Click and Colette

'Policeman?  Policeman?  You couldn't police a bluebottle in a jar.'

'Pooh, are you there?'

'Collective enterprise? Collective enterprise?  You want to collect a stint in the Army, mate, that'll sort you out.'

'Pooh, what are you talking about?'

'Court of Appeal?  Court of Appeal?  I'll appeal the skin off your hide if I get hold of you.'

'Pooh!'

'Infrastructure?  Infrastructure?  Infrashambles!  Utter disgrace…laughing stock of the world, we are.'

'Pooh-what-are-you-doing?'

'Oh, what does it sound like, Piglet?  I'm social dissing, like we're meant to.  Or haven't you?  And if not, why not?  Honestly…Bosky pigs?   Bosky pigs?  Biggest joke in all the--.'

'Pooh, it's social distancing.  It's what we've been doing for weeks.'

'Well, I'll keep doing this, Piglet, I know my unprecedented rights.  It's an unprecedented country, you know.  Anyway, just a rant at twilight…keeps you fit and peeved: "You can stick your Ombudsman where the sun--".'

'Save it for dusk, Pooh.'

'Don't talk to me about dusk.  Falls whenever it damn well likes.  Civic delinquent, dusk.   Anyway, that distancing doesn't seem to be working at all.  Things are still rubbish.  People scrambling to get delivery slots for groceries.'

'Ah, now, Owl says there's a way round that.'

'Owls…wouldn't cross the street for them.'

'Pooh!'

'Oh, very well…what's this way round, then?'

'Apparently it's called Click and Colette.  You place your order, they tell you when you can pick it up, you go over to the supermarket, beep them to say you've arrived and then your purchases are trolleyed out by a not-uncontroversial French lady novelist of the early twentieth century.'

'Really?'

'Oh, yes.  And if you've got enough bonus points she gives you some extras.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, might be reflections on how to transcend quotidian sensuality…you know, while she's bagging your Winalot.'

'Are you talking in metaphor?'

'Do I sound like I'm waving flags about?'

'So what other extras come with your pet food?'

'Well, sometimes a bloke comes out in blue overalls and says "Wotcher, I'm Gaston" and starts singing to Colette about a third party called Gigi, asking if he's been, you know, a fool without a mind or just too blind to realise.'

'And what does Colette say?'

'Get a move on shifting those ten-for-eight Papa John full-works pizzas, probably.'

'I see.'

'And if, you know, the lady shoppers have got Jackpot bonus points Colette takes them off for a quiet word.'

'After which?'

'After which they come back, clout their husbands round the head and say they're heading off to a chateau in the Auvergne with a Joe Wicks lookalike.'

'All of them?  To the same place?  How can they squeeze in?'

'Do you know what "chateau" means, Pooh?'

'It's what vulgarians think I do in the woods.'

'Yes, well, we'll draw a vole over that.'

'Voles? Voles?  Think I'd give tuppence for a malnourished lemming--?'

'A demain, Pooh.'

'Aw, Piglet.  You de man, too.'