Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 31st December 2023

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 31^st December 2023 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      New Year’s Eve dawns sickly and pale over D-Town.  The weather, in traditional spirit for this time of year, is predictably crap.  People wander the streets in a daze, trying to work out if this is really a Sunday, or whether it’s a Bank Holiday, or even if it’s both.  Or is it tomorrow?  Or the day after?  Who knows?  Total nightmare.  To support those with the new condition of “Day Agnosia”, a drop-in centre will be open in the Market Place to answer such questions as “when is it bin day?”, “when is the recycling centre open?” and “when am I supposed to go back to work?” 

2.    And sadly, for many people, the Turkey Apocalypse continues.  The rotting, but never-diminishing carcase of the Festive Bird still dominates many a refrigerator.   After the cold turkey sandwiches, the turkey soup, the turkey fritters and the turkey curry, is there anywhere else to go with this nightmare?  Others are plagued by a never-ending supply of cheese, or a previously undiscovered tray of congealed pigs in blankets.  Unmarked containers of leftover roast potatoes, sprouts and peas haunt the back of the unit, and take up valuable space now needed for the new intake of New Year snacks and nibbles.  Never mind – it’ll soon be Pancake Day. 

3.    And a Very Happy New Year to my reader. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2023

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 24th December 2023

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 24^th December 2023 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      Christmas Eve in D-Town features the normal traditional activities: camping outside the supermarket doors from 3am in order to buy enough food for a two-week siege (even though they are only closed for 12 hours), men wandering around petrol station forecourts at 10pm still looking for that last special present for their wives and girlfriends, drunks vandalising the Christmas tree in the Market Place, and later puking up in the pews at Midnight Mass.  Say what you like about Christmas, but you can’t beat these old traditional customs. 

2.    D-Town residents were warned not to let the spirit of Christmas go to their heads, but to be on their guard against potential holiday hazards.  The stollen and mince pie mountain on the edge of town has now become completely unstable, and has several times threatened to collapse and to flood the town with marzipan and dried fruit.  Police patrols have been stepped up and the Army is on stand-by.  Meanwhile, citizens have been warned against swimming in the Crammer, as it is currently over-flowing with surplus Lambrusco and prosecco.  And there will be special patrols to ensure that people conclude their Christmas meals with proper Christmas pudding, and not with the now-illegal panettone substitutes available from some lower-class supermarkets. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2023

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 17th December 2023

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 17^th December 2023 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      A solid family welcome is planned later when one of D-Town’s own returns home after being missing for over six years.  The boy Scott Chegg, was found wandering the streets of Trowvegas, after escaping from a hippy commune where he had been taken by his mother in an attempt to lead an alternative lifestyle.  “She wanted to live off-grid, in a place with no atmosphere, and no trappings of a modern commercial world,” the boy was heard to sob.  “But I missed the simple pleasures of D-Town with its potholes, traffic congestion and lack of a bypass.  So I escaped, and hope to be re-united with my wealthy grand-mother in time for Christmas.” 

2.    With just over a week to go to The Big Day, a charity-funded shelter for the poor has been opened.  The shelter will provide sanctuary for ordinary men with families who need to get away from the build-up to the festive time.  There will be no Christmas trees, decorations, shopping lists or meal-planners in evidence.  Instead an atmosphere of calm will be encouraged, including a bar, a TV showing Sky Sports, and other like-minded males who just want to talk about football. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2023

 

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 12th December 2023

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 10^th December 2023 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      In a moment of desperation this week, the Clowncil’s Foreign Minister, James Dastardly visited the outer-Wiltshire Badlands in order to sign a treaty with a group of Irish tinkers who had holed up near a stream at the bottom of a farmer’s field in Marlborough.  After receiving clear assurances that such accommodation was fit for human habitation, and wouldn’t be moving anywhere till the Spring, Mr Dastardly avowed that it would be safe to send D-Town’s homeless people there on assisted “holiday breaks”. In a statement later Mr Dastardly asked “what can possibly go wrong?” 

2.    And the official Christmas Period of Desperation has now begun. It is now compulsory to have Christmas songs on continuous loop in all retail premises, such as off-licences, hairdressers and supermarkets.  The Christmas Pudding ration has been introduced, and customers will be forced to buy Panettone instead.  Aging, portly men, badly disguised in a red and white tunic as Santa Claus will be pulled through D-Town by unwilling volunteers from The Rotary Club, with yellow plastic buckets rattling in an attempt to raise money for a Greggs’ steak bake for a homeless person.  And tears of sympathy were shed by the women-folk of the town has the Christmas fairy yet again had a 30-foot Christmas y tree forcibly shoved up her jacksy. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2023

 

Drivel From Devizes - Dateline Sunday 3rd December 2023

Drivel From Devizes: Dateline – Sunday 3^rd December 2023 

Here is our weekly round-up of events from D-Town:                                              

1.      A further diplomatic row has broken out between D-Town and Trowvegas, after the leader of the Council abruptly cancelled a meeting with the Trowvegas leader, citing the breaking of an agreement not to mention the milk bottles.  The dispute centres on an incident from nearly a hundred years ago when a D-Town-based milkman, having encroached his round into Hilperton, took a number of empty milk-bottles from a doorstep, claiming that he’d been given permission to remove them.  Trowvegas disputes this interpretation, and has fought for years to have the bottles returned to their proper dairy, where they would be used to fill crates with currently empty cells.  The D-Town Museum, where the bottles are currently on display, refused to comment. 

2.    And another fascinating week has been endured at the D-Town Covid Enquiry, where evidence has been taken from various key players in the Pandemic during 2020 and 2021.  The Director of Public Health at the time, quite a Witty man, blamed the Chief Scientist Sir Liberty Vallance, who in turn blamed the Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Driver, who in turn cast doubt on the competence of the politicians Boris “Bonkers” Johnson and The Bandwagon, “Dishy” Rishi Bagatelle and Matt Hand-on-cock. 

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2023