TOMMY SITS AMONG THE CABBAGES AND PEAS

I looked out at Tommy my cat, labouring away in the vegetable garden. "Look at him" I said to the stuffed parrot, "Look at our little Tommy, the Alan Titmarch of the feline world."
"Don't talk to me," said the parrot, "I'm stuffed, I should never have had that second helping of stewed steak." "The great thing about stewed stake," I said "is it leaves you with a mouthful of wooden splinters, tooth picks to pick your teeth with." The stuffed parrot burped but made no other comment. Acting on impulse, which is a very good deodorant, it sneaks up on BO and strangles it with a garrote, I instructed my brain to tell my legs to take me out to the garden, which it did, but it took half an hour. I must get someone to look at my brain. It's never been the same since I took it out to clean it.
"Greetings, little tiller of the soil!" I yelled to Tommy. "I hope your onions are small and round and your rhubarb flourishing with luxuriant,vigor, bordering on ostentatiousness." Tommy looked up, smiled, took off his flat cap, wiped his sweating forehead and cried, "Hello Mamma Mia.""Tommy!" I shrieked, "You've done wonders with this piece of land. It used to be a school for the blind, but you threw them out and look at it now--it's full of vegetables." Tommy leant on his spade and said, "Hard work, that's the secret, hard work and plenty of dung." "Well you should know about that." I said "Every time I look out of the window, I see you with a hump on your back and your tail up in the air." Oh how we laughed.
"You don't do so bad yourself" laughed Tommy, "You haven't used the toilet yourself for months, why there is a veritable spider's web over the bowl."
"It's so handy." I said, "No climbing stairs, just scoot out the back door and then--scoot."
After we had laughed for an hour and a half, Tommy became serious, "You don't think" said Tommy, looking at me keenly, "you don't think there's a bit of a-pong do you?"
"Bit of a pong?" I scoffed, "Bit of a pong? Don't make me laugh. This garden is an oasis of freshness in a city of squalor. Bit of a pong? Bit of a pong my ass."
As I took a cigarette from behind my ear,--no--I'm not a magician, I had put it there earlier. As I took a cigarette from behind my ear and went to light a match on my corrugated-iron knickers, a white van pulled up and six men wearing white anti-contamination suits leaped out.
"Don't light that match!" yelled one from behind his gas mask, "Or the whole street will go up."
Tommy and I were rudely informed that our little garden was full of vile, obnoxious gasses and a breeding ground for mosquitoes and cholera, brought about by some stupid, ignorant people using the garden as a-toilet? Tommy and I looked at each other in disbelief, what was the world coming too? The PSNI should crack down hard on the dirty, squatting little hoodies.
The garden is out of bounds and will be for the next 2,000 years, until the soil renews its self.
Ah well, time to get a brush and remove the cobweb from the toilet bowl. Oh, and I must buy some toilet roll, now that the cabbage leaves are no longer available.
I lay in the crook of Steven Nolan's arm, feeding on chocolate crumbs that fell like manna from his large, cavernous mouth. I glanced up in wonder at his large, inscrutable, Sphinx-like face. What gluttonous thoughts were going on behind those little beady eyes?
As his huge jaws went up and down, I thought, "Here is a source of energy if we could but harness it." I was thrown two foot in the air, as his huge belly rumbled. It was like sitting on top of a volcano. If he blew, how many would be killed by what, to some, could look like lava?
He rumbled again and a whiff of smoke appeared from the rear. Was I safe? Should I stay or should I go? "Stephen," I whispered, "Dear wonderful Steven, why are we perched on the top of this disused, 200 foot high factory chimney?"
"To keep sweet nickers, chocolate bandits and crisp robbers away." replied the man with lard in his veins. "Steven," I whispered, "Dear, wonderful Steven. I carried you up here on my back, but I don't think I can carry you down." Tubby burped and growled, "Don't worry about that. I have hired a Chinook helicopter to pick us up here at five in a large net."
"Steven," I whispered, "Dear wonderful Steven". "What is it now?" growled the oval one.
"Steven," I whispered, "may I kiss your pouting, velvety, rose bud lips?"
"And smudge my chocolate?" yelled Tubby, "I don't think so, do you?"
The night got darker, the wind blew cold and I clung on to Steven Nolan on top of the high chimney, like little Fred Dibnah. Oft in the stilly night, I heard the sound of rotor blades.
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