Perhaps I’m suddenly being shuffled into focus to offer a useful – but boring – ‘sense of perspective’? An ‘outsider view’? Perhaps I’m simply serving as a manly foil – a handy, helpful, humble, practical contrast – to the clever but mysterious and (let’s face it) slightly uptight and poncy Mr Franklin D. Huff? Fine. Fine. Whatever you like. However you want to play it. I might grumble (I likes a bit of a grumble, me), but I can’t really be bothered getting all fired up about it now. Just so long as I’m back home before milking. I’ll grit my teeth and I’ll get on with it. Same as I always do.

Although … Although (while I’ve got your attention – have I got it? Hello? Oh. Yes. Hello) what about that poor parrot? Baldie? Baldo? How’s he/she fit into this mess? What did that blessed parrot ever do to anybody? Doesn’t seem right – fair – to have his/her/our innermost thoughts – our private feelings and ideas (uninspiring as they most certainly are) – casually picked over (exploited, let’s make no bones about it) for the sake of a little light relief.

I remember in RE classes at school (bear with me for a minute) being taught the biblical parable of the ‘talents’ and thinking, If this parable expresses the moral, emotional and philosophical aspirations of the One, True Religion then there’s something badly wrong with it – something horribly … I don’t know … cynical (I was a precocious boy. Grew out of it soon enough, though). For those of you who don’t recall, the parable involves a series of servants being given ‘talents’ (some kind of coin, I suppose) by their cruel master before he goes away on a long voyage. The servant given the most talents (the most – ahem – ‘talented’ servant) invests them well and doubles his money (slave trade? Opium poppies? Tobacco industry? Who knows?). When the master returns he is naturally delighted by the servant’s achievements and the servant is justly rewarded (several rhino horns. A giant, ivory dildo. Something grand and extravagant along those lines). Then there is the servant who has been given two talents. Like the four talent servant he doubles his money (slaughtering dolphins, skinning minks) and the master is delighted with him (warm smile, slightly intimidating wink, soft pat on the buttock …).

Finally there’s the servant who is given only one talent. This servant is not as clever or as successful as the other servants (one talent, and we don’t even know what that talent is. I’m guessing juggling, or unicycling – reading tarot, badly), and he is rightly anxious about stuffing up (the ire of the cruel master might be too much to bear!) so he takes his one talent and he buries it in a large hole in the ground to ensure that it isn’t lost or stolen. When the master returns, he promptly digs it up again and hands it over to him (slightly muddy, but still intact).