The Ambrose Files #3

Here we go again ...

17 May

On the Town

Headed up to The Smoke for some nosh with Groida at the Dorchester. What a dump! We asked for Crispy Cod Fries, Findus Cheese Pancakes, Alphabetti Spaghetti, Smash, Wagon Wheels and a pitcher of Tizer and the waiter looked at us as if we were freaks. In fact we were only let in after Big G threatened to sting the doorman to death (a wicked bluff as he only fires blanks these days - he's had the snip and keeps his loose change in his poison sac).

So we ended up with these stupid sarnies, so miniscule you could have plugged your enlarged pores with them. Even the fish paste was black and lumpy. The Tizer tasted as if someone had already drunk it and Groida swore it was laced with creosote and kept sliding off his chair.

In one of his lucid moments he dropped the bombshell that he is taking up the violin again and asked if he could accompany me at the RCN bash. With my usual ready wit I explained that I would rather be accompanied to the gallows than endure his pitiful scrapings. Luckily we had agreed to sign a non-aggression pact for the afternoon so no blows were exchanged but we were both ready for a bundle if the opportunity arose. Then the bill arrived. Now I can take a joke, but ...

A section has been omitted following legal advice

...spectacular noise as the floorboards crashed through the windows. Pausing only to check that the manager was still breathing, we legged it outside, jumped into the harmonium and sped off, putting some extra distance between us and the mob by going into hovercraft mode across the Serpentine. There was definitely something wrong with the Tizer as Groida slept through the entire journey home and we both piddled on the seats. Rip-off London! I shall return and exact my revenge, and it won't be with a sock full of pound coins...

18 May
I was hosing the wee off the harmonium's seats following yesterday's farce at the Dorchester when I heard some funny noises coming from the torpedo tubes. I was just about to shove a besom down them when out popped a family of ducks. We must have scooped them up during our dash across the Serpentine. Mother nature is full of surprises.

Moses the Mantis

Have created a temporary pond for the ducks until I can get them back to Hyde Park. Hot-wired a JCB from the building site down the road and dug a big hole in a neighbour's lawn (they are away on their hols and I can make good before they get back). I was worried about filling it but when I returned from getting a bag of chips it was full. Must have hit a water main. It's like something out of a biblical epic! Bloody amazing.

I've had a great idea. Kids aren't getting enough exercise, right? How about I fit some ice cream chimes to the harmonium and drive round the streets without stopping? Alternatively I could stop but drive away as soon as they appear. Groida laughed at first, but then he called me a name. A bad one. THE bad one.

19 May

A Pond Farewell

I've returned the displaced ducks to the Serpentine. They insisted on giving me a little something in appreciation of my looking after them, and presented me with some pond weed, a pair of broken sunglasses and a half-eaten Aero. I blubbed all the way home. I also crashed into several vehicles and flattened two phone boxes. Groida thought he could cheer me up by attempting to strangle me, but my heart wasn't in it. I am trying to console myself by looking forward to the consignment of wasps arriving. I will have my work cut out tormenting them into a frenzy in preparation for Derby Day. Mind you, if Yehudi Megascorpion keeps abusing that violin we will all be of murderous intent before very long.

20 May
Cheered up a bit. Groida says we can always visit the ducks on the Serpentine when we return to London to annihilate the Dorchester.

21 May

This bloody harmonium is in no condition to make it under its own steam to the Royal Free for the RCN's Banjo Marathon. That swine of a gradient up Haverstock & Rosslyn Hills will do for it before we're barely past Chalk Farm tube. I am not a coward but I refuse to expire like Joan of Arc, atop a mobile firework display surrounded by an audience of irate and abusive motorists. "La Mante Religieuse et Incendiaire de Belsize". No thank you. I'll arrange to be lowered into the hospital grounds by Chinook. At least it should amuse the patients.

To be continued ...