The Thamesmead Grump

 THE VILLAGE IDIOT

Back in the old days, when life was simpler and we all had to make our own entertainment, villages up and down the country would hold their Spring/Winter/Summer etc. festival and part of the festivities would include the "let's make the village idiot Mayor for the day" event.

The village idiot would be dressed up in an impressive robe, given a chain of office and, if he was really lucky, a hat to match.

The villagers, suitably impressed by their own wit, would then spend the day laughing at the antics the village idiot got up to. The village idiot, with absolutely no sense of irony whatever and not realising he was being made a fool of would issue a series of proclamations that everyone ignored as they got on with whatever they were doing.

They might, if the village idiot put on a really good show, keep him in office for the whole year; after all, everyone likes a good laugh and before Netflix, you had to find your amusement where you could.

One day, when the village idiot was having a really good time running things, the plague arrived. Suddenly, the villagers needed someone who could take charge in a crisis and do what needed to be done. Sadly though, the village idiot was still Mayor and instead of tackling the new crisis with meaningful strategies, decided that to control the plague, everyone needed to paint their shed bright blue; he then got his best friend Denis ( a wholly disreputable scoundrel) to supply everyone with blue paint and gave him all the money in the village money chest to do it. 

Denis (the disreputable scoundrel), knew absolutely nothing about blue paint but wasn't going to let such a small fact dissuade him from accepting the money which he then safely stored in a money chest belonging to his other friend, Colin who lived far away in another country.

Colin then asked his friend Simon where he might be able to get some blue paint (whatever that was). Simon didn't know, but he knew someone who did and contacted his friend Shirley. Shirley was a nail technician and used blue paint in her regular job which made her the go-to expert, which they all did.

Shirley of course, had no idea that blue nail varnish wasn't really suitable for painting sheds, but blue is blue, how different could it be?

Shirley gave all her blue nail varnish to Simon who then passed it on to Colin. Colin, assuming that he had done a really good job, passed it on to Denis (the disreputable scoundrel) who gave it to the village idiot, then set about thinking of ways he could spend all that lovely money.

The villagers (those who hadn't succumbed to the plague anyway), told the village idiot that the blue paint was no good and asked him to explain what had happened to all their money, but he didn't know; he was the village idiot.

(Author's note: this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual names, characters, businesses, events and incidents is purely coincidental).