Thread by @mikegove12

Goveller’s Travels

Thursday 10th September 1727

I had been plagued with a dry and persistent cough since my perilous swim from Lilliput, and as his meteorologists were now having to forecast my coughing fits for the subsequent mucus storms, the monarch of Blefuscu related to

me that it was imperative I took a covid test. With all due acknowledgments for his favourable intentions, I obliged and sought one a day’s trek away: where I was informed by a hologram of Matt Hancock on a spacehopper that it didn’t exist, which was my fault. I hiked back

forthwith and was advised to return across the water to Lilliput to seek a test, which I was loathe to do since my Mikeyavellian schemes had become known. The next closest ones were in either Inverness or on the Moon, so I discoursed: “since fortune, whether good or evil,

has thrown this virus in my way, I am resolved to venture myself away, rather than be a major vector of disease between two such mighty kingdoms. So, rather than set one foot in that dump Inverness, I will to the Moon, where no being ever set foot before.” Neither did I find the

emperor at all displeased; he was very glad of my resolution, and so were most of his ministers, already grown tired of my conversations on Star Trek, Dog The Bounty Hunter, and the interminable conference calls with Sarah about making our way to the top. Having thus prepared

all things as well as I was able, I christened my Tesco trolley space-shuttle ‘Corona Mass Ejection’, smashed a can of Lilt on it, and determined to launch my moonshot; whereupon a breathless Blefescun skidded to a halt and notified me that the moon’s testing capacity was

reached; which, as my Lynx Africa thrusters failed to ignite, was something of a relief. Until I remembered I now had to visit Inver-sodding-ness. But Michael Gove is nothing, if not a man of his word, so I repurposed the rusty framed Pringle-harvester, stored it with the

carcases of a hundred Blefescun oxen with Crunchies and Vimto proportionable as four hundred cooks could provide. And would gladly have taken a dozen of the natives for my fellow Brits to admire, but after a diligent search into my pockets, his majesty engaged

my honour “not to carry away any of his subjects to that festering mire of folly-fallen tory molluscs and rabid tabloid ouze you call Britannia”. Thus, I set sail on the tenth day of September 1701, at seven thirty in the morning, and promptly sank.

With many thanks to @MrJunkerBarlow for greasing the palms of his contacts at the Blefescun Space Agency to release this rare image.