Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck Page 4

  Chapter Four

  The Lilo Inflating Championships

  It was the day of the lilo inflating championships and Blinkington-on-the-Treacle’s shoe-horned showground fairly fizzed, basked and proudly fidgeted. The beer tent drooped contentedly and candy floss and general nonsense were doing the relaxing rounds. The compendium of young and elderly incumbents of the village manfully tackled plates of local and unfamiliar delicacies; while various breeds of dog, nasal senses in overdrive, enthusiastically dragged their owners to all four corners and occasionally sniffed or confronted fellow canine chums in hazy, watchful sunshine.

  Lilo-inflating had first reared its rubbery-head in the early 70’s and ‘Blinkies’ natives had no intention of letting the tradition diminish and give way to greater excitement in more modern times. A nicely infused crowd was now in attendance and pockets of anticipation and banter purred in the background…

  Gerald Saveloy, current holder of the title and hot favourite to retain, drew heavily on his lopsided cheroot and leered toward his challengers. Saveloy had made the short hop from nearby hamlet Slanting Mortimer and was well- supported by over a dozen boisterous individuals, resplendent in ill-fitting trousers and swimming nicely against the incoming tide of fervent hops and barley. Local hopes were pinned on the effervescent, if somewhat concave, Bernard Shillito. However, underestimate Bernard at your peril, as he felt himself to be nearing peak condition, having trained extensively on Ribena and cow heel chowder for a solid six months. The swagger and deliberation was over and the whole of Blinkington-on-the-Treacle, with the exception of Granddad Wilberforce, snoring blithely in a groaning deckchair, drew a collective breath…

  All contestants puckered nervously as landlord Arnold Matson mounted the podium, kazoo in hand.

  “Pfffrrrp!” jettisoned Matson, signaling the juddering of a battalion of chest wigs and singlets the colour of Victory V lozenges… The resulting melee was later reported in The Daily Tumbril as, “something between a pizza and a trampoline.”

  Despite springing a keyhole puncture, the irreproachable Saveloy was deemed to be the winner on all three judges’ cards after twenty minutes of furious action. Too heartbroken to stay for the presentations, and strangely ungracious in defeat, Shillito immediately sped, then sputtered his way over the horizon in a rusting Triumph Herald.