Good evening Negative Soundbyters! What a fantastic weekend! Mrs H has just rounded it off with a superb roast, Rafe is dreaming about his Baby Naming Ceremony and all the kisses and cuddles he got and I am drinking some soda water (I drank enough red wine last night to not only whet Rafe’s head but to practically drown him!) and listening to some classical music to keep the creative juices flowing.
The head whetting was a major success and at the pub, after the Ceremony held in the Wandsworth Town Hall, I said a few words to mark the occasion and managed to weave in a limerick composed by yours truly:*
There was a young baby called Rafe
Who came into this world warm and safe
He took to the breast
Like a man possessed
One thing’s for certain, he ain’t goin to be no waif!
I don’t think I am going to be challenging for any literary awards with this poem but and it got a few laughs so it didn’t fall completely flat!
Besides Rafe officially becoming Rafe, anything else of geopolitical importance to report:
As last week’s post predicted: Bob Mugabe is no longer president of Zimbabwe. Apparently he is to receive $10m and immunity from any crimes that might have occurred under his very large gold-and-diamond encrusted watch. Goes to show that plunder, murder and mayhem continue to pay in the tradition of the African “Big Man”. Zimbabwe’s High Court (or equivalent) also ruled that the Army’s coup was “legal”. Um…er….sounds a stretch to me; more like the Generals had a quiet word with the judge to “legitimise” their actions or else…..(In Zimbabwe “or else” doesn’t end well)….Anyway let’s hope the new strongman that’s been installed turns over a new tobacco leaf (Zim used to be a massive exporter of tobacco until Bob confiscated all the farms and turned them over to his cronies) but I am not holding my breath.
Let’s move on then to this week’s anecdote – it’s a real caper so stay tuned!
Big Love
Hoddy X
Super sleuth.
Edition 51 found Mrs H, Rafe and I in the quaint, seaside village of Rye. Some might also ascribe the adjective: “sleepy” but not when the Hodsons roll into town.
It’s about three o clock in the morning on the Monday night. I am dead-to-the-world, Rafe is dead-to-the-world and Mrs H is on watch. In the tiniest recess of my sub conscious I hear what sounds like a car alarm going off. My brain does its best to ignore it. Rafe’s brain ignores it, but not Mrs H. She launches herself across the bed, pulls back the curtain and peers into the street below our hotel bedroom window.
“They’re breaking into the shop! They’re breaking into the shop!” she hisses at me. My brain continues to do its best to ignore this verbal intrusion on my beauty sleep but Mrs H persists. Eventually I drag myself to the window, one eyeball still closed, the other trying to focus in the direction that she is pointing. My first thought is why would anyone want to break into a charity shop (it turns out later that it is like one of those farmer boutique-ie shops called Golden Fleece) but that line of thinking is interrupted by Mrs H instructing me in a loud whisper to “get the number plate; get the number plate!” while she reaches for her phone. Now bearing in mind that I have partial vision; my brain is sparking but not yet firing on all two cylinders and she wants me now to focus on a number plate and start reading out numbers! Proper forty-something challenge!
Mrs H taps feverishly into her phone while I manage – only just - to read out the letters and numbers “Eeeee-44444-Zerooo….um…er….8..threeeeee….ohhhhh”. In hindsight taking a photo would have cut down the margin of error (which at that point was a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon) but even Super-Mom didn’t have all her faculties functioning at full steam at that time of the morning (I blame Rafe, who was still snoring gently away as if passed out in a deck chair on an ocean liner).
These three intruders weren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the proverbial garden shed. They parked their car right in front of the shop door so they kept getting in each other’s way as they lifted what turned out to be Barbour jackets into the car; they didn’t go to the trouble of obscuring their number plate – some good old fashioned farmyard mud would have done the job – and the door happened to be below a very large ornate street lamp straight out of Charles Dickens. Let’s just say that even in fuzzy brain mode I could make out the number plate and relay it correctly to Mrs Plod. There is no “I” in Team Hoddy.
Meanwhile somebody had alerted the fuzz and eventually they turned up in a squad car. The villains had long since fled the crime scene but Mrs H marched down stairs in her dressing gown to give the coppers a statement. They put out an APB (“All Points Bulletin” for those who didn’t watch CHIPS as kids) and about 30 minutes later, the car was spotted on the M25. A high-speed chase ensued – only kidding (but that would have been kinda cool); however only one robber was apprehended (he must have dropped his two mates off at the McDonalds to pick up some burgers) and all the stolen merchandise recovered (Barbour jackets of certain sizes; clearly an Amazon-style made-to-order type robbery without the efficiency of execution).
Mrs H returned to the room very satisfied with her evening’s work. I had retired to Club Duvet with Rafe who was snuggled in the VIP area. No doubt Mrs H went to sleep thinking that she might be awarded the Keys to the Town of Rye and possibly even an OBE for her services to the British Empire! Both well-deserved in my mind – ha.
OVER-AND-OUT
Pic of the Week
A taste of Rye...
