Mousetown was never the main attraction of Goosey, but it was the very first thing your Mam took you to see when you were a nipper. Even when you were old enough to know better, you still had to go, as it was the equivalent of the Spider Baby at the Craggy Island garden fete. If you didn't show up in the playground next day with an `I've Been To Mousetown' sticker on your parka, you weren't skill, or rad, or wicked. You were a fleabag.
For the unaware, Mousetown was a massive glass tank containing a model village that was probably built in an afternoon in a Third Year woodwork class, containing houses, shops, a playground, a big wheel, and a pub called - Tee Hee! - The Black Cat. Oh yes, and a hundred or so very pissed-off mice, all huddled together in the corner of the tank.
Sadly, due to the council's draconian laws against animal maltreatment, Mousetown disappeared sometime during the Nineties. I had brought a mate up from London to show him the majesty of our fair, and got so panicky when I couldn't find it that I actually asked a copper for directions to Mousetown. When he stopped laughing, he told me that the Council had banned live animals from the fair, and another part of my childhood died.
Fear not. When I am made Lord Mayor, I shall bring it back with a modern-day twist. I shall create Rat Estate, with loads of vermin in shell-suits crawling over burnt-out Matchbox cars and shoeboxes that look like boarded-up charity shops.
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