In a development so predictably British it might as well involve a soggy sausage roll and a queue for the gallows, septuagenarian sexagenarian septuagenarian horror story Reginald ‘Reggie’ Pumblechook, 79, has been charged with the alleged disassembly of his son-in-law. The victim, a man whose name we shall not dignify with repetition, was found in Pumblechook’s potting shed with more holes than a colander in a shooting range. Police, baffled as to why a man whose zimmer frame doubles as a murder weapon would commit such a heinous act, are currently investigating the possibility of a Motive.
Some say it was over a misdealt hand of bridge. Others whisper it was the result of a particularly vicious Game of Scrabble. The truth, as always, is far more exotic and involves a disputed will, a dachshund, and a large amount of Mrs.
Pumblechook’s homemade elderflower wine. This is not justice, this is a farce. A farce that will no doubt be televised, dissected, and turned into a four-part ITV drama starring Joanna Lumley as the long-suffering matriarch and Timothy Spall as the presumably mirthless judge.
I, for one, shall be watching from the press gallery with a flask of gin and a sense of profound despair.
