The Fandango Farrago

Who is Noel Fandango?

Once upon a time this was clear, or rather it was at least comfortably fuzzy.

Noel Fandango was a representative of ‘ordinary decent people’ who were sick of being sneered at by ‘elites’ who thought that they were cleverer than them, and ran the world accordingly.

Fortunately these ‘elites’, assuming that they ever existed, have now been overcome by ‘the will of the people’, after an astonishing revolution that has completely overturned the system we live in even though the system we live in is still later-than-you-think-capitalism, and as such fundamentally unchanged.

Once upon a time, ‘clever elites’ might have pointed out a contradiction in the above statements. Fortunately, we have now entered a realm of dream logic, in which what seem to be mutually exclusive propositions may both be absolutely valid.

This is a very exciting time to be alive. And if people find it hard to negotiate this new world they only have to turn for reassurance to Noel Fandango, who presents us with the face of ‘an ordinary bloke’, ‘just like us’ who talks ‘common sense’ which everybody can understand.

Noel Fandango is like one of those people who knows he could run the country very successfully if he wanted to, but instead wisely confines himself to backseat driving, demanding why that thing ‘the will of the people’ wanted hasn’t happened yet. ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Why aren’t we there yet?’, he says. Over and over again.

The underlying implication being, of course, that if we don’t arrive at ‘the sunlit uplands’ soon he will have to take the wheel himself, and then everything will be fine. Even though he has never driven before.

However, let it not be said that Noel Fandango has done nothing. Hasn’t he already proved his usefulness by cementing a relationship with Mr. Donald Dick of America? Donald Dick also likes to impersonate an ordinary person - or possibly many different ordinary people simultaneously - by spouting all kinds of rubbish based on whatever is going through his head at the time. Which is all very refreshing.

But Donald Dick’s assurances to Noel Fandango, whatever they might be, are surely to be taken seriously. Why, he has even suggested in one of his famous twitterings that Noel Fandango would ‘make a great UK ambassador’ even though he hasn’t been to Ambassador School and there is no vacancy for an ambassador currently.

But who the Hell cares about that?, as Donald Dick might say. Hell, why not make him King?

The Royal Family are just another ‘elite’ aren’t they? Everyone hates ‘elites’ nowadays.

Why not replace the Queen with an ‘ordinary bloke’? Even if, in the famous picture of Noel Fandango in a gold-plated lift (or ‘elevator’) with his new best friend Donald Dick, he doesn’t look much like an ordinary bloke at all.

Come to think of it, he looks very odd, like a cross between Cesar Romero’s Joker from the original Batman TV series and a duck. It is as if his grin might get so large that it will split his face entirely, leaving nothing to relate to at all. What has happened?

Perhaps, to use a well-known American phrase, what has happened is that in ‘crossing the pond’ Noel Fandango has ‘jumped the shark’.

This phrase, a reference to a scene in the television programme Happy Days, refers to the moment where a popular TV series reaches a point where it begins to caricature itself, and starts to lose its appeal.

Noel Fandango unthinkingly celebrates the connection between his success and that of Donald Dick, but many of his supporters are made uneasy by Dick. What seems like ‘a triumph for ordinary decent people’ in the UK can so easily look, when transferred to America, like ‘the lunatics are taking over the asylum’.

Fortunately in our new dream world Noel Fandango’s supporters are no longer obliged to follow their thoughts through to a logical conclusion. This is how Noel Fandango can simultaneously occupy the position of one who has ‘jumped the shark’ and one who is swimming with the shark.

Let’s hope it doesn’t eat him.