As a bored and self-indulgent fifteen-year-old during lengthy school holidays, the Hound’s owner used to sit on her bedroom floor and create league tables of her favourite albums, books, films etc… to decide which one was truly the best. This activity usually killed enough time until she found something better to do. The following summer when she had turned 16, she had a waitressing job and no longer had the time to ponder at length which Sofia Coppola film she really liked the best.
One can only hope that Dominic Cummings’ circumstances will similarly change by this time next year once he’s turned 51 as today his subscribers were treated to not only his top 50 favourite films but also his thoughts on which of these films his subscribers one hundred years from now might be the most surprised to find on said list.
Cummings’ employment prospects, however, are slightly more complicated than a fifteen-year-old looking for a bar job. After he ejected himself from a crashing Number 10 in November 2020, Britain’s kingmaker’s contributions to political life seem to have been limited to fanning the flames of his former-employer’s steady succession of scandals via chaotically punctuated tweets and writing his aforementioned blog. And as every fifteen-year-old learns in IT lessons, what you post on the internet could harm your future job prospects.
To be fair, any publication requires a bit of variety and colour, and the list is a solid selection (although conflating Alien and Aliens, and the first two Godfather films into a single entry is cheating somewhat). But unlike most fifteen-year-old girls, Cummings’ experience, ambition, and knowledge would actually make a difference if turned elsewhere.
Perhaps he is biding his time, perhaps he is writing his post-Downing Street memoirs or perhaps he is toiling over a more worthwhile project which will be revealed in a few months’ time. But if he is truly in need of something to do, the service industry is seriously struggling for staff these days.
