2003-04-09 - 4:11 p.m.

Apols if you hate these, natch, but we're on a roll since there has been remedial interest from a real life literary agent. In weird news, though, Dove Soap launched a campaign recently which uses the exact same idea, but since we had ours published a year ago, we figure we could sue them for breach of copyright. Seriously, does anyone know any lawyers?

Dr Gideon Spike (1946 � 1998)

Biological theorist and pederast, best known for his obsessive scatological knowledge, evasive manner and disarmingly limp handshake. His medical training remains shrouded in mystery, and the only recorded insight into his alma mater was given at the height of his chronic alcoholism, where he drunkenly admitted to a journalist that it was �somewhere filthy in Mexico�.

His first book, a revolutionary look at the psycho-social effects of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (�Know Sudden Movements�) received a decidedly tepid reception from the British medical community, not to mention just about everybody else.

A vanity publishing project, he�d produced 3000 copies by blowing most of the proceeds from the sale of his parents� house, despite the fact that they were both still living there in rude health. He even went so far as to make up effusive quotes from appropriately obscure, that is to say, non-existent publications. The puff splashed across the cover was to read �Dr Spike�s analysis of contemporary medical thinking has never been sharper�, but a spiteful typesetter whose cheque had bounced at the last minute had missed off the last two letters.

Dr Spike�s second foray into medical history had been facilitated by a small medical journal company needing to indulge in a spot of creative accountancy via the means of publishing any old nonsense that didn�t invite heavy litigation from powerful drugs companies. A chance encounter at an after-hours bar in Bloomsbury later, and the groundbreaking stark psychological analysis of people living with colostomy (�It�s Not My Bag�) was foisted onto an unsuspecting, and resolutely disinterested public.

By now, though, Spike had his eyes firmly set on becoming a celebrity and advising the public on a cable morning television show, despite almost universal resistance. He took to holding wild, prescription-drugs only parties in hotel rooms during healthcare conferences, and went through a string of girlfriends, most of whom worked for medical magazines, modelling surgical masks and tracheotomy equipment. He would emerge only to address his public, and even then he was mostly hopped up on lab quality hayfever treatments.

His world fell apart after a particularly heavy session at a haemorrhoids seminar in Carlisle. His guest was at the time the most glamorous of the surgical models, Ms. Coco Snapes, who he�d picked up at a photoshoot for a range of designer dialysis machines. She�d previously been seen as the arm candy of several local FM DJ�s. One night, Spike was found half-dressed in the hotel lobby screaming �Her face has fallen off!� � this was confirmed to be true, a tragic side-effect of their excess - they�d been huffing down on an experimental asthma inhaler.

Spike never physically touched drugs again, though before his early retirement, he did steal a monkey that had been trained to assist paraplegics, and forced it to funnel amphetamine pills down his gullet. His death, bought on by his increasing dependence on low-fat spread, went unrecorded in any medical journals.

(c)pablo, ad agency FUCKTARDS (cheers, Robin).