Saturday 20 July 2013

View from Civic Hall

In more upbeat news, I’m glad to report that the fire at the Springland Toddlers Playschool has finally been put out. It is thought the fire started in the toy cupboard when battery acid leaked from a faulty Harvey the Rapping Caterpillar. Despite the best efforts of our fire service, the fire burned turquoise for seventeen days and the toxic cloud drifted as far as twenty miles. Residents who still claim to be seeing hallucinations are advised to ignore their dead uncle crawling across the ceiling. He cannot hurt you with his bullwhip.

As your council leader, I was disturbed to learn that America’s National Security Agency has been collecting the phone records of foreign nationals including those of local residents. Mrs Skeetch from the Crystal Therapy Club contacted me to say that a rotating piece of quartz on a string had confirmed the bad news. Her phone had been tapped! I have therefore taken it upon myself to direct a stern letter of rebuke to the head of the NSA, the US Congress and Senate, and a copy was also CC’d to the President, expressing the disapproval of the country council that the American government are spying on practitioners of alternative medicine in the borough. For good measure, Mrs Skeetch has waved a lump of feldspar over a copy of the American constitution. Meanwhile, I have asked Mr Frobisher, the town clerk, to have user passwords changed on all council computers using a cunning code based on initials, star signs and my own Top Secret inside leg measurement.

Finally some good news. I’m delighted to say that I have declared next Tuesday to be ‘County Grid Day’. Civic engineers will go out to local schools and show pupils what lies beneath our local grids. These activities are not just limited to schoolchildren. Perhaps you have a grid outside your home or place of worship and have always thought ‘I wonder what’s under that grid?’ Well, now is your chance. Just grab yourself a crowbar and take a look. You might be surprised at what you find and we’ll be paying fifty pence for every dead rat you retrieve from under a grid. An additional £100 reward will also go to the first person to find a keyring marked ‘BP’ attached to what might look like a bank storage locker but, I can assure you, is nothing of the kind.

10 comments:

  1. Dear Mr Prunefield,

    This communication serves as advance notice of the 1,839 claims regarding personal injury (ranging from minor abrasion to multiple fracture) caused by incorrectly closed or missing drain covers, grids and streetwise appurtenances, now lodged with us by clients resident in your area.

    As you will be cognizant from the documents you signed on taking up your post, these are liabilities for which you personally are responsible. To speed up the claims process, we therefore request forthwith full details of your current bank account and personal savings, thus enabling the process of electronic transfer.

    D. Stote.

    Stote, Thickett & Clench
    Solicitors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sir,

    We write to inform you that the number of claimants seeking compensation for personal injury sustained as a result of inadequately covered drainage and livestock management systems in your area has now risen to 238,402.

    Yours etc,

    (Illegible)

    pp Bottock & Spile
    Specialists in Personal Injury Claims

    ReplyDelete
  3. Blood and sand ! This is just typical of our increasingly litigious society. There's Mr Prunefield doing his best on behalf of us all and here are bloody solicitor leeches making holier-than-thou reference to the small print, which in this case I bet was microscopic.
    Name [Philip T Plank] and address [14 Forkbender Rise, Rooting-in -the - Wold sq993z] supplied

    ReplyDelete
  4. We are finding this body-snatching, grave-robbing practice absolutely vile. 50p for every dead rat, I ask you! These are rats' loved ones, brothers, sisters, godparents and sons-in-gnaw!

    We demand that these rat remains be repatratted and given a decent burial. With proper Last Rats.

    Roland

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Mr Plank,

    We write to inform you that a writ for defamation qua facto quaerelecto has now been issued and sent to the address supplied following the posting of remarks above in relation to the legal practice continued at this address.

    Yours sincerely,

    JS
    on behalf of Stole, Thickett & Clench,
    Solicitors.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Mr Stote,
    My client, Mr Philip T Plank passed me your letter of the 20th inst informing him of your company's issuing of a writ for defamation presumably arising from remarks my client made with regard to a Mr[Councillor] Barry Prunefield.
    On behalf of my client I should make things perfectly clear. I know you of old, Stote. You are in fact, a grabbing old bastard who likes upsetting people with your quasi-legal flim - flam. This is not just my opinion. Derisive laughter ripples around the Masonic Lodge whenever you turn up.
    Please be advised that my partners and I know some very nasty people. Know what I mean ?
    Yours etc etc.,
    Grant T Awful Llb. Senior Pertner,
    Awful, Awful and Aaaaargh.
    Solicitors

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awful -

    Do not think you can intimidate me with your empty threats and petty menaces. I have it on the authority of three Grand Masters, no less, that the underhand practices long associated with your business are currently under investigation by Ones Who Cannot Be Named. Even as I write, authorisation is being given for the addition of particular substances to the glass and plate of a certain member at the next Lodge Dinner.

    Bottoms up!

    Stote.

    Stote, Thickett & Clench
    Family Solicitors & Commissioners of Oaths (Estd 1902).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sirs,
    You probably know the name "Thomas [Tommy] No - nose". Need I say more ?
    Yours etc
    Grant T Awful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Remember Reginald Fothergill.
    Grand Lodge Dinner, 2009.

    Stote.
    Senior Partner
    STClegalbeagles.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fothergill ? Pah! Deserved all he got. Everybody knows you should search custard before consuming it.
    GTA

    ReplyDelete

Go on... you want to say SOMETHING, don't you? Post under a made-up name if you're shy!