THINGS HAVE NOT GONE WELL ON THE RIVER BANK AND ALL THE OLD CHUMS HAVE MOVED ON. MR BADGER IS NOW IN AN OLD FOLKS’ HOME AND MR MOLE HAS GOT A JOB THERE AS A CARE WORKER. AND TOAD AND RATTY? READ ON....
MOLE SITS WITH HIM WEARING HIS NHS ORDERLY OUTFIT.
BADGER IS READING THE TIMES.
BADGER: Hmph… This time he’s gone too far. It’s Toad. Idle backslidin’ animal…
MOLE (shocked): Badger, please, ever since he stood for Parliament…
BADGER (tired): I know Mole, I know. I knew his uncle, the minister, I knew his great-uncle the prime minister.. First it was all his schemes. A nuclear power station upriver, I ask you…
MOLE (humouring the elderly): Toad didn’t tell Ratty to invest all his money in bitcoin…
BADGER: Poor Ratty…. Noble creature… poor animal… what an end!
MOLE (brightly): The government is encouraging lots of people to become mature students now – I’m sure Ratty will shine at university. And there are some very good distance programmes, what between Covid and the rail strikes.
BADGER (implacably): Then Toad went and put that bypass straight through my ancestral home. There since Roman times…
MOLE (soothingly):Well, property prices have increased considerably since they put in the River Bank Leisure Centre and that out-of-town hypermarket is doing very well. And you did receive compensation…
BADGER: Indeed – based on the rateable value. And Toad’s assisted mortgage scheme didn’t help you young fella…
MOLE (tired): I know, they did promise assisted mortgages to care home staff. I wasn’t to know that the job wouldn’t pay enough to cover the repayments. But Toad’s bank was so nice about the repossession, and Toad did offer me a little place on the new Wild Wood Estate.
BADGER: But that’s just it Mole: the latest sell-off. Look what it says here. (Reads.) hmm hmm hmm…”The ringleader of the Hands Off the Wild Wood Campaign (whom police believe to be an ex-Sociology student nicknamed “The Rat”) said that the scheme would lead to violence on the streets. (Sighs.) Turn on the wireless, Mole, there’s a good fellow.
RADIO VOICE: “This is the BBC Home Service. A Member of Parliament has been accused of multiple share applications in the government’s Wild Wood Estate privatisation scheme. Mr Toad, MP for River Bank, claimed that the stoats and weasels were just a bunch of lower-class oiks and anyway….”
BADGER AND MOLE TOGETHER: OH TOAD!
AND THE STOATS AND THE WEASELS? WHEN THE WILD WOOD WAS CLEARED FOR HOUSING THEY WERE SENT ON REHABILITATION AND TRAINING COURSES. SOME OF THEM EVEN FOUND JOBS AS TRADERS IN THE SQUARE MILE.
The Wild Wooders in the City Song
(with apologies to Ratty)
All around the Square Mile
Among the buildings tall
Traders are a-scrabbling
Up shares all!
Eurobonds, Futures
Footsie all a-quiver
If your p/e ratio’s up the spout
You’ll end up in the river.
Everyone for what he likes
We like to be
Bonds down shares up
Dabbling free!
Our P&Ls not showing red
While jobbers whirl and call
We are down a-dabbling
So blow you all!