At the Charleston literary festival earlier this month, two members of Led By Donkeys – Ben Stewart and Oliver Knowles – were describing their first big act of 2023, which was to rename Michelle Mone’s yacht, Lady M, the “Pandemic Profiteer”. It’s a thrilling yarn, featuring a tiny boat rented under the false pretences of a picnic on the Catalan coast, a bunch of guys who didn’t really know how hard it would be to fix a giant sticker to a luxury yacht, and a chase scene at the end, as they raced back to their van, pursued by security guards.
But the original idea had been to requisition the boat and sail it all the way back to the UK, up the Thames, and deliver it to His Majesty’s Treasury. There was an intake of breath in the book-loving audience, because this was the best idea anyone had ever heard. It had everything – audacity, symmetry, justice, spectacle, the lot.
