Thursday, February 14, 2013

Elksteine Widow Back in the Chicken


The widow of late Rebound Table Tennis supremo, Bernard Elksteine, is "Back in business", in more ways than one.

Following the initial hysteria and heady days following her husband's shock death in 2010, the truth and cause of which remain a source of speculation to this day, Patricia Elksteine has been living a mostly quietly life with new partner, Angus Featherlite-Blowingpam.  Mrs Elksteine has been content to leave the day-to-day running of her inherited Rebound Table Tennis Empire in the capable hands of respected President Wilkington Tuffy.  The couple is said to have spent most of the past twelve months in the south of France doing almost nothing.

An anonymous associate of Mrs Elksteine described the millionaire widow as "refreshed and reinvigorated" and "ready for the next phase of her life".  Featherlite-Blowingpam was described as "faithful and devoted, albeit occasionally volatile if provoked, particularly when in bars or in the presence of the media".

Mrs Elksteine is rumoured to be back in the country and taking a keen interest in the final stages of store fit-out, in a well-hidden commercial building, in which she intends to launch the world’s first Bernie's Chicken House in downtown Maroochydore.

Serving southern-style deep-fried chicken based on a patented recipe developed by an unidentified celebrity army General, the store is the brain-child of the late Bernard Elksteine, whose love of Rebound Table Tennis was second only to his love of fried chicken.  Elksteine is said to have been working on the finishing touches to his plans to establish his chain of Bernie’s Chicken House’s at the time of his shock death in his home study.  It would seem Mrs Elksteine has dusted, and perhaps wiped Bernard’s last desperate spittles of saliva, off these plans.

Meanwhile it is rumoured Mrs Elksteine has signed up long-time associate and family friend, Esmerelda Chocolatine, to be the face and voice of the fledgling Bernie’s Chicken House chain.  When asked for comment, Chocolatine simply replied that she was "Ssorry, but I am just a singer.  I don’t think much about chicken ".

The business is also touted as a natural new feature sponsor of the Australasian Rebound Table Tennis Super League (ARTTSL). With Chocolatine also in its corner, ARTTSL would be well placed to break the sport-music-chicken marketing stranglehold achieved this summer by the tripartite of Cricket Australia, KFC and Joel Madden.

In life, Bernard Elksteine made no secret of his desire to strike a sponsorship deal with his favourite fast food outlet, but to no avail.  It was often suggested this was due to KFC's desire to avoid being associated with obese persons.  KFC management simply never returned calls, or those of the media.  

Hence Elksteine's "plan B" emerged, to build his own corporate sponsor from the ground up, and eat their chicken.  The move was fitting of Elksteine’s tenacity and occasional insanity that often drove him to look at what already existed and start something mostly the same, but unlike his runaway success in national sports competition facilitation, in the world of fried chicken he never had the chance to taste his own grease.

Relatives of Bernard Elksteine, still jilted by what they maintain to be a misinterpretation of his last will and testament, under which all of his empire was handed to Mrs Elksteine, are unsurprisingly less than inspired.

Outside her Bundaberg home this morning, Bernard Elksteine's step-sister, Shilga Hesma, told Radio 7, "Patsy didn’t love Bernie.  She was always in it for the money, and the bloody chicken. Well, now she's got both hasn't she? She got all the money, and the rights to Bernie's chicken, and now she's ringing its neck for all it's worth".

Asked what she would be having for dinner that night, Hesma replied sternly in her strong German accent, "Well I am certainly not thinking of the chicken.  I will be having brussel sprouts tonight".

In other sports news, 84-year-old Rebound Table Tennis legend Jimmy Spring was reportedly arrested this morning for attempting to steal a can of Sprite Zero from a Gold Coast cafe.

More to come...