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First Flight out to ..  ..Emerald City As I move through the world of entertainment in my time machine I have become somewhat of a space tourist. The spacesuit that I wear in replacement of my conventional nurses uniform is pretty uncomfortable to wear but necessary in order to protect me from bombardment by micrometeoroids should I meet any along the way and I need insulating from the temperatures of extreme space. As I embark on my tour of the film industry universe I hope the atmospheric pressure will not become too much for me to bear but it is already too late - the Deadwood Stage is a-headin' on over the hills, where the Injun arrows are thicker than porcupine quills ... NOT QUITE!! My Hollywood Star Trek continues as I am about to now face the final frontier at Emerald City. As a cherished favourite place of mine - alive during the golden years of MGM - I cannot return to work without booking a ticket to Kansas. Guess it was a lucky omen or something when Dorothy's Travel Agents appeared almost like magic overnight in the local town centre. I am not seeking to make a group booking. I shall be travelling alone. I do have a brain ( a very sharp one at that), I do have a heart ( a very loving, if deepset one) and believe it or not I do have a lot of courage (and I do not mean a pint of the 'liquid' form either). So why on earth should I fork out for a bloke made of straw, a man made of tin or a lion with no roar to accompany me? The owner asked me why "of all the travel agents in the whole of Swindon, I had to walk into hers"? I told her that she ought to be grateful for the commission. That I could have blown my money in some gin joint in Casablanca instead. I am sure Bogey wouldn't have complained!! Dorothy,who was also the tour operator, was not very bright. When I asked for a ticket to the Emerald City she assumed I meant Seattle - on account of it being the American states' nickname. I told her that, if I wanted to be Sleepless in Seattle, I would have been taking Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan along with me for the ride. T'was the same Dorothy who asked me if I was travelling with my twin, as her training taught her that emeralds were the traditional birthstone for Gemini's. Couldn't resist telling her that if she thought for one minute I was a szichophrenic she should only bill me for one half of the ticket and get the rest from my richer half. I gave up! Logged onto the Beatles Facebook website and Paul McCartney sent me a 'ticket to ride' to the Emerald City - flying across the yellow brick road and eventually landing at Munchkinland Airport. Seems my latest buy at the local car boot sale was about to make it's first journey also. An old Police Box - life-size to - apparently dropped off the night before by a strange looking man in a long scarf claiming to be a doctor of sorts.. It looked much more comfortable than my time machine and was to make for much safer travelling. It had a telephone line installed which went directly to the local police station should I have got lost on the way to the Emerald City and it had a light on top of the box that would flash if I were to get hijacked on the way to the Land of Oz. It did have a first aid kit on board as well as a microwave oven, a plasma TV and 10 bedrooms (well, you have all seen Hot Shots Part Deux, haven't you)? Oh yes, an internet access so I could Google my way home should the sat nav fail. I decided to call it a TARDIS ( Time And Relative Dimensions In Space)and hoped that one day some TV producer might buy it off me to use in a series or another. Now I may be someone who likes to look at life through rose-coloured glasses but on my arrival I found that everyone was wearing green tinted eyeglasses. So, needless to say I stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially as I struggled hopelessly to keep a tight reign on my own not-so-little pooch in my arms - Toto refused to come with me on account that he was needed to replace Edna's dog in a couple of episodes of Emmerdale. Glinda (the good witch) greeted me on arrival. She told me I needed to exchange my GBP for Oz Gold . I was missing home already. Could have sworn she was talking of Auntie Emm, Auntie Emm; but what she was really doing was directing me to the nearest ATM, ATM machine. As the TARDIS landed at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, I was full of excitement at finally being able to go in search of the great and powerful wizard. But my dreams were immediately shattered as I entered the salacious world of a bunch of circus midgets who chose to accompany me on my journey. Now as one who is herself vertically challenged I did not wish to appear prejudice but they creeped me out. I had not eaten for days and needed an energy fix. One of them offered to take me to see their friend Charlie at his chocolate factory but I did not like the idea of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire and encountering a further load of creepy midgets of dumpy, frumpy proportions, wearing strange overalls and with strange colour distortions too. I had seen the film and if it was a toss up between meeting the Umpa Lumpa's or going hungry .. well, there was no contest. Read somewhere that an Umpa Lumpa was the real name for" a short, fat, green haired organism possibly the result of a female leprechaun and a black male midget having unprotected sex". At that point I wondered whether or not I should approach Jeremy Kyle to carry out a DNA test. Could have been very interesting. In short (excuse the pun), I decided the yellow brick road was too far for me to walk and that my ruby slippers would not last, so decided to drive there instead. There were umpteen signs to the Emerald City and pointers saying "Rainbow - this way" but the more I drove towards it the further away it seemed to get. Greek mythologists considered a rainbow to be a path made by a messenger between earth and heaven ( should I have stayed at home and got on MSN Messenger then instead, I wondered)? Met an Irish Leprechaun on my travels who told me he had a secret pot of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow and that if I found it he would share it with me. I knew then that I would have more chance of winning the Irish Lottery. I did eventually arrive at the Emerald City only to find a grey haired old man with a voice activation machine that bore a strange resemblance to Sean Connery. I was not granted one single wish. My face could not have been longer as I headed back to the Tardis - it was almost on the ground. But they do say that as one door closes another one opens and I spied, lying in the gutter, a silver coin. With that I decided to treat myself to a bar of chocolate for the return journey. As I unwrapped the delicate delight low and behold there was a golden ticket inside. It had on it the words "EAT ME" and so, intrigued by the flavour that might behold me I did just that. Then, right before my eyes a glass elevator appeared in front of me. It had started to rain by now and somehow it was beckoning me to take cover. The minute I set foot inside it, I found myself going up and down, sideways and slantways, longways and backways, frontways and squareways. It was an INCREDIBLE JOURNEY (though there wasn't a dog in sight - if you haven't seen the film of the same name then you won't have a clue what I am talking about - forgive -) the caption was much more versatile than the tardis and with glass sides. Not only was I lost in space once more but was about to view paradise much more clearly. As the vehicle landed safely I noticed the word 'Wonkavator' inscribed in the corner of the floor. As I cautiously stepped outside, the yellow-brick road seemed a distance away. Instead I now found myself in a psychedelic wonderland full of chocolate rivers, giant edible mushrooms and lickable wallpaper. But everything was surreal and I was not in the least tempted to indulge in this chocolate heaven. The silver coin was put in my path as a deliberate ploy by the umpa lumpa to ensure that they got their own back on me for putting me in the wrong film. It was the munchkins who should have come out to play with me not them. It was a land of make believe, as was the Emerald City and I just wanted to go home where everything in the garden may not be rosy but at least I was able to experience real blood if i were to prick myself on a thorn. Though I had become BEWITCHED by the thought of being able to fulfill my dreams in a world of fantasy, by now I was also BOTHERED and BEWILDERED and so I closed my eyes, twitched my nose and was once more back home where I belonged. Grace borrows Dorothy's ruby slippers ..  .. to be returned on the stroke of midnight. IF I EVER GO LOOKING FOR MY HEART'S DESIRE AGAIN, I WON'T LOOK ANY FURTHER THAN MY OWN BACKYARD. BECAUSE IF IT ISN#T THERE I NEVER REALLY LOST IT TO BEGIN WITH. |