NGLND XPX
Page 34
‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose’ was all that the alien said as he scanned the headlines and disappeared back inside, scratching his hairy backside. ‘Always with the first-contact bunting. There’s never enough bunting. We should start bringing our own already. Oy. Bunting schmunting.’ He dropped the newspapers off in the Common Room and then clomped away to get a shower while there was still some hot water and less chance of dropping the soap in the presence of C-Shift.
In Buckingham Palace Hice a cleaner in a worn-looking but cheery yellow pinafore was dusting an expensive-looking glass paperweight, the one with the eerie Dark Matter bobbing around inside it. When she peered deeply into the bauble it was rather like looking into the moment of creation all over again and reminded her of the headache she always got from pondering quantum chromodynamics or a really, really good Bakewell Tart recipe. Once again she accidentally on purpose popped the little alien gift into a desk drawer next to a box full of spare glass eyes. She moved on to the next room with a fresh duster, a hop and a mischievous mini-skip.
Over on Horse Guards Parade sawdust was being scattered so that the horses wouldn’t slip during the procession. Horses were being buffed and brushed to the texture of velcro so that Horse Guards wouldn’t slip and fall off their horses into the sawdust. Horses and Horse Guards were being reminded to visit the lavatory so that the sawdust and horses both would stay clean and dry during the parade, just in case either slipped off the other into one or other or into both. Bearskin hats were being released from kennel cages, fed, watered, and persuaded to jump up onto Guardsmen’s heads.
The English Channel was doing a splendid job, covered as it was by a light to middling fog and isolating the Continent completely. According to our ambassadors overseas, foreigners were clamouring at the continental ports, waiting for information about the aliens and, maybe, even a glimpse of something horrible and unnatural, something not quite properly of this planet or their own species.
To the delight and incredible good luck of the more sober and mentally able of the foreigners who were able to appreciate a State Visit slash Audience-with, the Lord Sir Rear-Admiral Doctor Professor the Most Reverend the Honourable Mr Blair, X.P.M., D.S.O., O.B.E., G.C.S.E. etcetera had been at the The Hague Overseas Aid Department, arranging at-cost-plus-a-reasonable-percentage-for-God succour for those souls tragically trapped on the wrong side of the North Sea. He and Cherry Amoure had, no doubt through the direct actions of Bastard Satan and his bitch-cow, Miss Atheist, been doing missionary work converting continentals when news of the alien landing came through. Both of these true-saints-in-the-rough were as fatigued as les poodles petite after another long night handing out Mulligatawny soup, stale rolls and hymn sheets (translated into a simple pictogram form for the hard-of-worshiping).
However, fatty gooed and diary-disadvantaged as he was, Blair’s conduite d’automobile pour mon Dieu and his les reactions de un simple sinner for the non-Mexican Jesus were still exemplary – even on the wrong side of the road and on inferior foreign tarmac. He slammed both of his Dutch Jesus-Loves-Me-This-I-Know-Because-She-Told-Me-So-Wooden-Clogs onto the brake pedal of his le G-Wiz L-ion electric car so hard that his polyester-mix socks slipped down, his glow-in-the-dark crucifix got tangled up in the steering wheel and his fresh travelling-dhoti rode right up unto the crack of his Arsenal Villa are still doing awfully well this year, don’t you think?
Several boxes of Holy Bibbles in their sealed cellophane wrapping, left over from the previous day’s Christianity-on-eco-wheels run would of sliddened right off the rear parcel-shelf had there been any lebensraum or English grammar to slide into in the misbegotten Benelux miasma where wanton begetting begat the entirely the wrong and sinful kind of begotten so beloved of the Bibble. It was barely Greenwich Sparrowfart (about seven-thirty a.m., real time, God knows what it might be there on the Continent in “metric” time) so, fortunately, he was still the only moving car on the road in Western Europe and there was no need for lots of hooting and cigarette-chewing, hair-disturbing, fist-waving, histrionics from Renaults and Fiats and Ladas stuffed to the gunnels with farm produce for the market, coquettish she-goats along for the ride and worn-out little great-great-great-grandmothers dressed head to foot in matt black and mourning.
Blair got out, leaving the car door open, to peer at the spectacle of the desperate crowd through his “Top Gun” sun-spectacles and while pulling his socks up and his unbleached Fair Trade organic cotton sub-continental style loincloth a little way down (just enough to attract the female voters but not the evil homosecksuals). He dipped into a “While in Rome, Abroad” genuflection: Shades; anti-radiation airport codpiece; travel-purse full of Mickey Mouse money and watch it – you could take someone’s eye out with that airport customs wand, Garçon!
‘What on earth do you think it might be, Cherrekinnypoopoos?’ he said, his butch tones reverberating around the quayside and bringing to mind the commanding voice of Demis Roussos before his big Greek testicles dropped.
‘Honestly Darlinginnywinnykins? I think it’s a load of godless, indolent, garlic-chewing, over-emotional, over-demonstrative, untrustworthy and hairy, chanting, placard-waving foreign types just crying out for a little backbone, a stiff upper lip and some proper decorum, picketing a ferry terminal instead of getting on with their jobs and waiting for news from the correct sources – id est, England.’
‘I think you may be right, Mother of my blessed trouser-seedlings, I think you just may be right.’ he said, rolling up the sleeves of his organic hemp Nehru jacket. ‘Bring me a box of assorted Holy Bibbles, my second-best pith helmet and my Service revolver would you please, Cherrewibblywobbles – I’m going in. God knows, someone has to sort this damned mess out and it doesn’t look like any of the locals are going to do it sometime soon.’
Cherrydarlingwarling, dutiful to the last, even tore the cellophane on the Holy Bibbles to facilitate easy distribution and then tested his Revolver-for-God by firing a couple of warning shots into the air over the heads of the mob. She adjusted the sights a little before tucking the ten inches of cold, hard steel down where the sun rarely shone on Tony, and then adjusted his jacket to cover it. Tony patted his bottom to make sure that the holy safety catch was on, flexed his neck and strode forth to bring order to the screaming heathen crowd.
‘I say! I say! You there! Yes – you ...’
Civilisation, like it or not, aliens notwithstanding, was on its way, again.
* * * * *
A message from the author
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All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Delicious, but purely coincidental.
This book is the literary equivalent of a paper bag of Fruit Salads and Blackjacks, and is intended as an hour or two spent laughing on the rides of a travelling fair, not as an evening spent studying in a library with the classics. These are stories told simply, with gentle plots and no mystery, no shocks to the system. Please read them with tongue in cheek. Disparagements aimed at Hollywood in the text are aimed at the strange world of the Hollywood-based motion picture industry, not at the United States of America in general.
The title of the book, NGLND XPX, refers to ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’ which was a signal sent by Admiral Horatio Nelson First Viscount Nelson from his flagship HMS Victory as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence on the 21st of October 1805. The author extends his gratitude to Admiral Nelson and appreciates that it was only his splendid victory on that day that ensured that this author did not have to type in French. Typing in French would have been a problem, since the author’s grasp of the French language runs to reporting the loss of the pen of his Aunt, and little more.
About the author
Ian Hutson was born the third child of two, fifth in a family of four, in the fishing town of Grimsby, England. His father was a deep-sea trawler radio-operator turned Cold War spy, and his mot
her was a socialite and compulsive knitter of pullovers. Early childhood was spent in Hong Kong and Ian initially spoke only Cantonese, eventually learning to read and write English while living on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. After a long and dreary career working for the Civil Service, followed by a long and dreary career working for a few filthy global corporations he now lives the life of a vegan hippie atheist peacenik church-mouse near a hedgerow in Lincolnshire.
Connect with the author online
Smashwords: Ian Hutson
Website and Blog: The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company
Twitter: @dieselelephants
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