Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net (naypong)
Yesterday was the perfect day to be sick in Ottawa.
As I lay prone on the couch, clutching the recently spayed pug Sophie to my chest lest the evil Finnigan break her stitches, I was able to distract myself with some good television, some very good television indeed.
First came Question Period, with Tom Mulcair giving a masterclass on interrogation.
"Will the Prime Minister?" "When did the Prime Minister?" "With whom did the Prime Minister?"
He was really getting Harper's goat. You could almost see the red rising in the Prime Minister's cheeks.
You couldn't really.
By the look of him, Harper has been undead for some time, hidden away in the bowels of a boat headed back and forth to Europe in a quest for some very fine wine and cheese to ply the voters of Brandon Souris.
Harper was clearly pissed at that little nugget Mike Duffy who has been delighting the rest of us with his tales of wrongdoing at the hands of Nosferatu and his henchmen in the PMO who are intent on taking away his entitlements.
"Yes", admitted Vlad The Impaler, rising for nearly the whole Question Period (!) to answer for himself. "I did it. I told him to give the money back. And then that damned Nigel Wright went and wrote a cheque. And now he doesn't work for me. And Duffy doesn't work for me either. I'm all alone here. So you can all go piss up a rope. I want to talk about wine and cheese. And I'm damned well gonna talk about wine and cheese!"
Meanwhile, down the Hall, the Hair that Walked Like a Former Famous Broadcast Journalist was wringing her carefully manicured hands. (We're assuming she was wringing her hands because nobody told the Senate that we weren't still in the radio age.)
"The mean girls, they talked to Bob Fife and told him all my secrets," said the ageing Lindsay Lohan."They were jealous of me. I was stealing their boyfriend. He likes me, he really really likes me. He told me so himself."
And with that the geriatric Rachel McAdam rose from her seat, weeping crocodile tears, denying she was giving pillowtalk to Bob Fife, who will do anything for a story. Anything.
"I've been here for 50 years," cried Rachel. "I rubbed oil on Diefenbaker's gnarlies. I tickled Brian Mulroney under the chin. Now what was the question?"
Meanwhile Lindsay's other detractor was resigning from Student Council.
Apparently, she had absconded with the milk money.
It was like the sequel to Mean Girls set in an old folks home, played out on radio, with old boys in suspenders quivering and defending the honor, the paycheque and the health care benefits of the Hair that Walked Like a Former Famous Broadcast Journalist.
How would she live without her entitlements?
"Look," she pointed to the door. "I came by bus!"
The passion play repeated itself every quarter hour on television filling the bank accounts of hacks and flacks, many of whom we thought had died long ago. But there they were, all resurrected on the pages of newspapers and on our flatscreens. Two hundred dollars a hit! Now that's some serious Bell Media coin.
Scott Reid will be able to move on up to Rockcliffe thanks to Mike Duffy.
Over at the CBC, Pete Mansbridge was having a field day as a solo act having worn out his usual panel of minions over the previous two nights, with not even a sighting of his bug-eyed companion.
The scandal may have dealt damage to the the cholesterol laden heart of Mike Duffy but it's put a spring in the step of old Mansbridge who hasn't had this much fun since Cynthia Dale first tap danced on his scrotum.
"Alas, Old Duff, I knew him well," the bald one cooed. "He broke my step at the cottage. True story."
And Bob Fife can taste a Gemini award. He's already spending his overtime on highlights at Rinaldo's.
What a wonderful country we live in. What a great institution, the Senate of Canada.
What gripping television. I'm sure Pat Boone sold an awful lot of tubs yesterday.
As for our democracy, it might be a fuck up but it's our fuck up.
The RCMP have a new purpose. The Auditor-General is getting new office space.
And we have our own Spaghetti Parliament just waiting for the wine and cheese to arrive in the Prime Minister's satchel.
What will the news hold for us today?
I can only count the hours, as I clutch to my heaving bodice my own copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, signed by Justin's papa.
What will the movie be today?
Will there be more menopausal meanderings or a blood-spattered Tarantino-like saga with bodies hoisted upon the Black Rod?
I can't wait for two o'clock.
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