The Cat in the Hat

There's this cat, one of those dismal looking ones, like a black and brown rorschach blot - the type that go invisible in the twilight. I guess some would describe it as my cat except that it's not my cat. It's just that it happens to live at my house, shed hair all over my furniture and shit in a box in my hall. I'm not one hundred percent certain how it has come to pass that a cat is living at my house but I'd stake the juicier portion of my life that one of the women I live with had something to do with it. I tried being friends with the cat for a bit (only because the women I live with kept saying that there must be something wrong with me if I don't like the cat) but the two times I let it sit on my knee while I was watching Scrapheap Challenge, the cat started making this engine noise and then dug its claws into my legs. It's always skulking around too, trying to get back into the house whenever I throw it out. It's less agile now since I hit it with the shovel. Now the left side of its head is all flat and the right side bulges out like the front of a zeppelin. I had to tell the women I live with that it had been stood on by the neighbour's horse but they were so livid and put their coats on to go give him a piece of their minds even though it was lashing rain out that I had to say that it might have been someone elses horse that was just in the area because there was no-one riding it and it didn't have a collar or a name written on its side or anything. They calmed down a little then and I made them some tea and warmed some milk for the cat. His one good eye kept watching me and the women I live with said I was good to make the warmed milk for the cat. I didn't go with them to the vet the next morning but apparently he had a good look at the cat and said that it is very unusual that a horse would stand on the cat but that maybe it happened by accident because those types of cat go invisible in the twilight. The vet said that the cat's entire brain had actually been dislodged six centimetres to the right and it was this that was causing the unseemly bulge. The vet has since made a little aluminium hat for the cat which he has to wear over the flat side of his head as apparently the skull is now dangerously soft and discontinuous where the horse got him. I put him out of the house more than ever now because I don't like the way he looks at me with his one good eye and also because he tends to veer left when he walks and the brim of his little metal hat gouges the wallpaper. I have to be careful to close all the windows once he's out or he gets straight back in again and I usually only realise when I hear him scraping along the walls. Things aren't much better once he's outside either as he generally comes and sits at the window watching me watching Scrapheap Challenge with his one good eye. The worst of it is that his little metal hat interferes with the reception something awful and I have to watch the action through a jumping mess of snow and bits of some Welsh soap opera. Apparently this will no longer be a problem once we make the big switchover to digital television in October. Everything's going to be better then. Imagine - hundreds of TV channels at the touch of a button. Apparently there's even going to be a Scrapheap Challenge channel. That'll be great for the cat, his one good eye can watch it through the window and there'll be no signal disruption or anything. It'll probably do him the world of good seeing unlikely successes being cobbled together from broken old detritus and bits of metal. I feel like we're all in that boat a bit these days. I should tell the cat about uncertainty principle. Put him in a box and tell him that he'll be either alive or dead when I close the lid but that I won't know which until I open it. Pretend that it's a little game, then I can tape the box up and drive out somewhere remote and leave it, alone, neither dead nor alive. Yeah, I feel like we're all in that boat a bit these days.

Gold Rush

It's been totally bananas here in work the last few weeks. We'd barely cleaned up the mess after Nuther Bono and his shower when we had another visitor. I think it may be that, as a high profile, cutting edge scientific research facility, we're something of a draw for arty types and people who want to be the subject of dinner-party conversations but we really do get some odd fuckers through the door. So, this latest hero - Rodney was his name, Rodney Roughbuckles from the Andromeda galaxy nonetheless. There I was, eating a fishpaste sandwich in the canteen when he materialises right on top of the subsidised buffet. I nearly shit I got such a fright. There he was, with his grey-green face and this wierd big nose and long bony fingers, flailing around in the cold meats and coleslaw. Well, security heard the racket and we very quickly got him out of the quiche and into quarantine. He looked kind of frightened as we locked him up in the hyperbaric, isolation chamber so I decided to pay him a visit - bring him some grapes and a few Beanos kind of thing. Anyway, I sat in beside him on the small bunk and as I was trying to figure out how best to communicate with him he just comes straight out and calls me a "cunt". I'm still gaping at him in disbelief when he launches another barrage of expletives my direction.
"How's it goin' Burgess y' fuckin' prick? It's fuckin' gift t' be here ah jaysus I'd kill for a rum n'
black an' some bleedin' Johnny Blue y' hairy fuckin' moose-knuckle!"

"Here, calm down you green psycho, what's with all the attitude?" I counter, trying to retain some semblance of dignity.

"Wha'? Wha's the bleedin' problem outspan, ine onlee bleeedin' sayin'?!"

Suddenly I recognised the pattern and, upon further investigation, discovered that Rodney Roughbuckle's people had learned of our planet's existence through an intercepted broadcast of "The Complete Works of Roddy Doyle - Books on Tape" from which they had also learned the rudiments of the English language. Once that little cultural hiccup had been overcome we got along swimmingly and had a good laugh about the chance conicidence that the first being he should meet with upon the planet earth would be its only living sasquatch (yours truly).

Anyway, it was at about this time that Rodney excused himself to use the facilities but assured me that he would be but a moment. After thirty minutes I felt it prudent to check on him and I received an embarrassed muttering in response to my furtive knock. I stood outside for a further two minutes, listening to the toilet flush, refill and flush again and eventually I had to insist upon being allowed inside. Poor old Rodney, his khaki coloured face was positively blue with embarassment as he impressed upon me how he never expected that our earth toilets would be incapable of dealing with his alien ugly-business.

Then my jaw hit the floor. The majesty. The pure, shining, unblemished allure and tantalising promise of the thing. "It's gold!" I gasped. Rodney cast embarressedly back over his shoulder at the glistening nugget, in size as big as a toddler's head, that was fully occupying the porcelain bowl, having displaced most of the water over the sides. "Did that come out of you?" I asked in disbelief.
Rodney looked at me a little worriedly. "Gold? It's fuckin' shite to me pal. Seems to have bust yer jax too but sure never mind, you can get yer aul wan to clean it out, it'll be graaannd, lez gerra jayzus pint afore I die a d thirst."
"I'll be out to you in a minute Rodney" I murmured, indicating that he should wait outside. As soon as I was alone, I grabbed a towel from the rail, and wrapping my hand in it I prodded the giant lump in the toilet. It was hard enough for gold. With a grunt I lifted it out - heavy enough for gold. Checking that Rodney was out of sight I gave it the old bite test. It was gold alright - about 8 kilos - this was hard to credit.

In hindsight, I'm a little ashamed of how I acted, smuggling Rodney's bum gold away to my dormitory. Bringing him out every night for Guinness and Kebabs and keeping plenty of fibre in his diet. In two weeks I had earned a year's salary from Rodney's dragon-eggs but I was beginning to feel the strains of guilt as we became closer and closer friends. What was I to do though? Everywhere we look these days we're being told how nothing is a solid investment with the exception of gold. "Gold always holds its value" is the catch-cry. It turns out I was wrong though. It turns out that when a mothership arrives carrying half a million aliens, all of whom can shit a solid 50 kilos of gold a week and who need somewhere to 'dump' it, gold really does turn out to be pure crap. Of course, the international markets couldn't tolerate such a thing and so The US Government, JP Morgan, the Jewish Conspiracy, Colonel Sanders, U2 and the Pope in lizard form intervened and authorised the use of Jupiter as a landfill. Needless to say I was found out and my gold taken from me and given to Rupert Murdoch in exchange for his various newspapers' silence on the involvement of global politicians in child sex trafficking. And that's how the world turns - all your suspicions are actually correct.

"Ah well," I thought "what use is gold anyway?" or as my fine friend Rodney Roughbuckles observed,
"Y' can't fuck it, can't ate it and y' can't drink i' til yer fuckin' sick!"

Dumpty Part 2 of 2

Continued from here with some reference to here and, as usual, all science bits and allusions historic and religious are true, correct and verifiable etc etc...

"Dumpty? No, it can't be!" Dr Gruman Grumbles, the closest to the hideous form on the screen staggered backward in fear and shock, his wrinkled hand pressed to his breast.

The toxicly coloured spectre rolled its little eyes and pulled faces at us from the screen.

"What is it?" hissed La Suite.

"It is Dumpty!" confirmed Dr Grumbles in a tremulous voice. "It is negative energy, coalescing in a tangible form - becoming matter essentially. Mathematically it is expressed as 'Dumpty' or the 'Ghost Coefficient'. Sometimes scientific mavericks, mathematical outcasts include it in quantum equations to account for spukhafte Fernwirkung, spooky action at a distance. For the most part we try not to speak of it. To see it take form like this - I tremble to consider the implications for this world, for the human race!"

It was then that the lights, the screens, the hissing loudspeakers, dials and meters, everything went black. Panicked cries and whimpers of fear spread through the total darkness of the room. I could feel bodies tensing around me but within moments the initial terror passed as the emergency lighting was triggered, an eery red glow that threw the features of those around me into  lurid relief.

Suddenly, the muffled thud of an explosion from somewhere overhead and the panic returned.

"Quickly!" Declared Captain La Suite charging into the corridor outside, closely flanked by his men and the tweed-clad figure of Robert Langdon. As one, I and the other scientists followed, after all, this was our high-tech underground facility. Along curving corridors and up flight after flight of concrete steps we charged until we could hear the sounds of commotion clarify into articulate voices.

"No way, I can't believe it, my wife's never going to believe this!" distinct words were drifting down the corridor to us now. "Can I just say - I loved Rattle and Hum! I haven't bothered with anything you did since then but Rattle and Hum - loved it..."

As we came thundering around the corner everyone slid to a halt. One of a group of security guards stepped through the pall of still settling dust and scattered rubble, debris from the gaping hole that had been blown in the facility's outer wall

"It's okay, it's all okay. We thought we were under attack but it was just U2 making a big entrance!"

The dust cleared enough for us to make out the four figures, silhouetted by sunlight and striking defiant poses in the haze of floating particles. Bono, The Edge and the other two.

"No!" I gasped, backing away.

"Heeeeyyyy, looook guuuuyyyys," droned Bono whimsically before blowing into the dust sending a playful little vortex streaming through it "I'm a paaaaarrrrticle acceleraaaatooorrrr!"

The last thing I saw before I turned tail and ran was Bono pulling the tight woollen bonnet from The Edge's head, exclaiming "Heeeyyyy The Edge, let your haaaiiirrr dowwwn!" Then the screaming started.

I fled headlong down the corridors trying to make sense of everything that was happening. The appearance of Dumpty, Langdon's conjecture about the involvement of clandestine organisations, Les Hommes de la Nuit and CHIPS and now the sudden appearance of U2 and with them the horrifying spectre of Nuther Bono, that demented and deformed foetal head-gnome, living parasitically on the back of The Edge's stoic and long-suffering noggin.

Through the dull red glow of CERN's winding corridors I plunged, headed for its inner sanctum and the master control system of the facility's raison d'etre, its particle accelerator. Behind me I could hear mangled snatches of warbled song reverberate off the cold concrete of the walls.
"M luff shhh thows me lak wubber ball - woooooarrnngh, swittist thng..."
Nuther Bono had started singing. That terrible sound, like pigs having sex in a draining bathtub. He was enjoying himself.
"Shhh wnt cutsh m win aaaanngh m fall - woooooarrnngh, swittist thng..."
Faster I hurtled, skidding around corners until reaching a large, steel door, I swiped my card and fell panting inside. The three scientists in the room watched with apprehension as I got to my feet. Doctor Max Beta, chief operator; Hermann Nibelungenlied, whizzbang controller and the beautiful yet darkly mysterious Doctor Scarlet Auburn, whose function at CERN I was never clear on but who certainly adds a necessary frisson of sexual energy to the place.
"It's Nuther Bono," I gasped at the three "He's back!"
The horror in their faces mirrored my own. Pushing past them I made for the main control panel and brought up a remote feed of sector 17.
"Holy Moly!" "Kualalumpur!" "Sweet sunny dildos!" The usual chorus of shock and awe rolled around as the maniacally gurning visage of Dumpty filled the screen.
"Gott in Himmler, ees zat vos I sink eet ees?" asked Dr Nibelungenlied "Zees ees inkredible!"
"It's Dumpty!" I exclaimed, gathering myself and using a system override to secure the door through which I had just come. "Dr Guy Bahgg died to warn us of this. I think he believed there was a possibility that it would fall into the wrong hands."
"You speak of Dumpty as if it were a technology" cut in Dr Beta, "but Dumpty is more entity than object. It won't simply be used or controlled, there must always be a bargain. In any hands Dumpty is bad but in some worse than others. You said Nuther Bono was here? He would be the worst!"
"There are others who seek it too - CHIPS and Les Hommes de la Nuit. They are coming!" I declared, my panic racing my words.
A knowing look passed between Beta and Nibelungenlied that I felt I understood. "They're already here aren't they?!" I added.
Beta nodded. "Les Hommes de la Nuit, at least. I am the Grand Arch-Biscuit-Grignoteur of the brotherhood and Dr Nibelungenlied here is undersecretary to the vice-treasurer." Beta must have read the flash of fear in my face for he moved to assuage me. "Do not fear my hirsute friend, we do not seek to possess or control Dumpty but merely to contain it. Perhaps you can help us."
"What about Doctor Auburn?" I asked, my suspicions not yet at ease.
Beta glanced across at Dr Scarlet Auburn who was leaning against a control panel, rolling a cocktail cherry across her pursed lips.
"Dr Auburn's role in this I am not entirely clear upon but she certainly adds a necessary frisson of sexual energy to proceedings... So, will you help us?"
"What do you need from me?" I asked, drawn along by the heady cocktail of international intrigue and Dr Auburn's steamy 'come-to-bed' glances.
"Right!" Dr Beta exclaimed, clapping his hands together before moving aside a canvas screen that had been concealing a perfect montage. Twenty-seven seconds of music and clever editing later and I knew exactly what was to be done. With Doctor Auburn cose upon my heels, I dashed out of the control room, headed for sector 16. Even as I ran I could hear just how close Nuther Bono was behind me. Beta and Niebelungenlied would have to hold the control room without me - I had to make it to the manual override auxiliary cutoff protection manual service valves if I was to have any hope of trapping the dreaded Dumpty in a temporal loop within the accelerator before blowing him back to 1983 with the explosives and detonator that I clutched in my hands.
It seemed however that Dumpty's consciousness was growing as, ahead of us, jets of boiling steam began to vent directly across our path. We would have to find another way through. Racing back we realised, too late, that we were trapped as the great, yellow-spectacled shadow of Bono loomed large upon the wall, curving away ahead of us.
"Heyyyyyyy, come on The Eeeeedge. Bring the Nuther Bono up heeerrrrre and we'll seeeeeee where that big old Sasquatch was galloping off tooooo."
Bono's voice drifting up to us gave weight to my worst fears. Not only were they coming this way but they were trying to catch me. Frozen to the spot in terror, I realised I was done for when, suddenly, a tiny figure dropped from the service pipes overhead.
"What the hell are you?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"I am CHIPS!" the little form said calmly.
"But you're chips!" I blurted out.
"That is what I said!" he replied, giving me a level stare.
"No, you're a bag of fucking chips - I can even see where your grease has made your white paper all see-through!"
I felt I might be teetering on the edge of sanity at this point but the little bag of fried potato bits remained cool.
"I am here to help. 'When the chips are down we are there' - it is the mantra of my people. Go now, use the ventilation shafts, you must stop Dumpty, go. Do not let my sacrifice have been in vain."
Without needing further encouragement, I hauled the cover of the airduct to which CHIPS had glanced back in time to see him go prone upon the floor and then I heard Bono's voice
"Aaaaa niiiice one, chips, I was bleeeedin' staaaarrrrrving. Heeeeey, Nuther Bono, you gotta try one of these, they're Leo Burdocks."

The diversion had worked well and Doctor Auburn and I made our way by stealth to sector 16. Dropping down from an open air vent, we found ourselves right next to the substation control room. Within seconds I was at a workstation, frantically rerouting power out of the vicinity. When I gave her the signal, Auburn threw the levers on the MOAPMS valves and sector 16 was safely locked down.

We had to be extremely careful now. Somehow, we had to make our way through sector 17 without being detected by Dumpty. Only by reaching sector 18 could we successfully complete the temporal isolation process. As quietly as I could, I unsealed the access hatch to sector 17 and stepped inside. With all power now diverted away from the area, it should have been pitch dark and yet a sickly green glow pulsed across every surface. Its nauseating throb was coming directly from the viewing portals set into the sides of the accelerator's massive, electromagnetic detectors.
"Whatever you do," I whispered in Auburn's ear "do not look into those windows and do not let Dumpty see you". Auburn nodded slowly, a strange look in her eyes.
On tiptoe, I crept along the gangway, ducking my head below the level of the viewing portals as I passed each one. Halfway along the length of accelerator, I paused to attach the plastic explosives to the steel surface before silently continuing. Though this section of corridor was only about 10 metres long, it seemed to take an age to traverse. As I finally reached the thick steel door at the far end, I turned and to my absolute horror saw Doctor Auburn staring, transfixed, through the thick glass of a portal, straight into the malignant, unblinking visage of Dumpty.
"Doctor Auburn, No!" I screamed but it was too late, as one both she and Dumpty turned their gaze upon me. When Auburn's mouth opened it was no longer her voice that came out but a high piercing, wordless whine that was agonising to hear. Clamping my hands over my ears, I fell to my knees and knew that I must act fast or be finished. Too late I realised that I had left the detonator in sector 16, it was over. The deaths of my colleagues, Auburn's suffering, the selfless sacrifice of a sentient bag of chips were all for nought, Dumpty had won. As I knelt with my eardrums throbbing, I saw the door to sector 16 open and Bono step through followed by The Edge and his creepy cranial companion. Horror upon horror - this was precisely what I had been trying to prevent. Perhaps surprised by this new intrusion, Dumpty cut off its screech and turned to look at Bono.
"Heeeeyyyyyy guuuyyyyyys, look at the funny little pink fellaaaaa. Nooooo waaaayyyyy, he looks a bit like Larry Mullen's mickeyyyyyy!"
As Bono went on and on and on in that way of his I gaped in wonder at what he was holding - the detonator. Was providence on my side?
"Psst, Bono!" I psssted him. "That thing you're holding - don't drop it." I implored him.

Looking at me puzzedly through his tinted, yellow wraparounds he replied
"Heeeeyyy, you're that saaaaasquatch we've beeeeeeen chaaaaasing - heeeeyyyy looook guys, didn't I tell youse he looks just like Ali's muff-thatch."

"The thing you're holding - whatever you do don't drop it." I repeated

"This thiiiing? Whaaaaat issss iiit?" he replied.

"It's a detonator. Don't drop it."

"A Detonatooorrrrrr? Heeeeyyyyy, look at meeeee The Edge, I'm dropping the Det..."

KAAAABLOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEOOOOOOOOOO

Realising what was about to happen a split second beforehand I had fallen through the blast-proof door and into sector 18 just as the detonator had hit the ground. The massive explosion had slammed the door on my heels and my last glimpse of the room beyond was the incandescent flare of raging death that would've have reduced everyone and everything within its range to smoke and ash, contained as it was within such a small space.

So that was that. Hopefully that's the last we'll hear from all of that shower and we might get back to unravelling the secrets of the physical universe and finding out what it is that women really want and all that shit.

McGuffin

If you give this man a ride he'll stiff you on the fuel bill

It is six in the morning, on route to a meeting navigating the crater strewn boreens of rural Ireland when I see him. A tall, strongly built  fellow thumbing a lift by the side of the road. We're in the middle of nowhere here so I do the decent thing and pull in. I watch as he folds himself into the passenger seat, carefully balancing a black, brass-clasped briefcase across the knees of his well-tailored pinstripe suit. I am struck now by the total anomaly of this man, well-fed, well-groomed, extraordinarily well-turned out and hitching a lift on a dark October morning on a mud spattered country road half way between hell and who-knows-where. He thanks me and I tell him "No Problem" and often enough that would be it but it appears that I've picked up a talker for he immediately introduces himself as McGuffin, originally from the little village of Ballyhaise in county Cavan. I'm not about to encourage this sort of outpouring but it wouldn't matter because he's found his flow without any help from me. He tells me how he was a poorly child with congenital cataracts but that he overcame it with perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit. He tells me how he was once a simple farmer but that overcame it with perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit. He tells me that he'd once known the love of a good woman but overcame it with perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit.
"I'm a man of the people, a good man!" he tells me with such forceful earnestness that for the first time I take a good look at his face. His head and neck seem as one, as if someone had shoved a giant finger up through an expensive pinstripe suit and carefully drawn some features at the centre of the fingerprint. Two eyes, a nose and a lipless mouth closely clustered in the middle of that moony expanse of sausage-meat coloured head. In fact his jawline appears to be defined as much by his shirt collar as by anything else.
"A man of the people," he repeats. "A man like you!"
I'm a little taken aback at this pronouncement and feel that I should say something.
"I beg your pardon Mister McGuffin, but how do you mean that you are like me?"
"It's just McGuffin actually." He responds. "A man of the people, a daysint man; a man like you, just making his way; a plumber man, a builder man, a man in a van on a basic wage overcoming things with perseverence and entrepreneurial spirit."
He carries on in this vein for a while and I just keep driving. He tells me that he's been in politics but that he's not a political man; that he's been a successful business owner but that he's a basic wage man; that he likes to keep moving, putting down no roots but that he's a heart of the community man.

This incessant monologue starts to sound more and more like a sales pitch and so it comes as little surprise when he hits me with the rub.

"I don't suppose I could interest a daysint man like yourself" he begins "a working man, a man of the people, a plumber man, a builder man, a man in a van, a potential business man in a little investment opportunity? It's a dead cert and I'd be letting you in on the ground floor, guaranteed return on investment for the right man with entrepreneurial vision man!"

A sharp click punctuates the end of this pitch and I glance across to see that he has released the highly polished brass latches on the shining, black leather briefcase in his lap. He opens it just a crack and an extraordinary and beautiful golden light gushes out and I'm sure that I hear the edge of far off song, lustrous, buxom sirens singing me onward. The lid snaps shut and McGuffin arches an eyebrow at me.
"Free to those who can afford!" he declares mysteriously.
I drive along in silence for a minute, acutely aware of McGuffin's gaze boring into me, weighing me up as a man, sizing me up as prey.
"What's the initial investment amount?" I ask, conscious of the quaver of trepidation in my voice.
"A small price." he replies, reaching inside his jacket and producing a folded sheet of paper. "The details are in this simple contract. Of course you can read it if you like but to be honest, from one daysint working man to another, I wouldn't bother. It's just minor details - T's & C's and whatnot."
"So what's the amount?" I repeat a little more assertively
"To a daysint man like yourself, a potential working business investment man? A trifling price, such a little thing - shall we say your mortal soul?"
The car veers as I whip my head around to look at him and I my heart beats wildly as I struggle to regain control. When I look again at McGuffin he appears to be appraising me with a slightly sinister, amused expression like a wicked child with a bag of kittens and a bonfire.
"The price is too high for you I think." The gap of his mouth curls into a sneer, goading me on.
"No, it's not that, it's just I didn't realise that my soul was viable tender." I am trying to remain calm.
"Then simply sign here." McGuffin has the contract laid upon his briefcase beside me. I take the pen from his clawlike hand and make my mark without even slowing the car.
"You can keep the pen if you like." McGuffin offers with an air of unconvincing magnanimity.
I thank him and glance at the pen - it appears to be a cheap and nasty affair from the 2006 Fianna Fáil Árdfheis.

"Ah, it appears that we have reached my destination, you can just let me out here." McGuffin announces. "Isn't it wonderful how good company makes the road so much shorter! Just here will do."
"But this is the Áras!" I reply realising where we are.
"Indeed it is boss, indeed it is. I'll be seeing you in seven years then." and with a wink and a little pat of the briefcase which he has left in the passenger seat, I watch as McGuffin strides away into the early light of dawn, his black cape billowing behind him, casting a long shadow across the manicured lawns of Áras an Uachtaráin.

I wait until I'm a few miles away before pulling the car in to take stock. "Seven years?" I scoff "Who does he think he is?!"
Eyeing the briefcase greedily, I slide it over into my lap and snap open the clasps. What McGuffin clearly doesn't realise is that souls don't exist so this one's on him. Lifting the lid of the case a touch, the warm golden light and sweet heartsong wash out over me. I throw the lid open, trembling with excitement only to find a jerry-rigged walkman playing an old Kate Bush tape and the bulb of a pocket torch wired to a battery. Even as I sit there, my anticipation turning to rage, the tremor in my hands pulls the lid clean off the briefcase and it completely falls apart in my lap. Not even that was what it seemed. Junk! All of it just junk!

Dumpty

 

The long corridor echoed wildly with the unfamiliar ring of heavily-booted, running feet. The Geneva cantonal police had responded within minutes to the distress call from the headquarters of the European Organization for Nuclear Research and were now scrambling to secure the area on foot of the arrival of some specialist from the US. I had stepped into the cool passage way to catch my breath, watched closely by the middle aged detective who had given the instruction that no-one was to leave the vicinity. After a few moments he indicated with a surly grunt that I was to step back inside. Once in the room I tried to concentrate my gaze upon the clipboard in my shaking hands but inexorably I found my eyes drawn toward the macabre tableau that had so dramatically shifted the focus of activities in this secretive, subterranean laboratory. The blood, an impossibly dark mirror upon the pristinely maintained, polished concrete floor, had pooled about the corpse but even so, the large pentagram was still clearly discernible, daubed there in the victim's own blood. Clearly something darkly symbolic had happened here, something we did not fully understand. I scanned the floor again, taking in the full horror of the scene. The dead man was a colleague, Dr Guy Bahgg, a solemnly soft-spoken and respected senior physicist, one of the guiding lights of the CERN organisation. His naked body had been brutally dismembered and arranged in a most grotesque form upon the floor. His eyes, plucked right from their sockets, lay now upon his chest and in their place had been mounted his own severed hands, which had been savagely hacked off at the wrist. Besides the pentagram, a number of other cryptic messages had been scrawled in blood about the scene. The line "A loada wee" was written to the left of the doctor's head and to the right was a crudely drawn parrot that appeared to be cawing the words "Pieces of Shit". Most peculiarly of all, the word "Dumpty" had been carved in large and deeply wounding letters into the poor man's midriff. The most appalling detail of all, the one that had chilled each of us to the bone, was the evidence that this had been no elaborate murder but a sort of self-inflicted, ritualistic orgy of madness that had taken place in a room, locked from the inside and in which Dr Bahgg had been the sole occupant.

A commotion in the corridor and the sound of hurried voices broke through the electronic hum and the murmured conversation of the police detectives, jarring us from our frightened torpor. The door swung inward and across the threshold stepped a tall, athletically built and grey-templed man in wireframed glasses and a brown tweed suit. He had a charismatic air about him and moved with the confidence of those in the first flush of middle age.

"Captain La Suite?" the man asked in a deep-toned American accent, addressing the question to the surly detective who had stepped forward to greet him.

"Captain Bonbon La Suite." the detective nodded in curt response, shaking the man's hand.

"Robert Langdon sir, Professor of Religious Iconography and Symbology at Harvard University and suavely debonaire protaganist of such books as, 'Angels and Demons', 'The Da Vinci Code' and.... Great Scott, what the hell happened here?!"

The man in tweed had seemed only now to have spotted the scene of bloody destruction that held the room in its terrible sway.

"It is why we called you sir, we heard you were the best." replied Captain La Suite, gesturing quickly with his hand toward the carnage.

"Of course, of course... mmm.... mmm..." the academic was already bending down to more closely inspect the remains of our colleague, poring over the words and symbols, the geometry of the pentagram, the arrangement of the body and its severed parts. "Tell me, has this body been moved at all? Has anything been removed from the scene?"

"Of course not." replied the Captain, sounding slightly put out. "Does it make any sense to you?"

Langdon stood up and began to pace around the edge of the pentagram, taking care not to tread in any of the congealing blood.
"This phrase here, 'A Loada Wee', does it mean anything to anyone here?" He glanced around the room to elicit a response. Hesistantly I raised my hand. "You, the hairy one."

"well sir, back home in the pigsties of Ireland when something is a bit off like, we might say 'Ahh, it's a loada wee!' Like if someone said they were going to going to go to mass in the next parish 'cause they heard there was a new priest, freshly back from the missions, I might say to them 'Nah, don't bother, it's still a loada wee!"

"Excellent." Replied Langdon, "What you may not realise however is that this phrase is a derivation of an old French expression that was historically used with great prevalence right here in Geneva. L'eau d'nuit - a truncation of L'eau de la Nuit or Nightwater to give it its direct English translation, referred to the practise of emptying chamber pots directly into the street during the hours of darkness. Les Hommes de la Nuit were those men drawn from the local peasantry and payed by the city to clean the streets of the Night Water and its accompanying Night Soil while the merchant classes slumbered. Like so many tightknit and secretive organisations of humble beginnings however, the ranks of Les Hommes de la Nuit were ultimately usurped by the rich and powerful drawn to the sultry allure of nocturnal adventure and stories of clandestine rites,  mysterious rituals and the heavy, bacterial fug of night time poo-poo. Though membership of Les Hommes de la Nuit is even more covertly guarded than that of any other secret society, rumours abound that, in it's modern form, it has become a brotherhood of ruthless, scientific assassins who collectively protect the darkest physical secrets of our universe, in accordance with a creed handed down by Jesus Christ himself."

"No way!" "Jesus Christ!" "Bleedin' hell!" - a gasping chorus of shocked amazement greeted Langdon's appraisal.

"You don't seriously expect me to believe this subterranean brotherhood rubbish?" Captain La Suite surveyed Langdon and the rest of the room with unconcealed disdain.

"I am offering my interpretation of the symbols sir, nothing more - I am merely a cryptologist. Shall I continue or would you prefer that I leave?" Langdon looked put out.

With a curt nod, the Captain indicated that he should continue.

"The parrot then" Langdon resumed his circling, intent again upon the floor "and its crude call nod again to the idea of Night Soil and Les Hommes de la Nuit. But why a parrot, why particularly this animal?"
Langdon looked up and catching his eye I shrugged and quietly voiced "Pirates?"

"Precisely!" he barked excitedly "Yes, Pirates or Cybernetic-Hyperdrive-Intersphere-Pirates to give them their full description or indeed, CHIPS as they are known to Interpol and the intelligence services of the world. It seems that what our victim here was trying to tell us is that somehow Les Hommes de la Nuit and CHIPS have infiltrated this facility, presumably in an effort to suppress some great emerging physical truth that was on the verge of discovery right here."

"Jesus balls!" "Fuckin' Wizard Shit!" "Holy Moly!" "Flippin' Cakeholes!" - another chorus of stunned expletives rolled through the room.

"You expect me to believe that this man pulled out his own eyes, chopped off his own hands, scrawled cryptic messages in his own blood and carved the word 'Dumpty' into his own torso simply to warn us that two fairytale organisations might be attempting to subvert the course of human scientific discovery inside one of the most heavily protected scientific institutions in the world. What is this jackanory horseshit you yankee-doodle bumbleswiper?" La Suite was in a transport of fury, positively foaming at the mouth as he challenged Langdon's analysis.

"Please Captain, I am merely a crytobanologist sir! This is simply the conjecture of an academic versed in the study of symbanology, icons and cryptocraptomonkology." Langdon drew himself up, filled with indignation at the Captain's attack.

"This Dumpty then, you have an equally fantastical explanation for that too I can assume? Presumably something to do with a ridiculous, fairytale egg!" La Suite gestured flippantly to the bloodied stomach of Dr Bahgg.

Langdon gazed at the Captain for a moment before shaking his head. He looked lost, desolate and when he spoke it was little more than a whisper. "There is a story of a number, but it is only a story... The story itself is rumoured to be from one of the secret Gospels, supressed by the early Catholic Church, the Gospel according to Matthewmatix. This number - described as the lowest number, the demon number, the lowest common denominator - it is called 'Dumpty'".

Silence greeted this last proclamation for in the halls of CERN, the rumours of Dumpty were known but rarely spoken of.

La Suite glared about the room and then demanded shortly as to what doctor Bahgg had been working on prior to his demise. In answer to this doctor Gruman Grumbles stepped gingerly in front of the control desk and powered up the LHC monitoring systems. The hiss of charge and low-level symphony of electronic bloopy-bleeps were hardly a fitting precursor to the cries of horror that issued through the room as my colleagues visibly balked at the apparition glowing hideously through the swirling static. It was Dumpty - the number to end all numbers. That was what doctor Bahgg was trying to warn us about - Dumpty was here!


So readers, what is Dumpty? Who are CHIPS and Les Hommes de la Nuit and what's their connection to Nuther Bono? Will Bonbon La Suite and the charismatic Mr Langdon manage to cut through that sexual tension in time for a bit of bumming before the end of act 2? Why the hell can't policemen solve crimes without the help of amateur sleuths anymore? And how the hell do we manage to get any work done at the European Headquaters for Nuclear Research anyway with so much crazy shit going on all the time? Tune in next week or whenever I manage to get the finger out again to find out and all the rest...

Euromillionsvision

For those of you who are interested in such things, I have turned my hand to song writing. Well, lyric writing to be precise. I noticed while watching two semifinals and the bespangled denoument of that paragon of musicality, The Eurovision Song Competition, that more than a few people were credited with the esteemed, historical record of 'co-writer of previous Eurovision entry'. Imagine that - it seems that entire teams are at work behind each of these feather and crinolene clad, attention starved, borderline sleeping-pill suicides. Setting aside the need for melody, choreography, dancing feet and a face that is at once cheaply forgettable and youthfully arresting, I felt I should concentrate my energies explicitly on setting to paper some Euro-conquering lyrics. A kind of blitzkrieg of bouncy, rhythmic and anodyne horseshit appealing to all of the impoverished former Ruskies, gypo-haters, white muzzies, techno-homos, children under five, the German piggybank, Berlusconi-voting arsegrabbers, throwbacks, throwforwards, throwups, crazy frogs, transexuals, Louis Walsh, the catatonic and insane.

So, here goes. I see this as being a sort of duet between two of Ireland's hip young finest - perhaps Paul Galvin and one of the Bertie's daughters. As seems to be the style of the times, I've titled this one with a random series of noises.
I give you Bing Bong Wacka Wacka.

Two sweet things boy
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka
You're my Kiss toy
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka

Feel my fingers like bananas
Gently remove your bandana
I wanna be your Christmas Cracka
How about you and me Bing Bong Wack Wacka?

Girl you make me
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka
Go on have a cuppa tea
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka
 
Mmmm, yum girl, you taste like a rasher
Just lie still an' I'll give you a lasher
I'm big Paul Galvin, ready to attack ya
Put your mouth in the pillow an' we'll Bing Bong Wacka Wacka

(chorus)
Ding dong boogie woogie
Hunky Dory Crisps
Cheese and Onion Tayto
way to do the twist
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka
Boogie Woogie Woo
Bing Bong Wacka Wacka
This doobie tastes like poo


So, that's it really. Anyone with any ideas for music to go with this should send me a demo tape in enough time that we can get at least one rehearsal in before the Tubs selects next year's entry on the Too Late Late Show.

Of course, if that Jed-tard duo actually win we might have to sell ourselves into slavery to pay the levies the government throw at us to fund next years competition. Unless of course the rest of Europe want to pay for it which would be an irony fittingly appropriate to the general tone of the entire camp, diamante-studded fiasco.

Nuther Bono

U2 came to visit us today at CERN, European Headquaters for Nuclear Research. They were giving a pep-talk on how to harness the potent inner forces of the atomic nucleus for the betterment of all mankind. Bono looked great wearing his yellow specs half a mile underground in his khaki-green teeshirt and squeaky, black leather pants. He and The Edge were a bit tired as they'd been up all night writing Spiderman themed show tunes and Skyping world leaders and the Pope. There was actually a moment of funny coincidence when, as Bono was going on an on about how tough it is to translate a well-established comic book masterpiece and successful cinema franchise into a bawdy, Broadway spinoff, Johann,  one of our senior experimentalists, mentioned that he had once been bitten by a radioactive spider. Bono asked him if the resulting superpowers were what got him a job at the world's most prestigious scientific research facility but then Johann showed him the stump where his hand had been amputated after the bite proved carcinogenic and there was a bit of foot shuffling and awkward silence.

So anyway, there we all were, about a dozen of the world's best scientists and engineers and Bono, The Edge and those other two backing singer guys that look like Erasure or The Pet Shop Boys and Bono was going on and on about hungry children and the power of positive thinking and dropping the debt and his friend the pope and his friend Barack Obama and his friend Oprah Winfrey and his friend Colin Farrell and his friend George Bush and the time he bought Gaybo a motorbike and the day he invented the mullet and the time he was a Northsider and the time he met Westlife, when Dr Gruman Grumbles sort of cut across him to ask The Edge his opinion on entangled gravitons. Well Bono didn't like that and although he didn't say anything outright, I could tell that he was feeling a bit put out. All of a sudden he had that that shrewdly watchful glint in his eye, like a child in a schoolyard contemplating revenge.

It happened just as The Edge was answering Dr Grumbles' question - Bono pounced with catlike speed, snatching the dark, tightly-knitted woollen hat from the Edge's head. The gasp of shock that arose from my colleagues and indeed from myself was shrilly audible in that subterranean chamber. No-one had been prepared for this.

I will admit that in my youth I had wondered at what manner of technicolour haystack or rats maze of dreadlocks might lie concealed beneath that snug-fitting little crocheted profilactic teat. What hair-crime could be so heinous as to warrant a near life-sentence of solitary confinement upon the middle-aged scalp of the mild-mannered The Edge? At best I had expected a perfectly preserved coiffe, untouched since 28th February 1983 and the release of "War", at worst, the liver-spotted pate of a balding old man. What I beheld made me gag. There, protruding from the back of The Edge's head, upon the curving rearward lobe of the skull was a grotesquely deformed yet defined and discernible, living doppelganger of Bono's face. As The Edge spun around, lunging after Bono in an attempt to retrieve his hat, this parasitic and strangely deflated looking form peered around at us all from the back of his glistening cranium.

"Ah Bono, give us back me hat y' cunt!" The Edge had an edge to his voice that was unmistakeable as the edge of humiliation and anger.

"Aaaahhhhhh The Eeeeedgggggeeee. Iiiiiiiit'ssssss coooooolllll maaaaaaan." drawled Bono, flitting just out of reach. "Let the Nuther Bono get some aaaaaiiiiirrrrr."

With that Bono tossed the hat to one of the Erasure Shop Boys, (the one called Adam I think) who in turn threw it over the Edge's double-sided head to the fourth in the group (Larry I think he said his name was). This circus side show game of piggy-in-the-middle continued, with the poor The Edge lumbering around, waving his hands vainly through the air in a pathetic struggle to regain his bonnet.

"Come on guys, Nuther Bono's going to get cold, give us me hat back!"

"Noooooo The Eeeeedddgggggeeee. Nuuuuutthhhhhherrrrr Bonoooooo's havin' a greeeaaaat tiiime." Real Bono obviously felt that he had a point to prove but for my part I was feeling increasingly nauseaous as I observed this disturbing play of cat and mouse.

Suddenly, from the midst of this childish chaos could be heard a hoarsley gurgling rasp. To my horror I realised it was the Nuther Bono, it had begun to sing.

"M luff shhh thows me lak wubber ball - woooooarrnngh, swittist thng..."

It sounded like a child trapped in a balloon full of glue.

"Shhh wnt cutsh m win aaaanngh m fall - woooooarrnngh, swittist thng..."

I began to glance frantically about the lab at my colleagues, surely this couldn't be allowed to continue.

"Ah c'mon guys, the Nuther Bono's singing now, will yiz put me hat back on him yiz fuckin pricks!"

The Edge was surely sounding angry now but real Bono was just laughing at him in that droning, vowel-laden way of his. "Aaaaahhh haaaaaaa-haaaaaaaaa-haaaaaaaa!" The other two automatons seemed to be under his spell, what kind of witchcraft was at work here? The figures collectively known as U2 were circling faster now and a strange and dreadful electricity seemed to crackle in the air. The voice of the Nuther Bono seemed shriller now, rising in pitch.

"Ahhhmmm loosssssngh yoooou..."

Slowly, carefully I began to inch my way toward the exit.

Faster the group circled, their raucous cackling, coarse and unsettling. The Edge's whining protests, Bono's breathy drone and the throaty warbling of the unnaturally hideous Nuther Bono dopplering past in an ever-quickening blur; rising in register toward some unearthly crescendo.

"Giz me hat back yiz fuckin blowjobs..."
"Aaaaaaahhhhhh Thhhheeeeee Eeeeeddgggggge...."
"Wwoooooarrnngh, swittist thng..."

I was near the door now, could reach the electronic swipe pad with my keycard.

An ethereal glow was emanating from the spinning morass as great sparks arced out and earthed themselves in everything and anything in close proximity. Suddenly, with a cold shock, one of the great blue bolts struck me right in my chest. Pierced me to my very heart. I was instantly filled with a realisation so overwhelmingly vast that I felt I might burst from the grand bigness of it all and everything. I felt all questions being answered. All riddles unravelled. I was Bono. Bono was me. We were U2. You were we too. We love you. I love wee. U2 R2 D2. "Gasp!"

And that was pretty much it. The Edge got his hat back. The Erasure Shop Bros Boys turned out to be Larry Peyton and Adam Mullins or something and we all signed a sworn statement not to reveal the existence of Nuther Bono in return for front row tickets to Spiderman the musical or another show of equal or lesser value or a pair of 'All-Cash' scratch cards and our photos taken with yer man from telly-bingo.

Oh yeah, and Bono nicked a load of CERN memorabilia on the way out which seems to have made its way on to ebay, the cheapskate dwarf!