Council Planning Meeting Thrown into CHAOS!
Cumbrian committee menaced by dead Pharaoh
AN ANGRY Egyptian mummy risen from the dead yesterday disrupted a Cumbrian Borough Council meeting, halting proceedings for nearly twenty minutes. The twelve members of Kendal’s Planning& Licensing Committee had just started hearing applications at the Town Hall when the 3,000-year-old re-animated body of late Pharaoh Amen-Hotep III burst in.
Town clerk, Betty Dewhurst, had just read out the apologies for absence when the stained glass window behind the mayor’s seat smashed and a sinister figure swathed in bandages lumbered into the council chamber.
“It had eyes that glowed like red hot coals and the stench of death and decay was all-pervading,” said a shaken Mrs Dewhurst.
tackle
Committee chairman Fletcher Raincock immediately got up and unsuccessfully attempted to tackle the interloper, and Mrs Dewhurst, 57, watched with horror as he was killed.
“The mummy had the strength of ten men,” she told us. “Poor Mr Raincock was flung across the room with a single back-handed swipe from its arm, instantly breaking his neck,” she added. “He fell to the ground like a rag doll.”
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With Alderman Raincock dead, Councillor Ernest Boothroyd appointed himself Acting Chair of the committee and called for assistance. However, before help could arrive, the long-dead Egyptian king opened his mouth, out of which spewed a never-ending cascade of sacred scarab beetles. Mrs Dewhurst told us: “They scuttled across the chamber floor. I can only describe it as a living river of beetles. I thought the ruddy things would never stop.”
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The rapidly moving insects made their way towards Councillor Mavis Pennyfeather, head of the Tree Removal and Reduction Applications sub-committee, who was quickly consumed from the inside out as the ravenous beetles burrowed under her skin. “It was enough to give you nightmares,” said Mrs Dewhurst. “They came out of her eyes and everything.”
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By this point, the mummy had also torn the heads off two other councillors, and Councillor Boothroyd raised an emergency motion to adjourn the meeting since the committee was in danger of no longer being quorate.
His motion was seconded by deputy mayor Mrs Marjorie Claypole and Councillor Tonks, and eventually passed on a majority vote of 6 to 2 with 1 abstention.
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Events were brought to a conclusion when Assembly Rooms caretaker Frank Posset hurled a glass paraffin lamp, which smashed on the mummy’s back.
“The rarified atmosphere inside the Pharaoh’s sarcophagus, where he had languished for millennia, meant that his bandages were tinder dry and he went up like a rocket,” said Mr Posset.
“As the flames consumed him, he wandered around the council chamber, flailing his arms about and emitting unearthly howls of torment, before eventually falling down dead for the second time in his life.”
“It’s certainly not something you see every day,” added Mr Posset.
The meeting re-convened with several planning applications being heard, including one to temporarily extend the drinks licence at Ruskin’s Bar on the May Day bank holiday.
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Arthur Shadrack, curator of the Kendal Museum from where the Pharaoh escaped, later apologised unreservedly for the interruption to the council meeting. He told us: “We recently took delivery of a new mummy of Amen-Hotep III, which we had bought on a reputable internet auction site. Despite assurances from the vendor, it had an ancient curse on it and it must of come to life and went out seeking revenge.”
K-9
“The councillors who perished at its hands were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Mr Shadrack.
“Museum staff are taking urgent steps to ensure that the risk of another angry mummy getting out of the museum is minimised as much as possible,” he added.