Literary Chair Faces Impeachment
Wellington Leg: Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe, chair of the Literary Faire, is facing impeachment charges after she captured all sixteen prizes in this year’s competition. She also was declared the winner of the 2006 contest snatching the coveted Eudora away from bitter rival Fulgencio Batista. Mr. Batista surrendered his statuette to Judge Hamilcar Frist in a brief ceremony held for the first time before live cameras.
Chalfont-Smythe won for the best first novel, best third novel, best twelfth novel ( a new category this year) best Prose Poem, best Bildungsroman, best work in translation, best biography ( her late husband) best roman a clef, as well seizing the Frey Award in memoir writing. As Day Two unfolded it was clear that her treatise on Tolstoy had the inside track for the Boris and Natasha Prize.
Then scandal struck. Chalfont-Smythe was captured on film offering Judge Emil Prosit a trip to Maui and all the peanut M&Ms he could eat; the quid pro quo was his vote in the Regency category. Her re imagining PRUDENTIA AT THE ORANGERIE wherein she sacks and burns Bath after being jilted by a lover struck a chord with several of the judges.
“Impeachment is a complex process,” said Professor Moriarity. “Before we can proceed sheep must be slaughtered, a lock of hair boiled in oil, and I DREAM OF JEANNIE must rerun eleven thousand times. Then, and only then, can we impeach the Chair.”
In a setback to the process a number of sheep were deported in a sting operation by the Flying Squad. “We’ll get them back,” promised DCI Borchardt. Some of the sheep wore sunglasses creating confusion during the dawn sweep. “Yesterday I would have said ’sheep never wear sunglasses’” Borchardt admitted. “I can’t say that now.”