The team didn’t move.

“Go to it,” said Jim and he clapped his hands together.

And so the team went to it.

John and Jim settled on to the bench and watched them go to it. Jim lit up a Dadarillo Super-Dooper King.

“Your speech was truly inspired, Jim,” said John. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“I don’t think I did,” said Jim. “The words just came out of my mouth.”

“As did the ones about me raising the funds to pay the team.”

“John,” said Jim, “we have our own pub now, and our own gift shop. I feel confident that you will find ways to provide for the team.”

“I wish I could share your confidence.”

“We’ll succeed,” said Jim. “I just know that we will. Now, let’s watch our team doing its stuff.”

And so they watched.

And so they flinched.

If a special prize was to be awarded for ineptitude and downright uselessness in a football side, there was no doubt in the minds of either John or Jim that this special prize would be unanimously awarded to the lads of Brentford United.

“They’re useless,” said John, as sportsmen blundered into one another, tripped over the ball and avoided every tackle as if it were a beast of prey. “They can’t play at all. The fat bloke from the circus just put the ball past the Brentford goalie.”

“There are certain weaknesses,” said Jim.

“Certain weaknesses?” hooted John. “These lads couldn’t kick a hole through an ozone layer.”

Jim produced from his pocket a whistle. An Acme Thunderer.

“Where did you get that from?” John asked.

“My pocket,” said Jim, and he put it to his lips and blew.

Play came to an end and the players limped from the pitch, puffing and panting and looking for the most part near to death.

“Well done,” said Jim. “Five minutes to gather your breath and then we will work upon the new tactics.”

“We usually go to The Stripes Bar for a pint about now,” said Trevor Brooking[12]. “It’s a dangerous thing to overtrain. You could tear a hamstring, or pull a ligament or get a groin strain, or something.”

“That seems reasonable,” said Jim. “When do we play the first FA Cup qualifying match?”

“Saturday,” said Ernest. “Against Penge.”

“Saturday?” Jim all but swallowed the cigarette he was puffing upon. “This coming Saturday?”

“It’s an away game,” said Ernest. “We’ll need to hire a coach.”

Jim looked at John.

And John looked at Jim.

“Best make a note of that,” said Jim wearily. “Hire a coach, John.”

John made a note of that.

“So,” said Jim, as brightly as he could, “the pints will have to wait. Back on to the pitch and we’ll get straight to work on the tactics.”

“But, Boss,” said Alf Snatcher, whose waggly tail was troubling him. And although Jim liked the sound of “boss”, he did not like the sound of the “but”.

“But me no buts,” said Mr Pooley. “We have a match to win.”

High in the corner of the south stand, unseen by team and boss alike, Professor Slocombe sat and watched the tactics being put into operation.

And Professor Slocombe smiled unto himself, leaned upon his ivory-topped cane and whispered, “Good boy, Jim. We will succeed.”

And high in the corner of the north stand, equally unseen and even unsensed by the professor, another sat. He sat half-in and half-out of the floodlight’s glare. The half of him that was in shadow was not to be seen at all, but the half of him that was to be seen, the lower half, was all in black, a blackness that was two shades darker than the blackest black yet known. And this blackness came and went, as if going in and out of focus. And strange unearthly sounds issued from the half that was not to be seen. Coming from the mouthparts. Probably.

And the sounds that were issued were the sounds of words.

But not of any language known to man.

The translation of these words, had a translator been present to do the translating thereof, would have been as follows, for they came in answer to those spoken by the professor. To whit, “We will succeed.”

And these words that came in answer, in this unknown tongue, meant, “Oh no you won’t.”

Norman, having slept throughout the afternoon – much to the distress of his customers, who had been unable to effect entry to his shop – was awakened at six by the return of his wife.

Who gave Norman a thrashing.

The evening meal was a sombre affair, lacking for sparkling conversation and gay badinage. But then it always did. And upon this particular evening, Norman felt this lack most deeply.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, he thought to himself as he munched upon the fish and chips his wife had sent him out for, to have one of those marriages where you actually got on with your wife? Were friends with her, and woke up without the dread of what might lie in wait for you during the coming day. Indeed, awoke with the prospect, well founded, that sex might await you before you even got up for the breakfast that had been cooked for you.

Such marriages did exist, Norman felt certain of it. Not that he actually knew anyone who had one of these marriages, but they must exist. Somewhere.

Norman finished his fish and chips, scrunched up and binned the papers and heard his wife, Peg, slam the back door behind her as she went off for her weekly tuba lesson. He sighed, then smiled as he settled himself down in front of his newly constructed computer, which had by now grown comfortably hot, having been left on throughout the afternoon.

“It never rains, but it pours,” said the shopkeeper. “But a bird in the hand is worth two in Shepherds Bush.”

And Norman tapped at the antiquated keyboard, which was a glorious affair fashioned after the old-fashion of a manual typewriter, with raised brass keys with enamelled lettering upon them, and wondered how, exactly, you worked a computer.

“Manual,” said Norman, reaching for the cloth-bound copy of The Babbage 1900 Series Computer Assembly Manual. “It will all be in the manual.”

And, of course, it was.

“Ah,” said Norman. “Cable into the phone socket. Interesting concept.” Norman gazed towards his telephone. It was a fine Bakelite affair that had served the Hartnel clan well ever since its installation in the late 1930s. It didn’t have a socket, as such, though, just a big black box where it was wired into the wall. A big black box that had the word “DANGER” printed upon it and a kind of lightning-flash motif. Norman took out his screwdriver and tinkered with this box.

And in less time than it takes to call an ambulance for someone who has been electrocuted as a result of tampering with something electrical that they really shouldn’t have tampered with, but slightly more time than it takes to recover from such an electrocution and do the calling yourself, Norman was all cabled up with only the minimum of fingertip charring and singeing of the wig.

“Piece of cake,” said Norman, applying himself once more to manual and keyboard. The valves hummed away nicely, projecting an amber glow through the air holes in the back of the mahogany cabinet that housed the monitor screen and making that electrical toasty smell that is oft-times referred to as ozone, but is probably Freon. And then things began to appear upon the monitor screen.

Norman viewed these things and purred his approval.

They all looked very exciting, but he didn’t know what they meant. They were definitely symbols of some sort, row upon row of them, travelling sedately across the screen. Mathematical symbols? Norman certainly hoped so. If he was to come up with The Big Figure, the number of it all, the very number of existence – perhaps, Norman mused, the mathematical equation that was the Universe, or even God himself – then row upon row of mathematical-looking figures doodling their way across the screen was probably as good a place as any to start.