Boardania - Tales From The Shed

I think it's been a couple of years since I first got put in this shed. I've almost totally lost track of time. The last thing I remember was the gala charity dinner in Liverpool. I'd made the after dinner speech; it went very well actually. Everyone thought I was tremendously funny and I had a standing ovation. Then I remember getting into my car in the underground car park, and then...

Badgers! The very last thing you expect to see when you wake up is badgers. Especially ones that glow with a slightly green tinge. And those bloodshot, crazy yellow eyes. I've never been as close up to a badger as I have since I've been here. They have a smell all of their own. Indescribable! I don't think I'll ever get used to it - or get the smell off my skin or out of my clothes. Even the food that he gives me tastes of badgers. Horrible. Not only does he make my write, but he also makes me clean up all the badger crap and groom the buggers. He's got a favourite by the name of Bessie. It's the most evil, vile, smelly, bad-tempered animal I've ever come across. And he talks to it all the time.

"Where's my Bessie then?"
"Come to daddy, Bessie Boos, 'cos daddy loves his Bessie Boos!"

Honestly, it's dreadful.

I've decided to try and keep a diary. Partly to stop me going crazy, partly so I'll have some evidence then they capture the mad man and partly to try and keep track of the days. He counts all the paper he gives me, so I'm writing this on the inside of a bag of badger feed. I just hope he doesn't find it. The guy is clearly unstable. There's no telling what he might do to me.

The main thing at the moment is that I keep him humoured. I must keep writing and keep a decent standard to my work. He notices if my work is "not up to scratch," as he likes to say.

"Hey you! Mr Writer - your work is not up to scratch today. Don't make me and Bessie angry, Mr Writer - you know that's not a good idea!"

Gods! The times I've heard him say that. And those ridiculous characters he insists that I litter my work with. When I first put the hunchback, lisping servant into one of my books, I thought - "yes, quite funny, but not a character I want to develop any further." But he insists. Every bloody book I write has to have at least one of those dreadful hunchbacks in it. He even had me make one a female. I can't believe my readers haven't noticed. How could anyone find them funny?

His friends are just as bad as him. There's that crazy, short-arsed Irish one that dresses like a tramp. They're always bickering at each other about who is number one (whatever that means). That tramp guy has a serious fixation about spoons. And the bloody monkey...

I thought the badgers were bad, but the monkey is something else. I've never seen anything that looked so evil.

And that Welsh guy he's passing off as me! He looks nothing like me. I would have thought that my wife and daughter would have noticed. Actually, that worries me a lot - maybe they have? Perhaps they're happy with the situation?

Damn! Judging by the way the badgers are starting to nest-down in their boxes, it must be nearly lights out time. Funny, I thought that 'normal' badgers were nocturnal.

I'll try and write some more soon.

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