Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Bemused watercooler man just pretends he watched leaders’ debate

A POLITICS-shunning office drone believes he 'managed to bluff it out' after pretending he watched the leaders' debate during a conversation at work today.

Peter Simpson, 41, from Staffordshire, decided to avoid last night's triple-pronged attack of mealy-mouthed promises and empty aspirational jargon, preferring 'a nice cup of tea and Marmite on toast' instead. But the generic office worker was panicked into making out that he had in fact watched it when cornered by co-workers this morning.

"I didn't know what to do," confessed Simpson in hushed tones. "I know you're meant to give a shit about this kind of thing, but to be quite honest I imagined it would be those three lying fuckers grinning, nodding, pointing and generally twaddling on for an hour and a half. I mean, I try and stay in touch with current affairs and stuff, but Christ. I'll be buggered if I'm making that kind of commitment just to have my existing prejudices reinforced and my expectations confirmed.

"But then people at work asked me if I'd watched it. And I didn't want to look like an ignoramus or something, so I said that I had. And I think I got away with it."

Simpson bluffed his way through an awkward three-minute dialogue with colleagues in which he claimed that 'Nick Clegg did quite well, I thought' and that 'Well Cameron, you know what you're getting with him, don't you', adding that 'Gordon Brown did okay'.

What he didn't realise was that none of them had seen the debate either, and were also pretending to have seen it in order not to appear like they weren't interested in a matter of national importance.

"Look, I had considered it," said Simpson's co-worker Nicola Sidebotham, 38, "But fuck it. It was Thursday night and I wanted to go down the pub. Is that so wrong?

"Naturally, I represented to my co-workers that I had seen it, so as not to appear lowbrow. But in fact I had a great evening down the Lamb & Flag getting drunk and playing the quizzer.

"I just worry that Peter - that's Peter Simpson, my colleague - might have caught me out. It sounds like he was a really big fan."

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