The devil finds work for idle hands to do. Fairly maligned beer discounter Tim Martin is at a loose end, since his cheap and cheerless pub chain has been forced to close. As a high profile Brexit supporting businessman, he is the obvious person to develop a coronavirus vaccine.
Within seconds of the announcement being made, social media platforms went into meltdown like a small girl being told to eat her vegetables. Prominent immunologists, virologists and other ologists complained that their expertise and R&D work had been passed over in favour of a publican who resembles the Cowardly Lion after a heavy night in ‘Spoons.
In the interests of balanced reporting, a group of former Wetherspoons drinkers have gathered outside the now closed drinking den, in solidarity with Martin. Red-faced, coughing unstoppably and short of breath, their taste for industrial alcohol, weapons grade tobacco and messages on beer mats makes them even more toxic than the virus. The police have created a two metre exclusion zone around them for the safety of anyone whose necessary journey takes them past the old gin palace.
Insiders reveal that the formula for the vaccine is being extracted from the residue found in his rarely cleaned pub carpets. Old, dirty and downtrodden, Wetherspoons drinkers are to be found throughout the UK.
But where there’s muck, there’s a brass neck. Tarting up rubbish and selling it to a gullible population is the modus operandi of Brexit and its promoters. Ego trumps expertise, and Trump’s ego trumps everything else. Expect the POTUS to be hailing ‘Spoons’ Floor Standard as a miracle cure any day now.
Martin is also selling his pro-herd immunity beer mats as a coronavirus souvenir.
Recovering Wetherspoons drinkers are rumoured to be selling their redundant hazmat suits for ten toilet rolls and half a dozen eggs.
And reassuringly, Martin has made a short video in which he consoles the workers he callously fired after the shutdown. “Alcohol is the answer,” he burbles, knocking back a glass of the finest French cognac. “F*@# knows what the question was. Bottoms up!”