Evil Machines by Terry Jones

to the Land of the Great Hoover, but unfortunately pressing affairs of state prevent me. I wish you Bon Voyage! And may you always have suction!’
    And they were off.
    The Powerful Vacuum Cleaner waved to them and so did his second-in-command, the Goblin Boxer. And his bodyguard of upright Hoovers, who now numbered a thousand, waved too.
    Later that day, the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner held his first Cabinet meeting. He looked around the room and noticed some threads on the carpet.
    ‘Where’s the broom that’s responsible for keeping this room clean?’ he thundered.
    A rather old and worn-out broom hurried up and curtsied in front of him.
    ‘I-I-I-I’m s-s-s-s-s-o s-s-s-s-s-s-sorry,’ it stuttered. ‘I tried my best, but my bristles aren’t what they were . . .’
    ‘You’re fired!’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner.
    ‘Oh no!’ cried the broom. ‘At my age I’ll never be able to find another post!’
    ‘That’s your look-out! You shouldn’t be so old!’ retorted the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner. ‘Get out of my sight!’
    And the poor broom had to pack its bags and leave that very afternoon, without a place to rest its pole nor any idea where it could get another job.
    The broom wandered across to the Victoria Tower Gardens, which are next door to the Houses of Parliament.
    There it sat down on a bench overlooking the River Thames and started sobbing its heart out.
    Well, it just so happened that a young couple were sitting on the bench next door. It was Janet and John, who had been unable to gain an audience with their own vacuum cleaner and were now trying to think what else they should do. When they heard the broom sobbing, they walked across to comfort it.
    ‘Our vacuum cleaner is unfeeling and rotten to the core!’ said Janet.
    ‘Right!’ said John. ‘It doesn’t care about anything other than itself.’
    ‘I think we should hold a mass meeting,’ said Janet.
    ***
    Meanwhile the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner was busy passing new laws.
    ‘From now on,’ it announced to an astonished House of Commons, ‘all humans will wear a label stating their make, model, serial number, and date of manufacture. It will be a criminal offence to appear in public without such a label.’
    ‘But we haven’t even voted on it!’ shouted several MPs.
    ‘That’s another thing!’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner, leaning on the dispatch box. ‘From now on all voting is abolished.’
    ‘Then what’s the point of this place?’ cried other MPs.
    ‘A good question!’ said the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner and it guzzled up every MP in the House of Commons and then went on vacuuming until all the seats and furniture, the legal books, the Speaker’s chair, the Speaker’s wig, even the
    Woolsack and the Mace, had all disappeared.
    Then the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner hoovered up the rest of the Houses of Parliament, and last of all he swallowed Big Ben, and then he lay there by the side of the Thames like a bloated whale.
    ***
    The mass meeting was held in Hyde Park that evening, while the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner was sleeping off his gargantuan dinner.
    The old broom from Number Ten was the first to speak.
    ‘I am only a worn-out broom, and no match for a vacuum cleaner, but there are multitudes of us humbler cleaning utensils! It seems to me our only hope is to stick together and to help each other oppose the tyranny of the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner who now makes our lives such misery.
    ‘So let us brooms and mops and buckets and dusters and dustpans join forces and see if we can rid the country of this Powerful Vacuum and his hired thugs, the upright Hoovers!’
    ‘Yes!’ shouted the mops and dustpans. ‘Let’s do it!’
    ‘We agree!’ shouted the buckets.
    Then an elderly mop got up on the podium. All the buckets rattled their handles and cheered like mad.
    ‘Let us find the Powerful Vacuum Cleaner . . .’
    ‘Yes! Yes!’ shouted the buckets.
    ‘And teach it a lesson . . .’
    ‘Yes! Yes!’ chanted the