7.14: Aftermath
The Barman is looking over the headline of the Westmorland Gazette when its weaselly AI-assisted reporter strolls in looking pleased with himself.
“I see today’s Gazette’s headline. Did you go to the actual scene?”
“No of course not. I found all I needed on the web. Our below-the-line commentators are a valuable source of information for someone with a reporter’s nose!”
“But they might not be right about everything? Or even anything, surely?”
“Well if enough of them repeat the same things it is sure to be true.”
“I see.” At this point Bill suddenly realises that the noise of glass washing is audibly coming from the scullery behind the bar. Surely, anyone with a reporter’s nose will ask how the great Nick Drake has been so quickly replaced at the sink? Or what it feels like to step into such famous shoes? But the reporter just finishes his gin and French, leaves the glass on the table for the elderly Barman to come round and clear, and walks out.
“Thumping heck! What an idiot!” Bill says, none too quietly.
In the scullery, the Minkey is comparatively happily, quietly playing his Nick Drake cassettes. The money that resulted from the Westmorland Gazette’s promotions budget for the ill-fated Posthumous Encore Tour has paid for a repair to his ghetto blaster and a replacement cassette version of Pink Moon.
Living the dream, he thinks.
the end