Lettuce From Brechnev [128byte] by Reservoir Gods [web]
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LETTUCE FROM BRECHNEV :: A 128 BYTE INTRO :: BY RESERVOIR GODS
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The fourth in "Last Among Sequels" trilogy
by Jeffery Archer
Jeff ran his fingers through his fine dark hair whilst staring
admiringly at himself in the mirror. His handsome features grinned
back at him. Jeff's face broke into a charming smile. Being
intelligent, rich, powerful and wildly attractive came naturally to
him. Women flocked around him like whores around a suitcase of cash on
a railway station.
Jeff was an important man and he had important thoughts on his
colossal mind. He reasoned that only someone of his massive intellect
could possibly solve the problem that lay before the country today.
He turned his attention back to his desk, a fine example of jacobian
architecture. Jeff's furniture was as suave and sophisticated as its
magnificent owner.
Perched nervously on this ornate bureau was the source of the malaise.
It was a single, rather limp, lettuce.
Jeff glared at it intensely. The vegetable didn't frighten him. Jeff
was a man with nerves of steel, hardened by years at some of the
finest academic institutions the country had to offer.
"So you're going to play the silent game eh?" Jeff sneered.
The lettuce made no reply.
"Well let me tell you it doesn't cut any ice with me. I've reduced
some of Canterbury's hardest tree protesters into floods of tears. I'm
going to make you sing like a canary."
Jeff turned his angle poised desk lamp towards the lettuce and let it
fry under the full force of the 60 watt bulb.
"So Mr Lettuce, you claim to have come from the.." here Jeff spat out
the syllables like undercooked brussels sprouts "U.S.S.R. as a grocery
import."
The lettuce sweated slightly under the bright light.
"Don't try and contradict me. I've seen your papers. And let me tell
you, it doesn't fool me. Not one bit."
Jeff smiled to himself at his brilliance for seeing through this
complex charade.
"Now admit it. You're a communist!"
The lettuce remained silent.
"A-ha! Ashamed to admit it eh? You dirty pinko puffs make me sick. You
think you can just waltz into this great country of ours preaching
your marxist claptrap and try to turn the people against us. Well it
just won't wash."
Jeff thought the lettuce looked suitably rebuked.
"No-one is interested in your ideology any more. When was the last
time 'Das Kapital' topped the W.H.Smith bestseller charts eh? My last
book "Not a penny whore, not a suitcase less" was number one for eight
consecutive weeks. Eight weeks! And when was the last time that Marx
was invited to a coffee, biscuits and booksigning session by Guildford
W.I.? Never, that's when!"
Jeff congratulated himself on destroying the whole marxist-leninist
philosophy with such a brilliantly constructed speech.
"Now you filthy little socialist rat, you are going to spill the
beans. Who sent you?"
"...I'm waiting."
"Come on, answer."
"You're wasting your time not mine."
"I can wait here all day."
Jeff started whistling in a finely cultivated tuneless manner which he
hoped would annoy the lettuce into speaking.
"Now listen to me you loathsome leafed Lenin-worshipper. I am soon to
become Mayor of London and I can make life very uncomfortable for
you."
The lettuce looked incredulous.
"You don't believe me? The country have spoken with one voice! They
say 'Jeff you must become Mayor of London and make Britain Great
again. You must then rule over the whole of southern England before
sending your troops north to militarise the Sunderland and capture
Scotland and all those strange towns where they can't speak English
properly.' Soon I shall be supreme ruler of the universe! It must be
true because it is written in my book 'Lame and Able'."
The lettuce looked bored.
"Hmm, I suppose an ill-educated commie like you hasn't the intellect
required to grapple with my miesterworks."
Jeff pondered for a minute, then tried a different tack.
"We are both men of the world. We like manly things like cricket,
smoking pipes and getting a good spanking on the bare bumcheeks by
schoolmasters at Eton. In return for certain information I can give
you access to some 'manly pleasures' if you take my meaning."
Jeff moved his head nearer the lettuce and reduced his voice to a
whisper.
"I know this girl....she'll do anything... kinky stuff, football
shirts, doctors and nurses, domination, shoplifter and sweeties,
French elbow, three in a lift, waiting for the bus, roadsweeper, mount
the penny farthing even Polish condom games! You just need to leave a
suitcase of cash at a railway station. She's very discreet, you'll
only make 4 tabloid back pages, tops."
The lettuce looked disinterested.
"I knew it. Bloody communists are all the same. Bat for the other side
do you? Back door lettuce? Walk the 'other side of the street'? Drive
the 'wrong side of the road'? Turn the other cheek? Uphill gardener?
Drink out of the 'opposite side of the cup'? Playing the 'other side
of the record'? Watching the 'other channel'? Ploughing your own side
of the field? Hoovering your own stretch of carpet?"
The lettuce looked perplexed.
"I'm saying you are an homosexual. Those are phrases we use in our
country to describe this abhorrent activity. Of course they are rarely
used as homosexuality does not exist in our fine god fearing nation.
Apart from at Eton and at Tory party conferences. I can not understand
why anyone could derive any pleasure from waiting in the showers after
games for four hours for the sweet arse of Anthony Hamilton from 3B
and then giving him a good..."
Jeff went slightly red.
"Obviously that wasn't me I was describing there, it was a friend at
Eton. Well not a friend, a casual acquaintance. I hardly knew him. In
fact I never met him. I don't even know who he is. IT'S ALL LIES DON'T
BELIEVE A WORD OF IT I DIDN'T TAKE THE MONEY IT WAS ALL MY ACCOUNTANTS
FAULT."
Jeff loosened his tie. He was sweating. The interrogation was getting
to him. He couldn't believe he was losing the plot in a back he was
writing about himself.
"You never have a plot worth losing!" shouted a voice.
Jeff whirled round. "Who was that."
"One of your readers. You spend so long telling everyone how wonderful
you are there is never any room for a plot."
"Look, keep your mouth shut. I'm writing this book.
"Unfortunately."
"What do you mean unfortunately! How dare you criticise me in my own
book!"
"I'm just trying to liven it up a bit."
"You impertinent oaf! My books are humming with vibrancy. The Daily
Mail said so."
"The only thing this book is humming with is the smell of sweaty
lettuce."
Jeff went purple. "Your sort make me sick. You cardigan wearing
guardian reading loony lefty school teacher types who think they know
everything but never even went to Eton. You, sir, are a joke."
"I'm not the one writing a novel about a KGB lettuce."
"Listen to me you Michael Foot loving donkey jacketed CND supporting
hippy if it wasn't for the likes of me this country would be overrun
by reds in no time. This lettuce is a threat to national security."
"It doesn't look very threatening to me."
Jeff's face allowed a tight lipped smile. "That, my friend, is where
you and me differ. Your clumsy eyes look but they do not see. I have
the eyes of a hawk in the Himalayas..."
"Are there any hawks in the Himalayas?
"Shut up! What I am saying is that I have the insight to recognise
potential hazards and dangers. If you were a KGB agent would you come
into the country holding a big placard that said "COMMUNIST
INFILTRATOR" whilst wearing a "I LOVE LENIN" T-Shirt and sporting a
Das Kapital baseball cap? Or would you come in disguise?"
"I wouldn't disguise myself as a lettuce."
"Exactly. No-one would expect an agent to come disguised as a lettuce.
That, my friend, is why its such a brilliant disguise. As Sherlock
Holmes would say, use your little grey cells." Jeff tapped his
forehead lightly.
"Hercule Poirot."
"What?"
"That was Hercule Poirot's saying, not Sherlock Holmes."
Jeff waved his hand dismissively. "Now, dear reader, you a splitting
hairs. Fiddling whilst London burns."
"Rome."
"I'm quite happy where I am thank you. The real issue is what to do
with this lettuce."
"Eat it?"
"Well I'm not surprised that your a pygmy sized intellect has only
half baked ideas."
"No, no. Eat it raw."
Jeff sighed.
"You are missing the point. I am planning to turn the lettuce then we
can use it as a double agent.
If the lettuce had eyebrows it would have raised them at this point.
"Jeff, has anyone told you that you have the finest mind in England?"
Jeff flushed with pride. "Of course. Many have."
"Were they all character in one of your novels or were some of them
care in the community cases?"
"Look don't try and be funny. If I wanted a comedian I would ask for
Ron Atkinson."
"Rowan."
"No Ron. The Sheffield Wednesday defence is the biggest joke I've seen
all season."
"Who do you think you are, David Baddiel?"
"No, I'm going to be the next Nick Hornby. I'm quite jealous of his
success and I want to do a Fever Pitch style novel, but aimed at the
female conservative voters. There is masses to made from the blue
rinse brigade. My novel is going to be a blow by blow account of an
elderly constituency worker who is knitting a jumper for her husband.
It will document the highs and lows of their life as the diamond
pattern is slowly formed and will have a triumphant end as he wears it
to his golf club."
"Have you got a title for this drivel."
"Fever Stitch."
"Appalling."
"I wasn't asking your opinion." Jeff sniffed. He had been planning to
take over the Hornby market for some time now. The thought of that
balding little liberal taking sales for his novels had angered him for
some time. Hornby's work was so downmarket. How could people stoop to
reading this stuff when some of the finest works of British
literature, such as those of Archer, J, were left gathering books on
the shelf.
"Goodbye"
Jeff was awoken from his daydream by the voice of the reader. It
sounded somehow more distant. He looked up and was struck with terror.
The lettuce had gone. Jeff rushed the window to see the vegetable
astride a high powered motorbike.
"You devil!" he roared shaking his fist out of the window.
"For a first class mind you are remarkably dim!" Shouted the lettuce.
"I used my ventriloquism trick, a staple of KGB training, to pretend
to be the voice of your reader, and whilst I distracted you with
thoughts of Nick Hornby I sneaked out of the fire escape!"
"You fiend! You'll never get away with it!" snarled Jeff.
"Oh but I already have." laughed the lettuce.
"This can't be happening! The Tories always win in my novels!"
"Ah yes," retored the lettuce, "but I hacked into your Amstrad PCW and
changed the ending."
Jeff's face contorted with rage.
"Oh, and I also made some changes to your forthcoming novel. Imagine
D.H. Lawrence meets the Marquis de Sade in an Edinburgh crack house.
Should go down well with the blue rinse brigade. I've already faxed it
to your publisher."
"I'm ruined!" wailed Jeffery.
"Nonsense." replied the lettuce. "Your going to be Mayor of London.
Its all arranged."
"Really?" Jeff's face brightened.
"Its the only way of stopping you writing more novels." replied the
lettuce roaring off into the London traffic.
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LETTUCE FROM BRECHNEV :: A 128 BYTE INTRO :: BY RESERVOIR GODS
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Your Chef serving up the FPU instructions:
MrPink
Recipe:
Take 1 Atari Falcon030
Add one FPU
Place into 320x400/480 True Colour mode
Beat LETTUCE.PRG twice with your mouse button
The Result:
A high definition 320x320 multi-layered Mandlebrot fractal
Leave to simmer for 40 minutes to let the true flavours flood out
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LETTUCE FROM BRECHNEV :: A 128 BYTE INTRO :: BY RESERVOIR GODS
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Contact:
mrpink_rg@hotmail.com
sh3@zetnet.co.uk
msg_rg@hotmail.com
ripley_rg@hotmail.com
http://www.acs.bolton.ac.uk/~msg1css/maison.htm
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/zmoe3/three.htm
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LETTUCE FROM BRECHNEV [C] 1998 RESERVOIR GODS
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