Qharmly d’Oisps
The most irrational person I have ever encountered in all my travels through Time and Space is Qharmly d’Oisps, Prime Qosk of Utat Wohaelminig Canton on the planet Zuggox.

Zuggox is, or rather was (or rather will be) an ancient, stormy planet at the very edge of the galaxy, distant from the spaceways and mostly ignored by offworlders. Over the aeons, it had developed unmolested through various civilizational phases from barbarism through feudalism and had stalled at a sort of mediaeval bureaucracy. The planet consisted of one very large ocean teeming with the kind of sea life that would consider a Kraken a light snack, which encircled its single continent, Fum. Fum was all mountains and jungles, and most of the roughly humanoid population lived either in fortresses built into the mountains, vast networks of treehouses woven into the canopy of the jungle, or ramshackle coastal fishing communities.

The economy of Fum revolved around trade between these three sectors of Zuggoxian society. The mountain dwellers provided raw materials, stone and metal, the shore people provided fresh fish (often risking life and limb in the dangerous oceans of Zuggox), and the foresters provided timber, meat, fabrics and the like. It was a thriving, busy place and the seafood was fantastic.

Zuggox was under the absolute rule of a monarch, appointed every fifty years by the Ceremony of the Borrowed Binders of Ataratarat. I was there under the rule of King Todborong, a fat, indolent, ignorant and rather cruel oaf; that was the problem with monarchy appointed by ancient ceremony, you didn’t have much choice over who wore the crown, and had to accept the judgment of the Borrowed Binders.

Fum was split into three hundred Cantons, each one under the auspices of local Qosks, appointed according to a series of arcane rituals and procedures known as Qoskage. Each canton had its own Qoskelry comprising a Prime Qosk, who was in charge of the Canton, a dozen or so Underqosks acting as administrators, and around a hundred Qoskeens who enforced the law as laid down by the Prime Qosk. Tax evasion, smuggling, prostitution, slavery, gambling and more were all rife throughout the three hundred Cantons of Fum, and all illegal, so the local Qoskelry was kept very busy. The demands on the Qoskelry varied from Canton to Canton, but, broadly, the Mountain Cantons (Utats) had terrible problems with slavery (especially the mines), prostitution and other ‘people crimes’, the Forest Cantons (Reheens) were hotbeds of gambling and drug manufacture and the Coastal Cantons (Graints) were obviously perfect for people trafficking and smuggling.

I was on Zuggox mainly for a holiday, after just having barely escaped from a particularly nasty skirmish in that eternal, annoying war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. I’d been forced to eat Sontaran flesh for several months, and it had given me cancer, which I’d used some of my regenerative powers to cure, and I was weak and needed to recuperate. Somewhere simple and out of the way like Zuggox was perfect, so I settled down in Reheen Shiii Canton where I lived in a lovely little treehouse overlooking the Southern Sea, carving figurines for the Zuggoxian children. Once I was feeling stronger, for a change of scene I moved into the mountains and took up a post as Underqosk in Utat Wohaelminig Canton, and that is where I encountered Qharmly d’Oisps.

He was a strange little man, in appearance nothing to shout about, just a grey rather confused looking chap with white hair. He wore the traditional garb of the Prime Qosk – purple pantaloons, a long black jacket embroidered in gold, an insanely frilly shirt and a quite incredible hat that looked like a cross between a tricorn and a tea cosy. He was my boss for the time I lived in Utat Wohaelminig and I quickly became annoyed by certain irrational views he held onto with the tenacity of a Zuggoxian Scrunge-Crab on a scrotal sac.

Within a few hours of taking up my post as Underqosk I discovered that corruption was rife in the Qoskelry. It varied from Canton to Canton, but all of them were on the make in some way or another, and it was worse in the Utats, as they saw themselves as above the law by dint of their elevated, montane position. Utat Wohaelminig was rotten to the core and Qharmly d’Oisps was in on every racket going. (It was even rumoured that d’Oisps had fixed Qoskage in his favour.) Protection, extortion, drugs, prostitution – you name it, the Qoskelry had it sewn up. They made the Krays and the Corleones look like rank amateurs. At first I was against this – if you’ve seen the movie Serpico, well, that was how it was for me. I even looked a lot like Al Pacino in that incarnation. Unlike Frank Serpico, however, I rolled over and joined in with the other members of the Qoskelry, as I didn’t (and don’t) particularly care about ‘morals’ and it seemed stupid to resist when there was so much money to be had, and so many young Zuggoxian beauties to fuck.

Although he was as bent as a perigosto stick that’s been shoved forcefully up a Venusian Shanghorn’s cloaca, Qharmly d’Oisps was a stickler for rules and regulations. However petty the rule, however arcane the ritual, however pointless the regulation, he would insist on it. For example, when one entered the Hall of Qoskelry it was ordained by ancient ritual that, before crossing the threshold, one had to hop from one foot to another thirty times whilst reciting the Venerated Oath of Qoskage (I won’t bore you with repeating the oath here – I’ll bore you instead by carrying on with this story). This got annoying after a couple of days, but if you didn’t do it you weren’t allowed a tea break so it was best to put up and shut up. Furthermore, all memos and minutes had to be copied five times: one for the Qoskelry files, one for the Royal Palace files, one for the personal files of the Prime Qosk, one for the Grummab and one for the float which got sent round to every other Canton on Fum. This latter would take ages so one was always reading information from other Cantons that was a year, or more, out of date. Oh and the Grummab? That was even MORE pointless! The Grummab was a special breed of Xuggoxian, an obese mutoid retard with the mental age of a baby, which would sit in a circular pit in a special room in the Qoskelry wallowing in its own piss and shit, fed by the Grummab Maid appointed especially for this purpose. (For some reason, it was seen as a great honour to be appointed Grummab Maid, and Grummab Maids were much sought after by the young men of the Canton. Don’t ask me why – I never saw the attraction – they always stank of Grummab shit). Anyway, this Grummab would have to receive copies of every minute and memo issued by the Qoskelry. What it did with them did not matter, no one cared that the Grummab would tear them up, eat them, wipe its ass on them or wank over them. It was ordained by ancient law, therefore it had to happen. The original reasons were lost in the impenetrable mists of time.

Those are just two examples of the ridiculous and, yes, irrational laws and rituals that Qharmly d’Oisps insisted we adhered to rigidly. It was clever of him, really. Such blind obedience masked the level of his corruption from the King, who was blithely oblivious to all the shenanigans going on right under his stupid nose. So d’Oisps was completely rational where that was concerned.

No, his irrationality, the thing that really got on my Time Lord tits, was his unshakeable belief that there was no life on other planets!

Can you believe that?

Even on a backward backwater like Zuggox, they knew that life existed elsewhere in the galaxy. They were visited by offworlders sometimes and had been for centuries. It was a fact of life. Zuggoxians rarely travelled offworld – they hadn’t developed the technology, for one thing; and weren’t particularly interested in anything outside their own little world, for another. But they knew that other populous worlds existed. They knew, though they cared little.

Except the Prime Qosk of Wohaelminig Canton, an otherwise intelligent man of position and influence!

When I first found out about his ridiculous views, I tried to argue him out of them, by simply pointing out that I was an offworlder myself, and had direct experience of life elsewhere in the cosmos. He dismissed this as the mere fantasy of a lunatic. I then tried the old argument about the infinite size of the universe and the certainty of other forms of life within it, but the cunt wasn’t having any of that either.

Eventually, driven to distraction by this idiot’s idiotic views, I cut short my holiday (I was more or less over the cancer) and all but dragged Qharmly d’Oisps into my TARDIS for a whistle-stop tour of the universe. I showed him the majestic blue crystal caverns of Metebelis Three. I showed him the golden beaches and shimmering seas of Florana. I showed him the echoing desolation of Oseidon. I showed him the steaming jungles of Tigella. I showed him the utopian excesses of the Eknuri. I showed him all of this and more – and STILL he denied it! He said it was ‘some sort of drug induced hallucination’ so in the end I got pissed off with him and dumped him on late Twentieth Century Earth where he ended up in quite a senior Cabinet position, you probably know him, grey haired chap, rather boring, took the name of – bugger, I’ve forgotten, was it James Callaghan or John Major? Or someone else? Doesn’t matter.

I still can’t quite get over his irrational views about life on other worlds. I mean, how stupid can you get? I for one am living proof that extraterrestrial life exists!

What a twat.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 19:57, 6 replies)

I'm a very open-minded, accepting sort of chap.
So you'll excuse my questioning this, but are you quite sure this happened? All of it?

If it did - and I'm sure you're a reliable and competent sort of chap - accept my apologies for having the temerity to question your integrity.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 20:22, closed)

Clicked.
I promise a click next week if you post a story that fills up an entire page.
(searlichek, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 20:53, closed)

tl;dr

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 21:09, closed)

you truly are

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Sun 13 Oct 2013, 21:58, closed)

Is that it?
What happened to that cunt that looked like he was going to post

"DOCTOR SKAGRA CAUGHT AIDS OF BUMMERSPIT!"

after all my posts?

Could he not be bothered?

Am I really that insignificant?

What do I need to do to wrest attention away from Mr Fairholme?

Methinks a massive internet breakdown is due.

Stay tuned, fans!
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Tue 15 Oct 2013, 19:58, closed)

Many apologies
to myself, mainly. Come you tit, you know how insignificant you and every other living being is in the face of the giant vastness and vast coldness and cold giantness of the universe, and the uncaring inevitability of entropy etc etc Miranda Hart's tits
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Wed 16 Oct 2013, 18:11, closed)