Pretty Flamingo

I apologise most fulsomely to all my readers for inflicting on you the grinning mug of Murdoch the Morlock  in yesterday's post. I initially thought it was quite a wheeze turning one of the most powerful men on the Daily Planet into "Happy", a dwarf out of "Snow White and the Magnificent Seven Inches". However, recent scientific research (see this month's "Plumber's Weekly) has shown that exposure to the Murdoch Mug can lead to Pagethreetittitus; a blocked coleen and the so far almost always fatal littlejohnassus. A cure is effected by buying any newspaper that treats its readers as reasonably intelligent and not visually deaf. So that leaves the "Daily Mail" and "Daily Express" readers in mortal peril.

On with today's news.

As you may know I something quite big in the neighbourhood. I know that 'cause when I walk down the street people point at me and smile. As an important member of the community; my views are often sought on the pressing matters of moment. To cite just a few that are currently taxing the minds of our elected representatives and their officials: What colour should be the stripes on the panda crossing? Should lollipop ladies invariably be female? Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? On such issues my opinion is invariably sought.

This morning for example, I had a meeting with three of our ward councillors and a fellow concerned citizen. At 9:30 am we met at the junction of Aubrey Road and Milton Road for a photo shoot. I was running a few minutes late as I had to re tweet Stephen Fry about a problem with his Samsung Galaxy S.

I was slightly disappointed to discover that the local paper had sent neither reporter nor photographer. Instead all we had was a short press notice prepared by the local Labour Party and a  Sony Instant digital camera. One of the councillors had brought along his nephew to operate the highly sophisticated piece of kit.

There we were at the junction of the two road pointing dramatically at the "No Entry" sign. As it was 9:30 am the roads  were rather busy and we noticed a number of cars driving past the "No Entry" sign and down the road the wrong way, their attention momentarily distracted by the sight of five plonkers pointing, for no apparent reason, at the sign.

This performance was repeated next to another "No Entry" sign further down the road. Such is the level of boredom in our neighbourhood that three people came out of their front doors in various states of undress to witness this moment of high drama.

A builder, working on one of the houses in the street was even moved to engage us in conversation. Discovering that we were posing for an article in the local rag  about speeding and dangerous driving down our streets he complained that since he'd parked his van in the road he'd lost both his onside and off side wing mirrors to cars bashing into them as they careered down the road. We felt encumbered to explain that we were more concerned about people driving the wrong way down the street, not just driving down the right way but with less than adequate care and direction. He was quite prepared to give us a few quotes, the name and address of his company and the sort of work he carried out at exceptionally reasonable prices.

Having fulfilled my civic duty as a concerned and valuable member of the community I went home to a breakfast of bacon, fried potatoes, mushrooms and tomatoes and a mid morning nap.

I await my mugshot to appear in the local rag.

You will be glad to learn, dear reader, that I will not be inflicting it on you.