Be afraid people, well, be almost afraid. I have been sitting in the dark for most of tonight giggling my stupid head off while battering bits of the keyboard with most of my finger ends (and occasionally my nose). I have, in short, started writing my bits of this year's Panto.

If the pattern of previous years is true to form what will happen between here and the start of Decemberish (the hall is already booked) is this:

1. I will hammer out a vast stream of conciousness nonsense which will have me in paroxysms of self-congratulatory giggles - I am a terrible one for laughing at my own jokes.
   
2. I will show this stream of conciousness weirdness to Merriol who will smile and pat me on the head with a pitying smile. (As it is at the moment, one of my characters is explaining Brechtian Alienation to a cow on page three).
3. I will show it to Ilona who will scribble things like: 'NO!' and 'What???' and "This is supposed to be a family show! - WE CAN'T SAY THIS!" all over it after crossing out all the obvious knob jokes.
4. She will then demand that there is some sort of plot.
5. (I will then sulk for about twenty minutes).
6. Mike and I will sit around and discuss everything but the panto, smoke stupid amounts of cigarettes, and drink stupid amounts of coffee. We will then be forcibly reminded by our best beloved that we are supposed to be writing not just skiving off the childcare and have a panic attack, do our surreal Woodward and Bernstein on acid impression, and shove in as many slightly less obvious knob jokes as we can - offering up, every few pages, a sacrificial goat of a line for Ilona to delete.
7. Two days before rehearsals are supposed to start in earnest (about a week before the show - though that week gets very busy. During last show of this kind we did two years ago, we actors were warned on the first night not to lean on the scenery - the paint was still wet. In all we did four performances over three days for that show and each time I went on I found a new piece of scenery that hadn't been there the last time. It was bit disconcerting to say the least.)
8. Anyway, two days before this intensive mayhem Ilona will notice that Mike and I never actually got round to putting the plot in, and we will have to cobble one together from somewhere. Knowing Mike and I's taste in all things rubbish, what will eventually be inserted will be somesort of bastard offspring of Dallas and I Married The Monster from The Black Lagoon.
9. Somewhere after that Ilona will make it funny.

So it goes.