"You can bet the EPA will make a big deal out of this.."

"I'd rather we don't mention this in the annual report."

After you.. No, after you.. / Please - Be my guest.. / Thank you, gracious host. You're too kind.. // Deferential equations

You can't go to the afterlife looking like THAT! / First up, you need a shave. .. / Now let's tidy that hair up a bit. .. / And for pity sake, put on a shirt and tie..! / There! That's MUCH more presentable! / SWISSH!! // The Prim Reaper

"Okay - is there anybody ELSE whose homework ate their dog?"

"Well looking back I suppose it's been going on for quite some time, but I only noticed we were drifting apart during the last 50 million years. .."

Biggins watched incredulously as Santa's sleigh, port stabilizer torn away, flipped gracefully over and entered a terminal dive to destruction. / Oh just great, thought Biggins, the night before Christmas and there goes my last chance at getting research funding.

We are a committee of clocks, you idiot. What do you mean you forgot to record the minutes..?

Scientists devise yet another way of delaying death.

It's so UNFAIR..!! Why do people always take out the GOOD books..?!?

At a resolution of 10-24 metres, isolated clumps of strange matter pop briefly out of the quantum foam to debate the possible existence of particle physicists.

"Perhaps one of you gentlemen would mind telling me just what it is outside the window that you all find so attractive..?"

Don't look at ME like that..! It's not MY fault..!

Too bad Desmond never learned to recognize the early warning signs of a heart attack.

"The guy at the door wants to know if we've all been saved?"

"All those perfectly adequate brain-donors out there and Igor has to pick me a televangelist!"

"For goodness sake man, snap out of it! We're NOT aliens from outer-space! We're PIXIES! Pixies from your GARDEN!! IS THAT SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND..?!?"

AD 763. Hopeful entrants in the first 'Easter Island Idol' competition.

The Portuguese Balloon o' War

Photocopiers jamming

I can see you pumping petrol. .. / Fair enough / An elf fuel-filling prophecy

An experimental burger and fries has broken from containment! It's spontaneously upsized! / God help us al. .. / 1960s USA: the obesity epidemic is accidentally unleashed

It's.. . not.. . possible.. . / The reason you will never catch up with your paperwork is that late at night, in a nest of shredded manila folders, your most important files have babies.

"Okay nanobots - our primary mission is to clean out this guy's arteries. But while we're here I can't see any harm in also building him a nice pair of man-breasts. .."

RIGHT FOREARM SECURED!! / TORSO RESTRAINED! / INITIATE MAIN ATTACK!! / "In my professional opinion, your immune system is over-stimulated. .."

"So - it seems that ancient hunter-gatherers hated the Barney creature almost as much as we modern humans detest him today. .."

WU-HOO! NO MORE LIVING IN A DAMP CAVE! / Early house hunting

Meanwhile, at the end of the garden, the security situation had deteriorated. A breakaway group of radical pixies had started making enriched geranium.

"Don't laugh, you're next. St Peter says these new units are more energy-efficient."

Pius-131 / John Paul-192 / Benedict-238 / Gregory-239 (Soon after holding a Critical Mass) / Radioactive Isopopes

It was a magical sugar-filled childhood on the island. Every day Timmy would grab his trusty spoon and go out hunting Meringue-Outangs.

Millions of years ago, giant marshmallows ruled the earth. Having no skeletal system, they left no fossil-record. / Diabetic sugar-eating dinosaurs were their only predator. By igniting the acetone on their breath they could toast the marshmallows to death. These were our 'dragons' of legend. / They were too successful. Marshmallows are defenseless against fire and were eaten to near-extinction. With no food-source, the dragon population also plummeted. / It is thought that no dragons survived. Yet every now and then, while some hapless supermarket employee is out back unpacking a crate of marshmallows. ..

Millions of years ago, giant marshmallows ruled the earth. Having no skeletal system, they left no fossil-record. / Diabetic sugar-eating dinosaurs were their only predator. By igniting the acetone on their breath they could toast the marshmallows to death. These were our 'dragons' of legend. / They were too successful. Marshmallows are defenseless against fire and were eaten to near-extinction. With no food-source, the dragon population also plummeted. / It is thought that no dragons survived. Yet every now and then, while some hapless supermarket employee is out back unpacking a crate of marshmallows. ..

Where am I..? Or what is my momentum..? Or where am I..? / Oh hell! Why worry about all that again? I'm not even sure if I'm a wave or a particle! / Photon self-identity issues

At last! An Ethics Committee that will listen to reason!

I'm hit! I'm hit! I've lost an electron!! / Are you sure?? / I'm positive!! / Another casualty in the War of the Atoms

Tips pointing skyward in watchful expectation, sophisticated instrument packages tuned to detect airborne objects emitting at the red end of the visible spectrum, the deadly array of surface-to-air missiles glinted menacingly in the moonlight. / Biggins gazed toward the horizon and grinned wryly as his target came into view. "Last year you refused to give me a research grant," he muttered quietly, pressing the launch button. "This year we rid civilization of the scourge it calls 'Santa'."

It was a brighter meteor than most, and Biggins allowed himself a quiet smile as he contemplated the immense speeds involved as it burned itself up in the atmosphere. .. / Who would have guessed, Biggins mused as he fingered his recently delivered lump of coal, that Santa's sleigh would have a detachable heat-shield..?

Biggins regarded his gift from Santa with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he now had a whole year's worth of research funding. .. / On the other hand, the scope of his research project had been modified slightly; from the impacts of global warming on Pacific Island beaches, to examination of abandoned coal-mines in Bosnia.

Biggins emerged from his hiding place and peered up his chemically-treated chimney. Santa had arrived in the dead of night, slid carefully into the fireplace, left a single lump of coal, and departed as quietly as he had arrived. / Biggins smirked with pleasure at a satisfactory exchange of gifts. Yes it's true that I got a lump of coal, he thought, but in sliding down my chimney, Santa got a coating of the most powerful moth pheromones known to science. ..

Techno Santa

[Techno Santa patent application]

[Sign] THE COMING OF SANTA IS NIGH..!/ Well mock you may, little boy. .. but he KNOWS when you've been good or bad..!!

HE'S MADE A LIST, AND CHECKED IT TWICE. AND YOU'RE ON IT. / BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. / SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN.

"Well no wonder you haven't been feeling too well lately Santa - you're 96% cholesterol."

The Wilsons always had the Spirit of Christmas, all year long.

"And where do you think you're going at this time of night..!?"

Come on in. .. The fire's great! / The perennial summer problem of demons in the barbecue

"I'm confused. Is this character assassination, or capital punishment..?"

Meanwhile, at the Home for Old Atoms. .. / "When I was young I was an atom of uranium-238. I felt so alive, so dangerous! Then one day I accidentally ejected an alpha particle. Now look at me - a spent old atom of lead-206. All my life since then has been nothing but decay, decay, decay. .."

We understand from the neighbours that you've been allowing your young boy to smoke..?

You the guy who just made a seven-coordinate compound of chromium III..? Well we've got a MESSAGE for ya / Chromium III doesn't LIKE being seven-coordinate. .. / Late that night, Professor Robinson's laboratory was overrun by hostile elements.

Couch, n. / Soft, squishy and voluminous organism whose unusual mode of reproduction involves locating itself near a television set and secreting a skin-absorbed retrovirus containing couch-genes. / Mammals repeatedly enticed to the 'couch' are gradually converted into new soft, squishy and voluminous organisms.

These days we worry about 'scientists playing God.' But in ancient Greece, they worried about Gods playing scientist. / They had reason to worry. Every Tuesday, the Gods would gather in their Mount Olympus laboratory and carry out scientific experiments on mortals. .. / Zeus liked to play around with genetic modifications to hair colour. Aphrodite specialized in adding pointless organs. Apollo found a way to turn at least one of these organs into a ticking time-bomb. / This is why the human race has gingas. This is why you were born with an appendix. / TICK TICK TICK TICK