Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Edit: Ok, bored now. The following is not true. But you'd probably have assumed that from the outset with any post today, right?

I'm beginning to wonder what I've let myself in for. I've had someone lurking around making subtle inquiries. Asked if me I might be, er, you know, interested in alternative experiences with perhaps someone like a Brito-Flemish firm by the name of Scallop (can you tell who it is yet?). Sent me a form to fill in, purely on a non-committal basis. Replied that they're very interested, when can I come in for 'chat' and when would I be free generally? A few rounds of "we're not saying this but" later and it seems they want me. Only after a brief introductory period they don't want me here but somewhere over there. Way over there. Ok, so there and a few other places. Apparently they need someone to make sure assorted other-enders get the whole Beyond Petroleum (er, sorry wrong comp) thing and they think I'm ideal for the corporate navel-gazing involved to check this. So how's that for a coinkydink? Given that the Redacted (um, it doesn't count as insulting if it's the result of dyslexia [edit: er, that unpicked enough, or do you need more?]) is already shellacked in situ.

Except I'm not sure what to do. I tend to be a bit illegal round there. And they tend to be a bit shooty (when did I turn into Penelope Wilton?). And I know I found GA's grandmother's tales over gravlax of picking bullets from the bookshelves in most southern Mediterranean cities to be amusing, but I'm not sure I could stand knowingly endangering books. I'm fully aware I ticked the galaxy-far-far-away box, but I was rather expecting the suggested outcome to be in the same universe. One that doesn't have men hopping with vengeful fury as they wave an Adisdas flip-flop in the air whenever something displeases them (the arrogance of the American state of Denmark, someone mentioning Agent Smith's previous roles, a ill-considered t-shirt proclaiming "Yo, get with the Enlightenment", a man wearing a colour that doesn't look like mouldy plaster, that type of thing).

Yes, I am basing this on whatever one sees in the news, but whenever a place is not in the news one sort of assumes that the inhabitants must be sane after all, only for them to spring up in livid protests with banners demanding The Patsy Stone Will Be Madings For To Glorious Burn In Hull Verily (what does Mr Pbuh say about the use of Babelfish and that of copy editors or lack thereof? How much of that was machine translation and how much local goldplating by people keen to show off the words they saw once in The Gallant Motorist's Guide the Punjab?), except for when they're happy, when they declare war on God and bounce round cloudseeding ineffectually from the back of indestructible Toyotas. Either that or they think they can hit an American plane. Have they any idea how dangerous that is? Have they never heard of seatbelts?

Er, maybe more research is needed. So what do you say? Should I stay or should I go the way of the shellfish?

Answers on a postcard, inside an envelope lest the postcard be damned for the thoughts of those seeing it, to... the usual place.

Anyhoo,

PS. In next week's show we'll be examining the inherent confirmation of prejudices demonstrated by a black man touring America to beg for change.

PPS. In a fortnight: Is Kylie overrated?

Well, that's everyone annoyed now.

PPPS. I've just worked out how to solve the tendency for riots to spontaneously combust across a great swathe of the world: shoe laces.