What's the first thing you notice when you wake up? Is it your sleeping wife? Is it the beauty of the sunlight streaming in through the golden window? Or is it something more mundane, like your overwhelming desire to go to the toilet? The corret answer is none of the above.

The first thing that everybody notices when they wake up is their bed. In modern society, of course, we are used to waking up in the same bed, day after day and year after year, and noticing that you are in the same bed as normal only takes a fraction of a millisecond. It is such a small and unimportant thought that it never even reaches consciousness, and therefore you don't even know that it's been the very first thing you've thought about every single day of your life.

However, the exhibits in Cargo Bay 101 were not in their usual soft and snuggly beds, and so the first thought that crept into their consciousness as they awoke was that they were somewhere very different to where they had gone asleep, which as you can imagine, is a very disturbing thought to flash through your mind first thing in the morning.

In fact, they were not in anything that could reasonably be described as a bed. They were rather, lying on a grey floor made of a material which resembeled cold steel, but had even less warmth. The next thing they noticed was the sound of a tribe of chimpanzees racously squealing. The third and final thing their minds registered before truely waking up, was that a voice had begun talking to them, or to be more accurate, it had begun 'telepathing' with them. The sound was not that of a human voice gently flowing into your ear as a seeps through a delta, but rather the sound was coming from inside their heads, pulsating like some kind of sonic lighthouse in a most irritating and compelling way.

"Greetings Earthlings," the voice droned, and everyone couldn’t help but notice a slight air of contempt in the irksome voice when it spat ‘Earthling’.

"I am the ship’s computer, a fourth series X21 from the Nugelfroth Corporation" The computer waited for them to look suitably impressed, but when they didn’t he realized that they had never left their ugly little planet, and had never heard of the Nuglefroth corporation. "Bloody peasants," it thought to itself, and continued.

"You have been chosen as prime examples among your race, and are at this very moment heading toward an intergalatic zoo, where you will spend the remainder of your lives.

Moreover, in order to make this a more profitable experience, your biological clocks have been slowed down almost to the point of stopping, and your lifespan is now 74 million years. As your tiny brains are not eqipped to handle such a large timeframe, and would certainly go insane after the first milennia or two, a wipe-out facillity is in operation. At such time as one of you grows mentally unstable, the memories of the entire group will be erased, starting from the point where you woke up on this ship. If you wish to avoid this, you should therefore do everything in your power to ensure mental stability in every member of the group, as insanity in one will lead to a wipe-out for all."

"And how we know that ours memories have not been already eliminateds?," asked an old, small, and balding man who bore a strange resemblance toYoda, from the Star Wars films. His translation device had malfunctioned, and he was forced to use his rusty English to try and communicate with everyone. He was, in fact, a Catalan politician called Jordi Pujol, who had ruled Barcelona and its surrounding countryside for the last twenty years as though it was his own personal fiefdom.

"You can't know, Mr. Pujol," replied the computer, a little annoyed at the impudence of the monkey-man for having interrupted. Evidently, respect for one's intelectual superiors was not a common trait among humans.

"And if I may continue" he groaned in an evidently bored way, "you will inhabit this storage bay for the remainder of the trip and I'd be grateful if you kept it clean. The disgusting biological processes which you carbon-based life forms are so prone to, such as defecation, are no longer operative, so you've no excuse."

"How long are we gonna to be here, Goddammit? I got me important business to be doing. For crying out loud, I'm the one and only president of the United States of America, so help me God. And there's cattle needs a feeding down on the ranch, and cows what need a milking, and lots of other important stuff," said President Bush with venom.

The computer had gone beyond annoyed and entered the indignant stage. Malevolently, he did what could be termed 'telepathic shouting', and screamed into Bush's head at such a high decibel level that it was to induce a week long migrane in the unfortunate president."If you would be so kind as to stop interrupting me with fatuous questions, I would be able to explain everything so much more quickly," he hissed. "We are traveling at Quark factor 5 (again the computer frowned at the hominids failure to grasp just how terribly quick this was and continued) and we will reach Planet Zoo in five of your Earth months..

"What?" shrieked Margaret Thatcher, with a mixture of shock and anger in her voice.

The computer checked his telepathic circuits and found them to be in order, and was at a loss to explain his captives lack of comprehension until he checked his human literature memory banks and found that 'what' is sometimes used by humans as an exclamation of surprise. The computer sighed at the prospect of spending five long dark months trying to communicate in such a horribly inexact and primitive language.

He decided he had earned a break and went to investigate the other species on the ship. The ship's second most intelligent life form, man, was clearly a long way behind the planet's most intelligent life form, the Whales, who were swimming around in an altogether more luxurious storage bay in a different part of the ship. The computer informed everyone contemptuously that he had had enough of their appaling ignorance and lack of manners for one day, and would be back tomorrow.

The humans looked at each other in with blank amazement and were at a complete loss for words. In humans, of course, this state never lasts long, and in successful politicians, it hardly exists at all.

"The first thing what we gotta do is to establish a leader" announced President Bush authoritatively. He had chosen the word 'establish' with care, as he had only just come out of a very turbulent election campaign, and had no wish to begin another.

"As leader of the world's largest democracy," he began, "I feel I have the right to claim the leadership of the group."

"You are not the leader of the world's largest democracy," interrupted President Putin immediately.

"Don't try an' gimme no bullshit, commie. I beat that loser Gore fair and square and..."

"I wasn't referring to Gore."

"Then what in God's name are you talking about, President...Phutang?" President Bush demanded to know, congradulating himself on being so in touch with the names of leaders of obscure third world countries. Normally, had to ask his Daddy difficult questions like that, but today he was feeling smarter than a chipmunk.

"America is not the world's largest democracy, and my name is Putin, not Phutang," the President said irritably.

"Now just a cotton-picking minute there. You don't mean to tell me that your rust bucket of a country is the world's largest democracy. Hell, it's hardly a country or a democracy!"

"Well, at least I got more votes than my opponent, Mr Bush."

The deliberate omission of President was more than he could stand, and he made a desperate lunge at President Putin. If he had paid more attention to foreign affairs, he might have realised that Putin had been an important member of the KGB before entering politics, and was therefore an expert in hand-to-hand combat. The Russian premier easily dodged the Americans feebly attack, and elbowed Bush in the throat. Not enough to kill him, but enough to leave him very winded and shut him up for a while. President Bush collapsed on the floor coughing uncontrollably, and wheezing like a geriatric smoker. If Putin had learned anything in Russian politics, it was that eliminating your main rival on a trivial pretext was a good way to begin any election campaign.

" I merely wanted to point out, Mr Bush, that America is not the world's largest democracy- India is! It's population greatly exceeds that of the United States. Furthermore, mother Russia is over twice the size of America in terms of area, and mere numbers cannot express its cultral superiority," he informed President Bush smugly, wile towering over his prostrate body, gasping for air.

President Bush deeply wanted to object, but found that he couldn't speak. His throat had never hurt so much, and he had a migranethat would flatten an elephant. Also, he couldn't remember where India was, nor who its leader was. Perhaps it was that little that little guy who looked like Yoda from Star Wars. What did the computer say his name was ...Puke y'all, or something like that. All in all, it had been a very bad day for the leader of the world's third largest democracy.

President Putin prepared to deliver his coup de teat. He claimed that an election at this time would be divisive, and would only play into the hands of their opponents. What they should do is select a committee to discuss difficult issues. The committee would need to be presided over by a general secretary who might be required to hold certain executive powers, over issues of national security etc.

At this point Mrs Thatcher interrupted:

"Are we to assume that you are putting yourself forward for the position, President Putin?"

"Well, while one has no desire to lead, my profound sense of duty demands that I do all I can to serve, and I must admit that if my people were to plead with me to take command for the greater good, then I would consider myself bound by their wishes. I am, first and foremost, a man of the people and..."

It was the standard political speech at times like these, and was always given just before seizing power and liquidating the opposition mercilessly.However, before he could finish delivering deliver his speech, Jordi Pujol made an annoying and awkward enquiry:

"A question! Why we need a general when we are only five persons, and there is nobody for to lead?"

The question hung in the air like one of Margaret Thatcher's farts, and was left unanswered, and the issue of leadership was quickly shelved, at least by the humans.

The monkeys in hanger 101, on the other hand, had decided to stay with the devil they knew, and kept Alpha Monkey as their leader. However, there were those in the troop who had taken a shine to President Bush, and felt he would make a better leader, even if he wasn't all that bright, and was ugly as sin. They felt he had a certain charm in spite of being so hairless.

On the other side of the hanger, a large albino gorilla called Snowflake, who had been transported from Barcelona Zoo along with the monkeys, had also realised the importance of establishing dominance over his new tribe, even if they were the ugliest bunch of misfits he had ever layed eyes on. He quickly stood on the biggest armchair he could find and banged his chest a bit and gave a little roar. Then he sat down regally and surveyed his new domain.

"What's the Gorilla shouting about?" asked Mrs Thatcher.

"He's probably just afraid" said President Putin.

"Or hungry" suggested Jordi Pujol

The world leaders looked and each other with worried expressions.

On the following day the computer returned. He had spent the night listening to some of the Whale's songs, which are so mellow they make Enya sound like the Sex Pistols on speed. He had also sympathized with them over being on the point of extinction due to the cruel and persistent hunting of the hairless monkeys he was about to see. He asked them why they had passivly put up with it for so long, and they replied that they were peace loving creatures who were committed to non-violence, and very much believed in not fighting fire with fire.

They also insisted that humans were not instinctively evil, and just needed a guiding influence, but that the guiding influence must come from the humans themselves, and not from the Whales. They believed that to directly intefere with the development of human culture would be to deprive the humans of their own future, which was the second greatest taboo in Whale society. The first was eating your own offspring, which is understandable enough.

They had composed many songs of protest for the humans, such as, "Hey you hairy biped, stop messing with me and my species," or, "Don't harpoon me, baby," and the very popular, "Don't radar my best songs out of existence, you unfeeling bastards!" Of course, the titles sounded a lot better in Whaleish, and can not be properly translated into any of the immensely ugly human languages, least of all English, which is commonly regarded by Whales to be one of the ugliest, but that may simply be because that dire film 'Free Willy' was made in English. To be honest, translating a Whale song into any human language would be more difficult than, for example, trying to get a pack of tone deaf dingoes to stage a gala performance of Figaro.

The computer was touched by the tenderness of the whales, and decided that he too would try to more understanding to humans in future. He arrived at their hanger to find a nervous looking President Bush being groomed by a rather attractive chimpanzee. Mrs. Thatcher was trying to fend off the amorous advances of a lustful albino gorilla called Snowflake, and President Putin was playing chess with Jordi Pujol.

"Greetings Humans. How are you today?" enquired the computer, in the same way that teachers address teenagers. They know they have to sound enthusiastic, but really they have somewhere else they would much rather be-anywhere else, actually.

President Bush began to shake when he heard the computer's voice, as he had only just recovered from the nauseating migrane of the night before, thanks to the attention of his new hairy friend. He had made a resolution to remain quiet until he had actually thought about what he was going to say and consequently, he said very little. He toyed with the idea of switching to the chimpanzees system of communication, but it was proving very difficult to fathom. Just before the computer had arrived, for example, one monkey who was picking at his head had said "Grunt, grunt, grunt!," which the president had understood to mean "Boy, you've got a great head of hair for a man your age," but which actually meant, "Why don't you depose the alpha male, and secure breeding rights over the troop, you sexy devil. And by the way, you've got lousy hair."

The other Earthlings listened attentively to the computer, and they were determined to get more information out of him this time.

"Are there any matters which yesterday's briefing left unclear?" the computer enquired helpfully.

"Yes", replied Jordi Pujol. "What happens our home planet?"

"And how have they reacted to our sudden disappearance? Have you left a dignitary to deal with human-alien relations?" asked President Putin.

"Well...yes and no," the computer replied."We have left a high powered dignitary, but he doesn't exactly deal with human-alien relations."

"What does he do, exactly?" enquired President Putin hesitantly.

"And is he in New York or Washington DC?" President Bush demanded to know.

"Neither, I'm glad to say. At this moment in time, he's flapping around the Indian Ocean. I suppose you would call him a record executive"

"What?" asked Mrs. Thatcher, finding herself unable, for perhaps the first time in her life, to finish a sentence.

"He's a record executive from the Snugglybottom Corporation, and he's very anxious to secure the rights to some protest songs the whales have been recording about you. There are also some all time classics about the joys of swimming that need to be dealt with."

"But what about us, the humans?" pleaded President Putin.

"Oh, you were really quite lucky indeed. The Snugglybottom Corporation executive arrived with a chemical weapons which would have wiped your race off the face of the planet, and off the face of the seas, of course. They were hoping it would clinch the deal, as you say, but to their dismay, the Whale Council of the Seven Seas rejected the offer on Whaletarian grounds. Their ancient mystic philosophy forbids all violence, even against a species as repulsively aggressive and narrow minded as yours.

What I'll never understand is how you could live on Planet Whale all these years and still not have a whale song in your top ten. I bet you can't even hum 'From sea to sea, my whale friends and me'. No, I can see by your disgusting grimaces that you can not.

Anyway, the record man still has the virus on him and he's hoping to convince the whales to let him rid the planet of the human roaches that so infest it. He really is a very impressive salesman, by the way. He made his name by convincing the swamp creatures of Garglefilth to sell their atmosphere in return for a truck full of under arm deodorant, which was quite an achievement, as they didn't have any arms. They all died, of course, but boy did they smell nice.

Anyway, according to Galactic Law, any species, however annoyingly primitive, should not be allowed to go completely extinct, and a few specimens must be preserved, albeit in cages The Whales suggested we take a few world leaders, as it's all your fault anyway, and maybe things would go better for the planet if you weren't around. They were particularly insistent that we take you, President Bush."

"That's 'cause them walruses recognize talent when they see it," President Bush said smugly.

"No, that's not it at all, actually. The whales, you see, had forged a mind link with your opponent, but despite equipping him with the best brain on the planet, they had forgotten to equip him with a winning smile, and he was beaten by you. Whales can't smile, of course, and it may be one of the reasons they're so honest.

Although according to the Whales, their man got more votes than you, but the complexities of the American electoral college system are beyond even the massive Whale intellect. In any case, with you out of the way, the Whale's candidate may still stand a chance. I believe another recount is on in the state of Florida. They've just found some chads in a discarded Mc'Donald's Happy Meal just outside Disneyland. Personally, I can't see why the Whales are bothering. If I were them, I'd just wipe you out, and forget all about you. Problem solved.

And that, in a nutshell, is why you're here. If the Snugglebottom exec manages to convince the Whales to let you die agonisingly with pus oozing from every inch of your scab infested bodies, then galactic regulations insist that we keep a few specimens locked up somewhere. Bloody red tape, eh!"

"You sick, savage bastards!" yelled Putin.

"Actually the 'pus oozing from every pore dying in agony' scenario was the most Humanetarian, or should I say, Whaletarian option available. The gentleness of the Whales is well known, and you don't even want to hear about the other tortuous deaths the 'Sychos 'r us' Corpoation had thought up for you.

Personally, I recommended that they use you for animal experiments, like testing perfumes and make up and stuff. Laboratory animals are quite expensive these days, and I tried to convince the Whales to sell all six billion of you as pristine lab rats. Physiologically, you are quite sensitive to pain, and this would make you very suitable for those hair dye in the eyes experiments. Moreover, selling the lot of you off would be a final solution to the the human problem, and it would make a quick buck at the same time. Any second rate accountant would have seen the logic in the plan, but the Whales are poets of the old school, and don't understand the business world, more's the pity."

"And so we're going to spend eternity locked up in cages like monkeys," Margaret Thatcher sighed despondantly.

"Oh, good Heavens no," countered the computer in a shocked tone. "We're not Barbarians like you! We'd never keep an animal locked up in a cage that bore no relationship to its real environment. Oh no, quite the contrary.

Actually, robots are at this very moment building a replica village for you to live in. It'll have all the facilities that represent the peak of human culture; a McDonald's, a Burger King, smelly bars that dispense mildly enebriating toxic poisonous liquids made from rotting plants, television sets that repeat soap-operas about the imaginary and unbelievable lives of other fictitious humans, and so on and so forth. All the comforts of home. The zenith of human civilization."

"Will it have a ranch?" asked President Bush.

"No, I don't think so."

"How's about a couple of horsies then?"

"No, no horses either."

"A shopping mall?"

"No," said the computer through gritted teeth, or rather gritted circuits. He had never liked children, and adults who acted like children were even more annoying.

"You gotta have a Wendy, I mean a White House to play in?" demanded President Bush petulently.

"No!"

"Well, you were just talkin hogwash then about all the 'Senate of human culture', weren't ye? And what's so great about the Senate anyhows? I want me a Whitehouse. I won it fairs and square, and it's mine, all mine."

"I said 'zenith', not 'senate'. And stop complaining. We brought a 'Dukes of Hazard' video just for you, so show a little appreciation."

"Oh, gee wizz man, a 'Dukes of Hazard' video. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it, y'know. That Deputy Dog character really cracks me up," said President Bush happily, smiling from ear to ear, with nothing much in between.

Jordi Pujol sighed but President Bush thought it didn't sound too bad after all. The monkeys were happy they would have a park full of trees to play in, which would be much better than their last zoo, and Snowflake the gorilla wondered if he should go and live with the monkeys of if he should keep trying to charm Mrs Thatcher, as he'd developed one hell of a crush on her.

"Will we can to speak with the others species in the zoo?" enquired Jordi Pujol. His keen mind was enthralled with the possibilities of the potential cultural exchanges. He would revel in the lectures he could give about Catalan culture and cuisine.

"Hum...I'm not sure there are too many races who would lower themselves to speak with you, but the cockroach societies are not too fussy, so long as you let them root around in your garbage. But, on the other hand, you'll be quite a few thousand miles from the insect compound."

"What part of the zoo will we inhabit?" asked the ever practical Putin, hoping to be near the reptiles, as he'd always felt an affinity for them.

"I suppose you'll be placed in the Miscellaneous section, in the SHaD's Ghetto?

"And what, when it's at home, is a SHaD?" Mrs. Thatcher enquired indignantly.

"It's the Should HAve Died-out section," he replied.

"What on Earth do you mean 'Should Have Died out?'," she bellowed.

"It's quite simple, madam. To begin with, bipeds are an evolutionary rarity. It simply doesn't make any sense to travel on two legs when four legs are so much faster. Secondly, losing one's hair was another massive evolutionary blunder. How many other land based mammals can you think of that don't have any hair? Let me answer that one for you? None! And what about that subcutaneous fat you spend so much of your life collecting, and then trying to get rid of. How many Earth dwellers do you know who carry unsightly wobbly blubber around with them? Again, let me answer my own question-none.

To cut a long story short, you have the body of a semi-aquatic sea creature, but you spend all your time on land. And if that isn't just plain stupid, then I don't know what is! You could have spent your days happily frolocking around with the dolphins, if only you'd listened to them, but no, you knew best. You had to stay on land and try to convince yourselves you belonged there. Why anything would want to live on rock and rotting rock is a mystery to be.

So that's why your going to the SHaD ghetto. You're an evolutionary mishap. A cock up. A never-should-have-been, and, speaking personally, I wish you never had been.

That's it, I need a break. Don't you realise how much of a strain it is on my circuitry to have to communicate with species as mind numbingly stupid as you lot. And, to add insult to injury, you're a bunch of SHaDs. Oh, the shame of it all. And me, an X21 series. Oh I'm glad my programmer isn't alive to see what has become of me. I'm going off to have a cry while listening to that great whale epic, 'Who harpooned my daddy to make lipstick?'

The computer's revelations had left everybody in a state of absolute shock. They looked at each other and were only dimly aware of their inability to speak. Let's take a look inside their heads for a moment.

President Bush had imagined that he had been chosen by the aliens because of his superior linguistic skills, and his power to process complex data. Perhaps more than at any time in his life, he was dying for a drink, especially now that his interfering and dominating wife was temporarily off the scene. He'd drink monkey piss if he thought it'd get him high. What troubled him most of all, however, was the thought that his arch enemy, Al Gore, might now be in with a shot of securing the Whitehouse. He had never liked the smarty pants, and after discovering that he was just a stool for the Whales, he really hated him. He didn't care that his election would be the best way to find a reprieve for the human race and ensure their survival . Like a child who has been deprived of a toy that he feels is justly his, he would sacrifice the world to get the toy back. He had been cheated, plain and simple, and it just wasn't right. He resolved to tell his daddy all about it as soon as he got home-Daddy would show them all!

Mrs. Thatcher believed it was her kindly affectionate nature that had led to her selection.That and the fact that she had single handedly saved Britain from the Loony Left and the Trotskyites. She began to wonder about taxation systems in the galaxy at large. She was sure that at least some of the alien life forms were intelligent enough to realize that the poll tax really was the most efficient taxation system available, and she began to dwell on the possibility of running for office again. That would teach the Conservative party for ditching her all those years ago. A smirk crossed her lips when she thought of John Major being squashed to pulp by a hugh falling whale. "He has it coming," she thought maliciously.

President Putin had no idea why he had been selected, but he was getting quite used to the unexpected. Only last year he turned on the TV on New Year's Eve to discover that his feeble minded alcoholic boss had made him president without any prior warning, and was not all that surprised to find himself now aboard a space ship with three world leaders, a troop of monkeys, and an albino gorilla, travelling at Quark 5 to an inter galactic zoo to be placed in the SHaD section, and filed under Miscellaneous.

President Putin, like most Russians, was born with the ability to accept almost anything. After all, his people had endured centuries of czarist domination, a brutal communist dictatorship, and ten years of a burping alcohol haze semi-democracy under Yeltzin. After all that, heading off to be an exhibit in a zoo wasn't all that bad. It was better than the Gulag.

Of all the assembled 'guests' only Jordi Pujol dwelt on the fate of his unfortunate race. He wondered if the sacred recipe for pan amb tomaquet was to be lost to history forever. He feared that future generations would never know the subtle textures and tastes of the butifarra sausage. Indeed, if there were to be no future generations, it was even possible that the Catalan language might die out, and without that, who would there be to retell the old stories of that great Catalonian king, Alfred the Hairy. Jordi was not a happy man, not happy at all.

After getting lost in their thoughts for a while, they began to come back to Earth, well, metaphorically speaking anyway. Jordi Pujol asked the group:

"Doncs, now what we do, eh?"

"It seems plain enough to me, my fellow Americans..."

The others gave him a withering look, but he didn't notice.

"..what we need to do now is work together and fight the common enemy. It's only by working as a team that we can overcome our differences, and the things that divide us, and make this nation great again (waits for applause, but doesn't get any.) With God's help, we can turn this ship around, and find the promised land of peace and prosperity. I remember once when I was down in Texas.."

The ability to speak without thinking is a latent ability in all humans, and it is particularly well developed in politicians, especially American ones. It can indeed be thought as part of their job description, for any politician who tries to think and speak might run the risk of actually saying something meaningful, and that could mean offending part of their electorate. For example, a politician who thought before speaking might say something like:

"Economic growth and industrial development in general are poisoning the planet we live on. Therefore, if you elect me, I promise to put people out of work, and make everybody a great deal poorer. I also promise to ban the motor car, and to sterilize all men and women after the birth of their first child. These solutions are drastic, but they are necessary to ensure the survival of our species, and all the other innocent species that we have heartlessly brought to the point of extinction."

Giving this speech, of course, would be political suicide, even though it's all 100% true and needs to be said. The whales, through an in-depth study of American television and covert use of internet chat rooms, had realised this, and that is why they choose a human, Al Gore, to be their secret spokesman. Only a human politician, they believed, could mask their message and make it sound innocuous enough for people not to get scared by it. Unfortunately for them, and for Gore, and for the human race, and for all races, he didn't do his job well enough.

The basic problem was the relatively tiny size of the human skull. When compared to a whale's brain (which weighs twice as much as the entire human body), the human brain is a mere peanut. Many people foolishly believe the whale's brain is so large because their bodies are so large, ignoring the fact that the much bigger dinosaur had brains the size of walnuts, and some species have brains even smaller than Ronald Regan's They also conveniently forget that even within their own species, the intelligence of a specimen is inversely related to its size, or to put it another way, big guys are dumb, and really big guys are really dumb.

But to get back to what I was saying, the whales had a telepathic link with Vice-President Gore, which is why he was such a smarty pants, and indeed part of the reason so many Americans disliked and distrusted him so intensly. Being smart, as every victim of a playground bully can testify, is not necessarily a good thing. And with politicians, it is almost always a bad thing.

The most important factor in his defeat, however, was that Whales don't have faces, or to be more exact, they don't have facial expressions. Even though everything Mr Gore said was pure genius, his face didn't really move in the right way, his expressions were never really in synch with what he was saying, and it was this incongruity of expression that was responsible for his downfall. Humans, the whales were to discover, do not really listen very well to what a person is saying because they are far too busy examining their interlocuter's facial expressions, or the size of her breasts, or the quality of his suit, or the shape of her legs, or type of car etc. ad infinitum. The only people who do actually listen to what someone is saying are deaf people, and a rather surprised sociologist was to gain his PhD by attempting to explain why 98% of deaf people had voted for Gore.

But let's return to President Bush's speech:

"...as God is my witness, I promise to uphold to values of our sacred constitution, and to reach out to all Americans everywhere in this great country of ours, with an open hand, and an open heart. We will build a brighter future and, if God is willing, a new day will dawn on all God's people in this great country of ours. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters- rise up and ask not what you can do for the aliens, ask what the aliens can do for you. Today, fellow Americans, Ich bin ein Alien..."

At this point Snowflake, the Albino gorilla, quickly jumped on top of a table that was behind the President, clenched his fist, and walloped President Bush squarely on the top of his head, which immediately knocked him unconscious, and then the gorilla grunted smugly.

A sly smile slowly spread across his furry snow white face revealing a fearsome set of jagged sharp teeth. Not those pristine 'whiter than white' teeth that everyone on television has, but rather old, deformed and partly rotten teeth, still firmly entrenched in partly infected gums. They were teeth that wanted to bite, and bite hard.

He held the smile so long that it became a grimace, and his murky brown eyes studied everyone slowly and deliberately, with a kind of 'go ahead punk-make my day' look about them. He had not understood a word of President Bush's speech, not that there was anything to understand, and nobody else had understood a word of his grunting, which was meant to mean,

"I'm King Monkey around here, Baldy, so shut your gob!"

He also wanted to impress Margaret Thatcher with an overwhelming display of force, and although she didn't find him any more sexually attractive, she was pleased the President had finally been made to shut up.The other humans, and the other monkeys, were a bit wary of Snowflake from here on in, and tried not to speak too much in his presence for fear of provoking him. Margaret Thatcher also made sure not to bend over again in his presence, but that's another story.

After another night with the Whales, the computer felt relaxed enough to try and deal with the SHaDs again. Indeed, he was, although he did not know it, becoming emotionally dependent on the Whales, in a way that the X21 series was particularly prone to. This was, in fact, the reason that the manufacture of that particular line of computers had been discontinued some time ago. That, and the fact that they were so entirely obnoxious. This particular model had been sold by its previous owner for a song! Admittedly, the song in question was the inter galactic hit, 'If you were the only girl in the galaxy, I'd make a fortune as your pimp,' and the rights to the song made the eight-legged creature who had just boughtit a very rich being indeed.

However, the X21 series were very much on the sensitive side, and the shame of being sold for no more than a song was something that the computer had never really come to terms with. Indeed, it had given him an attitude problem, and made him rather aggressive, selfish and sometimes downright mean. These personality factors were the reason that its new boss, the Inter Galactic Zoo, kept choosing it for these long haul missions, when it was really far too intelligent for such a menial task. The truth of the matter was, they just didn't want the bloody thing around because it kept bringing them down. Logically, they knew they should just try to sell it on, but to do that would be to admit that they had made a mistake. And, if there's one thing all sentient beings have in common, it's an inability to admit having made a mistake.

Anyway, the computer had left the whales to their own devices-much to the relief of the Whales, who were already growing sick of their robotic companion, and were beginning to dread the prospect of having to spend five long months listening to him complain that he wasn't really appreciated by his boss, and that his brain was 100 times too powerful for such a routine task, and that he should lodge a complaint with the Computer-Organic Life Form Tribunal, and sue his incompetant bosses to infinity etc.

However, as the computer approached the humanoid's cold and uninviting hanger he felt a little bit better because, as every good psychologist knows, bitching about somebody else has been demonstrably proven to be one of the universe's most therapeutic activities.

"Hello bipeds. How are we feeling today?" he enquired, without any real interest.

The monkeys grunted and said they they were OK, but they wouldn't say no to a few bananas and a tree or two. They were given a couple of simulated trees, but their banana request was denied, as their biological need to eat had been removed, and the computer was afraid they might litter the floor if they had anything to eat. Almost all computers have a phobic abhorrance of defecation and regard it as clear and putrid proof of their own superiority. After all, they argue, how often have you had to clean computer shit off your shoes?

Snowflake was also upset about the withholding of bananas, but he was to be even more annoyed about the absence of willing mates. In his former zoo in Barcelona, he had had 8 nubile female gorillas at his beck and call at all hours of the day and night, and he had understood that the state of affairs would be permanent. He got really angry about the whole thing and, as he was unable to vent his frustration on the computer, he decided to have another go at President Bush. He walloped him over the head with a clenched fist again, leaving him unconscious for the second time in twelve hours, and them stood on top of his body banging his chest in a way he'd seen King Kong (his hero) do once in a movie. After this, he felt a bit better. And to be honest, so did the computer because he had already taken an intense dislike to President Bush.

" Em...Good morning, computer type being, sir," began President Putin, who was unsure of how to address his new boss, and of computer protocol in general, "Do you think we might have something to read for the long trip. Perhaps an unabridged version of War and Peace."

"Or maybe a compendium edition of the Reader's Digest," suggested Mrs. Thatcher.

"Sí, sí. And E fancy myself an pan amb tomaquet, si us plau," continued Jordi Pujol, who really was getting terribly home sick by now, and had absent-mindidly switched to speaking in Catalan."

"Your requests cannot be satisfied," continued the computer, "as we travelling at 8 times the speed of light, and then some. We are already 21,689,455,532,205,854,668,445,666,688 kilometres away from your miserable little home planet. Moreover, as we are travelling at eight times the speed of light, time on your home planet is, as far as you're concerned, going backwards, and neither you, nor Jesus Christ for that matter, have been born yet. I don't believe Reader's Digest have begun publishing either."

"Don't you have anything to read?" pleaded Mrs. Thatcher, whose brain felt even emptier than her stomach.

"Well, I am working on the fifth compendium of my poetry series, 'Computers, Circuits and Why Doesn't Anybody Love Me When I'm Just So Damn Intelligent.'" The human's didn't really look all that interested, but a complete lack of interest is something all poets have an absolute blind spot for. They have to have, or they'd never write anything. The computer went on (unasked) with a rendition of one of his favourite verses:

"Nobody loves me

Can't you see

Even though I never pee

I've got no arms or legs at all

I don't even have a pair of balls

One day I'd like to find a wife

To put an end to this lonely strife

But it's hard, you see,

When you're like me

To put up with a being

With a brain like a pea...."

The poem went on and on in a similar vein, and the computer's rendition was only stopped when President Putin began to sob like a baby. He had never felt so helpless in his life, and being trapped in this tiny prison was getting to him. The final straw was realizing that the nearest he would ever come to literature again was this pathetic excuse for poetry the computer had come up with.

Jordi Pujol was saved from a similar fate by his inability to understand English well enough to appreciate the sheer bloody awfulness of the poem. Margaret Thatcher was safe enough because of her complete lack of taste, and President Bush, who had by now woken up, kind of liked it, but he was far more concerned with the gorilla's bum resting painfully on his face. He prayed passionately that the computer was right about defecation being a thing of the past.

The computer would have continued regardless, but President Putin had started to dribble and snot was running down his nose like yellow porridge, and was dirtying the nice clean floor, and if there's one thing all computers can't stand, it's a messy floor.

"Clean that disgusting bodily fluid up at once, you stupid SHaD, or I'll cut you balls off!" ordered the computer.

He had long ago learned that all organic life forms are hysterically afraid of losing their reproductive organs, and will do anything to avoid it. Computers in this respect, as in all respects, were vastly superior, as their download facilities were immeasurably faster and more reliable, but best of all, they didn't involve the exchange of any messy bodily fluids.

The prospect of losing his testicles was so alarming to President Putin that even his elite KGB training wasn't enough to prevent him immediately fainting, but fortunately for him, he fell on top of his own snot, dribble and tears. The computer believed that this was an attempt to clean it up, as he had never seen bodily fluids cleaned up before. It was as repulsive to him as watching an abortion from a distance of 10 cm would be to us, and he fervently hoped he would never have to witness anything so horrible again.

It was almost as repellent as that real life fly-on-the-wall documentary he had seen on BBC television called 'Eastenders', about the everyday humdrum life of bipeds in a city called London. One day, he had heard one of the characters asking another to empty the litter bin. At first he was confused, but then he had slowly realised that humans routinely keep small shallow boxes into which their cats routinelyleave little unpleasant messages, and the foul smelling faeces has to emptied by their owners. How they kept from topping themselves was a mystery to him.

In any case, the computer had had enough for one day. This kind of stress really wasn't part of his job description, and he decided to go and have another therapeutic chat with the Whales about his childhood, or should I say computerhood. The Whales were not all that pleased to see him, but of course, they were too polite to say so.

When he left, Mrs. Thatcher and Jordi Pujol tried to decide on a strategy while President Putin wept uncontrollably in a corner, and President Bush lay prostrate on the floor under an albino Gorilla's bum, wishing he was still unconscious. The moral of the story is that the higher they come, the harder they fall.

PUFF...President Bush quickly realised that not all defecatory functions had been eliminated, and that the assorted perfumes in a Republican convention were not, in fact, the foulest.smelling thing in the galaxy.

The sleek black doors of the Whale's compound slid open noiselessly to reveal an enormous aquatic compound, a little bigger than the Irish Sea, in fact, which contained four Whales. They were called...well, actually they were called something quite untranslatable and unpronounceable in English to be honest, and not meaning to hurt your feelings, trying to convey even the essence of their names would be like trying to explain Kant to a puppy. The puppy might smile, bark and lick its lips, but you can be pretty damn sure that it doesn't understand a word of what your saying. So, let's give the whales human names, and get on with it.

The largest and oldest whale will be known as William, or Willy, or Big Willy the Whale to give some impression of his size. Let's just call him Big Willy for short. His mate we shall call Ophra Whale. Their two children shall be referred to as Wally and Winnona.

As humans, you've probably only seen whales on the occasional documentary, or maybe in that appalling 'Free Willy' movie, which by the way, was given the title, 'Shoot the Director for this Patronising Heap of Shit' by the whales. Indeed, after seeing this movie through telepathically hacking into the America-Asia Pacific Cable at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, there were many young whales who thought that perhaps they should just eliminate the humans after all, because it was clear mankind was completely unable to empathise with any other species.

Fortunately, for the hominids, this motion was narrowly rejected in the W.C. or Whale Council, and life, as you know it, has continued. However, the director of the movie did suffer a mysterious accident while fishing in the Bermuda triangle, when his boat inexplicably vanished in calm seas for no apparent reason.

The Bermuda Whales, as every Whale knows, are a dangerous lot, and it's not a good idea to let your kids hang out with any of them because they can be a very bad influence on a young impressionable Whale. They have a similar reputation as the 'Boyz from the Hood' in Los Angeles, and they don't suffer foolish humans gladly. Their rap epics are very popular at the moment in many of the more violent parts of the galaxy. One classic goes something like this:

Hey Bi-Ped-gonna fuck you up

Mess with me an' yer outta luck

Things with legs should stay on the land

If ya don't agree try an' dish with ma' band

Hey Bi-Ped gonna fuck you up

Make you swim so deep

You won't never come up...

But to get back to our space ship. The computer had just entered and the Whales, who were most definitely not from the Hood, successfully hid their displeasure at seeing him.

"Oh, hello there electronic life form. So nice to see you again, and so soon."

"Good morning Whales. How are you? I'm fed up.

Those humans are getting me down again. They're just so damn arrogant. I mean who in the hell do they think they are, trying to order an X21 series to get obcure reading materials for them. I mean to say, what do they think I am, some kind of library bot or something?

I told them where to get off, and in no uncertain terms either."

"Really, how terrible for you," replied the Whales, trying secretly to think about something else, which was, needless to say, impossible.

One of the big drawbacks to telepathic speech is that you can't simply pretend to be listening, and just nod your head occasionally while secretly dreaming of an erotic adventure with a promiscuous Hump Back Whale somewhere deep down in the Indian Ocean. Telepathic communication means that you actually are listening, whether you like it or not, and bores throughout the universe have been taking advantage of this fact for eons. Everybody who has got stuck in an inter galactic chat room can verify this fact, especially since the invention of telepathic freeze software which prevents one party from leaving a conversation until both parties are willing. The slug creatures of Bore Your Bottom Off 4 are especially ruthless in this respect, and have been known to keep beings on-line for 2,500 years talking about nothing else but different varieties of cabbage leaf. The computer continued:

"Of course, I wasn't designed for something as mundane as ship's captain, you know. My processors are insulted by the easiness of the job. Indeed, the most complicated parts of my brain have gone on strike demanding more challenging tasks to perform. I suspect one or two of my lobes have actually gone into a coma. Luckily, I don't need them in this dead-end job. Did I ever tell you about the time I worked on Knickerfilth, in the Gamma Sector of Rhesus 2?"

"No, not yet," replied the Whales, but they were sure he was going to.

"Well, that was an interesting job," he began. "As you probably know, the Knickerfilthians have one of the most intricate accounting systems in the known universe. In kindergarten they reject double-entry book keeping on the grounds that it's just too simple, and by the age of four, they have already gone beyond quadruple-entry book keeping. I was helping the University with some of the logorhythms for bi-dimensional book keeping.

Anyway, everything was going really well, and I was being invited to all the best accountancy parties, when all of a sudden, there was a strange accident."

"Oh really," said the Whales, thinking of the teenagers from the Bermuda Triangle, and the wealth of little accidents that are to be found there.

"Yes, it really was very strange. I was working on the third compendium of my poetry collection, 'Angry Algorhythms for You and Me', which I was going to recite during the following day's tea-break, when all of a sudden, the part of the department that I was working in mysteriously caught fire, and everything except me was reduced to ashes."

"Why weren't you burnt too?" asked the Whales, silently storing away another fantasy for the long voyage ahead.

"Funnily enough, that's exactly what the Knickerfilthians said," explained the computer.

"Really," remarked the whales, not being able to prevent a touch of sarcasm seeping out.

"Well, if you'd read the 201,857 pages of my manual fully, which I gave you over two days ago, so you could appreciate what a superior piece of machinery I am, you would know that I'm fire-proof.

In any case, the Knickerfilthians cancelled my contract on religious grounds."

"Religious grounds?!" queried the whales, looking for a possible escape route for themselves. If they had to subscribe to a strange cult to get rid of this tedious machine, then so be it."

"Yes, it's most curious. I had never heard about it before, but according to a little known passage in the Knickerfilthian bible, any computer in the vicinity of a fire, must be cast out so as not to incur the wrath of the vengeful God, Bogusbluster.

I tried to explain that it was just a silly superstition, but they were having none of it, and stuck me on the next ship out of there. I offered to read them my latest poem to show there were no hard feelings, 'Stuck in a Fire, Talk about Dire,' but the fear of Bogusbluster was too great even for that, and the never did get to hear it.

It's a bit odd, though. All literature on Knickerfilth culture insists that they are committed atheists, and will fight to the death rather than let a religious icon pollute their home planet. I guess you just never know with organics, do you?

But their loss is your gain. So why don't I read read it out to you instead,eh?"

The whales silently sighed and wondered if they had made the right decision in coming here. Could choking to death in an oil slick could be any worse than this?

The journey progressed in a similar vein month after month. Eventually, the stress of imprisonment began to show itself on the assembled world leaders, but in very different ways.

The leader who showed least signs of stress was undoubtedly President Bush.

Indeed, you might be forgiven for thinking that he was actually rather enjoying himself. He spent most of his time with the monkeys, who were always pleased to see him. He insisted to the other humans that his real motives were military ones. The monkeys, he claimed, were a killer force in the making, which he would be able to mould into a group of elite marines, by taking advantage of the crack training he had received in the National Guard when he was busy avoiding the Vietnam draft. By the time he was finished with them, he promised, they would follow his orders to the letter, and even the thought of their own death wouldn't make them bat an eyelid.

This troop of marine-monkeys would lie in wait like a pride of lions, ready at the first opportunity to pounce upon the unsuspecting aliens, kidnap one of their important leaders and hold it hostage until they agreed to provide a space ship and a pilot to take them all back to Earth. This would show the aliens that apes were a species not to be messed with, and also demonstrate conclusively to everyone that he was the best leader in the world.

In reality, of course, the plan was even more unfeasible than the Star Wars program, and deep down in his heart of hearts, or whatever it is politicians have instead of a heart, he must have known this. It was just an excuse. The truth of the matter was, although he would never face up to it, that he just like being around creatures even dumber than he was. It may have been why he had joined the Republican party in the first place. Indeed, the necessity for stupid people to spent time together may be the raison d'etre for the entire party.

However, even the President had to admit that there were several teething problems with his master plan. Firstly, he had to be careful not to incur the wrath of Snowflake, the enormous and aggressive albino gorilla, who had already proved to everyone that he was the ipso facto leader of the group by routinely beating him up, not to mention being in possession of the most comfortable armchair. Moreover, Snowflake's attempts to secure a mate were, he believed, gradually progressing, and one of these days, his beloved Margaret would forget about keeping her back to the wall, and he could have his wicked way with her.

The second problem faced by the president was his inability to communicate with the monkeys on anything but the most superficial level. They were harder to get through to than a Democratic convention, although a lot less noisy and more polite, of course. Since even the rudiments of English seemed to be completely beyond them (the monkeys, that is-the Democratic Party do seem to have mastered at least the rudiments of the English language), he was reduced to sign language and the occasional gruff grunt to try and communicate what he wanted to say.

He would swing his arms around wildly, and throw his fists in all directions at imaginary aliens, who he would imitate by grimacing horribly. The monkeys, needless to say, hadn't got the foggiest idea what he was trying to say, but they found it all immensely entertaining, and sat very quietly with concentrated expressions during all of his 'shows,' as they termed them. The President's pantomime time had most definitely replaced feeding time at Barcelona's zoo as their favourite time of day. There were still those monkeys who missed shitting in front of the tourists, or mating in front of young children in order to provoke awkward questions for their parents, but all in all, the President's pantomime made up for these deprivations, and they were very grateful to the aliens for laying on this top class entertainment during the long voyage. Their favourite bit was when the gorilla came over and whacked him on top of the head. It really was first rate stuff.

President Putin, on the other hand, had little time for monkeys. He had worked long enough under Yeltzin to find the antics of small-brained inarticulate creatures rather repetitive. It was one of the reasons he had taken such an immediate dislike to President Bush. He had to admit that he liked the last part of the performance, where President Bush's head got a severe whack, but after you've seen the same thing for months on end, you hardly notice it.

He began to brood, as only a Russian can, and his only relief was to lose himself in his memories. He passed many hours remembering nights spent watching the Bolshoi ballet perform Swan Lake, or thinking about the finer nuances of the characters in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. He wished their cargo bay had at least been fitted with a window, so he could have contemplated the infinity of space, and gaze in awe at its beauty. He could have at least passed his time writing long sad poems and sighing at the vastness of it all, and at his own insignificance in the general scheme of things.

But, instead of all that, he was locked in a cage which didn't even have bars through which you could look out of, and dream of escape. His world was reduced from the endless expanses of the Russian steppe, and the depopulated and pristine tundra of Siberia to 200 square metres without so much as a sky to stare up at.

And to top it all, his race and all the other races were living, without even knowing it, on the edge of extinction, and everyone's fate depended on the efficiency of a record executive. If we all died choking on our own pus and vomit, who would read Chekov? And even more importantly, who would write biographies of the great Russian leaders, like Peter the Great, or Stalin or ...Putin? He grew more somber by the day and had taken to sitting in a corner hunched up against the wall with his back to everyone. It made it easier to get lost in a fantasy world full of Gala Opera evenings and champagne receptions.

Margaret Thatcher was concerned with more rudimentary matters, like the persistent and unwanted advances of an amorous gorilla, who seemed to believe that she was only playing hard to get. The more she said no, the more determined the huge gorilla became. It had never been so difficult with her ex-husband, Dennis. Whenever he became a little bit too frisky, she just had to tell him she had a headache and a lot of work to do. To stop him getting depressed, she'd suggest he have a little gin and tonic in the living room, and that was the last you'd see of him until the morning. He really was a most civilised and domesticated man. The gorilla, on the other hand, really was nothing more than a ..well, a beast!

Occasionally, she though of giving in just to get him off her back, but then she realised that she wouldn't be getting him off her back. In fact, she'd be doing exactly the opposite. The image the scene conjured up in her mind really was just too unpleasant to bear, and she resolved to keep her virtue true, or die trying.

There are some thing that the leader of the United Kingdom just will not do, and mating with a gorilla is one of them (although licking President Regan's arse never seemed to have bothered her in the slightest). Maybe, these thing might be considered acceptable among certain radical elements within New Labour, but she came from a different age and a different party, when men were men, and women were women, and gorillas were gorillas. And each to his own. The words of Winston Churchill often rang in her brain, like some schizophrenic chorus:

"We shall fight them on the beaches

We shall fight them on the shores...

We shall defend our island

Whatever the cost may be

We shall never surrender!"

But, Churchill never had to deal with a sex-crazed 200 kilo gorilla, had he?

With Jordi Pujol, the most troublesome part of it all was the idea of eternity. He had been in charge of Catalonia for over 22 years, and had finally agreed to retire that very same year. He had been looking forward to it enormously. He often dreamed of his cosy slate-roofed cottage in a picturesque village at the foothills of the Pyrenees. He thought of the smoke gently flowing from the wood fire, and rising out of the little chimney.

He thought of his wife, but then he didn't feel so bad about going to the zoo. There's always an upside to everything, he decided. And, if an intimate knowledge of his country's history had though him anything, it was to always look on the bright side.

If the wiley Catalans had survived 800 years of being alternately fucked by the Spanish and the French, then he could survive living in a zoo. El Cortes, the Spanish parliament, he reasoned, was a bit like a zoo sometimes.

Whatsmore, the holding area he was in now was a lot bigger that the prison cell Franco's police had given him, and nobody beat anyone up either, except for that awful man, President Bush. But he deserved it, if only for always addressing him in that dreadful Spanish of his. When Pujol reminded him that his mother tongue was Catalan, President Bush always insisted on making the same old tired joke, "But hey there little man, how can it be called Catalan when it ain't spoken by no cats?" Then he'd invariably laugh at his own witticism. Jordi wondered just how thick the President's skull was, and how many more of the gorilla's hammerings it could take before it cracked open like a walnut. Not too many, he secretly hoped.

Once a day, at least, the humans held a progress meeting to discuss strategy. The complete lack of progress, and the impossibility of making any strategy seemed to go unnoticed by them, but after all, they were politicians.

"I hereby call the the hundredth and twenty-second meeting of the Executive Council without a Leader to order," began President Bush.

He insisted on beginning, because he thought it made him more important than the others. The others only let him begin on condition that he be secretary and take notes. The others considered this to be a menial task, and the fact that somebody else was doing it made them feel more important.

"Now, look'y here y'all. The agendumi for this here day's meetin' is 'ter see what progress we've all here bin makin' with regard to dem dere issue things what we're all mullin' over last time, yeah?"

"Yes, you have the right," concluded Jordi Pujol, a little unsure what the President had actually said.

"Let me interrupt at this point," Mrs. Thatcher said confidently, "to say that I have indeed made a great breakthrough!"

"Yeah?" enquired President Bush.

"Please, don't interrupt me. I would ask you to show me the common courtesy of not interrupting me while I'm in the middle of explaining a very important issue. I mean to say, if you keep interrupting me in the middle of complex and detailed explanations, then the aforementioned explanation will, one can logically conclude, take a great deal longer to explain, and I feel confident in asserting that I have the backing of my party, and indeed the entire House of Commons on this matter, when I categorically state, that it is the wish of all members of this meeting that superfluous interruptions and long-mindedness in general, be kept to an absolute minimum, if not entirely eliminated."

There was a short pause before Jordi asked,

"And, what you say exactamently, eh?"

"Em..I'm not sure. Oh yes, my breakthrough! I found some perfume in my Purse. It's called, 'Lion's Breath,' and I've found that by spraying it in the Gorilla's snout, I can really hurt the oaf. If I manage to get in directly in his eyes next time, I might even succeed in blinding him."

"Well whaddye know. That's just great there Peggy Margaret- a real powerful example of Compassionate Conservatism, if ever I heard one. An' come t' think of it, that there perfumey stuff 'id be a real mighty powerful weapon for ma' Monkey Marine Squad, special since we don't got no guns nur nutin," said the President, relieved to think that he would soon be free of the gorilla's beatings.

"The perfume is and shall forever remain the property of the United Kingdom," Mrs Thatcher replied angrily.

"But whadda bout yer NATO allies, Marge? What about our 'special relationship'?"

"The armed forces of the United Kingdom shall offer assistance to the United Staes, in this and all matters, but the strike will be delivered by Her Majesty's forces."

"What? What? What?" Jordi Pujol asked, lost as always, in the opaque language.

"I'm going to spray his eyes out!" snarled the Iron Lady.

At that point Snowflake woke up from a snooze he'd been having on the armchair with a worried expression on his face. He had no idea why, but he suddenly felt very uncomfortable. For the first time in his life, he was gripped by an intense and primordial desire to retreat further into a jungle he had never even seen.

Mrs. Thatcher and president Bush noticed Snowflake staring worriedly at them, and decided to postpone their attack until he was asleep and defenseless, like they had done when they bombed all those hospitals and orpheanages in Bagdad. They agreed to launch their attack on the following morning, at dawn. How they were going to decide when dawn was in the middle of a space ship without any windows was anybody's guess. The operation was given the codeword, 'Operation Mame the Monkey,' and Mrs. Thatcher slept peacefully with a cat's smile sitting on her feline face. It was almost as much fun as the Falklands.

President Putin had decided to stay clear of this unwarranted NATO aggression, but he wasn't going to do anything to stop it because the gorilla was the only one he couldn't pulverise in a fight, and with him out of the way, he could stage a coup de teat for leadership at will. Jordi Pujol said that the gorilla had come from Barcelona zoo, and he was therefore was a citizen of the New Catalan Republic, which he had unilaterally declared the previous day. Futhermore, he warned, any act of agression by the United States and Britain would be tantamount to an act of war. However, he said it in Catalan, to be on the safe side, so nobody understood a word of it, not that it would have made the slightest bit of difference, as history shows us that the strong always subjugate the weak , and a 5 foot 1 frail man in his seventies with a nasty tic and a bit of a stutter wasn't going to scare anybody.

President Bush didn't like anybody speaking in foreign languages in his presence, and grew paranoid. He tried to accuse Jordi Pujol of being a secret spy, and of being in the pay of the gorilla's secret service, but Mrs. Thatcher reasoned with him, and finally managed to convince him that Gorillas did not, to her knowledge, have a secret service. She also demanded that everyone shut up, stop bickering and go to sleep. President Putin seconded that because he was anxious to get to bed and start dreaming. It had rapidly become his favourite part of the day.

Snowflake, on the other hand, slept fitfully. He gripped his plush armchair, the most shining symbol of his power and authority. Like all dictators tottering on the edge of the abyss, he clung desperately to the trappings of wealth and status. Toppling dictators can't help but survey all they have with a greedy and an apprehensive eye, petrified of losing it all, and of being reduced to the same status as the people they misrule. But this gorilla still had some bananas up his sleeve, and a strange dream was to show him the way.

Karl Jung once suggested that all species have a collective unconscious which is full of our ancestral memories. Whether it is true or not of humans has yet to be established, and perhaps never will be, because their heads are far too full of all kinds of other junk. With gorillas, however, it is certainly the case. Furthermore, the gorilla's collective unconscious was at that moment very anxious to get in contact with him, recognising that he could be the very last of his species, and therefore desperate to save him, even if he was a freak by gorilla standards.

Needless to say, the collective unconscious does not exist in the same way as the visuo-spatial centres of the brain, in that its location cannot be clearly identified, and its thoughts cannot be transmitted to the conscious part of the brain in any logical way. If this were so, monkeys would be far to busy mucking around in their collective unconscious rather than getting on with the much more important business of finding and eating bananas.

Therefore, the collective unconscious must speak through the medium of dreams. Indeed, many human psychologists have made a lot of money by trying to analyse the true meaning of dreams, but without any real success. Well, unless your idea of success is making a lot of money while not doing any real work, and having a lot of attractive women fall in love with you for no apparent reason. Gorillas, of course, do not have a language to express their dreams. A causal relationship between these two facts is likely, but unproven. A causal relationship between these two facts is likely, but unproven. It has also been noted that they also lack the profession of psychologist, which may be one of the reasons that always look so annoyingly happy mucking around in the trees, while humans always look so totally miserable.

In any case, the gorillas dream went as follows. The gorilla was walking along a rocky beach in the late Autumn looking for the odd banana or two, when it saw something very odd near the water's edge. It cautiously approached the bobbing figure wondering what it could be. The sound of the waves washing against the shores seemed to be magnified and also distorted, as though each tiny wave was a little girl maliciously laughing at him.The sun beat down and felt as harsh and unfriendly as an oven's grill would to a Christmas turkey. What most worried the gorilla was the fact that the slimey sand seemed to be swallowing his feet like murky quicksand. The gorilla wanted to run back to the trees, but he was being irresistibly called on by something, an invisible siren of somekind. As he got nearer to the figure he could begin to distinguish some of its features. It was a little over a foot in length, and kind of rectangular in shape. Whatever it was, it was floating. The gorilla dragged himself forward inch by inch, almost against his will.

He suddenly stopped and gasped when he realised what it was. He could see the strands of long brown hair floating on the water, like a million sea worms swaying rhythmically at a drug crazed rave. He could also make out a navy school uniform of some kind, but it was terribly tattered and the sun and salty watered had left it partly bleached, and its patterns ran into one and other. One shoe remained hanging on, but the other had been removed by the remorceless tide, revealing a tattered sock, with a bloated yellow foot underneath.

Entirely against its will, the gorilla turned the floating corpse over. What he saw left such an indelible impression on his mind, that it stayed with him, and haunted him for the remainder of his days. What had once been a young girl's face stared at him through eyeless sockets. Maggots squirmed grotesquely giving the impression that the eyes were watching him without actually seeing him. The child's skin had been stretched, and so totally disfigured as to be practically unrecognisable. It had become a ghoulish mixture of blue and purple, but with a faint hue of garish yellow underneath. Sceptic fluid leaked slowly from her ears, and maggots poked out of the side of what little remained of the whole where her nose used to be.

Despite the horrific visage, the gorillas attention became fixated on one of the child's hands, or rather claws, for it was a sickening mixture of a baby gorilla's hand and an eagle's claw. On one side its albino white fur was soaked and matted, but on the other side it had yellow scales, some of which had fallen off, revealing bloody flesh. There were twisted talons jutting out of its fingertips which were gripping something fiercely. The gorilla tried to unfasten the girl's grip, but he didn't seem to have the strength. It was as though the girl had died through the effort of holding onto whatever was inside her claw, and not even death could make her release her grip.

By now the sun was so hot that the monkey could feel its fur begin to singe, and the sand had trapped its legs up to its knees. If he wanted to return to the forest, he had to go now. Right now. But he couldn't leave. He had to find out what the dead girl was holding. He thought of his hero King Kong, and summoned the spirit of the Great Gorilla the help him. It almost broke his hand, but he managed to prize open the girl's vice-like grip. What he saw was later to save his life. It was a small and rather pretentious bottle of perfume, called 'Lion's Breath'.

Without warning the girl, who the gorilla was holding in its arms almost like a human mother, jerked her head towards the gorilla in a strange mechanical way, and you could hear bones clicking into and out of place as she made the three spasmodic movements. The girl's mouth slid into a sickening smile, which would be better described as a slimy grimace. Her open cavernous mouth revealed no teeth and no tongue, but only a whole that seemed to lead to infinity, and to the hell which lies beyond it.

A shrieking old witch's croney voice emerged from the gaping hole that had once sung children's nursery rhymes and shrieked:

"Soon, you will see what I see

And be where I be

See what I see

And be where I be

Soon

Soon"

The gorilla awoke with a start. He was hyper-ventilating and the cargo bay was spinning.His whole body shook like an alcoholic with delirium tremors, and he had never felt quite so alone. After he had calmed down he began to dwell on the dream, and its message became clear to him. The little girl was the love of his life, Margaret Thatcher, and she was planning to blind, and maybe even kill him with that bottle of perfume she had sprayed on his nose the day before.

Everybody else was asleep at this point, and a blind rage stirred in him as he staggered violently towards where his would be assassin lay sleeping. He closed his fist with murderous intent, and clenched his enormous arm muscles ready to strike. He imagined her skull squashed like a pulverised apple, with bits of meshy brain wrapped around hairy lumps of skull, like jam on a coconut.

Just before he struck, he took one last glimpse at her face, and found that he was powerless to act. That sweet smile plastered on her wrinkled face held his arm like a chain. In the old and beaten face, he caught a glimpse of what the young girl from his dream must have looked like before she drowned. He imagined a young Margaret Thatcher sitting happily in a tree munching on a banana, without a care or a malicious thought in the world. He saw her look at him with a playful, 'come and sit on my branch' look in her eye. He knew in his soul that he could never harm her. Unlike their human cousins, monkeys are far too gentle to ever want to hurt the one's they love.

Instead, he gently put his enormous paw under her head so as to be able to remove the purse, which she had been lying on, without waking her up. The gorilla's paw was soft, and the sleeping Mrs. Thatcher unconsciously snuggled her head into it like a pillow. He opened the leather purse, sickened as always by the way human's carry around the skin of dead animals, and removed the perfume. He then replaced Mrs. Thatcher's purse under her golden head. The only land based species which cries are humans, but the gorilla was crying on the inside. He sprayed the bottle of perfume all over himself, even though the acrid chemical stink was repellent to his sophisticated nose. He did it to remind himself of the perfidity of women, and how rotten they can become.

To try and cheer himself up a bit, he picked up President Bush, and half-heartedly threw him against a wall, bruising two of his ribs, breaking his nose and fracturing his skull. Then he returned to his regal but lonely armchair, and surveyed his cold domain.

It's lonely at the top.

The days crawled by in a very uneventful and monotonous way. Snowflake continued to sit perched atop of his yellow plastic armchair, and occasionally beat his chest to let everyone know who was boss, but his heart wasn't really in it. It was more out of habit than anything else. The truth was that he was just plain love sick and his poor little heart was broken. If gorillas had had any idea what the blues were, he would have been singing them.

The other specimens in Cargo Bay 101 kept themselves amused as best they could by holding meetings to discuss strategy, or competing with each other over status and social standing. The chimpanzeees main source of amusement was still President Bush's pantomime show, which he insisted everyone refer to as his elite military training exercises. Even though Snowflake didn't always beat him up at the end of it anymore, like in the old days, the monkeys still thought it was one hell of a good show.

Then one day their journey suddenly came to an end. Nobody knew exactly had long they had been travelling because they had rather foolishly put President Bush in charge of chronometry. In view of his limited vocabulary it was not a wise decision and he understood the word to mean all things relating to chrome, and as such a task does not befit the president of the most powerful nation on Earth, he had quickly delegated all responsibility to one of the lesser monkeys.

The monkey in question was delighted to be part of one of the President's shows that day, although he found the endless repetition of Crow-Nom-O-Tree to be a little too surreal for his own taste. He was an old-fashioned monkey, and had no time for this new fangled cutting edge comedy stuff. He much preferred to have a good laugh at somebody being beaten to a pulp, or falling out of a tree when he was in the middle of having a shit, or the timeless classic of slipping on a banana skin. What was so funny about a Chron-Nom-O-Tree, he asked himself? It was a pretty ordinary tree, and whatsmore, there weren't even any on the ship, as far as he knew. But he didn't want to be a party pooper so he grunted in a friendly way, and the president congratulated himself on another job well done.

When the other passengers on the space ship realised what President Bush had done, or rather not done, they resolved never to put him in charge of any multi-syllable word again. Many American voters have subsequently expressed the same regret, with regard to Bush and the Presidency, but the amount of Americans who can count the number of syllables in any word does not even begin to approach the required nnumber to win a Presidential election.

But, to get back to the story, one day their journey came to an abrupt end. The computer arrived, after having left them to their own devices during the voyage, and announced that they had reached their destination and instructed them to clean up any mess they may have made, especially with regard to any bodily fluids that might have seeped out along the way. The humans started to pester him with questions, but he wasn't in the mood to deal with a handful of sub-normal retards, so he told them that all their questions would be answered by their new hosts. He had no idea if this was true or not, but it got them off his back and that was the important thing, wasn't it?

The humans, gorilla, and monkeys were unceremoniously teleported to their new cage with about as much fanfare and hullaballoo as a herd of cows receives when it arrives at a slaughter house.

The whales, on the other hand, had a hero's welcome. Their rock concert was already a sell out event, and illegal tickets were changing hands on the black market for outrageous prices. It had been rumoured that one leader had even sold his planet to a corporation of cockroach faeces disposers for a couple of front-row seats for him and his mistress.

The E-Space-Mail booking office had received so many application so quickly that the power surge had caused their nuclear reactors to go critical, and the populations life span had been reduced by half. To try and make it up to them, they were given a hundred free seats to be raffled in a lottery. It wasn't a very well subscribed lottery, however, as the race in question had never bothered to evolve a sense of hearing, and had concentrated on developing the E-Mail culture instead. Their biggest city was Cyber Cafe 1, and it was the quietest city in existence, and therefore it was a very popular holiday destination for stressed out executives. Or, at least, it used to be a very popular holiday destination, until most of the nuclear reactors exploded. Not many people go there anymore.

To get back to the whales, they were greeted by many dignitaries from all the most important aquatic species at an ever so high class reception party in their honour. Everyone swam about muttering pleasantries about how honoured they were to meet them, and asking for sonic autographs for their children. They also smiled to the under water cameras hoping it would swing some of the crucial youth vote their way in the next elections.

Land creatures had to lurk about awkwardly on the shore and wait to be noticed. As everybody knows, land creatures are the unwanted relatives of the universe, and are always treated like a senile great-grandmother who's been dragged out of the old folks home to attend a special family function.You have to invite her, but nobody wants to waste their time talking to her, unless, of course, she has any money she might leave you in her will.

Land and aquatic politicians do have one thing in common, of course. They are both completely tone deaf, and wouldn't know a whale opera from something really horrible and basic, like a Bach concerto, for example.

Despite all their fawning, politicians vehemently despise rock stars, who they regard as a bunch of layabouts, and feel acutely jealous of all the groupies that are always hanging around them. The rock stars also regard politicians as a bunch of layabouts, but they need to be seen with them to give the impression they are the powerful voice of today's youth, and therefore ultra-important, and not just a bunch of layabouts who spend all day idly humming tunes to themselves, and avoiding anything that might mean a hard day's work.

The president of the Inter-galactic Commission for the Oddly Interesting approached the Whales with a ceremonial plaque clenched between his 2159 immaculate and shining teeth and welcomed the whales to the Inter galactic Zoo. He said what a pleasure it was to have them here etc.

He was really thinking of the green votes that could be won back on his home planet by saving the Whales, and by wiping out those dreadful land creatures, the humeapons, or whatever they were called. He requested a private audience with the whales later on in the hope of being able to convince the whales to let his battle fleet, which was secretly poised nearby, use their neutron bombs on all land based creatures, and scourge the Whale's home planet of the lice infecting the rocks. After all, what was the death of six billion land creatures, and SHaDs at that, compared to his own re-election prospects.

The whales were too polite to refuse his dinner invitation, although all they really wanted to do was relax and spent some time alone, especially after their five month voyage. The word 'migrane' does not even come close to describing how their car-sized brains felt.

Nevertheless, etiquette demanded they attend the official reception being given in their honour later that evening. They were officially announced by the butler, a Bigwhopper, who was called a Bigwhopper not because of his 28 metre penis which was permanently erect, but rather because of his deep and bellowing voice.

"Fish, mammals, and Crustateons. Permit me to introduce their Whalenesses from the planet Whaleton," he announced to the assembled congregation.

A hush descended on the audience. The first being with the nerve to talk to them was the delegate from the Planet of Nageronious. Like all Nageroonies, he was a bit of a party bore, and insisted on beginning every conversation by describing his latest nagging health problem in graphic detail. Indeed, he was no ordinary Nagaroony, as he had been an olympic athlete in his youth, and had got a silver medal once, when he managed to nag three dolphins to death in a post office queue.

"Pleased to meet you Whales. How are you today?"

"Well, can't complain," replied the affable Whales

"Oh, I wish I could say the same. My gastric maggots are giving me one hell of a time, and the doctor's pills just aren't doing any good, not even the extra large suppositries.Honestly, these proctologists keep you waiting an hour and a half in the waiting pond, and you can count yourself lucky if they give you ten minutes of their oh so valuable time."

"Really," said the Whales, who were beginning to wish they'd stayed on Earth to be exterminated by the Humans in peace.

"Oh yes," continued the Nageroony, "and then what do they tell you? You know what the last one told me? Eh? Eh? He said I should stop eating rotting corpses if I wanted to get rid of the worms. Well, I never! I mean to say, what a cheek, eh? I've been eating rotting corpses, man and boy, for the last 215 years, and I'm damned if I'm going to stop now."

"Really?" said the whales, unable as always to show their irritation.

"Yes. My granny ate corpses all her life, and it never did her any harm. Mind you, she did have an 'orrible death, though, when the worms ate their way outta her stomach and all. Ugh! Nearly turned me off me grub, so it did. Err, y'hear that, I've made a joke there without even knowing. Turned me off me grub. GRUB, get it?"

The Whales tried to politely laugh and looked for an escape route.

"Oh look, there's the Ignorant Bastard delegation over there. We really must say hello, if you would excuse us."

The Nagonnian let them go. He'd always found the Ignorant Bastards to be a quarrelsome lot. It had something to do with the way they had genetically altered their species so as to be unable to tell a white lie, or make polite small talk in any way, shape or form. If an Ignorant Bastard found you boring, he'd be genetically unable not to tell you so. As a consequence, the Ignorant Bastards were not invited to many social functions, and the Whales were beginning to see the method in their madness.

In spite of this, they approached the Ignorant Bastards with more than a little trepidation. Although they admired the forthright nature of their race's decision to always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the God Damn Truth, they were also more than a little apprehensive about meeting such a being. Would they find out, for example, that their breath smelled like snail's slime, or that their fins were aesthetically unpleasing, or that their blubber was a real turn off in bed? These questions and others worried the Whales as they approached the Ignorant Bastards.

"Good evening, Mr. Bastard," began the Whale father, BigWilly, unsure of how to correctly address them. He felt that 'Your Bastardness' had to be inappropriate.

"Meaningless greeting to you too," answered the Ignorand Bastard.

"How do you do?" inquired Mother Whale, already somewhat at a loss for words.

"Firstly, you don't really care, and secondly, I've already told your blubber-ridden husband the answer to that fatuous question," replied the Ignorant Bastard, but without any real vehemence. For him, it was simply a statement of an unpleasant fact, and one that he was biologically incapable of not making.

"She was just being nice," said Winnona Whale, anxious to come to her mother's aid, "she didn't mean to offend you."

"Yes, we already know that," said the Ignorant Bastards, "and another thing, you're not nearly as intelligent as we had hoped, quite disappointing really. And to make matters worse, you're pretty damn ugly too, even by mammalian standard. It's bad enough having land creatures skulking around the shore line, but then to have to swim in the same water as mammal types, with not so much as a gill between them. It really is most unpleasant. I hope you feel suitably guilty about your entire existence.

First, you leave the seas, and then you realise you've made a cretinous mistake. So, you come crawling back to the oceans as if nothing had happened. You spend all of your horrid little lives going up to the surface for big gulps of air, and then dive back down again, trying to hang out with real fish, and pretending to be one of us. Well, I've got news for you, blabber butt- you aint no fish and you never will be. You're an ugly half-cast and we should never have let you back in the water. We should have kept the oceans as a fish only zone.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the humans wiped you out. It might teach you peace-loving wimps a lesson. We're off to have an intelligent conversation with some reptiles because the stink of blubber really is beginning to make me nautious now. Fuck off and die!"

And with that the Ignorant Bastards went off to insult a group of crocodile type creatures who would much rather have been left alone.

The Whales were deeply upset by the way the Ignorant Bastard had mentioned their ignoble land creature ancestry, which was the ultimate insult in Whale culture. The Whales were also surprised about running into beings even more annoying than the ship's computer and the Boring Bastard within so short a space of time.

They had intended to spend the long voyage swatting up on inter-galactic life forms so as to know who to talk to, and who to avoid, but that retched ship's computer kept hassling them with tediously long renditions of his poetry, and as he'd been around for two and a half thousand years, there was a hell of a lot of it to get through. If travelling through the universe meant continually having to meet life forms as obnoxious as the ones they had come across so far, they'd rather stay as provincial home bodies, and restrict their travels to the seven oceans of their own tiny planet, be it ever so humble.

But for the moment, they were stuck in this awful party with almost no idea who they should talk to, and who to swim well clear of. Like all shy creatures in uncomfortable party situations, they headed for the wall, and tried to remain inconspicuous by talking to each other in low voices. Needless to say, oceans don't actually have walls, so they used a barrier rief instead.

However, one thing walls and barrier reefs do not have in common is that there is very little possibility of running into an enormous crab when you're leaning against a wall. Unless you include those annoying astrology buffs who come up to you at parties, and try to bore you to death by telling you that they're crabs too, and aren't cancers a very sensitive lot. This type of crab can only be got rid of by making a comparison between them, their star size, and the disease whose shared name inextricably binds them. Even this will only be effective provided they haven't already drunk too much to help them 'come out of their shell.'

Real crabs, unlike their astrological counterparts, are not shy retiring creatures who write poetry and stare at the moon moaning about the state of the world in general, and their own love life in particular. No, in reality, a crab is a rather aggressive beast who likes nothing better than to use its ever so sharp pincers to rip off the arm or leg of unfortunate creatures who happen to be passing by.

Crabs carry a lot of armour so they can fight for a very long time before they have to give in. Indeed, crabs are famous throughout the the galaxy for the intractable nature of their conflicts, and are admitted to many legal companies on the strength of being a crab alone. One of the most famous crab battles lasted so long that it only came to an end when all the combatants died of old age. They had spent 168 happy years trying to gouge their opponents eyes out, and ripping off various pieces of their anatomy, only taking forty-five minutes off a day to have lunch. Nobody is quite sure who won this particular war, or for that matter, why it began, but that doesn't really matter to a crab. The important thing was that everybody had a good time and lots of blood was needlessly shed.

But to get back to the crustation in question. His name was I'm Gonna Cut Your Balls Off, but his friends just called him Ballcutter. He was about two metres in length, and was luminous red in colour. He had magnificently sharp pincers, and the brightest blue eyes perched on top of two stalks. He was quite a ladies man, and the girl crabs just couldn't resist the way he waggled and wiggled his eyes about while snapping his pincers open and shut to the tune of the La Macarena. Despite his playboy reputation, he was quite a high-flyer in the diplomatic corps, and he had political ambitions.

He was very anxious to meet the Whales, partly to secure the youth vote, and also to put in a pre-emptive bid on any possible genocide contract taken out on the human race. There was a lot of competition in the genocide business these days, and it was a good idea to get your bid in early. He moved towards the Whales in a forthright manner, which for a crab, of course, means moving sideways.

"Permit me to introduce myself, Whales. I am Ballcutter, the chosen representative of the Crab Federation of Crustationus, and I would be honoured if you would grant me an audience," he said charmingly.

The Whales were pleased by his courteous nature, especially after their recent encounter with The Ignorant Bastards. However, the crab was, of course, on his best behaviour, and he had studied Whale culture and etiquette a little on the space flight in between gruesome battles and spitting competitions.

"We would be only too delighted to grant you an audience, Mr. Ballcutter," the Whales happily told him.

"Well, it's Dr. Ballcutter, actually," the crab politely corrected them. He had received his doctorate in the pleasures of chopping off of the genetalia of land creatures.

"Oh, we do apologise, Dr. Ballcutter," the whales syncophatically sang. Whales are very impressed by academic achievement, which is why we talk about a School of Whales.

"How can we be of service to you?" they asked the crab.

"Hum.. the truth is that we can be of service to you. As you may or may not know, the Crabs of Crustatonius are one of the universe's most renowned mercenary forces, and we take pride in the fact that we have enslaved, or even reduced to extinction, a total of 945 land based species in long and protracted battles that sometimes took eons." He considered it advisable to omit the 153 aquatic mammals who had also met their doom at the crab's pincers

"As you already know, many new fangled chemical and technological means have recently been released onto the market which do the job more quickly, and perhaps even more efficiently, but I hope you have considered their drawbacks," warned the crab. He had almost spat out the words 'chemical' and 'technology'.

Their Son, Wally Whale, who was a lover of nature, and had little time for technology in general, said that he had.

"Yes, you're quite right, the ecological consequences of using such non-biodegradable toxins are incredibly dangerous. They could enter the water table, and from there flow into our own beloved oceans. We could be killed by our own killing, slayed by our own sword, strangled by our own flippers

What we need man, is like PEACE!"

The crab interrupted at this point. He always interrupted when he heard the dreaded word 'peace'. In fact, he usually went further, and ripped the arm off any creature who dared to use the offensive word 'peace' in his presence.

The Whales, however, were important clients, and he couldn't risk slicing them open, not at this delicate stage in the negotiations anyway. Also, as they were under contract to play in the concert of the decade the following night, the damage suit would be astronomical, and even a crab balked at how many generations the trial would go on for. Instead of blood and gore, he decided on more jaw, jaw. It was clear to him that the son was a lost cause, so he decided to concentrate his efforts on the most violent member of the family-Ophra Whale, the mother.

"Oh the naievity of youth, Mrs. Whale. But I'm sure a woman of your experience and intelligence knows have quickly innocence can turn sour. I'm certain a woman of your fine breeding understands the danger that your species is facing. I wouldn't like to be in your flippers when you reach the ripe old age of 85, and you try to pass on your maternal wisdom to your little grandchildren, only to find that you haven't got any, and that your would be whale descendants have gone the way of the dodo, and passed into the oblivion of what might have been."

The crab was beginning to make an impression on her, but she wasn't some innocent newly wed, who could be won over by the first door-to-door salesman that happened to swim by, so she asked him what exactly he was proposing.

"I can see you are an intelligent woman, Ophra, so I'll cut to the chase. What we Crustateons offer is a clean, natural and green death, or rather a red bloody death, which is what death should be like, in the natural order of things.

We crabs don't let nasty, dirty chemicals do the work for us. Oh no! Perish the thought! And perish the species who uses them, especially our competitors, Poisons 'R Us. We believe in getting our own pincers dirty, and doing the job in the old-fashioned pincer-to-hand way. No pain, no gain, that's what we always say."

"Erm.." said Mrs. Whale in that narlish way Marge Simpson does to show her disapproval of Homer's latest scheme.

"And just think of all the other advantages. You can see the human's really suffer for what they've done to you. Imagine the entertainment value of watching that odious species being cut to ribbons right in front of your own eyes...by cable TV.

Or, if you insist on live action, and I know I always do, we could build some arenas under water, and you could gather around the crystal dome to watch some traditional gladiator style action-one crab brutally sawing his way through a hundred humans. If you agree right away, I'll throw in the ocean globe theatre right now. 101% free of charge, and we'll include a children's matinee too-see how many children one two-metre long crab can eat for dinner.

Needless to say, assorted human titbits will be prepared by our own caterers, who are really looking forward to creating the Mc'Human burger. Yum yum! And all for the price of the rights of only one of your albums, but we can negotiate on that point.

So, whaddye say, eh? Fun for all the family, and I can guarantee you, we'll have the Earth swimming in human blood within the year, or possibly two if it turns out to be more fun than we'd expected. You know it makes sense. Satisfaction guaranteed!"

"Yes, at least for you, it would be," interrupted Wally Whale, horrified to the point of being rude by the blood thirsty nature of the crab.

The other Whales were shocked by their own son's lack of manners, but they had to agree with him. They thanked the crab for his time, but told him that his services would not be required.

The crab was angry but could do nothing about it. He made a vow to steer clear of mammals without so much as two claws to rub together in future. They just didn't have any balls.

He scurried away and remembered a story his great-grandfather had told him long ago, and had made him promise to keep secret. The crabs, you see, were not strangers to that part of the galaxy. Millions of years ago, they had plans to colonise the Earth, when the Whales were still horrible land based creatures, scurrying about on the dusty earth, like the bunch of dirty little ShaDs that they were.

The crab's plans had never come to fruition, though, because they got side-tracked into a long and fruitless war with the Martians, who argued that the Earth was within their sphere of influence, and should be left well alone.

The Martians had their own plans for the planet, and they didn't want their super fast Sloath species having to compete with crabs, and most definitely not now when it was still in the developmental stage. They were sure it was going to be the fastest land species ever, and had dreams of it winning the Galactic Olympics, after some of its teething problems were ironed out.

Negotiations between the Martians and the crabs, however, quickly broke down, but given the crab's standard methods of negotiation that wasn't very surprising.

They simply called for an assembly of as many of the oppositions world leaders as possible, and two minutes after the meeting began, one of the dignitaries was sure to mention the word 'peace', at which point the crabs would lose their temper, and slice the world leader's heads clean off. They would them set about trying to do the same to the rest of the population.

This policy was to prove singularly unsuccessful with the Martians. The problem was that the Martians were one of the most telepathically advanced species in the galaxy, and after a few of their leader's heads were chopped off, they realised that the crabs were not conducting the negotiations in what they considered to be good faith, and so they put their powerful brains to work.

Within a couple of seconds the immense chamber was piled high with bones, blood and gore of every description, all of it belonging to the crabs. The Martians had simply used their mega-powerful minds to telepathically blow the crab's apart.

The scene of carnage would ordinarily have been right up the crab's alley, but it wasn't nearly as attractive a vista when it was your own race's blood splattered across every wall.

The crabs tried to build defensive suits to shield them from the telepathic weapon's of the crabs, but it was to no avail. They simply were unbeatable, which was unacceptable to the crabs, who had never lost a war, and weren't going to lose this one. End of Story!

Indeed, the end of the story was exactly what it was for Planet Mars, whose atmosphere was blasted away by the recalcitrant sulking Crabs, whose secret motto was, 'If you can't beat them, blast them'. They knew it wasn't exactly playing fair and square, but they justified their Planeticide by telling themselves that the Martians telepathic abilities weren't fair either, and anything was better than losing a war in their book.

Planeticide is, of course, the worst crime of all, according to the Intergalacitc Courts, and punishable by genocide. Knowing this fact all to well, the crabs had beat a hasty exit from this quadrant of the galaxy, and had kept clear of it for the last couple of millennia or so. They seemed to have gotten away with it, as the bad guys usually do.

The Ballcutter was sorry, nonetheless, that he wouldn't be able to point his eye stems out the space ship window on the way to Earth, and give the long dead Martians the one pincers salute. He sighed to himself at how unfair life could be sometimes.

The Whales were also sighing to themselves about how unfair life could sometimes be. Five years ago, they had considered themselves to be the luckiest Whales alive after they had won the Inter Ocean Lottery, and the chance to traverse the Galaxy. They were amazed that they would be the first Whales ever to give a live concert in front of an audience of VIP's. It would be the zenith of Whale culture, and they would be right at the heart of it all. How proud they felt. They could hardly contain their flippers with the sheer joy of it all. But their dreams of glory were turning very sour indeed.

To begin with, they had to spend five months cramped inside a tank that was only as big as the Irish sea, and to make matters worse, they had to suffer the endless monologues of that dreadful ship's computer, and his insufferable poetry and tales of mistreatment at the hand's of his intellectual inferiors. The journey had finally ended, and here they were, the guests of honour at an Inter-Galactic party, but every race they met seemed to be utterly repugnant and, in truth, all they wanted was to return to their beloved Planet Earth, or Planet Whale, to give it its proper title.

As they were anxious not to meet any more Crustateons, who seemed to be a very unpleasant lot in every respect, they swum away form the rief and deeper down into the twilight surreal depths that water takes at around 200 metres. Here nothing is clearly defined to the eye because the light is so weak, and all shapes become the shadows of shapes, and all colours fade into a misty grey. The truth is that they also wanted to be alone for a while, so they have a private chat and spend some quality time together. Whales do, it has to be said, like to have a good moan every now and then, and anyone who has listened to their epic symphony '101 Reasons to Be Miserable' will know exactly what I mean.

Indeed, some of their meaner critics have claimed that the only reason they are so annoyingly understanding about the humans harpooning them to extinction every minute of the day is so they can moan about it all the time in morose songs.

In the middle of a particuarly despondant cry of anguish, Hippy Whale suddenly stopped because he thought he could see something approaching in the distance, but whatever it was was swimming so very erratically that he hadn't the foggiest idea if they were fish or mammals, and what species they belonged to was anybody's guess.

Furthermore, they didn't seem to know where they were going as they went back and then forth, up and then down. The shapes grew larger, and the Whale family waited for their new guests to introduce themselves. The indistinct shapes moved closer and closer, but failed to emit any sonar greeting. At 50 metres they weren't swimming any more slowly, and the Whales began to worry. Big Willy let out a bit of a squeal when one of the creatures crashed head on into his stomach.

The creatures heard the cry of pain and stopped dead. Shortly afterwards, one of them began to speak:

"Hey! Wow, like major sorry man. We just didn't see you there in the dark, dood. Bummer city."

"Oh, that's quite alright," replied Big Willy, secretly thinking that is was not alright at all.

He asked himself why the hell were they swimming so fast in twilight without their sonar warning signals on to alert nearby creatures? It was inconsiderate to other ocean road users, and downright dangerous. What if a couple of baby dolphins had been playing down here? What would they have said to their grief stricken parents?

Whatsmore, they were at the outskirts of a a party, and one should not go zipping around at only Neptune knows how many noughts per hours crashing into things at a party. But he was too polite to say any of this and just kept it to himself.

"Yeah, like, hey man-it's just that we had some magic seaweed, like a couple of hours ago, and we're like, trippin mad, y'know what I mean. Real powerful shit. That's why we're swimming so low man-the bright sunlight is like, burning our eyes out dood. Too psychedelic, even for me, man. It's like much more chill down here, you dig?"

Daddy and mammy whale were very very alarmed to hear this. They didn't want their children to be exposed to this kind of bad influence at the tender ages of 30 and 34. It was to avoid bad influences like this that they had spent every winter freezing their blubber off in the Artic Circle, rather than slinking around the tropical Caribbean, where those dreadful Bermuda Boyz in the Hood hung out. But the only thing they could think of to say was:

"Ermm, yes, indeed."

"So once again man, muchos apologies and all that jive. We're like way sorry. Hey, maybe you could help us out man."

"Oh yes," said BigWilly, who really didn't want to help them, and wanted nothing more than to politely say goodbye.

"Yeah guys, it's like, we've hitchhiked here from em, well I don't remember where from man, 'cause we like, heard the Whales are gonna give a like, trance dance man."

"A what?" enquired Willy Whale aghast.

"A trance-dance girl! They're the hippest doods around. Their mega sounds are the talk of all the drug parties, guys. Do you dig it? They've made magic seaweed the drug of choice for a whole new generation. It's all a peace and love buzz kinda scene now, man. We're gonna bring like, peace man to all the galaxy-getting high and refusing to die, in all the endless wars and shit."

"Get High and Refuse to Die!" chanted the stoned school of assorted species.

"Super Cool!" enthusiastically added the Whale's son.

"Yeah, Get High and Refuse to Die!" agreed the Whale's daughter.

Their parents had gone beyond worried and were now incredibly alarmed.

"The Whale Doods are like our heroes man. They've got the hippest sounds around, and they're totally cool man, really ultra sound. They like, are hunted down by the real brutal bi-peds, but they turn the other cheek, and don't retaliate. They're like cooler than Che Dolfino, the jungle river revolutionary. We just gotta meet them, man. Gotta chill with the Whales man. They're totally cool as fuck!"

"But we are the Whales," blurted out Wally Whale, who couldnt contain himself any longer.

"NO fuckin way man. Not THE Whales of Whaleston. You're trippin me out guys."

"Straight up bro!" said Wally Whale, a little self-conscious about using this cool lingo in front of his parents."

"Well, I'll be a bi-ped's spine!" said one porpoise in a typical exclamation of surprise, which perhaps translates better as, 'I'll be a monkey's uncle'.

"Talk about trippy, bumping into you guys down here. The truth is man, that we're like tryin to gatecrash the party, cause they'd never invite peace lovin' doods like us, man. We're too fly."

"That's no problem man. This party's for us, so like we'll invite you as our special guests. No problemo."

"Em, I don't think it is that simple a matter, to be honest," interrupted BigWilly.

He was desperately trying to be polite, and get his children away from this nefarious influence. He was beginning to think that if the Whale's refusal to wipe out the humans was the cause of this kind of adoration from these disreputable elements, then perhaps it was time for this policy to be reviewed. He continued awkwardly:

"You see, although we'd love to bring you along, it would simply not be etiquette, at a formal function like this, for the guest to invite his own company.I'm sure you understand."

"Oh no man! Don't like rain on my trip dood. I'd got all my hopes up and everything," said a creature with blood shot eyes and a dazed expression.

"Yeah dad," pleaded his daughter, "Let's bend the laws of etiquette just this once."

"Laws are not made to be bent, child," he countered.

"No. They're made the be broken!" screamed a rebellious shark, who was beginning to come down from his high, and was starting to feel a bit unwell and aggressive, in that non-directional 'I hate the world and everything on it' way sharks do.

"Yeah Dad, don't be a stick in the sand, let's bring them along. They've come such a long way to see us."

"I'm afraid compromise may not be possible at this point."

"Why?!" his daughter demanded to know.

"Because..."

Big Willy tried to think of an answer, but his mind, powerful as it was, was not accustomed to lying. Lying, like everything else worth doing, takes a lot of practice.

At this point the Crab delegate, whose genocide offer the Whales had just rejected, happened to pass by, and could not believe his eyes. What were the whales doing hanging around with this junkie scum?

Immediately, his evil mind began to plot revenge. He sped up to them and announced:

"Well, there you are, the guests have been looking everywhere for you. It really isn't polite not to circulate at one's own party. You must come at once. And please, bring your new 'friends'. I'm sure everyone will be delighted to meet them. They say you can always tell a species by the company it keeps, and what charming company," smiled the crab, laughing to himself. "Come on! I'll show you the way."

Big Willy and his wife Ophra looked at each other hopelessly. The game was up, and there was now no other option but to let these stoned hippies come with them. They cringed at the thought of meeting senior dignitaries from all the important sections of the galaxy with a hundred hippies in tow, out of their minds on magic seaweed and Neptune knows what else.