Emperor Franz Josef V, sighed, pulled on his weaved mutton chop whiskers – now Imperial regalia – and twisted the dial on his wireless to shift the channel from Das Lichtprogramm – playing its usual diet of whirling Waltzes by Johan Strauss the very, very, very much younger, as if to prove that music, like History, had nowhere to go but interminable circles – over to Der Heimat- Service for the latest reports from Today in Parliament.

There was something oddly comforting about these reports. Like all the Sturm and Drang of the Shipping Forecast: all those rising squalls and Force Ten Gales, that menacing low visibility in Sea areas with comfortingly obscure and poetic names – Varangian, Black, Dogged, Austrian Bight, Trieste, Italian Sea, Palermo automatic lighthouse weather station – full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, to him, more than how much more comfortable it was to be sitting by the fire with a cup of tea and a crumpet.

Reports from the Diet were always incomprehensible. All the way across the Greater Austro-Hungarian – Balkan Empire, from Bavaria in the West to the Caspian Sea in the East and Naples in the South, members of the diet were allowed to make speeches in their own languages; on the proviso that no translations were allowed. This meant that members could sound off in full fury, to be approvingly written up in the local papers at home, blaming everyone else for local problems, securing their continuous re election as local champions – safe in the knowledge that no one else in the Empire, unless they understood Slovak, or Azeri, or Sicilian dialect, would have a clue what they were saying, so everyone could remain friends. All the broadcasts were also in the original languages, so everyone could tune into their own bit and be reassured that their worries were being expressed, if not heard. Thus, peace and harmony could be assured, as a grievance carefully nurtured, with no hope of resolution, is a soothing balm for everyone who enjoys suffering from it and being able to complain about it. If these problems were to be resolved, people would be lost. They wouldn’t know who they were any more.

Kaiser Franz scratched idly at his paunch, feeling a bit sleepy, when the newsflash he had been waiting for came up right on time. A solemn burst of Bruckner – titanic, overwhelming, monumental and oddly static, like the Empire itself – was followed by an announcer sounding even more po faced than usual. The troublesome, playboy heir apparent, Archduke Ferdy, had met with an unfortunate accident while trying to act out the bow flight scene from Titanic on the 3:30 Zeppelin from Zagreb to Odesa while drunk (and drugged too, though he knew it not) to be followed by an Inquiry and four days of official mourning – because there was no point in overdoing it – announced by the Prime Minister, in his familiar flat nasal tone; the one that sounds a bit like he’s been chewing cardboard most of his life. Satisfied that Plan B, with its aerodrome arson squad and threat of high profile collateral damage (and all the awkward questions that go with it) had not been necessary, the Kaiser chuckled to himself and put Zadok the Priest on his record player.

May the King live, may the king live, may the king live FOREVER, Alleluhia, Alleluhia, Alleluhia, Amen…