Ben Elton - Gridlock

Gridlock by Ben Elton. Ben Elton has proved himself the most popular and the most controversial comedian to emerge in recent years. As well as his own stand-up routines, Ben's numerous writing credits include Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third, Blackadder Goes Forth, The Man From Auntie, The Young Ones, Gasping, SUly Cow and the internationally bestselling novel Stark. Gridlock is his second novel.

PRAISE FOR GRIDLOCK:

'He combines passionate espousal of a cause with the machine-gun narration of a stand-up comic, peppered with good jokes and with the energetically managed, funny and violent action of a manic strip cartoon'

Ned Sherrin Standard

'Perfect fodder for the politically correct holidaymaker'

Time Out

'Leaves you wondering why our more upmarket novelists can never be bothered to write about something as obviously important, topical and politically resonant as the nightmarish growth of the motor industry'Guardian

'Hugely enjoyable... very funny, frequently perceptive and often thought-provoking'

Yorkshire Evening Post

A Warner Book

First published in Great Britain by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd 1991

Published by Sphere Books Ltd 1992 Reprinted by Warner Books 1993 Reprinted 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000

Copyright (c) Ben Elton 1991

The right of Ben Elton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic ISBN 07515 1011 4

Warner Books A Division of Little, Brown and Company (UK) Brettenham House

Lancaster Place London WC2E 7EN

For Sophie AN OFF-PLANET INTRODUCTION Before beginning this story proper, a story which has its fictional feet very firmly on the ground, it is worth taking a moment to look upwards, high above the teeming masses of rush-hour London where most of this story is set. Above the tired office workers, tired of office working; the tired media lunch-eaters, tired of eating media lunch; the strange cockney philanthropists, who are prepared to offer you not one gold watch, not even two gold watches, but three gold watches for a tenner. Up and away from the deep carpet of burger boxes and homeless people. Up through the dirty air, over the satellite dishes currently receiving fifteen different Italian game shows, some with bikinis. On, up past Nelson, through the flock of pigeons with the telescopic sights on their backsides, past the great crowd of 747s playing aeronautical Russian Roulette on their way to Heathrow. Through the hot, sticky fog of GRIDLOCK greenhouse gases, sadly no longer through the ozone layer, past the awesomely sophisticated satellite technology currently employed in transmitting fifteen different Italian game shows, some with bikinis. Up up up and out into space, for it is here, in space, that there recently hovered a spaceship.

This spaceship contained a group of television researchers from the Planet Brain hi the process of analysing humanity, in order to compile a three minute comedy item for their top-rated television show, Thafs Amazing, Brainians, which followed the early evening news.

The researchers were pleased, they had noted much which was amusingly amazing, and they assured each other that Earth had provided the easiest bit of researching that they had done in aeons. Brain is populated by beings of immense intelligence and so far it had taken them only a quarter, of a quarter, of a single second to assimilate and comprehend humanity. All those things which we on Earth believe to be complex and difficult had been simplicity itself to the beings from Brain. The situation in Beirut; what Hamlet's problem was; how to set the timer on a fourteen-day video-recorder - these things were not mysteries to the Brainians. In that quarter, of one quarter, of a single second they had answered it all. Although, hi fairness, it must be added that two weeks later, back on Brain, the researchers would discover that they had managed to record a docu

AN OFF-PLANET INTRODUCTION mentary about Tuscany rather than Dirty Harry which they really wanted to watch.

But such slight slip-ups aside, the Brainians had humanity taped. They understood the rules of cricket, how the stripes get into the toothpaste and the reason why there is no word in English for the back of the knee. In that quarter, of one quarter, of a single second the research team had answered all the great philosophical questions. They knew whether an object still exists when you are not looking at it (it does); whether there is a God (if you want); and why people eat Kentucky Fried Chicken even though it makes them feel ill (human beings are stupid). But then, they were stumped. They had encountered one aspect of human activity which astonished and mystified even those hardened researchers. Researchers who thought they had seen every illogicality and lunacy that the universe had to offer. On this very planet they had seen pointless wars and pointless destruction; they had visited the Tate gallery; they had listened to modern jazz; they had read the novels of James Joyce; they had seen icecreams which claimed to be shaped like faces but were actually shaped like amoeba - and they had understood it all. But this one had thrown them. This one had them scratching their multiple thought podules in a perplexed manner and saying 'akjafgidkerhs lejhslh heir, which translates as 'Bugger me, that's weird!'

GRIDLOCK

The problem was one of transport.

The Brainians could see the long, thin arteries along which the humans travelled. They noted that after sunrise the humans all travelled one way and at sunset they all travelled the other. They could see that progress was slow and congested along these arteries, that there were endless blockages, queues, bottle-necks and delays causing untold frustration and inefficiency. All this they could see quite clearly.

What was not clear to them, was why.

They knew that humanity was stupid, they had only to look at the week's top ten grossing movies to work that out, but this was beyond reason. If, as was obvious, space was so restricted, why was it that each single member of this strange life-form insisted on occupying perhaps fifty times its own ground surface area for the entire tune it was in motion or not in motion, as was normally the case?

The super intelligent beings transmitted their data back to the producer of their programme and they received a right earful in reply (which was rather a lot because, although Brainians are only eight inches tall, their ears are the size of wheelbarrows and have to be rolled up like blinds).

'You're mad,' bellowed the producer using his inter-galactic portable phone because, like producers the universe over, he was having lunch.

'You're trying to tell me that they're all going in the same direction, travelling to much the same destinations and yet they're all deliberately impeding

AN OFF-PLANET INTRODUCTION the progress of each other by covering six square metres of space with a large, almost completely empty tin box?'

That's exactly what we're trying to tell you boss.'

'You're drunk,' shouted the producer, and he was so annoyed that the binding on one of his ears snapped and about six square feet of flapping lug hole flopped into his pasta.