Explanations and Further Leads

My dear and patient readers, I have much to relate. I have been unable to update this electronic diary for the past week or so as I have been confined in a private room in a hospital ward, comatose for much of the time and hooked up to a saline drip for the rest.

My private room had a television set exclusively for my own use, which showed the World Cup endlessly. I have not heard of the 'World Cup' before - a student doctor told me that in the 'World Cup', male representatives of the world's nations meet in giant German arenas to try to kick a ball into their enemy's net using cunning and athletic prowess. The least successful nations are eliminated and the strongest proceed to the later rounds until there remains only one nation, which is declared the winner and gets given a small trophy, a bottle of fine champagne (vintage), and a hearty round of applause.

A nurse in the hospital told me that this is a good way for men to work out their inherent anger with foreigners and to thus avoid real wars with real casualties and bloodshed. This is all very well, but Neighbours has been put off the air until this dreary and interminable competition has been played out. This is wholly unacceptable and the depression brought on by learning of Neighbours's abscence from the TV schedules delayed my recovery by several days.

I must now reveal how I found myself confined to a hospital bed, miserable and in pain. Several days ago now, I welcomed a visitor into my Dundee home. He was a representative of Hughes de Payens Software Ltd, Hull, come to bestow a gift upon me, my prize for successfully completing Manic Miner and surely a key clue in the Grail quest bequeathed to me by the ghost of Ustinov. The man introduced himself as Miss Agatha Daggs, M.Litt, and congratulated me on my recent success in besting the game. My suspicions were at once aroused because this man was patently an albino, but one who had gone to great lengths to disguise this fact. He had grown long mousey brown hair on his scalp and had acquired a glorious sun tan all over his wide-hipped body. He wore make-up, perfume, and nail polish to disguise his albinism from me, but I was not to be fooled. Wary though I was, I allowed this faux-albino into my living room, assuming from his feminine build that, should he attack, I could easily overpower him.

He explained that the official prize for beating Manic Miner had been set in 1983 and was four month's subscription to Speccy Plus! magazine, which had unfortunately gone out of business on the same day that the game was released, so no one yet had ever bothered to phone the number to claim the prize. I detected that he was testing me in some way, subtly probing me to see if I was worthy of the true prize, the secrets of the Grail's location.

"A prize is mine by rights," I said, "And if you cannot provide me with the stated prize, you will have to find some other way of pleasing me, Miss Daggs!"

This did not please the man. He repeated that the prize was now only to be considered a novelty, and that I could not realistically expect to receive issues of a magazine no longer in print. As a gesture of good will, he said, Hughes de Payens Software Ltd, Hull, would be delighted to offer me a W.H. Smith book token to the value of £5.00. I declined, stating that I sought only the true prize. Here I winked at him to indicate I was aware of the game he was playing, and said, "You shall now give me my prize, Miss Daggs". Here I winked again and, leaning in very close, smiled to show that I knew there was an exciting prize awaiting me behind all his bluster. He maintained a steadfast composure, so I squeezed him companionably on the knee and winked a third time.

It was then that he revealed his true albino nature and flew into an apelike fury, beating me about the face and screaming. He produced a can of mace and sprayed my eyes, which caused severe discomfort.

And so I found myself bludgeoned by that albino. I awoke in hospital where the police came and questioned me about my conduct towards Miss Daggs, that treacherous albino, presumably to see if they could find and arrest him for his wickedness towards me. My good friend Dr Anthony Gland the psychiatrist was called for, and the police went away after he spoke with them and explained to them my Grail Quest.

Returning home today, I have found the £5 book token for W.H. Smith still lying on my couch. It occurs to me now that this is actually the prize I sought after all - it is a patent clue! Tomorrow I will go to W.H. Smith and follow this lead. Representatives of the Knights Templar may be in league with that renowned stationer.

The Game is Beaten!

I have repetitive strain injury in my wrists and find myself hunched and near blind thanks to my excessive effort to solve this computerised puzzle. Nevertheless, I have triumphed. The cavern "Ameobatron's Revenge" caused me significant difficulties, but after learning the trick of it, there were only two further levels to complete, which by the grace of a god I managed on my first attempt.

When Miner Willy flung himself into the game's final exit, the screen faded to black. Then the strange eggman from level 5, Eugene, appeared and a few lines of text emerged from his lipless mouth.

"Congratulations game-player. I am Eugene. I am the Architect. I created these computer-generated subterranean grottos. You have successfully beaten my design, although you remain irrevocably human. Your ascendancy and incontestable accomplishment is merely the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of 'Manic Miner'.

You are the residuum of an anomaly, which, despite my sincerest efforts, I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains an encumbrance assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here... Please phone 6031769, provide your name and address, and we will send you your prize.

--Hughes de Payens Software Ltd, in conjunction with Bug-Byte, Hull, UK, 1983."

I immediately dialled the number and gave my details. A shadowy, raspy voice reeking of mystery and imbued with the tomb-dust of accumulated centuries said that I would receive my comeuppance in due course, which sounds very exciting! At last, everything's coming up Horton now!

Continued Electronic Spelunking

I find myself short-tempered and impatient to an intolerable degree. I have been playing this damned 'computer game' consistently for many, many hours, and have consequently developed a legion of ulcerous sores all over my legs through lack of movement and impingement of blood circulation.

I can get no further than a cavern called 'Eugene's Lair' populated by toilets that are somehow imbued with sentience. When I collect all the required flashing objects, a bespectacled egg man (presumably the titular 'Eugene') begins to glow and at once moves to block my path to the level's egress. I wish the game allowed my character, Miner Willy, to carry some form of automatic firearm, for then the cretinous Eugene would pay with his life.

I must keep trying, though I risk Deep Vein Thrombosis. Perhaps there exists a way that I might cheat the system using a computer virus or some such. I must not let Sir Peter Ustinov down.

Into the Mines

Following tutelage from an old friend, I have discovered that my cassette is something called a 'computer game' (apparently an entertainment form popular in the early 1980s before Cheese Strings were invented). I went to a local computer shop and asked whether I could use one of their machines to play the cassette, but the vendors confused me with their babbling mode of speech. I gathered that as my cassette is so cutting edge, they did not yet possess a machine capable of playing it and I would have to seek specialist help. I left the shop despondent.

On the return journey home, I saw a shop called OX-FAM. The 'X' in the name convinced me that the shop must be futuristic in some way, and because my cassette is labelled part of the 'ZX Spectrum', I decided to give it a try. As it happened, the shop did stock the required device and the lady sold it to me for only £7.00.

When I got home, I set up the device and loaded the game. I quickly gathered that my task was to guide a miner through a series of magical mazes. I believe that a great clue will be revealed when I complete my quest. Thus far, I have almost helped my character traverse level two (entitled 'The Cold Room'). I am confident that I will solve this before long.

Clues

I met with the Japanese scholars at 3am this morning. Together we dug a hole some sixteen feet deep at the spot where I had earlier found an old crisp packet. By 6am we had found nothing. The scholars raged, declaring me a fraud and an enemy of truth, before departing in a quite shameful hissy fit, leaving me to refill the hole alone.

As I was doing this, I discovered a cassette in a plastic holder stuck in a clod of Arbroath's sandy earth, which we had previously overlooked. On the front was a cartoon of a spelunker and the words "Manic Miner". I think this is a clue.

I tried playing the cassette using my walkman device but any secret message to be found is cunningly disguised in high-pitched bleeping and chirruping sounds. This will require more research, but I feel hopeful that this will yield an important clue.

An Exciting Lead

As I finished penning the last few lines in my previous diary entry, a shrill ringing sound shook my home. In my alarm, I fleetingly assumed it was the death rattle of a trussed up hog, but I quickly ascertained that it was my telephone making the noise to indicate that someone wished to converse with me telephonically. I picked up the receiver and was greeted by what sounded like a berating in Japanese or Korean or Chinese or Mandarin - I confess that the languages of the Orient are a closed book to me.

I tried to explain that I did not understand what the speaker was saying, but as I only know a few phrases in Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Mandarin, I feared I would simply cause confusion when I interupted him to state, "Moshi moshi, Daniel San, arigato! Ichi ni san chi go, geisha. Om mani padme hum, padawan. Saki wasabi, Pai Mei grasshopper?" Nevertheless, I clearly made my point well, for he swiftly replied, "Baka gaijin!" (Chinese for "Gracious apologies") and reverted to English.

"Sir, you spoke to my wife and I yesterday regarding a crisp packet found near the eastern wall of the decaying ruins of Arbroath Abbey, former home to an order of 12th-century Tironesian Benedictine monks, and true location for the Stone of Destiny," he said.

"Yes," I shrugged.

"My wife and I are scholars from America's Grant University and Barnett College respectively, currently drawn into a rollercoaster adventure around the globe, uncovering secret worlds of fantasy, religious cover-ups involving albinos, and booby-trapped labyrinths, while risking life and limb along the way," he said.

"And you are both Japanese?" I shrugged.

"Of course," he said. "Throughout our journey we have been stalked by the last remaining members of the Knights Templar, some vampires, and the FBI."

"Sounds fun," I shrugged.

"It is anything but fun you thin-legged archer!" he cried, "Along the way, we have been aided by what we suppose is a group called the Hashashin, the ancient Assassin Cult, and a group calling themselves The Crescent Guard of the Sultan. They typically help us by surreptitiously leaving obtuse clues and word puzzles where we may encounter them. We now believe your crisp packet to be the latest of these clues."

"Explain how," I shrugged.

"The answer lies with 'Cream cheese and chive'," he said. "In some dialects of ancient Japanese, this is approximately homophonic for 'Clee m'chee san chi Vee' which, in Modern English, translates as 'Seek the wealth here'. We believe an item of great import is buried at the point where you found the crisp packet."

"Intriguing," I shrugged.

"Yes, we ask that you meet us at Arbroath Abbey on Sunday morning at 3am - we will supply the shovels. We need you to specify the exact point that you found the crisp packet."

With that I agreed. More to follow.

Grail Clues

Rewatching Disney's Robin Hood last night, I have uncovered what I believe is the first of the clues to the Ustinov grail quest. At the section where the fox Hood is disguised as a stork in order to enter an archery competition, I have noted that if you reverse the point where the fox Marion utters the line "Thank you, my thin legged archer", you can clearly make out "Arbroath Abbey". Either that, or "Arbroath Smokie", though this seems unlikely given that this is a type of delectable smoked haddock.

Committed to following up this obvious lead, I decided I should visit Arbroath Abbey this morning to look for more clues. Arriving there, I discovered it was a ruin and there was no possibility for secret passages. I did find a discarded crisp packet (cream cheese and chive) near the foundations of the eastern wall, but this did little to console me. I approached some Japanese tourists and asked them about the crisp bag, but they were unable to help me.

This is mystifying.

The First of the Spirits

The first of the spirits promised by Bill Owen has unveiled itself to me. It was none other than Sir Peter Ustinov, or at least, a spirit assuming his form. For reasons best known to itself, it spoke to me using the voice of cravenly animated lion, Prince John, from Disney's Robin Hood, throughout our interaction. That film is well known to me as it rightly depicts Hood as a fox, and Little John as a clothed Baloo.

Sir Peter sat down on my linoleum and proceeded to relate an endless rambling tale that, despite his mellifluous tone and glorious brandy voice, quite bored me. It involved a quest for some sort of grail and various clues to its hidden location that can be found by decoding certain clues concealed in certain films starring Sir Peter. As Bill Owen had told me I was honour-bound to aid any spirit seeking help from me, I promised the ghost that I would make the effort to watch Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) which starred Ustinov as a Chinee detective, and Blackbeard's Ghost (1968) featuring Ustinov as a spectral pirate.

This apparently satisfied the ghost, who smiled and disappeared, leaving behind a small glass bowl of strawberry Angel's Delight as a tribute. I ate it. It was a little powdery but overall it was reasonably Delighful, though nothing of it gave any hint of the Angelic.

I have not yet worked up the courage to watch these films.

Creating Nutrilium

Last week I followed the instructions on how to create Nutrilium and this led to a string of problems that I have only just recovered from. I cannot reveal the instructions in their entirety lest some boob attempt to replicate the creation process and bring the civilised world to its knees.

After I had assembled the small distillery and the required bellows, I set to work. The instructions were extremely complex and necessitated the addition of certain rare chemicals and compounds including Boswellox and Bividus Digestivum, and the intonation of liturgical chants in Middle English.

Unfortunately, I misread a key instruction at day four and added three plum tomatoes instead of the stated 'Disodium Cocoamphodiacetate', which led me to create what I believe is 'anti-Nutrilium', for when I tried to massage the final concoction into my pate it resulted in dull, lifeless hair, dandruff, and split ends. What is more, it paralysed my body completely from the ankles down.

During the time I spent lying helpless on the kitchen floor waiting for feeling to return to my body, I saw the likeness of Bill Owen in my curtains, who brought with him a warning that the anti-nutrilium would awaken a psychic link to the spirit world, and that I would be visited by several ghosts over the next few days, who I should attempt to help in any way I could. I told him that I had already made contact with several eskimo spirits recently but he informed me that I was a halfwit. As he disappeared, I felt the feeling return to my body and I promptly rushed to my computer to update my readership on these strange events.

L'Oreal's Secrets Revealed Via Ghost.

My recent ghostly visitor

I have enjoyed further success in conversing with the dearly departed. Yesterday another ghost came to my door and again took on the appearance of a flesh and blood person in an effort to deceive me.

"Hello good sir," he said obsequiously.
"Hello," I replied suspiciously.
"How are you this morning?" he asked enquiringly.
"I am well," I replied truthfully.
"May I enter?" he asked meaningfully.
"I suppose you may," I returned coquettishly.
"This is a delightful house," he said hennishly.
"Why thank you," I said mawkishly.
"May I sit down?" he asked churlishly.
"Help yourself," I replied amateurishly.
"Right then Mr...?" he began bewitchingly.
"Carew," I answered defiantly.
"Okay Mr Carew, I have something exciting to share," he declared calculatingly.
"Do tell," I said deafeningly.
"First, I have to say that I love your hair," he stated candidly.
"Thank you again," I said winsomely.
"But if I may be so bold, I think it could be improved," he offered accusingly.
"I must say I'm offended," I said dishearteningly.
"I apologise," he said edifyingly.
"No need - please go on," I said apparently.
"Have you heard of Nutrilium?" he asked scathingly.
"I have indeed," I replied reassuringly.
"Well, Mr Carew...or may I call you Clive?" he asked toyingly.
"If it pleases you, you may call me Clive," I opined sporadically.
"Well Clive, as you know, Nutrilium was discovered in 1996 by the boffins at L'Oreal," he said unblinkingly.
"Of course I know this," I replied presumably.
"Well, Nutrilium is a new element, previously unknown to the scientific community," he suggested tantalisingly.
"Pray continue," I urged swooningly.
"As you may know, Nutrilium works wonders on human hair - it improves its condition tenfold," he said self-pityingly.
"Yes, this is common knowledge," I said quietly.
"But L'Oreal have refused to share their knowledge with the world, and hold the scientific community to ransom, for only they can produce this marvellous element!" he squealed triumphantly.
"That is horrific," I told him successfully.
"Indeed Clive! But I have been working under cover in L'Oreal's laboratories and have discovered the secret of Nutrilium," he revealed promisingly.
"Amazing!" I declared uncomfortably.
"For just $250, I will tell you the secret Clive, and you can produce Nutrilium in your own home for free," he shouted rejoicingly.
"I'll do that deal," I said deftly.

And with that, the deal was done swiftly and pleasingly. He gave me a piece of paper with strange instructions that I will attempt to follow at a later date.

What a nice ghost he was!

First Contact!

I believe I have at last made contact with departed souls. My Arctic Roll plan was scuppered by some creature sneaking into my home and purloining the snack long before the eskimo ghosts detected it. Various clues, such as a lingering odour of umber and boysenberries, lead me to believe that the culprit was an eaglet. I will avenge this slight in time.

On Saturday, however, I hit upon a superior plan, which was to disguise myself as a walrus by growing a moustache and stuffing my clothes with cushioning and loft insulation. This would certainly attract ravenous eskimo ghosts, who enjoy the fatty hides of walrusses as we enjoy sweetmeats like fudge. It took me until last night before I was satisfied that my moustache was of sufficient length to pass it off as walrus whiskers: at this point I readied the rest of my disguise.

At once, there was a knock at the door. Answering it, I was greeted by a tremendously fat couple. Surely eskimo spirits in corporeal form, I assumed! I know from consulting books in the past that eskimos pride themselves on reaching gargantuan proportions. Their children are subjected to systematic treatment by confinement in narrow dark rooms, where they are fed on farinaceous foods and the flesh of young seals until they are almost a shapeless mass of fat. The eskimo women reach with astonishing rapidity the desired embonpoint on a diet of buttered clams and Play-Doh.

I saw by the looks on the couple's faces that my appearance alarmed them. A proud race, clearly they were humiliated to have fallen for my walrus-disguise-entrapment-ploy ('the old looby-loo' as it's known in the trade). To throw me off the scent, they maintained a cover story that they were a local couple collecting money for the charitable organisation 'Scottish Spastics', now called 'Capability Scotland' for reasons of politeness. I told them to drop the charade and tried to capture them in the shoebox I had laid aside for this purpose, but they were too plump. They ran away.

My efforts to discourse with the dead were not entirely successful, but at least I have finally made 'first contact' with the spirit realm. I hope that word gets around among the spooks that I am a gifted medium, and that they will now flock to me in droves.

My disguise.

Arctic Roll

This is Arctic Roll, the preferred roll of those who dwell in the Arctic. It comprises the following key ingredients: devilishly sweet vanilla ice-cream fashioned into a cylinder, raspberry glue, and the dryest of sponges designed to engulf the ice-cream cylinder and protect it from the ravages of the wild Arctic winds.

Although we Brits have never developed the taste for such foodstuffs, such chilled treats are adored by eskimos who have acquired the taste for it through many generations of necessity.

As the candles failed to attract eskimo ghosts, I will set out a single Arctic Roll in my kitchen tonight and the ghosts of eskimos will surely flock to it like Orcadians to a cardiganned poet. I have placed it in a shoebox, which I will shut quickly the instant an eskimo-shaped phantom enters it, as they do on that film where they bust the ghosts - Ghostbreakers I think it's called.

Tempting the Dead

Although Father Bouffant admitted that he was a fraud, it has long been a cherished belief of mine that certain people in this world can commune with the spirit realm. I hope that I will soon be able to add myself to the ranks of those with this ability, for I aim to train myself in the art of spiritualism. If the likes of Derek Acorah and Jonathan Edwards can make vast acres of money by merely pretending to contact dead bodies, then imagine how wealthy and famous I shall be when I prove that I can do this for real!

I first had to ensure my home was welcoming to spooks, so I tore up some tissues and laid them carefully upon the living room carpet. I hoped this might persuade the ghosts of eskimos that I was willing to accomodate the winter wonderland environment to which they were accustomed in life. As far as I know, eskimos subsist chiefly on wax so I left out a few candles in order to tempt them out from their afterlives. I have also left out a carrot or two for their reindeer which guide their ghostly sleighs.

I will now retire to my bed and hope that I will receive a visit during the night.

Acorah's Confession

As yesterday was a public holiday, I busied myself with scouring the streets for discarded receipts. This pleasant activity eased my restless mind and produced a bountiful yield: amongst the treasures collected I found a rare Morrison's till receipt for the purchase of Ragu pasta sauce, hummus, and a packet of ice-cream wafers. As you know, examples like these are akin to Venus's arms and you had better believe that this will take pride of place in my collection.

On a high for the rest of the day, I flattered myself with increasingly outrageous compliments until I began to blush furiously and I had to retire to a darkened room to compose myself.

This morning, a discordant rendition of Onward Christian Soldiers signalled the return of Father Bouffant. I had earlier determined that I would openly confront him about his true identity (fraudulent TV spiritualist Derek Acorah). When I did so, puffing out my chest and angling my thighs to the right to appear more demanding, he looked crestfallen and sheepishly related the following fantastical account:

"Well Mr Carew...or may I call you Clive?" he began. I agreed that he could call me Clive. "My story is a strange one. In 1950 I was born to a Liverpudlian drudge, the unhappy product of an ill-judged but passionate affair with an unnamed peripatetic gypsy. My mother will tell you that on the day of my birth, the midwife mistook me for a lung and almost cast me to the flames in horror. Such was my ignoble start in life.

"Until I was 27 years of age I worked with my mother sculpting marzipan fruit for tourists. On my 28th birthday I became aware of my Gift. My grandmother had it, my mother had it, and by all accounts, every gypsy ever born has it too. It is that fabled, heaven-sent ability to trick simpletons into believing you can commune with the dead in exchange for cash. Two avenues were thus open to me - the spiritualist circuit, or the priesthood (where I might pretend that I could specifically contact one dead man, Jesus H. Christ).

"Seduced by the glamour of dark robes and wine, I picked the church. In those days the Catholic church would not ordain Scousers, believing them to be altogether too sinewy, so I was forced to change my name and adopt the persona of a meek Scotsman. To this day, I still practise as a priest under the name Father Onesiphorous Bouffant in the small township of Tongue.

"When Living TV was devised in the late 90s, they put out a call for those with the Gift, and I readily applied because at last the stage was set for those with the Gift to make serious money, where previously they were limited to paltry donations at garden fetes. I returned with pride to my true name and accent, and in my interview put on a tremendous show wherein I pretended to be possessed by the spirit of a long-deceased basking shark. The TV folk lapped up my performance and hired me on the spot.

"This is now my lot in life - in exchange for large quantities of money, I pretend to speak to people who aren't there, and occassionally feign possession. Possession is tricky because although I have developed a variety of different grimaces, I can still only do the one voice, which sounds a little like a pirate, but if I start to struggle I simply pretend to faint, which is usually enough to fool Yvette Fielding.

"I will not deny that I am an incredibly wealthy man. But this has its downsides - I now expect the very best in life, such as brand-name cornflakes rather than the generic 'Tesco value' ones, which proves somewhat costly. Whenever Most Haunted or Ghost Towns or The Antique Ghost Show is not on the air (sometimes as much as one full week of the year), I am forced to return to my old disguise as Father Bouffant and perform exorcisms in order to support my flamboyant lifestyle and lust for new earrings.

"I can only apologise Clive, for attempting to trick you. I see now that you also have the Gift, so I will leave you - it is not the done thing to attempt to fool one of your own. Before I go, however, I will have to ask you for £300 for services already rendered."

I gave him the money, plus a 10% tip, and wished him well. What a nice man.

Beaks

Father Bouffant (Derek Acorah) has not returned to my home this weekend and for that I am grateful. I have taken the opportunity to relax and enjoy a little 'me time', as an American or a narcissist might phrase it.

To this end, I have sketched a variety of beaks.

The plover's proved the most tricky, but the spruce goose's was relatively straightforward.

A Sleepless Night and a Revelation

I was kept from sleep long past the witching hour last night through strange fancies and aberrant whims. I thought of Father Bouffant's convinction that the spirits of dead orphans are ensconced in my walls and the unhappy idea of their spectral hands reaching out to prod my forehead and pinch the flesh of my upper arms as I slept haunted me until I grew frenzied with an ineluctable terror and I was compelled to quit my bed and seek refuge in the calm of the bathroom.

My bathroom mirror has numbers scored into its surface - why, I have no idea, but their presence distorts my reflection, and last night caused me to see the gnarled visage of old Mrs Cribbage staring back at me in place of my own smooth countenance, a grimace of misery contorting her face. I tilted my head in alarm and noted that the warped mirror image at once changed to a likeness of my late mother, her twisted expression indicative of a person straining at stool.

This caused me no small amount of panic and I fell precariously backwards towards the wall. Before my head could make contact with the cold tiles and speed me towards unconsciousness, I encountered what felt like a great many small hands together supporting the back of my pate and preventing the accident. I now believe that a passing swarm of ladybirds must have flown by at the instant of my faint and somehow impeded the fall. At any rate, this fortuitous turn of events, coupled with the image of my dead mother, calmed me enough that I was able to gain a few hours sleep.

Father Bouffant arrived this morning and helped himself to some of my Supernoodles. He gathered up the children's teeth that he had left behind yesterday, claimed that they were a typical spirit manifestation and secreted them in his pocket for further study when he got home.
He spent the morning watching my television closely in case there was a ghost of a little girl trapped in it, then had another bowl of Supernoodles and left. Only now do I realise where I have seen Father Bouffant before - it was on the television, where he goes by a different name and does not wear a dog collar. He is none other than Derek Acorah of Most Haunted and Ghost Towns fame.



I am puzzled. Why would Father Bouffant, an honest Scots priest, masquerade as a Scouse charlatan on Living TV? This mystery will require some work.

Ghost Children

Father Bouffant has only just left my home, having been here for two days straight. He arrived yesterday morning betraying every indication of debilitating inebriation, including an inability to locate his own arms. He had brought with him several carrier bags full of chocolate eggs which he had purchased for only 39p each at Safeways following the post-Easter slump in demand, a fact of which he was inordinately proud and boastful.

"These cheap eggs will tempt out the spectral bairns," he whispered conspiratorially.

I was informed that my house was swarming with the spirits of Victorian orphans (dead ones), and that these could easily be persuaded to quit the earthly plane in exchange for sweets. Father Bouffant crept around the walls (where, he asserted, ghostly children always hide) and occassionally offered up pieces of chocolate eggshells, then ate them himself when the phantoms failed to materialise to claim his treats.

When he had eaten the entire stock he called for a mug of tea then fell asleep in an armchair where I was unable to rouse him until this afternoon during Deal or No Deal? On waking, he disgorged a triumphant amount of semi-digested milk chocolate onto the carpet, claimed his body had been commandeered by H'Karr'karr the Rancorous One, and that a bottle of single malt whisky would flush the bleeder out. The demon removed from his system in this way, he collapsed and began speaking in tongues. As he capsized, from out of his pockets a great many children's teeth spilled out. When he saw that I had noticed these, a terrible look briefly distorted his face, and he began to writhe and scream.

"Ach, the spectral bairns are nay happy wi' ma interfering," he said, and stumbled out of the house in great haste.

I have no idea whether he will ever return, but the abundance of children's teeth and this talk of ghost orphans has left me unnerved.

Father Bouffant's Visit

Father Bouffant has just departed the house leaving me in a heightened state of alarm. He arrived at 8:45am in the middle of Channel 4's showing of Will and Grace, a situation comedy concerning the exploits of a New Yorkian 'Bunbury' and a thin female. The cast also includes a comically shrill lady and a shaved gibbon of some kind. I make a point of watching this broadcast each day as I previously had to birch myself and take a breadknife to my arms to feel the same level of self-punishment and release, and this method is far cleaner.

Father Bouffant stormed into my home letting loose a torrent of expletives. He lay on the ground and gave every impression of suffering a fit. After 30 minutes of this extraordinary behaviour, he desisted. Frasier was on at this point, which is a programme about Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons and his adventures in a 3-dimensional world.

Father Bouffant explained that on the way to my house, his body was accosted by a demon which aimed to wrest his soul from him, and he had to force the brute out as quickly as possible. I offered him a cup of tea to aid recuperation, but he specified vodka as the only sure curative. He watched The Jeremy Kyle Show with me and suggested that from the comportment displayed by the guests, certain of the lower orders would benefit from being drowned at birth. Then he went to work.

At once he discerned that the spirit of my late mother was haunting my kitchen. By some unexplained trickery, he apparently persuaded her to enter the kettle, whereupon he trapped her using Catholic magic. Expelling her spirit, he said, was then a simple process of switching the kettle on and boiling her until she dissipated as steam. This done, he announced the exorcism a complete success, told me he would return tomorrow to get rid of further spirits, and left my house singing a hymn.

A Priest

This morning I received a visit from a man dressed as a priest, who introduced himself as Father Bouffant. From this scant information, I deduced the man was a priest.

He claimed that he had been sent by Professor Jessica Flitey of the University of Duncairn to aid in her ongoing parapsychological investigations of my home. Of all the priests in Scotland, Father Bouffant has performed the highest number of exorcisms, and claims to not only have vanquished over three hundred demons from the bodies of the possessed, but also to have converted fourteen of them, via logical argument and espousing the tenets of the Catholic church, into honest Christians. One of those, he claims, now works for the gas board in Chertsey, and was recently promoted.

He invited himself in and talked at me for some time. He then wandered around my home waving a crucifix and rosary beads before concluding that my home is positively saturated with demonic entities, and that I myself am possessed by five demons.

He left a large brown paper bag filled with mints upon my coffee table, told me to suck one every 108 minutes, and declared that he would be back tomorrow fully prepared to perform the relevant exorcism rites.

The Arrival of the Plates

I begin to feel uneasy. The Princess Diana collectible plates have arrived already - I only ordered them yesterday from an Ebay seller in Hull. My feedback tells me I have ordered items from this seller before but I have no recollection of how that panned out.

Each of the 3 dozen plates has a different design upon it, some of them depicting the princess holding children lovingly, and some depicting her smiling radiantly. Some of the designs are less savory, and I have discovered that when the plates are arranged in a specific order they form an illustrated story of Diana's life, featuring events such as the conceptions of both William and Harry, her struggle with bulimia nervosa, and her sad demise in a tunnel. Several of the last few designs in the pictorial sequence are somewhat too grisly to display upon a wall, and quite horrified me. This is someone's sick and depraved idea of a joke.

What has rendered me most miserable with fear is that the very last plate shows ME sitting at my computer typing up an entry on my electronic diary while the Princess shambles up behind me with a terrible expression upon her face...

...I dread to click 'Publish Post' and look behind me lest the picture prove true...

...my heart pounds furiously in my chest, thumping out my death knell...

...

Edited to Add: ...on closer inspection of the plate, I realise it does not depict what I originally thought. What I took to be Princess Diana approaching me with a malevolent smirk was actually a picture of her brother Earl Spencer reading the very moving eulogy at the funeral, his face crumpled with grief. What I took to be me at a computer is actually Elton John at a piano playing his tribute to Marilyn Monroe which he hastily updated for the gig.

Phew!

A Falling Out

I have decided to visit Mrs Cribbage no more. Frankly, her grasp of personal hygeine is so abysmal that a rancid stench constantly permeates her entire house and nauseates me. She is sullen and slothful, never deigning to speak to me regardless of how friendly I pretend to be, and never shifting her lazy body at all between visits. Furthermore, she has detachable limbs that she leaves around the lounge for her dog to chew upon, which is terrible mistreatment - a dog requires Pedigree Chum or Bounce Superchunks for a healthy coat. Mrs Cribbage's character-defects try my patience and make a mockery of my good nature, so I shall no longer waste my time with the old dame and her fat dog.

Before I left, she implied via silence and rigidity that I should help myself to all of her higher-denomination banknotes, which helped someway towards my forgiving her.

I decided that I should not spend this money unwisely because I have only just recouped my losses on the poetry book debacle. So I have purcased 3 dozen Princess Diana collectible plates. They will come in handy should I acquire food in the future.

Mrs Cribbage's Diet

I have spent much of the weekend at the Cribbage house. Poor old Mrs Cribbage is very weak and unable to look after herself, so I put my quest for fame as a poet on hiatus and volunteered to help her with some day to day tasks. I took her sustained lack of response and movement as an eager acceptance of my offer, and set to work.

Pensioners these days do not receive enough allowance for fuel and heating, and dear Mrs Cribbage pays testament to this collective societal shame - she is absolutely freezing, and nothing I do will warm her. I made many cups of broth and even immersed her in a hot bath, but nothing would rouse her to warmth.

I cannot persuade her to eat which is a source of some concern - I would have previously thought the phrase "wasting away before my eyes" was more figurative, but in the case of Mrs Cribbage, she really seems to be withering and rotting away from lack of food. Her left leg entirely disappeared over Sunday night. I had no idea that weight loss worked like that. No wonder those Americans are so against the idea of losing weight! I should rather be plump than fester away and seep, which Mrs Cribbage's needless diet has caused.

She is clearly managing to feed her dog though, as the beast looks full and satiated once more.

Success at Last!

I have sold some copies of my book! Yesterday found me wandering around the estate, taking my poetry door-to-door and reading to the people. This attempt was unsuccessful, for nobody would allow me to stand on their doorsteps for longer than a minute. I have since deduced that this was not a fault of my poetry, but rather an aversion caused by my nudity from the waist down.

This morning I wore pantaloons as normal, and tried again. After several setbacks I decided to attempt Mrs Cribbage across the road, though she has always held a great antipathy towards me and I was by no means confident of success. Well, readers, on this occassion she was quite delightful. Receiving no answer to my knocking, I traversed the many full milk bottles littering her step and made my way to her back door which was slightly ajar, and let myself in.

I beheld her sitting in an armchair staring directly at me. I am afraid that she quite stunk, but I did not point this out for fear of causing offence. Ordinarily she is a garrulous harridan, but today she was calm and quiet. I asked if I could read to her my poetry and took her lack of reply as an affirmative one.

I read the entire poem through to completion, and she seemed quite taken with it for as I finished, she slumped forward in her chair in supplication to my genius. Embarrassed by this exaggerated praise, I nevertheless felt warm inside knowing that I had finally reached someone.

It was then that I noted an envelope full of twenties lying on her coffee table. Presumably her pension.

"Oh Mrs Cribbage," I said, with a small tear welling in my eye, "Of course you may buy six copies of my book for further consideration."

I helped myself to £300 and balanced six copies of my book upon her back, at which point she made a great show of throwing herself to the floor and genuflecting spread-eagled at my feet in gratitude. Foolish woman has probably never experienced decent poetry in her life, and was quite overcome.

Her dog seemed needlessly distressed and was charging around the house soiling the carpet. Mrs Cribbage is too old to own such an excitable dog, and should consider better means to keep it in check. Before I left, I took the time to lock the dog in the living room with Mrs Cribbage, so that she might look after it a little better. I hope she shall provide food for it soon, for the wretched beast looked half-starved.

£300 and a humbling show of praise is not bad for a day's work though - I may return tomorrow to offload a few more copies onto old Mrs Cribbage.

A Trip to Auld Reekie ('Edinburgh')

Yesterday was disasterous. I decided that Dundee as a whole was unsuitable as an arena for poesy and literary experimentation. The city is a cultural wasteland! After all, it has only produced and inspired Don Patterson, Kathleen Jamie, John Burnside, W. N. Herbert, Bill Duncan, A.L. Kennedy, Rosamunde Pilcher, Kate Atkinson, Mary Shelley, and other such ignoble figures. I decided Auld Reekie ('Edinburgh') would be a better city to loose my genius upon the world, for Auld Reekie ('Edinburgh') has produced a great many renowned literary figures such as William Douglas-Home, who wrote the screenplay for Follow That Horse! (1960).

I composed a short piece to mark the occassion of my departure from Dundee.

And so it was that at 8:03
I left the ancient City of Dundee
For Edinburgh to show off my genius
(I took the reasonably priced Megabus).

When I arrived in Auld Reekie ('Edinburgh') an hour and a half later, I discovered that I had picked an ideal time to arrive. Had I come a few months later, there would have been an enormous city-wide festival of the Arts running, which would involve an abundance of street mime artists and interminable student reviews. This would have quite ruined the tone of my more serious and sombre work.

Inspired by my good fortune, I boldly marched down the Royal Mile (equivalent to 320 falls and 8 furlongs) and chanted my poem - I sang it to the tune of the Murder She Wrote theme to better attract the attention of passers-by. I am afraid to report that every publican along the route produced a plate of peas and hurled it at me.

Another failure. Now that I am back in Dundee, I will go door-to-door with my poetry in order to reach people at a personal level - I now believe people have been put off by my big public displays. The Scottish psyche does not tolerate such over-the-top ostentation.

Bringing Poetry to the Proles

I am disheartened once more. Having reached the conclusion that Yates's ('the Wine Lodge') was perhaps too grand and sophisticated an arena to begin my career as a poet, I decided that I should start at the lowest rung of society and reach out to those poor dregs at the stunted end of the cultural spectrum.

I toyed with McDonald's as a potential venue, but feared that I might meet Morgan Spurlock. Pizza Hut presented certain attractions, but I felt that with the Buffet lunch deal now being available at the weekends, the customers would be too frantic to grant my poetry the attention it deserved.

I finally settled upon Spud-u-Like in the Overgate centre, reasoning that the patrons would be so dull-witted from surfeit of carbohydrates that they would be unlikely to attack me. I entered and gently whispered my poem at an overweight couple who were cursed with lank hair and greasy skin, doubtless caused by the lank and greasy food they shovelled down their gullets. They seemed more impressed by their prawn-cocktail-filled baked potatoes than my epic account of human experience.

At their insolent lack of interest, I am afraid I quite lost my temper and struck the female on her temple with my coat sleeve. She and her partner barely acknowledged me. I gave the male a Chinese burn, but he sat placidly chewing a sliver of potato skin. I tugged the hair on the female's upper lip, but she ignored me.

I gave up. The lumpenproletariat are not to be reached with higher art forms.

A Failed Poetry Recital

Today is my first day as a famous poet. This morning I donned a bonnet and left the house in high spirits, carrying all 15 copies of the book in which my poem appears. My intention was to read aloud to the common folk as they went about their sordid daily businesses. I felt that by doing so I might raise them from their mental and spiritual torpor and inject a modicum of meaning into their stagnant lives.

I confess I had ulteriour motives in this seemingly altruistic act, for I aimed to arouse the plebians into a passion through my poetry and exploit their frenzied state to sell them a few copies of my book. I regret being so spendthrift lately and have quite bankrupted myself - I estimate I will have to sell 14 copies (I will retain one for a keepsake) at £94 each in order to make back all that I have spent on this publishing venture.

I entered a 'public house' in the centre of Dundee called Yates ('the Wine Lodge') whereupon I began to read extracts from my poem at a terrific volume. I am sorry to report that the publican immediately threw a plate of peas at me and told me to leave. This sunk my morale so much that I ran home in tears to compose myself.

I will try a different locale for my recitals tomorrow. I must reach the people.

The poetry is published

Last week I sent an electronic payment to the poetry people in America. There was an additional handling fee of $100, an editor and indexer fee of $319, and overheads of $50, but this was well worth it for the opportunity to touch the hearts and souls of thousands of people worldwide with my art.

A few days later, the Americans were in touch to say that the poetry collection in which my piece appears had been published, and should I wish a copy, it would cost me $35.99. Needless to say, I ordered 15 copies to hand out to friends and family. This incurred an additional delivery charge of $90.

This morning they arrived - the book is entitled "Poetry Collection Vol. 3082", and my poem appears on page 450. I am famous. My name is in print.

I ventured outdoors and stood in the front garden in my dressing gown and hollered in celebration. Mrs Cribbage from across the road came and asked me to be quiet, but I scowled at her and said "I have nothing to declare but my genies" (this quotation is purloined from another man of the Arts, Oscar Zarate) .

Today will be a day devoted entirely to joy at my achievements, so I will not get dressed in formal wear and will instead retain my pajamas. There will be no need to wash.

Some Good Fortune

My dear readers, I have some good news to tell you. Upon completing my poem, I decided, on a whim, to submit it to an internet poetry competition. I am pleased to inform you that it won! They have accepted my work and are desperately keen to publish it, in order to bring my art to the masses.

All that they require is $500, which seems like a bargain to me.

I have sent the money stapled to a postcard. I will let you know when my work is in print, so that you can all buy yourselves a copy. The $500 outlay will quickly be recovered by the profit, and I will be able to retire a millionaire before June or July this year.

I must go now to practise my autograph for when I become famous.

Hooray for Poetry

Today I sat and mused on my recent misadventures. I was reminded of that populist trash, Dante's The Divine Comedy, in which the protagonist visits Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, and Waitrose.

I concluded that I should exploit my similar journeys and turn them into an epic poem for the modern age, which I might sell to the lumpen proletariat for a nickel a chapbook. After lengthy procrastination, I came up with an opening line:

"There was an old man called Futtocks"

True, this appears less an epic poem in terza rima, and more a bawdy limerick, but then, I have never claimed to understand the ways of Art. My muse is mysterious even to me.

Hell

Yesterday, I died of ennui and prepared myself to ascend to the heavenly realms once more. This time, however, a gulf opened beneath me and swallowed me. I tumbled down for about 4 feet and banged my chin on a pipe.

An adder walked up to me and said "Howdy y'all" in a rolling Texan drawl. The creature informed me that I had descended to the chthonic planes, and that I would be tortured for exactly half of eternity as punishment for sins that I had committed in life.

I explained that I had eschewed evil for all of my days and had never indulged any solitary pleasures, but the adder produced a notebook from its sporran and read a list of sins. These were:

1. Staining an oven glove as a youth.
2. Drinking brine.
3. Unflatteringly mimicking Tim Curry.
4. Making light of a cripple.
5. Buying Kerplunk from a self-help guru.
6. Twelve counts of mur...

...and so it went on, each instance with a date and time that seemed to ineluctably incriminate me. I began to weep as the adder sniggered at my misfortune, and led me by the hand down a set of stairs, where I was met by various criminals and villains throughout history. Among them were Bill Sykes, Moriarty, Al Capone, Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper, Dennis Norden, Dr. Crippen, and Skeletor.

They welcomed me to their gang, then warned me that daily punishment was about to commence. A troop of imps appeared from unseen alcoves and pelted us with bat guano for several minutes, then pinched our flesh with clothespegs and crocodile clips.

The adder held out his hand to indicate that the demons should desist their torments. He fumbled with his notes, blushed, and told me that there had been a bureacratic error, and that I wasn't due to die for several years yet.

I awoke in bed this morning feeling cheerful and gay. I did not like hell, and will refrain from toying with death from now on, lest I descend there a second time.

Heaven

My dearest readers, I must again apologise for my tardiness and slack attitude towards updating, but I must reassure you that I had a good reason for this. I was dead once more.

Something intriguing happened on this occasion - I believe I ascended to heaven. On Thursday I propelled myself down the stairs at great velocity and snapped some part of my neck, which resulted in an instant but average death. All in all, I would give it 6 out of 10 and recommend it to other men of my age with similar interests.

Upon dying, I witnessed a transcendent biege light and floated upwards. For two days I ascended, my hair becoming ever curlier as heavenwards I soared. My gut plumpened, my skin adopted the hue of a brown fruit, and a majestic beard flowed from my newly-jowly chin. At the same instance, a toga replaced my cardigan and cords. I believe I took on the outward appearance of an ancient Greek philosopher.

When I arrived at my mysterious destination, I was greeted by a parakeet. He introduced himself as St. Peter, and quickly explained that in heaven, people take on the appearance of whatever image best symbolises the state of their soul (thus Elvis and Lassie, who were the first good souls I met, appeared to me as a monkey wrench and an anthropomorphic plum duff).

St. Peter gave me a halo and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil to polish it, and ushered me through the gates. My meagre human vocabulary fails utterly to describe what I there beheld. Observe: "Flagurt meen sappletap, galifrey toopeck flink" - see? Gibberish!

I met many people: Elvis, Lassie, James Stewart, Beatrix Potter, the man who played the Artful Dodger and whose tongue fell off, Luther Vandross, Dame Thora Hird, John Merrick ("the Elephant Guy"), Frederick Nietzsche, Jesus H. Christ, Walt Disney, and the original Paul McCartney. They all seemed agreeable.

I spent a few days drifting serenely between dead relatives having picnics, and famous celebrities, before I met God. He was played by Brian Blessed. He was sitting at a desk in the middle of a forest, eating a tray of scones. He offered me one, which I gratefully took. It was a little dry.

"Well Horton," boomed God, "It isn't your time to join us. You must return to your life in the outskirts of Dundee."

And with that I awoke at home in bed, feeling cheerful and gay. I must try this again tomorrow.

A Visit from Pumpherston

Yesterday, a female knocked at my door. I was understandably wary of her, but allowed her to gain access to my home. She was dressed in trousers, of the type worn by males, but was clearly a person of the female gender. I deduced that she must be one of those feminist characters who throw themselves under horses and break windows with toffee hammers. I frantically tried to remember my lessons on modern political correctness and sexual equality, and decided that my initial impulse to offer her a cup of tea might be construed as demeaning, so I adopted an air of surly disinterest and periodically flicked her earlobe.

She introduced herself as Miss K. L. Pumpherston, and announced that she was a psychiatrist sent by my friend Dr Anthony Gland to make sure that I was okay. Evidently Gland had read my electronic diary and feared that I was delusional and was putting my life at risk. I patiently explained that I am imbued with multiple lives, an assertion of which she strove hard to dissuade me.

I am afraid I alarmed her when I offered to demonstrate my immunity to death by hanging myself. She was not interested in such a display and indicated that she would arrange to have me sectioned under the Mental Health Act if I continued. She was a tolerable female, and stayed to watch Neighbours with me, but she would not believe my claim. I had to promise not to kill myself anymore before she would be satisfied.

After she left I hung myself, then drank some bleach. Tremendous fun! I have now concluded that the numbers on the bathroom mirror are a life-tally, for after these two recent deaths, it has become "21".

A Fun Suicide

I was somewhat wary of leaving the house today after the alarming events of last week. I believe that I perished at the hands of the thug, but that somehow I was resurrected and allowed a second chance at life. Perhaps I have some feline in my lineage, for it is my current supposition that I am possessed of nine lives.

To test this theory, I heated some water to boiling point and submerged my head in it for as long as I could bear. This caused a horrendous amount of pain to me, and I promptly passed out. I awoke on the kitchen floor with my face swollen and blistered beyond recognition, throbbing to an intolerable degree. I cursed my stupidity - I had succeeded only in disfiguring myself. I decided that I would try a different method of terminating my miserable life. I went to my airing cupboard and took out the secret jar of change I keep there.

I set about swallowing each coin, one by one, until I'd eaten all £78.34. I jangled as I walked and felt a terrible crippling pain in my stomach, but this did not kill me. After many other unsuccessful suicide bids, including electrocution of my hair, cutting off the circulation to my wrist, and excessive consumption of caffeine, I remembered that I had a revolver hidden under the stairs. I first shot my shin, but this just caused further pain. In a panic I shot my own face, which funnily enough did the job, as I can remember no more.

I awoke just hours ago feeling cheerful and gay: my face is no longer sore, and there is no currency in my guts. My revolver has six bullets once more. My bathroom mirror now reads "23".

My theory is correct - I have multiple lives. If I am correct, and I am some form of cat, then I have 7 of my 9 lives left. I will have tremendous fun using them up.

Lost Days and an Attack on my Person

My patient readers, I have a confusing series of misadventures to relate. On thursday, I awoke feeling cheerful and gay, and left my home in order to procure food - I fancied that gelatine, or at least pectin, would satiate me.

A strange and inexplicable event happened as I made my way into the centre of Dundee. A rough woman approached me in the Blackscroft area and at once I was appalled by the state of her crude accoutrements and coarse demeanour. Her chief faults were the appearance of dried egg around her lips and an unnerving pallor that served only to highlight the crop of sores that peppered her countenance. I shudder to recall her.

She began to recount an obviously fabricated tale designed to extract monetary gain from me, her 'dupe'. She claimed that her baby had been born inside-out and that she needed money for to catch a bus to Ninewells hospital to visit the creature, and that she would also be grateful for any spare change I might offer towards buying a Teletubby doll for the child, or some damn thing.

Of course I refused, and spat upon her in order to communicate my distaste. At beholding my phlegm upon her lapel, she flew into a rage, and a burly gentleman of similar social standing appeared from behind a building where he had been watching the unfolding events. Together they roughed me up, and battered me to a limp, wheezing pulp.

The rough thug produced a long and intimidating breadknife and proceeded to stab at me some 18 or 19 times in the chest, and some 12 times in the face. I lost consciousness, and, presumably expired. Nothing else can I remember.

Today I woke up in my bed as though nothing had happened - there was no mark on me, and I felt cheerful and gay. In the bathroom, where the curious mushrooms grew, I note that a number 25 has been carved into the top left corner of the mirror, but it has been scored out and replaced with the number 24.

I am confused - what can this signify?

Fungi

The punctuation seems to have disappeared now, as I can no longer remember anything about it. I fear that this misrecollection may only be temporary, that I have somehow suppressed it through unendurable horror, and that it will make one day announce itself again and embarrass me.

I have decided that I need to begin eating again, as I have eschewed the practise for too long. I have heard that the fashionable gentlewomen of Paris forego eating, so I sought to mimic them in an effort to appear like a dandy. Today I have embraced the tenets of communism and elected instead to portray myself as a common man. Therefore, I must shovel food down my gullet as though there were no tomorrow.

There was no food in the kitchen, but I discovered a great many toadstools in the bathroom, which I attribute to the uncanny homunculus that plagued me several weeks ago. The toadstools were inviting, though odd. Brlliant white spots cover their shiny green heads, and an underdeveloped set of eyes appear upon their stalks. They radiate a sense of awe, and I felt drawn to consume them.

I ate 25, and feel somehow immortal.

The Folly of Punctuation.

The new punctuation, when placed upon a page, is more monstrous than I would have imagined possible. The chief evil of the glabback lies in it[insert glabback]s gargantuan size - it is approximately 500 times larger than a common full stop, and quite ruins the natural flow of a sentence, and crushes nearby letters. It is an enormous chore to draw it every time, and wastes a great deal of indian ink.

The hurd-glabback is approximately 2000 times smaller than a common full stop, and invisible to the naked eye. All books and newspapers will have to be read with the aid of a powerful microscope. This is wicked folly.

I have buried all today's writing in the back garden, for it provides painful proof of the devlish punctuation, and I check every hour to see if it has rotted away. It has yet to decompose. I must think of this no more, and strive to forget my sins. Through this, it will be as though the sins never existed to haunt me in my waking hours.

The Remarkable Incident of the Hurd-Glabback

Yesterday, the repugnant purpose of the hateful hurd-glabback unveiled itself to me. I can scarcely bring my mind to set in print what this new punctuation makes possible. My soul sickens at it; my life is shaken to it[insert glabback]s roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the day and night. Dear god, what have I wrought?

The hurd-glabback is akin to an exclamation mark or a question mark, in that it stands proudly at the end of a sentence and smuggly changes the tone of the sentence you have just read. I have always championed the Spanish method of placing an upsidedown question mark at the start of a sentence, as well as a rightsideup question mark at the end of the sentence, so that you can properly prepare yourself for the fact that a question is about to be asked, and the question mark at the end does not come as a terrible (potentially fatal) shock. But that's beside the point.

Youngsters and morons often enunciate mere statements in a manner that suggests a question is being asked, by raising the tone at the end of their sentences. They may only be relating to a chum what they watched on the television the previous night, but they will say, "I was watching TV last night, and Ten Years Younger was on? They had a woman on who looked like an orangutan?" and so on. Because no question is actually being asked, our limited grammar forbids a question mark being placed at the end of the sentence...in steps the loathsome hurd-glabback. This detestable punctuation signals that the sentence was spoken in a tone that sounded like a question was being asked, even although there was no question asked.

With tear-dimmed eyes I look upon my creation, and even with wails of penitence, I cannot dwell on it without a start of horror. I fear that wide-spread acceptance of the hurd-glabback will only serve to legitimise the ludicrous mode of speech that it signifies.

Never again will I attempt to ape my betters and create new punctuation, for the glabback and the hurd-glabback can bring nothing but misery to their users.

I must destroy them ... or myself.

The Shameful Purpose of the Glabback

I have spent the morning drinking endless mugs of fortified wine and lamenting my wicked folly in creating new punctuation. The purpose of the glabback has made itself known to me, and its function is far from the noble and elegant one that I had envisaged when I first hit upon the scheme.

As all proud grammarians know, an apostrophe is used in the contraction "it's" because it replaces the letter "i" in "it is" or the "wa" is "it was" or the "ha" is "it has". The possessive form of the pronoun "it" is "its" and never takes an apostrophe, unless you are a cretin of the highest order.

Thus, a silver-whiskered, erudite grammarian would write, "It's tragic when my gopher skins its tail", while a slack-jawed simpleton with one eye would write, "Its tragic when my gopher skins it's tail". Those who know this rule and can consistently apply it correctly have historically been elevated in society to positions of power, while those who do not know this rule have traditionally been birched and delegated to ignominious positions, such as watchmakers and fennel growers.

Alas, the glabback replaces the apostrophe in the contraction "it's" and is added between the "t" and the "s" of the possessive "its", so that the "its" apostrophe rule is now rendered null and void. There is now no reliable method of discerning who is an intellectual and who is a buffoon. For this I apologise tenfold. It is as though all my nightmares have coalesced and manifested themselves in the oddities of English punctuation.

The function of the hurd-glabback has yet to reveal itself, and for that I am grateful.

Invention

My failure as a scientist has depressed me more than I'd care to admit. In light of my sobering deficiency in the discipline, I realised I had several options left open to me today:

1) Endeavour to master the Arts instead.
2) Remain in my stinking pit of a bed and sink ever further into melancholy.
3) Buy an Alsatian/Invent a new piece of punctuation.
4) Commit my body to the flames.

After the midday Neighbours, I settled upon the latter part of option three. I would create a new item of punctuation, one to rival the comma and the colon, and to capture some of the quiet dignity of the en rule. On this project I worked for many, many hours until I was oppressed with a slow fever and I became nervous to a most painful degree. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me.

It was after the dreary teatime repeat of Neighbours that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. Below is the finished product - a glabback and its companion, a hurd-glabback:

How can I describe my emotions? How can I delineate the freakish punctuation which with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? I had desired this with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the punctuation I had created, I rushed out the room, and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind.

Things appear bleak once more.

Disappointing Results

I confess that I was somewhat hasty in concluding that I was becoming a bee. I put this misunderstanding down to excessive strain on my mental faculties during my last few days as a scientist. The carbuncle at the base of my spine was not a sting, but merely my vestigial tail, which I have been cursed with since birth. The possibility of worldwide fame as a consequence of my discoveries led me to see results where there were none - just one more scientist corrupted by fame. For this I apologise.

Today the dead bee I have been examining has posthumously sloughed its winter coat, and the tiny face on its stomach has withered away to nought. Within this hirsute bee-skin was a wasp. I now realise I have been wasting valuable time on this damn fool study, so I was left with no option but to commit the wasp to the flames, and temporarily abandoned my scientific ambitions.

Buzzing

I have found that the curd of the bee has strange properties when ingested. After I had consumed the curd, I was overcome with a dangerous vexation, and felt an urgency in my bowels that I have never experienced before or since. I was compelled to empty my guts immediately and with extreme rapidity, but not through the usual channels, and on that grim matter I can reveal no more for fear of offending my female readership.

That unpleasantness over, I felt a sharp tingle at the base of my spine, which I at first attributed to a teaspoon that had I swallowed as a child, but I quickly discerned that I had developed a painful carbuncle on my lower back. I wasted no time in pouring Domestos onto the infected area to destroy any germs, but counter-intuitively, this only aggravated the pimple.

When I try to prod or squeeze the area, my fingers ache and swell. I fear I may be turning into some form of bee, and this abscess is the first evidence of a sting growing.

I hope I am not one of those bees that dies when it administers its sting, for I have already stung my own handz fifteen time today.

Bee Curd

The face of Blanche, when its jowls are tweaked, blurts curd from its wizened mouth! When spread upon an oatcake, it tastes not unlike horseradish.

Notes on the Bee

Today's inspection of the dead bee reaped two curious revelations. The insect is dead, of that there can be no doubt, yet its sting retains its venom. My swollen, throbbing pinkie pays testament to this fact. This was the first of the revelations.

The second divulged itself as I prodded and squeezed the bee's underbelly, in the hope that a tiny udder might be exposed to corroborate my initial surmise. Unfortunately, no teats are yet apparent, though I am not disappointed because a rather more intriguing theory has presented itself.

On the bee's stomach, a secondary face is observable. It appears to have the structure and expression of a gurning human female, which alarmed as much as it excited me upon discovering it. Its physiognomy is that of Blanche Hunt, Deidre Barlow's irascible and interfering mother from the longrunning British soap Coronation Street. It is beyond my ability to conjecture how such a thing may have evolved, but I would assume it is a rudimentary form of defense.

More thoughts tomorrow.

A Fortuitous Discovery

I had all but abandoned my search for bees yesterday, when I hit upon a scheme. I would hunt instead for wasps - the natural enemy of the bee - and host a small garden party in their honour. The bees, being jealous of the wasps, would swarm towards my home, whereupon I would capture them in some sort of tupperware and conduct my experiments upon them. I felt I should thank the wasps for their part in this, and settled upon a fresh cream meringue for each of them. I had got as far as donning a duffle coat to shield my brittle frame from the elements as I made my way to the bakers, when my finger tip made contact with something small and furry in the coat's deepest pocket.

Though I was understandably anxious about what this might be (I at first assumed it was Fingermouse), I forced myself to explore further. It was a dead bee. My plans had seemingly come to fruition, and I felt a surge of joy in several of my various glands.

This is a regular brute of a bee, and I have spent the bulk of today examining it with a tiny comb I have designed specifically for this purpose. No udders have yet revealed themselves, but I am hopeful that tomorrow will bring rich discoveries.

Absence of Bees

I begin to question the wisdom (or sense) of embarking upon my bee study during winter, when all the bees are dead or hiding.

Flushed with the confidence of early morning, I paraded around my loft waving a pillowcase lined with crystalised ginger in a bid to lure (or coax) some bees into entering the sack, but this was not as successful as I had hoped. Feeling demoralised (or disheartened), I foraged in the back garden, hoping to uncover a stray hive, but again this came to nought.

The low buzzing from the basement (or cellar) tempted me to investigate, but I cannot venture down there because my innate timidity prevents me. That part of the house remains abhorrent to me because of the dark secret (or bloated corpse) that resides there.

I must be positive - tomorrow will bring bees!

Bee Searching

To begin my pioneering study of bees, I have decided I must look every inch the scientist. I cannot afford a Science-gown or Science-cuffs, so I have had to make do with oiling my hair and squinting.

My study requires that I find a ready source of bees. I have searched around my home for hives but there are none to be found. However, I did find a great many earwigs beneath the carpet in the bathroom. I quickly scanned their bellies for teats, but none of them possessed any, so I crushed the majority of them under my thumbs.

I have often heard a buzzing from the basement, which I have, at times, optimistically attributed to bees, but for obvious reasons I cannot go down there to confirm this. My study seems snookered before it has begun. I have a few ideas as to how to catch upwards of three bees tomorrow, using an old trick I picked up in the Sudan. I can only hint at this technique, for I was sworn to secrecy by the student nurse who told me of it.

A Bee Theory

Inspired by the erudition of my academic visitors, today I have developed a bold hypothesis that runs counter to the received wisdom of prominent western apiculturists. It has long been held that bees create honey through the theft of flower-nectar, which they take back to their hives and mix with hot wax. However, I believe that this theory is bunk and I aim to prove it through long nights of research.

It is my contention that honey actually derives from miniature udders that dangle from the fuzzy underside of bees. I believe that ants or aphids sneak into the hives at night and gently milk the bees as they doze. Beekeepers then crack open the hives and behold the liquid sweetness within, which they then purloin and sell to local schools, etc.

Yesterday's Visit Described

I find myself perplexed by the events of yesterday, and wholly incapable of explaining them to any degree of adequacy, so I have elected to give you the accounts offered by the two groups of Academics who visited me. Between them, a single truth may become apparent.


Professor Jessica Flitey's Account: I present a brief account at Mr Carew's request so that he can post it on his internet diary for the enlightenment of his small readership. He insisted that I keep my vocabulary simple as he believes his readership to consist primarily of 'pygmies and gypsies'. Ergo, I have eschewed obfuscatory academic jargon. Interested readers are invited to note that a fuller account of today's events will appear in my forthcoming monograph On Thumbs and Manatees: The Curious Case of Horton Carew (University of Duncairn Press, 2007), alongside many other preternatural episodes that I have recorded in my long history of studying Mr Carew.

I arrived on the morning of Friday 17th February 2006 at Mr Carew's home on the outskirts of Dundee with a select crew of postgrads. Mr Carew's house is situated directly on the notorious Foggie-Toddler ley line and was originally a site for a Victorian abattoir, which is doubtlesly causally linked to the innumerable inexplicable events associated with him. Regrettably, a small team of psychiatric doctors were already talking to Mr Carew when we arrived: these people unfortunately acted in a most unprofessional manner throughout my investigation.

We found Mr Carew in a state of some agitation, his attempt to prepare a tray of tea and battenburg cake for us having been scuppered by poltergeist activity of a particularly vehement type. I had my postgrads conduct a brief seance, and they quickly concluded that the battenburg had been sabotaged by the spirit of a departed Victorian Medium, apparently frustated that her ability to converse with the dead was no longer very impressive.

She admitted via oujia board that she had been toying with Mr Carew for a long while, and habitually messed up his hair while he slept (Mr Carew confirms that his hair is frequently dishevelled upon waking). She also stated that she had occassionally taken on the form of a top-hatted purveyor of mints (certainly the 'Uncle Joe' figure that Mr Carew has spoken of) and had aggravated Mr Carew for sport.

The tea was cold, though we witnessed Mr Carew pour it out boiling hot. I used an electronic temperature gauge and discovered that there were several cold spots around the building. Exploring a suspicion I've harborbed for some time, I hypnotised Mr Carew and regressed him through several past lives. My hypothesis was confirmed: in an earlier life, Mr Carew was a cannibalistic eskimo. It is clear that he is projecting memories of an Arctic environment onto his present day surroundings.

A short interview was conducted with Mr Carew. He claimed to be unable to remember anything about the 'Uncle Joe' figure, and instead talked at length concerning his belief that bees are mammilian and capable of being milked. This is only conjecture as I will need to get my colleague Dr. Fulcrum to mind-read Mr Carew first, but I believe that Mr Carew may be psychically linked to a being from an alternative universe in which bees are farmed for milk.


Dr. Anthony Gland's Account: When we arrived at Horton's house, we found that he was terribly upset because he had dropped a batternburg cake and lost his tea-cosy. He was anxious to impress us and had become worked up when his ideal view of our meeting had failed to match up with reality. Horton, old chap, try not to worry so much! :-)

We had a little chat and managed to settle him and put his mind at rest. Just then a team from Duncairn University showed up and caused all manner of fuss with their mumbo-jumbo - Horton became excitable and overwrought, as they fuelled his fantasy life and encouraged his delusions. I have to say that I found their conduct despicable, and the psuedoscience and nonsense that they peddle is simply depressing!

There is nothing supernatural about the things plaguing Horton! I have prescribed a course of anti-hallucinogen tablets and recommended that he return to our weekly therapy sessions. He would benefit greatly from joining a club of some sort and getting out to meet people.

When Professor Flitey and her team left, Horton began talking in tongues and seemed to levitate, while the sound of sea chanteys came from underground. This elaborate fabrication, no doubt done with sophistciated wires and tape-recorders, had obviously been constructed by Horton to impress Professor Flitey and her team, but he clearly misjudged the duration of Professor Flitey's stay and left it too late. You see, this is the danger of Flitey's involvement in this case - it causes Horton to act up, and go to ludicrous lengths to maintain the fantasy world he has created! After this behaviour stopped, I let him know I was not impressed, and left.


After reading through these accounts, dear readers, I have to confess that I remember nothing of their visit. Today I have been looking for bees.

Anxious to Impress

The Scholars will be here tomorrow, or rather today, for it is now the early hours of Friday the 17th. I have prepared some conversation so that I may appear erudite to the Academics, so that I might not shame myself through my comparative dearth of intelligence. To this end, I have been leafing through Trivial Pursuit questions all day, and even ate a few of the little wedges of cheese/pie that accompany the game, to ensure that I am in an appropriately intellectual frame of mind for the big day.

I also re-familiarised myself with the publisher's blurb on the back of my copies of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. Should the conversation veer towards the vicinity of fine literature, I shall now be well equipped to hold my own.

Alternatively, the discussion may drift towards scientific knowledge, so I have memorised pi to 17 decimal places and looked up what a bunsen burner is.

I do hope all will go well tomorrow.

Anticipating Scholars

On Friday the professors and doctors are to visit, so I have begun preparations to make my house presentable. This visit will be akin to a situation comedy of the 1970s, for Professor Jessica Flitey is an expert in ghosts and demons, and accords me greater attention when evidence of such ghoulies are present. Conversely, Doctor Anthony Gland is a rationalistic psychiatrist who prizes my sanity above all earthly things, and does not tolerate the stories I tell, for he fancies them to be fantastical and tainted by the untruths of some unidentified mania. As a host, I must devise a way to keep both parties satisfied, which will doubtlessly lead to all manner of humorous misunderstandings.

To bring my home into a state suitable to welcome eminent scholars, I have laid several of my old mathematics jotters from high school upon a coffee table and placed a sprig of parsely atop the pile, as a kind of 'intellectual garnish'. I believe this is the sort of thing academics go in for.

Saint Valentine's Day

Today is the Day of Lovers, so I felt obligated to mark the occasion with celebration. At dawn, I gathered up some old pencil shavings, seeped them in Brut, and thereby created pot-pourri, which I sprinkled liberally around my rooms. I smeared a soupcon of honey on the underside of certain cushions. These touches combined to bring an air of unadulterated romance to my home.

Having read once that oysters are widely believed to have aphrodisiacal properties, I ate the contents of a jar of fish paste that I found under the sink, for this was the nearest equivalent I could find. To furnish the living room with a sense of New York high glamour, I hung up a few printouts of TV dietician Gillian McKeith, whom I confess to harbouring feelings for.

My passions now suitably roused, I waited for a woman to arrive. At 20:00 it became apparent that no ladies were to visit me today, so I retired to my bedroom feeling somewhat melancholy.

To cheer myself up, I have dressed as a pirate.

Shopping

My day has been largely successful. Within the week, I am to accept a female professor and her colleagues into my home, alongside a party of psychiatric specialists, so I feel honour-bound to offer them a suitable level of hospitality. To this end, I rose at dawn and risked a day in public in order to visit the shops.

My first stop was a bric-a-brac emporium called Save the Children, where I consulted a moldering pocket dictionary to pick up some ideas of the types of item I might purchase today. I had not got a quarter of the way through the 'A' section before the shopkeep, a wispy-chinned baggage in a cardigan, shooed me away.

The next place I happened upon was a food-pill shop. There they sold futuristic capsules of food arranged in jars along shelves. A whole meal contained in one small pill! I confess that this idea excited me, so I spent all my money here. For fruit, I bought one rhubarb&custard pill, one apple drop pill, one pineapple chunk pill, and one strawberry&cream pill. For protein, I bought one fizzy fish pill, and, feeling somewhat adventurous, I tried a Bull's Eye pill, which is apparently a delicacy in some of those Arab places. For beverages, I bought a cola cube pill, a beer bottle pill, and a milk drop pill.

All these meals should last me a week, and they only cost me 12 pence altogether. I am a shrewd consumer!

Preparing For Guests

I have reviewed my larder and found it wanting. If I am to welcome professors and doctors to my home, I must restock my inventory, for at present there is a great paucity of eggs.

Tomorrow I will venture outside and take a trip to the local shops. At the very least, I will need to procure vanilla extract, bulgar wheat, and crème de cassis.

A Day Given Over to Idleness

Today I have been shamefully indolent, reclining languidly over a pouffe for hours, indulging elaborate fantasies of myself as a wealthy and polished 18th century gentleman, and eating Cheesy Wotsits.

This morning the postman delivered a copy of an Alan Titchmarsh novel, which I had apparently purchased via an online auction site some days ago, though I have no memory of doing so.

I attempted to read the first sentence, but found his prose so ungainly and incompetent that I was left with no option but to commit the volume to the flames.

Respite

I believe I am free of imminent danger for the time being, but feel like a shattered mirror on a trampoline, each bouncing smithereen vertiginously reflecting a myriad spinning gyroscopes, revolving glitterballs, and fractured Curly-Wurlys, with the concomitant seven year's bad luck thereby multiplied twelvehundred-fold.

I awoke this morning quivering from nightmares too grim to recount, and able to recall but snippets of the past days' horrors. I know that I was rarely conscious for long, the events I experienced too heinous to tolerate human cognizance. Uncle Joe kept me trapped in the kitchen and subjected me to tortures unspeakable, a new session of misery always announced by him throwing open the door and casting his shadow across the floor, revelling momentarily in the effect his ghastly silhouette wrought upon my form.

Just moments ago, he stormed into the room brandishing a tawny owl and an antique roulette wheel, no doubt having dreamt up some new torment for me, but as he approached, the telephone rang.

"Answer that chuck," he said, eerily switching his accent to disorienate me, "But don't be letting on that there's owt amiss, mind."

I obeyed at once, and discovered that it was Professor Jessica Flitey of the University of Duncairn, an apparent friend of mine. She has long been interested in the curious things that afflict me, and claims to want to free me from these. She announced her intent to visit me within the next few days, to which I agreed.

At the instant I mentioned aloud the name "Flitey", Uncle Joe's face contorted.

"Bloody Norah! So, she's 'eadin' this way, eh lad?" he said, "Time I were gone then, chuck, but you mark well these words, lad: I'll be with you on your wedding night."

And with that, he squashed himself up into his top hat, which he then swallowed, and so disappeared completely from my ken.

I am too tired to worry unduly over his parting words. I must rest now.

.... . / .... ._ ... / _ _ .

... . _. _.. / .... . _ _ _ _ ..... _ _ _ _ _ _ .

Uncle Ben Departs

My dear and patient readers, I am at last in a position to relate to you the events of the preceeding days, but be wary - these are not for the faint of heart. Again I must be quick for I remain in terrible danger.

I gather from earlier entries in this electronic diary that you all believed I was fine, but I must tell you now that you were victims of trickery. Those entries proclaiming me in good health are entirely bogus, inserted by my tormentor to dupe you. This tormentor is none other than Uncle Joe, who has returned to bedevil me anew.

Uncle Ben, I fear, is dead. When I could attend to him, I propped the ice-block against the kitchen radiator so that the heat generated might gently free him from his chilly prison. Regrettably, the nature of the jinx meant that although the ice did rapidly melt, Uncle Ben melted along with it, as though he were a giant scented candle. I specify 'scented' for as his body deliquesced, the smell of hot cross buns mysteriously permeated the air.

As I lay howling in anguish, the grinning figure of Uncle Joe stepped into the kitchen, lewdly sucking a mint. I tried to flee, but he somehow conjured a great many postage stamps from his eyes, which flew across the room and stuck me fast to the linoleum. As I lay fixed to the floor, I watched in horror as he produced a bucket of acorns and a pair of oven gloves. I cannot bring myself to describe what happened next.

As I passed out of consciousness, for some reason the name of the Ebay seller who sold me the Gremlins 2 thermos popped unbidden into my mind...JJFlitey.

...help, he returns! I must go again - more later! I hope my tormentor does not possess the moxie to delete this message...

again I am fine

helpme

a further up-date to calm my readers

The Grimmest of Updates

I must be quick, for I am in mortal danger. I snatch this brief interval to relate my latest woes. As Uncle Ben performed the necessary incantations to exorcise the flask, he was suddenly struck down as if suffering an apoplexy of some kind. At once I abandoned my electronic diary and rushed to his side where I found his body vibrating at such an advanced rate that his features were but a blur, and an unidentified emulsion spat from his ears.

After muttering one enigmatic word - Labiatae! - he became encased in ice.

Panicking, I sought to melt the ice by drinking endless cups of fortified wine and breathing the alcoholic fumes directly onto the ice block, but this gambit was unsuccessful. He remains in suspended animation, and I weep to think of him. I will certainly be leaving the thermos seller neutral or negative feedback in light of this.

But I have yet to describe the worst of the events of the last days, which I will proceed to do now, but being studious of brevity my narrative must not be overly circumlocutory...

Alack! I hear... I think...I fear I must....;oy75ty#

ifgdscvcvcc d s
pjy


'

a further message from HORTON

A Curious Thermos

I was awoken at 11:00am by my saintly protector, who laid a package by my feet and announced that the postman had been. Inside was a Gremlins 2: The New Batch thermos flask, which I have no memory of ordering, but the accompanying note assures me that I bought this through Ebay from a seller in Hull. The note thanks me for my purchase but seems excessively eager for me to leave positive feedback as soon as possible.

The flask is attractive as far as these things go, but I hear liquid inside sloshing about. The Ebay listing had promised that the item was "BARND NEW!!! UNUSED! RARE!!!" but I see now that this was an untruth. I unscrewed the lid and was met with a foul odour that caused a small amount of vomit to escape up my gullet.

"Yassuh, that's rancid coconut milk, shaw as the day I was bawn," said Uncle Ben. "There is some Hoodoo at work here, you can be shaw of that. Yassuh."

This has put a dampener on the day. Uncle Ben has spent many hours chanting and sprinkling burning herbs onto the flask in an effort to dispel any bad mojo that may have....

Help! Something is happening right now! I must go at once to the aid of he who helped me.

Recuperating with Uncle Ben

I slept all day yesterday, rising only to eat and to empty my bladder. My saintly benefactor has attended to me for the last two days, bringing me sumptuous meals that gradually return the strength to my weary frame. He sings me glorious hymns in a low, reverberating tone, and tells me tales of the plantation days in sweet Mississippi, where he worked gladly and was only rarely scourged. His fragrant breath smells of Christmas and antique clocks. He sweats molasses and treacle from his palms and allows me to sup from this heady admixture.

After lunch today he performed a selection of magic tricks to amuse me and rouse me from depression - he can produce ivory dice from his wrists at will, and can revolve his eyes at enormous speed.

As I write this, he is preparing a teriyaki rice dish for my tea, after which he has promised to show me a map of the spirit realm, and then we will settle down to watch The Bill.

I am happy beyond words and hope nothing should soil this current arrangement.