The world, it seems, has finally developed a collective case of the vapours over Jeffrey Epstein's little black book of horrors. But not to worry, the ex-US attorney general William Barr has been hauled before the gawping masses, his face a masterpiece of bureaucratic constipation, as he attempted to explain why the full moon of transparency must remain eternally eclipsed by the shadow of 'national security'.
Oh, what a performance it was. A veritable Pavlova of prevarication, a gavotte of guilt wrapped in a three-piece suit. UK MPs, with their stiff upper lips and even stiffer questions, demanded full disclosure. 'Full transparency in a global crime probe,' they cried, as if justice were a simple matter of flicking a switch. But Barr, that connoisseur of obfuscation, offered only the stale crumbs of a man who has spent his career perfecting the art of the non-answer.
Let us be clear: this is not a probe, it is a grotesque puppet show where the strings are pulled by the very people who should be dangling from them. The Epstein files are not a dossier, they are a guidebook to the sewer system of the global elite. And Barr's testimony was less a revelation and more a masterclass in thesmophoria, the ancient Greek festival of secrets, where participants vowed to say nothing of substance.
The UK's demand for 'full transparency' is a noble sentiment, as pure as a pint of London gin. But we all know what happens when the sun shines on the cesspit: the rats scurry, the stench intensifies, and the suits start sweating. Barr, that grand master of the dark arts of obfuscation, has no intention of shedding light on a scandal that would topple governments, destroy reputations, and cause a run on the very concept of decency.
And so we sit, glued to our screens, watching this tragicomic opera unfold. The world demands truth, but the world gets a stone-faced Barr, a collection of redacted documents that look like a crossword puzzle for the blind, and a lingering sense that justice is a unicorn that exists only in the fever dreams of the naïve.
But fear not, dear readers, for this correspondent has a plan. I shall drain the last of my expense account gin, commission a pith helmet from a bankrupt Savile Row tailor, and infiltrate the very bowels of the Epstein file archives. I will emerge, not with a book deal or a Pulitzer, but with the truth. Or at least a very entertaining hallucination.
In the meantime, we must content ourselves with the spectacle of Barr's bloody-nosed ballet, a performance so devoid of substance that it makes a mime's lunch break look like a dramatic tour de force. The UK demands transparency. The world demands justice. And Barr? He demands a stiff drink and a new set of lies.
Such is the state of our glorious modernity, where the search for truth is as fruitful as a hunt for a sober barfly. But never mind. There's always gin.
