"So Sir Sefton you see why we have come to seek your aid?" the great detective asked, tapping out the dottle of his pipe into the fire place.

Returning the pipe to his pocket and lighting a fragrant Egyptian oval from the gas mantle Holmes continued "As I have often said 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left no matter how improbable must be the truth' and this is a mystery that extends beyond the realm of a investigator bound by the conventional rules of time and space."

"Oui" the dapper Belgian added from his place in the comfortable armchair by the fire at Brake's Sporting Club Square apartments " My little grey cells have exhausted themselves pondering the mystery of the tardy suitcases, I agree with mon ami Holmes."

The metatemporal detective looked up from the steepled fingers before his nose "And added to this we have the mystery of how Mr Philip Harlow, the Essex detective, has seemingly vanished from this plane of existence, while staking out the culprits at Essex's Bumsted Airport. An intriguing case gentlemen. I find a mystery hard to resist and this is truely, to paraphrase Mr Churchill, a mystery, wrapped within a conundrum deep inside an enigma."

With the speed of a coiled cobra Brake was out the chair and by the door, with his hat, coat and stick "make haste gentlemen, there is no time to lose, as you say Mr Holmes, the game,s afoot."

No not the song by the late Bobby Boris Pickett and the Cryptkickers, but a restaurant in Edinburgh (4a Forest Road) that specialises in bangers and mash.

The food is quitetraditional sausages and mash, shephers pie, fish and chips, pie and chips etc. and in line with the cuisine the restaurant has a 50s retro look with bottles of HP sauce and a squeezy tomato full of ketchup on each formica topped table.

Not bad value for £7.95 you get two sausages from a choice of pork, veggie or special of the day (there was springbok and wild game when we visited), plus a heap of mash (plain, mustard, champ or mash of the day -Tandouri) and gravy (mustard or caramalised onion) I had the spingbok sausages with champ mash and the onion gravy. The sausages were quite firm and meaty, but sadly let down by the gravy which was very thin and watery, the mash not exceptional, but then I'm still traumatised by being forced to eat mash every day at school 40 odd years on.

Deserts include sponge pudding and deep fried ice cream, well it is Scotland after all.

"Sacre Bleu!" the dapper Belgian detective exclaimed.

"This case has exercised my little grey cells as no other has before." he added as he twisted the point on his elegantly waxed moustache.

"What is it Piererott?" I asked.

"This mystery of the tardy baggage, Capitan Broadstairs, a mystery so profound it has puzzled many men, some even better than my insignifcant self, since the begining of air travel."

"You see the plane arrived ten minutes early, yet over an hour later the passengers have still not been reunited with their property nes pas, the plane was unloaded and packed for the next flight, the flight departs but still no baggage at the carousel"

"So I take it the baggage must have just been sitting around in plain view all the time?"

"Precisely my dear Broadstairs this is what makes the case so baffling"

What a fab idea, A Viking ship followed by costumed warriors, a pipe band and thousands of people bearing flaming torches leave from the Kirk of St Giles in Edinburgh's Royal Mile to parade up Princes Street to Carlton Hill for ritual burning of said ship and a wicker effigy of a stag to the sound of frantic drumming.

At one point from where we were the centre of Edinburgh was illuminated by a river of moving flame.

All very pagan, What would Pope Benedict say?

"It was coming up to 1.15 in the afternoon on one of those pin sharp icy cold days in December. The kind of day that makes a brass monkey look out the window and head back under the duvet shivering. The Sun glinted of the glass from the terminal building as I slipped the big Studebaker in, somewhere it would never be seen, in between the baggage carts and fuel trucks at Essex's Bumsted Airport.

Pulling the brim of my Fedora down over my eyes, I reached for the pack of Luckies on the dash and tapped out the last butt. Crumpling the pack I cast it out of the car window and struck a vesta on the dash to light my smoke. As I drew the rich satisfying smoke into my lungs I thought back to my interview with the Fat Man, just days earlier.

"I understand you are some kind of hot shot gumshoe about these parts, yeah" he wheezed, mopping the sweat from his brow with a spotted kerchief.

I nodded in accordance, taking a slug from my glass of Bourbon and water.

"You seez we need a guy, yeah, the kinda guy who can keepa secret, the kinda guy who can root out why it takes over an hour to deliver just one plane load of luggage to reclaim when the plane arrives 10 minutes early."

I saw an interesting story in the Torygraph today.

Pope Benedict is so very concerned that we are all being turned into devil worshippers by Rock music, the media and the web that he has decided to appoint exorcists to every RC diocese According to 82 year old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's Exorcist in Chief, these diocesian Devil Busters will tackle "Extreme Godlessness.

"At last we have a pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on", said Father Amorth.

Frankly I think this fellow must have read too many of those Dennis Wheatley paperbacks from the charity shop, but watch out you pagan folk out there in Blogland, if a stranger dressed in black asks you if you fancy going for a paddle in the duck pond - run fast, very, very fast!

So if there's something strange,

In the neighbourhood,

Who ya gonna call?

Beelzebub Busters!

More of the same old people getting gongs for being mates with the establishment. I see Parky gets to be called Sir for going on about how they don't make movies like they used to when I were a lad and modern music being rubbish. Kylie gets an OBE for having a nice arse.

Good to Ian Anderson gets something at last but isn't it time people like Ozzy and Lemmy got gongs for still being alive?

No they are fall apart on the very first day you wear them M & S Jeans.

Oh and does the stiching around the fly unravel at home? Oh no on a bloody flight to Edinburgh that's where.

Grrrrrrr

Had an e-mail at last from the baggage handling firm that likes to boast that it treats its customers, passengers and staff with respect which said

Dear Cook

I have been forwarded your email of 21 December below, and whilst I appreciate your frustration I would like to let you know that I did in fact write an acknowledgement to you on the 19 December advising that I will look into the events you describe and reply once I have the information I require. That the letter hadn’t reached you by the 21st is unfortunate, but that is not under my direct control.

I can assure you that I take all complaints such as yours seriously and all are investigated and replied to. I will be back in touch in the next few days.

The question is why when dealing with an irate customer who has e-mailed them a complaint they chose to acknowledge it by posting a letter at Royal Mail's busiest time of year and then blame them for me not receiving it, when they had my e-mail address in the first place.

Now what's happening with this investigation

It was the week before Christmas and wisps of fog were wreathing round the alleys of London. With Mrs Watson being away visiting family in Warwickshire, I had chosen to stay with my old friend and colleague, the famous consulting detective Mr Sherlock Holmes at his apartments in Baker Street. It was growing dark when a solitary Hanson cab pulled up outside, discharged its passenger and a slow heavy footstep was to heard crunching through the snow from the street below.

Lowering his copy of The London Illustrated News and motioning towards the window with the stem of his Church Warden, the great detective exclaimed "Ah Watson that will be our client now. Mrs Hudson the door if you please."

"My God Holmes, how can you tell!" I riposted.

"Well he's an hour late for a start!"

The crew were sitting round the living room after a slap up festive feast.

"Anything good on the Telly?" asked Master Surgeon Tripe helping himself to another mince pie and a glass of grog.

"God its all shit!" exclaimed Spudsey bear mixing himself another Newcastle Brown Martini.

"Yeah, but have you seem what's on the Surrealist Channel, said Saucy Wench Tartarre, pointing to the entry ringed in red biro from the Multiverse edition of TV Quick

"What Eastenders Special Christmas Edition", grumbled Bosun Gravy "Do me a favour - Everyone in Walford is miserable beacuse its Walford and the anniversary of some totally predictable murders and family break ups. Glumness ensues with a couple of predictable murders and the rest of the cast, including yet more relatives of the Mitchels and Slaters that no one has ever heard or seen of before, (played by familiar sitcom actors)get banged up in the nick, with a script by Albert Camus and music by Leonard Cohen and Coldplay?"

"No that's the Existentialist Pessimist Channel, I meant this one here, see", she said flipping over a page "Franz Kafka's Its a Wonderful Life the seasonal heartwarming tale of a simple chap (James Stewart) who comes home to his family at Christmas only to find that he is turning into a giant cockroach."

"OK" Cook agreed, "but only so long as I can set the video to record the finale of X-The Unknown Factor, its in black and white, but all the contestants and the judges get eaten by a huge extra-terrestrial jelly (Obscure 1950s Hammer Films reference) that then chokes on Simon Cowell's ego and dies."

Well I'm now into my fourth day of medication and I think it must be working a bit. Aside from being a walking rapid urine distillery I don't feel quite as bad tempered as I have done lately. I even used the underground today without swearing. I do seem to be very tired though and my knee is busy throbbing away.

London doesn't seem that busy compared with previous years, although when I saw the queue at the cashdesk in Oxford Street's Waterstones I thought better of looking for something to read on the way home.

When I got into work some of the shops were not even open and even at lunchtime there were not that many people about. I guess that's either because people are shopping on-line (I did most of mine like that) or have started their breaks early.

I kind of feel that its a waste of precious holiday time to be away from Weird Inc at this time of year though as most of the guvnors are away, and this means I can shift a whole bunch of work without the petty workplace politics that goes with it. As it goes I generally feel that a managers holiday is almost as good as having one of your own.

As it turned out only my best work buddy Wild Bill Jim Lad was in today, so I had a chat with him about my hypertension when I turned down his kind offer of a morning coffee, he does make brilliant coffee does Wild Bill, still he is a good lad and made me a cup of tea instead.

Anyway I'm off to watch Johnny Depp be all piratey, so have a very good Christmas one and all, whatever you believe.

This is a must have book for anyone into military history or aviation, well any big boy really. White tells the story of how the RAF launched one of the most ambitious bombing raids ever to disable the landing strip at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

The book provides enough background information about the Argentine invasion of the Falklands (following Thatcher's decision to leave them virtually undefended) to set the raid into context, together with details about the Vulcan bomber and the often forgotton Victor tankers, that carried out 17 in-flight refuellings to get the lone Vulcan to its target 4,000 miles away from its base at Ascension Island to Port Stanley and back. The preparation for the mission is counted down and followed by a blow by blow account of the raid told from the perspective of the the Vulcan and Victor aircrew.

Real life adventure that is also recomended by Jeremy Clarkson, what more could you want?

I discovered these marvelous little packs of four finger length chorizos (Espana brand) in Sainsburys the other day and it reminded me of a dish I'd had in Spain that combined chorizo and black pudding. So this feeds four hungry hungover pirates.

Pour a little olive oil in a frying pan and add a couple of cloves of sliced garlic. Take a black pudding, (I found I nice fat Irish one in Morrisons and its definately worth looking for a good black pud) and cut it into slices and chuck it in the pan. Slice up eight Espana chorizo chuck em in.

Let the sausages fry off for a bit making sure to flip over the black pud. Open and rinse a can of canelli beans chuck em in and make a basic tomato sauce from a can of tomato puree and a good glass of dry sherry and a little water. Bung that in and give it a stir. While the suace cooks in make some toast and put four good sized eggs on to fry.

Slap the toast on a plate, give it a smear of marge, dump a good helping of the Chorizo, black pud and beans on top, then top it off with the fried egg.

Ole!

Well yesterday was quite fun seeing the Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum and having a jolly nice lunch at the Spaghetti House in Sicilian Avenue, (about £70 for four pasta dishes, two cheese boards, two deserts and a carafe of house red) followed by a coffee at Carluccio's in the Brunswick Centre again very nice even with the dreadfully slow service.

I was impressed by the technology of the Chinese crossbow used by the First Emperor's Army, which for 200 BC was quite remarkable. Each crossbow had a mass produced cast bronze trigger unit, that if broken could be easily swapped for another one. This idea of interchageable parts didn't get to the west until much later

My hypertension medication seems to kicking in a bit now. I am feeling a bit better and less tired which is good, cos instead of falling asleep in the car on the way home, I got to enjoy the wonderfull taste exhibited by the good folk of Essex who festoon their houses with Christmas lights.

Aside from the usual gardens full of herds of illuminated reindeer, neon Santas and waterfalls of twinkling lights there was a fucking enormous inflatable robin nailed above someone's door and one house that must have had more penguins in their garden than live on the Falkland Islands.

Some of the houses had flshing lights inside as well, I guess the people who live in them must curl up in front of the telly for Christmas and have a huge epileptic fit until Twelfth Night.

Still no reponse to my e-mail to Swissport, the company that treats its customers, passengers and staff with respect, about their appalling failiure to deliver our baggage at Stansted Airport on Sunday, so I wrote them another e-mail:

Dear Swissport

I still have not had a reply let alone an acknowledgement of the attached e-mail I sent to you on Sunday December 16. Now in my book that is just plain rude.

Lots of Love

Cook

Well I may have made the lots of love bit up.

Went to the Dr this morning about my knee.

"Are you NHS or private?" he said

"Whats the difference?" I replied

"Well on the NHS I take you out to my shed saw it off with my Spear and Jackson and then give you a perscription for a box of Elastoplast and a disprin, while private means we refer you to a specialist who has you untra sounded, X-rayed and stuck in the big white magic donut only to tell you give a it a while and it will get better on its own."

In reality thanks to a routine blood pressure test I have been diagnosed as being hypertensive and given tablets to bring the pressure down.

Bit bummed out about that.

when I hobbled past University College Hospital this morning they were filling drums with liquid nitrogen from a BOC tanker on the pavement.

After my first day back at Weird Inc since hurting my knee again, I am after what I thought was a promissing start, really sore. Still I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. Will see where we go.

Well two days after I e-mail Swissport about their appalingly bad customer service what have I heard back from the company that likes to say it "treats people with respect" and "cares about its customers, passengers and staff" precisely sod all, not even an acknowledgement of recieving my e-mail. Frankly I think that is just plain rude.

I think this goes to prove that to the people who run Britain's airports, us the travelling public are just a commodity to be processed through a series of queues, until funnelled into an overpriced shopping mall where we are expected to pump up their profits buying stuff we don't need out of sheer boredom.

Imagine my surprise as the front door exploded in a blaze of white light. It was Dalek Sek.

"Morning Postie" I uttered as he trundled in "How are you?"

"Mustn't grumble." he replied swivelling his eye stalk towards me "Special delivery, sign here. Obey"

"Doing anything nice for Christmas?" I asked.

"I was hoping to go home to Skaro, but the baggage handlers at Davros Intergalactic are on strike and my daughter Dalek Gillian is on Mondas with that no good Ice Warrior boyfriend of hers"

"Oh dear Postie, sorry to hear that, what are you going to do then?"

"Exterminate them, but I can't stand here gassing with you Dalek Ken is in the van with the motor running and its bad for the environment"

As he left I ripped open the wrapper to find my copy of Planet of the Apes TV Quick, "Hmm whats on tonight?" I wondered.

7.00... Holiday General Ursus goes pony trekking in the Forbidden Zone while Cornelius and Zira enjoy a beach holiday in Tenerife.

7.30... Tomorrow's World featuring a report on how human labour could replace chimps on PG Tips plantations.

8.00... Film. Gorillas on the Piste hilarity ensues as a party of apes take a winter sports holiday in the heart of Africa only to realise they have brought the wrong clothes.

10.00... News All the latest reports from around the world including a distubing rumour about atomic weapons from New York, sports results, city prices and weather.

10.30... Zaius In the final show of the series the curmudgeonly Yorkshire Orang Outan talks to pop band Gorillaz, Mighty Boosh star Bollo and screen legend Cheetah about how they don't make films like that anymore and modern music being rubbish.

Well that's my viewing sorted for tonight.

While chatting with Old Nick in Edinburgh about his phone I thought how could I improve on the I-Phone.

Simple have a little boiler attached to the blue tooth that you fill with water and a tea bag and a tube that you can attach to your headset that delivers the piping hot beverage straight to your mouth.

Also why not have a series of blades and things for getting stones out of horses hooves on the body of the phone just like a Swiss Army knife, you know the sort of stuff that is far too small to be of any practical use!

What a lovely surprise, my local Sainsbury is knocking out Bombay Sapphire at £13.99 for a litre! That kind of knocks the £12.50 for 70cl at Stansted Airport into a cocked hat.

As I have often said before about Airport shops, think before you buy its often cheaper round the corner from your home.

Following the fiasco at Stansted yesterday I fired off an e-mail to Swissport (the company who's inability to move a couple of bags a few feet led to us spending an hour in baggage reclaim while our cab driver hung around in the car park for us) demanding a refund of the extra costs that their bungling had incurred.

Now in searching Swissport's website for a customer service point I found the following statements.

"We treat people with respect"

and

"We care about our customers, passengers and staff"

Oh how I laughed.

Over an hour to get our baggage back at Stansted this afternoon and no one from the baggage handling company Swissport or BAA can be arsed to tell us, the people who are paying their wages, whats going on.

The only representatives of both companies present could not help and suggested that we ring the office on the courtesy phone and all thats there is a recorded message. Eventually bowing under pressure, the guy from Swissport gets a manager who when she eventually arrives, tells us some daft story about the plane being 10 minutes early messing things up.

Then another BAA fellow turns up and starts telling the guy by the door in hearing of the the passengers that "his job isn't to help people but to stop people from coming back into the baggage reclaim, helping people is customer services job", so I just had to do it "Excuse me are you from Customer services? I asked

"No I'm security" he self importantly replied, inflating himself with pride and then started waffling some management speak rubbish when I suggested that it would have been more appropriate if he'd been from customer services as trhat was where the problem lie.

Well kids the thing to remember is when you see a company that boasts "From landing to take off we care" as Swissport do on their website it must of course be true..... mustn't it?

First of thanks to everyone for all the birthday greetings, I love you all too.

Well Saturday was good, depite the pain in my knee, we stocked up on spices at the Bismilla and Red Sea food stores, then had lunch at the Red Fort a splendid eat as much as you can buffet restaurant in Drummond Street. For £5.99 you get a soft drink and a choice of two kinds of rice, naan, veg pakora, chicken tikka, tadka dahl, chicken pathia, lamb dhansak, chicken dopiaza and chicken korma, all of them delicious and then they give you an ice cream too - highly recomended.

After a brief snooze irt was off to the Frost Fayre again where Mrs F and Moff went shopping and Old Nick and I talked man crap (Cybermen, Vulcan Bombers, Swiss Army phones, breasts etc.) and enjoyed the traditional if a bit pricey German Bar with Pauliner lager and Weissbier.

This was followed by a drink in the Deacon Brodie and then a wander back to the Auld House by way of the Palmyra kebab and pizza house where Old Nick and I had brilliant Chicken schwarma with salad all wrapped up in kobz Arab bread (a bit like a tortilla) and Mrs F some falafel also wrapped in kobz and good value it was too (£4.50 for a lage schwarma)

On to the Auld House where there was a DJ instead of the usual ecletic juke box, and a free buffet of samozas and onion rings and stuff. Now I don't know what it is about DJs but somehow they always seem to want to impose their own appalling taste on the audience, so you get a bunch of punks, rockers, goths and indy kids and what do they slip in amongst the Metallicca, Sparks, Feeder and Pumpkins - fucking Abba and Wham! I'm with Morrisey on this hang the bastards

The useally excellent Buffet King restaurant in Edinburgh's Nicholson Street has a festive buffet in the run up to Christmas for an extra two nicker per person.

So what do you get turkey slices, roast spuds, carrots and sprouts in gravy all in the same buffet trough, (yuk!) and slices of Christmas pud with some kind of white sauce.

I stuck to the sweet and sour chicken and ice cream.

In other news we enjoyed the traditional German market here with some ghlu wine and mulled blackberry wine with blackberry schnaps, yum, followed by visits to the Ensign Ewart, the Last Drop, Central Fish Bar, the Auld House and then I knackered my knee again trying to get into bed.

While trying to snooze on our flight this morning the stewardess reads through the delights on offer in the Easykiosk

"A selection of sandwiches and wraps, biscuits...yada, yada,yada ..... And we have hot bacon bloomers!"

Well I know they have recently redesigned the flight crew uniforms, but I didn't need to know that!

What kind of person puts cress in an All Day Breakfast sandwich?

Pret a Manger at Stansted Airport that's who and whats more they charge a whopping £2.90 for the sandwich which has what I can only describe as having a merest smidgeon of bacon, sausage and tomato ketchup in it, in fact by my book that makes it more of an egg and cress sandwich. Now when I used to buy an All Day Breakfast at Cornerstones in Old Street it was about 50p cheaper and packed with the unhealthy porcine delights.

And another thing why are all the sandwiches in Stansted's Pret filled with poncey stuff like panda and rocket or watermelon and dolphin, so you can't get a cheap one like cheese and Branston while being held prisoner after security, that's why, I suspect.

Ever wondered what Planet of the Apes TV would be like? Shipscook takes a peek at a copy of Radio Times Cyber Leader One left in Weird Inc's sophisticated coffee bar.

Hmm lets see whats on tonight

7.00.. Big Brother

Some orang outans throw their own poo about the Big Brother house.

8.00.. Some Monkeys Do Ave Em Christmas Special

Anarchy ensues as Frank (Roddy McDowell) has a bit of trouble with an old car tyre, some rope and superglue, just as his boss, Dr Zaius turns up for a tea party at the Spencer household only to find that Frank's pet human, Taylor has done a whoopsie on the welcome mat, with hilarious consequences.

9.00.. News

All the latest from around the globe with a special report from the Forbidden Zone, plus city prices, weather and sport.

10.00.. Big Brother highlights

A gorilla farts then scratches his arse while a couple of chimps have a wank up a tree.

Not that different then!

Further to my Up yours Spice Girls and Take That post if anyone would like to nominate any artist(s) who deserve to have his or her head(s)stuck up a dead bear's arse this is the place to do it.

Well every day at Weird Inc is a bit of an adventure and we set out in the velvet darkness this morning with one of Mr Fox-Talbot's special recording devices in the jolly boat's cabin to preserve the memories for all you folks in blogland.

As we neared the outer margins of the metropolis the sun rose through the trees to illuminate the forest

Looking up we saw this weird mushroom shaped cloud "You crazy fools" cried Spudsey from the back "You went and did it".

"Don't be daft you silly old bear, there was no shockwave and we haven't been vapourised, its just a cloud" I replied "Now look at this lovely pond with its ducks, geese and water rails."