SMOKE: And The Walls Came Down

Originally published: 6 September 2004

I wrote last week about being home alone while t'missus was away and the cabling job I did in her absence. I laughingly hinted at the fact that a big job like that could be worth a carnal reward of sorts, and I'm here to tell you that it was.

It was quite a party, let me tell you.

Heads of state were invited, from presidents to prime ministers to the Grand Panjandrum of Somewhere, and the galleries were stacked to the rafters with a madding throng.

Gold carpets were rolled out, the finest champagne put on ice and rumour has it that the orchestral backing was provided by none other then the New York Philharmonic.

As I gently rode the waves of an imaginary Seine by night I gazed up into the heavens above and from way off in the distance I noticed a shooting star approaching from the East, heading West. I arched my back and screamed into the night as the star streaked past and at the same time someone let off the fireworks.

They shot up into the sky in a blaze of brilliant colour and at that precise moment the choir of angels joined the symphony orchestra in a frenzy of Wagnerian madness.

The sky cracked open and the thunder roared and just behind me Mount Etna erupted in a blaze of white-hot lava, a thousand times more powerfully than it ever had before.

To the cheers and applause of a thousand influential people a Boeing 747 bearing the South African flag flew over my stadium, and all the clocks in the world started chiming at exactly the same time. Rats scurried from their hiding places, the lamps went out all over Europe and the reap tide came in.

I thought I saw death but it wasn't a scythe... it was the moon, smiling. I thought I saw God crying... but it was just a cloud raining. I thought I saw Tony Sanderson... and unfortunately it was he.

People of the world united and stood holding hands in a ring around the globe. The rains came and washed away the drought, the sun came out and dried the floods, creatures of the woodland came out to play and birds shuffled the leafy tree-tops. Moths became butterflies and mites became mightier.


The finale - involving a mad-haired maestro, feverishly conducting his insane orchestra - featured the opening of a ceremonial bottle of champagne, all of a thousand feet high and another thousand wide.

The pressure built, the violins shrieked in anticipation and with a Machiavellian sweep of his baton the conductor ordered the popping of the cork. The lava shot a thousand miles higher still, the stained glass of a million cathedrals smashed inwards and the walls came down.

The world imploded into a core sweet with agony and then exploded in a Big Bang, spraying us all to the furthest reaches of the universe, until finally - gratefully - there was sweet oblivion.

Next time she asks, fellas - do the bloody cables. Trust me.

All Smoked Out,
Luke Tagg