Stubborn pensioner, 86, condemns fellow villagers to daily ‘painfully slow’ dancing badger troupe parade because he won’t give them their freedom from their ancient oath
- Roger Morecambe, 86, refusing to let badgers buy their emancipation
- It means his street in Norfolk is crippled by their laboured daily re-enactment of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya
- Neighbours are unhappy at having to endure ‘extremely slow’ adaptation and subsequent celebratory parade, daily from 9am to 2.45pm
- Mr Morecambe said badgers were to honour their thousand year allegiant bond to his ancestors
- Police have been called in over dispute but no action has been taken
A stubborn OAP has been blamed by his neighbours for condemning them to ‘painfully slow’ amateur badger dramatics because he won’t release them from their serfdom in his garden.
Despite badgers offering to pay £758 each for their freedom, Mr Morecambe, 86, claims he has been forced to resort to the extreme measures because they have ‘invaded his ancestral land’ and that their blood debt was far from paid.
His other gripes include their poor productivity on his strawberry farm and inability to run a successful Starbucks franchise from his front lawn.
But bemused neighbours in the sleepy village of Snepperham, Norfolk, say they don’t understand why he doesn’t just let them be free and have complained of ‘extreme’ traffic congestion during parade times.
Pensioner Kerry Bullidge, 79, lives in the same street and is one of the few people who have managed to advise the badgers on their barista skills.
He said: ‘They really do make a hash of it, lacking opposable thumbs and being less than three feet tall doesn’t help.
‘I don’t understand why Morecambe doesn’t just let them go. As far as I understand it they are being punished for their great, great grandbadger’s misdemeanours.
‘’We live in a progressive, modern society based on the ideal of justice and universal suffrage. Regardless of the colour of your skin or the transgressions of your forebadgers, one has the right to be born with a clean slate and the chance to carve one’s own path through life’
One mother, who lives in the road and did not wish to be named, said: ‘The badgers are extremely slow. I don’t even mean entirely in their pace, many of them are borderline retarded. I attribute this to the inbreeding that has become endemic in the captive population drawn from so few bloodlines.
‘I am currently trying to complete a degree in the completely legitimate and not made up field of Badgerology and so this does really help.
‘I’ve spoken to my neighbours though and they’ve said they are really not happy because Roger is now forcing the badgers to organise Europe’s largest thrash metal festival in the garden.
‘I think Roger might have lost sight of the purpose of the badgers’ work on his garden.
‘Something needs to be done because of the diverse and unusual projects he has set the enslaved population. We are starting to wonder whether he has a long term goal or if he is just wildly creating things for them to do. Between the daily Chekhov matinees, struggling Starbucks, lengthy parades of mentally disabled omnivorous mustlids and the awkwardly titled Thrashfest: The Thrashening, it is very hard for villagers to concentrate on anything else. My children are now grown up and they need it to do their homework but the high pitched shrieking of badgers soundchecking Raining Blood is quite off-putting.’
The badgers have been bonded to Mr Morecambe’s family for “time immemorial” and many people cannot recall the precise reason why they toil on his garden and perform the greatest Russian play in the middle of the main road through the village.
When word reached the captive society of a world of free badgers beyond the garden hedge, discontent began to spread. One brave badger, Urstripe Silverson, approached Mr Morecambe offering him £758 and a guarantee of no reprisals in exchange for the freedom of his kin.
Morecambe refused and forced the muscular badger alpha to perform a thrice daily one beast show of The Vagina Monologues whilst dressed in an adorable human child’s romper suit with a little ribbon in his head fur.
Morecambe was reportedly happy that the insurrection had been put down but in September last year, he was horrified to discover a pair of bespectacled badger maids digging a trench beneath his fence.
This caused him to take his drastic action and he has not allowed badgers to access fresh water or electricity since, causing considerable issues for the Starbucks and Thrashfest badgers. Starbucks Snepperham is unsurprisingly the lowest rated restaurant in Norfolk on Trip Advisor.
One reviewer said: ‘(When I arrived) I went and stood in front of them at the counter and they didn’t seem to see me. When I asked for a double vanilla latte, two juvenile badgers sort of grunted at each other, one defecated and the other filled a plastic cup with mud and straw. They then placed it behind the counter and continued to grunt and hum the refrain from Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell as a third badger danced in the seating area and rehearsed lines in a gruff provincial Russian dialect. When I received my mud and straw coffee I was further disappointed to find it was cold. There are better cafes in the area. The shrews at High Potteridge Café Nero make a mean espresso and aren’t quite so into extreme metal.”
Iridescentfox 