'S no disaster

 

You can't get the staff. 

  

A group of posh students from across East Hampshire gathered at Ditch-It Park school (leafy South Downs) last Friday, where they had been invited to a conference. Conversation soon drifted to the weather, as it is prone to do in this country, and the meeting was subsequently labelled a "Climate Conference", to make it sound valuable.

It all started when Melissa Schiffer-Brains (The Big School - Petersfield) said: "I say it's a bit chilly this morning, don't you think? Positively parky".

"I agree" chimed in Valencia Tumble-Twatt (Bojangles - Steep). "I almost slipped getting into Daddy's Hi Lux this morning, the frost was so awful".

We even had frost on Portsea Island, and that's fairly unusual" added Jeremy Balls-Deep (Portsmouth Old Fashioned - Portsmouth).

"The council gritted around our house last night" declared Shane Jenkins (Staunton Dark - Rowlands Castle).

 
"Goodness!" said a very surprised Tumble-Twatt. "Daddy won't let the council anywhere near our estate. He gets his own men to clear the ice".

 
"That's extraordinary". Imogen Top-Snobbery (The Posh School - Petersfield) joined the conversation.

 
Tumble Twatt looked incredulous, "what is?"

 
"That someone from Rowlands Castle was invited to attend this conference!" exclaimed Top-Snobbery.

 
"My letter said something about social inclusion" said Jenkins.

 
"That or simple clerical error" snorted Top-Snobbery.

 
"Anyway, this isn't cold" said Tumble-Twatt with something of a smug grin. "Last year when we were skiing in Valdisere, the temperature dropped to -10. Mummy had to arrange for a man to warm our ski boots before we could even consider having the servant pull them on".

 
"It was unseasonably cold in St Moritz last month". Clarence Asquith-Benz (Ditch-It Park) reported. "I understand the temperature didn't get above -14 during our entire stay.

 
"It was so cold Mummy's Dom Perignon bottles cracked in the Lexus".

 
"My god, what did you do?" enquired Tumble-Twatt.

 
"Daddy just bought another one, the Lexus was very nearly six months old anyway and Mummy fancied a change of colour".

 
"When we New-Yeared on Whistler last year, the temperature dropped to -21" boasted Top-Snobbery.

 
"We actually lost one of our party".

 
"By jove, you lost a skier?" enquired Asquith-Benz.

"Oh Lord no. Only a butler; Daddy says it was his own fault for not wearing large enough snow shoes. He only had to carry the tray of drinks a few miles from the chalet.

"Pleased to say disaster was averted with some quick thinking by Mummy."

"Did she get someone to dig him out?" asked Asquith-Benz.

"No, she arranged to borrow a reserve butler from the Lexington-Arswipes who winter on the next slope".

Hose sorry now?

Jeeves, about to pep up the plants

Petersfield residents have started hoarding champagne – in case of a water shortage.

M&S, Waitrose, and even that ludicrously expensive wine corner shop in Lavant Street have all reported a surge in sales following news that Scousers and Mancs face a hosepipe ban.

"If the water authorities can’t even collect enough of the stuff to keep the North West going, what chance do we stand in the sunny South?” said Dame Amelia Ponsoby-Sprinkler of Woodtwee Avenue.

“Let’s face it, it rains for 11 and a half months of the year up there and we all know most northerners don’t wash anyway, so how incompetent are these water people?”

Pressed further on the 58 crates of Champagne in the north wing of her home, Dame Ponsoby-Sprinkler shrieked “Drink it? Good gawd no, Jeeves is going to use it to water the begonias.”