The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

[Driver]

... headed back down the starboard side of the Sushi Maru, intent upon a bit of head-cracking.

Divining Mocca's hostile intentions, the whaler's sergeant-at-arms issued orders to defend the vessel

"Deparoy!" he cried. "Deparoy catching thing instrument of the Edo era!"

Instantly the crew deployed their catching thing instruments of the Edo era. They found that being effective to the ruffian, from ancient times in order to hold down partly, it is possible to hold down the ruffian by minimum power. In sudden situation same correspondence.

Waving their catching thing instruments of the Edo era above their heads like billy-o, they awaited Mocca's assault.

Fortunately for Staines and Groans ...

[silentC]

... Mocca had neglected to stow strangely in the compartment of going forward the string for securing of the vassel in the up and down plus sideways motion to prevent and so the approximately 10 metres of nylon twine that was trailing behind Mocca's inflatable Japanese whaler harrasser passed within grasping distance of Staines' hands. He grabbed the rope and Groans grabbed him. In a brilliant display of tandem skiing, the two assumed a barefoot position behind the rubber duck just as Mocca executed a hairpin turn. The resulting whiplash tossed Staines and Groans into the air, tumbling like a pair of tumbling things, whereupon they landed on the deck of the Very Little Gravitas Indeed, where, it has to be said that as a result of the crew watching all of this, there was very little gravitas indeed.

"Well," said ...

[Driver]

... Dogsbreath. "That made a bit of a change, eh? Reminds me of the time when Wokka Smith got pulled into the floods on his back paddock ..."

"Yes. Thank you Dogsbreath," said the captain, intervening quickly before Dogsbreath could get started on another of his interminable reminiscenses. "Seaman Staines! You appear to have successfully removed the offensive material from your uniform!"

Staines looked down at his kit. It was true! Although soaked, his uniform was free of the sticky encrustations that had sparked off all the trouble! Not a glint or a globule of guano remained. Staines was delighted. For a moment or two.

"So," continued the captain. "Lay forrard and collect a shovel then remove the corpse of the albatross and shovel the rest of that pile of stinking manure over the side. Off you go, man!"

"But ....but..." spluttered Staines. "I mean ...

[CameronPotter]

...t to tell you that I was thinking about that Albatross and it looked familiar. It reminds me of an albatross I had as a kid.

(Cue dreamy music)

I remember walking along the beach one day with my family when we came across this tiny grey little thing. It looked like it had just hatched. Anyway, I picked it up and took it home. We put it in our canary cage and fed the little guy, well after a year or so we figured out that the bird was an albatross, but of course by this time it had grown too big to be let out of the cage, actually, it had grown too big to move in the cage...

(end of dreamy music)

So Captain, Sir, Oh Most Esteemed One, can I keep it? P-p-p-p-p-please?"

...

[Caliban]

"What?" roared the captain
"Like the time you wanted to keep that upimself Irish hoofer, Moichael O"Flatulence? Certainly bloody not!!!"
Whereupon, as if on cue...

[Driver]

... there was a really irritating high-speed clattering sound and himself appeared, arms stiff at his side, knees hammering up and down, heels and toes beating the seven bells of hell out of the nice clean maindeck.

Moichael's terpsichorean progress described a wide arc across the deck. He was so bloody pleased with himself that he tossed back his flowing locks, flashed a broad upimself grin at the throng on the poop deck and closed his eyes. In this, he made a severe error.

His feet, a hammering, clattering blur, made momentary contact with the oozing edge of the pile of albatross poo. A momentary contact was all it took.

Moichael's feet were suddenly at the same elevation above mean sea level as his head. Before he had time to wonder at this abberation, he disappeared over the taffrail. (Several of the more facetiously-inclined hamsters were moved to shout 'Ole!" as he zoomed over their chubby-cheeked little heads).

Realising that, yet again, the immediate future contained for him a good deal of cold green salty water, Moichael just had sufficient time to pass comment: "ERK!!!" he said.

There was a splash.

"Well," said Dogsbreath. "Who the hell was that cocky bas...."

[ernknot]

basejumper smelling like pelican poo, it could only be.....

[Driver]

Yet again, Dogsbreath was interrupted by the captain:

"Wait!" quoth the captain. "What's this?"

("Starve the bloody lizards!" muttered Dogsbreath from beneath his fox hat. "A man can't open his flamin' mouth around here!").

"What's this?" The captain pointed astern to where the Sushi Maru was executing an unusual manoeuvre, pulling round in a tight circle with most of the crew hanging over the gunwales with their catching thing instruments of the Edo era.

It became clear that they were attempting to rescue Moichael O'Flatulence, who had surfaced near the Sushi Maru.

Deploying their catching thing instruments of the Edo era much effectiveness becoming apparent with less vigorous action in sudden situation. Rescue for drowning victim more promising for attachment in limbs. Head and neck attachment being unadvised in healthful rescue in case impediment for sudden asphyxiation emergency.

The latter constraint became very evident as Moicheal was hoisted from the ocean by the enthusiastic whalers. Several of them had secured their catching thing instruments of the Edo era about Moichael's neck. They removed them as Moichael flapped about on the whaler's flensing deck. He recovered his wits but not all of his composure as he sucked air into his lungs.

"Tanks a bloody lot fer savin' me hoide!" he gasped. "If dere's a next toime, ye moight try grappling me about some less voital part of me anatomy! Jayz! Oi tought Oi was a goner to be sure!"

The whaler's captain, Nakalaka-san, stepped forward:

"Prease!" he said. "No thanks necessary! Crew need practice with catching thing instruments of the Edo era! Happy to use to effect rescue!" He bowed.

"Well," said Moichael. "Perhaps, instead off tanking ye, Oi could dance for ye....."

Shortly afterwards, the crew of the Very Little Gravitas Indeed observed the crew of the Sushi Maru hurling something into the ocean. Down the wind came a faint but familiar cry:

"Errk!"

There was a splash .......

[Caliban]

and an all too familiar ripping sound as the ritfotu saved the crew from anymore jibberish instrument thingy talk or anymore of mr imself.
The crew were transported unsurprisingly to...

[fxst]

the famed eatery which had the best makers (chef sounds so mmmmmmmmm blaise) of all things culinary the Restaraunt At The End Of The Universe upon which the crew threw their...............

[CameronPotter]

hats. Why they did this none of them knew - it just seemed the right thing to do at the time. However, without their headwear to help recognise each other there was a lot of sheepish looking folk who were only just realising that they had never bothered to take the time to look UNDER the hats of the crew and wouldn't know each other from the proverbial bar of soap. Of course, since this was the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, soap had of course evolved into a sentient being by now and in fact Seaman Staines was rapidly being chatted up by such a piece of soap as the rest of them clambered around trying to get their headwear back...

The crew got their headwear back in its rightful place (so they could all be recognised once more) when some unknown guy said loudly, "Where's the fox hat?" It sounded suspiciously like Dogsbreath, but they could all clearly see that Dogsbreath was chatting up Seaman Staines - although he smelled a bit more like Imperial Leather than his usual self.

This was when the headwaiter came up and...

[fxst]

and demanded his body back which a member of the crew had removed from its traditional position ie under the head. Seeing the floating head (beats being a football) Dogsbreath came over and said 'hey you'll never get ahead like that I can tell ya .....I remember one time in botany bay..................

[Caliban]

there was this woman tied to the railway line...

[CameronPotter]

Because if someone wasn't there to hold it down, the railway line might just up and float away, anyway back to my fascinatin' anecdote ...

[craigb]

Ophelia Merkin was confused.

Which, considering that she was the VLGI's computer was a rather worrying development.

The reason that she was confused was because at one moment the ship had been travelling helter skelter towards a rather alarming Black Hole and the next was sailing a deep blue sea and having an encounter with the whaling ship The Sushimi Maru and her very strange crew equiped with the equally starnge "catching things of the Edo era".

"It's no good" she thought to herself, "the only thing for it is to re-boot myself." So she did.

This was not a good thing for those aboard the good ship The Very Little Gravitas Indeed however. Because....