Time Out

Things are getting very interesting here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria - if I've heard my friend Feaxede the Fox correctly. And to be sure, we've desperately needed some degree of excitement to dispel the turgid vapours that have enveloped us; the same tired old stories have been swilling around the same soothsayers' slop bucket for ages now, and a miasma of ennui has consequently hung over the Kingdom, augmenting the public gloom and pessimism which has been inspired by the Great Public Expenditure Cuts. And the Ð Factor doesn't start for ages, either...

But now we can rejoice! Fresh fragrant breezes have dispersed the noxious fog, bringing a sense of excitement and eager anticipation among the members of the Northumbrian human population. If - as I've already stated before - Feaxede has informed me correctly. Of course it's a given that one should never set too much store by a solitary source of information; it's always wise to wait until the account has been corroborated from another before daring to circulate the account. But the truth is that we've all been so desperate for interesting news, and like hungry rats fighting over a biscuit, we're glad to seize any form of consolation. Besides which, the soothsayers are no more reliable informers than my vulpine companion, and I'd even venture to suggest that he's more dependable, for the soothsayers have a specific narrative within which they must communicate, and all the tales they tell are obliged to be shoehorned into it - whether factual or imagined. Feaxede is not thereby constrained.

When the entire Northumbrian government emerges from their spell in the oubliette for their misdemeanours of mendacity and crookedness (as well as contempt for the pure, unvarnished truth), what are they going to find? Who's going to run the show in their absence? Oooh, it's all so exciting! If, that is.. I understand Feaxede correctly..