Dulce Domum

It was a quiet day at home for Ethelbert and Ethel. They both had jobs to go to, but had decided not to bother, as it looked like rain outside. Ethelbert was sitting in his armchair in the lounge reading a newspaper published several years previously and Ethel was practising swimming in a paddling pool on the dining room table. In the kitchen, a man was attempting to convert the oven from gas to electric. Ethelbert and Ethel each assumed that the other had arranged for this man to come round, but in fact he should have been at their next door neighbour's house and had been confused by the fact that both houses had the same number.

"Margaret Thatcher says she won't step down," observed Ethelbert.

"Doesn't surprise me," said Ethel, trying to remember how you're supposed to move your legs when doing the butterfly stroke.

"I'll turn on the telly and see if she's still saying it," pronounced Ethelbert.

The television, which was either psychic or just paying attention to the conversation, turned itself on without human intervention and tuned itself to BBC News 24, where a dancing gorilla was eating Portuguese food for the entertainment of an audience of Senegalese septuagenarians.

"Telly's not showing the right thing," observed Ethelbert.

"Ask it whether you're supposed to move your legs up and down both together or one at a time," Ethel requested.

"It doesn't know," Ethelbert replied without asking.

"You're not supposed to move them at all," called the man from the kitchen. "Sort of stretch them out behind you. Streamlining. Hydrodynamics. Like dolphins, only with legs stretched out behind you."

"Do you know anything about tellies?" Ethelbert shouted back.

"Yeah, you see that button on the remote control?" asked the man, "Press it a couple of times."

"It didn't work," said Ethelbert, without trying it.

"What's the problem, exactly?" asked Doris next door, opening the hatch in the connecting wall and looking into the lounge.

"Telly's showing a gorilla instead of the newsreader," said the vicar, passing by the window.

"It'll be the vertical hold," opined the portrait of Gladstone on the wall, which wasn't up to date with the workings of modern television apparati.

"I only wanted to know about Margaret Thatcher," sighed Ethelbert.

"Oh, that's not on the news any more," scoffed the vicar. "It's all about this plane today. Seems the pilot didn't turn up for work this morning because it looks a bit like rain, and now it's going to crash."

"Not my fault," protested Ethel, inaccurately, "I haven't got an umbrella and I've just had my hair done."

"You've got three umbrellas and no hair," said the man.

"Have you converted my oven yet?" asked Doris.

"So is Margaret Thatcher still the Prime Minister?" asked Ethelbert.

"No, I'm wearing a swimming cap, so it looks like I've got no hair," explained Ethel.

"Any chance of a cup of tea, while I'm here?" asked the vicar.

"I've nearly finished," said the man, still under a misapprehension as to his job.

"You might need to go up on the roof and adjust the aerial," said Gladstone.

"One lump or two?" asked Ethelbert.

"I think she's dead," said Doris.

"And those are ornamental parasols, made of paper and cocktail sticks, designed to decorate exotic drinks, not to protect against the elements," elaborated Ethel.

"Two please," said the vicar. "And I'll have the sunday roast with cabbages and radishes."

"It's cable, there isn't an aerial, she can't be dead because I saw her on telly last year before the gorilla came on, this isn't a pub, it's a private house and we don't serve meals, and you don't have radishes with a sunday roast, you have them as part of a salad and they don't taste very nice anyway, if I don't move my legs I don't move forwards at all, I just sort of bob up and down, and who are you anyway?" asked Ethel.

"Me?" asked Ethelbert.

"No, that man in the kitchen," explained Ethel.

"He's working on my oven," said Doris.

"Oh yes, that's right, I was getting confused," said the vicar. "I came round to tell you about that plane that's going to crash on your house, on my way to the pub. Then when you offered me a cup of tea, the drinks theme made me believe I already was in the pub, so I ordered lunch."

"In my day, we didn't have radishes," mused the portrait of Gladstone.

"Here's your tea, anyway," said Ethelbert, without having got out of his chair or made any drinks.

"Oven's done. Runs on gas now," said the man, wiping his hands on the teatowel in satisfaction.

"It ran on gas in the first place," muttered Ethel to herself, being too polite to say it to the man.

Then the plane crashed on the house, and although it killed everyone in it, the tip of the wing banged the television and fixed it.

"Told you that would sort it," lied the portrait of Gladstone, lying on top of the rubble.

"Hope the builder hurries up and fixes their house," said Doris. "It lowers the property values having a crash site next door."

"I wouldn't hold your breath," laughed the vicar. "Ethelbert was the local builder, and he didn't go to work today because it looks like rain!"