The Kodswallop Club

News reaches me that Austin may be turfed out of the Kodswallop Club. This is the very same club that blackballed me a year ago for my unfettered indolence.

Austin Sans Wig

The market traders who have stormed the commitee had the temerity to request that I pull my weight and contribute something. I accused them of having to buy their own furniture which they did not take too kindly and so they began a campaign for my removal along with Flasher McFungus, Baron Scmidt and Lady Alexpanda. It is my understanding that the club is a dull and dreary place since our departures.

Of course, The Kodswallop Club has been going downhill for a number of years. When us chaps first joined it was filled with Men of Consequence. The types who would lead the Empire to greater things. This is no longer the case.

It has become a haven of chaps who did not have the benefit of being flogged at Public School and have the unfortunate handicap of having local accents. So I therefore urge Austin to take his leave of the ne’er do wells and become a man of consequence once again.

Sir Thumper Dung Has Been Infiltrated

It is with great sadness that I have to report that my dear, dear friend Sir Thumper Dung has been transgressed. A street urchin broke into his back passage, dismantled the sash windows to his bijou town house and stole away with his moving picture box.

Needless to say Sir Dung was heartbroken. That picture box was his obsession. Since Sir David Appleborough had expelled him from his inner circle for shoddy impersonations, he has felt bereft. He only had a lone telegram and a moving picture of The Great Man left to obssess over.

Sir Dung would spend long evenings cradling a cheap blended whiskey, sobbing into his first editions of ‘Blight on Earth’ and watching moving pictures of The Great Man for comfort. O what small solace they did provide, but now his moving picture box has been stolen, he no longer has that comfort.

I do worry for the dear, dear boy….

The State Visit

I have been honoured by the presence of the little known Scandinavian Princess Ien, this Easter weekend. Her claim to have royal blood has been unverified by Debretts but she is awfully good fun and so we shall let that pass. Her penchant for the finest champagne means that we never hear a peep from her before midday.

The Princess has impeccable manners. She has the appearance of a Lady with a permanent smell under her nose. It is a demeanour that reflects well on her and assures me that she is from impeccable lineage.

She has a loyal companion, Little Paulo.

A dapper chap of small stature and a twinkle in his eye. Some say he is descended from travelling tinkers. Others that he is a scion of the Medici family. He deals in second hand carriages and golden trinkets and has the frightful habit of sending and receiving telegrams at all hours of the day. It is ghastly carry on and I mean to have a word with the old boy.

It is perhaps disconcerting that I have to cavort with a chap who works for a living, but he provides us with many amusing anectodes of the trading classes. The japes that he relates convinces me that trade can contribute nothing to the governance of our proud nation.

Legislation is the preserve of the aristocarcy and it is our duty, for the good of England, to continue to guard our own narrow interests. Hip Hip Hurrah.

Dastardly Willy

Last week, my hair was a little unkempt after challenging a Whig to a duel, and so a visit to my good friend Dastardly Willy was in order. He does the finest coiffure in the West of England.

Here is a photograph of the old chap.

Dastardly Willy

I am pleased to report that his genius with a pair of scissors meant that I came out of his back street emporium with my head held high and in pristeen condition. I therefore decided to head towards the seedy end of town for a crafty ale and a spot of high jinx at the cabaret before returning to The Club.

However, on my way I was accosted by a dandy chap with a pair of pink pantaloons and a mask on. He threatened to knock my top hat off and scratch my monocle if I did not give him a sovereign. I considered laughing at his camp manner, but I was too affronted by his nerve in accosting a member of the English aristocracy. I said as much and then something quite extraordinary happened. The dandy chap proceeded to remove his mask and I was flabbergasted to see that it was my old mucker Dastardly Willy.

“Sorry old bean,” Dastardly said, “but I did not realise it was you. I must have had too much brandy for breakfast and your face was somewhat a blur.”

Dastardly went onto explain that styling hair no longer holds the fascination it once did and so in his spare time he likes nothing better than to burgle his way through the backstreets of Bath. Well it sounded like an awful lot of fun but I declined to become his assistant as I had the pressing matter of an ale and the cabaret to attend to.

Pope Pius V

I have nothing against Roman Catholicism. Indeed some of my oldest chums are lapsed Catholics including my Turf Accountant, Old Dave and the famous explorer and naturist Sir Thumper Dung.

However, whilst bribing the local officials in Rome for fine marble sculptures, I casually sauntered into the Church of San Maria Maggiore and was faced with that bounder of a Pope, Pius V. He, who had the temerity to excommunicate Good Queen Bess.

Pope Pius V

Now Good Queen Bess has a special place in the hearts of Daft’s for it was she who ennobled my great forbear Sir Willy Daft. I was therefore of the mind to protect the honour of Good Queen Bess and place a defiant portrait of her on the statue of Pope Pius V.

I was within five feet before being craftily intercepted by a Priest who had the presumption that I should go to confession.

Now, I am not pure by any stretch of the imagination, but I do find it beastly to have to admit to my sins. As a member of the English Aristocracy, I am so busy down at The Club imbibing the finest Claret with my chums, I find it inconvenient to have any.

I was therefore left quite speechless for the first time in my life. To be polite I regaled him with tales about mischevous pranks that I played on Nanny when I was a child, and how I had perhaps been a tad too hard on the Butler three months ago when I refused him his one days holiday a year because I wanted my monocle polished.

This seemed to do the trick. Now, I may have misheard the Priest, but I am sure that he ordered me to drink 19 Bloody Marys at the nearest Trattoria. I followed his advice despite the fact that I do not like to water down my spirits with hideous tomato juice.

By the end of my repentance, I decided that I was quite partial to Catholicism and would never again try to interfere with a statue of any Pope.

Sir Thumper Dung

I have already mentioned my good friend Sir Thumper Dung in relation to his slanderous comments regarding my journal as a Snob Blog.

Here is a picture of him on one of his many expeditions with only a couple of small indigenous boys for company.

Sir Thumper Dung

On the whole he is a good chap. He searched yonder African dale and desert for the naturist missionary Dr Appleborough. Sir Dung is the old bean who uttered the immortal words upon finding the Doctor in Lake Tanganyika:

“Dr Appleborough, I presume.”

However, of Sir Dung’s many faults (my dear reader, you would find his long list of faults impossibly tedious to read), it is his obsession with Dr Appleborough that threatens the sanity of all who know him.

When he has one too many glasses of vintage port, he will start a monologe about the virtues of the Doctor. After his eigth glass, he will attempt a shoddy impersonation of the Doctor. We chuckle with him in order to help keep his upper lip stiff and his chin up, but we know that all he yearns for is an evening by the fire with The Great Man …….

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