SANTA VISITS MRS MIGGINS' PIE SHOP.

I've pinched Mrs Miggins and her pie shop from the UK sit-com "Blackadder"

Santa Claus was likely to finish his delivery round a little on the late side in 1822.

He'd been doing quite well and had imbibed a goodly quantity of sweet sherry as he'd dropped parcels off to house after house, when Rudolf sprang a leak and was in need of veterinary assistance.

So, whilst he was waiting for hasty repairs to be effected to the forlorn reindeer he sought refuge on the streets of London, and somehow gravitated towards a pie shop. Santa was inordinately fond of pies. He liked fruit pies, especially apple pies when the apples are supplemented by gin and the whole confection was covered in a thick gloopy custard. He liked rhubarb pies if they were sweet enough and gooseberry pies if they weren't. But mostly he loved steak pies.

He was an expert on steak pies. He could detect a steak pie from a distance of several miles, even when the wind was in the least helpful direction. And, standing on the street of London that raw December day in 1822 he could detect a particularly excellent steak pie wafting on the frosty breeze towards him.

He stood outside the source of the emporium that seemed to be generating the excellent aroma and stared at the sign hanging above its grubby window. MRS MIGGINS, PIES EXTRAORDINAIRE AND HOT SAUSAGE ROLLS, it read.

He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, and then nodded to himself. He had a good hour before the veterinary surgeon would have Rudolf up and running again. Time for a pie. Indeed, time for a steak pie.

He entered the shop.

There were fellows, languid, arty types, languishing about, sighing and proclaiming rhyming couplets as though that very literary device was about to go out of fashion, and supping port wine from pewter goblets. In one corner a particularly stationary poet sat staring at the ceiling as if it might fall on him at any moment. Behind the counter a jolly woman with false teeth finely carved from chippings of used oak was stirring a huge pot.

"Mrs Miggins, ma'am?" he asked politely.

"Why, it's Mr Claus!" she exclaimed. "Look everyone: it's Mr Claus! I say, Mr Byron, look who it isn't this fine Christmas Eve: it's Mr Claus!"

"No fairer sight nor meaner gut was ever seen, you perverse s**t," intoned he who had been called Mr Byron.

"Oooh! You are a one, Mr Byron!" squawked the good lady, clearly totally not offended by his use of the word s**t.

"'Tis nothing," he replied airily, waving one arm in the air most theatrically and dislodging a swinging spider from its length of web.

"What will you be having, Mr Claus?" asked Mrs Miggins.

"I'd like..." began Santa.

"He'll have a pie of purest steak to keep his Santa eyes awake," cackled another poet.

"Oooh, Mr Shelley! Another gem, to be sure!" laughed Mrs Miggins. "But is it steak pie, Mr Claus? I've got the very best of steak pies today, the veriest most perfect confection with a nice rich gravy to whet the appetite!"

"That'd be nice," muttered Santa, aware that he could in no way compete with the loquacious wit of her regular clientele.

"Where will you be wanting to sit then, Mr Claus?" asked Mrs Miggins as she busied herself cutting a large slice of steak pie from a huge rectangle of steak pie.

Santa pointed to the quiet man in the corner, still staring at the ceiling. "I'll join him if I may," he ventured.

"Oh, I'd steer clear of Mr Keats!" laughed Mrs Miggins. "He's not had much to say for months, just sits there, he does, and lets the world pass him by..."

"He's quiet because he's dead!" laughed Lord Byron. "He's been dead since last year!"

Ooh, you are a one, Mr Byron!" squawked Mrs Miggins. "He's just quiet, that's all, contemplating his next great work I shouldn't wonder, the one that will make him his fortune!"

"No, he's dead," confirmed Shelley. "He's been dead long enough to have maggots crawling out of his eyes: look!"

Santa looked very hard at the quiet figure in the corner and shuddered. There could be no doubt about it: the fellow was being held in place by his starched clothing and without it he would have collapsed to the ground in a heap of dead poet, and huge families of maggots were in evidence, pouring out of his every orifice. He was dead all right. He'd never seen anyone deader.

"I think ...I think I'll eat it outside!" he almost shouted, and he grabbed his pie from Mrs Miggins far from clean hands and rushed outside.

"I need fresh air," he sighed.

"So does Keats!" laughed Lord Byron, skipping past him down the street. "Now, if you'll forgive me, I'm off to Greece to fight in their war and lead them to eventual historic victory, and that's something Keats could never do!"

"Bloody poets!" groaned Santa, and vomited.

Author's Note

The British situation comedy, "BlackAdder", in several of its periods included Mrs Miggins and her pie shop where noted poets lingered eating pies and being poets, and I've tried to capture the nineteenth century version here.

Reviews

[Leon C]

Nice to see the world of Blackadder ride again. I remember the episode with the poets and Dr Doctor Johnson with great fondness. You are very brave to take on the mantel of the writers Curtis and Elton and by and large you have succeeded. I certainly think you are true to there depiction of the characters.

If I am going to be picky about this piece then I would have to say that Blackadder was always astonishingly accurate when it came to historic detail. So, Rudolf the reindeer really jarred with me. Surely a 20th Centaury creation!

But that apart really good.

[Peter Rogerson]

Thanks for your comment. The above little story is just one of a series of nonsense Santa stories I've posted and in them I pay little attention to historical detail or anything else for that matter.