The Curse of the Bat Manager

The normally sleepy Northumbrian kingdom has been rudely woken from its slumber by a smelly Great Scandal (size 13 in your Cat's estimation) that has rocked it to the core and back to sleep again.
It all started with a colourful character - an immense woman of Levantine extraction called Candida the Bat Manager, who'd been released into the Northumbrian community on indefinite leave. Wearing sumptuous flowing robes of many layers and more hues than those which had graced Joseph's coat - and a colour-coordinated turban to match - Candida turned many noses, but few eyes or hearts. To compensate for this however, she devised a Great Plan to Do Good and make some money. So in the interests of the poor children of the realm, she set up a mendicant society to Make Their Lives Better, and begged money from the public.

Because of her unconventional appearance, she soon came to the attention of the hip, cool and trendy elements of the Northumbrian elite, and with the Beeby See stooge Alum of Botney as her advocate, they formed an alliance for the sake of the poor little children, and persistently pestered the Government for taxpayers' pennies. Not wishing to appear mean and curmudgeonly, the Government agreed to throw a significant number of Holy Groats in its direction. Frequently.

This of course was a good thing, and Candida wasted no time in adding to the ranks of helpers other aspiring hip, cool and trendy adherents who could also swell the payroll and further the Great Work. After all, it was now funded by a bottomless well of governmental benevolence, and was perpetually bound to generate free money.
Sadly, things started to unravel, and stories began to emerge of poor children being invited by the mendicant society's leaders to magic mushroom-fuelled parties and ting. The poor children were still, er, poor.

What first caught the eye of some sharp-eyed government lackey was that the sum of a hundred million Holy Groats, which had passed from the Northumbrian Government to Candida the Bat Manager, Alum Botney and the staff of the aforesaid society and had mysteriously disappeared. Without a trace. Consequently, the Powers Above were alerted and so Bat Manager and Botney were summoned to the Star Chamber Court to answer to a team of enthusiastic politicos, who were keen to appear to be doing something, and taking an interest in the missing cash. The Bat Manager was unrepentantly bullish, boorish and barmy. Her outfit was even more outrageous, with golden threads and diamonds. No one yet knows what happened to the missing cash.

This story is by no means over yet, and is likely to be an ongoing embarrassment to the hopeless Government, and to the hapless Beeby See, who is distancing herself from the feckless and reckless Botney. Stay tuned, people! Your Cat is on the case!