Roman leader says it’s time to keep out those pesky Picts, writes our defence reporter Sir Howardus Elstonius.
I am sitting here overlooking the fantastic elegance and classical beauty of the seven hills of Rome sipping a fine wine and eating grapes from the oiled hands of Cretan slaves as I interview no one less than his highness The Emperor Hadrian.
In a hush-hush top secret behind closed doors heart to heart chat, His August Holiness proclaimed: “As top dog of the mightiest empire on this globe, it is my promise to keep out the barbarians.
“I will build a Wall. A Maximus Wallus. It will be a beautiful Wall with gates and portals and watchtowers and loads of spear-throwers. It will keep out Picts, Scots, rebellious Northumbrians, Glaswegians, Visigoths, the odd Ostrogoth and Mexicans.”
I’ll build a big Wall
“It will be the best and the most beautiful wall in the world and the Pict dudes don’t know it yet but they’ll pay for it too.”
Hadrian, dressed in his finest garb with his thinning blond hair swept forward in what one expert called a “Maximus weirdo style” added: “And this wall shall have my name carved on it and it shall be lit by electricity which hasn’t been invented yet.”
CGI showing wall to keep out pesky Pictsp
“I shall call it the Great Wall of Hadrian and no one will climb over it unless they can be used as cheap farm labour, dishwashers or as illegal servants in rich people’s homes.”
Commenting on the Wall issue, a Pict spokesthing, King Ossian the Unwashed III, said he hopes to meet Hadrian soon. “I’m sure we can work something out….trade a few slaves or decapitate some Mercian POWS or sacrifice a few oxen or eat raw sheep,” he remarked. “After all, we’re all Brits now and fuck the lot of ’em over the Channel with their garlic, their posh expense accounts, their stupid languages and funny clothes.”