New Year's Day, 2005: the president of Sinn Féin pressed a button on his desk, and moments later his personal valet and secretary shimmered into his palatial offices. "You rang, sire?"
"I did, aye," came the reply. "I have a wee problem I want looking at."
"Is it the angle of your crown? It appears not to be straight. Allow me, my liege lord. . ." and the valet very carefully adjusted the republican's regal orb, glittering with emerald amethysts and green sapphires. "If sire would care to check?"
The SF president studied himself firstly in the mirror opposite his desk, and then in those on either side, before turning to contemplate himself in the mirror behind him. "Satisfactory," he said, with a small note of approval in his voice. "But stay. Is that a grey hair there?"
"Only a rogue, sire, a stray, a maverick, a varlet. Out, damned traitor," and with a single deft pluck, the valet neatly depopulated the single guilty follicle. "Is that all, gracious sire? I was pressing your trousers prior to your meeting with Mrs Clinton. I know you are meticulous in such matters, and I was hoping to create a crease with which you could cut grass."
"Don't use that word!" shrieked the president, staggering back from his desk, and feverishly tearing at the dark mane of lustrous locks adorning his scalp.
"I'm sorry, sire. I had no idea you were sensitive to the term denoting an ironed fold in a pair of trousers."
"'Crease' isn't the problem word!"
"Whatever the word is, I shall endeavour never to use it your hearing again. Indeed, I shall very definitely cut it out."
"Don't use that word either!" howled the president, as he scrambled under the chair, where his companion instantly joined him.
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand, sire," purred his valet into the presidential ear. "Which words have so reduced you to this state of hysteria?"
"The g-word, meaning the primary component of a lawn," the president gibbered softly, "but also having another, infinitely more sinister meaning. And then you inadvertently uttered the other word, by running the final consonant of the pronoun 'it' into the preposition 'out'. Never, ever utter those sounds in my hearing again."
"There, there sire, up you come and sit yourself down on the chair here. Now just stay calm. I understand perfectly. Strangely enough, the word you abhor is spelt exactly the same as the French for 'all', tout. I assure you, sovereign lord, I shall never pronounce it in the English fashion. Nor shall the word for self-replenishing herbiage of lawns shall ever pass my lips. Now sire, were these taboo words what you wanted to discuss?"
"No, it was on an entirely unrelated topic. I need your advice. You have been my loyal and faithful personal assistant for 20 years. I have kept no secrets from you for two decades. None whatever. And just now, for the very first time, I've been looking at the British honours list," the president said, gesturing to a newspaper before him. "Does it mean anything?"
"Well, sire, it should clearly be seen as an indicator of who has done financial favours for the governing party of the day. Also there are personal aspects involved - friends of the prime minister can normally expect a gong of some kind or other - an MBE, say, or for a particularly close friend, a CBE. Your crown, sire, needs adjusting again. May I? There now, that is better."
"Thank you, thank you. I am aware of the aspect of personal favouritism involved. But there are other reasons for awards being granted by the British queen, surely."
"There are, sire, for services to charities of various kinds, and for community works, and for civil servants as they advance up the greasy pole, and of course, for the armed forces, those diabolical creatures over whom we won such a crushing victory in our triumphant 25-year war of liberation."
A heavy frown darkened the face of the Sinn Féin president. "Which doesn't explain why Slab Murphy just got a CBE, does it?" he declared, stabbing angrily at the newspaper open before him. "And why did the unctuous Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin get an OBE - and he's not even from the United Kingdom? And see that flipping fishmonger Arthur Morgan, he's got a bleeding knighthood. Why?"
"I cannot in all truth say, sire. It is conceivable that they performed some small services which her Britannic majesty recognises in these annual awards. Possibly it is to do with cross-Border trade. You note that all three gentlemen reside alongside the unnatural division against which the armed forces of the republican movement fought such a brilliantly successful war."
"But Martin Ferris doesn't live anywhere near the Border, and he's got a life peerage - Lord bloody Ferris of Brandon. That wee weevil in Dublin, Sean Crowe, got a KBE. So did that loathsome twerp Ó Snodaigh. Look at Martin McGuinness. He's been made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. It seems as if the entire republican leadership is being rewarded by the British. Why? Is it for charitable works?"
"I am unable to say, sire. Now if you don't mind, I have your trousers to press." And with that, Denis Donaldson, a blank look on his face, discreetly withdrew to the ironing room, his KCB from the previous year in his back pocket, leaving Gerry Adams alone to contemplate, yet again, from the lofty heights of his presidency-for-life, the utterly inviolable and fissure-free integrity of his great republican kingdom.