I shall be attending a series of somewhat wild parties to celebrate the Annual Penguin Cull in Einsiedeln.

In late Autumn each year, the number of penguins infesting the highlands of the Canton Congo reaches a critical point, soon after which the penguins are obliged, through maddening hunger, to raid the dustbins and kitchens of the honest housewives of the canton before beginning their winter migration down to the sunny lowlands of Freienbach and Pfaffikon.

It becomes necessary, therefore, to keep the population of penguins in Congo to a level which ensures that each penguin can sustain itself without recourse to theft and the violation of private property. Each year, the duty falls upon the Schiessverein of a different town in the canton to maintain the optimum penguin population by means of high velocity injections of lead.

This year, it is the turn of the Schiessverein of Einsiedeln to assume responsibility for the cull, which is why I shall be attending the parties throughout the months of November and December (the Abbott owes me a favour, but I'm not supposed to talk about that...).

The pain of shooting innocent penguins in cold blood weighs heavily upon the hearts of those upon whose shoulders the responsibility lies, and the parties at the close of the cull each Saturday evening tend to be lively affairs, the better to allow the marksmen to forget their anguish until the following Saturday morning when the cull begins afresh.

To this end, dancing girls, fireworks, narcotic substances, champagne, martinis, domestic animals, jugglers, fire eaters and goldfish are employed to keep the demons at bay for periods of anything up to 36 hours, from the start of festivities at six o' clock on Saturday evening, to the departure of the last marksman, usually around midnight on the following evening.

Imagine something resembling the Garden of Earthly Delights, but with more cheese and penguin meat, and you have something of an idea of what goes on.

It is very lively, and certainly not for the fainthearted, but much fun is had by all attendees, and those who finish their dinner and leave their plates clean earn themselves a delicious lollipop, so there really is something for everyone.

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