mousehands : ask philip

In these times of war and fear of attacks from within, every citizen needs something to make them feel safe. Our American friends have guns, big cars and hats; The French have garlic, boules and hats; Swedes have vodka, porn and hats. The noble British, we have cricket, hats, and the humble pudding.

Given the erratic state of the world, each of the Queen’s subject has been given an emergency pudding in case of crisis. These were sent out in sealed, opaque boxes, each signed personally by Princes Charles and Philip, and nobody knows what kind of pudding they have generously received. Could it be Yorkshire? Plum? Rice? Bread and butter?

This sense of awe and intrigue is what keeps the national spirit afloat in these dark, mournful times.

Time is tight, and I wish to return to shaking and sniffing the queen’s box, so I will politely ignore the middle part of your query. Ask again some time, and your dreams may well come true. For the last question is fundamentally linked to the first.

London, 1941. The Blitz. Our plucky cockneys, knee deep in rubble and missing the smiles and laughter of the children, needed something to feel positive about. One way of achieving this was to collect metal from railings and say it was going towards the war effort. This particular tactic backfired when the populace were still covered in their own houses and grannies, but now lacked fences. Londoners love fences, especially metal ones, even to this day. President Roosevelt, far from donating troops or puddings, decreed that all Us from words like colour, flavour and savour would be stripped from American lexicons and shipped, en masse, to Bristol.

But it went further. Not only were Us dispatched to our green isle, but we also received shipments of Hughs, loos, stews, Jews and shoes. Well, this is the official story. In reality, a single Jewish gentleman named Hugh, sat on a loo in only his shoes eating a lovely stew, turned up in Portishead demanding some glue on a ewe and a pew.