Birmingham Post

"Wilbur, my dear chap. How are you? I trust everything in your hovel is well?"
Yep, it was my old former best chum James North, Chief of Staff to Mayor Mike Whitby.
"Now listen, Wilbur. I am talking to you transatlantically thanks to the modern miracle of telephonic communication. You remember that little misunderstanding when Mike inadvertently described you as an incompetent, brain-dead, commie fellow traveller?
"Well, it's all been forgotten. Birmingham needs you, Wilbur Snr. We have a new job for you."
Turns out that Mayor Mike's hired some Canadian dame, called Debra Davis, to be his director of communications. Now Canda, far as I know, is some cold wasteland north of Chicago where nothing much happens and no one famous ever came from.
Seems that Mayor Mike wants someone in Debra's office he can trust, which is where I come in. James North sure used a lot of long words, but the deal is I'm going to be paid "significantly more" than the minimum wage, subject to hitting performance targets which are yet to be agreed. And I'm going to be an interim appointment, which means there wonn't be any need for pesky interview panels or anything like that.
"Let's just keep this between you, me, Mike and Stephen for the time being," North added. Stephen, I should add, is the chief executive of Birmingham City Council who Mike says must be clever since he went to somewhere called Cambridge and studied summat called economics.
Yipee. I'm coming back to Birmingham, just as soon as I can scrape enough dollars together to pay for a flight and a suit of clothes. James was pretty sure about one thing: I gotta leave the ukelele and shorts at home.
See'yall real soon.