TSP047: Law and disorder

“Number 3.”

“You’re sure that’s the man who attacked you?”

“Yes, I’d recognise that smirk anywhere.”

“Number 3 is a cactus, dear.  The boys put that one in for a laugh.”

The prosecution paused the footage and addressed the tribunal.  “As you have all seen, Police Chief Gundursson – who today stands before you accused of running a loose ship at the Lower Fitston officers’ post – was not only party to the misdemeanours of his unruly squad of detective inspectors but wholeheartedly endorsed them, on some occasions even instigating the pranks in the first place.  Exhibit E – photographic evidence of Chief Gundursson lacing the coffee of an arson victim with an unspecified white powder, possible narcotic.”

“Objection your honour; this picture clearly shows my client adding sugar to the drink upon request.  The recently homeless lady liked her hot drinks sweet and my client was merely complying with her tastes in heated beverages.”

“Objection overruled,” announced the judge, “Nobody puts sugar in coffee – at least not in my house.  It must be drugs.  Mr Prosecution, please proceed.”

The prosecution shot a smug wink at the defence, who in return etched a rude piece of graffiti on the tabletop accompanied with the name of his law court nemesis, certain that it would one day aid his slow but sure revenge.  “Furthermore, I hold here in my hand Exhibit G – a tattoo given by Chief Gundursson to a drunkard spending the night in the cells.”

“Objection your honour – the prosecution has skipped Exhibit F, which as we all know is a federal offence in its own right.”

“Objection overruled,” growled the judge, “The prosecution is clearly dyslexic, and besides, that rule is only in active use in Chelmsford.”

The prosecution flashed a smarmy grin at the defence, who in return googled ‘How to frame a fellow lawyer for treason’ and began collecting hairs from the courtroom floor, hoping that one of them might contain the DNA required to put his new plan into action.  “And if you all cast your eyes at the ceiling you will see an old cinema reel of Charlie Chaplin as a police officer who locks up a herd of goats in a recently recovered stolen vehicle in order to shock the owner upon its collection.  Admittedly, this is not something that Chief Gundursson has carried out up until this moment in time, but I can see in his eyes that he’s now seriously thinking about it.”

“Objection your honour – as any qualified general practitioner or carpenter can profess, my client’s eyes were replaced in 1990 in a piece of pioneering surgery and therefore the eyes in which the prosecution can see said intent are not technically his own.”

“Objection sustained.”

“Fine,” grumbled the prosecution, “but you can’t deny that he is very fat.”

“Objection your honour.”

“Objection overruled – Chief Gundursson is clearly bordering on the morbidly obese.  I mean, just look at that belly.”

“Your honour, I must protest-”

“NO YOU MUSTN’T, MR DEFENCE.  You could very easily not protest – no one is holding you to do so.  Now sit down and finish your colouring-in while Mr Defence sums up.”

This was the moment when events took a very unexpected turn.  First of all, Mr Prosecution held his colouring-in aloft and tore it in two, straight down the middle.  The shocked and appalled audience (those that hadn’t fainted with fright, at least) were then even further shocked and appalled as Hulk Hogan ran into the room shouting ‘Sanctuary!’  At this the magistrate stood up and rent his robes in despair.  “I CANNOT WORK LIKE THIS!  Every day, this one-time champion of the American wrestling world runs in here at a crucial moment, and every day I ensure that the men responsible for security are retrained to cope with the situation, AND YET IT STILL HAPPENS!!  Mister Hogan…” – at this he stared straight at the moustachioed muscleman, who gazed back at him with a look of love in his pretty little eyes – “Please explain to me once and for all – how do you keep getting in here?!”

The Hulk moseyed over to the judge’s desk and plonked a hefty-looking document onto the heavily polished (and twice recycled) surface.  “This here is a manual outlining all of my best infiltration plans.  Have a read some time.”

“Fine, I will,” retorted the judge, and so he did.  After a couple of hours everybody was starting to get a little tired of waiting for the case to resume.  The prosecution cleared his throat hopefully, “Erm, your honour – can we continue with the case yet?”

“Hush please, I’m busy.”

“But your honour – we’re in the middle of the case against Chief Gundursson…”

“Oh yes, of course” – BANG – “Case dismissed.”

“Objection your honour!”

“Objection overruled, and don’t interrupt my reading again because I’m having to concentrate really jolly hard here and you’re putting me off.  Who knew that Hulk Hogan wrote in flipping shorthand…”

TSP046: The future’s bright – the future’s pungent…

The hill yawned and the grave burst open, uprooting the age-old oak tree that had been just an acorn when Goodwin Maelstrom had been laid to rest in 1764.  Back in the day, his passing had been mourned by a few faithful friends and family members, the poor turnout being blamed on the inclement weather and a visiting madman who everyone wanted to watch eating holly in a gutter.  History had forgotten the great accomplishments of the unsung genius, burying his achievements when they buried his body – and who could blame them?  Maelstrom hadn’t been the only person to die that year (the reader may be surprised to note), what with Madame de Pompadour, William Hogarth and former Prime Minister William Cavendish all popping their clogs around that time (along with a hero of local folklore known only as ‘Wally Dieter, Holly Eater’, after whom the inhabitants of the Lancashire village of Sterne would one day name their village hall, post office and pet crematorium).  Maelstrom had been a master in his own field, but time had cruelly neglected to keep a note of his name, profession or Grade 3 clarinet.

Opening his eyes for the first time in almost 250 years, Goodwin Maelstrom sat up amidst the soil, stones and mating insects, and breathed the Bedfordshire air after what felt like about a quarter of a millennium.  It didn’t smell like it used to.  Where was the aroma of horse manure?  Where was the smell of gardyloo output?  And what on earth was that acrid burny smell?!  Of course – he tasted the smoke – polyacrylonitrile… someone somewhere must be burning a badminton racket.  He’d know it anywhere…

Because Maelstrom had been a world famous future-smell-teller, able to predict odours that would one day grace the planet upon which he’d lived.  Way before its invention, Maelstrom could accurately describe the scent given off by a Morphy Richards steam iron running low on water; long ahead of his accession to the throne, the fragrance of George V’s gangrenous kidney would keep him awake at night; and when its discovery was still quite a while away, Goodwin could draw a picture that would reliably represent the atmosphere of Themisto, the lost moon of Jupiter (even during the rainy season).  Amongst the many other smells successfully predicted by ‘The Nose of Northampton’ were escalators, Lloyd Grossman’s Thai green curry, and the team bus of the Euro ’96 Czech Republic squad after Karel Poborsky’s insistence that the local kebab van looked like a nice place to experience the finest in British cuisine.  People would flock from miles around to catch a glimpse of the future through Goodwin Maelstrom’s nostrils; his name was known in all the taverns west of Land’s End.  Travellers passing on the road would relay tales of their experiences of ‘Snack a Jacks’, ‘IKEA’ and ‘Jimmy Savile’, all made possible by the incredible ‘Smelling Savant of St. Neots’.  He was bigger than the Prince of Wales, bigger than the Pope – even bigger than Dr Samuel Johnson’s niece… all of whom were renowned for being quite tall.  Goodin Maelstrom was 18^th-century chic.

And now here he was, living it up in 2012.  Stretching his legs and back after what had been a very long time cooped up in a box, Maelstrom admired his reflection in the window of something called a ‘taxi’ just beyond the graveyard’s railings – he’d smelled one of these before, and it was exactly as he ‘premembered’ it: sticky, sicky, sweaty and above all else incredibly tempting to lick.  Gazing down at his fully formed and very well preserved torso, Maelstrom couldn’t help but think that although time may not have remembered to write his name in its diary, she had certainly been generous with the decay process.  This was particularly convenient, as the local townsfolk had recently had a highly publicised scare after Skeletor, the enemy of He-Man, had paid a visit to the Vision Express on the high street, and the appearance of another partly skeletonised corpse walking about was likely to invoke a reaction from the shotguns of the town’s trigger-happy Consortium of Opticians and Gun-Slingers (or ‘FOTS’, for short).

Heading down the main arterial route into the town square, Maelstrom beheld many aromas known only to him prior to his death, but now commonly appreciated by every Tom, Dick and Spartacus – empty SunMaid raisin packets, fly-posters advertising sub-standard rave nights, ducks (an animal only invented in 1980) and the Internet.  Serviettes from Wimpy, Network Rail-branded antimacassars, Jeremy Beadle memorabilia – everything he smelled delighted his olfactory system.  What was this?  Ah, a ‘postbox’.  And this?  Ooh, a ‘Shreddie’.  And that…?

No seriously, and that.  What was it?  A smell he’d never come across before.  A vapour on the breeze that bewildered his reawakening mind and taunted his memory.  Following the direction of its origin (in the process narrowly avoiding a small dog employed by the police as a ghost detector and slightly unsure what to make of this new apparition) he traipsed through the streets oblivious to all around him.  He had nostrils only for this strange and unusual odour.  Kind of lemony, but at the same time fairly dahlia; and sort of cobbled paving stone but with a bit less Crystal Maze.  Never before had he believed such a combination possible – and yet clearly here it was, merging a patent leather Michael Heseltine with crème du menthe in a bagel.  His mind was whirring, his head was spinning, his fingertips were yodelling (but that was another matter altogether) – his body could not cope with this never-before-encountered substance.  Just as he thought he couldn’t take any more, a turn around the corner brought him face to face with a giant TV screen blaring out the day’s sport headlines.

Of course – the Football Association forcing a perfectly good and capable manager out of their job by listening to things reported in the media and jumping the gun big-time.  Not even he could have predicted that.

TSP045: Let’s play…

The sweat rolled off Mr Gabbidon’s knees; his brow turned purple and all the hair on his right arm fell out.  This was stress like he’d never felt before (even more terrifying than that time he’d dropped his watch in the deep fat fryer and looked on helpless as the Borrowers leapt in selflessly in a futile and tragic attempt to salvage it).  The quizmaster gaped at him with a television grin astride his cheeks and time seemed to move in slow motion as he read out his next teleprompted line…

“For one million pounds, Leslie Gabbidon, you only need to give me the correct answer to the following question…”

The studio audience were on tenterhooks (the stage crew had forgotten the chairs), the viewers at home were biting their limbs off in fear for the under pressure and overweight contestant – what if he had a heart attack?  Or an embolism?  Or a phone call from Noel Edmonds saying that the banker had died and he was invited to his funeral?  It would be too much – too much for Leslie, too much for everyone, too much even for the Spice Girls, who would have to re-write the lyrics to their past hits in order to express their innermost feelings.

“What is the capital of Brunei?”

8,000 miles away, Nelson Mandela put down his magnifying glass and abandoned the 14^th century Tibetan manuscript he had been attempting to interpret, fearful to his core for Leslie.  2,000 miles away Lech Walesa paused midway through administering a blood transfusion to a tearful Lebanese hyena, aware that the situation arising in front of the TV cameras was just as important to the survival of the planet as the task in hand.  20,000 miles away Richard Branson put down his crossword puzzle, gazed out of the porthole of his time machine’s lavatory, and pinpointed Leslie Gabbidon’s distress using only the power of his mind; it shook him a little, but he was still able to answer “Flabbergast” to 5 across (the correct answer was ‘Rennie’).

“A) Kuala Belait B) Bandar Seri Begawan C) Jerudong or D) Worzel Gummidge?”

The growing tension was becoming unbearable.  Leslie had been to Brunei once in the past and three times in the future but couldn’t remember which of the settlements was the correct answer.  He’d visited Kuala Belait and he’d heard of B and C, and for some reason D was sounding familiar.  Worzel Gummidge…  Where had he heard of it before…?  A type of aeroplane maybe, or a variant of Mah Jong.  Or was it the capital city of Brunei?  It could be – it could very well be; it sounded very Bruneian.  His dry lips parted and his voice found its way through to the forefront of his mouth to make public these thoughts.

“I’m in a quandary Andre.”

The world gasped.  Up until this point Leslie Gabbidon had been positive of the answer of every question in the game, even the ones that hadn’t come up.  He hadn’t used any of his lifelines at all.  Just the thought that the 37 year-old 14 year-old might be forced to deign to relinquish his hold on one of them was sufficient for three members of the audience to spontaneously combust and for another twelve to write to the council on a monthly basis for the next 257 years (on a shift basis, obviously).

“I’d like to ask the audience please Andre.”

The world winced.  The audience didn’t know anything – they never did unless it was the first question of the game and involved Bob Monkhouse.  Plus today the audience had been especially selected from a visiting posse of Bissau-Guinean mannequin manufacturers, and their demograph had finished last in Philip Schofield’s latest interactive IQ test on the BBC.  The host invited the audience to press the button corresponding to the option they thought best; all of them pressed ‘Off’.  The results came back as 0% for every answer on the board; it wasn’t particularly helpful.

Leslie Gabbidon assessed the situation.  Using the brain he had found in a back alley on Gibraltar to supplement his own thought processes he decided it would be best to take a risk and phone a friend.  Leslie hadn’t phoned a friend since 1995; he was forbidden by the courts after that incident with the matchbook and the foster family.  As the technician made the connection through to Rufus Scrimgeour, the former Minister of Magic from the Harry Potter series, a stern voice could be heard down the line: “This is an illegal action.  Your phone line will now be disconnected.”  Somehow the police knew, and they’d moved to shut things down before they got too out of hand or jumped up and turned into muesli.  It was unfortunate.

Leslie had only one option remaining.  “I’ll take 100-0 please Andre.”  “Computer, take away no wrong answers and leave the right answer and all the other wrong answers.”  The noise happened (you know the one) and the options remained unchanged.  “Does that help?  Have you got any ideas?” the presenter enquired.  Leslie looked happy: “Yes, it did exactly what I was hoping…”

The whole population of Albania stopped doing whatever they were doing to watch Mr Gabbidon’s decision; the list of casualties included 17 Albanian lollipop ladies, 3 Albanian parachutists mid-ripcord, and 1 man who had just been sitting quietly and breathing.  Croatia and Slovenia too were likewise entranced.  Most of South America waited, agog.  Syria just carried on stamping on postcard pictures of basic human rights in action.  Leslie’s wife, entombed in resin for a bet, whispered to herself, “Please Leslie, don’t proclaim your love for Janet Jackson.”

Leslie Gabbidon, man of the hour, rose to his feet.  All eyes followed his every motion.  With a great beaming smile and a little belch he summoned up his courage and announced to the world, “I know what I’m going to do.”

Silence.  Nobody moved a muscle, no one daring to take a breath.  And as a result everybody in the world died, starved of oxygen.

Except in Syria.  Proving that (even with basic human rights) gameshows retain the capacity to destroy us all.

TSP044: Reveal to yours truly the currency

“It’s here – right here, in this bumbag.”  “Aha, I see.  Yes, that is definitely money.  Thank you, consider it shown.”

Carl had run the village newsagents for 16 years.  While all the local businesses around him had crashed and burned (which was entirely their fault for basing their offices in windowless paper campervans and driving during that awful fire-and-brimstone incident of early 2006) Carl’s trading had gone from strength to strength, striding through the recession with the confidence of a badger applying for a tenancy agreement having eaten all of the other potential applicants.  Experts were divided on the reason – some put his popularity down to his love of the Jerry Maguire catchphrase, others to the fact that all his competitors had died in the firestorm; no one could say for sure…

“It’s in my wallet.  See?”  “Yes I do – well shown, sir; here’s your Doritos…”

His had been a turbulent life.  The son of a Yorkshire-bred gaffer tape manufacturer and a devoutly celibate nun, Carl was the 51^st child of the family and the first not to be named after a different American state.  A budding reader, capable far beyond his years, he had surrounded himself with classic literature at the earliest possible moment – when still in the womb, in fact; Carl was born clutching onto a copy of War and Peace and with the first act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tucked under his arm and annotated with amniotic fluid.  However, inevitably, as cinema entered the mainstream of entertainment Carl’s allegiance switched, and at the age of 4 months old he took up a scholarship with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.  Having been passed over for many a starring role (which often went to Humphrey Bogart, his nemesis) Carl finally achieved his big break, starring alongside Frank Sinatra in the little-known Revenge of the Little Hedgehog from Slovenia, aged 6 months and 3 days.  Critics lauded his performance as one of the finest of his generation and there was public outcry when the 1960 Best Actor Oscar went to Spartacus’s Peter Ustinov for what was – comparatively – little better than a school-play performance.

“Ooh, where did it go?”  “I haven’t the foggiest Mr Shilworth – it was right there in your hand…”  “That’s right, but now… it’s behind your ear!”  “That is amazing.”

As a toddler Carl had alternately fought and indulged in the temptations that came with fame and money.  Diamond-encrusted spacehoppers and full strength Calpol heralded the beginning of the opulent lifestyle that would propel him onto the front pages of the tabloids more often than he would care for.  But he always remembered his humble beginnings, regularly managing to send home sufficient funds to ensure South Dakota and Arkansas could afford to go to university and Rhode Island’s need for orthodontic treatment to correct what had become affectionately known in the press as “the nation’s overbite”.  By the age of 2, Carl had earned more from his movie roles than former neighbourhood playmate Bill Gates would in his lifetime.  He was the business.  But it wasn’t to last…

“It’s in my hand.”  “No, that’s the honey – the thing you’re trying to purchase.”  “Oh, I’m sorry, I completely misheard you…”

On his fourth birthday, the career that Carl had strived so hard to establish fell to pieces with one well-placed story in the redtops proclaiming that at 6 weeks old Carl had cried so much one night that he’d woken up New Mexico – unfortunately for Carl, the incompetent reporter hadn’t realised that this didn’t mean a million-or-so people, and the public could not be dissuaded from taking the angle put about by the media.  A petition was set up and signed by 8 billion people (mostly fictional) and Carl was banned from working in Hollywood ever again.  Finding himself out of work at 4 years old, Carl felt that the time was right to take his money, emigrate to the UK and set up a new life in a Somerset hamlet, selling newspapers and confectionery to old men with speech impediments.

“Your hand is empty.”  “No there’s money in it.”  “I can’t see it – show me the money.”  “It’s there, you’re just not looking hard enough.”  “I’m calling the police.”  “Okay, fine, here’s your money.”  “That’s great, ta.”

Carl’s new lifestyle had suited him perfectly.  Free from the invasive eyes of unscrupulous American journalists he had been able to start afresh, put aside the snoring scandal and still keep up-to-date with the latest Hollywood blockbusters from the comfort of his own armchair.  Then in 1996, Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. propelled the romantic comedy Jerry Maguire to the very forefront of popular culture and Carl had found a new obsession.  Not since watching and re-watching Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps from his doorway baby bouncer or reading and re-reading D.H.Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers during his first ultrasound scan had he felt so at one with a creative work.  ‘Show me the money’ became his favourite phrase, and as a shopkeeper working behind a till he was to get the opportunity to use it every day for as long as he kept it up.

Everybody in the village loved Carl – he was jolly, he was intellectual and he had a whole load of dirt on many of the old Tinseltown actors and actresses.  And they were sad when he was to leave the settlement after being snapped up for a job that would be made much easier by having the words of Jerry Maguire constantly on his lips – a shrew tamer.

TSP043: Normal service has resumed…

The man in the top hat and tails was obviously anxious but the police officer was unfazed.  Having endured the copper’s heavy questioning at length after being plucked from the wedding in the middle of his best man’s speech he was quite clearly champing at the bit to continue where he’d left off – right in the middle of an anecdote about the groom, a heron and four pounds of liquid explosives.  “Is that everything officer?  Can I get back now?”  The policeman gave him a slight nod and an origami gerbil.  “Yes sir, that’s everything – the formal service can resume.”

As the door closed behind the red-faced speech-writer to a huge swell of “Nick got nicked!  Nick got nicked!” the officer made his way to the next room at the conference centre, hoping that one of the inhabitants might be able to shed more light on the criminal enquiry he was unfortunately having to make.  Room 22 turned out to be hosting a meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the minister who answered the knock seemed unable to offer up much information that was not already known.  “Around quarter past 12 there was this huge bang – you couldn’t miss it.  Everybody in here heard it, that’s for sure.  I was saying to Judith – that’s my wife – that it sounded like a car had fallen off the roof, but Miriam – that’s my wife – was of the opinion that it was more like a roof had fallen onto a car.”  The officer reflected on this for a moment.  “So, your wife thought she heard falling masonry?”  The minister looked confused – “Who are we talking about here – Ruth?  Sarah?  Naomi?”  “Erm…  I think it was Miriam you said.”  “Oh, of course – I always get her confused with Rebecca – that’s my wife – and her sister Hagar.”  “Another wife?” the policeman inquired, his mind swimming.  The minister shot him a withering look.  “Don’t be disgusting – marrying my wife’s sister?!  What do you take me for?!”  Slightly abashed, the young constable scanned his notepad and his Nectar card before stating that he thought that was it as far as his enquiries were concerned.  “Yes sir, sorry to disturb you but these things have to be done.  Anyway, the Mormon service can resume.”

The Mormon thanked the policeman for his time and gave him a church leaflet, recommending he “bring his wives along some time”.  Wondering what his civil partner would have to say about this he made his way to the adjacent suite, Room 14, and tapped on the wood.  The door was opened by an Indian man in chefs’ whites.  “You will have to be quick I’m afraid – we’re right in the middle of a manic lunch hour.  We’ve had quite enough disruption already what with that huge metallic eagle crashing down the stairs earlier.”  “No, no, Sanjeev,” came a shout from behind the tandoor, “It was a great big terracotta nun jumping in the lift.”  “You are having a massive joke Hasif,” came a shout from within the tandoor, “It was a china badminton court doing the 100m hurdles.”  Fearing that this was one conversation unlikely to reel itself in the lawman backed out of the steam-filled room.  “It’s okay boys, I’ll leave you to it.”  “So, you are saying,” said Sanjeev, “that our korma service can resume.”  “Exactly that,” assented the officer, closing the door behind him and wiping away the sweat from his forehead with a man-sized tissue – 6 foot 2 and long in the leg.

The next few inquiries resulted in keeping a tenor away from his choral service, a medium from her paranormal service, a Stargate mechanic from his portal service and a bouncer from his shift (i.e. his doorman service).  With no further leads but plenty more speculated theories for the source of the earlier commotion (including a diabetic gorilla running out of shampoo, a rhododendron bush experiencing a lifetime’s growth in a nanosecond, and a morris dancer achieving reincarnation as a stegosaurus while hiding in a dustbin) the policeman made his way to the only remaining door – the final room for investigating on this level; Room 465C.  With a heavy heart, wary of what bizarre sights might meet his eyes this time, he reluctantly raised his fist and announced his entry with a rat-a-tat-tat.  With one hand still on the handle, he gazed inside – and what he saw caused his jaw to drop and his eyes to open wide…

It was a conference.  A decidedly standard, mundane conference.  Men in suits – ordinary suits – all around a great big table – a startlingly average table.  At one end a young businessman stood in front of a whiteboard chock full of diagrams – straightforward understandable diagrams – giving a talk about business things – very usual topics of discussion.

“Can we help you?” asked the presenter.  The policeman sank into a chair with an enormous smile – odd decor for a chair but the design brought a smile on his own face too.  “Believe you me,” he exuded with a relaxed sigh, “You’ve done quite enough for me already.  If there’s one thing I can tell you, it’s this…”

TSP042: Gimme ten cc’s of JFK – STAT!

“Take it away and burn it – it does not belong here.”  Craig stared intently at Dr Pannacotta, replying through gritted teeth, “That is my grandmother.  And I know she does not belong here because this is an A&E department – the only things that technically belong here are a job lot of uncomfortable bile-coloured chairs, a stack of magazines so old that one of them sports a young Isaac Newton as its cover model, a pot plant that appears to have been used as an emergency vomit receptacle, and that nurse who’s arranged all of her shifts for the week to run in one continuous sequence – you know, the one whose face is more bags than eyes and who has a 6-litre cafetière permanently glued to her left hand.”

The percussive sound of hundreds of pills shaking in their bottles announced the passing by of said nurse, struggling to keep a steady grip on a tray of medication whilst humming La Marseillaise at 240 beats per minute and blinking like a heavily-oiled sash window in a frame coated with flubber.  The doctor turned back to face Craig.  “Mr Wenceslas, please keep your voice down.  It is all well and good you understanding that your grandmother does not technically belong here, but that is beside the point.  Gladys came in for treatment 3 hours ago but, unfortunately, today is a very busy day for us and still no member of my staff is available to treat her.  Now, new NHS guidelines say that if we are unable to get a patient in and out in less time than it takes to watch JFK then the correct practice is to have them incinerated.”  At this point he gestured towards a TV-and-VCR trolley in the corner of the waiting room.  “As you can see, the credits are now rolling – it’s too late; any second now we’ll see Oliver Stone’s name on the screen.  So you’ve got a choice: either you remove your grandmother from the premises or you help me find some kindling and we chuck her in the furnace – so what do you say?”

Craig’s eyes bulged.  “Take her home like this – are you mad?!  She’s got a broken leg!  She can’t walk on that…”

“Well, you could give her a piggy back?”

“A piggy back?  The bone is sticking right out – it’d catch on the wool in my jumper and then the whole thing would unravel.  And my Auntie Lavender slaved away for weeks on that – can you even imagine how irate she‘d be if I turned up at her house for brunch this Thursday with fragments of femur interwoven among the stitching?!”

Dr Pannacotta winced.  “Okay, I see your point – nobody would want that.  But the fact remains Mr Wenceslas-“

“Please stop calling me that – my surname’s Amylase.”

“I know Mr… Amylase… but old habits are hard to kick – I still connect you with the village Christmas production in 2006 when you played-”

“Good King Wenceslas, yes.  ‘Bring me flesh and bring me wine’…”  Craig smiled.  “Yes, still one of my best performances I have to admit, but a discussion we can save for another occasion.  My nan is currently sitting in your emergency department’s waiting room, desperately in need of medical attention or at the very least some kind of paracetamol to take the edge off the pain, and you’re telling me that because Kevin Costner spoke particularly quickly on the day they chose to film the scenes that made it into the final cut she’s got to face either a trip back home with her skeleton showing or be disposed of via a short, sharp cremation?!”

“Well it doesn’t have to be short Mr Wences- Mr Amylase.  We can drag it out if you like – set the oven at a lower gas mark, douse her with water and dress her in fire-retardant clothing – you know, anything that helps.  These can all be arranged.  Asbestos – we’ve got plenty of that lining the walls here; simply tons of it.  If there’s anything within our power to make your grandmother’s extinguishing lengthier, you can rely on us.”

Dr Pannacotta smiled cheesily and Craig groaned, casting his eyes to the floor.  Summoning his strength he once again glared back into the medical man’s eyes.  “I think we’re talking at crossed purposes here doctor.  My aged granny – the beloved matriarch of my family – urgently needs a surgical procedure to save her leg.  You are telling me that Health Service protocol now forbids that she be ministered to unless circumstances within your (admittedly busy) emergency room permit that she be seen by a medically qualified member of staff some time between pressing ‘play’ on the VCR – I’m assuming it is thoroughly rewound to the very beginning of the tape?”  Dr Pannacotta nodded assent.  “Okay, some time between that and when the video stutters to a halt.  Am I right?”  Again, Dr Pannacotta nodded.  “Right.  So… how about just before this tape reaches the very end you accidentally push this button marked with a double back-arrow and – completely by coincidence, you understand – allow the film to run through one more time.  And if you do that, totally not on purpose, then I can make sure that this twenty pounds somehow magically appears in your coat pocket…  What do you say?”

Dr Pannacotta thought hard for a moment, sucking on the end of his stethoscope.  Suddenly he stopped and looked straight at Craig.  “Okay, I think we can manage that – completely unintentionally of course.”

“Of course – I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Craig returned.

“Right.  Well that shouldn’t be a problem Mr Amylase.  And what if we get to the end of JFK again?  Am I to take it that in that situation you wouldn’t mind if we then actually did go on to incinerate your grandmother?”

Craig held his hands in the air.  “Oh that’s absolutely fine doctor – of course, no problem.  You’re being more than obliging already – I wouldn’t want to feel I was taking advantage of you…”

TSP041: My wholemeal loaf flashed before my eyes…

“Just grab my hand!” shouted the baker, hanging over the edge of the precipice.

“Grashnarrhll,” growled the badger, incapable of understanding English and (unfortunately for the baker) the only living soul for miles around.

“Please, grab my hand!  It’s the only way we’ll both get out of this alive.”  It was a last-ditch attempt to avert what looked to be a horrible and grisly plunge onto the jagged rocks half a mile below.  Both the baker and the badger were suspended on the opposing ends of a recently mis-deployed parachute, now snagged upon the projecting handle of a child’s bucket and spade set inexplicably wedged in a cleft above the canyon.  Sensing the threads of the material slowly unwinding the baker knew that cooperation between the two was the key to the survival.  Sadly, his knowledge of badger-tongue was a little shaky at best while the badger’s grasp of any of the British languages was poor to say the least.  If only there was another way to relay to the beast that if they worked together there would be a chance that they could climb the cliff-face in front of them.  Tentatively he reached out a hand to grab hold of the badger’s arm…

“Nnyarghll,” snarled the animal, lashing out at the human with his razor-sharp teeth and grazing his left middle cuticle.  The baker recoiled.  “Look,” he explained, “I’m trying to help you.  We have to coordinate our efforts otherwise the view below us will be the last thing you ever see, just much much closer.  Do you understand?”

Of course the badger didn’t understand.  He was a badger.  The steep drop currently occupying the space that his feet usually reserved for solid ground was admittedly a little concerning, mostly because it meant there were no worms there, and he was a self-confessed wormoholic.  In fact, since boarding the plane to participate in the sponsored freefall (which he was doing for a tuberculosis charity) some pretty serious withdrawal symptoms had been setting in.  The dizziness and the thirst were only the beginnings of it, but it seriously didn’t help having this English weirdo trying to stroke him.  He wasn’t a cat, or a gerbil, or a porcupine – he was a badger, and you just didn’t stroke badgers; not if you wanted to keep all of your fingers anyway.

In an attempt to send this message to the baker he thrashed out with his jaw and made a very rude gesture with his ears.  Regrettably, his human colleague didn’t appear to know this most abusive yet inwardly satisfying of badger body signals.  In fact, he reacted completely unexpectedly by spitting one of his tonsils into the badger’s face.  This was the deepest insult possible by animal standards and the badger made sure the baker realised this by taking the nylon in his teeth and starting to tear his way through.

“No no no!  What are you doing?!”  The baker’s eyes were wide in alarm.  What was the crazy mammal doing?!  Didn’t he realise this action would result in the untimely deaths of them both?!  (No, he didn’t – being a badger he didn’t fully appreciate that the malfunctioning parachute was the only thing keeping the two failed skydivers firmly rooted in the land of the living; he just saw that the big white flappy thing seemed to mean a lot to the other bloke who was actually pretty annoying, so he determined to exact some damage to it in revenge.)  Shouting wildly, the baker made use of the numerous expletives that came naturally to somebody in his profession, before employing several he’d learned on his travels on the continent, swearing at the badger in Italian, German, Slovak and French.  At this point the badger ceased gnawing and looked up sharply.

“N’employez pas ce mot,” he shouted.  “C’est très blessant aux blaireaux.”

The baker stopped swearing, astounded.  “Vous parlez français?!” he said in surprise.

“Oui, bien sûr; tout les blaireaux parlent français.  Pratiquement, la français est la langue des blaireaux, especialement en Ecosse.”

“Mais plus tôt, vous avez seulement grogné?!”

“Quelle surprise!” the badger chuckled as he raised a hairy eyebrow, “Nous allons mourir!”

The baker puffed out his chest proudly and with defiance.  “Pas aujourd’hui.”

“J’aime votre optimisme,” conceded the badger, “Mais je ne peut pas imaginer une solution à notre problem.”

“Pas moi aussi, mais nous pouvons jouer au ‘j’aperçois’.”

“’J’aperçois’?  Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“Ah!  Vous l’aimerez!  J’aperçois… avec mon petit oeil… quelque chose commencer par… ‘s’.”

“Seau?”

The Englishman beamed.  “Vous êtes un expert!  Votre tour.”

TSP040: Plagiarism Bear

“How about Waterloo Teddy?”

“No, I’m not feeling it.”

The writer and his agent sat facing each other either side of a £30,000 quartz coffee table, topped with a layer of cherry stones and Topic wrappers.  It had been a productive day in the office and between them they had collected enough of the seeds to set up their own cherry orchard (a lifelong ambition fortuitously shared by the pair); the Topic wrappers were of no importance at all.  Also, as an aside really, an entire premise, plot and cast list had been drawn up for the new blockbuster movie the screenwriter had been contracted to pen on pain of dismissal in the event of non-delivery.  After several seemingly promising suggestions had been shot down almost instantaneously (mostly due to being obvious plagiarisms of books observable over the agent’s shoulder) the budding Orson Welles had at last struck gold with a construct ‘loosely’ based on a much-loved children’s story that his industry representative had somehow never come across.

“Well, what do you say to Marylebone Grizzly?”

“Mmm… sounds a bit… camp.”

The underlying storyline was simple.  A family discover a small hairy mammal from a distant continent on the platform of a London train station, adopt him into the family and experience hilarious jape after hilarious jape.  The agent thought it a work of genius and couldn’t believe that nobody had ever come up with the idea before – surely it was the perfect winning formula!  All they needed was a title…  The name of the animal was a vital component, and it would make sense – the wannabe William Goldman suggested coyly – that he (it had to be a male creature) should be christened after the terminal in which he was found.

“Charing Cross Panda?”

“I’m pretty sure he was in Ocean’s 11…”

Having battled writer’s block for the past 23 months it didn’t really feel like cheating.  It felt like one last desperate roll of the dice to cling on to the prestigious two-film deal he’d secured with the agency two years ago.  In the first month he’d delivered a wonderful cinematic masterpiece, The Ballad of Robbie Savage, a romantic tale of a Welsh footballer and part-time badger ventriloquist who found love on the Isle of Wight, averted an invasion of Indonesia by a horde of giant shrimps and invented the bottle, smashing all box office records in the process.  But the meteoric rise to prominence had taken its toll – the public had expected another mindblowing spectacle to follow almost immediately, possibly involving Ryan Giggs or Danny Gabbidon.  But it just had not materialised.  Inspiration was hard to come by when Hollywood A-listers lounged by your pool on an almost daily basis (not on Wednesdays – that was the lifeguard’s day off – he’d had malaria and wasn’t quite over it) and Michelin-starred chefs cooked you breakfast on a whim.  The mind just could not cope with the attention of beautiful women, fanatical autograph hunters and twenty-seven different stalkers (all from different religious backgrounds) all on top of a looming deadline.  He didn’t normally like to ape other people’s work but this was serious – this was a matter of lifestyle or death.  Fail to land this screenplay within the window of his written agreement and he could kiss goodbye to his lion tamer.

“St. Pancras Ursus?”

“No.”

…

“Any reason for that one?”

“It’s pants.  Really pants.”

The clock was ticking, the writer fidgeted in his seat, a great bead of sweat rolled down his face (and I mean great – it was about as big as a watermelon).  He needed an acceptable name on the next attempt – otherwise he could feel the deal would slip away for good, over the edge of a contractual precipice and into the pit of eternal jobseeker’s allowance.  Rocking back and forward in anxiety, bracing himself for the worst, the writer opened his mouth to confess his total dearth of decent ideas when a lifeline appeared out of nowhere.  His counterpart suddenly sat bolt upright with a cry of “I’ve got it!”  His client’s face brightened, only to dull again almost instantly when the last two words he’d wanted to hear forced their way out of the proudly smiling agent’s lips.  He had to move fast.

“No, we really can’t call it that – anything but that.”

“Why, what’s wrong?  The two words seem to go together perfectly.  With a title like that the screenplay should pretty much write itself!”

“But we can’t – we just can’t.”

“I don’t see why not.  It’s so much better than any of the others we came up with…”

“But… but…”

The writer was struggling to beat about the bush.  There was nothing for it – time to be blunt.

“We can’t use that name,” he said, “because Blackfriars Koala isn’t even a type of bear.”

TSP039: Step by step

Open eyes, blink twice, squint.  Rub eyes, roll over, gaze at rising sun through blind slats.  Remember mum’s warning never to look straight at sun, mentally slap wrist.  Gaze wide-eyed around room, attempt to see through bright patches temporarily burnt onto retina, rue looking straight at sun, pledge not to tell mum to avoid told-you-so gloating.  Blink three times, yawn, stretch arms above head, knock into cold mug of ‘hot’ chocolate.  Sit up confused, stare into mug.  Continue to look confused, stare hard into mug.  Look even more confused (if possible), positively ogle mug.  Nod with realisation, smirk and giggle gently to self, remove Action Man jungle explorer binoculars from mug.

Pull back duvet cover, swing legs over edge of bed, plant feet upon floor.  Pause.  Gather strength.  Pause.  Summon energy from deep within body to parts that need it.  Pause.  Belch loudly.  Lie back down.

Make second attempt at rising, swing legs over edge of bed, plant feet upon floor, take two attempts to stand.  Shuffle across carpet to door, reach out for dressing gown on hook on back of door, don dressing gown.  Open eyes.  Pause.  Remove frilly blouse, don manly dressing gown.  Reach out for door handle, pivot wrist, open door.

Walk into hallway.  Walk into lounge.  Walk into ironing board.  Walk into armchair.  Walk into mantelpiece.  Pause.  Regain balance.  Notice dead blackbird on floor.  Head to kitchen.  Check water level in kettle, take kettle to tap, fill with cold water.  Replace kettle on stand, depress switch, smile at satisfactory click.  Reach up to cupboard, select favourite World Cup-themed mug, place mug on worktop, close cupboard.  Pause.  Leave kitchen, re-enter lounge, stare at dead blackbird on floor.  Pause.  Sigh.  Pick up dead blackbird by tail, shuffle to patio doors, turn key, slide doors open, deposit dead blackbird on picnic table.  Determine to dispose of dead blackbird properly later.  Close and lock doors, turn to leave room, stare at head of dead blackbird on floor.  Stare at fresh stain on carpet underneath head.  Sigh.  Vow to teach wife good etiquette.  Pause.  Vow to teach cat good etiquette.

Return to kitchen, await boiling of water.  Await boiling of water.  Await boiling of water.  Head towards bathroom for quick wee.  Place foot on threshold of bathroom, hear kettle flick off.  Sigh.  Turn around immediately and return to kitchen, add teabag to mug, add teaspoonful of sugar, add boiled water from kettle, stir.  Open fridge, remove milk, pour apple juice into mug.  Stare at carton of apple juice in hand.  Stare at mug.  Stare at carton of apple juice in hand.  Stare at mug.  Take experimental sip from mug.  Grimace.  Carry mug to sink, pour contents of mug down plughole, rinse mug.  Return to worktop, place mug on worktop, add teabag to mug, add teaspoonful of sugar, pour more boiled water from kettle, stir.  Stare at swirling specks of limescale in mug.  Stare at kettle.  Stare at swirling specks of limescale in mug.  Furtively look from left to right.  Take experimental sip from mug.  Grimace.  Carry mug to sink, pour contents of mug down plughole, pour contents of mouth down plughole, rinse mug, rinse mouth – thoroughly.

Smack lips together four times.  Gaze longingly at kettle.  Feel betrayed.  Head towards bathroom for quick wee.  Place foot on threshold of bathroom, hear telephone ringing.  Sigh.  Turn around immediately and walk into lounge.  Walk into ironing board.  Walk into armchair.  Walk into mantelpiece.  Pick up phone.  Grunt.  “This is not an advertisement-”  Slam down phone.  Scowl.  Turn around.  Walk into mantelpiece.  Walk into armchair.  Walk into ironing board.  Walk into mantelpiece.  Stand still to regain bearings.  Take deep breath.  Tread on head of dead blackbird.

Head towards bathroom at pace for quick wee.  Place foot on threshold of bathroom, hear doorbell ring.  Leap up into air in anger.  Black out.

Open eyes, blink twice, squint.  Rub eyes, roll over, gaze at rising sun through blind slats.  Remember mum’s warning never to look straight at sun, mentally slap wrist.  Gaze wide-eyed around room, attempt to see through bright patches temporarily burnt onto retina, rue looking straight at sun, pledge not to tell mum to avoid told-you-so gloating.  Blink three times, yawn, stretch arms above head, knock into cold heart rate monitor.  Sit up confused, stare at heart rate monitor.  Continue to look confused, stare hard at heart rate monitor.  Look even more confused (if possible), positively ogle heart rate monitor.  Nod with realisation, smirk and giggle gently to self.  Wince.  Feel lump on top of head.  Swear vengeance on bathroom lintel.

TSP038: The empty flat

Burglars.  While Steve had slept (unusually soundly and with dreams of Eric Morecambe actually in Morecambe – even vividly portraying the streets of the Lancashire town in amazingly accurate detail despite never having seen, visited or particularly cared about it) burglars had crept into his flat unannounced and pilfered all of his possessions.  Not just the big ones, like the TV, the writing desk and the nuclear submarine, but also the small ones like cleaning products, lost plectrums and Hendrix-autographed Sylvanian Families toysets.  Oh, and his wife.

A loud buffeting snore from beside him suddenly reassured him that his spouse had in fact survived the night-time raid.  This was some consolation at least.  Steve sat upright in the bed for a while, surveying the bare and empty room around him.  Until a short time ago this had been the master bedroom; now, however, minus its usual furnishings it seemed somewhat undeserving of the title, Steve felt – even though the two main components that lent their names to these quarters (namely the bed and the master) were both still present.

It was whilst ruminating on these thoughts that Steve suddenly arrived at a shocking realisation – there had never been any burglars.  No thieves could possibly have pulled off such a heist – from where he sat, Steve’s eyes (usually razor-sharp to the point that blinking would cause his eyelids to bleed) could make out no fingerprints on the walls, no disturbances in the soft layer of leg hair that adorned every floor in his apartment, and no DNA upon the carpet that did not belong to him, his wife or their friend Boris.

Of course – Boris!  Astounded at the stupidity he’d shown when leaping to such an erroneous and unlikely conclusion, Steve now realised that the disappearance of all his belongings (Boeing 747 and all) must of course be the work of his close personal friend (and advisor) who had recently mastered the Force and was now able to levitate objects from where they stood and out of the window to another location.  All he had to do was get up from the bed, look out of the window and who would he see out in the street?  Why, Boris of course – and with all of Steve’s worldly goods too.  Chuckling to himself at his previous gullibility, Steve reached for his mobile phone to send his amigo a red-faced text.

But his phone wasn’t there.  Of course it wasn’t, there was nothing in the entire property (apart from Steve, the bed and ‘her indoors and fast asleep’).  But everybody knew that mobile phones were exempt from the Force – Nokia had made sure of that when they’d developed all of their models – so it couldn’t have been Boris after all… unless he’d used the Force on everything else and then just put a fishing rod through the open window to fetch the final item… but that was also impossible because Boris was allergic to fish or anything with the word ‘fish’ in its name (like selfishness).  So what could it have been?

Termites!  Killer termites from the future with jaws of steel and appetites to rival the Cookie Monster had somehow found a hole in the space-time continuum that just happened to bring them out into this particular dimension and this particular building, and they had taken advantage of their luscious surroundings and devoured everything in sight (well, you would, wouldn’t you?)  A low probability of occurrence admittedly, but still not necessarily impossible.

Hang on – those nuns!  Yes, those nuns had been looking quite shifty when they’d been out in town collecting for some orphanage or weapons factory or something.  Maybe they weren’t really nuns.  Maybe they were aliens from a distant planet that could bend the very rules of our reality to move objects in ways that only a really perverted mind could imagine.

Or the rapture!  That famous furniture rapture spoken of in the Bible.  What did it say?  “One shall be standing still, storing T-shirts and odd socks in its drawers and another shall be taken up…”  It had come to pass!

Oh hang on, Steve thought.  We’re moving house – we packed everything up and took it all to our new place in Oxford yesterday – remember?  We had fish and chips down by the canal, and threw rocks at old people?  Of course… so that’s why there’s nothing left here any more!  A perfectly innocent explanation and nothing to worry about…

When Steve’s slumbering wife eventually came to the pair of them had one quick final sweep around the flat, closing each door one by one, sealing off each compartment that had played host to so many stories in the past two years.  Parties and meal-times, visitors and laughter; recuperation from injuries, days sick off work; smiles and happiness and sunsets and bird feeders; film evenings, crochet and Friday night TV; and, of course, a green woolly dinosaur named Nicholas.

Crossing the threshold one final time they closed the door, turned the key and drew a line underneath a chapter in their lives together.  Then they got into the car, closed the door, turned the key and began writing the first page of the next…