Five things that you may not know about the Olympics

1. Before the introduction of mandatory drugs tests in 1967, most competitors, spectators, and umpires operated under the influence of hallucinogens. This may go some way to explaining why the winner of the 1908 100m sprint was noted down as ‘a massive vermillion caterpillar with the face of Julius Caesar’.

2. The Five Rings of the Olympic logo were originally thought to symbolise the five chemical states of matter; solid, liquid, gas, mush, and served chilled with a slice of lemon. This was proved incorrect in 1939, when an archaeologist found evidence that it was, in fact, the result of the outlines of the five coffee cups used by the first Olympic organisers.

3. Historically, Olympic athletes competed barefoot, and without expensive nylon and lycra uniforms. This is a tradition that Greece are thinking of resurrecting for the 2012 games.

4. At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, silver medals were awarded to the winners and bronze medals to those who obtained second place. The judges denied the existence of any gold medals.

5. Discontinued Olympic events include tandem cycling, pistol duelling, and pass-the-parcel.

The Restaurant (part 2)

I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Normally on my days off I would call my best friend Steve. I’ve known him since we were at school together, when he was just a slip of a thing, with soft, short, blonde hair, big, brown eyes, and ill fitting uniform that was clearly several sizes too big. He was the teacher’s pet. A Labrador, I think. But he never let that get in the way of his work; Steve may have been a Labrador, but he always came second in tests. Small class sizes were something that my school valued immensely.

When Steve and I meet up, we tend to play a game of air badminton. It’s a lot like normal badminton, except instead of a shuttlecock, you use a parcel of air. And instead of rackets, you use parcels of air. And instead of a net, you use an empty crisp packet. Not many people have heard of it, but it’s definitely a real thing. We always played it at school with Mr Williams, the sports teacher who owned the Rolls Royce, personalised number plate, and was also in charge of the sports equipment budget.

I wonder what happened to that kind, generous man... He was always so very encouraging during sports lessons. Although I never quite got the hang of landing in the air swimming pool (I was always injuring myself during air diving) I was brilliant at air hurdles, He spent hours training me for track and field events, and said that I threw the air javelin further than he had ever seen! He said that I could go far in long distance running. And he was always so sensitive. I remember him comforting me after the regional athletics try-outs, his Rolex-weighted wrist sitting heavily on my slender shoulders. I just couldn’t understand what had happened. I was the best at my school in the air pole vault, but all the entrants from the other schools went so much higher than me. Mister Williams said that my air pole must have got bent when it was loaded into the air trailer that he used to transport the equipment, towed behind his Rolls Royce.

I believed him – after all, I often misplaced some of the air equipment myself. But Mr Williams, that kind gentleman, was always very nice about it. He’d get me to write a letter to the headmaster explaining that the equipment had gone missing, the headmaster would allocate some funds to buy a replacement and Mr Williams would return, in his newly-washed Rolls Royce, with the new equipment.

But air badminton with Steve was out of the question; he was an accountant now, and would be in work until five. Besides, I couldn’t remember where I’d left my air racket.

The Restaurant (part 1)

It was 2014, the year when the British government admitted that there was no such person as ‘David Cameron’ and that for the last nine years the leader of the Conservatives had been a balloon with a smiley face drawn on it taped to the top of a suit. The public knew that they ought to feel outraged, but had to admit that it still had more charisma than Ed Miliband.

It was a Tuesday, and I should have been at work. The office, however, was currently out-of-bounds, experiencing a flood of biblical proportions. It really was a bad flood, only about 16 centimetres by 12 twelve centimetres by 3 centimetres. Bibles aren’t that big. It was really more of a puddle but, technically, and in the eyes of the management, it was a flood, and so the building had to be evacuated. The health and safety officer was beaming. It was his moment to shine (below a hundred watts, ensuring that all employees were wearing grade five protective sunglasses).

And so it was that I was wandering round London’s streets, watching the pigeons milling about, the tourists watching the pigeons, and the CCTV cameras watching the tourists. The lamp posts were... well, the lamp posts weren’t doing very much. Forget I mentioned them.

You have 17 new messages

You have 17 new messages. Main menu. To listen to your messages, press one.
First new message received today at 9.02 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Rob. Can you please tell Karen to pass the remote?

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Second new message received today at 9.03 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Karen. Can you tell Rob that if he wants the remote, he can get it himself?

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Third new message received today at 9.04 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Rob. Can you tell Karen to stop being so petty?

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Fourth new message received today at 9.05 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Karen. Can you please tell Rob that there’s nothing quite so petty as refusing to talk to your wife and so going through the charade of leaving messages on your best friend’s phone?

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Fifth new message received today at 9.06 am.
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Well, Dan, I wouldn’t have to ignore Karen if she’d stop smoking in the flat.

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Sixth new message received today at 9.07 am.
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Dan, can you please remind Rob that this is my flat, and I’ll smoke where I want to. If he doesn’t like that then he can shove it up his –

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Seventh new message received today at 9.42 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Rob, again. Karen is driving me crazy, so I’ve gone for a walk to clear my head. Remember what I used to say? ‘I like my women like I like my films; beautiful, silent, and lasting for about 90 minutes.’ Karen was perfect.

Where did it go wrong? I remember when we first met, our eyes locking across the room, me walking into the ice sculpture of Silvio Berlusconi, and not caring, brushing the shards of ice into the laps and faces of the guests sitting below, her plunging head over heels onto the table of novelty miniature hats. Us both apologising profusely to the manager of the establishment, and agreeing that we should probably have our pay docked for the evening. (I never did work out quite what that event was supposed to be celebrating.) Karen is the only woman I have ever, truly, walked into an ice slupture of Silvio Berlusconi while pursuing.

It wasn’t long before I asked to take her hand. I later gave it back, upon the discovery that three hands are not very useful when you only have two arms to which to attach them, and instead asked her to marry me. She said ‘I do’, and we tied the knot in Great Haste. It’s a lovely little village, you really ought to visit it some time.

It’s only recently that her bad habits have come through. I love her, really, I do, but they’re starting to get to me. Like biting the nails – I’ve had to call the carpenter out four times this month to repair the wainscoting - and her smoking keeps leaving scorch marks on the sofa. I appreciate that she’s a special, amazing, dazzling, radiant, cultivated woman (who bought me a thesaurus for my birthday) but I think I’ve had enough.

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Eighth new message received today at 9.45 am.
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Hi Dan, it’s Karen. I’ve got the flat to myself, now. If you wanted to ... come over... I know that Rob won’t be back for quite some time.

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Ninth new message received today at 2.17 pm.
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Hi Dan, it’s Rob again. I think perhaps I was a bit emotional earlier. Now I’ve calmed down, I see exactly what I have to do. I’ve bought everything that I need, and I’m on my way back to the flat.

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Tenth new message received today at 2.23 pm.
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Hi Dan, it’s Karen. If you hear from Rob, can you let me know? He usually rings to apologise by now.

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Eleventh new message received today at 2.24 pm.
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Hi Dan, it’s Rob. Could I borrow your overalls?

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Twelfth new message received today at 3.25 pm.
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(Rob) Forget the overalls. On a completely unrelated note, could I borrow your hacksaw and your car?

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Thirteenth new message received today at 3.26 pm.
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(Rob) Also, do you know how to remove bloodstains from a carpet?


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Fourteenth new message received today at 3.28 pm.
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(Rob) Oh, god, sorry, I realise what that must have sounded like. No, Karen’s fine, I can explain everything. You see, erm, when I went out earlier I bought her a few presents: some roses, a few heart-shaped helium balloons, a puppy. What happened was this, erm, you see. Basically, the puppy ate the balloons and, er, then he managed to burst himself on the roses. Yes, that’s what happened. Karen is fine.

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Fifteenth new message received today at 3.31 pm.
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(Rob) And... erm... to explain the clothing. I , er, thought it would be cute to dress the puppy up to look like her. Yes, that was it.

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Sixteenth new message received today at 3.32 pm.
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(Rob) Dan, I could really use some help. What if someone sees the flat like this?

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Seventeenth new message received today at 4.52 pm.
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Hi Dan, it’s Karen. Do you know why the flat smells of bleach?

Timothy Bell

Timothy Bell was impressionable. Like warm playdough, or a newborn swan, he absorbed an imprint of everything around him... and looked out of place on a takeaway menu.

One day, while sitting at home watching daytime TV, surrounded by a pile of books from the Richard and Judy book club, he saw an advert urging him to claim compensation for an accident experienced at work. He googled ‘most dangerous jobs’ and discovered that joining the army gave him favourable odds of suffering some form of injury. He enlisted that very afternoon and, thanks to his extreme malleability, rose through the ranks with speed.

He was the ad-man’s dream. Unfortunately for the corporations, the banks had told him to save.

The Actor Sanctuary

A
I don't suppose you know where I am?

B
The actor sanctuary, of course.

A
Actor sanctuary?

B
Yes. You've heard of donkey sanctuaries, haven't you?

A
Well, yes –

B
Well, this is similar. These actors are old, out of work. We looks after them, we does. Except most of our incoming stock has two legs, and we don't let you ride them for £2 a go.

A
Ride them?

B
No, it's nearer £40 for that sort of service. Shall I give you a tour? Yes, much like a donkey sanctuary we give them a stimulating environment in which to live out the rest of their lives. Over there we have the female newreader's paddock.

Both men look to the left, and a sound effect plays. It is the sound of many female voices saying things like "Now, the headlines", "coming up later in the show" and "now, let's turn to the weather".

B
And, over there, the RSC pen.

Both men look to the left, and a sound effect plays. It is the sound of many male voices reciting the (in)famous Hamlet line "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio" slightly out of sync.

B
For just £2 a month, you can provide them with skulls to perform it properly.

A
And what's that over there?

There is an uncomfortably long silence.

B
The Pinter enclosure.

The Post Office

On my days off, I take the opportunity to visit the Post Office – seeing as its opening hours are incompatible with full-time employment.

While I’m queuing, I tend to fantasize about the end of the world. I project seven years into the future, following a nuclear war between Ecuador and Tesco. The denizens of the post office, who, after seven years, have finally reached the front of the queue, are the only humans left. By queuing, and remaining indoors, for so long, they manage to avoid the fallout, and venture into the wasteland only once radiation has fallen to safe background levels. It would be one of life’s ironies that their letters would never be delivered, despite queuing for so long; all postmen, and, indeed, the recipients of their letters, were reduced to dust, limbs twisting in blinding light as they conceded that ‘every little helps.’

And then my mind turns to survival. The sole inhabitants of the rest of the world consist of three pensioners, two cashiers, and a large, rugby-playing type. I reckon I could fight the pensioners off if I needed to secure food, and make a mental note to be extra-friendly to the cashier. Who knows, he might share?

Would we repopulate the Earth? Why would we want to repopulate the Earth? Before the crisis, young couples rejected the idea of raising children in Dagenham. I wouldn’t want to raise a child in a post-apocalyptic wasteland – for one thing, there are a considerably larger number of sharp edges, unburied corpses, and gangs of looters. Also, there are hardly any well-staffed C of E schools.

Just as I'm deciding which one of the three pensioners, two cashiers, and large, rugby-playing type I would choose as my post-apocalyptic mate, and ethereal voice interrupts.

"Cashier number four, please."