A man turns up at a small hotel for a night’s stay. He speaks urgently to the landlady and says he’s allergic to apples. “Please don’t serve me apples,” he asks.

“I promise you’ll get no apples here,” she replies.

That evening the man is tucking into dessert which is described as fruit pie. To his horror he suddenly feels very ill.

“You promised me no apples,” he cries out to the landlady.

“It’s not apples,” she says, as his head doubles in size, his lips turn blue and he goes into acute anaphylactic shock. “It’s apple pie.”

Now consider the ongoing saga of the European Constitution — newly renamed an “Amending Treaty” despite being 98 percent the same as the constitution. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a manifesto promise that the British people would get a referendum on it. He has reneged on that promise because he knows he would lose by a very big margin.

The promise referred to a constitution, he says, and the treaty is no longer a constitution.

The original document has been shuffled around a bit, as you would a deck of cards, some cosmetic stuff has been removed, and the name changed.

It’s not a constitution, claims Brown. Sure, it’s constitution pie.

A few moments ago there was an enormous racket outside Syntagma Towers. People passing were looking up in the sky as if a giant asteroid was about to hit us.

I rushed outside with the new camera (12X zoom) and found our police helicopter hovering directly above our little haven of peace.

Darn, I thought, they’ve caught up with us at last.

I’m now hoping it was just a training exercise, or maybe a criminal gang was hiding in a neighbour’s garden.

It’s gone now. We live to fight another day.

As I look up from my desk here at Syntagma Towers I can see the full moon glistening fiercely above the distant pine forest from where wolves are howling fitfully into the night.

I shudder slightly and turn back to the work on my desk. Suddenly, the doorbell rings.

When I open the door, expecting to see a familiar figure, I am surprised by the presence of a tall, young man in a black suit holding an enormous book. I can’t quite make out the title of his tome, but I guess I’m being cold-called by an encyclopedia salesman.

“Good evening, Mr A. N. Other,” he says brightly in a rich Californian accent. He knows my name, then, I think glumly.

“I’m here to introduce you to The Gurgle Encyclopedia of All the World’s Knowledge in 1000 easy-to-manage volumes.”

I see my escape route at once. “Ah, 1000 volumes. I couldn’t afford them, I’m afraid.”

He grins. “No problem, Sir, they’re free.”

“That’s incredible,” I say, genuinely taken aback, “But in any case there’s no room for them here.”

“Not a problem, either,” he continues, “We’ll extend the back of your house so the books will be displayed in a long gallery. A real talking point for your friends and neighbors.”

I’m about to interject again when he hits me with his second pitch. “And that’s all free too.”

Suddenly, I’m beginning to take him seriously. I look up at his face, now shaded by the growing darkness. The full moon is behind his head, glowing strangely like a corona around his features. The wolves are silent at last. “What’s Gurgle?,” I say almost inconsequently.

“It’s a Californian corporation made up of bright young graduates from Stanford University. We have a motto, ‘Never do anything evil to anyone at any time’. ”

You have to be impressed by his schpiel. But it’s really sounding too good to be true. I begin to feel slightly overwhelmed and look for another way out. “They will go out date very quickly,” I say hopefully.

“These are no ordinary books.” he grins. “They look normal, but actually the pages are filled with electronic circuits so that we can remotely update them every day.”

I gaze at him in wonderment, picturing these vast, magical books stretching in a long line right out into the garden. “There must be a catch,” I say, finally.

“Only one paragraph of small print. If you have any media online, websites, blogs, etcetera, you must promise never to use text link ads … ever.”

My brain is now working overtime. What if I sold the encyclopedias to compensate me for loss of earnings.

“And you must swear never to sell the books to anyone.”

He smiles triumphantly just as a passing car illuminates his face with its headlights.

In his open mouth, I can see two sharp vampire fangs hanging down from the upper jaw. I close the door hastily and rush to the kitchen for some garlic.

Now we know what will happen to the Australian rugby team when they return to Oz after their defeat by England in the World Cup.

It’s reported that an Italian tourist who swallowed anti-freeze in the north of Queensland was admitted to a hospital intensive care unit and fed a case of vodka over three days.

Of course, that begs the question of who uses anti-freeze in the north of Queensland, but we’ll let that pass. It seems the poor sap was hooked up to a drip of pure alcohol, and when that ran out, doctors bought a case of vodka and fed him four bottles a day for three days.

Strewth, the hangover doesn’t bear thinking about. The doctors say he was kept in a “medically-induced” coma for three weeks, so probably didn’t notice the after-effects.

If the vodka had run out, would they have used Fosters lager, the amber fluid of Crocodile Dundee, or the XXXX variety? Difficult medical choices for the Aussie quacks obviously. The old toper’s excuse, “I only drink for medicinal reasons” now has new backing.

But if the patient had died, what would they have put on the death certificate? Cause of death : acute alcoholism aggravated by a small quantity of anti-freeze?

So will the defeated Australian rugby team receive the same treatment? They’ll be queuing up for it, mate!