[Cyclefrance]

(part two)


‘Mr Pisspot’s office’
‘Oh, hi, ehm, that you, Skirmish?’ Tiny’s distinctive voice danced at the other end of the line. ‘Look, he’s not there is he? Only, well, it’s kind of important…’
‘I’m afraid not, sir. May I be of assistance?’
‘Well, it’s just that there’s this huge pile of-‘
‘Oh, I think I know what you are talking about. The delivery that I told the driver to leave in Horse Farts. Mr Pisspot says he will be attending to it shortly. It’ll look really great, I am sure, A real crowd puller, and just the message Mr Pisspot wants to get across..’
‘Are you saying this is Joined’s handy work?’
‘But of course – he handled it personally, sir. Can you imagine how pleased people will be when they see for themselves that they’re as affordable and as obtainable as he promised. And they can be up in a matter of moments. All it needs is a quick screw here and a quick screw there, and-
‘Really Skirmish, this is quite enough. I really, well I really did expect better from you. This is all very smutty’
‘Smutty sir, what’s smutty about a couple of condos?’
’A couple of condoms??? I’m talking about literally thousands and thousands of them, Skirmish. All sizes, shapes and colours as well. They’re filling the whole square. The Press are there and the crowd is huge already and still growing. I’ve ordered a police cordon and the army is on standby.The Archbishop’s been on the phone six times at least. What on earth has Pisspot been up to this time??!!

‘Condoms???? But they’re supposed to be condominiums. Two of them. £60,000 for the pair.
‘Well they’re not condominiums, Skirmish. Not by any stretch of the imagination, let alone rubber! Tell Pisspot I want to see him in my office immediately. Sooner, if he knows what’s good for him!!’

The phone went dead. Skirmish was left holding the handset, his jaw dropped open so far it was no more than just a few millimeters from the floor. He was speechless. All he could do was look and point at the phone, and then look and point in out towards the room, then back to the phone, then the room…..

‘What’s up with you – you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Taken bloody ages getting here, God knows what’s going on, people all over the place, police, army… Are you incapable of speech or something, Skirmish??’

Skirmish looked bewilderedly at Joined Pisspot. All he could do was shake his head. They looked at each other, and then it was as if Skirmish had been given the power of speech again, but too suddenly for his brain to cope. It all came out quite maniacally:

‘Ha-ha, no, coloured ones you see, not two flat ones, but balloons, screw you – up in no time at all, hee-hee, cheap thrills, thousands of them, bang, bang, bang, get the gang to bang it up ‘em, screw em all together, three in a pack, not two, thousands of them , red, white, blue - God save the queen, hello sailor, put that up there for you, no probl-!’

Pisspot slapped Skirmish round the face. ‘Snap out of it man - have you been at my brandy again?’

Skirmish rubbed his cheek, sense returning. ‘No, sir, oh sorry sir. Something’s gone terribly wrong. They haven’t delivered a £60000 pound condo. It looks instead that they’ve delivered 60,000 contraceptives!

‘What are you on about?? ‘condo’?? The word’s ‘condom’. That was the trouble with your letter. There were too many mistakes. I changed that one and I also took away that silly pound sign – why tell them we’ll pay £60,000 when they might think we meant $60,000’

Skirmish was back to normality very quickly. ‘No, no, no, no noooo!?! Let me get this straight. Instead of ‘as per our discussions with your brother, Bucks, we would be grateful if you would send us the £60,000 condos to test out with the public’ you wrote ‘ we would be grateful if you would send us the 60,000 condoms to test out with the public’! Oh. My Dear God!!’

‘That’s right, so what’s the matter??’

‘What’s the matter? WHAT’S THE MATTER??’ There are 60,000 contraceptives - condoms - of all shapes, sizes and colours sitting in a pile, god knows how high and filling up the greater part of Horse Farts Parade. That’s where all your police and crowds and army are coming from.

Now Pisspot was speechless. Well, for a few seconds. Then ‘Does Tiny know about this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Hmmm. Well That’s not SO bad. At least he doesn’t know that I had anything-‘
‘I’m afraid he does. You see I told him’

Skirmish ducked a right jab.

‘Come here!’ Pisspot started chasing him around the room’

‘It wasn’t my fault. I thought it was the flats, I didn’t know it was condoms. Not until Mr Blur told me. No, no, please don’t hit me…!’

Pisspot had him cornered. And was just about to change the shape of Skirmish’s face when the red phone rang.

Pisspot became all smiles as he reached over and took the handset: ‘Tiny, how are you? So nice of you to call.’ Tiny’s voice could be heard resounding around the room and resembling something akin to a distressed parrot with a hernia.

Two Jugs couldn’t get a word in for some time but finally interrupted: ‘Oh good, you’ve seen it, then. Yes, I know there’s a lot of them, but calm down, Tiny. It’s just the timing’s got a little ahead of itself. Oh, all right, quite a bit ahead of itself.’ Pisspot was thinking rapidly on his feet – not something he was that good at doing. But in times of need, God can occasionally be kind, even to northerners: ‘They were supposed to have put up the banners first.’ More shrieks from Tiny, but a shade lower in intensity. Pisspot registered the slight, but positive change: ‘I know I didn’t tell you, but you’ve been so busy with Iraq and Blindkit and all that other stuff. I thought it would be a nice surprise - National Birth Control Week. Free Condoms for anyone who wanted them, and a number of complementary events to go with it. Cleft Ricketts has written a song especially. I think he’s calling it ‘Safe Copulations’ or something like that. Catchy little number –Eurovision sort of stuff. And there’s a series of talks planned in St Gymshoes Park as well. It’s just that the delivery came forward two days and they forgot to let us know. I’ve got the guys from the BBC and ITV coming round later. That’s what I’ve been arranging all morning. I assure you it will all be under control by tea-time.’

Tiny seemed to be placated. In fact he was coming up with some ideas of his own. Mainly involving him being on TV and not Pisspot, naturally. Pisspot sighed a sigh of relief. Two more minutes of verbal bowing and scraping and the phone was returned to its cradle.

‘Right Skirmish, now where was I??’
Skirmish dropped to the floor his arms covering his face.
‘Get up man,. What’s the matter with you. You’ve got work to do. I want banners by tea-time. You can work out the wording. Then I need you to write a song that’ll fit that ‘Congratulations’ tune and get Cleft on the phone to sing it - AND record it. About time he did us another favour seeing as Tiny didn’t use his place this year. Oh, and first of all, you’d better get on to ITV and BBC. Come on man. Jump to it!’

‘New Ladle??’ Thought Skirmish, ‘Give me the old one any day…!!’

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