Moon Farm

Captain's Log - Day 3

I must congratulate Cowgill, the good ship 'Uncle' is performing perfectly. The ship rotates every hour in order to equalise the temperature. If it did not the side facing the sun would become overheated and the shadowed side unbearably cold.

One of the great experiences that I am really looking forward to on the moon is a slap up meal.

The dwarfs have their own bubble encased farm on the moon. One of the extraordinary advantages of farming on the moon is that the additional solar energy and lack of gravity means that plants grow to unusual heights. The farmer, Butterskin Mute, helped set up the farm and has always said that it produces the best vegetables he has ever tasted.

Even under the cramped conditions of our journey, I like to maintain a sense of decorum and the attributes of a civilised society.

I therefore, insist that everyone dresses for dinner at the Captain's table in the officers' mess.

I think my suspicions that the dwarf, Diggory Stigneev, could be the saboteur are well founded. Tonight, at dinner, there was a heated argument when he espoused his opinions about the rights of the miners on the moon - which I felt compelled to disagree with.

I just hope that Beaver is not aware that we have already departed for the moon, his Black Tom powered rocket would be more than a match for the good ship 'Uncle' in speed.

If they were to follow us, soon, he might well beat us to the moon.

Mining the Moon

Captain's Log - Day 2

As promised I shall now tell you a little about our history on the moon. The moon was claimed for Homeward, by the planting of a flag, forty years ago.

Mineral samples from the moon contained abundant quantities of helium 3, so we left a group of dwarfs there to set up a camp and carry out mining operations.

Helium 3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and is extracted from moon soil and rocks.

The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of Helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth, and just 25 tonnes of helium, which is transported back to us every two years, is enough to provide electricity for Homeward for one full year.

As you know, dwarfs are excellent at mining and subterranean extraction. The majority of our moonbase is underground but we do have have a number of solar farms above ground to power it.

The only problem is the fact that dwarfs can be quite lazy and unreliable. The tricky blighters are always trying to sneak into my oil tanks back home and help themselves to free fuel. Luckily, the man who guards it, Don Guzman, usually manages to catch them.

They are also partial to a drink or two, last New Year's Eve there was a bit of a fracas when some of them got hold of some Black Tom.

I know that we have a saboteur in our midst - so I am keeping a a careful eye on Diggory Stigneev, the dwarf in our crew.

LAUNCH !

Captain's Log - Day 1

The hour arrived. I watched the chronometer ticking off the seconds to launch time.
Cowgill released the valve and the cyclotrons began to flow into the anti-gravity engines. A hum resonated throughout the hull as the engines vibrated. Then the ship rose smoothly up into the atmosphere. The pressure inside the cabin grew as we curved in a long arc through the stratosphere. At 140 miles altitude I ordered the engines to be cut and we found ourselves in a weightless environment. We were now in orbit around the earth. It is a beautiful sight - Areas of green and brown land are interspersed with large tracts of bright blue ocean.

Cowgill and Professor Hismouth are taking readings through the naviscope to determine the optimum moment for our departure from orbit to begin the journey to the moon.

It has been calculated that our journey will take about two weeks. During this time I intend to describe the day-to-day events, and some history of the work that the dwarfs have been doing on the Moon during the last forty years.

For entertainment I have brought with me Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H.G.Wells The First Men in the Moon . I am not a great fan of Science Fiction - I much prefer factual science and I find writers of this material rather fanciful in their predictions of the future. It is, however, quite amusing to see how wrong they all were.

I must admit,though, that Mr Wells was extraordinarily prescient in his creation of the anti-gravity metal, Cavorite.

It is was not so far-fetched and is similar in principle to our own discovery - the cyclotron particle.

An Embarrassing Incident

Launch date for our trip to the moon is set for Monday.

I have decided on the crew to accompany me to the moon.

The Old Monkey - of course, I could not go anywhere without my faithful Aide-de-camp.

Cowgill has to come - he is the only one who knows how to coax the best out of his rocket.

A.B.Fox, because I have no doubt that we will need his intellect and cunning.

We will also need brawn, although Cloutman and Gubbins are normally inseparable there is not room for both. So they drew lots - Cloutman won and so will act as our security.

The Old Monkey suggested it would be diplomatic to include a dwarf in our party, given that the dwarfs run the mining operations on the moon and make up the bulk of the populace of the Homeward Moonbase. I therefore selected an expert in excavations - Diggory Stigneev.

Cowgill insisted that we would need an astronomical expert, to aid with navigation. He suggested a world-renowned star-gazer that he had read about - Professor Patrick Hismouth.
A strange cove - but apparently well thought of in astronomical circles.

Finally, because of his constant nagging, I agreed that Goodman could come along as the ship's cat and mascot.

Today we all had to test our spacesuits under weightless conditions. These suits have been tailor made for us by Cowgill and he wanted to check that there were no design flaws or alterations needed before they face the final test - in space itself.



A problem arose with my suit, however. I had only had the suit on a few minutes before I had a strange fit of the giggles. I just could not stop laughing. Everyone looked at me as if I was quite mad and unfortunately at this very moment our preparations were being filmed by the Badgertown Broadcasting Corporation. It was all most undignified.
I, of course, immediately put an embargo on transmission of the material but somehow it got into the hands of Badfort TV. They have been running it constantly and making jokes about the moon being the right place for a lunatic despot.



Later that evening, Cowgill took me aside for a quiet word. It appears that the oxygen tank on my spacesuit had been substituted for a canister of laughing gas!

Clearly, there is a traitor and saboteur in our midst.

I shall keep this information between Cowgill and myself for the time being - I do not want to spread alarm amongst the crew. I shall be keeping a close eye on everyone from now on, however.

The Uncle and Monkey Show

It is an absolute disgrace!

Badfort TV have started beaming a so-called children's puppet show into Homeward.

It is called 'The Uncle and Monkey Show' and features two clear caricatures of The Old Monkey and I.

Yesterdays episode had me getting in a strop about the temperature of my cocoa and giving the monkey a resounding beating with a stick.

It then showed me demanding to have a celebratory parade and boasting about all my achievements, until a Beaver Hateman puppet came in and poured treacle all over me.

I then steal a bicycle, to escape Beaver's jeers, and am chased by a policeman.

Sadly, children seem to enjoy this kind of anarchy - finding it preferable to the Badgertown Broadcasting Company's rather insipid "Blue Peters' presented by a gang of blue dwarfs all called Peter.

But, I will not have the children of Homeward exposed to this blatant propaganda.

If we cannot block the signal then I shall take firm action.

The Grand Rotating Towers of Homeward

I see that plans are underway to attempt to copy the Grand Rotating Towers of Homeward.

They were exciting places to live as they continuously changed shape as each floor rotated around the central axis.

Occupants of an entire floor could control the rotation by voice command, with speeds varying from an hour to three hours for each full rotation.

Also the skyscrapers were powered by the sun and wind so they were very ecological.

But I should have been more wary of their extraordinary design. It did not take Beaver Hateman long to find a fundamental flaw.

One night he and his gang sneaked into Homeward with giant wooden spikes which they rammed into the spokes of the buildings. All the inhabitants were thrown out of their beds as the buildings jarred to a halt. They have never worked properly since - and now have a kind of juddery, grating motion. Nobody wants to live in them anymore so we use them for grinding peppercorn.

You have probably seen the world famous Homeward brand - the only building-ground pepper in the world.

Question the Mayoral Candidates

The King of the Badgers has asked me to host a debate featuring all the candidates in the Badgertown Mayoral Election.

I shall be acting as inquisitor-in-chief and this is your opportunity to put any question you like to them.

Leave your questions using the comment facility in this interblogweb, or e-mail me

uncle@uncle-tv.com