'Just drive the car, Jack.'

'To the crime scene?'

'I'll point the way, and promise me you'll drive carefully this time.'

'I promise you,' said Jack, putting his buckle-shoed foot down hard.

9

For those who are unacquainted with the career of Little Boy Blue subsequent to his period of employment as a somnambulant shepherd, a period notable only for his inactivity, exemplified by his famous haystack slumberings, which permitted his untended sheep to carouse in the meadows whilst his cows laid pats amongst the corn; a brief history follows.

According to his best-selling autobiography, I May be Blue, but I'm Always in the Black, his rags-to-riches rise was an overnight affair, with his self-penned rhyme going straight into the charts at Number One, toppling Mary Mary, who had held the position for fourteen consecutive weeks.

This is not altogether true, firstly because Mary Mary did not achieve her own fame until several years later, and secondly because Boy Blue did not write his own lyrics.

They were the work of a professional rhymester by the name of Wheatley Porterman, whose distinctive lyrical style can be discerned in several other 'self-penned' classics of the genre, Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie and There was an old woman who lived in a shoe (the house version), to name but two.

Wheatley Porterman's gift was for identifying social problems, which he set in verse that touched the public's imagination, in the case of Boy Blue, the scandal of child labour in rural areas which drove underage shepherds to exhaustion.

With Georgie Porgie, it was sexual harassment in the playground, by teachers against schoolgirls, Porgie being an overweight geography teacher whose notorious behaviour had previously gone unreported, due to his connections in high places.

Regarding There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, Wheatley's finger was once more unerringly upon the button of the public conscience. Whether there actually was an old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children that she didn't know what to do remains in some doubt. Wheatley asserted that she was allegorical: a cipher, or symbol, for the hideous overcrowding in certain inner city areas.

A consultation with the curator of Tlie Hall of Nearly All the Records discloses that the rhyme is registered as the 'exclusive property of Old Woman Inc.', the chairman and sole shareholder in Old Woman Inc. being one W. Porter-man, Esq.

But be this all as it may (and well may it all be too), Little Boy Blue, either in partnership with Wheatley, or under contract to him, claimed to have written the rhyme himself. And a world which didn't care much either way, but appreciated celebrity for the sake of celebrity alone, took his claims at face value.

Within weeks of sleeping rough beneath haystacks and smelling strongly of sheep dung, the Boy had made it to the big time. His trademark shepherd's smock, now blue silk, with pearls upon the cuffs, was adopted as the fashion look of the year (blue, as ever, being the new black, when some other colour isn't having its turn).

His establishment of an exclusive haute couture fashion house, Oh Boy!, was inevitable. In less time, it seemed, than it took to shake a crook at a scurrying lamb, Boy Blue found himself lionised by the cream of Toy City Society. Facsimiles of his famous portrait, The Blue Boy, still hang in many homes.

And in Toy City, blue is still the new black.

All of the foregoing Eddie passed on to Jack as Jack passed through the streets of Toy City — rather more speedily than Eddie cared for.

'Fashion House, eh?' said Jack, swerving, to Eddie's relief, around a number of teddies who were crossing the road. 'The fashion in my town was for grey overalls. That's all the workers ever wore. And as all the townsfolk were workers, that's all anyone ever wore.'

'You weren't wearing grey overalls when I met you,' Eddie observed.

Jack laughed. 'I traded them in at a farm I passed by, in exchange for a new set of clothes, although the cap was somewhat inferior. The farmer was convinced that grey overalls must be the very height of town fashion, seeing as all the town dwellers he'd ever met wore them.'

'This wasn't the same farmer whose ear you shot off?'

'That was an accident. But no, that wasn't him.'

'Hey, look,' said Eddie. 'Up ahead. Stop the car here, Jack.'

Jack looked up ahead and then he stopped the car. Up ahead was blocked by a heavy police presence. A cordon stretched across the road. Laughing policemen held back a crowd of on-looking toys, a crowd that cooed and rny-oh-my'd and peered up at the facade of Oh Boy!.

'Policemen?' Jack asked. 'They look very jolly.'

'Don't be fooled by that,' said Eddie. 'They won't bother you, if you do exactly as I tell you.' And Eddie went on to explain to Jack exactly what he was to do.

And Jack, having listened, smiled broadly. 'And I will actually get away with doing thatT he asked.

'You certainly will,' said Eddie. 'And the more you do it, the more you'll get away with it.'

'Right then,' said Jack. 'And what will you be doing, while I'm doing what I'll be doing?'

Til be doing my job,' said Eddie. 'Examining the crime scene for clues.'

'Okay, then. Let's get on with it.'

The fjujade of Oh Boy! was something in itself. It was a triumph. A triumph of bad taste.

Why it is that bad taste always triumphs over good is one of those things that scholars love to debate, when they don't have anything better to do, such as getting a life and a girlfriend.

Is there actually such a thing as 'good taste'? they debate. Or 'Is it all not merely subjective?'

Well, of course there is such a thing as good taste! Some things actually are better than other things, and some people are capable of making the distinction.

But...

Bad taste will always ultimately triumph over good taste, because bad taste has more financial backing. There is far more profit to be made from selling cheap and nasty products, at a big mark-up, than selling quality items at a small mark-up. And you can always produce far more cheap and nasty items far more quickly than you can produce quality items. Far more.

And, as every successful dictator knows, it's far easier to convince a thousand people en masse of a bad idea, than it is to convince a single individual. It's a herd thing.

Or a flock thing.

Flocks are controlled by a single shepherd.

Like Little Boy Blue, for instance.

Peering over the low heads of the toy folk and the higher heads of the policemen, Jack stared up at the facade of Oh Boy!. It was a regular eyesore: big and brash and in-your-face gaudy, smothered in flashing neon that brought up the outline of a leaping lamb here and a snorting shepherd there, in less-than-modest many-times-life-size which simply screamed 'Success!'

'Very tasteful,' said Jack.

'It's as foul as,' said Eddie. 'You've no taste, Jack.'

'Oh yes I have,' said Jack. 'My taste is for wealth. And if this is the taste of the wealthy, it's tasteful enough for me.'

'Curiously, I can't argue with that,' said Eddie. 'Go on then, Jack, do your stuff.'

'Okey dokey.' Jack raised his chin, puffed out his chest, straightened the ruffles on his cuffs, dusted down his quilted lapels and then swaggered forward, shouting, 'Make way, peasants,' in a loud and haughty tone.

Toy folk turned and stared. Those who had faces capable of expression glared somewhat too. But they cowered back and cleared a path before the tall and well-dressed swaggering shouter.

'That's it, out of my way.’ Jack swaggered onwards, with Eddie following behind.