It has been a while since my last mention of the Elves in my backyard. You see they went away for a while and I didn't want to tempt fate by remarking upon my good fortune.

Unfortunately, they have recently returned and they are even worse than was formerly the case. At great personal risk I have learnt where they went and what they did.

They were off in France visiting the Brittany Goblins and the Elves have thus returned even more annoying than ever before.

I mean, sure, they still scuttle around in the chimney stack and between the walls, giggling their little Elfin giggles in the dead of moonless nights, but they have added even more annoying habits to their repetoire.

For a start they now speak in French a lot. You'll be trying to concentrate or sleep and you'll hear this "Wheeee! Hee haw hee haw" coming from the chimney stack. These traits tend to indicate contact with the so-called "Petits Goblins Francais".

Yes, so anyway, you know that some little Elf is in your chimney scudding to its doom and that its "famous last words" will be, as mentioned, the Goblinesque French phrase "Hee haw hee haw". Why do they do this? Why such reckless hedonistic abandon and self-effacing Frenchness? The answer to this question is rooted in Elfin psychology.

I have probed their minds quite deeply, not only since their return from foreign parts but also prior to their departure. Elves exist in a completely different reality to us humans. For a start they are all identical. There is only one Elf gender, Elf, and no two Elves are in any way different. Quite simply, death has no meaning to an Elf. An Elf knows that when it dies it continues to exist in the form of the rest of the tribe. Indeed, a large part of Elf culture consists of finding ever more stupendously increbile ways to die. However, there similarities with us humans end.

Here is a recent scenario: I've left my jacket on a chair while I'm cooking. I smell burning, no, it's not lunch, my jacket is on fire. I've left my matches in my pocket and find some Elf, all dressed in pink, with those stupid little shoes with bells on and a jester type hat on its head. It's just standing there, calmy smoking one of my cigarettes with an eyebrow raised cheekily at me. It doesn't say a word. It doesn't have to. The look on its pointy little face speaks volumes of pure anglo-goblin insolence; pure contempt for my human Britishness. At least that's the way I read it.

To this manifestation of malevolence, I responded by picking up a brick and flashing my best evil grin at both Elf and brick: my diabolical gaze flitting between them. The Elf then removes a daisy from its hip pocket and presents it to me, as if to say, "I am an Elf, I am not constrained by reality as you know it - my daisy trumps your brick."

I mean, crapola! "Where do these critters get their ideas from?" That's what I'm thinking as I dash its little skull to smithereens with my trusty brick.

I then hear all these little giggles coming from the nearby mulberry bushes. Then immediately a bunch of little figures suddenly jump out of the undergrowth. They're covered from head to toe in mulberry gloop and holding white cards with numbers upon them. I throw the brick but miss. As I enter the garden they are scattering to the four winds. In case you're wondering, they had only just returned most of my Elf hunting paraphanelia, save the bricks, was still up in the attic at this stage. I was also completely in the dark as to the meaning of the numbers and cards.

Several days later I was engaged on a routine search and destroy sweep of my backyard. I was armed with a lawnmower, really turns them into mincemeat.

Suddenly the mower went dead. I dashed back to the mains socket and found myself Elf number two. This one, dressed in green, was covorting much more vigorously than kill #418 [described above]. He had pulled the plug out the mains socket and was limbo dancing between the prongs which attached it there. I just sort of stared at him aghast, waiting for a reaction, but he continued his capering, almost, but not quite, ignoring me. So, I slammed the plug in the socket with the words, "Fry you little pest!" I must say he crackled nicely. I then heard this cry from behind me, "C'est tres magnifique. Bravo!" I spun quickly enough to see a gang of about a dozen Elves. All were carrying similar cards to those presented before but these bore higher numerical values. These Elves all managed to escape, although one lost an arm to my mower.

I sat down and racked my brains for several hours. In the end I concluded that the Elves are likely as not having a death competition. These I've never known before and I assume they are part of the result of their indoctrination by the French Goblins. It's the only conclusion that fits: the numbers on the cards must represent some sort of rating proportionate to the grandiose nature of the respective deaths.

It's an alarming new development in my war upon the Elves because it now means that I am falling into their trap whenever I execute one of them. This caused me a lot of anguish.

Until my next coup that is. They had gone too far when they tried to open a pavement cafe on my patio. I took another eight of them out with a shovel and stamped upon two more. There were no cards, this was not planned! I had disrupted their banquet and also helped myself to some of their really tasty wild mushroom soup.

The war goes on! That girly icon at the head of this page, for instance, more of their sabotage. Where will their infamy end?