. . . the Endless Meeting of the Ancillary Services Committee.

The Ancillary Services Committee.

The room seemed normal enough, in a non- descript boardroom-cum-torture chamber kind of way, albeit that as soon as he had sat down in the one empty chair, manacles had shot out and bound him there at the ankles and left wrist (the right wrist had been kept free, it later transpired, so that Fred could take notes of any pertinent points which arose in the meeting). The twenty or so other seats are filled with men and women who are so utterly anonymous that although Fred has been here for some time now (he doesn't know exactly how long becuase the wall clock has stopped), each time he looks at them he does not recognise a single face.

Apart from the Chairman.

The Chairmen (or Chair as it had now been agreed to call him, after a debate on sexism in boardroom nomenclature prior to the meeting proper during which Fred's beard had grown over half an inch) is a seven foot tall coal black demon with large horns and a pair of half moon glasses which it was forever taking off to wave airly around in the air when making a point of order.

The meeting itself had started breezily enough, with Agenda Item 1 being "Membership" and Fred being the only new member, although things had gotten sidetracked a bit when someone had queried whether Fred was a full member or an associate member, or was in lieu of someone else, or in lieu of an associate member, or was merely there by invitation and was therefore without voting rights.

However it was when discussion had moved on to "Matters Arising" that Fred had begun to know the true meaning of despair (along with the true meanings of around 150 other words which had been considered subject to possible misinterpretation and had therefore been debated at considerable length). For it immediately became apparent that the Ancillary Services Committee had never actually managed to achieve anything in all its existence. For the first Matter Arising from the minutes of the previous meeting was in respect to the item "Matters Arising", which in turn referred to the item "Matters Arising" in the minutes of the meeting previous to that, which in turn . . . It was at about this point that Fred had started to experience his derilious fantasies about Gilligan's Island.

It was with some relief now that Fred realises that the Committee has finally dealt with "Matters Arising" and has arrived at the next agenda item. However the smile which now appears on the Chair's lips fills him with a sense of foreboding, a forebding that turns to dread when Fred realises that the next item is:

1. the interim report of the Torture Sub-Committee of the Extreme Pain Working Group on "What to Do to Fred Next".
2. Annual Accounts.

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