ROWAN ATKINSON :Sir Marcus Browning MP

Announcer: Welcome to your seats, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed the buffet dinner, but even if you didn't, I know you'll enjoy our guest speaker tonight who's taken time off from his rigorous parliamentary schedule to be with us. We are very honored to welcome Sir Marcus Browning MP. Thank you.

Sir Marcus Browning: My Lord Mayor, my Lady Mayoress. My lords, ladies and gentlemen. There comes a time when we must all stand up and be counted. I am therefore standing up now and can be counted. One. To each of you I say you are a one. And ones are about to become singularly important. Because Britain is facing the gravest economic crisis since 1380. And you know many of us still remember that day. The eternal torment, worry, exesperation and all manner of (?). And if we are to quit the lights go out on our lives once more (?), we must ask ourselves crucial questions. Where are we? How did we get here? Why did we come? Where do we want to go? How do we want to get to where we want to go? How far do we have to go before we get to where we want to be? How would we know where we were when we got there? HAVE WE GOT A MAP? Why did we leave places to get to where we are? Where were we before that we had to leave to get to where we before we knew we're going to go to where we want to be? Where would we end up if we had the choice? Where would we end up if we didn't have the choice? What would we choose given the choice? Do we have that choice to choose? Or indeed can we be choosy about the choice choosings? What are the choosings? Choices! Do we want to stop now? (Rhetorical.) Or do we want to go right back to the beginning and start all over again. Perhaps not. But surely you can see my point. Because what I'm talking about is life. Because life is one of those things that most of us find it very difficult to avoid. In the words of (?) "life is uncertain." My life certainly has a certain uncertainty about it. And I'm certain yours does too. So with my uncertainty and your uncertainty there's certainly a certain degree of uncertainty about, of that we can be quite sure. So let's buckle down, shall we? Purpose is what we're striving for. We must have purpose. We mustn't be purposeless. We mustn's exhibit purposnessless. We must be purposelessnessless. Because we don't want to end up, do we? Because we don't want to end up, do we? Like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there.