The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

our shipmate Algernon is one "

"Algernon"? queried Farti Slartblast.

What's his last name then?


"Why Frontbottom of course" said Algie "which one of you dogs wants to know?"

Leading artificer Groans unexpectedly said ...

"Look astern!"

They all looked.

As one, their lower jaws dropped.

Thirty-odd metres astern of the ship, Moichael O'Flatulence, that upimself Irish hoofer had transformed himself into that upimself Irish waterskier. He was prancing about on a single ski, swooping back and forth across the ship's wake, getting huge air on each pass.

But! He had no ski rope! Nothing there was attaching him to the vessel!

What the hell!?!!

"What the hell!?!!" quoth Frontbottom. "He's ...

using one of them new fangled hoverboards that Michael J. Fox used on one of his "Back to the Furtive" movies!

"I think you'll find that movie was called 'Back to the future'" interrupted Algie who was an expert on anything remotely connected to Time Travel, (or punctuation, for that matter.)

"I don't give a stuff what movie it was, the fact is, he's riding one of them things." retorted Frontbottom rather sulkily because he realised that Mr Upimself O'Flatulence would soon be one of their number again unless something wonderful happened.

On cue...

He momentarily lost control over a very rough patch of the ships wake and headed straight for the intake port of the sailing ships hydro drive system, with a loud slurping sound emminating from the bowels of the ships innards, a spume of bright red slurry was ejected from the hydrojet exhaust drive port.

Those at the rear end of the ship looked in amusment as the reality sunk in an said "Cor' I bet that smarts".

A snicker threaded it's way throughout the crew as the last comment went from man to man.

"That'll teach 'im fer bein' a smart aarse, bloody show off" said the ships nav to no one in particular.

"Oh! and by the way you chaps, if per chance you see any of those ruddy punctuation police chaps, give 'em a right good kick in the gonads" said the chief petty officer.

"Peewheeet tweet tweeee"

Suddenly, all the ship's crew leapt to attention.

"What was that high pitched, and frankly quite aggravating, sound we just heard?" asked Sponcracker.

"An officer coming aboard," replied the Bosun "stand to attention".

Sponcracker hitched up his battle shorts and stood rigid just as the Bosun sounded "at ease".

"Who is it?" whispered Sponcracker to Seaman Staines.

"Well, I'll be buggered" replied Staines "if it isn't Admiral of the Fleet, Captain Shiny Britches himself."

A tall and brooding figure strode onto the deck of the Very Little Gravitas Indeed. He paced back and forth before the bedraggled assembly that was the crew and sundries, before turning on his heels and demanding, in a whiny nasal voice "I demand to see the Captain of this .... ship. Where is he and give me one reason why he should not be strung from the yard arm at once!"

The crew looked at each other and ...

... with almost one voice, said:-

"Nah! String 'im up!"

Roger (VC and Bar) was devastated.

"I'm devastated!" he said. "You lot have known me for years! Ever since I was (shudder) a cabin boy! How can you want to see me strung up?"

"We-e-elll," said Staines. "We need some excitement. Nothing ever happens round 'ere."

Groans chipped in: "What'd 'e ..."

say what? There is no way I'm going to let you bastards string up me ol mate Roger. He was the cause of some of my best memories, not to mention some of the best puns we had in this story. Shame he stopped being the cabin boy, doesn't seem right saying you want to Roger the Captain. But I digress, release him you scurvy knaves, you lot of...

fudge packers, anchor tripe, sail sh-it-e all of ye!

They stopped in thier tracks and looked at each other, ashen faced, bottom lips set a quivering then the tears rolled down thier weather beaten cheeks. They rolled and sobbed like a group of toddlers denied a chocolate, "Stop them!, they'er calling us names, horrible names and we don't like it!"

Mean while.......

in the captain's cabin, Roger regarded the Admiral from the other side of the chart table.

"So tell me Shiny-Britches, how is it that you can be an Admiral and a Captain at the same time?"

"I believe sir, that you are an imposter. What do you have to say to that?"

Shiny-Britches took a long pull of his pipe and said ........

"Aaah, that was a good pull, best I've had in ages. And now that my pipe is burning properly, let me tell you, Roger, you jumped up, never-come-down former cabin boy, VC and bar, that..."

... this nation is at war son, and when your country needs you, you step up and do what has to be done. When the last Admiral was shot for losing the key to the drinks cabinet, they looked around for a replacement. I hid behind Captain Trumpetblaster but the scurvy dog did a swift side step. So now it's the Admiral's cap that I wear on my head but in my heart I will always be Captain Shiny-Britches.

"But that is enough about me. I'm here to talk about you and in particular about the strange and various reports of the goings-on on board the HMS Very Little Gravitas Indeed. So, Captain Roger (VC and Bar), if you wish to retain your posting on this ship, you have some explaining to do. Starting with ... this!"

With that, Admiral Captain Shiny-Britches withdrew from the pocket of his glittering trousers, a ...

... superbly carved scale model of the Twig of Orgasmo!

"What.....!" said Roger (VC and Bar). "I ....

...recognise that timber! It's from the mast of the good ship Very Little Gravitas Indeed, and it's made from that rare antipodean timber, Pinus Crappiata. I recognise it by the Bunny's stamp on it."

"And might I add," he added, "Admiral, usually, when people make scale models, they make them to a smaller scale than the original. I hope you realise that you have severely limited the propulsive potential of HMS VLGI by turning her mast into a work of somewhat dubious art!"

Shocked by this shower of invective, Admiral Shiny Breeches....

said: "I'm shocked by this shower of invective!"

Roger (VC and Bar) was impressed.

"I'm impressed!" he said. "You're already beginning to fit into this crew, Admiral."

"What?" said the Admiral. "I am..."

...therefore I think!

Suppressing a desire to advise his superior officer that no-one likes a sm@rt@rse, Roger (VC and Bar) said:

"Very good, sir: Sum ergo cogito, eh? Or even 'Je suis, donc je pense!"

"Good moaning, muy ay hoolp?" A familiar figure, clad inappropriately for sailing, loomed into the cabin doorway.

Crabtree's attention was immediately and very obviously focussed on the scale model of the Twig of Orgasmo. So excited, indeed, was he by what he saw that he dropped his ludicrous mispronunciation.

"Crap!" he said. "I mean to say: isn't that a model of the famed Twig of Orgasmo, the work of Ozwinner of Craporium?"

Roger (VC and Bar) was ....

gobsmacked.

"I'm absolutely gobsmacked" he said "to realise that a model of the Twig of Orgasmo should appear on the Very Little Gravitas Indeed".

It was then that the other occupants of the cabin noticed Roger's violent trembling.

"I say captain" said Shiny-Britches "why are you trembling?"

Through chattering teeth, Roger manages to bluirt out "The curse!. You fools! do you not know of 'The Curse of Orgasmo'!?"

Hardly had these fateful words left Roger (VC &c) lips when clutching his throat and letting out a bloodcurdling "Aaaaarrrrgh!" Roger pitched headlong to the deck.

Shiny-Britches took another long pull of his pipe and said ......

"Well really!, Captain if you choose not to tell us you only have to say so!"

With that Roger looked up at the admiral through the corner of his eye, and spoke into the knot hole in the deck "Oh!, it wasn't that admiral!,...I er!..er!...was going to tell you, I er!...I just saw the ships mouse poke his head out of this hole and I had to speak with him!"

"And what the damded, is so ruddy important you have to speak to the ships mouse?" Roared the admiral.

"Er!...Er!...I....had to....tell him...er..the ships cat is after him, Yes!..Yes!..Thats it, yes, the ships cat is after him so I thought I'd warn him" said Roger nervously.

"Oh!....Very well then, good show old man!"...replied the admiral, slightly confused. "Oh!...By the way Roger, there's that Bloody cat, is he the one in question".

Roger jumped up and spun around, started to scream and ran from the room only to fail to open the door, which he hit face first with a sickening thud. As he fell backwards to the deck, (again) he looked at the admiral and said ".......

Je pense, donc je suis... un cul futé !
...but if only I was smart enough to open this bloody door...

"I'm not your uncle and my name's not Fyootay, you idiot!" said the admiral. "Now get up from the floor and start to behave like a commanding officer!"

With that, Roger (VC and Bar) shook himself as if waking from a deep sleep and ...

...repeated slowly his earlier fear
"The curse!. You fools! do you not know of 'The Curse of Orgasmo'!?"

"What'd 'e say?" said Groans.

"He said 'The Curse of Orgasmo", ya deaf sod!" said Staines.

"Oh yeah - good book, that." said Groans.

Sponcracker was fascinated by this turn in the conversation.

"I'm fascinated by this turn in the conversation," he said. "Pray tell me, Mr Groans, what book is it that you think we're discussing?"

Groans apparently heard the question. He looked at Sponcracker with what he fondly imagined to be a sage, shrewd, bookish, intellectual expression (it actually looked more like a dopey, half-deaf old bastard trying and failing to look sage, shrewd etc). He said: " 'The Pearl of Orlando' - good book, that."

Staines twassocked him about the ears with a ...

with a piece of wet celery while Sponcracker filled Groans ears with cheese so that he would be prepared for the torture of the ear eating midget rat who was loosely claimed to be the one true follower of the .....

"I'm sorry children" said Sally,"I appear to have lost my place"

"Miss" piped up young Tarquin while Sally thumbed through the book trying to find where the story was up to, "I'm a bit confused. Exactly who is on board the Very Little Gravitas Indeed at the moment?"

"It's just that a character will make an appearance and be in a scene or two and then one never hears of them again. The worst thing is, there's rarely an explanation. It's most perplexing"


"Yes" said Sally "I can see how you would be confused. Well as I remember, the crew consists of:

Captain Roger (VC & Bar)

Master Bates
Seaman Staines
Leading Artificer Groans
Bosun Bastard
Algernon Frontbottom, Captain Royal Marines
Mr Midshipman Fellatio Hornblower
Halfrit Sponcracker, 'droid master
Farti Slartblast, Sponcracker's boss
Chocolate LeClair, Belgian detective
Carruthers of The Yard, Pommie Detective
A host of John Ashcrofts
Admiral Shiny-Britches
and (shudder) The Mother Farquar

I think that's all. What do you think children, Have I missed anyone?"...

"Well," said .....

Willy, the next chapter has this clown riding around on a bicycle without a seat who manages to....

... remember three captains. They are (reading from sternpost to bowsprit):-

- Captain Crabtree (Good moaning!) - British agent and phoney gendarme.
- Captain Glorsprang Nemo (Quack!) - CEO of Nemo Corporation and penguin.
- Uncle Captain Bastard (Pardon?) - ship's cook aka "Who called the cook a bastard? - Who called the bastard a cook?"

All clear? Splendid, then let us ...

find an answer to Captain Roger(VC and Bar)'s question about the curse of Orgasmo

At that suggestion, the entire ships complement scratched its collective head, looked collectively dumbfounded, heaved a heavy sigh and said, in unison, "What was the question again?"

"For the third time (unless I've lost count)," said Captain Roger the former cabin boy VC & bar, "do you not know of the Curse of Orgasmo?" (This curse is so important to the plot that he spoke in bold type.)

The entire crew maintained its collective (and accurate) appearance of complete ignorance, except for Bosun Bastard, whose eyes rolled back in his head in terror.
"Begad, the Curse of Orgasmo", he trembled, and with that...

... he began to tell a tale so chillingly shocking, so shockingly chilling, and so chockingly shilling, that on hearing it, nary a man (nor woman) amongst them could stop the knocking of his (nor her) (shut up Stan) knees. Yes, a tall tale, but true: a story that had been handed down from father to son; and from son to grandson; and then it skipped a generation, only to be found amongst the remnants of Grandfather's late life demented ravings, which he had consigned to paper in the belief that anyone at all might ever be interested - and yet one that rang so true that all who heard it could but stare in disbelief while it was told and then shake their heads and mutter "I can hardly believe it yet it must be true". Yes, a fable of such ...

Oh just shut up and get on with it, will you Bastard!!

Right, well it starts like this....

"Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a far away place called..."

Un Zud there lived a fair young maiden who was awaiting her true love who had spent 6months in a leaky boat.........

When her true love eventually arrived she discovered that his feet, due to the leaky conditions, were all wrinkly and pale white. The fair young maiden was not amused.

"HELLO!?!" she said. "White wrinkly feet? Eeeeeyeew! I DON'T THINK SO!"

And she flounced off to the nearest shopping mall, texting her friends to divulge the awful news about her (ex) true love.

He wasn't too amused either. He leapt ashore. This was not a wise move. His feet, as noted, were in very tender condition and the beach was pebbly.

"(Expletive soddin' deleted)!!!!" he yelled. "ME FEEEEET!!!!'

No sooner had the words sprang from his lips when out from behind a seaweed-covered rock appeared a small figure, clad entirely in green foil outer garments and bearing a strange and wonderfully-wrought wooden sculpture. (Dear Reader, it was the fabled Twig of Orgasmo - although the poor sod with the dodgy feet wasn't to know this).

"Hello!" said the small foil-clad person. "I am ...."

Tam 'o Shanter.

Now I know that you weren't expecting to meet a leprachaurn in the South Seas, but we live in dangerous times."

"Tam" said .....

.. the thwarted swain. "Permit me to introduce myself". (He was excessively polite, was this lad). "My name is Footsore Truelove. Are you, by any remote chance, related to either Moichael O'Flatulence or Sean O'Bollocks?"

A strangely guarded and suspiciously sly expression fleetingly transformed the face of the foil-clad one. It was gone almost before Footsore had registered the change.

"Who? Me?" laughed Tam. "Related to - who was it you said? Michael O'Flabbergast, was it? Sean O'Botulism? No, no, I don't think so. No, no, not for a minute!"

"Hang on ..." said Footsore. "I wonder....."

..., do you have a twin brother, name of Tim?"

"Close, but no biscuit!" proclaimed Tam, as he proceeded to dance about on the spot, wafting the twig of orgasmo about like a wand.

"La la la, tee tee, dicky dum do," sang the strange little man.

"What a strange little man," thought Footsore "I wonder why he is waving that odd looking twig about?"

Suddenly the odd little man stopped dancing. "I suppose you're wondering why I'm waving this odd looking twig about? Well, I'll tell you why, but first you must pay me."

"Pay you? Why would I pay you?" exclaimed Footsore, who was starting to realise a new level of nominative determinism.

"Because the story I'm about to tell you is something that ultimately concerns your fate. That's why!!"

"Oh," said Footsore, "OK then. Here's all of my money, which I was saving for the wedding but I suppose I wont be needing it now. Is it a long story? Do you mind if I sit down?"

And with that, the diminutive foil-clad figure commenced a strange and eerie tail. It went like this:

"My brother's name isn't Tim, y'see. It's Tom. And this, as you are about to learn, is highly significant. At least, from your point of view it's highly significant. Yes: his name is Tom Haile Significant!"

Footsore was flabbergasted.

"I'm flabbergasted!" he said.

"I could have predicted you'd say that," said Tam. "But there's more. Much, much more. Oh yes!"

And he continued ....

"You see Tom and I are twins, only from different fathers, which explains the different surnames but not how we can be twins. No-one knows that, not even either of our dear mothers. But that's not important right now.

"Now because we are twins, we have a strange connection, as twins often do, and the each of us knows what t'other is thinking before he has even thought it. Why just the other day I said to Tom 'Hey Tom, you're about to think how nice a cup of tea would be right now' and Tom said to me 'Tam, you're right, at this very minute I'm thinking how nice a cup of tea would be right now, put on the kettle will you?'. Uncanny, you'll agree.

"One day, Tom was walking through a local market and he came upon a strange and twisted twig being sold by a strange and twisted man. This man had an obsession with mushrooms of a peculiar shape and he had taken to carving them from bits of wood that he found in the forest. This wood was enchanted wood and ...

it was alive!

So whilst the carver thought he was making a unique shape, in actual fact it was the wood that was guiding his hands.

"So" said Footsore "what you are saying is ..."

...the wood was actually guiding the carver's hands and - in effect - forming itself!"

"Correct!" said Tam. "The wood was forming itself!"

Footsore was nearly speechless with amazement.

"Would it surprise you," he said. "If I were to tell you that I am nearly speechless with ..."

"Amazement?" interrupted the foil-clad Tam. "No. It wouldn't. I have never told this tale before and ..."

"...I'll probably never tell it again."
"Damn good thing," said Captain Roger VC & bar. "There are some things that should never be spoken of. The last person that spoke of the Twig of Orgasmo suffered....."