Brat Droppings

There's been very little to disturb my existential ennui since I last posted, and I've been quite content to patrol my substantial territories, chase and catch mice, rats, politicians and other kinds of vermin. Life rolls on here in Dark Ages Streonaeshalh, and the human population are - as ever - captivated by the footballing prowess of Madcaster Untied, not to mention the assorted ramblings and scare stories about Viking fanatics and noxious poxes and plagues from the soothsayers, most especially Beeby See, who's regarded with a touchingly misplaced veneration by the majority of the Northumbrian Saxons. One of Beeby See's favourites at the moment is a shambolic character who answers to the name of Ruswald the Brat. The aforesaid has been promoted by the aforementioned soothsayer to an embarrassing degree, and he's been wheeled on at every available opportunity to pass on the Delphic oracles that drool gracelessly from his loosely flapping chops.

Ruswald the Brat – a professional imbecile aged fifteen – has made a great deal of his fortune by appearing in public and pretending to be a court jester. His notoriety comes from his ability to insult, offend and poke fun at various groups of people, and to write books that buyers pretend to have read for fear of not appearing hip, cool and trendy.

Ruswald the Brat is a man of unfathomable profundity whose vacuousness threatens to swallow him entire; his impressive mastery of the Anglo-Saxon language is only equalled by his inability to understand the individual words he uses - along with the meaning of those phrases randomly strung together like beads from them. Nevertheless, this hasn't failed to impress Beeby See, and such erudition (or whatever passes for it) has also endeared him to scores of window-licking admirers who desire to emulate him.

The Brat's popularity with Beeby See owes to the fact that he isn't averse to airing his abundant ignorance on matters political, and since his blurred thought processes are the result of the consumption of industrial quantities on Magic Mushrooms over the greatest part of his life, his sayings find a certain resonance with some Redistributionists. He's even urged the Northumbrian population not to vote, this being for the alleged reason that all of the political factions are owned by the same cartel of greedy merchants, thus rendering the political process pointless. To add to his impressive list of achievements, he's also criticised the Tree/Liberationist Administration for its imposition of the so-called Pantry Tax – a charge for those tenants of hovels and A-frame houses who use the spare room as a food store rather than a bedroom for a needy mendicant. His fulminations against those who take measures to preserve their fortunes from the clutches of the Northumbrian Exchequer have also carved him a place in the diseased hearts of the Redistributionists as a Champion of the Poor.

When challenged by a soothsayer's lackey about his own sumptuous residence – which he's rented in order to avoid paying taxes on his substantial fortunes – the poor Champion of the Poor has resorted to choicest Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxon turns of phrase against the hapless questioner, followed by the swift projection of horse manure.

The sophistication of his arguments is manifesting itself; your Cat predicts that a life of obscurity awaits him...