With one arm and one arm gone west, she ran like the devil and grabbed the rest

Preparations are in full swing for Trafalgar Day at Milkbeck Library. The Friends of the Library are in full sail with all strops flailing as they put into action the most comprehensive campaign of patriotic fervour and cultural awakening since the Festival of Britain. Reality checks are made difficult by the chairlady (sic) of the Friends being both utterly selfish and venal and also the sister-in-law of the Mayor, Councillor Donkeyhanger. She has told the Helminthdale Examiner that the library will be bedecked with bunting and that once inside the hundreds of milling throngs from the local community will be enthralled by a life-size diorama of the death of Nelson; a local history talk on the Napoleonic Wars; face-painting; a puppet show; and storytelling sessions concentrating on stirring tales from our great naval past. As the available floor space in the library is roughly twice the size of the average living room, we'll have to let the walls out or something. The good news is that nobody's found a way to make any of this my problem. Yet.