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!