We are ready to take you.

Where? Why? Now? 

Good.

I’ll think of something to say when they ask the inevitable question “when did you first notice this?”.

But instead we talked about music, donuts and the quality of paper used in art magazines.

Never ride a  gift horse in the saddle.

Saver coupons for the latest lettuce-powered car, to be included in the Economist comic book.

Vegetables may be in even shorter supply as drivers shove carrots, lettuces and avocados into the food-fill nozzles of their cars.

High taxes on cycling have seen a fall in the value of Lycra and Spandex.

Now everyone wears Saville Row suits and Chanel outfits again.

No-one predicted this!

Perhaps this is (not) true, or….the future is not always as predictable as popular pundits pontificate. Pffff!

Taken individually, the ideas were just moderately funny.

Later, laughing uproariously, with abandon, uncontrollably giggling, rolling with hysterical guffaws and loud harrumphs, the team got it right. That’s what they told themselves.

Then, they let one woman write it all and one read it. Everybody liked it. Except one.

Then the next one wrote something else, the lone dissenter laughed from dawn to dusk, and one other kept a straight, taught face.

Why this sudden focus on laughter?

Well, they said you had to focus on something

And they did!

On lying down with a book, a notepad, a pile of magazines I normally do not get to read, and time created to spare.

What new revelations, neatnesses, messy & unformed thoughts could flow.

Oh – they do!

It is such an essential potion and cure for things that do not yet need it.

A mild and minor variation on a theme.

A wave of new peaks and comfortable troughs.

Visions for the future, seeded.

“Poor you!” They said.

What did they mean?

Terms of endearment and affection.

But we really have to invent new, better phrases!

Let’s start again.