Welcome To The Gang

Alright, fellas. Allow me to explain my sudden and unexpected absence last week. It was one of those last-minute situations. I didn't even have time to grab my laptop or even my tablet. Hence the old-fashioned telegram.

I was called away suddenly to a top-secret location on the South Coast of the UK, a location that is hidden in plain sight, disguised as a holiday resort, replete with three hotels and bars and restaurants. The people that vacation there are blissfully unaware of its alternate use as one of the bases (refueling stations, if you will) for members of our vast network of moles and informants and other 'special ops' folk from the entertainment world.

The reason for my being there was two-fold. Firstly I was there to meet our point-man PG, known to millions of adoring under-5's as TV's Mister Maker.

Every year, children and parents flock to said holiday resort (as well as many theatres) to see their arty TV hero and his sidekicks, The Shapes, perform for them live on stage.

I took in his show and met up with him afterwards to discuss developments on a hush-hush matter. Now - I told you my reason for meeting him was twofold. The second reason was that he was going to help me introduce some new recruits to the fold - a group of performers known as The Skyline Gang!

The Skyline Gang with a fan during one of their frequent photo opportunities. Clockwise from top left: Pip the rock chick, Rainbow the dog, Sprout, who always likes a laugh, Bud, the resident boffin; Dude, who's always in the mood for a game of basketball, Mimi, the self-absorbed cutie; Candi, who thinks it would be dandy if everything in the world was pink (I'm not making this up); and Misty, the mischievous one. Truth be told, my heart went a-flutter when I met Misty - she's not only hot, but naughty too, and you know I have a thing for bad girls.

The Skyline Gang have their own lines of clothing and toys and books, etc. They are clearly masters of disguise and they look different in every picture, which we told them was a useful asset in avoiding suspicion when on a case.

So there, in a nutshell, is the full story. Well, not quite.

While I was there, I spotted two operatives of the nefarious David The Gnome gang pretending to be mere garden ornaments by a flowing stream.

I immediately put the gang on high alert to watch these guys for any suspicious activity, then after thanking the Skyline Gang - Sprout, Mimi, Candi, Rainbow, Bud, Dude, Pip and most especially the lovely Misty -  and Mister Maker for their hospitality, I hot-footed it back to the Unbelievabase.

Hopefully this means that now the South Coast of the UK is under even greater protection than before.

And the guys? Well, they're relieved to have me back in the fold, so to speak. I'll let them tell you about some other new recruits later in the week.

Dodgy Characters

I'm sure we have all been to bad Halloween parties. The canapes aren't worth bothering about, the 'mulled wine' consists of warmed-over Dr.Pepper and an old bottle of Aunt Phyllis' amontillado simmering in a Crock-Pot, and pretty much everyone's costume looks like they went around the house in a blind panic at the last minute trying to find something, anything, from which to throw together a costume. There have been times, I'll admit, when I myself have done just such a thing, but managed to pull it off simply because I did not try to emulate a TV character or movie droid.

No, I went with the generic. Clown is always an easy one to do, as is farmer, scarecrow, and my personal favourite, Charlie Chaplin. If you already have a black suit, then all you need is the little moustache, the cane and the bowler hat. If you possess a black turtleneck sweater and a zip-up leather jacket and black jeans, then just grow three days worth of stubble and you can be a spy, or a terrorist if you have an olive complexion. Add a fake sniper rifle into it and the possibilities are endless. But so many people go into this thing with a preconceived idea of what they want to do that they end up ruining it completely.

 As you can see.

Other people try to be original, which will score you points at the office if you are dressed as some sort of clever visual pun or an everyday household object such as a Twinkie or a Dyson Vacuum Cleaner, but take it one step too far and you and Ms. Herzenbanger from the typing pool could be banned from office parties for life.

Sometimes the best costumes aren't really a costume at all - just your ordinary clothes and a decent make-up job, such as this one modelled by our friend James.

And as our other pal Katherine shows, sometimes the quality of the costume's manufacturing outweighs whether or not it makes any sense at all.

The Unbelievables have been troubled with an increase in recent years of "costume how-tos" posted on various websites (wikiHow, eHow, Instructables, FamilyFun and their ilk, as well as blogs and women's homemaking magazines)that turn out to be completely awful. We were notified of the horrific social consequences of making such costumes by the family that posed for this photo.

The letter that accompanied this photo outlined for us how they were ostracised by their church, mocked at their places of work, bullied at school and even the garbage men refused to pick up their trash. "Please," they implored us, "find out who is putting these shitty instructions up on the Web and stop them!", adding "Help us, Unbelievables - your our only hope!". Well, our task was clear. We immediately replied, saying that not only would we be right on it, but that it was spelt Y-O-U-APOSTROPHE-R-E, for Pete's sake!

Anyway, after utilising the services of our worldwide network of informants, we had figured out that it was a group of some of the most awful characters ever foisted on a viewing public, who were ticked off over their TV careers being so short-lived and were doing this as some sort of payback. Their names were...

 ORKO...

 SNARF...

MR. BLOBBY, and the ringleader behind the whole shoddy enterprise, DAVID THE GNOME.

Once these aggravating little toerags knew we were onto them they changed the location of their hideout repeatedly, in order to throw us off the scent. But as I am sure Michael will be happy to relate, we soon caught up with them...