My Finest Hour: Killer Sideburns from Outer Space!
   When the televised version of "Pride and Prejudice" was aired in 1995, the sexual magnetism of Mr. Darcy's sideburns was such that MRI machines within five miles of his image were instantly banjaxed; IV drips, liquid helium and surgeon's appliances went flying all over the place, with disastrous consequences. (So disastrous in fact that John Major was noted to say "I have said it before and I will say it again..." six times in an hour, he was that nervous.) The sideburns' unforeseen magnetic phenomena also affected people's brains; women wanted to be with him, and men just wanted to be him - hence the sudden eruption of facial hair with in the populace that made Friday night down the pub look like an American Civil War veterans' reunion.
   The scramblage of everyone's brains knew no bounds - it even extended to my class at school, where my painfully shy attempts at wooing Sophie - the sweet-natured black-haired blue-eyed beauty of our year - were beginning to look up at last. Unfortunately, all of it was for naught when the brutal forces from the sideburns slammed her neurones into new paths, and she became infuriatingly infatuated with the owner of the sideburns; her beautifully rosy cheeks and lusciously-curved mouth also gravitated downwards into a permanent sneer at the sheer monotony and inadequacy of her suitors and provinical surroundings.¹ "Is there no-one," lamented Sophie at great length in public, "who could match - nay, trounce - the sheer sideburniness of Mr. Darcy?" Undeterred by her overnight shift in demeanour, I resolved to out-sideburn Mr. Darcy and win Sophie's heart, even if it cost me my sanity, my liberty and my life!
   (Incidentally, nine years later I had the finest set in the land, which are at their best when I've not shaved for a month - except of course when one side is longer than the other, which happens depressingly often.)
   But in the short-term, my prospects were shattered. I could not match Mr. Darcy's sideburnosity in time, as I was not of French, Greek or Italian stock, and none of the girls my age were remotely interested in any of us, despite being a bunch of handsome devils for our age. My contemporaries grew bitter and twisted, hanging round outside nurseries and primary schools to see how quickly they could impregnate the fattest and hairiest munters these establisments had to offer, but I successfuly maintained my moral fibre during those dark years - I became an iron-hard Christian fundamentalist and forced my little sister to wear thick hairy grey blouses buttoned up to the neck and stupidly large glasses (even though she had perfect eyesight), and to pray to Jesus for forgiveness and redemption, 19 hours a day, on pain of being beaten with a big stick. But secretly my heart still belonged to Sophie.
   The sideburns continued to affect the minds of the nation for many years after that, but their tyrannical grip had lessened slightly by 2003, by which time I had deserted my Christian principles and joined a sinister xenophobic cult which believed the sideburns to be extraterrestrial in origin, and should be destroyed as soon as it was convenient to do so. I was quickly promoted to become their Senior Management Variable Analysis Executive (grade II) when I divulged the extent of my hatred for these alien face-ornaments. The sympathy of these strange, hunched cultists strengthened my resolve and made me more eager than ever to maim the odious face-fungi and finally unite myself with Sophie, who by now was beginning to show some of her sweet nature again, and was more beautiful than ever.
   "Oh Tom," she said, gazing up at me soulfully and caressing my hand, "You make me feel alive in a way that no-one else can, but the sideburns of Mr. Darcy still hold sway over my mind, and in my dreams they say you are weedy; a bookish intellectual with all the courage and gumption of a stunned herring, and poor with it! I don't want to believe them, but my mind refuses to deviate from the honourably-shrived Four-Fold Path of the Sideburn, and still my heart belongs to those remarkable hairpieces."
   She still couldn't remember my real name, but so in love was I that I cared not one bit.
   Said I, "Sophie, Sophie, Sophie... ... ..." I didn't know what to say at first, but rallied: "I assure you I shall truly, madly and deeply astound you with an amazing feat of bravery!"
   "How will you do that?" she asked.
   "You'll see," I said tapping my nose conspiratorially.
   Unsurprisingly, she was very sceptical about this. But at seventeen, she was getting too old for most of the local mens' tastes, and was beginning to attach herself to yours truly, despite her disturbing lust for the 'burns. It was a paradigm.
   In the Cult, word got around that Mr. Darcy was going to Manchester incognito for the opening party of a new company. The party was to be at the top of the Hexagon Tower in Blackley, and the Cult needed a brave assassin to go there and top the 'burns. Without hesitation, I volunteered myself for this dangerous task, and simultaneously swore at myself for volunteering, for it is well known that the muggins who volunteers never gets let off easy. But the Cult rejoiced and had a pre-emptive pray to their strange dark god for my safety. In fact, they did so much of this that they held a full-scale ceremony - tea, biscuits and semen were laid on for the duration, and everyone was happy.
   Finally the fateful day arrived. I made a mannequin replica of myself so people wouldn't know I'd gone, and secretly boarded the train to Peterborough, then on to Manchester! But I was not going there alone - Slightly Mad Mike, an old friend from my Christian days, was accompanying me to film my glorious victory (or hideous defeat), get it broadcast on the News the next day, and thereby earn his fortune through royalties when they repeated it non-stop for the following three weeks.
   Four hours later, we stepped off the train at Manchester Victoria, then headed into Blackley itself, some way north. The magnitude of the task in hand became apparent as we approached the ominous Hexagon Tower - for many yards the twin stenches of death and decay permeated the air, and the poverty surrounding the place was truly terrible to behold. Undeterred, Slightly Mad Mike and I sneaked into the building, found out where and when the party was to be held, and managed to spend the whole day hiding in the medicine cabinet by the Gents' without being seen.
   Slightly Mad Mike, besides being the world's best cameraman, was also an accomplished thief - in the best possible sense of the word. He managed to rob a heavy protective visor and a pair of extra-tough vulcanised elbow-length rubber gloves, which would be much needed if Mr. Darcy's 'burns turned hostile. I praised Slightly Mad Mike for his admirably forward thinking.
   Slowly but surely, the hour of the party approached, and all the while I meditated and tried to make contact with the Cult's god. I failed. Since abandoning Christianity, my mind was heathen and would accept the existence of no god whatsoever. This was very dispiriting. So was the indigestion I'd been having for the past week; even now, I reckon the semen on those biscuits was well past its sell-by date.
   The fateful hour arrived. From our vantage point in the medicine cupboard, we could hear the distinctive sound of Mr. Darcy's voice, backed by an ominous rustling - were his sideburns sentient beings? had they hijacked his personality? how evil were they, exactly? We would not know the answers to these questions until we ventured out of our hiding-place and confronted the 'burns in person. So I put on the visor and gloves, and hefted an enormous and sharp meat-cleaver (kept under a velvet cloak for lack of conspicuousness). Slightly Mad Mike checked his camera was working, put fresh stock in, and away we went!
   It was crowded in the Gents', but we made our way through without anyone noticing - obviously heavily-shielded people bearing concealed weapons trailed by cameramen were an everyday occurrence in the Hexagon Tower.
   In the enormous ballroom outside the Gents' we spotted Mr. Darcy at the far end, lounging on a feather bed and apparently having a conversation with himself. I strode over, raised the cleaver in the air and brought it down on his legs, swiftly amputating both of them before you could say Jumping Jack Flash. Blood spurted out of the stumps and feathers stuck to them like fluff to half-sucked boiled sweets in trouser pockets. But what was truly terrifying was the transformation of his head - the 'burns instantly doubled in size, met under his chin and pulled the skin off his face to reveal... another, almost identical face underneath, locked into a permanent grimace of terror. "My God!" yelled I, "was *this* the terrible fate of Colin Firth?" (However, nobody heard me because my voice was muffled by the visor - on the film it sounded more like "Mnn HNN!!! mnnhnnvnhnnhnmmmhnnnhnm?!") It soon became apparent that the 'burns had indeed hijacked his body, erasing all traces of Colin Firth and leaving behind nothing of his soul, apart from indescribable fear.
   I had to make a quick decision, for the 'burns were growling in a vicious, animalian fashion, and the inside of my trousers were becoming distinctly damp. So I raised the now-bloody cleaver again and hacked off Darcy-formerly-Firth's arms - this time with some difficulty as the action of severing his leg-bones had blunted the blade. Even more terrifyingly, his 'burns doubled in size again and his nose and mouth disappeared into his head, leaving nothing but madly-staring eyes and bare flesh in their place. The 'burns were now angry, and a blood-curdling roar was coming from their morass of microscopic mouths, so I bodily picked up the now-limbless Darcy-formerly-Firth - taking care to keep the 'burns as far away from my face as possible - and ran to the roof. Slightly Mad Mike had got the lot on film, and was following a few steps behind, yelling out a running commentary as if he was at the races.
   We both got to the roof, and my initiative ran out - what on earth were we going to do with Darcy-formerly-Firth, now that I'd cut off his limbs and enraged his sideburns? Given the enormous height of the Hexagon Tower, and its unrivalled views of Blackley and Middleton, there was only one option, and it was the best by far. I wound up my arm like a spring, and threw Darcy-formerly-Firth off the top of the Hexagon Tower with all my bodily strength, and spiritual strength fuelled by the years of oppression and peer-pressure that hade just gone. His body described a perfect parabola, which was tracked by the all-seeing lens of Slightly Mad Mike's camera. We did not see where it landed, but prayed that the tortured soul of Colin Firth would finally be laid to rest when it did.

And that, comrades, is the story of my Firth Lob, and how I single-handedly defeated the Killer Sideburns from Outer Space. When the news broke out, I was welcomed home as a hero. Sophie threw her arms around my neck and kissed me passionately; I swept her up in my arms, we got married, and divorced two months later over a disagreement about the wallpaper.

¹ I must point out here that no-one in my class was more than 9 years old at the time (except for my uptight and precocious little bastard brother Dominic, who was 5 - but we'd killed and eaten him some time previously. He was very stringy.)




*re-reads question*
Fucksocks!
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sun 23 Oct 2005, 18:58, Reply)