Random Memoirs.

Ah-h-h-hem (clears throat, cracks knuckles, places fingers on keyboard, notices bad condition of cuticle adjacent to right index fingernail, makes mental note to ignore it, begins to type).

The following account is largely autobiographical, but at times is guaranteed to be mostly fictitious, albeit in a semi truthful fashion, in a roundabout way.

The original script for what follows has been adapted for this forum by superglueing it onto a large square of sheet copper, and using industrial tin snips to trim the overlapping edges.


The first person to actually make sense of this piece, thereby fully acknowledging the dark, adenoidal undertones contained therein, will win a prize of a free burial at sea, complete with a woman of your own choosing.



INSTALMENT ONE, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE FIRST INSTALMENT.

This tale begins during the dark days of the second world war, or dublya dublya too, as it is known across the pond.

On or around 3.41pm and thirty four seconds, on Friday 30th October 1942, I was the subject of a rather hurried secretion, being whisked away to take control of a team of boffins, working at the highly secret "Darstardly Inventions Countering Krautish Haughtiness Especially After Dunkirk" section, otherwise known as D.I.C.K.H.E.A.D.S., for those of us who were in the know.

As chief d.i.c.k.h.e.a.d., it fell upon me to oversee and, in some cases test, various weird and wonderful contraptions and/or recipes, designed to hamper and/or slow the Nazi war machine.
After a truly heroic but disastrous experimental sampling of a digestive prune bomb, I was banned from offering my services as a human guinea pig, promoted to General owing to my lavatorial bravery, given a new batch of scorchprooof underwear and plonked behind a desk for the duration.

Having therefore just recently risen to the giddy heights of General, I glanced from side to side, breathed out slowly and sat down again.

There was a sharp tap on the door.

I quickly took out my little toolbox and removed it as its sharpness could cause a minor accident, whereupon a steady stream of water cascaded from the resulting hole, wetting the office carpet.

"Bollocks!" I shouted.

"Yes, Sir, did you call?" enquired Major Bollox, my admin. officer.

"I seem to have a stream of fluid cascading onto my carpet. Can't stop the bugger"

"Hang on, Sir, I'll fetch you a cloth and some fresh underwear" replied the Major.

"It's not prune related this time, Major" I stated, squelching my way into the corridor "I think I've inadvertantly removed some sort of cock"

Quick as a flash, Bollox ran into the office to assess the situation. For some inexplicable reason, I had begun to hum the "galloping Major".

Retrieving the cock and holding it firmly in hand, the Major proceeded to use it to plug the hole, whereupon I decided to take a stroll until things had been sorted.



Down at the end of the corridor, just beyond Laboratory "A", was the guard's billet. I opened the door and strolled in.

"ATTENNNNNN-SHUN!" Shouted a young Lieutenant. Everyone stood rigid. "Good morning, Sir" he said nervously.

"Good morning, Lieutenant. Who's coming?" I replied.

"Well, nobody, Sir"

""Then what have you got me standing to attention like this for then?" I enquired.

"No, no, I didn't mean you Sir. I just bought the room to attention for you, as acting Duty Officer"

"Well, that's odd" I stated "I didn't think it was my turn for Duty Officer. I though you were the D.O. today, old chum"

"I am, Sir" He blurted, looking confused.

"Well Lieutenant, there's a mix up somewhere then, isn't there? We can't both be Duty Officers can we? Someone's made a mistake somewhere, I think"

"Yes Sir, It's you, Sir" he stammered.

"No, no, no, it can't be me. I'm not Duty Officer until next weekend, old boy"

"No, Sir....I mean Yes, Sir, I...I..."

"I say, Lieutenant, can I stand easy now? I'm getting cramp in my left leg and this new fangled scorchproof underwear is starting to bunch"

"Absolutely, Sir"

I stood easy, pulled out the rather intrusive wedgie, and strolled back into the corridor. "See what the chaps in Lab "A" are up to", I thought......



Laboratory "A" was a brightly lit room which, for some peculiar reason, always had the whiff of wet dog about it.

Entering quietly so as not to inadvertantly disturb any vital experiment, I stepped over a soggy Labrador and made my way to a group of d/heads, who were huddled round a desk, talking in hushed tones.

"Ah" I exclaimed, making them all jump "See you've got the old 'talking desk' prototype up and running then! Tell me though, why is it talking in hushed tones?"

"We're twiddling with the volume, Sir" replied Arborbridge.


Sidney Arborbridge, although being Australian, had proved to be of sufficient intelligence when sober, to be appointed as head boffin of this particular unit. His brilliant "gradually constricting cummerbund" had been the downfall of Goering's nephew in 1940, causing the young lad to suffer from severe indigestion for well over a month.
Of course, the original target had been Goering himself, but his nephew had borrowed it, along with the "quietly strangulating bow tie", in order to attend a charity bierfest somewhere in Bavaria.

Lucky for the nephew that the bow tie failed to go off, that's what I say.

"Any new developments, Arborbridge?" I enquired, twiddling with my almost General like handlebar moustache, which was coming on a treat, but always seemed to smell of tomato soup.

"Well, there is this, Sir" he replied, pointing to a sorry looking sausage. "It was couriered in from Scotland. We've just begun to try and decode it, Sir"

I gingerly picked it up and took a good long sniff, confirming immediately that it was German in origin. I raised my eyebrows in anticipation.

"Good God!" I cried "Is it from...."

"Yes, Sir....Hess, Sir" He exulted, going red in the face. A small twitch started up near my left eye.



Older readers who may have died for their country during WW2, will surely remember that Rudolph Hess, Hitler's number two, had secretly flown to Scotland in what was reported at the time to be an attempt to open peace negotiations.
Documents now released from the dusty archives of the War Ministry now show that this tale was pure propaganda, and that Hess had actually been out on a shopping mission for his wife, Locken.
She was a bit of a dragon, by all accounts, and was known in her home town of Hanover, as the Locken Hess Monster.
Apparently, she had sent him out in his Bf 110, to get some of those little Belgian chocolate truffly things from Bruges and, after he had collected them and had stayed on to partake of several of their speciality fruit beers, made a fateful error on his way back and turned right at Calais instead of left, eventually running out of fuel and having to parachute from his plane whilst over Renfrewshire, Scotland.

What wasn't divulged, however, was that he had secreted a rather large bierwurst down his trousers.

When the bierwurst endowed Hess was spotted floating down to earth over a large cornfield, the police were summonsed and arrived within minutes. However, the ensuing half hour scuffle to remove seven heavily aroused Landgirls from his prostrate torso probably accounts for the wear and tear on the aforementioned secret sausage.

After the Landgirls had been removed and shooed away, two of whom were casually sharing a cigarette and looking flushed, it was noted, Hess was stripsearched and the mangled sausage sent straight to Lab "A", for decoding.


"Well, what have we gleaned so far" I asked eagerly.

"X-Ray has come up with nothing I'm afraid, Sir" replied Arborbridge.

"X-Ray? We've got the budget for one of those X-Ray machines, have we?"

"Well, not exactly, Sir. We had Thomkins hold it up in the air while we backlit it with one of those Army Searchlights. The one's they use for locating enemy bombers. Those bloody great..."

"Yes, yes, I know what a searchlight is, old boy. And...?"


"Well, the only thing we discovered" said Arborbridge "Was that staring into one of those things causes temporary blindness, Sir"

"Is that it? Is that all you've discovered?"

"We also found out that it can cause scorching if you stand too close, Sir. Thomkins has a rather nasty burn on the back of his head"

"So, we've not accomplished anything then, man, apart from establishing the world shattering information that a ten million candle strength searchlight can be a bit bright and get a bit HOT!" I bellowed, thwacking my riding crop into my right leg, causing my eyes to water.

"Well, Bradshaw now has a theory that we're all working on, Sir"

"Yes, man. Spill the beans. What is it?" I whimpered, stroking my right thigh in a soothing manner.

"Well, Sir, he is of the opinion that the bierwurst may have been made with a certain unusual combination of ingredients, causing one to fart in morse code shortly after it has been consumed." He stood back, staring at the riding crop with a worried expression.

"So...? Are you following up this theory?"

"Well, yes, Sir. Bradshaw, in order to test this idea, has consumed two mouths full of the sausage about three hours ago, and so far has produced two positive episodes of flatulence, the first being a definite "D", and the second being an almost confirmed "E", although there was definite "squeak" interference towards the end. We're trying to tune him up as I speak, Sir"

"D-E ?, what could it possibly mean, Arborbridge?" I asked, raising one eyebrow with an index finger as it can't do it on its own.

"The codebreakers have their new fangled computer thing working on it now, Sir. Wheels and cogs flying about all over the show. They have a theory that it could be the start of 'Dear Winston', or 'Dear Monty', at present. He's just swallowed another mouthful, Sir. We're all praying for an 'A' in the next few minutes or so, to keep their theory on track"

I leaned forward and patted Arborbridge on the shoulder, just as Bradshaw produced two very robust but short rectal explosions, signalling a definite 'I'.

"That now spells DEI, Arborbridge." I whispered, conspiratorially. " The German word for 'the'. I see what we're faced with now! A German high ranking officer, carrying a bierwurst, inside which is hidden a code, written in German. The cunning blighters! If the message is written in German, Arbors old boy, we could be here for bloody hours. You know how long some of their words can be! Tell me honestly, do you think that Bradshaw is up to the task?"

"Well Sir, he says he'll see the job through, and we've already requested several gasmasks and a large tub of cold cream, so I would say that we could be onto a winner, Sir. He's prepared to eat the whole damned thing if it means shortening this ghastly war."

"That's the spirit, Arborbridge." I said, patting him on the shoulder once more. "Good job, men!" I shouted at the group of white coated boffins, now holding their noses at the other end of the room. "Remember, it's people like you who are winning this war!".


I turned smartly on my heels, stepped over the still steaming labrador, and strode into the fresh air of the corridor, quickly closing the door to Lab 'A' behind me.

Releasing the firm grip from the end of my nose, I wondered what instalment two would uncover.....