SAUSAGE Life 331

Bird Guano’s
SAUSAGE LIFE
the column which is now sponsored by BetMug.com where the bandits may have only one arm but they’ll always give you a big hug.

READER: Did you watch the state visit of Donald Trump?

MYSELF: Indeed I did, until I was sick.

READER: Do I infer that you’re not a fan of the 45th AND 46th president then?

MYSELF: Yes, you could infer that. Or you could infer that I was so impressed by the welcome given to the blundering, fat, orange-tinted, incoherent, uneducated, bullying oaf, by our revoltingly sycophantic arse-kissing royal family that I over-indulged and consequently had to yodel into the porcelain.

READER: I’ll infer that as a yes.

FANDOM OF THE OPERA
As an incurable opera buff, I was flattered this month to be invited to review The Unicorn, Canto Rumoré’s rarely staged tragédie en musique. It was performed by the redoubtable Upper Dicker Musical and Operatic Society to a sold-out audience at the newly refurbished Upper Dicker Scout Hut & Community Betting Shop. The venue’s low ceiling and relatively small capacity (23), made it a delightfully intimate experience:
The curtain opens to the sound of grief-stricken sobbing.We see that Delia daughter of the magistrate Pontius Platypus is distraught. Her lover, the milkman Flaccidius, has heartlessly cast her aside and eloped with Cialis, the French maid, to the far-away village of Lontano where they plan to set up a small dairy business. Delia, beside herself, seeks the help of local crime-boss Nuotare Conpesci and instructs him to arrange the adulteration of Flaccidius’s milk with owl droppings, in the hope of destroying his customer base. Hearing of this, Flaccidius contacts two notorious Sicilian assassins, Piccolo and Grande to arrange Delia’s murder. During their rowdy meeting they drink Grappa and sing the aria Ginocchia Fino Madre Marrone.The assassins lure the unsuspecting Delia to the forest by promising to get her a secure job in a bank. Soon it dawns on her that the two men are not from a recruiting agency and falling into a swoon, she abandons herself to her fate. As luck would have it, a shining white unicorn enters (superbly played by Norman Rhodes (back) and Beatrice Rasputin (front), and tramples the assassins, goring them mercilessly with its magic tusk. As they lie bleeding to death, they beg Delia’s forgiveness, singing the plaintive duet siamo solo in esso per i soldi. Delia falls in love with the unicorn, but realises the relationship is doomed, not least because of Italy’s strict inter-species marriage laws. Before the curtain falls, they are joined by the chorus and all sing a rousing version of Cavelli per I corsi.

READER: Hang on! The unicorn? I’m sure I read somewhere that the unicorn is a mythical beast. Where on earth do these operas get their ridiculous ideas?
MYSELF: Be careful what you read, the Unicorn is no myth. I saw one only yesterday afternoon in Morrison’s fresh vegetable aisle. Although it could have been a Minotaur with a leek strapped to its head.

DIARY OF A SOMEBODY
an occasional series in which Patrick Carabine randomly browses the recollections of an anonymous diarist.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 2nd
Tarquin, my eldest, telephones to say he is visiting from London tomorrow. Slight feeling of dread as the last time we spoke I let it slip that I was thinking of writing a novel, and he has become so cynical of late that I fear he will be unable to resist gloating at my failure to even begin. Take a stroll in the Zoological Gardens, where I bump into Twollet the greengrocer outside the penguin enclosure. He is looking suspiciously the worse for wear, despite the early hour, and is singing to the penguins and strumming what looks like a tiny guitar. He tells me in a slurred voice that it is a ukulele, and is currently all the rage. I resolve to buy one and learn to play it before Tarquin gets here tomorrow. Today’s new word: Quixotic

SATURDAY 3rd
This ukulele business is much more difficult than I imagined. Twollet, even though drunk, appeared to play it effortlessly, yet I am unable to get even a cursory tune out of the thing. Tarquin is due to arrive at lunchtime, and I am tempted to abandon the whole thing. Return library book, God is Deaf by Romulus Grobblar, practically unread. His prediction in chapter two that “television will never catch on” now makes his ideas seem ridiculous. I borrow a video tutorial by Mr George Formby in the hope of picking up some ukulele hints. Tarquin sends me a text, (a fad which in my opinion will never replace the telegram), to say he won’t arrive until tomorrow. Phew!
New word: Mollification

SUNDAY 4th
Celia Badwig accompanies me to church, where, due to my sitting up until 4am trying to master the basics of the ukulele, I embarrass her by falling asleep during Nearer My God to Thee. I awake singing after dreaming that I am George Formby in the film Turned Out Nice Again. Oddly, the lyrics of Auntie Maggie’s Remedy fit the hymn perfectly, and I hear Twollet’s ribald laughter coming from a pew at the back. Back home I await Tarquin’s arrival with trepidation.
Today’s new word: Discomposed

MONDAY 5th
Ashamed to say I am hung over, and linger in bed feeling sorry for myself. Tarquin arrived very late Sunday, with a case of Tolpuddle’s Fortified Elderberry Liqueur, which he insisted we all try, and then produced, of all things, a ukulele, which, to my great surprise, he strummed with a degree of sophistication I never suspected he possessed. I have a vague memory of being encouraged to join in with my instrument, which Tarquin spotted peeking out of the umbrella stand where I had hidden it. As I lie in bed wrestling with these odd recollections, Tarquin enters, ukulele in hand and tells me he is off back to the “smoke”. Standing in the doorway he sings a song to me which he claims we jointly composed the night before, as a farewell.

You can never have too many ukuleles
Cos a ukulele likes a bit of fun
They like gambolling together
wearing taffeta and leather
and they can’t do that
if you only have the one.

I suppose I shall have to take his word for it, since I can’t remember a thing after the third bottle. New word: Abstemious

Sausage Life!

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Photo credit: Alice’s Dad (circa 2000)

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JACK POUND: JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUN READER aka PASS THE INSTANT YOGA

CHEMTRAILS ON MY MIND
MORT J SPOONBENDER

On September 11th 1958, José Popacatapetl, a retired tree psychologist who’s father was head gardener for the CIA during the cold war, was hitchiking through the Alberqueque desert when he was picked up by a black sedan driven by J Edgar Hoover’s ex-boyfriend André Pfaff head of FBI underhand operations and extra-terrestrial banking who once worked as a quantum mechanic for the KGB under the direct orders of the zombie reincarnation of Josef Stalin whose mummified corpse was kept in a secret underhand bunker in the basement of the Vatican.

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