An Expert in Unarmed Wombat

Woke up at 630. Thought: this isn't good enough, so woke up again at 930, which was much better. BTW - Portsmouth Harbour was emergency-closed this morning because an unexploded wartime torpedo was discovered. They took it out to sea to blow it up.

I was forced into doing some maths homework which is woefully junior - for example write this number 3,456,463 in words. But then I had to go shopping with them to earn my Minecraft time.

Giant Tesco still didn't have any school shorts, or any Minecraft fluffy teddies. But it did have Scout-mate Flynn and the latest Minecraft magazine.

Every year the Scouts do the £3 challenge which is to get as much food as you can for £3 and donate it to the homeless charity at Harvest Festival, which is our topic in school as well. Last year I won the competition because I basically got a massive stack of large tins of cooked potatoes and carrots for 20p each. The Scout leaders have got wise to this, and even the most homeless of homeless people can lose their love for tinned spuds if given enough. So this time, it's supposed to be the biggest balanced meal for £3. I reckon I did well with my selection, which cost £2.99. Plus that's where I met my school dinner lady who suggested buying a soup mug off the reduced shelf.

Then Bud went searching the charity shops of downtown Pompey for "Disaster Kittens". Every now and then, we used to have a Kangaroo Court at our bonfires. A horrendous teddy or similar was purchased, accused of heresy, twee-ness, unnecessary cuteness, and had bangers shoved up its bottie and was consigned to the bonfire with a short trumpet fanfare and parade with funeral-style chanting. Once we had a knitted rat in a wedding dress (why would you even make that?) and another time it was 3 kittens in a basket. We found 4 bamboo torches that the theatre was throwing out, so we saved them for the Scout campfire, and Jof said all they needed were some hideous kittens.

So we have: Rabbit that's been eating magic mushrooms with green trousers on its head, hat'n'scarf bear in buttoned tweed dress, knitted rabbit in dress with wilting 1st birthday cake, and Georgina My Rather Smug Pink Monstrosity. They all smell a bit. The old lady in the shop said are you giving them to your dog, I always think that's such a shame, when I was a child, I only had a discarded sock to cuddle etc etc and we didn't have the heart to tell her they were due to be condemned to the eternal cleansing flames by a rabid Scout pack in a quasi-religious satanic ceremony.

So here's how you do it. First, everybody adorns their faces with soot from several burnt corks to make their visages terrifying. Elder Statesman plays the role of Judge, who hams it up a la Winston Churchill. "You are hereby found GUILTY of the various crimes of Witchcraft, Hoodwinking, Hornswoggling and Corruption of the Young. Gaolers: take the condemned from this place, to a place of EXECUTION!" and he bangs his gavel (wooden mallet for knocking in tent pegs) on the Judge's bench (picnic table).

Then the 4 executioners do a slow march to the scaffold (campfire) while the fishwives, drunkards and layabouts of the crowd hurl insults and tomatoes (if available) and sing the dirge. Now, as you all know, to get a decent dirge you need a tune that everybody knows and simple, easy-to-remember lines. Thus, I have chosen VaderVader's Imperial March from Star Wars. So have this tune ready in your head.

1st Line. Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum (got it?)

2nd line (guess) Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum Bum

Death! Yes, Death! To the teddy-bears

We hate the teddy-bears

We're going to put you all on the fire.

You'll find this fits, and a splendid ceremony to bring young people together as a team, and nobody had to wear a Brownshirt with special badge hardly at all. Then you simply arrange the 4 condemned dollies on their torches of doom in a 4-sided pyramid over the campfire (here's one I built earlier) and set alight. Optional extras: to play "Fire" by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and dance madly around the fire as the prisoners are turned to ash.

Later, Jof and some close friends went out to drink Prosecco to commiserate her 50th birthday so I had my choice of film night, had no inspiration so stuck with Harry Potter.