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FINE CUT FILMS - NONSENSE |
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Chicken Soup - or How Muldoon Saved the Day A Tone Poem for the auditorily challenged
THE PROLOGUE It all began one crisp cold Autumn day in Sheepy Magna. Actually it was nowhere near Sheepy Magna or Sheepy Parva, but they're both jolly nice names and don't appear in many stories. Anyway, the story really began in Slough. On a Monday. OK I know, Slough! But somebody's got to live there; just be glad its not you. One person who did live there was Arnold. Well I mean he'd have to, wouldn't he, with a name like Arnold. Well Arnold was one of those people who cope with living in Slough. If they do it, you and I are excused, so lets hear three cheers for Arnold and his friends. Well friend, actually. Not many people in Slough have friends and nobody, absolutely nobody outside the place wants to admit to knowing a Slough-ite. The slough of despond, its often called.
DENIZENS OF BASINGSTOKE TAKE HEART Arnold's friend was called Muldoon. A Muldoon, and living in Slough! But why, I hear you cry. Just one of those things, I suppose - and anyway Muldoon had to live where he was put. He had no choice in the matter of towns to live in. He was a cat. Well I suppose a cat can up sticks and move to Windsor, after all they say a cat can look at a queen. But your average felinus domesticus or moggy is a lazy beast and doesn't like to move far from the food bowl. (Queens are not famous for their nutritional value). But moggies being what they are (what they are is mostly a pain in the neck), Muldoon made it quite clear to Arnold that he was far from satisfied with living in Slough. It was a complex thought to convey - Arnold wasn't brilliant at taking hints, like finding the road map open at the page showing Sheepy Magna or somewhere like that with Muldoon's bowl laid on top. So there was nothing for it - Muldoon had to learn to speak so he could request a transfer to the shires. He used to practice in front of the looking glass; "The hewm kynetiz" he would say, "Wheyah a cet ken lift his head high doncha neow. A decent tine, like Bath owah Tunbridge Wells." Actually that's what he thought he was saying; it came out more like "Mrrow, mrr miaow miaow" etc.
But over the weeks and months his technique improved, and on the Monday I mentioned at the start of the page Muldoon went to Arnold and made his suggestion. Now most of us would have been a little taken aback if we'd been addressed by a cat. It was heavily accented speech, admittedly, but it was understandable just. And Arnold understood it, and nodded his head wisely. Too much cheese before bed does things like that, he thought to himself. So Muldoon repeated himself. "I saiy, owwld beeyan", he frowled. "Heyows abeyowt a nioow tyne. Deyowwn with Sleyowww". Arnold jumped so high he knocked a book from the bookshelf. It was John Betjeman, and it fell open at Muldoon's favourite poem; "Come friendly bomb and fall on Slough".
Muldoon and Arnold (when he had got over his shock) talked late into the night about Slough, Tunbridge Wells, and the effects of cheese on the digestion (and the vocal chords). And Muldoon managed to convince Arnold that what he needed was a whole new lifestyle. Very convincing, these moggies can be, especially when they've mugged up on the Mormon's handbook for doorstop conversions. So the very next day Arnold went in to see his boss, and told him he was resigning. Just like that. "But what about your pension?" queried the chief librarian, "what about the staff benefit and the annual outing?" But Arnold was not to be seduced by thoughts of superannuating just then. He and Muldoon had talked late into the night of the good life, real food without E numbers, clean country air, homespun spaghetti, self-sufficiency, and all that sort of stuff. It was back to the soil for the heroic pair.
Arnold had some leave owing to him, so the good life could begin pretty soon. It wasn't too hard to say farewell to Slough. But finding a bit of land big enough for a vegetable plot and a few chickens at anything like an affordable price was a different thing altogether. And so the great trek began. They tried the home counties, the away counties, the really distant counties, and even foreign lands like Wales and Basingstoke. Nothing. They were almost in the Slough of despond, but thought better of it at the last moment. Then one day, as they were schlepping along in North London - Highgate to be precise, Muldoon suddenly stopped. He'd had another inspiration. "Look" he said. Actually it sounded more like "Rowk", but Arnold was getting quite good at understanding him. "Look" he said again and pointed to a lump of metal. Well cats don't point, except with their tails, but Arnold got the idea. He looked at the lump of metal. It was a statue of Dick Whittington's cat.
"Very nice, Muldoon, very nice, but so what?" he asked. "Grow parr rung" Muldoon replied, along with a lot of other assorted noises. Arnold was able to comprehend this performance as a comparison between Dick Whittington who was down on his luck when he came to Highgate, and Arnold who was in the same state. Muldoon counselled Arnold to follow in Whittington's footsteps - to march straight on to the City of London. It wasn't easy convincing the general manager of the Barbican Centre to let Arnold set up a farm on the roof. At least it was easy getting him to go along with the basic idea, but the poor chap seemed obsessed with the idea of making it a 'designer' farm, minimalist in concept, and with a grant from the arts council to staff it with yokels in smocks. In the end, though, Muldoon's brainwave and Arnold's boring voice won the day. The general manager let them have the rooftop as long as they left him in peace and on condition he got the fresh egg concession.
It wasn't a great farm, but it was a farm with a difference. Arnold even learned a route down to street level that only took an hour and a half via six stairways. And so our feckless pair were happy. At least for a while. They grew beetroot and mustard and cress and carrots and lettuce and tomatoes. And they had a cow (actually it was a plaster one from an old pantomime, but it looked very well indeed. And, of course, they had chickens. And the general manager was very happy with the egg sales. Then Arnold began to notice a very strange thing; egg production was falling day by day. He paid a visit to the hen house. Funny, he thought, there don't seem to be quite as many hens as I remember. He counted them - forty six. Forty six and he'd bought six dozen. Twenty six hens had gone awol!
And the trend continued. The next day there were forty three, and the day after that just forty two. Muldoon's a pretty bright chap, Arnold thought to himself, he'll know what to do. He went to see the 'Official Farm Feline' who seemed well but slightly indolent. "Caught any mice lately" asked Arnold jovially. "Mice" answered the OFF (more or less) "I've got deputies and assistants for that sort of thing". Arnold was a little taken aback, but explained the problem of the vanishing chickens to his feline companion.
A strange look came over Muldoon's face and he began to play with his whiskers in a nervous sort of way. "Hmm" he said "hmm. I suppose its being up here in the sky that they feel like a bit of a fly and just sort of flap away. Don't suppose there's much you can do about it, old chap". And as he turned away in a nervous sort of manner Arnold couldn't help noticing how much weight his furry friend had put on over the last couple of weeks. But Arnold decided he would do something about it. He went to see the general manager. The egg contractor was more concrete in his approach; "what you want" he opined, "is a means of checking them out of the hen house in the morning and back in again in the evening. A sort of school register for chickens". He picked up the telephone and asked for the props department. "I'm sending my agricultural attaché down to see you" he drawled "you're just the man to sort out a little problem he's got".
So Arthur set forth to find the props department. It was somewhere in the building, he knew; he even had a room number for it and knew which floor it was on. The trouble was the floor kept on changing number without any stairs, and when there was a flight of stairs it went straight from four to six without any five in between. What with one thing and another, and a stop for a slice of parkin, it was nearly six o'clock when he arrived at the props department. "Yuss mite" was the greeting offered by a low level dumpy sort of being with much facial hair "wossit yer lawsst?" Arnold explained his mission - a device that would log his chickens in and out of the hen house (by curious chance it overlooked the extension of Cheapside called Poultry), would lock the door after the last one was in, not open it again until the morning even if one of the roosters was desperate for a pee, and most of all, be quite unobtrusive. Hens, after all, are very nervous creatures.
"Sawl rite mite" quoth the wise one "I knows juss wot yer wants. I gotter fing 'ere wots juss der tikkit". He pointed at a curious device covered in artificial fur. It looked like a cross between a kennel for a gay poodle and a lump of cheese. "What on earth is that?" cried Arthur, who'd expected something a little more space age. "Ve answer to yer prayers mite." Arthur eyed the contraption suspiciously. "Vottit his" crowed the artist, stroking the hideous nylon tufts, "Vottit his," his voice grew almost shrill as he neared the punchline. "Hits
vun
of
Dose
Hen
Counters
of
the
Furred
Kind".
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