Emperor Waltz

James Bond and his stupendously attractive female companion Aneka Shagarovka crept silently into the control room. It had been a long and difficult crawl through the air-conditioning ducts from the underground cloning vats, past the orbital death ray launch facility and over the cages filled with ravening biomechanoid tigorillas. In less than two minutes all of these deadly threats to the Planet would be unleashed: Earth would have no choice but to surrender to the evil genius Johan Stavros Prescottevich. Only Bond and Shagarovka could stop him now.

Spiderman had fallen victim to the giant bath plughole trap and been swept screaming to his death; Superman had failed to notice that his boxer shorts had been impregnated with pink Kryptonite and was now too wrapped up in his fatal attraction to both Batman and Robin to allow him, or them, any time to think of saving the world. Doctor Who was still a helpless prisoner in the vaults of the BBC. Every other superhero had been neutralized or eliminated by Prescottevich’s cunning. He was particularly pleased with the taped message to the Mission Impossible Team, which had destroyed itself, and them, after one word – ‘Goodbye’.

Two minutes was not much time for Bond and Shagarovka to save the world. They would have had longer but for the fact that the devastating series of explosions following the collision of the remote-controlled train with the nuclear powered rickshaw (from which the British agent and his Russo-Chinese-Swedish blonde companion had only just managed to escape) had removed nearly all of Shagarovka’s clothing, leaving her clad only in a tattered leopard-skin bikini. This had caused Bond to pause to help her re-arrange her clothing at least twice on his journey up the shaft, that is, the air-conditioning duct.

Shagarovka was still re-fastening her bra as Bond, breathing heavily, prised open the surprisingly loose grille at the end of the duct that opened onto a hidden corner of the evil genius’ command centre. They both dropped cat-like to the floor and sheltered behind a ludicrously oversized data processing suite that flashed and hummed dramatically, like a pervert in the Royal Opera House. Even as Bond coolly debated the relative merits of his electro-neutralising wristwatch and his stun ray biro, Prescottevich’s men (and women, for he was an equal opportunities evil genius) took up firing positions. Bond and Shagarovka had walked into a trap.

“Good afternoon Mr. Bond, Miss Shagarovka,” I said, adjusting my monocle and putting my white cat Scumfang back into the recently replenished mouse-cage that stood beside my black leather executive evil genius recliner. “So nice of you to drop in.” Bad jokes are one of my few weaknesses, but my minions all laugh heartily whenever I make one so why should I care?

Smiling grimly, in an effort to pretend that he did not feel like a complete idiot, Bond walked out to face me, followed by Shagarovka. As I levelled my silver-plated .55-inch Parabellum-Luger special automatic at Bond’s heart, I saw his eyes flicker to the clock on the wall over the inscription “TIME LEFT TO WORLD DOMINATION”. He was evidently working out how long he had to keep me talking until he could execute his stunningly unexpected plan to save the world from me with only one second to spare.

“So, Prescottevich,” he began. I shot him. For a moment he looked both surprised and irritated and then fell dead. I turned to Shagarovka and raised my eyebrow suggestively. “Are you game Miss Shagarovka?” She bit her lip, obviously weighing up her chances of seducing me and getting me to abandon my mad plan, or of killing me in an unguarded moment, all within the next eighty seconds. She nodded and began to smile alluringly at me. I shot her. The old jokes are often the best, I feel.

As their bodies were dragged away, I turned back to the wall clock. One minute to go…fifty seconds…. I tried to laugh maniacally, but suddenly felt too self-conscious. Thirty seconds…. I looked down at the mouse-cage, where the last mouse-tail was already dangling out of Scumfang’s mouth. I had won then… all the years of plotting and scheming over. Unimaginable riches would now be mine… twenty seconds… ten…execute.

From the clone vats poured millions of self-replicating invulnerable clone warriors, all eight-foot tall, red-eyed copies of Graham Norton. Those they did not kill would beg for the privilege after a few minutes’ conversation with them. The ground around my jungle hideaway shook with the simultaneous launch of hundreds of my special patented orbital death ray satellites. The tigorillas were released from their cages and swung snarling into the rainforest. Within minutes messages of unconditional surrender were pouring in from the World’s Governments, some from countries I’d never even heard of.

It was all a bit of an anti-climax really. I accepted the surrenders and gave directions for several billion dollars to be deposited in my account at Barclays in Ilford. Funny, but Barclays were the only bank willing to run an account for a power crazed evil despot. Some things never change.

What next? I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair. I ordered some more mice for Scumfang. I wondered what was on TV. I thumbed through the world satellite TV guide. Nothing. I went to my luxury apartment and pulled out my Simpsons videos, selected one and watched it moodily. Scumfang lay heavily on my lap. Only when the video came to an end did I realize that the cat was no longer breathing. It had died of a surfeit of mice.

After that things went from bad to worse. More messages poured in from the World Governments. What was my macro-economic policy? How should they deal with economic migrants? Did I have any views on Health Provision? What about the latest round of trade-talks? How the hell did I know? Achieving world domination had absorbed all my attention for twenty years. I was a crazed evil madman not a bloody politician. I told them just to get on with it.

Then I started getting brown envelopes from every tax authority on the planet, claiming I was trading in their territory, by virtue of being their ruler, and should therefore be paying them tax. I sent replies to those by special delivery, each carried by a dozen Nortons who spread out through the tax offices and talked until every tax inspector gladly committed suicide. My poll ratings went up quite a bit after that. Poll ratings? For a world despot? I sent out Nortons to exterminate all the polling organizations. My ratings climbed even further.

In the end it was one little thing that drove me to it. Agents from ‘OK’ and ‘Hello’ magazine infiltrated my headquarters, seeking exclusive rights to my wedding. They met in the air-conditioning duct and exterminated each other. I recalled the Tigorillas, de-activated the killer satellites, and allowed the Nortons to set up their own chat shows. I ordered Barclays to refund the money, on the basis that their current account interest rate was rubbish. Then I walked down to the cloning vats and ordered a James Bond and a Shagarovka – just one of each. In a few days they would be released into the air-conditioning duct that led to my control room.

I sat down in my executive recliner and ordered the World Domination clock to be reset.