The Symphony in B-Flatulence

by Someone Whose Diet Includes Jazz Cabbage

In the terminally constipated town of Whiffleton, where the air smelt permanently of lavender and suppressed complaints, the local pigeons wore cardigans, and even the traffic cones had doilies, there lived one Harold Pumpernickel.

Harold, aged 84 and built like an armchair in corduroy, was a man with a passion for two things: boiled sweets and high-pressure rear turbulence. While the sweets were optional, the turbulence was not. It erupted from him like the wrath of a confused tuba section.

He was known in Whiffleton not for bravery, brilliance, or ballroom, but for his uncanny ability to clear a garden centre in under five seconds with nothing but soup and posture. On one occasion, his trousers had been declared a biohazard by a passing scout group.

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The Prelude
It was a Thursday, the sort of Thursday that had no business existing. Harold, armed with a newspaper, half a sandwich, and a thermos of weak tea, ambled to the local park. He aimed for his bench — a structure held together by nostalgia and woodworm hope.

He sat. The bench wheezed.

So did Harold.

A moment of stillness.

Then — a tremble. A rumble. A honk in G minor that echoed through the begonias like a disgruntled goose in a pipe organ.

Children froze mid-Pop Tart.
Dogs fled into shrubs.
A mother screamed “NOT AGAIN!” and hurled herself into a pram.
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The Performance
Harold stood, slowly, like a soufflé remembering its dignity.

“Ladies, gentlemen, small rodents,” he announced. “I give you… The Wind Symphony!”

And thus began a musical horror of such scale it should’ve come with subtitles and earplugs.

•  There was a baritone blurt that rattled the birdbath.
•  A whistling solo that reprogrammed two hearing aids.
•  And a grand finale involving a long, sustained flatulento, which knocked a squirrel from its branch and set off three car alarms and a diabetic spaniel.

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The Critic Arrives
Just as Harold prepared his encore (working title: Fugue in Cheek), a shriek cut through the air like an outraged oboe.

“MR. PUMPERNICKEL!”

It was Mayor Beatrice Bluster, a woman carved entirely from tweed and outrage.

“This is a public park, not a ruddy brass band of backsides!”

Harold, ever the showman, tipped an imaginary bowler and declared:

“Madam Mayor, I was merely… releasing culture.”

Beatrice’s eyebrow did something unspeakable.
Then — a twitch.
A quiver.
And God help us… a snort.

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The Legacy
And so it was that Harold Pumpernickel, hero of hindquarters, was thenceforth known as The Wind Whisperer.

He was called upon to:

•  Open school fêtes with a toot.
•  Signal the regatta start with a rearward bugle.
•  And on one infamous Tuesday, act as emergency foghorn for the riverboat society (they still talk about the echo under Bridge 9).

Whiffleton never quite recovered.
But then, neither did the bench.