And just like that… Nadine Dorries has finally announced that she is resigning as MP for Mid Bedfordshire – a mere 11 weeks (actually 78 days) after announcing that she would be leaving her seat with “immediate effect” on 9 June.
But what things lasted less long than Ms Dorries’s definition of “immediately”?
Kim Kardashian’s marriage – 72 days
Critics will say that she’s famous for appearing on reality TV rather than any actual talent or contribution to society. They’ll say that she is an example of all that’s wrong with the modern world, that she’s vacuous and only interested in promoting herself.
Yes, you can stop writing your own punchlines, because it seems that “immediately” takes longer than “Til death do us part”, as Kim’s marriage to Kris Humphries only lasted 72 days.
Does this mean that Nadine will next turn up as Kayne’s new girlfriend though? It’s literally impossible to say.
The trapped Chilean miners – 69 days to be rescued
Working class heroes, trapped, unable to escape, eventually freed at great expense. Nadine will doubtless sympathise with the 33 men who were eventually saved from the San José Mine in October 2010.
The cost of her by-election will hopefully be less than the $20 million needed to rescue them, although if it approaches that figure then maybe Nadine could chip in with royalties from her various novels.
Various lawsuits followed (by the miners, not by people who read Nadine’s books) but ultimately no lawsuits were filed. We can only wish Nadine more success with her own fight to find out why she wasn’t elevated to the House of Lords.
Liz Truss as Prime Minister – 49 days
The gold standard for things that didn’t last very long. Ms Truss became the UK’s shortest-serving PM last year when she lasted 49 days in the top job. Less long than it takes an iceberg lettuce to start wilting.
The previous record was 119 days, by George Canning, nearly 200 years earlier – and he at least had the excuse of unexpectedly dying.
Ms Truss may wish she had longer before her fellow Tory MPs ejected her, but she managed to double the UK national debt in her short time running the country. However, she couldn’t convince Nadine to stay on as a minister. A mixed bag.
Finding Nemo – 26 days
Yes, we know, the runtime is 100 minutes. But Marlin’s search sees the clownfish hitch a ride with the East Australian Current (EAC), which travels at a speed of around 3.24km/h for a distance of roughly 2,040km – or 1,275 miles if you don’t want to use imperial distances as a Brexit bonus.
The best-case scenario is Nemo was found in less than four weeks.
Will Quince’s resignation – 1 Day
Back to politics and the Colchester MP resigned on principle from Boris Johnson’s government on 6 June 2022, after “accepting and repeating assurances to the media [from No 10] which have now been found to be inaccurate”.
A man of principle, Mr Quince could not serve under a Prime Minister who had lied to him.
The next day Boris Johnson offered him a different ministerial job – at least until a new PM won the imminent leadership election- and Mr Quince accepted.
The Beatles’ recording of their first album – 13 hours
Nadine was just a five-year-old girl when four other Liverpudlians set to work at EMI Studios to record Please Please Me.
Producer George Martin later recalled it with impressive understatement: “I asked them what they had which we could record quickly, and the answer was their stage act.”
Six decades later the Government would announce plans for a £2 million attraction dedicated to The Beatles on the Liverpool Waterfront. Nadine responded with some of the most dreadful puns in the history of social media.
Sadly, the lauded project still hasn’t actually been built, so we’ll skip making our own puns to avoid adding further Misery (OK, that one pun but no more).
The Anglo-Zanzibar War – est. 38-45 minutes
The shortest war in history, from an era when wars abroad were a much more simple affair. The pro-British sultan died. A new sultan took power.
The British did not like the look of the new guy. And after giving the matter due consideration, a quick overwhelming show of force seemed the best solution.
On the one side, 500 natives were killed or wounded, including civilians. On the other, one British soldier was injured.
Then supporters of the deposed Sultan were forced to pay reparations to cover the cost of shells fired against them.
The entire life of an adult female Dolania mayfly – Five minutes
As every schoolchild knows, a mayfly only lives for 24 hours. But unless you took advanced biology, you might not know that it can vary a bit more than that.
Some mayflies can live for a lot less long than that – with the female Dolania Americana lasting around five minutes, thought to be the shortest adult lifespan of any insect.
The men get off slightly easier, making it to half an hour. Still, if our maths is right then you could have 22,464 lifetimes in the time it took our Nadine to resign “immediately” – so long as you were an adult female Dolania mayfly.
You could cram in even more lifetimes if you were counting how long it is since Nadine last spoke in the House of Commons. But that is a maths puzzler for another day.
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