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tomasorban · 5 years

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THE ZODIAC: CANCER THE CRAB

Date of Rulership: 22nd June-23rd July; Polarity: Negative, female; Quality: Cardinal; Ruling planet: Moon; Element: Water; Body part: Heart, Lungs, and stomach; Colour: Silvery Grey; Gemstone: Pearl; Metal: Silver.

In the signs thus far examined, we have seen the formative energies of life achieve expression through different mediums: initially through the spontaneity and impulsive carnal drives of Aries; then through the aesthetic kaleidoscope of meandering Taurus; and finally the subdivision of vital force under the command of Gemini which enabled an innovative, evolutionary leap of consciousness. The latter’s propensity to concurrently exist in material and ethereal worlds also made sentient an intermediary realm in which the physical and spiritual mingled. Many would understand this intermediary plane to be the unrestrained world of imagination, intuition, thinking, memory, and emotion. It binds spirit to the body, and the emancipating dialogue that ensues between the two as a result engenders far-reaching repercussions for both. It invariably shapes the bundle of psychological habits and impulses that each of us calls self. It is the god Proteus and the nymph Thetis; a primordial ocean of acute shape-shifting awareness. Sometimes one might find themselves trapped in a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of geometrical contours or in shapeless clouds. At other times, one might see a sequence of rhythms or sounds, hear colourful objects, and taste backward or previously unseen locomotion. At other times still, one can be overwhelmed or possessed by anxiety, fear, titillation, love, or relaxation one minute, and riddled by a complete absence of emotion the next. At some point it might be apparent that everything in existence comprises the skin of a gargantuan cosmic animal and at other points all created matter might appear to be discarnate and autonomous entities that simply inhabit the same cosmic space. Polarities can coalesce under a singular experience and thinking processes are transposed to concentrated levels that elude comprehension on the physical plane. Nothing is ever controlled or mediated; there is just a perpetual waxing and waning of thoughts and ideas that explode onto the sands of consciousness one minute and dry up the next. Time becomes a helium balloon, expanding as to spur the perception that a plethora of daylong activities have been squeezed into the space of a few minutes and then shrinking as to flush out the space of a day in two seconds. In this realm, the personal can become impersonal very quickly and barriers deemed impenetrable in the physical world are breached at will.

Gemini’s severe allergies to the emotional faucet rendered it somewhat superficial, insensitive, and impotent to the depth of experience, an anomaly which is corrected with the inauguration of the Cancerian archetype. Because the formative energies of Cancer originate from this intermediary realm of being which connects the physical and spiritual, it acquaints humans with their individual souls but also with the anima mundi, the cosmic soul of Mother Nature which unites all creatures irrespective of size or complexity. A newborn inclination to look inward for nirvana underpins the fundamental Gnostic adage of this archetype, namely that the external environment, the mechanical world into which we are born, appears to be an exotic synthesis of indifferent and insensitive elements that cannot offer inner harmony or fulfilment to spiritually-orientated humanity. The only hope for the human condition, according to Cancer, is to turn on the emotional faucets of the psychic plane and let the cold and hot water form a sensitive current that incite a sense of meaning and purpose and drive the impersonal spirit or life force through the tumultuous waters of life until it is again time to reunite with the paradisal state of perfection in maternal unconsciousness.

“Folks, life’s all about being feelings,” says Cancer. “Feelings and sandcastles, my friends! I like to build mine with all sorts of implements, usually down by the seashore. If I don’t use sand and water its paint and pastels, and sometimes I even use pen and writing paper. I create them with my vivid imagination and decide who or what is going to be living inside. I decide upon fates and lifespans and transcribe the romantic events that will unravel within its high walls. Sadly, there comes a time when the incoming tide levels and sucks them back into the pit of the ocean’s stomach. I understand the tides, the coming and going of primordial energies, and the cycles of the cosmos like no other which is why I build my houses strong. Strength equals domestic stability and tranquillity, something everyone wants! I use the sturdiest things available–sticks, stones, metals, bits of detritus from the seabed–to insulate my soft and squishy parts from Mother Nature’s wrath and Man’s acidic and unbecoming temperament. As a humanitarian, I’m always willing to share my space with an appropriate other, especially if that other is a poor, helpless soul in need of smothering or mothering.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m tactile and love affection. I’ll also admit that I do have too much of the moon and the sea in me; my moods can go from black, to low, to white, to high, and to crescent shape in the space of about a microsecond. I can be volatile that way, but I more than make up for it with my talent for story-telling, my attention to detail, and my emotional rapport. I can also be timid and shy, but once you’ve gained my trust and extricated me from my crabby shell you’ll feel like you’ve known me for years! Once I’m out you’ll have to be rather gentle with me; I’m not particularly fond of prying eyes or confrontation, verbal or otherwise, so I will often sidestep around these. If this is not possible or plausible I’ll just thrust my big old pincers out and threaten to dice the adversary up into little pieces. You should also know that I’m a fiercely faithful friend, and my concern for the welfare of others can often be mistaken for clinginess and co-dependence. My soul is dark like rocks of obsidian, and deeper than the Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean. Just like these qualities strike night terrors in those individuals not quite attuned to their inner selves, so too does it nurture my own worst nightmare–the fear that I might be deserted to my own devices and have to face life alone.”

Cancer is undoubtedly the first sign to actively work through the mimetic bank of the collective unconscious, drawing upon cosmic archetypes like the tribal brother or sister, love, the heroic journey, utopian societies like the legendary Atlantis, and the struggle between seemingly disembodied forces of good and evil to create its own narratives, real or imagined. Souls incarnating through the stars of this zodiacal constellation more often than not exhibit melancholia, sentimentalist romanticism, and a longing to recapture the locus classicus of Golden Ages bygone. The latter is most likely due to the fact that Cancerians retain prenatal memories of the paradisal perfection within the womb, and hence looking backward into the past is also examining a longwinded path that meanders further and further from union with the divine. Their deep connection to the supranormal and creative powers of the greater subconscious mind and its intuitive faction, as well as a heartfelt obsession with the subtler and intimate details of our psychological makeup makes them the true hub of the arts. It is no coincidence that souls born under the aegis of Cancer tend to be artists, writers, musicians, and poets. The unconscious willpower or drive of a Cancerian soul is second to none.

Lamentably, Cancer’s derivation from an imaginative plane experienced through the electrical power of primordial ebbs and flows without the aid of a transistor isn’t all milk and honey. Cancerians are notorious for letting the intellectual throne of their personal kingdoms be usurped by emotion, and we all know what happens when unchecked emotions are given prominence over wisdom and intellect: problems and worries multiply and quickly distort our perceptions of the outside world so that everyone appears dishonest, deceptive, potentially threatening, and narcissistic. Emotionally disturbed Cancerians usually repress their feelings for prolonged periods, letting grievances and resentments simmer and become pressurised deep in the confines of their unconscious until these can no longer be contained. When the tempestuous eruption finally comes to pass, the rock-melting intensity of the sonic blast can be so potent as to incinerate, alter, or disfigure relationships permanently. This is one of just many reasons why Cancerians are introverts, choosing to traffic in relationships that are highly unlikely to balloon into melodramatic love affairs or force them into encounters with their own shadows.

Like Aries, Taurus and Gemini, there are also two symbols associated with Cancer the Crab. The first of these, the animal totem, evokes the primary psychic composition of all beings born under this zodiacal sign; deriving from and dwelling in the element of water, crabs are tranquil, expressive and passive in their habits. The existence of a shell denotes a self-absorbed proclivity towards domestication, introversion, emotional vulnerability, and cultivation of the soul’s imaginative realm. In embarking in a cross-cultural and historical examination, we find that the ubiquitous expression of this archetype has altered in time. For some of the prehistoric cultures, Cancer was represented as a crayfish. Moving into historic times, the ancient Egyptians imagined the constellation as an embodiment of the morning sun–Khephera –whose totemic animal was the scarab beetle. The modern image associated with this archetype was inherited from Babylonian or Chaldean astrology, the latter also influencing the iconography used by the Persian and Hellenistic peoples. The fixed stars associated with this constellation were deemed of utmost importance given that they delineated the seat of an ethereal Great Mother Goddess from which all life in the cosmos had sprung forth. Two ancient calendars, the Egyptian and the Mayan, further illuminate Cancer’s importance as an archetypal indicator of cosmic beginnings and endings: the ancient Egyptians, ascribed prominence to it as the home in which almighty Sirius, the mediating star of the wheel of heaven, rose heliacally to herald the New Year; and the Mayans prophesized that an alignment of the planets within Cancer would spur an act of un-creation and spell the end of the universe. In Roman myth, the goddess Juno fashioned Cancer and placed her in the starry heavens to serve as a cosmic chronometer and reverse the forward-moving cycle of creation when she finally felt that the process of becoming would be of no further benefit to mortals and immortals alike.

The second symbol, an astrological shorthand for the zodiacal sign, shows two identical figures whose arrangement discloses polar opposition. In Gemini this image of duality symbolizes a conunctionis or marriage of opposites, but in Cancer it draws attention to the insuperable psychic tides that are inherent in the nature of this archetype and demonstrated by the gravitational forces and see-saw interfaces imposed upon the earth by its mediating planet, the moon. The two spirals pertaining to each figure may be interpreted in a variety of ways; either as a pair of breasts, symbols of fecundity and divine providence, or as two spermatozoa whose conjunction generates the miracle of life. Both are connected to creation and both recall the feminine element of water as the great cosmic womb through which evolutionary life processes take root. Naturally this sign is intimately connected to physical conception and birth, as well as the psychological dependence of the developing ego on the uroboric Self. Hence, the symbol also serves as a memory cue for those primordial moments of happiness, fundamental unity, oneness, and paradisal perfection experienced in the womb before birth, along with the sadness and loss that comes from being separated from the maternal realm of unconsciousness.

#astrology #astropsychology #astrotheology #consciousness #zodiac

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rassilon-imprimatur · 7 years

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Jim Mortimore’s Rejected Second Doctor PDA pitch “Chronoclysm”

A proposal for an original Doctor Who novel (featuring the 2nd Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie) Chronoclysm by Jim Mortimore, 16/08/98 Our Universe exists in a cycle of Big Bang-Big Crunches. But theory predicts one day the energy propelling matter outward from the Bang will exactly balance the mass drawing the matter back into a Crunch - and then the cycle will end. The universe will keep on expanding for ever. But what if you live in the space outside the universe? Sooner or later you will have no room in which to exist. This is the story of one such race who attempt to determine what has happened when the universe prematurely ends its Bang/Crunch cycle. The problem they face is that due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty priciple, they can never observe the data they need to formulate a solution to the problem - or even determine what the problem is - without the observational data being changed and thus invalidated. They need a way to bring the observational data out of the universe so it will no longer be affected by the Uncertainty Priciple. To this end they build an experimental model of the universe (an analogue shaped like a planet for convenience sake) and invite selected members of every sentient species to take part in the observation of date upon it. To do this they will need to relinquish their bodies for a while and inhabit other bodies which model component-elements of the real universe. The Doctor is one of the invitees. The problem is, when his consciousness is removed form his body, the TARDIS perceives this an an attack - and enters defensive mode - and time rams the experimental universe model. The Builder overseeing the experiment is fatally wounded, and all the participants lose their memory, and are trapped in their alien bodies. This includes the Doctor and his companions. The Doctor and Co. must not only find out who and where they are - but what the problem is with the universe. Then they have to work out a way of getting the observational data outside the universe without ever changing it by observing it. So they have to fix the experiment - without ever consciously becoming aware that they are part of it. Detailed Synopsis Prologue First Invitation The Doctor, Polly and Jamie are in the TARDIS having just left Scotland in 1746. With a funny groaning sound an envelope materializes on the time rotor. It is an invitation. But to what? Part One Isocution Lly is a member of the Cluster. The Cluster are one of a number of non-humanoid nomadic tribes who live on the planet Maze. The Cluster are travelling the Maze, trying to find the Centre. But they cannot remember why - it is almost an instinct which guides them. Lly has terrible nightmares. Nightmares of being human. Accused of being psychotic, Lly is ostracised by her tribe, cast out to walk between the impenetrable walls that cover the planet and give it its name. She must make her own pilgrimmage to the centre of Maze. But the Cluster are a gregarious species. To them, any time spent alone may result in death. Lly begins her pilgrimmage. That day she encounters another tribe, the Tent People, also nomadic, and is embroiled in an attack on them by a third tribe, the Pah-Lehj.The Pah-Lehj are truly psychotic Screaming that they must have information, they viciously kill and eat all the Tent-People. Due to her dreams of being human, Lly manages to save one of the tribe, Njam. Njam has also had dreams of being a human. Together Lly and Njam decide that there must be something wrong with the culture on Maze. It was never this violent before. They find a pool in the forest, in the shadow of one of the great islands floating in the sky, and they decide to spend the night there. Later that night, still suffering from emotional confusion caused by shock and exhaustion, Njam offers to merge with Lly in the 'ceremony of joining', in which members of two different species may amalgamate to form a larger, more intelligent being. Lly, who should be overjoyed at this perfectly natural, casual offer, (our equivalent of sex, I suppose) is suddenly very disturbed and puts Njam off, much to his sadness and concern. Her dreams of being human have got in the way again. They huddle together; as the night draws to a close they fall asleep. Next day they decide to travel on together. But where? Is there any point in continuing their pilgrimmage? They decide there is not. If they are to solve the mystery that is Maze they must travel towards one of the huge towering glass cities which have been built straddling the maze at various locations on the planet's surface. Perhaps the inhabitants of these cities know what is going on. But how will they get to the nearest city? The maze walls are impenetrable, too smooth and steep to climb. Lly and Njam decide the only way to get to the city is to use one of the floating islands. At Lly's suggestion, they climb the vines linking the island to the ground. After their climb Lly and Njam meet one of the Islanders, called Trhaq, and ask him if his people will help them find a way through the maze. Trhaq is at first suspicious. It is not time for any of the Islanders to join with another species yet, he says, so why are Lly and Njam here? But when Lly tells him they are all outcast from their tribes, Trhaq immediately warms to them. It turns out the Islanders are themselves a culture of isolationists. Each Islander lives separately from the others. Their community is the complete opposite of the Cluster, the Tentpeople or indeed any of the other species living on the planet. Any of them can come near Lly or Njam, but bring them too close to each other and they are physically repelled: it's as if they all have a specific allergy to each other. It is for this reason Trhaq proposes a bargain: something is unbalancing the island. The Islanders, unable to work together, will all be killed if the island becomes unstable and inverts. If Lly and Njam can find out what the problem is and fix it, then Trhaq is sure the Islanders will agree to help them travel to one of the cities. Lly and Njam find a curious blue box with a flashing light at one end jamming open a gas flow-way and unbalancing the naturally maintained equilibrium of the island. So far no-one has been able to figure out a way to move the box; it is too heavy to lift and part of it seems to be inside the solid rock of the flow-way. Lly has some strange thoughts about the blue box. It looks familiar to her, somehow. She wonders for a moment whether it might be possible to get inside the box and propel it away from there, but it is obvious that the box is so small and heavy it must be a solid object, with no entrance and no interior space big enough to occupy. Dismissing her strange notions, Lly and Njam help the Islanders use natural gas explosives to blow away a big lump of rock containing the box, letting it crash to the ground. As a result of the explosion and the redistribution of mass there is a terrible moment when the island loses its equilibrium and nearly flips upside down. Trees fall, the village is levelled. Islanders are hurt and some fall to their death from the edge. Then the island stabilises at a new angle and the islanders offer thanks for their salvation before starting to rebuild their village. After the 'healing' of the island, Lly and Njam help the Islanders rig sails and guide the island towards the nearest of the glass cities, across the top of the maze. The journey lasts several days. During this time they help the Islanders rebuild their village and foodstocks, getting to know them well. Islanders are a very serene, intelligent (if mystical) folk. But they are disturbing because of their habit of not interacting with each other - and another wierd thing: sometimes the wisest of them vanish completely for a day or so, then reappear - but completely drained of all knowledge. That night Lly and Njam go to Lly's favourite place, a ledge at the leading spur of the island. They look out at the stars, which are all clustered together in one quadrant of an otherwise empty sky. And then, much sooner than expected, they see the city. The island is now less than a couple of hundred miles from its destination. One or two of the Islanders watch the glistening walls come slowly nearer. They stand apart from Lly and Njam. One Islander observes that distances on the planet are shortening again. Lly and Njam don’t understand: had distances shortened before? The Islander makes a noncommittal reply. Next morning the island arrives at the nearest city, a breathtaking edifice of glass. Lly and Njam leave the island and parachute off the rocky platform. Inside the city is full of rooms. Each room holds comatose alien bodies. Thousands of them, floating in suspended rows like butterflies in a collection tray. In the city, Lly sees something that affects her strangely - four bodies - strange, bipedal forms. One of them holds an odd contraption of wood with holes in it. Another is wearing a tartan kilt. But Lly is staring intently at one of the others, the female. Her dreams of being Human all crash home, suddenly clear in her mind, with a name: Polly. "That’s me," she screams, and collapses. Part Two: Gestinction The Doctor is born, sentient and hungry, but confused. When full awareness comes he finds he is standing in a very narrow passage amidst high walls, rooting for food and behaving in a manner that can only be described as 'instinctive'. There is no real light to speak of, and there are no stars, just a softly radiant glow somewhere towards the zenith. Apart from that the sky is a uniform dark gray. Floating islands cast flat, grainy shadows. There is no sign of life anywhere. It is completely barren. No vegetation, no animal life, just rock, a lifeless ocean and the walls of the maze, enormously high, criss-crossing the surface of the planet, which seems completely lifeless. The Doctor scuttles on crab-like legs down to the ocean. It is flat, black, without tides, waves or phosphorescence; in short, there is no evidence of life at all. He studies the water. It looks cold and lonely - but somehow comforting. The Doctor knows instinctively that there is a city somewhere on the farthest shore. The Doctor extends the tip of one feeler into the water. It feels good. It feels right. The Doctor wades into the water. He suddenly feels a lot calmer. The water is up to his dorsal plates when a particularly big wave knocks him under. The Doctor suddenly realises for the first time he has observed natural motion on the planet. A tide! By the time he has come to terms with this unexpected shock, the Doctor realises he is breathing quite happily under the water and thinking nothing of it. The Doctor begins his underwater odyssey. The maze continues from the land into the water. The Doctor begins to chart the walls. There is a familiar pattern to them. They remind him of something that he can't quite remember... what can they be? As the Doctor travels through the ocean, very small forms of life seem to appear out of nowhere. Microcellular organisms. Plankton. The Doctor feeds, sieving plankton from the water, but this only whets his appetite. He suddenly becomes aware of an urgent need to hunt living prey, and is appalled by this. It is his first realisation that something is not quite right... highly disturbed, the Doctor moves on, trying to get out of the water as soon as he can. As he moves he disturbs a newly awakened predator. The predator is sleek, primitive, violent - and as hungry as the Doctor. It attacks, injuring the Doctor. As the predator is on the point of delivering a mortal bite, it is batted aside and swallowed by another sea creature - a leviathan. Huge, graceful, the creature floats through the ocean with the ease of a whale. The Doctor feels an immediate kinship with the animal. He tries to communicate with it, believing it to be intelligent, but cannot elicit a comprehensible response. The Doctor is puzzled. He has never found communication a difficulty in the past. With a sudden shock, the Doctor becomes aware that he has a past. A life he lived before here, before now. A life as a Time Lord. Suddenly communication becomes of paramount importance. The Doctor tries sign language and touch, none of which work. He tries to gain the attention of the beast by catching smaller prey and feeding them to it. No dice. The creature tolerates his presence, but will not initiate or respond to any kind of dialogue. The Doctor has a think about this. Eventually he realises that what he thought were sensible, intelligent attempts to communicate with the leviathan, were in fact merely automatic attempts to clean and feed it. But that's not something he would do, surely? Then the Doctor realises, for the first time, that his mind is occupying the body of a creature which normally exists in symbiosis with the leviathan. Not only has he lost his companions and his TARDIS - but he has also lost his own body. The Doctor observes that the maze is expanding. The walls, which were almost touching when he first gained awareness, have now drawn far apart. The Doctor travels towards the center of the maze, which he works out is in one of the oceans. On his journey he is accompanied by the leviathan, which seems to have 'adopted' him. As he travels he begins to get weaker and weaker. He realises that, because he isn't inhabiting his normal body, he is susceptible to the trials and tribulations of everyday life - such as the poison the dead predator injected into his wounds. The Doctor realises that he has to interrupt his journey in order to find a cure for the poison in his body. He must find the TARDIS - and quickly, before he dies. The only problem is, he does not know where it is. When eventually the Doctor finds the TARDIS, crashed in an ancient chunk of floating island, it denies him entry. His telepathic signature is sufficiently overlaid with that of his host to make him unrecognisable - and of course he does not have the key. And there may be something else wrong too; the TARDIS appears to have suffered temporal damage - as if someone or something has attacked it. Meanwhile, the leviathan, which is still following him around, is acting oddly. Its skin is developing rough pebbly patches, and it is becoming clumsier. It also seems bulkier. Its skin is now rough and knobbly. Its limbs are twisted and gnarled, more like tentacles than fins. The Doctor realises that it is probably dying after eating the poisonous predator. Thinking the creature is dying, he comforts it as it gradually sinks to the sea bed. There he watches amazed as its body begins to swell, taking on a new, oddly familiar shape. Internal gases, produced during this new phase of life, this metamorphosis, puff the body up. The knobbly, rough skin now begins to resemble stone, rock... in fact, the floating islands. The creature begins to rise unsteadily from the ocean and into the air. As it does so it reaches out a vine-like tangle of tentacles and takes the Doctor with it, clear of the water and off towards one of the glass cities poised above the walls of the maze. The only place he might now find a cure for the poison ravaging his body.

In the city the Doctor discovers towering cliffs of complex machinery - perhaps some of them are medical facilities, computers with the power to manufacture a cure for him. But he does not know which. And besides, many systems have been damaged by what might be exposure to temporal weaponry. Someone or something has been carrying on serious temporal warfare here.

He staggers away from the equipment, heaving for breath, unable to believe that he might actually die. He finds the glass maze that Lly and Njam found - the one containing the millions of alien bodies lying in what he thinks might be suspended animation. He recognises the aliens as representing some of the most intelligent species in the universe. He discovers his own body, and recognises it. He tries to revive it, but fails. He finds the bodies of Ben, Polly and Jamie. In the middle of wondering what has happened to them, he is finally overcome by the poison. He collapses. Convulses. Dies. Part Three Timescape Jamie wakes from a dream in which he is underwater, killing and himself being killed, to find himself collapsed onto clear glass flooring. Beneath him, stretching downward as far as he can see, are row upon row upon row of motionless bodies. Jamie jerks upright, realising he is in the middle of a maze of glass-walled chambers, each holding hundreds, maybe thousands of motionless bodies; humans and aliens alike. Jamie looks around. The Doctor, Ben and Polly are racked together nearby, motionless, alongside the space in which he just awoke. He tries to wake the others. Only the Doctor responds. The Doctor recovers quickly but cannot answer any of Jamie's questions. However he does notice that one of the alien figures nearby does not appear to be part of the rows of suspended bodies. The body isn't in one of the rows, instead it is frozen in the attitude of falling over. Jamie asks what's holding it up. The Doctor looks closely and discovers the body is falling - just far too slowly for the human eye to see. Time is running at at different rate for it. Or for them. Jamie asks why. 'That's what we have to find out,' the Doctor replies. He sets off to explore the glass maze and try to find help, or at least someone who can tell him what's going on. Jamie takes a last look around at the scary shadows, then hurries to catch up. Lly wakes from her faint, her mind bubbling with memories. She isn't Lly. She is Polly - and Njam is really her friend Ben. They travelled in the TARDIS with Jamie and the Doctor. For some reason she cannot remember they are now inhabiting these strange alien bodies. Ben takes some convincing that he is not who he thought he was, ie: one of the Tent People. Polly doesn't know the answers to his questions - she can't remember everything. Ben is not really convinced, but goes along with Polly anyway. They leave the city. When Ben asks Polly what is going on she simply replies that the whole planet is in imminent danger of 'failing', and that they must organise as many of the tribes living on the planet as they can and get them to the center of the maze. The planet could very well be on the point of destruction.

As they walk through the city, the Doctor points out to Jamie where machinery and structures have been attacked with temporal weaponry.

'You mean they got old?' asks Jamie. 'Old, young, a mixture of both,' the Doctor replies broodingly. 'Some parts have rusted with age and some have regressed to their constituent elements. I don't understand what could have done this. It's as if, in this one part of space, time has gone mad.' Then something else interesting catches Jamie's eye: footprints. Or rather alien claw-prints. They are not alone in the building. Someone else is awake too. Someone who might be responsible for the temporal damage. Polly's idea is to mobilise a great airborne fleet of rocks, on which many thousands can travel in safety above the surface of the planet. They go outside the city to find the island which brought them here. The first thing they notice is that the stars are drawing nearer and nearer together in the sky... Jamie eventually tracks the prints to their source: a few insectoid creatures skittering around in the shadows. Jamie yells and threatens to 'slice them into wee bags o' haggis' unless they fix the damage they have caused. The aliens chitter nervously among themselves, obviously terribly intimidated by Jamie's size and his threatening demeanor. The Doctor intervenes, calms down the situation and then sits cross-legged in front of the bravest of the aliens - which is still very nervous indeed. He waves away Jamie impatiently and begins to talk to the alien. 'What are you doing here?' he asks. The alien chitters softly. Doesn't the Doctor realise? They have been invited. Just like the Doctor and his friends were invited. They are all meant to be here. Someone or something else must have caused the damage the Doctor has seen.

On the the island, Polly enters into communications with the Islanders, but it seems the Islanders cannot or will not understand the need for urgency. Ben tries to reason with them, but cannot seem to get through to them that they might be in danger. It is as if what he and Polly are trying to tell them is incredibly complicated. What one Islander can grasp, is nonsense to another - who understands instinctively that which a third finds utter gibberish. None of them can grasp the whole problem and all of them are of the firm opinion that they can simply wait out whatever madness is to follow without doing anything. After some thought, Polly simplifies the situation: will the Islanders simply do as she asks without trying to understand? 'Of course,' they say. 'Why didn't you ask that in the first place?' Jamie is staring out of a window. From this high up the view is breathtaking. He stares transfixed at the scenery. Hovering nearby is the island which the leviathan turned into. Beyond it, the mountains, the forests, the rolling plains leading to the ocean... and the walls of the maze, towering over everything, dividing the planet into a chaotic mess of areas. He is joined by the Doctor and the insect aliens, the T'Chaq. Jamie observes the maze walls remind him of the circuit boards in the TARDIS. The Doctor gapes. He smacks himself on the forehead. 'Of course! Jamie - you're a genius! Why didn't I think of that myself? Maze walls as limiters to an experiment? Circuit boards... analogue computers... you know what I think, Jamie? I think this whole planet is an analogue. A model, a... representation of... well, of something else.' 'But what?' asks Jamie. 'And why? And why would someone want to damage it?' 'Three very good questions.' 'Yes, and how are we going to find out the answers?' The Doctor looks grimly determined. 'By asking whoever built it!' 'How are we to do that when we don't know who or where they are?' 'There is a limit to the number of very good questions one may ask in any one day, Jamie,' says the Doctor warningly. Obviously he does not have an answer.

Leaving the Islanders to prepare the skyfleet, Polly and Ben leave on a rock of their own, to begin communications with the other sentient species of Maze. Eventually they mobilise a great many species, all moving upon the great skyrocks towards the 'center' of maze. And no-one notices that some members of the Pah-lehj tribe are nearby, hunting for information. For food. The Doctor and Jamie and T'Chaq sit down and try to recover their memories. T'Chaq helps because it is used to manipulating group memory, being an insect species. Somewhat reluctantly the Doctor allows one of the T'Chaq to crawl onto his head and send tiny feelers through his ears and into his brain, trying to unlock his memory. The memory has been damaged by a traumatic incident. But it may be recoverable. While Jamie looks on highly disturbed, the T'Chaq begin to recover the memory strands in the Doctor's mind. He remembers- -being in the TARDIS when the invitation arrived. Examining it with his companions. Not knowing who it was from or what it really was all about. Apparently the whole point was that they were invited to participate in an experiment without prior knowledge of what results were expected. There was nothing overtly untoward about this - in fact in some experiments, the Doctor knew, this was an essential for the collation of accurate data. However, because he's a bit of a suspicious old bird, the Doctor set the TARDIS to auto monitor their participation, ready to intervene at the slightest provocation. Then they agreed to begin the experiment, activated the invitation, and- -that's all he can remember. The events which happened between that and him waking up on Maze in a host body are a complete blank. The T'Chaq disconnects from the Doctor's brain. The Doctor is despondent. Now how are they going to find out what's going on? Worse - since they don't know what the experiment was set up to do, they have no way of assessing which bits of machinery are really damaged and need to be repaired, and which they should leave well alone, for fear of messing the whole system up even more. Eventually Polly and Ben bring a gigantic crowd of people to the shores of the great ocean. Polly reassures everyone it is perfectly safe to live in the water. Life originated there, after all. Unfortunately, the Pah-lehj choose this moment to attack, their familar cries for information almost drowning the violent tearing of flesh and screams of the injured. The violence escalates. Ben leads some of the tribes people to attack the Pah-lehj while Polly gets the rest into the water. Polly turns to see Ben overwhelmed and killed. She runs to defend him but is killed as well. In the sky, the stars recede until there is no light anymore, no night and day. The planet is shrinking faster and faster - the walls of the maze are closing in. The stars rush in, streaks of light against the night sky. There is a brilliant flash of light, over almost too quick to remember. No-one and nothing is left on the planet to see it. Part Four Circumfinity Fresh from the nightmare of their own deaths, Polly and Ben 'wake up'. They wander around for a short while, then find the Doctor, Jamie and the T'Chaq. Ben and Polly tell the Doctor about their lives as aliens. They tell about the Pah-lehj attacking them, life in the Cluster and the Tentpeople, the Islanders, the way the stars all rushed together at the end, just as they were killed. The Doctor muses on their story for a while - then tries to put it together with his own clues. The planet is a model. The aliens living on it are merely host bodies designed to live a very long time. Time is, in fact, passing at a different rate for them, as witness the one body he saw falling over when he and Jamie woke up. (This body was, he now realises, his own host body - in the process of falling after being poisoned.) So: long lived alien hosts, original bodies in long-term stasis, contracting starfields, planet as model... but of what, he wonders. Then he clicks his fingers triumphantly as it all fits together. The planet and its entire culture is an analogue of the universe. The Doctor explains this to the others, guessing that the planet is probably constructed from material which is extrauniversal in origin, so that it could survive a big crunch/big bang cycle. The maze is the limiting system, which controls the model and makes sure it functions within the parameters set by the builders, ie: so that nothing on maze can model an event which cannot really happen in the real universe. All the life forms on Maze are compelled to travel to the center of the maze when a big crunch analogue is incipient - perhaps that is a sanctuary, the only place they can survive. The planet and the space around it periodically expands and collapses, a direct representation of the universe's expansion/ collapse cycle. Life evolves upon it to match the universe itself. Polly's adventures took place during a previous cycle analogue than the Doctor's and ended with her dying at or just before a big crunch analogue. Now both she and Ben are awake and experiencing the passing of time at the rate of their original bodies, which is far too slow to witness the events on maze which model the real universe. Which is why everything else, like the Doctor's falling host body, seems motionless. And obviously the time they are in is time zero: the imperceptible time between the big crunch and the big bang. After the Doctor has thought a bit more about Polly's story he begins to understand that something is wrong with the way the planet functions. Witness the behaviour of the Pah-lehj, just for starters. What kind of experiment has some of its participants eating the others? (Perhaps it's an analogue for wars,' says Ben thoughtfully. 'No,' Polly says slowly. 'I don't think it's as straightforward as that.') Anyway, postulates the Doctor, if Maze is a model of the universe, one might suppose any malfunction could represent something quite disastrous on a much larger scale. A universal scale. Perhaps even a larger scale than that. The Doctor goes on to postulate that the malfunction could be linked to the temporal damage he noticed in the control systems of the city. Could this be sabotage? Is someone out to wreck the experiment, mess up the universe and kill them all? The Doctor decides they must find those who built the planet and warn them about this potential sabotage. But where are the they? The Doctor decides to thoroughly explore the city, to try and find a clue to the Builders' identity. Polly decides she needs to rest while the Doctor, Jamie and the T'Chaq explore. While she is asleep one of the T'Chaq approaches. The T'Chaq stands quivering on its muiltiplicity of legs, a couple of feet from where Polly is snoring quietly. It tilts its head curiously, studying her. Then it scuttles quickly over to her head and inserts a bundle of microthin feelers into her ear. In her dream Polly is in the TARDIS. She finds the invitation. Shows it to the others. The Doctor is excited by the idea of participating in such an experiment, flattered that anyone should think his thoughts worth recording. Then he pauses. 'Oh I don't know though, I am a genius after all...' He smiles. Polly laughs. Ben and Jamie shake their heads sadly. The Doctor's estimation of his mental abilities is a running joke between them. 'Still,' the Doctor goes on. 'No harm in being too careful, I suppose.' He sets the TARDIS to monitor them as the experiment begins. Finally the Doctor is finished. 'Right then,' he rubs his hands together gleefully. 'Everybody ready?' He switches off the TARDIS forcefield. He takes the invitation from Polly, clears his throat, and in an over-theatrical voice tells it they are ready to participate in the experiment. At once Polly feels something cold slip around her mind. Her body becomes paralysed. The TARDIS becomes less substantial. Suddenly the TARDIS console goes completely haywire. The time rotor oscillates violently. The cold fingers gripping Polly's mind slip, then catch. Suddenly her mind is being stretched between two gripping forces. The pain is agonising. She tries to cry out to the Doctor: something is trying to keep them in the Ship - no, the TARDIS itself is trying to stop the experiment! Her voice won't work. Her mind snaps. The Doctor has discovered the mind transfer systems when Polly's screams reach them. Ben and Jamie are the first to respond. When they reach her she is half awake, shaking with fear and clutching the T'Chaq. Ben immediately leaps to the attack. But Polly pushes him away as she comes fully awake. 'No Ben! The T'Chaq isn't attacking me, it's helping me. Helping me to remember.' 'Remember what happened in the TARDIS?' asks the Doctor, a fearful look on his face. Polly nods. 'It was when we started the experiment. It was the TARDIS that tried to stop us. It was the TARDIS that attacked the experiment. It's responsible for everything that's happened here! Doctor, you always said the TARDIS was alive - well now it's gone insane...' The Doctor is distraught. He was obviously scared something like this might turn out to be true. But why? He won't say. So now it's even more important they find the Builders: if they do not realise the experiment has been ruined by the TARDIS's intervention it is possible they could act on incorrect results. If that is the case, anything could happen to the universe. It would really help if the Doctor knew what the purpose of the experiment was - how it worked. eg: why do some species join together so that populations reduce instead of increasing, as one would normally expect. Life on the planet seems to be dying out, or evolving backwards. Is this meant to happen, or is it just another problem caused by the TARDIS's interference? The Doctor says there's only one way to find out, and that's by contacting a Builder. To do this they have to find a way to put their minds into new host bodies and, while keeping their memories intact, go back into the timescape. Back into the maze. And back into the Pah-lehj - Cluster war. Part Five Chronoclysm

Evolution begins on Maze. Life blooms. Intelligence develops. The planet has been reborn. The Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie leave the glass city and move out into the land. They have retained their individual memories with the help of the T'Chaq, which has stayed in the city, in order to monitor the mind-transfer equipment and the bodies of the Doctor and his companions. In addition, the T'Chaq have arranged to keep the Doctor's telepathic signature separate from that of his new host body, so hopefully when he finds the TARDIS it will recognise him. After climbing onto the island which brought him here earlier, the Doctor begins to plan a course of action. He and Jamie will go in search of the TARDIS - while Polly and Ben renew their acquaintence with the other tribes of maze, in order to try and find one of the Builders. Polly asks which tribe. The Doctor suggests the islanders they met before - in all of Polly's and Ben's travels, they were the only tribe who behaved differently. While the other tribes of Maze all display some kind of desire to merge, the Islanders are the only culture where the members are almost total isolationists. This makes them a prime first candidate for investigation. Ben and Polly leave in search of their friends, while the Doctor and Jamie pilot the island to the place where he left the TARDIS. The Doctor and Jamie sail the island across a slowly expanding prairie. Two tribes have met on the rolling plains. At first Jamie thinks they are attacking one-another. Then the Doctor notices the numbers are reducing. Individuals of the tribes are merging. Joining. Both the Doctor and Jamie feel an urge to join in, but both recognise this feeling as belonging to their host bodies only. The Doctor climbs down from the island and wanders among the merging bodies. He picks out two individuals and watches them merge. After a while a new creature takes form which is an amalgamation of both. They have joined. The Doctor decides to have a chat with the creature. Discussion proves the creature to have a new character, and to be much more intelligent than either of the individuals which made it up. The Doctor realises that the life experiences of both individuals have added up to more than the sum of their two bodies and minds. He feels he is very close to an answer now. The whole arrangement of cultures on the planet seems set up to amalgamate the experiences and multiply the intelligence of its individuals. Now they have two parts of the puzzle: 1. Maze represents the cyclic universe. 2. The life forms living here seem to have evolved in such a way as to promote many more different types of intelligence than is normally possible in a linearly developed culture. But why? Then his questions are pushed aside as the amalgamate creatures all begin to scramble aboard the island. They mill confusedly for a while, as if expecting to find something that isn't here - then attempt to merge with the Doctor and Jamie. It is all they can do to persuade the amalgamates they really don't want to do this. Hoping Polly and Ben are having more success finding a Builder, than he is trying to figure out how Maze works, the Doctor and Jamie set out once more to fetch the TARDIS, this time with a crew of several hundred largely merge-mad amalgamates. And tracked by the Pah-lehj hordes, still out for a meal of hot flesh and information. Polly and Ben are also witnessing the amalgamation of several life forms. The new amalgamates all begin to migrate towards one of the floating islands. Polly and Ben have a little talk. If Maze is an experiment, information is the key. Or rather information transfer. From one tribe to another via merging, and then via amalgamates merging with other amalgamates and finally joining with... the Islanders. Realisation dawns. The Islanders must be the Builders. Polly and Ben reach the island. They try to get the Islanders to tell them what's going on, but the Islanders are too busy merging with the amalgamates. Then, just when Polly thinks she is getting through to them, individual Islanders who have just merged wander into the forest just like they did when Polly and Ben first arrived on the island - and they lose sight of them. When they return, the Islanders do not seem to understand anything Polly says. They won't talk. The Islanders are either stupid or playing dumb - yet less than an hour before, they were as intelligent as anyone Polly had ever met. The Doctor and Jamie reach the TARDIS - still merged into its lump of rock. The Doctor touches the TARDIS. It is vibrating faintly. Still alive, if weak. He projects his telepathic signature and opens the door, which fortunately, is on the edge facing out of the rock. He steps in through the door and- -finds himself standing next to Jamie. Outside the Ship. He tries again with the same results. The TARDIS won't allow him access to its interior dimensions. The Doctor thinks about this for a moment. He knows the T'Chaq sorted out the telepathic signature problem. The TARDIS obviously recognises him, or the door wouldn't open in the first place. And that means there must be another reason the TARDIS won't let him in. But what could it be? He has no time to think. No sooner have they hoisted the TARDIS aboard the rock, than the Pah-lehj attack in force - suddenly they and the amalgamates are all fighting for their lives. Jamie sighs: it's the story of his life. Inside the city, the Pah-lehj are attacked by newly awakened aliens. The aliens are the original bodies of the dead Pah-lehj. Their minds have been destroyed by the TARDIS's attack. They are kill-crazy. Polly and Ben decide the Islanders are just too incomprehensible. None of their behaviour has ever made any sense. Perhaps they aren't the Builders after all. But if not them then who? The information chain made by the amalgamating species ends here - unless the Islanders merge with something else in the forest. So Polly and Ben follow a group of ten Islanders who have all just merged with one of the other-species amalgamates into the forest. It is spooky in here. The light is dim. The sounds of outside are muted by the vegetation. They follow the Islanders, watching as they walk up to a crudely chiselled column of rock about two feet thick and ten feet high. The rock has a soft sheen to it, like polished basalt. The Islanders don't stop when they reach the rock. They walk into it. All ten of them, into a column two feet wide. Amazed, Ben and Polly touch the rock. It is quite solid. Yet the Islanders have all vanished. They sit down nearby and try to think. The planet is an experiment, with observational data being transferred by the merging of life forms. Polly tries to order all her memories of what happened on the island, from climbing the roots, to meeting the Islanders, finding what she now realises was the TARDIS lodged in the island, and about how the island regulated its own gas as if it were alive - suddenly they look at each other with growing excitement. It makes sense. If the planet could only survive universal cycles by being made of extrauniversal matter, the same should hold true for the whoever was monitoring the experiment. The Islanders aren't builders. The islands are. The Islanders come out of the column of rock. They walk straight past Polly and Ben. Ben gets up to follow them, but Polly holds him back. Then a few more Islanders come into the clearing. They begin to walk into the rock. Polly suddenly says, 'Ben, this may be our only chance to talk to a Builder. Don't worry, I'll be back.' Before Ben can protest, she runs at the column, hitting it a second after the last Islander. She vanishes from sight. Ben rushes over to the rock - but whatever transdimensional portal was there is now closed. In the city, in normal-time, the insane aliens attack the T'Chaq again. The hive creature is forced to retreat. The insane aliens begin to smash the mind-recovery equipment. Now the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie are trapped in their host bodies - if they die now, they will really die. Polly is inside the island. Inside the Builder. In a huge chamber, a temple of solid rock. She is able to move through the rock as if it were air. She wonders how she is able to do this, assumes it is something to do with the Builder. So it must know she is here. She tries to communicate with it. She realises she is in the creature's brain when a holographic memory chain forms around her: the TARDIS's attack on the experiment. And on the Builder that was overseeing the experiment. This Builder. It is dying of internal injuries caused when the TARDIS materialised within its body. The Builder shudders in its death throes. Polly is unable to learn a thing from it. She doesn't even know if she will be able to get out before it dies. Ben rushes back to the village as the island shudders - earthquake, or death-throes? By the time he gets back there the forests are crashing down. Big chunks of rock are falling off the edges and underside of the island, which is becoming dangerously unstable. The Islanders are scrambling madly to get off - but it's not easy. Some manage to get away on parachutes, but some fall to their deaths. Ben just has time to grab one himself before the island dies, flipping over and beginning to disintegrate in awesome slow motion as it does so. Ben and the surviving Islanders are attacked in the air by hordes of the Pah-lehj. Many are killed, yet still a hundred or so manage to parachute to another island. The one the Doctor and Jamie are piloting. This island, too is under attack by the Pah-lehj. Ben finds the Doctor and Jamie in the thick of the confusion and tells them breathlessly that Polly is still inside the disintegrating island. Inside the dying Builder. All around them the amalgamates begin to merge with the Islanders. Chanting for information, the Pah-lehj begin to feed. Jamie wants to know what they are going to do about rescuing Polly. Ben, too, is almost frantic with worry. But the Doctor wants to know all about what happened to him and Polly. After Ben has told him, the Doctor rushes off into the forest, following some now-merged Islanders. Ben and Jamie watch him in amazement. 'What about Polly?' wails Jamie. 'Looks like its up to you and me mate,' says Ben. He looks across at the island, which is still crashing. 'We've got to get her off there.' 'Oh aye, and how d'ye plan t'do that, then?' says Jamie. 'Grow wings, can ye?' Ben grins. 'That's not such a bad idea, mate,' he says. Polly fights her way through the Builder. The rock is solidifying all around her as the creature dies. If she cannot get out before it dies she knows she will be crushed, entombed in the dying Builder. She is on the point of not being able to move when a big chunk of rock disintegrates and she is hurled out onto the fields of the island, which are breaking apart into chunks and falling away. She rolls down the steep slope, tangled in a mess of broken trees, debris etc. She reaches the edge of what is now a steep cliff and tumbles over. As she falls, she sees two Pah-lehj swooping towards her. Obviously it's not enough for her to fall to her death, she is going to be eaten as well. Then she sees that the Pah-lehj are being ridden by Ben and Jamie. They catch her, take her back to the stable island. Behind them the dead island finally hits, several million tons smashing into the maze walls. They begin to collapse. The sound is terrifying. The island rocks. The pressure wave bats the remaining Pah-lehj away from the island, gaining a short respite for the merging Islanders and amalgamates. The Doctor is waiting for them when they arrive, watching the maze walls fall. 'That's not supposed to happen,' he says. 'The maze should have been indestructible.' Obviously the problems on Maze are getting worse. The Doctor confirms this. This island is a Builder too, sent to replace the dying one. He has spoken to it. In breathless sentances he explains the following important facts: Millions of years ago, there was a race of Builders living outside the universe. The Builders could observe the many big bang/big crunch cycles of our universe as a complete four dimensional object, but could not interact with it. Observation told the Builders something was wrong with the universe, that eventually it would reach a point where it would no longer have enough mass to continue its cycle of collapse, and would therefore continue expanding, encroaching upon the space in which the Builders lived until they were forced out of existance. They needed to get inside the universe to examine it and find out what was wrong - but to get inside it would destroy it. Analogy: trying to see if there is a fossil inside a rock if you don't have an X-ray machine. The only way to find out would be to smash open the rock - and risk destroying the fossil. So they built the planet Maze as a model to try and work out what was going wrong with the universe, and as a means of trying to calculate a possible solution to the problem. They filled the world with creatures and invited great minds from within the universe to dwell in the bodies so that they might help solve the problem. Thus the strange life cycle of the native species, all of which is designed to transfer individual bits of observational data to a point where it can be transmitted back outside the universe and collated by the Builders. What the the Doctor and his companions weren't expecting when they were invited was to have their minds yanked out of their bodies and into alien hosts - and the TARDIS wasn't expecting it either. Sensing what it perceived to be a direct threat to the Doctor's life, the TARDIS initiated a violent series of temporal reprisals - reprisals which damaged the planet's operating systems and killed the controlling Builder. Unfortunately a temporal backlash wiped out the TARDIS control systems and it ended up warpsmashed into various bits of the planet which comprised the experimental model. All the species on the planet got their memories erased and life cycles messed up. The whole experience was incredibly traumatic - especially for the Doctor and his companions, none of whom were retrieved by the TARDIS, all of whom ended up as part of the ecosystem the TARDIS had ruined. In the city, in normal-time, the T'Chaq leap on the insane aliens, send feelers into their ears and render them all unconscious while they repair their minds. While they are unconscious, the T'Chaq animate the bodies and use them to begin repairs on the damaged mind transfer systems. Polly wants to know what they are going to do now then? 'Yeah,' says Ben. 'Are they going to save the universe or what?' The Doctor explains the Builders cannot act until they have worked out what the problem is, which they cannot do until they have all the observational data - some of which resides in the minds of the Pah-lehj. In order to save the universe they will first have to somehow stop the violence here. 'Why can this Builder-thingy no' stop the violence?' asks Jamie. 'Because they cannot act in this universe,' the Doctor tells him. 'For fear of altering the nature of the observed data.' 'I get it,' says Polly. 'We're part of the experiment - so we can change things.' The Doctor nods. 'Still doesn't tell us how we're going to stop a war though, does it?' says Ben. 'Why should we?' asks Polly. 'Why don't we just let them kill each other?' The others look at her as if she's mad. 'Don't you get it? Then their minds will be retreived and the T'Chaq can extract their memories and transfer them to the Builders. We don't have to do anything except retrieve any that don't die.' It makes sense. They watch as the slaughter begins. The Builders assimilate all the information in the Pah-lehj and work out what the problem was with the universe. They try to fix it but the TARDIS interferes. 'I was afraid of this,' says the Doctor. He has to conentrate all his telepathic ability and break through the TARDIS's defense systems. Fortunately, he has a telepathic 'back door' which he can use to get into the operating systems. 'If you can get in, why did ye no' do so before?' asks Jamie. 'It would a saved us all the bother wi' the wee flying beasties.' The Doctor looks very serious indeed. 'I got suspicious when the TARDIS wouldn't let me in, even though it obviously recognised me. There's only one thing that can lock a Time Lord out of his TARDIS and that's another Time Lord. Or Time Lords.' The Doctor telepathically enters the TARDIS and after a mental battle manages to shut it down so the Builders can sort out the problem with the universe. 'So who was it, then?' demands Ben when he comes back. 'Who was trying to prevent the universe from being saved?' The Doctor hesitates. 'I can't talk about it. I'm forbidden,' he says. Polly won't take no for an answer. 'That's not fair,' she says. 'No, it's not, is it?' he replies darkly. 'But perhaps it's better that you don't know.' The Doctor changes the subject by asking the Builder what the problem with the universe was. The Builder considers all the Doctor has said. 'I think perhaps it's better that your species does not know,' it says eventually, with a pointed look at the TARDIS. Epilogue Second Invitation While the T'Chaq are doing this the Builder invites the time travellers to stay, and maybe visit its own place outside the Universe. The Doctor decides to accept, anticipating with pleasure the exchange of ideas and worldviews (and the possibility he might yet wheedle an explanation out of the Builders). He wonders if the Builder has ever sampled the delights of broken orange pekoe tea. Polly refers to the size of the Builder and asks if Broken Orange Pekoe comes in fifty gallon drums.

#Doctor Who #Jim Mortimore #my brain is casually leaking out my ear but you know how it is with Jimbo

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