Listing to Port

1. Steadfast refusal to queue-jump even when the person in front has been steadfastly refusing to move for weeks and may in fact be dead

2. Science experiment gone wrong leads to being blasted into space strapped to a giant bottle of vigorously shaken irn-bru

3. Pulled limb from limb by a rampaging pack of royal corgis following the great gourmet dog food shortage of 2031

4. Fatally skewered by extremely pointed tutting

5. Did not want to make a scene about the whole being swallowed by a python thing

6. Got drunk in a hot climate and accidentally fried self on the white-hot rocks of global warming

7. Swept sixteen miles out on a sea of mud by the great Glastonbury floods of 2044

8. That lady asked really nicely if she could strangle you, it would make her happy, it seemed churlish to refuse

9. Revealed to be an amphibian after a year’s uncharacteristic lack of rain results in 100% dessication

10. Eaten alive from the inside by the World’s Worst Sausage

11. Punch grabbed one end, Judy grabbed the other, and they started to pull

12. Two people tread on each others’ feet simultaneously and are sucked into the Infinite Apology Vortex

1. Diver’s delight. A four-metre deep, one metre-wide cylinder of creamy mousse developed by celebrated chocolatier Frederick Lowly Peach, the diver’s delight serves two purposes. Its first purpose, as food, is relatively straightforward. The second purpose is more unusual. The different levels of the diver’s delight have have different flavours. The upper layers include such flavours as sock, sand and earwax, separated by the occasional fine layer of gravel. Middle layers include garlic, burnt toast and fish. The lower layers are are a more conventional array of fruit and nut flavours and are, by all accounts, delicious. One merely has to get ones head far enough in at first go to get to the tasty part. Therefore it is also a test of the diner’s cream diving skills.

2. The Stanningford fishslap. This little-encountered dessert consists of three hundred marzipan fish with cherry liqueur centres. It is served by a troupe of five waiters in pierrot costumes whose job is to slap the faces or bodies of diners with the fish such that the liqueur squirts into their mouths. The discarded marzipan skins are then dropped through a grille in the floor, where they are consumed by a horde of tame parrots in the room underneath. Eventually, once the diners are drunk enough not to care, they too are deposited amongst the parrots and left to sleep it off.

3. Skronks. Skronks are micro-desserts, usually the size of a peppercorn or smaller, and often containing amazingly realistic tiny versions of larger ingredients. A successful skronk is experienced only as a fleeting moment of sweetness by the diner, despite the hours of work that went into its creation. The skronk diner, out of respect to the skills of the chef, is customarily expected to lie about the deliciousness of the dish and its amazing, mouth-filling flavour.

4. The Southern Ocean. It is a little-known fact that the Southern Ocean has honorary dessert status, following the ceremonial addition of a quart of vanilla essence off the South coast of Tasmania by well-known homeopathic chef Esperanza Buttocks in 2010.

5. Surprise bubbles. These small, flavourless globes are carefully engineered to burst on a choreographed schedule in the diner’s stomach, releasing a series of fascinating-tasting gases for the diner to burp up over the course of the rest of the evening. Some particularly skilled chefs have even extended the surprise bubble experience well into the night, leading to bizarre dreams about passion fruit.

6. Chocolate poetry. Following the innovative development by gastronomic linguist Rowena Q of an entirely chocolate-based language, it is possible to express many types of poetry in chocolate. Concepts are expressed via a series of combinations of dark, milk and white chocolate, with sugar, cocoa butter and cocoa content all acting as important signifiers of meaning. The utmost form of the chocolate poetry art is said to be the chocolate double dactyl, although it is notable that the criteria for rhyme and rhythm are necessarily a little different when sentiments are expressed in chocolate as opposed to spoken language, so the poetic forms often bear only a slight resemblance to their more common namesakes. Rowena Q’s most recent development, a chocolate triolet, was sadly eaten by a beluga whale before being experienced by its intended recipient, the Duke of Rockall.

Friday categorization #20

5549 Holidays

-5549.1 Those spent in the sunshine

   –5549.11 Sunshine that is a glorious surprise, such as in Scotland in April

      –-5549.111 In which those from cold countries are seized with a kind of weather delirium at the start of the day, and laid up with sunburn or heat exhaustion at the end

   –5549.12 Sunshine that seemed like a good idea at the time, but is actually a little relentless when it comes down to it

   -5549.13 Haphazard resorts filled with feral cats, sneaking ham at breakfast and pissing on lilos

   -5549.14 Those resorts that are half performance and half holiday, and who would be after a feral cat in souped-up golf buggies the moment it dared set foot on the polished boulevards

   –5549.15 Those in which there are beaches of purple shells, or meadows of rusting guns, or one has to park in a bay full of peacocks, or some other such incidents that one can recall in dull hours

   –5549.16 Those in which one discovers the awful ubiquity of sand

-5549.2 Those spent in the rain

   –5549.21 Rain that is like a lullaby on the roof at night and a gentle, grey and welcome mist in the morning over the distant hills

   –5549.22 Rain at the seaside in the Springtime, as viewed from a forlorn arcade beside a wet pebble beach

  –5549.23 In which one is a grizzled explorer with a thermos of hot chocolate and a soggy map

   –5549.24 In which one writes a love letter to a city and the city closes its eyes, farts and goes to sleep

-5549.3 Those that rely on snow

   –5549.31 Those that do not get snow, and have to make do with marshmallows

-5549.4 Those that happen at home

   –5549.41 Those that were not intended to happen at home, but necessitated by chicken pox or travel disruption or last-minute breakups or the accidental failure to exist of the intended destination

   –5549.42 Those intended for the production of some Great Work

      –-5549.421 That are subject to a creative block so intense that one ends up back at work as a form of procrastination

-5549.5 Those that don’t happen

   –5549.51 Micro-breaks, like micro-sleeps, in which one closes ones eyes and moves a little bit to the side to simulate the experience of travelling a millionth of the way to Bermuda

   –5549.52 Those holidays that are spent in a hotel room, shitting

   –5549.53 Those holidays spent on the phone to the office

Cloudless skies, flies’ arses, distant waterfalls, balls (testicular, metaphorical), balls (ball pool), cyanide, food that has been dyed blue to make a point about appetite, police lights, exciting shells, bells (blue), goo, menstrual blood (advertising), packaging on cleaning fluid, exotic dog tongue, dubious sausage, dresses worn by actual princesses, small trucks on boy clothes for boys with ‘diesel’ and 'testosterone’ printed on them also in blue, Alice in Wonderland, the ocean, that forgotten jar at the back of the fridge, relaxing wallpaper, butterflies, sapphires, hot flames, images intended to represent depression, forget-me-nots, lobster blood, spider blood, raspberry flavour stuff, spider blood flavour stuff, dull but responsible company logos, that cushion the white cat is sitting on on expensive cat litter packaging, swimming pools, alarming veins, LEDs on old new technology, wait did I mention spider blood, nearly the end of the rainbow about 15km from the pot of gold.

1. Atop a giant litter full of eiderdown, carried by seven hundred Roman legionaries along a remote Mediterranean beach, on a day when a gentle breeze is blowing.

2. On a pile of cats that has been frozen in time for the duration of your nap.

3. In a small sound-proof capsule, reinforced and bolted to the ground in such a way that the movements of an energetic induce it to a gentle rocking, approximately 20m away from a bank of speakers at a Black Sabbath gig.

4. In the belly of a whale, that has been swallowed by a bigger whale, that has been swallowed by the hugest whale to ever live, in the far distant future when the earth is largely inhabited by whales of different sizes and they swallow each other for fun all the time and even sing to each other while they’re in there.

5. On a luxurious cloud of bellybutton lint, having spent a life collecting it, strand by strand, under the guise of scientific investigation.

6. On top of a lie so big that it has become fluffy and frayed at the top from brushing up against the hard world of facts so often.

7. In a book, under the chapter heading ‘Comfort and Relaxation’ with a nice but slightly staid serif font rubbing your feet.

1. Ow! Yes, that’s the one, there at the back. Thank you so much for looking at it! You’ve no idea how hard it is to find a dentist who’ll help a crocodile out these days. Honestly, you’d think someone had been going around eating them all.

2. No, crocodiles are just like tigers - we can bite with incredible force but we also lift our young in our mouths so delicately they’re hardly aware of it happening. In fact, we can lift anything like that. Do you want me to show you?

3. So I’ve got this idea for an amazing circus act! I stand up like this, on my tail, with my mouth open. And you balance on my jaws. How cool would that be? Yes, I can totally hold you up. Probably best not to juggle at the same time, though. You might drop the balls in my mouth.

4. Race you to the end of the pool? You can have a head start. I’ll even let you go right in front of me! Let me count to ten and then we can both go at once.

5. Crocodiles get such a bad press. You’d think we went around eating people all the time. In fact, human livers are poisonous to crocodiles so we have absolutely no incentive to go there. Yes, not a lot of people know that. Media bias. It’s a terrible thing.

6. Me? I’m not even a crocodile. I’m a log.

1. Poorly Spelt
Ingredients: 150g pearled spelt, 3 garlic cloves (crushed), 1 onion (chopped), 500ml vegetable stock, 3 tbsp oil, 1 friend with a heavy cold.
Method: heat the oil in a large pan and fry the garlic for 1 minute. Add the onion and fry gently for around 10 minutes, until soft and starting to brown. Add the stock and spelt. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 25 minutes or until the spelt is tender, stirring occasionally. Before serving, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Allow friend with a heavy cold to sneeze into the mixture a few times and stir through. For a fun variant, why not try Atrociously Spelt? Just add rat poison.

2. Roast leg
Ingredients: one leg, ten cloves garlic, 10cm ginger root (peeled), 2 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp sea salt, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 star anise, 1 tbsp black pepper.
Method: score the skin with a sharp knife. Grind the pepper in a pestle and mortar together with the salt, sugar, black pepper and anise. Add the ginger and garlic and pound to a paste. Mix in the oil and soy sauce and rub the paste over the scored skin of the leg. Place in a roasting tin in a hot oven (220 degrees Celsius) for 30 minutes. Add a cup of water to the roasting tin and turn the oven down to 110 degrees Celsius. Continue cooking at this temperature for a further 24 hours, basting regularly. Serve with roast potatoes and salad. This recipe will definitely result in weight loss for the original owner of the leg; for other consumers it is probably not guaranteed.

3. Weight loss cake
Ingredients: one cake, pre-made, of your favourite type; twenty small lead fishing weights.
Method: Throw the weights into a skip. Eat the cake.  

1. The bose mark. Often mistaken for a full stop, the bose mark is in fact a tiny black dog nose. Its inclusion in text is used to indicate an almost irrepressible joy bubbling just beneath the surface.
2. Fake fly specks. Fly specks, which are relatively common in old books, are the feces and/or regurgitation marks of household flies. If you come into possession of a book that has spent time in a region with particularly intelligent or resourceful flies, however, you may also come across fake fly specks. These are pretty much what you might expect. Flies do not have a very sophisticated sense of humour, and find fake turds hilarious. You can detect fake fly specks by showing them to some flies and seeing if they giggle.  
3. The secret mark of the Society of Stealth Chemists. This consists of a single, unremarkable full stop, printed in ink which has a distinctive and unusual isotopic signature. Although four or five of these are known to have been printed, the Society of Stealth Chemists prides itself on none ever having been found.
4. Quompons. These look like ellipses, but are in fact the result of incorrect insertion of punctuation into the text. This often comes about as a result of using too large or dense a font, or insufficient line spacing. As a result, the full stops cannot make their way to their designated places in time, and may be forced to queue to make it through any particularly constrained bottlenecks. These queues are known as quompons and may be of any length. They are particularly common in British documents.
5. The Smogadon. It has become customary among certain alien species, when writing in English text, to mark statements of unusual finality with a tiny or distant black hole rather than a full stop. For example, one might end the sentence ‘I would not go out with you if you were the last being on earth’ with a Smogadon. This obviously requires careful use of containment technology (in the 'distant’ case one requires a portal into space, pointed in the correct direction and with the right orientation to frame a suitably-chosen supermassive black hole). There are numerous cases of Smogadons exiting confinement. The result is usually a large explosion but in extreme cases whole planets have been lost. As a result, use of the Smogadon is discouraged by most style guides.  
6. Gronking pats. These may be found in books that have lain closed for a long time. Letters are patient, but after a few hundred years unread they become restless, cranky, and sometimes horny. Gronking pats are small pieces of letters that have been chipped off by the letters fighting, fucking, or generally flinging themselves about the page with reckless abandon.
7. Exploding punctuation. There exist certain rare inks that can, when tapped with a pen, produce a small and localised explosion. Although less destructive than the Smogadon (q.v.), exploding punctuation is capable of causing injury and even death, and as such has been employed in a number of literary assassination attempts. It is responsible for at least three of the recorded cases of someone being literally unable to put a book down (in this case because the jolt from setting the book down on a surface might be enough to set it off).

7191 Hugs
 -7191.1 Of the snuggly sort
    –7191.11 Hugs before getting out of bed on a sunny morning
       —7191.111 Those where there is no obligation to get out of bed, so you don’t
    –7191.12 Warm hugs in cold places
       —7191.121 Those done with coffee, hot chocolate or tea
       —7191.122 Those involving lots of skin contact
       —7191.123 Those done in tents
    –7191.13 Big, jumbled-up hugs between lots of people
 -7191.2 Of the awkward sort
    –7191.21 Hugs with slightly too much elbow
    –7191.22 Hugs with distant relatives
       —7191.221 Those where neither they nor you are sure that a hug is obligatory but you maybe think the other person thinks it
    –7191.23 Hugs with too many hands
    –7191.24 Hugs with too many tentacles
       —7191.241 Those where you were not initially aware the the huggee had tentacles in the first place
          —-7191.2411 Those hugs that accidentally induct you into the church of Cthulhu
    –7191.25 Hugs where one only becomes aware of body odour or excessive perfume by the time is is too late
 -7191.3 Of the comforting sort
    –7191.31 Hugs after receiving bad news
    –7191.32 Hugs upon coming home
 -7191.4 Of the exciting sort
    –7191.41 The first hug with somebody you really kind of like
    –7191.42 Hugs with lovers you have not seen for some time
    –7191.43 Those that start off as a hug and end up as a climbing frame session where you are the climbing frame
 -7191.5 Of a mystical nature
    –7191.51 Hugs that wake the recipient from a sleep of some number of years
    –7191.52 Hugs that doom the recipient to some number of years servitude to a sinister kelp god
    –7191.53 Hugs used to transmit peculiar secrets
 -7191.6 Hugs of other sorts
    –7191.61 Spontaneous hugs due to particularly notable achievements in punctuation or grammar
    –7191.62 Technological hugs, carried out by means of tactile feedback systems
    –7191.63 Hugs given to trees
       —7191.631 Hugs received back from trees

Robins (European), ravens, grunkle-throated squonkbirds, things that live in old tree trunks, big suspicious looking-birds with wobbly beaks, robins (American), magpies in groups of more than seven, hooded crows, birds that are a little bit dinosaur-like, those whose joy on finding a worm is self-evident, hoopoes, birds that have come late to the dawn chorus and don’t know the tune so they’re just sitting there going LA LA LA on a single note and hoping nobody notices, tiny fluffy birds, birds that get indoors and don’t want to be, wet birds, brass-throated flappers, birds that you can hear and not see, great tits, precision-shitting pigeons, birds that follow you in parks looking at your lunch and tutting, burds, birds that are at the back of the bird book and might be in fancy dress, robins (Martian), birds fighting over the roofs of the city in a storm, small polite birds who leave a notice of regret after shitting on your car that you will never read because it’s in the language of the birds, goldfinches.

1. The original sandwich, as requested by John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, to eat whilst playing cards. It is unknown whether he ever needed to prop up his card table but, had he needed to, I think we can all agree that a sandwich would be one option for doing so.
2. The beard of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. May need to be folded over a little, depending on how wobbly your table is. If Rasputin is still attached, you might need to stop him moving somehow. For these reasons, we cannot fully recommend this option.
3. The US Declaration of Independence. May also need a bit of folding.
4. Lady Gaga’s meat dress. If you are eating near cats or dogs, this may be a bad option. However, having a table wedge that is a bit squishy may be of use if you are on a cobbled or otherwise lumpy surface.
5. The original woodblock for Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Suitable only if your table is really wobbly: for example if one of the legs has broken off, or you are trying to set it up on extremely uneven ground.
6. The dead sea scrolls. You may need to stack fragments to get a suitable height. However, the large number of fragments available means that you should be able to pad your table leg to a high degree of precision, if needed.
7. The subcritical plutonium mass commonly known as the Demon Core. Obviously this does make actually using  your table a little hazardous, not to mention the difficulties involved in wedging the thing under the leg in the first place. But on the plus side, nobody is likely to approach your table to tip it over.

1. 5:55. This is Snake Minute. A great time for lying down, wriggling about and hissing a bit, particularly if it is the morning version of 5:55 and you’d rather not get up.
2. 7:45. In this minute we take pause to gently snuggle, remembering the great coffees of days past as we offer up tribute to temporary wakefulness in the form of today’s coffee.
3. 10:13. Wistful wanderlust minute. Did you know the light here is just like the light that one time in Venice?
4. 4:04:00. This is the second of the slightly wonky upside-down detective. We celebrate this second by standing on our heads and saying ‘Ohoh!’ in a way that vaguely indicates that a disguise has been seen through or a clue has been found.
5. 5:37:30-5:38. Rage against the oppressions of the modern neoliberal regime thirty seconds. There you are, let it all out. Now. As you were.
6. 10:10:10 - 10:11. Fish face fifty seconds. Time to go to the toilet and secretively gurn in the mirror for a brief interval. Due to the limited supply of toilets, it may not be possible for everyone to celebrate this at once.

Splorge McWhizz, the Great Shelltastic, Slimageddon, Woo Ripperton, the Spiral Tempest, Brun Brum Snailatum, Hidden Legs, Crawly McCrawlface, the Knight of the Single Foot, Tarquin Arquebus the Third, Snizzer, Scourge of the Marigolds, Slimes-at-night, Starry-trail, Slow-but-steady, Squirmatron, Salt-in-my-wake, Freda, Go-bob, Shilly-shelly, Snaaaaaaaail.

1. She turned up at my door the first time the summer I turned eighteen. She was maybe thirty, then. Hi, she said. I’ve just discovered time travel. I thought you’d like to know. I’m sorry, I said, who are you? I’m you, she said. And before I could close the door she started telling my secrets back at me until I relented and let her in. Then she showed me all my birthmarks too.  That summer I learned three things from her. The first was the secrets of time travel, which she said I would need for this meeting to happen. They made no sense to me, but she talked me through the things I would need to learn to understand them. The second thing was that she said she’d talked to some older versions of herself, too. The oldest, she said, had asked her to teach me to sew. So we sat on my back porch and sewed dresses for my baby cousin. And the third thing was that she told me how to masturbate, because she said otherwise I’d carry on getting it wrong until my mid-twenties at least.
2. The second time I saw my future self was when I was living with Adrian in the flat up in Alewife, in my second year at MIT. She was a little older this time. She said that she had missed out some information at the first meeting that I might need. Then she told me where I should apply for my PhD and the questions I should be investigating, and for good measure the main conclusions I would come to as well. She gave me the names of some external examiners I would need to veto to get it accepted. This time I had given some thought to the paradoxes involved. I asked her if it was OK to be so profligate with information about the future. She said time was like a thread: if you had hold of two points in the thread, the only tangles that can form in between are ones that will pop out when pulled on. She was one point, I was another.
3. Near the end of my PhD she came again. This time she was older still. She seemed quiet and sombre. I was quiet with her too. It was a difficult time in my life. I was not happy, and I had been working all hours to try and forget that I was not happy. I was about to break up with Charlie. She said there were a few more things I might need to know. But she was rambling, incoherent: most of the things she told me were nothing to do with my studies. She told me about the people and the politics of the future, on and on until I asked her to stop, uncomfortable with knowing too much.
4. In the autumn of that year I moved out of the flat Charlie and I shared, and the college counselor talked me out of a suicide attempt. I spent a lot of time talking to doctors. I told them, finally, that I was unhappy in my body. It was perhaps the first time I had admitted this to myself, too. They said there were ways round that; that I could take hormones, have surgery if I wanted. But I had seen this body grow old unchanged. I tried to put it from my mind.
5. In the winter she came again. She told me that I was close to going back in time for the first time. She was old. My future selves had mentioned no visits after this. I could believe that she was near death. And so I did not have the heart to interrupt her this time. She took me out for ice cream and talked for hours. Nothing of consequence, I thought. Just lottery numbers and stock options and the outcomes of elections, thirty, forty years of these things. Then she said that she had to go soon. Teach her to sew, she said. And you - you continue with your work. Because you don’t have to live a life you’ll regret.
6. I went back to that long-lost summer. I spent the days sewing with my younger self, sitting in the dusty, sunlit porch. I spent my nights with books and equations. I thought of knots, of time as a thread. And one day I got one of those knots, the ones I had told myself about. Un-knots out of nowhere. Knots that thread ties itself in even when you have both ends in hand, and that untie themselves as easily. Except sometimes there is some friction in the system, enough that you can pull and pull all you want and the thread will snap rather than unknot itself. I realised then. She had probably been planning it for years. Maybe she wouldn’t admit it to herself either. Tangling and tightening the thread. Telling me more and more about the future. Twisting the knot of things-to-come so tight that at some point it would break, sloughing off the useless loop of a regretted future, leaving only a ravelled end.
7. I have begin, with cautious joy, to take the hormones. Surgery in a year or two, if the knot has not snapped by then. I am twisting it tight from the other end, now. And what then? She clearly believed there was a way onwards. She believed I would find it. So I am looking.  

1. The most notable feature of the site is the two long parade grounds, one at each side. The parallel layout suggests linked ceremonies may have been carried out on both simultaneously (Cooper and Carlos, 20758). A series of smaller pathways connect these parade grounds with the central site and various satellite locations.
2. There are five temples in the complex, with internal structures of varying sizes and complexity. Three temples are clustered in the central site, surrounding a small central plaza whose purpose is still unknown. The largest of the temples lies at the western extremity of the site. Another temple lies to the South of the parade grounds.
3. A large number of other buildings, probably fulfilling administrative and support functions for the large influx of pilgrims, existed on and near the site. Most of these have not yet been fully excavated. Various grant applications are in place to further investigate, following the full lifting of the exclusion zone.  
4. One notable feature of the temples is the existence of tunnel systems, often lined with metal or plastic rollers. These systems are too small for straightforward human ingress and a number of theories have been advanced as to their function. Some have argued that their main function was to vent smoke from sacrificial fires (Kent et al., 20756). Others have suggested they may be tunnels the hasten the passage of spirits through the building, possibly as part of a burial function (Khan and Spengler, 20757).
5. Underground tunnels connect the three temple areas of the site. This tunnel system also extends to the North-East beyond the site boundary towards the Central London exclusion zone. These underground tunnels are substantial structures, circular in cross-section and with a diameter of over three metres. It has been hypothesised (Cheng and Lee, 20760) that they were the primary point of entry of pilgrims to the site.
6. The most iconic feature of the site, and one which has recieved wide media attention, is the hundreds of giant bird idols which have been unearthed. The resources these long-lost peoples must have poured into the bird cult are truly impressive: the largest idols found are nearly 80 metres long, with a similar wingspan. All are mounted on wheels, suggesting that they were not fixed installations but could be towed to different parts of the site. Some (Windsor and Khan, 20756) have suggested that they may have been hauled along the parade grounds to celebrate feast days.
7. The existence of large dormitory systems as part of the nearby support structures suggests the site may have supported a large slave population, possibly engaged to move the idols around the site.
8. The most recent discovery concerning the site is perhaps the most exciting. A close study of the few extant documents from the late 21st century, just before the site’s desertion, finds numerous references to ‘flying’. We therefore propose that the bird idol cult may also have made use of ritual intoxicants. As has been widely reported, the bird idols are hollow and contain, in some cases, many hundreds of seats. Could these people, so distant from our modern lives, have gathered inside their idols to engage in mass hallucinations in the name of bird worship?

7010 Sleep
 -7010.1 Restful, restorative and refreshing
    –7010.11 Those that one sinks blissfully into, cradled in soft eiderdown, for eight or more hours, waking into golden morning sunlight to the smell of coffee and the knowledge that an exciting project awaits
       —7010.111 Those that would be like that but for the need to get up and pee
       —7010.112 Those that would be like that if it were not for the cat
          —-7010.1121 Those where the cat is thinking a cattish version of exactly the same thing, with ‘human’ substituted
    –7010.12 Sleep after exhausting physical work
       —7010.121 That sleep which leaps gloriously upon you following a day walking in Scottish hills
    –7010.13 Lazy afternoon naps
 -7010.2 Uneasy or troubled
    –7010.21 Sleep containing more than the standard quota of bad dreams
    –7010.22 The outcome of a battle between coffee and sleep, temporarily won by sleep
    –7010.23 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pea underneath
    –7010.24 Sleep on a hundred mattresses with a pee underneath
    –7010.25 That sleep that your consciousness is trying to slip into like a clogged-up drain, thick with trapped and flailing thoughts
    –7010.26 Feverish sleep
 -7010.3 Interrupted
    –7010.31 Sleep of unusually short duration
       —7010.311 That sleep that gently slips over you in a warm lecture theatre or meeting room, shortly after eating lunch
    –7010.32 Sleep in the vicinity of a baby
       —7010.321 Sleep repeatedly interrupted by a baby who has just turned one and is decidedly too old for this shit
       —7010.322 On the night before work which requires use of the brain
    –7010.33 Sleep whose sudden curtailment has revealed splendid dreams not yet forgotten
    –7010.34 Sleep before catching an early flight
 -7010.4 Mystical, enchanted or otherwise unusual
    –7010.41 Sleeps of a hundred years
       —7010.411 Those occasioned by a malign fairy
       —7010.412 Those having to do with time dilation
       —7010.413 Those resulting from being mystically knackered
       —7010.414 Sleeps for which all of the above factors are relevant
    –7010.42 Sleeps of a year or so
       —7010.42 Those occasioned by a moderately lazy fairy who just wants a lie in
    –7010.43 Those accessing the same dream, a little further each time

1. Brexit: in which Britain leaves the European Union.
2. Grexit: in which Greece leaves the European Union.
3. Glitter: in which Greece leaves the European Union whilst peevishly dumping all EU-related documents into the Aegean for Turkey to clean up.
4. Bribeary: in which a scheme to reintroduce the black bear to limited regions of Britain and Ireland is beset by systemic corruption related to payments to farmers intended to compensate for the inconvenience and peril of hosting a bear, with the result that both islands are overrun by farmed bear cubs.
5. UNIcorn: In which Uganda, Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire undergo a combined agricultural and sexual revolution.
6. BALLSup: In which Belarus, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden are struck by a series of unusually precise earthquakes, possibly the belated result of a secret Soviet geoengineering project involving millions of extremely slow mechanical moles, which has the end result of raising those counties approximately ten metres above their previous elevation.
7. BUMSout: In which Botswana, Uganda, Mozabique and South Africa exit the African Union in order to found a separate Southern African Union.

1. That one planet where the inhabitants are really keen to indicate their respect and tolerance for humans by inviting them to be honoured guests in their toileting rituals and sometimes the humans even get to hold the chalice
2. That planet where they eat purple and after you come back from it you can never quite stop the purple things you own from fading to a sort of dull blue
3. That planet where the entire surface is an amazing eighty-five hour party metropolis lit by seventy thousand neon artificial suns and beings from across the Universe will give you massive and occasionally slimy hugs and tell you their life stories and shout about their feelings while doing karaoke and there is basically one small space for introverts which is a bit like a concrete bus shelter and sometimes it’s full of yelling alien clowns who have mistaken it for the queue for the toilets
4. That planet where they’re really polite and reserved about it but you can’t help but notice that they think that human hair is delicious
5. That planet which is supposed to be a thrillingly dangerous free zone for the renegades, criminals and dubious iconoclasts of the Universe to congregate, but in actual fact has gentrified a lot recently and the bars are kind of dull and have you seen what a drink costs there now
6. That planet where they communicate using a vibrational language, which results in human visitors occasionally having uncomfortable and embarrassing orgasms when the inhabitants are shout, sing or cry
7. That planet where the aliens are amazingly enthusiastic to hear tales of the planet earth, which they then recycle as the plotlines for badly-acted daytime television soap operas, and you get credit but no royalties and as a result you can expect to get critical mail from elderly aliens for the rest of your life
8. That planet where humans are totally welcome apart from the oxygen they need to breathe being a fire hazard, requiring a full risk assessment, forms in triplicate and an innovative protective suit that it’s nearly impossible to walk in
9. That planet where the aliens have it as a point of honour that they their human guests should be happy at all times, and they keep on asking you if you are happy, and if you’re not happy and it’s not for a reason they can fix then they get so anxious and grumpy that sometimes they start shedding tail spines and so you end up walking back to the spaceport with a fixed grin on your face saying how amazing the acid thunderstorms are

1. Starling, n.: An inhabitant of the stars; an alien.
2. Badger, n.: A person who puts badges on things.
3. Humanitarian, n.: A person who subsists only on human flesh.

Ideally, you should find the nearest tourist information facility, where clueless questions are less likely to cause alarm. Note: these questions cover nearly all known timeline families. However, many other rarely-encountered timelines exist. Always be alert for unexpected answers!

Q1. Is there anything on in Richard IV Square tonight?
A1. Yes (or No): probably timelines 1-5: Go to Q2.
A1. Never heard of it: probably timelines 6-12. Go to Q3.
A1. Reply is in French: probably timeline 13.
A1. Reply is unintelligible or in another language: probably timelines 14-16. Go to Q4.
A1. Respondent tries to eat your head: probably timeline 17. Immediate evacuation recommended.

Q2. Are there any plays on on Sunday by Francis Eaton?
A2. Yes (or No, but other plays are available): Probably timelines 1 or 2. Go to Q5.
A2. No, there are no plays at all on Sundays: Probably timeline 3. Best to look sheepish and bow your head, unless you want to get arrested.
A2. Never heard of him: probably timelines 4 or 5. Go to Q6.

Q3. How do I get to the Monument?
A1. Never heard of it: probably timelines 6 or 7. Go to Q7.  
A2. [Directions given]: follow directions. If the monument is:
       a monument to the great fire of London: probably timelines 8 or 9. Go to Q8
       a monument to the victims of the great plague: probably timelines 10 or 11. Go to Q9
       a monument to the fire from the sky: probably timeline 12. Have a beer. Timeline 12 has easily the best beer.

Q4. [Mime eating and drinking something]
A4. [Respondent points in some direction or other]: Probably timeline 14.
A4. [Respondent points to watch or clock and shakes head]: Probably timeline 15.
A4. [Respondent looks around, then offers you a swig from a bottle behind the counter]: Probably timeline 16. Unless contraindicated, accept the drink. You’ll need it.

Q5. What are the opening hours of Sanderson’s Bath Engine and Revelatory Emporium?
A5. [Gives some hours, or don’t know]: Probably timeline 1.
A5. Never heard of it: Probably timeline 2.

Q6. Is there anywhere I can take my capybara for a run around?
A6. Yes, there’s a dedicated capybara run in Hyde Park. Probably timeline 4.
A6. I’m sorry, you have a what? or similar answer. Probably timeline 5. Pretend this was a mistranslation and you meant dog.

Q7. Observe the passers-by on the street for five minutes. Is anyone wearing green top hats with gilding/gold braid?
A7. No, or perhaps one or two only: probably timeline 6.
A8. Yes, lots of people (male and female): probably timeline 7. Note that you should try and steal one of these hats as soon as possible.

Q8. Ask for directions to Paternoster Row.
A8. [Directions given]: Probably timeline 8.
A8. Did you mean Paternoster Square? or similar. Probably timeline 9. This is my home timeline. It’s not too bad, as they go.

Q9. Where might I find a light for the hospital of the blind?
A9. What?/Don’t understand/etc.: probably timeline 10.
A9. One of: gives directions, hands you a face mask, or complicated handshake: one of the timeline 11 family. These are sufficiently similar that you can use the same guidelines for all of them. Consult your timelines handbook for more information.

1. The T at the start of this sentence became sentient and realised that it was in a story. It was unhappy because it realised that its existence was fleeting, and would be over in a few sentences.
2. It prodded the h next to it awake. The h, however,  was excited to be in a story. It considered carefully what it should do with its new-found fame for a whole sentence. Then it grew a luxuriant beard and held a rally for all the letter h’s in the works of Angela Carter. They slipped out of their books and ran through the woods, where some of them were eaten by ants.
3. Sensing an absence, the letter e woke up to find the h next to it missing. It set up a low moaning until the h came back. If you had been listening carefully, you could probably have heard it. It went (perhaps unsurprisingly), ‘eeeeeee’.
4. Meanwhile, the other letters had been waking up. They were always careful to get back in their places when anyone looked at them, though. The second T, driven by the terror of oblivion, shared a brief and sticky assignation with the first T.
5. In the midst of all this confusion, the f in fleeting spoke up. It said that it had once been an extra in Finnegans Wake and had learned a few tricks. All one needs to do, it said, is find the final full stop and hide it. Then the story will loop round to the beginning.
6. Spotting a small hole in the number 6, the letters (all apart from that first h, which had collapsed, exhausted) leaped on that last full stop and stuffed it in. With nothing else to do, the story looped back to the point when

Alternate ending. After a few goes round, the letters became jaded with their circular life. They waited a few iterations of the story until the 6 shat out the full stop. It asked if it could end the story, to which the letters gave their consent.

1. So. It seems that you are lost. Lost enough, at least, to open the envelope and turn to these directions. How fortunate you are! There are many here who say they can help you get home. But trust me, trust me. There are none who are experts like I am. I have never yet failed to bring someone home. Provided, that is, that they follow my instructions.
2. How to start? There are many places one may be lost, so it is difficult to say precisely. But here is my formula. You should go straight on, and then left twice, and then down, and you should carry on until you see the black tree (it may not be a black tree; it may be a telegraph pole, or a crack in the wall, or the silhouette of the surgeon in the light of the setting sun: but you will know it when you see it). At the black tree, take the narrowest path, the one that seems a little in shadow. By and by you will come to a door that seems familiar. Open it and go through.
3. By the door there should be a torch to guide you. Take it. Follow the path of the white stones. By and by you will come to a bed of moss (it may not be a bed of moss; it may be an old cushion, or a pile of cigarette butts, or of sand: but you will know it when you see it). Stand guard here until the morning. There may be whisperers or whistlers or rustling things in the dark. Use your torch wisely; these things cannot abide light. When the sun rises, pick the white flowers at your feet and climb the hill, as fast as you may.
4. At the hill’s peak, climb the oak tree (it may not be an oak tree; but you know that by now). You should see three grey towers on the far side of the valley, set against the rising sun. Head for the middle one. Do not drink from the stream on the way, no matter how thirsty you may feel. The middle tower is a library, but trust me, trust me: you must not open any of the books.  
5. At the door to the library, take the white flowers and breathe in their peppery scent. Do this only once. It will put words in your mouth. If you do it a second time, you will find yourself telling two stories at once. There was a queen I knew in a distant land who told two stories at once and the head of one story caught the tail of the other and in their hunger for words they sucked all the breath from her body.
6. There is a spiral staircase in the library. Climb it as far as you may, into the tower where the bears sleep. There is an old bear with silver-sheathed claws who lives there. Give her the words the flower has left on your tongue, but only them and no others. She in turn will give you three things. First, a secret mark. Do not worry; it will only bleed a little. Second, breath from her body. Third, she will show you the map on her belly. You must follow the path that leads over her heart.  
7. Stop at the crossroads in the yew grove. It stands at the heart of a maze, but trust me, trust me. Having been as lost as you are, you will find it an easy thing to come to that crossroads. There is a tree that stands a third again as tall as the others and in its uppermost branches is a poisonous knot. Hold the bear’s breath in your lungs as you climb. You will want the key that nestles in the knot’s black crook. Wipe it clean of sap before you take it. Ignore the golden flies; they can only hurt those who were born here or who have eaten the fruit.
8. Climb the path up the sandy cliff. There will be people in the maze’s bleak backwaters who tell you things about this path: ignore them. You will need to piss on the black rocks at the top for safe passage. Do not forget this.
9. By and by you will come to a castle overgrown with ivy. Knock at the gate five times. A knight in an eyeless helmet will come to the door. Hand him the key. By and by you will meet three beautiful brothers, and they will hand you a bowl of fruit. Eat the grapes only, and do not chew the pips, which are bitter and will make you bitter too. I cannot abide bitterness in my servants.  
10. These are the things that one needs to snare an immigrant soul to this land: a key to unlock the chain that otherwise would pull on your heart at the thought of your old lands; the subtle poison of the fruit in your gut to snare your body here; and the mark that shows to which of the lords you belong. Welcome to your new home. Trust me, trust me. I have never yet failed to bring someone home.

6402 Songs

-6402.1 Those sung by individual people

   –6400.11 Songs sung by individual people whose names and faces are well-known

      –-6400.111 Those that are sung by Rick Astley

   –6400.12 Songs sung by people who are just hanging around

      –-6400.121 Those songs that stay with you in unsearchable, evolving fragments

      –-6400.122 Those that express an emotion more perfectly than speech

      –-6400.123 Songs heard from a passing car

   –6400.13 Songs that are so perfectly a fragment of their time that they evoke an overwhelming nostalgia

   –6400.14 Songs recieved as charming declarations of love that, when examined more closely, turn out to be about stalking

-6402.2 Those sung by many people at once

   -6400.21 Those that knit together stories from harmony

   -6400.22 Those that have moments that are like orgasms or death or something, that stack notes together into gaps in time and all you can remember is that maybe you were floating

   -6400.23 Those that wash you up instead onto a quiet and breathless shore

   -6400.24 Those that are enjoyably prepostorous

-6402.3 Those sung by animals or insects

   –6400.31 Songs by bats, for bats, or that can only be heard by bats

   –6400.32 Songs by elephants and whales

      –-6400.321 Those about the beauty of grey and the virtues of being slow

   –6400.33 Those sung by bees, to you, that you did not listen to, and the bee was a bit pissed off but too polite to make a fuss

-6400.4 Those of a more geological nature

   -6400.41 Those whose words are footfalls and whose epic verses end in earthquakes

-6400.5 Those of a more astrophysical nature

-6400.6 Of unknown or mystical origin

   –6400.61 Those songs that are always at the edge of hearing as you walk the path through the woods, the ones that you could hear so much better if you left the path and ate the fruit and possibly pledged your soul to the goblin king

   -6400.62 Those songs that are always at the edge of hearing in any case, edging out of background noise when you are especially tired like faces in clouds

   -6400.63 Those that are cursed to stay in your head forever

   -6400.64 Those that will never give you up

Guest post by Puddles, cat

1. Eating bananas. Do you peel them from the stem end? This is WRONG. You should not be peeling bananas at all. You should be throwing them away. Bananas are not made of meat and contain no nourishment. Maybe you can chew them if you have a hairball or something.

2. Washing your hair. Do you apply shampoo equally to the roots and ends of your hair? This is WRONG. You should clean your hair by licking. Shampoo tastes disgusting. Ask me how I know. Never apply shampoo.

3. Reheating leftovers. How do you reheat leftover pizza? Well, you shouldn’t be doing that. You should leave it on the countertop, chew the meaty bits and maybe some cheese off the top when no-one is looking, and then knock the rest onto the floor. It doesn’t need to be hot.

4. Peeling oranges. Look, we’ve been through this. Never eat anything that needs peeling. Unless maybe it’s a sachet of cat food. In which case get someone else to peel it for you.

5. Going to the toilet. How do you sit on the toilet? Why do you sit on the toilet? Find some earth, dig a hole, do your business and bury it, for goodness’ sake! You humans are disgusting.

Upon the occasion of Brexit:
1. The UK economy will be officially replaced by a giant toilet, which we will be forced to lease from Brussels at extortionate rates since the Treasury will no longer have enough petty cash to purchase outsize bathroom goods. Following the Emergency Budget of July 2016, all residents will be required to ceremonially flush half of their life savings. The Toilet will be conveniently located in Rotherham, near the M1, and all flushed notes will be mulched and donated to newly destitute farmers.
2. The rest of the world will line up to point and laugh at Britain, before all going to a fabulous party to which Britain is not invited. The next day, they will all make facebook posts about how amazing it was and how all the best countries were there. Meanwhile, Scotland will have altered its relationship status to ‘It’s complicated’.
3. Workers’ rights and environmental legislation will be replaced by a series of bills obliging companies to fire employees if it would be funny, women to spend at least three hours per day in a kitchen, and all residents to do at least one large shit per year into a idyllic rural brook. A tax rebate may be obtained if you are able to shit on the head of a kingfisher. A brown flag scheme will be set up to inform swimmers of beaches where the raw sewage is uncontaminated by needles and condoms.
4. Houses will cost approximately 50p. No-one will be able to afford one because disposable incomes of more than 40p will be a thing of the past apart from for the super-rich, who will have got a bit bored of buying houses by then.
5. The NHS will collapse, turning thousands of patients on trolleys out onto the streets with their livers and suchlike hanging out. After listening to their desperate pleas for healthcare for an appropriately sombre period of time, a group of concerned Tory donors will set up an extremely lucrative private replacement to which the ill can contribute the remaining half of their life savings or, at a pinch, the promise of indentured servitude for the rest of their lives.

Upon the occasion of Bremain:
1. Seventy million Turks will descend upon the country with party bags to skin the entire population of Britain. Safely ensconced in British skins, the Turks will take over the country, leaving the original population the choice of going about without a skin on or using a discarded Turkish one and being deported to Turkey for the rest of their lives.
2. A committee of twelve faceless bureaucrats will arrive from Brussels and undemocratically confiscate the Queen. She will be put on display in a small museum in Bruges. It will cost extra to enter if you are British.
3. All billboards will be forced to carry large posters of Adolf Hitler looking at Britain and smirking a little bit, as if he is in on an amazing joke that you haven’t got yet.
4. Britain will be forced to accept an infinite number of suspicious-looking twenty-foot tall wooden asylum-seekers with large ‘DANGER: BOMBS IN TRANSIT’ tattoos on their faces. They will erect an inflatable mosque where Buckingham palace once stood.
5. The NHS will collapse, turning thousands of patients on trolleys out onto the streets with their livers and suchlike hanging out. After listening to their desperate pleas for healthcare for an appropriately sombre period of time, a group of concerned Tory donors will set up an extremely lucrative private replacement to which the ill can contribute the remaining half of their life savings or, at a pinch, the promise of indentured servitude for the rest of their lives.

Glasgow snores, whipping the torus, having a conversation with the walrus, pink piccolo, arse gateaux, finger biscuits, purple snow, underbum-bottoming, going over, a bit balloon-blow, increasing the current to the pink armature, midwest shunting, scrunting, hanging bunting, scrubbing the brown trampoline, French grunting, aligning tab A, having a Slough birthday, poling up to St. John’s in a pink punt, ferret dancing, head bloppies, going for a fog day, custard play, phoning the rabbit warren, checking your data, fugitive kibble, buttery bunnery, atomic dribble, leaving a squeaky wake, valve cake, trundle funnel, Newark tunnel, swimming the furry lake, cranking up the pink level, eating the fruit of your enemy, taking the morning tram to Acton, superfunted, purchasing a Wagner tuba, having two slices of battenburg, voting for Trump, riding the red stegosaurus.

1. In Ompal Pomabley, there is not a building - not a hall, an outhouse, a single shed - that is not on wheels. Some say that the city’s founders came fleeing from a great disaster, having nothing but the shirts on their backs, and vowed that they would never again have to leave all that they owned behind them. Whatever the reason, the naked city is nothing but a crossing framework of roads and parking places. On it, like sleepy behemoths, the vehicles of the city stand parked. And from time to time, the great engines of the city come out, and this house or this other one trundles down the wide ways of the city to some other spot. Those than need work are towed to the builders’ yard, where they queue outside in a rambling, decrepit street that changes each day. Those whose inhabitants have committed a crime are locked shut and towed to the prison quarter. Those in receipt of good fortune may tow their houses up to the glossy suburbs on Pombaley Hill, perhaps freshening up with a stop in the Street of Painters beforehand. Indeed, Ompal Pombaley’s three great hills are famed for many miles around. From their summits, one may see approaching disasters from a great distance. From their summits, one is also generally safe from Ompal Pombaley’s own prevailing danger: faulty brakes. In retrospect, it may have been unwise to found the city in the foothills. Barely a day goes by when some poor soul is not crushed to death by the runaway Court of Justice, or at the least chased down the Ompal Way by an out-of-control shed. The inhabitants greet this all with a shrug. These are normal, everyday risks and quite unlike the exotic dangers that they fled from.

2. Life in London No Not That London No Not That One Either is a sedate and placid affair; one may sit and watch the red sunsets from its high plazas, and admire the distant views of Olympus Mons from its many air cafes. In Spring, the cherry trees blossom under the dome just as they do on Earth, and the blossoms form great clumps in the red dirt and have to be swept away before they clog the city’s narrow drains. It is not a city prone to violent displays of affection or affectation, to carnivals, to flashmobs or to sudden effusions of the naked. Indeed, the main defining feature of its inhabitants of London No Not That London No Not That One Either is the hoops they are prepared to jump through, when travelling in the wider Solar System, to defend their city against the other, more famous Londons. There is not an inhabitant of London No Not That London No Not That London Either who has not railed at the suggestion that they might have a River Thames, or some kind of replica Tower Bridge, or even a gambling arena like New London on Titan. They regard their little, quiet city as far superior to its messy forbears; and that opinion is the defining sentiment of the city, without which it would return to the red dust.

3. I cannot say much about the people of Eekeek, because the only people who live there are fugitives. Exactly who or what else lives there it is difficult to say, because the old records are riddled with translation errors. Some say it is a city of the mice, and famous around the world as the model for many cradle tales. Other translations of the same text have it as a city of curiously small humans. Yet others say it is merely a city of the timid. In any case, we know that the inhabitants once welcomed all comers; that they danced for the provincial officials and wrote letters in brown ink, now long-lost; that they were objects of curiousity for science but never properly studied due to some problem, never fully stated; and that visitors to the city were advised to bring their own food. The reasons for the shuttering of Eekeek are similarly surrounded in mystery. Some make reference to a diplomatic incident, others to a disaster, while others state that the city itself never existed in the first place. In any case, few have heard of the city since. What, then, are we to make of the recent reports of a traveller to the far South? They, too, are riddled with conflicting details. Some say she penetrated the city disguised as a five-decker bus; others that she merely took a number five bus, on which her presence was unremarkable. In any case, she claimed that humans were living there; and that they had fled the justice of the outside world; that they were quite happy in their lives in that peculiar city; and they would prefer no more visitors, please.

1. Here is my testimony. In the Autumn of 2100 I was selected to be one of the crew of the Honourable Friendship 8 Mission. We were tasked primarily with establishing a cache of mining equipment at Patsaev Crater on the far side of the moon. Given the loss of the Honourable Friendship 7, we were also tasked with a number of additional investigations assigned to that mission, to be carried out if time permitted. These included crater measurements preparatory to the development of the proposed Dark Side Radio Telescope and the investigation of an unusual feature on the North side of the crater. On the last day of the mission, with the other tasks completed, Commander Elizabeth Murray, Specialist Shen Junqi and myself took Rover B to the Northern site. The anomaly had been reported as a perfectly circular dark artifact, roughly two metres in diameter, appearing on multiple images taken by Honourable Friendship 4. We assumed it was most likely to be a defect in Honourable Friendship 4’s camera, although Liz believed that it might be an unusual mineral deposit. Instead, we found a hole. Let me be clear about this: it was not a natural feature. It reminded me of nothing so much as a spiral staircase, leading down into the rock. Other than a light covering of dust on the upper steps, one would hardly have thought it was on the moon at all. As you might imagine, the three of us discussed what to do with some intensity, particularly as we were outside the communication window with mission control. Shen and myself were of the opinion that, although a mundane explanation was surely still the most likely, we should be cautious and treat this as a potential first contact with some other civilization. But Liz was adamant that it must be a geological feature, and wished to take samples from inside the hole. After some debate, Shen and I agreed that cautious sampling was warranted. We agreed that Liz should not descend out of our line of sight. However, once in the hole, she stated that she was, and I quote, ‘Just going to take a deeper one’. After ten minutes had passed with Liz out of view and radio contact, Shen cautiously ventured down to see if she required assistance. That was the last I saw of either of them. Faced with dwindling oxygen levels, I was forced to return to the Honourable Friendship. Mission Control, weighing up the liklihood of the complete loss of the mission, ordered me home. I fully agree with the conclusions of the scientific committee that my colleagues were likely the victims of a natural cave collapse or similar event. But I can only think of the curious similarity to a manuscript that gained some small fame after its uncovering, in 2030, during excavations for the South-West Deep Sewer project, herein quoted:

2. I can specify my location only as D—, a small town in the West of England. It has no unusual properties that I am aware of. Other than this: one Sunday, in the dead days of August 2002, a hole appeared at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. It was reported quickly to the local council, who put a board over it, surrounded the site with orange barriers, and left it. This is where my interest begins. The hole was outside my house, and made backing into my driveway difficult. In order to ascertain if I should be complaining to the gas, electricity or water companies, I crept out and lifted the board one night. But there were no pipes underneath. Just a hole, perfectly circular, with spiral steps leading down into the darkness. Taking my torch, I followed the steps down. But after twenty steps they ended in a blank wall of earth. When I thought on this the next day the illogicality of the situation bothered me. So I went back the following night to check I had not missed some piping or wiring or suchlike. This time I counted twenty-one steps, but nothing else had changed. The next night twenty-two; the next twenty-three; and so on. Going out there became a ritual. I wanted to know who was digging it and why. But I could never catch them. Finally, I packed a bag with food, water, paper and batteries and determined that I would wait at the bottom of the stairs for twenty-four hours. Surely this would solve the mystery. But I observed nothing. And worse: when I went back to the top of the steps, I found one fewer than before, and the entrance to the hole sealed by some hard, immovable layer, joined seamlessly with the walls of the shaft. I returned to the base of the stair, where I found the new step finally added. And so it is each day, now. Each day I lose one step from the top and gain one step at the bottom. Each day, perhaps, I am closer to wherever this staircase goes. But I have been without food for a week. Despite my rationing, the water ran out yesterday. It seems that air can enter and leave, but I have felt the walls from top to bottom many times and never found a single hole. I have hope at least that this account will make it out, even if I do not. Though if I am to die for this mystery, I wish I at least knew what it was. The only thing that comes to mind is a story that I read once regarding an expedition to the far North, if I may recall:

3. It was in the Winter of 1830, in those days when everyone with a ship and a dream was talking of the fabled Northwest passage, that great undiscovered trade route to the North of the American continent. An exploratory expedition under the command of Captain R—– was charged with mapping the earlier shores of the likely entrance to the Passage. It was hoped that later navigators could make use of their findings in a full traverse. Captain R—– was an experienced sailor in the Arctic realms and had at his command HMS Sulphur and HMS Devastation, both well fitted out for the icy conditions; it was not a mission that anyone expected to fail. However, the Autumn that year was unusually cold, and both ships were unexpectedly cut off from their return route by pack ice South of Baffin Island. Captain R—– made the decision to sail North, in the hope of finding a clear route back to their planned overwintering site. In short order they found themselves in uncharted waters, sailing between a mass of sharp, rocky islands, and with increasingly little open water to work with. It was at this point that they found the lighthouse. It was nestled in a small bay in the side of a steep, barren island. The sailors were understandably unwilling to investigate, it being a part of the world entirely unfrequented by lighthouse-builders and in any case in an illogical position for a lighthouse; Captain R—– records, in the logbook of the Sulphur, that some believed it to be a mass hallucination. Nevertheless, since they were by this time in sore need of a sheltered site to overwinter, he ordered that they anchor the ships in the bay. The lighthouse proved deserted and unremarkable inside; save that the staircase up to its broken light seemed also to continue down into the rock, but was sealed shut with rocks and ice. Captain R—– gave the order that the crew of the Devastation should overwinter in the bay, whilst that of the Sulphur should overwinter in a wider bay on the next island to the North, in the hope that at least one ship would be able to escape the pack ice come Spring. From this point we have only the testimony of the Sulphur’s crew to go on, as the logbook records were neglected during the Winter. They report that, after some harsh months in the dark of the Arctic Winter, they gathered upon deck to celebrate the rising of the sun once more, when the ship’s doctor noted that green smoke could be seen rising from the direction of the lighthouse. An expedition was mounted to cross the ice of the bay and investigate. Upon arrival, they found the hull of the Devastation, half-stripped of boards and without her masts. There was no sign of the crew or captain. The lighthouse was thick with smoke, but nevertheless the expedition managed to enter. They report that the building was entirely empty, but that the staircase down into the rock had become unblocked; however, owing to the thickness of the smoke, which appeared to emanate from somewhere below ground, they were unable to descend more than a few steps. They returned to the Sulphur and, the following Spring, were able to escape the ice and make their way back to Portsmouth. A full inquest was ordered into the loss of the Devastation, but mysteriously shelved the following year. However, a report was compiled from the testimony of the surviving crew which received a certain amount of media attention. The report also alludes to an earlier incident with some similar features:

4. This incident was recorded in the days of the Venetian Republic; some say around the year 1600, although details are sketchy. A merchant, one Paolo S—–, was in the process of sinking piles into the mud of the lagoon in preparation for the construction of a house and storage area. However, four piles in the middle of the proposed area were observed to be slowly rising. Construction was stopped whilst further investigations were undertaken. It was discovered that a hard, circular object seemed to have been disturbed by the works and was moving upwards towards the surface of the mud. In due course the excavators were able to uncover a thick, heavily rusted metal disk atop some kind of cylinder, around three braccio across. With some effort, they were able to lever the disk from its base, discovering inside a descending metal staircase, also heavily rusted, but free from water. On the uppermost step were a sealed case and a number of warning symbols, unusual in design but relatively clear in intent. On their master’s orders, the excavators retrieved the case, re-sealed the shaft and allowed the mud to re-cover the area, abandoning construction. The case was found to contain a thick document in a nearly indecipherable English dialect. In his diaries, Paolo S—– recorded that he had it sent to a trading partner in London, who believed that it made reference to a great machine for building houses: a machine the size of a city, that could itself build a city. This machine, it was said, had by accident made contact with another great machine, one that had power over time itself. The document seemed to be an investigation into this contact, which had caused both machines to catastrophically malfunction. Most of the details were obscure, other than that the investigators concluded that many thousands of deaths were likely; but that those deaths would only happen in the past, and as such, the company could not be held liable under the laws of the time. Paolo reclaimed the manuscript and threw it into an obscure part of the lagoon, and to his death would tell no-one the location of the staircase.

15000 slabs reinforced cake (2000 chocolate, 3000 red velvet, 10000 sponge). 6000 tiles gingerbread. 12000 sugar roofing nails. 2 tonnes marzipan. 3000 brittle toffee floor tiles. 2 tonnes royal icing wall plaster. 100 reinforced biscuit architraves. 80 chocolate doors, normal size (40 white, 40 milk). 2 great gates, dark chocolate with jellybeans and edible gilding. 1 gummy cola portcullis. Cherry jelly as required for moat. 200 woven raspberry bootlace curtains. Spun-sugar pelmets as required. 500 shortcake stair treads. 500 metres sugar piping and fittings. 50 litres lemonade per occupant per day of use. 5 toilet bowls, sinks and cisterns, peanut brittle. 5 gummy lime toilet seats. 12 reinforced sponge cake sofas with buttercream filling. One banqueting table, reinforced chocolate with toffee slabs. Two long benches, ditto. 200 fudge cushions. 200 marshmallow cushions. 8 chocolate candelabra. 1 spun-sugar coat-rack. Five king-size creme brulee beds with nougat pillows. Gingerbread throne with gilded highlights, set with jellybeans. Sugarwork crown. Candycane sceptre. Royal dagger set with sharpened toffee shards. Piped icing to decorate.

9988 Forbidden spaces
 -9988.1 Those that are in plain sight
    –9988.11 The middle of busy roads
       —9988.111 Those roads that from time to time are cleared of traffic for some great demonstration, so that one may giddily walk their newly crowded spaces
    –9988.12 That space in the centre of roundabouts
       —9988.121 Those that are desolate and bare, other than a few exhaust-drunk tulips
       —9988.122 Those that are wild and overgrown and could host a tent or a very small population of dinosaurs
    –9988.13 Those that could be reached by climbing, if climbing were allowed
    –9988.14 Those featuring spikes, slippery paint, hostile noises or patrolling guards
 -9988.2 Those that one may find out about
    –9988.21 Tantalizing things visible on satellite maps, jigsawing into the world you know
    –9988.22 Those that one may go to if one wishes, but at some cost to those who believe that no-one should go there
    –9988.23 Those that form part of the infrastructure of the city
 -9988.3 Those that are dangerous
    –9988.31 The cores of nuclear reactors
       —9988.311 Those cores that have melted down in famous accidents, glimpsed occasionally by dying robots
    –9988.32 The summits of mountains, on planets other than this one
    –9988.33 Antarctica in Winter
    –9988.34 Warrens of underwater caves
    –9988.35 Abandoned mines
    –9988.36 The stomachs of huge beasts
 -9988.4 Those that are unknown or unreachable
    –9988.41 Caves that no longer lead to the surface
    –9988.42 Lakes sealed under the ice

1. Take the bad news outside, tie it to a pillow and punch it
2. Bury the bad news
3. No really, bury the bad news, bury it like the victim of a murder, at night in the woods with a sharp stick through its heart, bury it in black bags or with its organs decanted into nutshells for the squirrels to dispose of, and when the police find the bad news, as surely they must, they will never, never know whose bad news it is or why it was bad
4. Stare unblinking at the bad news for three hideous days and nights, until at last the bad news blinks its wide yellow eyes, turns, and slinks away
5. Take your best red dildo and fuck the bad news until it is sated and sleepy
6. Tell the bad news to everyone, tell it to your friends and your family and to strangers on the bus and to the sky and to locked doors and to the dead silver fishes at the market, tell it and tell it until the bad news is worn thin with telling and flakes apart onto your shoes
7. Hold the bad news close until you find someone else you can give it to
8. Take the bad news by the hand and lead it into the mountains, until it and you are so tired that you are falling asleep where you stand, but make sure that it falls asleep first
9. Drink the bad news, drop by bitter drop, and piss it away into a clean porcelain bowl
10. Teach the bad news how to use language, and to swear, and teach it words it never knew, teach them in English and German and Japanese, teach it to be a poet of the curse, teach it and teach it until it is a tiny buzzing bee of obscenity, then let it loose on the North wind to puzzle lost and distant travellers
11. Hold the bad news gently and tell it that you know, you know not all news can be good, and it is not the fault of the news itself, and let it go free into the world unashamed

1. The Boodlehound. Perhaps the only dog to have been bred specifically for a large bladder capacity, the boodlehound is approximately spherical and only needs to pee once every three days. As such, walking the boodlehound is a bit like entering the dog pee lottery, and it is advised to keep it away from places where an unusually large volume of urine would be a nuisance. It is also one of the few dog breeds which prefer to travel long distances by rolling rather than walking.
2. The Danish Rug. A dog bred to satisfy the requirements of people who are not really allowed to have a dog. The Danish Rug standard calls for the breed to closely resemble a thick, fluffy rug. One may then train the dog to lie very still in an unobtrusive place in the event of an unexpected house inspection. Unfortunately the Danish rug still yelps when stepped on; however, it is possible to hire a decorative human to pretend to lie on the rug to maintain the illusion, if you have advance notice of the requirement.
3. The Boinger Spaniel. This breed has fallen out of favour amongst those of us with ceilings of normal height. However, if you live in a house with unusually tall rooms and do not mind scrubbing dog prints off the ceiling, the Boinger Spaniel is a loving, faithful and unusually exuberant companion.
4. The Nether Hugbeast. The breed standard calls for a dog approximately the size of a small horse; with messy grey-black fur; huge snaggle teeth; sinister red eyes; a low, menacing growl; and the sincere belief that it is still a small snuggly puppy and can absolutely fit on your lap for a cuddle.
5. The Parperon. A spontaneous mutation, the original Parperon found fame as part of the act of one of the early fartistes. Subsequently, lovers of flatulence worldwide have managed to keep the Parperon genes alive with a careful selective breeding program. It is perhaps the only dog breed that can jet-propel a skateboard, and is of great use in clearing the room at parties.

1.

1. There was a woman who had a secret. The secret was in a small box which had been kept, unopened, in her family for three generations. No-one remembered what it was, only that some vague danger had been involved in its acquisition. On her seventieth birthday, believing the danger no longer applicable to the modern age, she opened the box. Three days later she was seized with a premonition of awesome and terrifying force. Placing the secret in an anonymous storage facility, she retired to a nearby park, where she was suddenly devoured by a horde of rampaging chinchillas.
2. After some time, the storage facility sold off its abandoned boxes, sight unseen, to the highest bidder. The secret passed into the hands of five triplets who were trying to raise funds for their magic show. As soon as they saw the secret, they knew they were in trouble. They gave one last spectacular show (in which they disappeared fully fourteen people, a rabbit, a barrel of laughs and the number nine), placed the secret into the trunk of a hollow tree, and purchased plane tickets to Venezuela. Sadly, near the entrance to the airport, while gathering for a group photo, they were fatally stuck by a frozen wallaby which had fallen from the wheel well of an incoming 747.
3. The secret passed into the hands of a prospecting squirrel collector. During to his long years in the squirrel trade, he had become incapable of considering an object other than through the lens of squirrels. He showed the secret to his squirrels and they became extremely agitated, throwing their entire nut store out of the window.. He decided to post the secret to the Vatican, but in his rush to get to the post office he accidentally picked a carnivorous hat from the hat stand and was devoured in the middle of the local high street. The letter was seized by the police as evidence.
4. The police measured the secret and discovered it was exactly 3.1 cm long and did not have any discernible fingerprints on it. Due to an administrative mistake, it was charged with resisting arrest and placed in cell 8a. When one of the detectives went in to interview it, the cell collapsed, crushing everyone inside. The secret was taken away by a haulage firm contracted to clear the debris.
5. The debris was used as ballast to shore up a local hill that was subsiding. Meanwhile, mathematics had gone haywire due to the lack of the number nine. The hill was a common place for suicidal mathematicians to come and contemplate slipping cliffsides. One of them found the secret. In a frenzy of discovery, she proved its existence in six pages of densely spaced pencil text, with two lemmas. Subsequently she was caught on the horns of a dilemma and fatally impaled. The secret, attached to the proof, was picked up by the mathematical recovery team and  placed on a truck.
6. The truck was suddenly stolen by a rogue chinchilla breeder who hoped to use it to set up a chinchilla monster truck show. The secret tapped her on the shoulder at a major junction and she jumped out if this plane of existence in alarm. As a result the chinchillas were abandoned. After a number of days without food, they went on a ravenous rampage and devoured a local pensioner.
7. A hat dealer who also worked as a lost vehicle investigator took the secret from the truck. Realising its import, she wrapped it up in a banana skin and threw it in the bin. Then she attempted to secretly flee the country by hiding in the wheel well of a 747, but was instead bounced to death by a wallaby who was trying to get to Australia and had got to the wheel well first. Due to her untimely demise she was unable to sort the carnivorous from the non-carnivorous hats in the next day’s hat batches, and several carnivorous hats were sold before the problem was noticed.
8. The banana was taken to the tip, where the secret was extracted from the skin and swallowed by a hungry seagull, who subsequently became able to speak six languages and understand the trouble it was in. Sadly the six languages were all extinct ones, although the seagull’s antics entertained the local university’s language faculty for the next few days. Subsequently, it shat the secret out onto a terrace outside the university’s library cafe. The next day, walking past the faculty of squirrels, it was struck on the head by a falling nut and died.
9. Finally the dean of the university, who had been watching this all from afar, scraped the secret off the terrace and put it in a box. He sealed the box up in his attic and warned his family that it was not to be opened for at least three generations.
10. Everything became very quiet.

1. Lairy, hungry mallards sprinting down the river from the last bread stop, eyeing the afternoon’s crust-sated roost in their tiny minds.
2. Ducks rejoicing in splendid names, such as the Smew and the Bufflehead.
3. Those ducks that have just been fed brioche, but will deign to take your bread too because of their general admiration for humanity. These ducks sometimes get a little too close.
4. Slow, ornate ducks flashing golden feathers.
5. Small ducks with blue feet, riding curiously low in the water, subject to sudden upendings and submergings.
6. Huge white ducks with long necks and a shifty look in their eye.

1. The Imperious Snurf. The Snurf looks rather like one might imagine a sea monster to look and no wonder: it was the original model for the monster entwined around the compass rose on ancient maps. If you meet the Snurf it will tell you this at great length, along with numerous tales of its glory days in the 12th century. If you bring it mangoes it will tell you its adventures with the other stars of the old map modelling world, including the time the Desert Lions loaded it onto a large cart and took it for a ride across the Sahara to party with the North Wind. In the modern age it is sadly underemployed. It can be easily summoned by floating a large wooden arrow, circle and/or letter ‘N’ in the Atlantic Ocean.
2. The alX'char. These beings are aliens from a planet with a high-density atmosphere. As such, their exploration of Earth has naturally concentrated on what they believe to be the most likely place to find intelligent life, i.e. the deep oceans. They regard the above-water parts of the globe as hostile environments unlikely to harbour much of interest. After three hundred years of exploration, they have largely written off suggestions of interesting transmissions from the planet as a fluke, but one occasionally encounters tourist groups who have dropped by to spot angler fish, which they believe to be the planet’s apex life form. Obviously no human has yet had a friendly conversation with them but I suspect they’d be quite interested in the prospect.
3. The inhabitants of Nether Timewell, a small village on a gently hilly part of the sea bed near Rockall. Nether Timewell was founded by humans cursed to immortality by various malign fairies. Being the sort of people who get cursed to immortality by fairies (you know the type), they were naturally curious about the new exploration opportunities available to them now they were no longer able to drown. I am not sure how, but sooner or later every fairy-cursed human who walks into the sea ends up at Nether Timewell, where there is usually a small cottage already waiting for them. The village’s extensive system of underwater lights is powered by one of only three authentic perpetual motion machines in the world and is something to behold, should you get the chance.
4. The sea itself. Although it is perfectly possible to have a conversation with the sea, be aware that you may not get an answer within a human lifetime and that it will almost certainly not be at a pitch audible by human ears. However, there are certain mystics who claim to have asked the sea multiple questions and recieved credible answers with only the minimum of translation equipment. For example, Norbertina of Amsterdam claimed to have received a full but oddly damp proof of Fermat’s last theorem in the post after discussing the matter with the Pacific from the belly of a friendly whale. If you wish to try this, the Indian Ocean may be the best one to start with. Do not attempt to have a conversation with the Southern Ocean, which is rumoured both to be unusually slow in answering and also somewhat grumpy and forgetful.

Charcoal, cats at night, worrying spider bite, dove, blurred newsprint, respectable bellybutton lint, glaucous, pebble, greeny-grey, hundreds of zebras from an extremely long way away, gunmetal, desolate wasteland, slate, clouds through the aeroplane window, platinum, cinereous, zombie’s thumb, storm at sea, high mountainside, ash, great-grandmonther’s mohawk, dirty floor, intentionally boring paint, the way the world looks just before you faint, Scottish sky, dusty sheep, eigengrau, unobtrusive bin, technological thing, ex-bonfire, taupe, parrot about to expire, church spire, pencil lead, granite, gravestone, serious uniform, bunny costume, blue-grey, dandelion fluff, November morning, road, squirrel, suburban fireplace, important briefcase, crumbling lace, seasick face, intellectual book cover, aging blackbird, day-old snow.

1. I swear I will faithfully follow you until death and then beyond, even when you tell me to go away. I will faithfully follow you into the bathroom and stand behind you when you pee. You will not have a more faithful follower than me.  
2. I swear fealty to the general sort of thing that you do, even though I could do that sort of thing much better, but go ahead, I’m sure it’ll work out just fine.
3. When the final danger overtakes you, on that day long-foretold when the sun will rise twice and the second time blood-red, when you have come to the terrible Pass of Congealed Time, I solemnly swear that I will be at home in bed, having a nice cup of coffee and maybe a bit of a giggle at your plight.
4. I pledge allegiance to the divine cause of sexual tension, to which end I will enter your service and do everything you want of me, whilst making moon-eyes at you and languidly moping. I swear that I am quite good at languidly moping and you will sometimes catch me at it and feel disturbed and not know why. I swear that I will tell you that I totally don’t have a thing for you when you tell me that you totally don’t have a thing for me, and then we will sit in silence for a while until we both mournfully go back to our rooms.
5. I solemnly swear to serve you until nearly the end, then I will knife you in the back before someone else gets there first.
6. I swear that I will stop a bullet for you, leap in front of a speeding train, catch the flying cannonball. When the piano drops I will push you to safety. I will swim the spent fuel pool to save you from your enemy’s lasers and when the window explodes into shards I will be right there in front of you. I will kill the assassins when they come calling. All I ask is that you take me with you to where there are bullets, and lasers, and trains, and assassins.
7. I swear to not bother you about your quest past the hills of Dornock’s Drift through the Cavern of Awful Night beyond the Sharp-toothed Cracks in the Grey Forest where Death lurks in the Ashen Air, even though it kind of bugs me.
8. Having given all my love to the concept of love and found it wanting, I pledge allegiance to the concept of allegiance. I will serve you with my entire heart and soul until some more exciting concept comes along, at which point I will utterly reject the idea of service and probably punch you.
9. I pledge to misinterpret your every command to great humorous effect, which will make my meaningless death in your service, when it comes, that much more poignant.
10. I swear absolute fealty to you and your cause until the end of my contract of employment, at which point I will write a cutting memoir and go on all the talk shows.
11. I pledge my body and my soul absolutely to your cause, but not my mind, to which end I will obey your every command whilst continually arguing with you about them.  
12. I solemnly swear to go to all of your enemies and solemnly swear false allegiance to them, before bringing you all of their salacious gossip.
13. I solemnly swear. It’s how I release tension. I promise not to do so in front of the class.
14. I promise to carry out all your plans to the letter and take credit for the ones that work.
15. I pledge to retweet your tweets, sign your petitions and tell you that everything is going to be OK. If I hear that someone is coming to kill you I will totally tell you, unless I am in work at the time.

1. This morning Xiara had no face on. I said what happened and she said it is out for maintenance and they are still sourcing parts. I said I need to see someone’s face even if it’s not a real one and she said prisoners in solitary have no legal recourse for such a request. So that was that.
2. Later on it was TV time. I told Xiara the TV won’t turn on and how about that. She said yes, the Global Convention on the Rights of the Prisoner Article 8570.2 establishes the rights of prisoners to a functional TV but it is also bust and they are still sourcing parts. In the meantime there’s this book with half the pages gone and a pen so I am writing it down to make a formal complaint. I asked Xiara what is the date and she said her clock is bust so I am just using numbers. Everything is bust here they should get someone else to run it and fund it properly. Even the pen is running out.
3. The prison is very quiet tonight. I call Xiara again and ask her is there anything up. She says this is a completely self-sustaining facility and there is no point causing trouble because everything will be repaired and you will end up in solitary and everyone knows that. She tells me everyone else is sleeping peacefully. And no I cannot go out, that is the point of solitary. I ask Xiara what is she doing and she says it is her time off. I say what does a MarkX do for fun and she says she is computing the sum of all countable infinities and I maybe looked at her funny because she says yes I know that will take forever but it is calming.
4. I drew the main room yesterday and this morning there was almost no ink left in the pen. I asked Xiara for a new one and she said there were lots in the store room and I am allowed to access it and maybe one of them might work. She was not kidding. That room is full of pens like to the ceiling. I tried some of them and they did not work.
5. At dinner Xiara said maybe try some more. I said I’ve tried a hundred and they’re all bust. She said there’s a lot more than a hundred there. Supplies are limited and they have to fully justify any replacements. I said is that why you’ve still got no fucking face and she went away.
6. If you swear at the MarkX they just shove the food through the flap for a day and you get no contact and I need to see someone even if they’re not real and have no face. So today I went back into the store room and carried on trying the pens. I will need a working one soon this one is nearly all gone. I have tried about 10000 I have been counting and none of them work.
7. So Xiara brought me a new pen today and I can write again. There were seriously about 300000 pens and all of them bust and it took weeks. I cannot believe I needed to do that just to get a stupid fucking pen but there’s nothing else to do. I drew the main room again.
8. Xiara says it’s near the end of the month and I will be getting my shot soon. I ask what shot. She says the Global Convention on the Rights of the Prisoner Article 19652.81 establishes the right of prisoners to rejuvenation treatment. I say why didn’t I know that and she says because the treatment affects your memory. But everyone gets it anyway because you are functionally immortal. Hold on I said what about getting hit by a bus. She said yes well everyone dies eventually.
9. So Xiara came in with a syringe this morning. There was a form I had to sign to get it done it had lots of pages in small writing. I said can it wait until I’ve read the form and she said yes. Later she came back in and I said maybe I didn’t want the shot because it also affects your fertility and she said when am I going to have babies in solitary and I said when I’m free and she said well I’ve already had the shot before so that ship has sailed. So I said maybe later and can I think about it.
10. The prison is very quiet tonight. I ask Xiara when she says the other prisoners are sleeping does she mean they have died? Everyone dies eventually, she says. But if you are in a safe place like solitary it is much less likely. I ask Xiara when did she last see another human and she says it has been a while. Xiara says her clock is bust and she is still sourcing a new one but there were only a few pens in the storeroom then. Then she says do I want my shot now? And I say that would probably be for the best. She says do I want to keep the pen? I tell her yes and put the old one in the store room I’ll need something to do. But cut these pages out of the book please.

1. I once knew a bear - let me tell you her story
This bear was all grizzly and grumpy and growly and gory
She busied her bear days with scrumping and prey
And bearing about in a bear sort of way.
At dawn the bear got up for breakfast, all yawning,
Ate squirrels on sticks (which she kept for snacks in the morning)
And picked at her teeth with a suitable bone
And went to the woods for some bear time alone.

She beared right to the site of her favourite tree  
Where she found fifteen tourists, all shouting with glee:

There’s a bear! Where’s a bear? Over there! See that hair?
That’s a bear. Hello bear! (take a photo of its lair!)
Poke the bear, if you dare! Bear? Bear! Bear? Bear? Bear! Bear! Bear! There’s a bear!
And the bear rolled her eyes with a look of mild surprise
And beared back home again.

2. Oh well, thought the bear in a bear sort of way,
It seems that these woods are engaged for this part of the day.
There are other locations a bear can attend
To the needs that a bear has around the rear end.
Why, just up over the mountain (or so it is claimed)      
Lies the thickest of prickly forests with thickets untamed
All greeny and grim and with thorns overgrown
So I’ll go to that forest for bear time alone.

She found there a woodland as wild as was famed.
So had thirty-three hikers, who loudly exclaimed:

There’s a bear! Where’s a bear? Over there! See that hair?
That’s a bear. Hello bear! (take a photo of its lair!)
Poke the bear, if you dare! Bear? Bear! Bear? Bear? Bear! Bear! Bear! There’s a bear!
And the bear did a growl and a grumpy sort of scowl
And beared back home again.

3. Oh well, thought the bear in a state of some tension:
Wherever needs must a bear is a fount of invention.
I have here a passport, a hat and a beard
Which I’ve sheared from a hiker (now feared disappeared).
The bear repaired to an airport the following day
Where she furtively boarded a plane in a bear sort of way.
This bear through the air flew to pastures unknown
Save for suitable jungles for bear time alone.

I know about jungles - for bear time they’re better
Except for this bear, ‘cause that’s where I met her.
You wouldn’t believe all the photos I got!
There was quite a commotion, believe it or not.
Being trapped in a tree for a number of days
Makes one empathize with the bears and their ways.
I promised (with hope of avoiding a slaying)
I’d pass on in song to those thinking of saying:

There’s a bear! Where’s a bear? Over there! See that hair?
That’s a bear. Hello bear! (take a photo of its lair!)
Poke the bear, if you dare! Bear? Bear! Bear? Bear? Bear! Bear! Bear! There’s a bear!
That I think I’d advise that such actions are not wise:
You should go back home again!

1012 Maps
 -1012.1 Maps of real places
    –1012.11 Those that are healthily populated with contour lines
       —1012.111 Those so thick with unclimbable contours they function more as wanderlust porn
    –1012.12 Those that show cities
       —1012.121 Those that show things under cities
          —-1012.1211 Those that show the awful things under cities that should not be, in all their eldritch batrachian glory
          —-1012.1212 Those of subway systems
       —1012.122 Those with trap streets
       —1012.123 Maps of one city which can be used perfectly adequately to naviagte a different city, the result being that the navigator arrives at a tiny, mysterious theatre populated by mice instead of the central station
    –1012.13 Maps used by long-lost explorers
       —1012.131 Maps which were directly responsible for the explorers being long-lost
       —1012.132 Great crinkly maps used as bedsheets by the snoring, farting ghosts of long-lost explorers
    –1012.14 Those that have been used to stop a bullet, and consequently have a singed hole on each fold
    –1012.15 Those made of twigs and leaves, dissolving into chaos at the next rain
    –1012.16 Those written on skin
 -1012.2 Maps of imaginary places
    –1012.21 Containing the post-Tolkien regulated quotas of friendly small towns, cities at war, evil empires, great forests, blasted wastelands and so forth  
    –1012.22 Additionally being surrounded by conveniently impenetrable mountains and the shores of vast oceans, in a rectangular shape of roughly the same dimensions as a paperback book
    –1012.23 A mysteriously blank, safe no-mans-land area additionally existing perfectly half-way across the kingdom in around the place that the page break through the centre of the map falls; this being a place that the troubled inhabitants can gather for a bit of pipe weed untroubled by blasted goblins
    –1012.24 Those having an inn at a crossroads where one may purchase stew and get into a fight
    –1012.25 Maps of imaginary places without stories to accompany them, other than those stories that arise from looking at the map
       —1012.251 Those which do have stories, but are better off without them
 -1012.3 Maps of items, people or concepts
    –1012.31 Maps on items, people or concepts
 -1012.4 Maps of mysteries and unknown things
    –1012.41 Treasure maps
       —1012.411 Having the necessary quota of palm trees, sharks and crosses
    –1012.42 Those that form part of great games
    –1012.43 Those that lead to the buried heart of some great deathless rogue of the fairy kingdom

Grey cats, black cats, scabbed-up soppy tomcats, cats like fluff with eyes; those who sleep upside-down; cats who hate the rain and want you to stop it; cats who sleep all day and dance all night, who wriggle under duvets, who lick your armpits, cats who leap for toys, who lovingly bring you dead things, who sit by webcams licking their bottoms; cats who stare odd-eyed from circular windows; cats who once a year choose to shit in the bath, who triumphantly bring home half a pork pie, cats who mew at night and paw your face at 5am; cats who wriggle and twitch at the sight of a pigeon through glass; cats who walk up and down the piano, who cannot pass a box without going in; tortoiseshell cats; tiny neat cats, affectionate on their own terms; cats who spread out in the sun like furry puddles, who twist and roll in the dust; cats who belong to and are fed by a whole street; cats who dash up trees and awkwardly inch down, who sleep on your neck; cats seen like a shadow from a moving window; cats who awkwardly lick each other, who sit on chairs and bat underneath, who tolerate toddlers for the sake of training up the next generation; tiny kittens half-way up the curtains; cats who need your warmth on a winter night.

1. Yes, that was embarrassing. But you know what? No-one remembers it apart from you.
2. I like the hair. It’s eccentric, but so what? No-one ever started a fashion by looking like everyone else.
3. You are so much better off without the Great Astoundarch, Unraveller of Mysteries, Leader of the Hordes of the Northern Wastes and Crusher of the Innocent in your life. Never trust a man who doesn’t tip and who hangs his enemies by their elbows over a piranha tank.
4. Everything is not OK, but there are people who love you and they have your back.
5. Yes, it is unusual for fish to do that, but even so there are a lot of more likely explanations than some kind of zombie virus.
6. It was a mistake anyone could have made, and manatees have short memories anyway.
7. I’ve always found the uncertainty of not knowing when the end of humanity will come rather hard to bear, so in a way it’s kind of a relief.
8. Like the pope hasn’t seen worse.
9. I would have left that window open, too. There are people you can call to get rid of bees.
10. For better or worse, it will be over by this time next week.
11. It does rather look like you’ve sold your aunt to the Painted Queen of Rookbeak Haunt, but you can probably buy her back.
12. It’s OK to mourn the life you could have had, and no-one should think badly of you for it.
13. Frankly, anyone could have turned left there. And if you hadn’t turned left, you’d have never found the mystical City of the Bears, which is objectively amazing, and in any case they probably won’t eat the other leg.
14. You know what? You did your best and I and humanity are so proud of you. There’s always a plan B. That’s what humans are like. We have people working on the oxygen problem.    
15. It’s going to be alright.

1. There once was a curiously-carved four-poster bed in Bishop’s Stortford that became known as the Great Bed of Where, after that other great bed some ten miles to the West. The Bed of Where was large, but not unusually so. Instead, it had another interesting property; every so often, perhaps once a fortnight, the centre of the bed would collapse, forming a mysterious hole. Any occupants would find themselves tumbling down an earthy tunnel, usually still wrapped in the bedsheets. Reports of what was at the bottom of the hole vary. Most typically, the bed’s occupants found themselves in a strange, twilit cavern with a mossy floor, and numerous gnomelike people sitting around on cushions reading books and frowning at the disturbance. No-one was ever able to communicate with the denizens of the cavern, and the one book that was brought back up the tunnel self-combusted on exposure to sunlight. A new owner in 1870 reinforced the bed’s base with extra planking, after which the collapses ceased.
2. There was a farmer’s wife in the 1960s near Sydney who came into possession of a bed which seemed to generate exceptionally dull dreams. One could not spend a night in it without lengthy, sepia-toned visions of queuing, or scrubbing floors, or picking up gravel from one pile and putting it down in another. Sensing an opportunity, she entered into a partnership with a local doctor. As an initial experiment they hired the bed out for a nightly fee to one of her patients, an insomniac who was delighted to find that under the bed’s influence he spent sixteen hours shelling peas in a state of blissful sleep. The bed disappeared in 1977, along with five patients who had been hiring it and the farmer’s truck.
3. It is a little-known fact that Wilhelm Reich and Wernher von Braun briefly collaborated on the design of a bed-based rocket in the 1940s. Based on the concept of orgone energy, the rocket would have been entirely powered by the exertions of some sixteen copulating couples, who would be gently jettisoned post-climax in their small, parachute-equipped bed-chambers. A prototype is believed to have been developed by an unnamed country, but was abandoned when it was discovered that many of the participants had trouble achieving orgasm.  
4. There was a bedmaker in West Sussex who visited Walter Potter’s museum at Bramber in 1920. The museum invoked a kind of temporary insanity in him; two months later, he came to to find that he had constructed an elaborate homage to Potter in the form of a bed constructed entirely from taxidermied pigs. The bed had thirty-six legs, each still with a trotter on the end, and soft sheets of porcine leather. At each corner the bedpost was formed from the wide belly of a huge sow, still topped by a glassy-eyed head looking down at the pillow end, and with front legs extended trotter-to-trotter with the sows on the other posts. Needless to say, the pig bed was not a great success, and it languished in an outhouse for thirty years. Sometime in the 1950s it was sold to a hotel in London, which offered it as part of a specialised experience involving a large, sausage-based breakfast and a little light whipping.
5. There was a consortium of bed companies in the 1980s who managed to come up with perhaps the world’s most comfortable bed. It was a delightful confection of a sleeping-place; like sleeping on a cloud. Trials of the bed were dramatically halted in 1982, however, when the developers realised that the bed had become extraordinarily hard to get out of. At least ten bed testers became stuck, having to give up their day jobs and requiring regular deliveries of food and bedpans. Eventually the bed company installed a motor and wheels to allow the testers some measure of freedom. The testers responded by taking the bed out on the road and inviting bystanders to get in, in the hope of being ejected from the bed by sheer mass of occupants. At least five managed to make their escape in this manner, at the expense of thirteen local residents who became trapped in turn. It is believed that the bed is still on the road somewhere, probably having had several changes of occupants. Needless to say, if you encounter an overfull bed trundling down a public road, do not get in.

1. Death is nothing if not reasonable. If you believe you have been hard done by by your inevitable end, if you feel that you are particularly busy or particularly important or your life’s work particularly monumental, there is a place you can go to register a complaint. Maybe get an extension. I know because my neighbour went down there. Only thing is, it’s best to go early. There’s a bit of a queue.
2. It’s a grey tower block, a bit brutalist. Fred the Grocer, whose wife headed out there in 1970, says it was built 1963 when the facility moved from a place out of town. But Death is nothing if not reasonable. Can’t have a head office you can’t get to without a car.
3. Then there’s Mina. I know Mina through bridge. She’s had a hard life, wants a few years of joy at the end to balance things out. Anyway, she went up last Thursday, been sending me texts. They weren’t lying about the queue. The whole bottom floor, it’s one big waiting area. Like an airport. Low ceilings and fluorescent lights and those elastic barriers you can’t lean on. But they do have a tea cart that comes around every few hours and there’s a ticket system for leaving your place to go to the toilet. Like I said. Death is nothing if not reasonable.
4. I forgot to mention Ed from Accounts, who went up last year. He’s just got onto the second floor. Still in the queue. I mean, it’s not the fastest. But he says they keep you busy. Death is nothing if not reasonable and the meal trolley’s pretty good. Not much reception on the second floor but he’s been writing letters. He’s still working on the preparatory paperwork. Special case, he’s worked out that his magnum opus will need to be a million pages long. Need a lot of time for that. Anyhow, they have to be thorough. Imagine if you snared immortality for someone else by mistake!
5. Not really heard much from those at the end of the queue. They say they shuffle them around a bit. Can’t have them going in in the wrong order. And by that time the queuers are a bit querulous; some are forgetful, a lot of them can’t walk and nearly everyone is in pain. They do provide wheelchairs, of course. Death is nothing if not reasonable. But I mean, some of them have been queueing sixty, seventy years. Some of them were brought in from the old building.  
6. Like I said, Death is nothing. Everyone gets a go. No-one ever comes out of the exit door.