In the grip of the Zephyr

For those of you who haven't already, you should read the first part of this story, which to avoid confusion, I shall call Part One .

If you are too busy, or find that I have confused matters in my naming of Part One, then I shall give a quick recap.

Jones and Smithy are on covert surveilance in a pink Ford Zephyr Mark III. It is turning out to be anything but routine. They have both grown facial hair, their pizzas turned into kebabs and a waxwork Horatio Nelson appeared briefly to confuse matters. They also discovered that Horace Adkins comitted suicide by blowing up his Georgian Country house - although Pippa Hucknell doubts it was suicide. The Superintendant is getting nervous and sending out runners. To make matters worse, two hoodlums are hanging around the 24 hour Taekwondo Emporium.

Now read on....

A Black Cab had drawn up at the 24 hour Taekwondo shop. Darrius Kipling, aka the Baker and Dunker Phil suddenly became animated, stepping out into the street, heads darting this way and that. They opened the door of the cab and out stepped Violet Ann Adkins. The two men fawned over her and paid the cabbie.

Violet smiled at them before heading through the door of Witherspoon, Lewes, Grambling, and Witherspoon.

“That’s two of them in there now, Guv.” Smithy watched as the two heavies went back to their game of cat’s cradle. “What do they want with trial lawyers?”

Jones shrugged and then winced when he realised he was wearing brown corduroy trousers with black shoes.

Jones opened the second pizza box. It was filled with Tammy Wynette albums. As he prepared to throw them aside, he noticed, the big gold ring was back on the third finger of his left hand.
“Smithy, am I married?” he asked slowly.

Smithy turned to look at Jones with a furrowed brow. “Errr... you know, I can’t remember. No! Wait, yes, you are married, but none of us have ever met her, because.... errr... Guv, why have you never introduced us to your wife?”

Jones was sure that something was wrong. He sat in the back of the Ford Zephyr and tried to remember. The only problem was he wasn’t sure what he was trying to remember.

Ten minutes later, a Volkswagen Camper van, rolled around the corner and noisily drew alongside. Smithy wound the window down and the driver of the camper van did the same.

“Hiya, Tom” Smithy greeted his colleague cheerfully. “When did you get the afro?”

“Dunno.” Tom stroked his thick, droopy moustache. “I was as bald as a coot this morning.”

Jones examined the two policemen in the van and shook his head. “Doesn’t that seem strange to you, Tom?”

Tom looked at him with his head on one side and shrugged. “We’re here to relieve you. The Super wants you back at the station. He says you have some explaining to do.”

A marching band appeared down the street. Thirty two men dressed as George Washington drilled expertly as they belted out popular German Opera arias. Jones struggled to brief his relief above the noise while simultaneously removing the big gold ring.

Briefing complete, Smithy started up the Zephyr. A group of young girls rushed towards the marching band brandishing Bratwurst they wanted autographed. Smithy watched them engulf the conductor before pulling away.

The Zephyr crawled through the traffic with Jones cursing the latest bylaw that gave Llama drawn carriages right of way. In the back seat, Jones brooded. Shortly after they crossed the river, Jones noticed the big gold ring back on his finger. He removed it and looked at the white band of skin on his otherwise tanned finger.

“Smithy, does all of this seem normal to you?” Jones looked at the back of the young detective constable’s head while biting on his own lip.

Smithy didn’t answer at first. He had noticed a gap between a bendy-bus and a handcart. He gunned the engine and forced the Zephyr through it. The tyres squealed as he avoided a group of unicyclists and he accelerated past an ornamental fishpond on a traffic island. When clear of the hazards, he pondered the question.

“It’s why I joined the force, Guv.” Smithy grinned as he out-accelerated a tuk-tuk from the lights.

“The exploding gourds, the marching band, this pink Zephyr, the sudden growing of facial hair.” Jones paused to let the words sink home. “Are all of these everyday occurrences in your life?”

Smithy, guided the Zephyr into the car park of the police station. “Well guv, I would hate to have a boring, ordinary nine to five job.”

Jones shook his head and got out of the car.

The case against Macrame

The courtesy light illuminated Smithy in the driver's seat of the Ford Zephyr. He was peering into the rear view mirror and combing a thick, black moustache that garnished his top lip.

Jones climbed into the back seat with the two pizza boxes.

"I thought I said inconspicuous?" he barked at Smithy in a South London accent. "Anybody can spot a pink classic Ford Zephyr, you idiot."

Smithy shrugged "It was the only car in the pool that would start."

"Plonker!" Jones clipped Smithy across the head. "What's the idea with the moustache?"

"It sort of grew." Smithy licked forefinger and delicately brought his eyebrows under control. "Somewhere between Westminster Bridge and Southall."

"I don't like it." Jones spat the words as he delved into the pizza box and withdrew two Kebabs. "Something very odd is going on here. She still in there?"

"Yea" Jones checked himself in the mirror some more. "She'll be some time I reckon. Those hucksters charge by the hour."

Jones felt his top lip and swore under his breath. "I've got one too"

Smithy turned to his colleague and tutted quietly. "Oh bad luck, Guv. Yours has turned out ginger."

Jones swore again and pointed over the road to the entrance of the 24 hour Taekwondo shop. "Who are those two?"

Smithy was examining his wrist and the designer watch that now replaced his cheap timepiece. He didn't look up.

"They arrived with the woman. It's OK, I've done some sketches of 'em. I'm afraid the camera turned into a box of assorted artist materials sometime after you rang. I chose to do them in the style of Monet."

Jones looked at the two men again. He knew them. The heavy, thickset man wearing the plum shell suit was Darrius. In North London he was known as the Baker. His fruit fancies had broken the hardest of men. The other was Dunker Phil, he had a rap sheet as long as your arm. Jones hated rap.

"You know, Smithy?" Jones took a mouthful of kebab. It tasted of asparagus. "This whole case has gone weird on us. I chose a terrible day to give up crochet."


Jones Handed Smithy his Kebab and discovered that the two cans of Cola in his pocket were now fruit smoothies.

"Put the radio on." Jones tried to remove the large gold ring that now adorned the third finger of his left hand.

A phone in was in full flow. The host had a politician in the studio who was calling for the legalisation of Macramé. A women from Kensington was mounting a stout defence of the art form for social purposes.

"Harrumph" Jones tried his smoothie. It tasted of beetroot. "I was on the bust of the Macrame den in Brixton. If she saw the look in those poor kids eyes caused by inferior imported yarn, she wouldn't be so smug."

The presenter broke off the call and announced breaking news. He cut to Pippa Hucknell.

Both men in the car swore in unison. Pippa Hucknell was a journalist with a reputation in the force.

She was outside the home of the Right Honourable Horace Adkins. Or, to be more precise, what was left of it. She editorialised and theorised freely, interspersing her staccato condemnation of the authorities with descriptions of the few smoking fragments that remained of the Georgian country house and the herds of bonsai bison that had appeared on the lawns that evening.

She made it very clear that although the police were treating the case as suicide, it looked to her that sinister forces were to blame and that this was clearly linked to organised macramé gangs.

Smithy turned off the radio.

"Here, guv," he turned to his red-faced superior in the back seat. "My Kebab tastes of sardine."

Smithy looked down the street. A jogger in the away strip of the Hounslow Harriers loped easily towards them, avoiding the giant mushrooms that grew in the cracks in the pavement.

"That's all I need." Jones rolled his eyes.

The runner stopped at the back window and doffed his straw boater. Jones opened the window.

"Thanks, son." He took the offered notelet with its pictures of spring lambs on the front.

"Son?" the runner spat. "I'm all woman!"

She raised her running vest and pressed her embroidered sports bra through the open window before straightening up and running back the way she came.

Jones read the note. It was from the Superintendant, whose mobile phone was still at the cleaners after the attempt on his life with the exploding pumpkin. The Superintendant was not a happy man, he never was, but with the recent trauma and the evidence locker overflowing with contraband fridge magnets, his mood was worse than ever.

The note demanded an explanation as to why the pair was following the daughter of one of the most revered barber shop quartet managers. It demanded that Jones submit a report the next evening. It wasn't even signed with the normal love and kisses or with sketches of kittens in the margins.

"That's all I need" Jones muttered. "But it looks like he hasn't heard the news about Horace Adkins."

At that moment another jogger turned the corner. This one was sweating heavily under a multi-coloured crocheted poncho with a top hat that was balanced precariously on his head.

This one wasn't so good at avoiding the giant mushrooms. As he sprinted to the car, several were flattened releasing clouds of butterflies into the street.

This note described Horace as the recently deceased revered barber shop quartet manager and demanded the report on his desk in the morning.

Jones scratched his head. "You know Smithy, there is something odd going on here."

As he spoke, two boys appeared from an alleyway carrying a waxwork of Horatio Nelson wearing a kilt and a tam-o'shanter.

Looking for Hope at the Ballot Box

 

The last week or so has seen a rise in my synaptic meanderings. Over the last couple of days, I have found myself thinking about such diverse subjects as efficiency savings for the 2012 Olympics, alternative uses for novelty pastry cutters and the upcoming general election here in the UK.

Unfortunately, it means that I have sat down several times to spout forth on the joys of representation, only to find myself distracted.

I fear the problem is that for the first time in my life, I am not at all sure which of the Political Parties deserves the honour of my support (See Note 1). The menu set before me for the upcoming frenzied media electoral banquet doesn’t make me salivate with expectation. It simply lacks any hint of hope. At the moment, what I really want to have is a feeling that I can deploy my ‘X’ into a box that will inject a feeling of confidence and hope, not only in me, but also in the country as a whole.

Instead I am faced with three main parties who are seemingly competing to see how much money they can save if they come to power – and by that I mean how many people they can put out of work in the name of ‘efficiency savings’.

With the lack of any defining policy to sway my vote, I find myself with the rather disturbing idea that I may need to choose based upon the three party leaders. The mere thought makes me shudder as not one floats my boat.

The current incumbent is our Gordon. I’m sure that behind closed doors, Gordon Brown is vivacious, charming and generous. Sadly, our Prime Minister as soon as the public gaze falls upon him, turns into a dour sourpuss who through sheer force of his Presbyterian roots, transforms optimism into the feel of an impending tax audit. However, that isn’t his greatest flaw. No matter what happens over the coming weeks, it will shake my belief that he is fundamentally unlucky. Having eventually manoeuvred Tony Blair out of office, almost as soon as he took the helm the world banking fraud took a grip. I’m sure that he would like to point out the work he has put in to mitigate the effects, but it happened on his watch. Not only that, but it seems so many of his attempts at being personable and ‘nice’ have a terrible habit of boomeranging back (see Note 2).

The main opposition party, the Conservatives are led by ‘Call me Dave’ Cameron.  Keen to promote himself as a man of the people, David Cameron has utilised his extensive experience in Public Relations within the media to good effect. The party machine working hard to convince everyone that an education at Eton and Oxford, plus membership of the infamous Bullingdon drinking club means he is able to easily connect to the voter in the street.  Unfortunately, the way the Conservatives seem to jump on any bandwagon with three wheels and David Cameron’s appearances in the media only serve to convince me that he has insincerity oozing from every pore (see Note 3). The Conservatives also have the added handicap of George Osbourne (a mate of David Cameron from his Oxford and Bullingdon Club days) as their treasury spokesman. If George told me that the sun was out, I would still look out the window to check.

Bringing up the rear we have the Liberal Democrats, the smallest of the three parties. While I have to admit that of the three party leaders, I have the greatest respect for Nick Clegg, I know the least about him. Nick Clegg doesn’t get a lot of media coverage, so there is always going to be this nagging feeling that I am basing any opinion of him on the scantiest of evidence (see Note 4). The Lib-Dems have the benefit of having Vincent Cable as their Shadow Chancellor, but all of this counts not a jot if they are unable to reach the voters with their message.

So my vote remains up for grabs.

Depressingly, I fear that the current situation will mean that we will continue to go over and over the same old ground and watch as any optimism and hope is slowly throttled by the election campaigning.

Nobody in this election is daring to mention that while politicians can promise all kinds of tinkering with the public sector, big business is able to carry on in its own sweet way and dictate terms to politicians whenever they see fit. When the banks screwed up, they went to the Government for bail outs – and got them. Over the last 18 months, other businesses have had the same help – but none give anything back. The Government is so powerless in the face of big business that it wasn’t even able to control the level of bonuses paid to bankers when the Government is the biggest shareholder in those banks!

In the 1960s and 70s, the Trade Unions held too much power and the UK economy suffered. Now big business holds too much sway.

With the election looming, now is the time for real leadership from one of the political parties to look at revolutionary ways to make sure that big business is serving all of their stakeholders – not just their shareholders. In the past, I have suggested that this could be done by letting various groups run ethical stakeholder schemes. The Trade Unions could run one for the treatment of employees; Greenpeace for environmental considerations; the CBI for treatment of suppliers; Local Government bodies for community schemes etc. Companies would then be exempted a portion of their corporate taxes for each certification they hold – therefore making a difference to the bottom line.  As we all know, it is that dreaded bottom line that matters above all things to big business and it is the pursuit of a bigger bottom line that has in the past has sometimes meant that ethics are overlooked.

It could well be that I am being idealistic in hoping for change, but at the moment I’m beginning to feel disenfranchised by the whole system. This is an even greater worry. For if people like me start to feel that it is not worth voting, there are some very nasty parties out there who will exploit low voter turnout to get their own narrow-minded bigoted agenda foisted on the country.

 

Note 1: Not that in the past any of the party leaders felt the inclination to neither reciprocate the honour bestowed upon them, nor have their election strategy teams felt that my support was worthy of wider publicity.

Note 2: An example of this would be his writing of sympathy notes to our servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fate engineered it in such a way as to get vast amounts of negative press over errors in the notes and his handwriting.

Note 3: There is also the rather unfortunate poster advertising campaign being run by the Tories where David Cameron’s face peers out at you alongside a one-liner hook thought to persuade you that he has the right policies. The trouble is that whenever I see these posters, I think of George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Newspeak. In my mind, I automatically classify David Cameron as Big Brother and read the text as some inane double-talk.

Note 4:  I always feel that the Liberal democrats are spending all their time running around the country looking for a TV crew willing to give them a few seconds of air time. In my minds-eye, I picture teams of activists running through London seeking out journalists doing voxpop interviews only to arrive sweating and breathless just as the crew are packing up.

 

Codifying Christmas Tradition

Image expertly and custom made by my likkle girl!

We are enjoying a traditional Christmas. By that, I mean that our celebrations follow a number of traditions that have become customary over the years, not that we travel by donkey to a stable so that the number of family members increases by one.

Strangely, the traditions we follow have rather evolved over the years since that first Christmas. Quite a number stem from the Victorians.  We send Christmas Cards, although the first Christmas Card was ‘only’ sent in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. We put up a Christmas tree after the tradition imported by Prince Albert (See Note 1) from Germany, but itself stems from pagan mid-winter rites.

Christmas Traditions seem to appear and evolve with astounding ease. For example, our modern notions of Santa Claus owe more to the 1930’s advertising campaign by Coca-Cola rather than the original Saint Nicolas or the Dutch Sinterklaas (See Note 2). 

On Christmas day here in the UK, we sit down to a traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. We care not that the turkey is a native to North America. On Boxing Day (See Note 3), we sit down to cold turkey with cold stuffing and watch people taking a dip in icy seas or various sporting fixtures which have become traditional holiday events. After watching the sporting fixtures, there usually follows a traditional debate about why it is that other countries beat us at sports that we invented.

Not that we did invent the sports, we just invented the sports nerd, obsessed with the trivia, minutiae and statistics. The sports had been played quite happily for hundreds of years (See Note 4) before a Brit came along and decided that everyone should play by the same rules. The sports nerd is still with us today. Traditionally, on Christmas Day they can be found with the latest sports almanac, trying to find a printing error with which to wow the internet.

It seems that traditions come about on the basis of repetition more than anything else and on that basis, it would appear that a new traditional sport has been born.

Sadly, the British cannot lay claim to the current World Champion in this new sport. The honour of claiming ownership of the undisputed champion, Susanna Maiolo, has to be decided between the Swiss and Italian authorities. Yet all is not lost. Taking a leaf out of the book of the erstwhile Victorians, I believe that I can claim this new sport as a British invention.

As with Football and Cricket, us Brits can claim ownership by simply writing down the rules of the new sport of ‘Clobber a Cleric’. A sport loosely based on the tradition started by Susanna Maiolo who for two successive years has proved a champion of ‘Pole axing the Pontiff’.

The Pitch : The game of ‘Clobber the Cleric’ can be played in any Chapel, Church or Cathedral that has an aisle.

The Teams : These are unlimited in size, but are limited by the seating capacity within the Pitch. All those on the Pitch are divided into two Teams. The offensive team is known as the ‘Congregation’ while the defensive team as the ‘Officiates’.

Objective of the game: The Officiates are led by a cleric. To win the game the, Officiates must allow their Cleric to make passage along the aisle to the alter. The congregation must elect a ‘ringer’. It is the ringer’s task to wrestle the cleric to the ground. It is the officiates task to get the cleric to the alter at the front of the pitch unmolested. The congregation win should the officiates tackle someone other than the ‘ringer’ or if the Cleric fails to get to the front of the Church to deliver a sermon. The congregation are also expected to leave money in a collection to pay any medical bills.

To ensure this a sport that can be played by Americans, it is permitted for the Cleric to wear body armour.

The Cleric will be permitted to wield their staff in one hand, but only if blessing with the free hand.

 Once elected ‘ringer’, the player is not permitted any disguise or change of clothes. Other members of the congregation may however dress as the ‘ringer’ to try and confuse the officiates. Once elected ‘ringer’ the position is held until hideously maimed by a violently swung thurible or until excommunicated.

 The Officiates may surround the Cleric with burly altar boys, a choir or even other, lower ranked Clerics who may tackle the ringer as soon they enter the aisle (See Note 5).

The pulpit is out of bounds for the Officiate Team until the Cleric begins the procession down the aisle. During this time, members of the congregation may run up and down into the pulpit to check on the preparations of the officiates.  Once the procession starts, the pulpit is then garrisoned by a boy soprano who may use a swinging thurible to prevent the congregation from gaining a vantage point from which to communicate tactics to the ‘ringer’.

Attempts to pour canned pasta dishes over the cleric while they are still in their vestments will result in immediate disqualification of the Congregation team and require that the ‘ringer’ have a stiff talking to from the cleric. If the cleric has been divested of vestments prior to the pouring of the pasta then it will be an honourable draw (See Note 6).

Personally, I think that this is a win-win sporting tradition. It will certainly increase the congregations and revenues in churches, give the church a higher religious profile, especially on dark midwinter nights when people’s thoughts are on the need for consumerism rather than spiritual fulfilment and give congregations a sporting chance of avoiding boring sermons.

It will certainly make for good television. The audience for ‘Songs of Praise’  will soar when people realise that an impromptu round of ‘Clobber a Cleric’ might break out. It will only be a matter of time before somebody sets up a league structure allowing the TV companies to run a late night highlights show, ‘Bash of the Day’, where Adrian Chiles bemoans the lack of form of West Bromwich Methodists as their minister is taken out at the last minute by a brilliant tackle by the ringer of Manchester’s St Wayne.

What is more, we now have another sport that has been invented by us Brits. This will give us all something to moan about when a Norwegian brings down the Archbishop of Canterbury during the 2010 Midnight Mass.

Note 1 : Prince Albert is famed for a particularly personal body adornment that thankfully hasn’t evolved into a Christmas Tradition.

Note 2: Rather disturbingly, it appears that the good old Dutch Sinterklaas has a rather dark and disturbing side to his character. Just follow this link to Zwarte Piet.

Note 3: Ahhh, Boxing Day. At this point I shall follow the tradition of not explaining this to the non-Brits. Suffice to say, it doesn’t involve nailing annoying relatives into a tea chest and mailing them to a remote scientific outpost.

Note 4: Some of the earliest football games involved entire villages fighting over a ‘ball’ and trying to force it into the opposing villages well. Injuries were common; the poor goalkeepers often caught cold and the water tasted funny for weeks afterwards.

Note 5: Sadly, during the world championships held at the St. Peter’s Christmas meet, the Cleric saw fit to surround themselves with rather old cardinals who proved totally incapable of providing a mobile defence.

Note 6: Please remember that after the pouring of the canned pasta product, the licking up of sauce is not permitted at any time – even if your Great Aunt Hilda insists that your local padre tastes like artichoke.

 

Christmas Greetings from Holder Grange!

It hardly seems possible that another year has flown past and it is time to provide the less fortunate of the world with another update from Holder Grange.

As I sit at my desk, looking over the expanse of sparkling snow on the front lawns, I’m tempted to describe 2009 as the ‘year of cheese’.

It all started with a terrible misunderstanding involving our number one daughter, a private party, several leading figures from the international professional domino circuit, a prominent peer and an undercover journalist. The Babycham had been flowing, the guests were all consenting adults and it was all very harmless fun, but the resulting publicity from an obviously doctored photograph, caused poor Veronica to flee London and return to the family home.

Being the overly sensitive soul that she is, she rescued the goats at the party and housed them in the paddock. We also have a shed full of autographed table tennis bats that will go on e-bay next year.

In these harsh economic times, I told her that I wasn’t going to have any freeloading goats on my property and that she needed to find a way of making them pay their way. So, the enterprising Veronica decided to enter the cheese making profession.

The whole family soon discovered the joys of rennet and curdling. Veronica has become quite a celebrity on the specialist foody circuit and has been appearing on a late night specialist cable TV channel sharing views on extreme enzyme action to the world.

The wife was rather down after her personal trainer had a breakdown earlier in the year. The man suddenly declared he couldn’t take the stress and between fits of sobs, vowed a life of celibacy under holy orders. The cheese business seemed to provide the perfect tonic with her taking over responsibility for the marketing. She has hired Miguel, an ex-professional tri-athlete and together they travel all over Europe extolling the health giving properties of our cheese.

They are often away for weeks at a time, before returning exhausted, but fulfilled to the dairy.

Number one son has also become involved. After last year’s problem with exotic herbs, the farcical miscarriage of justice and his spell at Her Majesty’s pleasure, he found himself a job at a large Merchant Bank. However, he gave that up declaring that ‘he couldn’t lower his morals to that degree no matter how much it paid’.

He also returned to the Grange and as Veronica’s Cheese business took off, made it his job to supply exotic milks to expand the product range, helped in no small part by the contacts of his Lithuanian girlfriend. Hardly a night goes past without a tatty van appearing at the back door of the diary and a couple of Eastern European types unloading vats of Llama milk, Reindeer milk or Zebra milk powder. No matter how many times I tell them that the powdered Zebra milk is no use for cheese making, they still bring it, so my son has to sell it on in London.

My number one daughter introduced my son to his now girlfriend, a rather statuesque and pneumatically enhanced Lithuanian who will be with us for the Christmas period. Her job as a provider of specialist party services is particularly tiring. My son says that she needs to drop out of the scene for a while after a particularly busy Christmas Party season and some problems at the party of a major Tory party donor. It will also give some time for the carpet burns to heal.

Sadly, number two daughter will not be home for Christmas. Having decided that she needed a different outlet for her musical genius, she has given up the Cello and the Conservatoire; instead she now plays for an all girl musical combo who specialise in Thrash Metal Country music. At the moment they are touring clubs in Amsterdam and Germany in a converted military ambulance. This is because they all have numerous bodily adornments that play merry hell with airport security scanners.

Just how they will cope when they fly out to Las Vegas in the New Year to play a club just off the strip I don’t know. At this point, I had hoped to include a link to her bands website, but it seems to have been hacked, all the views of the band are obscured by girls in various states of undress who, struggling to remain upright, hang onto poles.

Anyway, I think it is time for me to wrap up. The wife and Miguel have just arrived back from the Venice International Cheese Festival. Poor Miguel looks absolutely shattered and my wife is having to help him out of the car and back to the house. That man gives his all on these trips, but my wife always returns in a better mood because of it which helps my nerves and protects my cellar.

All that remains is for me to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. I trust that 2010 makes nonsense of your fears and a reality of your dreams.