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