UK's Newest TV Talent Show

There we have it, probably one of the least interesting things ever placed in front of a live audience at a televised Talent show, but viewing figures for this – the latest TV early Evening extravaganza have been higher than the actual UK population level, something which has delighted TV executive's but rather disappointed those mathematicians who like to believe in such numbers having a vague correspondence to reality.

However, despite the surreal viewing figures, this episode had proved conclusively that Britain's Got Pebbles is the television success story of this decade, easy out performing both Celebrity Rock Salt on Ice and The Brick, thus becoming the UK's most popular geology-based talent show.

Critics were at first sceptical that the viewing public would find talent shows featuring stones, rocks, pebbles and even house-bricks compelling entertainment. However, with the evidence gathered from other such programmes, it became increasingly clear that the viewing public would watch any old dross providing it was on in the early evening, it was fronted by a superannuated TV has been from the golden age of TV drivel assisted by a blonde with a cleavage and that the viewers could vote for or against something or other.

Thus was the success of Britain's Got Pebbles almost assured. Only time will tell however, if the format will go on to success in other countries and thus ensure that it continues to make money for its creators and therefore continues to appear on our screens for the next few foreseeable centuries.

A Real Bargain

Perhaps it was not meant to be utilised in such a manner, especially by one with such a cavalier attitude towards instructions manuals. Still, in the end, it did all work out for the best – more or less. Despite still constantly questioning whether it should be worn off the shoulder as she has it set up at the moment, she does think that – on the whole – it was quite a bargain, reduced as it was by 75% to clear.

However, bargain or not, we still aren't totally certain what it actually is... or how it should be used. As I've intimated, although it did come with the box, USB lead, a grommet and a barometer, there were no actual instructions as such with the device. It had just a badly-printed sheet of flimsy paper featuring several diagrams which display – as far as we are able to discern – someone trying to wallpaper a large mammal; possibly a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, but definitely not a water buffalo, despite what the wife's sister says.

Still, once we'd worked out how to open the battery compartment and thumped it on the table a few times, it did buzz – somewhat desultorily into life... briefly, before changing the TV channel and emitted an ultrasonic signal that made the dog hide behind the sofa.

However, once we do – eventually – work out what it is, what it should be used for and why it seems to attract so many low flying aircraft - and feral cats - we are sure that it will turn out to be the bargain we hoped for when we bought it.

In God’s Name

We all wore the disguises as we mingled around the party. No-one there knew me, although there were many guesses made about the identity of each of the people there, no-one could know, not for certain.

This was lucky for me. I was not invited, not asked to come, even though the party was – ostensibly – in my name.

I have learnt over the years I’ve been coming to these parties that even the priests who act and – supposedly – serve in my name no longer believe in me, if they ever did. As far as I can tell, too, most of them apparently assumed I never existed either.

To them I am just some abstract principle that they use to give authority to their pronouncements and proclamations.

To the ordinary people, who I walk amongst, down in the streets and the markets my name often is taken in vain: a curse against the arbitrary iniquities and calamites an indifferent world forces upon them.

I never wanted to be a god, never particularly wanted to be immortal. Although, omnipotence interested me: even though being all-knowing is not as good as it sounds. It gets a bit dull to be honest. I did think being all-seeing would be good, back in my youthful naivety – now I have seen all I no longer want to look. If I really did all I’m blamed for, then I think the people have a right to curse me and use my name as a curse.

Expertise in the Field

Well, there she was, holding it with all the well-trained dexterity of the expert, even though, up until then very few of us had been aware that she had any expertise in the field, or the garden – come to that.

Still, it is rare that one does come across an archaeological find of this magnitude in a typical (possibly) domestic garden. After all, there is usually little in a garden that has not already been dug up – and - occasionally – hastily reburied, especially under the patio – at least if contemporary murder mysteries are to believed.

This, however, was nothing so macabre. Hence the children's complete lack of interest in it when the great historical significance of the item was pointed out to them. But that's the way with kids, if it can't be used to dismember someone in inventive and very cruel ways, they'd much rather return to their games console, or torturing insects – and - sometimes – both.

Still, as my darling wife held the item in her hands, I could not but be overcome with awe, wonder and surprise. Especially as it's near pristine condition, despite the conditions in what we sometimes call our 'garden'.

Yes, the garden fork we had both presumed lost for ever was discovered by my own dear wife lost in the depths of the undergrowth. On discovering it she pounced on it with a glee not often seen outside some of the more unusual bargains in the January sales, as she uncovered it and brought it back to me, claiming that not only had she found the long-lost garden implement, but that – miracles of miracles – it was still very much usable.

So, after admiring it and wondering at her finding it in such good – and usable – condition, she sent me off to the back of the garden to use it.

Next time, though, I promised myself, I'd hide it where she would never find it.

Awaiting his Pleasure

Toni waited.

She was used to waiting.

She was – after all – there for him, waiting for him. It was a warm summer day, but the sun had shifted, turning where she stood – still waiting – from sunlight to shade. She shivered and her nipples hardened. She looked down at them, from one to the other. He liked her nipples – so he’d said, once. The way their darkness contrasted with the light skin of his fingers. The way the nipples grew under his touch as though he brought them to life.

There were many other parts of Toni that his touch brought to life, brought to life in a way that no other man ever had, or ever could. That was why Toni waited for him, waited patiently for him. That was why she stood there naked in the centre of the room awaiting his return.

Just the thought of him coming back, coming into the room and being there naked in front of him, open to him, available to him and his whims, made her wet. She shivered and her nipples hardened even more. Toni had an urge to stroke just one finger down her stomach, down further into the warm and wet, but she knew she could not do it the same way he could. His fingers were magic; they could weave spells over her body, enthral and enrapture her with his single touch.

So she was prepared to wait. Prepared to await his pleasure, because she knew that his pleasure lay entwined with her pleasure in such a way as to make it almost impossible to tell where her pleasure ended and his began, or where his ended and Toni’s began.

So Toni waited, shifting from foot to foot as the warm and the wet grew between her thighs into an anticipation that made every fluttering of the breeze outside into a foretelling of his step in the hallway beyond the closed door of the room where she waited for him.

The Pork Pie and Society

Of course, once you have the pork pie firmly grasped in the right hand, all manner of things become possible that were not possible beforehand. - The Pork Pie and Society. It was – probably – those very opening words from his seminal masterpiece, that made Ordinance Quimtrimmer the most famous philosopher of his age. Up until then, academic philosophy had been dominated by the Logical-sandwichists, who – famously – believed that all philosophical problems could be solved by a decent sandwich – although there were several competing schools of though who argued over which of the many varieties of sandwiches was the ideal sandwich – an idea that can be traced back to Plato's idea of Forms. Although, it wasn't until the scientific age that a true philosophical understanding of the nature of sauces, chutneys and relishes – up to and including sweet pickle - was put on a much more rigorous philosophical footing, thus enabling the sandwich to take its place at what the logico-sandwichists claimed was the heart of philosophical eating.

However, when Quimtrimmer came along, claiming that it was the pork pie, not the sandwich, that was the true philosophical lunch, chaos broke out in the normally staid world of the academic philosophy departments of the Western world. Thus bringing about the significant revolution in lunch and snack-based eating habits that has transformed the post-war Western world, most would say to the greater benefit of civilisation as a whole.

Others, though, point to the Pot Noodle and despair.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Of course, there are times when it seems the whole world is arrayed against us. Such times when the very car park of possibility seems as o'er brimmed as a summer afternoon's rain gauge, but still we soldier on, mainly because there is bugger all else to do. The world is against us, we ought to know that because there is no way of winning, we will run out before time does and - even in the unlikely event that the world ends before we do, we'll still be buggered because we need the world more than it needs us.

Still, there is no need to be disheartened – well, there is, but we won't go into that – as this world is stuff full of so many splendid things, up to and including some rather wonderful cheeses and the possibility of getting our hands on a halfway decent pint. Add to that the slim chance that there may even – in the not too distant future – something almost worth watching on the telly, then the world begins to look not all that bad and life almost worth living – at least compared to the alternative.

Not only that, we should also bear in mind that there is a good chance that one day very soon a politician is going to do something so unbelievably stupid that it will be enough to keep the entire population amused for weeks into the future until that politician is - eventually – forced to resign. Then we can all wake up the next morning with the knowledge that – at least for now – there is one less of the bastards screwing it all up for the rest of us.