 |
Shove it up yer Icarus
People are making unkind, sceptical remarks about my Neptune Probe.
They say a man like me, with no scientific training apart from twenty years of switching on the microwave and trying to get BBC2, is incapable of interplanetary flight.
Hah! say I.
My Neptune Probe shall function in the following wise:
(1) The largest piece of elastic yet seen in London shall be attached to the towers of Tower Bridge and shall then be pulled downward and westward by a 1950s-style red bus, packed with victims of a glandular disorder.
(2) My interplanetary transit engine, containing me, shall be inserted into the pointy bit of the giant rubber ‘V’ thus created.
(3) After a countdown, the massive chains connecting the red bus to the rubber ‘V’ shall suddenly and inexplicably corrode, releasing the elastic to act as a catapult and propel me to the upper atmosphere.
(4) Once airborne I shall think very hard about Robert Kilroy-Silk, thereby generating a powerful repulsion between me and the British Isles.
(5) To pull free of the Earth’s gravitational field I shall open a small hatch at the rear of my vehicle, insert into it a cardboard cylinder, and blow through it with great force, as if inflating thousands of party balloons.
(6) It shall then be a matter of determining the whereabouts of Neptune. This I shall do by employing the following devices: (a) compass (b) sextant (c) Boy’s Wonder Book of Astronomy 1965 (d) tarot cards (e) giant U-shaped magnet (f) Delia Smith’s Cooking After Your Lobotomy (g) coin-operated telescope, as used on sea fronts (h) my own infallible sense of direction, and (i) nest of tables.
(7) While these operations are in progress, my vehicle and I shall accidentally pass too close to the Sun and be sucked into it and consumed entirely, thus removing the knotty conundrum of how to return to Earth.
To give more credibility to this project I am growing a set of extravagant side-whiskers so I can look like that bloke who’s always on telly whenever there’s a probe doing (or more likely not doing) whatever it is that probes are meant to do. Probe, presumably.
AIMLESS said…
I notice you reference Delia Smith's Cooking after Your Lobotomy. I have this book and it is excellent!
I especially enjoy her recipe for Spanish Spinach that begins..."Locate both your hands."
TOASTY replied…
The one I have is the hastily produced second edition, where it says at the top of every page, ‘ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU’RE IN THE KITCHEN?’
Back to Toasty’s Futon | Back to The Toasty’s Futon Archive
Send E-Mail to:
Copyright © 2005 . All Rights Reserved