Dear colleague and founder AloeVera 1.1 (general direction),

Number 12 is currently indisposed so I am this month's delegated communicator. Sorry for the delay, but we've been a little distracted, having discovered the wonderful invention of the Hairy Mammals of Earth known as cricket. It goes something like this:-

Many Hairy Mammals assemble on a giant lawn (around the perimeter) well equipped with food, drinks (sometimes tea), radios, magazines, knitting, deckchairs, etc., and spend all day in the sunshine relaxing and becoming sociable. This is supposed to last for a couple of days until the Untidy Queendom (also known as Gross Britannium) get whipped by the WI (Women's Institute) then everyone goes home in a mood. We decided we'd stay (in disguise) until this happened, and it didn't! the Untidy Queendom kept on winning.

Winning what? You may well ask. Well this is the weird bit. While everyone else is enjoying themselves, about 15 people dressed all in white stand out in the sunshine perfectly immobile - they are apparently mime artists - then one of them runs towards a small assembly of sticks and rotates his arm. This signals the next act of the performance.

Two performers, each behaving like knights of the middle ages (but without the horses) then run at each other waving clubs, but they always miss! Then the other mime artists commence shouting at each other (the 'mime' instruction seemingly suspended) and throw a heavy red ball at the disturbed pigeons. Then they freeze again. Two of the mime artists don't run around and are consequently rather fat. The onlookers (that's us) then compare the performance to similar attempts from many decades earlier, the consensus being that that they used to do it better years ago.

There is also a variant fashion show where the regular mime artists donate items of clothing to the fatties who proceed to wear the garb in original and inventive ways.

Watching the 'sport' seems to be addictive. A neighbour informed us that the WI had been 'offered the light' so it may even be a religion.

Yours etc.

AloeVera 7.8

(Acting Chairentity of our mission to serve tea on remote worlds)

P.S. We haven't served any tea yet.

P.P.S. Number 11 informs me that the WI isn't the Women's Institute, it is the West Indies. I have no way of verifying this fact as yet.

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