The Albian Who's Who: Barmi Ruuffah

Now Horzett Ruuffah, Barmi Ruuffah was Albia's first female Prime Minister.

The child of a humble grocer, even as a young woman Mrs Ruuffah was noted for her devout beliefs. Shortly after leaving Cowbrijj University she was having miracles ascribed to her, including the miracle at the gelato factory, where she turned air, sugar and vegetable fat into ice cream.

The then plain Mrs Ruuffah first came to public prominence during the early 1970's when as Nyesti Proti Education Minister she preached to the masses on the need to put away childish things and promptly removed Albian schoolchildren's daily potato-juice allowance.

Her next miracle came in the mid-1970s, when she rose to the leadership of the Nyesti Proti replacing the celebrated boating-pond model-yacht racer and part-time conductor of the Albian Orchestra for the Deaf, Ded Harrumff. This was as nothing, however, to her resurrection of her moribund party, which returned to power in 1979.

There were many more miracles and holy deeds to come: the turning of millions of jobs into work for just five bakers and two fishermen, the bringing in of the moneylenders into the temple, the expelling of the navy of Korndbif in the battle for the Whatland Islands, the harrowing of the miners, and so many more.

Yet these miracles were to provide the seeds of her downfall. For it seems she began to believe in her own divinity. By the early 1990s she was habitually referring to herself in the first person plural and attempting ever greater miracles, including attempting to make the Pole Tax popular and to turn the whole European Union into a pillar of salt. Ultimately, she was abandoned by her disciples, led by Nek Zkruff, who is said to have betrayed her with a kiss (no tongues) in the garden of Quaffing Ztraht.

Horzett Ruuffah now spends much of her day in the secure wing of St Gozondor's Hospital. She has two children, alleged journalist and part-time minstrel-singer, Karel, and international pariah and incompetent map-reader Dork. Her legacy has been lovingly preserved by her successors Buff Pantz, Kiznya Schlop and Bragdny Door in their turn.