Here you go! My version of the ancient legends of King Arthur. This story originally appeared in my volume, The Big Bumper Book of Silly Stories, but I thought it was so good it deserved to reappear, in slightly edited form!
In long ages past, there was a king of England, and he was called Arthur. He was a good king, and a chivalric one, if mildly stupid. His favourite pastime was war with France, and on one occasion he went off all alone to have a war with France. This is the story of what happened to him when he did.
Arthur happily rode through the forest, while still in England. His mother was hovering several feet above him, but he didn't pay any attention to her. He never had done before, and if she'd managed the simple art of levitation, well, what was that to him? Just to show her, he levitated himself for a few metres, but realised that he had hit a tree while trying to show off. His horse ran off and Arthur dangled there, clinging onto the tree by the skin of his teeth. His mother had disappeared, as she always had done when he needed her, and Arthur spent a cold and miserable night there, before he thought of climbing down the tree. This he did.
When he drove into the car park several hours later, wet and bedraggled and over twelve hours late for his meeting with the ambassador from France and the President of the USA, he quickly stumbled into his office, played a quick game of Solitaire (which he lost) and cranked up his e-mail system. There he discovered a number of messages from the Mary Hopkin fan club, which he scanned through quickly and found that his favourite folk singer would be showing on S4C soon. However, he probably wouldn't have time to watch them, so he set his alarm clock to remind his Lord Chancellor to set the video for the programme. Then, he found his business e-mails. After discarding the usual junk mail, suggesting that he should buy a number of cans of baked beans, he found an official message from the French ambassador. It said:
Hello King Arthur!
I just thought that I'd remind you that England hasn't attempted to invade France for almost twenty four hours now. Perhaps you have forgotten how to fight, you cowardly peasant, you.
Loving regards,
the French Ambassador.
Arthur pulled his hands off in his white hot fury. He snarled at the screen, "Fine then! If they want an invasion, they'll got one, those foolish furry friendly fishy Frenchmen."
He stomped out of the cat flap, and found himself in his throne room. He picked up his throne and set it down on top of him. The weight was such that he couldn't get it off himself again.
That was how his Lord Chancellor found him several hours later. Responding to his monarch's cry for help, he got a team of mountain goats who all helped to pick the throne up. Arthur got up himself, beet red with rage.
"I want this throne destroyed!" he ordered.
"Yes, thy Lord Majesty," said all the mountain goats, in a monotone.
"And couldst thou try to use slightly more silly voices?" suggested Arthur, hopefully.
"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Majesty," the mountain goats said, in extremely high pitched voices. They then bowed, turned and exited from the throne room, bearing the throne behind them on their sledges.
Arthur turned to his Lord Chancellor. "I need funds for another war on France," he ordered.
"Oh, no, thee don't!" said the Lord Chancellor, ripping off his mask, and revealing that he was, in true reality, Ainsley Harriot. Arthur took a step back in horror and tripped over his Venture Scout neckerchief which he had stretched across the room earlier that morning in his attempts to set a trap for mosquitoes. It had worked, and several million mosquitoes were now imprisoned in the net that Arthur had cunningly positioned beneath the neckerchief. Arthur pulled himself to his feet and stared at the terrifying apparition before him.
"What dost thou want?" he stammered.
"I want thy personal CD player," Ainsley Harriot intoned, flatly.
Arthur hurriedly produced it, and shoved it over to what had been his Lord Chancellor. "Take it, take it, and go," he implored TV's favourite cook.
Ainsley Harriot accepted the CD player as he would the sword of a defeated general. He then used the CD player in a manner most unlike a victorious general would use it: he inserted a CD upside down, and didn't shut the lid. He then pressed 'Play' repeatedly, and finding that nothing happened, he slammed down the lid. While he was so occupied, Arthur produced a double barrelled shot gun, and emptied it in Ainsley Harriot's direction. Ainsley Harriot picked up his drooping moustache as it trailed across the floor, choked out, "Et tu, Brute? Then fall Harriot!" and fell over.
Arthur examined the body closely. It was still warm, but the noses had already started to decompose, and had swiftly dissolved into a puddle of dachshunds on the floor. Arthur hurriedly retrieved his CD player, finding it not too damaged at Ainsley Harriot's treatment of it, and exited the throne room.
He came face to face with the French ambassador, who smiled knowingly and came out with a stream of French, "Eins, zwei, drei, vier. Du bist ein Chippity Chopmaster."
Arthur ignored the insults of the illiterate Frenchman and instead sliced the top of his ankle off. The Frenchman clutched at his injured leg, and Arthur said, "Let that teach thee to knock England out of the Burglar Eating Contest."
The French ambassador stuck up his hands in the time-honoured gesture of defiance: both hands, palm outward, extended towards Arthur, and then swiftly clapped together, mincing up the chocolate syrup that had been contained within. Arthur marched over to the ambassador and took the chocolate syrup off him.
The king of England then headed immediately to his bathroom, where he carefully, in front of the mirror, applied the syrup to his many wounds. To his distinct surprise, they healed over extremely quickly, leaving only a dark green residue which, when Arthur tasted it, turned out to be Walls ice cream, raspberry flavoured.
Suddenly, the door to the bathroom creaked open. Arthur span round and aimed his jet plane in the face of the intruder, who appeared to be the French ambassador. Arthur, however, was not so easily deceived. He cautiously stepped over to the supposed ambassador and ripped off his face. In true reality, the intruder was his wife, Guinevere!
"Hello, dearest," she said, in that enchanting way she had.
"Why the disguise?" Arthur asked.
"These are dangerous times to be queen of England," she explained, daintily stepping over the copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that littered the floor of the bathroom. "If my political enemies were to discover that I was the queen, then that could be used against me if they took evidence of it to the king."
"Really?" Arthur marvelled. He suddenly realised the fatal flaw in her argument. "But I am the king, and thou hast just revealed thyself to be the queen!"
She fell to her knees, sobbing. "Oh, forgive me," she begged. "I can't help it, I never had any choice, ever since thee first saw me thee said thee wanted me to be thy queen, and what can I do to stand in the way of true love?"
"Take thy carnations out of my sight!" bellowed Arthur. Guinevere evidently realised at this point that she'd had it, for she fell down on the floor, her back ramrod straight and the rest of her body twitching slightly, in the traditional gesture of subservience to her husband. It had no effect on Arthur's cruel decree. "Thou shalt be executed at dawn, by the method of suffocation in a deep dark cave, for the crime of being the queen of England! Then I shall be free to find a new wife."
Guinevere picked herself up, and climbed out of the window. Arthur followed her, and found himself at the top of a skyscraper. Guinevere was nowhere in sight. Jimi Hendrix was, however, but he swiftly realised he wasn't supposed to be, and vanished.
The king of England looked about. There was no longer any window which he could climb through to get back into his bathroom, and there was only a big long fireman's pole which offered access to the ground. Thinking that he could either trust this method of escape or sit on the roof for ever, Arthur slid down the pole.
He landed rather heavily on the ground, but suffered no ill effects. Unfortunately, an iron anvil landed rather heavily on his head seconds afterwards, and it suffered no ill effects. Arthur, however, did. He was squashed fairly flat.
Slithering along the road came a policeman. He took one look at Arthur and said, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa! I'm Billy Bicycle!"
Arthur tried to pull himself out of the ground that the anvil had pushed him into, and wondered what he had done so wrong that he deserved to be surrounded by such imbecilic people. With no help from the policeman, Arthur eventually managed to get himself out of the ground, and he walked along the streets of New York City - into his new life, as the sun set behind the skyscraper, leaving a faint glow of light, before that, too, was lost.