LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Sir,

I am not usually one to write letters of complaint but I feel I must protest at your coverage of Mayor Bennet’s inauguration of the new manhole cover in Froghill High Street (Observer, May 25). 

Your article gives the impression that his worship’s speech was largely unappreciated by the crowd. Let me assure you that I, for one, very much enjoyed the joke about declaring the manhole ‘open’ and was keen to repeat it to my friend Brian that same evening.

As a dedicated enthusiast, I have measured, photographed and catalogued every manhole cover in and around Froghill, as well as the majority of storm drain gratings. I therefore feel I am qualified to point out an omission, namely, that the new manhole cover is a Scandinavian model, the Centurion 650, manufactured by Great Drane of Denmark. This makes it unique in the local area – all existing covers are 450mm in diameter and domestically produced by Safe-T-Lid Engineering in Long Marston, Buckinghamshire.

I feel that this kind of background information is essential for your readers to properly appreciate and enjoy the latest addition to our town’s infrastructure.

I trust such sloppy journalism will not become a regular feature in what, until now, has always been a reliable and balanced newspaper.

Yours indignantly,

Colin Thrickett,

Cheetingham

MAN SENTENCED IN MAY DAY MAYHEM

A Traubert’s Heath man was handed a suspended prison sentence yesterday after being found guilty of contravening the Almanac Probity Act of 1871.

In an extraordinary session of Froghill Crown Court, Reginald Mellish, proprietor of Cuckooland Calendars Ltd., was given a three-year sentence and fined £10,000 plus costs.

Mellish, 52, of Wendell’s Road, pleaded guilty to one count of gross meteorological inaccuracy and a further three counts of aggravated deception.

The first charge related to a claim in Cuckooland’s 2019 calendar for the Early May Bank Holiday. Under the date May 6th was printed: “It’s Bank Holiday Monday - 120% chance of rain today”. As it transpired, the opposite proved true and the entire 24-hour period remained dry.

“I put it to you,” said presiding judge Neville Silliphant, “that you wilfully exploited commonly-held beliefs about the weather and published information based on precedent rather than prediction. The resulting confusion was both widespread and conducive to public disorder.”

For the charges of aggravated deception, the jury were referred to calendar entries for Whit Sunday, August Bank Holiday and Christmas Day. These read: ‘Earthquakes likely today’, ‘UK to suffer nuclear attack by Bhutan’ and ‘Jesus will emerge from a silver spacecraft this morning, probably near Cirencester’.

“In the light of such callous disregard for human credulity, I have no hesitation in handing down the maximum sentence permitted for these offences,” said Mr. Silliphant, addressing the defendant. “Consider yourself fortunate indeed that I have decided to suspend the prison term.”

Mellish asked for 218 other offences to be taken into consideration.

MANHOLE GAFFE DELIGHTS CROWD

Froghill’s long-awaited new manhole was inaugurated by the Hon. Gordon Bennet in a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday afternoon.

The manhole, which will allow entry to three sewer pipes simultaneously, is crowned by a circular cast iron lid, emblazoned with the town’s motto ‘In Frog We Trust’.

“It is emblematic of the rapid progress enjoyed by our town,” said Mayor Bennet, addressing an assembled gathering of over five onlookers, “that we now have the ability to enter multiple sewer pipes from a single access point in the High Street. 

"Make no mistake: in celebrating this one achievement, we are celebrating the greatness of our town and all its people.

“And so, without further ado, I declare this manhole open.”

Suddenly aware of the significance of his words, his worship hastily added: “So let’s get it closed quick in case someone falls down it!”

To a smattering of applause, he then cut the ceremonial ribbon before vigorously shaking a jeroboam of champagne and spraying the crowd with it.

DOLLY THE SHEEP FOUND BY ‘SHEAR’ CHANCE

Dexter Oddbin, who has been missing from the Swansdike Institute for Care and Kindness since May 9th, has been found alive and well.

The 24-year-old, who suffers from the persistent belief that he is Dolly the Sheep, was discovered in a field at Rayling’s Farm yesterday afternoon.

“I was out tending the flocks down in Ebbet’s Field and I saw one sheep that looked a bit odd,” said Stephen Rayling, “her coat was all long and straggly, which was strange, as we’d finished all the shearing by the beginning of this month.

“So, seeing as how I weren’t that busy, I decided I’d give her a quick trim. Imagine my surprise when a voice shouts out ‘Ow, that hurt!’ just as I went in for the second pass with the clippers. Turns out it wasn’t a ewe at all, it was a bloke dressed in three Arran sweaters!”

Mr. Rayling alerted the authorities and Oddbin was taken to Froghill police station while he awaited staff from SICK to come and take him back to his ward.

“He was confused and incoherent,” said Sergeant Harry Parsnip, “when we asked what had happened to the three bags of wool he’d had with him, he muttered something about his master, his dame and some little boy or other.

“I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”

BLOOMIN’ BRILLIANT! HENRY TAKES FIRST PRIZE

Monday’s regular pub quiz at the Nut Tree in Froghill has been won by a shrub.

Henry, an English Lavender belonging to Cheetingham businessman Alastair Rose, won by a comfortable margin to take the first prize of a bottle of whisky.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes.” said landlord Bill Blocker.

“This customer walked in with a lavender bush in a flowerpot, ordered a pint of bitter and a glass of water. He went to a table, sat down, took out a bottle of Baby Bio, splashed some into the water and poured it into the pot.

“Then he started whispering to the leaves.”

Stranger things were to happen when veteran quizmaster Des Pringle asked his first question. For not only did a small, clear voice immediately pipe up from the foliage beside Mr. Rose, but it got the answer right.

“I’ve had Henry since he was a seedling,” said 42-year-old Mr. Rose, in an exclusive interview with the Observer.

“On the day we got him, my wife and I were driving home from the garden centre when suddenly, this plaintive little voice said: ‘I’m thirsty!’ I nearly had the car off the road.”

As Henry grew, it became clear that not only could he talk, but also that he possessed an enquiring mind.

“People look askance when they see me going through the Periodic Table with a shrub in the front garden,” said Mr. Rose, “but, you know, Henry and I have had some fascinating conversations over the last couple of years. He’s particularly keen on philosophy.

“It was actually his idea to enter the quiz - he reckoned we’d be in with a chance.”

Following his success in the early rounds, Henry hit a run of bad luck as a string of questions left him dumbstruck.

“I was no good on football, Stephen King novels or Radio 2 disc jockeys,” said Henry, speaking for the first time during the interview, “and I lost the lead to old Ted Pickles as a result.

“But then things really started looking up for me. There was a question about the founder of RADA and another one about father and son American presidents.

“And the final question was a gift: name the actor who played Private Pike in Dad’s Army.

“I mean, after all, he’s a distant relative.”

Mr. Rose says that Henry’s winnings will be administered by watering can. Asked how he felt about taking home a litre bottle of Johnny Walker, Henry replied: “Obviously, I’m very pleased to have won and I’m looking forward to being watered.

“However, if truth be told, I would have been much happier with a bottle of Bushmills.”

FROGHILL SISTERS TO SING THE BLUES

The world’s first singing telegram was sent by Western Union back in 1933. In the following decades, the novelty telegram craze spread and, by the 1970s, everything from a bar mitzvah to a birthday could be celebrated in song.

Now, Dolores and Daniella Chirrup, two enterprising sisters from Froghill, have decided to tweak the conventional format and go into business as the singers of bad tidings.

Their new company, A Spoonful Of Sugar, is all set to sweeten the news of exam failures, redundancy, accidents or even murder through the medium of song.

“We came up with the idea after receiving a telegram when our hamster died,” said Dolores. “It just seemed so matter-of-fact and impersonal. We thought there must be a kinder way to do things.

“So we decided to set up an singing  telegram company. Our slogan is ‘We turn tragedy into melody’. We think it’s quite catchy.”

Song prices vary, depending on the nature of the news to be broken. The sisters will serenade you with a traffic fine for £25, a kidnapping for £100 and a death in the family for £150. In the interests of taste and sensitivity, all songs are set to familiar and comforting tunes.

So, should the STD clinic choose A Spoonful Of Sugar to bring your results, this variation on Scarborough Fair will greet you as you open the door:

Remember your blood test to check for the pox?

Well, we’re here to deliver the shocks:

It’s a highly rare strain of gonorrhea,

So it’s antibiotics and lay off the beer.

If you’re looking for an original way to break bad news, A Spoonful Of Sugar can be contacted on 0372 53281 or you can visit their website, www.misfortuneful.co.uk.

MISPRINT

Due to an editorial oversight, a misprint occurred in last week’s edition of the Observer. In a news item entitled Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On The Bedpost Over Night)?, we referred to Joshua Rayling, of Rayling’s Farm, as having “only one ball”. That should, of course, have read “only one bull”. We apologise to Mr. Rayling and his family for any offence caused. No suggestion of resemblance to Adolf Hitler was intended.

SPEEDING WOODPECKER DESTROYS COTTAGE

A 450-year-old building was reduced to rubble this morning after its load-bearing timbers were destroyed by an amphetamine-crazed woodpecker.

Borogrove Cottage, a Grade-1 listed building dating from 1570, collapsed at around 5am, terrifying neighbours and depositing its sleeping inhabitants onto Wythering High Street.

The woodpecker, furnished by the promotions company Animals for Publicity and Entertainment Services (APES), had been hired to advertise cider in the nearby Rising Sun.

“Woody spent the evening in the Saloon Bar, happily tapping away,” said landlord Graham Sturbridge, “he made a replacement leg for one of the bar stools out of a log in the fireplace. The customers loved it.

“As for his escape, I can only guess that we didn’t fasten the door of his cage properly when we turned in for the night.”

Footprints discovered in one of the cubicles suggest that Woody managed to find his way into the Gents. From there, he flew out of an open window and off down the High Street.

Landing on an exterior beam of Borogrove Cottage, the fugitive fowl set to hammering as never before. Neighbours report being jolted awake by a sound like machine gun fire.

As Woody single-mindedly atomised the tinder-dry beams of the cottage, the added strain on the structure caused the roof to cave in. This then brought the rest of the building, along with its sleeping occupants, crashing down into the road.

Alarmed by the noise and the falling debris, Woody took wing and sought refuge in the duck house on Wythering Pond. He was later rescued by a team from the Wythering Animal Rehabilitation Trust.

“When Woody arrived at our clinic, he was hyperactive, suffering from paranoid delusions and his beak was bleeding,” said Chief Veterinary Surgeon, Dr. Mortimer Pluck. “The blood samples we sent for analysis showed clear traces of amphetamines in his system.”

In a statement to the Observer, Froghill Constabulary confirmed that Woody likely ingested the stimulant during his stay at the Rising Sun.

“We are aware that the pub toilets are being used for drug-taking purposes. Swabs obtained by officers this morning have tested positive for both dexedrine and cocaine residues.

“The bird must have repeatedly licked the top of the toilet cistern, thereby ingesting a considerable quantity of amphetamines.”

The owners of the collapsed cottage, Jim and Eileen Wolfit, are undergoing treatment at the Woodpecker Induced Trauma Unit of Froghill General. Their condition is described as stable.

Woody is currently being kept in a padded cell at WART. He will be returned to his owners just as soon as he has had some sleep.

OBITUARY

BANDERSNATCH, Damon, of Pond View Close, Wythering. Passed away, aged 18, May 10th, following a trampoline accident while painting the bathroom. Son to Julian and Stephanie, brother to Hermione. You had a spring in your step and, in the end, that’s what killed you. All funeral enquiries to: Buried Treasures Funeral Directors, Froghill. Tel: 0372 52481.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

Police are asking the public to be on the lookout for a man who absconded last night from the Swansdike Institute for Care and Kindness (SICK).

Dexter Oddbin, 24, a freelance duck whistler, suffers from the chronic delusion that he is Dolly the Sheep. Police believe he may be trying to reach open farmland in search of other sheep with whom to flock.

Oddbin is described as having straggly white wool, pinkish nostrils and dark brown eyes. He is around 1.3 metres long, weighs 120 kg and is in need of shearing.

A spokesperson for Froghill Constabulary said: “We urge anyone who knows where Dexter may be to get in touch. He was last seen at around 10.30 pm yesterday in Elm Lane, Swansdike, carrying three bags of wool, all of which were full.

“Dexter is not regarded as a danger to the public. If approached, he is likely to bleat loudly and run away in panic.”

Anyone who has any information about Oddbin’s whereabouts should contact Froghill Police on 0372 51111. Calls may be recorded for blackmail purposes.

ACORN CAUSES GAS BLAST - HUNDREDS INJURED

Over three hundred people received medical treatment yesterday following the explosion and fire which put an abrupt end to The Greening festival on Froghill Common.

The day started ordinarily enough, with record numbers flocking to enjoy the annual May bank holiday celebration. After a display by a troupe of Morris 1100 dancers and music by Hillman and the Imps, the crowd fell to enjoying such traditional pastimes as Bugger the Weasel, Nine Men’s Nob, Shout at the Pig and Arse Roistering.

It was during the Slug and Acorn Slingshot event that things took a turn for the worse. Having previously stretched their slugs to the regulation two feet in length, contestants staked them into the turf and then began firing acorns at the wicker man target.

Not all of the acorns found that target however, with one in particular ricocheting off the backside of a nearby Cocker Spaniel. Yelping in protest, the aggrieved animal broke away from its owner and disappeared into the marquee, where it delivered resident jester, Guillaume the Simple, a bite on the leg.

A shocked Guillaume, standing among the spectators at the Rabbit Shaving competition, dropped his bladder. It burst with a resounding bang, releasing the two thousand Celastrina butterflies which had been stored inside for the closing ceremony.

Startled by the detonation, 2018 champion shaver Derek Moore missed his stroke, accidentally decapitating his neighbour’s rabbit. Last year’s runner-up Clive Cook then retaliated in kind, lunging with his clippers in a vicious counter attack.

This proved too much for Moore, who aimed a fist at Cook’s nose.

The region’s two finest shavers then launched themselves at each other, tumbling to the ground and rolling off into the crowd. Latent animosity flared as two sets of supporters began throwing drinks and trading punches. As the air turned blue with butterflies and swearing, the marquee erupted in a frenzy of long-suppressed rabbit rivalry.

“I was just trying to interest a customer in some alternative puddings, seeing as how we’d run out of Duck Membrane Roulade,” said 46-year-old Ian Willoughby, a volunteer in the Traditional Fayre food tent, “when suddenly there’s all these butterflies flying about and the noise of people shouting and brawling.

“I looked outside at the marquee and it was swaying dangerously.”

No sooner had he popped his head back inside than the marquee pulled its guy ropes and slowly toppled sideways.

The seething mass of canvas landed directly on the food tent, overturning a rack of propane gas bottles in the process. An unguarded hob ensured that the subsequent explosion catapulted festival-goers high into the air and shattered windows in houses as far away as Swansdike.

Emergency services were called and arrived on the scene within minutes. Two fire engines brought the blaze under control while a dozen ambulances ferried the injured to hospital.

Mr Willoughby, who was thrown clear by the blast, woke to find himself entangled in a hawthorn bush, suffering from second-degree burns and Ragwort Stew impregnation.

“I was lucky that bush broke my fall” said the heavily bandaged father of two, speaking to the Observer from his bed in the Festive Burns Unit at Froghill General. “Otherwise, it could have been a lot worse.

“You know, at the end of the day, I never did find out whether that customer fancied my Spotted Dick,” he added.

RUDE AWAKENING FOR RESIDENTS

Homeowners in one of Froghill’s more exclusive residential areas woke this morning to shocking evidence that no-one these days is immune from crime. 

During the course of last night, vandals visited their normally peaceful cul-de-sac and spray-painted over four letters on its street sign.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve been targeted,” said Simon Welby, chairman of the Pendennis Rise Active Tenants Society (PRATS).

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had just taken the Rise out of us - but this is going too far,” said Mr Welby, indicating the defaced sign, from which the letters ‘denn’ had been whited out.

“It makes us sound like some kind of cheap levitation trick,” he added with a snort of disgust. 

PIGEON FINDS SOLUTION TO GLOBAL TRAFFIC CONGESTION

The solution to traffic congestion the world over could be in the hands of an inventor from Froghill.

Durwood ‘Doc’ Pigeon, who currently has patents pending for a rotary meat injector, a self-inflating colonic bulb, non-corrosive hamster paste and sycamore ice cream, has developed a machine which will allow cars to become portable.

“It’s easy - you just suck them dry,” he said.

“The idea came to me last Christmas, as I was vacuuming gravy off my wife’s lap during the Queen’s Speech.”

Doc’s invention, the HydroVac 1000, is constructed from a wheeled shopping basket, a battery-powered suction pump and a length of washing machine hose with a plastic funnel in one end. The whole thing is designed to fit easily into the boot of the average family car.

Among the whirrs, chimes and pings of his lab, the 57-year-old gave the Observer an exclusive demonstration of the device intended to revolutionise the way we travel in the twenty-first century.

“I attach this to the windscreen, so,” said Doc, gesturing with the funnel, “and then set the control on the pump to ‘Dessicate’. This sucks all the moisture out of the vehicle and deposits it here, in Compartment A.”

Lifting the flap on the top of the basket, he indicated a two-gallon plastic container lodged inside.

“Once the vehicle has been thoroughly sucked, a pile of granular material will remain – this contains the dried metal, rubber and other components of the car. This material can be gathered up by means of the Sweep Motion Particle Collector and deposited here, in Compartment B.” 

Doc pointed to a dustpan and brush taped to one side of the basket and an empty breakfast cereal box wedged in next to the plastic container.

“As you can see, operating the HydroVac 1000 is child’s play and the whole process should take no more than five minutes.

“In the future, when you get stuck in a traffic jam, you’ll simply get out of your car, dehydrate it and store it. Then you walk, pulling the machine along behind you. At the end of the traffic jam, when you wish to ride in your car again, you just add the contents of Compartment A to the contents of Compartment B, stir them together with a teaspoon and voilà! there’s your car.”

Trials of the HydroVac 1000 are scheduled to start on the notoriously traffic-clogged freeways of Los Angeles at the beginning of next month.

Asked whether having one’s entire car stowed in a wheeled container might not make life easier for thieves, Doc smiled indulgently.

“I thought you might ask that,” he replied, pointing to an attachment on one side of basket. “You see this rack here, just below the Sweep Motion Particle Collector?

“That’s where you keep the baby crocodile.”

MISPRINT

Due to an editorial oversight, a misprint occurred in last week’s edition of the Observer. In a news item entitled Froghill Teen in Ostrich Showdown, we referred to Stan Pendleton, of Granville Lane, Swansdike, as “a curmudgeonly old goat who smells of wee”. That should, of course, have read “a retired train driver”. We apologise to Mr. Pendleton and his family for any offence caused.