At Home with the Gyimahs

Millet-based breakfast at the Gyimahs. Yum (photo: CC0, via MaxPixel)

Universities minister Sam Gyimah told the UUK Conference this week that universities had 'not risen to the challenge' of replacing research opportunities after Brexit. Now read on.

Breakfast at the Gyimahs. Sam is eating a bowl of delicious and flavoursome millet gruel. His son appears and gets a croissant from the bread bin. 

Sam: I hope you're not going to eat that.
Son: Well...I was going to.
Sam: No. We're Global Britain now. We don't need Europe anymore. We must forge trading relationships with the global community (not including Europe). Here, our Glorious Leader has brought back some millet-based fermented porridge from West Africa. It's delicious. As long as you hold your nose and swallow it quickly without it touching your tongue.
Son: I'm suddenly not very hungry.
Sam [shaking his head]: I'm disappointed in you. You're not rising to the challenge. I think you need to be encouraged to reach out to the others. So I've told all of your friends that you no longer want to see them.
Son [incredulous]: What?
Sam: It's time to reach out to others. I've invited some kids from Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands to come over and play. They will replace your friendships. It will encourage you to rise to the challenge. That's important.
Son: But I liked my friends. And croissants. Couldn't we, well, just go back to the way we were?
Sam: Oh, son. I don't think you realise. It's the will of the people. The people clearly voted for West African millet-based products and good friendships with our Gibraltar and Falkland colleagues, all sprinkled with a little chaos.
Son: I didn't.
Sam: That's because you were too young. The future's not about the young. Leave that to the over-65s.
Son: But they just want things to be the same as in Call the Midwife and Dad's Army. Except even more white.
Sam: You're point being..?
Son: Well, that was a very different world. And it was made up. I think for both of those reasons...
Sam: Son, you're talking like a remoaner. You're not rising to the challenge of stockpiling millet gruel in readiness for this self-inflicted harm. There'll be a short century of downturn and then, possibly, in the 22nd century we'll return to where we were before the Referendum. Possibly.
Son [incredulous]: Dad, you're insane.
Sam: Very far from it. I am an expert - of a sort. Certainly when it comes to millet-based breakfast foods and clueless pronouncements on research policy. I have risen to the challenge. I've managed to replace a beneficial situation with one that is not quite so beneficial but is more rose-tinted. Who wouldn't want that?
Son: But dad...
Sam: Now that's enough son. Get your animal skins on. I've risen to the challenge of replacing our German-made car with a wonderful, honest, British-made horse and cart. If you're quick we can rise to the challenge of replacing the cinema with a Punch and Judy show. I've made us some millet popcorn. Its vital for the kind of Britain we want to create. Its globally-sourced, if a little indigestible - and it does leave a bad taste in the mouth.
Son [putting the croissant back]: It's almost like you read my mind...