Single paragraph science fiction: 1

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The captain looked out of the porthole at the antenna. One hundred miles wide, glinting in the distant sunlight. It had taken five years to build it in earth orbit. Then another five years to fly it to this lonely spot on the edge of the solar system. And all of it a race against time before the signal became too faint to detect. The bridge computer beeped and announced “Ten seconds to transmission”. The captain sat upright. “Those calculations had better be right” she thought to herself. It had taken the finest computers on earth to plot the trajectory of the signal on it’s 200 year journey, bouncing off planets from the transmitter to this precise location. She looked at the screen. Nothing but static so far. Then the screen cleared and displayed a familiar logo. A tune she had known since childhood blasted out of the speakers and the titles appeared. The last missing “Dad’s Army” episode had been found….

No Mr. Bond. I expect you to fry......

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Feel quite a bit better today. Well enough to watch some telly. It's Sunday afternoon, and so that means that ITV will be showing a Bond movie. And they are. "The Spy Who Loved Me". One of the worst ones in my opinion. But at the very end I saw something that piqued my interest. The last part of the credits was given over to mentions of people the producers wished to thank. This is the list of sponsors who have given money for product placement. All the usual suspects were there, Lotus cars, Seiko watches, etc etc. And right at the end: "North Thames Gas Board". 

North Thames Gas Board? What on earth did they do? Perhaps they were mentioned in early drafts of the script:

Scene 67: James Bond's apartment. James and an exotic Russian spy are having a candle-lit dinner. The exotic spy (her name is not important) looks up from her caviar vol-aux-vents and speaks:

Exotic Spy: 'James?'
Bond: 'Yes, my darling?'
Exotic Spy: 'This food, it is so delicious. Did you cook it yourself?'
Bond: 'Yes, my darling.'
Exotic Spy: 'And tell me,  what is your secret to achieving such fantastic flavours?'
Bond: 'Well, er, actually, its all about the gas that you use......'

Scene 210: Evil lair. Bond and the exotic spy (her name is still not important) are tied together on the end of a long rope which is hung over an enormous, fiery pit. The evil villain (his name is not important either) addresses them from a control room full of shiny sponsored machinery and expendables in brightly coloured boiler suits:

Bond: 'You won't get me to talk you know.'
Evil villain: 'I think I will. You see that fiery pit below you...'
Bond: 'What of it?'
Evil villain: 'Do you want to know what kind of gas I'm using.......'