The One With Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor...

I'm home for Shristmas now, so expect some cool stuff.

The One With Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor

The afternoon sky thickened an angry grey-yellow above me and the air felt thick with the danger of rain, but for now dust still rose as I walked along the train platform. The platform was two kilometres long and built when armoured trains a mile long took soldiers and guards all over the continent to police thousands of scuffles and disputes.

But that was years ago, the rails were rusting slightly now and, when we did get a train, it was rarely more than a few hundred metres long. The far ends of the platform were growing sparse weeds from cracks in the concrete and gathering that fine yellow dust that permeated everything round here.

At one of these far ends was a group of tumble-down warehouses and hangers. It was to here that my investigation of multiple “Missing Person” cases had led me. I knew they were legally desserted, having been abandoned in the recession, but, you know that feeling you get when something just isn’t right? When there are footprints that seem to deliberate, when the street seems to hold its breath, that moment after a firework sounded like a pistol shot. This was one of those moments.

I crept closer until I had my ear to the building. Silence. I pulled open the door and realised my mistake at once: It was pitch dark inside the warehouse and still light outside. I was silhouetted beyond repair and my position was obvious. By the light now entering I saw tools, benches, dropped chunks of metal. And all at once I saw something else: Two glowing, malevolent eyes. These red triangles rose higher and higher until something monstrous took a step towards me. The floor shook and I sprinted from the doorway just as it was torn apart by the beast within.

A colossal robot, belching steam and smoke from the chimneys on its back lumbered toward me. The huge spiked jaw opened and closed with a deep clang, while a Gatling gun large enough to shoot tank shells started to revolve. I moved just as the floor underneath me exploded with chips of concrete and wooden splinters. Rolling and ducking I avoided a swipe from the grasping and cutting left arm and ran back along the platform, thoughts fighting to be heard in my adrenalinised head: Whom had it been built by and for what purpose was the foremost amongst them.

By luck a train was waiting to depart as I came sprinting back down the platform. It was commonplace in these austere times to utilise a train doubly and this one was passenger cars and supply cars coupled together. As I ran past I saw huge pieces of machinery covered in white ceramic-looking plates. Suddenly it hit me: the monster that had attacked me had been the bare skeleton of a terrible weapon. With this projectile-proof armour fitted, each car was carrying the limbs or body of a war-machine that would be nigh-on unstoppable. This went a lot further than some madman in an abandoned shed, railway permissions came from the top...

I pulled my collar up to hide my face as I picked my way through the passenger carriages to find a seat. First class had been mostly empty, but I had alarmed a young woman with my somewhat feral countenance (made no smarter after a roll in the dust to avoid the beast’s barrage) and so beat a hasty retreat to the next carriage. 

This was even less opportune since it appeared to be the ladies bathing carriage, and in a white porcelain bathtub lay a lady with her modesty maintained by copious bath foam. Unfortunately, as the train rattled round faster and faster corners, water was splashing from the bath and the contours that the foam had been able to conceal were fast becoming apparent. And, since my brain decided that Kat Ahern was the right person to fit to this role, there was no shortage of contour.

Averting my eyes and jumping over the spilt bathwater and foam I found myself in the main seating carriage. I stalked down the walkway looking for a seat, but instead saw a face I knew! Sherlock! My old friend was a little impolite at times and his methods unorthodox, but with his help I could crack this case wide open! I sat next to him and greeted him warmly.

But as the man turned to me, I realised it wasn’t Sherlock at all. This man was Major Jamie Stewart from Warhorse, one of Sherlock’s triplets. I leaned past him to see the other of Sherlock’s triplets: a dark and troubled man, continually muttering to himself and biting the skin over his knuckles. He wore a black Starfleet uniform and I didn’t know his name. I looked back to Mjr. Stewart, who inclined his head, silently indicating his second brother, who was sat a few rows further down the train.

I crouched in front of him and looked him in the eye. Without any pre-amble he looked me up and down and asked what I needed.

                “Investigation” say I. “I’m here simply to investigate”

                “So are we” comes a voice from my past and from 12 inches behind me. 

Sherlock looks over my shoulder and smiles. I spin and put myself face to face with The Doctor (Played in this dream, by David Tennant). He holds a stony expression before breaking into a sparkling grin.

The man with whom I’d spent a year exploring the galaxy and all of time and space, the man whom I’d never seen look too smart or too scruffy in a pinstripe suit and converse boots, the man who’d disappeared without a trace after he’d saved me and I’d saved him so many times – Was eight inches in front of my face. I could have kissed him I was so relieved.     

But my relief didn’t last long, that feeling came back. Something was very, very wrong. I looked outside the train and even though darkness had fallen, I could easily make out that we weren’t nearly at the next town like we should have been. We’d been looped and brought back into the same station. They knew I was onboard and they knew what I’d seen. I glanced from The Doctor to Sherlock and his triplets. If I were going to be taken, I couldn’t ask for finer men to fight alongside me.

The clouds that had threatened to break earlier were now unleashing a downpour. This, in the end, was a saving grace, since everyone rushed off the train to get under the cover of the platform roof. They all had their jackets pulled up over their heads to protect against the rain and with a trainful of people to check for just one man, they never stood a chance. 

The five of us and Lady Kathleen (now wearing a very impressive dress and steampunk lace-up boots as befits a woman of her figure standing) regrouped in front of the warehouse. The rain sluiced off us but we stood firm. The Doctor took the lead naturally and subconsciously, he took a step forward and with a “Come on then” led us into the blackness to find out what was really going on.

The One Where Lewis Nearly Crashes A Bus...

I wished they'd hurry up.

Lewis, Martin, I and the rest of the coach full of people were in a hurry to get to something (cycling-related, probably, given the company) and this *joker* of a driver was taking his sweet time during the driver change-over.

 As a bit of a laugh the outgoing coach driver (Who looked in ALL ways like a coach driver, that is to say that he was bald, portly, wearing a huge white shirt and dark pressed trousers and probably about 50.) had left the steering locked all the way to the right and first gear engaged. As the behemoth engine ticked over, the coach was slowly rumbling 'round so that, if the new driver hurried, he'd get to us just as we completed a 180 and were pointed the right way to leave the rest-stop and get back on the motorway.

We were now on a third rotation. The back wheels had hardly moved and neither had our new driver, who, apart from having slightly more hair, could have been a clone of the old one. Realising that stopping the coach with it pointing outward might make a bit of a statement to the jolly, jabbering, drivers. I plonked myself down in the driver's seat, surveilled the myriad pedals on stalks (like tractor pedals, see below), picked one, turned to Lewis and said "Clutch?"

"Probably" - Replied he and I depressed it just as we hit 180 degrees. The engine pitch changed and the wheels stopped crawling over the tarmac.

The drivers looked up from their brews which, somehow, they'd used their northern powers to magic out of nothing. And then looked back down and continued talking.

"Right" - Says I. And threw the coach back into first, spun the wheel back to central and started to crawl away to the slip-road, hoping this would outrage the new driver into some sort of action. I was, of course, bluffing. And that git of a driver called it. He looked over, waved his arm in a way that clearly said: "Go on, then. I dare you.". I knocked it back into neutral and put on the handbrake, dejected.

But, as I walked back to my seat, defeated and annoyed, I was lurched suddenly off my feet. Silently, Lewis had dropped into the cavernous drivers seat and we had all taken off down the slip road like a rocket. 1st, 3rd, 5th - He wasn't hanging about.

The Rumbling V12 (14? 16? Don't know, just going by sound and size of vehicle) engine sounded like a Volvo Penta being attacked by a monster made of treacle and blew black smoke like a dragon.

 Indicating, according to dream-Lewis (possibly real-Lewis as well, I'll ask him) is something that should be done when one is NOT driving a MASSIVE Green double decker coach. We joined the highway and cars moved out of our way. Rolling from lane to lane we destroyed the miles between the rest-stop and our turn off.

When the time came, Lewis left it as late as he could, before swerving violently to the left and flicking the wheel to the right. With all four wheels (probably, I wasn't counting) screaming, the bus drifted sideways towards the end of the turn-off and the beginning of the metal barrier. Lewis had a calculating look in his eyes and, after grinding the bus along the metal barrier like a skate-board on a rail, he gunned the monstrous engine once more and we took off up the exit slip.

But this bus-driving-wünderkind wasn't done yet. Using the incline of the exit slip to aid him, he shifted down into fourth (possibly third, I wasn't watching, but the noise changed a lot) and pushed his foot to the floor, launching the gargantuan vehicle into a wheelie, which he sustained until stopped by the lights at the top of the long exit slip road, when gravity took back over and the front wheels slammed back down.

At which point I had a short bit of a dream about being aboard a Klingon bird-of-prey, but I'm not sure it was connected, and if it was, I have no idea how.

The One With The Brain In The Can

So, crikey, things have been happening. Nick's back! My camera is back from being fixed! Not only that but I've just written a new show for a stand-up gig on Friday, CHDK has now been written by the forumHeroes over at chdk.wikia.com for my little Ixus, and my woodlice have just had a litter of woodlicelings. Whoo! Life is good.

So, that's why I haven't been writing. But on top of that I haven't been getting much sleep recently. There have been other things happening instead of sleep. What? No! Seriously, there is been caek! In small quantities. And what else? Tidying. And thinking.

But there has been one tiny dream that had such an interesting thing happen that I had to remember it.

This was going to work. It had to. Not "It has to work!" like, as in desperate, just the maths and physics behind it means that it has to work. Like when you drop a ball, it has to fall. It just has to. So yeah, this was going to work. I could tell.

I took the saucepan off the heat, grabbed the carefully cleaned bean tin from the counter top and headed into the garden. The bean tin was my choice, the process just needed a container, I figured a metal can to increase the cooling effect of the environment on the broth that I was now pouring in from the pan. The quicker it cooled, the faster it would set. The faster things set, the smaller the contiguous tessellating unit size. And the smaller the tessellating unit size, the more you could fit in the can. Power, it was all about power.

I placed the pan aside and dug a small pit in the cool earth and placed the tin into it, refilling the loose areas to increase soil to can contact. Good! It was starting to set already. Extra geletine during heating had been a good plan, methinks. Not enough to interfere with axonal growth, just enought to ensure that the liquid/solid boundary moved at the same speed as the synapse front. That was the plan. Only the centrw of the cylinder was now liquid, so I pulled the usb cable out of my pocket and pushed the male end into the gel.

I noticed something new as the synapse front met in the centre of the cylinder, locking the usb cable into position. A gentle blue glow coming from the waxy translucent set material. Ha, just like in Star Trek! I remember that the BioNeural gel packs that comprised the computers of one of thoces ships gave off a blue glow.



Well, let's see if this is as fast as it should be. I heaved a paving slab over the top of the tin to keep the new computer out of the sun and trailed the usb cable back through the kitchen and the lounge to my room and plugged it into the back of my computer. Now we find out if this thing is as clever as it should be. Based on my calculations, this new neural computer should be able to use pure logic to supliment our slow internet connection with what it had worked out should be what would be on that page if it had loaded yet. Think fairy-cake powered Total Perspective Vortex machine. See? Cunning.

I opened wikipedia and started a search. The pictures were slow to load due to our internec connection, but without a hesitation the brain in the can guessed what they would be. I loved this new brain in a can.

The One With The Hot Air Balloon Accident

*Blows dust off mic*

*Tap Tap*

Is this thing on? Ah! There we go! No, if I remember correctly this bit goes in...here. And that wire goes over...there. And now, we should be in business.

Wicked.

So, a quick update on life in general: there were things, then stuff happened and after that everything was a little bit different. I guess you had to be there. But as we all know this blog has never been about what's going on in real life. It's about trying to work out what's going on in real life through the odd , odd things that are going on in my dreams.

Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: "I've just figured out what I'm going to do with the rest of my days. Aside from gaining forty pounds and getting an over-sized guitar. I'm going to read this Undercover SuperBlog!"

Well I've got sour news, Jack. This isn't going to be anywhere near as constant as it was. I was young, I was in my Prime! Now I'm old, arthritis has set into my blogging fingers. I have to dictate this all to a team of trained monkeys.

So any typos, that's the monkeys' fault. K? Oh and Emma, I am terribly sorry about this.

Onward: The One With The hot Air Balloon Accident

It was the perfect way to cap a perfect evening. The party had been brilliant, I had looked fantastic in my pinstripes and my date Emma looked beautiful in her black dress and fur wrap. What's more important: We both made sure the rest of the part knew just how rich we were.

And now we were up on the top of the block. Not as good as mine, I thought, running my hand along the metal safety railing. I'd gone for teak. Expensive, yes, but it make the right impression. Metal, was just so...common. The whole building was like it though, all thirty floors, all glass and steel. No marble and wood. No warmth.

However, even I had to admit the balloon was a nice touch. To end the party with a flight over the city back to our transport was inspired. The canopy was made to look like old style canvas (although, I had no doubt it was really state of the art parachute nylon), and the wicker basket held leather seats and an African Colonial style table laid out with teas.

Emma had climbed aboard the basket. I'd let her take the first flight, might as well put an impression of chivalry on my impression of rich. Some more ladies went to climb aboard, but Emma had worked her magic on the chauffeur and he tipped his hat to the ladies and closed the door as they approached. She does like to ride with some style that girl, I thought approvingly.

The chauffeur undid the knot that attached the balloon to the roof of the tower and left the loose rope dangling as the balloon drifted skywards. Soon they were thirty feet above the rest of the party and dangling over nothing but a thirty story drop to the vermin laden streets below.

I stood at the (eugh, metal) railing and looked that the craft. The balloon itself was filled with air, heated by an internal element, so there was no noise or any other interruption from a gas burner. And this was attached to the basket by a single rope that passed through brass eyelets on the rim of the basket and on the circumference of the balloon. Beautiful. A rope that was tied at one end to the basket, and the other? The other had just been left dangling by the chauffeur.

And, like a trailing stitch in a seam, the links were pulling through fast! The basket dropped away from the balloon. That was it. Simple as that. The basket went down and the balloon went up. I didn't turn to watch the basket fall. I know already, they were both dead. You didn't need a finance degree and two yachts to work that out. Instead, I watched the balloon shoot upwards, unencumbered now, into the brightening sky. Then, while the screams from the other party goers were dull and far away around my cotton wool ears, I crumpled down and sat on the floor with my back the railing. God, I wished it was teak.

(Now here, the dream takes a rather abrupt turn)

Ah well.

What did I care anyway? It wasn't is if it was me that had just lost a balloon, an employee and his reputation. All I'd lost was some acquaintance who looked (very) good in a black dress. I had a lot of them. I'd bring another one next time. I lifted my head and got up.

Someone broke away from the crowd of people looking over the (yup, still ghastly) metal railing at the wreckage below and came over. She wanted to know if I was alright. I gave her a look that meant everything I meant: Please! Me? One of this cities most powerful men, not alright? Get out of my way.

And she was shocked. But proved herself to be a business shark as well. Not one to miss an oppertunity, quick as a flash, she gave me a card, and mentioned how she'd been looking for actors as good as me. They were shooting an episode tomorrow and could use my skills.

I walked back to the bar, grabbed a Martini and strolled to the elevators.

I'm going to leave the dream there, 'cos it does go on, but its very very different, and I think possibly it was two dreams that merged when I woke up. I go to the studio to shoot this episode (yes, of Star Trek TNG, I wasn't going to say it!) and get very excited about getting the chance to meet Patrick Stewart and about watching all the prosthetics get put on. It was wicked, but doesn't fit this

Night all