''A cucumber?'' asked the diners in unison, or rather, in 16-part harmony rather similar to that composed and arranged by those famous Swedes, Bjorn and Benny.  I refer, of course, to Bjorn Borg and Benny Hillssen, rather than the more famous blokes who made up the BB part of ABBA, as well as writing all the music, and playing the instruments while their decorative partners stood around doing all the singing and turning sideways occasionally.

 I refer, of course, also, to Bjorn Borg the psychologist turned composer, and not the tennis champion, and to Benny Hillssen the rally driver turned talk-show host and then turned composer, rather than whoever you assumed the other Benny Hillssen could be.  Honestly!  Never assume.  You know what they say.  If you don't, you can ask me later.

Anyway... back to the restaurant, and those harmonious diners.  I replied, ''Sorry.  Did I say cucumber?  I meant a ballerina, of course.''

''Of course, of course, a ballerina of course.  He meant a ballerina of course, of course,'' they sang, rather beautifully, I thought.  Percy appeared to be thinking otherwise.  He had a flan covering each ear, and one over his face for good measure, or maybe for religious reasons.  I know he's a member of the Church of Latter Day Meercat Fanciers, but I have no idea of the tenets of their faith.

It turned out that the diners were all members of the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society, which explained the singing, but not the fact that they were in the restaurant.  Tonight, they were meant to be in the Geoffrey Perkins Memorial Theatre performing the opening night of their self-penned show, ''The Ruddy Mikado Shows Patience up to the Gondoliers,''   But they had come here to celebrate the fact that they had a full house... How we all laughed when they told me of their empty stage and full auditorium.

I decided it was time to head for the theatre to investigate.  I scraped the flans off Percy's head with my Tesco loyalty card, licked the rest off, and dragged him outside.

But wait till you hear what happened next. 

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The world can be frightfully dull place at times. Everything progresses in an orderly fashion, we are surrounded by plain, grey boring buildings where nothing odd happens and everything makes perfect sense. The boredom, the mundanity of it all is killing us. Nonsense, Inc. is one of the few organisations that can say it it is truly trying to save the world. Their agents are everywhere. That hobo in the alley, that irate waiter, that purple swan in your closet, ESPECIALLY the purple swan in your closet... Nonsense, Inc. fights the forces of boredom and the mundane a little bit of nonsense at a time and in this story we follow the holy work of one of their agents as he goes about his missions. Or her missions. Like most Nonsense, Inc. agents, he's unlikely to conform to anything as conventional as gender for long... Some rules follow: 1) This story is actually based in the real world, there is no magic, no super sci-fi technology that can make everything possible, so if you do decide to change something about the character such as their gender do so in a believable way, like cross-dressing or a sex-change. 2) Remember, you're bringing nonsense to the mundane, things should be normal before our character gets involved &) Obey the flan. q) Turn around 3 times before batting cushions around the room with a TV remote v.) I like superfluous list items

updated Sep 22 '08 by darkliquid