Big Brother in the Dragon’s Den


It’s a new reality tv show – a hybrid of Big Brother, Ten Years Younger and Challenge Anneka. You take an ugly bird, give her a makeover so that she looks like a princess. Then you find a really fierce dragon, install him in a cave and get them to imprison the made over bird. Set up a few challenges for a bunch of fit blokes and get the audience to vote on which handsome young man will go and rescue the bird from the dragon. It can’t fail. Well that’s what we all thought.



Until Tracy came along. She didn’t say anything about being a vet in her interview.
Everything was going to plan until the moment when Gerard galloped up on his white horse, lance at the ready. Tracy rushed out of the cave and blocked his way. She nearly got trampled, but White Rum is a seasoned TV horse and swerved just in time. Gerard fell off and was swearing so much that the bleeper mechanism nearly blew up.
“What the fuck is she doing?” the assistant director growled.
“No, this is good, element of surprise, let her run with it” said the director, his eyes gleaming.
Gerard, cheated of his dramatic moment, dusted off his plastic armour, checked himself in the camera mirror and turned to face Tracy.
“Princess Tracy, I have come to rescue you from the clutches of the wicked, dangerous dragon.” The sound man snorted as he heard Gerard mutter under his breath, “don’t forget our pact – Hello will pay half a million for the pictures. Why did you change the script?”
Tracy took no notice but came over to the camera mirror.
Shoving her auburn curls out of her eyes, she spoke directly down the lens.
“I suppose you viewers believe all that guff about “no dragons are injured in the making of this programme,” do you? Well, that’s crap. Sure, the dragon that gets several feet of metal thrust into his side and rolls about groaning, smoking and dying is a special effect but think about the real dragon who comes out of his cave night after night. I tell you, I’ve spent the last 24 hours with Clarence (there was a competition to name the dragon) and what he had to tell me was disturbing. I smuggled in a video camera and this is the tape.” With that, Tracy set up a camera and pressed play.
“Shut down, play music – do something! She’ll wreck the show!” The assistant director was jumping about like a monkey with ants in his pants. The Director grinned.
“Chillax,” she said. “This will make the ten o clock news.”



“Tracy,” the dragon’s eyes were mournful, his green lids blinking furiously.
“My nerves just won’t take this any more. I can’t sleep, can’t eat – adrenalin constantly pumps round my system and I’ve lost so much weight.” Clarence did look pitifully thin, his vertebrae and ribs showing through his scales. The camera always puts on an extra five pounds so it was possible that he was worse than he looked.
“It’s this constant being charged at that does it,” Clarence continued. He shook his head and a few miserable puffs of smoke escaped from his jaws.
“You would think that I would have got used to it by now....” Tracy put a reassuring hand on his shivering neck.
“It’s your fight or flight mechanism, Clarry, it’s gone into overdrive and you can’t switch it off,” she said.
Clarence nodded. “I thought it was something like that. My grandmother had a breakdown when her husband kept hiding in a dark corner of the cave and then jumping out at her when she wasn’t expecting it. She ended up in the home for Damp Squib Dragons.” He shook his head. “Tracy, that was a terrible place. I don’t think.........” He gave a sob.
Tracy looked determined.
“Well, I don’t think the viewers want you to go to a place like that. Do you viewers?”
The phones were already ringing and it wasn’t with votes. The call centre staff were wildly improvising as they fended off irate callers complaining about Channel Fun’s treatment of Clarence.
“No, no, Clarence is not having a nervous breakdown, a mild virus has simply made him a bit depressed.”
“I’m sure that if the Priory take dragons, the Channel will spare no expense to make sure that Clarence gets the treatment he needs.”
The video was still running.
“What did the director tell you when you applied for the job?” Tracy asked.
Clarence gave a snort and a few flames flashed from his nostrils.
“Just a few personal appearances with lots of beautiful women. You’ll hardly have to light up at all. Some roars and flames and back to the truck for lunch.”
“And the truth?” asked Tracy.
“He didn’t mention the daily charges by mounted princes with flashing spears. I’m kept on a long chain here in the cave, with only a thick bimbo for company – have you tried discussing the finer points of Dragon lore with these vain, blonde wannabees? They have no conversation, don’t know how to cook cutlets of frozen princes, stink of fake tan.......” Clarence slumped his head on his front paws and sighed deeply.
“And the pay – what did the director promise you?” Clarence reared up and swung his head from side to side.
“One prince a day, a bag of gold and a cave in the Caribbean.”
“And what have you been paid so far?”
Clarence stared straight into the video lens.
“Apparently there is a shortage of fresh princes – tinned or frozen is all they provide and they are not even royal. Jumped up pop star hopefuls in the main – with HP sauce they are just about digestible but the racket they make in my stomach – that’s partly why I can’t sleep.”
Clarence gave a large burp and a cover version of “Last Christmas” could be heard loud and clear.
The Director giggled. “That was Boys with Voice,” she chuckled. “They sound better with a bit of Dragon insulation.”
In case you are wondering, there was a spin off programme for pop groups – the viewers voted them on to a recording contract or into the dragon’s jaws.
“And commercial break.” The screen changed to an advert for fire extinguishers and the staff in the control room looked anxiously at the Director. She leant back in her chair, hands behind her head. She had a manic look about her eyes.
“This could make television history,” she said. “Who knew that we had a talking dragon? Bring me the animals expert.”
Tracy’s video made the top slot on the late evening news. By the next morning Lorraine Kelly was interviewing a dragon whisperer called George and countless men in their thirties were claming to have been to public school with Clarence.
“ We just treated him like any other boy,” they said, “When he got a bit above himself we shoved his head down the lavatory – that doused his flames for a bit, I can tell you! Haw, haw!”
The production team met in a locked pod in the London Eye.
“What shall we do about the rest of the series? The viewers won’t stand for us “killing” a talking dragon. Gerard’s family are already getting hate mail and his mother had to take refuge in Tesco’s petrol station loo when an angry mob spotted her filling up. Gerard and the other “princes” were holed up in a safe house after gangs of teenagers waving plastic “My Little Dragons” threatened to overrun the Disney palace they were staying in. The Prime Minister had personally called the Director to ask about Clarence’s health. Even the BNP had withdrawn their bill calling for an end to asylum for reptiles. Zoos all over the country were employing security guards for their lizard enclosures, such was the public fury over the issue.
In the cave Tracy and Clarence were pouring over the emails in Clarence’s hotmail account. The majority were friendly and full of invitations to them both to be interviewed, to come for a break in the Galapagos Islands, to wear the latest spinal jewellery, to study for a Phd in Reptiles – The Way Forward. Tracy, a strict vegetarian, shivered at some of the emails from minor European royals offering choice morsels such as “my godfather, Prince Alexander, a lazy sod, is plump and juicy – shall we say 50 euros per kilo, 4950 for the whole carcass?” There were the usual ones from Nigeria too.
“You have won a prize in the Royal Lottery. To access your prize of a Royal Family, please send £2000 by Western Union to my account on the Isle of Man.”
Tracy was beginning to wonder if she had done the right thing. Clarence seemed unhappier than ever, his tail drooped and his eyes were going dull. He had retired to the furthest corner of the cave and spent most of the day licking his snout. If a customer had brought Clarence into her surgery in this state she would have had no hesitation in recommending that he be put down. When a creature has given up the will to live there is nothing that medicine can do.
Tracy racked her brain for a solution. What had they said at Vet School about anxiety in creatures? You have to make it clear that they do not have responsibility for human beings. That was it! Tracy came over to the camera.
“I want to speak to the Director of Channel Fun,” she said.

The new format for the programme went down a storm. After a spa holiday at the top of a volcano in South America, Clarence, his scales now green and shiny again, appeared on the TV reclining in a much improved cave. This time, contestants on “CAVE EXCHANGE” fought to the death for the opportunity to spend a week in the cave looking after Clarence, cataloguing his new library of Dragon Lore, searching out deposed royal dynasties and making interesting conversation over absinthe and peppermint cocktails. Viewers voted for the contestants that they thought Clarence liked best.