Cyril is still a bit nervous in the restaurant on Sunday evening. He looks towards the door every few seconds.

Steve is having a few problems with the menu. One day at work about two years ago, he got two faxes about soup in the space of ten minutes. Ever since then, he�s classified every fax as being either soup-related or non-soup. The non-soup pile is now much higher than the soup pile.

When Steve was still in school he found that if he closed his left eye, he could scan through text much quicker than with both eyes open. He was able to skip over all of the things that weren�t very important. He called his right eye his �etceter-eye�, and he had a pair of glasses made with the left eye blacked out � his etceter-eye glasses.

Steve subdivided the two piles of faxes into a pile that was suitable for reading with his etceter-eye glasses and a pile that should be read with both eyes. The non-etceter-eye soup pile consists of just one fax. There are only three faxes in the etceter-eye soup pile. Whenever he sees a piece of paper, he looks at it and says something like, �Non-soup, etceter-eye.�

There was a period of a few weeks last summer when he was very busy, and a lot of faxes were coming in. He started to get confused. A soup fax came in and it was non-etceter-eye, but he put it in the non-soup etceter-eye pile, and the next one was a non-soup etceter-eye fax, but he put it in the non-etceter-eye soup pile.

Joe and a few other friends convinced him that he needed a break, so he went on holidays with them. On the first night they went to a restaurant, and when Steve�s soup was put in front of him he saw a cow�s eye staring back at him. This really confused Steve. There was just something about it that he couldn�t get his mind around. He kept staring at the eye and the eye stared back at him, but he drank the soup around it. It was definitely soup, but was it etceter-eye? Cows always seem to stare at him now and he stares back.

The problem with the menu in the restaurant is that the word �soup� is spelled with three �p�s, a �3� and a �zzzzzz�. Steve makes a few attempts to read the menu, but he can�t figure it out. Then the waitress arrives and she has a bandage over her left eye. This confuses Steve even more. He takes out his etceter-eye glasses and tries to read the menu again, but he can�t seem to comprehend the words. The waitress is taking the orders from the others, so Steve is under pressure to read the menu, and this only makes it more difficult. His mind just can�t quite grasp the situation. He doesn�t notice that he�s holding the menu a bit too close to the candle in the centre of the table. Even when the menu catches fire, the penny doesn�t drop. Cyril takes the menu from Steve�s hands. He drops it on the ground and pours the jug of water over it. Joe says, �Now that was definitely because of the smoking ban.�

Alfred and Marcy are sitting at a table at the other side of the restaurant. �This is brilliant!� Alfred says. �A blind man is left behind in a burning restaurant and Cyril goes back in to save him.�

�That�s a bit of a jump, isn�t it? For one thing, he�s not even blind.�

�He�s wearing those blind man�s glasses.�

�Just over one eye. And we know he�s not blind at all.�

�How are we going to explain in a film how Steve became blind in one eye? For the sake of the story it makes so much more sense to have him blind in two eyes. Cyril saving a blind man � this is perfect!�

The waitress gets another menu for Steve, but she blows out the candle before she hands it to him.

They make it through the meal without any major incidents, and Cyril starts to relax a bit. The waitress passes around the dessert menus. Joe looks through his and says, �That�s disgusting!�

�What is?� Emily says.

�Strawberries, cream and blueberries. I�ve never heard of anyone eating a hedgehog before.�

�Maybe it really is strawberries, cream and blueberries.�

When the waitress comes over to take their orders, Cyril asks her about it. She says, �Yeah, it really is just strawberries, cream and blueberries, but there�s a good reason why it�s on the menu. We have a French chef here, Armand. Mayor Pony saw Armand in the pub a few weeks ago, and he was sure he�d seen him somewhere before. Then he heard Armand talk, and he thought it was an Australian accent. Every time the mayor sees an Australian person, he�s sure he�s seen them before in a soap opera, and he got that impression with Armand too. He went over to him and said, �You were in The Sullivans, weren�t you?� Armand said, �The Sullivans? In?� And then the mayor said, �Don�t tell me your name. It�s� it�s something Jessop, isn�t it?� He started talking in his Australian accent after that. Things like, �G� day sport; throw another chicken on the barbie.� Or, �Give us another tinnie, mate.� Armand didn�t know what he was talking about at first, but he was furious when he found out that �barbie� meant barbeque. He said, �I have come from France.� And the mayor said, �Just back from the war, are ya?� Apparently �The Sullivans� was set during World War II. That was the start of the mayor�s tirade against France, but nothing offended Armand more than the suggestion that he used a barbeque. He waited patiently for a chance to start his own tirade against Mizzenwood. He said he wouldn�t throw a chicken on the town if it was on fire, and if the whole town burnt down it might be less of a hell-hole. He also pointed out to the mayor that the reason he looked familiar was because he drove the mayor home one night when he was too drunk to drive or walk.

�When the mayor denounced Armand in an interview with the paper, he didn�t mention anything about being too drunk to walk. He just said that Armand launched a completely unprovoked attack on the town. Armand refused to apologise � he said that the mayor launched a vicious attack on his own country, but the mayor said that if he had done that then Armand would have surrendered without a fight. This was bad publicity for the restaurant, so the owner � Benny � he arranged for them to shake hands in the restaurant, and he got a photographer from the paper to capture the event. He convinced Armand to come up with a dessert that was red, white and blue to symbolise all that Mizzenwood had in common with France � the red and white of Mizzenwood plus a little bit of blue for the French flag. Armand presented it to the mayor and said, �I have put as little effort as possible into this. It is a piece of crap.� We all thought this would start off the row again, but the mayor just looked at it and said, �That�s very clever � it�s red, white and blue.� Then Armand said, �The three colours of the French flag symbolise liberty, equality and fraternity. So which one is missing here?� Again, we all thought they�d start fighting, but the mayor just thought about it for a few seconds and said, �Probably equality. We�re not all that big on liberty either. And fraternity is something we like to do from the privacy of our own homes.� Then they shook hands over the dessert and the photo appeared in the paper. That was the end of the row. It�s astonishing the amount of photo opportunities the mayor has set up involving food and drink. Food, drink and lots of smiling faces. Although Armand wasn�t smiling.�

�That�s right,� Cyril says. �Every time the mayor offends someone, you always see a photo of him shaking hands with that person in a restaurant or a pub. That�s a lot of free food and drink.�

�I suppose the message is that if people can stand having a meal or a drink with him, then he must be a decent fella. If only he could have a few drinks and stand himself. You never see those photos in the paper.�

�It�s also suggesting that he�ll have a drink or a meal with anyone. A man of the people. As long as the people pay. I was just thinking about that a few days ago, ah� Sorry, what�s your name again?�

�Guess.�

�Ah� I don�t know really. It could be anything.�

�Go on, guess.�

They all take a few guesses, and then Emily says, �Clare?�

And the waitress says, �That�s one of them, yeah. Keep guessing.�

After twenty minutes of guessing, they�ve come up with five different names that she says are all hers, and finally she tells them that people call her Val. She uses different names for different things, like when she�s brushing her teeth she�s Clare. Over the years, she�s collected a lot of different names, but then she found out that other people were using some of her names, or mis-using them � her sister used the name �Jessica� for the apples that fell from the apple tree. Val tells them about how she�s currently in college, and she decided to write her thesis on the correct use of her names. It�s called �Val on Val�s names�.

Val is in her early twenties now. When she was nineteen she had trouble getting into nightclubs, even though she had her student ID card. Her mother thought it was because the photo on her ID card suggested that things happen to her, and if she wore glasses people would get the impression that nothing ever happens to her. So she drew glasses on the photo in the ID card, and she never had any trouble getting into nightclubs after that. Last weekend she forgot her ID card when she went out with her friends. She had a lot to drink in the pub, and then she noticed that she didn�t have her ID card when they were on their way to the nightclub, so she tried to draw glasses on her face with a marker, which isn�t easy at the best of times, and it was made much more difficult by the drink. She poked herself in the eye, and that�s why she has the bandage.

She tells them all about her names and her thesis. Cyril is interested in it, and he asks her a lot of questions about the names, but then he says, �Sorry, this has nothing to do with what we were talking about.�

�No,� Val says, �that�s where you�re wrong. Y� see, I�m studying political science.�

�Oh� And what does your thesis on your names have to do with political science?�

�Absolutely nothing. But recently I�ve been thinking that I should look for some political angle, seeing as I�m doing political science. And I think I might have found the perfect link.�

She tells them about how her father always starts staring at the cat on hot days. The stare very gradually becomes a glare until he finally says, �Bloody commie.�

He doesn�t say this on days that aren�t so hot, but he still stares at the cat, and it doesn�t always become a glare. The cat sometimes stares back at him. Val noticed that her father�s staring and glaring were correlated with the temperature. She started observing his behaviour on hot days, and she found that he always said the words �bloody commie� at exactly 27.2 degrees Celsius. He always started staring at the cat at 19.7 degrees. He completely ignored the cat during winter, but he did sometimes look at the coal shed and say, �Well they won�t get my vote at the next election.�

Val found that he always did this at 2.5 degrees. He�s as reliable as any thermometer. When Val talks to him about politics, his opinions seem to be changing all the time. She was wondering if there was some connection between his opinions and the weather, so she�s been talking to him about politics every day over the past few months, and observing the weather too, trying to find some correlation. She�s hoping that she can find some way of predicting the weather from her father�s opinions on politics.

She tells them about this and says, �I thought I could make a fortune if I found a way of predicting the weather � that�s why I started doing it. But then recently I�ve been looking for a link between politics and names, just to bring politics into my thesis. This would be the perfect link. I�ve already done so much work on the connection between my father�s politics and the weather. If I could just find some way to bring it into my thesis, that�d be ideal.�

�Actually, I think I might be able to help you out there,� Cyril says.

�Really?�

�My brother � Dan � he used to work for a company that organised tours through the snow-covered hills in winter. He was one of the tour guides. It attracted a bit of attention when they first started these tours. A journalist from a newspaper interviewed Dan about his job, and the first question she asked him was, �Would you say you�re a typical tour guide?� Dan said, �Yeah, I�d say I am. I think�� And then her phone rang. She answered it, and all Dan heard of the conversation were things like �no!� or �she didn�t!� or �not Louise!�. When she eventually finished her phone conversation she told Dan that she had to go because a friend of hers got her head stuck in an empty paint can and she just had to see it. She still got a two thousand word article out of the interview. She said that all of the tour guides had to be called Dan, and that they all had to be about six foot in height and have brown hair. There was a lot of interest in the tour guide jobs after that article, but only people called Dan applied, and they were all about six foot with brown hair. Some of them changed their names before applying. A lot of them dyed their hair. The tour guides who were there before the article appeared � the ones who weren�t Dan � they all left the company because they felt they�d be fired for having the wrong name, height and hair colour. The owners of the company denied that there were any requirements for the names or appearance of the applicants, but they couldn�t deny that all of their tour guides were called Dan, and they were all the same height and had the same colour hair.

�The people who lived in the hills came to think of the tour guides as just another type of animal you�d find in the hills because they all looked the same. People would see them on the hills and say, �The Dans are out again.� When some chickens went missing, a few farmers blamed the Dans, and they wondered if it was illegal to shoot them. They weren�t sure if they were a protected species. Some people even thought about farming Dans.

�The tours in the hills during winter became very popular, and another rival company set up tours of their own. They called their tour guides Craig, but the Craigs were nowhere near as successful as the Dans. They didn�t like the cold and they often got lost in the snow. This was a bit of a mystery, because some of the Craigs were former Dans � they had been offered higher pay and better working conditions by this new company, so they changed their name by deed poll. But they were very bad at their new jobs. The only difference was the name � this was the only reason they could think of for their poor job-performance.

�It was the original company who spotted this first, and they took out a patent on the name Dan. So the new company tried the name James, and that was better than Craig, but still nowhere near as good as Dan. They fine-tuned it to Jamie and that was worse than ever. Then they went for Oliver, and that was better but they still weren�t up to the Dans. They went through a lot of different names, but they couldn�t find one as successful as Dan.

�We weren�t surprised at all when Dan took up that job as a tour guide. He always loved winter, and he�s always been at his best then. But Lucy, my sister, was always very much a summer person. Her friend Tracey was a winter person. They�re still great friends. I think they sort of balance each other out. Dan met up with a former Dan one evening � this was one of the Dans who went to the other company. He was Gary when he met up with Dan. Dan told him about Lucy and Tracey, and the next Dan heard, all the Garys had become Traceys, and the Traceys were just as good as the Dans, even though they weren�t entirely happy with being called Tracey. That company set up summer tours too, and all of the guides were called Lucy. The original company set up their own summer company. They called their summer guides Adam, but the Adams got tired very quickly. The tours didn�t go very far because they spent most of the time sitting in the grass. They had to experiment with a lot of different names before they settled on Dave, and the Daves do well during the summer, but not quite as well as the Lucys. But then the Dans are slightly better than the Traceys during winter. The two companies have recently been experimenting with middle names in an attempt to maximise performance. The company my brother is with recently found that the Dan Bills are better in wind than other types of Dan.

�So there you have a link between names and the weather, and if you can find a link between the weather and your father�s politics, then you�ll have a link between names and politics, and you�ll have a political element to your thesis.�

�That�s perfect! This is just what I need. You�re a life-saver.�

�It�s no problem at all. You can read more about it in my autobiography, or if you want, call in to see me some time and I�ll tell you everything I know. I could even introduce you to my brother.�

�That�d be perfect. Thank you so much.�

�You�re welcome.�

Alfred can�t hear their conversation, but he can tell by the look on Val�s face that it went according to plan. He had been in this restaurant a few days ago, and she told him all about her thesis and the link she was looking for. He remembered the story of Dan from Cyril�s autobiography, so it was just a matter of bringing them together and setting up that conversation. He explains to Marcy how this will be portrayed in the film. �Cyril will help a waitress complete her studies in college. She�s thinking of leaving college because she comes from a very poor family and her father lost his job for his political views, or maybe he�s a union leader. She�s trying to hold down two jobs to support her family, so her studies suffer, even though she�s a genius. Cyril convinces her to keep going. He becomes her tutor and she falls in love with him. Obviously in the film she won�t have the bandage� Or maybe we could make her blind too� No, a blind waitress is a bit far-fetched.�

After Val leaves, Cyril seems very distracted. Emily asks him if he�s enjoying his dessert and he doesn�t even hear her. She says, �Cyril, is something wrong?�

�Hm?� Oh� No, nothing really� It�s just� I can�t help feeling uneasy about all this. All these things have been happening to me recently. Like the monkey throwing the weighing scales at my head, or being electrocuted, and being taken to hospital. And Amy looks so much like Beatrice. It�s almost uncanny. And now this thing with Val � it seems like a huge coincidence that I should be able to provide the perfect link for her thesis. It�s something so specific. I can�t help thinking there�s some cause behind all this, some reason for all these things.�

�We know exactly the reason,� Joe says.

�Ye do?�

�It�s the smoking ban. What else would it be?�

�Yeah, well obviously the smoking ban had something to do with it, but I can�t help thinking that there�s more to it than that.�

When they leave the restaurant, there�s a taxi waiting to take Cyril home. Steve says that he called it for him � Alfred told him to say this. They say goodnight to Cyril and he thanks them for taking him out.

As they drive away from the restaurant, the taxi driver looks in his rear-view mirror and puts his foot on the accelerator. Cyril asks him if there�s really any need to go so fast, and the driver says, �I think we�re being followed.�

�Followed? That�s ridiculous.�

�I don�t know. I don�t like the look of this. I can�t see who�s in the car behind us, but I think I can make out mouse ears.�

�Mouse ears! Step on it.�

They leave Mizzenwood and spend the next half-hour speeding through the quiet roads around the town before they finally lose the car behind them. When Cyril gets home he locks the door and spends the night looking out the front window.