The Daily Splash

After Monday’s revelation that the Daily Splash was doing well in the Salisbury Gardens potato-growing competition it is now time to come clean:the Daily Splash has not been involved in the nurturing of the incredible specimen that now adorns the garden. In fact Catherine has spent many hours lovingly tending some of the most impressive bush growth seen outside a 1970′s educational video, resolutely refusing to trim in anything approaching a fashionable style, and fiercely defending her right to ownership of the resulting errr… vegetable.

Catherine challenged Simon to identify as many wines as possible from a bumber pack of 12 for christmas.

He is not doing very well…

It didn’t take Flora long to realise that if she was ever going to truly find a way into her mother’s affections, underhand methods were called for….

The Daily Splash was somewhat disappointed to discover that a planned guerrilla breastfeeding trip to Tynemouth failed to involve the promised gorillas, which would definitely have been unusual for November in Tynemouth.

Following the recent failiure of her parents to make Flora a pin up for the breast feeding lobby they were hard at work for next year’s calendar. Despite this Flora has hit international breast feeding celebrity in her own right when broadcast on BBC World Service noisily suckling at her mother’s breast and almost drowning out her thoughts on her recent Ignobel award.

The happy couple were nearly not so happy when it emerged that the wedding cake had been unthinkingly cut up by Milburns staff before it had been officially cut by the couple. As Simon later pointed out “the cutting of the cake is a symbolic act analogous to the breaching of the bride’s virginity—much as I enjoyed Mark the chef’s brown ale jus, I think it should have been my knife plunging into the soft fruity interior of the cake and not his.”

They are pictured right, safely directing their fury at the cake, and not at the culpable Milburns staff.

Catherine and Simon were at loggerheads again yesterday when it was discovered that a large number of cow-themed items had mysteriously appeared on the wedding list and been purchased by generous guests. These included a fridge, a full set of cow print bed linen, six Friesian-patterned toasters, a family fun-sized pack of Britain’s Farm Animals and an actual cow.

Simon declared his surprise at the addition of these items, not least because Netto where they have the list does not stock any of them. “We have a pact that the number of cow-themed items will decrease in our house on regular basis, and that no new items will arrive. I was under the impression that I had managed to cure Catherine of her obsession—clearly I was wrong.”

Catherine professed herself as mystified as everyone else. She claimed “since our trip to Brighton to purchase a life-sized mirrorball cow, which now resides in the garden, I have agreed to buy no more cow-related items, I can only assume that the cow memorabilia industry was facing ruin without my patronage and has somehow infiltrated the list.”

Work seemed to be getting easier from now on

Dr Catherine Bertenshaw is pleased to announce she has recently begun a new job – she is now the North East Manager at VETNET, or to give her the full title, VETNET Lifelong Learning Network Regional Manager (North East & Yorkshire), School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

She is very pleased to have the new job although she admits she will miss her special relationship with the famously temperamental photocopier at Houghall College. When asked to comment on what exactly the new job involved she looked slightly shifty and pretended to choke on her cocktail.

“I’m not exactly sure,” she eventually revealed, “but whatever it is, it can’t be any worse than being chased around Houghall by the lawnmower man.”

When asked if she will miss anything else about her old job she pointed out “one thing that is definitely better in real academia is the creative use of coarse language. You haven’t heard swearing until you have sat in a meeting of the AFRD steering group.” Dr Bertenshaw explained that only 12 months earlier she had been hauled before a disciplinary panel at Houghall merely for “gently expressing my opinion on the college’s disastrously run IT system to a junior IT worker.”

Happily the recipient of her impromptu IT lecture has now recovered with the aid of expert counselling and can now hear the word “fuck” without bursting into tears.

Cathy B the “Topless totty from Teddington” ties all our tongues on her wedding day and gives a sneak preview of the treat in store for lucky new husband Simon tonight. All was not complete however until she got her kit off for the attentions of the Daily Splash snapper.

It’s obvious that there will be many references today to the “fine pair” that Catherine and Simon make but now we have made sure that he is not the only one who knows what a fine pair is hiding under the wedding dress. Lucky lucky boy!

There were unprecedented scenes of excitement today when the latest “Cow Parade” exhibition was unveiled in Jesmond Vale.

Several groups of inebriated students had already tried and failed to steal the life sized mirror ball cow when it was unveiled without the expected presence of fellow owners Elton John, Mother Teresa, Madonna and Sir Trevor MaCDonald. A local resident, who gave his name as Salguod Nomis, said that the whole concept was causing chaos on the streets. “We don’t really need any more cows round here”, he said, “you only have to look in the windows to see the whole place is infested – I have been trying to sneak a few into the back lane on bin day every few weeks but they keep on coming back.”

As everyone is surely aware, the curator of the show is renowned local bovine obsessive Dr Catherine Bertenshaw, who also claims to have discovered a new method of encouraging cows to give up more milk – she talks to them!

Despite strong local opposition to the claims (Dr Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University has finally read her thesis and gone on record to say “load of old bollocks!”) Dr Bertenshaw has published a new book on the subject, entitled “I love only Moo”, which enables enthusiasts to talk to animals “like that Dr Doolittle does on the Discovery Channel.”

All this be as it may, the exhibition will be open from September 12^th 2008 until September 13^th 2008 and then will hopefully be taken on a world tour.