November 2000
Friday. Somewhere in Wiltshire.
It all started so well. Timed to perfection we met at the station and
set off: Chicken, Pippin (Cox's Orange?) - I bet it wasn't a Granny
Smith?, Ish and Rhona (no - I told you, names have been changed - it
obviously isn't THAT Rhona, but a completely different one who is
totally fictional, OK?). Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night, rain
lashed down and thunder crashed around the station...or was that a
train, its so hard to tell these days.
We set off to search the sprawling metropolis for the roaring, smoking
monsters of the night which were to transport us far across the barren
wastes of the foreign lowlands (now know as...Belgium), e'en through the
evil infested, cavern riddled hive of grime named after a rotting excuse
for a cabbage (whose family ever after were ashamed). Twice, in one
case.
Then there was the whole 8 seater with 7 seats, roof box with no key,
wrong names on the paperwork thing...but we'll skip that scene, and the
traffic jam thing, and move ahead to...
Friday : An Ale House in London
The group of travellers gathered, optimistic about the great journey
ahead of them, and drank a farewell glass to their native land. And a
number of other lands in some case. The company was complete, well, as
complete as it was going to be in this country. Added to the throng were
Rocky, Major, Minor, Theory of Evolution though Natural Selection
currently thought of as inaccurate and better explained in terms of
differential reproduction although there's quite a lot of disagreement
about that and Dawkins has got it wrong too you know but he gets
published anyway, Mother, Chunder, Blue String Pudding, Neanderthal and
some other git from somewhere that isn't Ipswich because the names of
places have been changed too.
{
summary of scene yet to be written:
Chariots speeding though the night under an orange glow. At last come to
the sea and board a vast gleaming liner, with a luxurious interior and
food and drink flowing freely. OK - so along with the characters and the
places, the facts have also be adjusted a bit.
}
A foreign land : Saturday (rather early, or late)
That was a weird tunnel, and I think someone had been playing with
gravity. Escaped unscathed, though scathing.
The same foreign land : Saturday (later still, but still early)
Through closed eyes I see West German skies on the ceiling. Others, well
to be honest I don't know as I was asleep, but they were still there
when I woke up.
Still in the same foreign land: Saturday (yet later still, less early, bordering on the not early at all)
Pimp and Escort arrrive and escape injury. Tours of the area done and
local 'amenities' found but not all sampled. Await the coming of
night...
...which arrived.
City in Foreign Land: Saturday night (late, but early for being late)
An evening of revelry commences. The weary travellers, refreshed, set
out to make a mark on the city. Turned away from an inviting hostelry,
they find their way into a cavernous dungeon, echoing with cries in a
harsh unfamiliar tongue...or maybe that was just the dog? Anyway, there
was much ale and food, and more ale brought to the great table by the
barrel. Eventually, when all else had deserted the place, the travellers
ventured into the dark night once more, evading the shadowy guardians of
the city to scale the crystal heights (and give them a good clean with
their arses on the way down). Escaping the lure of the sirens calling to
(some of) them from high windows and doorways, some more by lack of
plastic than judgement, they reached the refuge of their lodgings and
awaited the return of day.
The Foreign City in the Foreign land: Sunday (too early)
Surprisingly lacking in the scourge of the overdangled, 15 made it to
the cellars of their lodgings, Chicken having completely failed to pay
for the breakfasts. For a moment, they thought they were trapped as the
drawbridge failed to let them pass, but in the end into the dawn, which
in true Cutler fashion gleamed like mercury, afraid to come up, they
emerged and headed to meet their destiny.
A corner of a foreign field, which shall remain forever England, unless
someone finds Neanderthal's camera: Sunday (a bit late)
It is an ancient Bungineer,
And he quaffeth one or three.
By his short grey beard and glittering eye,
There's no sobriety.
The Heli-doors are opened wide,
And loud we hear the din
The ropes are set, the height is met :
(Just another gin?)
He counts him with his skinny hand,
There was a bridge, quoth he.
Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye--
The gathered guests stood still,
And watched as like the few before
The Bungineer then fell.
Ooops - sorry about that, but its given me a really bad idea for a
sequel. Anyway, the clouds parted and the sun shone through...sort of
away to the left and behind some cloudy things. The challenge was laid
down and for a worrying moment we though it was to be met, but all that
rained down from above was a short-lived photgraphic device and a scarf.
Ish stood his ground and refused to be dictated to by gestures from some
foreign chappie, and leapt into the sky only when shouted at - seemed to
enjoy it quite well though. Mother even smiled a bit. Pimp had himself
filmed doing it from more than one angle. Chicken herded everyone into
the transport and we all buggered off.
Final Scene (compressed due to overrunning budgets, and no doubt
re-done some years later in somewhere cheap like New Zealand):
Zoom. Sploosh. Whishh. Slurp. Yurch. Screech. Flash. Ooops. Sploosh
(several times). Snore.
Dean also wrote his own report on this trip which is available on his own amazing web site.
PHOTOS
