Politicians Scheming Try to Bring a New Tax

Part 56 of “A Couple of Tenors Short”. Just when you think that you have been spared, along comes another instalment and you find yourself with large serving of mayonnaise into your jacket pocket and two tickets to a recitation from the Argos catalogue.

 Following on from the unfortunate tale of the World Sauna Championships yesterday, I discover that the sauna can be run at high temperature. There was me thinking that it was the rolling in the snow and being beaten with birch twigs was the worst part!

I’ll still give you a dose of real life being stranger than my fiction. Today with the added bonus of a video.

Onward! From real life, we smoothly transition to the quiz question. I have never heard of the band or the song – but absolutely loved it. Today’s quiz question answer comes with my recommendation for you to have a listen.

OK, the quiz question out of the way, here is my mantra. This is a serial. Any new-joiners should start with the opener known as Part One.   

The troublesome recap has now settled into its new home. You can find the recap here!

Now read on...

The morning briefing hadn’t been so interesting for the audience in some considerable time. They alternated glances between the Superintendant and Jones, who stood open mouthed, mid-rant, next to a pale and cowering Johnson. There were expectant whispered exchanges about the sudden appearance of the Superintendant at the event.

A cough from the Superintendant signalled he was ready to speak. The whispering ceased.

“So sorry, for the intrusion, Inspector.” The Superintendant Acknowledged Jones. “Do you mind if I take over and share some exciting news?”

The audience once again turned their attention Jones, probably hoping for additional entertainment in his response.

“Jolly good!” The Superintendant didn’t give Jones a chance to respond, just continued on.

The Superintendant announced that the Light Entertainment Championships had a new and confidential sponsor. As a result, the Light Entertainment Championships would be available to a much larger audience through huge screens erected in public parks the length and breadth of the country.

The Superintentdant paused to allow the audience digest the significance of the news.

“Confidential sponsor? Isn’t that rather counterproductive?” Jones took the opportunity to cut in.

“It is not our place to question our benefactors!” The Superintendant snapped back and shot Jones a withering look.

The Superintendant continued with his briefing. In recognition of the audience and the generosity, there was to be a world record attempt for the largest male voice choir. While the judges were determining the results, there would be a mass rendition of ‘Men of Harlech’ from choirs at every location. The choirs would be drawn from serving members of the emergency services across the whole country bolstered by the thousands in the audience.

The news caused excited conversations to erupt. Everybody seemed impressed, except Jones.

A loud and theatrical cough from the Superintendant brought silence to the room.

“So, this brings me to the subject of weekend overtime” The Superintendant beamed and observed the room.

“Thank you, sir.” Jones allowed himself a smile. “We have reached a critical point in the case and will need...”

“What are you on about, Jones?” The Superintendant shook his head. “The overtime is for choir practice. Every male member of the force will be required for choir practice and ten sharp, Saturday and Sunday.”

“But, sir...” Jones started to object, but one look from his superior quelled him.

The Superintendant detailed the venue and the arrangements, before striding towards the door.

“Ah, yes one more thing, Inspector.” The Superintendant turned and faced Jones. “Given your rather unfortunate lack of prowess in the musical department, you are excused choir duties.”

Jones swore under his breath as he watched the Superintendant, attended by the athletes; stride across the office and out of sight.

The rest of the briefing didn’t get the attention Jones had hoped for. People participated, but every now and again, managed to slip in a reference to the Light Entertainment Championships and all focus was lost.

At the end, Jones had regained a delicate tinge of puce around the gills. When he eventually called a halt to proceedings, Johnson was one of the first to bolt from the room. Jones called him back and told him, Smithy and Brown that they were all going together to look at the lodgings of the unfortunate Sergei Plutov.

In the lobby, they ran into Sir Andrew Witherspoon and his client, Dunker Phil. Sir Andrew greeted Jones coolly and made a sarcastic comment about how grateful he was for the prompt release of his client. Dunker Phil said nothing, just stared at a notice board.

“Where did you get his picture?” Phil suddenly spoke as Jones was trying to excuse himself from the barrister.

“Who’s picture?” Jones head snapped around to Dunker Phil.

“Sergei.” Dunker Phil poked a digit at the picture of the drowned man pinned to the notice board. “That’s him to a tee, that is. Who gave you his description?”

“Are you sure that’s him?” Jones moved closer to Dunker Phil.

“Oh yes, that’s him.” Phil replied.

Jones turned towards Johnson and gave him his very best glare.

“Inspector, my client has been bailed.” Sir Andrew moved in quickly. “I’m sure that this is a matter that can be attended to upon his return. We have a long journey and need to make a start.”

Jones turned away towards Johnson and glared at the detective while he considered the proposition. Eventually, he turned back to Sir Andrew and agreed.

 

Well, My Time Went So Quickly

Part 55 of “A Couple of Tenors Short” unlike a certain brand of lager, reaches parts that other blog serials fail to reach. My advice would be to use calamine lotion twice a day and not to scratch.

After scientific study of the temperature of the precipitation, I believe we now have consensus that it is indeed Summer. So, what better way to celebrate that to hold the World Sauna Championships? It is a rather tragic tale, but another example that life is stranger than fiction. Although I am left wondering if there is typo in that article. Surely they mean temperatures of 110 Fahrenheit rather than 110 Celsius (which is 230 Fahrenheit)?

Errrr... I am reliably informed that they do indeed mean 110C. Such is the heat, contestants are banned from wearing hair gel lest it melt, get into an eye and fry the eyeball. I wondered why Evar didn’t seem keen about entering!

Onto the quiz question then. This is probably easier than the last few, but I still give you the  answer.

OK, the quiz question out of the way, here is my mantra. This is a serial. Any new-joiners should start with the opener known as Part One.   

The troublesome recap has now settled into its new home. You can find the recap here!

Now read on...

The email that Jones prepared complaining about the pathologist was vitriolic and peppered with profanities. The first draft flowed from his fingers in minutes, before he reworked a section and added a few extra choice phrases he considered appropriate. Jones sat back, considered his masterpiece of complaint and smiled. Jones leant forward and hit the delete key.

Jones then wrote a memo to the Superintendant requesting his assistance to increase the priority of his tests. The memo was more considered and diplomatic and nowhere near as satisfying to write. Jones sent the memo and headed to the briefing room.

The briefing room was noisy. Conversations about the latest in the Horace Adkins saga flew across the room. Voices were being raised as people competed to get their opinions into the mix. The entrance of Jones had no impact on the noise level. Jones standing by the briefing board appeared to go un-noticed.

“GOOD MORNING!” Jones shouted above the din, simultaneously slamming his folder onto the desk to provide appropriate punctuation.

The noise faded and the briefing got underway.

There was a more energy about the briefing than the day before. Contributions were coming from all sides and there were snippets of information about the generator thefts. They didn’t really take the investigation any further forward, but at least Jones had something to add to his notes.

The news about the delay in bailing Dunker Phil even got a small cheer from the ensemble, so Jones was beaming when he recounted the interview with some gusto.

“That’s a co-incidence.” Johnson interrupted when Jones mentioned the mysterious Sergei involved in the abduction.

All eyes turned to Johnson before slowly turning to Jones.

“What is a co-incidence, Johnson?” the calm, measured tone was in contradiction to Jones’s flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes and flared nostrils.

It might have been prudent for Johnson to look up, but he continued to doodle on his notepad. “The name of the dead bloke who was fished out of the Thames was probably Sergei.”

“Oh? That really is very interesting. I’m so glad we have made a breakthrough in that case.” Jones continued to speak slowly and softly as he moved from the front of the room to stand next to Johnson. “Tell me his surname and how long have you known that.”

The room had fallen totally silent now, not even the sound of scratchy pencils distracted the group from the unfolding scene. Johnson flipped over a couple of pages in his notebook.

“His landlady rang a couple of days ago. Said he was a Russian called Sergei Plutov and that she hadn’t seen him since the weekend and that he hadn’t been back to his room....” Johnson’s voice suddenly trailed off when he looked up from his notepad to discover a red faced Jones looming over him.

“Truly fascinating.” Despite the fuse being lit and a small amount of spittle forming at the corner of his mouth, Jones continued to keep his voice quiet and calm.  “Please tell your colleagues why you didn’t feel the need to trouble us with this information.”

Johnson looked around the room at his colleagues. As his gaze settled on them, each in turn turned their gaze to something else that had suddenly become intriguing. Johnson swallowed hard and turned to face Jones.

“At the time it didn’t seem all that important.” Johnson whimpered and ran a finger around the inside of his collar as he noticed the vein throbbing on Jones’s flushed temple. “Besides, he was a Russian, a foreigner, so not really important in the scheme....”

“A FOREIGNER? NOT IMPORTANT?” The fuse met the main charge within Jones. “Since when does being a foreigner mean that you’re not entitled to British Justice?”

Johnson, considered this and tried to form a response, but Jones was in no mood for interruption. The public berating of his detective by Jones continued as the inspector regaled him with his principles of police work.  Jones started with the principles of justice, moved on to the equality of the law, gave an impassioned defence of the need for the impartiality of justice before explaining the need for effective police work in order to not only ensure justice was done, but seen to be done.

Jones could have continued, but he was cut off by the sight of three athletes jogging across the office followed by the Superintendant in his gold lamé, full dress uniform. The four of them burst into the briefing room. The athletes took up station by the door while the Superintendant flounced to the front of the room.