Long and wretched was the night, and I cast about in the darkness in desperation, hoping against hope that somewhere in the wilderness I would find the object of my desire. Fifteen years I had been searching; over mountains and across deserts I had come, and now, here in the tangled vines of the Forest of Dean, I was sure I'd locate my quarry. Yes, I was foolish, but I cared not for the judgements of others, for I had come for the greatest prize a man could ever wish for.

I was beginning to give up hope when, by chance alone, my hand, grubbing around in the blackness, lit upon something harder and more unyielding than the slime of the forest floor. Could it be? I grabbed the object and lifted it up to the turgid moonlight. Yea, God be praised, I had found it! Never in my wildest dreams had I actually believed I would ever be so fortunate! The bitter struggles, the battles against my self and the endless loneliness of decades had paid off! Jumping around and hugging my prize to my chest I wept with joy. After all these years I had found it, the August 1998 copy of Cotswold Life magazine was mine!

I rushed from the forest, heedless of the slashing barbs of the brambles which tore my skin. No pain or torment could bring me down, for I had a recipe for miniature cheese scones that would rival even the bakers of Scunthorpe in their exquisite flavour. I knew now how to wear a Barbour jacket with cream jodhpurs and what kind of Laura Ashley floral print curtains would go best with my deep aubergine pile. Such glorious times lay ahead of me, yet as I drew into the car park of the local Tesco, I became aware that I was being followed. Thrusting my hard won booty into the front of my britches, I turned to face my pursuers. Emerging from the light of a flickering street lamp came Alan Rickman, George Best and yes, you guessed it, Tilda Swinton.

Terror rose up through my body like an enraged python. In my minds eye I saw them knocking me to the ground and cruelly wresting the new found treasure from my bloodied fingers.

"Hand over the merchandise." said Swinton, the hatred boring into my skull from her wicked eyes.
"Never!" I hissed.
"Oh, I hoped you'd say that!" grinned the wicked temptress, and the three of them closed in on me. Rickman bore a frozen haggis which he thumped menacingly against his paw. George Best brandished a toilet plunger which gleamed viciously in the yellow light, and from her beer soaked pockets Swinton withdrew the largest turkey baster I had ever set my eyes upon.

I tried to run, but in a moment they were upon me, plunging, basting and haggissing with all their might. I cried out in pain as I saw my life flashing before my eyes. How could it come to this, after all my trials, to be beaten down in the car park of a leading supermarket? But then I remembered a promise that had been made to me some fifty years ago on the banks of the Nile by a one legged antelope herder named Francoise.
"In your darkest hour," he had said to me that summer's eve, "when you are sure you are about to perish, call out these words and your salvation shall come charging upon the back of a great steed.", and he whispered to me the words that I shouted now, screaming up at the heedless night.

"Milkybars are on me!" I wailed, my voice bursting out from the fray. Nothing came, and my assailants continue their onslaught, guffawing and jeering as they beat me harder and harder. But then, I heard a sound so sweet it brought tears of joy to my eyes. The sound of a warthog snuffling in the dirt came to me across the cold air and I knew that my saviour had arrived. All of a sudden my attackers were pinwheeling through the air as the mighty tusks of my hero's steed jabbed and tore at the enemy. When they had been thoroughly routed, I stood and looked into the face of my benefactor sitting proudly upon the hog. There he was, my old friend Jeff Goldblum, naked but for a pink bra and a child's hula skirt. I wept with joy as I hugged him in gratitude, and then I turned to the vile beasts who had descended on me. They cowered beneath us, horrified by the fury with which they had been dispatched, yet Jeff and I were benevolent. We allowed them to flee with their lives.

For now, the tale must end, but join me again when we'll discuss the 1904 shoe tree whittling championship, the victory of which I was pipped to the post by none other than Malala Yousafzai.

It was in the late twenties that I first found my love of bog snorkelling. I'd recently returned from a toast juggling contest in Algeria when my cousin Wilberforce telephoned from Uzbekistan where he'd been tutoring the local kids in Einstein's field equations. He wanted to meet me for tea and cakes on the veranda at Lourdes, and who was I to refuse an offer like that?

Packing my essentials, a toothbrush and a copy of 'Loaded', I set sail across the Barents Sea to meet my distant cousin. After the usual pleasantries and customary bout of hardcore incestuous anal, we got down to brass tacks, which was amusing as brass tacks were Wilberforce's lubricant of choice. It turned out that he'd been invited to the Lanarkshire bog snorkelling championships by none other then Freddie Mercury. Alas, though, he could not attend as he has been brought low by a woman, or so he said. Feeling too ill of heart he bade me go in his stead and I was only too happy to accept. What better chance could I ever have of finding my long lost trousers? I remembered that Genghis was only too fond of bog snorkelling and there was surely no chance that he would wish to pass up the opportunity, and so I was sure he would be in Lanarkshire that hot summer.

When I arrived, the first thing I saw was that the hunt for my beloved trousers would continue. There was no sign of Genghis and so I would have to compete in the contest for the sheer joy, and to mollify my cousin of course. For forty three hours I snorkelled, tirelessly beating at the murky water with my stripling legs, and yet I failed to raise the trophy at the end having been narrowly beaten by a small Uruguayan girl of nine months. She was too powerful for me and so graciously I accepted defeat. That evening, as we swapped tales over a bag of cockles and a ham sandwich or five, I realised that this was my home, my true calling. No longer did I wish to jaunt across deserts or tunnel through drifts of snow in the Arctic. I wanted to end my days waist-deep in slurry, floundering against the Scottish bog. So it was with great sadness that I left that place, having been called into service in the Korean war. Kim Il-Sung had known my father and my service had been promised to the former by the latter many years earlier and I was not one to renege on an historic oath. With tears in my eyes I left Lanarkshire and was never seen again so far north.

Once again I grow weary and so, when I return, I will recount the curious events of May 7th, 2015, when I lost a game of badminton to Gary Kasparov in the jungles of Antigua.

A great drip of sumptuous brown mud rolled down the tip of her beautifully carved nose before hanging on the tip like a swollen apple ready to drop. I gazed deep into her dazzling blue eyes and she back into mine and we knew, right there and then that something sensational was about to erupt between us. There would be fireworks, of that there was no doubt, and as her breast heaved with excitement and I felt a stirring in my loins, we leapt at each other once more. Her strength was greater than mine, but I was more lithe, and we grappled and grabbed at each other like wild beasts. This is the tale of how I met Julie Andrews at a mud wrestling contest in the grounds of Buckingham Palace in the late seventies. I, a mere stripling at seventeen; her a buxom and ravishing vision of womanhood. Who knew that our lives would be so suddenly changed? Long we wrestled that day, before spending many a night cavorting throughout the taverns and brothels of Westminster, money being less than a thought in our pursuit of debauchery. Every night we shared a new experience, be it go-karting in our underwear or dolphin surfing down the River Fleet. The lamp-lit darkness was ours and the days were spent sleeping, cradled exhausted in one another's arms, the sweat of our rambunctiousness steaming off us, mingling into a miasma of lust and unbridled passion.

It was with great regret then that I had to bid her farewell on that frosty August evening in May, a single tear rolling down her perfect cheek as I stood upon the platform in Ouagadougou station. As the coal scented steam drifted between us and the train rolled away with a gentle lurch, she looked down at her feet in sorrow. We would never see each other again, but I would forever remember the tantalizing scent of her shoelaces and the uproarious guffaw of her hearty laugh. Hanging out of the carriage door I watched her receding into obscurity until she was no more than a dot on the horizon. Our time was over, yet our passion would live on throughout the centuries.

Knowing that I must move on, I receded into the train which would bear me henceforth unto Managua, Nicaragua. I had taken it upon myself to find enlightenment, which I was assured was to be found atop a great mountain, for it is in such places where the heart is free and the mind may wander unconstrained. The journey itself took two interminable hours during which I thought of nothing but my dear Julie. In fact, truth be told, that is a lie. I also thought of my trousers and dear Genghis Khan who had won them from me in that game long ago. I wondered where he was and whether he still wore my Levi 501s. Perhaps I would find insight upon this journey as I had not on any journey before. There grew within me a foreboding of something momentous and, before long, I was eager to reach my destination. When we arrived, I stepped down onto the brown earth and lifted my eyes up to the sky. A great torrent of rain lashed down from the clouds but I cared not for this dowsing. My life was about to change once again, and I set off through the bustling markets and down the scent filled alleyways. It was at this point that a small monkey, riding a dog, began to follow me. He was black of face and golden furred, with eyes that bore into me like the augers of a wheelwright. I tried to evade him by slipping in and out of market stalls, changing my attire several times and rubbing horse faces over myself in order to disguise my scent, but he could not be foxed. Clearly I was pitted against an adversary of cunning mind who could not be fooled by mere sleight of hand.

Realising that I could not shake my tail, I decided to press on regardless. I purchased a walking stick from a cheese vendor on a street corner and began to pick my way through the streets towards the mountains, the monkey-dog combination always in tow some twenty-or-so yards behind. It took some hours to escape the confines of the city, but eventually I found myself staring upwards at the green slopes, the summit of the mountain wreathed in cloud. Dense forest carpeted the land before me and it wasn't long before I was wishing I'd brought my Swiss Army knife. Undeterred though, I continued my struggle. Branches and vines lashed at my face and often I was beset by spiders, scorpions and all manner of unknown creatures. So thick and unforgiving was this web-like foliage that you can imagine my surprise when, after hacking through some of the thickest, most knife-resistant boughs I had yet encountered, I came upon Elvis Costello, naked as the day he was born, swinging through the trees before a pack of adoring kangaroos. Back and forth he swooshed, wheeling and arcing through the air like an angry tiger on hot coals, with many an 'ooh' and 'ahh' from the adoring marsupials. Just as I thought the scene couldn't get any stranger, Tilda Swinton charged into the clearing brandishing a koala high above her head, ready to strike at Costello with all the force she could muster. Before I could yell 'look out!', she was upon him, legs wrapped around his waist, crushing him to the floor and pushing the bewildered animal into his face.

Like a snake though, he twisted and contorted until he was free of her grip, spinning around until he had the koala between his hands, whereupon a struggle to take hold of the animal ensued. Neither of them heeded its distressed grunts and wails as they wrenched it to and fro. Finally, with one great jerk, he wrenched its grey form from her grasp. Would he strike her down, or taunt her viciously? Indeed not. Instead he spun upon his heels and dashed into the forest like an impala, leaping easily over fallen trunks and tangling vines. Swinton pulled back her lips in a snarl of hatred and dashed after him, yelling and roaring with threats and promises of doom and torment. For the remains of that day, I could hear the sounds of their game of cat and mouse echoing amongst the trees from here ad there around the mountainside.

Alone again, save for the monkey who followed me still and the kangaroos who milled around, bewildered by this turn of events, I continued my journey toward the summit. After a time the trees gave way to bare rock and screed which slipped and shifted underfoot. Over and again I slipped on the unsteady surface, pushing my hands down before me in an effort to steady myself. Before long the bitter stones has shredded my fingers and palms in a hundred places. My back and neck burned from the wretched gaze of the sun which had turned my skin to a swollen, angry red. My legs ached and screamed with the effort, but I struggled on against the slope. Then the rains came, the clouds building up like a city of skyscrapers which came from nowhere in what seemed like an instant. They boiled up against the mountain side like breakers in the ocean smashing against a cliff face. They opened, the cool water sloughing down my face and pouring down my back. Blessed relief it was, for as it flowed it carried away the heat of my struggle and I was rejuvenated, for a time. On I climbed, through the clouds until finally, bathed in the golden light of the afternoon, a plateau was spread out before me. There was no life here, just the bare rock as dry as a desert. I cast my eyes this way and that and saw, some four feet in the distance, a shack of gnarled and sun-bleached wood.

What I saw when I approached to rude hut will have to wait for another day, when I shall also regale you with the yarn of how I met Ban Ki-Moon at a Pantera concert in the O2 Arena.

In 2003 I was working as a lumberjack on the foothills of Mount Doom, Mordor. I'd decided to go looking for work in the South after having become disillusioned with the hype and stage management of WWE wrestling, of which I'd been a part for so many years. Taking very little with me I left on the first train out of Rayleigh and made my way down the Grampian mountains to where my future lay. We stopped just outside Vienna one day to take on water and coal, and it was here that I first witnessed the phenomenon of goat jumping. A large number of city traders were gathered outside a small sandwich shop and, lined up before them, were thirteen large goats. Each man would pull on a pair of special cardboard sandals, take a long run up and try to leap over the goats without touching them. Very few succeeded, and by the time we left, three weeks later, there were only two goats left standing. The rest had been crushed by over zealous and under skilled stockbrokers, confined forever to limp around the marketplace begging for food. I never returned to Austria.

When I finally reached my new workplace, the Eye of the Dark Lord being a welcome change from the stuffiness of the train carriage, I set to work immediately. I hadn't yet found an employer, so my plan had been that I would single handedly cut down as many trees as I could and drag them to one of the merchants in the hope that he would tender me an offer. Well, and this is obvious in hindsight, of course there are no trees at the feet of Mount Doom. They had all been stripped to make way for the Olympic Park which now stood gleaming in the springtime sun. Not to be deterred I began uprooting any small plant or bush that I came across and, by the following summer, I had amassed a whopping eight kilograms of wood which I then carried to the local branch of B&Q, hoping to find gainful employment there. Unfortunately though, my troubles were not over as this particular branch had been closed down and reopened as a doughnut shop.

I must admit that, at this point, I was beginning to feel a little discouraged but, just as I was about to pack up my things and head off to a new life as a Geisha in Okinawa, something I did eventually do, a young man came up to me and offered to buy my wood. It turned out that he and his chums were erecting some form of play den in his father's workshop and so he offered me two pounds and fifteen pence for the lot. Well, I couldn't believe my luck. Finally, after all of the sweat, the toil and the rejection, I had made my fortune. Now I would be able to buy the luxury yacht I had been drooling over in Liechtenstein. At two hundred feet it was only a small craft, quite pokey inside, but I was a modest man in those long ago days and it was quite suitable for my purposes. So, taking my new found riches I headed back north, past Isengard, taking a boat up the Brandywine and finally washing up in Rio de Janeiro where I would take a taxi to Istanbul. From there I would take the long haul flight to London, wind surf over the Thames and eventually, after several short years of travelling, end up in the little dusty shop where my beloved boat was for sale. Making the purchase left me still with an over abundance of hard cash, so I spent the next few weeks painting the town red with the guitarist from Blur, Boutros Boutros Ghali and a hooker named Gwendoline. Such fun we had, chasing cats down the streets and throwing mud pies at pedestrians. Those were heady days and I must confess I often times shed a tear for that which is now lost.

My tale ends here today, but tomorrow, should I be spared, I shall recount the gruesome tale of the time Victoria Beckham beat me at strip poker.

My name is Rudolph Tarquinne Gunderfelt-Smythe XVI. I was born to a  sponge merchant and a nail designer in Harrogate in the year of Our Lord 1921.

It was when I was a mere lad that I first felt the call of the world, tales of the long and open road having trickled down to my ears from the limpet tradesmen and weasel farmers which used to frequent the house of my aunt Georgina. She was a busty lady, the type who could take your eye out with a twitch of a well aimed mammary gland. I would sit at the foot of her stairs of an evening, swigging milk from a hip flask that her great nephew had given me as a golden handshake, whilst the heavy booted men stomped and thudded around the cobblestoned kitchen with their tales of NASDAQ and pork futures. I lusted for the gold paved streets of Rochdale and the steamy brothels of Wyre Piddle. So distant they seemed from my little dark corner of the north of England, yet in my mind's eye I could smell the sweet smell of sweaty goat herders and the musky scent of polished shoulder pads. I longed to set out from that front door, to stride bravely across the land in search of naught but adventure and intrigue, and so it was with great joy that one day I discovered that National Express laid on bus journeys around this great island, with tickets from just a fiver, terms and conditions apply!

One night, whilst my parents snored beneath a duvet of finest moose down, I snuck out from my box room and packed my things into a dog leather knapsack. I took little, for my slight shoulders were not strong in those days; just a toothbrush, a copy of the Teach Yourself Guide to Crochet and a golf tee. Inching the door open, careful not to elicit the squeeeaaaak of the small shrew my father kept in a bottle next to the coat stand, I crept out into the night. The street was dimly lit by the light of the bull rushes, yet to me the night was filled with the glorious light of excitement and wonder. I stole a glance at my ticket, already grimy from my sweaty, Camembert coated hands. I was going to Stevenage! Even the name sounded tantalising and throbbing with excitement as I turned it around in my mind. What wonders would I find there, what adventures? My heart pounded in my chest as I raced up the lane, past the gate made from pig feathers and out into the street. Down the road I pelted until there, before the Camelherder's Arms I saw it, a gleaming chariot of beige and brown twinkling in the rusty moonlight. My salvation was waiting for me on four wheels of glory and I could not have been more thrilled with anticipation and trepidation. My sojourn into the world had begun.

Now it was upon this bus, at a service station between Wednesbury and Strathclyde, that I first met Genghis Khan. Heavily laden with a sack full of No. 8 spanners, he wheezed and groaned his way up the steps and onto the bus. It appears that he'd not already purchased a ticket for this ill fated journey, and so he was forced to lay down his load and search for half a florin in the pocket of his Bermuda shorts. As he fumbled around, the spanners made a beautiful jingling sound as they jostled back and forth with the rumbling of the engine of our conveyance. Finally, he pulled from his garment not a silver coin, but the latest copy of 'Nuts' magazine. So overjoyed was the driver of our vehicle to see the scantily clad young man on the front cover that he immediately allowed the brutal warlord to board free of charge. I shrank back in my seat, hoping that the cruel looking stranger, standing there in his bright shorts, string vest and steel dunce cap, would choose a seat, any seat but mine. Alas, the carriage was too full and he dragged his still clinking sack over to where I sat and slumped down onto the seat. He stank of Chanel No.5 and cream tea and I almost gagged at the stench, my eyes watering with the sticky sweetness. My pain was short lived though, for no sooner had he sat down than he rearranged his underwear and pulled out a game of snakes and ladders. I was thrilled, having been the under 65's champion for the last 72 years in a row. Yet I had underestimated this traveller from the far East. Deftly he cast the dice upon the board and, time and time again, he demonstrated a mastery of the runged stairs and the scaled serpents. It was not long before I had lost everything to him, save for my 1943 Swimsuit Barbie and my rubber cocktail shaker. These I would not lose, so naked and ashamed, I declared him champion of boardgames and bid him leave me be. Looking down at me from under those bushy eyebrows, he patted me on the hairless knee and, moving his gnarled hand one point two three inches closer to my thigh he told me not to be afraid. From that moment we were fast friends, Genghis and I.

We travelled together for some fourteen months. At the end of this time, when finally we reached Droitwich, we bade each other farewell. Not ashamed am I to admit that I shed a tear, nay, many tears at his departure. Upon leaving he gave me a gift, a shoebox, filled with pile cream and a plastic ham sandwich. I treasure that box still and, as you shall see, it has rarely been far from my side except for a foul and terrible year I spent moonlighting as an investment banker away from my job as a dog breeder in Mumbai. But I digress. For now, the night grows long and I grow weary. I shall continue my tale another day, when I tell you the story of how I met J.K. Rowling whilst panning for gold in the jungles of Eritrea. Sleep well.