Munch Ado About Nothing

Published in 'Surprising Stories

    By the time I was ten I was no longer surprised at the strange creatures my zoologist father brought home with him from his field trips to Mars, but when he came back with a Coddlewop even I was impressed.

    In today's world, of course, where the postman is liable to be a seven-headed flying giraffe from Pluto, and singing rocks from Jupiter regularly bring down the house at the Albert Hall, the Coddlewop is considered old-hat, to say the least, but in the twenty second century we still possessed the gift of wonder and the Coddlewop was just about the most exotic creature anyone could imagine.

    The Coddlewop's proper scientific title is the Greater Spotted Coddlewop. The origins of the name are a mystery, as there is no Lesser Spotted Coddlewop and the Greater Spotted Coddlewop is invisible to the human eye, making it somewhat difficult to tell if it has spots or not.

    Its fame does not stem from its invisibility, however, or even the size of its spots if, indeed, it has any, but from its diet which, as every schoolboy will tell you, consists entirely of Corn Flakes.

    The story of the Coddlewop and its love for Corn Flakes reads like the purest science fiction. It begins with one Andrew James Beaming the Third who, at the tender age of three, unwittingly set in motion events that would lead to the loosing upon the London borough of Kensington (and the rest of the Universe) of a monster the like of which had never before been seen in all of the solar systems known to man.

    Now, Andrew James was as passionate about Corn Flakes as the most gluttonous Coddlewop. In fact, he loved them so much he tried planting them in his back garden. On Earth this wouldn't have mattered very much, but little James' back garden was on the planet Mars, (his family were among the first human settlers there) and the soil of Mars is, as every schoolboy knows, the most fertile of any planet in the cosmos.

    The result, a mere two hundred years later, is that three-quarters of the planet are now covered with vast forests of Beamingilia, the towering Corn Flake-bearing tree that gives Mars its distinctive reddish colour when seen from Outer Space.

    It is in these forests that the rare and secretive Greater Spotted Coddlewop is to be found or, rather, inferred, for the only clue to its presence is usually just the sound of rhythmic chomping coming from high up in the canopy and the occasional, thunderous burp.

    Legend has it that my canny father succeeded in luring the Coddlewop to his starship by leaving a trail of chocolate-covered Corn Flakes, something not to found in nature even on the wondrous Red Planet…

                                                              *
    But I digress. All this is dull, dry stuff such as can be found in any history book. What you want to hear is the story of my Coddlewop who was, as I'm sure you've already guessed, none other than the notorious Kensington Coddlewop himself.

    The arrival of the Coddlewop was probably the most exciting thing to happen in Kensington since a Giant Martian Cockroach ran over a number 33 bus after escaping from London Zoo. There was even an article about him in the Times, together with a prize-winning photo of the spot where the photographer thought the Coddlewop might have been standing when he took the picture. I was interviewed myself, and appeared on the 6.00 o'clock news, proudly posing beside our upstairs bath tub, which is where I claimed the Coddlewop liked to recover between Corn Flake binges.

    But fame and fortune aren’t everything, and I soon discovered that life with a Corn Flake-guzzling monster is not quite as much fun as it sounds. You see, the Coddlewop firmly believed a good breakfast is the best start to the day, and he didn't much care whose breakfast it was, either. As a confirmed Corn Flake addict, myself, I soon reached the conclusion that I would much have preferred sharing a breakfast table with the Giant Martian Cockroach.

    The Coddlewop's table manners were atrocious. So were mine, but it was, at least, my table. Every morning he would slurp and burp his way through a mountain of Corn Flakes large enough to re-sink the Titanic, but was that enough for him? Oh no. He had to have mine as well and would skillfully vacuum the last single crumb out of my bowl before I had time to even blink. I would then be treated to the curious sensation of having my head patted gently by a large, unseen, furry paw.

    I would hardly blame you if you considered all this Munch Ado About Nothing, if that was all there was to it. Only it wasn’t. Not by a long chalk, for the Coddlewop soon took to raiding breakfast tables the length and breadth of the borough of Kensington.

    And worse was to come. Before long the Coddlewop’s depredations threatened Westminster, itself, and road blocks were set up at both ends of Downing Street between 7.00 and 8.30 in the morning. Within a month the crisis had deepened to such an extent that an Extraordinary Session of Parliament was convened where, in front of a packed and stormy House, the Prime minister himself boldly expressed, in language that put poor old Winston's "We shall fight them on the beaches' speech to shame, his absolute and unshakable determination to defend to the last an Englishman's inalienable right to a Full English breakfast and announced, to the enthusiastic accompaniment of whistles, shouts, foot-stamping and cheers, (and, it must be admitted, the occasional boo) that there was absolutely no need for alarm as the Special Relationship was still intact, despite the Opposition’s snide assertions to the contrary, and that the Americans and the Canadians both had been mobilised to guarantee the Corn Flake supplies that our island nation so desperately needed. Or words to that effect.

    The final straw, however, was when the Palace's kitchen storerooms were broken into one night, when the King himself was in residence, and nothing was found to be missing—except 301 boxes of you-know-what. That was when an irate palace official and a policeman came knocking at our door

    "We have been receiving complaints about your pet, Mr. Jones," the official told my father, "and it simply won't do."

    "It's not a pet," replied my father loftily. "It's a scientific specimen and I have a valid license for it."

    "Then you are legally responsible for the creature, sir," said the policeman, "and for any damage it may 'ave caused."

    "Damage? What damage?"

    "Thank you, Sergeant," said the official, with a smile. "I almost forgot about that." He handed my father a piece of paper.

    "What's this?"

    "That, sir," answered the official happily, "is His Majesty's bill. Prompt payment would be appreciated. Otherwise, His Majesty wishes me to inform you that he considers you a loyal and beloved subject, and would be most unhappy should he be forced to have you banged up in the Tower for life over a couple of boxes of Corn Flakes."

    "Three 'undred an' one boxes of Corn Flakes," said the policeman.

    "All right, all right," my father said. "Is that it?"

    "Not quite, sir,' said the policeman. "There is one other matter, in pursuance of which I must regretfully serve you with this."

    "A deportation order?"

    "Not for you, sir," replied the policeman. "Never for you. You're one of us, you are. Oh, no, it's for that there Codswollop thing, that is."

    "Coddlewop," my father sighed.

    'If you say so, sir," answered the policeman. "I wouldn't know about that. What I do know is that the Law is the Law and I uphold that Law and that Law now requires you to ship that thing back from whence 'e came from, toute suite, before 'e causes any more bleedin' trouble. Do I make myself clear, sir?"

    "Admirably."

                                                  *

    I don't know if the Coddlewop realised he was being sent home or, if he did, what he felt about it, but I think he must have known because he left me a little present before he went: a battered, half-empty box of Corn Flakes bearing the Royal seal.

    You can still see that very box in the Natural History Museum if you have nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon, and are of a curious and reflective turn of mind.








   
   



































By the time I was ten I was no longer surprised at the strange creatures my zoologist father brought home with him from his field trips to Mars, but when he came back with a Coddlewop even I was impressed.

    In today's world, of course, where the postman is liable to be a seven-headed flying giraffe from Pluto, and singing rocks from Jupiter regularly bring down the house at the Albert Hall, the Coddlewop is considered old-hat, to say the least, but in the twenty second century we still possessed the gift of wonder and the Coddlewop was just about the most exotic creature anyone could imagine.

    The Coddlewop's proper scientific title is the Greater Spotted Coddlewop. The origins of the name are a mystery, as there is no Lesser Spotted Coddlewop and the Greater Spotted Coddlewop is invisible to the human eye, making it somewhat difficult to tell if it has spots or not.

    Its fame does not stem from its invisibility, however, or even the size of its spots if, indeed, it has any, but from its diet which, as every schoolboy will tell you, consists entirely of Corn Flakes.

    The story of the Coddlewop and its love for Corn Flakes reads like the purest science fiction. It begins with one Andrew James Beaming the Third who, at the tender age of three, unwittingly set in motion events that would lead to the loosing upon the London borough of Kensington (and the rest of the Universe) of a monster the like of which had never before been seen in all of the solar systems known to man.

    Andrew James, you see,  was as passionate about Corn Flakes as the most gluttonous Coddlewop. In fact, he loved them so much he tried planting them in his back garden. On Earth this wouldn't have mattered very much, but little James' back garden was on the planet Mars, (his family were among the first human settlers there) and the soil of Mars is the most fertile of any planet in the cosmos.

    The result, a mere two hundred years later, is that three-quarters of the planet are now covered with vast forests of Beamingilia, the towering Corn Flake-bearing tree that gives Mars its distinctive reddish colour when seen from Outer Space.

    It is in these forests that the rare and secretive Greater Spotted Coddlewop is to be found or, rather, inferred, for the only clue to its presence is usually just the sound of rhythmic chomping coming from high up in the canopy and the occasional, thunderous burp.

    Legend has it that my canny father succeeded in luring the Coddlewop to his starship by leaving a trail of chocolate-covered Corn Flakes, something not to found in nature even on the wondrous Red Planet…

                                                              *


    But I digress. All this is dull, dry stuff such as can be found in any history book. What you want to hear is the story of my Coddlewop who was, as I'm sure you've already guessed, none other than the notorious Kensington Coddlewop himself.

  The arrival of the Coddlewop was probably the most exciting thing to happen in Kensington since a Giant Martian Cockroach ran over a number 33 bus after escaping from London Zoo. An article about him appeared in the Times, together with a prize-winning photo of the spot where the photographer thought the Coddlewop might have been standing when he took the picture.

    I was even interviewed myself and appeared on the 6.00 o'clock news, proudly posing beside our upstairs bath tub, which is where I claimed the Coddlewop liked to recover between Corn Flake binges.

    Fame and fortune aside, life with a Corn Flake-guzzling monster is not quite as much fun as it sounds. You see, the Coddlewop firmly believed a good breakfast is the best start to the day, and he didn't much care whose breakfast it was, either. As a confirmed Corn Flake addict, myself, I soon reached the conclusion that I would much have prefered sharing a breakfast table with the Giant Martian Cockroach.

    The Coddlewop's table manners were even worse than mine. Every morning he would slurp and burp his way through a mountain of Corn Flakes large enough to re-sink the Titanic, but was that enough for him? Oh no. He had to have mine as well and would skillfully vacuum the last single crumb out of my bowl before I had time to even blink. I would then be treated to the curious sensation of having my head patted gently by a large, unseen, furry paw.

    Now, you may consider all this Munch Ado About Nothing, but that wasn't the end of it by a long chalk. The Coddlewop soon took to raiding breakfast tables the length and breadth of the borough of Kensington.

    Before long he was threatening Westminster, and the Prime Minister ordered that road blocks be set up at both ends of Downing Street between 7.00 and 8.30 in the morning. Then, in front of a packed and stormy House, he boldly expressed his determination to defend to the last an Englishman's inalienable right to a Full English breakfast, and anounced that there was no need for alarm as the Americans and the Canadians both had been mobilised to guarantee Britain's Corn Flake supplies.

    But the final straw was when the Palace's kitchen storerooms were broken into one night, when the King himself was in residence, and nothing was found to be missing—except 301 boxes of you-know-what. That was when an irate palace official and a policeman came knocking at our door

    "We have been receiving complaints about your pet, Mr. Jones," the official told my father, "and it simply won't do."

    "It's not a pet," replied my father loftily. "It's a scientific specimen and I have a valid license for it."

    "Then you are legally responsible for the creature, sir," said the policeman, "and for any damage it may 'ave caused."

    "Damage? What damage?"

    "Thank you, Sergeant," said the official, with a smile. "I almost forgot about that." He handed my father a piece of paper.

    "What's this?"

    "That, sir," answered the official happily, "is His Majesty's bill. Prompt payment would be appreciated. Otherwise, His Majesty wishes me to inform you that he considers you a loyal and beloved subject, and would be most unhappy should he be forced to have you banged up in the Tower for life over a couple of boxes of Corn Flakes."

    "Three 'undred an' one boxes of Corn Flakes," said the policeman.

    "All right, all right," my father said. "Is that it?"

    "Not quite, sir,' said the policeman. "There is one other matter, in pursuance of which I must regretfully serve you with this."

    "A deportation order?"

    "Not for you, sir," replied the policeman. "Never for you. You're one of us, you are. Oh, no, it's for that there Codswollop thing, that is."

    "Coddlewop," my father sighed.

    'If you say so, sir," answered the policeman. "I wouldn't know about that. What I do know is that the Law is the Law and I uphold that Law and that Law now requires you to ship that thing back from whence 'e came from, toute suite, before 'e causes any more bleedin' trouble. Do I make myself clear, sir?"

    "Admirably."

                                                  *

    I don't know if the Coddlewop realised he was being sent home or, if he did, what he felt about it, but I think he must have known because he left me a little present before he went: a battered, half-empty box of Corn Flakes bearing the Royal seal.

    You can still see that very box in the Natural History Museum if you have nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon, and are of a curious and reflective turn of mind.








   
   


























































creature is taken from the old slang word 'codswollop.' meaning absolute nonsense. 



Munch Ado About Nothing

By the time I was ten I was no longer surprised at the strange creatures my zoologist father brought home with him from his field trips to Mars, but when he came back with a Coddlewop even I was impressed.

    In today's world, of course, where the postman is liable to be a seven-headed flying giraffe from Pluto, and singing rocks from Jupiter regularly bring down the house at the Albert Hall, the Coddlewop is considered old-hat, to say the least, but in the twenty second century we still possessed the gift of wonder and the Coddlewop was just about the most exotic creature anyone could imagine.
   
    The Coddlewop's proper scientific title is the Greater Spotted Coddlewop. The origins of the name are a mystery, as there is no Lesser Spotted Coddlewop and the Greater Spotted Coddlewop

















































rprised at the strange creatures my zoologist father brought home with him from his field trips to Mars, but when he came back with a Coddlewop even I was impressed. In today's world, where the postman is liable to be a seven-headed flying giraffe from Pluto and singing rocks from Jupiter regularly bring down the house at the Albert Hall, the Coddlewop is considered old-hat, to say the least, but in the twenty second century we still possessed the gift of wonder and the Coddlewop was just about the most exotic creature anyone could imagine.

    The Coddlewop's proper scientific title is the Greater Spotted Coddlewop. The origins of the name are a mystery, as there is no Lesser Spotted Coddlewop and the Greater Spotted Coddlewop is invisible to the human eye, making it somewhat difficult to tell if it has spots or not. Its fame does not stem from its invisibility, however, or even the size of its spots if, indeed, it has any, but from its diet which, as every schoolboy will tell you, consists entirely of Corn Flakes.

    The story of the Coddlewop and its love for Corn Flakes reads like the purest science fiction. It begins with one Andrew James Beaming the Third who, at the tender age of three, unwittingly set in motion events that would lead to the loosing upon the London borough of Kensington (and the rest of the Universe) of a monster the like of which had never before been seen in all of the solar systems known to man.

    Andrew James was as passionate about Corn Flakes as the most gluttonous Coddlewop. In fact, he loved them so much he tried planting them in his back garden. On Earth this wouldn't have mattered very much, but little James' back garden was on the planet Mars, (his family were among the first human settlers there) and the soil of Mars is the most fertile of any planet in the cosmos.

    The result, a mere two hundred years later, is that three-quarters of the planet are now covered with vast forests of Beamingilia, the towering Corn Flake-bearing tree that gives Mars its distinctive reddish colour when seen from Outer Space.

    It is in these forests that the rare and secretive Greater Spotted Coddlewop is to be found or, rather, inferred, for the only clue to its presence is usually just the sound of rhythmic chomping coming from high up in the canopy, and the occasional thunderous fart. It is said my canny father succeeded in luring the Coddlewop to his starship by leaving a trail of chocolate-covered Corn Flakes, something not to found in nature even on the wondrous Red Planet…

                                                              *


    But I digress. All this is dull, dry stuff such as can be found in any history book. What you want to hear is the story of my Coddlewop who was, as I'm sure you've already guessed, none other than the notorious Kensington Coddlewop himself.

  The arrival of the Coddlewop was probably the most exciting thing to happen in Kensington since a Giant Martian Cockroach ran over a number 33 bus after escaping from London Zoo. An article about him appeared in the Times, together with a prize-winning photo of the spot where the photographer thought the Coddlewop might have been standing when he took the picture.

    I was even interviewed myself and appeared on the 6.00 o'clock news, proudly posing beside our upstairs bath tub, which is where I claimed the Coddlewop liked to recover between Corn Flake binges.

    Fame and fortune aside, however, life with a Corn Flake-guzzling monster is not quite as much fun as it sounds. You see, the Coddlewop firmly believed a good breakfast is the best start to the day, and he didn't much care whose breakfast it was, either. As a confirmed Corn Flake addict, myself, I soon reached the conclusion that I would much have prefered sharing a breakfast table with the Giant Martian Cockroach.

    The Coddlewop's table manners were even worse than mine. Every morning he would slurp and burp his way through a mountain of Corn Flakes large enough to re-sink the Titanic, but was that enough for him? Oh no. He had to have mine as well and would skillfully vacuum the last single crumb out of my bowl before I had time to even blink. I would then be treated to the curious sensation of having my head patted gently by a large, unseen, furry paw.

    Now, you may consider all this Munch Ado About Nothing, but that wasn't the end of it by a long chalk. The Coddlewop soon took to raiding breakfast tables the length and breadth of the borough of Kensington. Before long he was threatening Westminster, and the Prime Minister ordered that road blocks be set up at both ends of Downing Street between 7.00 and 8.30 in the morning. Then, in front of a packed and stormy House, he boldly expressed his determination to defend to the last an Englishman's inalienable right to a Full English breakfast, and anounced that there was no need for alarm as the Americans and the Canadians both had been mobilised to guarantee Britain's Corn Flake supplies.

    But the final straw was when the Palace's kitchen storerooms were broken into one night, when the King himself was in residence, and nothing was found to be missing—except 301 boxes of you-know-what. That was when an irate palace official and a policeman came knocking at our door

    "We have been receiving complaints about your pet, Mr. Jones," the official told my father, "and it simply won't do."

    "It's not a pet," replied my father loftily. "It's a scientific specimen and I have a valid license for it."

    "Then you are legally responsible for the creature, sir," said the policeman, "and for any damage it may 'ave caused."

    "Damage? What damage?"

    "Thank you, Sergeant," said the official, with a smile. "I almost forgot about that." He handed my father a piece of paper.

    "What's this?"

    "That, sir," answered the official happily, "is His Majesty's bill. Prompt payment would be appreciated. Otherwise, His Majesty wishes me to inform you that he considers you a loyal and beloved subject and would be most unhappy should he be forced to have you banged up in the Tower for life over a couple of boxes of Corn Flakes."

    "Three 'undred an' one boxes of Corn Flakes," said the policeman.

    "All right, all right," my father said. "Is that it?"

    "Not quite, sir,' said the policeman. "There is one other matter, in pursuance of which I must regretfully serve you with this."

    "A deportation order?"

    "Not for you, sir," replied the policeman. "Never for you. You're one of us, you are. Oh, no, it's for that there Codswollop thing, that is."

    "Coddlewop," my father sighed.

    'If you say so, sir," answered the policeman. "I wouldn't know about that. What I do know is that the Law is the Law and I uphold that Law and that Law now requires you to ship that thing back from whence 'e came from, tout suite, before 'e causes any more bleedin' trouble. Do I make myself clear, sir?"

    "Admirably."

                                                  *

    I don't know if the Coddlewop realised he was being sent home or, if he did, what he felt about it, but I think he must have known because, after he'd gone, I found he'd left me a little present: a battered, half-empty box of Corn Flakes bearing the Royal seal. You can still see that very box in the Natural History Museum if you have nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon, and are of a curious and reflective turn of mind.