Scorpions Might Fly

Are we truly living in an age of miracles? Groida has apologised for his catapult outrage on my nether regions and has even voluntarily shared with me some of his blackjacks, fruit salad chews, red laces and flying saucers as a peace offering.

It always unnerves me when he is not playing up, but when his quiescence is supplanted by an uncharacteristic act of kindness, all my inner alarms go off like a desperate choir similar to a WW2 air raid siren. Hopeless lunatics intent on taking a pot shot at yours truly do not normally hand over their sweeties, especially without threats. The trusty old antennae are twitching away.

Just to put me even more on the defensive, he has made suggestions for "improving" the panto script. It is now a done deal that Auntie Pamela will play some exotic species of fairy Godmother but the Clown with Claws has raked up from the midden of his mind an ironic refinement to the plot. This could see her initially unmasked as Janet Radcliffe Richards and then further revealed under torture as a Martian spy. What a heap of twaddle!

I have reviewed the intergalactic element and it is as plain as the aerials on me bonce that Mars is old hat. By way of research I have been watching the groundbreaking 1960's documentary series "Lost In Space". There was a spiffing green bint in Season 2 but she has probably floated half way to eternity by now. Young Penny Robinson, on the other hand, has matured into a magnificent mommy, returned to Earth and currently resides Stateside.

She originally hailed from these very shores, so if I can coax her back over the pond and give her a re-spray in the appropriate metallic verdant hue, I am confident she could be our big star; something between Cinderella, Lizzie Borden and Gracie Blofields. Anything is preferable to wrangling the dismal dearth of talent loitering in the mine shafts into a "company".

I must adjourn for a moment. Big G has jabbed Mordecai in the lughole with a mop handle and I want to watch the unpleasantness escalate ...

In the Wee Small Hours

There is no peace for the moderately wicked. Just before dawn I was padding around Number One Galley Shaft in me tartan dressing gown, availing myself of a few leftover herring & Stilton escalopes, when Groida shot me in the backside.

It isn't funny. Even a ball of tin foil propelled by a rubber band is a hell of a shock if it catches the target unawares. Just for the record, I didn't scream. That was my Bruce Lee Deadly Chicken Battle Cry. I am in a permanent state of readiness to deal with potential attacks. Woe betide any cheeky foe who is rash enough to consider interrupting me at my repast.

Anyway, the Tragic Turnip at first denied responsibility for the impudent assault, claiming to be one Caesar Endicott, a train driver who "must have suffered a petit mal and taken a wrong turning at Swindon". I have put up with this brand of insolent tosh for far too long, so I fetched him a beauty on his napper with a catering-size tin of plum tomatoes and sent him back to bed.

How am I supposed to create a pantomime masterpiece when my moments of inspiration are sabotaged at even the quietest times of the day? I am going to silence that bugger once and for all if he is not careful. In the mean time, Auntie P is making us Japanese Rice Krispies for supper, so I'll stab her nemesis of a nephew in the fundament with me chopsticks. A bum eye for a bum eye ...

Soupercharged

I am pleased to report that Auntie Pamela's "Welsh Chapel Penicillin" has cured us all of our colds, but at a cost. I believe she may have included some sort of mysterious fungi with the seaweed which has led to some peculiar side-effects.

Mordecai has been running about like a three-year-old, which is unfortunate as he keeps falling over and grizzling his eyes out. Uncle Lucas has also suffered the indignity of having the ground come up to meet him, which he petulantly attributes to "these bloody bifocals", despite not wearing specs. Even I, with my superb constitution, have been affected. I would swear on a crate of Libby's Victoria plums in light syrup that I have started picking up "The Archers" on me antennae.

Groida has discovered that he is able to insert all five of the Aznavour clarinets in his gob in a fan formation and has been roaming the mine shafts issuing an unholy racket reminiscent of a herd of startled moose. I can at least put a stop to that, if my nerve snaps, with a few well-chosen words of reproach and a judiciously applied lump hammer.

As the Ambrose and Mordecai toy project has been put on ice until next year, all my efforts are now being directed toward the panto. Auntie P has told me in no uncertain terms that she will only participate if she gets to play a fairy godmother. I had earmarked that particular role for Janet Radcliffe Richards but (a) she never answers my letters and (b) I don't want laver bread & chestnut stuffing inserted into my body cavities.

Frankly, I believe the entire team is in need of a fillip. Therefore I propose a surprise staff Xmas party. Well, it will be a surprise for the staff of the Dorchester anyway! If we tunnel up from the sewers we can be in situ before they have a chance to erect barricades or call the Polis. Trop tard, Maitre d', and just see what happens when you point out we are not wearing ties ...

Hanky Panky

If you were wondering why news reports haven't been coming in of the cataclysmic destruction of the Dorchester Hotel, it's because Ambrose's Marauders have been laid up with colds. I don't think driving up and down the coast on windy nights pretending to be a lighthouse has done me and Bro any good, but I lay the blame firmly at the door of the pestilent Groida. I have no evidence to support this accusation, but it makes me feel better.


Needless to say, the great goof has made a three-act opera out of his own malaise. True, he is a martyr to croup but I don't see the necessity for him to smear his hideous thorax with a mixture of Swarfega and wormwood. It's like sharing a gaff with something recently exhumed.


Auntie Pamela has been feeding us up with her legendary seaweed broth which could wipe out the plagues of Egypt, so hopefully we will be back to our version of normal very soon. In the mean time I am trying to overcome a case of writer's block and get a bend on with the panto script. I shall do a Marcel Proust, plump up me pillows and suck pensively on a stick of rock. Martians. Yes, they are always popular. We'll have a chorus of Martians in it ...

Products That Have Come My Way # 22

V is for V8 "drinking salad".
Groida swears by it, although never in front
of Auntie Pamela who would wash his
mouth out with Fairy Liquid.

Products That Have Come My Way # 21

U is for Ugli Fruit. What sort of twisted mind dreamt up this illustration?
 It could give wee ones nightmares!