This is a really silly superhero story for which I blame my incredibly strange imagination! Anyway, it makes a change from trip posts and does have a bit of geography in it!

Dirk hits Glastonbury!

Dirk Destiny landed on the top of Glastonbury Tor, superhero cape waving in the Somerset breeze. It was his day off from being a superhero, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t intervene in a world crisis if it came his way. He just wanted to visit a quintessential English town and get his cream tea fix for the week. He pulled on his far distance goggles and took in the Thorn that Joseph of Arimathea was supposed to have planted when he came to England, Glastonbury Abbey glinted in the sunlight, and the famous music festival rocked into the seventh heaven despite the three feet mud-bath from last week’s rains.

That’s it, he thought, as the strains of Ozzy Osborne pierced his ears like a large chalk being scraped on an acoustic blackboard. I will tune in on my superhero smartphone whilst doing my afternoon Glastonbury tour and catch some vibes. Earplugs planted in his titanium orifices, Dirk went into one legged man mode to save on power, and literally hopped right into Glastonbury town centre in one fell hop.

Goodness gracious me, thought Dirk as he sat down at a pavement café to soak up the atmosphere, I have never seen so many sandals, candles and beards since Commander Jeremy Aubrey-Wintle had a Celtic festival on Starship Intrepid in ’92, as he watched a spooky looking woman with a pointy hat and cloak walk past.

‘Drink Sir?’ said a comely waitress with a smile that could light up a supper with two miserable maiden aunts.

‘Yes,’ said Dirk, I’ll have a large lemonade.’

‘Of course, Sir, right away. Oh Sir, she added, are you going to a fancy dress party?’ She had observed his bright blue and yellow leotard, monstrous six inch wide battle belt and voluminous cape with the letters DD emblazoned on the back.

Dirk swallowed so hard his asbestos tongue almost disappeared down his reinforced plastic throat. In the US ordinary folk always enquired if he was a superhero, here in England folk thought this was his evening wear.

‘No Madam, I am Dirk Destiny, superhero, at your service!’

‘Oh Sir, I like your style, how do I contact you if I need your help? She smiled a smile that would melt a rock faced maiden aunt. Suddenly Dirk felt his forehead begin to melt as well, but it was not just because of her smile.

Dirk felt a headache come over him, even worse his thoughts were becoming confused. The truth hit him like six foot high letters spelling the word ‘truth‘ landing in front of him. Great lumps of horse manure! I am entering the Glastonbury Triangle! He had heard of this before when reading that tome for trainee superheros, ‘Snares to a Superhero.’ How could he forget! Glastonbury played havoc with a superhero’s wavelength because of the vibes from laylines, woman in pointy hats, groups of men with beards and cloaks worshipping stones and an army of waist-coated, sandal wearing, long-flowing skirt wearing crystal lovers, as well as assorted Liberal Democrats. He was in big trouble. This was as bad as it gets, on a par with being sucked into a black hole and consequent nothingness in the Andromeda galaxy. If he could not break out of this mode pronto he would lapse into his original factory default programme and start speaking in a slow deliberate German accent.

‘Are you alright Sir? The waitress looked at him with a concerned look.

‘Wot did you say, meine fraulein? With shock he heard a bit of Lower Saxony mixed in with his slow deliberate German accent. Oh no, he had to get out of here fast, and who was that over the other side of the square? It was Cling Film Man. This always happened, at a moment of weakness his enemy would turn up to put the superhero knife in.

Cling Film Man approached him with a menacing look in his eye. Dirk knew that if Cling Film Man could envelope him in plastic he would turn into a New Age monument forever stuck in Glastonbury. He had to get out of this force field before he was netted by the cling film gun. One thing was in his favour, Cling Film Man was incredibly slow, barely more than human. He had been a reject on the Nemesis project, and had only just made superhero status. He only attacked those who had been severely weakened.

Dirk plugged into his superfine tuning satellite navigation programme and desperately searched for a clear signal that would propel him out of this New Age nightmare, almost knocking over the woman with the pointy hat. Suddenly he picked up the seductive tones of Motorhead powering down his main feed line, ‘Great tons of candle wax, I’ve hit the festival lead!’ that will do the trick! Immediately the cloud of new age confusion lifted off him with the speed of a man leaving a female public toilet he has entered by mistake, his slow and deliberate German accent metamorphosed into his true superhero Texan drawl, and his confidence rose almost to smug level, but not quite. But as quick as he found the channel, he lost it again, and felt his senses sinking into the black hole that was the Glastonbury Triangle again.

Oh no, his lightning fast reactions were disappearing, and he was totally void of a crafty plan.

He turned to face Cling Film Man, who with a flourish had pulled a large plastic gun from the pouch at his side. Dirk saw the look of triumph in his eyes. Although he was as slow as a toad in a bog by humanoid standards, Cling Film Man could still wrap up even a superhero in ten seconds like a sausage in tin foil, especially a superhero with no bearings. In his present confusion, Dirk now had the reactions of a 95 year old man, and was unable to avoid the massive sheet of cling film enveloping him as he tried to escape as if through treacle. It was no good, he was being entombed in a plastic hell, and felt his arms and legs pinned shut as he discovered what it was like to be a dead chicken in a fridge.

This was his fault, Dirk remonstrated with himself angrily as the plastic smothered him. He had let his guard down to enjoy an afternoon off and the world was about to lose an all round good super egg, the sort who would carry your granny’s groceries home after singlehandedly disarming a nuclear Iran. He felt himself heading down a tunnel towards a light, soon he would be in superhero heaven, this was it! His supersenses just made out that Cling Film Man had trussed him up like a Christmas tree and thrown him into the sidecar of a Triumph motorcycle which Dirk remembered he used as his ‘English gentleman’ transport when in England.

He was now half way down that tunnel, and could still hear Cling Film Man’s gleeful laughter at catching and destroying another sucker. Meanwhile he could just discern the throaty Triumph motor as Cling Film man roared down a country lane in English gentleman mode. Dirk’s confidence guage couldn’t have been lower as he felt the life being sucked out of him like a milkshake disappearing through a straw.

But suddenly his fast declining hearing picked up the strains of a music beat, and a few electronic crackles began to jump his brain nodes. Slowly but surely his mind stepped back into gear. Great Galloping Reindeer, he was plugging into something really powerful and felt himself reversing down that there tunnel back towards superhero normality. He was breaking out of the Glastonbury Triangle through the medium of rock music. He listened intently to discern which track he could hear. Well I never, he thought to himself, that’s AC/DC. Cling Film Man has forgotten how I tick and has wandered into Glastonbury Festival for a bit of fun. I am literally at my most potent if I can drink in these vibes.

All his senses came back with a vengeance in those few seconds as he powered up to punch a hole in the cling film. He felt himself literally grow in milliseconds as his superhero wavelength plugged into the main feed lead at Glastonbury Festival; it was the equivalent of putting a pair of jumbo jump leads on a finely tuned Rolls Royce. As he hit normality again he punched his way out of the cling film prison to find himself next to Cling Film Man’s golf club bag in the back of his sidecar, which was now parking up for a grandstand view of the festival.

Suddenly he remembered what his mother, Lady Saturn, had said to him as she had rocked him on her knee as an infant, ‘if ever Cling Film Man attacks you get his gun and fire it back at him. If you do that he will turn into a lump of polystyrene.’

Dirk felt that a good throttle would not go amiss before sending Cling Film Man to plastic hell, as he grew into his seven foot five inch frame again, leapt from the sidecar and towered over Cling Film Man who was totally unaware of him and swaying to the beat. Dirk reached out and grabbed his hapless enemy by the throat, then stared in fiercest rage directly into Cling Film Man’s terrified eyes.

‘So you would try to foil Dirk Destiny,’ he roared. ‘How dare you spoil my day off!’

Cling Film Man gulped as much as a Man being throttled could gulp, and saw his life flash before him as Dirk nicked the gun from his pouch. As he re-enacted his creation from plastic waste at the cling film factory in Braintree, Essex, Cling Film Man found himself facing the barrel of his own gun. Dirk fired and Cling film Man felt himself being recycled into a lump of polystyrene with a closing thought of ‘Ouch that hurt!’

Dirk looked at the lump of polystyrene with not a hint of sadness and popped it into his pocket for analysis at Great Uncle Vortex’s pathetic specimens lab. After enjoying a turn from Lady Gaga and then Rhianna, he set off into the night on his new Triumph.