Guinea Pig Ahoy

 

A couple of days ago I was invited at my boss's house out in the country for "a little bite to eat and a festive drink at Easter," as he called it.

He lives in one of those big mansions that posh people have.

He had invited a number of people from work as well as a few of his friends and golf-playing pals and a number of people from his gentleman's club. It was mainly a stand-up affair where everyone stands in this large room mingling and talking whilst a multitude of waitresses come round offering you hors d'oeuvres, canapés and small little bites you would not give your dog; and a number of waiters offer you various drinks, mainly alcoholic rather than a good pint of lemonade, or a cup of tea.

Anyway, I had been invited and it was not the kind of invitation you would turn down. More a three-line whip as they say in political circles.

As it happens, just before I set off from my office I got a phone call from the family: "Could you pick up Bertie the guinea pig from the vet please? ... Please ... Pretty please ... We'll be ever so grateful for the rest of the year ... Please!!!"

Why can't they pick up their own stupid pets? Anyway, at the vets the nurse said that Bertie was still a little sleepy from the anaesthetic and will be so for the rest of the day. Have I got his little carrying cage?

Have I heck? I said yes and took the little creature and put him in my brief case to keep him warm.

At the party, everyone was mingling and being ever so polite and upper-class, don't you know, what? Jolly good old chap. And all that. 

Someone noticed my sleeping Bertie walk along the wall. He must have woken up and got out of my case when I went to fetch the Marketing Report for my boss and forgot to close the case again.

Now normally, any sane person would have said there's a guinea pig about.

Just point at the creature and say: "By Jove, there's a most magnificent specimen of the guinea pig variety, don't you know ... what?" Now isn't that something you have often said at parties?

But NOOOO. On this occasion some idiot from the golf club said: "There's a rat here, a damn big rat!"

"A rat?"

"Yes ... a rat!"

"Where?"

"Over there!"

"Where over there?"

"It was there. He's now gone over there I think ..."

"A big fat ugly rat ..."

"It's now ran over there ... look out ... he might bite!"

"Rats carry the platonic plague, you know ..."

"Yes, it's in their teeth. One bite and you're a gonna by Jove!"

"I don't want it to tear my 15 Denier nylon stockings ..."

"Don't be silly, man. Why are you wearing nylon stockings anyway?"

"Because I couldn't buy nylon tights to fit me!"

"Over there ... I've seen the rat over there ... it's big and furry ..."

Pretty soon there was pandemonium in that room. My boss's wife was mortified as well as mummified at the thought of having rodents in her house.

"We don't have rats in this house, have we Luis?" she asked her husband.

"No ... there's quite a few at work though," he replied referring to his employees.

Everyone was running here there and everywhere in no particular direction trying to avoid and escape a non-existent rat who happened to be my sleeping Bertie taking a walk.

Women, including the waitresses in their miniskirts, suddenly jumped on top of chairs, sofas, armchairs or whatever furniture of height, like the table at the end of the room, and held their skirts and dresses up high showing off their un-mentionables.

What is it with you ladies? What is the point of standing on a chair with your skirt held up high? Do you think the rat, or any other creature, would climb up your legs? The very sight of you screaming would most probably send him to apoplexy.

I noticed there was even a wimp of a man standing on a chair and holding tight to a young waitress. On second thoughts, maybe he was taking advantage of the situation.

The butler came in with an assistant and tried to find the rat and kill it with a heavy shovel in his hand.

Luckily, I noticed Bertie cowering in the corner just by the grand-father clock. I quickly bent down, picked him up and put him in my trouser pocket. The stupid animal thanked me for saving him from certain death by biting my finger. He then proceeded to tumble and somersault in my pocket in a most embarrassing display which I wouldn't want you to imagine right now!!!

Luckily, no one saw him or his acrobatics in my trouser pocket. And the rat was not found or seen ever again.

The party continued in a most subdued manner, and I noticed no one was eating the hors d'oeuvres.

Murder by TV

What a waste of time. I have just wasted a whole hour of my life watching a Murder Mystery program on TV and at the end I am none the wiser.

I want to protest to someone but the chances are that if I write a stiff letter, (on cardboard), to the TV company, the producer, the main actors, or even the writer; none will take me seriously.

Instead, I am writing to you for some sympathy, at least.

No sooner the program started that a man was found murdered in suspicious circumstances. Has there ever been a murder in not suspicious circumstances? I ask myself.

The victim was shot in the chest and buried in the back garden of the local vicarage.

At first the police suspected suicide. Then they looked into the hole where the man was found and decided someone had put him there.

Who was it? Who tried to bury the victim and did such a bad job of it?

Was it the local vicar, the Reverend Cassock, who has a penchant for licorice sweets and growing broccoli?

Was it the church housekeeper, Mrs Murgatroid Tidy, who keeps a hamster in her bedroom and likes to hide in the bell tower drinking herself to sleep?

Was it the local nosey spinster librarian, Gertrude Pepper-Back, (you always need a spinster in a murder mystery), who always looks from behind the curtains of her house to see who is going where and with whom and at what time; and who also grows all her herbs in alphabetical order? At one point the detective asked her where she finds the time, and she replied, "It's next to the sage!"

Or was it the pub landlord, Archibald Brewer,  who often waters down his beer to make it go further and thus cheat his customers who have no other place to go for a drink because it is the only pub for a million miles around?

I hate it when, half way through the program, they introduce new characters and a new sub-plot to the main plot. Like for instance the "Ye Merry Emporium" which serves coffee and English tea with scones and cream and strawberry jam. It is run by Matilda Rowbottom and her lodger/boyfriend/lover/lothario/seducer/Romeo/Casanova/Don Juan waiter and chef named Bacon Risotto who hails from Scandinavia yet is from Welsh descent.

Or the gardener, Ivor Lawnmower, who apparently years ago fathered a child with the spinster librarian, and that child died suddenly, when grown-up, without saying goodbye when a box of Cheerios fell on him at the local supermarket.

At this point, whilst watching this melodrama, I had a craving for Cheerios; but we only had corn flakes in the house. So you can imagine my frustration and anger at this murder mystery with its incompetent detectives.

As you can see, there were plenty of suspects for this murder.

The police have so many potential suspects that Detective Chief Inspector Barnacle does not know where to start. He checks his script to see where to investigate next and finds he has some pages missing; so he makes it along just to keep the TV program going whilst half the population of the village is decimated, (or is it dessicated), by a murderer or murderers unknown. His plan is to wait until the end of the program and the only character still alive must be the culprit.

The police start making enquiries and questioning all and sundry when, (surprise), the vicar is found dead in an industrial washing machine and is thus eliminated from their enquiries; which is a pity since he was the main suspect. At least it was a clean death at 40 degree washing temperature and a spin dry cycle of 1000 revolutions per minute. You should have seen the colour of his cassock after this brutal clean murder.

So the police turn their attention to the church housekeeper whose job includes cleaning the church vestments. But this proves to be a wild goose chase because the lady in question was at the library at the time borrowing a book entitled, "How to murder people using a hamster as bait."

By the time the police go to the library to confirm the housekeeper's alibi they found the librarian dead in the Zoology Section half-eaten by a crocodile which escaped, or was released, from the local zoo.

In any case, the church housekeeper is herself found dead in a barn full of hamsters pretending to be Guinea pigs.

The pub landlord is killed when a barrel of beer fell on his toe resulting in him bleeding to death.

Matilda Rowbottom sells the "Ye Merry Emporium" to a French woman called Madame Leggert.

And Bacon Risotto falls in love with Madame Leggert's daughter, who is only knee-high, only to discover that she wants to live in Portugal instead of being in this Midwinter Village where murders happen every few minutes; including when there is an advert break on the TV programme.

There is no one else to suspect for this series of murders or mysterious deaths except the many cockroaches who inhabit the Tea Emporium. But unfortunately, they all provide alibis for each other thus causing total confusion to the police and all TV viewers who have wasted their time watching the show.

A Guinea Christmas

A couple of days ago I was invited at my boss's house out in the country for "a little bite to eat and a festive drink", as he called it.

He lives in one of those big mansions that posh people have, you know, just like the one where Theodore Luxton-Joyce lives.

He had invited a number of people from work as well as a few of his friends and golf-playing pals and a number of people from his gentleman's club. It was mainly a stand-up affair where everyone stands in this large room mingling and talking whilst a multitude of waitresses come round offering you hors d'oeuvres, canapes and small little bites you would not give your dog; and a number of waiters offer you various drinks, mainly alcoholic rather than a good pint of lemonade, or a cup of tea.

Anyway, I had been invited and it was not the kind of invitation you would turn down. More a three-line whip as they say in political circles. 

As it happens, just before I set off from my office I got a phone call: "Could you pick up Bertie the guinea pig from the vet please? ... Please ... Pretty please ... We'll be ever so grateful for the rest of the year ... All twenty or so days that are left ... Please!!!"

Why can't they pick up their own stupid pets? Anyway, at the vets the nurse said that Bertie was still a little sleepy from the anaesthetic and will be so for the rest of the day. Have I got his little carrying cage?

Have I heck? I said yes and took the little creature and put him in my brief case to keep him warm.

At the party, whilst everyone was mingling and being ever so polite and upper-class, don't you know, what? Jolly good old chap. And all that. Someone noticed my sleeping Bertie walk along the wall. He must have woken up and got out of my case when I went to fetch the Marketing Report for my boss and forgot to close the case again. 

Now normally, any sane person would have said there's a guinea pig about.

Just point at the creature and say: "By Jove, there's a most magnificent specimen of the guinea pig variety, don't you know ... what?" Now isn't that something you have often said at parties?

But NOOOO. On this occasion some idiot from the golf club said: "There's a rat here, a damn big rat!"

"A rat?"

"Yes ... a rat!"

"Where?"

"Over there!"

"Where over there?"

"It was there. He's now gone over there I think ..."

"A big fat ugly rat ..."

"It's now ran over there ... look out ... he might bite!"

"Rats carry the platonic plague, you know ..."

"Yes, it's in their teeth. One bite and you're a gonna!"

"I don't want it to tear my 15 Denier nylon stockings ..."

"Don't be silly, man. Why are you wearing nylon stockings anyway?"

"Because I couldn't buy nylon tights to fit me!"

"Over there ... I've seen the rat over there ... it's big and furry ..."

Pretty soon there was pandemonium in that room. My boss's wife was mortified as well as mummified at the thought of having rodents in her house. 

"We don't have rats in this house, have we Luis?" she asked her husband.

"No ... there's quite a few at work though ..." he replied referring to his employees.

Everyone was running here there and everywhere in no particular direction trying to avoid and escape a non-existent rat who happened to be my sleeping Bertie taking a walk. 

Women, including the waitresses in their mini skirts, suddenly jumped on top of chairs, sofas, armchairs or whatever furniture of height, like the table at the end of the room, and held their skirts and dresses up high showing off their un-mentionables.

What is it with you ladies? What is the point of standing on a chair with your skirt held up high? Do you think the rat, or any other creature, would climb up your legs? The very sight of you screaming would most probably send him to apoplexy. 

I noticed there was even a wimp of a man standing on a chair and holding tight to a young waitress. On second thoughts, maybe he was taking advantage of the situation.

The butler came in with an assistant and tried to find the rat and kill it with a heavy shovel in his hand.

Luckily, I noticed Bertie cowering in the corner just by the grand-father clock. I quickly bent down, picked him up and put him in my trouser pocket. The stupid animal thanked me for saving him from certain death by biting my finger. He then proceeded to tumble and somersault in my pocket in a most embarrassing display which I wouldn't want you to imagine right now!!!

Luckily, no one saw him or his acrobatics in my trouser pocket. And the rat was not found or seen ever again.

The party continued in a most subdued manner, and I noticed no one was eating the hors d'oeuvres.