Gin and a moat

[paxillin]

Not by one of the Queens this time... But we can drink here.

The collective noun for clowns is apparently a pratfall, or even more appropriately a shudder.

A pratfall of clown . I must find a way of weaving that into a conversation in RL. For dragons it's flight, wing or weyr. Equally useful on the school run I imagine.

Not sure whether a weyr of dragons or a pratfall of clown would make me run faster and hide harder.

Clowns. One clown is a prat, several clowns a pratfall.

Wow. I thought you were joking. What do you think a group of dragon clowns would be called? A shudderwing? A pratflight?

I warned you!

I told you not toffee the bloody things!

They'll be into everything now - they make nests under the floorboards, in car engines, beneath hollowed out cushions - everywhere!

I'll never again be able to eat a custard pie in peace without worrying that it will end up n my face*

*Yws - I know pies end up in faces, but this is in my face, not just "in" my face. IYSWIM.

Anyway, I'm off to my shedto work on a clown-repellant . I may be some time . . .

*to feed, not toffee

I think school librarians are good clown repellents. Perhaps you could capture their essence somehow and bottle it.

Plus we might get a bit of peace and quiet.

Good idea Pax - how can I get my hands on a librarian?

Queen can pick one up after the school run. The dragonlet school does have a library I trust?

There is certainly a pile of ashes sorted according to the Dewey Decimal system, yes/

Soz, been busy arguing about clocks.

The Dewey Decimal System. I googled it, I had no idea how libraries are organised. More educational than my ladybird book collection.

I can recommend an excellent librarian who will definitely be able to scare clowns. So long as they don't bribe him with bananas, that is.

I know the librarian you mean. He is indeed excellent at his job, as well as having ginger hair (my favourite!). However, I doubt I'd be able to extract the relevant DNA without losing several limbs - plus, doesn't he work in a university? Is that quite the same a a school librarian?

In my experience, university librarians are enormously helpful and don't make cat'sbum faces when you ask them about anything . It is the repellence factor we need to isolate.

Most of their repellence comes from the stare, the aura and the SHHH.

I tried Pax - I really tried . . .

I coped with the Stare by using the tried and true method Perseus used to defeat the Gorgon - backing up to the librarian using a mirror so that I didn't get frozen by her basilisk eye (worse than the real basilisk, I can tell you!) . . .

The Aura I defeated by spraying her with Febreeze . . .

However, I fell at the last fence - the SHHH. I had earplugs in and everything, but it somehow manages to be both sub- and super-sonic simultaneously.

It was a physical force of pure evil and cut through me to the very marrow of my bones . . .

And then it all came back to me - that library book that I failed to return in 1963 ("The Concise Illustrated History of String"). The terror gripped me with an Icy Hand.

I knew she knew. And she knew that I knew that she knew.

I have to admit that I quailed . . .

I might have been able to cope had she not also been wearing a pussycat-bow blouse (a la Margaret Thatcher) and glasses that would have drawn a gasp of admiration from Dame Edna Everage. These, combined with the stench scent of Estee Lauder "Youth Dew" and her sensible shoes, were just too much.

Might I suggest you send in the dragons?

Might I suggest you send in the dragons?

why? Have the dragonlets been misbehaving?

I do a very good librarian impression if that would help. I'm a natural. If I hadn't stolen inherited the throne I'd have made an excellent career of it.

Dragonlets are clowning now, Mortificadodragon. Since Queen is queening and I am never sober enough to make a plausible librarian, you need to try again, Schadenfreude. If we wire the jaws together, her shh will be softer. More of a chhh. Or superglue the centre of the lips?

Perhaps we can try a funeral director as a clown repellent.

Doesn't work. I went to a clown funeral once, they found it dead funny.

Supergluing the lips won't work. They are so tightly cat's bummed that there's no way you could get even the invisible sharp edge of Death's Sickle between them.

I thought if you sent in a small flight of misbehaving dragonlets, giggling and flapping and setting rare books on fire by farting at them, they would draw her attention long enough for me to whip a sack over her head, gorilla tape her limbs to her torso and bundle her into my essence -schlooping machine to draw out the very fibre of her soul being. I can then bottle it and we can spray it round.

It shouldn't be very difficult to find a huge small flight of dragonlets.

TBH they're still more an awkward flap and waddle than a 'flight' of dragonlets. I'm not in favour of burning rare books by accident, though I suppose it didn't do Julius Caesar much harm.

They wouldn't be burning the books by accident. they would be burning them "by accident".

Is there any chance that she would be charmed by their infant dragon awkward flapping and waddling - possibly even softening her expression of permanent distaste into a mere scowl?

Could you stick gaffer tape on the cat's bum mouth? You could first perfect your technique on an actual cat's ... well you get my gist.