Some Frites With Your Branch, M'sieur?

 

   source: The Independent

  

 Let's make the most of this one

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 The chief surgeon at Bruges General Hospital shook his head wearily as he replaced the phone. To his waiting staff he said " Ward Three is full. Two more with twigs stuck in their throats. There's an ambulance arriving with a man who tried to eat two glass ornaments. Doctor Berckmans says he has an entire household who thought branches were fine if coated with chocolate.  We're going to need more stomach pumps".

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The well-dressed couple were shown to their reserved table at Brussels' newest restaurant sensation, Zuza. They took note of the strip of twinkling lights festooned around the ceiling, the huge photographs of out-of-focus gifts wrapped in colourful boxes and paper on the walls and the waiters, each sporting a Christmas hat and robe. The maitre d' handed them a menu 

"Tonight the chef has prepared a nine course tasting menu, M'sieur et Madame, together with a wine selection that perfectly mirrors the refinement of his conceptions. Voila - we have an amuse-bouche of little twigs. Then there is a bough on tinsel, a glitterball souffle, a branch steak served very rare, a fake-snow sorbet, a veloute of crackers, complete with mottos, paper hat and pointless plastic toy, inside a wrapping paper nest, a pithivier made from streamers and sticky-backed plastic and two exquisite desserts made from needles and wreaths. For the wines, we have sweet sherry, Blue Nun, a sickeningly-sweet chocolate cream liqueur and something from Hong Kong that the chef's uncle brought back and which nobody has dared to touch until today."

As he swept away to the kitchen, the man looked at his companion. "This is better than I had thought. I can see us awarding them two stars at least"

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"I just don't get it, Poirot". Hastings threw up his hands in bafflement "I mean, how could you possibly know that, out of fourteen house guests, one was an imposter?"

"I used the little grey cells, my friend" smiled the detective, twirling one of his impeccable moustaches "All of them claimed to be British, n'est ce pas? But yet someone had taken a bite out of the Christmas tree in the drawing room. 'A shame about that branch' you yourself said yesterday, observing the damage. But I looked more closely, saw the tooth marks and this afternoon, when you were all playing charades, I checked each bathroom. When I found the little pieces of wood that someone had cleaned from their teeth, then... then I knew. Only one of my fellow Belgians would do such a thing. Yes, Jean-Claude Artois, alias 'Colonel Thoroughgood', will not be enjoying his Christmas after all"

Key Ally of Sen. Cassius in Foreign Policy Upset

From our correspondent in Rome who has just about got over the Saturnalia celebrations

Newly installed Imperator Senator Cassius' key supporter, the richest man in Rome, M. Croesus Muscus, has beome embroiled in the relationship with the province of Britannia. Muscus has hitherto promoted the claims of the tribal chief of the Reformatio, Faragactacus the Unruly, saying that he was divinely appointed to be a staunch ally of Rome and that he should be made King of the Britons without delay, even if that meant slaughtering the four fifths of the population who were against him. Muscus has let it be known in proclamations, mysteriously headed "10" that have been nailed up in the Forum, that he has the ear of Sen. Cassius in such matters. 

However, in fresh proclamations read out at the Temple of Venus, Muscus now says that Faragactacus is a foul traitor, in league with Parthia and a follower of barbaric practices such as beer-drinking. "I curse his name" it goes on "and call on upon all true-hearted Britons to choose as their leader, er, some other person as shall be acceptable to me the gods and whose identity will be vouchsafed in due course, probably"

It is not clear which of these views is currently held by Muscus or, indeed, by the Imperator who is said by soothsayers to be distracted with a plan to purchase Ultima Thule. Nobody knows why this matters or where Ultima Thule is to be found. 

The ambassador of the Britons was said to have rolled his eyes to the heavens, clutched despairingly at his beard and shaken his head when informed of the proclamations. Reminded by his advisors that he was in public, he turned his face away for a moment and then smiled, inscrutably.

A Quick Taste of Winter

 There was some highly interesting weather over the UK this past weekend. A great chunk of freezing air sat over the north and a warm, wet front rolled in from the south. Where they collided heavy snow and torrential rain followed. 

This might have been purely of academic interest to me, but fate decreed otherwise. For Mrs C and I were having a few days away, staying in the unexpectedly delightful Llandudno and the weather bomb struck the night before we planned to depart homewards. Amidst increasingly dire warnings on the media, I made various contingency plans. If all the roads were blocked, with reports of airlifted supplies being dropped onto those trapped in their cars - we would stay put in our hotel. If it was possible to leave but treacherous conditions might be encountered en route - find a welcoming cafe and indulge in a really long lunch. Otherwise charge up the mobile phones, stock some food and water and drive on in hope.

We woke on Sunday morning to find the town under snow but rain was now in charge and there was a few cm of slush on the ground, neither the deep snow nor the glassy and deadly ice that I had feared. With nothing worse than wet trainers, I was able to drive out of the town and though the worst hazards were fog on the A5, coupled with idiots who insisted on driving in the middle lanes of the motorways despite the empty inner lanes up which I was bearing down on them, we made it home. 

We planned to go shopping on Monday morning. That one failed pretty fast because the rain kept up all night and all the roads into our little village were flooded. Environment agency live monitoring of the River Alne showed it to be close to a record high for the past 20 years. 

We were lucky. Had we planned to begin our trip on Sunday, we would have had to abort. Had the bad weather hit a few hours earlier we might have got to within a half mile of home but been unable to go further. As it was, I think we got away with it.