My name is ‘Buncie’ Billington-Brig, a genuine self-important old fool,
who loves to pontificate on society’s ills while propping
up the bar in my local, The Dancing Duck.

I was happy in my pomposity, as befitting a secretary of the Masonic Hall,
until the night subtle hints were made that my wife – chairwoman of our village branch
of The Keep Britain Pure society, was anything but.

Indeed, one laughed and said, ‘Pure she is not!’,
Well, I’m afraid to say I rather over imbibed, and was stopped by PC Cuffington. 

He didn’t succumb to my barely disguised attempt at bribery,
and I was duly up before the magistrate, an old school chum no less,
who got his revenge on a chap he remembered as the school bully.

So, forced to use Shanks pony, I took to reflecting on all those
pompous Billington-Brigs who’d gone before me.

One, a boyhood hero, ​​Colonel Jeremiah Gerontius, 
had the honour to serve as an intelligence officer under General Gordon,
but managed to be elsewhere when that legendary
military man met his violent demise.

He’d claimed to be on an intelligence mission,
but Private McPherson knew different, for,
when the populace had slaughtered ‘Gordon, hero of Khartoum’,
Major Gerontius was hiding in a brothel along with the adjutant and regimental physician.

But when faced with this, Jeremiah had simply said, ‘
How did he know it was me, for as a secret agent I would have been in disguise?’

As a boy my head was filled with tales of this distinguished soldier,
but now I began to feel twinges of unease.

One day I met Reverend Tickle-Treats, who’d found me looking
at a stone in the church cemetery,
bearing the name of my family’s distinguished campaigner.

‘You know he was a fraud,’ the cleric commented, ‘your ancestral hero?’

I laughed, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me!’

The cleric nodded sagely, saying, ‘But religions have their share of hypocrites.

‘Take myself, whom my parishioners regard as a scion of moral values,
but unknown to them I’m actually a master criminal with dark deeds to my name. 

‘My ability to con, dissemble and cheat is unsurpassed,
according to Inspector Dallymoat of the French police.

‘Born into a theatrical family I learned the skills of acting and make up,
but an inability to resist a pretty face saw me bring the family into disrepute.
 
‘So, I took on a new persona, thanks to a Dr Fiddlefixit,
whose unethical medical practices made him a prime target for blackmail,
but conveniently for me is a plastic surgeon on London’s exclusive Harley Street,
and I’m now wanted on three continents by Interpol.’

I stood astounded thinking, ‘And I thought I could pull the wool over gullible eyes.’

‘But there may be hope for you yet,’ he continued, 

‘A psychologist has come up with a new reality TV show, called Find the Fraud.

‘He says I gave him the idea, for he is an expert in examining facial expressions,
and saw through my attempts to enlist him in one of my dodgy schemes.

‘Indeed, he has been employed by law enforcement agencies,
using a little-known technique called Fakefinds, pioneered by Sigmund Freud.

‘Anyway, what I mean is, they’re looking for chaps just like you.’

I brightened up at this, and asked, ‘Can my wife come? 

'For she’s not, as her social media post claims, ‘as pure as the driven snow'.'

‘I can confirm that,’ the vicar astounded me by saying,
‘I got to know her very well while you were banged up in the police station.’

‘But she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and, expecting to be defrocked,
I’m now heading for Harley Street and an appointment with my old pal the plastic surgeon.’

You may wander what has become of me after this revelation – well,
I appeared on the aforementioned TV series, but didn’t last long,
for I’d lost my love of being a pompous twit.

But if you visit The Dancing Duck you’ll see my former missus with her new husband,
the Reverend Littlelove, rocking with mirth as the regulars recall the night her
previous husband’s pompous behaviour came unstuck.

She wouldn’t have been so cheerful if she’d known whom he really was.

For as you may have guessed, I persuaded the naughty cleric’s
Harley Street pal to fashion me a new face.

After wooing my unsuspecting former adulterous missus,
we were soon walking down the aisle, cheered by PC Cuffington,
who didn’t recognise me as the speeding pompous twit he’d once put the cuffs on,
thus hastening my spectacular fall from grace. 

A self-important twit I may have been, yet wasn’t a patch on the chap whose
confession that day in the graveyard led me to emulate him, and become a mighty fraud.

I speak of the village vicar, and I echo his parting words,
‘Vengeance will be mine, sayeth the Lord.’