Howardsendaway...

And now on Radio Flour, Part 137 of our adaptation of Weasly Marbles's 'The Cochinneille Loaf' by Brainy Berylbidge.

The story so far:

The plight of Palter and Wally, the incestuously intertwined twins takes a further twist when tom-boyish Palter is discovered to be not a muddy kneed little boy, as Great Aunt Ted Nugent had first feared, but a rather promiscuous and well-developed young lady with expensive tastes in nether-garments and an unnaturally advanced nose for a winning hand at gin rummy. Despite the introduction of a lubricant, they are still touchingly inseparable, although now - it's generally acknowledged even by the most conservative elements of Howardsendaway - as filthy lesbians, not a rather dashingly coupled brother and sister.

Back in Calais, Calliperso has broken off her engagement to Hercules, the charming, non-key-collecting prison guard. Turning her attentions to Hercules' dimwitted assistant prison guard, Grimondi, she is able to lure the innocent, demented young understudy into her cell with promises of unlikely acts of contortion and a jar of brylcreem. With her captor lulled into a sense of security and Calliperso sensed into a lulled pair of falsies, our heroine is soon free of her bondage - although it takes her a considerably longer time to get out of the prison cell as her escape has coincided with an unlikely 1970's style power cut. She is reduced to scrabbling around in the dark feeling for her fur-trimmed handcuffs to the accompaniment of Neil Sedaka on a transistor radio. Lighting restored, and finally out of the bounds of her gaolers, Calliperso boards the first ship back to Britain, a tramp steamer headed back to Tyneside. Noticably ravaged and with the grime of the cell still visible about her person, Calliperso brushes up her Geordie accent amid the dank rows of slowly baking vagabonds.

Now read on...

Back at the Yardy Merman, newly redundant and visibly trimmer after his workout on a yacht-simulating treadmill, Hichard reveals that the situation had been on the cards for a month, and that he kept it a secret from the family as he believed he could find another position before his final days at Southern Aviation - although he now acknowledges that the dip in salary occasioned by his drop from highly paid aircraft designer to part-time traffic warden might have made it hard for the family to make ends meet. However, this having not eventuated, or happened, even, Hichard must now rely on his redundancy settlement and the paltry amounts he's able to earn selling close ups of his shaven legs to desperate Polish underwear models for whom, in the current economic climate, it is cheaper to manipulate Hichard's photographs in photoshop than it is to purchase a razor.

Rowenta is angry that Hichard did not confide in her earlier, and she storms from the dining room and proceeds to play her trusty old 8-track cartridge of the Bat out of Hell album at full volume for several hours. Hichard, realising he has handled the announcement badly and, notwithstanding their hirsuteness, wishing he'd handled one of the Polish models instead, endeavours to placate her by donning his trusty old Mata Hari costume and doing a loose-limbed version of The Sand Dance in the doorway of her bedroom to the blaring sounds of Meatloaf emanating from the 8-track cartridge machine by his wife's bed. Rowenta angrily confronts him, demanding to know why he didn’t speak to her before announcing it to the family, although admitting that his new see-through veil does look very fetching. She voices her concern that they once shared their worries, although Hichard is quick to point out that this usually led to both of them being twice as worried as they had been when worrying individually in secret and that he had been wondering if, by the same logic, there was more to be said for sharing their finances instead which could lead to a higher interest yield and, who knows, might even enable them to afford one of those nice flan cases they've been eyeing up for some time and thus never need to worry about carrying flans with them wherever they went ever again.

As the pair exchange apologies, they speculate on their uncertain futures. Rowenta is confident that Hichard will find another job easily, although if he *insists* on going back on the game, she would *much* rather he used his own nylons as he has a tendency to stretch hers and she doesn't want to be waddling about the boatyard like Nora Batty, does she? But Hichard angrily reveals that after a month-long search, he has been unable to find a new position and so will continue to crouch down on all fours with a bucket on his head as he finds this perfectly comfortable and, what's more, he may soon be able to apply for a grand on the rates if he can prove that his position is not liable to abuse by asylum seekers or other such undesirables. Failing that, it's back to the Arts Council.

Hichard reveals he will be unable to find a new aviation role at his time of life, especially now his arthritis is starting to worsen and now prevents him making even the most cursory attempts at the flapping motions so vital in man-powered flying craft in effecting clean take offs and landings. Now that his contacts have melted away upon hearing the news of his Polish leg-modelling expolits, why, he'd be laughed out of the aerodrome without even a thought given to his gliding prowess. He tells Rowenta that he considered an offer in Pretoria, to become President of the Republic of South Africa, and poses the question of leaving Christarrantcestershire altogether. But Rowenta expresses her desire to remain in the area, not to mention her dislike of the South African accent in general, which she's always found too coarse and guttaral, even on the daintiest of men, to enable effective foreplay, to which Hichard counters by revealing he has already turned the offer down on the grounds that his legs will be unlikely to find a suitable tonal match should he ever need to fall back on the day job servicing the region's undergarment modellers. Rowenta is upset that he had already made up his mind regarding a future decision without consulting her, but reluctantly acquiesces because the Antiques Roadshow is just about to start and she has a fiver on the first item being an Edwardian pewter cakestand that will turn out to be worth at least a hundred pounds.

Will Calliperso be able to keep up her geordie accent until the boat docks on Tyneside? Will she be able to keep her boobs up until elevenses? Will Rowenta's dislike of the South African accent prove an impediment too far in her crusade to become the Chairperson of the Commission for Racial Equality? Will Hichard be able to find a gravy powder match for the Cape Colored thigh tone? Find out next week on Howardsendaway...