It is the weekend of the big storms. Rain hammers on the roof. I'm home alone with only one task: 'Turn the oven off when you hear the timer.' So I have no choice but to watch the AFL footy final on TV. Sydney's charismatic Brett 'Captain' Kirk is dominating against the Blues.
A quick channel surf brings only interviews with 'the three Independents' or a doco about sound effects on Star Trek, so it's back to the game, lulled by the crackling fire and the rhythm of the rain ...
I gaze around the flight deck of the Starship Ostracise whose mission is to boldly go where no other starship has gone boldly or otherwise. It is stardate four thousand eight hundred and ninety point six three, or numbers to that effect. I never could get the hang of that system.
My name is Quirk, Captain Quirk. My brow is dark and a small muscle on the left side of my face is rippling beneath the tanned skin. I am concentrating on a report, just handed to me by the jaw-droppingly beautiful Lieutenant Yoo Hoo Hoo, which says we are heading into the Nebulae Policii — a force field of nebulous policies.
I am also deliberately grinding my teeth. The resultant quiver of jaw sinew is called 'acting'. Occasionally I lighten the end of an episode with a weary half smile.
'Position, Mr Zoo Loo?' I bark.
'We have an inter-galactic chronicity of five thousand cycles, Captain, and our cosmic format is PS/2 and compatible.'
My frown deepens. I do the muscle trick.
'But where exactly are we, Mr Zoo Loo?'
'I have no idea, Captain. We are surrounded by haemorrhoids and they are cutting off our passage.'
'He means asteroids, Captain.' It is the silky, insinuating voice of the Vulcan, Mr Schlock, that intrudes. 'The haemorrhoid,' he continues, 'is swollen venous tissue near the anus — in humans, that is. My relentlessly logical intelligence, uninfluenced by emotion, tells me that it would be very unlikely for us to encounter such phenomena in deep space. The asteroid, on the other hand, is a ...'
'Thank you, Mr Schlock.' I pass a tanned hand across my frowning brow. 'Mr Zoo Loo, tell McScotty and Dem Bones to report immediately.'
'Why, Captain?'
'Mr Zoo Loo, I want them on the Flight Deck because, well, they always come to the Flight Deck. We desperately need McScotty's bluff, Caledonian good humour, and