The accident caused quick change to the drunken debauchery of the rest of the day. Thesuses and Robocop immediately erected a safety barrier around the magical pool in the glade, Penelope, Blunt and Hassleblad made sandwhches, Nespresso © and cups of tea to help people sober up. Arguments and disputes were quickly put aside and Lidl, Goldilocks and Halliburton called a meeting of the Emergency Council of the Gods* (*what had not met since the death of Prince).

The meeting involved ‘chaotic scenes’ and ‘raised voices’ wherein some Gods favoured sending a search party down to the Earth to locate the young child Valiant or Valuation or whatever her name was, immediately and henceforth, whilst others reminded the Gods in ‘strongest possible words’ of their solemn Duty and serious legally binding agreement not to intervene in the running of what they called Human Affairs (NB not meaning affairs as in sexual relations, but meaning more like they should not interfere in the ‘general set of activities and interactions of Humans’). Arguments went on all day and all night for several days and several nights with a lot of pompous hoopla modelled closely on the braying animal noises and Eton antics of the Parliament down in Endland that used to meet in olden times. Last of all in the Grate Debate it was the turn of Codswallop (mother of Valiant or Valuation or whatever her name was) to speak. She was a impressive figure, noble and wise, beautiful and learned in the ways of the Olympic Park and a scholar of Poetry on Earth. She started her speech with a recital from Wordsworth’s long poem about Brexit with the most famous lines in it where Worksworth is talking about what a lot of fucking xenophobes and idiots the people of Endland (sic) are, and that glib entitled Tory politicians like Rees Mogg and Johnson the worse of them all.

How can it be like this, she quoted, that the future of our hearts can be broken in such a out and out ridiculous fall.

The meeting was very quiet then, so quiet that you could hear the movement of the Earth itself and the distant ticking of the old centralised clock mechanism that is kept in the Observatory on Elysium Fields and which controls all of Human time.

By the moment Codswallop had finished speaking most of the Gods were in tears and even the ones that weren’t really into speeches said it was one of the best speeches ever, certainly one of the best ones ever heard in the council Chambers etc, but all the same it was not totally clear if she was on the side of intervention of on the side of prudent isolation.

Rama stood up right as the applause for Codswallop faded and she asked the Q what was pretty obvious on everyone’s mind.

Noble Codswallop she said what is your counsel in fact?