Lady Annabel Goldsmith Sectioned For Own Safety

By now many members will have heard about the drama-filled events that have engulfed the club this week. Our new corporate HQ behind the portaloo in the Wheatsheaf Car Park has been besieged by the relentless paparazzi of the BBC, CNN, John Craven’s Newsround and the Old Windsor Weekly Bugle.

It is time to set the story straight. Let us begin by stating for the record that Lady Annabel Goldsmith, our esteemed founding member and honorary president, is alive, conscious and slowly returning to her original colour. Members can breathe a sigh of relief that Lady Annabel, the last in a precious line of endangered aristocrats, is still with us and may one day even be ready to breed again. What a dream it would be to have Windsor Great Park once more teeming with shimmering flocks of Goldsmiths. To once again hear their distinctive ‘Mwah mwah’ mating call echo over the lake would be the culmination of everything the Perambulation Club stands for.

That is the good news, but there is tragedy too. Lady Annabel has been indefinitely sectioned and is confined in St Mungo’s Home for the Prematurely Deranged, Sunninghill East. We recognise that solitary confinement is a necessary precaution to protect both others and Lady Annabel herself from the effects of her inhuman merciless outbursts, but the tightened straitjacket seems overly cautious. And the ball gag and electric shock therapy are just gratuitous. (We have been asked to point out by Lady Annabel that her strait jacket is from Bottega Veneta’s ‘insanité’ collection and accessorises perfectly with the Londonderry Diamonds. This encapsulates the Lady Annabel we know and love; even at times of great crisis she is able to concentrate on the issues that matter).

The decision to section Lady Annabel was taken with regret, but we were left with no choice after we were unable to control her appetite for cheap cocktail sausages, which was leading to her rooting through bins hours after her curfew, desperate for scraps of processed pork to munch on. The final straw came yesterday when she was discovered at 4 am by horrified park rangers, lying spreadeagled under a gnarled oak tree, surrounded by Ginster’s wrappers and pie crumbs. As a consequence, our Sumo Wrestlers will go hungry today.

Lady Annabel was admitted to St Mungo’s yesterday and indefinitely suspended from all Perambulation Club activities. In line with club procedure, this was confirmed when Lady Annabel was defriended on Facebook by a man with a beard.

Hopefully this means we have seen the last of her frenzied rampages, careering around the suburbs of South London spitting out chipolatas and shouting PISH! at innocent bystanders. The staff at St Mungo’s assure us they will be able to help Her Ladyship, although she is certainly one of the worst cases they have ever seen.

Lady Annabel was, of course, the driving force behind the club’s popular Early Morning Sumo Perambulation and Tramp Patrol, and it is with great regret that we have to cancel these patrols. The dangers of attacks from zombies, weasels and Richard Hills are too great without the brute strength and street-fighting skills of Lady Annabel to protect our valuable sumo.

The Club wishes Lady Annabel a speedy recovery and hopes she will soon be ready to patrol again, half-eaten pork pie and zombie-seeking missile launcher in hand.

Adieu, Maréchal grandiose, adieu.

It is with great regret that the Revolutionary Junta announce the voluntary relinquishing of position by that powerhouse of perambulation and latter-day Boudicca, the Grand Marshal. The recent media portrayal of our beloved Marshal as a power-hungry cake-crazed tyrant has proven too much for our noble Marshal who has never wanted anything but to serve the members of the Perambulation Club. The Marshal’s remorseless quest for high-quality cheese has enriched our society in so many ways, not least with the discovery that rubbery pub cheddar is ideal for force-feeding geese, as well as aiding their buoyancy.

However, following the recent anarchic demonstrations among the rowdier sumo wrestlers, the Grand Marshal has decided to step down. The Grand Marshal’s controversial and almost entirely counterproductive ‘kettling’ technique to contain the hooligan sumo in Blacknest Car Park has led to a media frenzy that we are just not equipped to deal with.

Furthermore, The Grand Marshal maintains that the Battenberg Allocation Programme, held by many to be at the root cause of many Sumo complaints, is neither corrupt nor inefficient. One need only see the amount of pink and yellow crumbs that cascade out of a sumo nappy on Changing Day to appreciate the force of the Marshal’s argument.

Neither is it true that the Grand Marshal has been cutting the Battenberg with lesser cakes in order to increase profits. The Marshal’s Battenberg is Grade ‘A’ Colombian Battenberg, and we have the rosettes to prove it. Would Lady Annabel Goldsmith endorse it otherwise as the main staple foodstuff for her flying monkeys? Would Chaka Demus & Pliers have permanently dyed themselves pink and yellow if they weren’t committed to the Battenberg? Actually, they probably wouldn’t if they’d read the instructions on the dye properly, but that is to miss the point.

The United Nations, as always puppets controlled by the far-reaching talons and limitless resources of Richard Hills and the Old Windsor Townswomen’s Guild, have massively over-reacted to our little local difficulty by declaring a no-fly zone over the park. The flying monkeys have been grounded, Lady Annabel Goldsmith is distraught and whacked out on French Martinis, and sumo are running amok and akimbo. The repair bill for potholes may cause the Royal Wedding to be cancelled to save funds. We hope those good friends of the club, Wills & Kate, can forgive us.

The situation, although not of our making, is untenable. Regime change is demanded by those lickspittles and toadies at the UN. As a consequence, The Grand Marshal, the scourge of Zombies and peerless Chief Musketeer, is selflessly going into exile to save the club. Asylum has been granted by the chap that looks after the wheely-bins round the back of the YMCA in Staines, and the Grand Marshal will be moving in with an honour guard of hand-picked, loyal tramps from 4th May. Observant Club Members will of course recognise the date as the anniversary of our glorious declaration of independence for the citizens, badgers, monocled stoats, fat geese, itinerant alcoholics, sumo wrestlers, flying monkeys, and B-list celebrities of Virginia Water.

No new Grand Marshal will be appointed, as they are boots that cannot be filled. Not least due to the irreparable damage caused to the ceremonial ferret-skin boots by the Marshal’s cankles. We’ll never get our money back from TK Maxx for them now.

On 4th May, the force-fed geese will be unshackled, the tramps will wear black cotton gloves, the clocks stopped and the pianos silenced.

La Maréchal grandiose est fini. Vive la Maréchal grandiose!