The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age

by Robert Rankin

Genres: Fantasy; Contemporary Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy

Synopsis

Colonel Katterfelto has lately returned to London. He departed America under something of a cloud ... of smoke, issuing from his Spiritual Laboratory, which the townsfolk of Wormcast, Arizona, marched upon with their flaming torches. This catastrophic conflagration caused considerable concern to the pious colonel, who had been engaged in the creation of 'Heaven's last and best gift to Mankind', The Mechanical Messiah. And he was, after all, being guided in this Great Work by holy angels, communicating to him through his monkey butler, Darwin. It is 1897, twelve years since The War of the Worlds and two since Worlds War Two*. The British Empire encompasses Mars, and an uneasy peace exists between the peoples of Venus, Jupiter and Earth. In London there are many marvels of the modern age to be experienced. Amongst these is The Electric Alhambra Music Hall, where crowds thrill to The Earl Grey Whistle Test, a musical extravaganza featuring such top turns as Hayward's Acrobatic Kiwis, The Travelling Formbys and the newly-arrived Colonel Katterfelto's Clockwork Minstrels. But all is far from well in old Whitechapel, where a monster is once more abroad in the night-time streets, committing hideous acts of murder. Can this be the return of Jack the Ripper, or has something altogether unearthly materialised to spread fear, panic and mayhem? Something Hellishly evil? Famed consulting detective Cameron Bell is already on the case, but it may take nothing less than the New Messiah Himself to save London, The Empire and all of the solar system from the impending apocalypse! 'Stark raving genius' Observer *See The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and other Unnatural Attractions.

Release date: September 15, 2011

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 496

Sample

1897

1

The foyer of the Electric Alhambra was lit to a pretty perfection.

One thousand vacuum bulbs, brought to brilliance by Lord Tesla’s latest innovation, the wireless transmission of electricity, illuminated a scene of lavish enchantment. Just so.

The foyer was crafted to the Moorish style, with a high central dome and surrounding arches. And all throughout and around and about, mosaics of turquoise and gold sparkled in the dazzling
luminescence. These mosaics were wrought with cunning arabesques and details of intricate geometry. Here a hexagram, picked out in oriental amethyst and lapis lazuli. There a pentacle, in
heliotrope and aquamarine. So rich and complex were these ornamentations as to baffle the eye and stagger the senses. To inspire both wonder and awe.

The foyer was furnished with settles and settees, copious couches and diverse divans. These were upholstered with sumptuous swan’s down, moleskin and marmot and pale astrakhans. Towering
torchères with filigreed finials, tables of pewter and copper and brass. Inlaid and overlaid, fiddled and diddled, fantastic fittings and glittering glass.

But all of these wonders – and wonders they were – served only as an architectural hors d’oeuvre to the great banquet of gilded glory that was the auditorium. For beyond tall
doors of embellished enamel, which rose like hymns in praise of pleasure, were Xanadu and Shangri-La made flesh in wood and stone. In bronze and in ormolu, travertine and tourmaline, crystal and
silver and glittering gold.

The auditorium boasted seating for three thousand people in the most exquisite surroundings imaginable. Electrically lit and lavishly appointed, it was truly a marvel of the modern age.

But—

There were certain folk who expressed certain doubts.

The Society columnist of The Times newspaper, for instance. He had coined a new term to describe the interior of the Electric Alhambra: ‘Architectural Sesquipedalianism’.
Words such as ‘grandiloquent’, ‘overblown’, ‘ostentatious’ and, indeed, ‘intemperate’, flowed from his steam-powered fountain pen and figured large
in his repertoire of damnation for this ‘Monstrous Testament to Bad Taste’.

For ‘The Thunderer’s’ columnist was a titled toff of the esoteric persuasion and the Electric Alhambra, a Music Hall!

Now this was not to say that the gentry did not frequent the Music Hall. Not one diddly bit of it. But even those adventurous aristocrats who favoured titillation above temperance entered the
portals of such establishments furtively and in heavy disguise, thereby perpetuating the belief that the Music Hall was really just for commoners – the hoi polloi and not the
hoity-toity.

Upon this particular evening, a warm summer’s evening in early July, the hoi polloi held sway. Certain swank events here in the British Empire’s capital had drawn most of high social
standing to the company of their own and the Electric Alhambra was the almost exclusive preserve of the downtrodden masses. Or at least those members of the lumpenproletariat as could scrape
together the price of admission: three fine, bright copper pennies.

But there were others present upon this summer’s evening. Others whose undeniable otherness distinguished them. Marked them out as different. Other men from other worlds were
these. Beings from the bloated planet of Jupiter, or the cloud-girt world of Venus.

It was now twelve years since the Martian invasion of Earth, as recalled in that historical memoir of Mr H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, and two since Worlds War Two. Happily the
Martians had been mercilessly destroyed and happier still the British Empire now extended to Mars. But the alliance and state of peace that existed between Earth, Venus and Jupiter was an uneasy
one. There was a singular lack of trust and at times acts of open hostility were directed towards off-worlders who walked the streets of London.

But not here. Not here in the Music Hall. Whatever happened outside remained outside. Within, the Music Hall justly considered itself to be the very exemplar of egalitarianism. All were
welcome and all were treated equally. Although those with more than three pennies to spend could occupy the better seats.

So, what of the Alhambra’s patrons this evening? What of their looks and their manners and styles? Mr Cameron Bell, that most private of private detectives, was known (by those in the
know) to be capable of discerning a man’s occupation merely by the study of his boots.

The boots of those who now shuffled about upon the mosaic floor of the foyer spoke of many occupations. As indeed did their distinctive attire.

Here were the piemen and those who offered for sale upon the thoroughfares of the great metropolis such toothsome viands as mock-plum duff, straw muffins, mud pies, sawdust puddings and
cardboard cakes. Shirts, once white, found favour with them, as did long, pale smocks of antique design, as worn by bakers in bygone days. When bread was oft-times made out of bread and rarely, as
now, out of chalk.

Mingling amongst these fellows were to be seen the cockney street sellers of flypapers, beetle wafers and wasp traps, cockroach castles and sea-monkey sanctuaries. These were men of the
‘pattering class’, who plied their wares with silken tongues and honeyed words. Displaying a tamed spider or two, with which to garner interest from Samaritans. They sported suits of
rough-cut plaid with patterns in beige and taupe, echoing those of Lord Burberry.

Many and various were the trades of London’s working class. Trades that had persisted since the dawn of recorded history and would no doubt prevail for ever, resisting all future trends.
Crossing sweepers conversed with ratcatchers, bone-grubbers and those who gathered the Pure.1 Mole-stranglers and ferret-stretchers shared jokes with
horse-sniffers and donkey-punchers, the men who point at poultry and those who untwist dogs into the shape of balloons.

The owners of dancing ducks and industrious insects exchanged banter with characters who bruised peaches for public entertainment and others prepared to scrape tortoises in private, once a
proper price had been agreed upon.

And here also were the folk of London’s underworld. The men ‘who would not be blamed for nothing’. The coiners and card sharps. The purloiners of parrots. Burglars of bunnies
and budgerigars. Kidnappers of kittens. Procurers of poodles. Pimps of Pomeranians. Loudly dressed and loudly spoken were they, and in the company of women.

Women of easy virtue these and of boisterous disposition. Brightly frocked, given to the downing of gin and the employment of fisticuffs and foul language. And such immoderate laughter as to
rattle light bulbs and set upon edge whatever teeth any possessed.

But not all women here were such as they. Others were decent working girls. Those ingénues, poor but honest, clean and well turned out. Girls in service to the houses of the great and the
good. Parlour maids and linen-folders. Respectable spinsters who laundered lavender bags, pampered pillows and fluffed up the muffs of their mistresses. In corsets and bustles, best gloves and
bonnets, out for a night at the Music Hall.

And what a night this would prove to be for those who thronged the foyer upon this summer’s evening. Cooled by conditioned air that wafted from the patent ice grotto, yet warmed by
anticipation for all that lay ahead.

Tonight they would thrill to the best that Music Hall had to offer. The topmost of all top turns. The greatest comics and songsters, dancers and novelty acts of this or any other age. And
topping the topmost of the bill, none other than England’s best-loved entertainer, Mr Harry ‘Hurty-Finger’ Hamilton. Four billings up from the now legendary Travelling Formbys and
three above the remarkable Lovell’s Acrobatic Kiwis, Harry bestrode the London stage as a colossus, admired by men, adored by women. A smile, a song and a damaged digit – how
could it get better than that?

Tonight, Harry, all dapper in tailcoat and topper, would sing his heart out and raise the crowd to a standing ovation. And having done so, he would return to his six-star dressing room to toast
his triumph with champagne and sherbet. In the company of ladies skilled in those arts which amuse men.

Or at least such was his intention.

But even the best of intentions can occasionally come to naught. And tonight things would not go quite as Harry had hoped that they would. Tonight an event would occur at the Electric Alhambra.
An event that was definitely not listed upon the playbill. It would prove to be a tragic and terrible event. The first in a series of tragic and terrible events. Tragic and terrible events that
would threaten not only the Music Hall, but London, the Empire and all of the Solar System.

Tragically.

And terribly.

They would involve, amongst others, a man and a monkey, as can sometimes be the case.

2

In a crowded communal dressing room, which owned to no stars upon its door but an abundance of kiwi birds flopping foolishly about, a man and a
monkey sat and scowled.

Neither was speaking to the other.

That a man might have nothing to say would appear reasonable enough. Most ordinary men have the choice of speaking words when they wish to and withholding them when they do not. But not so
monkeys, which are generally assumed to be wordless, at least in human terms. This, however, was no ordinary man and certainly no ordinary monkey.

The gentleman’s name was Colonel Katterfelto.

The monkey’s name was Darwin.

Now Colonel Katterfelto had a tragic tale to tell and would tell it at the dropping of a sixpence. Late of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers, he had distinguished
himself in the Martian campaign and been awarded several medals for valorous deeds above and beyond the call of duty. Sadly the colonel no longer sported these medals, for he had been forced to
pawn them. He did, however, cling to his dignity, though this was oft-times perilous.

Although age had brought a bow to his back, Colonel Katterfelto still retained his military bearing. The greying whiskers of his mustachios were tinted a steely blue and twisted into martial
spikes. His pale grey eyes were clear and alert, though in them sadness showed.

For the colonel had fallen upon hard times and been reduced to the status of Music Hall bill-bottomer. A precarious position at best and one to be dreaded at worst. The worst being the volatile
crowd’s aptness to greet those first up on the evening’s bill via the medium of hurled rotten fruit and vegetables.

It was a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

But the colonel would give of his best this evening, for he knew of no other way. Had he not laid down fire upon Martian tripods? Rescued wounded comrades-in-arms? Marched across the dusty
landscape of the red planet, letting loose at anything that moved with his back-engineered service ray-gun revolver (which now sadly lay in the pawnshop next to his medals of honour)? Yes he had,
he most certainly had.

A rough crowd held no fear for Colonel Katterfelto, though he fretted for the staining of his uniform. It had been for him a sad and sudden decline into penury and it had not been of his own
making. The colonel knew just where the blame for it lay.

The blame lay with Darwin the monkey.

Darwin the monkey’s tale was equal in sadness to that of the colonel’s. Perhaps more than equal, in fact, because it involved the loss of not one but two
fortunes. And Darwin the monkey had no one to blame but himself.

He had once been employed as monkey butler to Lord Brentford. When his lordship came to a sorry end aboard the ill-fated airship the Empress of Mars, Darwin inherited the Brentford
fortune. The Great House at Sion Park, along with extensive grounds, which Darwin soon converted into England’s biggest banana plantation, and a good many golden guineas besides. Some of
these guineas Darwin had invested most wisely; others most surely he had not.

Upon a May morning in the year of eighteen ninety-six, a gentleman caller at Sion Park had presented his card. Known only as Herr Döktor, he had a unique proposition to put to
England’s most moneyed monkey.

It was Herr Döktor’s conviction that it was possible to teach monkeys to read, write and speak the Queen’s English. This, he considered, would advance their evolutionary
progress, enabling them eventually to catch up with our own. This was not, he was careful to stress, in any way a heretical idea. On the contrary. Herr Döktor was doing God’s
work. His goal was to bring enlightenment and understanding to Man’s hairy cousins, that they might save their souls through knowledge and worship of the Almighty.

Naturally it was difficult to put a price upon the benefits of such an offer. The benefits that would present themselves to the world’s first talking ape. But Herr Döktor was
nonetheless willing to name a sum, which although on the face of it sounded over-excessive to the point of whimsy, he considered suitable. A labourer being worthy of his hire, as the scriptures so
aptly put it.

Darwin, who had a basic understanding of English – for how otherwise might he have served as a monkey butler? – warmed immediately to the prospect of articulating human speech. He
forked out the most considerable sum, in cash (for render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s) and engaged in a six-month programme of intense tutorage.

It was not, however, without incident and Darwin, who had yet to eschew the basic ways of monkeydom, had not been above the occasional flinging of dung to enforce a point when he felt it
necessary.

But he met with success and half a year later had mastered the basic rudiments of the Queen’s English. He then shook hands with Herr Döktor and in all but perfect ‘Man’
thanked him for his lessons and bade him farewell.

Herr Döktor bowed and turned away, struggling down the drive, bow-legged beneath the weight of golden guineas.

Three days later, cleanly shaven of face and presenting himself as an English country gentleman, Darwin settled down before a gaming table at Monte Carlo and within several hours had gambled
away his entire remaining inheritance. Big house, banana plantation, a spaceship and all.

Very sad.

There was probably a moral to be learned there, but whatever it was, it was lost upon Darwin. Who now found himself gifted with speech, though quite without funds.

He could of course have chosen to exhibit himself before a paying public, but this he had no wish to do. Knowing something of the showman’s life, he harboured no longings to be presented
as a freak of nature. Rather he wished for comfort and stability and so chose once more to accept the position of monkey butler. But not, it must be said, without a slight degree of bitterness
towards humankind.

Colonel Katterfelto had, like most gentlemen of his time, always yearned for a monkey butler. A servant who would work for bananas, be ever obedient and not answer back. He had
lately come into an inheritance of his own and this coupled with his army pension, which he chose to take as a cash sum, would, he felt, enable him to achieve his life’s ambition. To build a
certain something, with the aid of a monkey butler.

The certain something that the colonel had in mind was a something of almost infinite magnitude. Its genesis had come about with a book the colonel had read when still a child. A book of
considerable age entitled Treatise upon the Establishment of a New World Order, through the Construction of the New Messiah. As curiosity might have it, and here it might be said that
curiosity was piled upon curiosity to form an all-encompassing coincidence, the author of this ancient tome was one Herr Döktor.

The gist of this treatise was that the New Messiah would not come down in glory from the skies, as was popularly touted about in scripture. The New Messiah would be a modern messiah, behaving in
the ways of modernity. The New Messiah would require a little help from his friends to manifest himself. He would in fact need to be constructed from modern materials. The author argued
convincingly that human anatomy was far too complicated, and that a good engineer could create a man of greater simplicity and greater efficiency. A man that would last far longer than three score
years and ten. A man who might be as a God. Included in the treatise were the plans for such a man. A mechanical man that would be designed as ‘a magical magnet used to attract divine
energies’. A Mechanical Messiah to be imbued with the presence of God. Heaven’s last and best gift to Mankind.

And all it required was finance.

In the communal dressing room, Colonel Katterfelto tapped distractedly upon his ray-gun holster, wherein lay the ancient tome. Somewhat scuffed and charred about its edges. Where had it all gone
wrong? he wondered, and then he recalled well enough.

He had engaged the services of his monkey butler. He had drawn out his fortune from the bank. He had purchased tickets to America, where a family property had been bequeathed to him, and had
sailed upon The Great Eastern2 in the company of Darwin, striking port in New York and heading off to Wormcast, Arizona.

Here, in a simple shack on the edge of town, the colonel had set up his Spiritual Laboratory and begun his Great Work. Things had gone well. Up to a point. The actual construction of the
Mechanical Messiah had been reasonably straightforward. A local blacksmith shop, a light engineering company and an airship construction works had shared in the manufacture of parts. Each working
upon separate, seemingly unrelated items and no one but the colonel knowing of the intended whole. Secrecy, the colonel considered, would be for the best, until the Great Day dawneth. The parts had
been expensive, but how could one place a monetary value upon the salvation of Mankind? It was beyond price.

It took six months to construct the Mechanical Messiah. It took the townsfolk of Wormcast, Arizona, less than an hour to destroy it.

It had all been such a sad misunderstanding. It had all been the fault of Darwin the monkey butler. The colonel had not one inkling as to his servant’s skills in the field of human speech.
And then, upon having made his tenth attempt to bring life to the Mechanical Messiah by drawing into it the electrical ether, in a manner which had hitherto only been attempted (with some success,
it is recorded) by a certain Victor Frankenstein, the misunderstanding had occurred.

The colonel considered that if the lightning rod had been correctly aligned by Darwin, the experiment might well have proved a success. But instead of the lightning darting down the rod to
engage with the terminals upon the shoulders of the Mechanical Messiah, it jumped these terminals and bounced about the Spiritual Laboratory, striking Darwin and setting fire to his tail.

Which caused the monkey to cry out the Name of God’s Son.

Colonel Katterfelto had fallen back in amazement. And then rushed forwards to extinguish his burning butler.

‘It is a miracle,’ cried the colonel. ‘You have become a Vessel of God. The voice of the angels speaks through you.’

Darwin, still smouldering slightly, turned a bitter, although thoughtful, eye upon the colonel.

‘The angels require that you should furnish this vessel with a bunch of bananas and a large gin and tonic,’ he had said. Most eloquently.

And from thereafter all had gone terribly wrong.

The angels made many demands of the colonel. Many demands that did not seem even remotely connected with bringing life to the Mechanical Messiah. Most seemed more directly concerned with the
vessel’s welfare in the form of culinary requirements and bottles of vintage port. At times the colonel questioned these demands.

‘To what end,’ he enquired, ‘did the New Messiah need to have the front garden converted into a banana plantation?’

But who was he to argue with the angels? Who would do such a thing?

The end came swiftly and in the form of fire. Darwin, somewhat bloated of belly from an over-surfeit of bananas and far gone in drink through the imbibition of too much vintage port, had taken
it into his hairy head to borrow the horse and trap (a surrey with a fringe on the top) and drive into town to purchase some chocolates from the general store.

It had been an ill-considered move. For where Colonel Katterfelto discerned the voice of angels speaking through Darwin, the plain folk of Wormcast, Arizona, saw something altogether different.
They saw a demon employed by the Antichrist. For rumours in Wormcast were rife that Colonel Katterfelto was up to something altogether unhealthy at his shack. And this, if proof were needed, was
all the proof there needed to be.

That night the God-fearing folk of Wormcast, Arizona, marched upon the Spiritual Laboratory in the company of blazing torches.

And that was that was that.

The man and his monkey fled Arizona. They returned to London, where Colonel Katterfelto hocked his medals and his ray gun and invested the last of his money in a set of battered clockwork
minstrels.

He was down, was the colonel, but not entirely out. He would rise again. But for now he certainly wasn’t speaking to Darwin, who had remained with the colonel for reasons of his own. And
Darwin was not speaking to him.

So the two sat wordlessly and glowered at one another, as kiwi birds flopped foolishly, and the five-minute bell rang a kind of a death knell in the crowded communal dressing room.

3

An evening at the Music Hall quite suited Cameron Bell. He needed something to exercise his mind. The challenge of another complex criminal case
would have been the first choice of the man known by those in the know to be the world’s greatest detective. But if such was not forthcoming then an evening of frivolous entertainment.
Especially if it came in the comely form of the enchanting Alice Lovell, whose acrobatic kiwi birds were presently causing some annoyance to Colonel Katterfelto.

Cameron Bell was a most private man, and although history would remember him, it would do so under two quite separate names. And neither of these his own. Amongst Cameron’s many friends
was a pair of literary types and each chose to immortalise him in print. Charles Dickens based the look of Mr Pickwick3 upon Cameron Bell. And Arthur Conan Doyle based the skills of Sherlock Holmes upon those of this real-life detective.

Cameron Bell was greatly tickled by his friends’ depictions of him. The only drawback being that folk did tend to stop him in the street to enquire whether they could join The Pickwick
Club, and how was Sam Weller4 doing these days?

Upon this particular evening, this early summer’s evening in July of eighteen ninety-seven, Cameron Bell had chosen to fork out the full half-crown for a box seat near to the Electric
Alhambra’s stage. There were others in that box upon this evening and Mr Bell doffed his silk top hat towards them as he entered and settled into his numbered seat.

These others were Venusians. A male and a female so it seemed, although a debate still raged amongst those who were not in the know, yet wished to be, as to exactly how many sexes Venusians had.
Some said three: male, female and ‘of the spirit’. Others contested that Venusians were trimaphrodite, embodying all three sexes in a single being.

Cameron Bell knew the truth, but this truth he kept to himself. From the corner of his eye he viewed his fellow patrons of this most expensive box. They were certainly magnificent creatures.
Tall and stately, with skin of an ivory paleness. High snowy plumes of hair, teased into intricate spires and intriguing curlicues. Eyes of gold and angled cheekbones. Fingers delicate and fine.
They exuded a subtle perfume. Artificial? Or bodily odour? Cameron Bell did not know that.

The Venusians spoke one to another in hushed tones, and in their native tongue. The meaning of their words was lost to Cameron Bell. For although he had made numerous attempts to learn Venusian
– no simple matter, as Venusians were not at all forthcoming – he had concluded that without the aid of a willing tutor, the task was nigh impossible.

Why, it would be easier to teach a monkey to speak the Queen’s English. And such an idea as that was clearly ludicrous!

The most private of private detectives placed his silk top hat between his feet and divested himself of his white kid gloves. Perching his pince-nez upon his nose, he gazed out across the
brightly lit auditorium. And certain words which he had recently read in The Times Society column returned to him. He tended to share the columnist’s opinion: the interior of the
Electric Alhambra was really much too much.

The ceiling, so very high above, beyond the six tiers of balcony seats, was frescoed in the style of Michelangelo. With Queen Victoria, the Royal Sovereign, pictured as Empress of the Solar
System, throned in glory and presiding benignly over her realm. Her subjects, of every colour, race and hue, including some that looked suspiciously Venusian in origin, knelt before her, gazing up
in adoration. Cherubim and seraphim fussed and fluttered around and about, smiling with love upon Her Majesty.

The walls that climbed to meet this travesty of Renaissance genius were of the rococo persuasion. Fussed and made fancy with a frenzy of gilded ornamentation. Fairies and phantoms, satyrs and
sprites, fabulous figures and mythical heroes, scrambling over one another. As if seeking to reach, and no doubt offer praise, to the Queen Empress Goddess on high.

But at least those who were made giddy from the gazing upwards did so in a cool and healthy climate. For the temperature and quality of the air was managed by intricate electrical systems,
pneumatic, hydrostatic, magnetical and hydraulic in nature. Driven through the patent ice grotto and all linked to a self-governing nexus designed by Sir Charles Babbage.

No matter one’s feelings for this Music Hall’s aesthetic, it truly was a marvel of the modern age.

Mr Cameron Bell leaned back in his plush red-velvet-covered chair, delighting momentarily at simply being here and taking in the din of the restless crowd.

Raucous cries and cockney oaths and all over general hubbub.

Then—

The dimming of the house lights, the crowd noise gone to murmurs, now to silence.

Then—

The striking up of the band. Tonight the world-famous Titurel de Schentefleur would conduct Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians. A single tap of the baton and the overture began.

This overture consisted of several popular Music Hall songs of the day and the crowd enthusiastically sang along with these.

The first to have the patrons in full voice was Tommy ‘the Teapot’ Tompkinson’s famous audience-pleaser, ‘A Nice Cup of Tea for the Baby Girl’.

Which went after this fashion:

A nice cup of tea for the baby girl

It don’t get better than that.

You can keep all those gents

With their sweet-smelling scents,

Those toffs in their toppers

And fine opera hats

Because my wife’s a regular diamond

She’s pure as an emerald or pearl.

If I’m down on my uppers

I’m still brewing cuppas

For my sweet baby girl.

A time would come in the future when folk would look back upon lyrics such as these and say, ‘They don’t write songs like that any more.’ And they would clearly be
right.

Cameron Bell sang what words he knew and hummed along with the rest. He had a good view of the mechanical musicians. Scarcely manlike, more a number of mahogany cases filled with complicated
gubbins that squeezed bellows to power the woodwind section, or drew complex bows across curious violins. It was said that a professor from Brentford in Middlesex was working on a more compact
system, which might be installed in drinking houses for their patrons to sing along with. But whether anything would come of Professor Karaoke’s musical machine was anybody’s guess.

The first song came to an end and the second began. A sad one, this, as could tease a tear from the eye of a potato. The plaintive ballad that was ‘Me Mammy’s Wooden Foot’. A
song of maternal love and accidental amputation.

And so it went on, but not for too long. The secret has always been knowing when to stop, and when faced with a crowd armed with rotten fruit and veg, it is better to err upon the side of
caution.

Titurel de Schentefleur turned and bowed to the audience and then he and Mazael’s Mechanical Musicians descended at speed beneath the floor of the auditorium via a system of hidden
hydraulics. Doors closed over the orchestra pit. A spotlight stabbed at the stage. Struck the great curtain to form an illuminated disc.

And into this swaggered the master of ceremonies and interlocutor for the evening, ‘Lord’ Anthony Spaloney (the King of the old Baloney). In turquoise tailcoat and topper, he cut a
considerable dash. The crowd cheered as he bowed extravagantly towards them, before, as he put it, ‘enunciating the gamut of delicious delectations that would gloriously grace the stage upon
this eventime’.

And as no one as yet had thrown anything, he went on to speak of tonight’s star ‘turns’. He showered syllables of sophistry upon the skills of the Scandinavian Saxophonists.
Poured paeans of praise over Peter Pinkerton, the Piebald Prestidigitator. Eloquently extolled the exceeding excellence o