Enter a SECURIC, with Rottweiler, bull-whip, scythe, etc.
SECURIC: Right! Who's playing games in here then? Stop it at once.
User 1: There's nobody playing games in here, is there?
User 2: Wouldn't dream of it.
SECURIC: You must think I'm stupid... Oi! You lot in the cricket clothes! Clear orf! And take those sight screens with you.
About 22 players, plus umpires and scorers, slope off.
SECURIC: Right! Who's next for the chop? You, laddie. What are you doing?
User 3: Me? I'm just writing some software. (Points to screen on which are displayed the words: BACK TO BASICS -- OR THE CURSE OF THE CONSERVATIVE SEX GODDESSES -- pre-release version (C) MAJORSOFT ADVENTURES 1994.) There's a bug in the puzzle involving the orange and the bin-liner.
SECURIC: Good lad. The rest of you, you can learn from him.
User 4 whispers to User 5 who frowns.
SECURIC: Speak up, missie. Share it with the whole class, won't you?
User 4: Er, I just said: "Castles".
SECURIC: "Castles"? What about them?
User 5: We're, er, playing blindfold chess. Oh what the hell! (Runs out.)
Various cries erupt at this point, of "Mornington Crescent", "Four No Trumps", "Pung!", "Play a back game!", "Tackle him!", "BYZANTINE on a triple word score", "Go to jail!", "David Hartley in the Mond Room with the lead piping," "I'll raise you two cups of Vendecoffee," "Rien ne va plus!" and "One hundred and EIGHTY!"
SECURIC: Shut up, you lot. Now, you, squire. What are you doing?
User 6: I'm reading GROGGS. The debate has got to a really exciting point now and we should have decided whether God really exists within the next two hundred years or so. At the moment the argument has diverted briefly into homosexuality and the traffic problems in Cambridge.
SECURIC: Oh, an intellectual, eh? Your type really makes me sick. Still we can't ban you for that. Next boy.
User 7 (hisses): You fool, it's me incognito. I'm blending inconspicuously into the user community to find out what they really do when my back's turned.
SECURIC: Oh sorry, sir, didn't recognise you with the gorilla suit on. But then I'm not supposed to, am I? Next?
User 8: Er, I'm writing a virus.
SECURIC: O.K. doc, go ahead. I won't stop you. By the way I get these pains in my arm after a hard night's flogging. Anything you can do? No? Well never mind. Next?
User 9: Me? Er, nothing. Honest. I'm just writing a thesis.
User 10: Please sir, he's got a trampoline under the table.
User 9: Ooh, you SNEAK!
SECURIC: A trampoline, eh? I knew it. Right...
The User Area empties as SECURIC pulls out a chain saw. All that remains is a man in a gorilla suit, a picture of a donkey with the tail pinned on its nose, a card marked "Mrs Bugg the Programmer's Wife", an ice-axe, and finally a sad-looking polo pony.
User 7 (remember him?) I told them there was a problem about people playing games, and they just didn't take it seriously. Now it's got out of hand... (breaks down and sobs)
Jonathan Partington, February 1994