A pleasant three degrees below zero wind was blowing. The early morning Londoners shivered through the bitingly cold rush hour. Among them was a bowler-hatted Mr. Oliver Thrigg. The first snow of summer was starting to fall as he joined his 'AA members only' bus cue.
Glancing to a bus que opposite (it was a different que to his cue, as the spelling proves), what he saw shook him to his foundation garment. There, in the que opposite, was a man wearing a sun helmet, eccentricity yes, but this fellow didn't have a stamp of a genuine eccentric, no, fellow looked far too normal! Curiosity got the upper hand, crossing the road he killed a cat. Once across he joined the que and left his on the other side.
The sun-helmeted man caught a 31A bus, Mr. Thrigg signalled a passing 49 A. 'Follow that bus,' he told the driver. 'Anywhere but Cuba,' said the driver. At Victoria Station the sun-helmeted man booked to Southampton, as did Mr. Thrigg, who kept him under surveillance until they reached Southampton, where by now the snow was 3 foot deep, which explained the absence of dwarfs in the street.
The man continued to wear his sun helmet. 'Why, why, why,' said Thrigg, whose curiosity had killed another nine cats, making a grand total of one. 'I must follow this man etc.' The man booked aboard the Onion Castle and was handed £10 and an oar (Assisted Passage they call it). The ship headed south, and so did Mr. Thrigg and his enigma, which he used for colonic irrigation. During the whole trip the man appeared at all times in a sun helmet. Several or eightal times he was almost tempted to ask the man his secret. But no, as Thrigg was travelling steerage and the man 1st Class, plus the fact it was a special Non-fraternising Apartheid Cruise, no contact was possible.
On the 12th of Iptomber the ship docked at Cape Town. Even though Thrigg got through Customs and Bribes at speed, he just missed the Sun Helmet as he drove off in a taxi. Thrigg flagged down an old cripple Negro driver. 'Follow that Sun Helmet,' he said jumping on the nigger's back. (The change from Negro to Nigger denotes change from UK to SA soil.) Several times Thrigg let the nigger stand in his bucket of portable UK soil so he could be called Negro. To cut the story short, Mr. Thrigg used scissors and cornered the man in the middle of the Sahara. The heat was intolerable as Thrigg walked up and said, 'Why are you wearing that sun helmet?' 'Because,' said the man, pointing al a 113° thermometer in the shade, 'the sun man! This protects the head.' 'I see,' said Mr. Thrigg. 'Well I better be off, I'm late for work.' As he departed for the caravan que, the man in the sun helmet spotted him. 'Good God, a man wearing a bowler hat! A bowler hat! Here, in the Sahara? I must find out why,' he thought as he joined the caravan cue behind Mr. Thrigg.
[ by the genious that is and always will be spike milligan ]