Friday, 22 May 2020

Covid Queeries

'If someone's famous does that make it OK if they break the lockdown?' asked Tuppence.
'It helps if they are both rich AND famous.  But mainly rich.  And it doesn't make it OK,  it just makes it easier transport-wise and less likely that you'll get arrested.  Are you referring to the second home phenomenon?'
'Yes.  Apparently a rich author has just jetted in to one of Val Nark's luxury glamping yurts for some rest and such-like.  He arrived with five cases of baked beans, five boxes of Chili Heatwave Doritos and five barrels of McEwan's 80 Shilling.  His wife has ancestors from Hereabouts and he's self-isolating, he announced with a megaphone when he arrived.  There's also a notice pinned to the post-box, stating the same.'
'Is his wife with him?'
'No.'
'This is an outrage.  It isn't a second home phenomenon - it's a glamping situation which is even worse and he doesn't even have the figleaf of the wife's ancestry to cover himself with.  Clearly Val Nark is complicit in this blatant rule-flouting, because  - true to form - she has rented the luxury yurt to said famous person.  For actual hard cash money.  Tuppence - you won't have experienced such an event, and even I can barely remember the last time it happened, but - this is a pitchfork job.'
Geoffrey nodded.  'If ever there was an occasion to use them , this is it.  T-G - are the pitchforks still to hand?'
'Yes,' he replied quietly.' They're in the Iron Age burial chamber up on the moor.  They haven't been used since the last violation, during the Great Plague of Incomers.  We chased them off the cliffs with them.  My, we were a magnificent sight, wielding our pitchforks, our blue faces shining in the light of flaming torches rudely fashioned from the thighbones of our ancestors as we ran full tilt at the infected incoming hordes.'
'Why were your faces blue?' asked Tuppence.
'The exertion Tuppence.  When you're charging across the moors slightly out of condition with a pipe of baccy gripped between your teeth, a pitchfork in one hand, a flaming torch in the other, plus a flask of soup and a snack for later in your backpack with the usual emergency medical supplies,  it tends to get you out of puff.'
'Will the pitchforks be sharp enough though,' asked Tuppence,' Might they not have rusted up a bit after all these years?'
'Oh but I've maintained them Tuppence.  Polished them carefully with fine wire wool and WD40 by the light of every Full Moon.  Excellent question by the way.'
'Well what are we waiting for?  Let's go!  Let's rid ourself of this selfish incomer.  Pitchfork him over the cliffs and make a Tiktok of it so nobody else thinks they can come here to self-isolate.'

next time - we end up going 'over the top' as we rush headlong and willy nilly at anyone 'strange'.  Tuppence decides not to make his charity single as the lockdown will be over soon. 


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