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| A fine goose, cooked to perfection |
Christmas Update No.5 ...
Forgive me if I am a little subdued this morning. I am typing this on my iCellmate, sitting in the custody suite of Marylebone Police Station. My colourful paper hat is at a less than jaunty angle and my kazoo has a kink in it that stops the paper tube rolling all the way out when I sigh through it. Christmas day was splendid but I do so abhor these early mornings.
Anyway, yesterday! I promised you a run-down of the day, so here it is.
We opened presents in the hallway around the larger of the six indoor Christmas pines, while sherry and exceptionally bloody Bloody Marys were served by the new Indian staff that the Maharajah of Reading was kind enough to give one. I think that almost everyone liked their new racehorses, although some of the animals were a little skittish once taken out of the paper. Certainly the Persians will need shampooing in the New Year. Francesca's pony stampeded towards the Titian Room but young Harry was on hand with his new Purdeys and took it down before any damage was done. While the broken present was removed and replaced with a thoroughbred spare, Monsieur Hollande asked if warm baguettes would be available later and the rest of the guests went for a ride around the house.
I'm told that it was obvious by the time they rode through the orangery that, even side-saddle, Margaret Rutherford has a wonderfully sturdy and practical seat.
Luncheon was magificent, so much so that I offered to extend Cook's employment with a fresh contract (at post-recession wages of course and the same revised terms offered to the cleaner items of the rest of the household staff). Some of the hummingbirds proved a little rich for the guests, especially with chips and mushy peas, but the trifle with Bird's Custard was a triumph! The only slight problem was that the little steam-powered gravy train that runs the length and breadth of the table had been sub-contracted to Mr Branson's Virgin Express this year, and as a consequence it was both running late and tilted disastrously on the corners.
The Christmas crackers from Tiffanys are to be recommended, as is the "remote control" option so that guests simply point at a cracker, press the button and it pulls itself. In particular I quite liked the way that the gifts inside aren't always the usual boring diamonds and such, but alternate with share certificates, gilts, bonds and deeds to bankrupt properties. Such a nice touch!
I think that it is very important for those of us with social standing to give something back to society at this time of year, so I announced a 28 day stay of execution on my loans to the NHS and we had some of the poor from the village brought in to watch us eat - they always seem to love the spectacle and are quite adept at catching bones.
Once Maj's speech had been aired we threw formality to the wind and I ordered the ad-hoc drinks trays to be unlocked.
About an hour later Shirley Bassey put my Mercedes 600 Grosser Pullman in the pool (again) which jolly jape, fortunately, everyone thought was quite hilarious, especially so since Tom Jones was in the boot at the time (and as far as I know still is). Then the Rolling Stones arrived for their concert and everyone joined in with the traditional turning back of the carpets in the ballroom for dancing.
After that my recollection gets a little bit uncertain. I think that the two South American gentlemen staying in the East Wing Louis XVI suites, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria and his good friend General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, had a couple of bags of flour or something fetched and showed us some quite quaint parlour games using rolled-up fifties and hundreds. Oh how we sneezed!
I vaguely remember hearing helicopters outside at one stage, and then lots of chaps in military gear jumped through the windows with German Shepherd dogs and they all shouted "freeze". I thought this particularly funny since they were the ones breaking the windows and letting the cold air in so of course we'd all freeze. I recall being led towards a charabanc with pretty blue lights and, when I said to the plainly clothed gentleman I was handcuffed to, "'Ello darlin', are we off on a mystery tour then?" he wrote it down and said something about used in evidence. Then I woke up here, in a cell, toasty-warm under a small unsuccessful cat-burgar from Stoke Poges.
Solicitor should be here soon though, and hopefully that charabanc is still around to get us all back to Owl Towers in time for the Boxin' Day Hunt (not a hunt, use of the word hunt does not imply endorsement of huntin', other pastimes and equine activities are available, terms and conditions apply, see fox's arse for details).
Anyway chaps and chapesses, I had a really rather splendid Christmas day and I hope that you all did too.
Now, if you'll excuse me, apparently it is traditional in these circumstances to run one's tin mug up and down the bars until the Custody Officer turns the fire hoses on us.
Chin-chin!
If I were still capable of remembering anything, I am sure this would bring back some happy memories. One thing I do recall though, is the inadvisability of referring to your current hosts as 'Plebs'. Apparently this induces them to 'take down' a lot more than you imagined possible for use as 'evidence'. I am sure your solicitor would concur.
ReplyDeleteI am sure you have heard this one before but, just to cheer you up now that you have probably been hosed down, 'If a female barrister drops her briefs, does that make her a solicitor?'
Drop me a line if your hosts become tiresome and my new friends the Dancing Primate Troop of Barra de Kwanza will have you out in no time. They really do have a sense of humour (as I found out yesterday) so the sight of them pooing all over the Custody Sergeant should cause great hilarity for you and your fellow guests.
Sad to relate, your advice in re "plebs" is a little late. I can also report that they do not answer well to "Dixon of Dock Ruddy Green" or respond with fondness to bended knees and exhortations of "Ello ello ello what have we 'ere then?". Apparently one of my charges is for using a policeman's helmet for "purposes for which it was patently not designed" but what do they expect a chap to do after he's been drinking and none of the windows in their little bus will open?
DeleteI had not, in fact, heard that joke - but I shall be stealing it and claiming it as my own, thank you!
If you could please to dispatch the DPTs of BdK that would be much appreciated, address of Station herewith and I will of course meet all first-class expenses and so forth. In particular if they could target PC Snow of the Softly Softly Division, that would be much appreciated (the man has no manners at all).
Oh dear, I feared as much. Well, chin up and all that Miss Marple character building advice.
ReplyDeleteFor future reference, a policeman still has the legal requirement to allow a pregnant lady, in extremis, to relieve herself into his helmet (I jest not), so get your brief to convince the beak you are an albeit very ugly lady, but pregnant nevertheless.
Following this train of thought, a Gentlemen never seeks something as crude as revenge, merely a balancing of accounts. Your sobering cold shower may allow you to recall which of your more attractive maidlings are likely to have been impreganted during your festivities. In three months time, when they are visibly so, instruct them to perambulate the local High Street and insist on their rights. Given your rather eccentric habit of exposing silver halide crystals to light, I am sure, by following them at a discreet distance, you will be able to record and chuckle over your balanced account for years to come.
While yesterday's many, many meals remain undigested and in place I will have little difficulty in assuming the disguise of advanced pregnancy. To be brutal, even half-starved I still require a certain elasticity in my waistcoats.
DeleteRegarding the hit you ordered on PC Snow, I need the advice of Mr Gorilla Bananas on how I can get a Ninja troop of primates onto Friday's British Airways flight out of Luanda. Your offer of First Class is generous but I think discretion is the order of the day here so I will place them in economy right at the back of the aircraft close to the toilets. They do get very thirsty in a forced air environment. In addition, they will be seated alongside returning oil rig workers so should remain unremarkable among their fellow passengers.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent plan. My dear late Mother used to smuggle parties of primates out of East Germany, usually with just the down-turned brim of a hat and the up-turned collar of a coat for disguise. Happy (and lucrative) days. I will send the car to collect the hit-chaps from Heathrow. Anything in particular I should have written on the board for the chauffeur to hold up?
DeleteEeek eek usually works for me.
DeleteOK, I shall have the chappie hold up a notice readin' "All those with lethal hands, feet and concealed weapons one pace forward not so fast those of you with minimal body-hair". That should do the trick.
DeleteWell then, it sounds like it was a typically English Christmas celebration. (Cue Millicent Martin to sing...)
ReplyDeleteDashed splendid, dashed splendid. Only the addition of snow could have made it better, but then I left it too late this year to have the North Atlantic Drift diverted.
DeleteRegret to advise Millicent Martin in no current condition to sing; she broke into Cook's cooking sherry cupboard some time before dawn, and is still being pumped out at St Mary's A&E...
Are all your Christmases as dull and uneventful as this one? It must get rather tiresome. You should have had Clarkson chauffeur you over to Pudding Towers in Sheffield where we had some excellent japes involving dolphins, donkey milk and the disinterred bodies of the last three popes while chomping on gold leaf embossed dodo embryos washed down with fresh amniotic fluid from the Duchess of Cambridge's womb. Ah well, Christmas only comes once a year. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteAh, jellied dolphin. Is there anything finer? I thought that Sigourney Weaver had, at no small risk to herself, thoroughy estabished that Cambridge has acid for blood and pumps her embryos down the throats of entombed peasants?
Deletep.s. Where DID you get the donkey milk? Sainsburys here were quite out.
From a lactating donkey called Margaret.
DeleteIt makes me yearn for those old fashioned Christmases, when all the under-80-IQ's would lob a house-brick through Woolworths shop window, just to have a week in a warm cell, and a full festive Turkey lunch.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Sir, indeed. Lobbing a breezeblock through the windscreen of the Chief Constable's Wolseley only gets ten quid from Court funs and a social worker for life (for the breezeblock) these days. So sad. The social bargain has been changed out of all recognition. Much better to upset someone with a tweet - although that usually carries sentences measured in years, not turkeys ...
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