Open to Doubt

by Marcus Achison

  From the Chronicles of Desire and Wishy-washiness

  Stories of Love and Romance

  Edition 1: An Office Affair

  By Roberta Monobeast

  The tale of Arthur Crandy and Enid Mallow is both uplifting and dreadful. Arthur, who came from a broken home with no chimney, had started work at Plutonium and Sons Solicitors as a structural engineer on the 11th of January 2004, the day after being circumcised for the third time. It was while he was being shown around the filing cabinets and heavy machinery on the dockside by senior partner Des Plutonium that he first saw and immediately fell in love with Enid Mallow. Enid, the company secretary and resident pianist, was a shy yet raucous young woman with a perfect hourglass figure. She had long auburn hair and ginger sideburns and spoke with a slight Japanese accent.

  In complete contrast to Enid, Arthur had no hourglass figure, had short brown hair and spoke with a slight Chinese accent, although he was originally from Inverness. Once the two similar yet different colleagues managed to master each other’s bizarre accents, they immediately fell in love and decided to share a desk. Arthur sat on one side and calculated complex algorithms and worked out the structural loads and stresses of exorbitant lawyer’s fees and Enid sat on the other side typing, doing her nails and playing excerpts from Gershwin, Mozart and Slade.

  Eventually Arthur plucked up the courage, by drinking heavily, to ask Enid out on a date but Enid fell off her chair with shock and fractured her lungs. Following a trip to the first-aid room to re-set Enid’s lungs, Arthur asked her a second time and Enid said she’d love to go out with him and thought he’d never ask her. The big night finally arrived and the love-struck couple met at an Ethiopian restaurant in town and couldn’t take their eyes off each other. Arthur ordered a plate of millet and Enid had a bowl of water and the twosome laughed and joked for hours in the foul smelling, semi-condemned eatery.

  Near the end of the evening, Enid excused herself from the table to go to the toilet and Arthur finished off his remaining millet, washing it down with a pint of buttermilk. After what appeared to be five minutes but was actually two hours, Arthur became concerned about Enid and went looking for her. He spent three hours looking for her all over town when he suddenly remembered she was in the toilet in the restaurant so he went back there in a taxi.

  When he arrived at the toilet he couldn’t believe his eyes. Enid had fallen in love with one of the waiters and had just concluded an impromptu wedding service in the toilet, conducted by local priest Father Gimly O’Limerick, who just happened to be hanging around the ladies’ toilet. Arthur was overcome with rage and jealousy and he instantly brandished his 357 Magnum that he carried for protection. He sprayed a hail of bullets throughout the latrine, killing everyone, before paying his bill and exiting the premises. He would now focus all his attentions on the cute accountant and resident saxophonist back at Plutonium and Sons first thing on Monday morning.

  Hencock and Cockhen Supermarket

  Where lovely stuff comes at a lovely price!

  Special Offers

  Discontinued Items

  Pick what you want.

  Ask for a price.

  All sizes once available.

  Mainly rubbish.

  No refunds ever.

  Rhubarb Teapots

  £2 each.

  Biscuits on Offer

  Broken or whole, you choose!

  Gathered by hand.

  Approved by all.

  Once eaten, none left.

  Heavy objects

  £5 each.

  Truncheon meat

  £20 per pound.

  Why not enjoy one of our big tarts from £50. Must pre-book.

  Crisps

  All flavours:

  Rum and coke

  Lager and lime

  Salmon and trout

  Wheat and chaff

  Foot and mouth

  Boiling Lard

  Tosspots

  £3 each.

  Boiled Sweets

  High on sugar

  Low on flavour.

  Manufactured to standards.

  100% Hessian available.

  Full price still available.

  Collapsible Leather

  Monkeys

  2 for £10

  Retractable Seagulls

  10 for £2.

  Restaurant Reviews

  By our gluttonous eatery reviewer Gilbert St Pranny

  Our gastronomic expert and pompous windbag Gilby St Pranny delivers his verdict on another two restaurants. This week he’s in the Lake District where he goes undercover at Vic Terpid’s All You Can Pay for Buffet and Devour, the new eatery owned by top chefs Dick Zem and Pierre Le Divot.

  Vic Terpid’s All You Can Pay for Buffet

  I’ve known Mr Terpid since we grew up together in the dim and distant. He always told me he’d either become a convicted murderer or open his own restaurant. Well, it looks like he’s made good on the latter proposal and his all you can pay for buffet is doing big business. He tells me that people have to turn up or book just to get a table, and the night I was there it certainly was busy, with nearly most of some of the tables occupied. His unique premise is that you only pay for what you order and anything you don’t actually order, you don’t have to pay for. The imposing building is a former lunatic asylum, surrounded by a tar-filled moat and electric fence. One side of the main restaurant consists of troughs containing a variety of dishes such as horse pizza and dolphin pie, and the other half consists of hundreds of plastic tables and chairs, all complete with overflowing ashtray. The menu is vast, being printed on a piece of cardboard 6-feet by 6-feet, but the number of dishes appears to be limited, with only a choice of six the night I was there. I opted for the chargrilled angel delight with a side order of sandwiches and duck fat. For pudding, I had the chicken and chips. All the dishes were served on a plate complete with knife and fork and optional spoon. It was all washed down with a bottle of 1975 UHT Milk and it certainly filled a gap, although I was quite squeamish later. Yummy, 2 out of 10.

  Devour

  Dick Zem and Pierre Le Divot have been well known faces in London’s West End for nearly sixty decades and have run many of the Capital’s finest eating establishments such as Plutty’s, The Mouth, Feltch and Eater’s Digest, to name but a few. This, however, is their first venture out of London and can only be described as a move out of London. As Zem himself described it, “It’s definitely a move out of London”. Their new Lake District premises is a former coalmine. A lift journey of only 4 hours takes you 15,000 feet below the surface of the earth and delivers you right to your table, if your table happens to be next to the lift shaft. In the dimly lit mine, you are attended to by waiters on horseback from all over the world. The food is, to say the least, minimalist. I ordered the lettuce with cup of water and it was duly delivered to my table by Paco, an Icelandic hermaphrodite riding a beautiful grey mare. I was pleasantly surprised how full I was after only one piece of lettuce and a small cup of water. It may have been something to do with eating at depth or the fish supper I had in the lift on the way down. I noticed at other tables all the meals were beautifully presented and the various aromas coming from the kitchen somehow managed to rise above the choking stench of horse manure and coal dust. A great night was had by all, 1 out of 19.

  Next week Gilbert is back in his native Motherwell where he visits Chef Benny Fuffy’s new establishment Eat My Meat and his old friend Tashiro Minimoto’s new Japanese diner The Gobble and Swallow.

  Tales of Wonder and Amazement

  The Adventures of Pumper the Dog

  By our canine exploits columnist Lillian Skrondo

  One of the most famous and best loved animals in Gubbenstery has to be Pumper the dog. Pumper, full name Pumper Smith, is a cross between a Bulldog and a Cocker Spaniel called a Bullcock. He is owned by Mr Leonard Kilowatt, a retired dictator from Central Europe who moved to Gubbenstery when Pumper was a one week-old puppy. Over the years, Pumper’s adventur
es and escapades have become the stuff of legend. Pumper is now 20 years old and his very first adventure took place when he was still a puppy. Leonard had nearly finished writing his 1,000-page memoirs and had left it on his desk and gone out for cigarettes and cheese. In his absence, Pumper climbed onto the desk and peed on the memoirs, causing it to swell up into a pulped mass of paper and ink. When Leonard returned he was enraged. It was his only copy and it had taken him 10 years to write. He grabbed Pumper by the throat and smashed a glass ashtray over his head and punched him on the jaw. Bravely, Pumper retaliated by leaping on Leonard and biting his eyes, nose and mouth until he was a bloody mess. Leonard was shocked at the tenacity of his puppy. Eventually, after six months of not talking to each other, the two made friends and all was well again in the Kilowatt household.

  Six months later, Pumper was fully grown and had quite strange proportions. He had the head and upper body of a bulldog but his legs were a bit odd. His back legs were one foot long but his front legs were four feet long. This gave him quite an odd appearance. It made him look like he was sitting even when he was walking or running. Another of Pumper’s amazing adventures took place one night when Leonard’s house was burgled. Two men wearing false moustaches and dressed as women broke in and were in the middle of purloining Leonard’s collection of £20 notes that he kept in the freezer for safety. Pumper heard the men and ran into the kitchen to investigate. When he saw what was happening he leapt into action and bit the first man on the back of the head, cracking his skull. He hit the floor in agony. The other intruder pulled a gun and fired at Pumper, but this extra special dog was too quick. He dodged the bullets and bit the second intruder in the groin and started chewing through his skirt. The man crashed to the floor covered in blood. Pumper seized his chance to finish off the two wrongdoers and started jumping on both their heads to make sure they were destroyed. He then peed on both of them. Leonard eventually arrived on the scene and initially couldn’t understand the situation. Who were these men with moustaches dressed in miniskirts and high heels stinking of dog piss? When Leonard worked out what had happened he rewarded Pumper by giving him a big bowl of boiling hot visceral organs from a seagull.

  Being a clever dog, Pumper didn’t need to be taken for a walk by Leonard. Whenever he wanted to go for a walk, he simply sprinted across the living room floor and leapt bravely through the window and landed in the garden. It meant that Leonard had to fork out a fortune for glaziers, but since it saved him having to walk the dog, he didn’t mind. It was on one of Pumper’s daily walks that another of his amazing adventures took place. As he was passing the Post Office, a nasty-looking thief with a bloodwart on the end of his nose snatched an elderly lady’s handbag and made off with it. Pumper noticed this despicable crime and gave chase at his fastest speed. When he caught up with the rogue, Pumper charged the transgressor. He knocked the bad guy off his feet and bit into his lower face and completely removed his lower jaw. The scoundrel screamed in pain as his tongue drooped out the bottom of his mouth onto the pavement. Pumper then bit into the man’s chest and started snapping off his ribs one by one and eating them. As a parting shot, Pumper forced one of his front legs down the man’s throat and burst his pyloric sphincter and then peed on him. When the police arrived, the old lady explained what had happened and the Chief Constable, Sir Clarence Honeypot, rewarded Pumper with a big bowl of boiling hot visceral organs from a seagull and a ride home in his police car. Leonard was delighted when he heard how brave Pumper had been and gave him another reward of a big bowl of boiling hot visceral organs from a seagull. Pumper wolfed down the delicious treat and then went on his merry way by diving through one of the few unbroken windows in Leonard’s house and going for a walk.

  As Pumper got older, he became a well-known face around Gubbenstery. Everybody loved Pumper and everybody fed Pumper special treats whenever he appeared. On one of the occasions that Pumper was being given a treat by a friendly neighbour, he sprang into action yet again. Pumper was relaxing in the garden of Miss Beatrice Throbber, one of the neighbourhood spinsters. He was sitting on the grass wagging his tail and enjoying a big bowl of boiling hot visceral organs from a seagull. All of a sudden, smoke started pouring out of Miss Throbber’s front door and Pumper immediately sensed something was wrong. He ran into the house and found Miss Throbber lying on the kitchen floor with half the kitchen on fire. She had been boiling up a 5kg tin of the Swedish delicacy surströmming to give to Pumper as a special treat when it exploded and started the fire. The explosion knocked Miss Throbber unconscious and also blew her arms and legs off. Pumper knew he had to act fast to save Beatrice so he quickly peed on her before powerfully biting right into her mouth and grabbing her tongue delicately in his teeth. He then pulled her out of the house to safety. When the fire brigade arrived they praised Pumper’s brave action that saved Miss Throbber’s life. Pumper sat on the grass eating Beatrice’s tongue which had unfortunately come off during Pumper’s dynamic rescue.

  Over the years, Pumper had many exciting adventures and became more and more famous around Gubbenstery. Children in the local schools were told of his adventures and a degree course in Advanced Canine Anal Itching at Gubbenstery University was established in his name. He made guest appearances at dog food awareness classes and even appeared on TV on one occasion to bark out the news when the regular newsreader was ill, although he did pee on the weathergirl.

  Perhaps Pumper’s greatest adventure took place in the summer of 1971 when Pumper was in his prime. He was walking along the road one day, about to indulge in a series of pees across a 5-mile radius, when he heard an enormous crash. The local orphanage had subsided into a massive 50-foot deep crater and the children were screaming. Pumper wasted no time and dived into the hole and landed with a small yelp at the bottom on top of a particularly fat child. Before the rescue services even knew what had happened, Pumper started dragging the children out of the hole one by one until he had saved all 20 children. He even went back for the orphanage director, Mr Conurbation, and dragged him out too, before peeing on the lot of them. The only down side to Pumper’s rescue was that he tended to drag people by their tongue, nose or ears. Nobody knew why he adopted this method but it was very effective. Most of the children were left deformed with missing tongues, broken noses and odd numbers of ears but they were grateful that Pumper had saved their lives. Their chances of marrying and finding partners in the future were now vastly diminished due to their obvious ugliness, but at least they were alive. Pumper was given the Cecil B. de Pantyhose award for bravery, which now sits on the mantelpiece in Leonard’s house, just above where Pumper sits in his basket enjoying every single day of his retirement.

  Automobile and Pastry Events

  New season’s animal gases now available for short-term rental or long-term lease. We stock the main ones including cat gas, dog gas and monkey gas. Contact British Bestial Exudates, 171 – 132 Punkaroo Boulevard, Glord.

  Visit Billy Nanabomb’s Laughter Restaurant and enjoy the funniest dinner you’ll ever have in your entire life this week. We have joke-telling waiters, exploding plates and glasses, high voltage cutlery, chairs fitted with razor wire, a chef with only six convictions for poisoning and much, much more. Give Billy a call on Scrutto 0001.

  Does anyone have a copy of the lovely book “Punishment Beatings for Dogs and Cats and How to Administer Them” by Joseph Scrumple? Willing to pay upwards of somewhere in the region of close to 2p. Phone Hilda Zard on East Buntyside 8888.

  For sale. In-car monkey nut dispenser. Holds up to thirty million monkey nuts and dispenses in multiples of 28,000,000 or 29,000,000. Plugs into rear seat and plays a selection of hymns every time a nut is dispensed. Phone Patsy Gumeroon on Glord 0002.

  Treat yourself to a personal copy of the Bible carved onto a bowling ball. Every word of every verse of Old, New and rarely seen Lesbian testament, beautifully hand carved by machine while you wait. Makes a great talking point at church on a Sunday. Available in black or tartan. Free
children’s high chair with every ball sold. Ring Holy Globes Ltd on Gubbenstery 6789 and ask for Lady Rowena Smenk.

  Reasonably priced green yogurt now available. Can be purchased in 2-gallon or 200-ton tubs. Originally banana flavour. Comes with free lid.

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