![\"Gull](\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Gull.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
News Item: Seagull turns orange after falling into curry<\/a><\/p>\n (Note: this piece was originally posted with the title “Animal Rights”. It was renamed when the Gullsville series was developed.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhere have you been? It\u2019s three o\u2019clock in the morning!\u201d squawked Mrs. Gull, looking her husband up and down. \u201cAnd what\u2019s that smell? I thought you were just going out for a dine-and-dash with the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a liberty, that\u2019s what it is,\u201d squawked Mr. Gull as he half waddled, half staggered into his well-appointed drum facing the landfill.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s a liberty? What\u2019s wrong?\u201d asked Mrs. G., dreading the answer.<\/p>\n \u201cWrong? Wrong! It\u2019s a bloody liberty, that\u2019s what\u2019s wrong! Bloody do-gooder animal rescue people!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat now?\u201d enquired she with a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. \u201cDid they clean up the roadkill squirrel you had your eyes on? I\u2019m surprised the crows didn\u2019t beat you to it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo it wasn\u2019t the bloody roadkill dear,\u201d he said, the patronising tone of that last word dripping everywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, do tell me then,\u201d she declared. \u201cI\u2019m not a mind reader.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll bloody tell you alright! So\u2026 me and the lads went down to the beer gardens at the Knackered Donkey, and lo and behold, there\u2019s an empty table there with six unfinished pint glasses of lager.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs this going to be a long story, dear?\u201d enquired Mrs. Gull, fluttering the place where her eyelashes would have been had she been of a species that is so blessed. \u201c\u2019Cuz if it is, I\u2019ll fetch that piece of Big Mac I was saving for a midnight snack.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell go on, then,\u201d said Mr. Gull. \u201cSharesy though, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n Mrs. Gull waddled to the pantry (actually just another part of the drum) and grabbed the Mac-carrion in her beak. She waddled back, and the pair of them tore it into two pieces, Mr. Gull the winner by a largish piece of pickle.<\/p>\n \u201cSo\u2026 as I was saying. It was the work of a moment to knock the glasses over, and luckily they were on a tray that saved most of the lager. So me and the boys get outside some of that flat amber nectar, and we\u2019re having a good old time, telling jokes and bragging about how many clean cars we\u2019d crapped on today. We do the same thing with a couple more\u00a0 glasses, and we\u2019re having a right skinful, I can tell ya!\u201d<\/p>\n Mrs. Gull looked up from the piece of burger that she was attacking. \u201cSo basically, you went out and got drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, yes, but my way of telling the story\u2019s more entertaining. Anyway, halfway through the fourth pint, the landlord came out and shooed us away. Getting airborne was tricky, I can tell you! But we managed it. And after a good drink, what\u2019s the perfect way of ending the evening?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell for you, it\u2019s usually coming home, waking me up and having your wicked way with me,\u201d said Mrs. Gull with a look of displeasure verging on disgust crossing her face.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, well\u2026 a-p-a-r-t from that, what\u2019s the perfect end to a piss-up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh tell me, please. Let\u2019s get it over with so we can get to the wicked way and then sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCurry!\u201d exclaimed Mr. Gull. \u201cBloody curry. And guess what we found in a dumpster at the Asthmatic Elephant Curry House?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCurry, perhaps?\u201d said Mrs. G., taking a wild stab in the dark.<\/p>\n \u201cChicken tikka masala!\u201d replied Mr. Gull. \u201cA big turkey tray-sized\u2026 tray of it. So me and the lads look at each other, and Dave says, \u2018Well lads; what\u2019re we waiting for?\u2019, and we all dive in head first. I thought I\u2019d died and gone to heaven! Okay\u2014so chicken tastes a little too close to gull for my liking, but the tikka masala? Liquid heaven! The rest of them had their fill and then wandered round the corner to see if they could find the butt of a spliff or two in the doorway of the nightclub. So I had the tikka masala to myself. And I don\u2019t mind telling you, I revelled in it! In fact not only did I revel in it; I rolled in it too!\u201d<\/p>\n He paused.<\/p>\n \u201cNow there\u2019s a fantasy; girl gulls wrestling in chicken tikka masala, and I get to clean the winner off with my tongue! Luverly!\u201d<\/p>\n He paused to savour the thought before continuing. For her part, Mrs. G. wondered why she’d ever married this drunken pervert.<\/p>\n \u201cSo there I am, rolling and chowing at the same time. \u2018Course, by now, I\u2019ve turned orange from the spices, but it suited me; it really suited me! If the evening had only ended there, it would have been one of the best nights of my life; right up there with our wedding night!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean the night you got so completely blitzed you couldn\u2019t tell my beak from my cloaca?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t remind me,\u201d returned Mr. Gull. \u201cThat was another almost perfect night that was ruined at the last moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. I seem to recall you hurt your cloaca on my beak.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. G. grimaced at the remembrance.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, as I was saying. If the evening had ended there, all would have been good. But no! This bloody do-gooder animal rescue git comes along and lifts me out of my spicy bathtub and puts me in this cage. Not a \u2018by-your-leave\u2019! Next thing I know, I\u2019m in a building somewhere, staring at the business end of a bottle of dish soap. I thought, \u2018This is it. I\u2019m an ex-seagull.\u2019 But somehow I survived. And when I spotted myself in a mirror, I\u2019m back to this stupid grey and white colour.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I like you just the way you look, dear,\u201d said Mrs. Gull reassuringly. \u201cAnd now I know what the smell is, I don\u2019t mind telling you that I like the way you smell too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes it turn you on, eh? D\u2019ya think I\u2019m sexy?\u201d said Mr. G.<\/p>\n \u201cNo you drunken, gluttonous pervert. It\u2019s making me hungry. Don\u2019t suppose there was any left, was there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActually, there was. You fancy some?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not? Give us a minute while I powder my beak. Then we can nip down there and have a quiet meal for two. There shouldn\u2019t be any people around by now, so we can watch the sun come up from the comfort of the chicken tikka masala tray. Oooo\u2014it\u2019s so romantic!\u201d<\/p>\n Mrs. G. made a show of poking her beak in and out of the pile of dust next to the \u201cpantry\u201d, and turned round, her beak duly powdered.<\/p>\n \u201cOn second thoughts, maybe I\u2019ll stay here,\u201d said Mr. G. \u201cI\u2019m getting a bit of a guts ache. I must have swallowed some dish soap\u2014it can\u2019t have been the beer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?!? I\u2019m all worked up for a curry now!\u201d squawked Mrs. Gull. \u201cCome on: even if you don\u2019t eat the curry, you could roll in it and get that nice orange tan again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFair enough,\u201d said Mr. G. \u201cCome on; last one there\u2019s a seagull biryani!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News Item: Seagull turns orange after falling into curry (Note: this piece was originally posted with the title “Animal Rights”. It was renamed when the Gullsville series was developed.) \u201cWhere have you been? It\u2019s three o\u2019clock in the morning!\u201d squawked Mrs. Gull, looking her husband up and down. \u201cAnd what\u2019s that smell? I thought you were just going out for… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,487],"tags":[111,112,110],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fake","category-stories","tag-do-gooders","tag-masala","tag-orange-seagull"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n