Doc Barbara loses her new whatsit

Happy Christmas to the followers of The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece
   Some time ago - our dedicated readers will recall - Doc Barbara invented a nositwhatsit, a ribbon that fixed a pin to the wearer's posterior and induced she or he to keep walking rather than lounging and therefore perform the daily number of steps required to maintain a healthy heart.
   Since Doc Barbara has a weakness for Christmas cake and pudding with immense helpings of brandy butter (the size of the photo indicates her appetite for these delicacies and the figurine is agog in admiration) ..

He does need a trip to the optician however

she invested in a more sophisticated device which clips inside the bra or on a waistband and counts the number of steps taken - she is not prepared to show it because of her dislike of advertising. She attached this gadget inside her substantial underwear and went for a ten-mile walk. On her return the new whatsit was missing. With a heavy heart (though a healthy one) she retraced her steps gazing at the ground as she did so and apologising distractedly to the many pedestrians she knocked down and dog owners over whose leads she tripped. She was so engrossed that she said "Sorry" to 5 lampposts, one with a dog ... [Censored: Ed}.

   To no avail.  She asked Belinda Twaddle to go in search as she was expiring with exhaustion and perspiring with [We don't wish to know that: Ed.] ...  and this obliging girl did find a small and unusual object. The two of them decided it was not the original whatsit although they confused the issue by discussing what that whatsit was if not THE whatsit. To their astonishment the app on Doc Barbara's phone showed the extra mileage and the 2 of them deduced with Holmes-like rapidity that the true whatsit was still on Doc Barbara's ample person.

  

Thumbs up for Belinda's finding something. On this newspaper we reward endeavour not achievement. [It shows: Ed.]

  Together they decided that Doc Barbara first take off her jacket, do 100 steps and check. Hurrah - they were recorded.  She then removed her skirt: ditto. Her cardigan: the same; Her jumper: similar. Now the underskirt: phenomenon repeated.  Tights; result once again. Identical with thermal body layer. As Doc Barbara stood in her scarlet vest and interlock knickers Belinda fainted from the endeavour and - in putting her into the recovery position - [Can one ever recover from that? Ed.] - Doc Barbara's whatsit fell out of her capacious camisole.
   The pair decided to desist from further walking and refresh themselves but the ferocious and disapproving squint on the face of Father Christmas was more than they could face after their ordeal and so ...

... toodle-pip to another whatsit.

     

  

Belinda Twaddle goes further North

 
  Here we see Belinda in a rare but temporary mood of dejection after her first attempts to dissuade hermaphroditic Northern slugs from mating with themselves. She ventured North of Wigan to use her method of playing Mozart arias from Cosi Fan Tutte, which of course means "Thus do all women", but the male section of each slug failed to be discouraged by mockery. Once such a slug has caught sight of its own tail it is overcome with passion for what it calls its "better half" and loses all self-restraint. Professor Ramsbottom-Thrutch was so moved by the picture of her looking touchingly small and downcast up her sloth tree that, after a brief burst of loud but manly weeping, he put back his linen handkerchief, took out his map and plotted an itinerary and master plan for her.

   His idea was that she should continue with the musical anti-sex therapy but, instead, use Don Giovanni to make the masculine parts of slugs feel they are mere Lotharios who will come to a sticky end. [I thought that was where the problem began: Ed.] In addition he enlisted - as well as slug wardens - teams of runners to take the latest news to the headquarters of the A.S.S. (anti-slug-sex) project. This system is working magnificently beyond all expectation. Northern slugs are now as celibate as the rest of the country. [The tensions in this office get through to us all: Ed]

   Naturally Doc Barbara is delighted: "Half a slug is better than a bun in the oven", she opined.

The co-ordinator of the A.S.S. project is pleased to receive the bulletins of progress.

Belinda Twaddle to help Doc Barbara's slug mission

   Doc Barbara has reconsidered her mission to curb the slug proliferation which has occurred after our unusually mild winter. She realised that there is little hope North of Wigan: it is virtually impossible to prevent a hermaphroditic slug from mating with itself once it has fallen in love. Her poem on geographical variations in slug libido is scientifically accurate as well as deeply emotive.

  She decided to concentrate her efforts South of that latitude and try to persuade these gastropods to contain themselves, or not as the case may be - if you see what we mean. Professor Ramsbottom-Thrutch is delighted as this is his native area and he feels at one with natural creatures in Lancashire. [All this unity is getting complex and a little unseemly: Ed]

  The difficult starting point was to find slugs with which/whom to start the anti-sex propaganda but Bob Twaddle said his sister, Belinda, would be thrilled to assist. Here she is helping out.

  We did wonder why she is in this posture and eventually found the explanation. She is energetic and devoted to whatever enterprise she undertakes but, as we saw previously, tends to lose focus. One of her prime intellectual interests is philology and Bob had told her that the words "slug" and "sloth" were connected in Proto-Indo-European because of their shared sense of torpitude. [I myself am beginning to lose the will to move: Ed]

   It is amazing that Bob uttered these words since he has a phobia about polysyllables, made all the worse when he recently discovered that his parents nearly named his sister Roberta, whereas he has to make do with one phoneme. [Such psychological neuroses bedevil the office of The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece and now we have an acrobat as well: Ed]  Belinda therefore took it upon herself to imitate a sloth in her inimitable enthusiastic manner in order to form bonds with the creatures [Here we go again! Can no-one round here stay single? Ed] It may take a while for her to work her way down from Lancashire.

    When told of these developments, Doc Barbara was pleased with our speedy response: "Procrastination is the thief of jam tomorrow," she opined. Although we may seem to have diverged from our original target (and some of you may be irately contemplating slug damage in your garden at this moment) we can assure you that the matter is in hand and Belinda will soon be coming to a tree near you.