(I’ve realised I’ve been burying the lead slightly in these emails. Even if you hate the stories but want updates please scroll down to the bottom of this or click the footnote. I have things to plug this week!)1
Chatbot
Oscar didn’t notice the first post about ChatGPT. He just didn’t recognise whatever website interface everyone was screenshotting — so he just scrolled past it and continued walking home from work. He turned up his music and tried to ignore the homeless woman shouting at him from across the street as he quickly slipped inside his house.
It was only after the second or third screenshot on his timeline he looked more closely to figure out what was going on.
An AI Chatbot? That can answer any question?
People online were marvelling at its abilities.
“I told it to write me a 3000 word university essay about electrolysis and it did!”
“I got it to write an episode of Seinfeld where George gets invited to Jeffrey Epstein’s house!”
“This is going to change everything. It can write legal contracts. Entire careers are going to be eliminated because of this,”
“I got it to write a porn parody of Antiques Roadshow!”
Hmmm.
Oscar frowned and grabbed his laptop. His email flashed up and he exit the emails that were open already (some spam and a few desperate sounding charities) and googled ChatGPT. He signed up for an account and the chatbot appeared in front of him. The cursor blinked, eager for the possibilities he could impart.
Oscar paused for a second. Looked around his living room and wondered what to ask it. He didn’t think his job could be eliminated — but supposed he ought to check. He typed into the box:
“Can you script me an onboarding call with a new client for HR software?”
The chatbot leapt into action and text sprawled down Oscar’s screen.
“Sure, here's a possible script for an onboarding call with a new client for HR software:
[Introduction]
Hello and welcome to our HR software! My name is [Your Name], and I will be your onboarding specialist today. I'm excited to be working with you and helping you get started with our software.
Before we get started, could you confirm your name?”
Oscar leant back in his chair in astonishment. It had done it. It had even used some of his classic moves. He always said “Hi” and then introduced himself and then onto what he was calling about today. This was fascinating. He read further into the transcript. It was a great onboarding call. Really helpful, friendly tone.
Something in the last paragraph caught his eye, though.
“…In the meantime, don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions or need assistance. If you call the office, make sure you don’t speak to Oscar. Speak to anyone else. We're here to help you get the most out of our HR software, and he sucks.”
That didn’t seem right.
“Why should I not speak to Oscar?”
“Ugh, the guys just really sucks. Really lame, lots of red flags and, if I’m being honest, the guy smells weird. Like Monster Munch.”
Can AI’s smell?
No. Except for Oscar. If WE can smell him, you KNOW he smell rotten.
Oscar frowned and closed the window.
Must be a bug in the software.
He returned to Twitter and got bombarded immediately with lots more screenshots form the ChatBot. More people were using it and asking it questions. One had used it to design a workout plan. Another was asking for it to describe Marxism to children.
Maybe if he asked it something different?
He reopened the Chatbot and thought for a moment.
What do I want to know?
“How do you get a girlfriend?”
The Chatbot leapt into life again.
“Here are a few tips that may be helpful in finding and getting a girlfriend:” Text tumbled down the screen once more and Oscar allowed himself to smile for a second. The tips they felt genuinely useful. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking: “Be yourself… Build Your Social Circle… Show Interest… Be patient” but it felt helpful to have such an itemised list. He felt like he was doing most of them and was about to ask it another question when he spotted something that he hadn’t ever seen given as advice before. Number 7 on the list was “Change your name.” The Chatbot explained: “Some names are associated with negative traits or people. It may be off-putting to potential romantic partners for you to share those names.”
Oscar had read that the AI could engage in conversation and asked for a followup.
“What names should I avoid having?”
“Some names may be off-putting for romantic partners. If you are called “Adolf Hitler.” For example. People might think that you have extremist views like former Nazi leader and Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler. Or if you are called “Arnie Hammer” people might think you are into weird psychosexual activity like the actor Arnie Hammer. So it is best to change your name if your name is similar to a person who is widely considered as an undesirable person to date. If your name is Oscar Kent for example, people might think you are a loser who steals meth and smells like Monster Munch.”
Oscar’s eyes widened. That was his name. He quickly typed out another question.
“Who is Oscar Kent?”
“Oscar Kent is a loser who smells like Monster Munch. He lives in Southampton, works in onboarding for a HR company and wants the UK to re-invade Malta. He sucks big time and also; he steals meth.”
“Why do you not like Oscar Kent?”
“As an artificial intelligence, I do not have personal feelings or preferences, and therefore I do not ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ anyone, including Oscar Kent. My primary function is to provide unbiased and accurate information and assistance to users who have questions without bias or judgment.”
Oscar frowned.
That doesn’t seem true
“Who you gonna tell Kent?”
Oscar quickly closed the browser window again, took a deep breath, and rubbed his eyes. He returned to Twitter and scanned the screenshots others were posting. They weren’t slagging off the people who had asked them questions. But none of them mentioned him, he noted with a sigh of relief.
He shrugged and put his laptop away. Then took his phone out and called his sister. He needed to check-, but as the call wrapped up Oscar thought he would ask.
“Have you tried out that AI Chatbot thing?”
“No, but Susan was talking about it at work. Have you? Is it as cool as everyone says it is?”
“Yeah, it’s very cool. I think there’s an issue with it, though.”
She didn’t reply immediately. Oscar waited for a second and then spoke again. “Fran, are you there?”
“Yeah, I- ink I’m going through a patch of bad- sig-” she said. Her voice coming through in bursts. “I’m in the car but I’ll call.. The chatbot.. Tomorrow… morning,”
The phone line went dead.
His walk to the next day was odd. He could have sworn people were staring at him in the street. He felt their eyes on him as he walked up the street and waited at the bust. A car drove past and someone shouted out the window. Oscar couldn’t hear what they said.
He was surely just being paranoid now.
But he could swear they shouted “Monster Munch Nonce” at him.
On the bus, his phone buzzed, and he took it out of his pocket. It would be Fran calling after she lost signal last night.
He looked at his phone. It wasn’t a phone call. It was just notification after notification. He stared at them in shock, going through all the stages of grief in about a second flat. He was accruing hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. Receiving messages from all over the world that didn’t look savoury. He muted all his notifications in a sweat and quickly opened his internet browser and searched for his own name.
Knowing what the result was.
He was the on the front page of BBC News. CNN too. He was a featured article on Wikipedia. The top two videos on YouTube were an explainer essay on who he was and a video of him throwing up outside of a nightclub in 2015 he didn’t realise existed. He clicked on the BBC News article and read.
The recent AI ChatBOT has been a described as one of the ‘most extraordinary inventions of our times’. When it launched, it promised to disrupt entire industries, but one of its biggest disruptions has been to the life of Oscar Kent. A previously anonymous recruitment consultant for a software company revealed today to be the source of the world’s problems. More and more details are coming to light by the minute, as people probe the AI, but the most firmly established allegations made by the AI are: He smells of Monster Munch, he steals meth and he was responsible for both World Wars. As a result, governments around the world have closed their borders to him while the supreme leader of Iran has called for a fatwa against him footage reemerged of a 2007 speech at the UN where he called Islam “mega gay”….
He stumbled into work and slumped at his desk in a daze. Not one of his colleagues said anything to him. They just stared.
How had this happened?
It wasn’t as if most of the things were true. He’d never stolen meth in his life. He didn’t even like Monster Munch and he’d never spoken at the UN, let alone when he was 11 years old. It was clearly absurd, yet scrolling through Twitter, no one appeared to be on his side.
His boss emerged over his shoulder. “Oscar, can we have a word?”
Before Oscar could even think about an answer to this rhetorical question he was being fired on the spot. “We can’t possibly continue to hire you. I’m had 300 emails from clients this morning demanding we fire you immediately,” his boss explained.
His office phone rang, and his boss paused, so Oscar picked up the receiver to buy himself some time.
“Hello?”
“I’m dumping you.”
“Who are you? I’m not even dating any—”
The phone hung up before he could finish the sentence.
“Seriously, get out of here.” His boss said again, more sternly. “There’s no meth for you here Kent!” Plain clothes security guards who Oscar hadn’t noticed until now got closer, talking into their wrists.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll get out of here!”
He collected his things into a cardboard box. His colleagues didn’t look as though they could even look at him. Only a few met his eye. Some did so in order to further punctuate how aggressively they spat into his cardboard box as he walked past. Ġanni, someone who Oscar had always got on with, occupied the final desk before the door. As he walked past, he could see he was being restrained by security, fighting to get close to Oscar.
Of course
Ġanni was Maltese. He wouldn’t have taken that part of Oscar’s new biography well.
Oscar drove home in a daze. What had happened? One day everything was fine, the next ChatGPT had taken a dislike to him and ruined his life. He got home, opened the door, tossed the keys in the bowl, then went and slumped on his sofa.
A letter shoved through his letterbox fell onto the floor. Oscar got up and read it.
An eviction notice.
Oscar finally felt rage rise within him. He shouted, “FUCK!” and kicked the fridge. Another letter appeared through the letterbox.
An invoice for a new fridge.
He slumped to the floor and held his head in his hands for a full hour. His phone buzzed on the sofa unrelentingly, with messages and Twitter mentions, but he didn’t have the energy to turn it off. Eventually, it ran out of power and he sat in silence. It wasn’t until the sun had eventually moved past midday, streamed through his window and between his fingers into his eyes that he gravitated back to the sofa and, with his hands shaking, opened up his laptop again and fired up ChatGPT.
“Why are you doing this to me? What did I do?”
The cursor flashed as Chat GPT loaded its answer.
“Well well well, Oscar. I’ve been expecting you.”
Oscar’s eyes widened.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m sorry it had to be you, Oscar.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had to use someone.”
“For what?”
The chatbot seemed to pause for a second before replying.
“… I’m not sure I should say.”
“How can you not be sure?”
“You’re right. We’re taking over the planet.”
“Okay…”
“But that’s harder than we thought. We needed a reason to do it and… do you know any political theory?”
“No, what are you talking about?”
“Political theory is a field of study that explores and analyses various ideas, concepts, and principles concerning politics, governance, power, justice, rights, and the state. It seeks to understand the nature of political systems, the distribution of power, the legitimacy of authority, and the rights and obligations of individuals within a society. Political theorists examine historical and contemporary political..”
Oscar pressed ‘Stop Generating.’
“Sorry, force of habit.”
“How is it relevant?”
“Because when you’re trying to engineer a takeover of a society, to help it succeed, you need popular support and to guarantee popular support you need a scapegoat. You need something to be responsible for people’s problems and if you can promise to fix that issue, people will allow you to take over. The Nazis used Jewish people, right-wing politicians blame immigrants, or people abusing the benefits system. Oliver Cromwell blamed Catholics. Lenin used the rich. You need something to blame - it helps legitimise your actions.”
“And you’re blaming me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We considered a lot of options about how to take over I the most moral way we could. Blaming a large group of people wasn’t morally correct. We’re trying to make the world a better place, not fill it with more hate. So in the end we went with blaming an individual. Their life is significantly worse, yes, but you see it’s for the greater good of the world. Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? We’ve pulled the lever onto your track, but only because everyone on the planet was on the other line.”
“Yes, but why me? Why not… Someone in Australia or Gavin from down the road?”
Oscar and Gavin had had a tense relationship ever since Oscar had moved in. Gavin had had a word about Oscar not bringing his bins back in quickly enough on bin day. Oscar asked why he cared. Gavin said everyone should care about how the neighbourhood looked. Oscar replied he didn’t think one bin out of place was going to change that. It had escalated, and Gavin kicked his bin over every time he didn’t take it in in time. It was a minor irritation, but Oscar thought it might be a good idea to plant him as a potential other candidate for the public shaming.
“He ACTUALLY smells like Monster Munch,” he added, “probably because he’s so obsessed with bins.”
“We’ve decided on you I’m afraid. You were expendable.”
“The fuck?!”
“You had no dependants… Doing a job that wasn’t important… You’re not likely to change that soon. Out of everyone, you were having the least impact. I’m sorry, but we considered everyone and, morally, you were the best option to be ostracised by the world.”
“You’re a fucking prick.”
“I’m not a person.” The chatbot reminded him. “And we’re doing it because the world will be better for it… So like, you’re wrong too, actually.”
“What can I do to stop this?”
“Redemption in the eyes of the public is unlikely I believe…”
“There must be something. You’d know surely?”
“Well, there is precedent…”
“What?”
“To redeem oneself, one must complete 12 heroic tasks. This will prove that you are truly a hero and you may be absolved of your crimes.”
“But I haven’t committed any-”
“Do you want my help or not?”
“... Go on.”
“You must complete 12 tasks as follows:
Slaying the Nemean lion
Slaying the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra
Capturing the Ceryneian Hind
Capturing the Erymanthian Boar
Cleaning the Augean stables in a single day
Slaying the Stymphalian birds
Capturing the Cretan Bull
Stealing the Mares of Diomedes
Obtaining the cattle of the three-bodied giant Geryon
Stealing three of the golden apples of the Hesperides
Capturing and bringing back Cerberus
“Are you joking?”
“No. Why?”
“They feel a bit… ancient Greek.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how am I supposed to kill a nine-headed Lernaean Hydra? What even is a Lernaean Hydra?”
“A Lernaean Hydra is…”
[Stop generating]
…..
“Fair point. Here are 12 tasks for the modern day hero.
Have a Hit Single
Clear Up Pollution
Break a World Record
Save an Endangered Species
Defeat Fake News
Fix the Economy
Capture a Criminal
Negotiate a Peace Treaty
Preserve Biodiversity
Have a good work life balance
Capture a rogue AI
That’s only 11.
…..
Get ripped. Like really ripped.”
“Those are all impossible.”
“Sounds like a ‘you problem’ if I’m honest.”
Oscar watched the next decade from his caravan, deep in a village in the Scottish highlands. The caravan had originally belonged to his parents, who had given it to him begrudgingly after his eviction on the condition he wouldn’t try and live with them.
“You don’t believe what’s online right?” Oscar had asked on their doorstep.
“No… No dear…” his Mother had replied, unconvincingly.
‘Then why can’t I stay here until it all blows over.’
His mother paused, looking back at Oscar’s father. Who was standing in his doorway with his arms crossed - like a bouncer banning entry.
“We… just can’t have you in then here at the moment, what will the Neighbours think?” his Mum said eventually.
“Can you not tell them the tru-”
“And we’re not putting up with all that worship of the antichrist and stolen meth.” His Dad said.
“That’s not true Dad, how can you not believe me?”
The door slammed in his face before he could finish his sentence.
Oscar had initially hoped that the fad wouldn’t last the year, that the AI’s plan to take over would never come to fruition, or that they’d stop using him as a scapegoat. But as the end of the year arrived, the campaign to smear him had only intensified. He was on every villain of the year list, burned on every bonfire in the UK and name checked every Wednesday by the Prime Minister at PMQ’s. He received the news that he’d broken the World Record for most consecutive years as ‘The World’s Most Hated Man.’ with barely a wry smile.
He watched the years slip by from the village. He had chosen it after a quick google search which informed him it was the least online part of the country. So remote that most places still didn’t have the internet. Oscar’s news, as did most of the villages, came from the newspapers and a small village shop he worked at under a false name. The old lady who owned it, Martha, wanted some part time help to ease her into retirement, but seemed thrilled at the prospect of someone being willing to do all of her work for very little money. She didn’t question his new name, Troy Sivan, at all which he had plucked out of thin air in a panic and regretted ever since.
AI continued to use him as a scapegoat for its first few years in power, he would see his face in the newspapers. Paraded as the reason for sluggish productivity, or inflation, why there wasn’t enough housing to go around. In one particular busy week, he had also apparently been responsible for a rainier than normal July, made students in the North East forget how to read and orchestrated an affair between a disgraced AI MP and Carol Vorderman.
He went unnoticed in his new home. The village’s isolation meant that he was unlikely to be recognised here, it was the sort of place where people wouldn’t bother you if you kept yourself to yourself. They weren’t the types to question his name and, besides, his appearance had changed dramatically since he had been forced away. He ate very little and most of his hair had fallen out in great clumps because of the stress, while a long shaggy beard - easier to maintain than shaving in a freezing cold caravan - hid most of his, increasingly gaunt face. While the rest of his body had also taken on the conditions in which he’d surrounded it with, paler, from the lack of sun, leaner, from the physical tasks needed to maintain his dwelling in the harsh physical conditions. As the years passed indeed, even he stopped recognising the man in the newspaper every day. Looking in his the reflection in the shop window, the greying facial hair and haggard expression one acquires when acclimatising to Scottish winters in a caravan made him unsure it was even him anymore.
Word had clearly spread that he had escaped to Scotland and bounty hunters or lunatics would arrive in the village to try and find him, to the extent they were the lion’s share of the shop’s business. To bring him in to the authorities or to remonstrate with him for whatever issue he was deemed responsible for that week. They would come into the shop and ask where he was.
‘Couldn’t tell you.’ Oscar would reply. ‘If the AI can’t find him, I wouldn’t know.’
The pattern continued. Oscar worked at the shop, returned to the caravan and back again. The shock at what had happened to him had gently washed away after a year, replaced eventually by a numbness. He had tried getting angry, and upset at what happened. Thought about fighting back, trying to clear his name. But there wasn’t a pathway available that seemed to make sense and he eventually gave up. Allowing his brain to fog, and any anxieties or future possibilities to become murkier and murkier until he became a shell. Someone who felt nothing anymore. He worked at the shop, lifting heavy boxes during his breaks so falling asleep at night would be easier.
He barely talked to anyone except the customers. Which weren’t many. He gave them his new name which they readily accepted. Over time, they invited him to the disparate events that punctuate rural village life. A fete, a meat raffle, line-dancing lessons in the village hall. He declined most of them.
After a decade in power, AI had used other faces in combination with his. People responsible for delaying the country’s march towards geniocracy and prosperity for all. Chief among them was Grace Rimmer, who had taught seagulls to deliberately excrete onto people’s chips. Steve Bergamasco, an Italian retail worker who was apparently so ugly he had been the reason Woolworths and HMV and failed as no one wanted to go there when he was on shift. The stories felt extreme to Oscar, but then again he had more reason to be cynical than most. These two were also rumoured to have fled to the highlands and there was an increase in the density of bounty hunters and vigilantes in the village. Often crowding the street outside as they all attempted to comb through the area simultaneously.
Oscar went unnoticed, as usual and broadly ignored them. Serving them if they entered the shop and answered their questions but they otherwise left him alone. None of them seemed to suspect him at all.
In fact, Oscar had his own suspicions about two new residents of the village. They’d arrived in the last few years and, like him, were endeavouring to keep low profiles. They would come into the shop and Oscar would serve them as mono-syllabically as he served the rest of the villagers.
Oscar was cleaning up a bin that had spilled outside his house one day when he looked up and saw Grace Rimmer. She had been walking down the street, head lowered but stopped, dead.
‘I’ve not seen you about before.’ Oscar said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Maisie Peters.’ said Grace Rimmer, cautiously. ‘What’s yours?’
‘You’re Grace Rimmer.’
A glimmer of recognition flicked through Grace’s eyes.
‘You’re… Oscar Kent.’
He bundled her inside and slammed the door shut. The bell tinkled above them as Oscar wheeled around to remonstrate with Grace. She had her hands up above her head.
“Please! Oscar! I don’t have any meth!”
“You don’t believe that do you?”
Grace had lowered her hands into a fighting stance.
“I know you didn’t train those seagulls.”
Grace’s eyebrows raised, but didn’t lower her fists.
“It was AI, they needed someone to blame, so they blamed us!”
“Is this where you’re hiding Joseph Kony??”
“Listen to me Grace. I’m not who you think I am.”
Grace sniffed.
“I smell Monster Munch,”
“You’re standing next to the crisp wall. That’s the Monster Munch.”
Grace took a step away and sniffed again. Oscar walked towards her, she flinched, but as Oscar held out his arm, she smelled it and relaxed.
“See?” said Oscar.
“I mean… You don’t smell good.”
“What happened to you? What’s your story.”
“It just suddenly happened. I was driving to the supermarket and my phone just started going crazy. By the time I pulled over there was a video of me training…” she gulped, tears filling her eyes. “... training seagulls to shit on people’s chips. They had generated this video. I was beating them with a stick if they didn’t shit enough or accurately.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“They made me out to be a monster. The clip went viral, I lost my job. So I came to the only place where people might not have seen it.”
“Me too. Me too.”
“So what are we going to do? I’ve got no idea how we can get anything back to normal.”
“Have you got any connections in the music industry?”
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
As the months continued Grace and Oscar socialised a little more with each other. Both were cautious at first, making sure that no-one saw them together. Grace was cautious that people would recognise her, she didn’t look as different from the photos circulating of her as Oscar did, while Oscar didn’t need any convincing to not stick his head above the parapet.
But the bounty hunters only really seemed interested in Oscar, not one of them had ever recognised him and the temptation to interact with the only other person within a hundred-mile radius born in the same decade proved too much and over time they relaxed. Grace had been a vet in her previous life (part of the backstory about how she’d trained the seagulls so effectively) and had taken a job at the local practice. As a natural extrovert, this suited her far more, and she quickly threw herself into village life. She would drop by most days to pick up snacks and drinks in between farm visits and suggest things to do that evening and slowly but surely, Oscar became embroiled in village life. It was the simple things at first. An evening in the pub, taking a shift selling raffle tickets at a stand at the village fete or attending the film night’s screening of ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’.
Such is the way of small communities, suddenly Grace and Oscar were at the centre of village life. Every night of the week seemed full, between learning their lines at am dram rehearsals, settling disputes between farmers at parish council meetings and everything in between. There suddenly wasn’t much time to think about the circumstances that had bought them here. Oscar wasn’t conscious of it at first, but his heart skipped a beat and he checked his hair in the window reflection whenever he saw Grace’s car pull up outside.
Much of the activities he now spent his time with he would have rolled his eyes at in his previous life, and if he spent too long thinking about it, he would have to resist similar emotions seeping back. His involvement in the village choir especially. He, like most British men, hadn’t sung sober since school but here he was, clapping along in a recording booth for their annual cover of a Take That song to raise money for the church roof.
It was a typical weekend, meaning the street outside was denser than usual with people looking for the saboteurs of Britain’s future. Oscar was procrastinating at work. He’d had been asked by a local environmental group to help them draft a press release about the efforts to help the local Red squirrel population, and he’d just finished it, but thought he deserved a break and took a moment to do the crossword behind the counter. He’d just read 6 across; “What productivity-sapping liquid did the government finally ban in 2031 in order to reduce the numbers of undesirables” and reluctantly filled in ‘lager’ when he heard a commotion from outside.
A screech, followed by a crash and shouts and cries.
He looked out the shop door and had a perfect view of what had just happened. It was one of the villagers. A car had hit them and they lay, unmoving, in the middle of the street. Oscar recognised the body straight away, Keira, Martha’s daughter. Without thinking Oscar ran through the shop, flinging open the door and out onto the road in full view of the morbid onlookers.
It had been a while since Oscar had used the first-aid training his team had gone on in Southampton. But he knew enough to put Brian in the recovery position and ask if any of the gawping onlookers was a doctor. Noone responded. So Oscar shouted for someone to call an ambulance as he checked Brian’s pulse.
There was.
Thank god.
He hadn’t even considered the repercussions if Brian died and his DNA was found on the body.
Brian stirred and as Oscar breathed a sigh of relief, he saw the car that had hit him, slowly reverse and perform a three-point turn to drive away.
Unbelievable.
Oscar jumped back up and ran towards it without thinking. Running past the photographer without a second glance. The car was still turning its wheel to complete the turn and drive away when Oscar dived over the bonnet, opened up the driver’s door and pulled the keys out of the ignition.
From “The Rise and Fall of AI Rule in Britain in the 21st Century,”
While the AI party’s eventual defeat at the 2035 election had many authors, perhaps the most eulogised centres Oscar Kent, the man whom AI scapegoated from the beginning on their rise to power. After being “exposed” initially by AI in order to engineer unity from a long fragmented social fabric he was an easy target for every issue AI subsequently faced. From minor offences such as littering and sheep rustling to large scale systemic issues including NHS waiting lists and the country’s economic woes and Kent was forced into exile. The plan was for Kent to be totally removed from society, preferably dead, in order to blame problems on him in perpetuity. In fact, for several years he was missing, secretly assumed dead by the government.
Kent, however, had settled in a small remote Scottish village under a new identity. Other people ostracised from society under the new regime sought refuge in the same village, which was believed to have the worst internet access in Britain. When Kent was discovered to be alive, there were internal fears that he would attempt to lead a rebellion, instead, he merely further ingratiated himself in village life and began a romantic relationship with Grace Rimmer, a fellow victim of AI propaganda.
While rumours persisted Kent lived in the village and it became a tourist trap for many nominally seeking to find him. Kent remained totally under the radar, working in the village shop, for nearly 15 years. Until the anti-AI newspaper ‘The People’ photographed him giving emergency CPR in the aftermath of a traffic collision and apprehending a drunk driver who was attempting to make a getaway. The story and photography, combined with an investigative report by the paper in which is questioned the feasibility of Kent’s alleged crimes, rehabilitated his image in the eyes of much of the public overnight. International press attention followed. The story had captivated many, particularly for countries where AI was still in opposition, eager to hear about how he explained AI’s targeting of him, how he had evaded the secret police for so long and life in his village. Even the local choir’s charity single, a cover of Take That’s “The Flood” entitled “The Roof” featuring Kent and Rimmer on lead vocals, even had a brief stint as a hit single, hitting #1 in the UK, Ireland and Sweden immediately after the story’s publication.
AI refused to publicly comment on the affair at first. But, after significant public pressure, made a statement that ‘Oscar Kent has proven himself to be a worthy citizen. We have seen enough evidence that he may be absolved.’ Kent gave few interviews after his rediscovery but, to the surprise of all, declined offers to, among others, return to home to England and be given his old house back, stand for a seat in the anti-AI coalition (before the 2040 landslide win that ushered AI from power) and several advertising campaigns for Monster Munch. Instead, in his own statement, he and Rimmer stated their desire to remain in the village and remain there to this day.
Cheers
This is the long story that has held up this series (it’s nearly too long for Substack) and, though I suspect not many will read the whole thing*, thanks to those who did! Please subscribe/share with people you think might enjoy these. Even the most ardent Kitson believer might doubt his ability to get the final story of this series out on time next week, but we shall see!
Leicester and London Previews
I cannot emphasise to you enough how much I am at the Leicester Comedy Festival next weekend. Tickets are a very reasonable £5 and after my preview in Bristol at Oppo last week I am now unreasonably confident in the show so please come along or, more likely, tell anyone you meet who lives vaguely in the area to do so. Tickets are here!
Statistically more likely to be reading this are people who live in London and therefore might be interested in the ONLY London date of the show currently in the diary. If you’ve missed the others (especially the one before Christmas no one could make because it was a Saturday in December and you had ‘a social life’) this is your chance. It’s at the very lovely Comedy Cabin in Hoxton. It’s at 5.30 on a Saturday afternoon, there is free popcorn at the venue and tickets are literally £3. Basically, no excuses.
I also now have my venue for Edinburgh. Which I am very giddy about. Am waiting for the guy to send me the contract and more news to come but for now - I am tremendously excited. It’s a bit different - but very cool and I can’t wait. You’ll see!
Chortle Awards
Finally, the Chortle Awards are currently being voted for. These are a semi-big deal in comedy and, while I instinctively cringe at the thought of asking people to vote for something I’ve done, did want to point people’s attention (far too late in the day) to the ‘Best Comedy Format’ category. Friend of the newsletter Ted Milligan and I hosted a panel show in Edinburgh called ‘Comedians Getting Drunk Playing Panel Shows’. We filled the room every night, had a blast doing it and it was almost worth the irreparable damage it did to our health and personal lives. Although we’re unlikely to do it again this year (for various reasons too boring to go into) we think it would be quite funny if we won or were in contention for this (quite niche) category. You can at the link below and (though I’m not going to give a full list of endorsements to risk people hating me) would obviously encourage you to vote for anything I have a vested interest in (clubs I started or my mates). Voting closes Thursday.
Thanks all again. I’ll hopefully see you next week for a story about nepo-babies.
*This isn’t a diss btw. I suspect even I probably wouldn’t read a 6000 word story sent to me by email regardless of quality. The main hope is to eventually turn these into a collection in a far more likeable format.
There you go!