A busy year: Lord Bonkers in 2018

February

His lordship proposed a characteristically radical solution to the problem of Donald Trump:

As my regular readers will know, I am not a vengeful man, but I am forced to conclude that Trump has Gone Too Far and Something Must Be Done. So I am urging my American friends to arrange a Presidential visit to Dallas, the home of the fearsome Texas Schoolbook Suppository. It did for poor Jack Kennedy and I have no doubt that it would do for Trump too.

April

We were treated to a glimpse of Jeremy Corbyn in action at Westminster:

News reaches me from the Commons that, far from leading a Bolshevik uprising, he is hand in glove with the Conservatives. For Tory MPs have taken to calling him ‘Pop’. 

“What do you think of foreigners, Pop?” they cluster round to ask, whereupon Corbyn grimaces, shakes his fist and goes “Foreigners? Grrr!” How the Tories clap and cheer! 

The hilarity continues until a division is called upon some bill to do with Europe, whereupon Corbyn takes Jacob Rees-Mogg’s hand and allows himself to be led through the government lobby.

June

Freddie and Fiona were doing their bit in the campaign for a people's vote:

“We’re going to Lancashire and Lincolnshire. Or are they the same place? Anyway, the idea is we cruise round and whenever we see someone who looks as they voted Leave we point at them, shout ‘Gammon!’ and roar with laughter.”

Lord Bonkers also gave us his view of Norman Scott:

"a stable lad and an unstable lad."

July

At the risk of being a tourist, I visited both Bonkers Hall and the Bonkers' Arms and photographed them..


August

In the course of his exploration of the Rutland Union Canal, our hero was cast adrift with the cabin boy (a Well-Behaved Orphan):

My only companion is Tom, who proves a quick-witted child as he has smuggled some bottles of Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter aboard under the very noses of the pirates. 

Perhaps he is too quick-witted: “Why are there so many orphans in Rutland, your lordship?” he asks with a steady gaze.

September

The Liberal Democats unveiled their new slogan, but only Lord Bonkers' readers knew where 'Demand Better' came from:

There is a cottage that I make available to the party so that overworked headquarters staff can enjoy some rest and recuperation. After a stay in Rutland they return to the fray refreshed and ready to redouble their efforts – and if they do not then they are packed off to the Home for Distressed Canvassers in Herne Bay, from which they are occasionally allowed out if the lady in the library promises to Keep An Eye On Them. 

For the past view days said cottage has been occupied by a fellow charged with thinking up a new slogan for the party. Despite my urging, he has insisted on continuing to work. When I call on him this morning I find he has covered the walls with words written on those yellow sticky notes. ‘Radical,’ they say. ‘Moderate.’ ‘Firm.’ ‘Fair.’ ‘Green.’ ‘Centrist.’ ‘Fluffy Kittens.’ ‘Free Cake.’ 

I drag him off to the Bonkers’ Arms for a stiffener. When I return from the bar I find him staring intently at a beermat. “That’s left over from an old Smithson & Greaves advertising campaign,” I tell him. “’Demand Bitter.’ That was their slogan.” His face lights up, he pockets the mat, drains his pint and asks for a lift to the station.

And in his introduction to the new Liberator Songbook, the old boy gave us his observations on house music:

Like all successful genres, it developed many varieties. There was acid house, funky house, diva house, country house (particularly popular here in Rutland) and, my own favourite, hob house.

November

We learnt that Halloween is observed at his favourite charitable institution:

The Well-Behaved Orphans, being little horrors themselves, always demand a scary bedtime story from me on this night. I decide to call their bluff this year by reading them the most frightening thing I know: the 2017 general election results in constituencies that the Liberal Democrats won as recently as 2010. 

How they squeal with frightened glee when I give the figures for Truro & Falmouth and Redcar! I am halfway through Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey when Matron hurriedly announces that it is my bedtime and sends me back to the Hall. I hope I don’t have nightmares.

December

The year ended on a sad note with the death of Paddy Ashdown. I found the old boy "inconsolable ,,, and blowing his nose very loudly".