Dear Incoming Editor: You will probably find in your in-tray some mean-spirited, ill-informed complaints about the large number of advisers employed in the Department of An Irishman's Diary. They will contain some wholly spurious comparisons with the United States, merely because we employ more specialists than the White House and the Pentagon combined.
Excuse me, Incoming Editor. One second. What does the White House talk about? Saddam Hussein. And the Pentagon? Saddam Hussein. If you've only got that one topic on your mind, then all you need is a Saddamologist. Washington has two - one for the White House, one for the Pentagon - and really, it doesn't need any more.
But this column talks about lots of things. Yesterday we talked about the role of the Eucharist, and took advice on the subject from that well-known theologian, Miss Magnolia Cremethize. Miss Cremethize is a world expert on this subject, having graduated cum laude from the William J. Clinton Semenary for Oral Studies.
Pay for the best
To be sure, you might have been rather taken aback when you discovered that Miss Cremethize has a company car, considerable expenses, 12 weeks' annual leave and a salary slightly larger than your own. But if you want the best you've got to pay for the best, and Magnolia Cremethize is the best.
No, it's true she's not a natural blonde, but you can't blame a girl for making the best of herself, and comparisons with Anne-Marie Smith, the gold-digger who married a 95-year-old millionaire could not be wider of the mark, not least because Miss Cremethize did not need implants to merit her double-E cups.
Nor, coincidentally, did my transport adviser, Miss Augusta Centrefold. Miss Centrefold is a graduate of the Harvard School of Business Studies where she specialised in the coefficients of commuter differential measured by energy expenditure in Tokyo traffic.
Or at least that's what she said during her interview, though I must confess my suspicions were aroused by the fact that she appeared to read the title, very slowly and using her finger, from a prompt-card.But she gave me such a winning smile when she'd finished that of course I had to banish such unworthy doubts, and she has proved to be a triumphant success. Within no time at all, she was personally ensuring that flights to the South of France took off and landed on time, even insisting that I join her on them.
You will notice, dear Incoming Editor, in my next expenses claim a rather substantial receipt for a certain hotel in the Cap d'Antibes. This is because the hotel where Miss Centrefold and I usually stay was fully booked out, and so we had to stay in a costlier suite elsewhere.
Tourism adviser
But let me hasten to add that we did look for economies, for we took with us our tourism adviser, Miss Fallopia Gobble, and we all shared the one suite. This is the sort of sacrifice I regularly make for the company, dear Incoming Editor, and I only draw your attention to the matter, against the promptings of a modesty which I think is one of my strong points, because of the recent unworthy insinuations against me.
And I must tell you that Miss Gobble's advice about the Riviera was absolutely crucial to formulating my opinions on Irish tourism. After a mere month studying the local conditions, she concluded that the problem for Irish tourism is the weather. And by Jove, I think she's right. When I, or rather the three of us, have given some more thought to the problem over there, we'll fine-tune our column on the subject.
Our consultant on the travelling community is Joyce Joyce-Joyce. Joyce is from California, which means she had to travel an awful long way to get here, and though she is still learning about her namesakes in Ireland, she is doing it from California, to which she travelled back once she'd been given the job. To get a proper grasp on this travelling business, I often travel to see her there.
The seafood is surprisingly good in California, enabling me to make fresh economies. For I have appointed Miss Joyce-Joyce my fisheries adviser, and for only a modest annual supplement of 50 per cent of her salary, plus five return Concorde flights a year - a great bargain, I think you'll agree.
My immigration expert is Mbiga bMammari. Miss bMammari has many characteristics in common with Magnolia and Augusta. Moreover, her command of languages means that when Magnolia is not able to join us in Cap d'Antibes, Mbiga joins us for translation purposes, and we always employ the same highly economic principle of single-suite accommodation.
Great Barrier Reef
Mbiga is of the opinion - and I am inclined to agree with her - that the only way for this column to understand about immigrants is by visiting where they come from: Oh, you know, the Seychelles, the Great Barrier Reef, Zermatt, the Norwegian fjords.
I must tell you, the same economic, one-suite principle always applies, and, dear Incoming Editor, I wouldn't have it any other way. That's the sort of chap I am.
Columns about immigration from these places can be expected soon, as can a few on the cuisine to be found in the chateaux of the Loire, where Miss bMammari with her French, and Miss Joyce-Joyce with her knowledge of food, will both be of inestimable use. Single suites again, I'm proud to say.
So. Let us hear no more carping from moaning minnies about the numbers of advisers employed by this column. They are essential to its smooth working. Good luck in your new job. Your loyal, but well-advised diarist.