BY Bird Guano

The column which wanders lonely as a cloud, but never seems to come across any daffodils.

READER:  have you seen the new zoo?
MYSELF:  Zoo?
READER:  Yes. On the pier.
MYSELF:  Have you taken leave of your senses? You can’t have a zoo on a pier, for all sorts of reasons.
READER:  Well I drove past it the other day, and I definitely saw animals on there. There was a moose, or it may have been an elk, a Shetland pony, a hippopotamus, a black and white cow, and a tiger.
MYSELF: I think you might find that they, like yourself, are not actually real.
READER: Why would anyone want to go to a zoo with fake animals?
MYSELF:  Why would anyone want to have a newspaper column with fake readers?
READER:  That’s a low blow.

DICTIONARY CORNER
Gullible (adj) easily accessed by sea-birds, eg: fish & chips, Macdonald’s, pizza, rubbish bins.
Outsource (v) to compete successfully against a sautée chef.
Detractor (v) to revert to horse-drawn farming.

WENDY WRITES
Sound all-round advice from our highly unqualified expert.

Dear Wendy, I own a beautiful Victorian doll’s house with 4 bedrooms (2 ensuite) and
2 receptions, which also features an original Victorian kitchen with miniature utensils. This house is now on the market for £385,000, but has been colonised by a family of mice. There were only four of them at first, but now the place is, frankly, overcrowded. Citizen’s Advice and social services have offered no solutions and I am now at the end of my wits. How can I achieve vacant possession so that I can take my rightful place on the property roundabout?
Westphalia Tendril, Bexhill.

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Dear Westphalia, It’s property ladder by the way, nonetheless I do sympathise with your predicament. I once owned a bicycle whose hollow frame was occupied by a deadly cobra which had escaped from a nearby bedsit. Once the novelty had worn off, I was forced to employ a professional snake charmer, who, after having very efficiently charmed the reptile out of my bicycle, hypnotised me and stole my life savings. Anyway, as long as you are not averse to the sound of screaming rodents, there is a huge choice of mousetraps on the market, or you could try one of the many deadly poisons available (stay clear of Novichok though!). As a vegetarian animal rights activist, I would be more inclined to pursue one of the more humane options, like heavy sarcasm or music aversion therapy. Mice hate the sound of the Argentine tango accordion by the way, if that’s any help.
Wendy

Dear Wendy, I wonder if you could settle an argument. My husband insists that it can be potentially fatal to eat any seafood beginning with the letter W, unless there is an R in the month. I reminded him that on February 29th 2016, three catholic priests died from an attack of ciguatera poisoning after eating contaminated winkles at a leap-year miracle party in a Lourdes nightclub. He maintains that February, having two Rs, is exempt from that culinary rule, adding rather cruelly that it served them right. I say that surely having two Rs makes the month twice as dangerous as the others vis a vis seafood poisoning? Who is right?
Amelia Sternbagel, Silverhill

Dear Amelia, I’m sorry to have to tell you that your husband’s rather brutal assessment of the situation is in fact correct. February, contrary to TS Eliot’s opinion, is in fact the wickedest month, but not in a hip-hop sense. Due to its quadrennial elasticity and its double-barrelled R, it can also be frisky and anarchic. Those two Rs, when coupled with a leap-year can easily cancel out any food-related pearls of folk wisdom, exposing the confident oyster swallower, or in the sad case you describe, ecclesiastical winkle gobblers, to unexpected stomach cramps, convulsions and speaking in tongues, leading eventually to a slow agonising death. My advice with any seafood, regardless of the month in which it is consumed, is to boil it thoroughly in a spacious cauldron with two tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda and a dash of goat’s urine for about three hours. Then leave to ferment before adding 500 grams of well-rotted manure. Leave to cool and consume within four hours. It may taste like the decomposing scrotum of a dead kangeroo, but you can rest assured it will be quite safe to eat.
Wendy

POETRY PIFFLE
I received this combination poem/riddle, which I thought I might include for the amusement of our readers. See if you can guess the answer.

WHO AM I?
By Celia Putty
A narcissistic vacuum
who’s dependent on his mama’s milk,
a sub-moronic sociopath,
a pedlar of ersatz silk.
A naked porcine emperor
resplendent in his sty,
whose porky hirsuit kisser
isn’t easy on the eye.
A tweeting twat
whose surplus fat
could feed a thousand Innuits,
whose shop-bought wife
has swapped her life
for glitter, glitz
and bigger tits.
Who am I?

READER: Hmmm… Is it Lars Vondervondervonder, the Swedish jazz saxophonist?
MYSELF:  Close, but no cigar.

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Sausage life!

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https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/SAT-tiger.jpghttps://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/SAT-tiger-150x150.jpgBird GuanoFeaturesSatirepostcard from the edge,Sausage lifeBY Bird Guano The column which wanders lonely as a cloud, but never seems to come across any daffodils. READER:  have you seen the new zoo? MYSELF:  Zoo? READER:  Yes. On the pier. MYSELF:  Have you taken leave of your senses? You can’t have a zoo on a pier, for all sorts of...The Hastings & St Leonards non-profit community newspaper