Meat And Right

I've been recovering from some earth-shattering news which has utterly shaken this Cat. The day started innocently enough with a routine patrol through my empire - catching the usual small rodents, fending off feline usurpers, scrounging scraps of fresh fish from the traders at the quayside and all that kind of stuff.

Suddenly I happened across my old friend Feaxede the fox, who - as far as foxes can appear thus - was looking ashen-faced, and in a state of acute distress. Ever anxious to help a friend and fellow creature in need, I asked him what the matter was. I wish I hadn't; when he told me the news, I simultaneously felt sad, sick and faint. I had to lie down.

It appears that reports have been filtering through the soothsayers of a truly shocking nature concerning the suppliers of rat and donkey pies throughout the Kingdom of Northumbria - including the renowned Caledonian enterprise McSpreaders, whose clownish chief executive - Ronald McSpreader - is a well-known icon, regularly venerated at their ubiquitous sacred shrines. Rat and donkey pies - as the reader will doubtless already be aware - are classed as basic subsistence fare to the majority of poor Northumbrians, and are bought daily at the various shambles and consumed noisily on the streets. The resulting crumbs keep the pigeons and seagulls in a regular supply of greasy sustenance.

Prepare yourself for this, reader. The horrible truth unearthed by Beeby See, Dellimell, Guardy-Ann and the Windy Pedant is that traces of cow and pig meat have been discovered by Butchery Administrators and Offal Coordinators among carefully selected samples of rat and donkey pies. Dagwald Caedmeron - the Senior Rat's Whisker and Dogbreath of the Tree/Liberationist Alliance Administration - has made a statement to the Witangemot. To a hushed and sombre house he announced that lessons were being learned (by which I think he was informing the assembly that the children were at school). Edweird the Milliner - the nasal Archbishop if the magic mushroom-chewing Redistributionists - has called for a public enquiry. Very imaginative, Ed. Go back to sleep.

Meanwhile, here on earth, the inhabitants of Streonaeshalh are looking decidedly anxious - and not a little queasy. The flags are hanging at half-mast, and there's no sign of the seagulls and pigeons. I think they've been so appalled by this development that they've returned to their natural diets and habits.

It comes to a pretty pass when suppliers of offal and meat to the Realm's most trusted piemakers have to resort to such unprincipled skullduggery to make a fast Holy Groat. I think it's an indictment of Caddy Boy. After all, it all happened under his watch, and for generations to come he'll be referred to as the One Who Fed The Northumbrians Junk. Shame on him.