Wednesday August 8th: Today, Gordon is in the thick of it. The talk in the newspapers today is of Skullduggery. Hi-Jinks. Shennanigans. Espionage. Cow poisoning. Is there something afoot at The Old Farm? Could it be a case of Murder Most Fowl? This can only have been the work of a twisted criminal mastermind, like Blair. Blair in league with Diet Blair. That will be why he's left the country. They're holed up on an island somewhere, inside a mountain carved into Blair's grinning likeness, watching Surrey's farmers weep in their fields on Sky News.
The Daily Mirror has equated an intentional release of foot and mouth to a disgruntled employee putting a mouse in a loaf of bread after being fired from the bakery. They have not accounted for the fact that, in a bakery - one of those industrial ones that makes the surrounding town smell of cake - not every loaf makes it out of there. I know because I worked in one. Summer 1998. Wiping down giant ovens, sweeping up errant crumbs and watching the World Cup in a shed by the front gates. Hundreds of loaves a day went straight into the bin - never knowing the pleasure of being a peanut butter and jam sandwich, eaten with a glass of Nesquik on the side. No, sir - they went straight into that giant metal barrel and emptied into a truck. My point is, that one mouse in a loaf may go unnoticed to the landfill, without getting its photo taken for the local paper with a distressed looking housewife under the headline "I'D EATEN HALF OF IT BEFORE I REALISED!" It's the potential for revenge that motivates such behaviour. I can tell you this because I've had enough jobs that I've hated during my working life. It's that final act of rebellion - that last middle finger to the supervisor, saying even if Health And Safety don't come down on you like a ton of rodent filled granaries for this, I know I did it - as the lifelong Pumpernickle devotee is cast out of paradise to face the cruel world where bread is not allowed to run free, but is cruelly asphyxiated in plastic bags on the shelves of supermarkets.
My point is that one mouse could slip on by through the system, and they know this. It's just one of the myriad risks you take when you put mice in a loaf as an act of revenge. However, someone is definitely going to pay attention when all the nearby farm animals start drooling and limping and then have to be killed. Sure the guy in HR always got the last coronation chicken at the sandwich van, but did you have to do them like that?
I tip Gordon to deal with it, anyway - He's got the Health & Safety Executive on it, which is the sensible thing to do. He also went to Reigate the other day, and looked thoroughly 'craggy' (to the Daily Mail's glee, I'm sure) afterwards.
In yesterday's Evening Standard, columnist Richard Goodwin wrote about how he took his mum, Mrs. Goodwin to one of the Prince shows. What was on your mind, money? I daren't think what would have happened if I'd gone with my old dear. Sorry, I meant, Mrs. Annobil. As a retired teacher she has remained deeply entrenched in a routine that requires a cup of camomile tea at 8 o'clock before 10 hours of sleep each night. She would have been toast before the first encore. Don't get me wrong, I like spending time with Mrs. Annobil. The militant disciplinarian I remember from my childhood has all but gone, making way for a woman who likes nothing more than to eat dinner on the sofa in front of Songs Of Praise, while insisting that anyone else who eats in the living room will cause "mess". And, of course, my fourth complimentary beer would have been "enough". Mrs Annobil also dislikes music played loud enough to strain conversation in a car. A 20,000 seater arena would have been too much, bless her. I yearn to drive the family Passat, if only to blow the cobwebs out of the speakers with some Jimi and Public Enemy. Goodwin enjoyed himself. He doesn't say what Mrs. Goodwin, thought of it, although he admits he texted her to apologise for a "weird evening". "Next time we'll stick to Scrabble" he concludes.
Let that be a lesson to you, Goodwin. That's what happens when you take that extra couple of steps, for the sake of the story. You end up face to face with the abyss. The terrifying unknown that your brain could not prepare for. I'm sure there must have been one point, during the night when his mind turned on itself and said to him. "You're a grown man. At a Prince show. With your mum. For a laugh. What the fuck?"
