A grand day out

After one of his low rent poker games in Thames Ditton my agent, Bernie Shimshelwitz, came away with some poor chap’s iPod and his vouchers for Chessington World of Adventure. Mrs S refused to go with Bernie since she’s morally opposed to his gambling, so while she went off to Mecca Bingo with her blue rinse brigade, Bernie dragged me along with the promise of “a safari of a lifetime”. He was not wrong. The drive round started with that all too familiar sense of impending disappointment; it was cold and overcast and the only animal prepared to come out of it’s den to breathe the petrol fume filled air was a warthog with alopecia and a chronic limp. Bernie and me were already giving each other the silent treatment since he’d opted for a Wimpy at Thurrock services over my idea of a La Dolce Ryvita at IKEA Lakeside. But things were about to get a lot more exciting. As I mentioned, as well as the safari tickets, Bernie was the proud new owner of some other man’s iPod; well to break the silence I hit ‘shuffle’ and pumped up the V. Out blasts a featureless damp squib by Coldplay, which evidently was recorded at a frequency that plays havoc with an elephant’s sense of humour. The picture above shows all too clearly what happened next as Nelly the NME Critic storms our people carrier. I was petrified into inertia and Bernie was no help either frantically bashing at the iPod screaming “Where’s Dido? Where’s Dido?”. Total disaster was only avoided when I remembered the packet of Treats I’d seen in the glove box and huzzed them at the freaked out pachyderm. Our van limped off towards a lonely looking Wildebeest and then the exit. Bernie then left me to find my own way home from, you guessed it, Thurrock services.