Covid Convos

 Times are dark now sure enough what with the covid and all, but they've always felt a bit doom-laden hereabouts.  Death at your fireside and so forth.  The *thud-thud-thud* of the Grim Reaper's scythe-handle hammering at the door when you least expect it, and were hoping for a quiet evening by the fire with a favourite book, a pipeful of Black Bogey, some crisps and a bucket of absinthe.

'If you aren't preparing for Death, you aren't really living,' opined the T-G.  'If you're wise like me,  you'll always keep an empty chair by the fire, directly opposite your own, as a constant reminder of your inevitable demise.'

'Doesn't Mrs T-G mind?' asked Geoffrey,  'After all surely that's her seat,  opposite yours by the fire?'

'Oh she doesn't mind.  She doesn't have time to sit by the fire.   If she isn't scrubbing the floors and blacking the grate she's usually in the kitchen cooking black sausage rolls (see paperback for recipe) and doing the washing up.'

More on stereotypical gender roles and toxic masculinity later (or not - most likely not actually)

Dave Nark - Covid Tester and Wildlife Vidder

 A year on, almost, from the previous post.   And we don't have 'covid marshals' any more.  No - we have 'vaccines' and 'vaccine certificates'...and covid testers...

'So.  Dave Nark's a covid tester now.  Sticking cotton buds up people's noses in a caravan in the tourist car park for what he claims is a 'competitive salary'.'   The T-G had stopped by for a glass of piping hot Madeira and was reading a crumpled copy of last week's 'Daily Bugle'.

'He needn't bother sticking one up my nose,'  I said, throwing a piece of driftwood on the fire.

'Or mine', agreed Geoffrey.

'Or indeed mine,' said the T-G.  

'Is he still posting those wildlife vids on Youtube?'

'I believe so Tuppy.  He did get banned for a while after his trail cam filmed a staycationer doing the toilet in the burn.  He posted it without realising, or so he said.'

'Gracious.'

'Indeed.  Number twos, as well.  Val was mortified.  People were saying Dave was a pre-vert.  She was terrified the negative publicity would ruin her ear-candling and hot stones for well-being business.  She was running out of furlough money and it happened at exactly the wrong time, so she told Mrs T-G anyway.  Not that there would ever be a right time for that kind of thing.'

'Good grief.'

'Indeed.   Apparently the clip went viral before it was removed.  They've put portable toilets in the car park now so there's no reason that kind of thing should happen again.  Black Bogey?'   The T-G proffered his worn Spanish leather tobacco pouch.

'Thanks T-G.  How does Mrs T-G feel about it all?' I asked.  'Is she pro or anti vax?'

'Oh she's been double-jabbed, like me,' replied the T-G. 'We've had no side effects to speak of, other than the pustule eruptions, the chronic halitosis and the growth of the tail.  And of course Mrs T-G has the enormous wart on the end of her nose - but that was there before.'

'When I went for my jab I asked - ' Geoffrey spluttered and had to pause to control his laughter - 'I asked - ' Geoffrey doubled over in hysterics - ' I asked -'

'Oh do get on with it Geoffrey.  We've heard this one umpteen times already and it doesn't get any more amusing in the telling.'

''I asked if I'd be able to play the piano after the jab,' he blurted, ' Of course, replied Dr Wilson, looking amazed as he waved a needle in my face.  That's great,  I answered. Because I can't play it now!  Ba-boom!'  Geoffrey rocked back and forth with laughter while the T-G and I lit our pipes and stared grimly into the glowing embers.

'Interesting times,  Tuppy,' said the T-G.  'Interesting times...'

more later

EGG 1970 The Song Of McGillicudie The Pusillanimous

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...

The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction

 'Is there going to be another lockdown?' asked Geoffrey, breathlessly.  'Is the social distancing and handwashing and stuff working? What about the test and trace system?'

'Stop getting over-excited and get those fish fingers grilled,' I replied, packing my pipe with Black Bogey.

'No it's just that we might have to start stockpiling again.  Toilet paper and that.'

'I thought we went through all that already (see previous posts)?  We don't NEED toilet paper.'

'I know WE don't need it, but what if we have visitors?'

'If there's a lockdown we won't have visitors Geoffrey.  But if you feel THAT badly about it, nip down to the tunnels after lunch and see if you can find a pack or two of Izal.  And pick up a barrel of best Madeira while you're there, we definitely don't want to run out of that.'

'Wilco.  Val Nark's coming over later, she's got a petition for us to sign.  It's about the Gaelic signage.'

'Wot?'

'The Gaelic signage.  Someone's been going about with a tin of blue paint, erasing all the English signs so nobody knows where they're going.'

'And?'

'Val wants the remaining Gaelic signage to be replaced by pictograms - that way, nobody will feel left out and everyone will be able to understand - or 'unnerstaun' - the signs and therefore won't get lost.'

'I see.  Well, I daresay we can have a look at it and if my inky footprint will help then she's welcome to it.  We can't have folk stumbling around lost hereabouts - the cliffs are far too dangerous, as well we know (see posts passim) Does she still have folk self-isolating in the yurt?'

'Yes, still the same ones.  Nobody's seen them for six weeks - Val leaves quinoa and wholegrains and such-like by the flap and they pull it under using the end of a walking stick, and push out their rubbish when they're finished, using a toxic waste bin which Val then flings over the cliffs - it's a good system.  I think she's put Dave on the furlough scheme, he never does much anyway except film otters and post his vids on the internet.'

'That runs out in October though.  What's he going to do then?'

'He's applied for a job as a covid tester.  And, coincidentally, so has Tuppence.'

'What does that involve?'

'Well, I gather you get masked up and stick cotton buds up people's noses and test them for covid using a test-tube and some sort of 'liquid' covid-detector-serum. If they turn black and shrivel in the fresh air you've got it, and they fling you in a dungeon, or something.'

'They won't get anywhere near my nostrils with their cotton buds I'll tell you that for nothing.  They can stick 'em where the sun don't shine and it isn't up their nose.'

more on this later

Eric the half-a-bee

'I hate you lot.  You're old stupid fascists with no idea about anything and I'm going to cancel you all.'

 'Why are your ideas, needs and wishes more important than ours, Tuppence?' 

'They aren't,' said the T-G.  'He just doesn't understand the need for compromise.  Or that older, more experienced minds generally know best.'

'I understand that you lot have lived longer than I have,' said Tuppence, ' but that doesn't mean that you know any better.  Look at the state of you!'

'What do you mean?'  I paused as I reached for the baccy jar.

'You live in a tumbledown shack with a hole in the wall for a door.  You survive on stolen food, not to mention drink. You've not got a brass ha'penny to your name.  You've never travelled beyond your immediate environment. And I'm not even going to mention your toilet habits.  You've never even been to uni, for god's sake!'

'We went 'Overthere', remember?  About ten years ago? (see books for details of the trip) And we went to Flannan Isle. You were there too Tuppence.  Don't say we never took you anywhere.'

'You never took me anywhere.  I went places in order to rescue you.  You lot couldn't handle yourselves!  It was me who learned how to shoot a pistol, and use a crossbow.  Not to mention, captain a submarine and fly a plane.'(again, please see books for details of these exploits)

'I've been to 'uni',' said Geoffrey quietly.

'Oh what.  The 'university of life' I suppose? All that means is, you're old and too thick to have gone to proper uni! You lot are pathetic right wing fascist nutjobs who don't even know what privilege means, you're so thick and uneducated.  Read some books!  and I don't mean the Beano annual because THAT'S fascist too.'

'I really HAVE been to uni,' said the T-G. 'I attended the university of Holstein Carlsberg Saxe-coburg Gotha in 1846, and after finishing my degree, I did a further research degree on the lethality of curare poison when applied to small wooden darts and fired through multiple bamboo pipes and its possible use in wiping out the world's excess population.'

'Cripes!  You really ARE a fascist T-G!' shrieked Tuppence, spilling his Vimto.

'I don't subscribe to any political creed,' T-G replied, packing his pipe with Black Bogey. 'I think it was Nietzsche who said, I am not my book.  In my case, I am not my research paper.'

to be continued

'

YES - Then

Classic vid.  Almost unlistenable prog.  Tuppence loves it. 

Arson About

Remember the unidentified pile of bones found when the wicker man burned down? Well, they aren't 'unidentified' any more.  Not really, anyway.  This is what happened.
Dave and Val were livid when they saw what happened to the wicker man. When I say 'what happened to',  of course I should really say 'what Tuppence did to'.   With a Zippo lighter and a box of firelighters.
'We understand that Tuppence has issues,' said Val. 'We aren't surprised that he's turned to arson.  The poor creature hasn't even been to school.  And with role models like Tuppy and Geoffrey...'
'His diet's awful as well,' added Dave. 'No fresh vegetables.  I think he just gets crisps, fish finger sandwiches and corned beef to eat.'
'It's a wonder he's alive,' added Dr Wilson, 'he'll never make it to old age and maybe that's a blessing.  For all of us.'
This 'convo' took place on the headland where Dr Wilson was picking through the remains of the wicker man, and was overheard by Geoffrey as he circled over on his way to the Tunnels to check out the crisps and corned beef situation - we were running a bit low on supplies for that evening's tea.
'They even let him have a brace of pistols,' said Dr Wilson, foaming at the mouth, 'and live ammo.  He should really be in a secure unit - one of the old-style Borstals, where they could birch some sense into him. That's clearly a human femur by the way.'
'Oh no!' said Val, 'it's not his fault.  He needs help.  Proper psychological help like what we can offer and that.  Punishing him won't help.'
'He's already been in the sweat lodge (please see paperbacks for details of this awful experience).' said Dave. 'I'm not sure we can offer much more.'
'What about a short course of online C.B.T. or some ear-candling - once the pandemic's over of course?' said Val. 'It might help him develop a more positive mental attitude.'
'That wouldn't even make a dent,' scoffed Dr Wilson,' the lad's battle-hardened.  No, no, no, a good birching once a week would sort him out.  I'll do it. I've got a birch tree growing outside my garden and - '
'He hasn't even got a garden,' I said, interrupting Geoffrey's account. 'He's raving again.'
'I know,' said Geoffrey. 'Just wait till you hear the next bit.'
'OK but hurry up. I'm starving and I want to get the tea on.'
'Well,' said Geoffrey,' I'll cut a long story short.  Turns out Val and Dave had a self-isolating visitor self-isolating in their healing yurt, and they went for a socially-distanced stroll along the headland to admire the view.  Thinking they'd get an even better view from the top of the wicker man, which was of course then in situ having been erected as a publicity stunt by Val and Dave, they climbed to the top, got trapped in the head and were unable to make their way down.  Tuppence failed to hear their frantic screams over the calling of the gulls and the howling of the gale that whipped over the clifftops as he set light to the thing, and they perished in the inferno.'
'What a lovely story,' I said. 'Did you get any corned beef when you were out?'

next time - Stormy's relatives return to the States having failed to inherit the Puff Inn, and Dave and Val start a government-style anti-obesity clinic, free at the point of delivery - actual funding details to follow.  The bones of the late self-isolating yurt guest are hygienically crushed into paste with hand sanitiser, hygienically folded into a face-mask and flung over the top of the cliffs and into the sea, for hygienic funeral-style reasons.  Somebody says a few words but nobody can hear them over the calling of the gulls etc.. and there is a ham sandwich tea back at ours.  Dave and Val don't come because we don't provide a vegan alternative.  Tuppence hears about Dr Wilson's plans to birch him, and plots a ghastly revenge...

Well!  Guess who turned up at Stormy's funeral?  Stormy!  yes, he wandered in half-way through the cage fighter's dismal reading of Stop All the Clocks, and asked whose funeral it was.
'Yours,' I said. 'Oh wait...'
 Turns out the bones that were found inside the wicker man *weren't his after all*.  SO WHOSE ARE THEY?
The problem is, we don't have 'police' or 'coroners' or 'procurators fiscal' hereabouts.  No.  We attend to everything ourselves.  If you recall (and if you don't, it doesn't much matter), we solve many of our local difficulties by simply chucking them 'over the top', i.e. off the cliffs and on to the jagged rocks and boiling seas below.  Where often-times (excuse the egregious use of 'often-times') there can be found a hungry Orca, with jaws a-gape, bored out of its mind, and only too pleased to snap up a juicy morsel.   We also hold an annual vote to decide who is the year's 'most unpopular' person, and whoever it is gets dead-legged on a midnight clifftop ramble, and hey presto! it's a happier, simpler world hereabouts. 
'But you were seen climbing up the wicker man,' said the T-G.
'Maybe I was, T-G.  But I climbed back down again.  It wasn't that hard. I roped myself up and everything, I'm not TOTALLY thick.  I went up to have a look for the clipper that was due to sail past on its way from Portugal to Massachusetts with a holdful of best Madeira.  I thought I'd get a better view from the head, and so I did.   I waved my storm lantern and guided it nicely on to the reef, where it foundered perfectly.  Since then me and the rats have been shifting the Madeira from the clipper to the Tunnels.   We could've done with a hand by the way.'
'We thought you were a goner Stormy.  We thought we'd never sup another pint of Purple Peril again,' said Geoffrey.
'And I thought I'd never get another gig again,' said Tuppence. 'When are you opening up?'
'I've got the social distancing worked out and I've extended the bar area outside by rigging up a few yards of tarpaulin.  We should be on for Friday night, given a following wind.  I've got ten gallon drums of hand sanitiser and - '
'Never mind all that!' snapped the T-G. 'What about the crew of the foundered clipper?  I take it you didn't allow them to drown?'
'And what about us?' growled Stormy's relatives. 'We ain't turned up here for nuffink.  We thort there'd at least be a funeral tea with 'am sandwiches and a bottle or two of stout.  Plus the reading of the Will of course, leading to us probably inheriting the Puff Inn and selling it on to a property developer and then going on a fancy holiday with the proceeds and being set for life.  Not that we were expecting anything or had thought it all through on the way here or that.  We're just saying.'

Next time - everyone goes to a socially-distanced 'welcome back' night at the Puff Inn.  Including Stormy's relatives and the crew from the foundered clipper.  Tuppence powers up the Moog and does a selection of E.L.P. classics before someone cuts the electric cable and causes a power outage.  There is a massive fight in the darkness caused by a shortage of cheese and onion crisps and general over-ingestion of alcoholic comestibles.  Nobody knows who is hitting who and nobody much cares. Meanwhile, the unidentified pile of burnt bones still lie in what was supposed to be Stormy's coffin...

Graham Chapman - George Melly interview

'Stormy was a racist and a transphobe,' declared Tuppence, nailing a poster stating the same to the door of the Puff Inn.  'I'm glad he's cancelled.'
'He's not 'cancelled',' said the T-G,' He's dead.  You set fire to him, remember?  He was inside the wicker man when you burned it down.'
'Oh dear how sad what a shame never mind.'
'That's a terrible thing to say Tuppence,' said the T-G. 'In fact, you should be careful.  You might be done for 'hate speech'.'
'Not to mention, murder,' I added. 'Although it doesn't sound like you're especially worried about such niceties.'
'The world's a better, kinder place without his sort,' replied Tuppence, twirling his hammer. 'He was spiritually and morally and intellectually dead anyway.  The physical death was just a technicality.  And an inevitable one, given his incredible moral turpitude.  All for the best, that's what I say.  And so will anyone else who matters.'
'I wonder what his family will say to that.  Aren't they people who matter?'
'Stormy doesn't have a family.  Does he?'
'He does actually.  Or rather, he did,  poor bloke.  Stormy Junior is a cage fighter in Vegas and his ex-wife is a Thai kick boxing champion.  His sister (formerly brother) is a retired Olympic weightlifter and built like a brick outdoor convenience-style facility. Her hobbies include knuckledusting and biting the heads off live chickens.  They're all arriving for the funeral tomorrow and they're staying in Val's campervan - they would have stayed in the yurt had you restrained yourself from burning that to a crisp last evening.  You really need to stop all this wanton destruction Tuppence.  It won't end well.'
'It will! I'm only destroying anything offensive.'
'But not everyone finds it offensive Tuppence.  And must you resort to murder? Can't you live and let live?'
'No.  Besides,  I think you'll find Stormy's death was an accident. Not murder.  How was I to know he was inside the wicker man when I set it alight?'
'You can't prove that you didn't know Tuppence,' said the T-G.
'I wonder what he was doing in there?' mused Geoffrey.  'He must have had a reason for climbing inside.'
'Perhaps he was looking for something.'
'Or, perhaps he was hiding something.'
'Never mind all that,' I said. ' Here we all are standing outside the Puff Inn, scene of many a night of wanton revelry, and it's SHUT.  Not merely 'coronavirus shut' - it's shut because the landlord is no more.  He is an ex-landlord.  An ex-everything.  Soon to be pushing up the daisies.  Who's going to run it?  Who's going to serve us our socially-distanced Purple Perils and salty snax?  Who's going to book you in for gigs Tuppence - you and your dreadful prog band?  Nobody else would pay you to play,  I'll guarantee you that.'
'Oh bore off.  You three need to educate yourselves.  Read some books and I don't mean the Beano summer special!' snarled Tuppence.
'You can start lecturing us about books when you're not in danger of being arrested for murder Tuppence.  Are you going to turn yourself in?'
'Certainly not.'


Next time - Stormy's funeral brings his relatives, and they aren't happy with what they're told about his 'accidental' demise.  They are determined to find out the truth.  Tuppence is forced to hide out in the Tunnels and as all the korned beef, snax and Madeira which are usually kept therein were consumed during lockdown he must survive on rations lowered down to him by rope till he can be smuggled out to a place of safety. Or, until the relatives leave...

Well, we went out to the headland last evening as planned and we burned the wicker man to the ground.  All that's left now is a pile of wood ash, some blackened chicken wire - and some bones.  More on those later.  I sat at a safe distance, sipping a triple strenf absinthe and laudanum koktale and crunching my way through a packet of 'Kalms' while Tuppence danced naked beside the leaping flames.
I needed the Kalms because as we made our way across the moor towards the headland Tuppence began to wonder whether the wicker man was cis or trans.  'If he's trans I won't burn him Uncle Tuppy.  He'll be a fantastic representation of liberation from the hegemony of the binary sexual economy.'
'Even though you said before that he's a vile and disgusting representation of capitalism and binary-legged hegemony?'
'Yes.'
'How will you know if he's trans though?  It's a very basic figure with no defining characteristics other than two arms and two legs.  And a head.'

'I'll know.'

As it turned out,  he didn't know.  If I'm honest, I don't think he cared - or at least, he cared more about setting the huge thing ablaze.  

As the vast knees crumbled into ash and the torso fell forwards over the cliffs, tumbling onto the rocks below in a dense orange cloud of sparks and wood smoke and leaving two stumpy, smouldering 'feet',  Tuppence cried, 'So passes the tyrannic age of the binary-legged money-grubbers!  Look upon your work ye mighty and despair!' 

'Don't you mean 'my works' ye mighty?'  I pulled a copy of Palgrave's Golden Treasury from my bumbag and leafed through it.  

'Oh who cares about such details now Uncle Tuppy.  We're free!'

'How does burning a wicker man make us free?'

'It just does.  For one thing, it gets the anger out of your system when you destroy things.'

'What about Val and Dave Nark's floundering tourism business?  What about the yurt?  What about Val's ear candling?'

'You can't do social distancing and ear candling.  Everyone knows that.  Val and Dave will just have to diversify.  Anyway I really enjoyed the conflagration Uncle Tuppy.  I'm sure lots of other people did who were watching, as well.  I was surprised to hear the blood-curdling screaming noise it made as it burned - I wonder if we'll ever know what caused that.  Probably just some damp wood reacting to the heat or something.  Not to worry!   Now I'm going to find something else big to burn and I think I know what it's going to be.'

Next time - Tuppence burns Val and Dave's yurt to a crisp.  Val and Dave don't know this yet as they're staying in a friend's airbnb in Leicester and have been 'locally locked down' due to the coronavirus spike.  We also discover that Stormy Petrel has gone missing from the Puff Inn and was last seen clambering determinedly up the wicker man's left leg, followed by a mysterious black-clad figure...this leaves the Puff Inn sans patron just as they've erected a gazebo and extended the beer garden for safe consumption of outdoor comestibles...who could be responsible for Stormy's disappearance?  Could it possiby be...a rival local busniess person, or persons?  

Tuppence came in last night in an agitated state.
'I'm in an agitated state Uncle Tuppy,' he said, wringing his hands. 'Where's the chainsaw?'
'We don't have one.' I tipped an extra dose of laudanum into my tea.  Lord knows I need it these days.
'Well an axe then.  An axe will do.  Anything with a blade.  And ropes.  A block and tackle.  Matches.  Petrol!  Tinder!'
'Usually you manage fine with your brace of pistols Tuppence.  What's all this for?'
'I want to tear down the wicker man. Destroy it, and push it into the sea, to perish on the rocks below.'
'Not the wicker man that Val and Dave Nark have just finished carefully fashioning from locally sourced willow wands, and placed on the headland to attract tourists!'
'Yes!  it's a representation of their two-legged tyranny over the neighbourhood Uncle Tuppy.  A grotesque symbol of the dominion held by the two-legged haves over the four-legged have nots. Dave and Val are money-grubbing capitalists of the first water, trying to slip under the radar camouflaged as green sustainable living type people.  They're nothing short of fascists Uncle Tuppy and I want to saw the legs off their statue and burn it to the ground.  Burn it I say!'
'Why don't you saw Dave and Val's legs off and burn them to the ground?'
'Because I would get done for murder Uncle Tuppy.  Someone would dob me in.'
'Well it is true not much gets past the old Tupfinder General with his infrared spyglass.  But I don't think he'd ever dob you in.  Never mind - we can think about that later.   Why not sit down and have your tea before you rush into anything. It's double egg and chips with bread and butter and plenty brown sauce.  Once we've eaten I'll dig out the balaclavas and rubber soled shoes and we can both head noiselessly over to the cliffs.  I'll help you burn the bastard down.  I can't stand Val Nark.'

next time - Tuppence manages to set fire to the wicker man using a tinder box, some empty crisp packets and a bottle of methylated spirit, and the resulting flames attract a passing coronavirus-infested cruise ship that has failed to find a port that will allow them to land.  More on that later.