The Return of Lord Lobster?

I was going to begin my story today, casting what remains of my mind back to the blackened lanes of Bermondsey. Sadly, I was interrupted by a telephone call. My ancient bakerlite phone rang in its half-hearted fashion until Mange-Tout answered, for although blind he knows exactly where the phone is situated in my dreer wood-panelled study (except for when Una, the mischieveous Swedish minx, deliberately moves it to a remote corner of the room after dusting. She swears she merely forgets to put it back, but I know she loves to tease my chauffeur for he is the one who delivers her thrashings on my behalf).

When he held the earpiece to my empty aural socket, I rattled with shock. As the voice greeted me, I thought ‘could it be? Has my crustacean nemesis, the demented Lord Lobster returned from the clutches of the Grim Reaper once more?’

Lord Lobster, that oceanic aristocrat with a penchant for perversity. Once the ladies of London were bedevilled by his blue pincers and beady eye-stalks. He had the voice of James Mason, but the mind of the Marquis de Sade (though with less literary merit). Once my rival in mysterious theatrical marvels, he was afflicted by his bizarre deformity after a pact with Artigaal, the Demon Duke of Caina.

Of course, this cast him from the theatres of London into the freakshows of the provinces. The blue mottled skin, the claws, the fear of boiling water. From there, he turned to crime. We fought many a battle in the stygian depths of the Big Smoke’s underworld.

Could Lord Lobster have survived our last encounter? Did I, after years of fruitless retirement, have a worthy adversary?

The answer was no. It was Carphone Warehouse, asking whether I wanted a mobile deal to complement my Talk Talk landline.

I knew I should never have left BT…