Ethelbert's Sunday Morning
Page 4
he gets the message
butter no parsnips
hear no evil but see loads of it
amplify the concept of infinity until it becomes so huge it actually becomes really small and then try to sell it to Pakistan as an alternative Test ground
belatedly wave goodbye to a tryst
Marmite
bin bags
hedgehog toothpaste
Ten minutes passed fairly uneventfully, then they completely stopped doing so.
At first it seemed as if the sound of the front door being battered down was coming from the episode of 'The Sweeney' currently playing on the television. As the noise became louder, Leslie 36 woke up and looked around the room with an expression of mild interest.
After a few seconds the battering ram finally won the fight and the door which had withstood all manner of weather and other more painful stresses for sixty eight years crashed to the floor, to be immediately trampled over by eight men with machine guns.
Four of them burst into the living room like overexcited puppies in a biscuit factory. The rest ran upstairs and began tearing apart the various bedrooms.
“Nobody move!” screamed the first man to enter the room, pointing his gun at Ethelbert's head while the other three searched the room and then trained their guns on the two cats watching languidly from the fireplace.
Ethelbert impassively took another sip of tea and very slowly, with exaggerated effort placed it down on the table before picking up the remote control and muting the sound on the television.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen, would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you!” screamed the man with his gun trained on Ethelbert's head.
“Cake? It's an old sponge recipe I picked up in Brighton in 1951.”
Ethelbert began the process of leaning forward to pick up the cake tray.
“Move away from the cake!”
“I'm afraid that would take up the greater part of an hour. Now then, what can I do for you gentlemen?” Ethelbert's posture shifted imperceptibly and a million thoughts began to jostle for priority. “I don't think that the cats are going to give you any problems, do you?”
The two men who had Leslie and Leslie held in a pincer movement shuffled nervously and looked rather sheepishly at the other one.
“Go and help upstairs!” he hissed at them.
As the two men left the room Ethelbert tried very hard not to break into a smile and also to calculate how long it was since one of the men had opened her bedroom door. About ninety seconds, time to concentrate.
“So,” said Ethelbert, drawing out the words deliberately slowly with the timing perfection of a seasoned newsreader, “are you going to tell me why your friends are currently trampling their muddy boots all over my house and disturbing my cats?”
The line was times to the millisecond.
Just as the man's eyes flickered slightly to indicate that he was forming the answer in his mind, Ethelbert's spare wardrobe exploded, releasing plumes of CS. gas and nicely distracting the one man left downstairs. With practiced efficiency Ethelbert removed the Gloch pistol from behind the sofa cushion and shot the man in the side of the head. Then, pausing to pat Leslie and Leslie reassuringly the 91 year old picked up the machine gun and crept slowly towards the living room door. Three sets of footsteps could be heard thumping down the stairs, then three bodies fell in a heap at the bottom.
“Five down, three to go,” thought Ethelbert, steadying the gun. “Now where did I put that spade, this is going to require a really big hole.”
Before commencifying the shopping operation, Colin had a couple of errands to run.
"Excuse me."
"Yes, how can I help you, sir?" said the man with an air of heavy resignation.
"This is the tourist information center?" asked Colin.
"Yes it is," said the man, glancing sideways at the massive sign proclaiming the booths purpose.
"Good," said Colin, "just checking. It always pays to be accurate in these matters – I once accidentally bought some crack when I thought I was in a shoe shop. That's five months I won't get back. Anyway, I'm looking for some information."
"Regarding what?"
"What I should do about my hedgehog."
"That's not the sort of information we carry."
"I'm a tourist, I demand that you inform me or else I shall sue you under the Trades Contradictions Act."
"That is a made up act, sir."
"Like homosexuality?"
"...No."
"Well, you say that, but have you ever actually seen a gay? I've heard they don't show up on film."
"That's vampires."
"What about gay vampires?"
"What about gay vampires?"
"Perhaps that's a double negative and they cancel each other out."
"What?"
"Perhaps you can photograph gay vampires but not normal vampires or gay non-vampires."
"Normal vampires?"
"Yes, you know, the ones that don't perform acts of immoral anal-based behaviour on each other. Perhaps you can photograph them."
"Perhaps you can, sir, I however do not have a camera."
"That's very careless of you my good man or boy, one never knows when the necessity may arise to photographically capture an incident involving a celebrity bumming in order that one may inform the authorities."
"I really will have to discontinue this transaction with the utmost haste."
"Would you care to tell me why?"
"I don't care but I'll tell you anyway, you've been coming here every day for the last three years and I really must insist that you piss off and don't come back."
"Well done, you have passed the test. I shall immediately inform the squirrels that live under my bath. You can expect a visit from them in about three thousand years."
Colin ticked the item off his list and then proceeded with the utmost haste towards the newsagents.
"Hello newsagent style servant, I'd like to buy a mars bar, please."
"To eat? Well, all the chocolate bars are right there in front of you."
"Yes, I am currently locating them via the method of refracting light through my eyes and optic nerves."
"So you're not completely stupid?"
"My stupidity has been officially measured by NASA. and falls well within the safe levels outlined by the safe levels outlining committee. And now I begin my next sentence after this colon: I cannot see anywhere a sign stating clearly and rectangularly that they have been tested."
"I can assure you that there is no listeria, salmonella, e-coli or anything else in our chocolate."
"Yes, that much is beyond the horizon and the pale and my ken and the thunderdome, but have they been tested for drugs?"
"Drugs?" thought the newsagent, "this is a new one."
"What do you mean?" he asked, hoping to expedite matters before the next ice age.
"Drugs. Amphetamines, dope, crack."
"I'm sorry I don't understand."
"Don't change the subject, have they been tested?"
"Tested for what?"
"Muscle building drugs. Have, in short trousers, your current stock of mars bars been tested, thereby to ascertain whether they or whether they do do not in deed or in fact contain muscle building drugs or not?"
"Are you serious?"
"No, you're the serious one and I'm the crazy wacky one, I would have thought that was obvious."
"Geography."
"Don't change the subject, have they been tested?"
"Of course not, why should they have been?"
"To ascertain whether or whether not certain substances have or have whether or have not have been or haven't have not to have been..."
"Yes, we've established that..."
"I'm so pleased."
"Well I'm not, buy something now or leave my shop. Anyway, why would they contain stimulants?"
"Athletes are always failing drug tests and a large number of athletes eat mars bars."
"Thank you, my good man or woman."
"Look, will you, during the next ten seconds before I hit you very hard in the knees and eject you from my shop like a betamax video tape onto a beige carpet, be buying some bloody chocolate?"
"Of course not, if there are no drugs in them what's the point?"
"Because they taste nice?"
"Yeah, and I eat pickled unicorns for breakfast! Disgraceful! Never darken my stools again!"
Colin stormed out, noting with satisfaction the MI5 operative lurking near the greeting cards with what he erroneously thought was a hidden video camera.
After finishing his shopping he perambulated over to the park for a relaxing lunch.
"Excuse me," he asked an unfortunate woman.
"Yes?"
"Do you require the entirety of this bench in order to complete your culinary processes or is there a section of it which I can use for my own masticatory purposes, heretofore the oral consumption of pre-prepared sandwich style sandwiches?"
The woman clutched her bag to her chest and shifted as far away as she could without actually falling off the end of the bench.
"No, it's free."
"You mean they haven't introduced a congestion charge for benches yet?! Excellent! They'll be charging us for breathing next, the crafty fascist bastards!"
"Yes, I suppose so," mumbled the woman, trying to ignore him.
"Really! I was being facetious but you actually think it's going to happen – I'm absolutely astonished! Is there a white paper in the offing?"
"I really couldn't say."
"My god, have they made it subject to the Official Secrets Act! I can't believe the depths to which these scum will sink. Do you think we're being bugged now? Should I put a radio on to drown out our conversation? Perhaps we should communicate in code?"
"I don't think that will be necessary," said the woman, finishing her sandwich as quickly as possible.
"Ah, of course – you've already