He’s grotesque. The way he throws his head back and laughs I half expect his exposed throat to split open and a little edition of himself to pop out cuckoo clock format, which will laugh and split and so forth. His laugh puts the HA in haughty and he HA HA HAs in contrived response to every sycophantic joke that’s unashamedly concocted to please him.

For Mister Grotesque is an Important Man.

He says, ‘Oh!’ with zeal, to go with his brash and queerly controlled laugh. Seemingly, he has bought the word for his use only, along with his guffaw as a set from somewhere expensive. Every time he laughs he reminds himself that he must get it patented. ‘Oh! I’m delighted! How wonderful! I’m just so pleased!’, he lisps and salivates.

Mister Grotesque wants all the infinite failures floundering below him to think that he is a swell guy. He wants his select invited, his contemporaries (or thereabouts) to conclude that he is a fine gentleman. He wants them to be pleased that they have been invited to his dinner party.

The dinner party! An exquisite and nothing less experience of endless, perfectly-executed courses of excellence (and nothing less). The wine! No dinner party – or dinner, for that matter – deserves any respect without a good old Red. It must be good, and it must be old, and furthermore, it must be red. And it must be savoured! No more than two inches at the very bottom of the glass. Not a millimetre more, for he will take careful note. A drop in excess and you’ll be chastised, regardless of the guests. In fact, regardful of the guests! He has been hoping for such an occasion to show them that he is not only the boss but one of stature.

Post main course, priorities reinforced by wine, the dinner party’s guise of frivolity falls away. Noone cares to pretend any longer that the point of such a well-bred gathering is anything other than a forum to reaffirm one’s position, intellect and vitally, one’s political standpoint. Mister Grotesque embraces the moment that debate falls to conflict with more passion than he does his wife. He will have the last word. If you don’t let him, he will HA HA HA all over you, with lashings of incredulity.

Mister Grotesque. A great and distinguished man, he’d be frightfully put out if he knew how one such as I refers to him. That’s ‘Sir’, not ‘Mister’, surely.