CHAPTER
TWO
S
T
IN
G
With J3551CA's words hanging in the air so that the Floor Manager didn't have to quickly run in and sweep them up first, the Alien leader ceremoniously set the final piece of the Colonisation Plan moving with a press of the green button on his controller.
The studio came awake, the programme had started, and the countdown was countdowning and the approaching zero was now more than an empty number ...
* * *
Carrying on the first Motoring News segment where he had left off, Gray added, "It's interesting. You see they can't do food, the Mexicans, can they, 'cos it's all like, sick, with cheese on it."
"Refried sick!" chipped-in little Hammy
"Yeah. refried sick ..." James tried to agree.
But Hampton was getting in to his stride even though it was a small one, and just carried on, saying "I'm sorry but just imagine waking up and remembering you're Mexican!" with a "phah" kind of head-toss and a "how stupid" face.
"That would be just brilliant!" said Larksong in contrast. "That would be brilliant 'cos you could just go straight back to sleep again!"
"Which Hampton of course jumped on mockingly with "Oh, that's all I'm going to do aalllll day ..!"
"That's why we're not going to get any complaints about this" continued Jezza, "they'll all be asleep and nobody will ..."
And so the News continued, completely mising the most important news of all exactly as the aliens had planned.
"MEXICAN REVENGE"
The first News segment was finished and the Guys were geting over to a different part of the studio to move on to the next part of the programme.
"Seriously?" Larkson challenged Hamton, "... a plot? That's what you think?"
And then "... ohh, later." as he switched to the camera saying "Okay so! Moving on to the next item, and .."
But Hampton wasn't letting go.
"No, but hang on .. seriously, what do you reckon?"
"About what?
"What I was saying! I mean, just seems odd when I stop to think about it .. a weird feeling that this is all just impossibly real!"
"And that's exactly where you're going wrong" pontificated Jezza.
Where?
"Stopping to think! Every time you stop and think about something it all starts to fall apart."
"No it doesn't!" protested Hampton.
No? Ever driven a jet powered dragster?
"Well okay, maybe that time, but .."
"Or when completely lost it in the Canadian Wilderness, were sure your GPS rescue signal never even got out?"
"Well that was all your fault in the first place, hanging around for days before even making a move!"
"No no no!" said the Superior one, "there you go again y'see, missing the point completely! Look, if you hadn't over-thought it you wouldn't have got totally psychotic thinking you were certain to die from exposure and starvation and being eaten by wolves and bears every three minutes! Just stop thinking, an empty head is a happy head!"
To which Gray unsurprisingly said "He should know!"
But in return Hampton was getting surprisingly agitated.
"What, so neither of you have wondered even a bit about the programme's amazing worldwide success?"
".. and all the crazy-stupid things we get to do daily, completely opposite to anything even remotely resembling common-sense?"
".. and not actually getting killed a number of times by anything from Rednecks to Radiation?!"
".. You've really not noticed just weird feelings sometimes when the programme goes out? .. like a question you might want to answer if you could just understand what it was actually asking?!"
"Weird feelings yes" said Larksong, ".. but mostly a combination of last night's curry, pulling a few extra Gs on the track, then braking hard over the line right on top of Gambon!"
.. and then turning to the camera with no pause at all "... anyway let's move on to the next item, this week's Cool Wall.