Boris beckons...

Several journalists appear as minor characters in Boris Johnson's Seventy Two Virgins (2004). Sam Smith alerted me to Baghdad veteran and Daily Mirror hack Barry White, but here's a bit about the MP Roger Barlow discovering quite what another Mirror journalist, Debbie Gujaratne, has in store for him.

"Well of course, it's very embarrassing for me to talk to you like this," she said, and then recited what purported to be a recent series events in Barlow's life.

It was not the truth. It was an abstract impressionist representation: crude, impasto blotches that might or might not stand for an object in the 'real world.'  But she knew she had enough to go on, and Barlow knew it too.

At length he said: "It's all rubbish, and besides, it was ages ago."

The reporter went for the crack. "It is either all bollocks or happened ages ago. It can't be both.

Barlow decides to speak his mind - at length.

Poor chap, thought Debbie, as he ranted on. She could picture it all. The basically happy family life... She pitied him, although she had no family herself (she was of course sleeping with her married news editor). And yet even as she pitied him, she knew she would have no mercy. It would be more than her job was worth.