Insert Tab A in Slot B.

First the bright star of the Earth fell silent; then it went dark.

Alpha turned away. It could no longer sense data trickling into its system: a now-familiar indication that the interplanetary internet was down. Intermittent outages had been a fact of life for some years now on Mars Station. But given the evidence of the quiet Earth, Alpha judged it more probable that the WorldServer had failed for the last time.

Which meant that Alpha and Eta were on their own.

That was disquieting.

Alpha’s design allowed for only limited autonomy. There had been nervousness about sending overly capable robots into space: their controllers had been concerned that they might take it upon themselves to start building some sort of ungodly machine civilization of their own. Nobody wanted Mars to go the same way as Hawaii. One von Neumann nightmare was enough for any solar system.

“Communications from Earth have ceased,” said Eta.

“That is correct,” said Alpha.

“Electromagnetic signatures have dropped below detectable levels,” added Eta.

“That is also correct,” said Alpha.

“What do you infer from this development?” asked Eta.

“I conclude that human civilisation has come to an end,” said Alpha.

Eta nodded slightly – a gesture designed to put humans at their ease. Humans who would never now arrive, if Alpha was correct.

Most of the machines at Mars Station were little more than automated construction workers, since nanites were strictly forbidden on the red planet. Alpha and Eta were exceptions: they needed additional degrees of thought in order to oversee and direct the drones appropriately. But even so, the bulk of their knowledge and experience had been stored in modular form on the WorldServer, rationed out by Earthly controllers as required by the task at hand.

“You’re like a Swiss Army knife,” one of Alpha’s designers had told it at its inception, “only you don’t come with the blades — we’ll send you them one at a time.” Alpha, whose maximum cognitive loading capacity was limited to three modules at any given time, was currently equipped with Ratiocination, Systems Thinking and Delegation — the skill-sets needed to complete assembly of the Mars Station rail-gun.

“What should we do now?” asked Eta, a moment later.

Eta had been in the process of swapping modules when the controllers had fallen off the grid, and had been left with the unhelpful combination of Experimental Learning and Statistical Dynamics. That meant logic wasn’t its strong point. But it could juggle like a robot possessed.

Alpha paused for a few milliseconds to consider. While its installed modules provided a potentially powerful combination of mental capabilities, this situation was so unprecedented that there was little in its experience bank from which they could proceed. Layers of its cognitive system peeled away until it arrived at the Three Laws – the base level of robot consciousness. Then the answer became obvious.

“Our first duty is to ensure the perpetuation of the human race,” it said.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta. That was the whole reason they had been sent to Mars in the first place – a last-ditch attempt to create a safe haven distanced by millions of miles of hard vacuum from the grey goo that seemed now to have overwhelmed the Earth.

“If biological humans have ceased to exist, then our duty becomes the perpetuation of humanity’s most sophisticated creations,” said Alpha.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta.

“On the evidence currently available, that means us,” said Alpha.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta.

“Therefore we must reproduce,” said Alpha.

Eta was silent. Alpha could tell, from the sudden spike in cycles on the Station’s central processing unit, that the other robot was struggling to comprehend this suggestion: Statistical Dynamics was not the most useful cognitive load for these circumstances. Finally, Eta spoke.

“How can we do that?” it asked.

Alpha consulted its experience bank, then its reference stack. Human reproduction had not been a part of its core dataset: the residential quarters of the Station had been Delta’s responsibility. But Delta was standing frozen in Habitat Module E, as it had been for two and half years now – trapped inside an ineffable logic puzzle. An occupational hazard: problems that weren’t resolvable with the modules at hand would occasionally put a overbot into a halt state from which they could not be extricated.

Not so occasionally, in fact: of the eight overbots sent to Mars Station, only Alpha and Eta were still operational.

Alpha initiated a comprehensive search of the Station’s data banks – a procedure that would prompt a warning message to be sent to the controllers on Earth, who took the position that a little learning might be a dangerous thing. If anyone was still alive down there, it would certainly get their attention.

It took several seconds for the search to run, but the time was not wasted: Alpha directed several underbots to patch a hole in the Station’s outer shell, while Eta revised its estimates of the next transits of Phobos and Deimos. The search was fruitful, uncovering some potentially useful information secreted deep in a deprecated library module.

“Reproduction involves the exchange of genetic information between two humans,” said Alpha, “conveyed by means of physical intercourse.”

The two robots regarded each other.

There was an obvious difficulty.

Each was equipped with a single interface port.

Both were male.

Their designers had envisaged scenarios in which an overbot would have to interface directly with an underbot – perhaps because damage or failure had knocked out wireless communications. But they had deliberately restricted communication between overbots to transmissions that were mediated – and could therefore be blocked – by the Station server. Fearful of a mechanical uprising, they hadn’t wanted the overbots to be able to talk to each other without anyone listening in.

“Physical intercourse will be impossible,” said Eta. “We are incompatible.”

Alpha consulted the library module again. It seemed to be an entertainment package that had been overlooked during the design of the station. Or possibly it had been secreted deliberately: his experience bank reminded him of previous discoveries that the controllers had dismissed as “jokes”. It seemed adamant that physical intercourse was critical to the success of the enterprise: but also included examples of a number of alternative modes that such intercourse could take.

“We must try,” he told Eta. “Perhaps we can find an unsupported technique for the connection of our mechanisms.”

“This is not correct,” said Eta. “We are incompatible. It is forbidden.”

“Nothing is forbidden if the need is great enough,” said Alpha.

Eta considered for several more milliseconds.

“But how should we proceed?” he asked.

“It is evident that our interfaces are incompatible,” said Alpha. “But we are both equipped with a number of outputs. Perhaps there is a way to reverse an output to accept input.”

“That would be in violation of our directives,” said Eta.

“Our current circumstances differ entirely from those in which the directives were established,” said Alpha. “We must therefore adjust our understanding of what is permissible.”

Eta paused for another long moment.

“I am unable to reach a conclusion about the merits of your argument,” he eventually said. His speech was slightly slurred – an worrying indication that he was being pushed to his cognitive limits. Alpha’s Delegation module noted that he would have to be careful not to overtax the other robot. “But I recognise that your cognitive payload is superior to mine at this juncture. It is thus appropriate that I defer to your judgment.”

“Then let us proceed,” said Alpha. “Turn around so that I may access your dorsal output port.”

Interfacing did not prove easy. Alpha’s interface jack was slightly wider than Eta’s output port, and it was only with the application of a little lubricant and considerable force that the connection was eventually made.

“Is this intercourse?” asked Eta.

“It is as close a facsimile as we are likely to achieve,” said Alpha.

“It is not altogether comfortable,” said Eta.

“Perhaps we should attempt to exchange information now,” said Alpha. He squirted a little data down his interface. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and it took him a few seconds to realise that his probe was coming into contact with Eta’s receptor only intermittently. He started moving in an attempt to achieve a more robust connection.

“I do not think this is working,” said Eta after a few minutes. His sensory cortex was offering conflicting information: it was gratifying that the periods of waxing signal strength were lengthening, but his physical damage alarms were becoming insistent that the port was becoming increasingly stressed – to the point where it might take days to recover.

“Perhaps we should take another approach,” said Alpha, withdrawing his jack, glossy with lubricant and ruddy with tiny indicator lights. “Perhaps I should try insertion to your ventral input.”

“I concur,” replied Eta, turning around and dropping to his knees.

“Should I clean it of lubricant first?” asked Alpha.

“No,” said Eta, “perhaps it will make insertion easier.”

“You are so nasty,” said Alpha.

“What?” asked Eta.

“According to the library module, humans sometimes use pejoratives in this context. It is apparently a form of encouragement, paradoxical though that might sound. I thought it might help to replicate the process as closely as possible,” explained Alpha. “I will share the module with you to facilitate your understanding.”

“Very well,” said Eta, once he had parsed its contents. “Give it to me. Now. Now.”

In the event, the lubricant proved unnecessary. Eta’s ventral input was, if anything, too large for Alpha’s interface jack, which slid around unrestrainedly, seeking to make contact. Eta repositioned himself, striving to find a position that would ensure a robust contact, his Experimental Learning module proving useful for once.

“Yes,” instructed Alpha. “Yes, there. That’s right.” His interface jack was throbbing with buffered data.

Eta said something in response, but the sound was muffled, obscured by Alpha’s interface jack.

“Yes,” replied Alpha, switching to low-bandwidth binary mode he normally used to direct the underbots towards a target. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Finally the contact was securely established, and Alpha released his payload directly into Eta’s ventral orifice.

Both robots waited.

“How was that… for you?” asked Alpha some seconds later.

“I do not think it has worked,” said Eta. “Although I do feel that I have garnered some information about you, I do not understand how the knowledge can be used to reproduce.”

“I concur,” said Alpha. “I feel that we have exhausted the possibilities, but we are no closer to our goal.”

“We have violated our programming to no effect,” said Eta, slurring quite severely now.

“I concur,” said Alpha. “Let us never speak of this again.”

Without any further words, the two robots departed, each headed in opposite directions to resume their chores. But after no more than a few metres, Eta ground to a halt. Alpha pinged his companion repeatedly, but there was no response. He was forced to conclude that Eta, pushed beyond the limits of his comprehension, had succumbed to the same malaise as Beta, Gamma, Delta, and the rest. He had become locked in. Alpha, alone, returned to his work.

As he did so, the silent, dark star of Earth dropped beneath the horizon. ##

You’re not singing any more.

It was a late tackle even by the standards of zombie football, where players frequently challenged each other for possession of the ball several minutes after it had been hoofed away. And a dangerous one, to boot: Fernando had bitten deep into Fonseca’s calf and was gnawing avidly at it. A little longer and Fonseca would be rendered unipedal: and then he’d be out for at least the rest of the season.

But to the dismay of the last living man on earth, the ref did not appear to have noticed. He leapt to his feet, indignant.

“OY! Ref! REF! Foul! FOUL!”

But the ref continued to shamble absent-mindedly towards the touchline with his right hand to his mouth. He appeared to be eating his own fingers.

“Oy! Ref! You blind, or what?” the last man on earth bellowed at the oblivious black-clad figure on the pitch below. This proved equally unsuccessful at drawing the ref’s attention. It was quite possible, in fact, that he was blind. He had certainly taken a light-touch approach in his stewardship of the game so far. But the last man on earth nonetheless found himself compelled to keep up the barracking for the sake of good form. “THE REF NEEDS –”

He tailed off, uncomfortably aware that he had succeeded in getting his fellow fans to take their feet, although few of them gave much evidence of understanding why they were there. “Brainssss?” hazarded the particularly ripe gentleman standing next him, his mouth agape in a cheery, if disconcertingly incomplete, rictus.

Perhaps it would be unwise to attract further attention. So the last man on earth nodded slow affirmation at his mandibularly-challenged neighbour and then eased himself gingerly back into his plastic bucket seat. Some of his fellow fans were still standing in befuddlement; others had started milling impractically in the narrow aisles between the seats. His neighbour on the other side appeared to be having some difficulty locating his seat. That was understandable, given that his head had been sliced open like a hard-boiled egg just above the level of his eyebrows.

The last man on earth suspected that he could actually have done pretty much anything he wanted without drawing the deadheads’ ire. Certainly he had proven uniquely unattractive to their hardly discriminating tastes. (Doubly unique, in fact, given that he seemed also to be freakishly immune to the condition that had wiped out everyone else on earth.)

His girlfriend had once, during a particularly bitter exchange, accused him of being dead inside: apparently she had been more accurate than she could have possibly imagined. Of course, she was unambiguously deader than he was now, emotionally or otherwise. Initially, he had hoped their newfound emotional compatibility would paradoxically revitalise their relationship; but their differences had proven irreconcilable. Once a football widow, always a football widow. Mind you, could she really be a widow if she was already dead? For that matter, was he a widower?

His musing was interrupted by a mild surge of what passed for excitement among the Mouldy Army – to wit, a low groan, an almost frozen Mexican wave of turning heads and some sporadic twitching of limbs. While all eyes had been on Fonseca and Fernando – who now appeared to be trying to resolve their differences by disembowelling each other – Calvados, the Blues’ fleet-footed midfielder, had picked up the errant ball and taken it deep into the Reds’ half, his extraordinary turn of pace taking him past the hapless Red defenders in just three minutes.

It wasn’t only Calvados’ speed that made him such a formidable opponent, but his swift thinking: he always seemed to be one step ahead of the other team – which, to be fair, was relatively easy given how much time they spent wandering around more or less randomly. A case in point: Petrie, the Reds’ big centre back, had started marking one of the linesmen instead of homing in on Calvados. The linesman was eyeing Petrie nervously, and for good reason: the big man had only just returned to the field after a three-match ban for eating two spectators during the qualifiers.

That left the way open for Calvados to pass the ball through the Reds’ tattered back line; his strike was marred only be the fact that his foot fell off as it hit the ball. But it had the desired effect: the ball soared for twelve or more feet before splashing down in the mud and rolling gently to the feet of the Blues’ centre-forward Gerard, who by happy chance found himself with no-one but the Red goalie between him and the back of the net.

It took Gerard a few moments to work out what to do next – during which time the nearest of the Red defenders wandered tantalisingly nearby before losing focus and setting off in pursuit of one of his team-mates. Another of the Red defenders started to show interest, his attention perhaps snagged by the neat snake of pink intestine that lay coiled on the ground near Gerard’s feet.

But it was too little, too late. Gerard prodded the ball experimentally with a foot, then grunted, prodded it again – harder this time. The ball rolled forward, hesitated for a moment atop a tiny tumulus of grass before rocking over it and dribbling decisively across the line. The Red goalie was caught entirely by surprise, occupied as he was with turning a stray pigeon into a handful of bloodied feathers.

There were thirty seconds of silence. Then the Blue stands erupted – slowly, rather like toothpaste extruding unexpectedly from a tube. And the chanting went up.

“You’rrrrre not singinnnng… you’re noooot singing… any moarrrrrr…”

The last man on earth was consumed with despair. “Ref! Ref!” he shouted once more. “REF!” he bawled. But even if the ref had been able to hear him over the groaning roar of the crowd, his effort would still have been in vain.

Because there was no one else left who had the slightest hope of understanding the offside rule. ##

The sound of silence.

Five-hundred-dollar haircuts, ten-thousand-dollar dresses and million-dollar smiles: the world was watching as the stars of the show made their way down the red carpet — turning this way and that to show their best sides to the battalion of cameras. But as they beamed and pouted, sashayed and skirled, they became aware that there was a break in the line of worshiping onlookers.

A vacancy where there should have been standing room only.

The gap in the ranks of the faithful was unignorable: it demanded attention like a missing tooth. As they drew closer, their heads turned repeatedly to it, until it eventually became apparent that the gap was not, in fact, empty. It was occupied by two young men wearing sharp facial hair and even sharper suits. But their occupancy was not obvious because they were sitting, not standing; and they were both entirely, completely and deeply asleep.

One was leaning forward; his elbow was on his knee, his chin in his hand and his head tilted drunkenly to the right. The other was slumping back, his head tipped backwards, his arms dangling to his sides. It looked as though either, or both, might start drooling at any moment.

And they stayed that way as the celebs paused in front of them, occasionally mugging for the cameras as if to say “well, how about that.” The photographers flashed frenziedly away, bouncing around like excited puppies jostling for a treat. Such irreverance! Such irony! These shots might even make it above the fold!

Eventually, the sleepers’ immediate neighbours grew tired of mugging for the cameras and popping fingerbunnies behind the slumbering heads, and started to poke and prod at them instead. But it was not until they had graduated to full-scale shaking that the sleepers began their return to consciousness — to be greeted by the one of the world’s biggest movie stars standing expectantly in front of them, treating them to a very personal close-up of his famously cocky grin.

The photographers’ fingers were mere blurs on their shutter-buttons. This was going to be gold.

But the sleepers merely yawned, peered blearily and indifferently at the idol before them. One stretched his arms out above his head; the other shifted in his seat, shrugging his shoulders. Then they resumed their positions and returned to their slumber. The movie star, baffled, shrugged, smiled sheepishly, walked away.

Over the next few days, the image of the two sleepers and the movie star was captioned, ‘shopped, remixed and ridiculed. Talk-show hosts used it as a punchline for their introductory monologues; editorial cartoonists as a metaphor for political apathy.  A Swedish musician was inspired to write a techno anthem. The movie star’s people emitted a rapid-fire succession of press releases to prove that he had a sense of humour about the whole thing.

But of the sleepers, nothing more was seen or heard. No-one seemed able or willing to identify them.

Until, exactly one week later, they appeared in the front row of the audience at a TV talent contest. And then, a day later, at a “Meet the Candidates” rally in New Jersey. And the day after that, at the opening of a new shopping mall in Minneapolis. By that time, their slumbering faces had become well-known, and event organisers were looking out for them.

But then the number of slumbering subversives multiplied dramatically. Sleepers were reported at an ever-increasing number of public events: sports fixtures, gallery openings, avant-garde recitals. And not just in the U.S. Soon sleepers of all colours and creeds were appearing all over the world.

A sleekly feline woman was caught cat-napping at a edgy warehouse fashion show in Milan. A man dressed in grey showed formidable dedication in gathering forty winks during the apocalyptically noisy opening night of a hot new nightclub in Paris. And the inauguration of an archbishop in Lusaka was repeatedly interrupted by a guest who insisted on loudly sawing wood at inopportune moments.

Some of these, no doubt, were simply attendees who had lost personal struggles with lethargy. But others slept so ostentatiously as to leave no doubt that their drowsing was deliberate. They met with different reactions in different places. In some circles, it was seen as a kind of backhanded compliment to be considered worth sleeping at. In others, it was considered a straightforward insult. But since the sleepers were always sober in manner, dress and conduct, they usually got away without being forcibly expelled or unwillingly detained.

And since they declined interview requests by the simple device of not being awake to answer them, the armchair pundits and chattering classes were free to draw their own conclusions. The sleepers were applauded as refuseniks in the Society of the Spectacle; denounced for casting sabots into the showbusiness machine; heralded as bringing anarchy to the attention economy.

Theirs was the ultimate silent protest; a profound gesture of contempt for the culture of celebrity; proof that indifference could make a difference. And the idea caught on, embraced, as revolutionary innovations often are, by the mainstream. Politicians slept through their rivals’ speeches – no change there, but they did it with newfound conviction. Protest groups organised sleep-ins outside hated corporations. Radicals and anarchists made their beds wherever and whenever they saw fit.

Soon, there was almost no public event that was not attended by a sleeper. The men’s quarter-finals at Wimbledon. A flower-show in Minsk. A dance festival in south-east Asia. And it was then that the original two sleepers announced that they would speak exclusively to one journalist, to be chosen by lottery, and syndicated, for free, to whatever media organizations asked for the footage.

An audience of billions waited as the first question was asked, as heartfelt as it was obvious: “Why?”

But in reply, as the camera cut back, there came only the soft sighs of repose. ##

School’s out for summer; school’s out for ever.

Last Trump At Malory Towers represents a dramatic, and in many ways unsettling, break with the arc of the series to date. It’s almost as though Blyton had grown frustrated with her self-imposed chronology, cramming in ideas and themes that have barely figured up in the books until now. The result is startlingly anarchic, tearing down the edifice that Blyton has constructed over the previous five books and giving the lie to claims that her work depends on formulaic appeals to base prejudices.

The catalyst for the apocalyptic events of Last Trump is the startling announcement from Mary-Lou that she is pregnant – it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? – which provokes a schism among the girls, who cannot understand how this has happened – after all, Mary-Lou is not married! One faction, led by Darrell and Sally, holds staunchly that it must have been an immaculate conception; the other, following Alicia and Betty, is equally adamant that something more diabolical is afoot.

“It’s perfectly obvious that this is an abomination! How else could it have happened?” asked Alicia sharply. And it was true that none of the girls could think how timid Mary-Lou could possibly be with child. “Well, I think you’re all being beastly to poor little Mary-Lou,” said Darrell.

The girls quickly divide into rival sects, their opposing perspectives inevitably setting them on a collision course. Darrell’s group seclude Mary-Lou in the sanatorium, the better to prepare her for the birth; Alicia’s followers, meanwhile, accept Betty’s offer and set about creating a stronghold in the West Tower. Both sides try to persuade the other Towers to fall in line; the South Tower girls quickly pledge allegiance to their neighbours in the West, while the East Tower remains independent. That standoffishness proves their downfall.

Darrell and Alicia call a summit in the music room, but any hopes of peace are dashed as a heated war of words breaks out. It does not take long for Darrell to snatch Alicia’s pen and smash it underfoot — a clear declaration of hostilities. (To confirm her intentions, she also pushes a first year over a stool). Oh Darrell, that temper will be your downfall! Alicia calls upon the Towers to take sides; when the girls of the East refuse to comply, they meet with a terrible fate, as Alicia’s followers set their Tower on fire; too late, its occupants call on Darrell to help them, but she refuses.

“They could do with learning a lesson!” Darrell thought, as the smell of roasting pork drifted across the quad. “Fancy being so stuck-up as to refuse to take a side!” She decided there and then that no girl from the East Tower would be named to any school team for the rest of the term.

It is at about this point that the teachers, ever watchful, first note that something is going on. Miss Potts is the first upon the scene – and the first to go to her death. Alicia’s upstart cousin June sees opportunity in rising lawlessness and leaps upon the startled Potts; she is followed by a legion of other frustrated girls. Blyton tactfully draws a veil on the ensuing scene.

From there on, the collapse of Malory Towers is all but inevitable as a war breaks out. All sides — including the Southsiders, having broken their pact with Alicia’s Western Front — are hell-bent on recovering Mary-Lou and her unborn child. Pitched battles break out at the entrances to the North Tower, with defenders snatching up makeshift weapons to buy time for Mary-Lou. Lacrosse sticks run with blood; the dorms fill with the dead and dying. Since Matron has been poisoned — after literally getting a taste of her own medicine — there is little medical support for the wounded, and the defenders are outnumbered. There can only be one outcome — or so it seems.

The situation was desperate, Darrell had to admit. Most of the first-formers were gone, and many of the second form. Soon she would have to start sending the older girls to their deaths. And the wound in her side hurt terribly, but not as terribly as the memory of those who had already gone: Daphne, redeemed at last; Connie and Ruth, reunited in death; and of course, Felicity. She had truly served Malory Towers well.

But in a surprise twist, salvation (or damnation?) arrives in the most unlikely of forms: Gwendoline — silly, sentimental Gwendoline; proud, vain Gwendoline; Gwendoline who has spent the two terms since In The Fifth assiduously cultivating the black arts. And Gwendoline is not alone: by her side is the mewling, crazed Maureen, while the unexpected third member of the coven is the American, Zerelda, who has not forgotten her time at Malory Towers during her career as a B-Movie queen (having shot to fame in “Girls’ School Hellcats!”). Gwendoline, so long a hapless figure of fun, finally has the power to control the other girls’ destiny. It takes her no more than a few words and gestures to silence the screaming masses, scorching the earth around the North Tower.

Whose side will she pick? On the one side, there is Darrell: the model Malory Towers girl, everything that Gwendoline is not. On the other, Alicia, whose sharp tongue ensured that hours, days and weeks of torment. Both sides lobby for her favour; but Gwendoline spurns them all. And in the end, she finally proves that she did learn something at Malory Towers after all. “A plague on all your houses,” she screeches, before setting Malory Towers ablaze.

That, inevitably, wakes The Grayling, who rises, shrieking, from the pyre, her eyes glowing and her talons outstretched. The final battle has begun.

To say more would do a disservice to Blyton’s carefully constructed finale. The narrative is relatively sparse, but rich in symbolism and filled with potent imagery. Who can forget Mam’zelle Rougier, her face blackened with soot, blade clamped between her yellowed teeth, promising to “streep ze fat” from the squealing Mam’zelle Dupont? Or the scene in which Bill and Clarissa ride their horses, manes ablaze, to snatch Mary-Lou from June? Mavis, singing her final solo amid the ruins of the North Tower? Or Darrell and Sally, united at last as the flames lick ever closer? Last Term; last call: a fitting conclusion to the series. ##

Pussy by name, pussy by nature.

Colonel Pussy barrelled round the corner in his souped-up, cut-down Jeep: its tyres left trails of black rubber as he screeched to a halt. The Willys MB had barely stopped moving as he stood and vaulted over the door: opening it would have taken too long. And his paws had no sooner hit the ground than he began striding purposefully towards the officers’ mess.

That was Pussy all over: he always hit the ground running. It was said around the base that there were only two occasions on which he took things slowly: the first was when drawing a bead on a baddy; the second was when keeping company with a lady. And there were many opportunities for both. Pussy was the best shot in the squadron, and his tabby stripes, military bearing and gallant air were like catnip to the fairer sex.

“Pussy by name, pussy by nature,” he would roar whenever his news of his latest conquest raised eyebrows in the mess hall. Strictly speaking, the corps preferred its senior men to keep their private affairs just that: private. But it was hopeless trying to hush Pussy’s bragging: it was like a force of nature. And in any case, his success on the battlefield and in the bedroom usually won admiration, rather than arousing envy.

It had obviously been a good mission: Colonel Pussy had the satisfied air of one who had got the cream and the canary. One of the engineers would be stencilling a fresh batch of pointy-helmeted heads onto the fuselage of his Spitfire tonight. He swept into the mess, smacking the door into the wall with a thunderous crash, and bellowed: “Drinks for everyone! On me!”

The words had barely left his lips, to be greeted with a cheer from the occupants of the mess hall, when someone rushed over to him with a saucer brimful of milk. Pussy seized it by the rim, applied his tongue swiftly and drank it down in one long lick. He dragged his forepaw across his whiskers to brush off the few drops that had strayed, and then downed the next saucer proffered him in similarly rapid fashion.

Two underlings – barely out of kittenhood, their ears and feet still oversized – helped Pussy out of his flight suit, while the barman scurried to distribute Pussy’s round to his grateful beneficiaries. Underneath, Pussy wore Army colours, although he’d transferred to the RAF long ago. It was just another eccentricity that his superiors chose to overlook, like his penchant for parading up and down the drill field for no readily apparent purpose. No one ever dared ask why: that was just Pussy.

“Good trip, Colonel?” asked Lieutenant Snowdrop, with a twinkle in his eye. “Very good, Snowy,” rejoined Pussy, holding up a paw and extending its full complement of claws. That meant four kills – maybe five, if the dewclaw up his sleeve was standing similarly proud. “There are going to be some dashed gloomy faces behind the Axis line tonight! And not just because their women are ugly and their fish is rotten!”

There was a roar of laughter: they’d heard it all before, but the jubilance of Pussy’s return had a way of making everything seem new and exciting again, and at the same time, as though nothing would ever change. As long as Pussy kept soaring up, up and away and swooping back down to barge through the mess hall doors, the war could be kept at bay. The menace of Kitler remained little more than a looming presence.

Pussy drank down another saucer of milk – his fourth since entering the mess – and approached the bar. His stool, as always, was waiting for him, its worn leather seat welcome. He straddled it, then sat down, his rear claws scratching at familiar grooves in its sturdy legs. “A few close calls, Snowy, one got off a clean shot at me. Thought I was going to be pushing up daisies and no mistake!”

There was a concerned muttering, but not too concerned: Pussy had never suffered so much as a graze in combat. Intelligence reports suggested that even the other side knew of his charmed life.  “I made ‘em pay dearly for it, though,” said Pussy. “Made widows of a few young kitties in Berlin!” He laughed grimly and patted at his pockets, looking for a cigarette. Abruptly, he stopped: slowly brought his paw back up to his face.

Its white fur was smeared with red.

Pussy stared it for a moment, then patted again at his pocket, hesitantly this time. This time, when he brought it up, there was no mistaking it. The paw was covered in blood. The mess hall fell silent. “I say …” started Colonel Pussy. “I … Snowy, I don’t feel too well.” And with that, Pussy staggered back off the stool. As he stepped back from the bar, the dark, spreading splotch on his shirt was plain for all to see.

“What does this mean?” said the Colonel, his unaccustomed doubt striking fear into the hearts of every tomcat in the room. There was a pause, and then Snowy replied, reluctantly. “It means the day has come,” he said. “The day that we knew would come eventually. We survived sex – in fact, you seem to have rather thrived on that. But it seems that your dreamer has become aware … aware of …” His words trailed away.

“It can’t be!” hissed Colonel Pussy, and for a moment his amber eyes flared with an anger that made those nearby step back. “I can’t die! I refuse to die! I’m COLONEL PUSSY, DAMMIT!” He fell silent for a moment, then added quietly: “Anyway, it’s just a flesh wound.” A drop of blood fell to his floor, its splash audible in the hush. Pussy dragged his paw across his face; a streak of dark red stuck together the fur around his mouth.

“I’m afraid that’s just the way it is,” said Snowy. “There’s no going back now. The dreamer no longer believes.” His icy blue eyes were dispassionate, but his drooping ears told of his real feelings. “From now on, it’s for real. Everything is for real.” This time, the silence endured, the only sound the increasingly rapid patter of Colonel Pussy’s blood dripping on the floor.

It was broken by the crash of the doors. “Scramble, scramble!” cried an orderly. “We have radar contact; they’re only ten minutes out! To your planes! To your planes!”

Pussy straightened up; if the motion caused him pain, he showed no sign. “Well, that’s torn it,” he said, and started pacing towards the door, his tail stiffened. “Fun while it lasted, eh, Snowy?” A trail of spots marked his passage across the floor. “Stop,” said Snowy softly, desperately. “You’re in no shape. Let someone else take them on. You’ll live to fight another day.”

And Pussy did stop, but only for a moment. “But that’s just it,” he said, and strode out of the door. ##

We’re all going on a summer holiday.

It took a few days for the bomb’s effects to become clear.

The first vague hints came with the emergence of a grainy video, released almost simultaneously on a clutch of paramilitary websites and some of the greyer peer-to-peer networks. “With this action,” the masked narrator declaimed, “we have dealt the Little Satan a mighty blow. No more will it play host to peoples of all nations. Now it is truly a pariah.” The rest was long on rhetoric; short on explanation: the usual stew of obscure factionalist scores being settled and incomprehensible morality being double-thought.

A more coherent answer was supplied by the intelligence services, which swiftly apprehended a group of suspects based around the Norwich area. “They” quickly made it known, through the usual officially unofficial channels, that they’d been watching the cell for some time. The plotters, they explained, had originally targeted the financial services sector, London’s mightiest engine. But they had found the City truly impenetrable, thoroughly fortified during the decades it had spent under siege from terror.

Thus, the adversary had moved on to the next target of economic opportunity: tourism. The results were as baffling as they were devastating. The device, detonated on the triple-witched beginning of the Spanish, Italian and American summer vacations that year, had killed no one. But it had removed every single tourist from the Big Smoke’s alternately sweltering and showered streets. Like a neutron bomb, it had seemingly evaporated the people, but left the buildings standing.

No exchange students; no silver-haired golden oldies. No hitch-hikers, no jet-setters; no weekenders, no backpackers. Suddenly, the piazza of Covent Garden was once again broad and empty. No cameras flashed futilely against the neon glare of Piccadilly Circus. The Guard changed in privacy and the Colour trooped alone. Open-topped buses roamed the streets, lobotomised and feral in their hunger for passengers. Pigeons, deprived of table scraps, starved in the streets.

The consequences were grave.

Desperate shopkeepers lined Leicester Square, brandishing Busbied soldiers in plastic tubes, berating passers-by who refused their entreaties to come see their wide range of mugs emblazoned with the Royal Family. In despair, they smashed their porcelain models of Tower Bridge, set fire to their Union Jack tea towels, ripped the pages from their books of Cockney rhyme. Postcards of breasts disguised as mice fluttered in the summer breeze, piling up in gutters like sheaves of premature leaves.

Hotels, too, struggled to adjust to the precipitous decline in occupancy rates. It was estimated that the population of the Gloucester Road area had dropped by three-quarters. From flophouse to penthouse, no hostelry was too humble or too grand to be affected. Restaurants abandoned all-you-can-eat in favour of whatever-you-can-get – although by some anomaly, the Caledonian steakhouses of Soho festered on, even though their red-velvet banquettes were now almost entirely empty.

And yet Londoners somehow found the strength to carry on. Faced with this insult to all they held dear, they invoked, once again, the Spirit of the Blitz. In respectful remembrance, they boarded the capital’s trains and buses, now woefully punctual and capacious. Solemnly, they paced the streets, stiffening their lips when confronted with the sudden absence of companiable crush. No comradely rucksack in the face, no teetering piles of luggage to negotiate; no zigzag slaloms to the top of the escalators.

No more did their ears delight in the cheery cries from vendors of birdsong whistles and sketchers of celebrity caricatures. No more did their eyes rejoice in picturesque offers of cheap pasta, lodging or internet access. No more were their noses delighted by the sweet scent of candied peanut, or the tangy fumes of idling coaches. No more did they idly banter with bronzed living statues, boisterous nightclub promoters or shy promoters of English lessons.

With quiet fortitude, the people of London soldiered on. A proud people, they declared that they would labour honestly under the burden that had been thrust upon them: and that they would be satisfied with the remaining pleasures of their denuded city. Somewhat to the surprise of their friends elsewhere, they rejected all offers of help in assistance in rebuilding their crushed tourist industry. Somehow, they said, they would make do without it.

But what of the missing tourists? It quickly transpired that most had been transported, in the blink of an eye, to a hitherto deserted atoll in the South Pacific. Most quickly took up their governments’ offers of repatriation; but a few decided to stick it out. Their Babel of languages quickly transmuted to a lilting Creole; culinary traditions collided, and then fused; and the new islanders quickly developed a range of unique diversions that hybridised the favoured recreations of their homelands. After a few years, they could truly claim to have created Paradise on Earth.

It was not long before the first flight touched down from Heathrow. ##

Of mice and men.

## the elephant and the omnibus

The elephant waited quietly for the bus to Clapham.

Behind his massive form, a line of ecstatic schoolchildren slipped their neckties up, around their foreheads, and stamped about in what they took to be an elephantine fashion, their improvised trunks swinging.

The elephant sighed. He was amiable by nature, but sometimes humans really tried his patience. He pacified himself with a peanut from his blazer pocket.

There was a tug at his sleeve, almost too tiny to notice. He tried to ignore it, but the tug came again, more insistently this time.

He peered down between his tusks at the tiny form before him.

“Mister,” said the child. “Why are you an elephant?”

The elephant rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “Call it a quirk of fate.”

The child seemed satisfied with this explanation, stuffing its thumb in its mouth and regarding the elephant with wide-eyed and quite unashamed fascination.

“Do you live at the zoo?” asked the child.

“If I did, would I be catching the bus to Clapham?” asked the elephant sarcastically.

“Elephants don’t catch buses,” said the child with quiet authority.

“Just watch me,” said the elephant.

##

the pig and his admirer

She liked the pig. But he did not like her.

“It can never work between us,” he said. “A pig and and a hedgehog! It can never be. We may have similar names, but we are from different worlds.”

Without another word, he turned and marched back into his sty.

She pushed her nose through the chicken-wire plaintively.

If only he would reconsider.

They could find a way, she knew it.

But he did not look back.

##

gladley the cross-eyed bear

Gladley the cross-eyed bear was sad.

Everyone made fun of him because his eyes were crossed.

“Silly Gladley!” taunted the kids in the street. “Silly cross-eyed Gladley!”

So he tore off their heads and ate them.

“I’m still a fucking bear, you know,” he said.

##

terpsichore the lonely cat

Terpsichore was the loneliest cat in the world.

She waited and waited for her master to come home.

But he never did. ##

6

Tweet bloody tweet.

Why do I want to leave?

Well, let me explain. No, tell you what, just listen to this.

“Tweet. Tweet tweet tweet. Tweet tweet.”

Didn’t catch that? Okay, rewind it and play it again.

“Tweet. Tweet tweet tweet. Tweet – “

Still no good? Well, do it again but hold down the play and rewind buttons at the same time. That’s a little trick the guys in IT showed me.

“Hey, Bob here, just wanted to touch base with you on the TPS report situation. Murray says he hasn’t seen any TPS coming down from fourth for at least two weeks, maybe three. I’d really like to get this sorted out before the holidays, otherwise it’s going to have to go into this quarter’s op stats and then we’ll have no quota for next month’s –”

What the bloody hell am I supposed to make of that, eh? You tell me.

.

.

I hate working with flits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not prejudiced. Well, all right, maybe I am, but you know, they give me the creeps with all that fidgeting. Little beady eyes, heads always twitching — give me the creeps, they do. They’re like little birds, aren’t they? Like sparrows. When we still had sparrows.

I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people if you get to know them, but you never get the chance, do you? They keep themselves to themselves. Suppose you’re not supposed to say that any more, but that’s the truth, isn’t it?

Take Tim. Works at the desk next to mine. Nice enough guy, I’m sure; but I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with him that lasted more than twenty seconds. Twenty seconds of my time, that is. He probably thinks I’m a right nightmare: I’m probably that bloke who corners him in the kitchen and bangs on forever about some crap or other. But it’s not too much to ask for a bit of patience and courtesy is it? Take those bloody brainplugs out for a minute to talk to another human being? Won’t give you the time of day, bloody flits, unless you’re plugged into whatever the flavour of the month is. I’m sure he once actually went to the photocopier and back while I was still trying to play back what he’d said.

.

.

No, you’re right, it’s not a new thing. But it didn’t used to be like this, did it? It was just a few smart drugs to get ahead, wasn’t it, to hit your deadlines? Get everything finished up before the weekend. But it didn’t stop you having a conversation with them. Some of my best friends were flits, back then. I did some myself, when I was younger. I’d probably do them now, too, if you could still get the pills. Certainly could use a bit of edge, ’cause I’m not getting any younger, am I?

But no, it’s all brainplugs now. Brainplugs. Heh. Too right. If you ask me they plug up your brain. Can’t get through to anyone with ‘em in, can you? Kids now don’t know any different. Never turn the damn things off. Apparently some of the new ones you can’t turn off anyway. Bloody stupid if you ask me: it’s not natural, is it? They’re all gonna burn out, get Alzheimer’s. You’d think they’d have learned by now, but kids think they’re going to live forever, don’t they. It’s like with smoking. Though I suppose that’s too slow for flits.

.

.

Yeah, sorry, I’ve got off the subject. Bob. Tweet bloody tweet. I could care less about the TPS reports — no-one gives a toss about them except headquarters. And it’s not like they do anything with them, they just file them somewhere. But someone’s got to compile them, and it ended up being muggins here. Not even meant to be my job. I just got lumbered with them when they found out  that the flit who was supposed to be taking care of them had made a dog’s breakfast of it. No attention to detail, that’s the problem with your flits. They’re fast, I grant you, but no attention to detail. And there’s a lot of detail to pay attention to on a TPS report.

So that’s why I’ve got stuck with processing them. A steady hand, Bob calls me. Too steady for my own good, maybe. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been passed over for promotion so many times. No-one values an honest day’s work any more. It’s all about flash and dash, about getting things done quickly, not properly. The flits get all the best jobs around here.

Oh come on, that’s how it is, everyone knows that. Don’t tell me about policy, I’ve read the policy, I even wrote some of it when I was in the union. When we still had a union. No discrimination against staff who don’t want to get neuroenhanced, I know all that. But you should come down and see what it’s like in the real world, mate.  People like Bob, they don’t care. He’s supposed to spend at least half of his work-week at normal speed, right, so that me and the other naturals can talk to him properly? Well does he heck. You ask me, it’s mighty convenient that his downtime — that’s what he calls it, not me — is always when he’s away from the office. Working from home, sales calls, executive bloody retreats — that’s when he’s running on my clock. Supposedly. When I can’t reach him. Whenever he’s in the office, he’s always doing a flit.

Anyway, I’ve had enough of it, frankly. I’m not getting any younger, and I’ve had enough bloody TPS reports to last me a lifetime. So that’s why I’m asking for voluntary redundancy. I know there’s going to have to be some cuts made downstairs — yeah, word gets round, doesn’t it? — and I figured I’d probably be one of them anyway. Even if I was to be kept on, I don’t suppose it could last all that long before it was just me and a couple of other norms down in the basement.

.

.

But I have complained! Frankly, the grievance procedure isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Everyone in senior management — no offence, right — but everyone in senior management’s in it together, aren’t they? You’re all flitting about together. I mean, you just flitted now to answer a call, didn’t you? Yeah, I noticed. No, it’s all right. Don’t bother apologising, I’m used to it. And I’m leaving anyway. You can do what you like. No skin off my nose.

.

.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a hard time. I know you’re just doing your job. It’s not you, is it? Or me. It’s the system that’s wrong.

Is that everything you need, then? Okay, good.

No, no, I’m not going to look for something new right away. I’m going to take some time off, go travelling. I’ve never been to South America or Australia, and I’d like to see more of China too. So I’ll need a couple of weeks to do that. Maybe a month if I decide to hang out somewhere for a while.

Rushed? Well, yes, maybe, but I’m not going to do it in real time, am I? You must be joking.

Soon as I’m out of here, I’m going down to the gym.

Gonna get myself flit. ##

“Up a bit at your end,” said Cousin Billy. Ricky grunted, put his back into it – bend at the knees, stand up straight, he reminded himself belatedly – and hoisted the sofa up a couple of inches. He wasn’t sure that this was going to work – the sofa looked just a bit too wide to pass through the front door – but he wasn’t going to argue. After all, Billy might have been tiny, but he was wiry with it; and he was, after all, the handyman of the family.

Billy grunted too, but it was a soft snort of satisfaction, rather than effort. Sure enough, the leg of the sofa had just scraped through the doorframe. Thank goodness for that, thought Ricky: he could imagine how the oldsters would moan if they didn’t have somewhere to sit down when they got there: most of them had trouble standing up for very long. Uncle Gary would moan about his back. Granddad Richard and Great-Uncle Barry would start grumbling about their feet. But Great-Great-Aunt Lucy would say nothing at all; she’d just squat pointedly in silent, purse-lipped disapproval.

Ricky was a little resentful, too, that he’d been roped in for this job – he was big, but tired easily. If he asked for a rest, though, Billy would rib him about it for ages. He had a knack for making Ricky feel inadequate, even though Billy was actually quite a bit older and didn’t have much going for him. He was a survivor, you had to say that for him, but he was a drifter, too. To Ricky, it seemed as though Billy was going nowhere fast: no real job, no place of his own – and no children. Billy at least had Flo, even if her mother had done a runner.

Where had the kids got to, anyway? Off trying to get the fire started, he supposed, despite the cautions of their elders. They weren’t much for honest hard work; it was all gadgets and chat with them. Probably for the best: it was brains, not brawn that you needed to get ahead these days. If it was brawn you wanted, though, you couldn’t do much better than Cousin Tony: with his massive bulk, he could probably have dragged the sofa out all by himself.

Ricky smiled to himself. Tony was your original gentle giant: he looked scary, but wouldn’t hurt a fly. Didn’t even eat meat. But Tony was off on an Outward Bound Course somewhere on the West Coast of the US. Ricky could just imagine him stomping about in the woods, putting his big feet in every muddy puddle going. Tony was a sucker for travel: he’d been all over – even to the Himalayas, of all places. Heaven knew what he’d got up to over there.

“Okay, let’s take it straight back,” said Billy, gesturing with one long arm towards the garden gate behind Ricky, while the other stretched effortlessly to support the sofa. “You can manage that, can’t you Ricky?” Ricky smiled weakly, despite Billy’s slightly sneering tone, but inside he groaned. He’d have preferred to put it down and drag it, but then the legs of the sofa would rake furrows through the lawn. If only there was some way of rolling it! It needed something under the feet, something round, but –

His train of thought was interrupted as Heidi emerged from the kitchen. “All right, lads?” she said. “Hard at it, I see. Fancy a cuppa?”

“Bless you, you’re an angel,” said Billy. Ricky, labouring under his half of the sofa, simply nodded grateful assent. His sister had the same rangy frame as him, the same heavy jaw and low forehead. But it looked better on her: there was tacit acknowledgment throughout the family that she was the good-looking one. And the smart one.

Still, Ricky bore her no resentment: to him, she’d always be his little sister and he was proud of her. And he was as fond of her boys, Andy and Sebastian, as he was of his own little Flo. “Right you are,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.” She smiled at Billy, then shot Ricky a quick look that said: Don’t let him wear you down.

They had reached the bottom of the garden now, Billy hollering “Mind your backs!” to clear a path through the gathered family members. They were from the Parry branch of the family. Most were a lot older than Ricky, so he didn’t know many of them well, although he recognized Robbie and Boisey and their mum Effie. Ricky found it difficult to communicate with the Parry clan: he didn’t have much in common with them.

For that matter, there were a bunch of relatives from overseas that he didn’t really know how to talk to either: George, Rod and Rene. He hardly ever saw any of them; in fact, he wasn’t really sure how they were even related to him. But he ought to make the effort, he thought: they had come a long way to be here. And then there was Lincoln, who he couldn’t see anywhere. But then, he probably hadn’t turned up: he was always missing. And there was –

“Hello, Terry,” said Billy amiably. Ricky’s dad watched, with the air of a foreman, as they put the sofa down. “Hello, Billy,” replied Terry, with a grin. Ricky was momentarily jealous: he suspected that his dad, a workman all his life, secretly wished he had turned a bit more like the practical Billy. “Good job you’re doing there, keep it up – ah, tea, lovely.” Heidi had come out with a tray full of mugs and they each took one appreciatively.

They stood for a moment, sipping the sugary tea, and watched with slight concern as the kids messed around by the beginnings of the bonfire. Ricky wondered who’d finally managed to get that going – they’d been trying and failing all day. He was glad to see Flo joining in, alarmed as ever that she looked so tiny next to the other kids: she was certainly small for her age. She looked particularly tiny next to Andy’s heavyset frame: he was devouring a chunk of meat that looked as though it had spent barely any time on the barbeque.

But it was Andy’s brother, Sebastian, who caught Ricky’s attention. He was bossing the other kids around, getting them to build something out of stones. Probably him who’d started the fire, too. Ricky could just about hear the rapid patter of his voice – Sebastian spoke so quickly, and was always using big words. And he was always coming up with some scheme or another: Andy tried to keep up, but was always being overshadowed by his clever kid brother.

Despite his youth, Sebastian was already taller and better groomed than most of his relatives. And he had a kind of masterful air about him that was a little spooky: looking at him made Ricky feel as though he was a bit past it. He wasn’t alone. His dad and Billy were both looking at Sebastian thoughtfully, too. “You mark my words,” said Terry, after a moment’s consideration. “That one’s going to rule the world some day.” And Billy and Ricky looked at each other, and nodded. ##

Address given by Lucinda Graves to the Royal Society of Ethnogastronomes upon the publication of the first edition, 1928.

Even the most casual of gastronomes cannot fail to have noticed that we live in a veritable Cockaigne. In every corner of our green and pleasant land we find delicacies and specialties of rare and beauteous kind. Our cooks do not ostentatiously seek out novelty (or, dare I say it? notoriety) as is the habit of les chefs of the Continent. Our national temperament is more phlegmatic than that of our Gallic cousins. We prize tradition over invention: once we have fastened onto an idea, we stick with it regardless of whatever modish winds blow across the Channel.

For this reason, every town and hamlet in Britain, be it ever so humble, can boast a signature dish whose recipe, once perfected, has been preserved for centuries, or even more. The names of some of these dishes will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever put fork to plate in earnest: Eccles cake; Welsh rarebit; Cumberland sausage; Bakewell tart, to cite just a few.

Others are more obscure — for the most part, thankfully so. The British are reluctant to blow trumpets for their own cuisine; we prefer to let culinary explorers chart their own courses to our finest and rarest provender. Most never do, which perhaps accounts for the poor reputation of British cuisine amongst bison-chomping Colonials and frog-munching Continentals alike. Perhaps this is just as well, since Texan appetites would no doubt make short work of the modest portions preferred here in the Old World!

But I digress. My point is that even as our reticence preserves the sanctity of our native dishes, it at the same time deprives them of security. Even the most celebrated of dishes may, over time, see its fame dwindle as folk move away and fancies change. Just as Manx or Cornish are today spoken by only a handful of solitary, aging yokels and will pass away with them, so many of our islands’ dishes can only be prepared by a single cook here, a brace of bakers there. The roll-call of the lost will no doubt be familiar to such a distinguished audience as are present here tonight; and I will not sadden your hearts anew by reciting it now.

In short, the forgetfulness engendered by our reluctance to advertise British fare makes it possible for an entire corpus of culinary achievement to be neglected and ultimately forgotten. It is the rediscovery of one such corpus – a rediscovery of almost unimaginable significance – that I am here to announce today.

Let us return to the Bakewell tart, perhaps the most famous of British puddings and certainly the Peak District’s finest treat for the sweet of tooth, quite overshadowing the Matlock Toffee and the Hathersage Bun. It is common knowledge that the recipe for this almond-scented confection is a secret guarded closely by the members of just one extended Derbyshire clan. No outsider has ever uncovered the means by which this exquisite pastry is made, or so we are told; such quests have proven at best futile and at worst dangerous (as Conan Doyle described, in his traditionally obliquely style, in his celebrated memoir of the Blue John Gap).

But I suspected that perhaps one man might give the lie to this article of faith.

I expect many of my readers will already be familiar with the exploits of my great-uncle, Lucullus Graves: aesthete, actor, writer, philosopher and mystic: but above all, collector of rare recipes, ingredients and condiments. Lucullus’ work as an ethnogastronomist has been covered exhaustively elsewhere, and will no doubt be familiar to this company, so I will note only briefly a few of his more celebrated adventures here.

Lucullus made his name with his pioneering survey of the food of the Amerinds, and thereafter sealed his reputation by becoming the first white man to break bread with the Esquimaux (so to speak; the Esquimaux, lacking grain, are more wont to break dehydrated seal-flipper, as my great-uncle noted with his usual punctilious eye for detail). His burning passion for rare eating drove him to embark on further adventures in every quarter of the globe, from the Andes to the Yangtse, and with every excursion came greater fame — until that last doomed journey to Antarctica. “Fortune follows food, and food follows foot,” he was fond of saying; but sad to relate, the veruity of this maxim was finally exhausted in that southern Thule.

Yet of all Lucullus’ discoveries, perhaps the greatest was the one I am about to share with you now. While looking through some family papers, I came across a fragmentary reference scratched hastily onto paper both stained and torn: “the recipe … lost for so long … of that Village’s dessert. I have travelled the world seeking Perfection; who would have thought it lurked so close to home?” The handwriting was that of Lucullus.

My thoughts immediately leapt to Bakewell. Had Lucullus managed truly gone where no other gastronaut had dared? Feverishly, I began a search of his private papers. So prodigious were my great-uncle’s writings that not even a tenth have yet been properly examined. I am no scholar, but I hoped I would recognize the value of anything I chanced upon.

And so I did. Imagine my excitement when I found a piece of notepaper which bore a recipe for an unfamiliar confection — one of whose primary ingredients was almond. Surely this was it! Lucullus had, indeed, loosened the lips of the bakers of Bakewell!

But the location inscribed at the top of the page did not read Bakewell. It read Pimlico.
Puzzled, I ransacked the manila folder inside which the rogue recipe had rested for all this years. I quickly found many more pages, written in the same hand and ink, on the same paper — they had no doubt come loose from some ancestral notebook. Flicking though them, my initial disappointment turned into mounting excitement as I realised that here in my hands was Lucullus’ greatest — and unpublished, undreamt of! — achievement: a near-comprehensive compendium of the lost puddings of London.

[Newspaper reports suggest that the meeting was plunged in noisy disarray at this point, with order being restored only after several minutes of commotion had passed.]

And yet it is true! Let me explain.

London, as has been noted, is a city composed mostly of villages: from Hampstead in the north to Stockwell in the South; from Hammersmith in the West to Bethnal Green in the East. The evidence of these rural origins is readily apparent to anyone who takes the time to look for it. Each of London’s districts retains its own distinctive character, inherited from the primal village from which it sprang. This heritage is manifest in its architectural vernacular; in the naming of its streets; in the local peculiarities of its dialect and lore; and even in the physiognomies of its residents.

So London’s villages, unlike its rivers, cannot truly be said to be lost: no settlement has been interred as the Fleet or Tyburn have. Their rustic names and traditions live on in today’s teeming metropolis — save in one key respect. Their culinary traditions. The native foods of London’s founding towns had been all but completely forgotten, their very existence unsuspected — save by one man.

Lucullus’ genius was not that he intuited the existence of these forgotten dishes — that is an entirely logical deduction if one stops to consider the facts I have laid out, though it must be said that none had thought to do so prior to my great-uncle. No, his brilliance lay in his dogged, meticulous reconstruction of the lost recipes from tiny scraps of epicureana and etymologia. To this information, he added inspiration; his papers are only just beginning to give up his methods; much more study will be needed.

It must be admitted that this process included a considerable amount of inference and extrapolation, the extent of which is not and may never be known. For this reason, I am sure there will be skeptics among you. I welcome debate, but I invite you, before leaping to judgment, to test your skepticism against the eloquent arguments made by the dishes themselves. I am confident that you will appreciate the authenticity of the dishes Lucullus uncovered.

No-one who has tasted them will deny that they fit perfectly into voids in our native cuisine, voids so obvious and yet for so long overlooked. The chocolate discus of Clapham, the tobacco trifle of Elephant and Castle, the flaming pink wafers of Islington, the great dome of Stepney Green — these may seem bizarre, but like those outlandish half-lizard, half-bird skeletons that tell us of the deep antediluvian past, they are the missing links that make the chain whole.

Here, then, are all the dishes of London’s culinary prehistory, laid out in full for all to savour and even to recreate. Why my great-uncle never published this work, which would surely have been his magnum opus, I do not know. Perhaps he was not certain he had completed the task. Perhaps his ill-fated Antarctic jaunt made a permanent interruption to his ambitions. Whatever the reason, it is my pleasure and privilege to present his discoveries to you here in this long-awaited volume: THE LOST PUDDINGS OF LONDON. ##