Constant

Tick

4 people are born

Tock

2 people die

Tick

The Earth moves another thirty kilometres

Tock

The bloody clock in front of me refuses to. Just. Stop.

I clench my fists, tightly, tightly, until nails dig into palm and pain sneers derisively at my Tick incompetence. I hold them out in front of me, arms stretched, facing the clock. And then, never blinking, not once blinking (might miss something), I continue looking at the time piece, and Tock then

BAM!

Like a fleshy gunshot, I open my hands, waggling fingers slightly. Palms are white, yellow, pink, red failures. Because Tick there it goes again.

Time time time time time timety time time BLOODY Tock TIME! Does it stop? No? Will it stop? Yes, yes I’m sure. Because I’m close. So close. So very, very Tick close...

A young boy, lying in a verdant field. Joyous green stalks brush flesh, and perfect clouds in a perfect sky tell a story of a perfect life. But...

“Stop lazing! You’ve work to do!”

Never. Enough. Time. Never enough time to just...be.

The boy sighs, gets up. There’ll be time tomorrow.

A knock on the door disturbs my concentration. I irritably wave my hand in the sound’s direction, hoping to bat the annoyance away. It Tock rings out again, a more urgent knocking this time. I close my eyes and exhale loudly. There are murmured voices at my door, but there is nothing as urgent as the Tick task in hand. After some time, I don’t know, don’t care, how long, it stops. Hah! At least some things can Tock stop. I place my hands on the clock, keep my eyes closed, and focus.

A teenager, sitting in a hot room, scribbling away furiously on the exam in front of him.

“Last two minutes!” cries the voice of the apocalypse.

He lets out an inaudible cry of despair. The pen nib bursts as he forces it on the paper.

Each second falls like a hammer. There is still so much to do but there isn’t-

“Put your pens down.”

-the time to do it in.

I feel something different; an inner peace. Hunger pangs at my stomach, but the need for nutrition seems largely trivial now. Big things are going to happen. Big, Tick important things.

My clock, my friend, my enemy, my love, my Satan. But a voice piece of the greatest foe in this universe, but, O, what a fickle, mocking voice piece it Tock is. I carefully put it back on the table. The corner of my left eye twitches and, in a moment of weakness, I blink. Then I curse this lack of willpower. Tock.

The phone starts to ring. Without taking my eyes of the clo- it, I carefully lift it, then, maintaining eye contact, find some scissors Tick and cut the cord of the phone. I allow myself a chuckle. I pause briefly, then close the blinds, bolt the doors, turn off my mobile. The outside world is a distraction, and has brought little Tock good to me.

A man, in a suit, standing, swearing, in a cramped train. He glances at his watch, frequently and nervously. He clutches a CV and another form with carefully printed details over it.

 A tinny soothsayer proclaims “Unexpected delays”.

But they weren’t unexpected. The man, who realises now, and perhaps, deep-down, always knew, that this job interview was just another joke reality threw at him, expected them.

I Tick look dead ahead of me, and concentrate. All that is me focuses on that clock, on time itself, and I push my mind until it roars and squirms and suffers. There’s a point, when everything just hurts, at which you transcend the pain. It’s there, all over your body, but you’re not there to experience it. Instead of pain, I feel just a warm light-headedness. And I keep on concentrating.

The tea next to me is stone cold, but I don’t care. There’s a buzzing in my ears, but I don’t care. A vessel in my nose bursts, and glistening red desperation streams down my face, but I don’t care. Coloured lights explode in front of my eyes, Mary weeps in a painting and Jesus laughs from a piece of old toast, but I don’t care, because I have beaten time. I have beaten time. It waits for no man, but it waits for me. I dared to stare it in the eye, and

Tock

Years pass, or at least it seems that way. I begin to giggle. Slowly, quietly, at first. Then, Tick like the constant, uncontrollable, forever-to-damn-us flow of time, the laughter streams out. I can’t stop. Vision goes hazy. Goes dark. Goes Tock black. Time, you joker ,you...

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I almost had it, there. Almost.

A dishevelled man, the wrong side of thirty, lying in a heap on a litter covered floor in a decrepit flat.

Voices cry out to him, but he doesn’t know who they are, or what they say. He listens only to the clock. It stares at him, grins at him, gleams at him. He looks up at it, weakly, neck barely supporting his body, body barely supporting life. He stretches out to touch it, and, for once in his life, he finds that he finally has the time to carry out this action, this last, pathetic, action. 
At last, he has enough time.

Essay- "Fairness must be at the heart of good government"

Interesting story, this one. A few weeks ago, I sent a letter into a local paper, challenging some disparaging remarks someone made about the coalition. He wrote back, and made some patronising comments about the Nazis ("if [Chris] had studied modern history..."). Then, my friend wrote in. And we thought that was the end of it. However, in the Friday 16th March edition of this paper, some local Lib Dems basically said that they had been inspired by the letters of me and my friend, and subsequently created an essay competition, with a set title which had to be commented on. Below is mine. (I might get round to writing something less serious, and indeed original and entertaining (hopefully- ooh, look. Brackets in brackets (how pretentious)), at some point. Insert general excuse about work and lack of imagination.)
It's a bit of a lengthy read, at 2000, but heigh-ho. Deal with it.

“Fairness must lie at the heart of good government”

"The British people believes itself to be free. In this it is gravely mistaken; it is free only once in every four years, during the election of its members of parliament. For the rest of the time, it is nothing more than a puppet of its corrupt government.”

The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau expressed this sentiment in the mid 18^th Century, a period when Britain was still stumbling into and experimenting with democracy. The Bill of Rights, which followed William of Orange a year after his Glorious Revolution, did much to limit and constrain the arbitrary and unchecked powers of the monarch, perhaps marking the most recognisable transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy. However, it did little in meeting the goal of a fair and democratic government; it merely moved the goalposts by addressing the nature of the executive, rather than the method. Before the Great Reform Act of 1832, a system wherein just 3% of the population (some 214,000 men in 1780) could cast a vote could barely be described as democratic or fair, and neither could the government that it produced.

Fast forward just over 200 years, and the situation is bleakly familiar. In 1997, total, nigh-on-unrestrained power was granted to a man for whom only two in five people voted. Thanks to the warping effect first-past-the-post has on British democracy, Tony Blair enjoyed a majority of 179 despite around 60% of people failing to express support for him. What followed was that most worrying of things: a presidential-style Head of Government, granted the powers of Head of State by the Royal Prerogative; a figure who perfectly matched the spectre of “elective dictatorship” that Lord Hailsham warned of; a Prime Minister who, due to his majority, Party Whips, and relentless headstrong attitude, could and would do whatsoever he pleased. Over his decade of power, Blair hamstrung human rights in a draconian, knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, opened the gate to student fees and the huge resultant debts, and waged an illegal war which caused the deaths of thousands of innocents.

The point isn’t ‘Blair was a bad person; therefore all governments are bad things’, although undoubtedly the Blair regime was saturated in unfairness, both in how it came to be and how it acted. The point is that a supposedly fair and democratic system that allowed this to happen must be intrinsically flawed and deeply unfair in itself. And although, at face value, an unfair system is different from an unfair government, it is clear that the two are broadly related and interlinked; after all, as Blair for some and Thatcher for others proved, it is depressingly easy to install an unjust government if the system itself is poor. So, if fairness is indeed desired for good government (which, I will argue, it is), then the political system must first be addressed. A fair, wholly democratic system can lead to an executive that shares these traits; a government that truly is, as Abraham Lincoln said, ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. And in a democratic society, a government that serves and is chosen by the people cannot be too far from being a good one.

Before the merits of ‘fairness’ can truly be discussed, it must first be defined, as must ‘good government’. Living, as we do, in a liberal democracy, most would agree that the state is the servant of the people, not vice versa; therefore, a ‘good government’ is one that acts well and efficiently in the interests of the nation, both as a collective entity and a collection of individuals. Fairness constitutes accountability and transparency, and an outlook that is broadly egalitarian and unprejudiced, offering equal opportunity regardless of race, religion or gender. Both of these aspects, and their advantages, will be examined.

It is in any government’s interest to maintain its position of power for as long as possible, and it achieves this by keeping the majority of the population happy. When this fails, though, a distinct line is drawn between dictatorships and democracies. A dictatorship can ultimately forgo good government which appeases the people, as long as it has a good military that can suppress them. This is clearly illustrated by the atrocities in Syria; unfairness there has ultimately led to the death of over 8000 people, a figure which continues to rise. In democracies, however, the government can be ousted simply by putting a slip of paper in a box. Although, as Rousseau said, this is an infrequent opportunity, it is nonetheless one that defines democratic governments; if they wish to remain in power, they have to consider every action, every stance, every policy and think ‘Is this good for the people?’. Because if it isn’t, the people will throw them out. At elections, governments are more accountable than ever, and this ability to change who governs a nation is undeniably a fair one, however flawed the electoral system may be. This is the nature of democracy; like capitalism, it utilises the idea of competition to drive up standards. Few would dispute that when genuine democracy exists, it produces governments that are fundamentally fair and legitimate. This leads to executives that must be kept on their toes, that must be continually effective, or else they risk the removal that comes from an electoral defeat. And although democracy in Britain is a given now, it must remain so; indeed, it can and must be improved. Replacing first-past-the-post with a system like the Single Transferable Vote, the further use of referenda, and the general political decentralisation of power can all further democracy, increasing fairness, which in turn maximises the need for governments to do well.Similarly, a fair government is one whose actions can be scrutinised by the general public; the Freedom of Information Act (2000) helped hugely to provide this transparency. In giving the populace the ability to examine, in detail, the laws that affect them, governments continually have to justify their actions, which helps to prevent the build-up of arbitrary power, and ensure the executive acts in the public’s interest. Broadly speaking, a government that is doing everything well should have nothing to hide; the presence of transparency pushes governments to make sure that this is the case for them.

Fairness also underpins that greatest of British institutions, the NHS. The idea that that most basic of rights, health, is extended to everyone regardless of wealth propelled its craftsman, Clement Atlee, into the British mindset as a great Prime Minister, and its privatisation has been a taboo subject since then; even Thatcher dared not touch it. Even in its current fragile state, it is observed enviously by other nations, like the US. It is something that was born of fairness, and just one policy of many where this is the prevalent attitude. Likewise, equality of opportunity -the idea that everything should be open to everyone- opens the playing field in a way that benefits society and the people as a whole. Women high up in politics and business, for example, while once frowned upon, now contribute hugely; diverse boardrooms (and not just diverse in gender terms, but also race, religion, and sexuality) have been proven to lead to more productive, efficient businesses, which benefit employees and the country, through more money from tax. This is fairness in action at its best, and it would be a foolish Prime Minister who attempted to stifle it. A government that can draw society together into a cohesive, egalitarian entity, where everyone is looked out for, is one that has irrefutably done well, and it is for this reason (because what use is a broken, divided nation? Inequality is the greatest threat to stability, as demonstrated by the myriad different Occupy movements) that fair treatment must always be at the heart of government action.

However, while fairness has its boons, much can be said for sacrificing fair conditions for efficiency, and acting pragmatically. Pragmatism was originally presented as an antidote to the ideological zeal that had, for many, tainted the 20^th Century. Ironically, however, it seems pragmatism has been adopted as a new ideology; the media often talks of ‘the battle for the centre ground’, and politicians fall over themselves to show they are realists. None more so, perhaps, than Blair, who waved his reformist pragmatism like a flag, which would flutter whichever way the political winds were blowing. A combination of the demonization of the Left that the Cold War had ushered in, Thatcher’s penchant for private property and laissez-faire economics (and their favourable reaction), and the Winter of Discontent that arose from James Callaghan’s socialism had taught Blair that Left Wing politics were dead to the British public. And so, he moved his party to the centre, revoking the traditional Clause IV of Old Labour. This display of pragmatism did much to appease the nation, and was largely responsible for the thirteen years of Labour government that followed. These too were terms that were broadly pragmatic in nature and, up until the Credit Crunch and recession that followed, were arguably mostly good. For example, minor constitutional reform removed the blight of most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords, and unemployment fell from highs of 8-10% under Thatcher and Major’s Conservatives to a consistent 4-5%.

More pragmatism can be seen in the booming economies of the BRIC countries. Predominantly state capitalist nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China have some of the highest GDPs in the world (China has the second best, and is rapidly gaining on the USA). These are governments that do not have ‘fairness’ at the forefront of their mind; there is no minimum wage, little regulation of working hours (even for children) and, especially as the recent anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia have shown, little concern for true democracy or human rights; these just slow down productivity, and are therefore not efficient or pragmatic. There is no denying that, economically and in terms of production, these are successful governments. But does that make them good ones? What use is a bustling economy if vast swathes of the population never get to reap the benefits? In China, 468 million people live on US$2 a day, with inequality rising as fast as their GDP. If government is meant to serve the people, then the leaders of these ‘super nations’ doing a largely unsuccessful job.

Ultimately, compromise appears to be the key. A government that aims to be completely fair on every single issue is striving for a utopia that cannot really exist, and will ultimately be inefficient; there will not be the growth that comes from competition which is ultimately a result of inequality or unfairness. If this occurs, then it cannot fully meet its goal of effectively serving the people, due to economic stagnation. But then again, neither can a government that aims for cold, ruthless efficiency in everything, riding roughshod over basic living conditions and rights. Fairness and pragmatism are by no means incompatible, and this must be realised and embraced to maximise the benefits. A fair electoral system and a written constitution, as well as the upholding of freedom of speech and information, makes the introduction and maintenance of government fair and ensures that the executive can be held accountable to the people. As has been said, a government that can be held accountable is in itself a fair one, and if it wishes to remain in power it must do its utmost to be a good one. From this position it should aim for fairness in its policies and its actions, making sure it provides equality and opportunity, while combining this attitude with enough pragmatism to provide an effective economy in which people can fully prosper, and a stable society in which they can feel safe, secure, and happy. A government which achieves this, a government which has both fairness and pragmatism at its heart, is one that can truly be described as ‘good’.

1000!

So, this has reached the giddying heights of 1000 views, which, considering it was made in September last year... must put it about on par (and I might be a little bit out here) with her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

So. Huzzahs all round.

Huzzah.

Eight Buffaloes Walk Into A Bar...

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
The above is not a snippet of the deranged ramblings of a bison enthusiast; nor is it an attempt by an edgy new theatre to replace the use of the word 'rhubarb' as the faux murmured speech used in the background of productions. Rather, it is the longest sentence in the English language which uses only one word. It makes use of the obvious animal, the American city 'Buffalo' and the use of an American slang word, meaning 'bully', which also happens to be 'buffalo'. In simpler, less mono-lexical terms, it means 'Bison from Buffalo bullied by other bison from Buffalo bully, in turn, another lot of bison from buffalo'. It is, in my eyes, quite a wonderful little sentence.

On telling MOM about this sentence (MOM standing here for 'Mother-of-Mine': an acronym that I can only assume Americans and a growing number of other English-speakers have adopted -and made lower case, so as not to appear obtrusive when written- lovingly as a mode of reference for their female parent), an interesting philosophical-linguistic debate (hark!) was thus sparked, as we wondered what a word actually, fundamentally is (I had queried Buffalo and buffalo (and indeed, buffalo) being the 'same word', what with the former being a proper noun. Apparently, according to the OED and others, it is merely spelling and pronunciation that defines 'a word', and not a deeper meaning).

But this is not really the point of what is to come. The point is that a language that can churn out eight buffalo, and nothing else, into a grammatically correct, if a little clumsy, sentence is one of wonder and beauty, and it is thus a crying, terrible shame that this language is being marred and tarred the way it is.

Look around you. Greengrocer's peddle their fruit and their vegetables and their extraneous unnecessary punctuation, clearly stolen from the large range of Mens Wear that is freely available. Internet adverts ask if 'Is it possible that you're blood pressure be too high?', and the existential crisis of identity that follows (could I be   blood pressure too high?) does nothing to help the suspected ailment. I could go on.

As should be clear, the point that I am making is not an original one, but it is a desperately important one. Our language does matter, and so does the way we use it. But this is where I become torn. On the one hand, being the bleeding heart, wet, good-for-nuffink liberal that I am, I feel somewhat uneasy dictating how people should speak and write. But on the other hand, I am also linguistically conservative (maybe that's being a tad too kind. I'm, frankly, a linguistic snob) and it pains me to see and to hear our tongue being mangled in increasingly unpleasant ways.

Take the 'splice comma', for example; it remains, for me, one of the ugliest pieces of punctuation found. It joins two stand-alone clauses (where there is no conjunction), such as in "It was raining, I got very wet." or "Kumquats are my favourite thing ever, I could eat them all day.", where a semi-colon is called for. I love the semi-colon: I simply adore it. Yet is being replaced by the comma which, frankly, has enough uses already.

People, my brother among them, say that this is just a sign that the language is changing. But why? Why should it change? Granted, there are certain impracticalities stemming from Latin, such as never splitting an infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition (interestingly, Churchill's favourite 'up with which I will not put' is often misinterpreted; it was a response to overly clunky Civil Service documents which avoided prepositions as the ultimate word like the plague. Next to one particularly unsavoury sentence, he wrote that 'this is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put'; he was satirising grammatical fastidiousness, not upholding it) that can probably be sent to pastures new (that said, I will still and avoid doing so most of the time; however, there are occasions when what must be done must be done).

So the tricksier, more anal stuff I can probably understand needs some level of reform. However, what is so tricky about using an apostrophe correctly? Or making sure questions end in a question mark? Or even making sure that sentences start with a capital letter and end with anything at all? It reeks of ignorance and laziness, and these are no things that the language should bend down to and change for their sake alone. You wouldn't apply this logic -this populism born of ignorance, this "everybody's doing it, it's time it should change" (note the splice comma. Note it and hiss) attitude- anywhere else, would you?
"Well M'Lud, I did kill him, yes, but I kind of didn't know why what I had done was wrong, and I kind of didn't bother about it, and anyway, M'Lud: the Law is an ever-changing thing and should reflect the common usage!"

What gets me, at times, is the attitude of other people when you try to stick up for poor old grammar. Highlight the finesse of the subjunctive case, for instance, and you will be branded a 'Grammar Nazi'. That sticking to linguistic rules is enough to get you compared to someone who orchestrated the brutal murder of millions of innocents is bad enough; that this only seems to apply to grammar is another thing entirely. Tell a friend they might want to cut the grass, and they don't turn around to call you a 'Lawn Nazi'.  Point out a problem in someone's pipes, and you're not labelled a 'Plumbing Nazi'. No. There's a stigma that's been attached to the decent upholding and championing of our beautiful, glorious, wacky old language and that, my friends, is everything that's wrong with society today.

Well, that and the fact that tax evasion, when done under a dog's name, is fine and dandy... but that's another matter entirely.

Ultimatum

Everything was fine; all was well. Nary a crease nor a tear was to be seen in the great shirt of life, and everything was just dandy. That is... until it happened.

It started off as a normal morning, and why shouldn’t it have been? Most mornings are, on the whole, normal; every day, millions of people fail to make the news owing to the gloriously quotidian, mundane, banal nature of everyday, bog standard, good-enough-for-99%-of-us life. Interesting things happen to other people, and I was quite content to stay out of the 1% to which odd things do indeed happen. However, fate, old fickle free-spirited fate, had different plans for me that day. Oh, did it ever.

So, as I said, things were just ticketyboo, until I decided that what I really wanted on the piece of toast (Hovis, Best of Both; two minutes. Golden brown. Perfection) that had just leapt enthusiastically from the toaster (where else?) was some jam. Quite why I wanted jam was, quite frankly, beyond me. My limited-spending habits (some people call it Scrooge-like penny pinching; I call it thrift. Besides, I’ll be the one laughing when all my savings go through the roof, especially as now in 2007 their position in Iceland’s National Bank looks as strong as can be) meant that all I had in the fridge for said toast-related purpose was Sainsbury’s ‘Red Jam’: a mere pinch at 26p for 300 grams of colourings, questionable fruit and broken dreams. But it would have to do.

As jamming (Not that kind. Back away, Marley) convention dictates, I placed the jar on the kitchen surface, then proceeded to open it. The actual opening process went off without a hitch. However, on opening it, my Red Jam found itself a friend in 3cm of striped yellow and black evil, as a wasp decided that cavorting with compote was just a swell idea.

This left me with a problem. My toast, rapidly losing its comforting warmth, was in sore need of some jam. My jam, rapidly gaining character in the form of insect dribble, was in sore need of some wasp removal. My new mortal enemy, rapidly climbing the rankings in my Big Book of Grudges, was in sore need of death.

Luckily, I had a crossbow readily at hand; I feel no kitchen is truly complete without one, and it helps to deal with such dilemmas as this (‘dilemmas’, incidentally, is an ugly word, and I really feel it needs replacing. But enough of my lexis unattractiveness based tangent, and onwards with my saga).

I picked up Gwyneth (that’s the crossbow; I felt it needed a name, as all good weapons do, but panicked when choosing one. And since I panicked out loud, it would only have served to confuse the crossbow if I were to try and rename it. And a confused crossbow is not a good crossbow, as any child could tell you) and aimed it at the wasp. I had an ultimatum in mind, which was going to end in glory or jam. The day, I could sense, was mine.

“You there. Wasp. Yeah, I’m talking to you.” I tried narrowing my eyes menacingly, but didn’t really have the knack. All I ended up doing was blinking at the wasp, which it may or may not have found terrifying. In all fairness, it probably wasn’t praying that its god would be merciful at that point.

“I know. I’ve got eyes and ears, haven’t I?” I narrowed my eyes menacingly in surprise. Not so much at the fact it could talk (I’ve always harboured a suspicion to that extent. There must be more to their evil than meets the eye), but rather at the fact that it sounded Andrew Marr with a slightly blocked nose.

“Ummm... Yes?”

The wasp had, by now, stopped moving and was staring at me, and I couldn’t help but feel that it was the kind of thing that could narrow its eyes without losing sight temporarily. My anger at this was piqued.

“Good. Glad we got that established. Now, put that blasted thing down, and for God’s sake get a grip of yourself. I’m just a wasp; my eating a little bit of this red goo-”

“Jam.”

“-won’t make it all go off, now, will it?”

“Yeah, but, my jam, things may go... bad?” This wasn’t on. I was being flummoxed by a bloody insect. Sadly, though, not bloody in the REVENGE!!! manner; just in the exceedingly irritating manner.

“Sound reasoning and flawless articulation from the human race, I see. I can understand why you’re the second best race on this planet. Ha Ha.”

More than my honour, and breakfast, was at stake, now. This oik was sassing humanity. And only I (well, and Gwyneth) stood in its way. I thought  of people mistreating kittens to get into my angry mode.

“Now, look here, you,-”

“No. You look here. I am giving you a choice, you malformed squirt of a shaved ape. Either you let me be, and allow me to eat, quite happily and peacefully, this delicious red goo-”

“Jam.”

“from which I will leave in my own good time; or, you shoot me with that bow of yours and –and let me be really very clear– bad things will happen”

I made a noise roughly equivalent to pfftachoo ; the disdainful apathy I had had in mind somewhat spoiled by an impromptu sneeze. Then, just as it looked like it was going to launch itself into a tirade of wasp-supremacy, I shot the rascal. And then, my heart froze. I went white.

The shot was perfect; the wasp had been what is technically described as ‘smushed’ by Gwyneth’s power. But that wasn’t the problem. Lying around the smushings were fragments of glass, bits of sticky label, and, oozing all over the surface... red goo. Jam. I screamed.

Ultimately, it had been right, that wasp. I had dared to mess with it. And bad things had happened.

Fin

Aftermath

And on the 21^st of December, of the year 2012, the Lord did speak to us, all of his loved ones, and hence the world in recognition of his dedication did stop, to listen to and to revere those words of perseverance and hope. And thus, on the day the world ended and the world began, the Mighty Flame Topped Lord spake:

“I’m never going to give you up. I’m never going to let you down. I’m never going to run around, and desert you.”

The Roll of Cleansing was complete, and the world was made better.

My eyelids feel heavy; my vision, groggy and blurred. There’s a sharp pain in my left shoulder, as if it has been wrenched out of place. As my senses crawl reluctantly back into place, it’s apparent that it has. A shackle pulls my wrist, and with it, my whole arm, above my head. The rest of me is free to move, as big a consolation as that may be. Things look decidedly peaky, and are not improved when they walk in, their goateed faces grim death-masks, their open-necked shirts, slashed at the collar, loud to the point of deafness. One of them holds a clunky black box, with a wheel, holes at regular intervals around the circumference, fixed to one face. My history lessons nudge me in the direction of realising that is a ‘tellyfone’ of old. The speaky-listeny end, if ever such a thing were possible, is next to the ear of one of the men. He nods, and makes arbitrary remarks into the mouth piece.

“Ok. Yeah. Interesting. Yes, I’ll let him know.”

He puts the two parts of the tellyfone together, and turns to me.

“That was our great master, Ban’kah, on the line. He’d like to make you an offer.”

As one, the men swivel on the spot, and turn to face the indiscriminate middle-distance.

“5000 Points for the Book, Mr Blessed,” he walks over to me, and looks me in the eye. “That’s a lot of prizes, isn’t it, Mr Blessed. An awful lot of prizes indeed.”

I swallow. 5000 Points does mean a large amount of prizes. I remain, however, speechless.

The man gives me a big, toothy grin. “On the other hand, if you don’t co-operate, I’m sure we can extract the information from you in an altogether more... unpleasant manner. It’s not a hard decision, is it, Mr Blessed? Even a ten year-old could make it.”

His steely-blue eyes glint. “You are smarter than a ten year-old, aren’t you?”

I muster a tiny, almost indeterminable nod.

“Good...So, Ryan Blessed: 5000 Points for the Book? Do we have a deal, or not?”

I ponder my chances. My ancestor earned his name, so the legend goes, from his possession of an enormously loud and potent voice; such a gift must have been a blessing from the gods. I, too, could give quite a bawling when I wanted too; however, I doubted it was strong enough to relieve the quite clearly armed men of their weapons and take me to safety. So, fighting four grown men with a yell was probably out of the question.

It’s then, as all seem lost, that my brain starts throbbing, somewhere around the deus ex machina region, as discovered by the Professors of Convenient Plotology. The wall opposite me bursts open in a shower of rubble, dust and dubious looking doings. Two figures in hooded robes run through carrying weighty looking lacrosse sticks, and bludgeon my captors into submission. They tear through my chain, which on closer inspection appears to have been fashioned from paper and bits of gum. Feeling decidedly feeble, I thank my rescuers. Then, not wholly wishing to undergo another capture-torture sequence, however edgy and zeitgeisty it may be, I test them with the greeting of the Order of Astley, just to make sure.

“Never going to make you cry”

The person on the left pulls down his hood.

“Never going to say goodbye”

I’m satisfied that this person is either a loyal comrade, or at least someone who’d put the effort in and done some research. Either way was fine; further kidnap was okay, as long as the felons weren’t ignorant clodhoppers. That would just be dull.

The Order of Astley is fairly large, and information doesn’t always reach everyone easily.  So, I run through my story, as they had asked me to. I, and a group of other Rickars, had been moving from a temple to one of the few functioning factories, carrying the fabled Book (or, to give it its full name, ‘The Dyson Ball Manual’) to try and fathom its mysteries. Along the way, we had been attacked by one of Ban’kah’s gangs. When I finish my tale (well, factoid), my other saviour begins quizzing me over my companions’ status. It’s bleak stuff, until we reach the last name. I frown.

“I’m fairly sure he escaped...” My memory wanders back into please. “Yeah, he’s definitely okay. Gordon’s alive.”

“Do you have the Book?”

I shake my head. “Hid it when things turned rough. Come on. I’ll lead you to it.”

Night was falling as we set off. There is mostly silence, punctuated by bone-chilling howls of “Scooby-dooby-doo!”. Meddlings Kids are on the prowl. Our pace quickens, and I ask my fellows about the Book, to see if they know much more than I do.

“We believe it is a holy text of old, dedicated to the god of destruction, Dyson. He made powerful weapons, ‘vakyooms’, I understand, which could obliterate anything in their path. It is our belief that the Book can help rebuild these. The Order of Astley will find great use for them.”

We reach the spot, littered with bodies, where I had hidden the Book. Rick be praised, it’s still there. I turn to my fellow Order members. I can’t help but feel uneasy over this weapon plan, and it’s times like these that my faith feels tested. But, desperate times...

I sigh. “May the Flame-Topped one speed your research.”

They nod. “Never going to tell a lie.”

I turn around, and walk slowly into the wreckage of civilisation, to whatever the next dawn will bring, muttering the holy words as I trudge.

“And hurt you.”

Re-jigging

Minor tweaks and reforms ongoing, just to make the life of anyone who cares that little bit easier. On the right, there is a 'page' section, which can send you to archives of themed pieces.

Because I care.