Don't Blame Me, I Only Wrote It

Inspiration for this piece of frabjuos claptrap comes from Harry Hutton, who has just posted a two act play on his website. So send the hired goons round to his house, if you please.

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Puddlesborough-On-The-Wold: An Epic Poem in Half-an-Act, in the Manner of Dylan Thomas, Pace Chesterton, with Added Cheese for Extra Goodness

In Puddlesborough-on-the-Wold, things were going smoothly, as could be expected. Ms. Hoggins-nee-Goggins was preparing a little knapsack of jollies for Mentological inspection, and her neighbours, Mrs. Peasbury and Kneasbury, had popped round to examine her collection.

“Do you think?” said one.

“Quite so ...” said the other.

“Perhaps a little …?”

“But never extravagantly.”

“No, never extravagantly. Rather – diminutively?”

“Rather.”

“Quite so.”

*

Meantime, the Major had troubles of his own. Blasted Germans were dancing around in his back garden playing the accordion, singing Oktoberfest songs (and it wasn’t even Wednesday); while a Rhinoceros stamped hither and thither over his roof. If he hadn’t told Podger to clear the savannah from his roof once, he’d told him … a great many times indeed. And it was evening already.

“Mister – PODGER!” he roared. “Clear the Veldt from my awning THIS – INSTANT! I don’t want those D*N RHINO-HUNTERS on my roof again!”

Apart from that, the Liberal Democrats were getting restless in their cages. When he went out to collect eggs from them this morning, they had shoved out pamphlets at him through the cage bars, having something to do with the ‘unethical treatment of animals’ and the ‘unavoidable inevitability of the illegalisation of unlawful fox hunts’. Maybe it was the mating season.

And now – this:

“Well, it’s like this, sir,” said Sergeant Aughton. “You see, sir, it’s how I feel sir, and I thought sir, I ad to say somefink, sir.”

He’d been going on like this for hours.

“Get to the point, Sergeant!” growled the Major.

“Well, it’s like this, sir…”

The Major rolled his eyes. “Do you think it’s mating season?”

“Mating season, sir?”

“Yes, mating season, boy, mating season!”

“I wouldn’t … know, sir…”

“Nor do I. Something to do with sex, I believe.”

“Sex, sir?”

“Me neither, sergeant. Me neither.”

“Well, it just so appens, sir…”

(Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled…)

“… I was oping, sir…”

(The natives were beating their tom-toms again…)

“…. To ave a sex-change hoperation, sir.”

“What?” The Major sat bolt upright. “You were hoping to become – a woman?”

“Ah … no, sir – I was oping to become … Boris Johnson.”

“That’s it, sir!” shouted the Major angrily. “I can stand women in the army … vegetarians, maybe… darkies, yes … and those slant-eyed little Chinee, definitely … but TORIES, IN THE ARMED FORCES? NEVER!!!”

“Well, sir… I see I won’t get anywhere on this…” said the Sergeant primly, standing to attention.

“And bomb those Germans on the way out!” shouted the Major, as the Sergeant passed through the door.

*

Later that day, Alec Guinness, Richard Attenborough, and Cilla Black sat in a bomb bunker deep beneath the town as the Liberal Democrats ran gibbering through the streets, flinging atomic bombs and vials of Ebola down the streets like bowling balls.

“Oh, golly,” said Alec and Richard, watching the world explode. “Oh horror, oh gosh, oh bollocks.”

“If you turn on UK TV,” began Cilla, “They’re doing a re-run of The Good Life at the moment. Frightfully depressing, I know, but not so bad, really, compared to …”

Alec Guinness, who had had enough, took out a gun and shot her.

“”What did you think of that?”

“Oh, not bad,” said Richard Attenborough. “Timing a little off – but still … “

“One must nowadays…”

“Yes, one must…"