The CBB :: View topic - Publishers Cuts

#1: Publishers Cuts - The Next Generation Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 9:55 pm

The original, which came out of no where Rolling Eyes

is now in the drabbleorum.

I'm not at all sure that this is going anywhere but a passing bunny bit, so here goes.

Bunnies - The Next Generation

On the Holodeck of the Starship CBBterprise, Flagship of the Fleet, a tasty buffet of carrots, lettuce and dandelion leaves was set out for the delectation of the assembled personages. After each Bunny had selected his or her favourite food and settled down on the bed of best Chamber’s printing paper available, the emergency meeting began.

The Chairman rose to his haunches, surveyed the gathered Bunnies and spoke solemnly.

“Once again we reach a crossroads in our development. Since the great mutation which was triggered with the foundation of the Internet, when we cast off our bodies and became pure intelligences in order to travel through Cyberspace, we have made great strides. Not least in rediscovering our corporeal bodies and being able once again to breed like … err, rabbits, in order to keep up with the demands of our great task.

I would like to remind you that our original task was to convey the hidden wisdom of EBD to humans from the discarded pages cut by the publisher, who was too narrow minded to allow her books to exceed an arbitrary number of pages and so deprived readers of much of the story. My many times Great Grandfather was one of the original Super Bunnies who escaped the threat of extermination after EBD stopped writing. We then had, stored in collective memory, enough material for another one hundred and fifty books, mainly in fragments, which would fit it with the originals.

The advent of the CBB, for which we must give credit to the Squeeny Warren which gave the original impetus to the human founder of the CBB, who took their name in recognition of the help they gave her, provided us with an outlet to spread this great opus and all was going well until recently.

Now we face several challenges which must be addressed urgently. I would like to lay them all before you before we discuss each one as I have come to the conclusion that they are interrelated.

With nearly 600 CBBers, even if we remove the Teddy Bears and Alter Egos, we have a have a much larger number of humans to work with than expected at this stage of the process. Even though some of these are not yet active Drabblers, we are not giving up on them and some dedicated Bunnies are nibbling at their ankles everyday in the belief that they will listen, given time.

We are of course much gratified that the number of fill ins is growing day by day. But there has been a development among a few of our warrens to go beyond the written record, memorised by our forbears, and, by means of Time and Dimension Travel, access previously unknown episodes which were never committed to paper by our EBD. Although I have not experienced this for myself, I am assured that the stories do exist in an alternative universe, as was suggested by Heinlein.

Some have now been published, producing a new generation of books and, although we have all the notes made by the human authors working at our bidding, we have to decide whether these notes should transmitted to other receptive humans for further fill ins, thus extending our original remit.

Some of these Time & Dimension Travellers are accessing information in great detail about life outside the Chalet School. There springs to mind the Epic ‘Sharlie’ drabble which has spanned well over twenty years of the character’s life both within and outside the Chalet School. There is a very prolific drabbler who is attemptiong to deal with not only Corney's adult life but also that of Evvy, even to the point of Evvy's children going to the Chalet School. There is another drabble which is intended to cover fifty two years of another character’s life and, since Reg appears in so few of the original books and is only a man, goes well beyond what we set out to do. Then there are the alternatives they are discovering too – there was that one where Madge ended up in Egypt.

Far be it from me to submit to the calls of the Church of The Canon to condemn what they call heresy but we do have to decide whether to allow this to continue.

The second issue is more difficult. Since we discovered that we were not the only Super Bunnies, some young Bunnies are interbreeding with Warrens dedicated to other Authors’ works and producing what are known as Crossovers. For those of you who do not know what these are, they are meeting of EBDs characters with those of other authors, some are humorous and can be excused on the grounds of youthful exuberance on the part of the Bunnies and their Humans. In fact some have made me chuckle myself.

Some, however, are genuine attempts to combine the stories written by other Authors with those of EBD, mainly through the discarded notes but also by creating new universes by means of transporting characters to them. I am not condemning this per se. In a strange way, we are also a crossover as we have already determined to transmit the secret of the Warp Drive to humans when they are mature enough to use it for their own good and so have created the Paradox of the series Star Trek, set many hundreds of years into the future yet available to Humans today as Science Fiction.

We will now discuss these issues in time honoured fashion as we enjoy the banquet set before us. I have ordered that the CBBterprise be held in stasis while this meeting continues, so please take your time.”

Last edited by patmac on Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:38 pm; edited 4 times in total

#2: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:01 pm

Great Pat. Keep it up.

#3: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:06 pm

I like this! Laughing

#4: Author: Sugarplum, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:01 am

Looking good pat

#5: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:32 am

It explains it all so clearly! Very Happy

#6: Author: Liane, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:36 am

This looks great Pat. (love the name of the ship)

#7: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 9:05 am

ROFL!

Wonderful - thank you, Pat

#8: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:08 am

Philosophical,bunnies...HELP!!!
Laughing

Love this Pat, look forward to reading the rest of the meeting and its outcome.

#9: Author: JackieJ, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 8:20 pm

Oh, this looks good Pat. Should certainly be interesting. Can't wait for more.

JackieJ

#10: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 9:22 pm

Wonderful, Pat. I hope there's lots more to come.

#11: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:40 am

I had no idea where this was going when I started it but the bunny is still whispering so here goes!

The Manager sat and nibbled a carrot thoughtfully. As he had expected, groups were forming according to their views on the subject and he really hoped that, this time, there would be no schism as there had been when The Church of The Canon had been formed. That had led to some bad feeling which had communicated itself to the humans which various bunnies had adopted. A shame really as they all served the books, whether published or not.

Some of the younger bunnies had formed a group of their own and were in the midst of a loud conversation interspersed with words like ‘vair’ and ‘fabby’. It looked very much like procrastination to him.

Another group were huddled in a corner talking seriously and he pricked up his big ears to catch what they were saying. He couldn’t hear much but the words ‘social cohesion’ and ‘support network’ came across clearly. One of them was drawing diagrams on a piece of bedding. He wondered what that was about. Some of this group, were attached to CBBers who had not yet drabbled or only did so occasionally, though they were active on the board and most posted frequently. He noted that the conversation had nothing to do with drabbles.

Ever mindful of his responsibilities, he called down to the engine room and spoke to MacBunny who was responsible for holding them in stasis. Even though they had chosen the Christmas Holidays for this meeting when the board would be quiet, he wanted to be sure that the Board was still functioning and any time loss could be crucial. CBBers were inclined to get really downhearted if their bunnies deserted them and he had no wish to be cruel to them.

Eventually, he drummed his hind foot on the deck to get their attention. The noise level from the Procrastination Group was beginning to sound more as if they were holding a party and they had already performed the duck dance and were about to start singing the Moose song. He could see some disapproving glances coming from some other bunnies and two of the more serious bunnies were stroking their whiskers in agitation.

“There will be time for more discussion but I would like to hear your preliminary thoughts. Please select a spokesbunny for each group. We will listen without interruption or comment, remembering that the illustrious Author put every farthing of tuppence on good manners.”

#12: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:57 am

patmac wrote:

A shame really as they all served the books, whether published or not.

A hit, a palpable hit. Wink

Thanks Patmac - love the procrastination bunnies! Laughing

#13: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 12:27 pm

Thanks, Patmac, wonderful.

#14: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:00 pm

Clever! Thanks Pat.

#15: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:19 pm

It just so happened that the group on his left was the most traditional and so generally inspired drabbles for St Agnes’s House, working very closely from EBDs discarded sheets memorised so many years ago. Even this group was reduced, at times, to extrapolating from small scraps of EBDs work notes, as so much material had already been used. In addition to discarded scenes such as Simone’s diary of her first term, there were whole books such as the alternative version of Robin’s illness where she had contracted TB. That had been rejected by the publishers, he recalled, as being too derivative of Little Women.

There were also whole books written from a different perspective in St Agnes, such as ‘Stacie’ which was then expanded to her time at Oxford, causing The Manager to think the group were not as traditional as they would like to be thought. In fact, he made a note to check which bunnies had attached themselves to that particular CBBer as she seemed to write such a wide variety of drabbles and had even published a book, of which only a small part came from EBDs notes. Calling herself ‘Auntie’ could even be a cover for a radical turn of mind. Perhaps this Dimension Travel had gone farther than he had assumed.

The bunny who rose to speak was elderly and ponderous. Seeing how he raised himself to his haunches with difficulty, The Manager, who liked to think of himself as progressive, was prepared to be bored and set his face to an expression of interest more as an example to the youngsters than anything.

“Mr. Chairman, Fellow Bunnies.” He began. “I speak for the members of the more Traditional School of Interpretation of the Illustrious Author’s Work. We have tried to be faithful to the Word, without falling into the trap of limiting what may or may not be written. For the first few years after the founding of the CBB, we were able to keep to this. Now, however, we find ourselves with fragments which require expansion to make a good drabble, however short. There are too many CBBers wanting to write drabbles to keep them in supply, these days. We had hoped that splitting the drabbles into Houses would solve our problem. It was an inspired idea from the Squeeny Warren but we are finding so many CBBers are able to be attuned to multiple bunnies from a variety of Schools of Interpretation that we have now entered into a Treaty of Offence and Defence with our friends who usually inspire the Drabbles which appear in St Therese’s house.”

The Chairman’s ears pricked up at this last. “A Treaty of Offence and Defence” was most definitely a Crossover phrase from the Amazon Warren. Hearing it from the most traditional bunny present was a surprise. What was going on here?

“Only in this way can we supply drabbles in the quantity required by the voracious CBBers and make best use of the fragments remaining. Not many of you know that we have been experimenting with Hypnotic Regression in case more information is stored in our brains which we cannot access. The great mutation caused by the threat of being executed and made into pies was so stressful that we wondered if some portions of script had been suppressed in the process.”

A shudder went round the bunnies at the thought of rabbit pies and some of the more impressionable ones snuggled up to larger bunnies for comfort and a (((hug))).

“Were you successful?” asked the Manager, after he had smoothed his fur down again.

“Enough to continue with the experiment. Our first big success was Peace Comes to the Chalet School, a complete book on the end of the Second World War. It has even been accepted by the Church of the Canon and that rarely happens.

Unfortunately, we provided too much information for the Publishers, as we included all EBD would have liked to publish and we are now faced with reams of discarded chapters. We are in hope that these will be used by the CBBer involved when she has caught up with RL again.

Only this week, we found a CBBer susceptible to a drabble about Karen. EBD was forced to largely ignore the domestic staff by the publishers and she eventually stopped writing about them. It has had to be placed in St Therese’s House to fit the new classifications.”

“Aah! So have you come to any conclusions about Dimension and Time Travel?”

There was a shuffling and a snuffling from the group.

“On that matter, I am willing to allow all our group to have a free vote. They must decide for themselves. I, personally, am too old for such things.”

There was a collective sigh of relief at the announcement of a free vote from the bunnies and The Manager noted that it had come from the other groups as well.

“Do you have agreement on the subject of Crossovers?”

There was a further shuffling and snuffling and The Manager noticed in the movement, a small bunny which had been hiding behind two bigger ones was holding a broomstick and wearing a pointy hat.

“We cannot agree on this. We do not want to be exclusive but our task is to spread the Word of our own Illustrious Author. What we have agreed on, is this. If a crossover bred bunny joins a CS Warren, that is where his or her loyalties should lie. Beyond that I cannot say. If bunnies working to interpret other Authors are attaching themselves to CBBers, we will have crossovers no matter what we do. They are bound to interbreed. We could end up with something as bizarre as a Dr Who crossover.”

A voice from the other side of the room was clearly heard. “Been there, done that.”

#16: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:08 pm

This is very clever Pat. I am wondering what conclusions will be reached. Laughing

#17: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:23 am

This is wonderful Very Happy

Thanks Pat!

Liz

#18: Author: Carola, Location: England...and not very happy about it!

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:54 pm

Patmac...this is fab, fab, fab. Thank you!

#19: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 10:08 am

This is wonderful, thanks Pat.

#20: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:12 pm

Thanks Pat.

#21: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 8:11 pm

As the leader of the Traditionalists lowered himself to all fours and picked up a carrot, a hubbub arose as the bunnies discussed his views. The Manager let them have their head for a little while and took the opportunity to call down for more carrots from the replicator. Better keep them in a good mood, he thought. This is going to be a long session.

Eventually he thumped his hind leg again and silence gradually fell. He waited patiently till the procrastination party stopped moaning about work and finally, he invited the next spokesbunny to speak.

“We make no apologies for our use of the Time and Dimension Travel which was discovered by a Superbunny attached to H. G, Wells and then transmitted by his descendents to Heinlein. We were fortunate that one of our bunnies fell hopelessly in love with one from the Heinlein Warren which dispersed after the passing on of that illustrious author. We are honoured that several of their offspring joined us at that time and are proud that we nurtured them till we found the right CBBer to inspire.

Without this, we would have been deprived of the RCS Saga which, incidentally, has meant forming a whole new Warren on the south bank of the Thames and has taken the Chalet School into a new era.

There is hunger in the CBBers to know what happened next. Without using time and Dimension Travel we could not tell them about Corney and Mike’s courtship. We would never have known that Gill Culver had twins or Sharlie’s story after the Chalet School. How would we know what happened to the Peace League Survivors or the triplets’ time at University. If EBD (may her memory last forever) had been granted more sympathetic publishers and a longer life, we might have discovered these stories. As it is, we have to do the best we can.

As the Squeen has said, St Therese’s House is intended ‘For more serious stories still based recognisably in the CS universe. Might include themes that EBD would not have touched upon.’ We know EBD was fixed in an era which was very different from the world today. After what is known as the Second World War, she turned away, in disgust, from the troubles of the world and sought to hold the Chalet School in a time of simpler values where families were (usually) happy and, even where they were not, the Chalet School could provide a substitute.

This, in itself created a discontinuity in the continuum and, while upholding the moral values she held dear, discounted the possibility of curing TB, birth control, Rock & Roll – in fact all the things which make society what it is today.

All we seek to do is to bring the alternatives to light.”

“Thank you for that interesting view. Do you have a view on Crossovers?”

The spokesbunny looked slightly offended. “Where do you suppose Hugh, Colin, Armand or Mike van Alden’s mother came from. Are you accusing us of independent invention. We just tell it as it is.”

The spokesbunny for St Therese’s House had obviously finished and The Manager looked round to see the reaction.

It was odd. His eyes had never needed glasses but he seemed to be seeing strange things. Interspersed among the bunnies were some wearing red stocking caps. Then there were some with long scarves slung round their necks. A couple had old fashioned leather helmets on their heads like fighter pilots. There was even one wearing a tutu, which quite frankly looked ridiculous on a bunny.

#22: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 8:17 pm

Yep, definitely a whole new Warren needed for the RCS saga - and growing exponentially! Laughing

Love this Patmac - thank you.

#23: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 8:28 pm

Thank you, Pat!
I love the bunny in the tutu!

#24: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:05 pm

Fantastic Pat!

Thank you

#25: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 2:34 pm

Vair fabby, Pat.

#26: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 5:04 pm

This is brilliant Pat

I obviously have very bunny resistant ankles Laughing

#27: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:16 pm

It's about time for some more of this, isn't it?

#28: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:20 pm

I'm afraid this bunny only co-operates after alcohol and a bit of relaxation. Having had both this weekend. He's back!

In the discussion that followed, The Manager noticed that the small group of bunnies which had been discussing incomprehensible headology jargon had been joined by several more bunnies who were listening, watching the drawing of diagrams and asking questions. As they were all doing this at the same time, the resulting confusion made it impossible to understand what was going on.

He briefly wondered where the word ‘headology’ came from and then dismissed the thought as he watched them drawing their cabbalistic symbols on the carefully smoothed sheets of bedding.

The procrastinators were busily eating virtual ham croissants and pigging out on chocolate. He did hope this would not end in an embarrassing incident. On reflection, he remembered that they spent their entire working day in such pursuits and no doubt had cast iron digestive systems and relaxed again.

He checked the status of the ship, ordered yet more carrots and, in a fit of generosity, some chocolate and thumped once again with his hind leg.

It was the chocolate which caught the attention of the majority and, after promising more after the next group had reported, a semblance of quiet fell on the holodeck.

Given that this group was committed to ‘the completely mad’ drabbles with external crossovers and parodies, he had expected to see this group as generally young and radical. It was with some surprise that he realised that not all the bunnies fitted this stereotype.

True, the majority were cross dressers who flaunted their dual loyalties with flowing robes or suits of armour, interspersed with the occasional meerschaum smoking detective and a couple of Blue Police Boxes. A few wore fur coats and were gathered round a snow encrusted lamp post. There were several portly bunnies in red robes with obviously cotton wool moustaches and he noticed a Trio he had seen before, often see with three separate drabblers, one wore a witchy hat and one was attached to the dreaded Auntie. It took him a moment to recognise that the third was of the red rose persuasion, one of a tribe who had caused more problems than most! A Butterworth, no less! 1.

But there were also bunnies he recognised from drabbles in the other houses. Needless to say, The Village Boy got everywhere, of course, but there were others he recognised as ‘serious’ drabblers.

There was a little discussion among them before they pushed one bunny to the front.

She looked quite normal at first glance, if you ignored the badges which adorned her dainty blue dress. ‘Let me out of here, I’m a Chalet Girl’, ‘Casanova IS Dr Who’, ‘Come to the Dark Side. You know you want to’. There were many others but then his attention was caught by the small golden dragon like creature sitting on her shoulder, it’s eyes whirling agitatedly at the owl on her other shoulder. Then there was the meerschaum pipe she was busily puffing and the red stocking cap. On one side of this small apparition stood a small metallic dog-like creature and on the other, a small striped animal was bouncing up and down excitedly. Peering over her shoulder was a morose robot, looking extremely bored.

“MY NAME IS ….. “ she began in a deep voice and then stopped in confusion. “Jib-booms and bobstays! No it isn’t. It’s err, err, um.”

There was pandemonium among the bunnies behind her.

“Off with her head!” “Give her a small dose.” “Make her walk the plank!” “She’s a silly little Moke” “She needs a Doctor.”

At the word ‘Doctor’, the small bunny became very agitated and spun round in circles shouting “Where, Where!” while the fire lizard screamed, the owl hooted, the tigger bounced higher than ever and the small dog raised it’s eyebrows. “Brain the size of a planet and they want me to look after mad bunnies.” Intoned the robot. He sighed and shuffled off in disgust.

1. Apologies to Carolyn P for ‘outing’ her as a Butterworth, we share a heritage!

#29: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:30 pm

No apologies needed Pat, tis fact after all! Laughing

#30: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:39 pm

#31: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 11:41 pm

Most excellent....I hope that this will be saved in imperishable form so that all will be clear to the Next (and Previous!) generations.

#32: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:14 am

This is fab, Pat. Thanks.

#33: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:43 pm

Wonderful, Pat. Please make sure you print this out for future generations to find.

#34: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:59 pm

Insanity at its best!

Thanks Pat

#35: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 7:49 pm

It was sometime before order was restored and the small confused bunny led off for hot milk and a sleep. Another bunny stepped forward, having been divested of her Mallory Towers gymslip, a shiny new poking stick and AK47 by her peers.

This seemed to have calmed her down and she spoke so clearly and concisely that the giggles occasioned by her liberty bodice soon died down.

“We apologise for the small problem but it does illustrate the strain we are under. The CBBers are avid readers of most genres and, inevitably, their ankles are nibbled at by bunnies from other Authors’ warrens. There were a few nasty incidents when this first started happening and, with all the nibbling and whispering in ears, some poor humans became as confused as little Wilhelmina was just now. The result was a drabble called ‘Holocaust’.”

There was a collective intake of breath. Bunnies paled, some put paws over their ears, some made the horns against evil, small bunnies clung to their mothers demanding a (((hug))) and three fainted right away and had to be revived by waving dandelion leaves under their noses.

The Universe created by this drabble is even now off limits to all sentient creatures and ringed by detectors in case the cloned Mateys discover space travel. Alas, we don’t know what became of poor Kate.

After that incident when things got out of control, we did attempt to stem the tide of crossovers but, due to the inevitable interbreeding between warrens and the fact that we are unable to stop the CBBers reading other authors, we have no choice but to continue.”

“And they’re fun!” piped up a small voice from the crowd behind her.

“The situation is likely to get even more complicated. You will have noticed a thread on book recommendations. Soon all the CBBers will have read all the same books and we will have competition and more interbreeding than we have already. You will all have to brace yourselves for this. It is bound to happen. We will either accept it or be assimilated.”

Abruptly she returned to her peers and demanded her gymslip, AK47 and poking stick, looking profoundly relieved when she was fully attired once more.

This time the hubbub was deafening as all the bunnies digested this news. The procrastinators went back to their virtual feasts and were apparently taking no notice of the whole affair but the headology group rushed round asking questions with small hand held computers in their paws and then were busily feeding the results into the main computer, much to The Manager’s alarm. He checked with Engineering that the load was not too much for the system and was relieved to hear that there was no danger as another generator had been called into service to cope.

He hopped over to the Procrastinators, hoping to spur them into some interest in the subject.

“It’s all right.” said one, airily. “We’ll think about it eventually but at the moment, we’ve got behind on our word game. Besides, I think it’s nearly lunch time.”

“But we’re in stasis.” Said The Manager a little testily.

“Ooh! You got the next word! Well done.”

The Manager scratched behind his ear with his hind leg. “What do you mean?”

“Unmoving – stasis. I didn’t know you played this. Do you post as ‘guest’?”

The Manager retreated, hastily. “I’m getting too old for this.” He thought. Then the aroma of virtual ham croissants assailed his nostrils and his nose twitched. “On second thoughts, those smell good. Perhaps, this group have got the right idea. They’d go well with Baileys.”

At this point, one of the headology bunnies came up to him. He was dressed in a white coat and wore large blue glasses and a wig with a receding hairline.

“Excuse me, Sir.” He stammered. “We’d like a little time to finish analysing our data. We think we have the answer but it is so unexpected that we need to be quite sure.”

“How long do you need?”

“Well, we need to add the Chi-square test and then Kolmogorov-Smirnov Tests. We think it could be useful to look at the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon and then look at the Significance tests on distributions then I think we might have to remove a couple of outliers that are skewing the results and run it again. Then we have to do a proper powerpoint presentation with charts for those who don’t understand tabulations and write a full report.”

“How long Will that take?”

“Err. About three weeks.”

“How long without the written report?”

“Err. Thirty minutes.”

“Skip the report.”

The bunny looked crestfallen. “It’s not complete till we’ve done that.” He sulked.

“Could you distribute that when it’s done?”

“I suppose so.”

“Let’s do that then.”

The bunny stropped off, making his displeasure felt in his gait and the Manager sighed. To think it had all started off so simply, just filling in the missing parts of the books. He wandered over to the procrastinators and accepted a ham croissant.

#36: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 8:58 pm

Wonderfully gigglacious, Pat.

Sending a crate of red wine down the modem.

#37: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:55 pm

I love it that the Holocaust Universe is off limits to sentient beings! Twisted Evil

#38: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:03 am

*giggles*

Thanks Pat Laughing

Liz

#39: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:27 am

I was going to say vair fabby but realised that I am old and so not allowed to.

But Jolly Good and Very Funny! Even if a bit spooky...

#40: Author: Katarzyna, Location: North West England

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:42 pm

This is excellent Pat - and is making me giggle a lot over my lunch!

Hummm, as I am now locked in a cordened off universe (and possibly no longer a sentinet being!) does that mean i can remain immune to or just continue to ignore any bunnies that nibble?

actually, as no one knows what happened to me, who exactly is typing this or is this whole post just a figment of your imagination?

#41: Author: Lyanne, Location: Ipswich, England

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:21 pm

Katarzyna wrote

Quote:

is this whole post just a figment of your imagination?

Or is this whole thread a figment of your imagination?

#42: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:33 pm

Lyanne wrote:

Katarzyna wrote

Quote:

is this whole post just a figment of your imagination?

Or is this whole thread a figment of your imagination?

Who knows?

Fortunately, all the bunnies were happy to wait and catch up with old friends while the analysis was done. The World Wide nature of the CBB and the fact that they were on duty 24/7 meant that many friends and relations were actually meeting for the first time in a long while. Then there were new relatives to find. Variations on “My Great Uncle’s cousin’s sister in law married your Aunt’s husbands father. That makes Algernon, here your Great nephew in law twice removed.” echoed round the holodeck.

The Manager watched and listened. After all, one way or another, they were mostly related to him. Time went by and food and drink was consumed in large quantities. Still the analysis went on. Heads were scratched, arguments raised. Another generator was started up. Thirty minutes stretched to sixty, then ninety, then two hours passed.

The procrastination party grew in numbers. Older bunnies snoozed. Two litters were born. Just when The Manager was beginning to wonder if they would ever reach agreement, two of the bunnies who had been doing the analysis approached him.

“We’re ready but you are not going to like the results.” Said one.

“Are you sure you are right?”

“Oh, yes.”

The Manager shrugged. “Well let’s get it over. It can’t be more radical than discovering we might be made into rabbit pies.”

The two bunnies stared at him.

“Oh, can’t it!” said one, grimly.

They returned to their group and The Manager thumped for attention. It took a lot longer this time and he regretted the alcohol he had sanctioned as he heard the hedgehog song and a lacrosse stick narrowly missed his head. Eventually, everybody settled down and the spokesperson for the final group took the floor.

The first few charts were boring, even if they were pretty with lots of lovely colours. The bunnies half listened to the beginning of the report which was all about the methodology and then came the shock.

“There is a mutation occurring.”

Ears pricked up. Noses twitched. Those at the back raised themselves on their haunches to see better. Mothers gathered their offspring close and older bunnies donned their glasses to be sure of missing nothing.

“Watch the lime green line. The trend is upwards and so is the sparkling purple. It is conclusive.”

As the pretty charts were displayed, there were Oohs and Aahhs from the baby bunnies and all the rest tried to look as if they understood what they were being shown.

A whole stream of percentages and phrases like ‘error variance’, ‘mean, mode and median’ tripped off the presenter’s tongue with a practiced air. Once he got into ‘chi squared’ and ‘multivariate analysis’, eyes glazed and attention wandered. An undercurrent of conversation began to swell and the presenter faltered and looked at The Manager in dismay.

“Can you just give us the bottom line?” asked the Manager, gently. “Preferably in words we can understand.”

There was a huddle and then another bunny stood to the front.

The Manager thumped his foot.

Conversation died down.

The spokesbunny gulped.

The Manager nodded.

“It’s not us who are mutating. It’s the CBBers.”

There was uproar.

#43: Author: Liane, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:46 pm

Thanks patmac. Now, may I ask, are all CBBers mutatung, or just certain ones? *koff*

#44: Author: JackieJ, Location: Kingston upon Hull

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:19 pm

Crickey... we're mutating.. that can't be good.

*waits with baited breath to find out what's happening to us*

Thanks Pat - this is wondeful...

JackieJ

#45: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:28 pm

Speak for yourself Pat!

#46: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:34 pm

Well, that would account for the things that have been happening round here recently...

#47: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:45 pm

I wonder what the bunnies are going to DO. Laughing

Thanks Pat

#48: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:52 pm

Ulp!

*hides behind the sofa!*

#49: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 1:34 am

I'm not a mutie.

I'm Evolved.

#50: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:14 am

Now I know why my SLOC has started to give me odd looks as I sit at the computer!

Thanks, Pat.

#51: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:23 am

Goodness! Sparkling purple - lime green procrastination party mutations? There might be an anthocyanidin synthase gene that could do that. Perhaps in the grapes. ROFL

#52: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:25 pm

Wibbles and heads for Pim's desk.

Make room for lots of us, Pim.

#53: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:36 pm

“What into?” croaked the Manager.

“Well, so far as we can tell from the data, and we have run it through a muon catalyser and the Penrose Node, not to mention the Hawking-Schwartschild kernel, they’ve had an overload of plots in their poor little brains. They just can’t cope with it and are becoming unstable.”

“So what is the nature of the mutation?”

“We knew something was happening. We’ve been running tests on paired samples of CBBers and bunnies for some time now, testing the important variables like dependence on chocolate, how their reading correlated with our interbreeding and so on. We’ve seen a convergence but the significance only became clear today.”

Some of the current drabbles were not inspired by bunnies. They have developed imagination. Even worse. They’ve discovered dimension and time travel. It wasn’t us who wrote that they went back to see Auntie. They really did! They’re going back to see Joey in the future as well. I mean they’re planning that they will, in the future, go back. Oh, h**l. I’ve created a paradox by saying that .

They are becoming plot humans.”

There was further uproar as they realised that they might become redundant. This time, the noise seemed to rise to new heights and the Ship’s Matey had to be called to deal with several cases of hysteria and security was called as the Amazons declared war on Mallory Towers.

The Manager and several senior bunnies retired to a corner to discuss what they should do next. They had not reached any conclusion by the time order was restored and they had to face the assembled multitude.

To their surprise, the Procrastination Party bunnies were beaming. The Manager supposed they had not grasped the significance of the announcement. Everyone else was in various stages of shock, anger or despair.

The Manager went over to the Procrastinating bunnies. “Did you understand all that?”

“Oh, yes. It is so fabby and vair shiny.”

“You realise it means we are redundant?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Then why are you smiling?”

There was a pause and the bunnies looked at him with puzzled faces.

“Because we can register on the board and write the drabbles we want to write instead of battling with the CBBers to write what WE tell them!”

All the others nodded vigorously, ears flapping as they did so.

There was silence for a moment and a cheer rose from the gathering, pocket computers appeared and there was silence as everybody started drabbling.

“We must keep this very quiet.” Warned the Manager as he pulled his own computer out. “It would never do for the CBBers to find out. Engineering. You can take us out of stasis now. The emergency is over.”

Without so much as a jolt, the ship emerged into normal space and started back towards earth at warp speed.

The first Bunny to log on cried out in alarm. “Too late! Look in St Clare’s! They already know. There’s a drabble about this meeting.”

There was silence as they all digested this.

“Does that mean we are figments of their imagination?” said a quiet, frightened voice.

THE END

(for now)

#54: Author: Liane, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 7:00 pm

Thanks patmac. When you mentioned the ship's Matey I had an image of a bunny wearing an angel wing cap and an eye patch! Rolling Eyes

#55: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 9:39 pm

I love this! (Oh and poor Kate!!!!)

So are we figments as well? I do sometimes feel that I'm totally imaginary.......

#56: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:06 am

After all, how do we know?

Thank you Pat.

#57: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:45 am

Thanks Pat

*watches for the influx of new members as the bunnies sign on*

Liz

#58: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:05 am

Thanks Pat. I was wondering why my bunnies had vanished and now I know.

#59: Author: Vikki, Location: Sitting on an iceberg, freezing to death!!!

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:03 pm

*giggles*

Fabulous, Pat! Thank you.

#60: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:53 am

Oh what a Brilliant ending.

Thanks Patmac, that was very cool and very funny!

#61: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:21 pm

Thanks Pat

I wonder what sheepdogging a bunny would be like!

#62: Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:07 am

*g* Great ending.

Thanks Pat.

Fran - the mind boggles! Wink

#63: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:35 am

Fascinating, Pat!
Laughing

#64: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:52 pm

*Snickering madly* This is sooo funny, even if parts of it hurt my brain. I like the idea of us being imaginary- does that mean that the CBB is a holodeck and we're holograms....?

How do you pronounce 'CBBnterprise' anyway?!

LOLOLOL.
Marvellous.

#65: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:07 pm

Lisa_T wrote:

Hi, Lisa! Long time no 'see'. I suppose CBBnterprise sounds like a bit of a stutter! Try it after a few glasses of wine, your brain may hurt less - it's the only way I could write it Wink

#66: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:38 pm

patmac wrote:

Hi, Lisa! Long time no 'see'. I suppose CBBnterprise sounds like a bit of a stutter! Try it after a few glasses of wine, your brain may hurt less - it's the only way I could write it Wink

Quickly sends Pat a few more bottles of wine Wink

#67: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:36 pm

I wonder what that says about me, then. My craziest drabbles have all been written when I've been stone cold sober...

*getting worried*

Laughing

#68: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:12 pm

Oh dear! I can only do philosophy when drunk, preferably arguing loudly with other inebriates!

As for us being imaginary ..................................

WHO is doing the imagining Shocked

The CBB -> St Clare's House

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