The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

[Caliban]

pancakes are not. (ok)

[toddles]

..and wasting beer should be unthinkable!"
"A real man would...

[ernknot]

dispose of the empty can thoughtfully and.......

[fxst]

open another.
Just as things appeared to be coming back to what passed as normal here.....SPROINGgggggg out of the ocean depths appeared Zebberdy who said "Gosh that ocean is deep. It took me from page 1 to here to get back on board ....and I nearly drowned too" HIs appearance had

[Driver]

....changed very little. A touch of light rust on the spring that comprised his lower limb(s), some seaweed strewn artistically about his personage and a red face from holding his breath for nigh on 20 months .

He sproinged himself up the companionway ("Oh - that makes a change," commented a downsproinged companion in a voice heavy with mournful irony. "Battered by a bloody caricatured valve-spring, instead of the usual hobnailed seaboots!").

Reaching the poop, Zebedee gave a triumphant sproinging leap. He rebounded from the deck and would have disappeared back over the taffrail had it not been for several hamsters who grabbed him and bounced him back.

"That," said Hieronymous Hamster, "Was nearly a record for the shortest visit aboard the VLGI!"

"Y'know," said Hubert, "You may be right. I think even His Upimselfness has managed to last for a couple of minutes of bloody awful noisy, upimself exhibitionist dancing before we've managed to engineer a trip back into the 'oggin."

Zebedee greeted Dogsbreath and ....

[fxst]

Shorty and had a quick beer then said...."its time to go" and with that the three of them......

[AlexS]

...went.

Meanwhile...

[ernknot]

the rip in the fabric of the universe was fluctuating between getting bigger and smaller, this was of real concern to..............................

[Driver]

....Moichael O'Flatulence, who was trying to launch himself back aboard the VLGI. He took a run at the Rip just as it shrank. He bounced off it and landed fair on his fundament.

Furiously, he leapt to his feet and hurled himself bodily once more at the Rip. Just as he was about to collide heavily into it, the Rip gaped open.

Moichael was propelled at great speed through the Rip. He materialised on the port side of the VLGI's poop deck. Such was the impetus of his charging run, he clattered clean across the deck, tripped over the recumbent body of Staines (felled, as you will recall, by Shorty's not-quite-empty can) and hurtled over the taffrail before the hamsters had a chance to salute him with their customary 'Olé!'

His despairing 'ERK!' was abruptly cut off as Moichael was, yet again, swallowed by the foaming ocean's swell.

"Now that," declared Hieronymous. "Was definitely a record for the shortest visit yet to the good ship Very Little Gravitas Indeed!"

"OLE!!" agreed the other hamsters.

Meanwhile, Miss Susan was becoming concerned about Staines.

"I say!" she said. "I'm becoming concerned about Seaman Staines."

Frontbottom took a pull on his pipe and ....

[ernknot]

said" This tastes like sh##, have to give it up" With that Frontbottom started to............

[Caliban]

listen to the radio, which at that very moment was trying to impersonate everyone's email inbox by featuring a sexy female voice advising all listening blokes (and chaps) that more than thirty seconds would be very nice and added that her company the upturned banana could improve everyone's (err?)standing in the bedroom.
"I say" said Hieronymous, "perhaps we ought to get some of that for Moichael, it might help him stay on board for longer...

[ernknot]

for when we have the next caber tossing event, that's if he ever gets back on board" Meanwhile Frontbottom's ear was still glued to the radio which was most inconvenient. Shorty was silently laughing to himself at this since he put the glue on the radio. The glue Shorty got hold of was slow in setting until it came in contact with something. Shorty wondered what would happen if he painted all the toilet seats with it. " Tonight would be good " he thought, " The ships cook is doing French onion Soup and a rather spicey Goulash hmmmmm...................."

[AlexS]

Frontbottom, meanwhile, had given up trying to remove the radio from his ear, and was trying to juggle his mobile phone and his credit card. He had succumbed to the siren song of the spruiking sheila on the radio, and was in the process of dialing the number of the Upturned Banana. Little did he know that the number was that of a call centre in downtown Calcutta, and the call would be charged at several very large Euros a second.

"Brrrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrrr, Brrrrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrr....good morning sir, this are the offices of the upturning banana, Mr. Kari Mancha speaking, isn't it beautiful weather in Melbourne this morning, how may we being of assistance to you please?"

[Driver]

Frontbottom pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a second or two with a strange expression on his Royal Marine dial.

"Good heavens!" he said. "This device appears to be channelling Peter Sellers! How odd."

He tossed the mobile over the taffrail. Unbeknownst to anyone (except for the bloke in Calcutta, who heard a muffled "Erk!!") it beaned Moichael as he surfaced in the VLGI's wake.

Sally was still concerned about Seaman Staines.

"I'm still concerned about Seaman Staines," she said.

Frontbottom would have explained to her that Staines was someone on whom her concerns would be entirely wasted. However, before he could do so, something momentous happened.

The something was accompanied by a cataclysmic throbbing boom and a dreadful doom-laden disturbance across the entire light spectrum. It was the kind of noise and light effect you could imagine would accompany something utterly earth-shattering - like a shift in the space/time continuum.

Entirely appropriate because that was what the 'something' was. The space/time continuum did it's shift thing and, as usual, the results were interesting.

In the forward vision screens, the occupants of the Starship Very Little Gravitas Indeed's command bridge saw a gigantic penguin, riding a monocycle and pursued by an entire hockey team of octopuses. Nemo - for it was he - was trying to work out why his killer whale had become a one-wheeler and why the crew of the Sushi Maru had become a team of cephalopods brandishing striking thing implements of the Hockeyroo era.

Frontbottom had apparently been promoted because he wore the full dress uniform of a Galactic Admiral of the Agnurian Nebula Starfleet (bit of a bugger this, actually, because the full dress headgear was modelled on something remarkably similar to the Big Ram, a feature of the Wagin Woolarama in WA - although Frontbottom was not to know this. He just couldn't work out why his forward vision was impeded by what seemed to be an enormous ram's scrotum. Which meant, of course, that his head was up a ram's bottom).

Miss Sally was fetchingly attired as Marie Antoinette. So (regrettably) was Groans. Up until now his resemblance to Elton John had passed unnoticed but could not now be ignored.

Staines came to and took in the scene. Remarkably, he realised immediately that there had been a shift in the space/time continuum - with its customary weird effects on people. He swiftly checked to see what manifestation had been visited upon him and was frustrated to discover that the answer was - not much. He was clad in his normal striped guernsey and canvas pantaloons.

"Bugger!" he said. "Still a Seaman!"

"Oh!" said Sally. "I'm glad you're feeling better, Seaman Staines. You should have some cake. Shouldn't he, Mr Groans?"

"Yurss," said Groans, in a high-pitched falsetto squeak. "Let them eat cake!"

Meanwhile, Dogsbreath and Shorty ....

[fxst]

happily slept off their hangover due ,in part, to the over-indulgence of fine booze and pie floaters .through a hazy fog Dogsbreath heard .....'oi you, yes you laddie .........