I was carrying you downstairs from the bath. You stroked my face and felt my stubble.
You looked at e with your big blue eyes and asked 'Daddy are you a man?'
I said that i was indeed a man and that mummy was a lady.
'Daddy, mummy is a woman.'
you are just getting a bit too smart for me!
Love you son
Friday 28 September 2007
Wednesday 19 September 2007
Thomas and The Giant's Castle
The sun rose early in the blue sky. The bright, warm sunlight washed in through Thomas’s bedroom window and woke the little boy up. Thomas was two years and five months old. Thomas lived with his mummy and daddy in a town called Marbella in the south of Spain.
Thomas and his mummy, daddy and their little white dog Penny were all visiting his Mi Ma and his Pi Pa at their beautiful home in Portugal. Mi Ma and Pi Pa lived near a little town called San Bras on the Algarve. The house was set on the side of a little hill and over looked some farmland.
The farm contained a few animal animals, there were four big, brown cows, that lived in a crumbly old barn and there was also a flock of twenty sheep that lived on the hillside. Mostly however the farm grew beautiful, juicy oranges and bitter green olives.
If you were feeling energetic and you climbed all the way to the top of the little hill, you could see the Atlantic ocean, glinting brightly far off in the distance.
Or if you were in the mood you could sit down on the soft green grass, smelling the wild rosemary and thyme on the breeze and spend an hour or so watching the planes landing at Faro airport, each one full of happy holiday makers. Thomas loved watching the big silver planes roaring by, high in the clear, blue sky. Thomas would always wave to the airplanes as they flew over and he wondered if anyone ever waved back.
Thomas jumped up out of bed, yawned and rubbed his eyes. He could hear Pedro the shepherd, calling to the sheep over on the hillside just by the green fig trees. The sheep loved eating the green figs that has fallen from the trees and resting in the cool shade that the very useful trees provided.
Thomas’s daddy also loved eating the green figs and he usually had two or three for breakfast as well as a bowl of cereal and his toast with honey. Mi Ma and Pi Pa would pick some of the ripe figs for daddy when they took Bella and Donna, their dogs for the morning walk.
Bella and Donna were one of the reasons that Thomas just loved visiting his Mi Ma and Pi Pa. Bella was a very energetic, young Portuguese Water Spaniel and Donna was an older, brown dog and she was at least a little part Alsatian. Both of the dogs were at their happiest when they were playing in the warm sunshine with Thomas. The strange thing was that Donna did not get on at all with Penny. No one knew why it was just the way it was.
Pi Pa also had tons of fantastical interesting things that Thomas just loved, Pi Pa had a silver Nissan jeep and he would let Thomas sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive it. Pi Pa also had a great big BMW motor bike, that lived in the garage. Once Pi Pa let Thomas sit on the motor bike and he started the big, noisy engine up. Brrrrmm! Brrrmmm! Went the engine. Thomas got quite a fright until he got used to it.
Thomas rushed out of his bedroom at full speed and just stopping for one moment in the kitchen to kiss his Mi Ma good morning, he went and sat down at the big round breakfast table. The breakfast table was on the terrace just by the swimming pool that Thomas would be swimming in later on in the day. The terrace tiles were made from reddish bricks that never got too hot to walk on.
Daddy and mummy came outside to sit at the table, mummy kissed Thomas good morning and Thomas’s daddy gave him a great big, good morning hug.
When Mi Ma and Pi Pa came to join them all at the table, Mi Ma picked up her newspaper and read an article. It was all about the historic castle, that had been standing in the town for seven hundred years.
Mi Ma poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip of the hot liquid, ‘Thomas,’ said Mi Ma, taking another sip of her tea, ‘how would you like to visit the old castle in the town today?’
Well, this got Thomas’s attention. Thomas was very, very interested in castles. In fact, castles were one of Thomas’s favorite things. Thomas knew for instance, that even the most boring castles would have at least a princess held captive in a high tower. Thomas knew that most good castles had at least one dragon down in the dungeon as well as the princess being held in the high tower.
Thomas also knew that some of the better castles would almost certainly have a witch or two running about as well as the princess in the tower and the dragon in the dungeon and Thomas knew that the very best castles in the world had to have the dragon ( a properly fierce one with two heads), the princess (she had to be asleep for at least one hundred years and very beautiful), the witches (green and always turning people into frogs etc) but most importantly the very best castles just had to be built by an enormous giant. Giants always built the the very best type of castles.
‘Yes, please, Mi Ma.’ said Thomas with a big grin spreading over his face. He could already feel the excitement building in him.
So after a breakfast of homemade marmalade (Mi Ma) on home made bread (Pi Pa), Thomas, Mi Ma, Pi Pa, daddy, mummy and Penny all climbed aboard Pi Pa’s silver jeep and set of for the old town of Loulé. Soon they had parked the jeep on the top floor of the multi story car-park and were all headed into the center of the town.
On the way to the castle they had to pass through the indoor market, in here the locals sold all manner of food. There was white, stiff salt cod, huge sword fish and there was bright, locally produced fruit. Mi Ma did nearly all of her shopping in this old market. Thomas was still quite little so daddy lifted him up onto his shoulders. Thomas sat way above the crowd and imagined that he was a giant. Thomas just knew that the castle in would have been built by a giant long ago. He could not wait to get to the castle. Fruit and fish were all very well, but really they could not compete with a real live castle.
Once they had all walked through the market, Thomas could see the castle. It was just huge and made from massive blocks of granite.The towers soared up, up into the blue sky. It looked to Thomas as if the towers finished way above the clouds.
At last they were all at the castle, mummy, penny, Mi, Ma and Pi, Pa all went for a coffee, leaving just daddy and Thomas to explore the giants castle. Hard though it is to believe you actually had to bye a ticket to get into this particular giant’s castle. This did mean that the castle was in fairly good condition. You have to remember that this castle as stood in Loulé for over seven hundred years.
Thomas and daddy clutched their tickets and walked through a huge doorway that lead to an enormous flight of wooden steps. Up they went. At the top of the steps stood a very old witch. ‘TICKETS!’ She yelled in a deep, growly voice that would have actually done a real giant proud. Thomas and daddy handed over the tickets and the ancient witch, who was a little on the green side, she ripped the tickets in half before handing them back to daddy.
‘ ENJOY YOUR VISIT!’ cackled the witch.
‘Thank you.’ Said Thomas and daddy. At the top of the stairs there were two rooms, one to the left and one to the right. You could also walk forwards and outside onto the castle’s ramparts. Thomas and daddy decided to tackle the room to the right first. This was a good choice as the room was in fact the giant’s castle. This giant was particularly fond of baking and had that very morning baked a chocolate cake ( a huge chocolate cake the size of a tractor tyre) and left it to cool in the center of his enormous kitchen table.
‘Daddy,’ asked Thomas ‘what is that delicious smell?’ he said licking his lips. You see Thomas like his daddy (and mummy) just loved chocolate cake.
‘It’s up here on the table.’ Replied daddy. Thomas’s daddy lifted Thomas up so that he could see the cake. The table was so enormous that Thomas could not see the cake from the floor. In fact daddy could only see the cake by jumping up as high as he could a peering over the edge of the table.
‘Daddy, do you think that the price of the ticket includes a tiny bit of that chocolate cake?’ Asked Thomas with a cheeky grin on his face.
‘I would imagine so.’ replied daddy with a similar grin to Thomas’s on his face.
Daddy lifted Thomas up as hi as he could. Thomas scrabbled onto the table. He picked up knife that was lying on the table. The knife was the size of a good sized sword. Thomas swung the knife in the direction of the chocolate cake and cut two portions. He walked over to the edge of the table and looked down at his daddy.
Thomas jumped down into his daddy’s arms. They both sat on the stone floor and ate the chocolate cake with a great deal of satisfaction. It was a fantastic bit of chocolate cake.
After that Thomas and daddy thought that they would explore the room on the left of the staircase. This was a fantastic room. This was the giant’s treasure house. Huge gold coins the size of bicycle wheel lay under glass lids. Valuable books lined all the walls. Thomas knew that one of these books would be the giants spell book. Giants were always using spells to put princess in to deep 100 year long sleeps.
‘Daddy, said Thomas ‘do you think that the price of a ticket includes a couple of these gold coins?’.
‘No,’ said daddy, ‘ I am sure that the price of the ticket does not include a couple of these coins.’ Daddy ruffled Thomas’s blonde hair. They both had a good look at the treasure. The gold coins were accompanied by diamonds the size of tennis balls and rubies the size of golf balls.
‘Daddy, how do you think that the giant got all this treasure?’, asked Tom.
Daddy had a think about it and said ‘ Well Thomas, I imagine that this giant stole all this treasure from an unlucky king. He probably kidnapped the king’s daughter as well. I imagine that we will find her asleep upstairs in one of the towers.’
Thomas digested this information. ‘Daddy, we must save the princess from the giant. If we rescue her, I am sure that the king will reward us with lots of this treasure.’
So it was decided. Daddy put on his bravest face. So did Thomas. They walked back to the staircase, waved hello to the guardian and headed out the door towards the castle ramparts. When they got out side they were standing beside a huge stone tower. Each block of stone was about the size of mummy’s car.
Suddenly Thomas and Daddy heard a long, low and particularly vicious growl. Not a growl like a dog’s growl, not a growl like a lion’s growl. This growl could only belong to one thing. A dragon. A two headed dragon.
Daddy and Thomas stood frozen with fear. They looked at one and other, and started to climb the stone stairs up towards the dragon. As Thomas and his daddy climbed higher up the tower staircase the growling turned into more of a blood curdling roar. That old dragon was obviously guarding the princess at the top of the stairs.
What could Thomas and his daddy do? Thomas and his daddy ran back to the treasure room. They pulled down the most likely looking book and looked up a spell for putting things to sleep. Thomas found one. Thomas read out the spell and before he knew what was happening, his daddy fell to the floor as fast asleep as anyone Thomas had ever seen. Tom quickly looked up the remedy to the spell. Daddy woke up with a sleepy smile, yawned and said, ‘OK. Thomas, lets go fix that old dragon.’
Up and up they climbed. Louder and louder the dragon roared. Thomas peeked around the last corner of the staircase. Sure enough this dragon had two heads. This was an extremely scary dragon. Daddy put his fingers in his ears and Thomas shouted out the spell as loudly as he could. The two headed dragon (the dragon was called Simon) stopped roaring, lay down and went to sleep like a kitten.
Thomas and his daddy had to actually climb over the dragon. It was a cold and scaly dragon and little jets of flame shot from both of its noses as it lay there gently snoring.
On the other side of the dragon was a huge wooden door. It was not locked as no one was ever expected to get past Simon. Thomas and his daddy pushed the door open with all of their strength. The hinges were very rusted and made all most as much noise as Simon had been making.
In the room it was very dark. Thomas went to the window and pulled the curtains open. Thomas’s eyes widened, there outside on a roof no too far away was the giant. The giant was busily building a new part of the castle. He Like all giants was huge. He was more than three times taller than daddy. He was piling stone on top of stone to form a new wall.
Thomas jumped back. Daddy was looking at the princess, she was very beautiful. Her name was etched into a gold bracelet that she had on her wrist. ‘Princess Alana.’
‘Come on Tom, Kiss her,’ said daddy. ‘ I think that the mean old dragon is waking up!’
Now Thomas, like most little boys was not too keen on kissing any girls, especially those little girls that had been asleep for nearly 100 years and could do with a bit of a bath and the use of a tooth brush. But Thomas knew his duty he had after all been read all the fairy stories by mummy and daddy. Thomas leant over the sleeping princess and heroically kissed her on the cheek. Nothing happened!
Simon the dragon was now almost fully awake. He was not too happy about being sent to sleep by a magic spell. He roared from both his mouths and started galloping towards the room containing daddy, Thomas and the still sleeping princess. Fire shot from Simon’s nose just as Thomas’s daddy managed to close the wooden door using all his strength.
Thomas,’ yelled daddy above Simon’s roaring, ‘ you have to kiss her on the lips?
‘No way,’ snarled Thomas, looking a little bit like a two headed dragon himself.
‘Do it, now' shouted daddy, ‘or we will literally be toast.’
So Thomas did. The affect was immediate and surprising. The Princess Alana opened her eyes and seeing Thomas let out a little scream. Simon the dragon turned back into the Princess’s mummy and daddy. The castle witch had turned the king and queen into a two headed dragon called Simon a long time ago. The red statues down stairs in the courtyard turned back into the palace servants and members of the court, the last thing that happened was that the giant stopped working on the castle and started to wonder what on earth was going on in the tall tower. Andrew the giant put down his tools and started to walk towards the tall tower.
Now it is a little known fact that all giants just love to build. The are only bad tempered and mean when they are not allowed to build. Andrew the giant was particularly good at building things. He had started when he was very young, helping his daddy build this very castle. Andrew could build bridges, roads just about anything you could want.
All the witches and all the treasure did not mean that much to Andrew. Most of the treasure gathering had been done by the witches. They just used giants as a shield. I mean everyone always blamed the giants even though the giants spent most of the time busily working away, carving stone or mixing cement.
So when Andrew got to the tall tower he was in a conciliatory mood. He had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the witches and that dragon did keep him awake most nights with it’s insufferable roaring. Andrew had never even seen the princess Alan. He was only little when the witches had cursed the princess and turned the king and the queen into the dragon formally known as Simon. Andrew had just been too busy to sort it all out. That was always the trouble with giants, too much to do.
‘What’s all this noise?’ asked Andrew? Thomas explained how he and his daddy had rescued the princess. Andrew could see how happy the princess and her family were. Andrew felt glad.
‘Listen,’ said Andrew the giant, ‘ I just baked a chocolate cake, why don’t we go into my kitchen and have a slice each and a nice cup of tea?’
‘Good idea,’ said Thomas and his daddy at the same time. Five minutes later, Thomas, his daddy, the king, the queen, the royal princess Alana and Andrew were all munching away on a slice of chocolate cake and sipping tea from enormous mugs. It really was very good cake.
It was soon decided that Andrew would be allowed to carry on working on his castle. He apologized for the behaviour of the castle witches and promised that nothing like that would happen again. Andrew was also appointed as the royal builder and after the king had his third slice of delicious chocolate cake, the royal baker. He was to provide the king and queen with one chocolate cake per week. Andrew was very happy about this as he was sick to death of people running away from him every time they saw him.
The King and Queen then thanked Thomas and his Daddy. The queen told them to pop into the treasure room and help themselves to what ever they wanted. Daddy thought that mummy might like a couple of diamonds the size of gold balls.
It was time to go home. Daddy and Thomas said all their goodbyes to everyone and walked out of the kitchen and back down the enormous wooden staircase.
When they got outside they found Mummy, penny Mi ma and Pi Pa were still sitting in the cafe finishing their coffee and having a chat
‘Hi guys,’ said mummy giving tom a big hug,’ would you like a piece of chocolate cake?’
Thomas and his daddy looked at one and other and started to laugh. ‘No thanks mummy, we have just had some,’ giggled Thomas.
The End
Thomas and his mummy, daddy and their little white dog Penny were all visiting his Mi Ma and his Pi Pa at their beautiful home in Portugal. Mi Ma and Pi Pa lived near a little town called San Bras on the Algarve. The house was set on the side of a little hill and over looked some farmland.
The farm contained a few animal animals, there were four big, brown cows, that lived in a crumbly old barn and there was also a flock of twenty sheep that lived on the hillside. Mostly however the farm grew beautiful, juicy oranges and bitter green olives.
If you were feeling energetic and you climbed all the way to the top of the little hill, you could see the Atlantic ocean, glinting brightly far off in the distance.
Or if you were in the mood you could sit down on the soft green grass, smelling the wild rosemary and thyme on the breeze and spend an hour or so watching the planes landing at Faro airport, each one full of happy holiday makers. Thomas loved watching the big silver planes roaring by, high in the clear, blue sky. Thomas would always wave to the airplanes as they flew over and he wondered if anyone ever waved back.
Thomas jumped up out of bed, yawned and rubbed his eyes. He could hear Pedro the shepherd, calling to the sheep over on the hillside just by the green fig trees. The sheep loved eating the green figs that has fallen from the trees and resting in the cool shade that the very useful trees provided.
Thomas’s daddy also loved eating the green figs and he usually had two or three for breakfast as well as a bowl of cereal and his toast with honey. Mi Ma and Pi Pa would pick some of the ripe figs for daddy when they took Bella and Donna, their dogs for the morning walk.
Bella and Donna were one of the reasons that Thomas just loved visiting his Mi Ma and Pi Pa. Bella was a very energetic, young Portuguese Water Spaniel and Donna was an older, brown dog and she was at least a little part Alsatian. Both of the dogs were at their happiest when they were playing in the warm sunshine with Thomas. The strange thing was that Donna did not get on at all with Penny. No one knew why it was just the way it was.
Pi Pa also had tons of fantastical interesting things that Thomas just loved, Pi Pa had a silver Nissan jeep and he would let Thomas sit in the driver’s seat and pretend to drive it. Pi Pa also had a great big BMW motor bike, that lived in the garage. Once Pi Pa let Thomas sit on the motor bike and he started the big, noisy engine up. Brrrrmm! Brrrmmm! Went the engine. Thomas got quite a fright until he got used to it.
Thomas rushed out of his bedroom at full speed and just stopping for one moment in the kitchen to kiss his Mi Ma good morning, he went and sat down at the big round breakfast table. The breakfast table was on the terrace just by the swimming pool that Thomas would be swimming in later on in the day. The terrace tiles were made from reddish bricks that never got too hot to walk on.
Daddy and mummy came outside to sit at the table, mummy kissed Thomas good morning and Thomas’s daddy gave him a great big, good morning hug.
When Mi Ma and Pi Pa came to join them all at the table, Mi Ma picked up her newspaper and read an article. It was all about the historic castle, that had been standing in the town for seven hundred years.
Mi Ma poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip of the hot liquid, ‘Thomas,’ said Mi Ma, taking another sip of her tea, ‘how would you like to visit the old castle in the town today?’
Well, this got Thomas’s attention. Thomas was very, very interested in castles. In fact, castles were one of Thomas’s favorite things. Thomas knew for instance, that even the most boring castles would have at least a princess held captive in a high tower. Thomas knew that most good castles had at least one dragon down in the dungeon as well as the princess being held in the high tower.
Thomas also knew that some of the better castles would almost certainly have a witch or two running about as well as the princess in the tower and the dragon in the dungeon and Thomas knew that the very best castles in the world had to have the dragon ( a properly fierce one with two heads), the princess (she had to be asleep for at least one hundred years and very beautiful), the witches (green and always turning people into frogs etc) but most importantly the very best castles just had to be built by an enormous giant. Giants always built the the very best type of castles.
‘Yes, please, Mi Ma.’ said Thomas with a big grin spreading over his face. He could already feel the excitement building in him.
So after a breakfast of homemade marmalade (Mi Ma) on home made bread (Pi Pa), Thomas, Mi Ma, Pi Pa, daddy, mummy and Penny all climbed aboard Pi Pa’s silver jeep and set of for the old town of Loulé. Soon they had parked the jeep on the top floor of the multi story car-park and were all headed into the center of the town.
On the way to the castle they had to pass through the indoor market, in here the locals sold all manner of food. There was white, stiff salt cod, huge sword fish and there was bright, locally produced fruit. Mi Ma did nearly all of her shopping in this old market. Thomas was still quite little so daddy lifted him up onto his shoulders. Thomas sat way above the crowd and imagined that he was a giant. Thomas just knew that the castle in would have been built by a giant long ago. He could not wait to get to the castle. Fruit and fish were all very well, but really they could not compete with a real live castle.
Once they had all walked through the market, Thomas could see the castle. It was just huge and made from massive blocks of granite.The towers soared up, up into the blue sky. It looked to Thomas as if the towers finished way above the clouds.
At last they were all at the castle, mummy, penny, Mi, Ma and Pi, Pa all went for a coffee, leaving just daddy and Thomas to explore the giants castle. Hard though it is to believe you actually had to bye a ticket to get into this particular giant’s castle. This did mean that the castle was in fairly good condition. You have to remember that this castle as stood in Loulé for over seven hundred years.
Thomas and daddy clutched their tickets and walked through a huge doorway that lead to an enormous flight of wooden steps. Up they went. At the top of the steps stood a very old witch. ‘TICKETS!’ She yelled in a deep, growly voice that would have actually done a real giant proud. Thomas and daddy handed over the tickets and the ancient witch, who was a little on the green side, she ripped the tickets in half before handing them back to daddy.
‘ ENJOY YOUR VISIT!’ cackled the witch.
‘Thank you.’ Said Thomas and daddy. At the top of the stairs there were two rooms, one to the left and one to the right. You could also walk forwards and outside onto the castle’s ramparts. Thomas and daddy decided to tackle the room to the right first. This was a good choice as the room was in fact the giant’s castle. This giant was particularly fond of baking and had that very morning baked a chocolate cake ( a huge chocolate cake the size of a tractor tyre) and left it to cool in the center of his enormous kitchen table.
‘Daddy,’ asked Thomas ‘what is that delicious smell?’ he said licking his lips. You see Thomas like his daddy (and mummy) just loved chocolate cake.
‘It’s up here on the table.’ Replied daddy. Thomas’s daddy lifted Thomas up so that he could see the cake. The table was so enormous that Thomas could not see the cake from the floor. In fact daddy could only see the cake by jumping up as high as he could a peering over the edge of the table.
‘Daddy, do you think that the price of the ticket includes a tiny bit of that chocolate cake?’ Asked Thomas with a cheeky grin on his face.
‘I would imagine so.’ replied daddy with a similar grin to Thomas’s on his face.
Daddy lifted Thomas up as hi as he could. Thomas scrabbled onto the table. He picked up knife that was lying on the table. The knife was the size of a good sized sword. Thomas swung the knife in the direction of the chocolate cake and cut two portions. He walked over to the edge of the table and looked down at his daddy.
Thomas jumped down into his daddy’s arms. They both sat on the stone floor and ate the chocolate cake with a great deal of satisfaction. It was a fantastic bit of chocolate cake.
After that Thomas and daddy thought that they would explore the room on the left of the staircase. This was a fantastic room. This was the giant’s treasure house. Huge gold coins the size of bicycle wheel lay under glass lids. Valuable books lined all the walls. Thomas knew that one of these books would be the giants spell book. Giants were always using spells to put princess in to deep 100 year long sleeps.
‘Daddy, said Thomas ‘do you think that the price of a ticket includes a couple of these gold coins?’.
‘No,’ said daddy, ‘ I am sure that the price of the ticket does not include a couple of these coins.’ Daddy ruffled Thomas’s blonde hair. They both had a good look at the treasure. The gold coins were accompanied by diamonds the size of tennis balls and rubies the size of golf balls.
‘Daddy, how do you think that the giant got all this treasure?’, asked Tom.
Daddy had a think about it and said ‘ Well Thomas, I imagine that this giant stole all this treasure from an unlucky king. He probably kidnapped the king’s daughter as well. I imagine that we will find her asleep upstairs in one of the towers.’
Thomas digested this information. ‘Daddy, we must save the princess from the giant. If we rescue her, I am sure that the king will reward us with lots of this treasure.’
So it was decided. Daddy put on his bravest face. So did Thomas. They walked back to the staircase, waved hello to the guardian and headed out the door towards the castle ramparts. When they got out side they were standing beside a huge stone tower. Each block of stone was about the size of mummy’s car.
Suddenly Thomas and Daddy heard a long, low and particularly vicious growl. Not a growl like a dog’s growl, not a growl like a lion’s growl. This growl could only belong to one thing. A dragon. A two headed dragon.
Daddy and Thomas stood frozen with fear. They looked at one and other, and started to climb the stone stairs up towards the dragon. As Thomas and his daddy climbed higher up the tower staircase the growling turned into more of a blood curdling roar. That old dragon was obviously guarding the princess at the top of the stairs.
What could Thomas and his daddy do? Thomas and his daddy ran back to the treasure room. They pulled down the most likely looking book and looked up a spell for putting things to sleep. Thomas found one. Thomas read out the spell and before he knew what was happening, his daddy fell to the floor as fast asleep as anyone Thomas had ever seen. Tom quickly looked up the remedy to the spell. Daddy woke up with a sleepy smile, yawned and said, ‘OK. Thomas, lets go fix that old dragon.’
Up and up they climbed. Louder and louder the dragon roared. Thomas peeked around the last corner of the staircase. Sure enough this dragon had two heads. This was an extremely scary dragon. Daddy put his fingers in his ears and Thomas shouted out the spell as loudly as he could. The two headed dragon (the dragon was called Simon) stopped roaring, lay down and went to sleep like a kitten.
Thomas and his daddy had to actually climb over the dragon. It was a cold and scaly dragon and little jets of flame shot from both of its noses as it lay there gently snoring.
On the other side of the dragon was a huge wooden door. It was not locked as no one was ever expected to get past Simon. Thomas and his daddy pushed the door open with all of their strength. The hinges were very rusted and made all most as much noise as Simon had been making.
In the room it was very dark. Thomas went to the window and pulled the curtains open. Thomas’s eyes widened, there outside on a roof no too far away was the giant. The giant was busily building a new part of the castle. He Like all giants was huge. He was more than three times taller than daddy. He was piling stone on top of stone to form a new wall.
Thomas jumped back. Daddy was looking at the princess, she was very beautiful. Her name was etched into a gold bracelet that she had on her wrist. ‘Princess Alana.’
‘Come on Tom, Kiss her,’ said daddy. ‘ I think that the mean old dragon is waking up!’
Now Thomas, like most little boys was not too keen on kissing any girls, especially those little girls that had been asleep for nearly 100 years and could do with a bit of a bath and the use of a tooth brush. But Thomas knew his duty he had after all been read all the fairy stories by mummy and daddy. Thomas leant over the sleeping princess and heroically kissed her on the cheek. Nothing happened!
Simon the dragon was now almost fully awake. He was not too happy about being sent to sleep by a magic spell. He roared from both his mouths and started galloping towards the room containing daddy, Thomas and the still sleeping princess. Fire shot from Simon’s nose just as Thomas’s daddy managed to close the wooden door using all his strength.
Thomas,’ yelled daddy above Simon’s roaring, ‘ you have to kiss her on the lips?
‘No way,’ snarled Thomas, looking a little bit like a two headed dragon himself.
‘Do it, now' shouted daddy, ‘or we will literally be toast.’
So Thomas did. The affect was immediate and surprising. The Princess Alana opened her eyes and seeing Thomas let out a little scream. Simon the dragon turned back into the Princess’s mummy and daddy. The castle witch had turned the king and queen into a two headed dragon called Simon a long time ago. The red statues down stairs in the courtyard turned back into the palace servants and members of the court, the last thing that happened was that the giant stopped working on the castle and started to wonder what on earth was going on in the tall tower. Andrew the giant put down his tools and started to walk towards the tall tower.
Now it is a little known fact that all giants just love to build. The are only bad tempered and mean when they are not allowed to build. Andrew the giant was particularly good at building things. He had started when he was very young, helping his daddy build this very castle. Andrew could build bridges, roads just about anything you could want.
All the witches and all the treasure did not mean that much to Andrew. Most of the treasure gathering had been done by the witches. They just used giants as a shield. I mean everyone always blamed the giants even though the giants spent most of the time busily working away, carving stone or mixing cement.
So when Andrew got to the tall tower he was in a conciliatory mood. He had been looking for an excuse to get rid of the witches and that dragon did keep him awake most nights with it’s insufferable roaring. Andrew had never even seen the princess Alan. He was only little when the witches had cursed the princess and turned the king and the queen into the dragon formally known as Simon. Andrew had just been too busy to sort it all out. That was always the trouble with giants, too much to do.
‘What’s all this noise?’ asked Andrew? Thomas explained how he and his daddy had rescued the princess. Andrew could see how happy the princess and her family were. Andrew felt glad.
‘Listen,’ said Andrew the giant, ‘ I just baked a chocolate cake, why don’t we go into my kitchen and have a slice each and a nice cup of tea?’
‘Good idea,’ said Thomas and his daddy at the same time. Five minutes later, Thomas, his daddy, the king, the queen, the royal princess Alana and Andrew were all munching away on a slice of chocolate cake and sipping tea from enormous mugs. It really was very good cake.
It was soon decided that Andrew would be allowed to carry on working on his castle. He apologized for the behaviour of the castle witches and promised that nothing like that would happen again. Andrew was also appointed as the royal builder and after the king had his third slice of delicious chocolate cake, the royal baker. He was to provide the king and queen with one chocolate cake per week. Andrew was very happy about this as he was sick to death of people running away from him every time they saw him.
The King and Queen then thanked Thomas and his Daddy. The queen told them to pop into the treasure room and help themselves to what ever they wanted. Daddy thought that mummy might like a couple of diamonds the size of gold balls.
It was time to go home. Daddy and Thomas said all their goodbyes to everyone and walked out of the kitchen and back down the enormous wooden staircase.
When they got outside they found Mummy, penny Mi ma and Pi Pa were still sitting in the cafe finishing their coffee and having a chat
‘Hi guys,’ said mummy giving tom a big hug,’ would you like a piece of chocolate cake?’
Thomas and his daddy looked at one and other and started to laugh. ‘No thanks mummy, we have just had some,’ giggled Thomas.
The End
Sunday 9 September 2007
The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
7. When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “no,” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him and then say “no.”
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labeled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labeled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum—a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want to know.”
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi storm troopers, Roman foot soldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way—even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless—my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line “No, this cannot be! I am invincible!” (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won’t require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say “And here is the price for failure,” then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?” I will reply, “This,” and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh PowerBooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’s cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says “I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, never!” I will say, “Oh well,” and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being, then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner’s manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?” I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
65. If I must have computer systems with publicly available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they’d better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk “Project Overlord” and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutenant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror “And he must be taken alive!” The command will be “And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical.”
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
83. If I’m eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. “Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse.” Instead it will be more along the lines of “Push the button.”
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
89. After I capture the hero’s superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it’s an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unraveled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others’ lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.
-----
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
7. When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “no,” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him and then say “no.”
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labeled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labeled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum—a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want to know.”
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi storm troopers, Roman foot soldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way—even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless—my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line “No, this cannot be! I am invincible!” (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won’t require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say “And here is the price for failure,” then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?” I will reply, “This,” and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh PowerBooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’s cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says “I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, never!” I will say, “Oh well,” and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being, then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner’s manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?” I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
65. If I must have computer systems with publicly available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they’d better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk “Project Overlord” and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutenant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror “And he must be taken alive!” The command will be “And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical.”
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
83. If I’m eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. “Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse.” Instead it will be more along the lines of “Push the button.”
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
89. After I capture the hero’s superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it’s an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unraveled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others’ lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.
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Monday 3 September 2007
1 in 45000
99942 Apophis (previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a relatively large probability that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However there remained a possibility that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a "gravitational keyhole", a precise region in space no more than about 400 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006. It broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered.[1]
Additional observations of the trajectory of Apophis revealed the "keyhole" would likely be missed and on August 5, 2006, Apophis was lowered to a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. As of October 19, 2006, the impact probability for April 13, 2036, is estimated at 1 in 45,000. An additional impact date in 2037 has been identified; however, the impact probability for that encounter is 1 in 12.3 million.
Despite the fact that there is no longer any significant probability of an Earth impact, the Planetary Society is offering $50,000 in prize awards for a few of the best plans to put a tracking device on or near the asteroid.[2]
Additional observations of the trajectory of Apophis revealed the "keyhole" would likely be missed and on August 5, 2006, Apophis was lowered to a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. As of October 19, 2006, the impact probability for April 13, 2036, is estimated at 1 in 45,000. An additional impact date in 2037 has been identified; however, the impact probability for that encounter is 1 in 12.3 million.
Despite the fact that there is no longer any significant probability of an Earth impact, the Planetary Society is offering $50,000 in prize awards for a few of the best plans to put a tracking device on or near the asteroid.[2]
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