• 03/05/05 - A Rather Uninspired Story - Part 1•

Lord Phinius Winterbottom sits alone in a dark corner idley flipping through the financial review, but starring off into space. A pile of weekly magazines and papers sits on the low table beside him, along with his very british porcelien cup of earl grey. "ahhh" and "hhmmmf" he mutters every now and then after reading the same sentence about 'Paris Hilton's new height of skankdom', but he can't concentrate. He craves it. Longs for their rich flavours. He needs Crumpets with jam!
Taking a sip of his tea, he exclaims to himself "ah, this tea is nice. very nice. nice like the very nicest of the nice british tea", as though the break in the silence will speed the crumpets on their way. "very nice indeed".
After dozeing in his chair for a long while, he was awoken by the shrill clanging of his finely carved mahogony clock strikeing three. Phinius rose from his throne-like arm chair and in an voice trembling with rage roared "I say! this is quite out of the ordinary! where the dickens is my breakfast!". Getting quite upset at the silence that followed, he Threw on his dressing gown and slippers, he steadily marched down stairs, through the maids quarters and into the kitchen with every intention of giving his lazy staff what for!
But they were gone! In despair, he turned from the empty kitchen and ran at the pantry, throwing to doors open. Such a horrible sight he had never seen before. Even in his service during the Great War, he had never witnessed a scene so gut wretchingly terrible as the one that he gazed upon. The cupboard had plenty of Jam. The cupboard had plenty of honey. In fact, the cupboard had plenty of almost everything, but there was an empty space, just like the empty space in his heart and soul (and stomach), where the crumpets belonged. His bowels tightened at the sight and he rushed to the window and threw his head out just in time to avoid vomiting all over the daffodils which he, on a usual day, enjoyed to tend after a hearty breakfast. Phinius, now in a state of alarm to which there was no calming down, tried to move towards the door, but his legs felt heavy. His vision was slowly going out of focus, and just like a person falling over would, he fell over. He had blacked out.