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Twenty-Three
May 25, 2012
— 007, Beckham as James Bond, Beckham Olympic Football Squad, david beckham, Golden Balls, Overage Players in Olympic Squad, Q, Should Beckham Play?, Twenty-Three
by Roge Slater
Morning, Sir.
Morning.
Look, I’ll get straight to the point, Q: we have a problem with Twenty-Three.
Twenty-Three?
Yes. You know, “B (OBE)”.
But surely he’s almost at the end of his time with us isn’t he? What problem can he be at this late stage?
Well…
Come on, spit it out. What’s the problem?
Well… he wants to play, Sir.
What do you mean he wants to play?
Erm… Actually, it’s that he’s demanding to play. Otherwise he says he’s going to tell the whole story…
Tell the bloody story? We only got him on board in the first place because he wouldn’t realize what the story actually was. When did he find out and what bloody use does he think it would be telling everyone? No-one would believe him because no-one would think that he was capable of doing something like this. And anyway, he’s nearly bloody 40 isn’t he? Isn’t there an age limit — what does he expect now — does he want us to inject him with sheep hormones or something and then just ‘disappear’ every other year of his life? Christ, he’d only just be young enough if we did that!
I know what you mean, Sir, but there’s a rule — apparently each squad can pick three overage players and he’d demanding to fill one of those spots. And he wants to play each game. Oh, and he wants to be captain, too.
Amazing. Are you sure he didn’t ask for his wife to be Official Team Knickers Designer as well? Surely we can get his children involved somehow as well — no wait, aren’t some of them American now?
No I don’t think so, Sir… Look, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how we can stop him, I mean, if he told the whole story and people did believe it, there would be all kinds of ramifications. Worldwide even.
Now just hold on. Look at this logically. A spy he may be. But it’s not as if he ever brought us a secret, is it? He’s much too stupid to be relied on for that and he’s only a bloody footballer after all. All we’ve done is tell him things at this end then send him on trips to meet people — our Ambassador if you like — knowing full well that he couldn’t keep a secret. Misinformation really, just keeping the other buggers on their toes.
I know, Sir, but he still insists.
Amazing. He nearly got rumbled all those years ago, that Scotsman, what’s his name? Oh it doesn’t matter, but we got him out of that, changed his number and everything and got him four years — four bloody years no less — in Spain. He nearly cocked that up too. Got a bloody good tan and all the while we were still flying him ‘round the world ‘representing his country’, then when he’d failed miserably to learn the language over there we moved him again; another new number another new location, another new identity, this time in America. Well, that went down like a lead balloon for a couple of years didn’t it? We even had to ship him off to Italy for a while.
It did settle down though, Sir.
Yes, I suppose it did after the first couple of years, but he’d upset so many people that we’ve had to limit his travel — particularly when we had that Italian in charge over here — and there’s no way this new bloke, Hodges or whatever his name is, will even consider him.
That’s his point I think, Sir. I think he’s realized that would be a step too far, so he sees this other tournament as his swansong, a sort of last chance.
I’ll give him last chance! Bloody hell, I mean, I know he’s ingratiated himself with that President fellow — Obama isn’t it? — and that could be useful, but all they seem to talk about now is his underpants. Not sure that’s going to deflect any serious interest they may have in what’s going on here, but… Christ. How do we end up in these bloody situations?
He’s very insistent, Sir.
But we’ll be a laughing stock. Good god, what next? We’ll have to give him a zimmer frame and a place in the Octogenarian Olympics. Bring him up here. Go and get him, bring him up here and let me have a word with him.
Sir. Number Twenty-Three, Sir.
Right. Yes. Sit down Twenty-Three. Or would you prefer it if I called you “B (OBE)”?
Twenty-Three is fine, Sir.
OK. Yes. Right. Well, what is all this? What’s it all about, you spilling the beans and all that? Come on man, speak up.
Well, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want…
Twenty-Three by Roger Slater is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
