Amidst signs of increasing tension within the Dorset Historical Romance Association, leading left-lamp-post-leaning firebrand Mr Jermyn Street has fire-branded the Association's recent collaboration with the Unique Dorset Magazines Company as "inappropriate and downright unromantic". Speaking at a stormy meeting of the Piddletrenthide ("consenting adults only") Branch of the Association last night Mr Street blamed current Chair and PM Mrs Doris Endersley-Kindersley together with Secretary Mrs Marjorie Billington-Marjorie for a "collaboration forged in cash and paid for in haemorrhaging public esteem".
"I mean what's romantic about a comb, alluring about a crone - which by the way is a sexist term of the worst kind - or a turn on about a clone? Well OK I'll give you the last - it's marginal but in the right circumstances two would be great... I mean did Keats write "Ode to A Dorset Phone" or Wordsworth pen "I wandered lonely as a bone"* or Shelley "And the moonbeams kiss the scone"? I mean its just daft and we shouldn't be doing it - publishing the calendar I mean not kissing scones and stuff. If it's your sort of thing to kiss scones then fair play to you - it's a free society - but no to the Calendar I say. It's high time we progressed back to the old ways: what's wrong with a decent set of Rowena Westlake covers or a Neva Laida-Fingeronna? They were works of high art with large breasts and a bit of excitement thrown in. Bring back buxom wenches, men with big swords and throbbing passions. That what I say and that's what most members want!". Mr Street is the Association's "Change Candidate".
Hitting back, a tired and ashen-faced Mrs Endersley-Kindersley (79) who, according to supporters is battling a mild cold, told a small group of friends: "What Mr Street considers romantic is neither here not there. Just look at his wife for a start. We will stand by our Calendar. Romance can be found in the smallest thing - dappled light on a ripening berry, glinting sunshine on an ear of corn, the twitter of a nesting bird, or glistening frost on a December tree ... so why not dappled light on an ranging drone, glinting sunshine on a ringing phone, the twitter of a nesting gnome, or the frost of December on an ageing crone. It's all in the mind and Mr Street doesn't have one. Someone should send him a P45"**
Close friend and Association Secretary Mrs Marjorie Billington-Marjorie was in complete agreement. "I agree completely: it's all been a big mistake, I am talking with the Threadbone Press with a view to finding an immediate replacement calendar featuring the usual "boobs and swords".
*Mr Street later privately admitted that the idea of being lonely as a single bone was not in and of itself unimaginable or unpoetic
** A reference to the Piddletrenthide Number 45 bus service which connects it to Lyme Regis via Tincleton on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Signs that all is not well at the DHRA: [TOP] Penelope Walker-Stik - friend of Chair and PM Mrs Endersley-Kindersley - prepares to take on all comers in defence of the decision to join forces with Unique Dorset Magazines in publishing this year's Calendar; [MIDDLE LEFT] Zulema and Driscoll McNowty are "very angry and all fired-up for action; [MIDDLE RIGHT] Tom Feisty-Fist is in Mr Street's Corner and the campaign to "bring back boobs"; [BOTTOM] Rita and Davis Moody-Begars were "too tired" to attend the meeting and asked "for a photograph of a (much) earlier argument to be taken into consideration".
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