are now raised in dissent and in favour of a replacement Chieftain. He is being groomed to be the next Principal Minister!
All that remains on my list of outstanding objectives is to teach him how to not call for an independent public enquiry every five seconds. Now that's a tough call, if ever there was one…
