MONDAY
From the moment I wake, I crave news. All weekend I am deprived of it. By Monday, the need for information is like a fire in my blood.
I push back the starched, white sheets of my single bed, wash, trim my beard and dress. Then I find myself pacing around the tiny confines of my cell.
“News!” I bellow, and when nobody comes, I begin striking the wall with the only personal possession that my captors have left me — a golden picture frame in the shape of an AK47, which holds a picture of my Excellent self firing a golden AK47.
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“News!” I declaim. “News, news!”, Eventually a guard comes running. A young one. One of the Americans.
“Mr Saddam, sir,” he says.“I must ask you to practise some quietment in your cell there.”
“Damn your eyes!”, I snarl at him. “I demand news!”
“No sir, Mr Saddam sir,” says the American. “I am not permitted to give you any information about the insurgency, the Government of Prime Minister al-Jaafari or the global war against terror.”
I roll my eyes. “Bugger that for a camel’s testicle,” I say. “Just tell me who was evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house. And please tell me it wasn’t Rula Lenska.”
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TUESDAY
It was Rula Lenska. And worse still, my old friend George Galloway has been nominated for the public vote. Truly, by the scented wind of the Beduin night, I pray for that unholy abomination Pete Burns to be tormented by many demons. I simply cannot believe how beastly he is being to Traci from Baywatch.
It is a little known fact, but we in the Baathist Republic of Iraq had Big Brother long before the Europeans did. Always, my people were watched. When they grew unpopular, they would be evicted. Frequently by means of my Excellent golden AK47.
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WEDNESDAY
This morning, I spotted a cameraman behind my bathroom mirror. I struck at the glass with the golden picture frame, and I think he scurried away.
For some time now, I have suspected that I am being filmed. Who are the viewers? Merely my captors? Or others? Perhaps I am a star each night, on a billion TV screens worldwide. Actually, my exploitation is not unlike that of George on Big Brother. As he was photographed in that leotard, I was photographed in my underpants. I understand. I sympathise. Although I still cringed at the cat thing.
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()The craven British Establishment has unleashed mighty forces against George. With my lunch, the guard brought me a copy of a tabloid newspaper, with his latest humiliation on the front page.
“A thousand embarrassments!” I exclaimed. “This one he will never live down! I cannot believe that he actually came face to face with Borat, the alter-ego of Ali G!”
“Sir?” said the guard.“That’s your late son. The murderer Uday.”
“Ah,” I said.
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THURSDAY
George Galloway has been evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother house. A plague upon the monochrome homogeneity of racist Western punditry! Henceforth, I, Saddam Hussein, rightful President of the People’s Baathist Republic of Iraq, am for Chantelle.
She’s spunky.
Did George know how much the viewers disliked him? I don’t believe he did. Not until he heard Davina say: “I’m coming to get you” and the booing started. I must learn from that.
There are cameras behind my mirror, inside my cupboard, in air vents, everywhere. I am sure of it. I must remember my audience, at all times.
He may be abhorrent in the eyes of man and God and deserve death by a thousand beheadings, but everybody seems to like Pete Burns. I spend the evening sitting with my legs too far apart and saying acerbic things about the breasts of my guards. Through fear, they shall learn respect.
FRIDAY
Today I am ignored. I am reduced, once again, to banging my golden AK47 picture frame against the wall. I miss my golden AK47. Once, I had two. I had one of them melted down, so it could become golden bullets to be fired out of the other one. Glorious days.
Eventually a guard responds to my banging.
“I want,” I tell him,“to go to the diary room.”
“Sir?” he says. “Mr Saddam sir, sir?” “I want to go to the diary room,” I repeat, and in frustration I hurl the picture frame to the floor.
The guard hurries away and I slump down on the bed. I do want to go to the diary room. I want to speak to Big Brother. I want to hear Davina, over the loudspeaker, saying that she is coming to get me. Most of all, I want to be evicted.
I lick my lips, and I start to purr.