Territorial Integrity
Of course, we had warned them that any more unauthorised incursions into our airspace would result in action to protect the integrity of our borders.
We did point out to them that the are are UN treaties about the use of chemical warfare devices. However our neighbours insist that the deployment of a barbecue was not listed in the schedule of outlawed delivery devices. Anyway, they added, the smoke from a barbecue hardly constitutes chemical warfare.
The wife did point out though – somewhat forcefully – that if a whole house smelling of barbecue smoke was not some form of health hazard she didn’t know what was. Luckily, I managed to restrain her before she resorted to a territorial incursion of her own. But it took a while to get her to climb down from the fence and to make her let go of the garden shovel she had been waving at next-door’s wife, while yelling about how all our washing would have to be redone to get rid of the smell of burnt burgers from it.
Anyway, during the last period of peace, after the Late-Night Party Limitation Treaty had been signed by us and the neighbours from both sides, next door invited us to a barbecue. So, I’ve tasted his cooking and certainly I do now think the UN ought to add his burgers to the list of banned and outlawed biological and chemical weaponry. Judging by the people we spoke to in the days following that barbecue, who all came down with various degrees of dodgy stomach problems, then there is a very strong argument that his barbecues should be classed as weapons of mass destruction.
The wife reckons we ought to get that Tony Blair round to one of next door’s barbecues. Get him to see if he can come up with a dossier for us. After all, these days he does seem to be at somewhat of a loose end, what with only being a Middle-East Peace envoy. Which doesn’t seem to take up that much of his time. But I doubt we could afford his fees, maintenance of a grin like that probably doesn’t come cheap.
Anyway, all this may become a bit moot. When I was out walking the dog this morning on a reconnaissance mission around the neighbourhood I notice number 28 is up for sale again. So we may be forced into another uneasy alliance with next door anyway, at least until we repel the new invaders.
