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...
