Yes she did! A British magazine held a competition and the prize was… you guessed it… a kiss from Bob Leith! And the lucky winner was Anna Biese from Colchester.

She was driven down at the magazine’s expense to London where she would meet Babba at a ‘secret’ Location known only to Babba himself, and the driver of the car. When she got there… well, we’ll let Anna take the story over…

“It was weird. I mean really really weird. I thought it might be like a dream come true but I felt very ill on the day so I wasn’t my best, and like I say, the whole thing was very weird.

The driver of the car didn’t speak to me for the whole journey, and when he did manage to grunt a few words he was very offish with me and threatened to drive back to Colchester at one point.

We arrived eventually at what I can only describe as a messy park. The driver walked me over to where we were supposed to meet, and to his credit, he did carry my bag. We waited by a very dirty pond but luckily the sun came out which cheered things up a little. The driver tried to tell me (wow! He can speak?) about his septic wrist but I was too distracted to listen. Not only was I about to meet Babba, I was about to kiss him!

Then my dream came true! There he was holding my hand! He didn’t stop looking me in the eyes! He didn’t say one word and I was like jelly!

What seemed like an eternity passed and the sun went back in and it went very grey. The driver kept on coughing and this brought back my feelings of illness. I realised that I was cold now and Babba didn’t take his eyes off of mine for one second. He didn’t say a word and I don’t think he blinked even once! I don’t know what all those people who say he’s got spots are talking about. When I met him he didn’t have a blemish on his face…

I first saw him coming when the driver sat himself down on my bag. He came straight over and looked at the driver for what seemed like ages. He kissed him on the cheek and then it was my turn.

I could hardly believe it. There he was staring at me, my stomach felt like a hundred butterflies had taken off at once. A police car raced by with its siren blaring very loudly. I wasn’t used to London and I felt very uncomfortable again and the driver wouldn’t go away. Babba took my hands, his hands felt slightly rough and wet over mine, but strong and firm. My hands were sticky as well as I was feeling very ill remember? But he didn’t seem to mind. He just kept those eyes fixed on mine and very occasionally at the driver who’d taken his jacket off and put it around Babba’s broad shoulders. ‘Come on!’ the driver said in a sort of friendly-ish voice. I felt Babba’s hands squeeze mine a little harder, drawing me closer to him.

I felt like I was in a dream! More like a faint. His lips went all thin and I could feel the strong muscles of his chest and his arms as he wrapped around my neck and head. I could see his tight lips trying to say something.

I looked up. And there he was. Those eyes, only inches away from mine, his nose… and his lips gone all thin. He pulled his arms tighter around me and drew me over to his kiss. I gazed down at the ground and then… “puppa puppy pappa puppy” he puffed at me. “pappa puppy pappa puppy” over and over again against my face. I could hardly believe what was happening. I had to pull away for air. Was this a dream? I didn’t feel very well but I was in heaven in a funny sort of way.

Was this really Babba..? No… it couldn’t be.’ I told myself."

But it was!

This is the story of a boy’s true love for a good and not rotten day and how that love was rejected. The boy is Tim Smith. Here’s how he suffered.

Tim lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The ceiling went “brow brow brow!”. He’d been trying to sleep for hours. But sleep was still far away. He sighed and turned over closing just one eye. His favourite eye. It didn’t work. Tim sat up. His head felt soft with insomnia. He had a long day of recording tomorrow and he knew lack of sleep would ruin his performance. The tiny bedside clock read 3am. The small hours seemed unfriendly and spat spiteful juice near to where his head juddered.

As he lay there Tim heard the distant slam of a car door followed by a silly kind of laughter. He frowned resenting the noise. He knew who it was, but WE won’t say who it was. “I know who YOU are!” Tim shouted into his pillow.

Unable to lay in bed any longer he got up and ran as fast as he could down the stairs. The whole house seemed to be watching and waiting. Nothing moved. The furniture looked dead. He hated that. “Dead furniture… what’s the point?”

He felt pain. A feeling of grief he hadn’t felt since he caught his tiny cock cock in his little zip zip when he was very small and a teacher had to unravel him.

“Why cant everything not pop about?” he asked himself again and again. “I want everything to lay down by the gate and then ask NICELY to come inside!” he coughed.

And so it went on…for days…

…Tim’s heartbreak.

Blake Shakey and I were descending the slope and Blake assured me we would reach our destination within the hour. Blake and I had been inseparable for the three weeks, wherever I went Blake would follow. We were held up, by jealous peers, as a model of friendship, an example of two men bonded by a common passion for life and adventure, an equal companionship of pride and servitude. It would be true to say there were no two other men that abhorred each other in the way that Blake and I did.

“Your playing is sloppy and your posturing, a cliché ridden throwback to the bloated mentors of your childself” was how Blake introduced himself to me those long three weeks ago, and he had a point. “I’ll sort all THAT out,” he added. “It’s your fingers, they’re too long to be playing a guitar. You should have been a locksmith”

“Stop nodding your head like that when you play, it makes you look like a bad wanker”

A gruelling week in my room (which Blake had “appropriated” for the purpose of sleeping…I had to sleep on the floor with my head near the fireplace) followed and I had begun to take leave of my senses, waking up giddy and going to bed (the floor, with my head near the fireplace as I mentioned earlier) feeling noxious. Blake had brought with him an old rolled up, dust-impregnated carpet, which he would hit repeatedly with a broomstick every time I made what he perceived to be a mistake.

Being allergic to dust it made my nose red and eyes stream.

“You’re not doing it right”

Blake was not a musician, nor was he a pleasant looking man. Occasionally between snide remarks and put-downs he would toss epithets of wisdom at me.

“He who laughs last, Kavus, laughs loudest” “You can’t make an omelette, Kavus, without breaking some eggs”
This last pearl I took to be particularly useful, as I was at the time making him a rotten omelette.
“Come with me. It’s time for the descent”

He had promised, from the out, that the descent would make a reasonable player of me and more worthy an addition to the Cardiacs troupe. After waiting patiently outside the pub for a few hours, Blake emerged and announced he was ready and we began. It was getting dark. At the bottom of the slope he retrieved a rusty box out of the pond and had soon managed to encourage my hands into it, securing them with a length of rope that smelt like dogshit.

The nibbling and biting started then.

“I warned you about those long fingers of yours” he laughed, turning his back on me and beginning the ascent.

“But Blake!” I managed, “There’s creatures in there”

Jim knows that as an island a man can only trust himself.

Jim knows that knowledge is nothing without compassion.

Jim knows the courage of defeat.

Jim knows a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

Jim knows that behind every friendly handshake there is a hidden agenda.

Jim knows that given time, all wounds will heal.

Jim knows that there are eight letters in ‘patience’.

Jim knows... what you know.

Too hot and exhausted, I was pushed harder into the seething throng and forced to confront my very real terrors. A prod in the back. “You think this is hot?” he leered, “It’s gonna be a lot hotter in Hell!” “And full of criminals”. The rolling of the eyes, the creasing of the brow as he lunged in closer for one final gurning revelation.
“The Devil wants to dance two-step on your smelly ass”

It was the badseason of coincidences and “occurrences” beginning at once with the slow drip of guilt. Later on it was all soggy regret and who stole my flask? That balmy summer of ochres, secretions and smashed up chemistry set, when all my life became a ghost and my small world an orgy of mysterious portents, symbolism and emblems of under-meaning.
Then began the ALPHABET parcels…the grim messages, the porno jigsaw, a photograph of Jon Poole with a crap hairdo scribbled on.

Next were the night sweats, those wretched fathoms, the voyage of the mind. The dreams in which I was visited by unusual dogs. As Autumn beckoned, sleep became an impossibility.

Listless by October I became convinced I was being followed. And then all my telephone calls ceased.

November: An invitation from ALPHABET, at my expense. Directions: Frustrating.

(Note: The two day journey to what I thought would be the ALPHABET HQ commenced the phase I now like to refer to as The Rattles).

O shit chagrin, it was all disappointment and wrong destiny when the secret location revealed it’s shape to me as Mr Corbin’s Bumming Shed. By now I had reached the sorry point of considering every friend a potential enemy in an arena of self-doubt.

“This is not the ALPHABET HQ!” I found myself wailing at the stinking rotten world of it (I had previously experienced Mr. Corbin’s shed on an occasion when I was weighed).

Inside I found the place not as I remembered it, but adorned instead with ragged strips of tinsel Upon the little table, underneath a note with my name spelt incorrectly (Carvis) I discovered a red, gold braided sash.

Cardiacs all burst in and then the horrific, relentless ticklings started.

After all this excitement I was reasonably beside myself. The lads sat me down and suggested I might buy an extremely expensive guitar if I wanted to play in my favourite band.

I felt the gammy leg of sobriety kick me into touch. Foolishly holocausting money I didn’t have on such a purchase.
I presented the lads with my instrument and they laughed at it and me so that it made me feel foolish.
The Lads say they’ve taken to me now and my new room is quite nice.

Becalmed by all that had happened I fell into a dreamless sleep, for the first time in months, awaking to find Babba wearing makeup.

The day I joined my fave band.

Babba invented a game called “Punctures” on the bus one night between concerts.

All of Cardiacs played the game on Jim – a riotous success. Jane, who is the shop girl, smirked and started to clap her hands. Babba turned out to be the Puncture Brigadier after the first game, probably because he had a more lucid understanding of the rules at that stage. It’s not always clear who the definite winner of Punctures is, nor is there a particularly concrete scoring system. David Murder thought the game was bland and went to the front of the bus to talk to the driver about his mate Yowen and wires. After the game was over Jim shuffled back to his bunk while Jon Daniel rubbed his legs and sang “Enpunctured! Enpunctured!”

Discussing the game the following day Tim observed “It’s good, because the more the punctures pop, the more you want to puncture.”

“Quick! Stop the bus!”

To the left of the roadside was an expanse of not altogether ugly land resembling something between a landfill site and grazing pasture. Littered between “white goods” and perambulators whose occupants had long since grown up was a tea-crate rattling forlornly.
Cardiacs’ caretaker, Captain Jon whistled something about wanting to film it on his Super 8 camera and made his way past the debris to where the tea-crate, mournfully creaking, lay.

Watching from the bus, Cardiacs grew quickly tired of Captain’s aborted attempts to remove his Super 8 camera from its case. Moments later they had circled the tea-crate and at Babba’s insistence were playing a game of Punctures on it.

Unhappily, Captain Jon continued the folly of trying to retrieve his Super 8 camera from its case when Kavus started shrieking “I’m the Puncture Brigadier! I’m the Puncture Brigadier!”

Distracted, Captain Jon looked up from his fumblings to witness Babba with a nosebleed struggling to prise the lid off the tea-crate while Jim, unbuttoning his trousers began to squat over a shopping cart behind Tim and big Jon Daniel, who were attempting to restrain an increasingly excitable Kavus. Babba held the now removed lid and was peering all bloody-nosed and silent into the tea-crate. Captain Jon had finally freed his Super 8 camera from its case and was clutching it in his shaky hands. Cardiacs displayed the contents of the tea-crate to a defeated Captain Jon who returned his Super 8 camera to its case muttering to himself “I think they’re all barmy.”

Tim – In the future we might even not have an aeroplane.

Kavus – In the future water will be all different.

Babba – In the future drum sets will probably be made out of carbon.

Tim – In the future time will last longer. It will be infinite.

Kavus – The sea will be a wash.

Babba – In the future some animals will be extinct. But don’t worry! There will be some new ones.

Tim – In the future they would have discovered another colour.

Kavus – In the future nuclear power will be boring.

Babba – In the future there will be more moons and the sea will be a wash.

Tim – In the future joy will be abundant.

Jim – I will be a cyborg.

It was Errands Day and THE CONSULTANT had picked Bill to do the errands on account of his special joke that somebody laughed at. “TAKE DOMINIC WITH YOU AS WELL” said THE CONSULTANT, “HE CAN HELP YOU CARRY THE GOODS, AND HE NEEDS WALKING.”
“Not ruddy likely!” said Bill and sped out of the door before anyone could stop him.
Last time it was Errands Day, Dominic had accidentally exposed himself in the shops and had to be driven home by a stranger and put to punishment in disgrace.

Secretly Bill was pleased that he had been picked. He loved to look at the ingredients on the packets and imagine he was eating them all up.

“mmm, mmm, num-num mmm.” He thought out loud.

Walking back home it started to fucking piss down with rain. Bill didn’t mind one bit. He was wearing his special coat. Before too long the rain had made the contents of the goods bag all soggy.

“All soggy,” he said.

When Bill arrived back home he was met at the front door by THE CONSULTANT who announced “WELL, WELL. LOOK WHO’S HERE! IT’S THE ERRAND BOY! I’VE GOT SOME MORE ERRANDS FOR YOU!”

Foolishly, Bill had been given the task of fixing the television set. THE CONSULTANT told him to make sure he had rinsed all the dust off until it stopped showing the creation of the universe, because “NOBODY WANTS TO SEE THAT.”

(THE CONSULTANT believed that all the static and interference on the television set’s screen caused by the creation of the universe was ‘a dust’ that could be rinsed away, little knowing that the creation of the universe was the only television program Cardiacs had ever seen due to the television sets shameful state of disrepair.)

Bill set to rinsing and hummed his special rinsing tune. After some time the humming stopped and silence fell. What was he up to? Before too long he had emerged and was frantically looking through the cupboards, saying to himself “The wheel needs more oil, the wheel needs more oil.”

The Consultants suspicions were aroused when he caught Dominic removing the springs out of all the plugs in the house

“AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” asked THE CONSULTANT.

“Bill needs them! Bill needs them!” he peeped and piped!

THE CONSULTANT frog-marched Dominic to the room where Bill was now humming his special mending song.

“I’D HARDLY CALL THAT FIXED! I’M GOING TO FIX YOU!” said THE CONSULTANT in a voice so spiteful that it frightened Bill. He quickly picked up all the pieces he had scattered over the floor and shoved them back in to the television set.

Later that same day when Miss Swift turned on the television set it made a sound so beautiful that she started to cry.
This made THE CONSULTANT laugh so much that Bill was no longer in trouble. “I THINK YOU CAN BE ERRAND BOY EVERY TIME IT’S ERRANDS DAY!” he said to Bill and gave him a friendly-ish slap on the back of his head.

This made Bill very happy, and he set about making some legs for his Television Organ.

I once saw Bill Drake kick the door of a car.

I once saw Jim polishing his bass.

I once saw Jon Poole being sick on stage.

I once saw Christian Hayes wearing a Karate outfit.

I once saw David Murder and Matthew Cutts pack up all of Cardiacs’ equipment in ten minutes. Including Tim Quy’s marimba!

I once saw little Sarah try to smash up her saxophone.

I once saw the keyboard player out of Marillion have a blub because their fans were throwing batteries and lit cigarettes at us.

I once saw The Consultant give a bunch of flowers to a caretaker who was trying to throw Cardiacs off stage.

I once pretended to tell a man who was making us hurry up to fuck off.

I spilled the beans.

Jon Daniel is the man who looks after Cardiacs when they are away on tour, and, if they are good, when they are resting at home too! He is fond of animals in his own funny way and one day… well, we’ll let Tim tell the story because he was there at the time…!

It’s true! I was there at the time! It was a terrible time. No one was clean. We were all filthy dirty and it wasn’t our fault and it wasn’t fair on anyone except Big Jon bloody Daniel because HE was never out and about like we were spose to always bloody well be, but THAT didn’t stop him not even ONCE! We hung around in the car park for hours and it was freezing bloody cold and no one knew if we were coming or going and my hands were all sticky and while all the shouting was going on no one except me was noticing a small stupid dog that was in the back of someone’s car and it had been left behind and the window was open just enough for it to stick it’s stupid yappy mouth out the top and rap and rap and rap with its tiny teeth all showing.

It was Jon Daniel who drove that animal to despair… and Jon Daniel alone!

I’d give you a LOVING HUG if…you greeted me at the door with an extra big smile. You saw that I was spitting and furious about something and knew that just having you by my side would make my eyes less narrow and spiteful. You just looked at me and said “I care”. You tried so hard to wear that pretty pink dress just because you know it’s my favourite. While we were walking you gave my hand an extra little squeeze and said, “it’s quite nice to be with you”

I’d give you a BEAR HUG if…you’re the kinda girl who’d take a five mile hike with me down the descent. You’d think nothing of spending a whole morning piggy-back riding, an afternoon of sticking, and an evening of pawing! You’d love an entire day of testing things then hurry back for a big splash about at the pond. You wouldn’t mind getting up at five in the morning to go dancing with me. A good game of touch wouldn’t scare you away.

I’d give you a COMFORTING HUG if…I see the sadness in your eyes when you find a little lost puppy. You’re the kind of girl who sometimes stops to think of the lonely people in the world. Thinking of all the people without love sometimes brings sadness to your heart. If you popped or broke (and thought I would be furious), I’d put my tired arms around your tired shins and say “everything’s alright if you are good to the end”

A golden dawn, an azure sky, come, come. Through bracken and gorse, come. Let fall those creeping fears that night-time cling. Let fall the dewy riddles pass, fly you, fly you.

Then sunshine grace your skin, so warm, cleansing, come. When later, all scorches, you may find shelter, but gilded morning, come. Creak cricket, creak ‘hopper. Cloudless all breathing and creak.
So quick foot on splash rock and cross by the stream, egged on by this soft breeze, come.

Into ochre expanse, into field of delight, come.
But who is this one? Alone casts a shadow. Longer and prouder, longer and prouder.

Still figure alone, still come, don’t stand idle. Hesitation? Don’t falter.
Look at its shape, that of a man.

Now glory noon, you little unsteady. But come, tread you, come.
To look at his face.
Landscape and calm horizon. Bleak horizon. Find these in his grey eyes.
Behind them, compassion.
Heat now unsettling, so come reach for him. Reach out to him.
His handshake is firm, reassuring.
Safe.
He will hurt you.
His shoulders are strong, no stranger to toil.
He is an ox.
If his brow furrows, it is for the whole world.
It is for YOU.
There are no angels here.
It is Jim.

Today is his big day.

You love Cardiacs because you weren’t born yesterday and know very few people who were.

Before hearing Cardiacs you had difficulty making eye contact with strangers. Once you had heard them you found it damn near impossible.

Your love for Cardiacs has interfered with your day to day life. Those you once called friends have taken to screening your phone calls and often ignore you in passing.

At Cardiacs concerts you like to be right in front of the stage, even if it means shoving those weaker than yourself out of the way. You go on about this constantly in the weeks that follow.
You are ashamed of this.

Sometimes you are beside yourself, occasionally you are upside down. The world is full of enormous colours and beautiful smells. All of these are noted carefully into a little logbook that you always carry around with you.
You have made neat headings on each page.

When it rains you are soaked through and don’t mind one bit.
You rejoice in your dampness.

Sometimes when you are nailing something together you bash your fingers with your hammer and curse this whole sorry existence.

You are unafraid to try new and exciting experiences and have a reputation for being a Dare devil. When warned about impending danger you shrug the advice off.

Your irresponsibility constantly gets you into scrapes that cannot be simply put down to inexperience. You show scant concern for those who have your best interests at heart and have sold many a confidante down the river, exaggerating stories given in trust, twisting events to your advantage and peddling out-and-out lies about your colleagues.

You enjoy a challenge and mind little if you are made to look foolish by biting off more than you can chew.

Your beautiful eyes are bigger than your stomach.

While change frightens you, you feel that stagnancy is a most dangerous state of mind.

You once claimed to be both the agent of chaos AND the rod of destiny.

You are the Lion of the Lord’s Elect.

Where others find peril you see liberation.

Where others seek oblivion you find enlightenment.

The words ‘No Entry’ mean nothing to you.

You walk as a giant in a blurry world of shadows.

You are the pleasant gust that banishes foetidness.

You are a fiery beacon illuminating the path for others.

You are a safe port for the troubled to shipwreck in.

Your opinions are held as suspect amongst your peer group.

You have displayed humility in defeat, yet are considered, by most, a sore loser.