By Vivian Stanshall

The story so far.

Sandra still smells and Hubert has been sick. Bengie has tapped his briar out on the back of his neck and Hubert has told him off about this as they are ballooning over Worcestershire. Peregrin is still trying to order on Cathartacles Curry and Kebab House. Ralph is also still in South America sweating out the filthiest swamp fever in a hut so small even the rats are hunchbacked. Gwen and Maureen are now fully professional wrestlers, whilst Great Aunt Florrie lives on and on and on at Rawlinson End remote and aloof as Miss Haversham.

Hearing of the girls magnificent win at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon, in a tag match against two shaven bears underwater she tartly retorted "Oh bottom, my Ralph could play billiards on horseback before he was eleven."

Now read on dot dot dot dot dot.

It was breakfast time and when the Rawlinson family broke a fast you cursed central heating and double-glazing. Aunt Florrie thrust her turkey head from it’s private orifice, which action by dint of practice and Vaseline over the years was not now too difficult. She was overcome by the vapours and withdrew into the room, one nostril clutched to her breast handkerchief. She smoothed the now greying hairs back from her temples and tucked them neatly under her flying buttresses.

Betwixt bites of Oxford marmalade she glanced across at old Sir Henry.

"Thank Clapton" she thought "that John’s early death precluded him from knowing what kind of swine his father really was."

She sighed deeply and her mind strode back some thirty years on sensible brogue feet.

Henry in uniform, the first night of the wonderful Jewish musical Oklahymie.

Then after to dance the night away at the Synagogo, but more, much more than this, they did it Oy Veh.

What foolishness now it seemed to a woman already in the twilight of her autumn. She left Sir Henry chuckling over the obituaries in the Times and slipped away on leopardette slippered feet and drifted into the vast dusty music room where great brown spiders traced their quiet geometric impudence on the chandeliers and crouched. Ignoring this, Florrie wiped clean the piano stool with her moist lavender hankie, and seating herself at the Beckstein played a little something that had once meant a great deal to her, but now, sadly, rather arthritically…

And the room would seem again to glow. The blink of brass buttons, the gaiety, the silvery roars of delicate laughter. My goodness what a lot of balls she’d seen in her time. And Henry, glass in hand, legs impertinently apart showing the whites of his flies, roaring for a see.

"Do You See blast you."

What a kind man he’d been.

She remembered the time Mr Cumberpatch had fallen badly in the orchard and broken his leg. Why Henry fairly raced back to the house for his pistol. He couldn’t bear to see even the lowliest of creatures in pain.

"Do You See."

A chorus or two of the family song.

We’re Rawlinsons and Maynards

Completely self containards

It’s said we’re bulletheads

But we’re a much much nicer class

We’re Maynard sons of Rawlin

Our manners quite appallin’

If you haven’t got a country seat

You can stuff it up yer suburban semi-detatched,

mortgaged up to the hilt blleh

Perhaps Henry would call in Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer, for a couple of the cups that cheer and talk the old fool into singing a song.

"Up on the table with you."

What was that rubbish he used to bray? Something about knitting or socks.

Darnin’ socks, darnin’ socks

For your man

Darn darn darn

Big toes through again

Darnin’ socks, darnin’ socks

Darn darn darn

Darn, there goes the doorknocker

I bet it’s Mrs Brown

‘Allo dear, come inside

Have a cup of tea

Hope I’m not intruding

You know me

Ever so humble

Still we mustn’t grumble

Looking round

Can I help?

Anything at all

Matter of fact yes you can

Come to think

I’ve got a lot of socks to darn

Never mind the stink

As one is a farming

Farm farm farm

They say a bit of muck never did no folk no harm

Out in his gumboots

Plough plough plough

Muggins here got a field big fat sow

She asked me in the morning

Turnips do they grow

Get the breakfast down me and out you go

Just one comfort ‘fore I lie inside me box

The Lord wears trousers

Jehovah never mentioned socks

And if an angel asks me

For a little hole to fill

Darn darn darn darn

Darn, I'll go to hell

And while he was at it, eyes closed and swaying, waggish Sir Henry would pin a fox’s brush to the old chap’s coat tails and then send him back over the fields to the village still clutching his tankard.

"Give him a couple of minutes for a good start" then they’d unleash the hounds

"now we’ll see if the beggar can run hahaha." How they yelped.

She heard the two speed Black and Decker start horribly up in the downstairs bathroom and the high pitched screams of Henry doing his own fillings. Curious how the Rawlinson family distrusted dentists. She remembered the night of Arbuthnot’s honeymoon in Vienna. He knew he could never face his new wife without an immediate and immense extraction. And so he fastened a length of string about the tooth that pained him and the other end to the door of the cage like lift, and waited. But to no effect, the lift ascended, and nothing happened.

Tearing open the iron door Arbuthnot immediately threw himself down the shaft.

Few men would have had the intelligence to do that.

There was a scuffling at the door, a sound as though a hot water bottle were stifling a yawn, at that instant young Tarquin burst into the room, red cheeked and breathless.

For a few moments he lay on the carpet panting like a great hound, or, for a few moments he lay on the hound panting like a great carpet. Then with a spring he was on his feet and suddenly ejaculated

"I say Aunt."

Florrie turned a cold eye towards him. Normally he didn’t like Arabic food but that day he was so excited he swallowed one and managed to keep it down.

Next week.

But wait, Arbuthnot, in a small dingy, earnestly Hemming his way out to sea is in trouble at a place called Dead Man’s Point.

You will see, dot dot dot.

Christmas at Rawlinson End part one.

Cannibalism at the Synagogo or You Can Have Your Kike And Eat It.

The story so far.

Henry has been reading Home Doctor, and with his characteristic generosity to the under privileged, offered his converted garage workshop and newly acquired expertise to the needy villagers. Those owing rent to Rawlinson End invent all manner of disease for Henry’s ready knife, well actually a well-honed sabre sterilised with the breath of a rabid dog.

Great Aunt Florrie turns her hand to lobotomy, high-botomy, and occasionally medium-botomy which involves going into a trance with the patient. Lobotomy is misunderstood by some of the illiterates and Florrie’s horrified when presented with several rude country bums.

Old Seth Onetooth actually stood on his head, or tried to, because he had a boil on the back of his neck.

"I don’t want to seem morbid, but did you see his face before he died?" asked Gerald.

"Horrible, looked as though he’d died of fear".

Ralph is mid Atlantic and Sandra still smells.

Now read on dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot..

It was true, Ralph is coming home. For the first time in twelve years; and the idea of seeing Roxanne stirs and excites him. Roxanne, her young breasts like hunting dogs straining at the leash. He wondered if anything had changed. A dozen years it had seemed only the day before yesterday when clear eyed spruce and eager, or Bruce eyed drunk and Frank Ifield, he’d left for South America.

He stared down moodily at the green scaled flying fish skipping and fluttering over the waves.

A po-faced steward lay under the bed. A po-faced steward reminded him that second sitting for luncheon was already well entrenched in the entré.

The man had the simian posture and cerebral stature of a pygmy.

Ralph wasn’t hungry.

A middle-aged drunk in a Bavarian hat belched on to the deck and offered Ralph a swig from a greasy bottle of Entre Deux Legs. When Ralph declined he tried to kiss him. Ralph refused so the man bit his leg. It was extremely painful. And after some minutes Ralph said "Oh alright then", but the man seemed to have lost interest and started yodelling over the rail, some curious song about talented tortoises.

He then told Ralph an obscure joke about a giant octopus that left awful squid marks on the seabed. Ralph didn’t get it.

Meanwhile, back at the Great House, Hubert Maynard arrived.

Dear, dear, Hubert. In his middle forties, and yet, he was still unusual.

He would throw himself naked on to the lawn in a northerly direction parallel to the Earthly axis and lying on his back, with that loathsome Roman clockface tattooed around his lower and private parts, tell the time, with astounding accuracy if he thought about Jean Harlow.

"Look no hands Auntie" he would screech "now check that by dialling TIM ha".

In the winter he tried with a candle, but it hurt, and he was invariably hours late anyway. So he contented himself by standing in the main hall and inviting visitors to stand on his feet. He would then tell their weight in a dreadful monotone, and at the same time present them with a cigarette card depicting steam engines or early flying machines.

Henry tried with him, and spent a whole afternoon persuading him of the future in hat stands. But when Henry mentioned the umbrellas Hubert told him where to stuff it. Naturally as an Englishman Henry stoutly accepted. Anyway he told Hubert that if he didn't’ put a sock on the sundial business he’d soon be singing soprano.

In Southampton Ralph had docked. He expected Timothy and Laticia to be there.

What strange children they were. And that nasty friend of theirs with the squint, Gerald.

Clapton knows what went on behind the locked nursery doors after they chummed up with him. Always bringing pets into the house. Must be healthy for the children d’you suppose?

But that thing they’d made, a horrid hybrid cross between a gorilla and a parrot, and they’d let it loose in the maze. It was feathered, huge, and immensely strong, and would spring from the privet at odd moments and grasp one round the neck and ask "who’s a pretty boy then?".

Still it kept the tramps off the premises.

Then there was that weird chant of theirs.

Arms linked and to the rhythm of knives, something about poodles and chopping.

Ho hum. No welcoming committee. But ironically he was closer to family than he knew for his brother Arbuthnot was nearby.

At first earnestly Hemming his way out to sea in a dinghy, but now in trouble at a place called Dead Man’s Point. The currents there were strong treacherous and unpredictable. He was soaked to the shirt and his sandwich tin floated in the scuppers.

Dead Man’s Point. That name. A memory chord strummed softly. Of course.

He remembered the accident, then darkness, and the soft probing hand of the doctor.

At least he said he was a doctor.

"Looks like a bad case of Alice" he said

"We’re not sure how it gets into the bloodstream but er Christopher Robin went wiv it".

It was then that Ralph noticed the tiny boat and heard his brother’s screams for help.

Tossing down his suitcases, in moments, with many powerful strokes Ralph combed his hair and smartened up a stray cat. This was unusual because Ralph hated combing his hair.

Then he gouged and bullied his way towards the rank and got into a taxi.

Tomorrow the fate of Arbuthnot.

The feet of Sandra.

Won’t you come home Israeli.

Uncle Otto gets blotto.

Three Cohens in a fountain.

And rabbis keep falling on my head.

Uncle Otto Gets Blotto

During the night the snow came and mattressed the vast acreage of Rawlinson End.

The windows clouded and icicles hung crystalline and lovely from Old Scrotum’s nose.

From the drive a jingling, and barking of giant schnauzers heralded the unexpected arrival of Uncle Otto who, with his lederhosen, boots, and shoulder length moustache looked faintly distinguished. He yodelled for a while taking constant swigs from a hip flask of schnapps and began biting things while his men in sombre grey with red white and black armbands unloaded the great trunks of sausage.

Sir Henry stared at Otto’s knees and frowned. Otto’s knees were tense and muscular, not unlike the face of a landlord when you have to explain that you’ve run out of grant and could he possibly wait till next term.

Otto goose-stepped up the drive and raising his right arm barked "Heil Carpet Chewer" then rudely brushing passed Sir Henry he kicked the door, which was open anyway, and with the assistance of three of his men and a tape measure, began immediately to measure the servants’ heads.

Now read on dot, dot dot, dot dot, dot, pop, dot.

Arbuthnot snuffed it, but nobody know that yet except you and I. So lie doggo for a bit and with any luck we’ll ruin the lunch.

There was a terrific crash and a brick had smashed through the window of the family chapel. About the brick was wrapped a note, which simply said "Hello, I’m your new neighbour".

Henry was plainly delighted. "Seems a decent enough egg" he grunted "at least he didn’t have the impertinence to present himself at the front door."

But who was he?

Hubert was out on the icy tennis court practicing serves with a neighbourly hedgehog, which didn’t do the rackets much good as the hedgehog, new to the game, kept dropping one.

Meanwhile, in Soho, snug in Cathartacles Kahzi Kebab and Curry House, Ralph’s unnatural cousin Harold Maynard was stiffening up to order a real barbed wire bum burner.

"I say, what say, we say just for starters Tandoori coypu, sag gosht, that’s a 36, 47, and a spot of 69 if I can get enough gin down you hm hm hm. A chap merits a good Bombay Duck what, after taking a chapess out for a blow-out."

He smirked at the porcelain young thing he was so desperately trying to impress.

"Hahaha" she "Hahaha"’d and wondered opaquely what this was going to cost her in terms of flesh.

"Stand up the fellow who hasn’t got an Arthur Rackham pinned on his blasted wall eh?"

Porcelain thing remained mute.

Perry knew lots about art. Manny and Monny the Jewish boys, Pissarro the Irishman, Van Gogh who lent his name to a wine by canvas, Pickarso who suffered from piles, Mac-Iavelli the amazing Scottish Italian impressionist. Bird impressions, he ate worms. People impressions, he ate birds. Etsettera, he ate badgers.

In Southampton Ralph was going through Customs. Mostly nasty sticky stuff you pick up in the tropics, the one involving the ritual use of goitres was especially horrid. The tropics, damn them, murderous yet curiously magnetic. Already he missed them. Collecting and studying the myriad corrodorous catfish and their legion barbeled brothers in the steaming waters of the Orinoco was scarcely work for a milksop.

He smiled grimly and his shorts flapped majestically over his blunt, honest knees. Those whiskery rascals. But getting hold of the blighters, he’d swam rapids, wrestled anacondas, and she’s a big girl, and still came back to the bar covered in gore dressed as John Wayne to ask

"Where was that blasted Eskimo woman he had to skin, question mark."

Through sheer brute understanding he’d forced the affections of savage head-hunters and their wonderful families.

Cravat high in rivers shimmering with piranha, swift vicious fishes that can reduce a man to a Giacometti skeleton in seconds. The leeches, the mosquitoes, David Attenborough, he shuddered to think of it. But here he was, he got through, and yet even in the liners tiny blue- tiled swimming pool he still carried a great curved knife in his excellent teeth for his daily plunge. Often reeking, and sometimes causing compulsory acupuncture amongst the water wings and floating couches.

Meantime young John has discovered some ancient poppadoms that Sir Henry had brought back from Bombay and insists on playing them as loudly as possible on the wind up gramophone. But Otto has put a stop to that, the acoustics in the bathroom were außergewöhnlich and Otto spent a lot of time practising his tuba technique in preparation for the grand lunch.

Tomorrow, Arbuthnot’s fate revealed, Sandra’s feet reviled, the arrival of Candice.

Otto discovers My Lifeboy soap in a downstairs bathroom and Henry starts a fish war. Ralph arrives and Justine thinks of a novel and amusing way to inflate balloons.

Also more about … than usual.

Ralph heaves to.

The story at once.

Sir Henry has put so much brandy into the pudding that, much to Great Aunt Florrie’s chagrin, it has thrown up over the side of the bowl and has to have a lie down on the kitchen floor before being put into the oven to be cooked. Timothy and Leticia have made the mince pies which smell very meaty. Stefan has groped Ellie but promises to play at the party, so that’s alright. Meanwhile Henry has had his Christmas trousers steamed and pressed. They are 18 inches too big about the waist and Henry says, as always, "Burst ‘em or bust".

Sandra still smells. So what do I tell the Pentagon?

Now read on dot dot dot dot dot.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow and"

"Tommyrot" interjected Ralph.

"Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of the infant" breathed Great Aunt Florrie, her wells filling with tears.

"What the deuce do you expect, the birth of an adult rhinoceros?" chortled Sir Henry already the worse for sobriety.

"Funny you should say that Sir" ventured Gerald "I’ve already popped down to St Barclays and rearranged the crib in anticipation of your wishes."

With the arrival of the exceedingly beautiful and wayward Candice, four husbands and a broken affair behind her, celebrations stopped. Candice was a notorious liar, and also something of a seer and would stare for hours into cousin Otto’s false eye dressed in a seamless gown of silver and blue. Candice herself wore a white nightie.

Poor Otto lay on his back with his glass eye taped open.

At least it didn’t interfere with his sleep. In fact Otto refused strongly during the daytime. "Hrrr" he would spit "it is lying on me to be all the time on the billiards table and a schreckliches incense. Also the chanting going on I am not enjoying. Why the Führer himself when he has a few moments alone with his euphonium and Miles, an elite division of the SS, from Tager of course, on backup vocals keyboards und synthesizer, can sing the Carpet Choo Choo Charter, the Reichstag Bomber Rumba, und so weiter. This for me was a Kristal Night Christmas, but you, you expect Silent Night without so much as a curfew."

Candice made a splendid entrance, her freakishly long legs harlequined with wisteria and pendulous begonia. Her stride, why anyone could pass between, and having passed, pass out with maddening intoxication of her fragrant wafts.

She intoned "Frater Otto Otto Otto, completely blotto, a feat beat thy motto Otto Otto Otto. To me reveal the numbers, we have here a full house. Louse and stoat bring obedience, and from one throat (Bingo). All must dance, clickety click, clickety click, clickety clickety click, click click."

The house was daily nuisanced by cousin Willy and his seemingly meaningless morning yell at the Sun. "Hail to thee who art Ra in thy rising, and in thy lying down, and also when you’re out doing the shopping. Ra Ra Ra, Ra Ra Ra."

Willy insisted on being addressed as Frater Omnia the Brink and even before going to the toilet would throw chopsticks about and peer into, or consult as he put it, a book called Itching.

Florrie suggested calamine lotion to stop it, but Willy insisted it had nothing to do with excema, and anyway it was pronounced Yie-king. And Henry said it sounded like something a gentleman would do behind a handkerchief.

There was a startlingly loud chorus of Why Is Bacon So Tough played on tuned car horns which seemed to come from Rhonda’s womb, er Wanda’s room.

"She always makes that noise when going into a trance." said Arbuthnot, who was dead.

"Why the deuce she had to go to India to learn yoga I can’t imagine. Not that I like the stuff, but the milkman’s quite happy to deliver it. Same with chickens except that they keep dropping the bottles and well, frankly, its makes me sick. Filthy beggars. Not that I’ve anything against the lower orders but dammit they don’t even use paper to wipe their bottoms. Crikey I spent years out there in the service teaching them by example the value of rubies, slave labour, and the export of hashish. But turbans and independence aside, I don’t mind bowing but beggared if I'll shake hands."

Next week. But wait, who made that smell? Who made that smell in the studio? Who let Sandra in, or has John been at the red cabbage again?

Next time Aubrey catches a nasty, Otto donates his trousers to a flea circus, and the beginning of the assault course luncheon. Gerald chooses Sir Henry’s gout stocking to hang over his bed and there is a bit of a to do.

Also, all jugglers must have Latin American music, why?

And they grin and look surprised, at the music?

Boxing Day and a right Royal flush.

Together Rawlinsons and Maynards made a pretty impressive lump. Defiant and impregnable. And it took Old Scrotum and some strong lads from the village with turpentine and fork to separate them. Incest was rumoured, but it was mainly Old Spice and the crooked cheroots that Ralph had brought back from South America.

There was talk. Typically Henry dismissed this as malicious truth and the gathering outside the Fool and Bladder was swelled by elephantiasis and gossip. Splendid in his hunting pink he straddled the lively strong-made turret of his tank and with a sterling blast from a recent curry,

Read on dot dot dot dot dot.

Alone he took a mere machine gun and wiped out a whole sett of badgers.

"Hah, that beats philately" he chuckled.

Meanwhile Algie was tackling a murmuration of starlings.

All of this was fine if Ralph, who had mastered horseback billiards at the early age of eleven, and not having access to a full size table since his return from the tropics, was not to be persuaded playing South American snooker even during these sessions, which made the invocation of Horus on the part of Candice rather difficult, and slumber on the part of Uncle Otto almost impossible. Because despite the constant cracks on his immaculately shaven skull every time Ralph shouted "Pot Black" Otto would stiffly wake up and grasping a cue squint horribly along it until he was convinced they were all dead and that the Iron Cross with oak leaves would be his before the dawn. "Beng beng beng" he would shout until he was tranquillised with a blue ball to centre pocket from Ralph.

It was always a pleasure to see Doris, until she opened her mouth, which, considering her ivory teeth and needed daily attention with a dilution of nitric acid, was not so much of a pleasure.

To his pleasure Gerald has been given a lovely new scalpel and had offered to make the cranberry sauce. He does, and it’s very good. But Nigel is worried and spends most of the lunch under the table looking for his corgi Leo.

All the way from the village there was a torchlight procession from the ruddy-faced workers.

But why didn’t they move?

As was customary Blinkers O’Connor the blind poacher was there, and he clambered on to the table amidst the noise of snoring, and mistook two blancmanges for a woman. This resolved he clambered up on top of Sir Henry elevating himself some four feet. Blinkers was renowned in the village for he’d entered field intent on snatching and encountered a bull which he’d wrestled with and won, and had afterwards boasted at the Fool and Bladder that if he’d got the blighter off his bike he’d have murdered him. This said he threw back his head, caught it, and let loose with a song which Otto, were he not snoring in his steel helmet, would have loathed.

It was Bertie’s turn to sing

An Absence of Whelks

The story so far.

Loathsome Gerald has been caught observing the sun through a telescope and his squint is now permanent. Great Aunt Florrie has gone shopping in Concreton and will be away several hours as she must stop at the launderette to thaw out some chickens in the spindryers. At the same time Hubert Maynard, in his mid forties and still unusual, and his brother-in-law adventurous young Ralph Rawlinson are playing cricket on Sensible Common. But Ralph has disgraced himself at the crease and stopped the game and is now alone on the pitch determined that in atonement he will rid the club of moles. Meanwhile Hubert and the rest of the team enjoy the break with a chilled glass of parafino in the shade of the pavilion.

Now think on’t dot dot dot dot.

Hubert polished his trident with the sleeve of the white pullover carelessly wrapped about his waist.

"You could see everything from the top of that bus", he said, "we were in Regent Street and I was looking right into Broadcasting House. I could see them all running around inside catching diseases and giggling. My father leant across to me and he said you’ll be in there if you don’t stop playing with yourself".

Through the intestinal smoke of Hubert’s pipe the sweat spangled face of Reg Smeeton, eyes straining with mad intensity behind glasses the shape of Ford Cortinas, shuddered with the ungovernable maelstrom of information, inessential infantry and endless that constituted the grotesque furniture of his mind. Filing cabinets unlocked, thesauri fell agape, data danced in strict formation quick quick quick-quick-quick, puzzles fitted, it all added up, niggling self edited tumbling with creaking impatience, cross referenced, and erupting and all gathered berserk fierce, heedless and torrential on his springboard lips.

"He died of chrysanthemum poisoning", said Hubert sadly, "They had to kill all his plants.

Did you know he was the real author of A Pictorial History Of Gargling? A very great work".

Mr Smeeton, frozen like a red setter. His conversation of the you speak, I wait, you pause, I pounce, variety lent exaggerated ear.

"They strapped a bloom to his back, and it came up all blotchy, that’s why he drank, it was Brasso mainly, he was a very humble man".

Raising high his trident Hubert struck an odd heroic pose.

With practised effort Mr Smeeton behaved outwardly as he knew he must and screwed his eyes Hong Kong to the distant figure microscopic and lifelike shimmering on the pitch. And all this merely token courtesy towards the catatonic Hubert, for in Smeetons mind the connotations of Ralph raffia Raffles, Sir Stamford 1781-1826, jostled, assembled, and howled for outlet.

"He boiled roly poly puddings in old socks", said Hubert dreamily. "But it was the chrysanthemums and Brasso that got to him".

In his creamy flannels Ralph lay atop the molehill like a poultice on a pulsing green boil.

Trembling to the wild scrabblings of the blind beast beneath his damp stomach.

"Gods teeth", he muttered, "if these thing bite one will be singing soprano".

He knew that giant African grasshoppers enjoy eating human hair, that rats can’t be sick, and that the elephant shrew is without teeth but can give one a nasty suck.

However of the doings of moles he knew little save that they made a muck of the cricket pitch and this stiffened his resolve.

In the pavilion Uncle Hubert and the chaps were looking on. His knuckles whitened as he gripped firm his bat, for them he had to do this bloody thing, this bloody necessary bloody thing. "And I’m not going to eat it or wear it, Brigitte Bardot will hate me, perhaps I’ll just wear it for a bit".

The wind in the willows ruffled the gold hair of a long long slumbering child within.

The wind in the willows, the will in the windows, wails of the widows of furry dark soft overground underground tiddly-pom comfy and cosy tucked in for the night.

"Mummy my teddy’s st-stopped breathing".

Click. "Its alright darling".

A great heaving halted this train of thought at the level crossing of rude heart stopping panic. Violent shakings, horrid snufflings of Poes worst imaginings, the brute beast surfaced, snout flailing claws and bristle. Reason fled shrieking from Ralphs thrilling mouth. Aghast, dry throated, he drank in that which his mind could not comprehend, the thing was grinning with savage glee. Soiled and horrid about its shuddering torso was a Capital tee shirt and in its paw it brandished a microphone. Spasm, had this nightmare and swoon the beckoning void unsilence and danger dan dan dan dan aah aah aah aah.

Back at the great house affairs were of a more tranquil stripe. With glass in hand and monocle at ease, Sir Henry Rawlinson, having spent the morning chuckling over the obituaries in the Times, was in expansive mood.

"Well I could play blow-football with me back to the table when I was a youngster".

Old Scrotum looked up from the ironing board upon which he was picking the egg and porcupine quills from his masters trousers. "Aar, but these folks be musical Sir".

Sir Henry swatted and stamped on a rather beautiful blue butterfly.

"Wop festival, a wop festival you say, deuced if I know what those blighters have got to be festive about. I-tiddly-eytie island for the weekend eh phwoar. I can smell those filthy piazzas they eat already."

Scrotum shook three cocktail cherries from the turnups.

"They’m saying a couple of the organisers‘ll be popping over with complimentaries and .. "

Sir Henry stiffened.. his drink. "Well I’ll see ‘em off the premises personally. The hounds are all fagged out from yesterdays Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we don’t want blood all over the lawns again."

The room darkened as a hang-glider passed across the sun. "Seems a novel enough way to commit suicide" observed Henry, "pass me my pistol and I’ll see if I can’t bring him down into the lake". With a weapon in his charge the master of Rawlinson End was apt to be very sporting and unpredictable and the wrinkled retainer took cover behind a leather armchair, peeping through his fingers and clutching a rosary.

"What are you doing cowering down there" roared Henry.

Scrotum tugged furiously at a long vanished forelock. "Er it be out of respect Sir"

Mercifully Henry hit him with the soft end of the pistol. Scrotum sprawled on the parquet flooring. Then with a kindly pat on the head and a paternal grunt Henry strode back to the window and took aim at the hang-glider now several hundred yards past the lime trees and fast diminishing. In April sunshine, with the air full of wasps and himself full of pink gins and half a bottle of Entre deux Legs, it was an impossible shot. And in a fit of blear eyed pique Henry emptied the gun into the tyres of a custard yellow van parked in the drive.

Like the shock of fondling a raw sausage blindfold at a gay party the significance of the van was made clear. In a florid scriptiform on the side was painted the following: Nice and Tidy, and in brackets, Both A Right Couple Of Pairs, Just Relax And Let Us Do It, and in the right hand corner a crude drawing of the masks of tragedy and comedy labelled Before and After.

The gentlemen owners of this vehicle lodged in the village at the Fool and Bladder and did contract housecleaning but they purported to be resting theatrical artistes. Both were given to striped blazers, orange pancake, obvious wigs, matching handkerchiefs, shaven legs and musical comedy which they visited on the drinking fraternity of the Fool and Bladder with unceasing enthusiasm, until that is old Seth Onetooth put a stop to it claiming "I’m going as daft as a mahogany frying pan".

Great Aunt Florrie’s premise that all musicians were "nice people" had prompted her to place the music room at Rawlinson End at their disposal. And they confessed themselves to be "terribly touched". Henry’s reaction to their presence now was primarily of apoplectic astonishment, after all you don’t expect decent folk to take you up on an invitation, its just downright rudery. "Grrreat Thing" he bellowed "those simpering nancy boys are in the house, get up you stinking blancmange, quick go lock the piano pacey pacey before the.." but it was too late. There were loud theatrical chortles from across the hall, a hint of Cologne, and

This impertinent jollity in the middle of an English afternoon left Sir Henry shivering with a red passion. His eyebrows like limp bats, and his face a crumpled tissue upon which a lobster might well have wiped its bottom. "All crime" he declared "is due to incorrect breathing".

Grim faced and cold Henry snatched from the wall the sickle sharp boar tusks he used for defacing Reader Digest, and in moments crossed the hall and flung open the doors of the music room. Startled, Nigel Nice, banjulele held fol de rol, mince mince minced across the room. "Sir Henry, nice to see you, to see you…." Henry’s glare throttled his hypocrisy at birth.

"Do you know what a palmist once said to me? She said - Will You Let Go.

Gentlemen I am a bulldog and you will know my bite is worse".

Teddy Tidy held the piano stool before him. Nigel Nice in an attempt to look invalid put on his glasses and blinked. Stamping in frenzy Henry bellowed the war cry of the Zulu "Whoo Shoo Foo" and adjusting a serviette about his throat "Now you squids prepare for whacks".

Next week Hubert Maynard, ever the gentleman, offers his seat to a lady in a public lavatory. There is considerable misunderstanding.

English as tuppence, changing and changeless as canal water,

nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag bearer,

opsimath, eremite, feudal reactionary Rawlinson End.

The story so far.

Margot has decided she "Just cant GO ON".

Beethoven is a terrible dancer and Josiah Wedgewood had only one leg. Doo dah, doo dah.

Florrie has prepared cocktail sausages and cheese dips for a middle aged spread as Doris and Boris Hazard are coming across for a Whisky Drive.

The Mayorcans have landed, and the warts have disappeared.

It is lunchtime and like leviathan, bibulous Sir Henry surfaces from the blackness.

You’ve snuggled into your cosy bed and your toes have tried each cold pockety corner when a something comes sneaking into your head and stops the cosy.

A dark cracky picture that isn’t quite clear that you quite sort of know but don’t want to remember.

"Filth hounds of Hades". Sir Henry Rawlinson woke hot and fidgety fuss fuss bother and itch.

His conscious mind coming up too fast with the bends through pack ice, thrubbing seas, boom sounders, blow holes, harsh croaks, and blind men tip tap tocking for escape from his pressing skull. "Whelk". With a gaseous grunt he rolled away from the needle cruel light acupuncturing those fogged pickled onion eyes and focused them with key bending will on the cold trench Florrie had left on her side of the bed. Tongue like yesterday's fried cod, mind over batter, yuch. "Tongue sandwiches eat what, but it's been in somebody else's mouth".

"You'll eat it and like it".

"But why can't I have.."

"Because I say so".

The Blind men were now thrashing with their canes.

"Gods teeth do I need a dare of the hog. Nothing like a morning cap to kiss goodbye to the day". He reached across for the bell rope to summon the housekeeper. But with most of his huge top stiff from the wallop he'd received on the back of the neck from the half thawed chicken, he discovered himself, with his nighty round his waist, stunned, turned tortoise on the rug. The paralysis lasted scarce a blink, then he bellied his unwilling hulk to the wardrobe. Cold comfort as he yanked out the shotgun. Good stock, rollover, one action commando stuff, cock over, safety off, left and right both barrels through the ceiling. Stunned shock unsilence and then Henry's eruptive bellow "Mrs E".

The plaster had not settled before the housekeeper stood lurcher backed and coughing at your servile Sir in the room "yeth" she said.

"I don't know what I want but I want it now".

"I don't know how I got out of bed this morning I had it all down one side and when I put my foot down ooh it was like plugging it into the mains". Mrs E had trouble. "It shot straight up and I came over all giddy and I thought oh no I'm going, I’d breathed my last and it started swimming before me. I could smell the wreaths, oo I had such a good cry, it was lovely, I just wanted to lay back but I couldn't, Of course I can’t recline, he's put me on tablets and it’s a constant fight to relax, Last Sunday I was, I was heating up a drop of liniment and I bent down to pull up my surgical stockings when ooh it slipped out again, I was that busy I didn't have time to straighten up, of course I can't sleep not since Mr E passed away, It's like having your leg off, you think it's still there in the bed, I mean you think it's still there, 33 years on Thursday and I still can't get used to his snoring, it's in the mornings; he used to make me a herbal infusion".

"Mrs E, Dismiss. I will come down. Help me up".

The table was still laid for breakfast and when the Rawlinson family broke a fast you cursed central heating and double-glazing.

"Awkward beasts winkles" grunted Henry squinting and stabbing at his plate,

"your uncle Hubert uses them for earplugs". Ralph had heard it all before. He smiled bleakly across at his father.

"Turns my belly to see him to see him to the mornings fiddling about in his lugholes with a pin; blessed if I can see why he bothers he never hears anything I say".

To some extent this was true, Henry's rhinoceros tyranny had only the most peripheral and incidental effect on Hubert's life, and he spent his days softly and dreamily, without any direction, quoting and reliving his times with his dead father. He was harmless but as Florrie put it, "unusual".

"I remember shrimp teas on a gingham cloth, shiny brown bowls and crusty bread and a little boy who wouldn't eat mummy shrimps with all their precious grey pink eggs".

"Stuff it Hubert".

Henry went up to change. Florrie, wanting to make impression spent a long time checking the bathroom and family for tide marks. And when she'd done it was evening.

There was a screech of tortured wheels, a bump, a loud splash, and a bubbling sound.

"That sounds like Doris and Harold now" said Florrie.

"Get them out of the ornamental pond. Scrotum.. gaff the neck, hang 'em over the radiators and I'll set up the card table myself".

All was now expectancy as the soaked Harold Hazard entered the house. "Oh Gad" he yelped as he bumped his head on the door, "Yikes" said Doris tripping over the attractive boot cleaner and getting a warm coconut matting welcome stamped indelibly on her face. They joined Henry who was in the library drinking and being important.

"Mind you those jungle bunnies weren’t without their own peculiar brand of decency.

Give you an example, they wouldn’t kill a chap while he was asleep, had to wake him up because, one of ‘em, charming feller, lips like inner tubes, told me under torture naturally, that should the victims spirit be out of his body at the time of death it would on its return be so outraged it would pursue and torment the assassin for eternity like the er Greek Harpics of mythology. Understandable if you believe that sort of guff".

Doris Hazard yawned behind her hand, and her dentures, ancient yellowed and imperfect, locked. With her cavernous mouth wide open she could only "Uh, uh, uh" And Henry understanding that she was gaping with wonderment at his yarn gave her a boozy wink. She was too polite to leave the room. And Henry, now refuelled with several great gulps of Southampton Red Rum, a brainstorming cocktail involving port, vodka, dark rum, and horseradish sauce, continued.

"These are the only spirits I want tormenting my body. Personally when you're dead you're gone, afterlife aftershave don't hold with any of 'em". He glared at great aunt Florrie who was of quite a different opinion and almost chandelier with Pisces, St Christopher, crucifix, rabbits foot, and lucky whales teeth about her neck. "I don't give a toss what you do with me when I have shrugged me mortal coil. Shove a bit of flex up my back passage, stick a light bulb in my mouth, and stand me in the hall. Mind you if you're using electricity you'll have to dry me out first".

Florrie had once mentioned instant karma to Henry but he thought it was some kind of tranquiliser there was really little point now, he was too far-gone.

"Consulting a book called Itching before she goes to the lavatory, Good God what have I married?".

"Now about these chaps, they put a hand on your chest to wake you up see, one chink of reality and you’re gone. Slit your throat or gouge your eyes no compunction. I remember I was alone in my tent when I felt it. I was alone cos I’d left the hounds back in Blighty. I was enjoying a fitful rest when suddenly I felt it. Nuisance was I was so full of cold mackerel pie I knew I was going to blow off, you can imagine the fix"

Boris Hazard arising from the settee attempted to hide the body of his wife’s Pekinese.

"I was at bursting point when this thing jerked into my face, turned out I’d been lying here with a bloody great frog on my chest for an hour. Well I hadn’t the heart to kill it, but I twisted its arm something rotten hah".

"I, I was in Africa" began Boris Hazard, "I don't want to talk gibberish but I I spent quite some time in the land of the Gibber and believe me those Gibros could get a budgerigar to phone Harrods. I I made a poem of my experiences".

Henry glowered and introduced himself to another glass of Southampton Rum.

"Hey Jimmy lend us a quid" said Henry frowning down at his watch.

It was a lovely evening and Florrie took the interminable beige thing she was knitting into the garden. About her were perhaps 200 gnomes.

Florrie noted that the garden gnomes seemed a good deal more obviously masculine than before and they were doing things.

And she now knew why Gerald had spent so much pocket money on plasticine.

There was a yell from the Great House "Turkeys gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble" and she rose to see Henry stuffing Doris Hazards protesting mouth with tobacco.

She dropped her knitting and began to hurry back as Old Scrotum the wrinkled retainer wheeled a gigantic pie into the reddened room.

Suddenly the pie burst open and with legs of Gorgonzola and an insane grin that dreadful American woman Mrs Radcliffe sprang naked into the company.

The Road to Unreason VIVIAN STANSHALL

The story so far.

Hubert is growing mustard and cress in his left ear, and performs even the most intimate of office with his head inclined to one side. Sir Henry’s neck has healed nicely, and Mrs Radcliffe has been banished from the house.

Now read on dot dot dot dot dot.

Loathsome young Gerald having now been discovered in the upstairs tiniest room one too many times with a sporting magazine though, protesting "This is high art. Look how many times I’ve watched Sir Kenneth Clark Civilise Acton" has had his hand and botty smacked very eye-wateringly.

Bubbling up from God-wots, Nemesis clutching her wrath took house in the snivelling imp and the wretched boy, eyes glaring yellow caves of hatred, stalked off to Concreton where in cahoots with a tattooist had every pimple on his weasel face permanently marked from 1 to 126 making the magic nine. And thus disfigured would appear each morning, these numbers heavily linked and inked with biro, to present his horrid visage aghast with swastikas or shifted faces, which with deep frowns and nasty use of his tongue and squinty eye he could make so horrid that breakfast guests would be quite sickened.

Soon, fierce scrubbed by great aunt Florrie, he must eat alone until, fat chance, the spots clear up. His ciphered face seeming like a housewife effort at painting by numbers before she remembered a rice pudding left in the oven. Gerald also had taken to wearing safety pins through his eyelids because "he didn’t trust no one" and wanted to be wide-boy awake just in case it came to something. Over his door he scrawled, if you see something you don’t understand smash it.

Florrie shuddered, Geralds ghastly tattooed face would doubtless rank him even higher in the perverse estimations of Timothy and Letetia Maynard, which pair of near children would surely be visited on Rawlinson End for an extended daymare before the holiday ended.

She remembered their last Christmas efforts at mince pies that had tasted so uncommonly meaty, and poor Nigels concern about his missing corgi. Pray Jesu they’d lost interest in chemistry and dissection. That thing they’d let loose in the maze, crackling with wires, smoking, roaring, and pouncing on the staff. A cross between a gorilla and a parrot it would grip one round the neck and ask "who’s a pretty boy then?". And those hateful songs to the rhythm of knives behind locked nursery doors. No no, not again surely.

Hubert half doze-dazed in his bath and a real live duck paddled to him with a bar of soap in its bill which it deftly deposited with the pumice stone on the side. It then clambered up Huberts arm and began pecking at the mustard and cress peeking green and inviting from his master’s ear. Hubert dreamt of a waterbed he might have had made. A circular job with guppies, neon tetras, two angels, and a red tailed shark "how restful". He had many moneymaking schemes for interior decoration. During the sunny months he kept his windows covered with several sheets of blotting paper because he believed it trapped and absorbed the energy of the sun. And each night, with proper thanks to Ra, he would take it down and squeeze "a little bit of cosy into the room" before retiring. "Hail to thee Ra, and ta ra boom dee ay"

After a bath he liked to play polo with the tortoise, but human milk prevailing he would always stop the game every twenty minutes or so and have the old thing treated for shellshock. A great lover of all sports, catching the javelin, heading the shot etc, he could unscrew his gammy leg to reveal a shooting stick upon which point he could perch parrot.

Through the steamy windows he noticed young Ralph all togged up with towel, woollen trunks, and flippers, off to break the ice on the chill lake. But behind him the hunched figure of Old Scrotum the wrinkled retainer scurrying. "Master, young Master, heed well the ancient rhyme".

Disappointed Ralph strode back to the Hall for a few frames of horseback snooker.

Candice made note of all this from her hideaway in the Round Room.

"The trouser Seans in the herring tree run up a pretty banner in a blast. And shavings of porcu-knotty pine are queer stuffs for thrice wise magi beards in a cold twist".

She murmured and lowered her sibyl eyes and made curious mime with her slender hands.

In the bitter cold Old Scrotum repaired the barbed wire about Sir Henry’s small but daunting prisoner of war camp.

In a London club Peregrin at 28, now the dread side of 30 sighed. Thirty, the big O. All the twos twenty two, two and two, two little ducks, eight and eight two fat ladies, three O blind thirty. But blind what. He sucked in the cheeks and raised the eyebrows of the reflection in the Percy Room of the club Dorian Gray. The Dorian Mode. The signs were etched deeply now in his moosh, roadmapped out, David Frost icicles twice as sliced bread pallid, ordnance survey cheeked, Grand Union Cannalettos, A A Milnestones about his throat, time for pause especially on the nose. Finger and thumb instant spaghetti by Derma of London of course. "Must start playing squeeze, no squash, oh it comes to the same".

It had been a good idea joining the club hadn’t it? Classy and an affirmation of maturity.

The Urethrian Club, Pall Mall, London. No ladies, this is where the big fellows hang out ha ha. But five hundred smackers a year to sit around in leather armchairs and lie to each other about actresses with knockers like onion sacks. Well I lie too. Still it was something to do, somewhere to go, it was. Cripes is this all there is, looking for something to do? And also, painfully as well, he Peregrin St John Ponsonby Rawlinson hadn’t actually, in factually, done what the big boys do, but he’d come close. Dry cleaning, I should cocoa, it was all over the pl… Heavy petting. "Naturally dear boy, she was seventeen stone in her negligence".

Perhaps his porcelain young thing would never actually come across. Perry had been seeing her now for nearly four years. Thrice headed hound of Hades he’d been chatting her up for bloody yonks, but he really liked her, it wasn’t just.. That.

Did he though, like her? She said nothing. But there must be something in there. Just a glint now and then. Was that coquetry or a nervous twitch? Never checked her family. Liebe Gott, bring a cretin back to Rawlinson End, its in the blood you know, you can never be too sure.

That evening he took her to Cathartacles Curry Kebab and Khazi House. It was exactly just one year since their first frightened dry tight-lipped kiss. They held hands over a bottle of Chateau Tilbury until Hans said "Der wein ist now room temperat, uncork me" and in the candlelight they could scarsely see what they were eating.

"Here we are poppet, on the entrees already, but not to worry, with any luck and a bit of wire there’s no chance of you reaching the pudding club". Porcelain thing didn’t understand but smiled anyway.

There was a distant gurgling, a horrid throaty ululation, and outside a gang of street urchins quite suddenly last summer pressed their pinched cold faces crude against the window. Peregrin stared at the lolloping tongues, questing snouts, and dead dead eyes, and then with blanch cheeked automaton efficiency he loaded his napkin with butter. Porcelain thing kept her lovely eyes on her kebab as Perry crossed the restaurant and smeared the glass obliterate against the pressed ham and pressing heads. "Eating is a very private thing" he said to the manager.

With all the unfolding drama of a Sikh unwrapping his turban, he picked his nose. "Art for arts sake, but money for Christs" he said and sat down. Perry knew lots about art, with a capital F. Manny and Monny the Jewish boys, Pissarro the Irishman, Rococo the clown, Mac-Iavelly the Scottish Italian genius, and Perry squandered many a lunch voucher at the Bernard Buffet Bar in the Strand.

The gutters leaked like secrets and the rain rain rained like rain at Rawlinson End. In the library a log fire spat tracer over doomed Dresden and Sir Henry, well tanked up, lolled in a cockpit leather chair.

Eeeaaaaooow, boomph kuk dan dan , dan dan dan dan, dan

He glanced over his shoulder to make positive he was alone.

"Of course there were troops in the city. Thousands massing for counter attack. Deaths head fanatics the lot of ‘em. Heads like peanuts, arms like tractors. Boom, dan dan, dan dan".

Hubert entered the room soft and silent as a smelly one.

"Can I play too Henry? I like taking orders."

Henry nearly exploded with the shock.

"Don’t don’t, don’t you kamarade me you you Quisling" he spluttered snatching the sickle sharp boars tusk he kept for defacing Readers Digest from the wall.

"You’re not in uniform and it’s dark" roared the master of Rawlinson End.

"But I’m in pyjamas and I’m your brother" said Hubert backing off.

"This is going to be an understandable mistake" said Henry blowing strongly on a whistle.

And with a nasty grunt he was over the top, stamping on the settee.

Next time Ralph has his upper lip pierced so he can see where he’s going whilst whistling.

Fall of Felt Hats VIVIAN STANSHALL

The story so far.

The hapless and unusual Hubert, having unhappily chanced upon Sir Henry reliving the bombing of Dresden, has received a terrific thrashing and a crippling kick in the fork. He is now in disgrace condemned to his room.

The body of Doris Hazard’s pekinese, unwittingly asphyxiated under her husband’s bottom, after a ritual two weeks in the Rawlinson refrigerator, has been given over to Old Scrotum for indecent burial under a giant marrow. This marrow is Sir Henry’s pride and on his instructions the vegetable is daily drip fed with a powerful laxative so that "if some rascal runs off with it and eats the blessed thing it’ll give ‘em the runs for weeks".

It was a chilly but beautiful morning and summers green heralds thrust defiant from the window boxes of nearby Concreton and the woodlands about Rawlinson End. A pale sun poked impudent marmalade fingers into the kitchen and sent the shadows scurrying like convent girls menaced by a tramp.

Great Aunt Florrie, toast crumbs specking the fine hairs on her upper lip, teacup half empty luke warm in her lap, dozed in a cosy Chippendale settle. An elfin tissue curdled her mind with muted chimera. Through dancing dark neon-bright eels behind the eyes, gauzes of filmy Fellini, glimpses further than the rocket sees, rhythmic fading and in unending procession.

Outside Old Scrotum the wrinkled retainer scrunched up the gravel whistling a dirty song. And Florrie, gentle corset prisoner of the flesh started, and was composed and alert as a skinless eye, when the old man, his russet burned country face smiling in wreathes, pushed open the back door.

"Mornin’ ma’am" he coughed "I filled in the grave".

Florrie nodded and indicated the sink. "Perhaps you’d care to wash your hands" she murmured.

"Ar no thankee ma’am, I already did that up against a tree afore I came in here har".

Florrie took a careful purse lipped sip of cold tea. "Very well" she said dabbing the corners of her mouth with a lavender scented hanky. "Now I’d like you to set up the card table and put down some sawdust in the smoking room. Lord Portly and Lady Philippa of Staines are coming over this evening".

The wrinkled retainer hung up his greasy fez on a peg, and with joints crackling like the screwing up of plastic egg cartons, hacked and wheezed his way through into the hall.

Alone again Florrie’s eyes focused on the copper gleam of the coal scuttle, clouded, and in seconds had surrendered to Erewhon. Peacefully on tip-toe through the grey spheres where shade had substance, whispers walked, and Maya reigned. Wistful and lovely are walls with wisteria, clematis clambers on time pocked walls white. Stranger than larkspur or lupin, hydrangea many headed bright nosegay tongue-tied, fancy flight.

There was a face jumping competition at the Fool and Bladder. This ancient amusement involved leaping on to volunteer’s heads, lightly touching, and then springing off. To draw blood or squash a nose meant instant disqualification, and this was the skill of it. The normally phlegmatic Seth Onetooth was unquestioned champion of this unusual sport and he stood huge dark and work stained outside the old pub explaining the rules and recalling past triumphs to Reg Smeeton, the village newsagent and self-styled human encyclopaedia.

A large red faced farm worker, stripped to the waist, paced out an enormous run-up before turning to thunder down on his grinning partner lying on the grass. "Eeh, he’s got no chance" said Seth smugly, "silly buggers wearing spiked running shoes".

Reg Smeeton, floccose red wig like a kipper nailed to his bonce, nodded with ill feigned interest. But the mad flexions of his face muscles and the nervous butterfly tick of his left eyelid argued the mental tumult within. Jigging, niggling, sale of the centipedes, and the quacking going up to five pounds, urging datum and fervid facts, chattering in Stockhausen tongues warring for outlet from his springboard lips. "Drawing from my vast, though admittedly unresolved catalogue of general know-it-all, facts of interest etc., corroborated, corobbaree a sacred or warlike assembly of aboriginals, and cross referenced, may I remind you of the exploits of one William Barker of Manchester. In the 1890’s Billy cleared a canal 35 feet wide, making a running jump, jack-knifing into a second, to land perfectly quite dry on the other side. This was called Spring Jumping. Nothing at all to do with the period vernal equinox to Summer solstice of course".

Heedless of this babble Seth adjusted the strings about his knees and unnoticed a passing wood pigeon vacated on to Smeetons ploughmans lunch. "I ain’t so nimble now" said Seth, "but I used to jump in and out of barrels of eggs wi’out cracking a shell".

Smeeton, his mouth full of cheese, squinted fixedly at the sun. "Barrels, coopering, James Fennimore 1789-1851, Mohicans, the last of, Natty Bumpo, Prince Bumpo, bumptious, bumpkins, kith and kin, d’ye kin John Peel, peeler, Sir Robert, bobbies, baby, bibulous, bibles".

"I could clear a snooker table, full length mind, from a standing jump before operation" grumbled Seth, "I could have made a mint had I been a bit more shrewd".

"Shrewd, did you know that the elephant shrew never closes its eyes" remarked Smeeton.

At this juncture they were joined by Old Scrotum who, having no more duties until the evening, had slogged it across the fields in time for the finals and to down a couple of pints or three.

"Aar, waste of good drinkin’ time. I had to go up again and see if the old girl had finished her bloomin’ breakfast" huffed Scrotum crossly.

The old girl was Sir Henry’s mother, once a great beauty but now, unknown to Florrie, bedridden in a remote chamber at Rawlinson End.

"Well er, ‘ad she then, finished it like?" asked Seth.

"Course not. Nice bit of smoked haddock been there by the side of the bed getting cold for the last three years" said Scrotum taking a large slurp.

"By heck, three years. Does she do owt?" said Seth.

"Course not, she’m just lying there never saying nothing wi’ er gob wide open, catching flies and playing with the rats. Sir Henry says she’m not getting no more grub ‘til she’s eaten the last lot".

Reg Smeeton, smelling strongly of newsprint, patted down the back of his wig.

"Did you know there is no proper name for the back of the knees".

What was left standing of the village band slurred into voice and Old Scrotum, now flushed and enlivened with his seventh mug of scrumpy needed small press to clamber onto a bench for a lively, but crack-throated rendering.

By 9.30 that evening back at the Great House dinner was finished, and the Rawlinsons and their guests lolled over the blancmange or sprawled back blown out, picking their teeth.

"That was inedible muck and there wasn’t enough of it, blech".

The curry lay heavy on Sir Henry’s stomach like a royal corgi. "Buuuurp".

"I say, how dare you belch in fwont of my wife" squeaked Lord Portly.

Henry yawned. "Sorry old man I didn’t realise it was her turn".

This ungracious rejoinder left Lord Portly stupefied as Dr Watson and to cover his befuddlement he helped himself to a liberal glass of Entre deux Legs.

"If I had all the money I’d spent on drink" observed Henry, "I’d spend it on drink".

Do you know, though I say it myself, I can identify almost any wine from any part of the globe. Lady Philippa, herself already nicely irrigated with horizontal lubricant leered appreciatively across at her husband.

"Oh really" said Henry heaving himself to his feet "then there’s something rather special might like you to try. If you’ll excuse me I’ll just pop down to the catacombs". He left the company abuzz with expectation and in a few minutes returned with a brimming tumbler of amber fluid essence. "I’ve a notion this one’s going to fox you. He glanced meaningfully at Florrie and put his finger to his lips. Florrie understanding immediately went "blibblabbliblabibble".

Lord Portly took the proffered glass and sniffed with deep concentration. "Aah, unusual bouquet" he declared "decidedly not Fwench". He held it up to the light "Mmmh a twifle cloudy, it’s a very fwesh little fellow". Then, with closed eyes he took a large mouthful, swilling it noisily through his teeth, and swallowed. "Yes yes, very fresh 1978 and its… Good grief its… bleeeargh".

Lady Philippa looked aghast as Lord Tarquin Portly spat violently into his finger bowl.

"Well" said Henry, gleefully tugging at his jowl "now you know what it is old bean, question is whose is it ha".

After port they retired to the smoking room and settled round the card table.

"Do you mind if I smoke" asked Lady Philippa plucking an immense Meerschaum pipe and pouch from her crocodile handbag.

"Not if you don’t mind my wife throwing up" grunted Henry.

Nonetheless her ladyship stuffed the bowl with nauseous rum soaked shag called Perrique and lit up. For a leisurely few hours they cheated at cooncan, snap, bezique, bugger your neighbour, and Pope Joan, each five minutes pleasingly punctuated with refills of embalming fluid.

"You know if filthy fingers were trumps" nibbled Florrie "why Henry dear what a splendid hand you’d have".

At this totally unexpected raspberry Sir Henry took umbrage and with a snort he staggered over to the majestic log fire where he swayed with coat tails thrown back showing the whites of his flies before the blaze. He was pulling fearsome bulldog Churchillian scowls in the mirror when Lady Staines, an incorrigible gamester, proposed a hand of quadrille.

"Sir Henry" she burred "would you like to be the fourth man?".

Henry glared with dragon nostriled distaste at her wattled neck, turkey legs, and grotesque tumescent udders.

"My dear Lady" he intoned, crossing the room and leaning close "I wouldn’t even like to be the first man".

Henry set down his goblet and whistled to the great hound stretched on the rug, chewing on an old bandage. Tail wagging, Bonzo padded over and placed his huge grey head on the felt table. Henry chose, then dealt the animal three cards face down. "Good lad, now find the lady". The dog snuffled wetly at Philippa Portly, shook its head sadly, then without hesitation, turned up the Queen of Spades with its tongue.

"I say that’s dashed impressive" peeped Lord Portly letting drop his monocle.

"Balderdash" grunted Henry unkindly "silly old sod gets it wrong nearly two times out of five".

At that moment Hubert, shamefaced, ventured into the room. Henry glowered at his brother, but poor Hubert with all the assurance of a sleepwalker announced that to make up for his past behaviour he would "like to entertain everybody with a bird impression". He began hopping about on one leg. "Chirrup Chirrup Chirrup" he mimicked, winking at the ladies. He then produced a handful of worms from his trouser pocket and with apparent relish stuffed them into his mouth. Pop-eyed, chewing furiously, and flapping his arms, with the pinky tentacles writhing horribly about his chin he advanced "Chirrup Chirrup" to the table.

Lady Philippa opened her handbag, and with heaving shoulders, buried her head in it.

Next time Mrs E the housekeeper has one of her nasty turns and believes herself to be a chicken, but Henry refuses to have her treated saying

"Well, it’s always good to have a supply of fresh eggs".

The story so far.

After the worm chewing outrage, and Philippa Portly’s continued and hysterical nausea, Hubert has been declared definitely off his chump by the Rawlinson family with the sweet exception of Great Aunt Florrie who asseverates her brother-in-law is merely unusual, should be shown kindness "as after all he is well meant and quite the bearded epitome of kindness". He is however ordered to eat alone. Shunned, eschewed, sent to Coventry, and has his boots nailed to the floor so he can’t go out.

Now think ont; dot dot dot.

A baleful greed glint prodigal sun, cast doubt and drear into Concreton Estate, waking as though from the cheerless depths of a boiled cods eye. But in Rawlinson End towers, turrets, and each tiny nostril hair were gilded, as were Sir Henry’s teeth, save the two he’d had carved in Indonesia from hardwood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It was very very early, and he lay back on his bed attrobilious and fidgety. "Get a shufti on will you?".

He pulled his face Quasimodo as Old Scrotum the wrinkled retainer more vigorously applied the boot polish to his master’s head with an old gout stocking. Working it in well down the neck and thorax almost to the hirsute and gargantuan belly.

"I still reckons would be smarter if Master would let I buff it up a bit. Shiny allus looks dandy".

"For the umpteemth time I’m supposed to be an impecunious jungle bunny not the bonnet of me Rolls".

Scrotum, deaf as a brick wall, hoarse as Black Beauty, grinned.

Don’t you’m worry none about ‘m roses master I’ve been creeping out nights when them aphids is breeding, throw a bucket of cold water over ‘em. They don’t feel like it ar’ter that.

Of the makeup there remained only the tufty wig and the eyes to do. Scrotum held a cork (of which Henry had a great and enjoyably planned supply) to a candle, and the room was sarabande with curlicues of sweetish smoke. Henry’s moustache pomaded stiff and upsweeping was almost Dalinian in corkscrew, his eyelashes and lids were now kohl-candle Sooty and Sweep and he clipped on a pair of huge cylindrical earrings while Scrotum applied a little wood adhesive to his forehead to fix a green sequin. Through the sheer of Henry Rawlinsons stockings his tumescent veins seemed stygian spaghetti.

"Gods teeth, you’ve bought another pair with a seam up the back. Legs don’t have seams". He took a hefty swig of Entre Deux Legs to steady himself. This morning he must remain tranquil as a yogi’s navel. Then he tugged on a lilac knee length tutu over his sandals, fastened it with a gay stomacher, slipped into his mirrored jacket, rammed on his turban, and was perfect.

"Hmmm, now creek off and check the library".

Scrotum wheezed out of the chamber and Henry postured before the glass.

"Mmmh hello Sahib, ooh ah Jam Jambo, Jambo Bwana. Am dis de correct inclination for the Gibberish embassy". He grimaced horribly. "Damn it I look like a, a half wrapped after dinner chocolate".

Scrotum made nine conspiratorial knocks on the bedroom door, and with a final glance to check his seams were straight, Henry padded heavily after the old man, down dusty corridors and close shut rooms wherein Rawlinsons tossed, snoozed, and dreamt of empty. Then down down the back hall staircase where heavy framed Maynards and Rawlinsons glared from time dulled oil, strange headed and fierce, past the billiards room and into the library.

Scrotum shifted a huge button-back armchair to the wall and standing on the arm reached up and removed three books from the almost top shelf. The weighty leather bound Pictorial History of Gargling, Dead Men Don’t Need Haircuts, and Personal Dental Experiences. These three revealed a lever, and with a pull a portion of the shelving swung protesting back to reveal a passage.

"I suggest you get this thing well oiled. If I can manage it every day I’m damned if I see why the doors should stay sober". Without even a cheerio Henry disappeared and was soon swallowed in dark. Lashing at spider webs with his cane, cursing quietly, and kicking at the bristly things scuttling snuffly and blind at his almost naked ankles. The tunnel gave egress in a thick wooded part of Bramblepatch, and after brushing himself off Henry uncovered a well-kept though ancient unicycle he’d stolen from Hubert. This hidden beneath a hide of gorse. It was then he noticed the ladders. Through his black stockings great rakes revealed corpse sunless white and mauve squid chilblain. "Blast". Henry fiddled with his suspenders, tore off the stockings, and from his shoulder bag produced a hip flask of parafino. A quick swig and, resentfully, he poured a little into his palm to make mud. This he smeared from toes to thighs, swearing horribly at the growing light. The mud was not dry before he checked the tyre pressure and balanced against a larch for the off cocked his leg over and with a deep grunt and a push pedalled wildly teetering, uncertain gyroscope rut route, duck, sway, swerve round rathole, heading for the new tarmacadam and evil smelling arterial road to Concreton.

Hubert didn’t bother with boots. Three pairs of socks, and his stilts were quite comfy. He had bells tied to the wooden ends to help him keep time as he strode. "I’m chasing models in the puddles at the poodle doodle doodled on the jigsaw floor. Thank whelks they all have heads of wood. I dread the day I’m understood". Though himself soft spoken it made Hubert laugh to hear other people shouting. This he considered not only healthful but might, if taken to its illogical conclusion, just do away with the hated telephone. So it was not only for speed, far seeing, and stature, that he habitually went on stilts, for also he affected an ear trumpet with the consequence that most stood on tip toe or boxes or jumped up and down to converse with him. Hubert all time craning, straining, cupping his good ear feigning non comprehension and muttering "Pardon", "Come again", "please speak up" and etc. at the same time uncontrollably giggling while his hapless companions empurpled and shrieked. Colloquy with Hubert was tough. He put it about that swans were really giant snorkels and that they betrayed dinosaur leviathans gliding cold-eyed beneath the lake. Even suspicious folk and poachers stayed clear of Rawlinson Pond.

And on sunny days Hubert went angling using tufts of his own hair or beard as bait. This he called Sassooning. He’d been told the lake enbosomed enormous barbels and this translated through his ear trumpet and giggles became anonymous barbers. He wondered how and why these hairdressers stayed submerged for so long and was determined to catch one. He spent painstaking afternoons painting maggots with red and white candy stripes, fixing the wiggly horrors stiff with hair lacquer, but it was a waste of time for white coated and deep beneath the mirror surface…

Bye Bye Bye

He leant against his bike munching a curry goat sandwich and keeping the dormobile home of William ‘Buller’ Bullethead under surveillance. But he dozed off now and then and thought of the islands and Mass, and the pans throbbing, liming, snorkelling. Of his training in chill England, and the letters that dribbled sporadically less and less frequently from Jubilee. The training had been fun, but despite his colour, at six foot five he was unlike the rest.

These happy reminiscings were rudely stopped when Sir Henry, having discarded the unicycle and hidden it emerged callid and fuming from Bramblepatch and at the same time Buller Bullethead, spruce as a spiv, collided and accosted him.

"Hello moosh where’re you off to?"

"You impertinent lout do you know who I am"

"Course not, I tell you what you look like though. What’s your moniker?"

"I’m Sir Henry Rrr, er um I think I’m er Hughbliette"

"That’s nice, I’ll remember that. You some kind of artist?"

"Ye Ye yes. I’m especially fond of the the Michael um, Michael and Jello the two men responsible for the Cistern Chapel. Mike did the figures Jello did the setting. Aubrey Moustachely notorious for his illustration of Shallowmay, the Jewish play by Oscar Peterson. Caravannio the gypsy dauber. Like the moderns too. Jackson Polack the Polish abstractionist, er Avocado Da Vinci and so on. Albrecht Durex the sensitised German woodcutter, strange man made a pinhole every hundred of his editions. Anonymous Bosch the secret Nazi, Vincent vin Rouge, Paul Shazam the Captain Marvel of post impressionism, painted nothing but letters, postcards, parcels. I enjoy surrealism, always listen to Mrs Dali’s Diary etc. etc. Anyway I’m off, I must be off, I’m going to the the the sewerage farm in Concreton there to seek inspiration".

"What, in shit. Blimey you want to take a gander in my gaff, family’s full of it".

"No, this is to do with lumbago".

"Is he an artist and all? Hold on I’ll just roll an oily rag and I’ll join you".

"No no no no no, approach at your peril. I’ve got golly golly or beri beri, or trilby trilby".

"Listen moosh I don’t reckon you’re a proper sambo at all, for starters your bacons are streaky".

"What I I I decidedly is a sambo Sahib, regard these earrings".

"They look like cotton reels chief".

"Cotton reels you lick spittle toad, these are my ancestral eardrums. Listen to am (starts bongo drumming). There I’ve just sent orders to my cousin the Prince".

"Oh Yeah, what for?".

"Er Chateau Gratin, that’s um cat with cheese to you, and pilau rice".

"Are you elephant’s trunk or something?"..

"I am sober as a judge and since I am a magistrate enjoying fair play and punishment in equal and unflinching severity I’d advise you to watch your lingo ere I loudly reflect on your parentage er Bwana".

"Ah no I’ve got you twigged. You ain’t no Sambo. You’re Sir Henry Rawlin-me-blinkin-son sunshine".

"Balderdash I’m Hugh Blee er…"

"Tell you what chief, I’m a man of the world. Don’t suppose your type carry any ready bees in your trolley bag so just make me out a gooses for a monkey and I’ll say no more. Will ya?"

"What you rogue!".

"Then I can slope down the Chapel of Rest for a pigs ear and few mothers".

"You resort to knavery. Why, hear me, I have the strength to wrestle mastodons".

"And Mr and Mrs Dons too governor. But play the white man squire, I turned clickety click last Tuesday, done all me dole on the gollys, I’m boracic honest, spent the week stretched in front of the Marie Curelly without so much as a glass".

"You marble hearted fiend I’ll….". Henry raised his cane then thinking better turned his back on the lout, pulled up his robe and plucked a ruby from his navel, poked it into Bullers grimy claw and with a grunt stumped off. Buller made it to the rubber in moments.

Some years previous Sir Henry, forced to ride side saddle like Her Majesty because of a painful Conan on the Khyber, with his dauntless trained whelk hounds in pursuit of a vicious servant, determined to apprehend and punish the rascal, fell from his horse near the sewerage works in Concreton. His riding topper blew into the muck and Henry, uncharacteristically, ploughed in high stepping over the revolving sprinklers to retrieve it. Although unhappy about the odour of the ordure he found later, to his surprise, considerable relief from his chronic arthritis and lumbago. So now a monthly visit, in disguise of course, was looked upon with an almost ritual relish.

He was back in the passage, and almost to the library’s priest hole secret door. This was the tricky bit. However the Rawlinson ghost, with its ferocious reputation came in handy if ever Henry was spotted. And his appearance augmented with howls, sent them all, Mrs E included, scurrying. He was musing happily upon this insurance when Henry, to some alarm, noticed a growing phosphorescence in the gloom, and discerned, to his horror, a pair of phantom trousers rushing towards him.

Next time costs four Hail Mary’s, three buttons, and potato crisps are served at communion.

Gooseflesh Steps VIVIAN STANSHALL

Doctor Headstuffing held the winking scalpel aloft with the delicacy and firmness of a man who knows his job. The shaking had stopped and from the liver bared before the blade, to his noble mind, pulsed a ligament of concentration. He took a quick breath and made a deep lateral incision, skidding through the resentful tissue, slicing the kidneys, scoring the bacon, and puncturing the fried egg. Unabashed he watched the yolk puss swell and seep over the sunny side to skate on to the oily blue willow plate. "Swab" he barked.

Dulcie Headstuffing passed the toast.

Munching with surgeon precision, with a forefinger like a bludgeon he indicated the invitation card, silver edged and printed in haughty copperplate, which snarled at him from the table.

You are asked, it read, to an Eating at Rawlinson End. 9 p.m. sharp. RSVP.

"RSVP" queried Dulcie Headstuffing, "and shall you repondez if you please".

"I do not please" sighed the doctor, "and the abbreviated letters stand for Rawlinson Shall Violently Punish". He looked mournfully at his wife. "You don’t have to attend my dear, they only want me there to man the stomach pump and I know how much that sickens you". He pecked her an antiseptic kiss on the cheek. Tired as he was, his suit was still clean cut as cheese slices and the morning surgery had been unusually heavy. At least fifty villages suffering from Sir Henry’s Blemish.

It was the custom since old Sir Hilary Rawlinson’s cheerful time to reward the serfs with a Christmas florin. There was an arrow slit in the back wall of the great house through which the happy peasants traditionally thrust their hands to receive the kindness. This benevolence was in no way eschewed by kindly Sir Henry, but with one novelty. He ordered the coins made red hot in the stove. This made the bounty less fun to receive, and it was ruffian Dick Ruffly who hit on the idea of wearing mittens. Immediately Henry imposed a glove tax of two and threepence reasoning on the one hand a small profit and in the other at least some screaming to brighten the season of good cheer. But all too soon the mark became the stigmata of heroes, and at Christmas to wear a hand free of Sir Henry’s Blemish showed a weak heart notwithstanding some business sense for Dr Headstuffing charged a tosheroon for his soothing salve. So it set you back a tanner to display daring.

At Rawlinson End much of a postcard Christmas it wasn’t. No jolly coachloads, horses grinning at the bit, no crack of whips and heavy coated Robin Goodfellowes bringing the British sherry over the ice. Above a charcoal stick scape of wish wash and rain hues, clouds like a cough hawked threatening big spits and awful gobbing and any amount of unseasonal nasty, and this sky had teeth and gripped Rawlinson in dreadful jaws of frost. Hubert heard it.

But preparations for the Eating were well underway. In the grounds deep trenches were dug with poles slung across and a choice of news- or sand-paper. And logs were hewn for the great bonfire by the lake.

In the house commodes, pos, pottys, and discreet piles of sawdust were dumped at strategic places in deference to the vast exc