It wasn’t a day that I expected to lead to a web of mayhem and intrigue. I had anticipated a most interesting discussion that I would skilfully craft into an excellent article. For today was the day when I – Dennis Brent – would interview Pip and Jane Baker for a Pip and Jane Baker special edition of Mucky Devastation. Always keen to chat with Pip and Jane Baker I was delighted to be chosen to interview Pip and Jane Baker for the Pip and Jane Baker edition of the journal. I had mentioned to Wicks and Grantham that I would be interviewing Pip and Jane Baker and they had taken my Pip and Jane Baker news very well. That is to say they had seethed with jealousy that I was going to meet Pip and Jane Baker and they would not be meeting Pip and Jane Baker. So when it came round to Pip and Jane Baker Day (as I had dubbed the day on which I would meet Pip and Jane Baker) I had built them into an envious frenzy. Ian Devine on the other hand kept muttering something about someone called Robert Williams and how this Williams fellow was more than a match for Pip and Jane Baker when it came to name dropping and celebrity encounters. I ignored this as the ramblings of a man who is desperate to meet Pip and Jane Baker but who has never been given the chance to meet Pip and Jane Baker. He is, in that regard and few others, exactly the same as every other member of the human race. I put my Pip and Jane Baker notepad (bought especially for my meeting with Pip and Jane Baker) into my sensible satchel (not bought especially for my meeting with Pip and Jane Baker but chosen from my collection of satchels for its impressive sensibleness) and said goodbye to William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall. I had been telling them that I was going to meet Pip and Jane Baker and that their time in “Doctor Who” would have benefited greatly from working with Pip and Jane Baker during their youthful rebellion period. I made a note in my Pip and Jane Baker notepad to ask them about their revolutionary phase in the nineteen-sixties. I left a message on my telephone answering machine to explain that I was going to interview Pip and Jane Baker and that any urgent messages should be forwarded to Pip and Jane Baker’s house.

Wicks had parked his automobile on my drive and offered to give me a lift to Pip and Jane Baker’s house.

“Sorry Wicks but I’m not falling for that trick” I said wittily. “You’re not going to meet Pip and Jane Baker and that’s that.”

“I don’t want to meet Pip and Jane Baker” explained Wicks, “I only want to help. Honest.”

I was moved by this obviously genuine show of emotion and was about to get into Wicks’ car when Grantham pulled up.

“Dennis Brent” he began, “Do you require a lift anywhere?”

“I’m going to meet Pip and Jane Baker today” I told him. “And I do not require transport to Pip and Jane Baker’s house.”

“It seems a shame to have wasted the journey here” said Grantham.

“I was here first” replied Wicks.

“Well I’ve got a better car” retorted Grantham. His was indeed a superior automobile – one might almost describe his as a Mark IV <g>

“You two gentlemen are too late – Miss Bobbins volunteered to take me to Pip and Jane Baker’s house yesterday.” I walked over to Miss Bobbins’ custard coloured Nissan Micra and squeezed into the passenger seat. I saw Wicks and Grantham fume as we pulled away from them.

“Woooooooo – where are we going a-to Dennis Brent?” she coo-ed.

“To Castle Baker” I joked. We had, in truth, discussed the fascinating technical details of Pip and Jane Baker’s career the night before and I was confident that her altered mental state wouldn’t in any way affect her ability to drive me to Pip and Jane Baker’s house. I took the time to review the nine hundred and four questions I had sketched out to ask Pip and Jane Baker during my interview with Pip and Jane Baker. They ranged from the jocular,

“Which of you is Pip and which is Jane?”

to the fascinatingly technical,

“How many adjectives would you say you use in an average twenty four minutes of television?”

My interview with Pip and Jane Baker was going to be a classic. I could feel it in my bones. I looked in the mirror and saw Wicks and Grantham following us. Dash them and all their cunning. I told Miss Bobbins to put her foot down and she did. Unfortunately she put it on the brake and we slammed to a halt.

“Wooooo – Flicky mixed her left and right again. Bad Flicky.”

“That wasn’t a very sensible thing to do” I told her sternly.

“Spank Flicky?”

“What an absurd suggestion. Start the car and take me to The Baker Residence or I’ll be late.”

We sped off and managed to out-distance Wicks and Grantham by some yards. I imagined the looks of disappointment on their faces when they realised I had outsmarted them and that Pip and Jane Baker were mine, all mine. I was well aware that Grantham was hoping to interview Pip and Jane Baker for his “Time and Face” journal while Wicks wanted the article for “Horny Nimon” but “Mucky Devastation” would be triumphant or my name wasn’t Dennis Brent.

We pulled up at a considerable house and got out. I reminded Miss Bobbins that the Pip and Jane Baker exclusive was mine and mine alone and that she should wait in her custard coloured Micra for my return. She reluctantly went and sat down. I knocked on the door and a butler answered.

“Yes?” he said with sensible disdain.

“I’m here to speak to Mr and Mrs Baker” I said formally. He stepped to one side and Mr Baker approached me.

“You’re Dennis Brent” said Tom Baker. “I’ve read some of the things you’ve said about me and I’m going to punch you till you bleed.”