The Best Australian Humorous Writing by Andrew O'Keefe Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t start.
    LEO: You do understand that we’re … fictional? I mean, we’re Democrats but we’re not real people.
    ADVISER 2: Yes, just like our Democrats.
    LEO: Gee, I don’t know.
    SAM: I don’t know either.
    TOBY: Know? Who knows?
    ADVISER 1: Christ, I wonder if this was a good idea.
    ADVISER 2: The PM’s coming.
    John Howard enters. Despite the fact that it is 10.10am, he is wearing a burgundy patterned dressing gown and bearing a cup of Horlicks. He makes his way to an old Genoa armchair in the centre of the room.
    PM: Well good morning and how is everybody this morning nice sort of weather we’re having isn’t it a nice sort of weather I said to Janette that’s the wife I said to Janette this morning nice sort of weather we’re having this morning and she said yes it would be if it doesn’t rain but I said it’d be good for the farmers and the hydrangeas of course and she said John is that a statement of policy and I said what about the hydrangeas and she said no about the farmers and I said yes I suppose it is and she said well if it is going to rain I better get your spencers off the Hills hoist and I said yes you better had because you don’t want your spencer re-wetted after it’s been dried it’ll give it that sort of yellowish tinge which is a shame because a good spencer can last you a lifetime and really there’s nothing worse than a damp spencer. Mind you there’s nothing better than a dry spencer. Have I mentioned that we’re occupying North Queensland next week? Actually who are these people?
    ADVISER 1: Um, Prime Minister, these are the new team of advisers we hope will win us the election.
    PM: Really? Why are their mouths hanging open?
    ADVISER 2: They’re just amazed at the opportunity they’ve been presented with.
    PM: New advisers, hey? Do you think they understand Australian culture?
    ADVISER 3: Well, they come from American television, so they sort of are Australian culture.
    PM: Well, um, wonderful to have you aboard. I’ve got to go and have a snooze before my nap. Could someone draft up a regulation confining Aborigines to the cattle stations they work on? I’ll see you all later. Do help yourself to Horlicks. It feeds night starvation, you know.
    And he is gone.
    ADVISER 1: Well?
    LEO: Gee, I don’t know.
    TOBY: Know? What’s to know.
    ADVISER 2: Sorry, what’s the problem?
    CJ: It’s just that we’ve never met anyone who’s more tediously repetitive than we are.
    Josh calls from a corner.
    JOSH: Hey everyone, it’s all right—I was just reading this Fairfax newspaper and in between the sex blog and the guide to the best Tex-Mex cuisine in Phuket there was this actual news story. We can work with this guy.
    ALL: Really.
    JOSH: Yeah, he’s one of us—he’s a liberal.
Scene two
    The White House. The Oval Office. President Bartlet is writing on a card.
    PRESIDENT: Res ipsa loquitor mens rea ars longa vita brevis. Do you think that’s enough, Charlie?
    CHARLIE: For an eight-year-old girl with leukaemia, more than enough, Mr President.
    PRESIDENT: You know what’s funny, Charlie?
    CHARLIE: That this show is written by Hollywood liberals yet the only regular black character is a 21st-century Step’n’ Fetchit?
    PRESIDENT: No, it’s that, well, let me put it the way I did to the Swedish academy when I won my Nobel.
    CHARLIE: Which one, Mr President?
    PRESIDENT: Physics—the second one; in Sanskrit it goes … hang on, Leo should hear this. Leo!
    MRS LANDINGHAM (
on intercom
): He’s not here, Mr President.
    PRESIDENT: Mrs Landingham? Aren’t you dead?
    MRS LANDINGHAM: Still very much here.
    PRESIDENT: You were dead last episode.
    MRS LANDINGHAM: That’s because Channel Nine plays them out of sequence.
    PRESIDENT: Where’s Leo and Toby and Josh and CJ?
    MRS LANDINGHAM: They’re on an exchange. We’ve got their