Talking Head

You couldn't make it up! I was rummaging around in the galley shaft just after midnight, with a view to polishing off a few of Auntie Pamela's liver & swede pasties (don't knock the idea until you've tried one) when I heard a disembodied voice. Literally.

Have you ever seen "Alien"? You know when that short arse science officer gets his napper knocked off with a fire extinguisher but it still keeps yammering on? Well, it transpires that the late, unlamented Mr Wu was a bloody android. Auntie P kept his bonce as a trophy, festooning a mop. I have to confess it is quite amusing, in a grotesque way, but it didn't half put the wind up me at that time of the morning.

Unfortunately the circuitry appears to have been damaged. It cannot engage  in conversation but simply utters "turned out nice again" in a grating Lancashire accent. You would get more stimulating repartee from an adenoidal parrot. It seems to hold a strange fascination for Groida, who tries to feed it sweets and asks if it knows the whereabouts of his own errant automaton, Mr Prendergast.

Anyway, as long as it keeps him amused and from under my feet I suppose I should be grateful. We are getting the mine ready for the Jubilee celebrations, having graciously decided to leave Queenie and the Epsom Derby alone for this year (actually we just couldn't be bothered).

We kick things off tonight with a double bill of those two classic British fillums, "Peeping Tom" and "Camp on Blood Island". Auntie P has promised us something special in the way of nosh. I just hope it isn't her Escargots Jalfrezi. The last time we had them I was up all night and the snails were coming out of my backside like tracer rounds.

Anyway, people, I hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend. It's just a pity that every manufacturer has wrapped their product in a flag, but that's capitalism for you. Even Groida's croup linctus bottle has the Union Jack on it!

Almost Pointless

That's us finished, then. Bloody Eurovision!  The Ambrose Team's hearts would be in their collective boots, if we wore such things (that would be a bulk buy for a posse of arthropods).

What a waste of a whopping dud cheque to have a big screen TV installed in Empress Pamela's Chinese Chippie for Saturday night's yearly international mallarkey, all for naught. True, it brought in truckloads of gullible punters (they aren't particularly bright round here due to inbreeding) and we did clear the short-dated scampi and lychees, but as the hours passed and the annual depression took hold, several wheels fell off our figurative charabanc of hope and rolled down a steep hill. Then we had the raised voices, blasphemy, fisticuffs and finally the regrettable deployment of CS gas.

Let me make it clear that everyone pulled their weight in our enterprise. Groida was rendered almost lame after his heroic fortnight of trying to insert flyers for our big night through letterboxes with his clumsy claws, but he was still put to work in the evenings as combined wok monkey and bouncer. Mordecai intimidated local business magnates by widdling in their swimming pools and Uncle Lucas torched most of the catering competition or persuaded the proprietors to visit a great-aunt's funeral in the Antipodes. We were well set up for a lucrative weekend.

Surprisingly, even Big G's cousin, Mad "Nogger" Vernon did sterling service with his threatening phone calls across the wastes of northern Europe, but sadly with little effect on the eventual voting. It is a pity he couldn't put the frighteners on the Scannies, Slavs, Meds, Mongols etc and get Engleberk the crown jewels but it just goes to prove that you can't reason with the daft. To be fair, I doubt if several rockets up the Urals would have made a difference, but he will no doubt show his mettle when deployed to Sweden for retaliatory mischief at an undisclosed date.

Anyway, to get back to the appalling fracas which broke out in our nosherie, Groida, a fan of "Thunderbirds" (who has yet to be told that International Rescue, like Santa, doesn't exist) called Englebird a "barrel-chested Kyrano" and suggested dropping a fuel bomb on Tracey Island. Uncle Lucas agreed that we should feel ashamed at recruiting a "grotesque, geriatric mercenary" but nevertheless gave his impudent nephew a hefty swat for voicing an opinion. Then Mordecai weighed in with "trusting our luck to a non-resident hired coolie". Thank you so much, Bro, you sodding diplomat!  Mr Wu was cashing up at the time and within earshot. If that incredibly insensitive remark had got back to Chinatown, we would have been cat meat (usually number 17 on the menu, with an obligatory starter) within a matter of days. However, the Ancient Ones smiled on us and Auntie P dropped a colander of Brussels beansprouts, distracting our diminutive business partner, allowing her to snip his head off and shove the  carcass down a drainage shaft.

Once we were out of panic mode, the situation was reviewed and most of our deceased colleague was retrieved with a modified coat hanger and given a decent, hygenic and culturally appropriate send-off, courtesy of Y Nauci 14's flame throwers. We even bought some joss sticks from a charity shop and I belted out my own harmonium arrangement of "The Lark Ascending" with convincing gusto. The clinker was dispatched to the ancestors in a faux lead planter, liberated from Padstow B&Q, adorned with a label marked "Took Dead" and quietly concealed in road works under cover of darkness. “Took dead”, hehehe! It even sounds like an Oriental mantra if you keep repeating it out loud and hyperventilate until you go all dizzy.

Finer feelings put aside for a moment, I reckon we are still in for a serious hiding from the Soho Triads. Those inscrutable buggers won't be fobbed off with any old excuse. Groida suggests the Clangers as scapegoats. Vacant-nappered pillock. Even Mary, Mungo & Midge can't drag us out of this particular mire. History has proven that no-one can fight a war on two fronts. We are finalising details for the ruination of Her Majesty's day at the races at the Epsom Derby next Saturday and we can do without the too-near East nipping at our southerly regions when we have serious work in hand.

Toil, responsibilities, consequences of folly .... phew, what a summer so far!

Soft Recoil

It is a fine spring morning. The sun has risen over the cliffs and warms the awesome Cornish landscape. The noble spirit of this great and ancient place and people has once again awoken to embrace and nourish another day, invigorating the populace to its toil in a timeless existence. 

I have just done Groida with a rubber mallet and he is resting like a crashed Heinkel, breathing heavily, but still functioning. Dozy bugger. He didn't hear me creeping up behind him. I was warned by Auntie P to give him a punitive smack and no more, or I could expect dire consequences.

Truth to tell, Big G hasn't been pulling his weight. I believe "problem passenger" is the latest term to describe the dilemma. He is writing his memoirs. Please don't laugh. It even breaks my pumice heart.

A whop isn't enough. What can I do, short of turning all of Y Nauci 14's weaponry on him? I have experience of his diseased notions; a series of information pamphlets, including the titles: "Staring At People", "The Myth Of Insanity", "Build Your Own Beached Whale Carcass" (in 52 parts), " Odour Devices In Shopping Malls" and "Muttering As A Career". But his memoirs? A real eye-closer. I have to protect the public.

In the mean time, Uncle Lucas is giving the harmonium a serious overhaul (have you seen "Future Weapons" on TV?) and Auntie Pamela is hopefully wooing the mysterious Mr Wu into a new conflict with the Icelanders. Cod, debt and a volcano! Let's towse the weird-looking sods!

Once Upon A Time in Andalucia (and Utah)

Uncle Lucas insists I post this after his themed vacation with Auntie Pamela at Spaghetti Western locations in Spain. He thinks he is Henry Fonda. Auntie P thinks she is Claudia Cardinale (or possibly Charles Bronson, hehehe!). They both need treatment. I shall run over his harmonica in Y Nauci 14 as a precaution. That still leaves Groida and his cousin Vernon but I can only deal with so many lunatics at a time. It all makes work for a working mantis to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vn23e9GnhI&feature=colike

Straw Donkeys

I am not an unreasonable mantis. No sniggering at the back, thank you. However, I feel aggrieved at the inconsiderate behaviour of Uncle Lucas and Auntie Pamela who, after a month playing spaghetti westerns in Spain, decided to bugger off on a further extension to their hols, leaving yours truly holding the booby.

I refer, of course, to their swivel-eyed lunatic nephew Groida who would be a handful for the Great God Kali or my distant cousin Hubert The Massive Bivalve Creature Who Lurks In The Mariana Trench Wiggling His Thirty Tentacles.

Even my normally devoted bro Mordecai elected to spend the last few weeks in a clammy Millets tent, balanced precariously on the edge of Land's End, rather than endure further babblings, insolence, puerile pranks and smelly parps courtesy of the big, mad thing with a sting.

Anyway, revenge may be at hand. I scrupulously kept a list of all the sod's misdemeanours and presented it to Auntie P (who is the most ill-tempered arthropod of my acquaintance) when the pair returned this morning. I expect justice, complete with dreadful sound effects which will echo into the night as a dire warning that my patience and mental stability have their limits.

I cannot be bought off with tawdry tourist souvenirs. A raffia ass in a sombrero that lights up and warms a toilet roll is a feeble trinket and insult to my intelligece if it is intended to restore my peace of mind. I ask you. It's like 1972 all over again! The blank-firing replica Civil War Navy Colt may come in handy if things get unruly in the tea rooms but but at the moment I feel more like clubbing Groida on the bonce with it. His pressie is a leather wine bag and I bet he uses it as a wee pistol. I have even started to instinctively duck and flinch at the prospect.

Expect further reports.

I Don't Like Februaries

Twenty bloody nine days of it this year. Gawd. Uncle Lucas and Auntie Pamela are taking their annual hols in Spain at various spaghetti western locations, where they harmlessly expend their murderous compulsions re-enacting scenes of screen slaughter. Auntie P is wicked on the Jew's harp and Uncle Lucas retaliates with a mean harmonica. He has even bought some baby blue contact lenses this year, to get the authentic "Henry Fonda stare".

This is their "Killing Time". A bit like Spock going hormonal, if you remember that particular episode of "Star Trek". You can Wiki its title if you like, I can't be asked. I suppose I should give them credit for purging their lethal urges in a safe and socially responsible manner, but that leaves me in charge of their hopeless clown of a nephew.

Mordecai, I am comfortable with. He is me bro; a laid back, low maintenance companion. Groida hasn't got enough eyes for me to poke in order to diffuse my pent-up irritation at his foolish ways. Why couldn't he have been carted off with his kin for the month? They could have played out the triangular gunfight from "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". He even qualifies in two categories!

I have had my Saturday evening ruined by his inconsiderate and oafish behaviour. I was trying to listen to the live broadcast of "The Barber of Seville" from the New York Met on Radio 3, only to be subjected to his slow, rhythmical and deliberately malicious slurping on a stick of peppermint rock. The biggest he could find in the stores, of course; as formidable as a Silverback's winkle. Plus I've got the resultant squeaking wind to serenade me throughout the night. Beam me up, Figaro!

A Snake in the Mine

Anyone would be mistaken in thinking I am a monster, the way that ingrate of a mega-scorpion puts me down.

Whilst engaged in dusting duties (no lack of humility or commitment to service there, eh?) I found Groida's diary. After nearly ruining my eyesight deciphering his infantile hieroglyphics I found this recent piece of calumny:

"Ambrose thinks he is the best bits of Confucius, Dr Syn and Rommel. He is more like a cross nanny if one of us lets off during tea. You should see his eyes bulge. But I have seen him excavate his nose when he thinks nobody is watching. He will want to be Pope next. One of those Borgias who ate bogeys. Arf.

I never did find my Chewits, but I know who had them. I am not the idiot round here. Why does he do it? I reckon he is a feeble, gobby showoff and a rotter. If I find one wrapper anywhere near his nasty pit I am going to put his antennae in heated curlers. Then let him try to play the big shot!"

I am wounded, of course, but big enough to take it. The scuttling vat of wee. So how will he explain the discovery of his sweeties tomorrow morning? Admittedly, they are the Aldi equivalent but that just goes to prove it wasn't me. I would cover my tracks properly.

I must have a few quiet words with Mr Wu, Auntie P's new partner in the grey economy. Perhaps he can arrange to have the lying, lumbering sod shanghaied. Velly solly, Gloida.