the unexpected

Shep barked and ran round in circles. It could only mean, some one was at the door. George Clumper stuck his feet into his Ermintrude the cow slippers and went to answer the door.

“Clumper, George?”

“Yes.”

“Sign here” said the postman

“I'm not expecting a letter.” said George

“Well you won't be disappointed it ain't a letter.” said the postman 'sa card, but then I'm not s'pose to 'ave read it.”

“What's it say.”

“'Ave to read it yur sen. Hope you 'ave a good day doon Soouth.”

“Well, well” said George reading the card “I'm to be Prime Minister for the day on 27^th February.”

He looked at the calender, lambing was not due until 21^st March, so he thought it would be OK.

Two weeks later George had a telephone call. He was expecting that, because the card said he would get one.

“Clumper, George Angus.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know your date of birth?”

“yes thank you.” replied George

“Could you tell me your date of birth?”

“Do you know my date of birth?”

“Yes.”

there was an unhelpful silence as George tried to work out why some one that knew his date of birth wanted George to tell him.

“It's a security question.”

“what is?”

“Your date of birth.”

“Well it can't be very secure if you know it.”said George.

The civil servant realised this was not going to get much further. He dispensed with normal security.

A car will pick you up on 26^th February. Take with you an overnight bag. You will be transported to 15 Armistice Avenue, a bed and breakfast, where you will spend the night. A car will pick you up and take you to 10 Downing Street at 0800 on the 27^th . Do you have any questions?”

“Do I have to buy an ermine cloak?”

“No that is for the House of lords, you will just be the Prime Minister, a suit will do.”

“Ooh dear a suit, the one I wears for funerals, will that do? If it's real special I could use me white dairy wellies.”

“Shoes, black. Are appropriate.”

“Black rigger boots will they do?”

The civil servant was not expecting it to be so difficult, but that's the problem with elections you never know what tosser will actually get the job.

15 Armistice Avenue, was, very clean. There was no straw on the carpets, until George arrived. They were not expecting Shep, but where George goes the sheep dog goes. A Quick roll on the carpet, a scratch, and a nose wipe on all the furniture made Shep feel at home. When Shep felt at home so did George. The kitchen was small, no place for a wellie rack. It was the first time he'd seen a cooker without a compartment to dry wet lambs. Breakfast was reasonable but strange. Bacon from Denmark, Butter from France, eggs from god knows where, they didn't have a lion on them. Shep enjoyed his sausages although they had Chinese writing on them and Lincolnshire was spelt wrong. The tea was Indian, coffee from Brazil and sugar from Cuba.

The car arrived on time. A Bentley, made by a German company, and driven by an Irish chauffeur. The police bodyguard was Scottish, from Kelso, to make him feel at home.

He was met by the Cabinet Secretary who showed him into his office for the day.

“Well what's the craic?” asked George

“If sir is asking what happens today, well nothing much, sir.” said the Cabinet Secretary. “I shall explain a few protocols to you. First the red phone.”

“Ah,” said George “Talk to the Americans.”

“No sir its to...”

“Talk to the Ruskies?”

“No it..”

“Chinese.”

“If sir will stop interrupting its to talk to Nanny.”

“Nanny,”

“Of course sir Nanny, Nanny knows everything, Nanny is in charge, just like when you were young.”

“I never had a Nanny when I was young just dogs, and lambs.”

“The Cabinet Secretary was horrified, something had gone wrong with the election, but then it was only for the day, what possibly could go wrong?”

The Cabinet Secretary thought it was the worst thought out plan politicians had ever come up with. In an endeavour to be close to the people and make politics meaningful, it was decided that the politicians would be elected as normal, but the Prime Minister would be elected for a day randomly from the electoral role. They would not have any real power, just shake hands with people, and read speeches to the press, what could go wrong? George being elected, went wrong.

“ So when do I get to meet the President of America?”

“Sir doesn't.” said the Secretary “the Queen meets heads of state, Foreign Secretary meets ambassadors, Home Secretary meets police, Health Secretary Doctors, and the Chief Whip politicians. You could meet the press with your press secretary if you wished?”

“can I see the House of Commons?” asked George

“You can enter if you wish.”

“I'd like that.” said George.

The MP's were pleased to see George. Most Prime Ministers just sat around the cabinet table reading minutes and signing off red boxes. George thought it looked like a cattle mart and acted like the auctioneer.

“Whoo want tea” Asked George “do I have an aye, one aye, two, three, any more ayes. Sugar, one aye, two, three. Milk, one aye two, three. Clause two, one aye, two three, four.” before they knew what hit them the MP's had voted on clause two, that the present Prime Minister be elected for life.

George returned to 10 Downing Street and picked up the red phone.

“Is that chief Nanny.”

“Who's calling?”

“George Clumper, Prime Minister for life, and I don't like the way things are being done. Either things have to change or I get rid of all nannies.”

“Oh yes I can, you have been trying to get rid of farmers for years. Now its payback time. I want the average smallholders pay to rise. We are fed up with being paid minus eleven pounds a year for a 60 hour week with no holidays. What I want is, to be able to go into a shop and be able to afford, British sausages, bacon, eggs, milk, wheat. Oats, rape seed oil, Scottish beef, Welsh lamb, a coats and hats of British wool, and boots of British leather. I want farm workers to be able to live near their farms in affordable housing . I want two extra holidays per year, one in July for sheep dog trials and one in November for ploughing competitions. I shall be returning to the croft for lambing and if you don't make changes for the good of the crofters we will get rid of the Nanny state.”

The phone went dead. the Nannies had not expected that.

Birthright

“I Sean Rafferty the fourth. 2.1 leprechaun fifth class (failed) claim my birthright.”

“Sean Rafferty the fourth.2.1 means.” asked the Judge

“My grandfather was the fourth Sean Raffery. There were twelve in all, but he was the fourth. My father was the second Sean Rafferty out of sixteen but I am the first Sean Rafferty from my father.”

“How many Sean Rafferty's does your father have.”

“There are only twelve at the moment, but I'm the first.”

“You could use another name apart from Sean?” the judge said

“We do.” said Sean

“Oh really and what name is that?”asked the Judge

“Rafferty” replied Sean

“Remind me again” said the judge “what actually is your birthright?”

“Dat I am the stupidest ting on earth, dat I am believed to have a crock of gold at the base of every rainbow, and only Irish men that have drunk fourteen pints of Guinness, on the Saturday of the 29th February, can be believed, to have seen me.”

“You surely have that.” said the judge “Stop wasting court time.”

“Dats the ting your honour, the owner of this bowler hat is stupider than me.”

“Don't be so perverse. Case dismissed. Next”

“No wait yur honour, not so hasty. Admittedly I don't have the eiijit that owns the bowler hat but I have this mortgage proposal form.”

Sean handed the proposal form to the clerk, who in turn handed it to the judges bench. The three judges studied the proposal.

“but this is a proposal from the Bank of Made up Names and Make Belief, formally HSBC.”

“That is true your honour.”

“And how, may we ask, did a fifth rate leprechaun get such a proposal. Have you ever worked in the laundry?”

“Never yur honour, I've never done an honest elves days work in my life.”

“I should hope not, can't have leprechauns speculating that they are honest. What did you do to elicit such stupidity, you surely must have played a trick, or used some sorcery?”

“No yur honour it was like this. I was hav'in a few with with the elves and fairies it being 17 of March, and I must have had a bit too much. It was hard to believe as I was only having small sips,”

“Many small sips I imagine.” Said the judge

“Well the Jamesons was two for one, the Guinness buy one get one free with triple nectar points, and the Bushmills on special with quadruple nectar points if you bought home made Irish stew. So I had a word with the cashier, swapping the bought and free ones until in the end, I ended up handing back the nectar point and the stew and taking the booze for nothing. It's what leprechauns do.”

“I assume you had small sips of what you bought, or not from the shops,”said the judge. “And the small sips added up to?”

“Just two bottles of Bushmill two bottles of Jamesons and a crate of the dark stuff.” said Sean, “well it was an elf holiday the day after.”

“I thought you leprechauns were always on holiday?”

“That's true your honour but when its an official holiday we don't have to pretend to be lazy we can do it natural like.”

“The man in the bowler?” asked the judge.

“Dats the ting, I was above ground when the sun cum up, I had no where to hide. Then I remember that new building site, for affordable homes, they were going to build for the workers of the new Chinese factory, before the recession. It's just rubble now, so I thought I'd hide among the demolished buildings, and pretend to be an unwanted gnome. I saw a piece of wood with Dunroamin on it, and an old cauldron, so I just sat between, hoping to be missed.

The the man in the bowler arrives picking over the rubbish, when I belched. Cheese and onion crisp, always makes me belch, nothing to do with the Jamesons.”

“Of course not.” said the judge.

Quick as a flash the man in the bowler sees me and the cauldron, and says that I was a leprechaun and he claims my crock of gold. Then he looks in the empty cauldron and asks if its mine. Well it was at the time because I had touched it and what a leprechaun touches automatically becomes his by default. Well he is not best pleased.”

“Well what happened?” asked the judge.

” the man in the bowler soon established the cauldron, the rubble and the land, was mine by default and he offered me a loan.”

“On what, the rubble?” asked the judge.

“ No. On the six bedroom detached bungalow, swimming pool, and tennis court to be built on the site.”

“Are you expecting us to believe you will do a days work, and build a bungalow.”

“Certainly not your honour, I just has to lie that I will. It's what leprechauns do best.”

“And the man in the bowler hat owns the land right.”

“No yur honour, I own the land. I don't really, but on paper I do. And I am going to build a house. He gives me the money for that, with a mortgage. I can then buy gold, to give to him as forfeit.”

“where does the money come from?”

“The bank yur honour, only not from the bank because the money is dirty.”

“It has stains?”

“No you honour, I wish you'd keep up. The money belongs to the Mafia and terrorist, but they are not suppose to have it, as it is all in cash not cheques. So the bank has to lend it out to get rid of it. So I have the money, or the man in the bowler has the gold.”

“But you don't earn money, how can you pay it back?”

“Ten percent of the money I am suppose to get, pays insurance for non payment to the bank. The loan is now an asset. If they bundle it with other assets, they become a security, and securities can be traded as derivatives, on the market.”

“No one is going to be that stupid to buy money, and assets, that don' exist. I just can not believe you it could never happen.”

“Fred Goodwin RBS your honour.” said the clerk

“OK one off, RBS.”

“Lehman Brothers.” said the clerk

“OK maybe Lehman as well but no one else.”

“Northern Rock, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs,”

“Point taken.” said the judge “So why Sean, did he tell you this.”

“Because I asked him, and if I agreed, and knew, I wouldn't tell any one else.”

“That's disgraceful.” said the Judge

“But I did the right thing, I told him I was an undercover finance reporter.” said Sean

“What did he say.”

“Well he asked what paper, so I told him the Daily Mail. And he said he would have preferred it if I was from the Telegraph, but the Mail is OK. Then he took off, leaving his bowler hat behind. So the man is obviously stupid, and I thought that might endanger my birthright.”

“Did you tell any one.”

“Yes yur honour I told the fraud squad.”

“In Ireland.”

“No.”

“In the UK then?”

“No,”

“Well who did you tell?”

“I told the fraud squad in Switzerland.”

“You told the fraud squad in Switzerland, about fraud in a Swiss bank, and expect them to investigate. Your Birthright is secure, you must be the stupidest leprechaun I know. Get out and stop wasting my time.” said the judge

a case of coats

It was an unusual warm day in down town Ashington, a community overheated could mean trouble. I know, my name is Tuesday, Joe Tuesday, and I'm a cop, or at least a community support assistant, I wear a uniform, and I walk these mean streets.

“Get yur size ten footies in my office noo.” It was my Sargent on the radio. He has a way with words, grade C GCSE English.

The office was small and bulging with paper work. It would be, it use to be the store cupboard, but with police cutbacks, the offices had been sold off, to a call centre, dealing in debt management. Every department now shares the Sargent's Office, formerly the store cupboard

“See this form, another questionnaire from the home office, about the increase in theft of luxury overcoats.”

“What's a luxury overcoat Sarge?”

“Don't ask me,” said the Sargent “I divent come from Rothbury. We have had no reports of any thefts of overcoats luxury or otherwise, anywhere in the district. Our police commissioner wants to know why, and what are we covering up.”

“We are covering nothing up, we don't use overcoats, so can't cover anything.”

“Don't play the smarty arse with me Tuesday, get oot and find out. I want an answer on my desk buy Wednesday, Tuesday. Not Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, no delay with this one.”

The pressure was on but where to start? Then I remembered seeing a poster on the Metro of some totty draped over a land-rover, with gun dogs at her feet. Slung over her left shoulder was a Burberry coat. How do I remember that? If the coat hadn't been so well placed you would have seen the cleavage. Any spoilsport advertising gets remembered. Then I remember Barbour, we have two manufacturers in the North East that could be involved in selling coats. Poor sales could mean drastic action. I thought I'd give them a call.

I tied the police bike to the car park railings, and eventually led to the Managers office. The office was big, big enough for the whole of Northumbria Police if subdivided.

“Hello.” he said “I'm Maraduke Whorsley Hesketh-Jones, How may I help you.” His English was so crisp clean and precise, just like a Middle Eastern despotic Dictator. But then they probable went to the same school, it didn't mean he was involved in illegal immigration, or did it.

“Good of you to see me.” I lied. “I am investigating overcoats, theft of, and lack of, in the North East. Could you tell me where you sell your overcoats?”

“We manufacture and distribute from here, to our outlets in the home counties. We have retails in Windsor, you know.”

“No I didn't know that, I didn't think there was a connection between soup and overcoats.”

“Quite, I trust you have a sense of humour?”

That looked like a loaded question so I ignored it. “ You claim that most of your coats are sold in London and the home counties?”

“Yes, we also sell to the states, Japan, China, and even the Emirates.”

“Would I be right in thinking that London is warmer than the North East, and as far as I could tell has a shortage of pheasant, grouse, and gun-dogs. So why the sales, just the facts sir ,just the facts?”

“Fashion, dear boy, fashion. It is fashionable to have a classic look. We all want a piece of Downton Abbey.”

“Let me put this past you, and see what you think. Just suppose, you sell shed loads of coats to London. Some one goes down, nicks them, then you could sell more. It is well known that Londoners have more money than sense.”

“And what would we do with the stolen coats?”

“You could sell them in Ashington market.”

“Without High Vis stripes?”

I could see his point, they were not responsible for the theft, but they didn't do badly out of them.

I was sure Ashington market was something to do with overcoats, but they were not selling them.

Just as I was leaving, I saw the model from the advert, getting out of her BMW car, wearing a short red dress. She obviously never needed to read the highway code.

“Have you finished looking down my cleavage?”

I hadn't but then I couldn't tell her that. “Don't you feel cold?” I asked her

“Born and bred in Amble why would I feel cold?”

“Just thought that with so much flesh showing you might feel the elements?”

“I thought it was Pringle waater, that's why.”

“Pringle waater, what's that?”

“No idea just something I was told when a bairn.” she said

This needed following up, I would need to consult the font of knowledge Alberto.

Alberto was sitting in his garden when I called.

“You come for the barbecue Giuseppe?”

“No Alberto I need your help with a case.”

“Always to help a the law.”

“What do you know about Pringle waater.” I asked

Alberto thought deeply. “Well my friend I no longer sell a the ice a cream so it don't a matter. You know about homeopathy?”

“Something to do with legal highs?”

“No, its to do with water. The theory is you put a drug or a poison in water, then dilute it, and dilute it, until none of the drug remains, but the water retains the drugs memory. If you give that to someone, the body recognises the water memory and reacts as if it is the drug, and helps build up immunity.”

“Spooky.”

“You know what cashmere is.”

“Posh wool.”

“Sort of, Cashmere is four times warmer than wool. Pringle was a company that used cashmere.”

“So Pringle waater?”

“Cashmere in its raw state has to be washed, the water is very dirty and can't be flushed down the drain. So Pringle hire Dontaskquestions.com to dispose of it. Dontaskquestions,com filter the water, mix it with other water and use in their blending business. Instead of buying water they are paid to have it. That water is called Pringle waater.”

“So what's so special about it?”

“No body knew at first, but Pringle waater retained the memory of cashmere. If you drunk it, your body thinks you are wearing a posh cashmere sweater, and you don't a feel the cold. Trading standards were suspicious of Dontaskquestions.com for other reasons, but the company was tipped off, they were to be raided. This gave them time to tip everything into Kielder water.”

“So?”

“Well just like homeopathy any one that drinks water from Kielder reservoir feels four times warmer than those that don't.”

“Pringle waater is still being used?”

“Before Pringle went bust they paid Dontaskquestions,com a fortune and gave them tons of the stuff which is still hidden away, scattered around the North East waiting to be filtered. Dontaskquestion.com are still in the drinks business, diluting Polish spirit into Vodka, whiskey, gin and rum, by adding flavourings. Don'taskquestions getitdownyer it's most popular brand. That's why if you go down the Big Market, any night, you'll find no one wearing anything more thermally efficient than a bra. They don't need too. They drink kielder water daily, and top it up with Dontaskquestions getitdownyer spirit when out, These funsters are really hot and the temperature of Newcastle city centre rises four degrees during the night.”

“So they don't need coats?”

“That's the thing, Dontaskquestion.com needs Polish spirit, the Poles don't trust the Euro, and think the Pound too shaky. They don't want American dollars, just in case Putin takes back Poland, so what they want is something that holds value, and can be traded.”

“Classic coats?”

“Bang on, Dontaskquestion have a semi-liggit transport company. They transport the coats from Burberry to London and the Home counties, and they find out where they are sold. They can steal them back when required. Dontaskquestion sends the coats to Poland as payment for the Polish spirit. The insurance company pays compensation to the owner of the coat to cover the loss. The customer buys a new Burberry. The insurance company raises premiums, makes more profit, which they invest in Dontaskquestion.com, every one is happy.”

“It seems to be a victim less crime.” I said, but still felt I should tell Sarge.

A week later as I was passing the Sargent's office he calls me in.

“That was a good job you did on the coats, we are proud of you lad. Action will be taken but not sure what. As a reward I have another difficult job for you.”

“I'm up for a challenge, what's the job Sarge?”

“We have had unconfirmed reports that one possibly two Westminster MP's are honest. That is, they don't fiddle their expenses, do not get hand outs from big business, do not do consultancy work while being an MP, and work only for their constituents.”

“Wow that's hard to believe.”

“I know Tuesday, but those up top want to know, preferably before the election.”

“That only gives me until May. I'll have to be working round the clock. What am I going to tell the misses. I promised her a week at Benidorm for the Easter, I wont be able to go with this work load. I can't tell her the truth, she would never believe me.”

“Well try telling her you are investigating a UK food bank for mis-selling soup coupons, that might work.” said the Sargent