The Ministry of Air

It's another Tuesday. The Parliamentary Under Secretary for Wind is visiting today. I'm not sure having that post filled by a member of the Combustibles is altogether wise. However, needs must, in a coalition, as Kloot, the Aqueous Erdocrats' leader always says. What does one expect from a Harrovian? Exactly so. Naturally, the whole of the Ministry is in a panic, not just my department. I presume that the PUS will pass as quickly through the Under-department for Molecular Classification of Atmospheric Gases as his predecessor in the last Coalition did. That is, of course, in less time than it takes to say the department's name.

Still, that does not mean an absence of panic. Indeed not. Those chosen for this, the best of ministries, are exhibiting mobility today, in the main. It is not an occasion for other Proclutian attributes. However, I must confess I am more than tempted to bluntness, whenever some Draught whimpers that 'there isn't time, there isn't time'. It takes years and experience to rise from Draught to Breeze - so I suppose they are not to blame. Every so often an Atmosphere passes through: aloof and rarified, makers of policy who do not speak to such as me, a mere Zephyr. 'Middle rank, middle-aged, middle-brow.' My last performance report was a disappointment, though not an altogether unexpected one. It's difficult enough if you change branches: say from Wind to Ambient Gases or Andgraces or even Melodies. My faux-pas was more extreme even than these. I changed elements, and I was at Conflagration rank, no little advance from lowly Spark. My sharpness was blunted by too many years of Combustible interference. The Executive and the Political should remain ever separate. It is lucky that the Ozone Party are less inclined to meddle except in subtle ways.

The Elemental Ministries are of course four. The balance is required and it must be quadrivalent. The square in the rhombus is the natural order. This is why the war against the YinYanquis has continued for over 2 millennia. Two is simplistic, four is correct. Naturally, the apex of the rhombus should be Air. Fire has for too long been the electorate's choice. What do the plebs know of chymical matters? No tea trolley today. Mrs Quint has been given the day off. Some of the contractors at the ministry are not fit to be seen by someone so illustrious as today's visitor. Quite how it fell to me to break the news to the lady, I do not know. 'It's an extra day's paid leave, Mrs Quint.' I said.

'I int nevver seen a vee eye pee so important,' she remained unmollified, if correct in fact.

Mrs Quint and several others have been most fortunate in the matter of special leave recently. It is 4.15. The PUS for Wind is 36 minutes overdue. My under-departmental head, a Gust hoping to be a Gale, is agitated, huffing and puffing like the wolf of fairy-tale renown. He is still quite vexed by my refusal to take a day's gardening leave, as if I were a tea-lady or a particularly grime-fingered janitor. No, I shall be present for the visitor. For it is none other than The Honourable Member for Catford West, Oliphant Crisp, the die-hard Combustible. Had he chosen Civil Service instead of Politicking he would surely be an Inferno. He is the coming man, a putative leader of some future coalition with the Aereators - a combination that has not been seen in a century. And he is late.

Perhaps this is one more slight in a lifetime of such nose-thumbings at me, Oliver Crisp, his older brother.