The Ice Cream Factory

The dog enjoys chasing his shadow around the garden when the sun is out. Both the sun and his shadow have been in hiding for most of the summer. When his shadow does come out they make the most of their time together. The dog will chase the shadow and then he'll let the shadow chase him. They seem to be good friends, but when the shadow got stuck in a gate the dog just left him there and chased a flower pot instead.

My cousin Jane and her friend, Claudia, were very eager to see Shane's ice cream factory. He had inherited a farm from his uncle, and the ice cream factory was on the farm. But every time Jane and Claudia asked him about it he always changed the subject. He'd start talking about geese or the best way to confuse a bishop. Eventually Jane said to him, "Look, we really want to see the ice cream factory. When are you going to take us to see the ice cream factory? We're going to keep pestering you about it until you take us to see the ice cream factory."

Shane sighed and said, "Okay. I'll take ye to see the ice cream factory. But prepare to be disappointed."

He drove them to the farm. It looked as if the place had been abandoned for years. The ice cream factory was really just a few machines in an old shed, but neither Jane nor Claudia were disappointed. They were fascinated by the machines. They kept asking questions about the gears and levers and switches. Shane answered each question with the words 'I don't know', but the questions kept coming.

Claudia pressed a red button. She didn't think anything would happen as a result of pressing the button because she thought the machines weren't working, but as soon as she pressed it they heard the sound of machinery moving in the loft above them. Shane was scared because he'd never seen this happen before, and when he was in the midst of things he'd never seen happen before he was always afraid that they'd only stop happening when something exploded.

Instead of an explosion, the machinery stopped moving when a trap door in the ceiling opened and a man fell through it. He landed on a mattress on the floor. Jane had already asked Shane why the mattress was on the floor, and now she had her answer. When she asked him why the man fell through the ceiling after Claudia pressed the button he said, "I don't know."

The man coughed up some dust and he got to his feet, but he looked unsteady. Shane asked him if he was part of the machinery. He said, "Hm? Oh. The... The, ah... People from the magazine. I mean... Was I meant to do that?"

"I don't know," Shane said. "I've never been around when someone pressed that button before. As long as it doesn't cause an explosion, I don't really mind. You're not going to explode, are you?"

"Well I've never exploded before, so... But there's a first time for everything... Or is there? If you explode before you get a chance to implode, then there's no first time for imploding."

"Or vice versa," Jane said.

"Him, yeah. But I don't think I'm going to explode. If I feel an explosion or an implosion coming on, I'll let you know."

"Do you have a name?" Claudia said to him.

"A name?... Oh yeah... Yeah, I think I do actually... Do you want me to go and get it for you?"

"What do you want us to call you?"

"Oh, a 'name'. I thought you meant... I think I have one of them if you... A name. Most people call me Clarky."

Jane, Claudia and Shane introduced themselves and they shook hands with Clarky. Shane said to him, "Do you have any idea why these machines won't make ice cream any more?"

"It's a mystery to me. I'm just one small part of the machine. A nut or a bolt isn't going to be able to fix your car."

"I think I know what's wrong here," Shane said. "This looks like the work of wizards."

Shane blamed everything on wizards. When Mrs. Clowerdow's dog fainted after a very big bird flew over his head, Shane blamed the nearest wizard. He didn't trust chocolate rabbits either. "Breaking an ice cream factory is just the sort of thing a wizard would do," he said. "I'm sure we'll find a wizard nearby, probably in the trees at the other side of the farmyard. My brother Ryan will help us catch him. He's an expert in this area."

Ryan always wore a white lab coat with three red pens in the pocket to indicate the laboratory he was a member of. It was a warning to members of rival labs, and to wizards, and it was also an invitation to fight. Ryan and his colleagues often had to catch wizards to advance their research. These wizards would be released back into the wild when the research was completed. Crisps were used as bait to catch the wizards. They found that wizards had a weakness for salt and vinegar crisps. They could smell the crisps from half a mile away. Many of them lived in tunnels that were hidden amongst the roots of trees. They'd emerge from their tunnels when they smelled the crisps. If another wizard tried to take the bait, they'd fight. They always had weapons concealed up their sleeves. Sometimes they'd have swords or clubs. Ryan once saw a fight between two wizards where one was wielding a snake and the other was wielding a badger. The wizards started to fear their own weapons more than their opponent's, so they just let the snake and the badger fight while they shared the crisps. It was an entertaining fight. The badger won when he got the snake in a headlock. The snake demanded a re-match.

After the sun went down, Ryan set up a trap in the trees at the side of the farm yard. He left some crisps on the ground. The wizard would only have eyes for the crisps and he wouldn't notice the net hanging above them.

While they were waiting for the wizard to arrive Claudia said, "My uncle once accidentally set fire to his mother-in-law's garden shed, and she had been threatening to kill him even before that. A wizard with a suitcase appeared. He said he needed help getting into the suitcase, so my uncle helped him in. But then he thought, 'The wizard isn't much use to me in the suitcase.' So he started kicking the suitcase to get the wizard out because he wanted some help with the garden shed before his mother-in-law came home. But the wizard didn't like that. He made a dog chase my uncle away."

The wizard arrived shortly afterwards. He knelt on the ground next to the crisps and started eating them. Even after the net dropped on top of him he kept eating the crisps. Shane went over to him and said, "You did something to the ice cream factory, didn't you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the wizard said.

"You're not getting out until you admit it."

"Fine. I did something to the ice cream factory."

"Now un-do it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're not getting out until you agree to fix the ice cream factory."

"Fine. I'll fix the ice cream factory."

They took the wizard to the shed and they locked him inside. Shortly afterwards they heard the sound of machinery moving. The speed of the machines' movement increased and the sound got louder, but after a few minutes the machines stopped, and there was silence. The next sound they heard was an explosion. The roof of the shed was blown off. Ryan, Shane, Jane, Claudia and Clarky were all covered in ice cream. The wizard staggered out of the shed, and he was covered in ice cream as well. He tasted some of the ice cream stuck to his sleeves. He seemed to like it. He started eating the rest of the ice cream with as much enthusiasm as he had shown for the crisps. Jane and Claudia tried some of the ice cream stuck to them, and it tasted great.

"This is basically how the factory works," Clarky said. "You might have to sacrifice the occasional roof, but you'll get some fantastic ice cream."

The moose's head over the fireplace has been wearing his headphones over the past few days. He's listening to a recording of waves. He finds the sound relaxing, and you can see this in the peaceful expression on his face. He exudes a sense of peace. The wife's uncle says he hasn't felt this relaxed since he fell asleep in a chocolate car. The car was made by a friend of his, who also made a chocolate gun. The gun would melt in your hand as soon as you pulled the trigger.

Agnes and Hazel are sitting in the field

The rabbits in the fields are trying to cheer themselves up in the rain. They seem to be performing a dance. If my great-grandfather had seen this he would have taken it as an invitation to get his shotgun, but he wouldn't have shot any of the rabbits. He felt a deep attachment to his talking gun. He enjoyed walking through the fields with it. The rabbits were afraid of the gun until they got to know it.

My aunt Joyce lived near a woman who painted her front door purple. This made people point at her house and say, "She painted her front door purple." Joyce enjoyed doing this, but sometimes she couldn't devote as much time to the pointing as she wanted to because she'd have to visit her friends, Agnes and Hazel, when they'd be sitting in a field. Agnes and Hazel were sisters. They always forewarned her of their trips to the field by sending her a postcard saying 'We'll be sitting in the field for the next few days'. The postcard would be delivered by a man called Casey who always looked as if he was dragging a boulder behind him. He spent his days delivering postcards. The invisible boulder slowed him down, but he never had to travel more than two miles to make a delivery. He spent his evenings in his cottage, writing a book called 'The Chemistry of Alan Elevatorish'. He'd been given the title twenty years earlier by a woman who woke up in his garden, and he'd been writing the book ever since.

After getting one of these postcards on a Saturday afternoon, Joyce went to see Agnes and Hazel. The field was full of wild flowers, rocks and gorse bushes. The sisters were sitting on deckchairs. Joyce said, "Does this have anything to do with the cheesecake?"

Joyce liked reminding them of the last time they tried to make a cheesecake. If they'd known it would be so flammable they wouldn't have left it near a candle.

"No," Hazel said. "It has nothing to do with the cheesecake. This is about Tom."

Tom was their cat. He had been wearing a button, and it looked as if he wanted someone to press the button, but Agnes and Hazel were afraid of what might happen if they pressed it. They thought they'd be better off letting someone else press it. They were thinking about who they'd get to do the job when Paul arrived. He lived in an old farmhouse a few hundred yards down the road. He used to buy old furniture, refurbish it, and then sell it for a profit. Over the years he diversified into other areas. He'd buy and sell just about anything, and he always managed to find a buyer for everything he had on sale.

When he visited Agnes and Hazel he was selling a bridesmaid's dress full of frogs and a statue with a knife stuck in its back. The sisters didn't want either of these things, but they bought the statue because they thought it might make it more difficult for him to say no when they asked him to press the cat's button.

He said yes when they asked. He would have said yes even if they hadn't bought the statue. As soon as he pressed it, Tom stood on his hind legs and did a dance. Agnes and Hazel were delighted with the dance. Paul liked it as well. He became very friendly with the cat after this, even though he was against the idea of keeping pets. He had conjoined snails once. Looking after them was too much trouble. When he had to pay for the operation to get them separated he swore he'd never have pets again, but he didn't mind when Tom came to visit.

"Tom is spending most of his time at Paul's house," Hazel told Joyce. "I suppose it's our own fault for not pressing the button, but we'd love to have him back. If only there was some way we could win him around."

"It would be easier to do something that would make his visits to Paul's house seem less appealing," Joyce said. "Is there anything that Tom dislikes?"

"Dolls," Agnes said. "He hates dolls. Ever since our niece tried to force him into an arranged marriage with her doll."

"We just have to buy enough dolls to make Paul's house seem like a dangerous place for the cat."

Joyce, Agnes and Hazel bought over thirty dolls in second-hand shops. They asked Paul if he'd be interested in buying them. He agreed to take the dolls in exchange for ten packets of raspberry jelly.

The next time Tom visited Paul's house he went to the shed where Paul was working. Tom didn't stay in the shed for very long. The sight of all those dolls staring at him made his hair stand up. He ran from the shed, and he kept running until he got to Agnes and Hazel's house. He hasn't gone anywhere near Paul's house since then, but he still enjoys having the button pressed when Paul comes to visit.

The moose's head over the fireplace is enjoying the summer because of the scarcity of politicians on TV. The wife's uncle says he was once elected to a local parliament that was formed to fill the power vacuum when the politicians go on their summer holidays. They spent most of their time talking about the best way to set a tomato on fire.

The Wedding Cake

Yesterday we experienced something that looked remarkably like summer. The garden gnomes were wearing sunglasses. My great-grandfather experienced something like summer once, but it was just the result of something he ate. He tried eating more of it, but it didn't have the same effect the second time around. It made him talk to the creatures living in his hat. He had been ignoring them for years.

My cousin Charlie was watching TV one evening when the doorbell rang. It was a woman called Monica, and she asked him if he had any old chewing gum he wasn't using. She had already collected over a tonne of it from his neighbours. She was going to use it on a wedding cake. Charlie said he might have some around the house. He invited her in, and they went looking for it.

They found a few pieces under the tables and chairs. When Charlie looked under the table in the dining room he found a note stuck to it, as well as a few pieces of chewing gum. He had bought this table at an auction, but he'd never seen the note before. It said 'You'll find it in the sixteenth hole, under the empty cigarette packets'.

"That sounds like Phil's golf course," Monica said. "Maybe there's treasure buried on the sixteenth hole."

"It might be worth having a look."

"Definitely. And it might be worth waiting until it's dark. I can't see any reason why Phil should be informed of this."

Phil had built a golf course in his back garden, or at least he had dug eighteen holes. He often threw rubbish into them. Over the years the holes had filled up with rubbish. He threw empty cigarette packets into the sixteenth hole.

Charlie and Monica went to the golf course after midnight and they started excavating the sixteenth hole. They removed thousands of empty cigarette packets. Occasionally they'd come across some other item of rubbish, like an old shoe or the handle from a teapot. They had nearly reached the bottom of the hole when they came across a plastic bag, and when they looked inside they found the treasure. It was a figurine of a monkey.

"Is it gold?" Monica said.

"It looks like gold. If it wasn't gold, why would someone hide it here and leave directions under the table? Whoever did that must have expected someone else to find the note and retrieve the monkey."

A light came on in Phil's house. Charlie and Monica started re-filling the hole, but they abandoned the job and ran away when they heard the back door opening. Phil shouted at them to stop, but they kept going. He ran after them.

Charlie said they'd find a good hiding place in Conrad's garden, so they ran towards that. Conrad was building a tunnel to Dublin. He always wore a shirt and tie as he worked on it, but he never dug for too long before stopping to take a rest. He spent most of his time sitting on a deck chair next to the tunnel.

Charlie and Monica went down into the tunnel to get away from Phil. There was a full moon in the sky, and they were afraid that he might have seen them go into their hiding place. The tunnel was much bigger than they thought it would be. They were expecting something like one of the holes on Phil's golf course, but this was a proper tunnel, and it forked off in different directions.

They kept going further into the tunnel to get away from Phil, but it wasn't long before they were lost. They thought about going back and trying to retrace their steps. Neither of them wanted to go to Dublin. But they saw a faint light up ahead, so they kept going. They heard strange ghostly voices, and they were terrified of what they might find, but it was better than the darkness behind them.

They came to a small room. A group of people were sitting around a table. They were playing cards. The light came from the candle in the centre of the table. They told Charlie and Monica that they came down here every time there was a full moon. They all had their own reasons for avoiding the moon.

Rita kept staring at the moon when it was full. People thought she was mad, but she had a fear of being licked by the moon's tongue. She thought that if she turned her back for a second it would lick her. She found that it was much easier to stay underground and avoid the moon.

Betty has a star of her own. She knows it's hers because she's seen her name written on it (she looked at it through binoculars). One night she pointed her binoculars at the full moon and she was shocked by what she saw. Something slanderous had been written about her on the surface of the moon. She was furious, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to do her best to forget about the moon's claims, and it was easier to forget when she was underground with people who shared her anti-moon views.

Cliff used to love the moon. His sister would tell him when it was raining on the moon, and he'd go a bit mad then. He'd go outside at night and dance in the fields. But one night, as the moon was passing over him, it spilled a barrel full of rain water on top of him. The water had a funny smell. This incident completely changed his attitude towards the moon.

Charlie and Monica were delighted to see these friendly faces. Monica said, "Could ye show us how to get out? We're lost."

Betty said, "There's no way we'd leave our underground shelter until the moon goes away. Absolutely no way. Unless there was some very strong incentive."

She looked at the bag in Monica's hand as she said that. Monica and Charlie looked at each other, and they both nodded. Monica took the monkey out of the bag, and she told the anti-moon club they could have it if they acted as guides. The group agreed. They led Charlie and Monica out of the tunnel.

They emerged from the ground in a field. They started walking back towards Charlie's house, but they hadn't gone far when Phil caught up with them. He demanded to know what they'd taken from the sixteenth hole.

"Just this plastic bag," Monica said. "We're sorry." She gave it back to him.

He was delighted to have the bag back. He said to them, "Don't take anything from my golf course again. Unless ye ask. Ye can have something if ye ask."

"Do you have any chewing gum?" Monica said.

"The third hole is full of chewing gum."

On the following day, Charlie and Monica went back to the golf course. Under Phil's supervision, they filled five buckets with used chewing gum. She had more than enough for her wedding cake.

The moose's head over the fireplace has been wearing his glasses over the past few days. People have started calling him 'Professor'. The wife's uncle says he was a professor in a university, but he lost his post because of his theory that the sea was made out of Lego. He didn't like the university anyway. Most of the staff were puppets, and they'd start laughing at him every time he opened his mouth.

Mrs. Bluntquale's Face

I've been listening to the birds singing in the garden over the past few days. Their song is hypnotic. On Monday evening I looked over the wall at the back of the garden. There were at least fifty rabbits, all moving like zombies towards the source of the song. I didn't know what the birds wanted the rabbits to do, but I knew they were up to no good. I brought out a stereo and I played a Status Quo album at full volume to break the rabbits' trance. When they heard Status Quo they turned around and ran away.

My cousin Gary once went to a party at a neighbour's house. It was held to celebrate the finding of a missing button (it had fallen off the neighbour's favourite coat, and she couldn't find a replacement). The house was packed that night. People from miles around came to the party. Mrs. Bluntquale was there, smoking her pipe. It wasn't the sort of thing you'd expect a middle-aged woman to be doing, and that only added to her enjoyment of smoking. She often went out of her way to defy expectations. She wore make-up that you could read. Sometimes it was difficult to make out the words, and you'd have to look closely at her face before making out phrases like 'What are you looking at?' or 'I like boxes'.

As the party approached its end in the early hours of the morning, Gary read these words on her face: 'Gary is a bad bean'. He was appalled. He demanded that she remove this statement and replace it with an apology, but she refused.

If he hadn't been drunk he might have realised that getting revenge on Mrs. Bluntquale wasn't such a good idea, but he thought it was a fantastic idea at the time, and all of his friends agreed. They went to her house before she went home and Gary painted these words on her front wall: 'Mrs. Bluntquale's dog thinks he's streaking when he runs onto the field during football matches'.

Mrs. Bluntquale wouldn't have minded if this claim had been made about her, but she was furious because it was written about her dog. She felt a duty to get retribution on her dog's behalf. She informed Gary of her intention. She told him he had a choice: he could play along and take whatever pain she had planned for him, or else he could resist and feel an even greater pain at an unexpected time.

Gary agreed to play along. The pain she had in mind wasn't physical. She just wanted to humiliate him. She gave him another choice: he could let her write something on his face, something he wouldn't dare say, or he could sing a song called 'Poor Fido' in the pub on Friday night when the place would be full. Gary chose to sing the song.

She had written 'Poor Fido' herself. It was designed specifically to humiliate the performer. Gary was dreading his performance, but at least he could get the retribution out of the way and try to forget about it, even though he knew that no one would let him forget about it for years.

Mrs. Bluntquale spread the word about Gary's performance, so there was an even bigger crowd than usual in the pub on Friday night. Gary had never sung in public before, so he needed a few drinks to calm his nerves. Having a bar next to the microphone was handy.

There was silence when Gary started singing, but the silence didn't last long. People started laughing. Gary wondered if they were laughing at him or with him. It was probably at him, but he thought he could get them to laugh with him if he pretended to be enjoying it as much as they were.

By the end of the song he really was enjoying it, and the crowd there loved his performance. He got a huge round of applause, and people were congratulating him rather than making fun of him. Only Mrs. Bluntquale failed to enjoy his performance. She was angry because the whole purpose of the song was to humiliate him. She told him he'd have to sing another song on the following night, and this one would be even more stupid than 'Poor Fido'.

The song he sang on the following night was called 'The Pitter Patter of Grumbling Spiders'. She had a few other songs as well, just in case Gary wasn't humiliated by the spider song.

These other songs were needed. The people in the pub loved the spider song even more than 'Poor Fido'. So Gary sang all of Mrs. Bluntquale's back-up songs, which included one about eels who believed it was their purpose in live to torture mice made out of jelly. The crowd became more enthusiastic with each song.

Mrs. Bluntquale refused to abandon her method of humiliating Gary. She came up with some more songs for the following night. Gary tried to pretend that he wasn't enjoying his performances, but he loved singing her songs. He was developing a fan club. When he arrived in the pub on Sunday night, some of his fans were dressed as spiders. This performance was even better than the previous night.

Of course, it was worse from Mrs. Bluntquale's point of view, but still she didn't give up. She spent the next week writing the stupidest songs she could possibly come up with, and she made Gary perform them on Friday night. But the stupider the songs, the more the audience enjoyed them. The fact that Gary was dressed as a mouse while he sang only added to their enjoyment.

The pub was packed every time Gary sang, and the owner of the pub invited him to perform there over the next few weekends. Gary agreed. Mrs. Bluntquale was obsessed with writing a song that would humiliate him, and she kept coming up with new songs for him to sing. His fame began to spread beyond the locality. On one Saturday night, a man who ran a small record company came up to Gary after a performance. His name was Kenny. "How would you like to release an album?" he said.

"Y' mean people would actually pay for this stuff?"

"Of course. Look how enthusiastic your fans are. Most of the records I release are traditional or folk, but I've spotted a market for this sort of thing, and I've been looking for the right act. You're the right act."

Gary never thought he'd hear those words while wearing a top hat with cheese taped to it. He agreed to make the record. His fans were delighted when they heard the news. At the very least he was certain to sell records to the five men who put on pig masks every time he sang the song 'I am good pigs'.

The studio was in a shed on a farm, but Gary didn't mind. He wasn't expecting Abbey Road. The shed seemed like the appropriate setting for the recording of songs like 'R. U. B. B. I. S. Hole'.

After the final song had been recorded, a visitor arrived in the studio. It was Mrs. Bluntquale, and she was smiling broadly. This filled Gary with terror. "I was so pleased when Kenny agreed to make this album," she said. "He's my cousin. Of course, a bit of arm-twisting needed to be done. At first he said he'd release an album of his daughter screaming at the microwave before releasing an album of your songs, but family is family. You know all the dirt about members of your own family. He realised that he'd rather release your album than have me release information about what he did in Amsterdam."

"But people genuinely like these songs," Gary said. "I have fans. You've never been able to grasp the fact that people like the stupidity of these songs."

"That's where you're wrong. I've known that from the very start. My whole plan was to build you up before knocking you down."

"How are you going to knock me down?"

"I've sent you right to the top of the hill, and just a small push is needed to send you down the other side. The album cover will be that push. I have it here."

She showed him the CD case for his new album. The cover was an image of him during one of his performances. He was wearing a nappy and eating a frog.

"I've never eaten a frog," Gary said.

"My nephew helped me out there. He's had plenty of practise editing photos on his computer, which is useful for inventing dirt when you can't find any. This is actually a photo of you eating some cabbage."

"Is the nappy down to photo editing as well?"

"No, we got that photo when..."

"Oh yeah, when I was wearing a nappy while performing 'I love manky cabbage'."

"That's right."

"But eating a frog isn't much stupider than eating cabbage."

"It isn't much stupider, but you won't get the animal rights crowd angry about eating cabbage."

"Why would they care about some stupid album on a tiny record label?"

"Because I've already lined up people who'll call up a certain radio show to complain."

Gary felt as if he might need that nappy. "Not Liveline?" he said.

Mrs. Bluntquale nodded. "Liveline. People will call up Joe Duffy to complain about this eejit eating a frog. And you'll have to go on air to defend yourself. And the press will pick up on the story because in the photo of you eating a frog you're also wearing a nappy. How could they resist printing that? And it won't just be in papers. This thing will spread around the internet like wildfire. And that will be enough of an excuse for it to be featured on the news on TV."

"I'll just tell the truth."

"That you were tricked into singing songs like 'That's not your volcano, Kitty' while wearing a nappy and then recording an album? Who's going to believe that?"

"But this is insane. This is a hundred times worse than what I did to you."

"You didn't do it to me. You did it to my dog. I would have laughed if you'd written something about me. People who make fun of innocent creatures deserve a fate far worse than what's in store for you."

Gary had to stop the release of the album, or at least to change the cover, and he thought that the best way to do it was by getting some dirt on Mrs. Bluntquale. The best way to find dirt on Mrs. Bluntquale was to go to one of her relations.

The next time he met Kenny he said, "I know what you did in Amsterdam."

"Oh God!" Kenny said. "I didn't mean it. That wasn't the real Kenny. It was a momentary lapse. I walked out of my head for a brief moment, and I left the door open, and I don't know who ran inside but I wouldn't like to meet that person. Please don't tell me wife."

"You don't need to worry. I have no intention of telling anyone, as long as you tell me something."

"What?"

"Something about Mrs. Bluntquale. Dirt -- that's what I want."

"Oh God! She'll kill me if she finds out I told you some of the things I could tell you. That's why I've never told anyone."

"Do you want your wife to know about Amsterdam? The choice is yours."

"Okay. I'll tell you something about Irene."

"Who's Irene?"

"Mrs. Bluntquale."

"Oh right. She has a first name. Makes sense, I suppose. But anyway, what have you got for me?"

"This isn't the worst thing I could tell you, but it should be enough to qualify as dirt. She once punched a pigeon."

"That's exactly the sort of thing I need."

"She didn't mean to punch it. It came up behind her and startled her. She apologised straightaway. Nevertheless, there's no getting around the fact that she punched a pigeon."

"That poor innocent bird. I feel a duty to act on its behalf."

Gary used photo editing software to create an image of Mrs. Bluntquale punching the pigeon. The image was obviously fake, but Gary didn't think that mattered. The story behind the image was real.

He showed it to her, and she knew immediately what this entailed. "Do you think this could be the new album cover?" Gary said.

"No," she said through gritted teeth. "I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"We could do with a new album cover. Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Yes. I think that's a good idea. But not this image."

"I think you should be with me on the new cover. I'd be much happier if your involvement with this project was obvious for everyone to see. That way you won't try to sabotage it."

"Why would I be on the cover if I'm not on the record?"

"Well you're going to have to be on the record then, aren't you."

Gary recorded a duet with Mrs. Bluntquale. She enjoyed it so much that she insisted on recording another. And then another. And then a few tracks on her own. Within two days Gary was relegated to a minor role on the record. You could see him in the background on the cover, but you wouldn't recognise him because he was dressed as a pumpkin. The title of the album was written on Mrs. Bluntquale's face.

She got so much satisfaction from the album that she agreed to abandon all her schemes for revenge on Gary. When the album came out it received a lot of ridicule, but she still didn't feel a need to get revenge on Gary. Instead she did her best to get retribution on everyone who ridiculed the album. She did this on behalf of the album. If they had ridiculed her she wouldn't have minded, but she felt a duty to get revenge on behalf of her defenceless album.

The moose's head over the fireplace likes listening to the songs of the birds. He thinks they have much better taste in music than I have. It doesn't really matter if he gets transfixed by the sound because he isn't going anywhere, but I'd be slightly more concerned about the wife's aunt. She starts singing at inappropriate times, or singing inappropriate songs at times when a Status Quo song would be needed. On Sunday afternoon she sang a song about the grasshoppers she buys cigarettes for.