Day 100

Dear Diary,

Well, I’m not gonna apologise to you again for the merry chase wot I took you on yesterday, on account of, if you remember me saying at the time, I was the one actually being took for a ride and you was the one reading about it from the comfort of your living room. Well, okay, some of you might’ve been at work and wanking the time away when you was supposed to be at work at one of them call centres where they pretends to be blind and are selling light bulbs so folks can see better, but I won’t tell on you if’n you won’t make up stories about me. Folks is always fibbing about me and wot I gets up to, on account of I’m sort of a celebrity among us buses. Still and all I’m entitled to a private life ain’t I? After all, I’m not only human. I’m a bus and there’s a difference. For example, it’s none of your business wot I done between the time I was a young and innocent Daimler Burlington CVD6 sashaying through the downs of Devon and the time I was lugging ancient retired decrepits around the continent for The Golden Twilight Years Tours and was tinkered with by Mingus Da Pingus. ‘Course, I doubt if you’d remember him more’n to say hello in a dark alley, on account of I don’t talk about the Ol’ fool much and haven’t dragged him into one o’my conversations for at least a coupl’a months or more. Anyways, he’s none of your business any more than is Fergal Da Fecker and wot he got up to with them cows. But that’s not wot we was talking about yesterday, were it, and I don’t want to get you any more confused than you already is.

Actually wot I was ranting about last time concerned the unholy mess we was in. Ol’ Boris Rabbit’d been trying to exterminate us with his tommy gun, and this got us off to a bad start even though it weren’t a real ouzo after all, but one he’d found in a box of cereal which’d gave him ideas he thought’d be fun to try out. And while he was busy play acting the spoiled brat wot ruins the birthday party for the others, I was trying to save Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley from burning up in the sun and being kilt by their special deluxe premium pink and gold turbo jet ski, which looked from where I stood to be outta control and ready to explode. And then fuck me, on account of for the second time in less’n a minute I was made a fool of. It sure was demonstrated to me once and for all that only a fool wot wants to die in shit believes his eyes or trusts his pride, anymore’n he ought’a listen to wot his neighbour spouts over the back fence. And do you want to know wot learned me this and makes me hope I never hafta learn it again? It turns out this super duper excellencio primo turbofartin’ jet ski of Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley was nothing more or less than the pretend kind wot came outta the same cereal box as the fuckin’ ouzo. Fuckin’ell! I tell you if’n I hadn’t shat first thing in the morning and if’n I’d had any more personal waste product stored up in my tail pipe, I would’a messed up the sea for good and ruined wot they calls the delicate balance of nature in so far as the marine environment is concerned. And the thing is, I’d been trying my level best to keep all the biddies wot is strapped into my insides safe and sound and dry as a old maid’s heart and there was Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and Ol’ Boris Rabbit yankin’ on my chain and fuckin’ with my head space.

So you want to know wot I done? Well since I weren’t gonna take no more of their adolescent pranks and horseplay, I revved up my engine, with the help of The Widow Fartie Da Whistle on account of I can’t do it alone, and I programmed in my digger attachment wot normally isn’t visible to the layman. And right then and then I plucked up snotty Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and stupid Floozie Da Smelley and stuck ‘em up in the luggage rack wot is on top of me. ‘Course they was yelling and screaming to beat the band and trying to make a jump from it down into the sea so’s they could play some more on their jet ski, but I wasn’t having none of it. They’d been pretending to be in mortal danger and I’d gone outta my way to save their lives, only to find out they was doing wot they calls ‘donuts’ for one o’them reality TV programs. You know the show I’m talking about, the one where stupid people does stupid things more times in a row than wot anyone else’s done without dying in the attempt? Mind you, in the show everything’s rigged and they’s not competing against nobody wot actually makes donuts for a living, is they? The real ones is too busy living to appear on TV and make fools of themselves. But never mind about that. The thing is I was so mad and fed up that I strapped ‘em down and said “shut the fuck up, you’ve endangered me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and about a hundert fifty old biddies wot’s nearly drowned on account of you.” I told ‘em whether they liked it or not they was saved, at which point The Reverend Doctor Paisley Pisser, the vicar wot wasn’t even a proper vicar, couldn’t help hisself but yelled out “and glory hallelujah to the lord and take us home sweet Jeezuz!” I don’t hafta tell you the world stopped like it’d died and turned into one of them vacuum cleaners where there ain’t no sound or nothing. “Wot the fuck is that?” I said to myself amazed as anything. “It’s only me,” said The Reverend Doctor Paisley Pisser from his hiding place under the back seat of the bus (being me) where the portable inflatable toilet is stashed in case of emergency drainage problems on the part of the biddies. “And who is you?” I answered back real official like, “and unless I’m mistaken you don’t sound to me like no biddy.”

Well right then and there I could see we had wot they calls a situation in back of the bus, on account of this here excursion, before we was washed away in the flood, was supposed to be my special farewell tour around the island before I left to live with my new owner, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota and his super A-One hot stuff hunk of a Ducati motorcycle, Benvolio Da Trampolio. Only biddies was allowed on board on account of the government department wot’d paid for the tour only had money for biddies, and it looked like we had wot they calls a stowaway, even if he was a artificial reverend wot’d got his preacher papers mail-order from Nevada and was after disguising hisself as Ol’ Miss Luella Da Bunkle. Now I know I haven’t mentioned this before, but I’d been secretly eyeing The Reverend Doctor Paisley Pisser for some time, trying to figure out where I’d seen him before. You see, I’d suspected he wasn’t the genuine Miss Luella Da Bunkle, on account of she’d been dead for at least two months and even at her best she didn’t look this good. Besides, as far as I could recall, she’d been sold off from Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ before she’d got more stiff or cold than wot she was back when she used to dance the seven deadly veils over at Marcela Da Splodge’s Fancy-Prancy Club behind the Women’s Institute. And also, I remember how impressed I was when she were bundled off in unseemly haste over to The Gnu-Fanny Deluxe Premium Fancy Cat Food Company, on account of there were enough of her to fill up a thousand special edition cans and they’d paid her sister extra for the instant super-fresh service.

In case you is interested, I only told you about the real Miss Luella Da Bunkle so’s you’d understand why I was wot they calls troubled over the new artificial edition, plus this one had a voice more or less like a man, and a man wot’s been spending time in Nevada. And Miss Luella Da Bunkle’d never been off of the island, not in her whole life from the day she was born ‘til the day she were shipped off to the cat food company. Mind you, I don’t really know wot happened to her after that, not in this day and age of shipping off the best and freshest local produce to foreign countries and leaving all the cheap shit for us.

Anyway, as you can gather I was left with yet another problem and one I’d got to solve before the inspectors showed up and found I was carrying illegal cargo.

So, wot I’m gonna do is I’m gonna put on my thinking cap like wot I used to do in school when I had to work out one of them equations I’d never saw before, and you’re gonna hafta shut up extra quiet and not bother me until I comes up with an answer wot makes everyone think I know wot I’m talking about. And when I does, I’ll pick up my pencil again and say “eureka I’ve got the answer,” so you can endeth being silent as a mouse wot’s not cleaning his whiskers.

Day 99

Dear Diary,

Wot a woopdee-doo! One minute I was gonna go right on over and rescue Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley from where they was cooking under the sun on their premium deluxe special edition turbo jet ski, and the next I was diving under the ocean waves to get away from Ol’ Boris, wot was shooting up the world with his tommy gun. I tell you that’s the last time I’ll ever trust a rabbit, and the last time I’ll ever offer to save it from spilling the last of its cocktail and ruining it’s cigarette! In fact, If’n ever I sees a fluffy bunny so much as once more before I dies and I don’t run in the opposite direction as fast as my wheels can take me, I deserve to be smashed up flat up in one o’them vehicle-crushers wot they used to have over at Misther Florian Da Blossom’s Discount Used Tyre Emporium way back last week before the flood washed it over to the good side of the island where it became an Porshe/Audi dealership. And I’ll tell you something else and that’s if’n I ever does rescue Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley from their humiliating predicament of not being able to control their jet ski when all it’s got is a six cee-cee kiddie’s engine, I’m gonna shake ‘em ‘til their teeth rattle for snatching a rabbit from the jaws of death instead of their pet chicken, Eringarde. I mean, I knowed Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley is stupider’n a bucket of squashed zombie brains and turnips, but it turns out they’s even twelve times stupider’n that. Any fool can tell you a rabbit’s not to be trusted. Why else does they make themselves up to be so cute and adorable and fluffy ifn it’s not on account of they’re cornering the market in ulterior motives? On the other hand, not one single chicken has ever took out his tommy gun and sprayed a shitload of full metal jackets at a innocent classic Daimler Burlington CVD6 bus and his ancient biddy passengers wots only crimes has been the wearing of yesterday’s nappies and turning ‘em inside out to make ‘em last. Not never ever ever is wot I says, and that’s going back as far as the time when Ol’ Noah’n his sons Ham ‘n’ Cheese built a big old boat and stole all the animals from Ol’ McDonald’s farm and then got mad at a pigeon for shitting all over the furniture and threw him out through a hole in the roof. ‘Course, the pigeon weren’t as dumb as he looked, on account of he’d stole an olive branch complete with a bucket of seeds and became the first Greek Olive Oil Tycoon. And Noah and Ham ‘n’ Cheese ended up running a deli down in the slums and was stoned to death after’n Noah went to uncovering his nakedness and dancing in the hoochy-coochy. But back to chickens. As I started to say, chickens is righteous mensches and on the good side of The Lord and that’s the truth, which is why they make the only soup wot’s ever cured a cold in the head. Plus the fact they’ve never done nothing bad, not once, exceptin’ perhaps for inventing salmonella mayonnaise. However, you can’t really blame ‘em for trying to save their children from being ate, can you? Anyway, as I was trying to tell you, this here situation were nothing if not a fuckin’ mess, and that’s the long and short of it! Now where was I this time?

Oh, yeh, I was huffing and puffing about how I was forced to take evasion action when Ol’ Boris Rabbit tried to mow we down with wot I calls his hopped-up ouzo. ‘Course, it all happened so quick I’d forgot all about the biddies strapped into their seats and how they’d rolled down all their windows so’s they could refresh themselves from the after-effects eating all them garlic and bean cream buns they’d brung for their afternoon snack. But that was the last thing I should’a worried about, on account of nothin’s gonna kill ‘em wot’s not already killed ‘em before now, and certainly not some dumb psychopathic bunny with a plastic kiddies’ ouzo gun or a little matter of a hundert ninety-nine fathoms of ocean water pouring in through a few open windows. In fact, if’n I’d been thinking straight, I would’a knowed that as far as another dunking in the water was pills. They wasn’t gonna get dead, not for nothing. However, after all them days a’sinking and a’swimming and a’sinking and a’swimming on the deep blue briny, they’d got so fed up over having their hair mussed that they’d took out their little mobile phones and rung up old Beryl from Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Women and they told her to get on over to the bus (being me) with three dozen or so o’them patent plastic waterproof genuine Esther Williams look-alike hairdo wigs. ‘Course if’n I’d been paying attention like I should’a been, I’d’a noticed they was looking a mite too much like Ol’ Esther after she’d been water skiing and not enough like Ol’d biddies wot was ready for Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’. But I didn’t notice nothing of the sort, which only goes to show I’d been stuffing too much unverifiable information into my delicate mind via the chat rooms. And unfortunately, at the moment in question this particular mind wot was in my head was fixated on saving Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley from going round and round on their super duper turbopooper Jet Ski like a egg beater wanting to churn up the sea ‘til it turned into fishie-flavoured butter. And so you know wot I done? I ignored all the rumpus about the old biddies practically drowning again and I ignored Misther Boris Rabbit and his pretend tommy gun and his blue bubblegum daiquiri and I went straight over to Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and said, “See here, chaps, would you mind awfully if I killed you?”

Well, Dear Diary, I don’t mind telling you that got their attention. Misther Patchouli Da Fanny straightened up right away and turned off the engine to his jet ski and looked at me square in the eye. “Wot the fuck?” was wot he said, and before he’d finished Ol’ Floozie Da Smelley interrupted with “and ditto for me with bells on!” And I says, “haven’t you noticed there’s a flood on and if’n we don’t find land soon the biddies’ll run outta personal gas and we’ll be up the creek without a paddle?” And Floozie Da Smelley, who always did have a big mouth on her, shot back, “don’tcha mean you’ll be feedin’ the fishies and without tartar sauce?” Well, I never said she had a gift for words, did I, just a big mouth. Anyways, while this was going on, Misther Patchouli Da Fanny said to her outta the side of his mouth so’s I wouldn’t catch on he was saying, something along the lines of, “don’t you go wasting time talking to a goddamned bus, especially one wot has lost us the world record prize of thirty-five euros and fifty-three cents.” ‘Course this caught Ol’ Floozie Da Smelley off guard on account of she’d forgot why they’d arranged for the flood in the first place and why they was going round in circles, and she slapped herself right on top of her pouty pink lips and said real loud, “Oh fuck me’n dragged me through the shite, for we’ve lost our one and only chance at fame and fortune!” Unfortunately, when she done that she shook her head like she’d seen them celebrity glamour models do and her wig flew off, and wot do you know but I saw her hair was ginger with greasy roots. ‘Course, I took a picture real quick and figured I could use it on down the line to blackmail the skanky bitch if’n I’ve ever got a day with nothing to do and I’m bored and want some extra spending money.


Anyways, let me tell you wot they’d said to each other said was a complete surprise, and I was at a loss for words for only about the second time in my life, the first time being before I had a mouth stuck on my face back at the Daimler factory in the fifties. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out wot the fuck they was talking about. Here was I trying to save Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley from drowning and looking like bloaty walruses at the bottom of the water, and here they was thinking about their last chance at fame and fortune in some competition I’d never heard about. As they says in period dramas wot can’t afford decent electric lights or sewing machines to shorten their skirts, “gag me with a spoon and ladle on the syllabub.”

I gotta admit this were one of the strangest days since the invention of days way back even before I was built in the fifties, and for a time I was praying it was one of them bad dreams wot they has in television dramas when they wants to pretend nothing dumb was ever broadcast. Unfortunately, this day was so dumb it had to be real. I’m sorry about this, but at least you only had to read about it whereas I was forced to live it. To compensate I’m gonna put away my pencil so’s to give you time to drink more’n you should and forget. And don’t you worry your little head, I won’t wake you up in the morning with a rousing chorus of “Fifteen Hundert Ginger-Headed Sailors” ‘til after you’ve drunk some more and’ve lost your hangover down the toilet. To show you how much I loves you, I’m not even gonna close today with so endething anything, just to prove I’m not stuck in a rut or an obsessive compulsive git.

Day 98

Dear Diary,

Well, my pencil didn’t forgive me and it said it didn’t want to work for me anymore, on account of I never included its own adventures in my diary entries and sometimes said bad things in its hearing. So I looked at it real mean with a glint in my eye and I says to it, “fuck you pencil, and fuck the trees and the graphite wot went into you, and fuck the forest wot the tree came from and fuck all them little Chinese or African Children wot’re paid a dollar every other year for making you so’s you have the privilege of recording my adventures in my diary.” And if that wasn’t telling him wot was wot, then nothing was. Anyway, the upshot was I broke him into little pieces and ground him into dust under my wheels and throwed him overboard into the sea, where he’ll sink to the bottom and drown. Fortunately, I’ve got me a extra pencil, one wot is properly subservient and don’t always correct my grammar and spelling like some o’them do wot have been spending too much time hanging around computers. As you can see, my old pencil got rid of my good mood and I’m now feeling like I used to feel way back when I was transporting folks around the island as an employee of the community bus service, and when every so often I was forced to chase dumb people off of the road or throw ‘em over a cliff, or even run over their toes when all they needed was a warning not to fuck with my head. In case I didn’t tell you about it before, it were all part of my official “Fuck With My Head And Die” policy wot I learned when I was a simple country bus in Devon way back in the fifties when I was new and innocent and thought the world was round. How times change. I’m now all growed up and sophisticated as a cow wot’s turned into a swan, but I still think the old policies is the best.

Now that I’ve got all this outta my system I can get back to telling you about wot’s been happening, something I couldn’t do before on account of my mood would’a forced me to say things about them folks I’m writing about that might’a got me throwed off of the world. ‘Course, this might not be a bad thing, but then again it might be. Anyways, I’m definitely better now that I’ve got me a pencil with a more grovelly’n positive attitude and I’ve had me a good A-Number One rant.

Last time you heard from me, I’d just saw Ol’ Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley roasting under the sun on their pink and gold special edition premium turbo jet ski, and believe me they was in a whole shitload of trouble. The jet ski were racing round in tiny circles like a dumb dog wots chasing its tail and its passengers looked deader’n a cat wot’s got runned over by a bus (not that I’ve ever stooped to doing such a thing). Floozie Da Smelley’s pet rabbit, by name of Boris, was sitting up on his mistress’s head and was smoking a cigarette and sipping on one of them blue cocktails wot’s got fruit sticking outta the top of the sorta martini glass wot Floozie Da Smelley liked to carry around when she was living in her pink marshmallow wedding cake house. ‘Course, you might not’a heard yet, but that house o’hers is no more on account of the flood flattened it flatter’n a pancake wot’s been sat on. Anyway, when I seen Boris sittin’ there in his dark glasses and swilling martinis to beat the band, I yelled out before I could remember to keep my mouth shut, “Yo Boris, don’t you know smoking’s against the law on the high seas and if you drink any more of that shit you’ll turn into a pickle?” and he yells right back, “Fuck you Misther Daimler Burlington CVD6 Bus and fuck all them old biddies wot are riding round inside o’you.” Whereupon I yells over to him once again and says, “Here I come Boris, ready or not, on account of me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’re gonna rescue you whether you likes it or not.” And he yells back again, “Try it Misther Fucky Snooty Misther Daimler Burlington CVD6 Bus and I’ll chew off your nose with my long rabbit teeth.”

Well, to cut a long story short, the nice thing about Ol’ Boris is he’s easy to talk to, and so we yelled back and forth and forth and back for another coupl’a hours until I noticed Ol’ Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley, wot he was sitting on top of, were starting to smoke from the sun like they was burning up on the barbeque. And so I says, “Yo Boris, have you noticed you’re about to burn up like a cinder and we’re gonna have us some charred rabbit for supper.” And he answers back, “Very funny, Misther Bus, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha” with that very annoying donkey laugh of his wot he has in common with all other rabbits, which is why they is so annoying when you have ‘em as pets that they usually ends up on a platter in the middle of your dinner table. It’s also why so many of ‘em get runned over and left in the middle of the road so’s they can get runned over again. But where was I?

Oh yeh, well Ol’ Boris got so carried away yelling that he accidentally dropped his cigarette into his two hundert proof blue cocktail and it exploded right in the middle of his face and curdled his eyelashes. Well naturally he were upset at slopping some of his cocktail onto his white artificial rabbit-skin lurex coat, but he were even more upset at ruining his cigarette, on account of cigarettes cost more’n a bright shiny new Ferrari these days and he’d spent all his benefit cheque on the one wot’d just got soaked in booze. Let’s just say he was one angry bunny and before I could see wot he was up to, he got out a tommy gun from his inside coat pocket and started rat-a-tat-tat-tatting in every direction. Naturally I dived for cover, which should’a been more or less impossible on account of me being a bus full o’gas and floating on the water, but I guess I managed it somehow. Hell, anything’s better’n being shot full o’bullet holes, especially when you’re a bus and’ve got your shiny restored classic bodywork to consider.

Well, as you can imagine, Boris sorta changed the situation by shooting at everybody wot was swimming on top of the ocean, but I guess I should’a seen it coming on account of he’s Amurkin and was brought up by Old Wanger Nose’s cross-eyed sister-in-law, who’s called Old’ Wanger Nose’s Cross-Eyed Sister-in-Law and don’t answer to no other name on pain of death. She’s also meaner’n a bull wots got his cojones caught in a vice, which is why she weren’t the best role model for a psychotic bunny to have. And by the way, her older sister’s the one with the wall-eyes, but it sorta ruins your future prospects if you mention it in her presence.

It were a close call, I’ll tell you that much, but it didn’t solve the problem of how to rescue Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley before they fried up under the sun. That part comes next time (if’n I get round to it) or the time after that. You’re gonna hafta hang on to your hats and be patient. In the mean time, I’m gonna close and take me a nap and rest up so I can think straight. Perhaps you should do the same. When I’m all refreshed and ready to continue, you’ll know about it, on account of I’ll say so endeth my rest stop in the ocean comfort station, and then I’ll blow my whistle to wake you up outta your stupor.

Day 97

Dear Diary,

“Hi diddle diddle dee, a hero’s life for me,” which is something new for my curriculum vitae in the way of career choices, but probably won’t do nothing for me when it comes to getting better seat in restaurants. ‘Course, that’s more of a bus issue than a hero issue, on account of most restaurants have a prejudice against us buses, even when we’re a classic Daimler Burlington CVD6 and not a common as mud Ford Transit. But that’s the way it is and I don’t imagine the European Court of Human Rights is gonna take up our cause, at least not until them wot decides such things takes the “human” outta the equation for being discriminatory and puts in “bus”, which ain’t. I thought I’d mention this so’s you’d know I’m up on current legal and legislative affairs and not just some dumb hunk of steel with beautiful shiny bodywork wot drives chicks crazy. And not only chicks but the flip side o’the old chromosome divide as well, as illustrated by Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator, wot couldn’a get enough of me until he discovered he couldn’a get enough of money even more, and to prove it he done the dirty with Howard Donald Da Fardle and a whole suitcase full of banknotes. Now Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t all that bad to look at, not if’n you kept your eyes closed, but Howard Donald Da Fardle? Let’s just say I likes jelly donuts just fine, providing they takes a bath once every other month or so, but when you combines them with a walrus and a octopus and a bucket of puss, your old passion pheromones tend to shut down. At least in my opinion, but I’m just a bus, ain’t I, and don’t got a feeling for wot turns human being into smouldering rods o’fire. Where was I?

Oh, yes, I was all excited about being called a hero and everybody was telling me they’d’a all been dead and ate by the fishies if’n if weren’t for my decisive life-saving abilities and quick thinking. Personally, I prefer to think my good looks and intelligence had something to do with it as well, but I guess one should accept the compliments one gets and not worry about them wot one doesn’t, if you know wot I mean.

‘Course, I’m getting ahead of myself in the telling of wot happened department, and you gotta forgive me for that on account of I was overcome by an attack of celebrating myself and had to get it outta my system.

Last thing yesterday when I put away my pencil and notebook, we was all becalmed at sea and safe as houses after we was no longer in danger of drowning like rats in a toilet. The biddies was breaking out their free lunches and chattering away like a whole cage of budgerigars, and up front in the driver’s seat, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was giving herself one of them hot wax jobs humans are partial to when their hormones get the better of them. It’s an easier life for us buses, especially us classic ones, on account of we’re naturally better looking and sexy and don’t have to shave or yank off unsightly bits on account of we don’t got none cluttering up our equipment. Anyway, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was doing her best with wot she’s got, which is not exactly something you’d throw outta the bed at the moment. ‘Course, she never knows when Ol’ Misther Mendl Paws is gonna come knocking at her door, after which it’s all down hill ‘til she croaks and expires. You only gotta look at the biddies to know wot I’m saying is true. However, to be fair, I gotta admit that Ol’ Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien, wot used to work late night shifts at the Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic before the flood washed it out to sea and over to Argentina where she can’t get no work permit, is a hot A-Number One firecracker wot is a testament to the powers of them collagen injections and wot they calls cosmetic enhancement. You’d never think to look at her that she’s about the same age as Missus Milly Da Fardle, and in fact is one of her twin sisters. Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien always was the lucky one when it came to looks and men and in knowing how to get the best outta dirty stuff, and wot I was gonna say is she is proof positive biddies don’t hafta be biddies, not if they fight hard enough against it. Sorry, but I got lost again and can’t remember where I was.

Oh, yes, I was talking about how The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was giving herself one of them special Brazilian wax jobs and after that, when she were smoother’n a bowl of blancmange, she squirted herself all over with some of that fake tan. ‘Course, it were my personal opinion that the particular orange colour she was partial to weren’t as sexy as a nice spray-painted shade of blue so she’d match the sky and the sea, but she said it was wot she was after, on account of it showed off her sparkly black and amber eyes and pearly white dentures to their best advantage. And you can’t argue with a women when it comes to personal things like their looks, that is without hurting their feelings, so I didn’t say nothing and kept my trap shut.

Anyways, there we was, me basking in the sun and swimming in gentle figure eights and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle hotting herself up like one o’them hotsy-totsy slapper girls you sees in them fancy fashionable magazines and hoping to meet someone special in the event we ever run into another human being again, and there was the biddies doing wot they does best, criticising folks wot’s not there to defend themselves. And right in the middle of all this activity, which, in case you hadn’t already guessed, was when I was writing down my last bunch of thoughts to you, Dear Diary, I happened to look up and spied that old pink and gold turbo jet ski doing nothing much of anything on top of the waves. I say doing nothing much, on account of it were sorta going round and round in tight nervous circles and not actually progressing anyway, not like a jet ski likes to do under ordinary circumstances. And who do you think was on board but Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and their fat pink rabbit, Boris, who must’a snuck aboard when I wasn’t looking on account of he sure weren’t there before. Who knows? Maybe he’d been sleeping in Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s breast pocket or in Ol’ Floozie’s king-sized pink and gold leatherette pretend designer handbag and finally came up for air. Or perhaps he was aimlessly floating in the sea after the flood washed away his pink and gold hutch, or maybe he went swimming for the hell of it and he was unlucky enough that the only folks he runned into was the ones he’d runned away from. Anyway, Ol’ Boris and the other two was sleeping to beat the band and all of them was pinker’n more sun-fried than a potato wot’s stuck to the bottom of the pan. All except Boris, but he’s got a lovely thick protective coat of fur plus two winter jackets he’d brought along just in case he ended up in the Antarctic and need ‘em. Rabbit is like that. Far-sighted. Except for the ones wot get ate. But that’s not wot I was talking about, was I? Wot I was talking about was that I spied Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley all unconscious on their jet ski, and from the look of things I’d say the steering handlebars’d jammed on left, cuz like I said before, they was going round in circles and looked like they’d continue doing it til they’d runned outta fuel. And one look at poor Ol’ Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley told me they’d be baked to death in a minute if’n someone didn’t do something about it. And since I was the only one wot wasn’t doing anything special at the time, I’m guessing someone up above selected me for the job.

Wouldn’t you know it, Dear Diary, but I’ve just dropped my pencil in the water and it doesn’t want to write until I tell it I’m sorry. I’m terrible sorry about this, on account of I was gonna give you a treat and actually spin you one whole adventure without running out of time. Well, like they says, life is shit and then you dies. You’ll just hafta wait until my pencil recovers and’s in a better mood. When he is, I’ll wake you up from whatever drug you been snorting and say, so endeth my pencil’s general strike and we can get going again so you’ll hear about wot a hero I am.

Day 96

Dear Diary,

Well, we finished up our cups of tea and even sopped up the slops from the saucers with hunks of bread and dripping and gobbled down the tiny chunks of Turkish Delight wot we was given to cleanse our palates, and now things has settled down nice and quiet. Me and my driver, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, have been breathing sighs of relief to beat the band and are now considering wot we’re gonna do about the future now that we’re not in danger of sinking down to the bottom of the sea. At least if we is to believe wot we wants to believe as natural born optimists, we should be all right for at least the foreseeable future or until Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle gets mad at something and wreaks vengeance on the world, or in this case on the bus (being me) and all wot lives in us. Take your pick. Either way we’s in the lap of the gods.

I’m not sure where we are on the ocean or even wot ocean we’re in. One thing I does know, however, is that we’re not on the same hemisphere as the island wot we used to live on before it got swept away in the flood. The reason I’m saying this and am not afeared of being contradicted is that today is an A-One beautiful day, almost wot they’s calls ‘simply lovely’ in them Victorian novels by young ladies wot pretended to be young men. The sun has got his hat on and there’s only a coupl’a little fluffy clouds set here and there in the blue so’s to break up the monotony. Now the reason I can tell we’s not near where the island was is that, from the first time I set foot (or in my case, my wheel) on that hunk of land sticking outta the water in the grey grey northern sea, we never once had a pretty little picture postcard day, not ever. Just rain and more rain and catching your death of funerals and mud and boiled cabbage and three kinds of potatoes, even with your ice cream and rhubarb crumble. It’s no wonder I’d’ve corroded away til I’d turned into a rust bucket if’n I hadn’t got Ol’ Fergal Da Fecker and then after him Finian Da Fabricator, followed by The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, to moisturise my paintwork and keep me shinier’n a bucket of goose fat wot’s swimming in a roasting pan on Christmas.

So anyways, here we was, floating around in an aimless sorta fashion, just as if we was on a extended vacation and didn’t have no care in the world. The sky, as I said before, was as blue as one o’them aquamarines and the sea were even bluer’n that, which led me to suspect we was either in wot they calls the Mediterranean or down in the Caribbeano. The tide were as peaceful and calm as a roomful of dead people and even the biddies wot was strapped back in my seats was breaking out the cabbage and turnip sandwiches and looking like they was actually up for having a good old time gossip session. ‘Course this don’t include Ol’ Miss Cabbage, wot had jumped out of her window and swum all the way down to the north pole, or at least as far away so’s to be outta the range of Missus Milly Da Fardle’s inborn nasty retribution radar mechanism instinct. Personally, I suspect Miss Cabbage only pretended to swim outta sight and is in actual fact hiding out on the top of the bus (being me) until she thinks it’s safe to come down. Now I know Miss Cabbage’s been acquainted with Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle longer’n the smell of a egg of a thousand years lingers in a closed room, and she sorta knows how her inner daemons tick, but in my humble opinion this time she’d went too far wot with her sticking Missus Milly Da Fardle with a hat pin and making her pass a wet fart all over the bus (being me). As we all knows, Missus Milly Da Fardle’ll never forgive her or forget, not in a million billion years. And since she’s never gonna die as long as she’s declared eternal vengeance against a mean and sworn enemy wot’s mortally offended her, I think Miss Cabbage ain’t got wot they calls a promising future. ‘Cuz whatever you thinks about Miss Cabbage as a member of the human race, you gotta admit there’s no better example of a mean and sworn enemy in the whole world than wot she is. In fact, if’n her old dead mam’s to be believed, Miss Cabbage is a direct descendant of that first snake wot bit Ol’ Adam on the testiculos. Or was it the other way around. Where was I?

Oh, yes, wot I was talking about was that after all the excitement and danger of the past coupl’a three days, me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and the biddies was becalmed in a ocean a smooth as glass and twice as flat. The biddies was eatin’ the lunches the Day Care Centre for Biddies on a Pension’d given ‘em to keep their stomachs from shrinking more’n usual and their mouths from complaining to the government, and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was waxing herself on account of she’d forgot to do it earlier and she likes to be ready for action at all times. As for me, I was starting to think about the future and whether I was gonna spend the rest of my life touring ‘round the seven seas with a bunch of mean-tempered biddies, when wot did I see outta the corner of my right headlamp but a strangely familiar-looking jet ski with two sunburnt lumpy globs in a shade of bright burnt pink lying on top of it.

‘Course, I know you’s gonna jump to conclusions and say “Whoopty dee, you’s just seen Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and you’re gonna rescue ‘em before they fall off’n the jet ski and drown deader’n Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s winky.” Well, personally I wouldn’a want to lay odds on me doing any heroic rescuing, but we’ll see wot happens. Wot I can guarantee is that the first thing I had to do before I went over to see if’n they was still living and breathing was to wait for The Widow Fartie Da Whistle to finish up with her bikini waxing, especially on account of it was a Brazilian and I didn’t want to startle her so’s she rips off wot is a bad idea.

Wot I’m trying to say, Dear Diary, is no way can I interrupt her now without her hurting herself in a way she’ll regret down the line. And since the jet ski don’t look like it’s gonna go anywhere of its own accord, I’m just gonna put away my pencil and wait. And you can wait too, and I’ll ask you not to make a fuss over it. And if you don’t have nothing better to do, you can always close your eyes and imagine for yourself wot The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s doing with her magic wax wand. I know I’ve told you a million times to keep your thoughts to yourself when you’re thinking about her, Dear Diary, but since I know you don’t listen to anything I say, I’ll let you go ahead with what you can’t help.

When The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s all done and she’s looking like a billiard ball, I’ll bring out my pencil and paper again and’ll say so endeth The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s personal toilet, so we’d better continue on from where we was, that is if’n we ever wish to get there.

Day 95

Dear Diary,

Things was really touch and go after I put away my pencil yesterday, and for a good few hours I thought everything’d be over for good at any moment. In fact, it all got so bad in the excess biddy gas department, wot with me threatening to blow up at any moment and Missus Milly Da Fardle refusing to calm down and inhale back in some of her steam and biddy vapours, that The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, who clearly knew wot was wot and much more’n the rest of us all put together, told me one problem at a time was enough for any of us. She said I shouldn’t worry none about wot the radio news announcer’d said concerning my supposed and beloved soon-to-be owner, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota and his sidekick, Benvolio Da Trampolio, who is definitely a hotstuff red Ducati and not a poncy little bimbo brother called Rigotoni Luigi. In fact, the actual words she used was “cross my heart and hope to die and stick a pin through me eye,” which was good enough for me on account of I knows she’s not into hurting herself or doing bad stuff wot’ll hurt her or make her ugly. So I dried my tears on her black leather bikini top, wot she lent to me for the occasion and wot did wonders for my morale, and she promised she’d get everything straightened out in my head as soon as she’d pacified Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle. I agreed with her right then and there that the dire situation regarding the old biddy was wot you’d call a priority verging on a state of emergency, whereas my worries about Ol’ Malvinio Da Flota-Mota could wait until we knowed for sure we was gonna be alive along enough for me to want to kill myself over it. And I must admit Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle was looking more and more like a pressure cooker wot was gonna explode at any second. In fact, it were safe to say that if she’d been seething any more she would’a put Ol’ Charming Noble to shame in the Ruining the World Department. Now I know I told you about a hundert times or more that I needed to be filled to the brim with old biddy gas to keep us all afloat after our two custom-made flotation devices, the dead bloaty bodies of Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous of blessed memory, had decided they wasn’t interested in the job any more and deserted us without first giving the week’s notice wot is the usual procedure for dead bloaty bodies when they quits their employment. However, neither Miss Parsley Da Onker nor Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous of blessed memory was much interested employers’ rights, as they proved when they rotted away to nothing right in the middle of a pleasant conversation on the habits of migratory birds.

Anyway, me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle thought we’d come up with a solution when Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and (to a lesser extent) Mrs. Emily Da Onion, said they’d sell they gas to us if’n we’d cross their palms with silver. And, as has been proved beyond reasonable doubt, their gas floated us better’n a thousand million balloons, which made us happy and content and willing to pay ‘em twice as much money if’n we ever get back to land where there was such a thing as a bank. However, Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle’s temperament got the better of her after she heard a rumour that her second son, Howard Donald Da Fardle, who she thought she’d kilt off last year and’d told the police it was on account of crib death, stole all her money after he heard she’d been washed away in the flood. I guess he figured she couldn’t swim. I, on the other hand, think it proves wot a stupid jerk and prat he is, on account of she’d never die and leave her money behind, not for anything and not to anyone, and especially not to one of her son’s wot ruint her figure during childbirth.

Anyway, Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle got so mad and steamed up she’d been filling me up to the brim and beyond with angry old biddy gas ever since she heard the rumour, and it were looking more and more like I was gonna explode and we was all gonna be kilt off. Well, everyone but Missus Milly Da Fardle. You see, she’s never gonna die as long as she knows where the bodies is buried after God hid ‘em in the grain silo so’s they wouldn’a get found before the second coming. I’m sorry I sprung this version of events on you without letting you know wot was coming, but I guess we can put it down to one more thing I’ve got to explain in the future. That is, if’n we survive and gets back on terra firma and we has such a thing as a future.

Well, while I was busy writing this all down so’s you could read it and know wot’s going on in the world, Dear Diary, The Widow Fartle Da Whistle, who is more practical than I’ll ever be, decided she’d had enough of Missus Milly Da Fardle’s shenanigans and it was past time to do something about it. So right then and there she gets down off of her driver’s seat, even though she’d forgot I was still wiping myself all over with her black leather bikini top and making miracles of my own. And wot do you know but she stormed on back to the third row where the old biddy was strapped in to her seat and grabbed her up and shook her ‘til her teeth rattled and then flew tight outta her head and bonked Ol’ Miss Cabbage on the nose and broke it. Well, Missus Mily Da Fardle was so surprised at being grabbed up out of her seat without being asked real nice that she opened her mouth wide as the Grand Canyon and all the excess gas wot was threatening to blow me up went right back inside her. ‘Course, right away we was in perfect harmony, gas-wise, but on the downside the old biddy was blowed up like a balloon and all her clothes burst to bits. That, of course, were a downside to beat the band and we was all left staring at one ugly fat shrivelled-up biddy, and we could see right away she’d forgot to put on clean knickers before she’d left home.

I almost hate to tell you wot happened next, but I will just to be mean. While Missus Milly Da Fardle was floating in the air like a hot air balloon, Ol’ Miss Cabbage remembered all the mean things Missus Milly Da Fardle’d ever done to her, and she took a hat pin from outta her head where it’d been keeping her wig on, and stuck Ol’ Milly right in her bad place. Well, if’n you’ve ever seen or heard wot a balloon does when it’s stuck you probably think that the old biddy must’a blowed sky high with a bang wot could be heard on the moon. But not a bit of it. She was too tough for that on account of her skin’s been around forever and a day, but she did make a squealing squeal like a stuck pig and she started in flying around the bus (being me) and didn’t stop ‘til she was almost as deflated as a bladder wot’s just been emptied.

Well, it goes without saying we was all left speechless and with our mouths hanging open, all except for Miss Cabbage who was smart enough to know wot Missus Milly Da Fardle’d do unto her when she’d recovered her senses. I’ve never seen nobody dive out of a bus window so fast, and I didn’t know it was possible for an old biddy to move through the water like one of them Olympic swimmers. But I guess we learns new stuff every day, that is if we keeps our eyes open and are lucky.

Well, Dear Diary, all this left us with a empty feeling like we’d had sex wot was supposed to be hot but wot’d fizzled out before our engines’d got started. I’ve gotta give us all time to recover and drink a cup of tea, which is wot we usually does when things is the shits and we can’t think of anything better to do. ‘Course, I can’t drink tea while I’m holding on to the end of a pencil, so I’ll do the usual thing and put it away. Don’t worry, I’ll be back on account of there’s no clear and present danger that something bad’s gonna happen in the foreseeable future, and so I’ll say, in my usual manner, so endeth another day, so help me God.

And by the way, I know you’re gonna be thinking all night about The Widow Fartie Da Whistle parading about without her black leather bikini, but tough shit and blue patooties. If you’re that desperate you better go out and get you some of your own.

Day 94

Dear Diary,

Before we get underway with wot I’m about to tell you, I should let you know that when that radio news program come out with all that stuff about that ex-axe murderer and gigolo, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota and about his brother Rigotoni Luigi, the exotic dancer wot paraded his stuff as a red Ducati by the name of Benvolio Da Trampolio, I felt an arrow pierce me plum through my heart and I wished I’ve never been built by them Daimler folks way back in the fifties. I cried and sobbed near to death and then I swore vengeance on the radio news presenter wot had broke my heart in twain by blabbing all this unwelcome information so sudden and unexpected. After all, when last I heard, my supposedly beloved soon-to-be owner, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota, had escaped the flood wot had swamped the island, and was living on the Riviera and waiting on me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle to come and live in his garage. And as for him having such a thing as a brother called Rigotoni Luigi who’s been going around disguised as a fuckin’ hotstuff Ducati named Benvolio Da Trampolio and pulling the wool over my eyes, how could I get so stupid as to be took in like that. I wanted to die right then and there. I started in screaming and yelling and swore I’d yank open all my windows and doors so’s the steaming biddy gas’d gush out and all the sea water’d gush in and we’d all be dead and soggy before the hour was through. I bawled and squawked and wouldn’t hear wot anybody, least of all The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, was trying to tell me. I guess I just assumed she was sobbing along with me and was joining in with my grand design and suicide pact. At the time, the last thing I wanted to get stuck in my ear, or in my case my side mirrors on account of that’s where us buses hear from, was the gentle voice of The Widow Fartie Da Whistle whispering goodbye and farewell and promising she’d dream about me all the way up there in Heaven. Heaven? How could she even talk about them pearly gates at a time like this, when even the stupidest fool in the world, Ol’ Fergal Da Fecker, would’a figured out we was gonna get sent down below to get ate up by the fishes and slugs and snails and creepy-crawlies. ‘Course, me putting myself in mind of Fergal Da Fecker made me cry even harder’n ever, on account of he may’ve been dumber’n shit, but he treated me nice and I had such a good life in his field with his cows and sheep, at least until all the animals up and moved to The Faroe Islands to get away from the folks on the island. I fuckin’ miss the little turd and of all the folks wot probably drowned in the flood, I hope Fergal Da Fecker’s happy as a clam wherever folks like him goes when they’re dead, and that he’s spending all his time making that explosive potheen wot he sells out of his petrol pump. Where was I?

Oh, yes, I was a’crying and a’bawling and a’wishing I was deader’n a plastic bucket, when it occurred to me something was a’banging on my head to beat the band and shouting in my side mirrors. Well, one can only take so much banging on the head before it gets your attention, and so eventually I had to let up on wot I was doing and say “what the fuck do you want?” to whoever it was who was doing the banging. Well, whoever it was who was banging on me banged me four hundert more times for good measure, just so I’d get the message and leave off the hysterical screeching for a minute or so, at which point I said “OK I got your message now tell me wot you want. Can’t you see I’ve got things to do and places to go and I can only give you two seconds of my valuable time?” Well, it turns out it were my faithful friend The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, and when I seen it was her I said, “Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone so’s I can kill me and you and all them biddies wot the Ol’ world can do without?”

Well, right then and there, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle crossed her arms over her chest in a way wot reminded me of something, then the penny dropped and I remembered I’d seen the biddies to the very same thing when they was after getting the last word on the subject. That made me sad and more depressed than a frog wot’s just seen his legs in a stew, on account of I realised The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was gonna grow up to be a biddy whether she wanted to or not. And so I said to myself, “I’d better listen to wot she’s gotta say or she’ll be after boxing my ears.”

Well, Dear Diary, I followed my own advice and listened to wot she had to say, and most of it were about the Radio Daimler Bus News Broadcast wot’d upset me so much. The Widow Fartie Da Whistle told me straight out I should’a had my ears washed out with soap and maybe a new brain put in, on account of that there news flash I’d been listening to weren’t no real news broadcast at all, and I’d a’knowed it if’n I’d just shut up and thought about things. Well I asked her wot she meant about there being no real news broadcast. I said I’d been listening in real careful on account of the presenter’d sounded just like her and I’ve always liked the sound of her voice.

Well, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle banged me on the head once more just for the hell of it, but this time with affection and a certain playfulness, sorta like a lover does when he confuses hisself with a bull. “You sweet idiot moron,” she said, tickling me in a place I’d forgot I had, “the reason it sounded like me was that it was me.” ‘Course, this surprised me more’n anything I’d heard in a long time, and I raised one of my eyebrows and said straight out, “when did you start working for the radio? You didn’t tell me. Wasn’t you getting paid enough as my personal bus driver and masseuse?”

Well, I’m not sure wot it was I said wot was so wrong, but right then and there The Widow Fartie Da Whsitle blowed her top and turned redder’n a beetroot, which was another indication that she’ll be entering her biddihood sometime soon, perhaps even before the end of the day. I decided perhaps I shouldn’t say anything more for the time being, so I’m gonna put away my pencil and wait ‘til she cools off. When things return to normal and we can get back to drowning ourselves in the ocean, I’ll say so endeth The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’s king-sized pout and maybe we can all start acting like adults instead of politicians.

Day 93

Dear Diary,

Well, it looks like we survived the night and pulled through all right, but I gotta say here and now I’m plum tuckered out, and so is The Widow Fartie Da Whistle. For some reason or other, but most likely on account of they prides themselves on being contrary, the biddies kept doing wot they’s never done since I’ve knowed ‘em. In other words, every five minutes or so they was turning on their sunny dispositions and smiles wot the world hasn’t seen since the day their cousin Mirtlatrude Da Dongle couldn’t land a husband in spite of the dowry she was always bragging about, and also since the day after that when one of their neighbours, Ol’ Gwladys Da Diddlydoo, was disinherited after telling everybody down at Beryl’s Hair Parlour for Old Woman about all the money she was expecting from Uncle Delmar Da Dwerp, who it turns out had fell in love with his home help and’d left his house to her instead. ‘Course like I said the biddies loves nothing more’n being contrary and they really only smiled ‘cuz we asked ‘em not to. We was desperate, you see, and kept telling ‘em we needed their bile and gas to keep us from going down into the ocean for the third time! Well, whatever we said always decided ‘em that The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me didn’t know wot the fuck we was talking about, and so our conversations zigged back and forth and forth and back and got sorta circular in the old predictable way. And, naturally, every single time, the biddies’d finish up our ol’ conversational interlude by a’crossing their puny arms across their wrinkly dugs and a’pursing their lips and saying, “humph.” And that’d be that. We’d then sit there in silence and nothing much’d happen ‘til the time came when me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’d feel that too much hot air and gas had escaped outta the bus (being me), and that at any second we’d start sinking down towards where there ain’t no air for us to breath. ‘Course, at that point the first thing I’d do was to feel real bad about the way things was shaping up, and so, of course, I’d beg. “Please, Missus Biddies,” I’d smarm sweetly nice as nice can be, “please get mad again and give us some of your biddy gas so’s we can live and see tomorrow’s glorious sunrise.” And Missus Milly Da Fardle, who was more of a ringleader than ever on account of she’d just appointed herself president for life of the Old Biddies Association of The Western and Eastern Hemispheres, would cock her head to one side real saccharine and smile like wot a cat does after it’s ate the canary and’s considering if it’s gonna wash its bottom in front of your piece of lemon meringue pie. And then she’d say, “Oh my goodness gracious, no, Misther classic Daimler Bus, you know we was brought up pretty as a picture and nice and proper and never in a million years does we do wot you wants us to do in front of a gentleman.” And, of course, right away if not before, another shitload of gas’d leak out from the back of me (being the bus) and we’d sink another twelve or twenty-four feet, and I’d plead in the hopes she’d understand, “but I’m not a gentleman, I’m a bus.” And then she’d say, as though it was the last and final word in the world, “Yes, but you’re a classic Daimler Burlington CVD6 and not just any old Ford Transit!” This’d make The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me exchange glances in a meaningful way wot was not at all romantic, and I’d lose my rag and’d start in blubbering and crying and all my oil’d dribble outta my grill like a kid wot’s dropped his ice cream on his shoe. At this point The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, who’s more of a man than I’ll ever be, would lower her voice down into wot I think of as her masculine authoritative Radio News Presenter way of speaking and she’d announce, “This is Radio Daimler Bus speaking and this here’s the News at Three in the afternoon. It has just been reported that Missus Milly Da Fardle, late of The Cute Seaside View Concrete Bunker Bungalow, has been drowned to death in the sea down below Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley’s lopsided pink flatpack building and junk mart. Howard Donald Da Fardle, the second son of the deceased, said in an exclusive interview to Radio Daimler Bus, for which he was paid €300,000, that on account of the deceased’d been too cheap to hire a lawyer and draw up a will, all her money’d been snatched up by him and the love of his life, Mister Finian Da Fabricator, both of which is co-conspirators wot is accused and convicted of absconding with all of the deceased’s ill-gotten bingo winnings and running away to Mogadishu, where there is business opportunities aplenty and they’re always on the lookout for ill-gotten bingo winnings. After a spell in the prison farm, Howard Donald Da Fardle escaped together with the ex-axe-murderer and gigolo, the part-Italian Greek God Signore Malvinio Da Flota-Mota and his brother Rigotoni Luigi, an exotic dancer wot paraded his stuff as a red Ducati by the name of Benvolio Da Trampolio. They left Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator behind to rot in jail and hopefully to drown in the flood. Misther Howard Donald Da Fardle talked at length to this reporter, which he had to on account of having been paid so much money, and said although he thought of Finian Da Fabricator from time to time, he couldn’a even remember wot the deceased Missus Milly Da Fardle looked like. However, he sure was glad he got all her money. Before he was gunned down by Old Wanger Nose, wot’d been hunting him like a stoat after a mouse for a month of Sundays, he said he was gonna name a sandwich after his mother as a permanent memorial to her. Unfortunately he died before he could tell me wot flavour the sandwich was gonna be.”

‘Course, by this time in the radio broadcast, Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle was seething and’d chewed all the way through her false teeth, and she was pumping out more old biddy gas’n the North Sea could suck up from the seabed in a year and a half. “Fuck you Howard Donald Da Fardle, and fuck your nose and your eyes and your….” was wot came outta her mouth, only I won’t tell you the rest of it on account of I’ve a few manners left in my portmanteau. Plus the fact, if I told you everything, God’d probably hear it, even though it’s not his regular habit to eavesdrop and get involved in personal problems. The way I see it, if’n He paid too much attention, he’d hafta punish us all for breaking a shitload of Commandments, and in this case we’d all be took straight down to hell, which as I see it, is somewhere below the bottom of the ocean. And since I’ve been working so hard to keep us from going all the way down there in the first place, I don’t want all my striving to be in vain. But anyway, the bottom line was that I was filled back up with biddy gas in less than half a second, which meant that before you could say “Hallelujah and spank me hard” we was floating on top of the sea and safe and sound as a bunny in a hole.

UNFORTUNATELY (which I only capitalized so’s I’d get your attention back), Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle kept on screaming and seething and pumping out lethal doses of old biddy gas after I had enough in me for us to float for ten and a half days. According to my reckoning, I kept on inflating and inflating until I was blowed up rounder’n a hundert foot high beach ball and all my rivets was in danger of bursting. And not only that, but nothing I could do or say would make Missus Milly Da Fardle calm down and leave off her huffing and puffing.

I’m exhausted and out of breath from all the excitement. In case I might blow up and explode all over the ocean, I’m gonna put away my pencil and take a short nap. One should be well rested when one blows up, or at least so I’ve heard. Whatever happens, I promise to let you know if’n I’m gonna explode to kingdom come, and also if’n I’m not. You see, the way I sees it, I might even come up with a solution to our little problem in the nick of time. Either way, I’ll just say so endeth probably more’n I want to be endethed.

Day 92

Dear Diary,

I’m back now, so if you want you can make yourself a cup of espresso and get nice and comfortable. And please make it a proper espresso outta one of them old-fashion Italian copper and brass jobbies with the gleaming handles, the ones wot hisses and gurgles and fogs up your spectacles and sprays steam all over the room and scorches your nose. Whatever you do, grind up your own espresso beans! Don’t you dare use none of them pre-ground bunny turds wot’s been bought from the animal experimenting laboratories, then roasted and re-branded as pure one hundert percent coffee from Colombia. ‘Course, if’n they was as fresh as yesterday’s donuts it wouldn’t really matter none, but most of ‘em’ve been pulverised a year ago and’ve been kept waiting and getting worse for wear in some of them vacuum-sealed bags, and that’s really too bad when you thinks about it. And talk about thinking about things, I’m gonna tell you right here and now you’ll be damned into Hell in the company of Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) if’n you are tempted by one of them new computerised cappuccino makers. ‘Course, if you already have one I guess it’s on account of you think American cappuccino is the real thing and not a fuzzy ‘n’ frothy nursery drink with chocolate sprinkles wot makes you fatter’n a tub of lard. And by the way and for your information, cappuccino should never be dranked after 9.30 in the morning, not unless you’re a dweeb wot wears colour-coordinated gumboots or, as I said weeks and weeks ago, a Murkin touron. I’m sorry to lecture you like this, but someone has to on account of you’re a hopeless prat wot don’t know your eyes from your arsehole and probably one them folks who thinks Reality TV is the real thing. Fortunately for you, I’m here to rescue you, so sit back and enjoy yourself and get an education while you’re at it. And if you’re thinking maybe you’re not worthy, being the classic Daimler CVD6 Bus with custom-designed Burlington 33-seat coachwork that I am, I’m not a real picky snob about who reads my Dear Diary. ‘Course, if’n you want to be one of wot I calls my ‘special’ friends I’d prefer it if you is a teeny tiny bit erudite and can read without loving your lips, that is unless you’s got passionate hands o’fire, in which case it don’t make no difference if’n you was born without a brain.

By the way, I know I promised never even to mention Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) again, but I had to for your own good. Besides, lying is good for the soul and you can quote me on that.

Now that we got everything all straightened out, let’s get back to Missus Milly Da Fardle and how she saved me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and a whole bus full o’biddies from getting us a snootful of sea water and bringing in the sheaves.

I already remembered you yesterday of how The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, with my encouragement, had said a shitload of bad words and how they got Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle all riled up. ‘Course, as you recollect, she reddened redder’n a beetroot and foamed at the mouth and steam started pumping outta her ears. And when that happened to her, Ol’ Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion, wot always plays ‘follow the leader’ behind Missus Milly Da Fardle, did the same thing with their faces. And when they’d synchronised themselves like a bunch of girls do with their periods when they’re at boarding school, an amazing occurrence occurred wot is proof The Lord works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Within a second and a half, all the pressure building up inside of Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and (to a lesser extent) Mrs. Emily Da Onion brought about an attack of biddy gas such as you’ve never saw in your whole entire life. And since old biddy gas is nothing if not catching, quicker’n you can say “Glory Hallelujah Mama, I’m a Toad,” every other old biddy about the bus (being me) was pumping out gas until, believe me, if’n I’d had a nose I’d a wished I was dead and ate up by swarm of piranhas.

Fortunately, seeing as how buses aren’t inflicted with noses, which proves we is better designed that humans and dogs and elephants, I wasn’t kilt dead by all the biddy gas wot was filling me up. Instead I was wot they calls sore afraid over the miracles the gas were performing in my custom-designed and handcrafted Burlington coachwork. Right then and there, before my very headlamps wot serves as my eyes and ears, I begun to blow up bigger’n the biggest balloon wot was ever blowed up by a tyre blower-upper. And that’s when I knew I was saved, on account of there was no way we was gonna sink down to the bottom of the sea, not with the amount of gas I had in me, even though those two dead biddy assassins wot I promised not to mention by name had deserted us in the hope we’d flounder in the water and drown like a sack of potatoes.

I’m gonna tell you right up front that The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and me started in celebrating to beat the band over the way the biddies’d secured our immediate future. Unfortunately, as soon as they seen us smiling, all the biddies asked us how we could be so happy at a time like this, wot with us being stranded in the middle of the ocean on a day when at least ten or twelve special premium funerals was planned at Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’. And to think, we was gonna miss out on them and no biddies’d ever missed out on a good funeral since the first dead person died way back on page one of the bible. Things then went from bad to worse, on account the biddies not turning up at the funerals meant the dead folks was gonna get downright ugly over missing out on all that special biddy grieving. Plus the fact they wouldn’t hafta lie there while the biddies talked behind their back. You could say and not be far from the truth, that it’d ruin their day. After all, dying and being talked about is wot makes life worth living. However, and this was bad news for us out there in the middle of the ocean, any time a biddy can ruin another person’s day makes ‘em feel they’ve accomplished something. And this in turn makes ‘em happy and when they’re happy they’re not fuming and filling up with gas, and this was the worst possible thing wot could happen at a time like this when the only thing wot was keeping us afloat and alive was their gas.

Well, believe you me, it didn’t take a second for me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle to realise the last thing we wanted was for the biddies to be happy, at least not if we wanted to live another ten minutes. And so we put our heads together for the purpose of coming up with wot we hoped would be a foolproof plan.

The jury’s out on whether we succeeded or not. Anyways, I gotta go for a bit until I sees whether wot we come up with worked. If’n you don’t hear from me, you’ll know it had wot they calls a fatal flaw and we all went down together. You’re gonna hafta keep your fingers and toes crossed and tie a knot in your foreskin if’n you have one, and if’n we does survive you’ll be the first to know about it. ‘Course, you’ll know wot I’ll say, don’t you, on account of it’ll be something like so endeth this earth-shattering nightmare of suspense and waiting’ for some dude called Godot wot’s supposed to be visiting us later on today.

Day 91

Dear Diary,

The first thing I’m gonna do today is promise I’ll never never never ever ever bring either Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) into one of our conversations again, cross my heart and hope somebody wot I don’t like an awful lot dies. Mostly this is on account of we’ll never see hide or hair of them again. This was to be expected, I suppose. After all, they’d more or less disintegrated into tiny little bits and bobs and sunk down to the bottom of the ocean, hadn’t they, and by the time they got down there, there wasn’t even enough left over to make a decent meal for a baby pigmy plankton. In a way I’m sorta sorry about that, on account of they wasn’t all bad, considering their favourite occupation in life was killing folks wot is engaged in wot you might call serious criminal offences of an antisocial nature against harmless biddies. I gotta laugh, though, on account of I don’t think either of them planned for their scheme to blow up in their faces the way it did. In fact, I have it on good authority that they’d counted on their dead and bloaty corpuses delectables to be tore apart and sink, only to be wot they calls resurrected later on when they was out of sight and me and the biddies and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’d sunk down to twenty thousand leagues under the sea and drowned. As I said before, man (or in this case two biddies wot work for a secret nonexistent government spy and assassination agency) plans, God (who don’t listen very well to wot man or woman says on account of he don’t have to) laughs. And by the way, I’m still pissed off over the way Miss Parsley Da Onker or Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) didn’t give a shit that those of us wot weren’t their assassination targets was gonna get kilt just the same. It makes me glad the ones wot is supposed to be evil, namely Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and even Mrs. Emily Da Onion, not only triumphed but saved the world and the rest of us from going to Hell in a shopping trolley. Just shows you that even Secret Nonexistent Superpower Spy and Assassination Agencies can’t win all the time, even though you should never count on that or you’ll end up in one o’their special dossier files.

And this, my Dear Diary and anyone else wot’s listening in to wot I’m writing, brings me back to why I’m singing The Hallelujah Chorus to Missus Milly Da Fardle and her et als.

You, of course, remember a few days ago when, for reasons I’ve forgot, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, probably accompanied by yours’ truly, blasted out a bunch of words wot was perhaps more exuberant than they should’a been. Well, on account of she’s old-fashioned and goes around with lips wot’s pursed tighter’n an old maid’s legs is strapped together, Missus Milly Da Fardle took wot they calls extreme exception to this language wot was being flung around hiddledy-piggledy and yon. It don’t make no difference that she’s a blackmailer and a crook and an evil bitch of the first water who hates everybody else for breathing in her space, her space being any place she might go to at any time, day or night. And it also don’t matter none that she and Ol’ Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu and Misther Patchouli Da Fanny sells off old ladies wot have died from a surfeit of old lady-ishness to The Gnu-Fanny Deluxe Luxury Premium A-Number One Cat Food Multi-National Conglomerate, so’s the company’s popular and evergreen premium extra-expensive brands can have that extra bit of old lady and old lady nappy flavour in each and every can. As far as Missus Milly Da Fardle is concerned, this is just business, and business as they say, is business and not personal. Besides, as she’s pointed out in the memoirs she’s gonna write from jail next year, and I’m not gonna tell you why or how or where she was convicted, on account of that’d ruin the suspense, the old biddies wot she’s sold off from Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’, which is where the better class of biddies go to be prayed over by Father Brady O’ Flanaghan Murnaghan from the Church of The Immaculate Septum down at the end of the island wot’s recently been carried off in the flood over to the other side of Lithuania, haven’t none of ‘em complained about they way they’ve ended up. Missus Milly Da Fardle is nothing if not a firm believer in democracy in action and in feedback from the little people, and she says that if so much as one of them dead old biddies wot’s ended up in a can of cat food objects, she’ll listen and take the objection into account. So anyways, as far as I’m concerned old biddies might as well end up in a can of cat food as anywhere else, on account of they’ve gotta end up somewheres, and at least cat food is eco-friendly and can be recycled. But there again, I’m only a bus, albeit a classic Daimler CVD6 with a custom-made Burlington 33-seat coach, so wot do I care about where old biddies’ biodegradable bits go to after the old biddy spirits are no longer in them to make ‘em interesting.

One thing I almost forgot to mention, is that Missus Milly Da Fardle, as well as Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, is always careful as careful can be to make sure that the dead old biddies is prayed over and sent off on their way all full o’grace before they’s sold to the cat food company. Otherwise they’d be fucked up and full o’disgrace, in which case all them cans of cat food might ended up haunted and doing all sorts of bad things to cats. Not that I care nothing about cats, per se, but you know wot I mean.

I’m glad I finally steered the conversation back to where I can pick up on wot happened. Background is important on account of otherwise you wouldn’t know wot they calls the context of wot I’m telling you, but most folks can take just so much context before they says “fuck you I’m outta here” and goes somewhere else for their entertainment dollar. I want to assure you here and now I’ve caught up on all the background for now, so you can start to get excited about all the brouhaha wot’s gonna follow next time. So wot I’m gonna say now, just so you know I’m serious about wot I said, is so endeth the background and historical context for the time being, and I’ll be back shortly for the nitty-gritty.

Day 90

Dear Diary,

Well, I said I’d tell you the moment me and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle’d got our bodies re-aligned, and here I is, shipshape and ready to go for another round. Ding Dong Bang Your Gong, and a Hip Hip Hooray!

‘Course you’ll never get none of that sorta action, not even in your dreams (not being the bus wot I am), so I might as well get back to my adventures wot I’ve been talking about and not waste anymore time. So here goes. After yesterday you know why and how Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) went about their attempted assassination of Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and poor Ol’ Mrs. Emily Da Onion, who between you and me and the gatepost, is looking more and more like she wants to kick the bucket soon as we get to dry land. I can’t say I blame Mrs. Onion none, but I wish she’d thought of it before we’d left home, on account of it would’a saved us all the bother of wearing black in the summertime when the livin’ is easy. But never mind about that. Wot I’d failed to mentioned, on account of I got distracted by The Widow Fartie Da Whistle and had to take care of business before my sell-by date came and went, was that the actual name of the shell company operated by the secret nonexistent organisation wot them two aforementioned bloaty corpses, namely Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) was working for, was something along the lines of The Agency for the Torture and Eradication of Socially Constipative Oar-Doovers (TESCO), of which they was, respectively, president and vice-president of operations. ‘Course, I was curious about the nature of the name and nature of this secret nonexistent organisation and wanted to know exactly wot it actually did for a living, but the Internet people kept pointing me in the direction of some supermarket chain or other wot’s threatening to gobble up the country, or the world or maybe The Isle of Man. At least that’s how it goes according to about a millions billion trillion bloggers wot’s got nothing better to do at night than rant and share their opinions with the whole universe, including parts of it wot’s got other interests and wish they’d keep their ignorant opinions to themselves. Anyway, wot I’ve been thinking is that Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) don’t sound like the type of ladies wot’d work in supermarkets, not unless supermarkets now got isles wot sells the implements you needs for killing off folks wot’re poor or buy their groceries off’n the Internet or believe in a God wot don’t get no dinner invitations in your neighbourhood. However, on account of I’m all at sea and things isn’t looking all that great for my present tense, I shall wait to investigate the truth of all this alleged ‘TESCO’ business ‘til if and when I’m on dry land and has a moment or two by myself.

But back to Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) and wot they got up to at ‘TESCO’ and why they was targeting Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion and The Da Fardle ‘n’ Gnu Phoney Bingo Gaming Company LLC as Enemies of the People. As they saw it, if’n they could put Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion outta business and sunk down to the bottom of the sea so’s they’d get ate up by wot we calls organisms, then all the other old biddies’d finally get a chance to win more’n €1.50 at bingo per year. According to their findings all the other biddies’d then be able to eat more’n one potato and a boiled pig’s foot every third Sunday of the month. In other words, they’d get enough money back from their bingo gambling activities so’s they could even buy wot they calls ‘fresh green vegetables’ whether they liked ‘em or not. This’d make their dispositions improve no end and’d help out with their bloat and wind, which is, as you know, the bane of old ladies everywhere wot don’t eat a healthy diet. In other words, my Dear Diary, they’d be “Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty They’d Be Free At Last!” Anyway, that’s wot the findings of Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) showed, and as we know, findings is never wrong. And I must say (according to my latest findings) the situation might’ve turned out that way if’n their plans’d worked out the way they’d wrote them down in their organisational grant proposal. But, alas, as the saying goes, Man Plans ‘n’ God Laughs, which in my experience is about the only thing you can plan for.

‘Course, both me and you, Dear Diary, know by now that Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous’s plan to save the world from bingo penury didn’t work out so good and that when they sacrificed themselves to the bottom of the sea so that Missus Milly Da Fardle and her cohorts’d go down with ‘em, they done it in vain. This, of course, made Missus Milly Da Fardle laugh outta the right side o’her mouth in that special way she’d learned from Old Wanger Nose way back in 1927, on account of she’d no intention of drowning like a rat, not for nothing. And Ol’ Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion was smart enough to grab on to her coattails and get drug along behind her in her wake o’dust. And I’ll repeat wot I said about a dozen times a while back, and that it’s on account of Missus Milly Da Fardle’s orneriness and gumption that me and all the biddies are alive today, and not just a lot of collateral damages lying at the bottom of the sea.

By the way, I know some of you are wanting to ask about wot’s happened to Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu, on account of he’s wot you could call a business partner of Missus Milly Da Fardle and I haven’t mentioned him for a long time. Well, let’s just say I’ll be catching up with him sooner or later, but he’ll have to wait until the bus (being me) and all my biddies and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle is once again on dry land. Or at least safe and sound. In the mean time, just so you don’t worry and get a wrinkly forehead, rest assured that Mister Doctor Bernie Da Gnu has wot you’d call a yacht bigger’n the city of Chicago, and so don’t have nothing to worry about when it comes to Tsunamis or floods wot eat up the rest o’the world. Where was I?

I know what comes next, only I haven’t decided in wot particular order I should write it down for you. I’m gonna put away my pencil for a hour or two and think. In the meantime, I suggest you go to the local library and find yourself a book, preferably one where the words’ve got something to say. I’ll give you time to read a paragraph or two for the sake of your morals, and’ll then arrest your attention from the pages by saying, so endeth your time reading about shit wot ain’t doing a thing for your life. And after you put the book away where it ought to be put, I can begin again, or as they says, anew.

Day 89

Dear Diary,

OK, just in case you’ve forgot wot we was talking about and think you’re going outta your mind with confusion, let me get you straightened out, and pronto. The last thing I want on my plate is a bill from your therapist or for your funeral expenses after’n you’ve ended it all outta desperation and anguish!

At least I’m hoping you’ve remembered how Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and even the hopeless Mrs. Emily Da Onion was about to save all of us from drowning and getting ate up by the fishies. ‘Course, if you don’t I might be at least partly to blame, on account of I had to take a detour in our story and digress over to wot I calls an explanation as to the treachery of Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory), whose bloaty carcasses had agreed to keep the bus (being me) and all my passengers (being the biddies and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, our driver) afloat and happily paddling over the deep blue sea and to a new home on an island wot’s not been sunk under the great floods wot overtook us a week or so ago. Is that clear? Did you remember to take a breath while reading it out loud with your lips moving? Well then, so far so good.

Where my telling probably got too complicated for you was where I got all upset and in a tizzy over how Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) suddenly deflated themselves so’s they was about as unbuoyant as you could get without being an iron bowling ball. And seeing as how I was more agitated than a fish wot’s got a hook stuck into his cheek when he thought he was nibbling on a baby mosquito, I sorta got wot they calls incoherent. It goes without saying I’m now getting down on my knees (or being a bus, on my springs) and apologising profusely and begging your pardon for not always being a smooth operator like I usually am. I swear on my new paint job I won’t do it again. Anyway, now I’ve got that outta the way, let’s get on with wot I was telling you. Please try to keep up, and if’n you hafta go to the toilet, please raise your hand before you leave the room so’s I can wait until you return before going on with wot I’m saying.

The treachery of Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) was, of course, completely and totally deliberate on their part and very much an act of attempted murder, for which I hope they’ll be charged and convicted and hung up on a bridge somewhere so’s everyone can see ‘em for wot they is. I mean, it’s not exactly the happiest thing in the world to discover you was nothing more’n collateral and was gonna be murdered just because you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And by that, I mean I was gonna be rubbed out on account of I had Ol’ Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion strapped into three of my back seats, and those three was wot was the real victims of Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory)’s fiendish and devilish plot.

But before I goes any further and causes you to get even more confused than you already is, I gotta regress back to something wot I wrote yesterday, and that was that the two bloaty dead ladies carried in their handbags actual laminated official licences to kill, just the same as Mr. Bond James Bond does, at least when he’s wearing clothes and not schtuping Miss Tunnela Love. So whatever you think of them, it turns out that Miss Parsley Da Onker and Missus Malla Oda Odipossipous (of blessed memory) was in actual fact none other than Secret Agents and Official Assassins working for a Secret Government Undercover Police Assassination Hit Squad wot was targeting wot they calls the most dastardly and greedy criminal cabals in the universe. And of all the most dastardly and greedy and bloodsucking criminal cabals from here to Venus, there was none worser’n the one headed up by none other than Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion. And no, their cabal had nothing to do with them selling dead bodies from Misther Doctor Bernie Da Gnu’s ‘Wash ‘n’ Wake Funeral Parlour for a Beautiful Goodbye’ to The Gnu-Fanny Deluxe Luxury Premium Prime-Cut Cat Food Company for their Special Roasted Biddy-Flavoured Brand. And it also had nothing much to do with all them other get-rich-quick schemes and extortion loan companies wot Missus Milly Da Fardle owns along with Doctor Mister Bernie Da Gnu and her secret lover, Old Wanger Nose of The Bank of Old Wanger Nose, and which’ve made her richer’n Croessus only not so well-dressed. Wot it did have something to do with was with the filching of little old biddies’ pensions through their Seniors’ Entertainment Network, a subsidiary of the despicable and deplorable Da Fardle ‘n’ Gnu Phoney Bingo Gaming Company LLC. It were estimated that over a period of forty or so years, or ever since they’d invented bingo for the purpose of stealing all of the old biddies’ money every night of the week when they wasn’t at home watching the soaps, they’d stole more money than’d ever been printed up since the beginning of time. And not only that, but they’d recently diversitated into online and television bingo as well. I won’t tell you how they done it, on account of Da Fardle ‘n’ Gnu Phoney Bingo Gaming Company LLC has officially been given the status of ‘International Terrorist Organisation’, which is even better’n diplomatic immunity when it comes to not being investigated. And this means if’n I tell you how the bingo games was rigged, I could be arrested for being a terrorist co-conspirator and sent to live in one o’them secret nonexistent interrogation camps until even my rust spots rusts off. Mind you, I probably wouldn’t object to that, at least not if the nonexistent interrogation camp was located in a warm climate and I could find me a nice interrogator with nice hands wot likes to do nice things to my undercarriage.

I just realised you might be thinking I got off-track again and led you the wrong direction up the garden path, but that ain’t so. It’s all about laying the groundwork, so’s when I get to the bit about how Missus Milly Da Fardle and Miss Cabbage and Mrs. Emily Da Onion, wot was supposed to be the enemies of mankind, end up rescuing us from drowning, you’ll be slapping your thighs and saying “well slap me where it smells and cook me in a stew” over wot a clever little bus I am in my story-telling abilities.

I’m gonna go now and spend some time working on my spiritual development. The Widow Fartie Da Whistle, who’s still lying on top of me and broasting in the sun, is doing things to me with her left hand that don’t bear scrutiny in the light of day. Consequently, I’m gonna turn out the lights for a bit and leave you in the dark. When the two’ve us finished up with wot we’re gonna do, I’ll say I’ve endethed practising up on my bodily delights so listen up to wot I’m gonna say next.