The Time Team - Week Four

"I'm not coming in unless you swear one of you lives here" warned Clayton as he stood at Carol's palatial door. The winds roared over the hills and the ghosts kept knocking his hat off.

"It's perfectly safe" she insisted. "I've even tied the goat to a pole."

"I'm not actually a pole" shouted Lissa from the kitchen, "I just hang around here an awful lot."

"And you promise you will talk about Marco Polo?"

"Absolutely - Brownie's honour."

"Right." Clayton walked through the gothic corridors, pausing for a moment to stare at a statue of the Earth Goddess Gaea.

"Benny said he'd bring a crate of Bacardi Breezers - that's the main reason we gave him the address."

"Does anyone want to see my new shoes ?" asked Hetty.

"Very nice" mumbled the others, looking at their various watches and hoping the booze would appear soon.

"They've got little pixies on them and everything."

Before violence could take hold, happy-go-lucky barman Bennydave Summerfield-Lewis arrived, carrying a gaily coloured box.

"These are the latest craze at the Griffin" he announced. "They look and taste like Alco pops but are alcohol free - they're called Bacardi Teezers."

"Why are they so popular ?"

"People can drink more of them before they fall over."

"So they still make people fall over then ?" asked Lissa hopefully.

"You'd fall over after eight gallons of fizzy cranberry juice."

"You know me so well."

"Can we start listening to the CDs now ?" asked Clay, his life flashing before his eyes.

"We were up to Survival part two weren't we ?" asked Benny.

"Nice try."

"Hmph."

"I think it's a brave piece of ahead-of-its-time drama" piped Lissa.

"That's what you've said about every episode so far" roared Clay.

"I think they're all brave pieces of ahead-of-their-time drama" she mumbled. Her downcast eyes studied her shoes for a moment before realising that studying Hetty's shoes would be more fun.

"Well" began Benny, consulting an extravagant note book, "I've jotted a few thoughts down."

"Excellent" gasped Clayton. He had decided that Benny was the sensible one of the team.

"One, I don't want to listen to three hours of people talking about caravans. Two, how comes Tegan was played by a bloke here but by Logopolis he's become a rather wooden Sapphist? Three, it's never explained how Mark O'Polo ended up so far from his native Ireland so I can't give this story any more than six out of twelve on the Bennyometer."

"Hmm" sighed Clayton. He half-heartedly wrote something in his book about the team comparing the serial's portrayal of foreign characters with the efforts of season eighteen but even he knew he couldn't knock that up into two thousand words of sparkling prose. Gary Gillatt or no Gary Gillatt.

"I've got some good news and some bad news" announced Carol, returning from the kitchen with a rosy hue about her cheeks. "The good news is that the tofu surprise is ready."

"Yay" cheered the team, none of them entirely sure what tofu surprise was.

"The bad news is that Baboonshka has eaten the Marco Polo CDs."

"WHAT ?" bellowed Clayton.

"I think he enjoyed them" muttered Carol.

"Did he mention whether it was a brave piece of ahead-of-its-time drama ?" asked Benny.

"ARGHHHHHHHHHH" screamed Clay. He began to pound the floor in frustration.

"What's up with him ?" asked Hetty.

"I hear Dennis Brent submitted a seventy page article about the Planet of Evil camera script. Chapter four - 'The coffee cup stain on page twelve' - is supposed to be enough to make a grown man cry."

"Poor dear" said Carol, clutching Clay to her bosom. Seeing this, Lissa made a feeble attempt to squeeze some tears from her eyes.

"Boo hoo" she said with as much of a tremble as she could muster.

"Same time next month ?" asked Benny, anxious to get somewhere with actual alcohol.

"Sounds good"

"Don't see why not"

"Over my dead (sob) body"

"I'll look forward to it" came the replies.

At that moment, desperate for a cliff-hanger, Baboonshka entered the living room, eyes glowing, and declared "We play the contest again Time Team..."

(fade to black)

NEXT EPISODE "THE TRAITOROUS JOURNEY"