On This Day...

Three Years Ago

Traffic in Leighton Buzzard was brought to a standstill when an elderly shopper on a mobility buggy inadvertently hooked up to a line of more than eighty shopping trolleys gathered up in a supermarket car-park for return to base. The driver of the buggy, who asked not to be named, left the parking area unaware of the extra payload behind, though he did detect a certain sluggishness on acceleration.

At a sharp right-hand turn several hundred yards on, the trolleys swung wide, taking out two shop-fronts. The buggy continued east for a further mile, coming to a halt as it attempted to circle a small roundabout, only to find itself stuck in a queue of stationary shopping trolleys. 

According to Darren Pook, aged 39, Head of Customer Experiences, 'Shopping trolley theft is something we take very seriously, with prosecutions leading to fines of £75 per trolley.'

Five Years Ago

Renewed efforts were made to track down and withdraw from sale a potentially lethal Christmas toy shipped in from the Far East and widely available from market stalls and retail outlets across the country. The Joly Satna Kiddi Fnu Pak had been found to contain a reindeer & robin-patterned boomerang in moulded plastic with inside edge sharp enough to decapitate a small child looking the wrong way. According to Health & Safety officers, a month-long campaign of product recall had failed to see the return of a single boomerang.

Ten Years Ago

Trading Standards officers in Cheshire were successful in their prosecution of a breakfast foods company which sold a packet of Hawaiian Surprise Fruity Oat n' Raisin Mix that was found to contain just one raisin. 'When the picture on the box shows bunches of grapes, you don't expect to be chasing round the cereal bowl in search of one raisin,' said regular Fruity buyer Maureen Snickelthwaite, aged 47, of 14, The Willows nr Runcorn. A spokesperson for the company apologised for the imbalance, saying the manufacturers had been let down by their dried fruits supplier.

Episode 8: Bloatmingle is outwitted yet again, and yet another cliff-hanger...

Previously on Bloatmingle of the Yard... Bloatmingle has just come face to face with his Moriarty, the evil Dr Peasmold. Not just Peasmold, but Tommy No-nose - who in those days was still equipped with a nasal extremity. Not for long, though, as Hercules Peasmold deftly removed said proboscis by means of a shooting stick. Rounding on Bloatmingle, Peasmold fired the question: "How on earth did you find me?"

‘I knew that only a truly sick and deviant mind could even conceive of a plan to poison lady’s corsets,’ Bloatmingle explained. ‘I therefore decided to profile our suspect and I deduced that I was looking for a man called Bill who raises chickens. Alternatively, we were looking for a man with a secret passion for bagpipe music and who wears rubber tips on his goat-chewed fingers. When you booked yourself into the Mayfair Hotel as Moll Dynmar, I knew who and where you were. “Moll” is the Catalan for “wharf”, “dyn marw” means “dead man” in Welsh. There are very few master criminals as proud of their Catalan-Welsh ancestry as you or who boast about their 37 inch inside leg. No 37 Dead Man’s Wharf seemed the obvious place to look.’

There was a sudden noise from the back of the room as PC Fittock appeared with Spiggot trailing behind him leading the kidnapped goats of Kidderminster which, if you cast your minds back, is where this whole complicated case had started.

‘You’ve been clever,’ said Peasmold, ‘but I’m afraid I have again outwitted you again. Haven’t I constable?’

‘That’s right,’ said PC Fittock turning his gun on Bloatmingle. ‘You were far too trusting to believe that I was really PC 214 Fittock, the son of PC 675 Fittock! I am actually PC 483 Humplock!’

‘Not PC 483 Humplock, the disgraced son of disgraced police constable Humplock whose number I don’t recall?’

‘No, he was my uncle. I’m the son of WPC 029 Mavis Humplock who you once cruelly humiliated in the station canteen by remarking on the size of her ankles.’

‘Curses!’ said Bloatmingle, surrendering his Webley by throwing it to the floor.

‘So, it looks like I triumph again,’ said Peasmold.

‘You have indeed,’ nodded Bloatmingle. ‘And all because I didn’t spot that the constable suffers from the same water on the ankles as his poor mother.’

‘I do not suffer from water on the ankles!’ cried PC Humplock lowering his gun to hitch up his trousers by half an inch.

‘No, you fool!’ cried Peasmold.

But it was too late. In the fraction of a second it took the PC to inspect his own ankles, Bloatmingle had acted. He dived forward, grabbed his Webley between his teeth whilst removing his pipe from one pocket and a pinch of tobacco from the other. Falling into a forward roll, he pulled the gun from his teeth, lit his pipe, inhaled a lungful of Beryl’s Old Shag which immediately calmed his nerves so he could fire off the single round towards the disappearing figure of Doctor Hercules Peasmold.

‘Should I chase him, sir?’ asked Spiggot who had eventually acted and was now sitting on PC Humplock’s satisfyingly plump and comfortable ankles.

‘No need,’ said Bloatmingle. ‘I took a chunk out of the good Doctor’s right ear and that will be enough to make him list slightly to the left. If my calculations are correct, he’ll run in a circle and will be back here within the hour.’

As they waited, Bloatmingle savoured the flavour of Beryl’s Old Shag and wondered how many times the blessed leaf had saved his life. He had counted into the low three hundreds by the time he eventually heard the sound of webbed feet approach.

‘Now,’ said Bloatmingle, coldly. ‘Before we take him in for questioning, I want some answers from the good Doctor and I’ve been wondering what else those goats might like to chew…’

Detective Inspector Bloatmingle had been in worse predicaments. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember any since his memory had been rendered momentarily useless, possibly due to the biting cold, equally possibly by his standing without his trousers on the edge of the Clifton Suspension Bridge with the nose of a single-barrel shotgun pointing at his groin.

Tesco Health and Safety Advice 28/10/13. To all employees.

Please note SRGs (Shoppers’ Routes Diagrams) in (1) and (2): Route (1) is more liable to be taken by Elbow Steerers, Massive 2 Trolleyers and Dopes, whilst Route (2) is favoured by Irritables and Quickies.

Type Descriptions:

• Elbow Steerers. Tend to be female, elderly and bad-mannered. Elbow Steerers lean heavily on trolley because of bad back/hips/knees.Will push in.Tend to use ROUTE ONE.

• Dopes. Can come in family groups. Are stupid. Gossip with other Dopes. Mouth breathers. Will bang their car doors against cars they’ve parked too close to. Leave trolleys parked across aisles whilst gossiping. Exclusively ROUTE ONE.

• Irritables. Young mothers with screaming babies. Hated by everybody.Would like to use ROUTE ONE, but screaming baby forces use of ROUTE TWO.

• Quickies. Invariably male. Approximately ten times faster than all other categories. Tend to forget to purchase 50% of what they were sent to buy. Exclusively ROUTE TWO.

• Massive 2 Trolleyers. A real hazard. Tend to block out all light in narrower aisles. Two trolleys because they tend to buy in double-double-bulk. Exclusively ROUTE ONE. Occasional two hour delay whilst emergency services free them from the tight turn next to Reduced Items.

I shouldn't bother him just now. Nobody's monitored his phone. Again.

From your transport correspondent, Jeremy Klaxon

Agh! Traffic cones! Dontcha hate 'em? Bloody miles and miles of perfectly hazard-free motorway cut down to one  50mph lane because of thousands of cones placed there in the dead of night by mystery workmen in ski masks. You’ve all seen the signs 'Caution, maintenance personnel (workmen) in carriageway'. They don’t tell you what these phantoms are doing, do they? Well, they’re waiting for the wee small hours when a lorry full of cones arrives and begins crawling along a 25 mile stretch of motorway like a great wheeled hen, laying thousands of cones in an exercise specifically designed to get on my tits.

Anyway, one day whilst crawling along behind a retired assistant librarian in one of those dreadful Suzuki R Wagons at 48.3mph, and hemmed in by serried ranks of bloody cones, I spied an official-looking  car parked inside the coned area – you know, the ones you think are police cars because they have the same self-important decals all over them. So I pulled in, got out, strode over to the vehicle, leaned down to the open window and said to the pointy-head behind the wheel, “WHAT ARE ALL THESE CONES FOR?” His answer astounded me.

Apparently, traffic cone production in the UK is government subsidised. It was one of the last Labour government’s wheezes to boost employment. As I type we have 1000% more traffic cones than we will ever need. And they keep coming because the present government daren’t shut down cone factories for fear of what that would do to the unemployment figures. So, as Mr Pointy-head in his fake cop car said, “We’ve got all these cones and nowhere to put them. So we dump four or five million every day on motorways up and down the country . We don’t actually DO anything in those areas – just dump cones. I mean, everything’s got to be somewhere, right?”

I was speechless. Bloody speechless. But did have the last laugh because as I rejoined the 50mph crawl, I took out at least 150 cones and watched happily in the mirror as they bounced about the carriageway. I was told later by a contact that this causes untold confusion in Coneland because whilst there are highly trained crews who put the cones out and highly trained crews who remove them, there are NO highly trained crews to stand them up if somebody inadvertently knocks them over. Felt a bit better then. But I am thinking of asking James Maynot to design a sort of trawl net you could scoop up a dozen cones with and then fling them up, over your car, at speed, into motorway service areas.

Test your General Nollidge with The Pangolin!

DID YOU KNOW...

That research proves that Leonardo da Vinci invented the Dyson vacuum cleaner 600 years before James Dyson did. The Duke of Sforza was Leonardo’s first customer. However, the Duke thought it was a helicopter and tried for many years to go to work in it.

DID YOU KNOW...

That the rain in Spain falls mainly all over the place.

DID YOU KNOW...

That at official gatherings H M the Queen never enquires about the identity of sneak farters.

DID YOU KNOW...

That the overall surface area of all the man-made islands off Dubai is nowhere near as big as Wales.

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

Lemmings, gerbils and hamsters have a third eye located quite close to their bottoms (like Tax Inspectors)

Well?

Thought for the Day, from Justin Webly, more or less Arch of Cant

Hullo,

            

Justin here. What a week it has been! And ‘tis only Tuesday, as my dear mother was wont to say, sometimes when it was in fact, Monday. Oh my! The young man with the wire in his ear has just pointed out that I said exactly that in my last Thought to you. 

I do apologise. But as I say, I am terribly, terribly busy and today will be a blur of religious duties starting with the Christening of that nice young couples’ baby. Barring accidents – child dropped into font, child throwing up etc., etc., that shouldn’t take long although there will be a certain amount of walking about in a regal fashion and much photography afterwards.

Then I’m off to chair a meeting at No 10 – yes, you’ve got it – No 10 – all about these dreadful Facebook people who have decided that its alright for them to show acts of depraved violence, for all to see. I am indeed honoured that Mr Cameron has entrusted this responsibility to me, although the young man with the wire in his ear is of the opinion that the PM has passed the buck and that when the shit hits the fan, I’ll be the one covered in it. His words, not mine. But let us not shy away from contemporary parlance, for it often paints an honest picture. And the shit may verily hit the fan. Impressionable youngsters, seeing adults beheading each other on Facebook may well take it upon themselves to wander the streets at night decapitating their chums. And why? Why would they do this? The young man with the wire in his ear suggests that it is because they are “bleedin’ dickheads”, but I suspect that there’s more to it than that.

Incidentally, Mr Cameron also asked me if I could come up with a few ideas about how to put a more Christian gloss on his administration. Of course, bringing immediately to mind what Jesus would have said, I recommended the immediate ditching of that silly high-speed train, a U turn on the bedroom tax, sacking that odious Gove fellow, increasing income tax on the very rich which would include most of his cabinet, and vaccinating badgers instead of employing myopic marksmen. Well, the effect was immediate, and our Prime Minister had to be helped to his car in tears of uncontrollable laughter. 

Pip, pip,

Justin

'What d'you want to do? Go down the bus shelter and drink cider, or watch a few blokes
having their heads hacked off?'

Ask Lady Violet

Dear Lady Violet,

I've recently started my own very posh marketing company - it's called TWUNT, which I'm sure you'll agree is an eye-catching, alluring name, redolent of class and style.

I had paid a fortune to produce all my publicity - letterhead, business cards, souvenir mugs, pens, and even a promotional calendar with pictures of golf clubs on it.  Then - what do you know? There's been a rather disconcerting epidemic of Tubrous, Warty, Unsightly, Nasty Threadworms (or TWUNT for short) which has been widely publicised in the press, and I feel that this has had a detrimental effect on the image of my company.

What should I do with all that stationery and the souvenir mugs? Should I start up another company called SARS?

Yours,

Phineas Wubbs

Lady V: Mr Wubbs,

                      
Doubtless, you will note the omission of the customary “Dear”. This is because that appellation implies some small level of affection or respect. You will forgive my frankness, but I feel neither of these things for you. How could I?

                      
What you have done is stupid in the extreme. First, you do not enlighten me as to what TWUNT stood for in the first place, and secondly, you can hardly blame the press for appropriating “TWUNT” as discreet shorthand for something utterly unspeakable.

                    
Your only recourse might be to fiddle with the lettering on your stationary etc so that TWUNT becomes BOMP (British Overseas Military Police) and see if that organisation might take the lot off your singularly inept hands.

Dear Lady Violet,

I am somewhat inexperienced in matters of a fornicatory nature, and often struggle to find conversational topics which will interest the opposite sex. For example, I am unable to give what I believe is colloquially known as a 'toss' (whatever that may mean) about football, motorbikes or strong lager - all subjects on which I have heard the male of the species exchange views.

However, I was talking to two young men in the refectory of a College of Higher Education yesterday, and I mentioned that I have problems getting underwear which fits properly, my 'vital statistics' being 48-23-36, and had resorted to using cling film instead. I reflected that sometimes the cling film causes me to sweat, and I am obliged to remove it and find a particularly wet mud patch in which to roll, preferably in the company of like-minded females so that we can apply the slurry to each others' nude bodies. I commented that though my interest in sport was minimal, I found 'muff-diving' to be a diverting occupation.

Before the two young men departed, they made a comment that they'd need a 'cold shower' now. I feel my social ineptitude has really come to the fore here. Did the mention of all that mud make them want to cleanse themselves at the very thought of it? I fear I may have offended them.

Dear Lady Violet - please could you give me any conversational tips which would serve me well should I meet any more young men in the future?  I would SO like to converse with one!

Yours,

Beatrice Foxx-Bumbler, B.A. (Hons)

Lady V: Dear Ms Foxx-Bumbler,

                                             
The experiences you describe are still very common especially in parts of the country able to boast young women with impressive chests and a higher-than-average rainfall. Whilst modern substances like cling-film have supplanted cellophane these day, the essentials of muff-diving remain the same. I have to work on my instincts here, so I must ask – why on earth would you want to TALK to a young man when you could roll about in the mud with one, indulging in all manner of Ugandan practices? Count yourself lucky, my gel. Enjoy!