The Beast’s Hobbies

It is good to have a hobby. We encourage the Beast in all sorts of activities. He learns the piano for up to twenty-five seconds before setting fire to it. (He is ahead of his time!) He collects stamps for three seconds. He spends over an hour on nuclear fusion—quite fascinated by the bangs. It appears his attention span can be somewhat variable. Eventually he seems to settle on whaling. Sigh—the most expensive. But we have made a sort of commitment to the Beast’s pursuits. Tiny countries at the ends of the earth protest to us. Spoil-sports. We dispatch secret agents to blow up some of their stuff. Like . . . erm . . . a boat. Which they do—ha ha. We clink glasses. The Beast positively excels at whaling. We discover the price of blubber to be quite astonishing. We are always supportive of the Beast’s endeavours. So long as he is happy. Blubber becomes our primary export earner, surpassing even the traditional slave trade. We are always behind the Beast’s interests one hundred percent! Strongly worded letters keep arriving from places we have never heard of. It appears some people are really cross. Fanatics. We tell them to fuck off. Meanwhile the Beast has a new hobby—ivory. We believe there to be a club in our area . . .