Lord Bonkers' Diary: Pimped with underglow lights and belting out Hildegard of Bingen at full volume

With Lord Bonkers taking such an interest in the animal kingdom - whether it's farming it, conversing with it or eating it - it was inevitable that he would be drawn to the new MP for Winchester, who practised as a vet for 16 years before his election. 

And attentive readers of this blog will remember the story about the penguins at the Sea Life London Aquarium.

Tuesday

“No,” I told Danny Chambers on the phone. “It’s out of the question. I’ve only just got rid of a colony of Hegelian beavers. I’m not taking in seventeen penguins.” “But if you could only see their sad little faces,” Chambers returned. “They’re living with no daylight, no fresh air and a pitifully shallow pool.” 

I was about to say it was no good setting them lose in the Frozen North of Rutland – they would get confused, walk round in circles and annoy the polar bears – when I had a brainwave. Which is why your diarist, Chambers and the above-mentioned flightless seabirds are crouched in a ditch just off the Great North Road. 

Sure enough, a familiar minibus – pimped with underglow lights and belting out Hildegard of Bingen at full volume – hoves into view. In no time, the Mother Superior has the penguins on board and is speeding to the convent of Our Lady of the Ballot Boxes. No one, as I observe to Chambers, will notice them among the nuns.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• ‘The Defenestration of Ming Campbell’