The scandal of the scandalous scandal…

The 45th attempt yielded a pineapple that could recite at least thirteen words from the 1985 Austin Maestro Vanden Plas service schedule pamphlet.  If it hadn’t made such a terrifying guttural sound whilst attempting “asymmetrically split rear seat” I may have witnessed a new record for pineapple-kind.  But it did.  And I had to run away… screaming.  But when I pluck up the courage to abseil back into the pineapple caverns in ward 15b of the asylum, sohelpmegod, I’ll commence attempt 46.  And I shall wear my magnetic socks for the utmost chance of luck.

Nobody believed me when I told them of my experiments with this most flavoursome of all fruits.  They all laughed during my detailed lectures on pineapple magno-linguistics.  “Impossible”, they decried.  “Splendid”, said others whilst openly mocking a bowl containing pineapple number 42 that I’d generously distributed as evidence of my scientific greatness. 

Maybe if they’d have seen pineapple number 37.  Now that was a pineapple with real promise.  The timbre of its voice, the thrill of the way it pronounced “rear axle grease”.  I loved that pineapple – almost more than life itself.  But when it suggested through a series of intricate mime gestures that it didn’t like reading from my collection of Austin Maestro literature, my anger just swelled.  Such betrayal.  Betrayal that no other pineapple had ever made me feel before.  Betrayal that could only be countered with a swift drop-kick into the kitchens of the Mumbai Express curry house next door. 

Ha!

So whilst the, admittedly completely insane, inhabitants of the asylum ridiculed my fruitful scientific prowess, the world must surely need to learn of my discoveries.  After a quick motivational recital from the Maestro City X cassette radio instruction manual, I was ready to make my debut onto the scientific world’s stage.  Not that I knew where this stage was.  Or what it looked like, in fact.  I didn’t even know if the stage was one of those creaky old wooden ones, or one of those metal-tubed labyrinths that harbour a void for midgets to inhabit during Andrew Lloyd-Webber musicals.  My complete lack of knowledge on the matter took me from a fluorescent wave of joy to a flea-ridden flea pit of despair.  I needed a new plan.

That’s when I overheard Matron talking about a mysterious scandal in 1963 – and how it grabbed the headlines of every newspaper in the universe for decades.  I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.  I listened intently for hours.  For so long in fact that I forgot to take my yellow pills and had to de-scale my eyelids.  If I could recreate even a fraction of this scandal’s intrigue, the world would surely come knocking at my door to hear of what wonderful wonders my experiments have given birth to.  If they think my talking pineapples are spectacular, just imagine their delight when they hear of what I’ve achieved with the parsnips.

And so, this is how I came to be astride my naughty chair, wearing nothing but my lucky magnetic socks.  Socks that are just a bit to magnetic for my liking, actually, since I can’t seem to stop the damn thing following me around.

So world…. I’m ready. 

Bring on the scandal.  Let me tell you of my pineapples.  Marvel at their Austin Maestro knowledge.

Marvel indeed.

 

Yup.

The bestest medicine…

 

It was only by accident that I discovered the medicinal nature of gravel.   If I remember correctly, it was a particularly crunchy jacket potato that introduced me to the wonders of gravel ingestion.  I lost a few teeth that day, but it was worth every shattered molar to experience the rattling in my belly and the faint aroma of tarmac each time my dinner repeated on me.

Those were but minnows to the full whalesque stature of the real gravel experience though.  The way it made my eyelids curl, my legs foam and my teeth grow back twice as resistant to moss as before, kept me grinning for weeks.  And let’s be honest, who wouldn’t if they were sporting teeth as moss-free as mine now were? 

Such was the wonder of it all I got carried away.  I put myself onto a strict diet of nothing but gravel.  I rolled across every road I encountered hoping to accidentally have a delicious gravel chip stray into my mouth.  I experimented with gravel gravy.  And I befriended lots of men who wore bright yellow jackets and sat drinking tea behind miles of cone restricted A roads.  Days were happy and bright.  I occasionally had to pinch myself just to check my fingers still worked.

But like most things in my life, this wasn’t to last.  On my  daily roll across the A14 I was struck by the thought that nobody else seemed to be participating in this activity.  Were they all mad?  Surely.  For if they knew what I knew, nobody would leave their vehicle’s tyres to experience the pleasure alone.

I set about getting myself a big hairy audacious goal of evangelising the role of rolling in gravel. 

Step one was to get people out of their cars. 

Easy.   

As I rolled across the A14, I replaced each gravel chip I scooped into my mouth with the only things I could lay my hands on in quantity – some nails I found in Matron’s underwear drawyer.  After 17 deliriously resplendent rolls, I was well on my way to having enough nails scattered about to tempt people out of their cars on the promise of a free nail.  Then I could have a meaningful conversations with them about the virtues of gravel.  Genius. 

But that’s when rush hour started.  And coincidentally the loud crashing noises.  And then shortly after that the wailing siren noises and people screaming as if in pain noises.  Now how was I going to talk to people about gravel with all this noise and commotion?  I didn’t know.  I panicked.  I couldn’t breathe.  I put my hands over my ears.  I felt the need to sing Kylie songs very loud.  I had to leave.  I needed to think.

That was made altogether easier when some nice young gentlemen in uniforms escorted me away from that terrible scene into a lovely car with comfy seats and heavy restraints.  And they didn’t even notice that I had secretly kept some gravel in my mouth and that as they drove, my teeth were getting less and less covered in moss with each kilometer passed.

When Matron heard of my eventful day, she tutted loudly.  She thanked the nice men who had brought me back and gave me a special treat.  Some lovely new pills, just for me. 

 

They make me very happy.

Very splendid indeed.

When the circus is over…

 

So I went to the circus.  The antics of the clowns were truly inspirational and I felt motivated to improve my own (somewhat mediocre) clown skills.  The complete lack of grace as they tossed custard pies at each other was moving and the cacophony of nose honks towards the end almost had me weeping for joy.  If it wasn’t for Matron poking the beejeebus out of my ribs to keep me from drowning in a pool of my own saliva, I think I may very well have brain melded with the deliciously pink fluffy bunnies of nirvana.  And as they prized my fingernails out of the freshly gouged grooves in the concrete as we left, I remember mumbling repeatedly that I’d one day take to the stage in a secret life and live out my days as one of the world’s foremost  entertainers of children.

Yup.

That was definitely the plan, anyway.  But like most things, those plans have a terrible propensity for disintegrating into little blobs of molten fish finger juice that get stuck in the types of crack that no dish cloth can purge. 

My juggling has improved leaps and bounds since my last knife juggling attempts  and I only lost two fingers this time.  I’ve found I’m a complete natural at tripping over my own vastly over-sized shoes and my trousers almost fall down as far as my knees if I gyrate my hips for about seven minutes – impressive indeed I think you’ll agree.

But when Matron spotted me squirting weak lemon drink over the children in the observation gallery above the correctional mental equipment room, I was duly harpooned and force fed sixteen black pills (the ones with the faint sound of Kylie Minogue if you insert them in your ears).  I remember nothing apart from thinking that I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky… lucky.

I awoke in my cell. 

I may be here a while.

Matron was most displeased.

Fear of cameras…

 

Matron said I could be the official photographer for the annual egg and frog race.  Opportunities like this don’t come my way very often, and usually fall to that ninkumpoop over in cell 94B.  So what if he’s managed to charm Matron with his perfect physique, Swiss bank accounts full of weak lemon drink and his uncanny impersonations of George Clooney.  It won’t last for long.  Once Matron knows about what he does in the corner of his cell every Thursday, I’ll regain her attentions and once again become her favourite inmate. 

So anyway, something must have twitched in the institution’s space time continuum since I found myself responsible for this most prestigious event.  Matron said I could keep any of the eggs or frogs that failed to make it to the finish line, just so long as I picked them up carefully and returned them to their rightful owners as quickly as possible.  You can’t say fairer than that.

On the big day, I prepared thoroughly.  I discharged my camera’s battery to ensure I couldn’t get electrocuted, used a kitchen scourer to clean the lens of anything that could ruin a perfect shot and dunked the whole thing in disinfectant for 30 minutes to make sure I didn’t contaminate anyone I photographed.  Nobody was going to accuse me of not having health and safety as my top-most priority.

I was at the starting line.  The llamas were prancing around confidently with their eggs carefully balanced atop their frogs;  the Felicity Kendalls were stretching every conceivable limb in preparation for the grueling course that lay ahead; George Bush was giving a truly splendifulous funeral speech to mark the occasion; I was doing finger press-ups to make sure my finger would be in tip-top condition for when the time came to take a photo.  I took a swig of some weak lemon drink to calm my nerves.

And then, with but the shortest of notice, the little girl from section 9 was detonated into a fine red mist and the race was underway.  Ok… so I missed taking a photo of the start… I was waiting for the right moment, but it just didn’t come.  And now all I could see was a crowd of blood coated shapes disappearing off into the distance accompanied by the occasional croak from an encumbered frog and a squeal of delight from Bob Carolgees, I think.

Matron wouldn’t be happy.

So I ran.

I chased and chased, but couldn’t keep up… this race was fiercely competitive, and such was the training that the competitors had put in, not a single egg or frog was dropped.  As I crossed the finishing line panting furiously, I was met with a swift but perfectly effective blow to the head with a defrosted chicken.  I was out knocked out cold for 15 minutes plus 20 minutes per lb.

I awoke to see a very angry looking Matron.  The guy from cell 94b was behind her looking all smug and insidious.  I briefly remember, before the waves of noxious broccoli vapour made my head hurt, the sound of a key being thrown into a very deep well.

And this is how I came to have my fear of cameras.

😦

The dread of the shred that leaves you dead

 

Matron said I should shred some confidential stuff, lest it fall into the wrong hands. That would be… er… problematic and embarrassing – and not just for the llamas.

Now normally I’m good at shredding, but today I forgot to heed the warning of “Shred with a tie and you’re dead”.  There were warnings on the shredder and everything.

It was going great, but just as I reached for the latest stack of llama sex orgy paperwork, my tie flopped into the diamond cut steel grinding gears of the shredder of death.

This is moments before my grizzly end.

Splendid.

They know…

 So…

 Apparently they do.

 I’m not quite sure how.  I was most careful.

I even selotaped shut my post box for three weeks.  Which of course meant my normal delivery of aquamarine pills (to repress my murderous tendencies) failed to arrive.  Not that I’m more murderous or anything…

 

So I killed the gardener.  He chopped a rose petal off.  He deserved it.

But he wasn’t my main quarry.  He wasn’t in the know.  How could he know?  Nobody knows…

I thought.

That’s when I met Felicity Kendall.  She explained the master plan.  We were to eat nothing but cauliflower cheese for 7 weeks solid.

 

I told her no.

 

Just no.

 

But she insisted.  And I ate it.  And now I can think of nothing but killing tigers.

And so with my main quarry identified, I set about killing as many tigers as I could find. 

Splendid. 

Nobody tells you that tigers are hard to find.  Once I’d killed all the ones in zoos, tracking them down in the wild proved more elusive.

Months I wandered.  I traversed the snows of the poles, I spent weeks searching them out in the streets of London, I swam to the depths of the Atlantic.  No tigers.  Boo.

Stupid tigers.  I guess they live to live another day.

 

But someone still knows…

Not quite the goatie I thought I’d grow

So I did a spot of personal grooming.  I wanted a new look.  Something suave and dashing.

Facial hair always works.  Makes you look all cool and that.

 

I thought.

 

Matron knows better though.  “All facial hair must be approved and signed for in triplicate” (Actually it’s more than triplicate in reality but whoever says “sign it in septupulet?”).  Is that even a word?  Who knows.

So anyway, that’s too much effort.

I improvised (and bypassed) the rigorous safety precautions and approvals.

 

2 days later…

Suffice to say. it’s not quite the goatie I thought  I’d grow.

 

*sobs*

A grave mistake…

Matron’s a fanatical murderer.  Last week, for example, just to keep up with her insatiable bloodlust, she managed to work her way through an entire agency’s worth of secretary temps.  I needed some creative thinking to persuade the agency to send some more after the 37th failed to hand in her timesheet.  I don’t think my story of there being a giant secretary magnet hovering over the country plucking secretarys from the streets (and that they were at their safest at the institution where we have a strict no giant magnet flight zone in force), was totally convincing.  The promise to Boris of a night with Brad Pitt was a useful bribe that kept the rouse going longer than ordinarrily possible, though.

Still…with murder comes body disposal. 

Luckily for Matron I’m adept with shovels, acid, hungry pigs, DNA alteration and hacking into Police networks to modify their so called “evidence”.  It took me a while to get good at this stuff, so some of my early attempts, circa November 1938, were somewhat shambolic.  Take this for example.  I left a huge clue to all the authorities that I’d buried the fruits of Matron’s foolish behaviour.  At least, that’s what I think I buried there.  It’s been a while.

So I decided to take a peek.  There’s no harm in peeking right?

At first it was all pretty normal.  I excavated through the usual bones, teeth, spoons and amulets of ancient and ungodly power.  Then I found something really intriguing.  It had an eery mysterious glow and it smelt of wasps.  The light danced across its surface and it was dispensing weak lemon drink into a small cup that never seemed to overflow or run dry.  Then it began singing a melody of such enchanting beauty that I was powerless but to lick it furiously. 

A few hours later I was aware that my tongue had swollen to the size of my left foot – which was just as well as my left foot appeared to have gone.  As had my right elbow, though strangely my right hand was right where it should be.

It was ace.

But when I lost awareness of my eyebrows I knew I was sinking into trouble.  But I couldn’t stop licking.  The melody was washing over me in waves of surrealness that compelled me to lick.  I could feel my life ebbing away from me.

 

A pain.

 

A stinging pain at the back of my head.

 

Then nothing.

 

Nothing at all.

 

 

I awoke in my cell.  Matron was there.  And so was all of my body.  In fact, my body had been augmented by a large shovel shaped bump on the back of my head.  Matron explained.  I should never had tried to regain my foolishness by unearthing what I had stowed years before.  Matron, it would seem, had taken appropriate action to free me from my folly and save my life.

But damn.

I had found an eternal source of weak lemon drink and it was cruelly taken from me. 

 

I guess my quest continues…

Playing with radiation…

So I was expecting a delivery of radioactive pills.  My vast array of medicinal pills just don’t cut it anymore.  I need to crank up the gigawatts somewhat. 

So I was most wonderfully pleased when I saw Geoffrey the postman crawl up the path towards the institution clutching a small pulsating package under his arm.  Strange, I thought when I was signing for the delivery, Geoffrey was looking decidedly perturbed – he was weak, breathing heavily and appeared to have a few less limbs than he normally does.  Glancing behind him I could see at least three fingers, a buttock and a few clumps of hair on the path.  Still… I had my pills and that’s all that matters.

I slammed the door in his face.

I retired to room 87 for a bit of peace and quiet so I could enjoy my new pills in complete isolation.  Well… almost.  You can learn to block out the wails of Elvis if you’re prepared to stick one of his un-eaten hamburgers in your ears.  Poor chap.  He’s been in here ages.  He’s delusional of course, he claims to have been some big rock and roll star.

Idiot.

I hate him.

The reinforced cardboard packaging was like tissue paper in my hands, and within hours, I had before me the glory and splendour of a most splendid pill indeed.  It pulsated softly at first, then violently as I prodded it repeatedly with a toothpick, then it almost exploded when I played it a bit of YMCA from my hi-fi.  But that’s normal – YMCA is potent stuff.

I spent ages playing with the pill.  I rolled it all over my face.  At least three times I had it up my left nostril, just for fun.  But I couldn’t continue for ever, the expectation mounted and I had to taste its magnificence…

 

At first, nothing.  It was mildly slimy and tasted a bit like Bovril.  I was close to picking out the invoice and phoning up Pills Rn’t Us. 

…But that’s when everything went white and my eyebrows started reciting Shakespeare.  Then I had brief out of body experience where Joan Collins was eating a large pink blancmange in the shape of a Fiat Panda.  I vaguely remember returning to my body whilst she gorged on the passenger airbag.

My mind was glowing.

 

Then Elvis shot me clean through the head with his gun.  He was sat on the toilet and had “apparently” missed himself- the bullet ricocheting off Joan’s blancmange and hitting me squarely between the eyes.

 

Bummer.

 

Dead again.

It was then that I realised the curtains could take the world…

I was in room 25.73

A strange place of blossom, cheese and chintz.

You know when you get that peculiar feeling that your knees are made of steel and your fingers are made of electro-magnets… well that’s how the room made me feel.  Then, almost to the rising crescendo of bohemian rhapsody, my hair stood on end and the curtains did assume their most potent power pose.

I was left dumbstruck, unable to move.

I quivered.

(Not very much obviously since I was unable to move)

…It was then that I realised that the curtains could take the world…