Smoke!!!

It's everywhere. Filling up the loft space with its smoky smokiness. Again, my chimney seems to be failing in its primary purpose.

This time I am prepared, and, having extinguished the trial fire in the grate, I head upstairs with my new secret weapon - an aerosol can excitingly labelled 'No More Big Gaps'.

(I had previously noticed a big gap, you see).

The 'No More Big Gaps' stuff is very exciting. You spray it in a big gap, and it sort of foams up dramatically in order to fill said aperture.

I think the best way I can probably describe it to the average reader is that it's extremely like the foam injection filler in 'Space Fall', the second episode of BBC TV's 'Blake's Seven' series, that automatically sealed the space between the inner and outer skin of the prison ship 'London' on the accidental puncturing of its hull.

Mindful of what happened to the unfortunate rebel caught in the foam onslaught, I am extremely cautious. I wear the free polythene gloves provided, and make sure that there is a straight and uncluttered escape route from where I am standing back to the loft hatch. That way, if the 'No More Big Gaps' expands more than expected, to fill the whole loft space, I should be OK, and not end up cocooned forever amongst old furniture and boxes.

I don't know if the makers of Blake's Seven get royalties from this product, but they really should do. They had a lot of good ideas, like transporting criminals to the planet Cygnus Alpha rather than giving them anti social behaviour orders. Honestly, if Michael Howard really wanted to make an impact on the electorate he would appoint Servalan as Shadow Home Secretary and give everybody teleportation bracelets to solve our transport problems and end our reliance on Saudi oil.

Truly the man has no imagination whatsoever.