Lister frowned as he pulled out the one and only edition of 'Everything You
Ever Wanted To Know About Clocks' from the manual library in the Drive
Room.
"Is this a joke, Hol?" He smirked. "What kind of sad excuse for a man would write a book like this?" Turning the book over and reading its spine he almost choked with laughter. "You are taking the SMEG! Holly?"
"Yes Dave." Holly answered, sounded detached from the conversation.
"Was there actually a man called Tim E. Piece?" Lister snorted in amusement.
"Yeah." Holly scrunched up his face. "Born Titus Luton-Gatwick into a family of pilots. Wanted out of the aeronautical field, so he opened the clock shop on floor 16 and changed his name. Slightly eccentric bloke..."
His slow nature taking advantage of the situation, Lister blinked. "There was never a clock shop on floor 16."
"It was two doors down from the pub, Dave."
"Oh." Lister nodded. That explained it. He was barely sober by the time he got to the pub; anywhere beyond the appropriately named 'Slaughter House' was uncharted territory as far as he was concerned. "What are you DOING?" Lister made a face as he noticed what Holly was doing.
"Nothing." Holly continued to contort his face into as many uncomfortable- looking shapes as possible.
"Nice try. What's the problem?" Lister gritted his teeth as he watched Holly smash his pixilated countenance into the restraining walls of his computer screen.
"NOTH-ING." Holly looked as though he was having a seizure.
Lister folded his arms and tapped his foot. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way!" Taking a deep breath he burst into what can only be described as 'song', in its broadest definition. "May-beeee, you're gonna be the one that saves meeeee..."
"Maybe I'll suck the oxygen out of this room of you don't shut up. Then we'll discuss who, if anyone, is gonna save you." Holly muttered under his breath before bashing his head against the screen again, this time making a noise. "Neeurgh!"
Lister opened his mouth to sing the next line, not even remotely concerned about Holly's threat. "And-"
"Alright!" Holly bellowed, continuing to knock himself around the screen like a rogue ping-pong ball. "If you must know, which apparently you MUST - MY. NOSE. ITCHES." He whacked his nose into the side of the computer screen on each syllable.
Lister watched in amazement as this giant entity with an IQ alleged to be 6000 darted around every screen in the Drive Room in a manner, which, quite frankly, made him feel thoroughly nauseous.
Raising two fingers to his temple, he gave Holly an awkward salute, leaving the Drive Room as quickly as possible.
Apparently the clocks were not the only inanimate entities on board Red Dwarf affected by three million years worth of radiation.
***
Blowing a thick layer of dust from the top of the book, Lister flopped onto the floor in the corridor outside of the Drive Room. Although the sounds coming from the rest of the ship were loud enough to drown out the noise of Holly bouncing around his screen, it was not quite loud enough to conceal his usage of every curse word known between here and the other six known universes.
Lister cringed, and stuck his fingers in his ears, turning the book's dusty pages with his teeth.
'Everything you ever wanted to know about time, but were too afraid to ask..." The book said.
Lister snorted. "Afraid to ask? Only because you'd get beaten up!" He laughed again as his skim-read through chunky lumps of text, picking up only on stupid subheadings such as 'The correct way to watch a watch' and 'Party games involving clocks'.
Three hours and seventeen minutes later, Lister was just reaching the last page.
His brain numbed long ago by the sheer tragedy of the book's existence, he had continued to read in great depth. This strange 'interest' in what the rest of the book had to say was triggered by severe disappointment (and definite trauma) experienced after finding page three of the book bearing a large colour photograph of the author's sixty-something-or-other year old wife who was stark naked except for the horrendously undersized clock covering her overly-ample frame.
A pained groan escaped Lister's throat.
Having read his way through god-knows-how-many pages of utter tripe he was STILL in the dark as to how one went about fixing a clock. Although the brand and make of clocks aboard Red Dwarf were mentioned frequently in the book, there was no mention as to what to do if they conked out. Everything else you could ever desire, or not, to know was in there. HOW was it possible that the most obvious thing had been missed out?
Another pained groan rose up Lister's windpipe as he read the final footnote at very end of the book. In typewritten print and on a crumpled piece of paper stapled into the spine of the book, it looked as though it had been added as an afterthought.
'Warning - Fixing clocks should not be attempted by amateurs, and therefore a section on 'healing time' has been omitted from the final published edition. Should you be in possession of a broken clock or timepiece, visit TimEPieces on floor 16 (two doors down from the Slaughter House."
Placing the book on the floor in a dignified manner, Lister gritted his teeth and hoisted himself up from the floor. He glared down at the thick publication, his eyes glinting madly.
"ARRRRRRRRRGH!" He roared, leaping up and down onto the accumulated sheets of tree pulp, stamping madly in a manner that could only be compared to an elephant attempting Riverdance.
His lips curved upwards.
That felt much better.
"Is this a joke, Hol?" He smirked. "What kind of sad excuse for a man would write a book like this?" Turning the book over and reading its spine he almost choked with laughter. "You are taking the SMEG! Holly?"
"Yes Dave." Holly answered, sounded detached from the conversation.
"Was there actually a man called Tim E. Piece?" Lister snorted in amusement.
"Yeah." Holly scrunched up his face. "Born Titus Luton-Gatwick into a family of pilots. Wanted out of the aeronautical field, so he opened the clock shop on floor 16 and changed his name. Slightly eccentric bloke..."
His slow nature taking advantage of the situation, Lister blinked. "There was never a clock shop on floor 16."
"It was two doors down from the pub, Dave."
"Oh." Lister nodded. That explained it. He was barely sober by the time he got to the pub; anywhere beyond the appropriately named 'Slaughter House' was uncharted territory as far as he was concerned. "What are you DOING?" Lister made a face as he noticed what Holly was doing.
"Nothing." Holly continued to contort his face into as many uncomfortable- looking shapes as possible.
"Nice try. What's the problem?" Lister gritted his teeth as he watched Holly smash his pixilated countenance into the restraining walls of his computer screen.
"NOTH-ING." Holly looked as though he was having a seizure.
Lister folded his arms and tapped his foot. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way!" Taking a deep breath he burst into what can only be described as 'song', in its broadest definition. "May-beeee, you're gonna be the one that saves meeeee..."
"Maybe I'll suck the oxygen out of this room of you don't shut up. Then we'll discuss who, if anyone, is gonna save you." Holly muttered under his breath before bashing his head against the screen again, this time making a noise. "Neeurgh!"
Lister opened his mouth to sing the next line, not even remotely concerned about Holly's threat. "And-"
"Alright!" Holly bellowed, continuing to knock himself around the screen like a rogue ping-pong ball. "If you must know, which apparently you MUST - MY. NOSE. ITCHES." He whacked his nose into the side of the computer screen on each syllable.
Lister watched in amazement as this giant entity with an IQ alleged to be 6000 darted around every screen in the Drive Room in a manner, which, quite frankly, made him feel thoroughly nauseous.
Raising two fingers to his temple, he gave Holly an awkward salute, leaving the Drive Room as quickly as possible.
Apparently the clocks were not the only inanimate entities on board Red Dwarf affected by three million years worth of radiation.
***
Blowing a thick layer of dust from the top of the book, Lister flopped onto the floor in the corridor outside of the Drive Room. Although the sounds coming from the rest of the ship were loud enough to drown out the noise of Holly bouncing around his screen, it was not quite loud enough to conceal his usage of every curse word known between here and the other six known universes.
Lister cringed, and stuck his fingers in his ears, turning the book's dusty pages with his teeth.
'Everything you ever wanted to know about time, but were too afraid to ask..." The book said.
Lister snorted. "Afraid to ask? Only because you'd get beaten up!" He laughed again as his skim-read through chunky lumps of text, picking up only on stupid subheadings such as 'The correct way to watch a watch' and 'Party games involving clocks'.
Three hours and seventeen minutes later, Lister was just reaching the last page.
His brain numbed long ago by the sheer tragedy of the book's existence, he had continued to read in great depth. This strange 'interest' in what the rest of the book had to say was triggered by severe disappointment (and definite trauma) experienced after finding page three of the book bearing a large colour photograph of the author's sixty-something-or-other year old wife who was stark naked except for the horrendously undersized clock covering her overly-ample frame.
A pained groan escaped Lister's throat.
Having read his way through god-knows-how-many pages of utter tripe he was STILL in the dark as to how one went about fixing a clock. Although the brand and make of clocks aboard Red Dwarf were mentioned frequently in the book, there was no mention as to what to do if they conked out. Everything else you could ever desire, or not, to know was in there. HOW was it possible that the most obvious thing had been missed out?
Another pained groan rose up Lister's windpipe as he read the final footnote at very end of the book. In typewritten print and on a crumpled piece of paper stapled into the spine of the book, it looked as though it had been added as an afterthought.
'Warning - Fixing clocks should not be attempted by amateurs, and therefore a section on 'healing time' has been omitted from the final published edition. Should you be in possession of a broken clock or timepiece, visit TimEPieces on floor 16 (two doors down from the Slaughter House."
Placing the book on the floor in a dignified manner, Lister gritted his teeth and hoisted himself up from the floor. He glared down at the thick publication, his eyes glinting madly.
"ARRRRRRRRRGH!" He roared, leaping up and down onto the accumulated sheets of tree pulp, stamping madly in a manner that could only be compared to an elephant attempting Riverdance.
His lips curved upwards.
That felt much better.
