National treasure and famed monkey lover Dame Maggie Smith is left devastated this week after authorities arrested her beloved capuchin, Union Jack.
Per a report obtained exclusively by the Consensus, officials entered Downton Abbey, where Smith resides during the winter, at tea time on Monday afternoon, responding to a complaint of monkey business. According to the transcript of the complaint, “I was peeping through my window this morning to secure my daily dose of national treasure and famed monkey lover Dame Maggie Smith when I saw a small but hairy figure with its elbows on the table.” A snowbird beloved in all four of Britain’s constituent countries, Smith spends her summers at a remarkable stone manor beside the Scottish woodlands, within strolling distance of Balmoral.
The report stated that at the time of the encounter, Union Jack was wearing a collared shirt, a knit sweater emblazoned with an elaborate coat of arms, and worsted wool shorts with a small hole for his monkey tail, which the Consensus can confirm is an outfit very becoming of a primate of such stature. He did not wear it well. Smith, meanwhile, sported a beige double breasted pea coat and matching skirt, along with a large but not ostentatious pearl necklace about which a sensible individual would be hard pressed to find anything objectionable. “This,” added the official in charge of the report, “is why polite society is enamored with national treasure and famed monkey lover Dame Maggie Smith.”
The seizure did not go off without controversy, however. Five-time BAFTA awardee Smith, needless to say, sipped her afternoon tea delicately and with her pinky up, but the report did not fail to note that at the time of arrest, Union Jack gripped the handle of his teacup with the entirety of his hairy fist. “It was utterly devastating to watch such brazen tomfoolery taking place in the presence of national treasure and famed monkey lover Dame Maggie Smith,” the report concluded.
The Consensus could not reach national treasure and famed monkey lover Dame Maggie Smith for comment.
