Party Games for Adults Only

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Bernard, is it important? I must finish these Defence papers.

This is more urgent, Minister. What is it?

Your Christmas cards can't be postponed any longer.

Eugh. Which is which? They're labelled.

These you sign Jim; these Jim Hacker

these Jim and Annie; these Annie and Jim Hacker;

these Love from Annie and Jim. And those?

those have cyclostyled signatures so you needn't write anything.

Make sure none of them should have been personally signed Jim

or Jim and Annie or Annie and Jim Hacker

or Love from Annie and Jim.

What about those? Constituency cards

Your agent left them.

As you see, they've been divided up. Those you sign Jim;

those Jim Hacker; those Jim and...

Thank you, Bernard! I think I've got the gist.

Is that it? Apart from the ones at Party headquarters.

Party HQ? I didn't do those last year.

You weren't Party Chairman last year.

Oh. Do I have to send this one?

Why not? It's to Maurice in Brussels.

He forced through the plan to standardise the Euro sausage.

Euro sausage?

Next year we'll be waving goodbye to British sausage,

forced to accept some foreign muck

like salami or bratwurst or something.

They can't stop us eating the British sausage!

It'll be called the

emulsified high-fat offal tube!

And you swallowed it?

It's my job to implement EEC regulations.

What they got against our sausage? Don't you ever read the papers?

I glanced at it, but it rather put me off.

Apparently, there's not enough meat in it.

"The average British sausage consists of 32.5% fat, 6.5% rind,

"20% water, 10% rusk

5% seasoning, preservative and colouring

"and only 26% meat,

"which is mostly gristle, head meat, other offcuts

"and mechanically-recovered meat...

"...steamed off the carcasses."

I don't feel particularly... I had one...

I had one for breakfast.

Perhaps the EEC commissioner is right.

He may be, but it'll be extremely unpopular with the voters.

We shall just have to grit our teeth and bite on the bullet.

You can't bite a bullet when gritting your teeth If you do that...

Sorry.

By the way, you were going to advise me

what presents to get for the private office.

That's up to you. Bottles of sherry for the assistant secretaries,

large boxes of mints for the diary secretary

and small boxes of mints for the rest.

What about my Personal Private Secretary? That's me.

Ah, yes, of course You don't have to give me anything.

I know, but I'd like to. Oh, Minister...

Well, anything, really. Such as?

Well, really I would like a surprise.

What sort of surprise should I give you?

A bottle of champagne is the customary surprise.

What time is my meeting with Humphrey? That's been cancelled.

Sir Humphrey had an urgent meeting with the Cabinet Secretary.

The Cabinet Secretary. Always makes me feel rather nervous.

Sir Arnold is the most powerful chap in the country.

controls Cabinet agenda, controls access to everything.

I wonder what he's up to?

By the way, Humphrey... Yes?

I've decided to retire early.

Oh! Have you, Arnold?

In the New Year.

Ah...

My successor has to be firm with our political masters.

Absolutely. No nonsense with that lot!

But tactful... Exactly.

Suave, charming, emollient... And above all, sound.

Sound? Oh, yes, sound.

So my duty is to convey a recommendation to the Prime Minister

the Permanent Secretaries best meets these stringent criteria.

And, er...

...Have you, er... Er, er, is there, er... Does anyone, er...

You see, in this job, the problem isn't really finding the answers

it's finding the questions.

We need the man who can find the key question.

By the way, Arnold, to change the subject completely,

what will you be doing when you retire? Ah, very good question!

Very good question. There might be jobs you could pick up,

ways you could serve the country, which your successor

could put your way er, persuade you to undertake!

I had been giving it some thought

I'll be chairman of the Banque Occidentale

and there'll be directorships of IBM and BP and so on.

But I was thinking... Yes?

The Chairmanship of the Opera House will be coming up

Chairman of Covent Garden... And the chancellorship of Oxford.

The deputy chairmanship of the Bank of England would be a...

...A challenge? A challenge, exactly.

And head of the Security Commission.

The Anglo-Caribbean Association would give one...

...a chance to be of service.

Precisely!

Especially during the winter months.

I'm sure any successor worth his salt could arrange these.

Do you think so? That's very reassuring, very reassuring.

But there is another thing.

Certain advice one may have given the Prime Minister

could, if it emerged, be misinterpreted.

Er, what sort of advice? All sensible and reasonable,

but advice about using troops during strikes.

A very sensible precaution that they should be armed,

but, taken out of context, machine guns...

Oh, I'm sure that need never come out.

Negotiations about reactivating the Simonstown naval base.

Absolutely sensible strategically

a great help with the Falklands,

but as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth...

And you will be Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

Would I? How gratifying!

And the right successor would keeping those files under wraps.

Good.

Anyway, to get back to our original point,

My colleagues and I can placing your name top of the list.

I see.

May I ask how many other names will be on the list?

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