This edition of pcbycp proudly sponsored by Lucas Electrics.

Dear reader, incredibly, our heroes are still ALIVE!

Will Benny Boy be enough to save them?  Or is the stand-off with the Centurion their final curtain? Curtains or drapes, there’s still a chance, and with a chance, they may yet prevail. Read on for another curtain raising episode deep from within the irradiated wastes of Maralinga, where you don’t need a reading lamp to read at night. 

Implausibly though it may sound, our heroes are still alive.  Whether by fate, circumstance or sheer bloody mindedness they prevail, And whilst they prevail, there is still HOPE!

We sought sponsorship from HRH Prince Andrew, but he was busy installing a fernery atop Fergie’s head. (HRH points to Alex Downer in fishnets whilst preparing Fergie’s equipage, something he learnt in the Falklands)

But is this hope a forlorn hope? Or just another played-out routine that’s gonna end up being hopeless! Like Coalition Climate policy. That hopeless? Or perhaps just a sensible regulated energy market, that doesn’t gouge ordinary citizens? Perhaps somewhere in between?

They prevail, and whilst they still exult in their freedom, there is cause for cautious optimism. 

We return to the standoff between our heroes and their protector, Australia’s most decorated and renowned soldier, ‘Benny-Boy’ Roberts Smith. Will this be their last stand? 

‘Its moving’! Terry exclaimed, ‘And it’s coming towards us, what are we gonna do’? 

Our then Foreign Minister performing; ‘Daddy wouldn’t buy me a Bow-Wow’, at the annual Tory cross-dress ball.

‘I dunno, stand still and see if we can communicate with it, perhaps it’s here as a force of protection? There’s only one way to find out’! And quick as a flash Benny Boy knelt down, threw his back pack down and fished around inside the utility pockets before removing a small mirror. With deftness of touch trained in the field he orientated the mirror towards the sun and with the palm of his other hand, began to flap, (Not tap) out a signal by semaphore, by primitive hand – held heliograph, a message in morse. 

Alex gifting Jose Ramos Horta a signed copy of his rendition of; ‘Daddy wouldn’t buy me a Bow- Wow’, John Howard at rear checking to see if the little bloke has been bugged properly by ASIO.

Alex’s specially adapted espionage attache case. Two seemingly harmless ‘transmitter dolls’ named ‘Pistol’ and ‘Boo’.

Dear reader, though it is not commonly known, morse us still used to this day by Australia’s foremost intelligence agencies, the Signals Directorate, and management of Crown Resorts Barangaroo, to transmit high level intelligence information vital to Australia’s interests. Because of this we at pcbycp have decoded top secret transmissions from the same sources that bugged the East Timor Embassy during the Timor Sea oil negotiations. We are happy to say that then, as now we see Alexander Downer still at work for the Federal Government in giving us the edge on how tin-pot nations to our north whom we regularly exploit, screw and bully may be swayed by an evil and militaristic China. As it is well known that our forward defence policy in curbing an angry, militaristic domineering evil is dependent upon patronising and dismissing their petty concerns in the interests of the coal, oil and defence lobby.  We asked, (via morse) what plans our former Foreign Minister had with the ‘Five-Eyes’ arrangement but he was employed elsewhere as stand in for HRH Prince Andrew for the Order of the Garter Investiture in London. Once again proof of his far- reaching vision and self-sacrifice. We can only hope that his unstinting work is amply rewarded to further postings of real value in the future.  We return to our saga……

A job for Alex post politics?

‘I dunno, it’s still moving, and I don’t like the look of this’. Under Benny’s guidance they stood stock still and watched transfixed as the lumbering ponderous hulk of the Centurion rumbled quietly towards them. They could see the rich black smoke issuing from the exhaust as the Meteor, possibly over worn by years of service burnt off a crude mixture of oil, petrol and soot. Clearly, it needed an overhaul but was still after all these years  still serviceable. Ces scratched his chin, and exclaimed, ‘Jeez this disproves the unreliability of Lucas Electrics, after all these years still functioning, I don’t get it’?

 ‘Its simple’! exclaimed Terry, ‘there aint any rain. No water can get into it’. 

As a GG, to carry in the tradition of John Kerr?

‘You’re right that’s the spirit of Lucas Electrics, they weren’t designed for hot dry and arid environments, yet they were guaranteed to fail in wet ones. Is this a paradox at work? Perhaps if Lucas had only sold products to arid environments they may still be in common use-age’?

‘Yes Terry piped in;  and perhaps then, the Empire may have prevailed’? 

At the mention of Empire Benny- Boy paused in setting up his signalling equipment and reverentially kissed the service ribbon, the scarlet ribbon that signalled the highest attainment for valour, courage and decency,  ‘Yep I liked the sequel, ‘The Empire Strikes Back, to whit his peers politely being of a mature disposition, chose to politely ignore. 

To strut once again, a COLOSSUS on the WORLD STAGE!

‘Yes I see what you’re coming at’! Quent opined; ‘Perhaps as the fall of the Roman Empire was attributed to lead pipes and the Empire being a ‘Denarii short of the Sestertius’, if Lucas had only distributed to hot and arid climes, the North West Frontier would still be in our hands?And those parts of the Suez lost in 56, and those bits of the darkest bits of Africa’? Their collective minds boggled as the ‘What-if’s’ just grew, like the Coalition’s urge to go FULL-ON Nuclear since they lost the Federal Election.

Indeed, there was a hypothetical construct that needed teasing out, but sadly there was precious little time. Was Lucas the downfall of the Empire? Or was it something much more insidious, we hadn’t the time to ruminate nor hypothecate.

‘I dunno Ces whispered, it’s still headed right for us, unless we do something. 

But could they do something? 

Or to harness and nurture the souls of those in torment who have been dispossessed and flung into the wasteland of oblivion? What destiny awaits? And do we care?

Was something, all they had? 

Find out in our next enigmatic episode, ‘Did Lucas prompt the fall of Empire in its hour of need?, or ‘was ever in the field of human conflict so little dis-owned by so many?