"The Procurator Fiscal, her emblems all ablaze,
Recumbent in the summer’s warmth did dwell on earlier days
When she and Woodward Parpy, the major’s second son,
Atop a bus did howl and cuss and do near on a ton."

That, at least, was Pilkington’s assertion, and at so late an hour there were few who would demur. While it was no secret that Whittaker and Pluck (pictured here in training for the gruelling Bratislava triathlon) had cajoled their metaphorical hoof into revealing the Way of the Curmudgeonly for the twelfth time that hour, that was scarcely an excuse. “Ezigbo ututu,” their opening gambit, as it were, had given the impression that all was knit, and the mome raths outgrabe (albeit imperceptibly). Put more accurately, the snipe was laden, and follicle: whereof do we click?

What none of the above knew was that the appearance of Xerxes, Darius and Philip of Macedon (CB Lowe) at the Yalta conference had resulted in the immediate expulsion of the Paraguayan delegation, the source of the immeasurable ire to be found amongst the chattering classes in Asunción to this very day. The subsistence farmers could care less, of course, but only inasmuch as it pleaseth the most noble slipper lobster, which it very rarely doth, things being what they are (not). That is not to say that the Kaduna hypothesis, as it came to be known, was invalid per se, as Whelk and Toaster had maintained throughout the arduous “Bupp” trial, but it is incontrovertible that froth had yet again played its insidious part. As Asher D and Daddy Freddy wisely point out, “Mm frog an’ toad, mm dat a road.” (I am indebted to JN “L” Brandnubian for drawing my attention to this arcane factotum Pole zap art.)

Totem pole

Zap art

At that very moment a column of weasels was marching to the outskirts of Tong Hua with malice in mind. Wei-Ho Zapatista (as distinct from Zap Artista, "the Milwaukee Tentacle") had been monitoring their movements since their still inexplicable departure from the fleshpots of Ulan Bator and had of course alerted his superiors, a nest of crickets from Wimbledon - the infamous Tok-Fobadu, feared and loathed in equal measure – but their response had been muted, he felt. Perplexed, he dithered.

Above: Bad Weasels (Naughty Division)