This is an extract from the travelling journal of the adventurer and shoe occultist Cornel Simpkin West -

Friday 2nd June 1842 – The Bicentenary of St Maurice’s Flannelling.

Today I discovered a secret passage underneath a spoon. It led to a dark narrow tunnel and beyond that a basin lay upturned with a canoe protruding from the exposed plumbing. Inside the canoe sat an explorer’s compass. It led me to another tunnel the size of a peasant’s toe and deep inside sat a bilious turnip sack. I slit the sack open with my tailor’s knife and out fell a yellow devilled root. Overcome with curiosity I swallowed the root and at once felt the effects. Something urged me to document the experience, so I reached for my journal and began to scribble furiously like a beaver with the scent of boiled onions in his nostrils. I have no recollection of what happened next. The following passage is the only remaining record of that afternoon -

I looked up to see a bee eyeing me from its ivory tower. Without hesitation, I instructed a wallpaper lizard to sanction the vile beast and close its accusing eyes. I then romanced myself into a deep trance amidst the deafening sound of sawing and gazelles yelping. When I awoke my knees burnt like a toad’s raw hump and my left ear was sitting on the dresser. It was listening to a musical box tied to an errant Gorilla child. I then realised my knees hurt because the camel had chewed on them in a vain attempt to impress the bee sympathisers. Something wasn’t right. The invisible ball I’d made the night before was now invading the chimp simulator and was making the other chimps nervous. With remarkable ease, I managed to roll my eyes out on to lollypop sticks in order to get a better view of the situation... Sixteen hours passed before someone decided to alert the authorities about my condition. By then the waffles had become paranoid and wouldn’t let them in. I slipped in to a deep sleep around 4.30pm and awoke thirteen weeks later with a craving for tree bark.

S. West.