Monday
I’m in Brussels for the start of Brexit negotiations with my EU counterpart Michel Barnier.
“This is going to be the most difficult thing we’ve ever done,” I tell him, cheerfully. “One might as well build a meringue igloo on the moon!”
“A what?” says Barnier.
“Or shave a tiger with a toothbrush,” I say. “Or eat 470 pies made of steel.”
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Barnier sighs. Then he says there’s some concern in Brussels that I’ve spent the past year mainly thinking up weird and jovial metaphors for Brexit. Rather than doing any actual work on it.
“Also,” he adds, “you appear to have no notes.”
I tap the side of my head and tell him it’s all in there. So with me sitting here there’s nothing to worry about.
“Anyway,” I say. “Nice to meet you. Now I’m off back to London.”
“You are joking?” says Barnier.
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“Of course I am!” I chuckle.
Then I go home.
Tuesday
Today we have the official cabinet photo. It’s tense. Afterwards, when we pose for some extra ones in the Downing Street garden, Philip Hammond comes over.
“Listen,” he says. “All these stories that keep leaking about me. I need to know. Are they from you?”
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“Ho ho ho!” I say.
“See,” says Hammond, “this endless smiling. Is it because you know something? Or because you know literally nothing at all?”
I just beam at him again. Then I say it’s all going to be fine.
“Oh blast,” says Hammond, looking at the sky, “now it has started raining.”
“No it hasn’t!” I say, as we both start to get quite wet.
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Wednesday
On the way into PMQs, I find myself walking next to Michael Gove. Yesterday one of his closest allies called me “thick as mince, lazy as a toad and vain as Narcissus”.
Now Gove says it’s important I realise that mince is often quite thin. And that toads can be terribly industrious. And that Narcissus was actually a slob. Then he says he knows there’s a lot of leadership speculation at the moment, but he wants me to know that he has nothing to do with any of it.
Then he slaps me on the back, unexpectedly, and then a note with some sticky tape and the words “KICK ME I’M A PLONKER” falls on the floor. And then I look at it and I look at him, and he looks at me and runs away.
Thursday
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Today I’m going back to Brussels for a press conference with Michel Barnier about how negotiations are progressing.
“Brilliantly!” I say.
“Terribly!” he says.
Then he explains that we still have huge unresolved issues about the divorce bill, the European courts and Ireland.
“Although we’re very close to a compromise!” I say, grandly.
“But you won’t say anything!” shouts Barnier. “So I have nothing to compromise with!”
I think he’s working too hard.
Friday
The PM has gathered some of us for an intimate candlelit dinner in No 10. She’s about to go on a walking holiday, she says, and thinks we all need to clear the air.
“I have no interest in being PM,” says Michael Gove. “In case anybody was wondering.”
“Nobody was wondering,” says Boris Johnson.
“We need a PM like Margaret Thatcher,” declares Andrea Leadsom, “our greatest living leader.”
Then Philip Hammond says they can’t go on like this because Brexit is about to fall apart like a Chocolate Orange. Then Boris says he wants to have his Chocolate Orange and eat his Chocolate Orange. Then Liam Fox says he demands support for his plan to export Chocolate Oranges to some of our most significant allies, such as Burkina Faso.
Then Boris stands up and shoves him and he shoves Boris back, then Philip shoves both of them. Then Andrea gets between them all and says she can handle this because she has children. Then Amber Rudd throws a bread roll at her, but it misses and knocks over a candle, spilling wax everywhere. Then the PM puts her head in her hands and starts to cry.
“Ho ho ho!” I chuckle, as the tablecloth bursts into flame. “It’s all going to be fine!”
*according to Hugo Rifkind