ORIGINS

I was born long ago on the wild moors of west Yorkshire, where my family eked out a living hunting moor mussels, a local delicacy reputed to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Hunting always took place around the time of the full moon. This was when the giant mussels would drag themselves out of the peat bogs and hide in the heather to mate. We flushed them out using a team of trained hedgehogs, on leashes of course — they can be hard to control otherwise, especially when they sniff out a moor mussel.

The hardest task was getting the collar and leash on the hedgehogs, The chief hedgehog handler always did this. It wasn't a job anyone aspired to; it was usually reserved for the person most likely to reach an evolutionary dead end within the least number of generations.

Unfortunately, due to over hunting, the herds shrank drastically, to the point where we had to leave the moors and move to the town, where my dad got a job in a toast factory, a new industry financed by the ministry of foolish ventures. He worked in the Research and development dept., trying to figure out why toast always falls butter side down.

Times were hard still, so we supplemented our diet by ambushing the camel trains that passed by on their way from Scotland to the fleshpots of Wales. I'm just kidding, there were no camel trains from Scotland — they were Aberdeen Angus cattle. What a sight they were too, especially after a wet day. The Angus drovers would remove their kilts and hang them on the horns of the beasts to dry.

I'll never forget the catastrophe that occurred when one went berserk and ran amok in the town — a drover not a beast. It wouldn't have happened if he hadn't sat down in the heather after removing his kilt, inadvertently disturbing a pair of mating hedgehogs. There's nothing quite like the sight of a half-naked Scotsman running around with a pair of hedgehogs clinging to his rear end.

 After terrorizing the townsfolk, he was finally apprehended by the occupants of the Meany Rest-home for Retired Gentle Ladies. They held him until the authorities were notified, which was about four days later. It took so long because they all wanted a turn holding him. 

Life wasn't always so exciting though, at least not until the town was hooked up with electricity. This allowed everyone to experiment with different forms of mechanical stimulation, a welcome relief after having been deprived of moor mussels. Of course, this also meant the end for the toast factory since home toasters were then readily available.

This was unfortunate, as the R and D dept. were close to solving the falling toast syndrome. My father's team had somehow discovered, that by fastening the buttered toast to the back of a cat, it always stayed butter side up — 62.5% of the time (in tests that were considered accurate fourteen times out of twenty). They were on the verge of turning it over to sales when the factory closed. One fortunate side benefit was the discovery that, by using peanut butter instead of regular butter, it ensured the toast always landed butter side down.

My dad took early retirement and spends his time now helping with the Moor Mussel Conservation Movement. He has a stall at the market selling slimy tee-shirts. He also makes a little on the side working part-time for an obscure group called the flat cat fraternity. Me, I'm here!

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March 10th, 1995