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Bedroom Max: A Short Story
Maxwell Bashmore is an upstanding member of the taxpaying community and treasurer of the Taxpayers' Battalion. He enjoys working hard and getting along. Join him as he takes his latest campaign to Harts Close, the poorest estate in the north-west of England, where literally everyone spends all day smoking crack heroin drug pipes and sponging off the hardworking taxpayer who he tirelessly represents...
In an attempt to reconcile his lifelong disdain for everything Tory, Rupert's latest short story enters the mind of the Middle England bigot.
This story is free. It was published by Politics & Insights on 28/10/2016 with a brief introduction by the activist and public research writer Sue Jones.
You can read it here:
https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/201...
In an attempt to reconcile his lifelong disdain for everything Tory, Rupert's latest short story enters the mind of the Middle England bigot.
This story is free. It was published by Politics & Insights on 28/10/2016 with a brief introduction by the activist and public research writer Sue Jones.
You can read it here:
https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/201...
- GenresShort StoriesPolitics
ebook
Published October 28, 2016
30 people want to read
About the author
Rupert Dreyfus
9 books143 followersRupert Dreyfus is an award winning, Amazon top 10 selling author who writes black comedies as a means of venting about the state of the world. The influential magazine of cultural criticism PopMatters said that he writes “with the darkly absurd humour of a thirsty and somewhat paranoid Jonathan Swift”. Closer to home, activist and one-time musician Edwin Stratton described his work as “black bloc meets Black Mirror”.
Spark is his first novel which serves as a snapshot of modern-day Britain, seen through the eyes of disaffected computer hacker Jake Miller. After creating a legion of online followers known as Generation Y-bother, Jake shows us how incredibly easy it is to spark a revolution. You just have to be angry enough.
Dreyfus is also the author of The Rebel's Sketchbook; a collection of thirteen short stories. Targets include maniac world leaders, talentless boybands, Westminster politicians, social media idiots and much more. The Morning Star named it one of their favourite books of 2015.
More recently, Dreyfus has released a number of short stories as well as his first novella Prezident Scumbag!; a swipe at the rise of Donald Trump as told by crust punk squatter Faz.
It was nominated for Readfree.ly's 50 Best Indie Books of 2017 and subsequently placed 25th.
For more information about Rupert you can visit his website www.rupertdreyfus.co.uk.
"Dreyfus writes with the darkly absurd humour of a thirsty and somewhat paranoid Jonathan Swift." - Pop Matters
"Black block meets Black Mirror." - Edwin Stratton, activist and musician
"If his work doesn't make you think, I suggest getting your doctor to prescribe a course of fluoride tablets, subscribe to the Daily Mirror and vote in this year's X Factor." - The Canary
Spark is his first novel which serves as a snapshot of modern-day Britain, seen through the eyes of disaffected computer hacker Jake Miller. After creating a legion of online followers known as Generation Y-bother, Jake shows us how incredibly easy it is to spark a revolution. You just have to be angry enough.
Dreyfus is also the author of The Rebel's Sketchbook; a collection of thirteen short stories. Targets include maniac world leaders, talentless boybands, Westminster politicians, social media idiots and much more. The Morning Star named it one of their favourite books of 2015.
More recently, Dreyfus has released a number of short stories as well as his first novella Prezident Scumbag!; a swipe at the rise of Donald Trump as told by crust punk squatter Faz.
It was nominated for Readfree.ly's 50 Best Indie Books of 2017 and subsequently placed 25th.
For more information about Rupert you can visit his website www.rupertdreyfus.co.uk.
"Dreyfus writes with the darkly absurd humour of a thirsty and somewhat paranoid Jonathan Swift." - Pop Matters
"Black block meets Black Mirror." - Edwin Stratton, activist and musician
"If his work doesn't make you think, I suggest getting your doctor to prescribe a course of fluoride tablets, subscribe to the Daily Mirror and vote in this year's X Factor." - The Canary
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 2, 2016
Read this and applaud. I did.
October 27, 2016
Rupert Dreyfus’s stories just get better and better. He has honed his craft of biting humour and political poignancy to the degree where this short is bordering on perfection. He’s also developed his use of first person narration exceptionally well – whereas many of his previous narrators were more the everyman we could all relate to, Dreyfus writes even better as a complete moron, such as this tale’s Maxwell Bashmore, leader of the Taxpayer’s Battalion. Bedroom Max combines comic brilliance and important sentiments, and it gives the writers of Yes Minister a run for their money. Satire at its very finest.
November 4, 2016
Sharply intelligent writing seems to be Rupert's signature. And this is very helpful when you write satire. And his sharp intelligence marries heavenly with his progressive socio political stance.
So I always dive full of trust in to his text. And I'm always thankful at the end. It's not just the literary merit and the cathartic humour to be thankful for. Rupert's writing is also a treasure pot of humanity and the kindest of ideologies.
In this short story he writes about Bashmore, an ideologue of the Right, and scarily righteous in his dogmatic delusions. Other friends wrote in their reviews that Max is a caricature. I'm not sure, I'm afraid I'm not sure at all. I'm just too horrified by the extent of nastiness and sociopathy the right wing and conservatives are capable of demonstrating, that I just don't know anymore. Max B. seems so real anyway, in his arguments and zeal and madness that I fear that there is indeed one like him out there and Rupert picked the frequency of his psyche.
No spoilers will be given. Just to say that the ending was simply very good writing.
Always looking forward for more work of this writer.
So I always dive full of trust in to his text. And I'm always thankful at the end. It's not just the literary merit and the cathartic humour to be thankful for. Rupert's writing is also a treasure pot of humanity and the kindest of ideologies.
In this short story he writes about Bashmore, an ideologue of the Right, and scarily righteous in his dogmatic delusions. Other friends wrote in their reviews that Max is a caricature. I'm not sure, I'm afraid I'm not sure at all. I'm just too horrified by the extent of nastiness and sociopathy the right wing and conservatives are capable of demonstrating, that I just don't know anymore. Max B. seems so real anyway, in his arguments and zeal and madness that I fear that there is indeed one like him out there and Rupert picked the frequency of his psyche.
No spoilers will be given. Just to say that the ending was simply very good writing.
Always looking forward for more work of this writer.
November 21, 2016
‘Isn’t she a lovely piece of skirt?’ Monty said.
‘Margret Thatcher?’
I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks.
‘Margret Thatcher?’
I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks.
October 30, 2016
Maxwell Bashmore is a gloriously timely comic creation. There is something in his hideousness and oblivious conceit that is of the ages. I am reminded by the writing of Rupert Dreyfus of those intelligent satirical monsters that sprang up in response to the Thatcher years. One notable comparison being the ultimate Tory grotesque, Alan B’Stard. Bashmore is more pedestrian though, and it is his facade of acceptability and absolute belief that he owns the new normal, which marks him out as at once a figure to be feared and pitied.
Dreyfus has spawned a horrifically funny and creepily real representation of the insanity of absolutism, here in the form of a Tory mindset run rampant to its logical excesses. The scary thing is how familiar Bashmore is, and how his sense of entitlement to move through life uncontested is the true face of modern politics. Was it ever thus? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. Bashmore is a brick wall and as this story knocks its head against him the only response is hysterical laughter. Premium Dreyfus.
Dreyfus has spawned a horrifically funny and creepily real representation of the insanity of absolutism, here in the form of a Tory mindset run rampant to its logical excesses. The scary thing is how familiar Bashmore is, and how his sense of entitlement to move through life uncontested is the true face of modern politics. Was it ever thus? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. Bashmore is a brick wall and as this story knocks its head against him the only response is hysterical laughter. Premium Dreyfus.
September 5, 2017
I've been a fan of radical satirist Rupert Dreyfus since I read his quirky, funny and subversive novel Spark, one of my highlights of 2015. He's also the author of a short-story collection, The Rebel's Sketchbook. This year he's taken to making his newest short stories available for free on the internet, and Bedroom Max is the latest. It's a portrait of Maxwell Bashmore, a right-wing bigot who runs something called the Taxpayers' Battalion. Max is the scourge of scroungers and benefit cheats in the North of England. Trouble is, he's just about to get into trouble himself...
Max is a bit of a caricature, as is the affable Tory MP to whom he pays court. That's Dreyfus for you; he does in-your-face characters. But he does them well, and - as in his other stories - there's a lower, subtler, layer to his satire where uncomfortable truths are to be found. Thus Max turns out not to have the friends, or to be serving the interests, that he thinks.
Worth a read - and, given Dreyfus's guerilla publishing habits, worth keeping up-to-date with him on Twitter (@Rupert_Dreyfus).
Max is a bit of a caricature, as is the affable Tory MP to whom he pays court. That's Dreyfus for you; he does in-your-face characters. But he does them well, and - as in his other stories - there's a lower, subtler, layer to his satire where uncomfortable truths are to be found. Thus Max turns out not to have the friends, or to be serving the interests, that he thinks.
Worth a read - and, given Dreyfus's guerilla publishing habits, worth keeping up-to-date with him on Twitter (@Rupert_Dreyfus).
November 16, 2016
Brilliant, intelligent and timely short story by the satirical genius that is Rupert Dreyfus!
Max, leader of the Taxpayers Battalion, is a buffoon with the same judgemental traits as many politicians of today. Could definitely give Trump a fair challenge in the "most outrageous statements" race. I laughed because the story was hilarious, I cried because it's so real to our political climate. However, the twist at the end makes me wish that were real too.
Best ending ever!
Max, leader of the Taxpayers Battalion, is a buffoon with the same judgemental traits as many politicians of today. Could definitely give Trump a fair challenge in the "most outrageous statements" race. I laughed because the story was hilarious, I cried because it's so real to our political climate. However, the twist at the end makes me wish that were real too.
Best ending ever!
November 2, 2016
With Max, Dreyfus has provided us with a new fictional hero for our times.
What anti-capitalists don't get is that water isn't a right, which means 70% of you is wrong.
Also, healthcare is exactly the same as an iPad. If I get cancer I'll just play Angry Birds!
No need for nuance here, snowflakes ;)
What anti-capitalists don't get is that water isn't a right, which means 70% of you is wrong.
Also, healthcare is exactly the same as an iPad. If I get cancer I'll just play Angry Birds!
No need for nuance here, snowflakes ;)
October 29, 2016
Rupert Dreyfus has written a modern day horror story which contains one of the most hideous monsters to ever appear in literature. Maxwell Bashmore is a Tory, a tax-payer and a delusional mad-man, He is another character created by Dreyfus that you just want to twat around the face until they stop talking. There is some humour in this story, but I found it hard to laugh, the story is too real, I had a grimace on my face, which got worse and worse the more that Maxwell and his cronies opened their mouths and spewed out their nonsense. Dreyfus shows us what a master of writing he is with a stunning ending to the story.
The story has an introduction by Kitty S. Jones, I found that very interesting, some great quotes were included.
Here's hoping that Theresa May monster finds a copy on her desk soon.
The story has an introduction by Kitty S. Jones, I found that very interesting, some great quotes were included.
Here's hoping that Theresa May monster finds a copy on her desk soon.
October 30, 2016
Social comment in literature is littered with grotesques. Rupert Dreyfus is adding to his own stock of deranged misfits with this tale of an urban warrior positioned so far to the right he almost drops off the edge of the world.
Using a process akin to alchemy Dreyfus turns anger into satire, subtle satire (like an axe to the head, for example). This time it's Maxwell Bashmore on a campaign to pull civilisation back from the brink via a fiscal policy that Donald Trump would stutter over. Bashmore sits in the same category as Alf Garnett, a figure we laugh at, not with; a figure unaware of his own class contradiction.
In the end we read, we agree, we get the joke and we know that out there real Bashmores sit on the backbenches, stalk local authorities, sell newspapers, troll websites. They won't have the wit to recognise themselves in this story, and that's what makes them so worrying.
Using a process akin to alchemy Dreyfus turns anger into satire, subtle satire (like an axe to the head, for example). This time it's Maxwell Bashmore on a campaign to pull civilisation back from the brink via a fiscal policy that Donald Trump would stutter over. Bashmore sits in the same category as Alf Garnett, a figure we laugh at, not with; a figure unaware of his own class contradiction.
In the end we read, we agree, we get the joke and we know that out there real Bashmores sit on the backbenches, stalk local authorities, sell newspapers, troll websites. They won't have the wit to recognise themselves in this story, and that's what makes them so worrying.
October 29, 2016
Rupert writes pretty spectacular, sardonic and transgressive fiction, more generally (a genre of literature that centres on characters who feel oppressed by the norms and expectations of society, and who rebel against those imposed confines. They are usually written in the first person, too), which he uses to make insightful observation and incisive social and political commentary, blended with a distinctive brand of iconoclasm and sharp, dark wit. I read his "The Rebel's Sketchbook" over the summer, and have just started to read "Spark".
No-one at the moment is doing more to break down the artificial divisions in writing – between the arts, literature, social sciences; realism, surrealism, social and political satire, commentary, alternative narratives and dissidence – than Rupert.
Rupert speaks to us about the soul-diminishing absurdity of the times we live in. It’s an era of omnipresent multimedia and we are inundated with executive memos from the establishment. Yet we are becoming increasingly unanchored, precarious, isolated and lonely – our society is unraveling, solidarity unpicked. Neoliberalism is competitive and adversarial, not cooperative and collective.
Rupert pushes at boundaries to expose the fragile illusion of consensus and a facade democracy. He tells us about the tragedy of mediocrity and the outrage of blandly prepackaged dehumanisation and discloses strategies for maintaining a sense of identity and resisting the soul death of conformity in the concrete theatre of society, where there is little safety, solace and very few enclaves.
He describes the precariousness of our lived experiences in highly entropic, post industrial, very corporate, vulture capitalist, authoritarian urban contexts and the ritualistic planet-consuming preposterousness and utter claustrophobia of a toxic, cloying, overarching, totalising neoliberal ideology.
As US punk band Anti-Flag say in their 2012 track “The Neoliberal Anthem”: Strap in and watch the world decay!
However, even counterculture and contemporary agitprop are being mainstreamed, prepackaged, reduced and pre-rationalised by the ever devouring neoliberal profit culture, as Joe Strummer once observed: “They got Burton suits, ha, you think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money.”
The X Factor was one bastard child of the facile mass market mentality – a neoliberal conspiracy of the bland; we are damned to forever aspire only to the condition of muzak. Unless we recognise that we must rebel.
And democracy is not something we have: it’s something we always have to do.
Thinking about it, the same can be said of intelligence.
Power corrupts, so it must be ordinary citizens that change the world. And to do so, we must be the change we want to see. Firstly, we have to participate. We have to be responsible and we have to collaborate and cooperate. We have to promote and practice mutual aid. We have to share. We have to rebuild the spirit of social solidarity from the wreckage of competitive individualism.
If we don’t want hierarchies of wealth and power, we must be egalitarians. If we don’t want scapegoats, outgroups and stigma, we must regard everyone’s life as having equal worth, and adopt a genuinely democratic, dialogic approach built on mutual respect and grace – a transfigurative approach. Authoritarian movements don’t tend to result in democratic and equal societies, you see.
Rupert is a comrade in arms, shooting from the lip (well, from the mind, heart and keyboard,) with talent, and a philosophical anarchism that I like.
Rupert’s brilliant, blackly comedic and deftly written works provide us with a powerful antidote for the asininity of neoliberalism.
No-one at the moment is doing more to break down the artificial divisions in writing – between the arts, literature, social sciences; realism, surrealism, social and political satire, commentary, alternative narratives and dissidence – than Rupert.
Rupert speaks to us about the soul-diminishing absurdity of the times we live in. It’s an era of omnipresent multimedia and we are inundated with executive memos from the establishment. Yet we are becoming increasingly unanchored, precarious, isolated and lonely – our society is unraveling, solidarity unpicked. Neoliberalism is competitive and adversarial, not cooperative and collective.
Rupert pushes at boundaries to expose the fragile illusion of consensus and a facade democracy. He tells us about the tragedy of mediocrity and the outrage of blandly prepackaged dehumanisation and discloses strategies for maintaining a sense of identity and resisting the soul death of conformity in the concrete theatre of society, where there is little safety, solace and very few enclaves.
He describes the precariousness of our lived experiences in highly entropic, post industrial, very corporate, vulture capitalist, authoritarian urban contexts and the ritualistic planet-consuming preposterousness and utter claustrophobia of a toxic, cloying, overarching, totalising neoliberal ideology.
As US punk band Anti-Flag say in their 2012 track “The Neoliberal Anthem”: Strap in and watch the world decay!
However, even counterculture and contemporary agitprop are being mainstreamed, prepackaged, reduced and pre-rationalised by the ever devouring neoliberal profit culture, as Joe Strummer once observed: “They got Burton suits, ha, you think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money.”
The X Factor was one bastard child of the facile mass market mentality – a neoliberal conspiracy of the bland; we are damned to forever aspire only to the condition of muzak. Unless we recognise that we must rebel.
And democracy is not something we have: it’s something we always have to do.
Thinking about it, the same can be said of intelligence.
Power corrupts, so it must be ordinary citizens that change the world. And to do so, we must be the change we want to see. Firstly, we have to participate. We have to be responsible and we have to collaborate and cooperate. We have to promote and practice mutual aid. We have to share. We have to rebuild the spirit of social solidarity from the wreckage of competitive individualism.
If we don’t want hierarchies of wealth and power, we must be egalitarians. If we don’t want scapegoats, outgroups and stigma, we must regard everyone’s life as having equal worth, and adopt a genuinely democratic, dialogic approach built on mutual respect and grace – a transfigurative approach. Authoritarian movements don’t tend to result in democratic and equal societies, you see.
Rupert is a comrade in arms, shooting from the lip (well, from the mind, heart and keyboard,) with talent, and a philosophical anarchism that I like.
Rupert’s brilliant, blackly comedic and deftly written works provide us with a powerful antidote for the asininity of neoliberalism.
August 11, 2017
Anything for a star rating...
October 30, 2016
A fine satire which sledgehammers into the UKIP mentality. Unsubtle, obvious, and what you'd expect from an unthinking Kipper, even to the conclusion. The idiot protagonist never sees the irony, and so never mitigates the cognitive dissonance even in the face of destitution.
September 21, 2017
I'm too young to remember when British political satire was at its glorious peak in the 80s with TV shows like Spitting Image and The New Statesmen, but I've been binge-watching episodes of both recently which has put me in the perfect mood to read another one of Rupert Dreyfus' brilliant short stories.
The main character in Bedroom Max (a pun on the vile Bedroom Tax social housing policy) is Maxwell Bashmore who is sort of like a mix between Alan B'Stard from The New Statesmen and everyone's 'favourite Tory idiot', Boris Johnson. Bashmore embodies many of the classic Tory stereotypes and this story reminds me of how much I utterly despise them.
I don't want to give much away with it being a short story, but Bedroom Max will make you loathe people like Max Bashmore even more, and it'll also make you laugh out loud in places, plus the ending was just superb. Well worth a read on your morning commute to Shitsville.
The main character in Bedroom Max (a pun on the vile Bedroom Tax social housing policy) is Maxwell Bashmore who is sort of like a mix between Alan B'Stard from The New Statesmen and everyone's 'favourite Tory idiot', Boris Johnson. Bashmore embodies many of the classic Tory stereotypes and this story reminds me of how much I utterly despise them.
I don't want to give much away with it being a short story, but Bedroom Max will make you loathe people like Max Bashmore even more, and it'll also make you laugh out loud in places, plus the ending was just superb. Well worth a read on your morning commute to Shitsville.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews