In a development that has sent tremors through the global coal community and caused a minor landslide in the Foreign Office's tea room, Britain has dispatched a delegation of inspectors to audit the world's most subterranean fuel excavations. The crux of the kerfuffle: China's secret coal mine tunnels, a subterranean network so vast it makes the London Underground look like a child's train set abandoned in a puddle of Ovaltine.
Let us pause to savour the delicious irony. Britain, a nation whose industrial revolution was fuelled by coal soot and child labour, is now lecturing the Middle Kingdom on subterranean safety. Sir Reginald Sniffleworth, a man whose eyebrows have achieved sentience and whose spectacles are made from recycled copy paper, will lead the delegation. His official statement: "We shall descend into the depths, clipboards in hand, to ensure that every tunnel is properly ventilated and that no one has accidentally left a pickaxe in a hazardous location."
The Chinese tunnels, rumoured to stretch from Beijing to the outskirts of Vladivostok, were discovered by a satellite that mistook them for a particularly ambitious badger sett. Safety fears have been raised, not least by the families of the 47,000 workers who have reportedly become part of the geological record. But let's not jump to conclusions. This is an audit, not a witch hunt. Though one suspects the witches are already queuing up to be audited.
The British team includes a health and safety officer who once banned a paperclip for being too sharp, and a geologist who communicates with rocks via interpretive dance. Their mission: to ensure that global coal mining standards are up to the rigorous levels set by the British Coal Board, which itself was shut down for being a bit too enthusiastic about pit ponies.
Meanwhile, in the hallowed halls of Whitehall, a memo has been circulated suggesting that the tunnels could be repurposed as an escape route for Brexit negotiators. But that, dear reader, is a story for another day. For now, we must focus on the audit. The results will be published in a glossy report, printed on paper made from recycled Chinese coal miners' pay slips, and will contain exactly zero recommendations that anyone will follow.
So raise a glass of airport gin to Sir Reginald and his intrepid crew. May their descent be swift and their findings suitably damning. And may we all remember that in the great game of global politics, the only thing more abundant than coal is hypocrisy.
