Lord Bonkers' Diary: Ryan Coetzee's barbecue at the Hall 2
You have no doubt read what happened next in the newspapers. So let me just pay tribute to the doctors and nurses of the Royal Rutland Infirmary for coping with so many cases of food poisoning, and I can honestly say that the Rutland Fire Brigade excelled itself.
Let me also praise the Well-Behaved Orphans: armed with buckets, they formed a human chain to bring water from my ornamental lake before the professionals arrived. Most of the water they brought was poured over Coetzee and Freddie and Fiona rather than the blaze, it has to be admitted, but I did not like to Say Anything. (Incidentally, the outside cuts of the wildebeest were rather good.)
Do not mourn the damage to the Hall too deeply, gentle reader. To be honest with you, I have never much liked that wing. As I sit here gazing out at the blue waters of the Mediterranean, I have my plans for its rebuilding laid out before me among the breakfast things.
I decided against employing the services of an architect – those fellows are full of the silliest ideas and do sting one terribly. Instead I have drawn up the design myself, with the help of a builder from the village. The busts of great Liberals (Mill, Masterman, Elizabeth Shields…) set amongst the castellations of the roof are, I flatter myself, a happy touch.
As to the barbecue: after deep refection I have convinced myself that poor Coetzee would have made no better a job of organising a piss up in a brewery.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary
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