Klack's Son and Mouth

There's been a most awful stink here in the lovely country of Northumbria, and I really don't know how best to relate it all to you, dear reader, but attempt I must, as it's something you need to know.

In this blessed Realm of King Alhfrith - a provincial backwater of the filthy and bankrupt Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) - we're frequently delighted by the services of Entertainers, who are a class of Northumbrians, Ultima Thulians and Hibernians who are paid substantial amounts of holy groats by the Kingdom to keep the long-suffering populace distracted from the tedium of living an increasingly impoverished and depressed existence. (This strategy is referred to in the Latin tongue as panem et circenses. It worked well for quite a long time.)

One such popular entertainer is Hieronymus the Klack's Son, who amuses legions of drudges in the Kingdom by testing chariots and various breeds of horses with his disreputable friends, and reporting on their performance in a jocular and sardonic turn of speech. This kind of thing is particularly popular with the male humans of the population, as horses and chariots are an increasingly fashionable obsession among those who are least able to afford them - or indeed the very oats to feed the beasts. Now, the Klack's Son (normally known as 'Klaxo') is a soothsayer's lackey, renowned for being astonishingly generous with his forthright opinions, which are generally expressed in a robust and vulgar subtlety of speech and expression. How coarse.

During the Public Sector Employees' Day Of Extraordinary Inaction the other day, Klaxo opined that the striking kindergarten supervisors, diversity coordinators, homeopathy consultants, dog log spotters, environmental inspectors, climate change propaganda officers et alia should be skewered on pikes and roasted over an open fire with marshmallows. Turn and baste regularly with pork dripping, add seasoning and herbs according to taste, and serve piping hot with a flourish. Serves fifteen people. His companions were seen to visibly gasp when these pearls of wisdom dripped from his sage and frequently open chops.

Since then there have been several billion complaints about Klaxo's comment from those of a sensitive and deeply Redistributionist nature, and the entire Kingdom is in unholy uproar, the flags have been at half mast, Beeby See has solemnly and hysterically declared a Day Of Mourning, and the entire land has resounded to the strident sounds of ploughshares being been beaten into swords. Happy days.

As I step over the millions of corpses littering the streets of those who were Mortally Offended, picking my way carefully through the graves which are being dug for the decomposing victims of this verbal atrocity, I really wonder what the fuss was all about...