It’s Probably Good For The Sole

As I performed my world-renowned “Flying Prolapse” into my comfortable reclining chair the other evening I was afforded, by the always-faulty wiring of my brain-gland, a bit of a giggle.

In the total insanity of the human world my sensible shoes would appear to have found solace in ultra-orthodox religion. Oy vey.

Or is it only me that can see the signs? I thought that I had contracted (is that what one does?) tinnitus of an especially melodic and rhythmic nature but no, as usual I was wrong, it’s just my shoes exploring nigunim without me.

I won’t apologise (never forget, never forgive, never apologise, never explain) for the state of the steps. It’s Winter. There are three steps down into the Cardinal, each with coconut husk matting to tease out the muck that the rubber matting on the well deck didn’t, and only then do my feet negotiate with the proper “doormat”. Wet, mud, sacks of coal, you name it, it’s dragged over those steps. I’ll wipe them off and re-varnish them come Spring.

If we’re any of us alive then, of course.

I get lots of cheap schitzengiggles in my life, on account of the brain-gland having been dropped onto the factory floor, swept up and dolloped into my Head Bone c/w swarf, fluff, and the production-line worker’s hair net. They also cross-threaded two of the Pilips screws that hold my hat-filler bone in place, and this has allowed damp and mice to get in over the years.

Walking the other morning I could not for the life of me understand why the Vikings chose “Teapots, Crossed” as their heraldic device.

It must have been awfully difficult, rowing across the Kattegat and Skagerrak with a teapot balanced on their heads. This is probably what put them in a bad mood when they arrived in Ingerlund – finding out that we already had teapots and that their trade goods were effectively worthless.

The cracks are beginning to show, aren’t they?

Rome must have felt just like this, towards the end.

Towards the end of its time, I mean, not its geographic end.

If we do live in a Matrix then I am sure certain that we’re filling the error logs apace, and some poor sod is frantically trying to shut us down for a cold-start reboot.

I’m talking about my boots again, aren’t I? Let’s look at some clouds instead.

They’re on all sides. Cardinal Wolsey, myself, and Yeshayahu and Mordechai (my sensible shoes) are surrounded.

Strange times. I also had a – wry, unamused, sad – schitzengiggle at the news that those government agencies known as “supermarkets” are beginning to get the Great Unwashed used to the re-introduction of food rationing. Matters not that in WWII this was done directly by the government, and that in WWIII it is being performed by an agency (ASDA, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s etc), the end result – the ‘what is actually happening, not what we’re told is happening’ is the same. Rationing. Just the beginnings of.

Can’t be long now before some MP stands on their hooves in Parliament and raises the novel notion of ‘conscription of the masses’, and Diane Abbott’s Thinking Monkey For The Hard-Of-Neuroning applauds and announces that we’ll be sending eleventy-twelve trillion soldiers to The Ukraine, at a cost of £2 14/- 6d. each, translating into a saving for the Public Purse of all of the money that every there was when they come back dead and don’t need a state pension.

There’s other news too of course, but it’s all as depressing as The Papal Hammer, tap, tap, shower-head.

The Canal Company is thinking to fill a fifty million DEFRA grant hole in its budget by raising the licence fee at the moment only especially so for those of us without a home mooring – about six thousand boats, maximode. Ask Diane Abbott to do the arithmetic on that one! Cretins, all.

Folk who do have a “home mooring” in a marina are all in favour, not realising, methinks, that once they’ve bent us over a barrel and had their wicked way the Canal Company Ltd will just move on to shafting the next divided group and the next…

One part petrol, two fistfuls of polystyrene packing-peanuts, stuff a rag in the end, add Man’s red fire, lob over-arm and enjoy.

Oh fer cryin’ out loud, I’m going to have songs from Jungle Book in my head all day now.

Bugger it.

Back it is then… to the Bare Necessities.

Chin-chin, Chihuahuaii.

Ian H., Cardinal W., and shoes.