Hell on the Toilet

'I think I'm turning into one of these people who can't eat salad.  It just makes the next day hell on the toilet.  I just can't seem to wipe myself clean at all, even with Andrex Washlets, it just goes on and on.  And on.  You won't know about these things yet dear,  you're much too young.  You've got it all in front of you!  or should I say, behind!'  Mrs T-G grinned, and her false teeth 'bridge' fell out, revealing a solitary brown tooth to which it had been attached with a piece of chewing gum.  'Oops.   Do help yourself to a black sausage roll and here's some of my special squash.'  

Mrs T-G poured some of the plopping, steaming green liquid into a cracked ceramic mug, with 'World's Best Dad' emblazoned on the side.   The mug split open and the squash splashed onto the wooden floor, immediately burning a hole in it.

'Oh.  Well, it was a charity shop mug so no great loss.   I'll fetch you another.'  Mrs T-G clomped towards the spiral staircase.  She turned at the first step, and said,' Perhaps the squash is a bit on the strong side.  Perhaps I should add some more fluids.  Toad milk might help with the acidity.  I think I have some in the pantry.'

Alexa returned swiftly to the telescope. 'Well?' she asked, silently, as the star appeared.  'Do I help Mrs T-G with her beastly Kantian paradigm, and drink her beastly toad milk, or do I do more cleaning for Val beastly Nark?  Or should I just run away perhaps. I don't want to be a slave to money till I die. I don't think I even want to go to uni.   There has to be a better way to live, that doesn't involve entering a nunnery or some ghastly sandals and wholegrain communal living type situation.  I can't face a lifetime of wage slavery.  I just can't.'

The star twinkled sympathetically.

'I think you're the only one I can talk to and you're not even a person.  You're a star and you're so far away you might not even exist any more.  You might only be a ray of light.  Life is so lonely sometimes.'

Next time - Alexa's boyfriend Tuppence has too much to drink and declares that he was once in the SAS, but nobody believes him.  And Alexa has some major decisions to make.

Alexa consults the telescopic oracle

 Alexa peered into the eyepiece.   A bright star twinkled at her from somewhere deep in the vast Magellanic Cloud.

'Wow this is awesome.   I feel like my entire body is going to be sucked right through the telescope towards the star eyeball first but it's prob'ly only my immortal soul or whatever.   It kind of makes two weeks in Lanzarote seem very tame and pointless,' she thought.  'I wonder if I should bin my Onlyfans career...I don't like to admit it but I don't like it...wait is that star getting brighter?  Yes it is...OK so this is kind of a celestial two blinks for yes, one blink for no kind of deal, which is totally fine.  So, should I just not do Onlyfans?  I'd never admit it out loud but it doesn't feel right.  Imagine if Mr Stevens the dairy produce manager at Speedispend saw me.   Or even the Tupfinder General!  I can't bear the thought of that.  Yes  I  think I should just bin it.'

The star twinkled even more brightly and seemed to dance a little.

'But if I bin it,  I'd have to do even more hours as a cleaner.  And I don't think I could hack that.'

The star faded disapprovingly.

'Or perhaps I could...'

The star brightened a little.

'Should I...?'

CRUMP CRUMP CRUMP

The star vanished.

Someone heavy-footed was climbing the spiral staircase.  The door creaked open and Mrs Tupfinder General appeared carrying a tray of steaming black sausage rolls and a large jug of murky, bilious green liquid which plopped and bubbled and seemed to be producing some type of noxious gas.

'I thought you might like a refreshment.  Consulting the telescope can be draining.  By the way Alexa,  I happen to be looking for someone to help me with some written work I'm doing.  It's a monograph on the Kantian hermeneutic paradigm and its irruption through the symbolic order and I need someone who can work a computer and basically type the bastard out for me.  Val Nark says you're quite reliable for a young person.   Not that I pay any attention to what she says but I was wondering if you might be available?  I will pay real cash money.'

Alexa stared at the blank spot where the star had been.  'Well?' she asked, silently and in trepidation...

Next time - Alexa and Mrs T-G engage in discussions about mirrors and the authentic self - plus, why the star cannot cope with Mrs T-G, and why cheese footballs are only ever available at Christmas time except at Home Bargains.

Questionable Time at Tupfinder Towers

 

the T-G

'CRUMP CRUMP CRUMP'.

Tuppence thumped on the two feet thick, iron-studded oak door with his fists.

'CRUMP CRUMP - ugh.  I'm knackered.'

'No wonder.  You've been banging on that door for ten minutes.  Maybe if you stopped shouting CRUMP CRUMP at the same time as banging it wouldn't be so tiring though.'

'That's easy for you to say standing there eating - what is it?  It looks like wood.'

'It's one of Val's gravel flapjacks.  Want some?'

'No.'

'How will they ever hear us,' said Alexa.  'Look at the size of the place.'

Above them, vanishing into the clouds, loomed a towering ivy-covered Tower - the only remaining Tower at Tupfinder Towers.  The other three collapsed so long ago that nobody could remember when or why - not even the Tupfinder General, or Mrs Tupfinder General, with a combined age of nine hundred and forty two.  Piles of abandoned rubble indicated their previous location.

'Yes.  Stuff this.'  Tuppence whipped out his pistol and began shooting.  Bullets whistled through the air and lodged themselves into the centuries-old oak making barely a dent.  A few ricocheted off the iron studs and flew who knew where, only a few random screams indicating that they had landed 'somewhere'.

CREEEEEEEAAAAAAAKKKKKKKK

The door swung open slowly, and a shotgun barrel waved them inside.

'A bit of target practice never did anyone any harm,' roared the T-G. 'Come inside.'

They asked what had happened to the other three towers.

'Perhaps the Old Tup might have known,' mused the Tupfinder, waving an arm at a dusty oil painting depicting someone almost identical in appearance to the Tupfinder General, except with white hair, cross-eyes and a kilt.  Oh and only the one cloven hoof.  'He lived to a decent age.  Four thousand and fifty I think it was.  Anyway.  Perhaps you'd like to visit Mrs T-G's laboratory.  Where she makes her black sausage rolls.  No?  Then perhaps we can go to the observatory on the upper floor and you can have a shot of my inter-galactic supra-space-time-dimension telescope.  It's so pleasing to have young visitors for a change'.  He continued ushering Tuppence and Alexa up the vast staircase. 

'Come along,' he beckoned,  his cloven hooves clip-clopping on the wooden floor as he made his way  briskly along a narrow book-lined corridor with an even narrower spiral staircase at the far end. 

'Why do you have cloven hooves T-G,' asked Alexa. 'I'm quite envious it's a strong look.'

'Like long noses, they run in the family,' he replied. 'Here we are.'

He opened a door at the top of the spiral staircase revealing a room evidently at the top of the Tower.  A large telescope occupied much of the space.  He pressed a lever and a humming sound filled the room

The telescope began to rotate.

'This is a special telescope.  It can be used in the usual way, to look at the stars and such-like, but you can also ask it questions.  For example, you, young lady, are wondering whether now is the right time to quit your job as a cleaner, and if Onlyfans is going to provide you with a sufficient revenue stream to see you through uni and maybe have a couple of weeks in Lanzarote.'

'H-how did you know that?'  

The T-G smiled mysteriously.  'I have certain powerful listening devices set up in various locations.  It's part of my supervisory role as Tupfinder General.   Anyway - gaze into the eyepiece and focus your mind on your question...'

Next time - Alexa gazes questioningly into the eyepiece and focuses her mind on her question...Tuppence questions the legality of the Tupfinder General's questionable 'listening devices'....

Oldness

 'You know what Val Nark's so vain', said Alexa.   'I heard her talking to herself in the mirror before I smashed it.   She's totally jealous of Mrs T-G. it's so random, they're both ancient so why would they even care.'

'Dunno,' replied Tuppence. 'You never know with old people. They kind of want things both ways.  One minute my uncles are demanding comfy seats and help lifting their shopping bags and the next they're annoyed because I keep telling them they might as well go to Switzerland cos they're past it.  But age is still no excuse for them having problematic attitudes and ignoring current tech.  I'm going over to Tupfinder Towers to ask the T-G. about some other stuff now.  Want to come along?'

'Sure.  Is he sort of like an oracle?  Because I want to quit my job but I don't know if it's the right time,  I need some advice from a sage or something.  I'm not earning enough from Onlyfans and - oops!'  Alexa glanced quickly at Tuppence,  who was gritting his teeth and staring determinedly at the horizon. 

Next time - Tuppence and Alexa enter the strange world of Tupfinder Towers

Dave Nark - covid marshal

 Tuppence staggered in at dawn this morning and threw himself on the sofa.

'Thank fizz you've got a hole in the wall for a front door uncle Tuppy cos I'd never have managed a proper door handle,' he wheezed, pulling the tartan knee rug over himself as he curled into a foetal position.

'Thank fizz?  are we in an Enid Blyton story Tuppence?  next you'll be wanting lashings of ginger beer, treacle tart and heaps of cook's special plum cake.'

'I wouldn't say no.'

'Where've you been all night anyway?  And why wouldn't you manage a door handle?  You look awful.'  I kicked a fresh log on to the smouldering embers and wafted yesterday's 'Bugle' in front of it to get a flame.  

'Don't ask.  Well, do.  I don't mind talking about it.  I've binned Alexa.'

'Really.'

'Well all right, she binned me.  There, I said it.  Are you happy now?  She only got off with Alvin, the frozen foods manager at Speedispend's pre-lockdown completely non-socially-distanced street party last night while I was providing the musical entertainment with my band.  You'd think she'd want to stick with ME, the mercurial, brooding, Byronic musical genius, the undoubted future STAR of the 2030 Jools Holland Hootenanny - but no, off she went with fizzing Alvin and his frozen fizzing fish-style fingers.   I was in the middle of a fantastic rendition of Egg's classic from 1970, 'The Song of McGillicudie the Pusillanimous' when I saw them openly flouting the social distancing guidelines together.   It totally put me off my half hour moog solo, to the extent that I fell backwards off my organ stool, getting my fingers trapped in a tightening coil of the electric cable as I did so, and toppled the entire amplifier stack as I yanked at the cable in the - ultimately successful - struggle to free myself.  Nobody helped.  Not even the rats.  I was utterly humiliated and I've been wandering the moors ever since.  My fingers are still swollen - look.'

'You'd better have a mug of hot Madeira and get off to your bed then.  I'm sure everything will seem better after a bit of kip. What's that noise?'

CRUMP CRUMP CRUMP

'Somebody's thumping the wall with a big fizzing stick!'

CRUMP CRUMP CRUMP

A lump of plaster fell off the ceiling.

'Hey just a  - '

'OPEN UP.  THIS IS YOUR LOCAL COVID MARSHAL. WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE BRAZENLY FLOUTING THE COVID LAWS.'

'That's Dave Nark's voice!  What the fizz is going on Dave?'  I poked my head through the hole in the wall and peered at him.  He was sporting a yellow hi-viz jacket and a peaked cap, and was carrying a clip board and a mobile telephone.

'That's Sir to you if you don't mind.   I'm here to put you all under house arrest for not adhering to the new covid rules.'

Turns out that Dave's Youtube vids weren't bringing in enough dosh to keep him and Val in teabags never mind anything else, and so he applied - successfully, weirdly enough - for a job as Covid Marshal at the princely sum of £8.72 an hour.

'At least I've got my pride!' said Dave.

'Really,' I replied. 'You'd better come in and have a cup of hot Madeira to keep the cold out.  That rain's dripping off your cap and right down the back of your hi-viz jacket.  Before you know it you'll have a sniffle and have to self-isolate for fourteen days.'

'But you're a separate household.  We're not a bubble.  We cannot - I cannot - I cannot - '

'You don't understand the rules, do you Dave.  Never mind - nor does anyone else.  Just come in and take the weight off for half an hour.'

'Oh what the fizz.  Don't mind if I do.  I'll just scan the horizon with my hi-powered binoculars - the ones I usually use for watching wildlife for my Youtube vids - to see if any potential grasses are watching.'

NEXT TIME - a potential grass WAS watching, and we are forced to track them down and 'correct' them in the customary manner.  Dave sees the error of his ways and packs in the job as covid marshal, leaving a vacuum that only Nature - or some venal jobsworth - could fill...

How Come We Aren't Dead?

'We've been in this cave for nigh on a year,' sighed the T-G,' with nothing to eat but a packet of ginger crunch creams and nothing to drink but random drops of condensation dripping randomly from the roof.'
'We should be dead,' said Geoffrey. 'How come we aren't?  How come we aren't T-G?  Tuppy?  How come we aren't?   TUPPY!  TUPPY!  Stay with me man!  We're losing him T-G - we're losing him!  He's slipping into unconsciousness again!  TUPPY!  Stay with me!  Look at me Tuppy!  Look at me!' and he slapped me round the face with the shredded plastic remnants of the ginger crunch creams wrapper.
'Oh who cares,' I replied, opening one eye.  Everything felt warm and fuzzy.  Outside, the sea washed gently against the rocks below. I settled deeper into my yellow hi-viz jacket and did up the Velcro neck flap in preparation for yet another comfortable afternoon's torpor.
'YOU LOT ARE DEAD,' a scornful voice bellowed over the ear-splitting roar of a powerful outboard motor. As it circled rapidly past the cave entrance and hove to we were drenched by a spray of icy sea water, and I spluttered into unwanted wakefulness.   'BRAIN DEAD! A-HAHAHAHA!'
It was Tuppence of course.
He wheeled the boat cave-side and deftly threw the painter over a jutting rock.  Peering through narrowed eyes I could just decipher the name of the boat in the gleam of the low afternoon sun - 'The Young Brexiteer'.
'Crikey Tuppence - you haven't changed your mind about Brexit have you?'
'No Uncle Tuppy I haven't. You unspeakable old fool.  How could you have even imagined in your wildest, most Madeira-addled, most senile and gammon-like imaginings and that, that I - I - of all people - would change my mind about Brexit?'
'Then - '
'This isn't my boat.  It belongs to Apsley and Cherry Fulmar.  They rent it out to supplement Apsley's pension and get spends. Cherry's a WASPI you see so she doesn't get anything till she's sixty six. They've got a camper van they rent out as well and they're Airbnbing their shed. A lady from Bulgaria does the cleaning and change-overs on a zero hour contract.  They let her stay in the shed when they've not got guests and they take the money off her wages. Obviously they don't let her use the actual beds or the cooker and hot water or that. When they do have guests she gets a bit of tarpaulin and hunkers down in the woods.  Apsley says she likes it, she's only seventy one and enjoys the fresh air.'
'So they've got quite the business going on,' mused the T-G. 'We've missed it all what with being stuck in here for a year.'
'You've no idea.  Loads has happened.  The Narks' yurt burnt down.  Val was doing an ear-candling session and the candle fell out while she was at the toilet because it was faulty. The candle that is. That's what they're telling everyone anyway.  Dave's building a new yurt from coppiced willow wands and hand-loomed jute and that while they wait for the insurance claim to be processed.'
'We can get the gossip later,' I said,  'Have you come to rescue us or what?  After all it was you who abandoned us here and left us for dead in potato sacks.  What's the story now Tuppence? Why the change of heart?  And where's Alexa?'
'In the boat.'
'No she isn't,' I said, peering.  'There's nothing in there but a brace of pistols, a bandolier, a length of rope, a portable toilet, a mysterious square package wrapped in oilcloth, a Genesis CD and an empty Pringles tube.  What have you done with her, Tuppence?'
'Nothing I tell you!  Nothing! anyway aren't you going to ask about Mrs T-G, T-G?  After all she is your wife.'
'No Tuppence.  As you know only too well she threw me out of Tupfinder Towers when I told her I'd voted Brexit, and chased me off the premises with a blazing pitchfork.  I don't expect I'll ever see her again.  Or taste her black sausage rolls.  And stop changing the subject - a very poor attempt at deflection, by the way.  What have you done with your so-called girlfriend?'
'Like I said last year, Alexa isn't my so-called 'girl'friend.  Alexa's like me - she doesn't believe in boring, old-fashioned binary distinctions and she likes her politics like she likes her music- relentlessly progressive.  No, she's not in the boat T-G. But she was.  She's got a zero hours contract Overthere at Speedispend Hypermarket and Compulsory Screening Centre, stacking shelves for whatever the under-25's minimum wage is. I dropped her off for her shift just before I came here.  She's hoping the money'll help her through her next term at uni. cos she doesn't have parents, you see. No bank of mum and dad for her.  At least I've got you three for support.  In theory, anyway. '
'That sounds awful.  I almost feel sorry for her.'
'You lot are so privileged. You don't know what sorry even means.  You've never worked a day in your lives. You've never had to think about uni fees and generation rent. You just hide away from reality in your strange little world, smoking your pipes and swigging Madeira thinking nothing's ever going to happen to rattle your cages.'
'Rattle our cages?  We've only been stranded in this cave for a year thanks to you!  I've nearly run out of baccy and I'm gasping on a pint of Madeira and a fish-finger sandwich.'
'Fools!  Have you learned nothing from your isolation?'

Next time - we return to the Rocky Outcrop only to find the entire place in lock-down following the outbreak of a horrendous 'pandemic'.  We're forced to return to the smugglers' Tunnels under cover of darkness to steal korned bif and toilet paper.    You couldn't make it up!

Not so fast, coffin-dodgers

'Not so fast, coffin-dodgers.  Put those night vision goggles down and listen up. Me and Alexa are taking control from now on.  Now move.'
Tuppence (yes, for it was he, surprise surprise) stood outside with legs braced, just visible through a vast cloud of blueberry-scented vape-steam. He  waved a pistol in the direction of the hole in the wall.
'But - '
'No buts.  Shift your fat lazy butts and start walking.'
'But wh - '
'Any more of that and I'll shoot.  I mean it Uncle Tuppy and Uncle Geoffrey.  Alexa says - '
'Who's Alexa?'  I managed to ask.
'Alexa is my partner.  I would say she's my girlfriend but I'm not sure which gender she is.  And it's none of my business so I'm not even going to ask.  And neither are you.  All you need to know is, she plays bass in my new band, the one I want to tour German unis with, she's woke, and she's deeply resentful about brek-sit.  Even more than I am.'
'But you're calling her 'she' Tuppence. Surely that means that she is a she and therefore IS your girlfriend?'  I backed towards the fireplace, where I hoped to reach the poker and with any luck the button that operated the trap-door in the floor which led to the tunnels.
'I don't know and I don't care Uncle Tuppy. Anyway, we're prepared to accept that you two are much too old and thick to have made a considered and informed decision about brek-sit and therefore instead of killing you outright we've decided to simply lock you up somewhere secure until you die a natural death.  Remember when you were a prisoner in the Chateau d'If Uncle Tuppy? (please see e-books and/or Seapenguin paperback for details)  It'll be just like that except you won't ever get out.  It's for your own good and that.  You know as well as I do that you've no understanding of modern life and you're only in the way.  You'll be chained to the wall but on the plus side you'll have basic rations, a straw mattress and a bucket to do the toilet in.  Twice a day the tide will come in and you can have a bit of a wash in the icy seawater.  It'll probably do you a world of good, sort of like a health spa.'
I groped behind me as I inched towards the fireplace.  The lethal cold steel of the poker was almost within my grasp when  suddenly there was a blinding flash, I felt a 'thud' on the back of my neck, everything went black and all I could smell was musty potatoes.

more later