Tag Archives: funny

Fever fit

Sleeping fitfully on the youth hostel floor with baby Melissa at my side. She’s burning up – and coughing woefully. Like a pitiful kitten. I rest a paternal hand on her back as Amy and I try nonetheless to get some sleep.

Suddenly, a scream, a jolt. She’s shaking, jerking. I jump up and turn on the light.

“What…?” asks Amy, blurrily.

Melissa’s eyes are rolling back inside her head, and her back arches with involuntary spasms. She’s almost on fire. I grab her from the floor and stumble to the basin in the corner. Splash on water with cupped hand, grasping her writhing form under my other arm.

“That guy’s a doctor! The goose fat guy – the cassoulet guy!” Amy is pulling on her shoes. “I’m going to call 999.” She rushes out.

Where’s the doctor guy? At 3am, anyone’s guess. My only reference point is my mother’s room, so I go, just go. A naked man running down the corridors with a naked, fitting, baby girl.

The youth hostel is pretty much in uproar now – doors banging, the doctor summoned, lights on, on every floor. Amy, having failed with the public phone, is flagging down a lorry in her pyjamas in the snow. The young female warden appears from her room, sees me, and screams.

As doctor friend administers Calpol and confirms cooling with water had been right (although “a bit extreme”) I figure it may be time to go and find some clothes.

Kilted sheep addresses the haggis

Dieter stands up among the now-drunken crowds with his hand up a sheep-puppet’s arse. It’s one of those moments where it seriously could go either way.

In his endearing, yet pronounced, German accent he begins:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!

The kilted sheep ventriloquises, looking almost as perplexed as the wider company, and making a mental note to re-examine its family tree as a matter of some urgency. However, the Bard will not be silenced, and nor will the puppeteer. Exhibiting manual dexterity rarely seen its hooved brethren, the sheep grasps the huge and freshly sharpened dagger, and at the climax, plunges it deep into the bowels of its innocent, albeit now evidently more distant than previously imagined, cousin.

The haggis volcanoes its oaty eruption onto the steaming plate, entrails spilling, and the fabulous aroma rises to the sky. With charged glasses smelling of Highlands and peat, we rush for our plates and queue, disorderlyly, for a piece of the felled prey.

Golden-orange neeps have been bashed. Tatties mashed. The haggis stabbed.

All’s well that ends well.