One evening when I arrived home from work, I was astonished to find that a small group of pantomime horses (what is the collective noun for horses, by the way? - a prize if you can tell me) had broken into my flat and were nonchalantly helping themselves to the contents of my fridge, drinking dangerously strong lager and smoking big cigars, the ash of which they just flicked onto the carpet.

"What is the meaning of this?" I asked with considerable affront.

"It's a pronoun used for a person, object, idea, etc. to show which one is referred to," answered a cheeky brown horse from the corner.

"Or an adverb indicating to a particular degree, you know, as in 'you appear to be this angry' " added his grey colleague, holding out his hooves like a bragging angler.

"Don't be so bloody facetious," I said. "What are you lot doing in my flat?"

"We're smoking and drinking and eating all your grub. Then now and again we'll get up and do one of those funny little sideways dances, crossing both our front and back legs simultaneously in an hilarious manner. Ha ha! Never fails to amuse. Not much room in here though. You should get a bigger flat."

"How did you get in? I'm sure I locked the door. In fact, it was locked just now when I arrived."

"Yes that's true. But we're big mates with the sofa elf. Aren't we, Walter?"

"Yes," came a very sqeaky voice from underneath one of the horses' buttocks.

"Have you not met Walter? Oh, we go back a long way. Known him since he was a mere bean-bag elf back in '86 at Dave Rogerson's house in Northampton. Brilliant place that was. He had three fridges! Three! And we didn't even have to bring our own beer. He always had loads and was always far too pissed-up to remember how much he should have left, so he just kept going and buying some more!"

"Yeah," said another brown nag who had previously been silent. "You should get another fridge at least, mate. This lager's bloody warm. Wasn't room for it all."

"Now look here, " I said. "I don't know what makes you think you can just waltz into someone's flat, help yourself to their food and then start dictating how many household appliances they should have."

"I don't think we waltzed, did we, Trigger?"

"No, Silver. It was more like a fox-trot if anything."

"Right. That's it. I've had enough! Get out now, the lot of you!"

"We can't leave now," said Trigger.

"Why not?"

"The bloke with the coconut shells has gone down the off-licence for some more cigars."

"So what?"

"So there's no-one to make the clippety-clop noises as we walk out. It just wouldn't be right and proper."

"Right on, Trigger!" said all his equine pals in unison.

I had to concede that he had a point, so in the end I just made one of them budge up and helped myself to a tinny.

"Jesus, boys, this is strong stuff. Could fell a horse!"

Next story ("Political Rally") >>

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