LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND GOATS
Chapter 6
Monday 19th June London Rotten Borough of Lower Springwood
Right down Lower Springwood High Street the riot is good for business which is booming. Bacon sandwiches can’t be buttered quick enough for the pack of press photographers who beg by the barrier for that one colourful shot of blood and gore <—> a spicy mash of brain, muscle, bone, smegma <—> a decent dumping to grace the front page <—> sure to satisfy the appetite of the red-top punter at the breakfast table.
The first editions forced to get by with grainy shots of Nazis stretchered from the prison chapel to receptive meatwagons <—> Ferried at speed over the cobbled streets of Springwood.
Her Majesty’s man-trap of HMP Springwood is now dominated by a rodent of a posher stripe — the Big Cheese from Her Majesty’s shadow government. Public school? Of course. Freemason? You can bet your bottom prune. Fester Featherstonehaugh-Major, little grey man from the Home Office, mouse-black eyes blinking over the level of the table, whiskers twitching — and for the new new new Labour among you — can at least claim not to be Jewish.
And the fiscally prudent will hearten to hear that for the duration of any prison riot only first-team staff (with double pay) are called to the wicket. The plush palatial offices of Administration chockablock with made-members of the Accountants’ Mob, furiously calculating the hourly running cost of the riot on the public purse of Tommy Taxpayer. And ploughing through the thick-pile carpet we find the blue-jacket belly and blue-breathless face of Blunkett. The grand office of the Head Accountant, suitably the plushest office as befitting a public servant of the highest calibre, commandeered by the secret government team captain, Fester Featherstonehaugh-Major, and fitted up as a temporary headquarters for ERROR: Emergency Riot Response Operations Room.
Knock thee times. ‘Come!’
Fester Featherstonehaugh-Major, little grey mouse from the House Office, Lords’ jacket and tie, nested at the head of table in the folds of a pitch-leather chair. ‘My dear chap, come to cawwy your bat for the first team, what?’
Blunkett flushed with the feeling, and weak at the knees, of having been summoned to the headmaster’s office. ‘Yussar.’
‘My dear chap, I think you know the Chief Constable …’ If looks could kill across the table, they certainly promise Blunkett that one word out of turn sure to summon the very largest salvo of prunes at the next Lodge meeting.
‘Yussar.’
‘… and Doctor Thysson …’ The flushing face of the recently departed, now horribly resurrected, foreign lady-doctor uncomfortably close to Blunkett’s overhanging belly, glowers up at Blunkett the rictus of a raven’s revenge.
‘… Doctor … Chief Constable … I’d like you to meet ... the new Governor of Spwingwood Prison.’
Blunkett sinks into the naughty-boy chair at the bum-end of the table beneath a muted shower of ‘congratulations’ and out of reach from the Chief Constable to the right, and Doctor Thysson to the left.
The little grey mouse from the Home Office, Featherstonehaugh-Major, raises a paw of authority. ‘We’re tickled pink today to be new-capping a token woman. You are a token woman, aren’t you, my dear? …’
‘You can count on me,’ coos Doctor Thysson in her best bedside manner.
‘… And you’re a godsend — you’re disabled? …’
‘I am heffing ein sore hip.’
‘… Splendid! Splendid! My dear, you’re tickling all our boxes and bowling a maiden over — you’re a lesbian.’
‘Ja. I was at ze last count,’ puckers Doctor Thysson’s plump pink lips.
‘Owzat!’ cries the little grey mouse from the Home Office, Featherstsonehaugh-Major, sportingly.
‘Danke, sir.’
‘Demn bad luck to be dismissed from the cwease by that vile wapscallion Twaitor James.’
‘Und I vos diss-miss for being helpless vooman from ze vrong country,’ simpers Doctor Thysson and wiping a phantom tear.
‘This is all a wight woyal wum do,’ whinnies the little grey mouse from the House Office, Fester Featherstonehaugh-Major. ‘And Twaitor James — a Queens’ man. Shocking for a Queens’ man to be caught with his twousers down. Quite shocking.’
Blunkett surveys the vast array of basic war supplies: tea, coffee, latte-mocha-frochas, baskets of custard creams, digestives, rich tea, chocolate chip, bourbons, and Blunkett’s favourite out of reach — hobnobs. ‘Governor James? Lower Springwood Grammar School.’
‘A gwammer-school boy! Phew! Now it’s beginning to make sense.’
Into the steaming drink Blunkett plops a jammy dodger — ‘Sense, sar?’
‘This is what happens when you let your lily-livered socialist bunch wun the show. You end with all sorts of pinko-lefties telling you the time of day.’ Featherstonehaugh-Major, long-toothed grey mouse from the Home Office, pauses for breath and wags a warning paw to remind members of ERROR of the hidden perils of left-wing subversives, who even as we speak are infiltrating our treasured institutions and corrupting the minds of the young and impressionable among the deserving classes. No wonder Great Britain has lost her Empire.
Blunkett thinking better of pointing out that donkey’s years had passed since any outfit which could remotely be described as left wing had been running the show, and Governor James so rabidly right wing that even an application to join the Ku Klux Klan a sure-fire hit to be met with liberal objections from its diehard members.
Fingering tenderly his billy-stick, the Chief Constable Colin Dibble snorting briar and flintstone. ‘Traitor James swears to belly hell, sar, Professor Knees is the brains behind the revolution …’
‘Cwy baby bunting, eh?’
‘… Knees is the public’s favourite, sar. And now they're chasing Knees to do a star tun on Strictly Come Dancing …’
‘Twaitor James can swear all he likes. Our first pwiowity, gentlemen — and ladies — is to get to this Pwofessor chap before he sings like a canawy to the pwess. See here.’ From an unhinged briefcase (shiny one side, buff the other) the grey mouse from the Home Office, Featherstonehaugh-Major, fingers a fat buff folder and fires it down the wicket — ‘We’ve taken statements fwom all hundwed and forty-thwee accountants. I must say. I had no idea starving the twoops to death was official policy ...’
‘Belly bad show.’
‘... No wonder mowale with the twoops is stump bottom. Twaitor James heth been tampewing the ball. That’s the way I see it. Not on. What!’
‘The press hounds are wanting a statement,’ reports the Chief Constable. ‘The usual line about hard-nosed thugs bent on rampage will do I suppose.’
Featherstonehaugh-Major, twitch-grey mouse from the Home Office, regarding a long sheet balefully: ‘Snowballs of charges against the gwammar-school boy har getting worse …’
‘Sar.’
‘... Have we any idea what these men on the roof want?’
‘A belly good thrashing!’ angers the Chief Constable and dunking a Raspberry delight.
‘Zir, ze prison doctor ist charged to mind ze men’s mental health. Zee, ze criminal mind can be delicate, zir. Very delicate.’
‘Delicate!’ bawls the Chief Constable outraged, face deepening a bruising blue and red. ‘Delicate! I say we throw in the smoke canisters and flush the beggers out! … Excuse my French.’
‘Normally I’d agwee with you,’ sighs Featherstonehaugh-Major, fluff-grey mouse from the Home Office. ‘But the visiting team have a hostage. And he’s a Fweemason …’
‘Sar.’
‘… Now, Doctor. Time to loosen your arm — How can we bwing this match to a successful wesolution?
‘Vhale music, sir.’
‘Vhale music?’
‘Ja. Jew have jaw sperm vhale, jaw hammerhead vhale …’
‘Catch the enemy sleeping on the back foot, eh?’
‘Sar, this is an outrage!’ interjects the Chief Constable.
‘Unt ze scented candles.’
‘Scented candles?’ The Chief Constable steam-jerking a full-powered cardiac eruption.
‘All wright, Chief Constable, let’s keep this a team effort. Are your chaps weady to club together and bowl the enemy a googly?’
‘I’ve had my chaps — and lady-chaps — scouring the streets of London for their undercover contacts.’ The Chief Constable’s knuckles against the shaft of a billy-stick death-white. ‘We have it from a top informant — and this is the latest fresh grass I can give you — that the wingleader — sorry, ringleader — on the roof goes by the name —’
‘Yes?’
‘— The Toaster.’