Tag: Accordion

The Great Accordion Shortage

Good evening my little scallops. I am in my hedge, in isolation. To clarify, I often am due to my interesting collection of aromas, but now some bloke at No.10 has told me I have to. So I’m happily whiling away the hours making a wig of nettles (excellent for protection) and some hemlock pants for my neighbour (the curse of Mars didn’t work, so I’m hoping this will do the trick). This is generally how folk are dressing now, which is taking some getting used to. This is my apothecary, Mr Gavin Codslap. As plague masks are in short supply, he’s prescribed us all to wear a dead stoat on a thong around the neck to ward off infection. Stoats are few and far between, and Mr Codslap was arrested yesterday for selling deceased weasels for fifty guineas a pop, and fibbing about them being stoats. The judge passed sentence from the confines of a beekeeping suit painted with vodka. He’s been fined five pounds and been publicly humiliated by being called ‘very naughty’.

The shopping situation is now beyond ridiculous. Folk have been doing something called panic buying, a concept I was unaware of until I visited the local music shop last week. I wanted a triangle. Well, my ghast has never been so flabbered. One shelf was empty. It seems a rumour has been circulating that accordion music is the most effective way to stay well. Not content with listening to the radio, people have decided they must have accordions in the physical sense, to boost immunity.

The frightening thing about this, is that France is now being targeted by gangs of thieves in an attempt to illegally import them on the black market. Bulgaria and most of the Eastern Bloc are in the same predicament. Morris dancing is now illegal in England. Any person with a folk leaning is being stopped by police and searched, followed by a swift chinning if needs be. Apparently the ones with the hankies are the worst offenders, and really kick off when challenged.

This young man above, is an utter berk. He started the rumour. Coincidentally, he is the deranged child of a local businessman whose company manufactures accordions. The little sod is lining his own pocket. Aunt Vom got wind of this, and decided with the help of Aunt Gourd, that she would sort the little shit out. Unfortunately, Aunt Gourd was of no use whatsoever, and sat in the motor car reciting nursery rhymes to a nearby gull.

While lurking around the premises, Vom spotted the matriarch of the family, Mrs Cressida Tungsten-Girth. There are few who would trifle with her, she has a reputation so volatile that people from Cerney Wick cross over the road to avoid her. There was a rumour that she cut a man in two for looking at her funny. That’s lengthwise, by the way, not across the middle. She was happily playing away in the sunshine, sitting on an old crate, while Vom crept into the house through an open door she’d just kicked in. In no less than 40 minutes, she moved heaven and earth to shift 4,690 accordions onto the front drive. Then, using a small cannon she’d secreted into her underskirts, she fired on the pile of instruments.

It blew a hole straight through the foremost accordion, then all hell broke loose. It caught fire, and spread rapidly to the rest. Bizarrely, the heat surge caused the pile to begin playing themselves for a several minutes, and Vom marvelled at the cacophony of the most ridiculous music known to man.

The upshot was, the matriarch stormed out to see what the commotion was. She used very rude words (far too rude to write them here), and challenged Vom to a duel, saying their family business was legit and run by gentleman. Vom being Vom, didn’t even wait to accept, but twatted her with a garden shovel she had in her pocket. Her parting shot was ‘A gentleman is a man who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn’t’.

The tricky part came getting rid of the evidence. Vom hid the canon back up her skirt, and buried the shovel by digging a hole with a different shovel. When the cozzers arrived she avoided arrest by twatting the copper with the second shovel. She found a third to bury that one in case he’d called for back up.

So the rumour was quashed. No more dead stoats, no weasel mis-selling, and no bloody accordions. The only frustrating part was that by the time Vom got back to the motor car, Aunt Gourd was rattling on about ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and hadn’t noticed the gull had become somewhat fractious. It had crapped all over the car and stolen Vom’s last toilet roll.

Stay safe, my little dung beetles and I’ll keep you posted. Cheers and that. x

Clopton Mandrill Village Fayre

Good evening, my little pogo sticks! I trust you are hale and hearty (both of you). Today has been a grand occasion. Since moving to my hedge in Gloucestershire, I am now accepted as a local within the village of Clopton Mandrill. Today was the Village Fayre, we all attended in our best finery (I wore my best sack dress which I nicked from the docks, and wore cow parsley in my beard). Aunt Gourd visited for the day, and brought stories to read to the cattle and sheep. I just let her crack on with that….

It was a marvellous sight by the canal, men and women flocked to the waterside and pointed at things. Some people stood on the bridge and pointed at the people pointing at things. The spotty youth in the foreground became fractious about the woollen bathing suit he was wearing (the Wool Rash has only just gone). He dispersed the crowd by shouting. He’s a frightful boy, with breath like a boar’s arse.

On a high note, we gained entry into the fayre in the big manor house by handing over our worldly possessions and the monetary equivalent of a black market kidney, in exchange for very little information on the event timings, and no social graces. This pleased me no end. It seems this yearly extravaganza is popular with folks (not local) who are as thick as month old cowpats. Apparently walking straight at someone while not paying attention is a marvellous sport here, as is stopping in the middle of a thoroughfare without warning. Both sports require vacant eyes and mouth breathing. I must look into the health benefits of this.

I did encounter a problem at one of the minor arenas. Cotswold Morris Dancers. Now, please don’t misunderstand me, every man with his hanky and long socks needs an outlet for the rage and misery of working in accountancy. But we’ve just seen the demise of the worst dictator who came hotfoot from the Cotswolds to beat us into a life of morosity, and I fear their jolly dancing may be a little too soon for comfort. But there is another threat – behind this band of leaping buggers there is a far greater threat to my sanity. The Accordionist. A gentleman, in my opinion, is a man who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn’t. I shall post further about this problem, as I don’t feel it prudent to vent my spleen on an otherwise joyful day.

It is a well known fact that every single dog in the UK attends this event. Aunt Gourd was thrilled and read Hansel and Gretel to seventy-four labradors, ninety-two spaniels, two thousand and fifty one Jack Russells, and the Berkeley Hounds. I’m not convinced they were all listening, although it was nice to sit with them, as they were intellectually more stimulating than their owners. Later in the day, she tried reading The Little Match Girl to an Irish Wolfhound, who ate the book then yacked it up on the path to the beer tent.

In the Crafts area these charming children were selling jars of poisonous things and all manner of noxious plants and substances. Part of their sales patter was reeling off the efficacy of their wares by listing the number of people who’d dropped off the census since they’d begun making them and ‘disappeared’. The display was fascinating, I purchased two jars of hemlock preserve and a spike imbued with digitalis (I have an awkward neighbour). I do champion industry in the youth of today. Sardine (on the left) is of French origin, and is hoping to find a career in holistic medicine.

On another stall were the once-wonderful Quedgeley Toad Balancers, who in my opinion, have become very elitist. They now have a uniform of white suits and have an air of superiority they don’t deserve. By the time they performed in the arena, they were too far gone on pints of Matted Thatch to balance themselves, let alone toads.

After wandering for hours, taking in the marvels, we visited the refreshment tent. I wish Aunt Vom was here, she would have enjoyed the company very much. On the above left photo, is Blandula Flap, a local woman who prides herself on holding two cups full of vodka on her bosom. She can do this even when running for a tram. The dear woman is using it as vital medicine, as she has politicians boarding with her. The woman on the right is Gert Sponk, and her sole aim in life is to turn her eyes a full 360 degrees, just by staring inwardly. Curiously, she also seems to need a good deal of vodka.

At the centre arena, we found the marvellous six-headed woman. Her name is Mary-Ann-Bette-Penelope-Violet-Colin. She’s the only six-headed woman in the UK with one male head. Bizarrely, the one thing that makes her unusual, is the head called Colin who saps the living energy out of you just by talking. Colin is a traffic warden, against the girls wishes, and he is a bellend. Thus, the other five heads drank the refreshment tent out of vodka.

Next to the Tudor Catflap & Toasting Fork Society, and just in front of the Order of the Sacred Bedpan Dangerous Sports Arena, was the Duck of Philosophy Eventing. This young man typically shows what is involved in the process. The duck seized firmly but calmly, then held above the head. The duck, in a series of resonant and meaningful quacks, orates at length about the tenets the individual could embrace in order to gain a life of fruitfulness. It’s a marvel, however the only soul present that can interpret what the duck is speaking of, is another duck.

The Order of The Sacred Bedpan were not to be missed. Women from all over Clopton Mandrill flocked to the arena to take part. The notion behind it is that you make a pancake for one of the menfolk who wait at the finish line, then put the pancake in a bedpan. You dress in Victorian finery, charge toward the menfolk, and if they’re found incapable of eating the pancake in fourteen seconds, you are permitted beat them to within an inch of their lives with the bedpan. Exhilarating stuff.

This is my personal favourite – The Urchin Death Run. Men are invited to run the length of the sports field, on which several hungry and deadly sea urchins are placed. The full length of the field has to be run without being caught by an enraged urchin. If caught, one is eaten alive from the foot up, though there is a consolation prize of five guineas for the close members of the family.

We took a gentle stroll back to the refreshment tent before home. Blandula Flap was ferrying vodka to and fro upon her bosom, and the carnage that lay about her was astonishing. Most of the unmoving bodies that slept among the table legs appeared to be members of the local clergy. One was awake, Rev. Hillary Mountford-Poon, who’d just tried cheating Vom out of fifty quid in a game of shove halfpenny. Given the state of the man’s trousers, you can image where she shoved his halfpenny.

Well, after a tiring and thrilling day, I’m back in the hedge now, the bats are asleep. They’ve enjoyed hanging about at the fayre with their local friends, but I don’t like them staying out too long. There’s a local gang by the bridges, and they are quite rebellious. It’s an early start for me tomorrow, I’m going to teach Shrieking Grade 1 at Gloucester College as a trial for a new teaching position. Wish me luck, and may a local goat stare at you for many minutes.