18. DOG ENDS

CATCH OF THE DAY

Four million new Die Sports subscribers and a packed Wembley Stadium were drawn by manhunting’s biggest prey Terry Jackson-Brown, famous for evading the hunt by hiding in Royal Mail parcels. For £1,250,000 he appeared parcelled up on the prestigious turf.

‘Back in my day,’ said former hunt victim Devon Boucher still applying cream to his mangled torso, ‘we got sod all for being gnawed. But that’s manhunts today for you. Load of overpaid prima donnas.’

Eight large parcels occupied the pitch. One contained Jackson-Brown.

After twelve minutes the best move occurred when one of the parcels suddenly opened to reveal a Lego model of Big Ben.

‘Jackson-Brown must be bricking it,’ commented Hornet-Creeper, the expert hunter and now TV pundit, ‘we’re down to seven parcels.’

‘Shouldn’t be too long before the claret starts running,’ remarked co-commentator, Rob Sneed, as the hounds were drawn to a package on the centre-spot shaped like a man, as if full of canine treats.

The Master of the Hounds for the Swindon and Wiltshire Hunt gave the signal for his charges to back off and allow Hunt Master, Sir Simon Bedigree, access. He dismounted his ride like a matador and approached Terry Jackson-Brown’s concealed person. From the pocket of his red hunting jacket he produced a tape measure. His thoughts relayed to the audience by a microphone fixed to his lapel.

‘Jackson-Pillock is five feet eleven and a half. Allowing for packaging, this parcel should be six foot one and three-quarter inches to accommodate him.’

The raucous crowd suddenly fell as silent as the grave while Bedigree measured. Then he broadcast the results with a grin so broad that it looked like it had more chance of escaping his face than Jackson-Brown did his predicament.

‘Six foot one and three-quarter inches exactly. That’s our man.’

The hitherto static parcel twitched and prepared to run for it. But the Master Hunter and his cohorts weren’t having it. Converging upon it they tore into it, the crowd whipped into a frenzy of bloodlust.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Rob Sneed announced on commentary. ‘It isn’t Terry Jackson-Brown they’ve revealed, but the mass-murderer and expert doggy hypnotist Abe Gardweed who also happens to be five feet eleven and a half inches tall. He’s on day release from Wandsworth Prison. Although I don’t recall him being allowed to wield a foot long machete as part of his parole conditions?’

The following carnage was horrendous, especially as the hounds were rendered immobile by Gardweed’s specialist training in canine hypnosis and could only look on as their masters were annihilated.

‘Their defence was carved right open there, Rob,’ commented Hornet-Creeper. ‘They clearly didn’t do their homework. Not knowing the heights of mass murderers has cost them dear here today.’

Terry Jackson-Brown then emerged from his parcel, but on the pitch at Craven Cottage, where Royal Mail had mistakenly delivered him.