Goodbye, Frankheap the Cockroacher

The entire Northumbrian Kingdom is in a state of stunned bewilderment following the shocking disclosures by the soothsayers that Frankheap the Cockroacher has been summarily dismissed from the Ð Factor.

Following this present series of entertainments for the knuckle-dragging denizens of this blessed Realm, I have to admit I've come to admire Frankheap's qualities and considerable talent; he epitomises all that is noble and worthy in the young people of our glorious land. Refined, polite, well-spoken, educated and self-effacing, this young fellow has captured the hearts of the majority of the population with his ready charm, sparkling wit and debonair appearance. His voice is mellifluous and rich, he holds a steady pitch as he moves gracefully, singing the anthems assigned to him by his mentor, Gaedrich of Baerleow – a semi-bearded minstrel from a bygone age.

But sadly, illusions are too easily shattered; news swiftly emerged from the ruins of our cherished misapprehensions that Frankheap had been modestly talking of his magic mushroom consumption to an assortment of ne'er-do-wells, camp-followers and hangers-on who gravitate around the show like clouds of cosmic debris. The implications of this tragic development are that such substances would have certainly enhanced his performance, thereby affording him a significant competitive advantage. This subsequently reached the lugs of the Supreme Allied Commander-In-Chief of the Ð Factor, Father Simon The Cowl, the wealthy monk and éminence grise who is the ecclesiastical and financial patron of the pageant. And thus the malefactor was precipitately cast into outer darkness. The remaining contestants are distraught - but I suspect that their distress has been occasioned more by a sudden lack of the aforesaid fungi than out of a sense of grief and personal loss. Whatever.

Frankly, I don't know what the fuss is all about; we currently have legions of politicos who continually partake of the sacred 'shroom in industrial quantities, since its toxic effects fuel their sense of mission, significance and self-importance. It also informs their irrational and brain-dead policy decisions, and its consumption certainly played a vital role in bringing about the financial disaster that currently besets the Realm - and of course, bringing the Kingdom under the affectionate stranglehold of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) and its psychotic leader, Pharaoh Jose Borracho and his half-witted henchman Hermit the Rumphole.

Nobody has dismissed them - and they continue to run the Northumbrian show. I think I'm going to have a quiet word with Father Simon The Cowl. He can make or break a career in a blink..