999 Isn't A Joke

On Tuesday I watched Uncle Ray have a heart attack. He's not my Uncle Ray, but housemate Sal's and everyone whose ever met him calls him that too. So, a heart attack eh? It wasn't like Don Corleone's or Superman's adopted dad's, no gripping of the upper arm, no giant redwood fall to the ground, just, "I don't feel too good."

His hands were dark red, the rest of him ashen white, he didn't want to make a fuss but people ring 999 if they've forgotten their lottery numbers so...
I've watched tele so knew what to do - I loosened my clothing, boiled up some towels and waited for Quincy to show up.

The local rapid response guy appeared first, followed closely by an Amazon delivery ['Yes Minister/Prime Minister' box set, a snip at £13] followed by three men in an ambulance. Mister Rapid Response was soon muscled out of things and I felt sorry for him, craning his neck to get a look at the machine that goes 'ping'...
A ticker-tape [no pun intended, and hopefully none taken] reading came out of said machine, Uncle Ray covered in plastic nipples and wires...
"Vent 1, fine........vent 2, nothing there....vent 3 WHOAH! Asprin!"

There now followed an interview where Uncle Ray was economical with the actuals - he didn't tell them about his nothing-until-2PM diet, his smoking, his parents history of heart problems or his brother's triple-bypass operation...
"I did take an asprin years ago and it upset my stomach a bit..."
"Take it, just take it."

Mister Rapid Response was visibly shaken. Uncle Ray was strapped to a chair and lifted into the ambulance...
"The suspension on those things are appalling, I was thrown all over the shop!" He would later remark.

It was lucky I was on a late shift and there when it happened, but I don't believe Uncle Ray would've left it much longer before ringing for help - basic desire to survive kicks in eventually. If you feel unwell and it's not a normal sort of unwell - a cold, sore throat, something you tend to get anyway - ring 999.

He's back home, reunited with pooch Harry & contemplating a low-fat fridge, there's also an ounce of 'Drum' hand-rolling tobacco on ebay.

Sadly, on New Year's Eve 2013, Ray had another heart attack while driving. He passed away a few days later. We have Harry now.

Travel Broadens The Feet

Travel broadens the behind too. I wish my suitcase had wheels - I don't like those little Sholley® jobs, but still. A journey of a billion miles begins with a single step into a cab at 01:30 a.m. on a blustery cold doodah in May.
I'm going to look for America, as if it hadn't already been looked, not by me anyway, at - I'm expecting to jump off the plane [wheee!] and fall into a huge mattress of Americanness. 'Wroxham Travel' - you are my first quarry - when you book someone a flight and a bus to take him to the flight, make sure the bus timetable doesn't change between the booking of the bus and the getting-on of the bus. Arseholes. I should thank them really, they erred [and ummed, if I remember correctly] on the correct side of arsholeness, to wit [to woo?] they gave me a wait of 2 hours for the bus, not a cab ride to Heathrow or a trip home and: "Well I tried but it just wasn't meant to be, y'know?"

Here I am then, dressed for Miami. I look at the notice board and get that little feeling in the middle of the belly. It's the one that's triggered when you realise you've dropped your car keys on the beach at midnight trying to impress someone with your pebble-chucking skills and you're going to have to ring your mum to come & pick you up and that girl is *never*, I said *NEVER* going to speak to you again. That one.
Then hope, cruel hope, crueler than cruel. Up turns a bus with 'Heathrow' on the front. Not 'NOWHERE' or 'DESPAIR', but 'Heathrow'. Out step passengers, like those poor buggered-senseless peeps at the end of 'Close Encounters' and then the driver, lit by glorious glory, hands leathered to a patent leather by decades of chivalrous taxiing......

"Ah, you're the Heathrow bus [well duh, but we've only just met], I thought I might have a wait..."
*studies ticket, strokes chin, looks less fanciable as doubt, realisation & shadenfreude [whatever happened to them? That first L.P. was so promising] take hold*
"Blah, blah, blah, change of timetable, blah, blah, blah, you've got a two-hour wait..."
"So it's not this bus going to Heathrow then?"

Long pause. Suspicious pause.

"Erm, [another one, as if it were possible] nah, he'll pull round here on time, just before 04:00, be sure to have your ticket ready blah, blah, blah"

Have you guessed it too? No? I saw his face so had an advantage. "He" was "me" or "He'll was "I'll". Laughing Boy [amazing how you can fall out of love with people] climbed back into his cab, would have done a big "HHHUUUUGGH-HHHUUUGGH!" on the horn if it had one & drove 40 yards to the other side of the bus station for a cup of tea, a read of the paper, a wank and a sleep.

I could hear nothing but two gulls:
"Look at that idiot down there, waiting for what might be two hours with only flimsy clothing and a suitcase without wheels. If it had wheels he could go for a stroll, nothing's open at this ungodly hour but the.."
"Squawk!"

 Thank fuck for that, his mate was already getting on my nerves. A sign says "CCTV in operation at all times" so I do 'West Side Story' in full and make a bloody good job of it too.

Disclaimer: The assertion that National Express drivers masturbate on duty is not necessarily true - this guy was on a break.

Conversations With Joseph

I Posted this yesterday and believe it or not it took two days to write; forty years if you include the time these images have haunted my tiny mind. This is a fiction of course, but I did see this skeleton [or a replica of it] in that tawdry little freak museum on The Isle Of Wight and I remember dad crying too. This all lay dormant in the brain until 'The Elephant Man' came out. Dad got 'The TRUE History Of The Elephant Man' from the library and did resist the film but not because of sympathy for Tom Norman [the freak show owner who paraded Merrick] but because, like myself he couldn't stand to see this poor helpless man humiliated. I usually write nonsense on here, for one thing you don't have to worry too much about grammar or tense or sentences going on too long and the rest. This is why this was doubly difficult for me to do. I need editing. The most haunting image from the film [still to be watched in it's entirety] is when the maid is sent up to Joseph's room to give him tea. She has no idea what is in the room, it's typically David-Lynch-spooky and dark and black & white and harrowing. That is also a ridiculous trick being played on us - Doctor Treves [who 'rescues' Joseph from Norman's grasp] is no angel - he goes on to gain much from Merrick's misfortune - but surely no-one would deliberately let that happen. I maintain that Lynch made a horror film, one where the monster is the victim like King Kong or Frankenstein's creature. There is also guilt here - kids dressed as Merrick shuffling through the playground, pretending to be him on the cricket field, doing the voice...

So what follows is what I did yesterday, I had to write it, or something like it, to hopefully remove some ghosts. I'll stick to nonsense from now on.

Joseph was dead to begin with.
I first saw him on The Isle Of Wight, near Ventnor, in a little museum of the strange. Only much later did I wonder why dad had dragged the Norman family to this weird place on such a miserable afternoon. Apart from Joseph, there was a ram with two heads, various hideously deformed foetuses in jars - the liquid preserving them clouded with age and the glass green with molds - and a 'cricket match' being played by 22 guinea pigs. The guinea pigs were stuffed of course, so too the ram, and Joseph was a skeleton. As the rest of the family wandered this rather shabby tourist trap, my dad Frederick stayed in front of Joseph's remains. Crying. My other memories from that holiday are seeing sugar lumps for the first time, sand in my cream cheese rolls on Sandown beach and a minor bird in the café where we used to have our tea.
"A little birdie tells me your name is Tom" said the café owner every day...
"...but I'm John."

Tom Arnold was later portrayed as the brutal, heartless freak show owner who paraded Joseph Carey Merrick to the paying public in the film 'The Elephant Man'. Dad looked into his family tree and found that his great grandfather was no saint, but not the monster seen in black and white. The film seemed to bring a huge cloud over dad however, he refused to let us see it and his behaviour became increasingly strange. One night I crept downstairs to get some milk and found mum asleep on the sofa, upstairs dad paced the spare room muttering to himself. Soon after, mum left us. She took my sister and brother with her, I felt I had to stay with dad - I knew what was wrong.

The second time I saw Joseph was the day of dad's funeral. It was a foul morning with horizontal rain and a gale whipping it into mourner's faces. As we drove back to the house for the wake we passed our childhood playground, the tennis court overgrown with moss and weeds, the mesh fencing rusty and holed. In a corner, huddled in a black overcoat, face covered with a grubby stretch of cloth, stood Joseph. He watched us pass and in the rearview mirror of the hearse I saw him creak open the tennis court door and start following. As the wake dispersed I found myself alone for the first time in the old family home. Now living 200 miles away on the Norfolk Broads,  the old place was already for sale, I went upstairs to double check if anyone had left a coat or umbrella in the designated cloak room. There in the spare bedroom, sitting up in bed, was Joseph.
"You have to look after me now."

So Joseph was now haunting me.
I drove home east and there he was in the guest room, cozily tucked up waiting to be read a story. Every night, an hour before lights-out, I would read to him until a slight raising of his left hand signified 'enough'. He would also turn up during my days, watching in shadows and alley ways of the city as I travelled to and from work. I had a wife and two little girls of my own, soon to leave because my life was taken over by Joseph, the guilt of my ancestors compelling me to care for this ghostly man.

One night Joseph said he didn't require a bedtime reading, he said he was too tired. I noticed the pillows were not ready for his usual upright sleeping position, instead he lay flat, wished me a good night and waved me away. The next day I was free, I'd slept soundly and woke up fresh and carefree for the first time in years.

Sugar Puffs®: The New Cheese

There was a competition on the back of the Sugar Puffs® box, "Describe in no more than 500 words what effect Sugar Puffs® have on your stools." Amazingly, my entry ["None whatsoever"] was chosen as best. My prize was a years membership of The Inspector Morse Appreciation Society and I only had to wait a week before my first payout - number one of twelve monthly meetings in Oxford's spiring dreams, all expenses paid.

I was picked up in a 1968 Lancia Flaminia [the saloon, not the coupé] and driven to the venue in silence. Morse drove 'a Lancia' in the early books, the MkII Jag is a bit of a cliché in classic car circles and not as good a car as the contemporary 'S-Type' with independent rear suspension and John Thaw would have seen plenty of those on 'The Sweeney' and should have known betterANYWAY I got there. We were shown into a huge room with book-shelved walls, everything dark wood and a huge roaring fire at one end. Those book shelves had a tiny rail track, criss-crossing the various subjects and on it a little steam train toot-tootling along, stopping at 'Geography' and [with a minute robot hand] taking a book and passing it forward to our lecturer. The man himself [not his real name] sat in a huuuge wine red Chesterfield holding a giant stick. I guessed the stick was for pointing at the large tv screen perched high above the nooky ingle, I was right about that but wasn't going to find out just how right until later.

On my table [round, holding 7 others, nice & shiny] everyone else had notepads, calculators and thesauri [no red line under that, could be my lucky day] open and ready.
"Did they not tell you about lunch?"
"No." said I, truthfully.
"The menu is cryptic, like the crosswords that the great detective used to solve during his cases. You're given clues to each dish and have to work them out to ensure you eat what you want."
"I'll just pick a number, I'm sure everything on the menu will be nice."
*ascanced face*, *snooty face*, *what have I trodden in? face*, *another ascanced face*, *derision face*, *Kevin Whately having been denied a day off face* and *wanker face* [there's always one]
"But what if you're a vegetarian and you choose the lamb medallions? Or get the nut roast and, well you can guess the rest..."
"I'm not, I'll be fine, when do we eat?"
"After we've solved the menu."
*slightly pissed-off hungry face*

All that taken care of [goats cheese starter, baked halibut in a lobster bisque, banana pancakes, since you ask] the lights dimmed and our honcho rose to introduce today's episode. He pointed his big stick at the screen [told you!] and the titles began. I like watching old episodes of Morse and this was a good'n, it had Frances Barber in it playing a sexy opera singer, Morse fancies her and uses the term 'diva' to describe her [possibly the last time this happened properly, now any female who sings or refuses to use stairs gets labelled the same way]. When our heroes entered a pub a waitress appeared at our table to take our orders. Everyone said either "Morse" [pint of best bitter] or "Lewis" ['Florida orange' or pint of best bitter if off duty]. Luckily they visited three pubs in this episode so the drinks kept on coming, I was asleep just before the end.

Woken by the undimmed lights and slight shuffle of seven people scribbling I did a big stretch and started gathering my things [a coat] together.
"Where are you off to?"
[looking at watch] "Erm, I thought that might be it, I've a long journey home."
"Did you guess who did it?"
"They told you at the end, they always do, I'd feel cheated if they didn't."
"But did you guess who did it?"
"I thought it would be Frances because she's the love interest and they're always wrong'uns, why? Was it her? I fell asleep."
"You are supposed to record the moment you realise who the culprit is and put a case for you being the first to do so."
"Well I'm not on the podium this time, sorry. I noticed a couple of continuity errors though...
*seven startled meerkat faces*
...Morse's collar is tucked into his jumper as he leans towards that witness and almost flat to his shoulder as he withdraws, there's no way he moves with enough force for that to occur naturally...."

The seven gathered round, one gave me a little hug, one gently massaged my shoulders from behind.
"You're with us now, put your coat down and have another pint of best bitter."

H.R., Puff & Stuff

Hi! The name's Stuart, Stuart D'Buckét, close friends get to call me 'S.B.' [few of them can be bothered to go from 'Stu' to 'ét', so use the initials and forget about the 'D' altogether, I'm cool with it, not a problem]. They could call me 'Stu' [only just thought of that and made a note of it, thanks]. I am the mild-mannered janitor at Randolph, Bruins & Hardacre - a TOP EXECUTIVE DESIGN CONSULTANCY or so it says on the front door. My bosses are Harry Randolph, who is always grumpy and smokes the funny stuff aaaall day and Ms. Patricia Bruins who is a lot nicer and prefers crisps. There is no 'Hardacre', they just added the name to make them sound BIGGER. I was going to suggest they change it to 'Randolph, Bruins & Associates' but I was working on a particularly tricky u-bend at the time and clean forgot. Our offices are above 'Knuts' joke shop, opposite The Theatre Royal, The Marquis Of Anglesey public house and my rooms* [*cupboards] look down on the statue of Sir Henry Irving. Around the statue sit three tramps drinking clear liquid from bottles wrapped in brown paper - they appear to be discussing the 'Christmas Tree Formation'.

I want promotion folks. Nothing against janitoring, it's a good honest profession and I'm in the pub by 11:30 - but man cannot live by cleaning the toilets alone. I've asked H.R. [as Mr. Randolph is called by all except me] and Ms. Bruins to extend my range of responsibilities but have found myself on stoney ground. Mr. Randolph did hand me a large bowl of loose staples and 38 staplers once - the task was to get the staples neatly arranged in the guns instead of going for my usual pint & pie in The 'Marquis, and he was very, very happy with the results. Never seen a man laugh so much. Ms. Bruins allows me to get her coffee from the rude man in the coffee shop and once let me carry her bags when she went shopping for shoes. I wanted her to get the red ones, she chose blue. 'Ce life such', as they say in France.

"Ms. Bruins? Erm, promotion, have you thought any more about...?"
"I'll see what I can do S, leave it with me."

She called me 'S' - that's even more familiar than 'S.B.'! To celebrate I went to The 'Marquis for a pie and a pint. Dennis Waterman was in there nursing a foaming one, I asked him what he was playing in, he asked if I could be quiet as he was listening to the Barnet game on his headphones. This struck me as strange - he appeared to have no headphones and I can't remember football matches taking place at 11:35 on a thursday morning before. Then Ms. Bruins walked into the pub. Then she walked towards me. Then she trod in some chewing gum. Then she just strode on regardless like a TOP LADY EXECUTIVE DESIGN CONSULTANT does....

"Wear a suit tomorrow, bring a watch, take a shave, buy me some crisps."

I didn't clean the toilets that friday. I did a bang-up job on thursday so... ah, I'll worry about that later, I was suited and booted. This was a problem as the standard issue safety wear which complies with health & safety law 6 [subsection 9] doesn't go with blue serge. I looked down at my be-socked feet and wondered if I could fulfill today's challenge shodless. I'd be alright if it was just an interview but if I had to walk out on the streets with these socks on?
[Sock note: there's a hole in the left sock, the toe to the right of the pinky is poking through and will not return inwards. The hole is cutting off circulation to the toe rendering it numb, if the upcoming journey is a long one then the toe may fall off like those of bi-polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. End of sock note.]

"Here S.B., try these babies for size."
Ms. Bruins handed me a pair of Doctor Martens shoes, blood red, my size, with laces and everything, for me.
"In the foyer are two packages, all you have to do is get them to Delaroche within the hour and H.R. will grant you promotion, fail and you will be fired, that's the bet. I'm banking on you S.B. Don't let me down."
She winked, you saw it too right?

She meant Delaroche's 'The Execution Of Lady Jane Grey', my favourite painting, housed in The National Gallery. I remember nearly bumping into her while gawping at it one afternoon, we both said "sorry" and moved on. I was to deliver lunch to her at 12:00 sharp to gain my promotion. The only other De La Roche was a print services on The Strand where all Randolph, Bruins & Hardacre projects were realised. The irony is that you can see Delaroche's 'The Portrait Of Lady Jane Grey' from a little window in the fire-escape door on the second floor of De La Roche Print Services. I *facepalm*ed my anger and looked at my watch. Time was almost up, only a fire escape escape could get me to the gallery on time. I kicked the door open, overbalanced and fell the two flights of black metal stairs to the ground. The heavier, squarer of the two packages softened the fall a little, the flatter, A2-sized one did nothing of the sort, in fact the corner got me somewhere on the noggin half-way down. At least it meant I didn't feel the ground as I hit it.

The tramps found me first. The smell of chicken and falafel was enough to bring them through the pigeons to my side. They didn't bother with the fold-away table in the A2 carrier but had the good grace to wrap the tablecloth around to keep me warm. As I woke I saw a bottle of clear liquid wrapped in brown paper to my right, to my left the most gorgeous pair of mirror-shined red brogue-toed high-heeled shoes I'd ever seen. No bow to make them look too girly, perfect.
"I thought you'd need a drink, dungbrain. You stood me up, you're fired. Get the suit cleaned and you can re-apply for the janitor's job at Randolph, Bruins & Associates tomorrow."
"Randolph, Bruins & ASSOCIATES?"
"Yeah, there's no Randolph, it's there just to make us sound bigger. Now I've got to get back to the office and clean the toilets. In these shoes."
She winked, you saw it too right?

CountryWars

A long time in the future in a galaxy exactly, exactly like this one, this one in fact......

It is a time of great calm. Every year, on a saturday they have an air show at Southend, every other saturday there is a world war. This particular saturday the weather is fine [they learned how to sort that out] and there is not a cloud in the sky [they learned how to sort that out]. Yesterday's 'Off-White' hosepipe warning was roundly giggled at because they learned how to get it to rain at night when all the gardeners tell you it's best. So we have an air show, this year coinciding with one of the 26 world wars in the year [think of an impressive leap in year number from 2012, I don't see why I should do all the work]. These world wars are not the clumsy sprawling affairs you are used to, they begin at the sensible hour of 8:00 and are always over in time for the football results. 'Our' side is referred to as 'EUSA' since Great Britain won the 4698 Eurovision Song Contest with 'Jiggggxy Jiggggxy Gleep-Gleep' by the transient gas 'Geton', and Europe's Queen Peaches XXXHI married President J.Z.Vax IIIIIIII in an uncivil ceremony.

Having ingested their beer through osmosis, the crowd gets restless, fighting is forgotten about because everyone is as soft as shite these days. The new calm is maintained by ancient readings from the 'Hotel California' scriptures, read over the 'Tannoy' [stupid name I know, but this is the future, so cut me some slack] by the 'Voice Of America'. She's hot, that's all you need to know.

"Air show? That'll be all zappy light-speed ninjaships right?"

No, please feel free to butt in with further questions but you're so wide of the mark that the mark has given up on you ever turning up and pissed-off home. No, [as I was about to say] the space program was called off somewhere back in the deep, deep distant recessions of time due to lack of funds, lack of interest and lack of aliens. See, man eventually came to the conclusion that he was an idiot, incapable of asking directions from a directions-to-be-asked-of Droid so thought "hey, if these aliens are so clever let them find us and hopefully they'll call ahead so we can get some vapourBeer® in and ultranibbles. They never called. They never called because there aren't any out there [sorry to get all Maulder on you, or is it Scully? No that was that scouser thing by Alan Bleasdale ... sorry] we are actually in a little crystal ball in God's little fortune-telling tent. The League Of Gentlemen's Papa Lazarou, is the closest you'll get to Jesus, so get the DVD. So no spacey ships, just old ones carried around on strings suspended from even older elastic-band-powered airships. No more petrol. None. All gone.

Lovely day. Really can't stress enough how pleasant it is. The only tension in the air is caused by the world war happening during what is, as I may have mentioned, a smashing air show. The highlight of these things is always the big victory fly-past with Lancasters, B-52's, Jonathan Richman, Spitfires, Red Arrow and T.I.E. all in formation available on-line and in leaflet form. [press the red button] But you can't have a victory fly-past without victory...

Silence, it's 4:45, all football matches will have been hosed away ready for tomorrows, the crowds mate, reproduce and die all in the space of a turnstile and the cycle begins once more. Meanwhile in Southend, the 'Tannoy' crackles...
"Is this thing on?...Ah,....this is The Voice Of America!! Hi Patriots everywhere!!... *cheer*
"..Hope you're having a swell time in your country here ! *cheer*
"..Well, here's todays world war result......... *hush*
"..WE WIN!!! *larger cheer*
"..No casualties on either side, no lateral damage, water prices to remain fixed, unemployment figures to be lowered, imbibe responsibly and BUY WAR GARY U.S.BONDS!!"

Although there is no fuel, the crowd still hear the rumble of distant engines as the majestic fly-past flies near towards the point where it will pass rendering it a 'past' once it is indeed passed that point. The sound is generated by the mile-high surround speakers on The Isle Of Grain. You should see the size of those elastic bands, little does man know that they are powerful enough to send him into orbit around the bearded lady beyond the coconut shy.

DM4 #3

The scene is the A&E Department, Southend General Hospital. @Deity17, @Bradl and @Journey2 have been waiting for an hour.
"There! Told you, that bloke just walked in and went straight through without even talking to Reception.."
"It's always like this in A&E, they hope your body's natural defenses put right whatever is wrong and you just go home."
@Deity17 raises a hand.
"I think I should tell you: the last thing we want is to have your name called, to go through those doors, to see a doctor. We appear to be safe here because mobile telephones are forbidden, none of these people seated are seeking treatment either."
"I thought I was getting my eye seen to" said @Journey2, still smarting from a black eye and having his mobile stolen by a robed girl.
"Your body's natural defenses will soon heal your wounds..."
"And then we can go home eh?"
"Home? That will depend on your concept of 'home'. Neither of you exist on Twitter, Facebook or online anymore, your dwellings will be under constant watch by the @Deities, your employers will have been informed of your deaths, you leave no relatives - which is not a coincidence of course.."
"But if we turn up, that'll prove we're alive right?"
"If you turn up, you'll be killed."
"So we just sit here and wait to starve?"

"This is a waiting room. All the people here are waiting to be linked to a safe domain, they have all been corrupted by @Deity1, used as alibis to dispose of his enemies just like yourselves. Outside of these four walls someone will betray us."
"How many ..whatevers...are in this bloke's gang then?"
"There are 20 @Deities, each with thousands of accounts, with thousands of followers each. For instance, did you find yourselves followed by a series of so-called 'rap' artists?" they nod "...all with about 10,000 followers and followees, tweeting what seemed to be undecipherable language?"
"I just thought it was slang, never did like rap very much.." said @Bradl
"All code, co-ordinates, viruses, slowly stealing the information of your lives, storing it and using it to control your very being."
"And those spam bots with the free iPads and stuff, I suppose they're in on it too?" asked @Journey2
"Brave seekers of truth and happiness, desperately trying to warn you of oncoming doom."
"Ah, bollocks, I reported every one of them as spam.."
"Which meant certain death I'm afraid - these truthsayers are suffering abominable losses."
@Journey2, squinting at the painful light: "I hate to bring up the little matter of my bloody mobile again, but you still have it, it is still turned on and you said they were forbidden here..."
"I told you I adapted it. It is no longer a device for oral communication, it is a telelinking machine only, and a not very powerful one at that."
"So-rry! Stick around and there'll be an upgrade along soon enough. I know I'm going to regret this but, 'Telelinking'?"
"How we made it to the pier, a link to here via the u.w.w."
"The wha?"
"The Universe Wide Web. You are aware there are other areas beyond Earth, and in it, that you are yet to explore?"
"We got as far as The Moon, got some rocks from Mars but seem to have given up lately."
"Far from it - a moment ago on a website from your capital city, it was announced that another Earth-like planet has been discovered in this very galaxy."
"Thats all well and good, but we're not going there.....are we?"
"It is unlikely. As I said, this is not a powerful enough machine, but if we could gain access to @Deity's hardware.."
"...we could escape to this planet we know nothing about and freeze or fry as soon as we land, whoop-di-do!"
"On the contrary, the atmosphere on Kepler 22b is perfectly suited to us and the journey is an easy one...... the @Deities found no difficulty getting here, did they?"