Links to Chapter One and Chapter Two
Edmund slipped and shivered through the snow until he eventually found the Witch’s castle. It looked quite creepy, but bolstered by thoughts of Turkish Delight (oh, his Saracens – and the Scarlets were his favourite Welsh side), he crept through the imposing main gate.
He found himself in a courtyard filled with statues. They had snow settling on them, and they all looked very sad. Near the gate, there were a couple of magnificent Lions, and then he spotted a statue that looked very like Lucy’s description of Mr Iknus. There was a collection of stone rugby balls, and what looked like a few referees. (“Those referees probably deserved it,” thought Edmund.)
Suddenly, Edmund was rooted to the spot by a chilling low growl. He turned his head to find himself staring into the eyes of Maugrim, chief of the Witch’s Very Secret Police.
“Come,” said Maugrim, “Her Majesty is expecting you.”
* * *
“What!” said the Witch, not at all friendly like the last time, “Have you come alone? I told you to bring the Daughters of Maeve and the other Son of George.”
“B – b – but,” stammered Edmund, afraid of her icy stare and stern manner, “I couldn’t get them away from the Beavers. They were all talking about the return of Paulan to Narnia.”
The Queen turned even paler, if that were possible.
“Paulan!” she muttered to herself, “No, it cannot be possible. My spells are strong.”
Before Edmund knew what had happened, she had crossed the room and spear-tackled him with one strong arm. “Tell me all,” she said, preparing to drive his head into the ground.
Edmund, quaking with fear, told her all that he knew.
The Witch released him with a thump on the floor, and clapped her hands to summon her minions.
“Harness the springboks and prepare my sledge immediately! Get my dwarf! Maugrim: take the swiftest of your wolves, go to the Lodge, and kill the children and the Beavers. If they have already gone, then proceed to the Stone Stadium.”
In the twinkling of a drop goal, the sledge pulled up, driven by a dwarf who looked suspiciously like a scrum-half. Edmund was bound, and unceremoniously dumped into the bottom of the sledge. There wasn’t even any Turkish Delight.
* * *
“Susan,” said Peter, “Where’s Edmund?”
“I – I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I haven’t noticed him for a while.”
“Ah, children,” said Mr Beaver, “I’m afraid he’s gone to see the Witch. We must be on our way quickly.”
“What?”, said Lucy, “No, surely Edmund would never betray us.”
“Daughter, I’m afraid he has the look of one who is in the Witch’s favour. How long that favour lasts is another matter.
“Did anyone notice when he left? Did he hear that Paulan is on the move?”
Nobody was quite sure.
“Then we must be off at once. Mrs Beaver, please pack us up as quickly as you can.”
Mrs Beaver – for of course it’s always the females who are prepared for anything – had already got nearly everything ready for travelling. She had a pack ready for everyone, and they were off in less time than it takes to reset a scrum.
* * *
They had a long, cold and weary journey, and stopped after some hours at a safe hiding place, where they cast themselves down on the floor, covered themselves with the blankets kindly provided by Mrs Beaver, and fell asleep immediately.
They were awakened at dawn by some faint voices, which became clearer as they drew closer.
“Ho, ho ho! Go left! It’s on!”
“I’m straighter than that throw-in.”
The children rubbed the sleep from their eyes and looked in confusion at the Beavers.
“It’s Father Jiffy and Father Nige,” beamed Mr Beaver. “The Witch’s magic has kept them from Narnia for so long, but her enchantment is fading. The voices of rugby have returned to the land.” They rushed outside to find a volley of rugby balls flying through the air, and the snow at last melting.
Ovally Balls 
The UK spent, if that is the right word, a total of £445Bn on Quantitative Easing, up to 2016, apparently.
OT, it’s all about safety imo, yesterday, whilst out for my walk, I saw a whole load of builders back to work, going in and out of other people’s houses.
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I’m not against QE btw, it had to be done because of the shit system we have set up
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Everyone’s favourite American-based Dundonian political economist, Mark Blyth, co-wrote this a few weeks ago:
Click to access 1585237065_beyond-bailouts-march2020.pdf
It won’t happen but the ideas are interesting.
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Andrew Cotter with dugs….
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I like Mark Blyth. The way he comes across in this interview is exactly how I like to think I come across after I’ve had 6 pints of IPA. My missus begs to differ.
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Ticht / SBT – apologies if I got bogged down on this sentence then:
If you look at the national debt since 1800, the UK could ride this out to a point in time where we are safe to resume business are usual, or as close to usual just by borrowing more and more.
I have no problem with borrowing to build up the country’s NHS and infrastructure (as long as it is part of a plan).
And I’m all for spending less money on wars and trident and whatever the fuck else. Even then, that would impact the economy and people’s lives.
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Chek would blank you on the train.
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OT, he did a couple of good things at Brown recently. This one about oil I really enjoyed:
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There have been questions. This, I suggest, is not the answer:
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A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget’s Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire load.
Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, confused, shocked, rattled, paralysed, dazed, bewildered, mixed up, surprised, awed, dumbfounded, nonplussed, flabbergasted, astounded, amazed, confounded, astonished, overwhelmed, horrified, numbed, speechless, and perplexed.
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Most important sport in the UK?
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-new-political-battleground/
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@tomp
I wonder what the average population of the towns that broke away from the RFU in 1895 is.
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Not particularly convinced that Labour’s problems at the last election were any different in Rugby League towns to non-Rugby-League towns across the North of England and parts of the Midlands.
And for all that he may well not have been a fan I would have thought that Harold Wilson was probably a closer fit for RL than any other PM ever.
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I shall miss the Rugby League interest at work when we close, I think it’s unlikely that I will ever work anywhere again where it has as much of a following. Just with time having moved on it’s a certainty that I won’t be working alongside anyone who’s played it at the top (club) level though those guys had retired anyway if not all that long ago.
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That said one thing working there has taught me is to become increasingly suspicious of class-based theories about who plays or follows different sports.
Number one sport for participation among the disappearing skilled manual working class? Golf.
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The older guys used to play football or RL (not far off an even split, some of the RL players also played a bit of Union). Now they play golf. A small number played cricket, a good few play snooker.
The younger ones play football (except most of them don’t, they play 5-a-side) and golf.
People go to horse racing and RL and a small number to football. Snooker once a year when it’s in York. On the telly mostly football and RL. Fairly large interest in the fortunes of the Yorkshire and England cricket teams without necessarily watching either.
Weirdly enough there seems to be a lot of doing and going to what’s available locally.
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@cmw
Back home the biggest number of sports clubs appear to be cricket and crown green bowls. It helps that these clubs tend to have a bar.
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In Kent we have pig racing.
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Police are apparently looking at the cctv footage of the synt spitting in the railway worker’s face before she deid.
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and you have dogging in Kent as well, craigs.
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Kent pigs and dogs (pigdog? Sounds like something from Commando magazine*) have unfortunate effect on Notablog.
*Not THAT type of Commando, Chimpie.
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Not wearing a fur coat today. Also full set of underwear.
As BB seems to need to know.
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vest and pants?
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Stockings AND suspenders?
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You were the one encouraging people to go ‘commando’ Young Master Chimp. It merely sounded like something you have experience of.
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Tomp – Dogging was more of a thing in Esher tbh.
Some quite high profile people got arrested in Esher for it iirc.
In Kent, it’s it’s so passe.
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I was merely outlining options, BB
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Can go more of a full set than stockings and suspenders
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High-profile people from Esher way? You can only mean J.I.
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J. I.?
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I found out that ‘bronies’ exist today.
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Bronies? isn’t that a MLP related thing. Sure I heard about clopping and related things on AOD.
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For which I am, of course, eternally grateful.
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J.I., craigs. You konw:
“So, that was a vigorous dogging session between the Italains and Scots. But what do you think Eddie Jones and the England team will have learnt from it?”
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Mmmm…………Nadine Dorries so erudite, witty, thoughtful AND sexy…………………………….
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Chimpie – must’ve been ill that day.
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Aaaahhhhhhhhh, sorry for being slow Tomp. No it some judge apparently. This was heard about through a friend of a friend so maybe someone secretly involved.
M’learned gentleman received a caution.
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For Sag:
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In vaguely related to Nadine Dorries news, Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun journalist who put his name to the article that included a network map of the “Hard-Left Network” that had taken over the Labour Party,, is moving to The Times as chief political commentator.
The map included links to far-right and anti-semitic websites. It was taken down soon after publication.
But we all make youthful mistakes and so less than 6 months later Mr Newton Dunn is off to a more prestigious job.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/09/sun-publish-far-right-conspiracy-theory-labour
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Missed this a couple of days ago.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/52641316
Good news Embra fans?
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Yes. Good.
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Chimpster, you like a good conspiracry theory so feast your eyes on this:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4ayyqw/david-wilcock-ufo-conspiracy-theorist-covid-19-deep-state-ascension
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That’s a good one. Deep state, illuminati, aliens. Hollow moon. Everything you could want out of a good conspiracy theory. Related by a specially chosen one.
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‘He is in contact, he says, with an alien species known as the “Blue Avians,” and worked in a “support role for a rotating Earth Delegate Seat (shared by secret earth government groups) in a ‘human-type’ ET SuperFederation Council.”’
All a bit scientology-ish.
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Apart from that perfectly reasonable.
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“last year Wilcock officially started what appears to be essentially a religion”
Explains what sag’s up to.
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you have dogging in Kent as well, craigs
Won £200 on a dog called Salad Dodger at a dog racing thing in South London a few years back! Not Kent, but close! Didn’t know greyhound racing was called dogging!
Bet on the dog based on Viz magazine skits about salad dodgers. I think I should probably stop here lest this gets out of hand. So to speak.
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Salad Dodger was a rank outsider and I had no idea I’d won until a bloke walked up to the bar moaning about it. She apparently won by a whisker (I’ll stop soon) and I gave my ticket to the bookie expecting 30 or 40 quid, and almost fell over when he gave me the 200! Bought Mrs Deebee a pair of Doc Martens she’d seen in London the year before with the winnings.
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Only thing I’ve ever won at a race track or casino.
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