A Madman Says

The phone in Alistair's office blared into life and he took the call on the third ring.

"Us thit Elistair Cluckson?" asked a female voice.

"Yes," replied Alistair, resisting the urge to add a 'Who the fuck did you think it would be dipshit?'

The woman continued.

"Wull, Muster Cluckson, my nime is Mrs Sweedasbro. Joyce Sweedasbro, from Waitangiwangiwongirongirua in Un Zed," she seemed with an authority that struck the little man as somewhat misplaced.

"And how can I help you Joyce Sweedasbro?" he asked.

"U'm runging to tull you not to try and take my Duncan to play your stupud Ozzie game. He's a Kiwi and hu'll play for the All Bleks, thunk you very much," she sniffed before hanging up what Alistair imagined (correctly) to be one of those old school big black phones with a rotary dial that was sat on a small table in a large hallway in a remote farmhouse ringed by giant snow-capped Lord of the Ringsesque mountains.

Fuck's sake, he thought. This fucken club. The push into New Zealand was verging on a straw too far. For Alistair, being a coach was about identifying blokes for his players to smash and calling journalists cunts. End of. Not all this shit.

Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, bad news in the tall solid, yellow and brown jacketed form of Jeffrey Gibb Kennett came striding confidently into his office.

Clarko snuck a quick look at the former Premier's eyes. Yep, the dart and flash was there. The quick jerky movement. Mad bastard was having one of his turns.

"Alistair my good man!" Kennett boomed. "We must speak! I have been visted by the Goddess! The muse! Inspiration surges through me!"

Clarko indicated he should sit, but Kennett ignored this, pacing the room in an agitated fashion.

"This push into New Zealand, what do you make of it?" he demanded, stooping to jab an insistent finger into the coach's chest.

"Not much, dunno if they're Hawthorn people," Alistair replied.

He'd learned early on that if you used the phrase 'Hawthorn people' to the President, it usually set him off on an enormous rant he'd get so involved in, that one could usually sidle away and leave him railing against imaginary enemies and their conspiracies.

"QUITE RIGHT!" Kennet thundered, "And do you know what, what the worst bit is? There's a whole country out there PACKED TO THE RAFTERS with good Hawthorn people and we're ignoring them!"

Alistair judged the distance to the door from his desk. But Kennett was blocking the path.

"SCOTLAND!" he roared. "Magnificent country, magnificent people! Brave, hardy Highland souls, temper of nature but fierce of spirit! You cannae keep a good Scotsman down! Did you know I went to Scotch College?"

Alistair nodded. Yes, Mr Kennett had made this information publicly avilable on the odd occasion.

"This is my plan! Look at that big strapping lad Hamish McIntosh North have. Fine Caledonian blood! Imagine a team entirely composed of them, tossing opponents about like cabers, subsisting entirely on a diet of porridge and Englishman, wearing our new tartan uniform. Stirs the blood doesn't it boy, stirs the blood!"

Clarko, who hadn't the heart tell him Hamish McIntosh wasn't actually Scottish, saw a chink of light from the hallway and was about to make a run for it when Kennett grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and lifted the smaller man to his feet.

"Come on then! We'll go and see my new training jape for the lads! This will get them going!"

Sensing he was doomed to spend the day in the madman's grasp, or at least until the blokes with white coats and the tranquiliser gun arrived, he went limply.

"What are they doing then?" he asked weakly.

"TRAINING RAVENS TO FLY UNDERWATER!" screamed the serial failure flogbag.

"TRAINING RAVENS TO FLY UNDERWATER DEAR BOY!"

And with that Kennett applied a headlock to the mini-coach and frogmarched him out of the room down down to the swimming pool, where by the water's edge, sat a cage containing two worried looking ravens he'd personally captured the night before.