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I interpreted it that Operation Hammerdown involved a hell of a lot of conventional bombs, not a nuke. Indeed, don't you see the first wave of planes going in just before the end?

Just got back: absolutely stunning. Not a criticism to be had. Sorry.

I personally welcome the thought of a filmmaker not feeling he has to be bound by the industry line of "your film must be 2-and-a-half-hours, no matter how much crap you have to pad it out with".

I'd rather pay my six quid for 72 minutes of good film than watch AvP2 again.

Regardless of the fact i was writing nonsense ,writing is the best thing in the world when it becomes like automatic writing and you are not sitting there thinking "What shall i write next?".

I'll agree with you there. Probably best to do a quick re-read before you post that kind of stuff, though.

Oh, my.

Lord of the Flies? Post apocalyptic?

Pull the other one, it's got murderous tribal boys on it.

Colder, though.

I'll be picking up volume 2 of the S/D Agency Casefiles and trying to get my greasy mitts on a copy of the Black Dossier when I get paid tomorrow. They ought to last me.

My dear Mr Solo,

Having recently become something of a follower of your message boarding career, I feel it is incumbent upon me to advise you of an inaccuracy that has arisen within your work. Permit me, if you will, to explain.

It was this morning, around half-past breakfast time, when I retrieved my jam (damson, if you recall from our earlier correspondence, made by the talented Mr Hartley and his apprentices) from the refridgerator, where some thoughtless cad had chosen to place it. As I often remark to my youth-educating brother, "cold jam is much like spreading cold disdended bodily fluids upon one's toast, and nobody could wish for that." He is often seen to nod, but adds a cautionary rider that "some, particularly cannibals and several unsavoury types of necrophiliac, may wish for such a thing", with which I am forced to agree.

The point of such a ramble is merely to highlight that while waiting for my precious sugary fruit spread to return to a more palatable room temperature, I took to browsing the popular pamphlet "Fluff Ruffer's Weekly", but found it contrite and not to my taste. Instead, I decided to check upon your progressing career on the nostalgia-based messageboard "2000ad online".

Imagine my surprise to find that you had found yourself entangled in a battle of wits with a bounder whose complete inability to master the arts of spelling, grammar and punctuation would indicate that he was entirely unarmed! Such was the monstrosity of this fellow's communication that I was forced to don my specially darkened glasses which make me appear like the eccentric yet brilliant lawyer from the third season of the excellent televisual drama "Battlestar Galactica" and proceed to attack my monitor with my special correcting pen until the resultant sight was more like human language and not merely the gruntings of some morlock-like cave dweller.

Having done so, I was astounded to witness your use of the word 'gayology'. Checking in my copy of Inconsequential Steve's Dictionary Of Not-A-Words, I came to a realisation. Forgive me if I am wrong (and, if so, you may rest assured you have both my humble apologies and some ham), but you would seem to be using a copy of this admirable guide dating from before the great word-jumble of 1998 - if this is so, you may well be fascinated to learn that the correct term has now generally been agreed to be 'gayonomy'.

I do hope that my communiqué finds you in robust health, and that the thread to which I contribute has not moved on such that my missive may be considered irrelevant; I am reliant upon my aging butler, Crivvens, to do my typing and he is not the speed demon some would take him to be.

Yours Impressively

F. Fury, esq.

P.S. I am not over-fond of that buffoon Doherty either! His snooker is frankly second-rate.

Nurse! The screens!

Electric hobs that you cook on.

What else would you use an electric hob for?

Also, you could deep-fry fish.

I'm concerned it's gone from things banned from people's houses to things people loathe but which I actually quite like.

What's wrong with reading all the supplements in the Sunday paper?

You should see the forthcoming Hulk Hogan grill.

Dear Concerned,

It was with great consternation that I sat down with my morning toast (spread, if I may make a quick aside, with an exquisite combination of Yorkshire butter and Mr Hartley's excellent damson jam) and opened your letter. You were, of course, quite right to contact me in this way and I commend both your quick thinking and mastery of onomatopeia.

I am also in the position of having a sibling upon whose shoulders rests the burden of indoctrinating our nation's youth into not burning it down while we're all busy doing a sudoku, and I have often remarked to both him and his wife (who has nothing to do with such a business, excepting that she is always in the room at the time) that the one thing a teacher cannot afford is a sense of humour reliant upon phallus-based proposal humour.

"Indeed," he is often heard to remark. "Why, I have seen such a phenomenon among my own colleagues no less than three times, and each has ended in the same way, with punctuation marks flying around the place as though they were leaves falling from a lonely tree in Autumn, its last rotting branches giving up the ghost as the family of squirrels who reside in its trunk begin the slow process of seeking out a new shelter. A prediliction for phallic humour as a whole, I fear, leads to an inability to convey even the most basic of knowledge unto the youth of today." Here, he often pauses, and takes a sip of Earl Grey.

"If we follow such a thing to its logical end," he will conclude, "then the youth of Britain shall no doubt put flame to this great land next Thursday at around eleven-fifteen in the morning, when all decent folk are, as we know, doing sudokus or, as is my own preference, the Time Out wordsearch."

Here I nod, and take a nibble of tiffin before sending the butler out to bring me a brace of whelks. "What method of proposal would you recommend, o brother mine?"

He sighs, as though remembering some wondrous event, and leans forward conspiratorially. "The way I did it," he whispers, his bracken-like eyebrows waving hypnotically, "was to approach my dear beloved, turn my back upon her, drop my britches and fart the ring directly towards her. It worked out quite well for me, I think you'll agree."

It did indeed. It surely did.

So, Concerned, I do hope this little jaunt through Memory Lane (that's the one in my mind, not the one in Woolchop-on-Sea, obviously) has served to sprinkle the answers you seek upon your brain-plate like ill-advised salt on a medium-rare cut of steak. Rib eye, perhaps.

Indubitably yours

F. Fury