The Morning After and the Day Inbetween

I awoke bearing the scars of last night’s revelry. Thanks to the unbridled jubilance of that most peculiar festival, my uvula seems to have taken on the form of a teenage catfish, only able to lazily lift from my tongue and briefly utter a self-pitying moan before it collapses again, exhausted from such exuberant effort so early in the mid to late morning.

Luckily I came up trumps in that game of Three Fingers Sally against the purple Turk, so, with digits all present and correct, it’s keyboards away (poor fellow – I must go back to the bar and see if his wedding ring turned up).

The nervous fondling of the first night over, I started the day by diving into the bush. From my hotel it is just a short conga to the edge of the island’s great jungle: The Twainforest. It is so named due to the propensity of animals inhabiting its pre-pulped paper stalks to sport any one of a wide range of expertly crafted moustaches.

I can only wonder at what evolutionary enterprise led to such a wide array of facial fungus, but coupled with the fresh scented air and troupled with the trees’ tendency to creak in a warming southern drawl, it proved as refreshing and reinvigorating as a dousing in a whole pitcher of road side lemonade. I wish I could share the wonderous images I snapped of the mighty Handlebarred Parrot or the gallant Ambrose Burnside Baboon, the mystic Fu Manchu Tree Viper and the industrious Brushnosed Pigmy Badger. However, dear reader, I cannot.

Due to fears that the recent saving of so many digital images in clouds could bring down a rain of the dreaded heavy electricity, the island’s equivalent of our doughty MET Office chaps (the Gummockian University for Estimating Stratospheric States) high pressured the government into passing a law that photographs only be allowed to be exported if first printed onto a jigsaw and then posted to the recipient four pieces at time. As well as reducing the volume of images cluttering up the sky, it is hoped that the increase in air freight will help to break the swollen clouds up into smaller, lighter pieces, thus making them far less likely to drop from the sky.

On exiting the forest via its westerly thigh, my guide, the ever reliable Gabrello Patrice Stavos, said that we should pay a visit to the nearby village of There, so that I could see the famous historical ruins. Thankfully, in recent years the road network in Gummock has become much easier to traverse, even for the new arrival.

After the great name inflation war with Wales left some towns with names running into three volumes, signage was for a time a great problem in the country. But this was cleverly solved two years ago, when the Prime Minister accidentally overdosed on his homeopathy treatment by slipping in the bath and ended up in St Hubbard’s Hospital. He was so impressed by the system of coloured lines painted on the floor to direct people around the labyrinthian criss-cross of wards and corridors that he rolled it out across the whole island. Now, new arrivals are issued with a Dulux colour chart at passport control, and then it is just a case of following the correct line to your destination. For a time there was concern that they may run out of colours, but handily the government’s roads department just invented some new ones.

Despite this ingenious system, a slight mix up between shades of yurple has led to Gabrello and I arriving in There after dark, so I am yet to see the antiquarian delights of this most ancient part of the island. But now I must leave you on the prickly cheeks of anticipation and pick up our scandalous tête–à–tête another day, for Gabrello has promised to direct me to his favourite tavern, where he says the wine flows like a young widow’s tears: Freely, and with a dark hint of seduction.

Bottoms up!!

The Isle of Gummock: An Introduction

The Isle of Gummock, which lies three Tuesdays south of waistband of Uruguay, has this week been designated the first ever UN recognised Area of Outstanding Natural Silliness. To chart this momentous occasion, and because my editor has recently discovered I have been tuning the three string cello with his wife, I hoped on a plane to find out more.

On approach, and owing to a recent full scale geographical redesign, the island appears to be the same shape as a giant space hopper wearing a bowler hat. However, as I later discovered, the Isle of Gummock Tourist Board are keen to stress the island’s shape is in fact that of a normal sized space hopper wearing a bowler hat, only seen very close up and, they add, a sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a camel.

Attractions include the only national parliament to be made out of a bouncy castle, the third biggest free standing jelly sculpture of Elton John’s cat and a zoo containing the actual python from Monty Python.

On the political front, having recently had to call for a bailout from the World Bank, after someone left the taps on in the Presidential Palace, one would expect the island’s economy to be in turmoil. Wrong again. In a blinding display of backward planning, when confronted by the Bank’s collection committee the Prime Minister, The Mostly Corrupt Jethro Tull LP, explained that he couldn’t possibly pay back all the money he owed as only last week a rogue rhubarb crumble stole his wallet.

Asked if this was a lie, the Prime Minister replied that everything he said was a lie and thus captured the bank officials in infinitely repeating linguistic paradox, which gave him plenty of time to go and hide.

He has since filed a PPI claim against the Bank and has assured the national media a massive cheque is due to arrive in a container ship from Switzerland any day now.

Venturing out, I soon discovered the fastest means of getting around the island is to join one of the frequent conga lines which snake back and forth between the major cities. If, dear reader, you are brave enough to follow me to this sanatorial sanctum, be aware that, while frequent, congas lines have been known to stop for up to 15 minutes at a time, to allow for the cassette tape providing the music to be rewound. On guided congas this time is normally already included in itinerary.

It was in such a line that my hip-swinging proxime accessit explained tonight was the island’s most important cultural celebration of the year: Listerfest, when whole communities gather together and act out the first five series of the popular BBC sci-fi programme Red Dwarf.

The choir in the cities’ central polyhedron has already struck up the opening bars so I must away, but join me next time to learn more of this enigmatic isle.