Chapter 35 In which Pangloss prepares a message of inspiration and hope for the Westphalians

Dr Pangloss idly sucked the end of his pencil and stared out of the window, searching for inspiration. He was trying to write his next 'Best of All Possible Worlds' column for the Westphalia Express, and he wanted this one to carry a little extra punch, seeing as it would be his first column of 2008, but the words just didn't seem to come. Well, it wasn't that the words wouldn't come exactly, it was just that when they did they didn't seem to be related by any obvious logic.

First there was the ongoing story about the town centre. One day he said the town was going to rack and ruin, filled with discount stores, then he said it would all be fantastic because it would soon be a thriving city. Then he said the discount stores were a good thing, because he imagined if you were a nasty local chav family with loads of screaming snotty-nosed kids you would have to get everything from Poundland anyway, and how did anyone expect the town centre to improve if the local economy was a mess? And then there were the buses. They were good because they were full of shoppers, but they were bad because they nearly ran people over on a daily basis. Of course the people who nearly got run over were usually chavs, children, hen parties or pensioners, and none of these were in the high-spending bracket that Pangloss wanted in his new city, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if there was a bit of 'natural wastage'.
It wasn't Pangloss's fault that the road actually looked like a pedestrianised area, or that the fat chavs were too busy staring at shop windows full of pies and pasties to notice a bloody great bus heading towards them. Anyway, he wasn't going to waste good money just to make the road look like a road and the pavement look like a pavement when just around the corner most of the seafront was almost derelict.

On reflection Pangloss thought it best not to mention the town centre for a while. Or the seafront. No, people wanted to read about upbeat things, like rubbing shoulders with celebrities once Pierre de Saveloy had built his mini-resort, and climate change had transformed the pebbly cove into a long stretch of white Caribbean sand just like the consultants said it would. Well, maybe not rubbing shoulders exactly, but perhaps catching a glimpse through the telescope at the top of the cliff. He made a note to include that in his column.

Now what about the parking meters? They hadn't exactly been welcomed with open arms by the usual miserable letter-writers and phone-in callers. Pangloss thought it a bit rich - they would be a marvellous symbol of progress, after all. When Brunel came to the south-west with his hare-brained railway schemes people started putting up statues in his likeness and naming roads after him. Now when Dr Pangloss suggested a modern metal monument around the bay's roads to bring in some much-needed revenue no-one seemed very enthusiastic. Still, he wouldn't be put off by the fact that pretty much every Westphalian was against the idea - he had been elected by about 7% of the people, and if the other 93% didn't like the parking meter idea it was tough luck - that was democracy. Pangloss wrote 'Parking meters?' because he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to mention them. Maybe he would point out it was one of those difficult decisions that brave leaders had to take once in a while, a bit like Churchill planning D-Day, or Bomber Harris sending the RAF boys off to Dresden.

Pangloss looked down at the page in front of him, which was still mostly blank. His heart just didn't seem to be in it anymore. He had spun so many stories from so many angles he hardly knew what to believe himself anymore. He was beginning to wonder if spending £740,000 on consultants in the last twelve months had been wise. And what if he spent that kind of money in the next twelve months? Would he still be popular with the Westphalians? Would they start shouting 'STOP WASTING OUR MONEY ON CONSULTANTS'? Oh no, he thought, I mustn't think like that, self-doubt is my enemy, I must maintain a positive mental attitude. After all, whatever happens, I'm safe here in my bunker with my fat mayoral salary, and if I need to pop down to Oxfam for a second-hand book I can do it in the mayoral limo, and I won't even have to pay to park. This thought put a smile on his face. He screwed the almost blank sheet of paper into a ball and threw if for his cat to play with. As Chairman Miaow chased the paper ball between the legs of the table Pangloss said to himself: 'Sod it. That column can wait -let's have drink; it is New Year's Eve after all, and whatever happens in 2008 I'm sure I will still be laughing at the end of it.'