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Uncle Jack went toddling off towards the bar for a quick schooner and the rest of us visibly exhaled.

It had been, what had become, an exhausting afternoon. First Walter had arrived complaining that he was absolutely appalled that we were proposing to dine al-fresco. He predicted precipitous precipitation. But his god-awful lamentations had been nothing in comparison to Uncle Jack.

He had arrived half-cut and had proceeded to apply the metaphorical scissors to himself.

After pinching almost all the girls’ bottoms (an event which was made all the more embarrassing by his refusal, point blank, to pinch Gertrude. Despite her placing her, not inconsequential, posterior within inches of his hand and bellowing “pinch it or I’ll tell Monty”. Monty whoever he was, must have been dead – or worse deaf and married to old Gertie – because he didn’t respond despite a call put out for him that some said could be heard over three counties. I’ve heard many things said about Gertie, and I’ve said a few of them myself, but I won’t hear a word against her lungs. And you wouldn’t hear a word if you were against them either.), uncle Jack had set his attention towards the bar and now as he returned an incredible thing happened.

Walter, he of the doom-laden phraseology, was proven correct as it started spluttering down. Walt, it must be said, looked rather chipper for a man who had just been given the beginning of a light soaking.

“I told you all,” he cried, “didn’t I? I did, I think you’ll find, tell you all.”

Just as Walter was regaling us with stories of barometers he had encountered, and apparently simple tests you can perform on common seaweed, I noticed, out of the corner of my aspect, old Jack bumbling with his bumbershoot. Just as he found the automatic opening button was when the magnitude of his problems became apparent. He pressed it and the device damn near exploded. Metal and plastic flying this way and that. And Jack standing there cursing to the heavens shouting, “I ordered this as a whisky not a whisky and water.”

Jack was a man who feared dilution, and that is how I remember him screaming at the sky in want of something, anything, to cover his drink.

“Do you remember Mr. Fantus from school?”
“Yeah. We used to call him Mr. Fartus.”
“That’s him.”
“Man he had the worst B.O.”
“He still has.”
“What do you mean, ‘still has?”
“I’m working with him now.”
“Really? Working with Fartus.”
“Yeah and it’s incredible. He’s still got the same old nasty suits, same old B.O. and bad breath.”
“Well what did you think? That he’d be better?”
“Well I don’t know. He just seems to have given up.”
“I suppose that’s what happens to everyone eventually though. You just stop caring.”
“But it seems like he was young when it happened. I mean I know he seemed ancient but he was only around 35 when he used to teach us.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yes. Really. And now here am I, 35, a teacher in the same school. I wonder if I’m ready to give up.”

“Are you scared of commitment?”
“No, but I’m scared of you!”
“Why? Why should you be scared of me?”
“Because you’re the kind of person who would ask questions like, ‘Are you scared of commitment’.”
“And what’s wrong with that? Everybody in every relationship is allowed to ask questions like that.”
“No in every relationship you’re allowed to ask the easy ones like, ‘where do you think this relationship is going’. Not the impossible ones you’re going for.”
“Okay then, where do you think this relationship is going?”
“Forward. Where do you think this relationship is going?”
“Well I don’t know, I’d like to think that… Oooh, I see what you’ve done there. Very smooth.”
“You see an easy question. Those are allowed. You see we know about questions like that. We’re ready for them.”
“But all this leads me back to one thing. Are you afraid of commitment?”
“No, are you afraid of commitment?”

“There it is again.”
“What? What am I looking for?” Melchior was upset, he had just been having a particularly nice dream about a hand-maiden that he had in his employ when Steve had woken him. He spoke again, he put an upset tone into his voice, “What, am, I, looking, for?”
“A star,” said Steve.

That was it for Melchior. “I know it’s a star you blithering idiot. If you wake me up in the middle of the night, thrust a telescope in my hand and tell me to look at the sky I’m not going to think it’s a mongoose am I?”
“Well…”
“Am I?”
“It could have been a comet.” These words had not come from the cowering Steve but had come in fact from behind Melichor completely. It was Balthazar.

“Stop messing around with that poor boy and concentrate on the matter at hand.” Balthazar swooped into the tower. Steve thanked his lucky stars and then stopped when he realised how much trouble that pun would get him in from Melichor. By this point Balthazar had glid* his way across the room to the observation point. With a swift flick of the wrist his telescopic telescope extended to it’s full length. He looked through it and announced “Steve is right. A star is born. We shall follow it. It is moving to it’s appointed place. When it reaches there a child will be born. That child will be the king of kings.”

Melichor on hearing this drew himself up and said, “this truly is a great day. I am with you Balthazar. We shall go and worship this infant child.”

Steve slowly put his hand up. “What is it now?” asked Balthazar.

“Well I’ve been making some calculations and it turns out that in fact stars are balls of fire that are millions of miles away. Even the closest one takes four to get its light here. So if we go and anoint some child that’s born there when the star gets to its resting point we’ll have the wrong one. We’ll have to work out how far away it is and then find who was born there that long ago. And it could be thousands of years ago.”

“Shut up Steve,” pointed out Melichor.
“Well said Melichor,” added Balthazar, “lets go and find Gaspar”.
“Yes, I always thought he had a better name anyway.”

*To quote Eddie Izzard, “you try and decline the verb to glide”.

Two men are walking slowly across a bridge in London. They have just been for a lunch at the company they used to work at. The company that was their s until they were retired.

They had a great time at the dinner. They caught up with the old codgers, and told the youngsters what hey should be doing.

“You know what?” said one to the other.
“What?”
“Christmas makes me remember how much fun it was to be a kid. I mean, if I had been a kid I wouldn’t let you get away with saying ‘what’.”
“What? I mean, how do you mean?”
“Well we used to have this thing of if anyone said ‘what’ you said ‘chicken butt’.”
“Oh.”
“It’s strange, the way these things occur to you.”
“In what way?”
“Well. A million people have said ‘what’ to me since I was a child but that’s the first time I’ve thought about that since I was a youth.”
“But that’s what memory is like. When you think of something things that are near them in your memory become more available.”
“That’s true I suppose. But you know what I’ve been thinking?”
“What?”
“Chicken butt. No I’ll let that one slide. What I was going to say was that now when we look back we remember things with rose coloured glasses. We remember life as though it was in the movies. Hitchcock said ‘movies are life with the boring bits cut out’ and he was right except memory is the same.”

“And my question,” he went on, “is why don’t we think about it at the time? We love life as it was. But we don’t remember to love it as it’s going by.”

Jack was wedged between the vacuum cleaner and the coats. The nozzle of the hose was sticking into his arm, but he felt safe. It was dark under the stairs, but not the scary kind there wasn’t enough space for shadows. He was depressed, what did Tom know about Father Christmas anyway?

Jack decided there was an awful lot that Tom didn’t know about. Like him thinking that his parents couldn’t see Jack. Tom could see Jack couldn’t he? So why should his parents be any different? Why didn’t Tom believe that his parents and Jack had been playing hide and seek for years and that to reveal himself now would be a disaster?

“So,” Jack thought, “Now Tom doesn’t believe in Father Christmas”. Next he won’t believe in imaginary friends! This might be a problem in the long run but now Jack was more worried about Christmas. What if Tom was right, and that Father Christmas was just Tom’s parents?

The other day Tom had said, “If my parents have never seen you, then you won’t get any presents. You should talk to them”. But Jack knew the truth of the situation, the game of hide and seek he was playing with the parents could only end if they found him, he couldn’t just give himself up. Well, he could, but Tom’s parents would loose all respect for him and they certainly wouldn’t buy him any presents then. Jack hoped that Tom’s parents still remembered that they were playing the game with him.

Jack’s only hope was that Tom was wrong about Father Christmas. Jack thought about crying but he didn’t, because he knew that nobody would see his tears anyway.

Jenna was not happy. She was not happy because two girls who she had thought liked her had not given her a Christmas card even though they had spare ones on their desks and she walked past there three times.

Jenna was not happy because Wahkeem had been mean about her name. Which wasn’t even fair because he was the one with the silly name. Having “Wahkeem Marine” as a name was a sign that your parents didn’t really like you that much – Jenna was pretty sure of that. If they had even bothered to consult a dictionary and spell it Joaquin like everyone else it might have seemed less like they were joking. So when he had run down the corridor in break shouting out “Jenna Jenna smells like henna” she had become mad. When all she had been able to come back with was “Well at least my name’s spelt right”. She had suddenly become decidedly not happy.

But most of all she was not happy because of something she had heard in the toilets. She had heard two older girls talking. One of them had been really excited about what Santa might bring her for Christmas. And the other girl had corrected her saying “you mean your parents.” After a few seconds of explanation it had all been explained. The older girl thought Santa didn’t exist. But the thing that was making Jenna not happy was that she was starting to believe it too.

The way Jenna saw it the alternative explanation seemed to make a lot more sense. Which, she wondered, was more likely? That an overweight man visited every child on exactly one night? Or that parents really gave the presents? Jenna knew what Uncle Occam would say.

Finally while thinking about all of this and looking thoroughly not happy all the while her mother looked in the rear view mirror to check on her.

“Are you alright back there? You don’t look very happy about something.”
“No. I’m not happy. I’m not happy about three things.”

Jenna was just about to go on and explain what the three things were but just then her mother started slowing down the car. So instead she said “Why are we slowing down?”
“Well there’s a car just by the side of the road there which looks broken down. There’s no toher traffic around so I thought I’d better stop and check.”
“Oh,” said Jenna, “right.”

Once the car was parked Jenna’s mum got out and went to talk to the driver. Jenna couldn’t see if it was anyone she knew because they were standing around the front of the car and the bonnet was up so that they could look at the engine.

She couldn’t see if it was someone she knew. But she could hear if it was someone she knew. And just as she thought of that she heard the deep rumbling voice of a large man. But the voice had something else, something light and twinkling on top just so the rumbling wouldn’t be so scary. Jenna only knew one person with a voice like that. But she didn’t want to jump to any conclusions so she hopped out of the car and went to investigate. She slowly and carefully walked to the front of the car and when she got there she slowly and carefully peered around the corner.

Black boots. He had black boots! But so do lots of people Jenna thought.

Red trousers. But lots of people wear red trousers at Christmas time.

A big silver buckle. Jenna decided with that that this looking slowly business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She looked up and she saw Father Christmas.

“Santa!” she yelled.

Santa saw her and gave her a hug.

The rest of the conversation passed in a dream. And suddenly Jenna and her mother were back in their car driving home. But this time when Jenna’s mum looked in the rear view mirror she could see Jenna had on the biggest grin of them all – the one she kept for very special occasions.

“It was a funny thing running into Santa like that wasn’t it.”
Jenna could only nod.
“He told me he was just off to the Mall.”
“He was probably,” Jenna said, “doing his Christmas shopping.”
“Yes,” said Jenna’s mum, “he probably was.”

Jenna thought to herself that this year Santa might need an extra mince pie. Even if she had only doubted him for a second, he might need one extra mince pie per second of doubt she thought. Although it wasn’t total doubt so maybe she’d try and get low fat mince pies.

Day 5

Five nanobots went in and, yesterday, three days later three emerged tired and hungry with many stories to tell.

However none of them are related to why I’m rubbish at remembering to put articles up on Mondays.

Today while having breakfast Captain Lawrence Oates fell out of my nose and into my cereal.

This weeks articles are dedicated to Lawrence, the bravest nicest nanobot I ever had the pleasure to meet. I hope he’s gone to the great tympanic membrane in the sky.

Day 4

I can’t believe it was an accident. And I don’t really know why I’m writing in a dead man’s diary.

I can’t believe I just admitted he was dead. I wasn’t sure I believed the others until I just wrote that. Now I know that I know he’s dead.

So what was I writing? Oh I was saying I didn’t know why I was writing in here except. I suppose I do. I was going to write that I thought it wasn’t an accident. But now I know it wasn’t. He knew he was going to fall down the Eustachian tube. He was trying to save us. And it might have worked.

We are making good progress. It’s easier on the bigger rations but it’s harder without him.

We used to call him Captain Oates after all those oatcakes he used to eat each night. Now it doesn’t seem like the best way to refer to him. His real name was Lawrence. Although I never heard anyone use it. He told me what it was last night. After the first time we had – what was his phrase – known each other.

I’m not sure if I should write this part. This next bit. Because. Well. It doesn’t make me look very good in the company’s light. Or any light. I’m scared to write it but I have to.

I faked it.

I faked the endorphin rush.

I just wanted an excuse to break the ice. And it seemed the best way to do it. I never meant for anyone to be hurt. I promise I never meant for any of this to happen. And now I’m as scare pf getting out and facing up to what’s happened as I am scared of being stuck in here forever.

This week we bring back the diary entries of the expedition that travelled into my brain to discover, primarily, why I was particularly bad at updating Monday’s articles on time. They left all the way back in this article: [Anyway so I’m pretty sure it’s making us cold blooded.]

It will make much more sense if you read all the articles in order.

Day 1

We managed to convince the subject to lie down to allow us to enter his ear. He protested at first but we explained that the additional altitude that would be required for even a seated entry would mean so much additional danger money that his medical insurance wouldn’t cover it. So he lied down and didn’t even complain too much when it took Wally three attempts to get the grappling hoot into his ear lobe.

We started our accent. I always try and go first in these situations because that’s the most dangerous time and I like to think it inspires confidence in my group. I get up tot the top and set up the safety system for the rest of them.

The rest of the group makes it up with little incident. I’ve been looking down at them the whole time. But I realise now that as each man has arrived up they are stood facing into the inner ear. The last one up is the only girl of the group a cute little minx called Julie. I want her desperate but I’m trying to conceal this desire with every fibre and maintain some level of professionalism.

As she proffers me her hand as she reaches the cusp I help her and try to not obviously look straight down her shirt. I swear she’s not wearing a bra. As she arrives on a sure footing I turn around and see what they’ve all been staring at. The inner ear stretches out before us giant, dark, terrifying and quite full of wax.

Each one of us knows we’re about to advance. And we automatically reach out with a torch in our right hand and an ear but in our left. Every one of us except Leftie who rather ironically, even though I shouldn’t say so myself because I came up with it, is the only one of us who is right handed.

We started off. It was hard work but we had known it would be. And we were all looking forward to the tympanic membrane. The most comfortable place to sleep in the body bar none. I know you’ll get some who say it’s the soft tissue but that’s not for me. Wally, he’s the most technology savvy of the group, he’s got an artificial membrane at home. He swears by it. And one time although he lives quite a long way from me I went down to visit him. I said I was doing some shopping locally but he knew I’d come to try out the membrane. I t was nice. I mean it was good even. But it wasn’t quite the same. All the time I was lying there it kept making me think of the real thing and how this wasn’t as good. And while in my mind I was thinking about how many more jobs I could pick up to get me back to where I was heading right now Wally was explaining just how difficult it was to water.

Soon enough we got to the final stages. We slipped as quietly as we could into the tympanic area. Once there we could talk again. Just not by the cavity. It won’t damage anything, and I know some do but I think it’s unprofessional. Quite often we’re going into the brain to deal with a mental problem anyway. Giving them voices in their head doesn’t seem like the greatest of ideas.

So we’re here. Base camp for day one. We’re all tired and I’m just writing my journal as I see one by one each lamp go off. I’m sure Julie looks over at me for a moment before she turns her lamp off. I wonder if I’ll dream about her. Right that’s it for me. Just a quick oatcake to help me sleep. And then bed.