EPISODE TEN. BEPPO!!! THE SWINE!!!

SWINE FLU IN MILTON KEYNES! CIRCUS BRINGS DREAD DISEASE TO MILTON KEYNES! PANICKING CLOWNS RIOT IN LOCAL LIDLS!

Beppo the clown nearly brought the whole circus to a juddering halt this week by crying "wolf" again - actually, this time it was "pig."

After the last show on Tuesday night he followed his thirst to a Mexican theme bar in what the idiot fondly imagined was the Bohemian Quarter of Milton Keynes.

To cut a long story short, after many Mexican beers and a bucket load of Tequila the barman, who it later transpired had been exposed to loose chili powder in the bar's kitchen, sneezed across the counter and right into Beppo's face. This is something I imagine many people would like to do, whether or not they have been anywhere near chili powder.

He didn't think too much of it at the time but later, as he was slumped against the counter in the local kebab shop waiting for his order, he saw the headline on some one's newspaper which read: "Mexican Swine Flu - Latest!" and the only two working cogs in his brain started to grind together.

When he came round the next morning he felt just terrible (nothing to do with the bucket load of Tequila or the Kebabs of course). Then he" saw" that headline again and panicked. His fellow mirth makers didn't stop at panicking . They went for full blown hysteria.

They locked him up in the old battered Transit that we keep the odds and sods in (he qualifies on both counts) and called it quarantine.

They phoned the local hospital with all sorts of horror stories. They called that civic responsibility. Soon the circus was swamped by men and women in masks and white overalls spraying everything in sight. The place looked like an X Files Convention!

Not that it bothered the Clowns. At that point they were rampaging up and down the aisles of the local Lidls. They were convinced that the plague had come and were stocking up on enough tins of tomato soup an packets of ginger nuts to see them through their own self imposed quarantine. They called that "looking after no. 1.

Have you ever seen a group of grown men wearing red hair and shoes three feet long in a blind panic in a supermarket? It was a lot funnier than their act or so I hear.

The last word, however, goes to my friend the Strong Man. He reckoned that clowns were a separate species to the rest of mankind anyway. Swine flu had already crossed one species barrier. He couldn't see it crossing another. Consequently, he could not see what the fools were worried about!

IMPORTANT
Send Stromboli no more than 500 witty words on anyone, or anything
about life in Britain to-day, that really, really annoys you. He likes to think
that he is not the only one keeping an eye on the "usual suspects" so it will
be good for my friend's morale.

Yours,

Marcel xxx.