We once more see our friends Prod , Tonto, and the Village Postmistress out on a UFO investigation trek, with their jam jars, butterfly nets and telescopes.

They are outside Brentford Leisure Centre looking up at the sky.

MUSIC: Theme from the classic Laurel and Hardy films.

TONTO:     What’s that up there?

VPM:          Where?

PROD:        It ‘ain’t no Christian thing, I nor that. Ignore it. It’s bad. There’s nothing there, that’s what I say. They go away if you don’t notice them. It’s like TV. They want you to look. They want you to take it in, No Christian thing would be up there acting daft like that.

TONTO:     (to VPM) He’s on good form this morning.

PROD:        It’s all that education, that’s the trooble. All them books and thoughts. Drives foarks daft. Makes ‘em see things that ‘ain’t there. You see they see these films and all that roobish and they start thinking them things they see is real.

TONTO:     Well that’s amazing.

PROD:        (LOOKS UP) In any case I can’t seen anything

TONTO:     Well that’s to be expected.

PROD:        Why?

VPM:          Its disappeared.

TONTO:     Typical. First they’re there and them they’re not there.

PROD:        Who you been talking to, lad? You not been reading them there Bennett books again, have you?

VPM:          Whose he?

TONTO:     Who are you?

PROD:        That Bennett’s as daft as a broosh. Not worth a boocket of bran mash. I tell you sommat – (TAPS HEAD) there’s note but good peasant truth in here.

VPM:          Who is Bennett?

PROD:        Nobody you’d know, Beryl. You keep a clean house. Not so sure about this Devonshire mate of mine here, though.

TONTO:     Actually it’s Leeds.

PROD:        All I know brother is that palm trees start south of Wigan, so watch it!

VPM:          Its back again.

                   THEY SCAN THE SKIES

TONTO:     It’s gone again.

VPM:          I think I can see it now. Does that make me a credible witness?

PROD:        Credible witnesses are no good. I need documentation, concrete, evidence, not raw experience. Without documents how can we ever know what is real? (WINKS AT TONTO)

                   You can have that.

TONTO:     Thanks. It’s a good one. (SCRIBBLES)

VPM:          Its changed colour

PROD:        (IGNORES HER)You see people can be easily deceived. We need to take over the experience and see what’s exactly bin happening.

TONTO:     At least its not a lighthouse.

PROD:        Looks like a thrown beefburger to me. Got caught on ice up there or summatt like that.

VPM:          It’s gone again.

PROD:        There you go. Subjective, subjective.

VPM:           Could be atmospheric.

PROD:        Beryl, that’s the first intelligent sleight of mouth I’ve heard from you in months.

TONTO:     More like years to me.

VPM:          It’s here again.

PROD:        (IGNORES VPM) Shurropp you Skegness hippy. Do you know something -I’ve got my doubts about you, lad.

TONTO:     It’s Leeds for God’s sake

PROD:        Where?

TONTO:     LEEDS!

PROD:        That’s no place for a proper northern soul-broother, lad. Go a hundred yards in the wrong direction and you put your foot in weeping Madonna land if you’re not careful. Praise the Lord I am married to a good and proper Christian woman.

VPM:          It’s gone again.

PROD:        That’s what Christ does for you. He ‘ain’t none of your urban legend-didgeridoos is Jesus. Whenever I hear the word ufoar, I reached for my culture.

TONTO:     And what’s that?

PROD:        Religion and reason

TONTO:     Oh my God.

PROD:        Now don’t you be taking the piss, you little Cornish pisky.

TONTO:     I give up.

PROD:        I would if I were you. Meantime, we’ve got to educate.

TONTO:     Oh, this is new.

PROD:        You see these fantasies have got to be destroyed.

VPM:          I think that one up there is rather nice.

PROD:        They’ve got to go, Beryl.

VPM:          why?

PROD:        It’s not right. That’s why.

VPM:          Not right?

PROD:        There’s Popery all over the place. That’s why.

VPM:          Popery?

PROD:        Yes.

TONTO:     (SCRIBBLES IN NOTEBOOK) This is new again.

PROD:        New? There ‘ain’t no such word in my dictionary, brother. It’s still 1600 in my good book.

VPM:          But what is it up there?

PROD:        It’s best ignored, I can tell you that.

TONTO:     I thought we were dealing with fact versus fiction.

PROD:        You think a lot of funny things you scientific forks do. Take your little bit of seventeenth-century clockwork and stuff it where the monkey puts his nuts.

THEY SCAN THE SKIES AGAIN

VPM:          Is there a waterworks near here?

PROD:        There’s Brentford Gas Works. Will that do you?

VPM:          I know the manager. They could be venting.

PROD:        Or it could be weather. Or it could be confusion. You see forks watch these American films and they go a bit daft.

TONTO:     What happened to the gasworks?

VPM:          I’ve got a better idea

TONTO:     God help us all.

VPM:          I’ve got a secret.

PROD:        (LOWERS VOICE) Careful Beryl, there’s kids passing by.

VMP:          I know the manager. And he always vents at four o’clock.

And that’s scientific.

TONTO:     Well that makes it alright then. I hope his staff appreciate it.

VPM:          You can’t deny venting. Venting’s scientific. Is that up there

scientific?

TONTO:     Well it’s doing very well at the moment. It’s just looped the loop over the Leisure Centre.

PROD:        Don’t look. It’s that Bennett again.

TONTO:     It doesn’t look like him.

TONTO:     No, you daft Bridlington cart horse, I didn’t say it looks like him, I mean it looks like the thoughts that idiots like him put into people’s heads.

VPM:          Is it a thought?

PROD:        God Jesus, the people I work with. It was tat like this ruined the music halls. A thought? Don’t matter. It’ll do you no good. It’s not necessary.

VPM:          Is this a valid experience?

PROD:        It’s an imposture. Don’t look at it. It’ll contaminate you. Seed you with fantasic roobish.

TONTO:     (SCRIBBLES) Can I use that?

(THE SCAN THE SKY AGAIN)

VPM:          Is there a Chinese Laundry around here?

PROD:        There’s the Fuku Takeaway if that’ll do.

VPM:          Because sometimes they have festivals. Paper dragons, and all that.

TONTO:     Jesus, it’s changing colour.

VPM:          Yes, but is it factual?

PROD:        You never know with these things.

VPM:          Can it be measured? Measurement is reality.

TONTO:     Can I use that?

VPM:          Is it a fraud?

PROD:        It could be pretending to be.

TONTO:     Can I use that?

VPM:          Some kind of hoax?

PROD:        No ritualist hoaxes me. (winks) I always find the tinfoil suit and the bicycle pump.

VPM:          It’s going away.

PROD:        They usually do when you loook at ‘em real ‘ard.

VPM:          Its disappeared completely.

PROD:        Since there was note up there in the first place, I don’t that find that unusual. Probably somebody’s stuck it with a pin.

TONTO:     It’s back again.

PROD:        You would say that, wouldn’t you? The jokers have opened the valve. Time for a pint.

VPM:          What’s a valve?

PROD:        The thing that go it up there in the first place.

VPM:          What thing?

PROD:        Oh shuroop Beryln and go suck one your Polo mints..

VPM:          Is there an umbrella maker near here?

TONTO:     The last one was hung for grave-robbing Beryl. Just before the Relief of Ladysmith. You were only five at the time, so you’ve probably fogotten.

VPM:          I was just thinking…

PROD:        Don’t think Beryl, pray. It’s thinking that does the damage. You start seeing things that aren’t there. Thinking’s no good for nobody. Gets your imagine going and before you know it, you’re seeing them there ufoars and all kinds of some such American pop crappola

VPM:          I’ve got an idea.

TONTO:     Not another one, please.

PROD;        Beryl, you’ve had enough for one day. It’ll do that lumbago of yours no good.

VPM;          (EYES LIGHT UO) Is there a magician living near here?

PROD:        Now there’s a funny thing.

TONTO:     Yes. The renowned Alan Smith. But he was an entertainer, not a magician.

PROD:        Same thing.

TONTO:     And he’s in New Zealand.

PROD:        No. Worse. He’s dead. I think.

TONTO:     Well that’s a good start for causation. A probable magician who probably died in New Zealand.

VPM:          But he lived round here.

TONTO:     When?

VPM:          When he was probably alive.

TONTO:     When was that?

PROD:        Shurrup the pair of you. It’s thinking that\s the big problem. I do it myself sometimes.

TONTO:     You do?

PROD:        You imagine all kinds of things when you start  thinking.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

VPM:          He could be alive

TONTO:     Well so could you.

PROD:        Now stop that, you Manchester muffin.

TONTO:     Actually it’s Leeds.

PROD:        I guessed it were somewhere south of  the Scargill line.

(PROD’S MOBILE RINGS. IT IS THE FRIED SLICE,

MANAGER OF THE FORTEAN TIMES)

TONTO:     For you. It’s the Manager.

FS:              Have you trashed that thing yet?

PROD:        We’ve trashed it. There a trickster lives near here.

FS:              Thank God for that. I was getting anxious. Who is this godsend?

PROD:        Alan Smith.

FS:              The entertainer?

TONTO:     The magician.

FS:              Either will do. He’s dead, isn’t he?

PROD:        Don’t matter.

FS:              I think he died in Manchuria.

TONT:        Where?

PROD:        So they say. Magicians is funny things is magicians. You can’t trust tricksters. Dead or alive.

FS:              Is he dead or alive?

PROD:        Listen, you little print-room apparatchik - give us a break. When and where this particular sod shut the oven don’t matter. He used to put things up in the air, that’s all I know.

FS:              That’s good enough for me. I’ll tell Murk. He can write up as another popped balloon. Give me Tonto will you?

(TO TONTO)

Is it still up there?

TONTO:     No. It’s gone.

FS:              Thank God for that.

VPM:          It’s back

FS:              What?

TONTO:     Beryl, can you stop doing this?

BERYL:      Stop it?

BERYL:      (looking up) Is it a flight of fancy?

FS:              Give me somebody with some sense there, will you?

PROD:        (GRABS PHONE) Don’t worry. It’s not worth a spew in Woolworth’s doorway. You see people imagine things. I don’t like that. I don’t like fantasy and imagination. Them things is up to no good. You’ve no idea. It brings things about. None of its worth a Brentford Quorn Macaroon.

VPM:          You’ve lost me.

TONTO:     That’s not unusual

FS:              He’s lost me as well. But thanks to you, the trashing schedules are going OK for this month. Keep up the good work. Tah Tah.

TONTO:     Condescending bastard.

VPM:          Is this meaningful?

PROD:        Ask that Bennett. I’m going home.