Sausage Life
The column which sings “People, people who say ‘sheeple’, are the sheepiest people in the world”.
READER: I stopped washing my hair.
MYSELF: Why so?
READER: Hair dryers. David Icke says they are super-efficient Covid 19 transmitters, especially the Bluetooth ones manufactured in China.
MYSELF: You’re certainly a man with his ear on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Is it true that the track-suited guru of the gullible has also linked the virus to Lincolnshire Pork Sausages?
READER: Yes. And kilts.
MYSELF: They make kilts in China?
READER: And pork sausages. You’d be surprised at how much David knows about the Chinese.
MYSELF: He’s full of surprises. Didn’t Mr. Icke also claim recently that playing the overture from Mendelsohn’s Fingal’s Cave on the cellowould turn the virus gay, so that it stopped reproducing?
READER: Really? That sounds plausible. I might give it a go.
MYSELF I didn’t realise you played the cello.
READER: I don’t. But I could try.
PIGEON HONOUR REVOKED
Wilf the homing pigeon, full pedigree name Wilfred Aachen-Dewlap Tumbler, who was the first animal in peacetime to receive the George Cross for gallantry, has been stripped of the honour after being stopped by Hastings police recently with half a kilo of Class A drugs. “I was returning from a shoplifting incident in Silverhill, cruising at around 800ft,” Tactical Flight Officer Oscar Bravo of the Helicopter Squad, told us, “when PC Charlie Foxtrot, my co-pilot, observed the pigeon which appeared to be flying erratically. Suspecting the bird to be in an aerodynamically challenged condition, I immediately put on my blue light and siren, hovered alongside and by waving and pointing, indicated that it should pull over to the nearest tree or telegraph pole. The pigeon, instead of complying with my request, accelerated, and we engaged in a hot pursuit. After a few miles, the pigeon, hindered by what we now saw to be a substantial package strapped to its chest, was forced to land, exhausted, in the tennis court of a recreation ground in Battle. After being arrested by waiting drug squad detectives, it was handcuffed and taken to the interrogation room at Herstmonceaux Avian Detention Centre, where it was charged with possession with intent to supply and flying under the influence of a prohibited substance.” Under cross examination at Hastings Crown Court, the bird’s owner Sam “The Strangler” Puttenesca denied any knowledge of the drugs discovered in the pigeon’s luggage, claiming that although the fingerprints all over them were his, they must have been planted there to frame him. Under oath, he testified that when he packed the bag, all it contained was a 500gm bag of Licorice Allsorts, a gift for his bedbound grandmother Francesca “Bodybag” Fettucini. The case continues.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HOLMES AND WATSON
The astonishing case of the reconstituted artichoke
Holmes and Watson were enjoying a hard-earned day out in Margate. Watson perambulated purposefully along the thronged promenadae, his light step and rolling gait epitomising not only the spiritual rejuvenation engendered by the sea air, but a palpable relief from the stuffy confines of their rooms at 221b Baker St. Holmes, conversely, puffed manically on his distinctive cherrywood briar, inflicting dark pungent clouds of the detective’s distinctive tobacco, Tutenkhamen’s Fine Olde Pharoe No.2 Shag, on each passing stroller.
Frustrated by Holmes’ reluctance to engage in frippery, and noting the first drops of an impending shower, Watson dodged into a nearby joke shop, so that he might indulge his childlike fondness for novelty items. When he emerged, he found Holmes in a cosy teashop where he had taken refuge from the rain. He was studying a dismembered starfish through a magnifying glass and taking notes. As Watson entered and ordered a pot of tea, he idly picked up a copy of The Margate Examiner, where his eyes alighted on a story.
“Good heavens Holmes!” the doctor cried suddenly, “Old Monty Bowman’s bought it!”
Holmes’ ample eyebrows appeared, momentarily, to be trying to change places with each other. “You must remember old Monty?” said Watson… ”terrible man for the horses and the cards.”
The great detective’s distant expression indicated that although he had made a thorough search of his mental database, no-one by the name of Monty Bowman dwelt there. “He was celebrating a big win at the roulette table with some friends in his room on the fourth floor of Margate’s Grand Hotel,” continued Watson, “when he spotted a cat patrolling friskily on the ledge outside his window. Its acrobatic nimbleness fascinated Monty, so much so that in his champagne induced reverie, he decided to join the beast on the balcony. To his friends’ amusement he and the cat frolicked on the ledge, but then tragedy struck. As he pirouetted a clumsy pas de deux with his new feline friend, he trod on a half-eaten mouse, slipped, and plunged to his death on the pavement below. A salutary reminder don’t you think, of alcohol’s tendency to encourage dangerous bravado?”
The detective put down his magnifying glass and relit his pipe, driving the two remaining customers out into the pelting Margate monsoon. Expelling a perfect smoke ring which hung in the air like a toxic hula hoop, he declared drily: “Its a mog’s game, gambolling”.
Watson, utilising all his strength of character, waited until the sleuth’s weak bladder forced a visit to the gentlemen’s lavatory, whereupon, with the understated grace of a professional conjuror, he emptied the vial of Simpson’s Sneezing Powder he had purchased earlier, into the detective’s cocaine pouch.
Sausage Life!
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