St Valentine's Day Mascara

The romance we associate with Valentine's Day may spring from the medieval belief that birds select their mates on February 14th.

Many folk in Homeward still believe that if a woman sees a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it means she will marry a sailor. If she sees a sparrow, she will marry a poor man and be very happy. If she sees a goldfinch, she will marry a rich elephant.

Normally, this would not be a problem - Homeward is very cold at this time of the year and the Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) prefers warmer climes.

However, The Badfort Crow, always on the look out for a means to embarrass my public personage, were spotted this morning releasing thousands of the blighters into the skies over Homeward.

Their song is usually a pleasant silvery twittering. But today they merely, repeatedly, chanted "Love won't pay the bills, Unc's got money!"

My castle was soon surrounded by avaricious gold diggers.

What could I do to to sate their desires?

Once more, faithful Old Monkey came to my rescue.

"Sir, as a precaution I have purchased a large quantity of Gleamhound's 'Love Inducing' mascara. It actually contains an oxytocin blocker - it inhibits people’s romantic impulses!" he explained.

The ladies were most appreciative of my gift, but were soon drifting off and making rather rude exclamations such as "He is actually rather fat, isn't he?" and "Yeah, money isn't everything - I bet he's dead stingy with it, anyway!"

Love is indeed a many-splendored thing, but, sadly, my duty is to the smooth running of my great domain - sometimes we all need to tie ourselves to the mast.

Whooshmeat Scandal !

As you know, Whooshmeat is a fine delicacy and one of my favourite meals.

I particularly enjoy a Whooshmeat lasagne.

Imagine my horror, therefore, to discover that the Whooshmeat lasagne produced by Find Us (if you can) has been found to have been contaminated with up to 100% beef !

It is wholly improper that the Homeward public are presented with a product marked Whooshmeat when it contains a ­significant amount of beef.

The evidence so far suggests it’s either criminal activity or gross negligence.

I decided to telephone the secretive Find Us (if you can) food conglomerate and demand to see a representative of the firm, immediately.

The phone rang and rang and eventually was answered by a very uncouth sounding voice. "Yes, what you want !" it screeched. "This is Uncle, I demand that you come to my office and answer the allegations that your Whooshmeat Lasagne contains beef!"

"Oh, old lardy elephant is it" he replied "Well, I'll have you know that we are far too busy to answer your absurd questions about these spurious rumours - our food is lovely and their is certainly no food safety problem here!"

"In that case," I responded "you will have no fear of an immediate inspection by the Badgertown Police!"

"Look, no need for that, mate - our chief will pop over, just to reassure you like" wheedled the voice on the line.

That afternoon, a rather uncouth bearded man turned up at my office.

"Look, mate, what happened is this. There was this cow was walking by the vat where we churn up the Whooshmeat and it slipped and fell in. Simple as that - just an accident. Won't happen again, I assure you." he declared.

This did not allay my suspicions - I let the man leave, but instructed my detective, A.B.Fox, to follow him.

He soon reported back "As you suspected, Sir, false beard, Hateman in disguise, returned to Badfort. Large factory full of Beef !"

Once again, the Badfort Crowd proved to be indulging in their usual criminal activity.