Adolf was serving the occasional customer, getting ready for when he could shout time and duck below the bar. The police were outside in the car park, passing the final few minutes before they were called into action by betting on what would be the signal that time had been called. A chair through the window was favourite; on seven out of the last ten Karaoke Nites a chair had gone through the window when time was called. Twice it had been a table and once it had been Barry’s second cousin Brian, after he had asked the barman for a half and was therefore judged to be a dirty half-pint drinking Villa bastard.

Yes, it was a quiet, uneventful night and yet it was to prove highly significant…

A hundred miles away Question Time was starting. A Labour minister and a Conservative MP were arguing about unemployment. The Labour MP was saying that it was all the fault of the previous government, who didn’t care about unemployment. Then the Tory said oh yes they did and anyway, they were all scroungers whose only exercise was to run a mile from a job if it was offered to them. The Labour minister said the Tory was a typical Tory with no empathy for the workers and the Tory said that to prove how it was the government’s fault and not the Tories’, he would find the most unemployable man in his constituency and make sure he was offered a job.

Next day, the Tory MP asked his secretary what the name of his constituency was, and when he found out, rang the local newspaper to tell them what he was going to do. He added that this would be a secret visit and therefore he didn’t want to be met at the station by any reporters or cameramen. He finished off by saying when he would be arriving at the station and which platform his train would be coming in on.

He then rang his local constituency association and asked them to ring the police, the dole office and social services, and ask them all who they thought the last man in the constituency who they would employ would be. They all came up with the same answer.

People tend to be surprised when they realised Barry had a Tory MP. The reason was simple, and had its roots in history. During the thirties the area had been solidly Labour, up until the time when the local MP had announced that unemployment was a terrible crime and needed to be vanquished. He had said that everyone in the constituency of working age would be found a job. The idea of a crime, any crime, being vanquished had worried Barry’s great-grandfather Bartholomew and the thought of having to get a job had terrified the entire Lose family. As a result they had decided there and then to vote Conservative for ever more, and to tell every other Bloser to do the same.

The Conservative Party had done their best over the years to lose the constituency. One of their MPs had called the people a bunch of workshy, loathsome, scrounging blights in society. The Blosers had said that was the best compliment that had ever been paid to them. Another MP had gone to prison for fraud during the election campaign. He got the highest vote anyone had ever received – proof, the Blosers had said, that he was one of their own.

A few years ago the Tories had held top-level discussions about how to lose the seat. They got their MP to say something about how he was going to sort out anti-social behaviour and for a while it had looked as though they might lose the next election. Then someone had told the Blosers that the Tories colour was blue so they were re-elected again.

Conservative Head Office had held a top-level enquiry into how they had managed to cock it up once again and had found out that anonymous phone call had been made to the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade, asking Adolf to tell Barry that the Conservatives were the Blue party. Further investigations had revealed that the call had been made by Peter Mandelson.

And so it was, therefore, that Barry had a Tory MP, and that the MP was going to find Barry a job. The first Barry heard about it was when someone from the newspaper came round to tell him. He then heard it from the policeman who came round to see what had happened to the newspaper reporter, and then from the other policemen who had come round to help the first policeman.

The first policeman had tried to untie the reporter from Barry’s garden fence, where Barry had tied him with a length of his Special 30th Anniversary of Blose Qualifying for the Leyland DAF Cup rope but unfortunately he had been laughing too much to be of any help. The other policemen had been laughing as well, but eventually managed to untie the reporter, who left and staggered back to his office to write a story.

That night Barry walked into the Vlad the Impaler bar of the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade to an ominous silence. Brains passed him a copy of the paper and ducked. On the front page was a photo of Barry. This confused Barry for a bit because, unlike his usual photos it didn’t have a number underneath. Next to the photo was a big headline saying “I WILL GET THIS MAN A JOB PLEDGES MP.”

Once Barry had understood that it was him in the photo, he quickly realised what was going to happen. The MP was coming and he would find Barry a job. It was inevitable. It had been in the papers, it was bound to be on TV and therefore there was always some interfering do-gooder who would stick their nose in and offer Barry a job, just for the publicity. Then there would be follow-up stories about how Barry was getting on in his new job, and because of this whoever gave him the job wouldn’t be able to sack him, Barry would therefore have to resign, and there would be a Court of Inquiry.

Barry was asked why there would be a Court of Inquiry about him leaving a job, and he explained that years ago the Prime Minister had been a bit bored, so he’d devised a competition for the Cabinet to come up with the most pointless new law they could think of. The winner had been the Home Secretary, who had dreamed up the Lose Family (Resignation from Employment) Special Measures. This said that should a Lose resign from a job, they would have to appear before a Court of Inquiry to establish why they had resigned and if they didn’t they wouldn’t be allowed to get any dole money again, ever.

The Home Secretary had explained that the beauty of this was that it was a doubly pointless Act. Not only would a Lose never get a job, but in such an extremely unlikely event they would also never last long enough without being sacked to be able to resign. And so the Lose Family (Resignation from Employment) Special Measures had come into force, with Barry therefore unable to resign from any job he might ever get.

“What are you going to do then, Barry?” asked Hermann, Adolf’s new head barman. “Have a think,” replied Barry. Hermann didn’t say anything about this, neither did his face betray any emotion. He might have been new, but he wasn’t daft enough to smile at the idea of Barry thinking.

Barry thought for a bit. Then he fell over. Multi-tasking was never Barry’s forte, and thinking at the same time as managing to stand upright stretched his abilities to the limit and beyond. Hermann helped him to his feet, then to a seat to recover.

Brains started thinking. A few hours later, his face lit up. A few hours after that, Barry’s face resumed its normal expression. He had finally recovered from the strain of having to stand up straight and think at the same time.

“I know,” said Brains. “You know how you reckoned that somebody would give you a job just for the publicity?” Barry did.

“Well, if the papers and the TV didn’t report that the MP had arrived because something more important happened at the same time, there wouldn’t be any publicity, and therefore there wouldn’t be a job.”

Hermann pointed out the catch in this one, namely that the last time the local MP had visited the constituency was 1978 when his private jet had been diverted to the airport because of fog, so therefore it was going to have to be a very big story indeed to prevent his return being in the news.

“I’ve got it,” said Barry. “I’ll hold a press conference to announce a sensational new story.”