Your good health? (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Your good health?

8:31am Monday 2nd June 2008 in Leisure By Telegraph & Argus

The next paragraph, dear reader, will test whether or not you were paying attention last week. Here goes...

They could not have been foreseen the ramifications from The Scribbler being temporarily relieved of his senses by the patent hay-fever medicine which had been used in error to flush out the pipes to the beer pumps at the Boilermaker's Arms. Even Doris Thrope the stage clairvoyant failed to detect an inkling of them as she tried to wake Daphne the Venerable Barmaid from the deep sleep she'd sunk into after taking two teaspoons of the same mixture for her pollen-induced asthma.

"What happened?" cried Daphne, stirring at last on the sofa in the back room of the pub after sleeping around the clock. "Did someone spike my drink?" Her eyes narrowed. "Have I been ravished?"

"Calm down dear," comforted Doris, sounding (and looking) for a moment remarkably like Michael Winner. "You've been here among friends. That Doctor Duff stuff you bought from the bloke at Dewsbury Market knocked you out. The Scribbler had a worse time of it, though. It sent him barmy."

She explained how he had consumed the first two pints out of the Old Enraptured Ragamuffin pump after it had been flushed through, and with them a sizeable dose of the allergy cure.

As Daphne dashed off to pay a rather urgent call, Doris wandered to the bar to tell the others that the barmaid was back in the land of the living. She found pub owner Wilf the Woolman, Boris the Landlord and The Scribbler in conversation with an officious-looking stranger.

Doris studied the man with the briefcase. She could sense a hostile aura around him, which had less to do with her psychic skills than with the aggressive way he was poking his finger into The Scribbler's chest.

"I don't see why you're denying it," he snarled. "The hospital have informed us, as they are obliged to do by law, that they dealt with a case of poisoning yesterday, caused by a substance they were unable to identify. What they were able to tell us was that the victim was a Mr Scribbler of the Telegraph & Argus. I've been to your office and spoken to one Assistant Editor With Special Responsibility for Co-operating With Officialdom and he told me I'd more than likely find you here; your second home, he said. So it's fair to assume that it was here that you consumed whatever it was that made you ill."

And with that Mr Noah Holroyd of the Environmental Health Department took a step back and looked triumphantly at the embarrassed trio. Wilf the Woolman gave a resigned shrug. Despite having sworn The Scribbler to silence, he realised that the game was up.

"Fair enough, Mr Holroyd," he said. "You've got us bang to rights. A patent medicine was inadvertently flushed through the pumps. Only one of our customers was affected by it and matters have now been put right. Can't we forget about it?"

"We could," said the official. "Prosecution under the Environmental Health by-laws mightn't be inevitable if..."

"If what?" chorused the others.

"Well," said Mr Holroyd. "You might have read recently that a pub on Shipley Glen is to open its toilets to the general public because the Council can't afford to do up the lavs nearby. In fact it can't afford to do up any lavs. So we're looking for more pubs to take part in our Bogs in Bars scheme. Let the people from the street use your lavatories and we'll forget about the pipe contamination."

Boris looked at Wilf for guidance. "What choice have we?" sighed the woolman. "Doris, get Daphne out of the Ladies. We're going public."