Taking The Rei(g)n

Your Cat has been transfixed for weeks by the unceremonious and often brutal competition for the leadership of the Redistributionist Faction, which followed the demise of Edweird the Milliner after the Great Count Disaster earlier this year.

The Redistributionist Faction - renowned for mutual love, respect and adoration among its members - has been busy following its ignominious defeat with the spectacle which can best be described as a bear pit, with the potential starry-eyed candidates for the coveted Leader's Throne cast into the ring in order to parade their respective charms and to decry, denounce and denigrate their opponents as base and unworthy trash. This has inevitably brought about a great deal of fevered excitement for some members of the bemused public, as well as the soothsayers - especially Beeby See and her sweaty, spotty and uliginous ally Guardy-Ann.

Since the passing of Eddy, most Northumbrians who bother to take any interest in such things would have expected the Faction to take a radically different direction from the reign of its previous incumbent, and one would reasonably expect the scent of moderation to fill the nostrils of the faithful and refresh their weary psyches. But fear not.

The most likely possessor of the crown is an aged and bearded druid priest called Crowbane, whose toxic presence has graced the Redistributionist ranks in the Witangemot for millennia, and who hitherto has been regarded as an offbeat heretic with a penchant for wormwood and gall as well as the inevitable magic mushrooms. Crowbane has presented himself - and been adopted, much to his surprise - by the eager hordes of Redistributionists as their new deliverer, and his popularity increases day by day. His following - previously restricted to certain boss-eyed members of the Redistributionist Workers' Faction - has burgeoned as a consequence, and an entire cult has developed around him. Beeby See are salivating at his every utterance.

The Tree Faction have also been very excited about this, since his kingship has the potential to consign the Redistributionist Faction to obscurity for years to come, while hailing him as a man of principle - despite his unbridled enthusiasm for various violent and vicious Viking viceregents who in the cold light of day are nothing more than common thugs and criminals.

Your Cat can't summon any more enthusiasm; it's exhausted itself after fifteen picoseconds...