News from the Stars

Scene: The Ice Palace on Planet Zerxon198 in the Galaxy of Cadberry where the Light-Cruiser Gallifrey has just returned from a 2000 year voyage of inter-Galaxial discovery. The Zerxon198 ruler, Gok1254, is receiving his firstborn son, Gok1256, who led the expedition in search of a new planet to colonise - their own planet was in the grip of terminal decline caused by the over-indulgence in Quantitive Easing.

Gok1254: Hailings, mon loin-fruit of adventuring! And pray let me aurally learn of the planetry summary thy doings hath done these past two millennia?

Son: Can't you just talk like the other Dads, Father? I have had a long and arduous journey and there was a time-drive replacement ship service on the Milky Way.

Gok1254: But sooth dear son-of-sons! What of the new planet you mentioned in despatches on the Unisphere? (nb like the Twittersphere but more intelligent). What of this Green-Blue Planet called - Erith?

Son: It's Earth, Dad. Erith is a hell-hole in the quantum Kentland marches. But the bad news is that Earth is
entirely unsuitable for colonisation. It is peopled by the strangest of creatures who are unintelligent, ungovernable and largely inedible.

Gok1254: But its prospectus in monitorisation looked so promising? What of your visit? It was assumed that the peoples of the Earth would be cloned from this Professor Briancox character of D-Ream? The one with the shiny face and teeth?

Son: No father. We visited on a diurnal inclusion they call the Day of Sat and the populace were mindlessly
worshipping a very unusual deity called Broo-C. It was part of a local ceremony called "Stictly Come Dancing" for reasons that nobody appears to know.

Gok1254: But what entaileth thus?

Son: Broo-C is actually the oldest individual on Earth and has the most distincive chin which has kept growing under a scheme known as "the Re-generation Game". He intones bland wordplay to a camera-device and the populace moans and groans in ecstasy. At that point, two much younger earthlings perform a ritual of ornate artistry around the floor whilst their life-partners look on in feined happiness - they do this to a cacophony of noise produced by the dreaded "Dave Arch and his Wonderful Orchestra" and an embarrassed individual in a pork pie hat.

After this ritual, four great Gods pass judgment from their pulpit.

The first of these, a monobrowed monopod called Horrid, intones a negative mantra concerning "heel turns" and evokes a general mumur of wrath.
The next God is actually a Goddess, the Princess of Darkly Bustling, who always speaks in a rising intonation and is always concerned about the "top line".
Thirdly, the God of Len appears to believe he is in charge because he looks like a cross between the elderly
Broo-C and one of the ritual cavorters, Anton Du-Sickbag. He intones about "illegal lifts" then flashes a "smile" which would kill at 25 metres.
Finally a small Gollum-Creature on the end of the pulpit stands on his chair and screams gibberish to the throng until he actually falls over.

I think you had to be there father.

Gok1254: No way, Hose. What was on X-Factor?