Pumpkin Chickens, a Stag and an Octopus

I felt I caused Andy undue stress last night when I demanded that this year's Hallowe'en pumpkin be carved in the form of a chicken. Or a bee. He plumped for the chicken and set about the largest of our allotment pumpkins with his Dremmel tool after making a couple of preliminary design sketches for my approval. I rejected the first sketch entitled 'Evil Chicken' in favour of one that looked like a more cheerful version of the Kellogg's chicken, which in hindsight was probably more complex a beast to carve.

Anyway, Andy sat at the kitchen table carving and I was at the stove making mincemeat. Which involved a tad of ground cloves. And what with Andy's Dremmel sounding like a dentist drill, we soon created the ambience of the local dentist surgery.

The final effect was, indeed, a chicken. Andy said, 'But I'm still going to carve a traditional face on the other side,' and I felt that he would have preferred to go with the traditional face in the first place and not faff about with chickens. I have, therefore, made a note in my diary to keep out of the pumpkin carving for 2011 and I apologise unreservedly to my very accommodating hubbie for causing him undue angst.

Now, there has been a story in the newspaper this week about the demise of the Emperor of Exmoor, the biggest stag in Britain who apparently was shot for his head and antlers by some git of a human. I say 'apparently' because no evidence of the stag's death has been forthcoming. As the week has progressed it seems that reports of the Emperor's death could have been exaggerated as someone has reported they've seen him in someone's garden. And now it seems there are rumours that the Beast of Exmoor (a large, black wild cat of the puma/ cougar/ leopard type persuasion) has got the stag.

Well! This all seems very suspicious, especially when you are me and you start factoring in the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Paul the Psychic Octopus. You remember Paul? He successfully foretold the stages that Germany would take through the World Cup this Summer by using the art of Mussel-mancy. And then, this week, his death was announced. But was it he who was dead? Because a writer from China, who has written a book about a psychic octopus (I ask you - what was she thinking?? That kind of drivel will NEVER get published), has claimed that the original Paul died BEFORE the World Cup Final, and because the Germans didn't want to lose face in the dawn before victory, they substituted him (see how I got a bit of football- related vocab in there?) with another octopus because ALL OCTOPUSES LOOK THE SAME!! So this writer is saying that the octopus that has just died was not Paul at all, but some psychic imposter.

Now, I think these two stories are related. I think that Paul may indeed have been substituted for another look-alikey Paul, but not until AFTER Germany won the World Cup. Fearful of a life of celebrity, especially as some suspicious looking writer had been hanging around plying him with sushi and crispy seaweed, the original Paul decided to go into a life of hiding in Spain, where he could mingle freely and unnoticed with other octopuses (although he would have to be careful of not ending up in a paella). And on his way to the ferry port on the South coast (I don't know which one, Portsmouth, Southampton, whichever one goes to Spain or thereabouts, you'll have to do the research yourself if you really want to know), he met up with Emperor the Stag.

And Paul had a premonition that Emperor would be hunted to death during October.
'Get away from Exmoor!' he said to Emperor. 'Get away now, for I see you are doomed to end up on the wall of some over-stuffed wazzock who will pay many thousands of pounds for your antlers.'
''E don't 'ave' to pay for 'em,' said Emperor. 'I shed's 'em every year. I can put 'is name down for this year's pair now if 'e likes.'
'He wants them attached to your head!' sooth Paul. 'Oh, flee and be gone, Great Stag of the Moor. You are doomed. Dooooooooooooomed!!!!!'

And so it was that Paul the Psychic Octopus persuaded Emperor the Stag of Exmoor to flee with him to Spain. And there they went into the mountains, to a secret location known only to the likes of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and JFK. And possibly a few others like a local taxi driver and Sainsburittos Home Delivery Service.

That's what I think anyway.