DECEMBER 18, 2008: Spent the day grumbling about Radler’s parole. I am not surprised that my former business partner makes an unwanted, surreal appearance in my dream life. I am a passenger in a hot-air balloon with my spiritual mentor, Cardinal Newman, who’s wearing a red beret. Suddenly, Radler appears wearing only a pair of skimpy swim trunks, a mountainous edifice. The quisling surges above, not noticing us, spewing white smoke in his wake.
“Our conscience is God speaking to us,” Newman was fond of saying. One suspects that Radler Iscariot has jammed Newman’s ears with his false testimony.
FEBRUARY 14, 2009: My ardour for Barbara, who’s recovering from treatment for her neck wattle, is both acute and relentless. I dream that my friend (and token sodomite) Elton John has invited us to a costume ball to honour Margaret Thatcher. Lady Black is very fetchingly dressed as Tsarina Alexandra, a comely complement to my Grigori Rasputin. A masked woman dressed as Eva Braun draws us into an empty bedroom, where she and Barbara tie me to the posts of the ermine-lined bed. The woman removes her mask and reveals herself as the guest of honour. I audibly gasp when Margaret drops her slacks, and brandishes an instrument of the male anatomy more glorious than I could hope for or fear. “Perhaps we should gag the good Lord Black first?” she says to Barbara, who readily agrees.
Barbara is the Thatcher of my heart: she rules over my affections with a clear eye, a warm heart, and an iron fist.
MARCH 1, 2009: After an evening spent composing my National Post editorial on the decline of the double Windsor knot, I dream I am competing on Jeopardy! against Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell. Having cleaned up on categories like American Presidents and Astoundingly Apt Adjectives, I decide to bet the entirety of my winnings on Final Jeopardy. The clue is oblique: “Asshole writes…” I struggle with possible solutions, but ultimately write on the answer screen “What?” To my great surprise, I win.
Having successfully vanquished nine of the thirteen charges unfairly foisted on me, I will triumph on appeal. To paraphrase another television game show (another program, I must add, that I am forced to watch in confinement), the wheel of fortune will turn in my favour again.
