Mycroft Holmes is not, actually, the entire British Government. Not really. The primary logistical reason for this is that the British Government is a massive behemoth, a bureaucracy of astonishing complexity and breadth, a leviathan of paperwork and churning wheels. It's enormous. The depths of it make most other world governments pale in comparison. One man could never manage it entirely on his own. For this reason, there are plenty of other people who are not Mycroft Holmes who work in the British Government. The second reason smaller and more personal; one man doing it all would attract a good deal too much attention, which he loathes. So he has minions for the drudgery and scapegoats for the fame, and his titles are all small ones.

He's a minor assistant to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department of Education. And again in the Government Equalities Office. He's got a small managerial position in the Department for Work and Pensions, and another in the Department of Energy and Climate Change. He's got two separate jobs in the Department for Transport, one in the Highways Agency and one in the Vehicle Certification Agency; there's a liaison position with the British Transport Police Authority too. Under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs he's a part of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency. And the Rural Payments Agency. Under the Department of Health he works in the office of the Chief Nursing Officer and the Chief Health Professions Officer; under the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills he occasionally writes a bit of policy.

He has absolutely no positions in the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense, the Cabinet Office, the House of Lords or the House of Commons, any of the member state offices or the Home Office. None whatsoever. His name never appears on their balance sheets and his offices are never located within their walls. His very careful absence from these areas is a many-layered, frequently ironic statement which he would someday like to discuss with someone. So far, no-one clever enough to notice has come forth. He lives in hope.

For the sake of verisimilitude, once a month he turns up in each of his offices and does a chore or two at which others can see him. This keeps his face in their memories and his name on the records. He can usually get three or four offices done in one day by spending half an hour in each one, and the transit time between the offices can be used for maintaining his true work. There are unavoidable scheduling conflicts, but whoever his real work slows enough, he'll turn up.

He's very careful with his time. Very careful never to favor one office over another. Each must get their allotted portion of blood, sweat and tears.

Some of them get more tears than others.

He can list his titles in any order you care to choose. Alphabetical, by order acquired, by order the offices were renamed and restructured, by order of initial founding, by staff size and budget and geographical location from east to west. The fact that, every month, his assistant must remind him of one particular job - every time without fail - and that, every time, his response is the exact same disheartened noise - that's not actually a failure on his memory's part. He'd never admit to Sherlock that they have anything in common, but Mycroft Holmes somehow manages to delete his holding this particular job with astonishing regularity every single month.

That job is within the Department For Culture, Media and Sport. As an upstanding member of the committee (useful for its control of vast numbers of historical buildings which frequently stand empty under renovation and their control over the largest media empire in the country) he's on the boards of a couple museums, the Gambling Commission, and the UK Film Council.

It's the Film Council to which he must attend today. One hour, he thinks grimly. He can endure anything for one hour. Anything. Anthea has a cup of black coffee and a tin of antacids ready when he slides into the car at his flat. He washes the antacids down with the coffee and grimaces. She looks as doomed as he feels. He's almost offended; he'd never take his misery out on his employees. That's just poor management.

Forty-five minutes of tense silence later which Anthea spent alternately texting and looking as though she dared ask how he were feeling, they pull up in front of the building. It is grey stone on a grey street under a grey sky. He stares out the open door of his car, the chauffeur waiting for him to exit, Anthea behind him waiting for him to get on with it. He exhales and steps outside. Trudges into the office building with his umbrella tapping out doom, doom, doom beside him.

Passing through the external waiting room makes Mycroft grind his teeth. A crowd of black-clad young men and women and indeterminate stop their twitching and muttering and gesticulating every time someone enters the room. They watch with avid attention as he moves through their thick anticipation into the boardroom. Not late, not early, just on time. Still, everyone else appears to have arrived already; he's the last. Glorious. He tries not to clench his jaw. Smile, be polite. You can do it.

"Mycroft!" exclaims the much fatter manager who is, on paper, Mycroft's senior. "How good of you to join us." The man knows he has no real authority over Mycroft Holmes, although he cannot understand exactly why this is the case, and the knowledge grates. He takes every effort to be condescending that he can. He handshake is squishy and damp, and it's an effort for Mycroft not to let disgust slide into his countenance. Mycroft veers over to the sideboard as soon as possible to acquire a serviette with which to eliminate the sensation of the manager's handshake. Also, possibly fortification. Surely one scone can't hurt his diet too much. Surely he deserves a little carbohydrate fill.

The sideboard has an urn full of hot water, multiple types of tea, and a vast platter of scones with accompanying jams and cream. They'll need it all, Mycroft thinks gloomily, to get through the next hour. God help them. He snags a plain scone and skips the jam. He'll be good.

He settles into his seat. Pulls over the packet resting at his position. Contemplates exactly how many paper cuts it would take, to truly bleed out. Steels himself as everyone else settles, the lights are lowered up by the presentation screen, and the first DVD is queued up. The first hopeful is shown in, skinny and wearing a torn black shirt and tight jeans, hair artfully disarrayed into an architectural marvel, and the first of the torments of hell unfolds on the screen on the far wall.

The first film involves a Roman discus thrower. Mycroft isn't certain why. Or that the man is actually meant to be Roman. He's wearing very nice black shoes, white socks, a very short red toga, and a wreath which might be meant to be laurel but which is instead a sort of hawthorn. Snipped from a neighbor's garden, Mycroft thinks, and spray-painted gold. The gentleman wearing this get-up is far too old for this efforts he puts himself too. Also, far too old for the worshipful young woman who gives him enthusiastic fellatio which Mycroft is quite certain does not comply with the film board's standards for artistic merit. The black-haired young person of indeterminate gender leaves the room crying at Mycroft's comments, and he's given several reproving glances. Mycroft notes that there are still scones left on the sideboard and gets up to get one before the next film starts. He hasn't even had a chance to sit again before another hopeful enters and another film comes to life on the screen. At least this time he's thought to grab some jam.

There aren't any actual people in this one, Mycroft notes with some surprise. It seems to be a shaky-cam time-lapse study of the lakes district set to flute music. Terrible flute music, to be sure, and the camera work needs quite a bit of practice, but the concept isn't' a complete disaster. It's quite pleasantly got him almost asleep by the time it finishes. The fat young man in the mandatory black shirt with the lanky black hair, pimples and overly thick glasses really didn't need to be quite so offended by Mycroft's criticism, since it was actually meant constructively this time. Mycroft eyes the sideboard miserably. They're almost out of cream. Scones are terrible without cream.

The third film is the last of the opening set before they get a break. Mycroft is already trying to determine how to get free during the break without causing too much of a stir when it begins. It seems to be set in a theater dressed as a rather empty living room. Or perhaps it's meant to be a room, and they simply filmed it in a theater set as a room? Mycroft can't tell. He's not even a little interested, either. There's a sofa, a woman in red on the sofa, and a blond man watching her sit there. A plant comes out of the sofa. Stop-motion animation is mixed with shots of her face to show her screaming as the plant disassembles her in a rather creative and bloody fashion. Mycroft is fairly certain that they used actual pig's entrails from the butcher for one bit. It ends with three of the film review board leaving the room, a bit pale. Sherlock might like this one, Mycroft thinks idly. It's almost creative, in a mentally-ill fashion. He turns the director down for funding, of course, pointing out that filming his schizophrenia might seem like a good idea but he really ought to be taking his meds more regularly if he wants to hold down a steady job in any industry, even one as tolerant of eccentricities as the arts. The director gives him a look of fury and desperation which causes the remaining board members to pull back, then storms from the room. Mycroft pockets the DVD. Presents for Sherlock for Christmas are so difficult to come by.

The lights come on. Break time, evaluation time. Fresh (oh, what an ironic term) food brought in by the office PA; disheartening little things which might be termed sandwiches have been cut into triangles, with fillings that have ambitiously termed themselves things like "tuna salad" and "jubilee chicken". The last film diverted Mycroft enough that he's failed to come up with an effective escape strategy which meets the dual requirements of allowing him to remain in the good graces of his fellow board members while being entirely unremarkable; he's trapped for another round of reviews. He loads up a little plate. The bread feels a bit stale under his fingers and the inside meats are not exactly cold. He hopes he gets food poisoning. He ignores the vegetable platter.

The discussion around the tea and sandwich bites is as terribly banal as ever. Mycroft sniffs and looks down his nose when two of the board come over to try and make small talk, opening by trying to warn him about the dangers of upsetting psychopaths. Despite his contempt for the concept that anyone as incompetent as an art student could get past his security, Mycroft does text Anthea. It's never terribly professional to leave one's security staff uninformed of even the least issues.

Back to the seats far too soon, and not nearly soon enough. Lights down, fourth entry. Rural, at a farm somewhere with an oddly shaped tree. The tree is full of birds. Literally full; they perch and peck and caw from every bit of bark. Idly, Mycroft considers exactly how long it took the students to attach birdseed to every branch and twig of the tree, and how they kept the seed on one branch form being eaten while they were off sticking it to the branches on the opposite side. And how they kept it to songbirds, because he can see the crows off in the distance circling but they're not landing.

He's contemplating the amount of meat they must have used as bait when someone wanders on-screen with a gas mask and a wheelbarrow and proceeds to use something emitting smoke to stun the birds, which fall from the tree in little feathery plops. The fellow in the gas mask picks them up and dumps them in the wheelbarrow according to color, then walks off screen, leaving the tree empty and the wheelbarrow full. The film ends. The board sits in silence.

"Ah," says one board member. "Um," says another. Mycroft takes pity. "Rejected," he says firmly.

Damp-handed manager swings about. "Now just see here," he says, "That could have had some real artistic merit -"

"Indeed," Mycroft interrupts, his voice smooth. "Unfortunately, we're not allowed to fund works containing depictions of real criminal events."

The room is silent. Mycroft rolls his eyes. "Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981," he says, and several board members blink stupidly at him. He waves his hand to the film's director, who now looks rather panicked. "Run along now. I'm sure the police will want to have a word." The man grabs his DVD and flees through the door; there are two rather startled-looking police waiting on the other side to catch his arms. Anthea must have pulled them directly from their beat, Mycroft thinks while everyone else gapes at the glimpse of the scene which is immediately cut off by the closing door. Mycroft uses their distraction to get another bit of sandwich. Cheese and chutney. His stomach roils but he eats it anyways.

The next potential comes in a few minutes later looking distinctly worried. Mycroft is disappointed; he'd hoped the others would have buggered off, intimidated by the police presence. Oh well.

The next film is presented by a man with long, thinning hair and a distinct body odor. He moves with the smooth-self-involved grace of the sexual predator, and his film consists entirely of men and women with atypical bodies performing obscene acts with foodstuffs and household implements. Mycroft is not amused to see that some of them look dubiously comfortable with the off-screen direction, or the gratuitous over emphasis on scars, amputations, deformities, stretch marks and sagging belly-fat. No matter that the man's stated intent is to point out social hypocrisy in body image depictions, Mycroft gets the distinct feeling that the man filmed this solely to pressure vulnerable people into exposing themselves in the most humiliating fashion possible.

There's silence when the lights come up. "Interesting," says one board member carefully. "Disturbing," says another with some delight. "Different," says someone else. A small humm of enthusiastic discussion breaks out. Mycroft finishes his text and looks up. His drawl cups through the room. He looks, one eyebrow quirked, at the director. "Did you remember to get signed consent forms from all twelve of them?" he asks, and there's dead silence as everyone looks his way.

The director looks surprised. "Um, well, it's art…."

Mycroft looks back at his phone. The room's enthusiasm devolves into disapproval; they are government, after all, and paperwork is their lifeblood. A lack of the proper forms indicates a lack of respect for the entire institution. The director shuffles out in shame and anger. Mycroft looks sadly at the empty sandwich platter, and begins to nibble on an antacid.

The last film attempts to blend Dali with Egyptian mythology in animation. It's surreal, pointless, badly drawn and far too long. The sphinx appears to consume the entire population of flatland, there are squiggles which look like snakes or faces, and Mycroft has developed a terrible headache. When it's done the room tenses and everyone turns their heads towards him, he can't imagine why.

Time to end this farce of a morning. "Perfect," he says with false enthusiasm. "Absolutely groundbreaking use of color and technique. Astonishing." The room gasps. Mycroft cannot, simply cannot stand another moment of this nonsense. "I fully support-" he peers at the credits on the list in front of him "-Wilke's entry, wonderful. And I believe that completes this quarter's film budget awards reviews. Now if you don't mind, please excuse me, this has all been terribly interesting but I really do need to be elsewhere right this very moment," and he's got his jacket and his umbrella and is out the door before anyone else can say anything.

He moves at a brisk pace down the hall, down the stairs (can't risk anyone catching him on the elevator, the possibility of sweating is acceptable under this sort of emergency) and out the front door. Anthea has the car running and is holding the door herself. Mycroft is in and sliding to the other side, Anthea slips in behind him, and they're gone before anyone can say a word. She hands him a caramel mocha with full-fat whipped cream and a flake bar silently.

He sighs with relief. Begins the laborious process of consuming far too much sugar and fat while deleting the entire incident from his memory. Before he gets too far, he sets down the coffee and fishes in his jacket pocket. Hands the DVD to Anthea. "Sherlock's Christmas," he says, and she nods. Mycroft knows that in two months, when Sherlock mentions the present, Mycroft will give him a blank look and be completely unable to remember the film. This will convince his brother that this is a thing which has been delegated instead of a personal gift.

It's not a perfect solution, but it is acceptable. Anything is, really, in ordered to never, ever have to remember such an excruciating morning ever again.

The next day his security tackles a wild-haired man to the pavement before he gets within ten meters of Mycroft. The man is holding an exacto knife and raving about petty artistic despots and stock photography and the death of innovation in the film industry. "What on earth was that all about?" Mycroft asks Anthea, and she glances at him pityingly. "Nothing important," she replies, and he nods and buries himself in Russian grain production statistics and their potential future impact on Syria's willingness to compromise on the nuclear front, and everything in his world is as perfect as it can possibly be.