There was once a time when our loquacious president had a quiet word with the Belgian, suggesting that he mix metaphors more freely. Apparently he felt that our Poirot-esque friend was ‘hampered’ by his excellent knowledge of English, leading various constables to suspect him of being an impostor. To this end we (the secretary, the bears, and the intern) planned a weekend trip to South-end in search of new base verbiage with which to confound the Havisocks and Peregrines. We hoped that, by pounding some of their more colloquial phrases into the fellow, we might also better equip him for his forthcoming visit to the Scottish Borders, where he has been posted to ‘drum up sponsorship’ for the “Tavistock 2007 Sponsored Shoplift”.