Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

It still is.

Always a firm favourite, no idea why.

It was a travelling version named the ‘LazeeTazee’. I’d brought it for the train journey, just in case.

Another huge advantage of nuclear heating: abundant hot water.

It’s like a machete but with more heft.

‘Proactive thinnage’ was another euphemism, as was ‘assisted winnowing’.

Mid-Wales’ most notorious Villain. Mad as a barrel of Arctic badgers and four times as dangerous.

An obsolete weapon a little bit more powerful but much lighter than a Thumper, but prone to fatigue failure.

It was rumoured that the descendants of the exiled royal family, far from residing on a large farm in British Columbia, were actually living in a rambling fourteen-bedroomed mansionette near Lampeter.

There are actually eight. I counted them later.

Simply put: the easiest and most likely explanation, however mundane, is probably correct.

I think it meant ‘scrounging food in the Winter’ but I never did find out for sure.

Track 4, Side 1, South Pacific original cast recording.

Ferrero Rocher tried to market this drink in the Summer as Teatella , but it never caught on.

A cylinder only has enough capacity for eight minutes of dreams, but you can double the duration if you run the Somnagraph at half-speed – but the detail is never as fine, and the voices sound muffled.

More simply put, a coward.

He was right, it was. I found out later that IFF meant ‘Identification Friend or Foe’, but it didn’t improve my life knowing it.

The Mk III shock-suits still had elasticated cuffs, rather than gloves. Users often walked away from a heavy thump intact, their hands livid purple with bruising. Hence the expression ‘caught red handed’.

I strongly recommend that you do, too.