freswith

The trophy was created by myself and takes the form of a silver quaich supported by three graceful frogs.  Due to the clumsy handling of underwhere and the others it has been smashed and rebuilt many times.  It has now been removed from underhwere as he travels Hard Class on the Trans Siberian Railway, and passed to Quoth the Raven for safe keeping in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, where it is guarded day and night by the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) with their enormous, horrible halberds.  Quoth has been heavily bribed with a large muntjac roadkill, and being an honest Raven, once bought, stays bought - at least until he has finished the muntjac.

Underwhere will be a long time searching for Quoth, who lives to the east  in the Tower of London where he occupies a senior and important position as Chief Raven.  He is greatly respected in London for his skills as a literary critic, and is distinguished from all other ravens by his reading glasses perched on the end of his beak.

 

https://en.wikipedia...Tower_of_London

 

 

He also has the great respect - now - of the Raven Keeper who foolishly tried to clip his wings to stop him flying off.  The Raven Keeper is now mourning the loss of his first two fingers, and so he will no longer be able to take part in the traditional St Crispin's Day Parade, when all the Beefeaters line up on the White Cliffs of Dover and deliver the  famous Agincourt Salute to the French.

 

Freswith, cosy in his freswithbunker under St James Park, contemplates the real trophy.

Judge Freswith, upholding a long family tradition of providing the best justice that money can buy, accepts an apology backed by  thick brown envelope from underwhere in expiation of his many crimes, but orders that the trophy be returned to its rightful place at Freswith Hall.

 

Quoth the Raven wishes to state that all the rumours circulating about him are demonstrably untrue and he will descend on anyone who repeats them and peck their eyes out.

Don't tell me what??

Never mind, I'm too busy with the prosecutor framing charges against underwhere for forgery.

...and winning.
Incidentally, I was over at the Tower yesterday inspecting their new BDSM exhibition, and I bumped into dear old Quoth the Raven, who has a retirement home there. He said E A Poe misquoted him about the "nevermore" bit and he wishes to disassociate himself from such a nasty neologism. Given that Quoth is a fanatical Grammar Nazi, I am happy to accept his word.)

 Then I raise the trophy high, shout out, "HALLELUJAH!" and run off before the vultures grab what is left of a stunned frog.

 

Fortunately these are  the kindly, generous species of vulture (known as Gift Vultures) and they take me home to recover and plot my next move.  Some duck sandwiches (square, of course), and I am fully restored.  Alas, the same cannot be said for Astrodiaper, who made the huge mistake of basing his spacecraft's software on Windows Vista.  The resulting crash is spectacular, but unfortunately not survivable; poor Astrodiaper has gone blue screen forever.  From amidst the smoking wreckage I recover a scorched and battered trophy; never mind, once it is cleaned up it will grace my mantlepiece evermore as I am the undisputed winner.