"Just one small sausage sandwich" whined Francois Devine having (in his eyes) distracted me with a fascinating moral argument.

"No – nothing shall pass your lips until you are able to free yourself and fetch it from the larder."

I was interrupted by the telephone. Who on earth could be phoning me at such an hour?

"Dennis Brent" I said in a businesslike manner.

"It’s Mrs Hinge from next door. I just thought you’d like to know you have an enormous arse."

"I beg your pardon – I have never been so insulted…"

"Sticking out from the back of your house. I think some school children must’ve found it and dumped it on your patio."

"Ah – I see – yes I know about this. A most unfortunate business."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Matters are in hand" I told her reassuringly.

"Well, when you’ve finished enjoying yourself, do something about that enormous arse. Good night."

She slammed the phone down and no doubt returned to the sort of disgusting, sinful activities which ninety six year old women get up to in the middle of the night with their twenty seven year old Swedish girlfriends.

"Bad news – our secret is out" I said to Francois Devine.

"Gasp. Then we must run for the hills. Or practice our stout denials until such time as I am once more able to run for the hills."

"I refer to you being wedged in my wall."

"Ah – I mistakenly believed you meant the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"Oh – I must be thinking of someone else."

"Right."

"Yes."

The phone rang again. I picked it up. Obviously.

"Dennis Brent" I said.

"Mr Stoddard here, from Bell End. I don’t know if you know but you’ve got an enormous arse."

"Nuisance phone calls are against the law" I snapped. "Unless you mean the backside of Francois Devine which is currently emerging from the rear of Brent Towers."

"That sounds like the arse I mean. I can see it from here."

Mr Stoddard made a valid point – his cottage, "Bell End", is so named because it is the last place in the village where one can hear the church bells on a clear day. It is a long way from Brent Towers and if he could see Francois Devine’s posterior then it stands to reason plenty of others might be able to see it as well.

"Are you talking about me?" asked Francois Devine, craning his neck to try and listen.

"No no" I lied convincingly. "Francois Devine is stuck and cannot be moved. I’ve placed him on an emergency diet until such time as he is able to move."

"Well do hurry up – he’s blocking my view of Mrs Hinge and Agnetha."

"I see."

"Which is more than I can right now. Get on with it man." He too slammed the phone down. I don’t know what he expected me to do. Short of hooking up some kind of closed circuit television system so the villagers could enjoy the goings on next door there wasn’t a lot I could do. I might, at a pinch, be able to project the image from the closed circuit system onto Francois Devine’s posterior but he was wearing dark trousers and the image would be of very poor quality. I suppose, if push came to shove (two unfortunate words given my recent close contact with Francois Devine’s flesh) I could always send a couple of DVDs of Mrs Hinge and Agnetha from my collection round to Mr Stoddard. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would cost me almost a pound in raw materials.

I was trying a new tactic – placing small food items a short distance away from Francois Devine in the hope that he would strain so hard to reach them that he might loosen something important – when the telephone rang again.

"Dennis Brent" I said for the third time.

"Mr Brent? My name is Hank Rosenberg from NASA."

"Surely I haven’t been chosen after all these years? I gasped. Some thirty years ago, Francois Devine and I put our names down to go into space as part of a groundbreaking plan to test the scientific accuracy of Story HH by actually going to the moon. I’d given up hope that the article would ever be written but now it appeared I would get my chance.

"Did you know there is an ass sticking out of your house?" asked Mr Rosenberg.

"Sorry?"

"An ass. One of our guys on the space station spotted it while out on a space walk."

"That would be my colleague, Francois Devine."

"Oh yeah – he was mentioned in the mission briefing along with the great wall of China and that big here-be-dragons bit just below Europe."

"You mean Africa?"

"Whatever. Sorry to have trouble you sir."

"What about my trip into space?" I asked.

"Sure – any time, Mac. Any time."

"Thank you." He hung up – rather more politely than Mrs Hinge or Mr Stoddard which just goes to prove my point that lesbianism just encourages people to be rude.

Over the next half hour I took phone messages and telexes from the Met Office, the Ministry of Defence, the English Tourist Board, the Chinese Tourist Board, the Welsh Embassy, Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 4, Radio Five Live, Bendaton FM, MI5 and www.shoveitupmybiggayass.com and gave them all the same message. Yes there is an ongoing backside incident, no it is not a threat to national security, yes I am dealing with it, no it will not block the view of Mrs Hinge and Agnetha indefinitely and yes it is not an act of war. I was becoming rather weary of these constant interruptions when something happened which made me wish just one more foreign government or news organisation would bother me.