Dogberry entered the Minister’s presence, his rippling upper body threatening to burst the seams of the slim fit business shirt she insisted he wear as acceptable office attire. Twinned with drainpipe trousers and skinny tie dangling provocatively against his washboard torso, his sartorial compliance gave her good cause to summon him whenever possible.

Utterly brain dead, but that had not prevented her from adoring her pet gerbil, Govey. Intelligence in others aggravated her painful hives, in fact almost anything remotely cerebral disagreed with her sensitive constitution.

“I’ve breakfasted like a queen, I’ve been stuffed by oafs this morning, Eggs Benedict with Holiday Sauce. Grab me a coffee sweety. I’ve got to wade through this Exhibition Briefing crap and then prep for my interview on Front Row. Bring me a G&T at twelve, I’ll need it!”. Dogberry’s departure from the room allowed her to appreciate his second most valued asset, the primary one being his unthreateningly low IQ.

It might be unkind to describe our Minister as uncouth, but despite the tweed twinset and pearls she had the demeanour of a pub landlady who had recently been sacked from her previous position as a bareknuckle brawler. Since the I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here debacle, she had acquired a veneer of composed authenticity, rather like a faux antique bureau made from wood pulp and coated in creosote in an audacious attempt to disguise its dubious provenance.

The gods had not been overly generous when dishing out cognitive capability, tact or judgement when forming her Being. A rag, a bone and a hank of hair had been involved in her creation, as had the insanely monotonous chanting of three old crones stirring a boiling cauldron with unhinged, cackling glee. The addition of frog spittle had guaranteed her success in her current vocation, though the toad’s testicles did occasionally cause her to be a tad feisty when confronted by truth, decency or moral rectitude.

The invitation could not be ignored, unlike the details supporting her chronically misinformed departmental policies. Like partially cooked wet spaghetti attempting to hold up an expansion bridge, the understandings supporting her painfully misguided opinions, were unfit for purpose. This trivial disconnect between farcical ignorance and ministerial authority did not trouble her in the least. Decisions were far easier to make if one kept factual understanding at arm’s length like Select Committee Members, or bothersome journalists posing pertinent questions.

The National Gallery’s launch of their latest, much anticipated exhibition, ‘Portraiture, The Elysian Gate’, was one event she could not dodge in preference for a swift jar in the Parliamentary bar. She’d have to wander around the tedious environs of the esteemed venue and manufacture her interest in the paintings on display, with the same monosyllabic confidence she employed when at the dispatch box. She would rely upon knowing silence, and the occasional enlightened smile, just as she had when attending the Romanian Ambassador’s address in which his mother tongue remained untranslated thanks to her headset malfunctioning.

Rembrandt’s self-portrait struck her as being like all the others. Bright pink hair, white face and a bulbous red nose all counterpointed by dark circles around his oddly mordant eyes, sitting like two bloated beetles under heavily etched frown lines. Modigliani’s portrait of Jean Cocteau was remarkably similar, the only difference being that this time the clown face had a particularly pointed chin and his bright green hair was more of a bouffant than the lank locks crowning Rembrandt’s, wrinkled but niveous visage.

Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring echoed the previous two offerings. Her face looked like it had been daubed in whitewash and then drawn upon by a child with a red crayon and a penchant for lurid, misshapen embellishments. The subject sported a large red nose and fluorescent shock of vibrant green hair, topped with a small orange top hat, jauntily balancing upon her tilted head.

The final image was stylistically consistent with all those that had befallen her ignorant gaze. Las Menias, by Diego Velázquez presented nine clowns, some of an adult variety, others mere children. Each wore the same expression, a manic smile thickly drawn in a florid red giving their white faces a slightly rubicund tone. All those gauchely depicted had large red noses, and luminous coiffures the colour of which ranged from straw yellow, to a cerulean blue. Even the dog in the image was dressed in a harlequin romper suit and its red nose looked like an oversized cherry on a glistening slice of Bakewell tart.

She pondered her response to these incongruently venerated works. Well, more precisely brain cell one attempted to commune with brain cell two in the futile pursuit of a meaningful connection. She simply could not comprehend why all these celebrated artists had chosen to paint the same image.

Whenever she stood before a gilt-framed masterpiece, she always saw the same thing … singular, or multiple clowns and had therefore astutely written fine art off as being ‘derivative’. She’d discovered the word ‘derivative’ in a recent OK Magazine article, Googled it and now deployed it whenever possible.

Samira Ahmed had introduced her guest, the listeners of Front Row hastily downing Le Creuset frying pans across the nation, giving their beloved Roberts radios the full benefit of their deeply shocked attention. Wine glasses were instantly gripped like HMRC rebate cheques and households fell silent, crushed by expectant panic and a thinly veiled appetite for audible gore. The presenter had asked her guest to give her reaction to the National’s latest show ….

“I was privileged to be indicted Samira. I’m certainly no art avocado and I’m far too self-depreciating to consider my opinion to be better, or worse, than the common person in the street, but I thought the exhibition was derivative. It seems to me that though each artist was one of great statue, this particular insulation gives the viewer the same old same old. White face, red lips, black shadow around the eyes and bright, unnatural hair. Lovely stuff, don’t get me wrong. However, It could be a pigment of my imagination, but they all looked so boringly similar to my eyes.

When I see a play, there are generally lots of different words to listen to. They don’t just repeat the same phrase. You know, like Crurophia in King Lear, she says things that her Father does not. It becomes interesting because I don’t understand what she means, but for different reasons when compared to the other characters. I mean, take Michael Angelo. When he painted the Sixteenth Chapel, I bet he was trying to make it different to the other fifteen. Somebody even told me that Di Caprio’s Mona Lisa has multiple versions. Variety, luv. That’s why we like Liquorice Allsorts and lucky dips.

I’ve given the exhibition a two-star rating on Trip Advisor. I’m always auspicious of people giving three-star ratings, even if the venue is good, but this one was definitely only worth two. It would have been one star if they had not given me six glasses of prosecco and a whiskey chaser. My advice to the National is use the space for a five aside tournament, that would be the anecdote to their problems in my professional opinion.”

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport gulped down her G&T and checked her rose gold, diamond speckled watch. Still time to grab a swift one in the Member’s bar. She gazed lovingly at the portrait of Boris hanging above her desk. She adored the mop of yellow hair, bright red nose and swooned before the image that had launched a thousand lies and secured her devoted reverence… after all, he was the King of Clowns.