A Simon-story.

There once lived in a small town in Kent a pigeon by the name of Miniver Huggins.  Miniver resided in the basement of a pub called the Stork and Crown, and was popularly held to be the Stork on the sign, owing to the less-than-stellar artistry that had gone into its painting.  His friends and relations held that he was rather lowering the family's stature by living in a basement, to which Miniver could only scoff, because what stature has a pigeon ever held?  His aunt Gretchen, however, was most vociferous in her disapproval, owing to the fact that Miniver's late father, a City pigeon by the name of Rudolph, had kept his nest in no less lofty a place than a gutter in Whitehall, and made a regular practice out of messing up judges' wigs. 

Miniver liked his spot in the pub basement just fine.  It was warm, only slightly damp, and afforded him no end of company, between the pubgoers upstairs and the rats who dwelt with him.  One of those rats was an emigré from Ireland by the name of Paddy O'Hanlon, who boasted of having lived some years in the Guinness brewery in Dublin.  Paddy was particular friends with the pub's host, a fellow known as Honest Tom despite being anything but. 

It chanced that Miniver and Paddy were dining one evening on a bit of bread Paddy had obtained from Honest Tom when Paddy began to choke upon a sultana, which was wholly unexpected, because who on earth puts sultanas in brown bread?

[Here Simon was interrupted.]