The Late Fee is a Punch in the Face

No!

My bedroom is like a library. It really is starting to worry me about whether one morning I'll be woken by a fragrant old dear looking for the next Catherine Cookson. Because books and DVDs are ideal given for a media junkie whore like myself, I tend to acquire a lot. Then I have to find somewhere to put them while I work through the backlog.

There's a special shelf on one of my bookcases where all the "To Be Read" books are kept, neatly separated into fiction and non-fiction and then by author. However, there are so many crammed in that it's getting hard to work out not only where to put the next one on the pile but also what the next one out should be. Those tall books that don't fit are squeezed in elsewhere, and there's even overspill to my bedside table, where unread copies of Empire and Sight & Sound join, for some reason, three issues of the Beano, a Walkman, a pair of sunglasses and an alarm clock with no batteries.

This region, which I have started referring to as "Basingstoke", does supply a vital function. It acts as the home for my toilet books. If ever I need to make an extended visit, or pick something up to read in bed while my brain goes into standby mode, that is where I reach. Having torn through the magazines, I'm left with the comics - which I'm saving for the next time I take the tube to work in my suit - and Running Through Corridors.

...and available through this very link

This fine tome, which I cannot recommend too highly, is the first part of a three-volume saga in which Robert Shearman - award-winning author, playwright and Doctor Who scriptwriter - and his chum Toby Hadoke - actor, comedian and originator of award-winning one-man show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf - watch the revered sci-fi series in its entirety in the course of a single year, a Sisyphean task which entails watching two episodes a day before sharing their thoughts via email, with these correspondences forming the text. It's a revelation, forcing the seasoned fan to rethink their attitudes and acting as a helpful accompaniment to a Not-We seeing the episodes for the first time. Superb.

The books I'm actually reading stay on the special shelf until they are needed, leaving a space when they venture out. At the moment I'm stumbling through Dickens's Barnaby Rudge - a historical novel even when it was written - and the first volume of J.G. Ballard's collected short stories. Fascinating, both. The rest of the shelf has a schizophrenic selection of books, including birthday and Christmas gifts stretching back almost 18 months, miraculous rare finds from Notting Hill and the pickings of a friend's pre-move clearout. Kurt Wallander and James Bond have three representatives each, while a shop-soiled copy of Olaf Stapledon's epochal Star Maker sits next to a mint condition novelisation of Dawn of the Dead, found for a pittance on the Charing Cross Road. There's even a manual for bicycle maintenance, which I really ought to look at rather than go to the Man to have my inner tube replaced, as I did at the weekend - I had run over a 5mm long piece of wire.

"You couldn't film it. You couldn't lift it." - Kubrick's producer,
remembering when the first draft of Lolita was handed in.

The stuff that won't fit on the special shelf is even more intimidating. Two unread Doctor Who annuals - What? I like to do the wordsearches - are but nought compared to the Stanley Kubrick Archives. A 300-page hardback colossus seemingly bound in concrete and lead, I used to keep it in my bed, since the sheer effort in supporting it and turning the pages during 10 minutes' read was enough to put me spark out. It now sits at the bottom of another set of shelves, sharing space with my Christmas Radio Timeses.

Although I don't for a moment regret joining my book group and the resulting enhancement of my social life, the plurality of print infesting the corners of my room do make me wonder sometimes whether or not I'd be able to bluff my way through the meetings, never reading the book at all and instead frenziedly devouring, say, Greg Bear's Eon, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made or The Timewaster Diaries in a desperate bid to clear some damn space.

The Bear Wore Braces

Ferris Bueller meets Derren Brown.

One of the less practical ideas I've had as a writer, apart from that story about the collapse of the universe, was one that involved breaking copyright on a Fort Knox scale and smearing a group of characters beloved by several generations of schoolchildren. That's why it should be done.

As a little 'un, I was a Beano reader. No Spider-Man or Roy of the Rovers for me. Oh no, not when I could learn about how to bully effeminate classmates or speak like a Native American. As I grew up, my tastes started to change, and by the time I had turned 27 the comic was starting to pall as a source of regular laughs. I'm kidding, I was 16. I still get the Christmas issue in my stocking every year, and a few gags still catch me unawares, especially when aimed at a slightly more mature readership.

A treasured example from around 2004 was a crossover story involving all the major characters, who have forgotten to send their letters to Father Christmas. Frantically brainstorming methods of letting him know what they want, Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx has this priceless exchange:

"How about we stow away on a plane to the North Pole?"
"Yeah, 'cos they're really relaxed about airport security these days, aren't they?"

Post-9/11 gags in a children's comic. Beautiful.

Anyway, less of the old-man-reminiscences. My idea is simple. It's Beanotown - the home of all the characters - 10 years later. The zany, mischievous kids we adored are now adults. And the place has turned into Sin City.

Why so serious?

The quaint, timeless British town you remember from your childhood has been scoured by gang warfare and a pitiless crime wave. It makes Gotham City look like Salisbury. The underworld is ruled by Dennis the Menace, once a spiky-haired tearaway, now a feared gangster with an army of followers and a dynasty of mutated attack dogs at his command.

He stands almost unopposed, having struck deals with his greatest rival, Minnie the Minx, the leader of her own all-girl syndicate, as well as the infamous Bash Street Gang, whose viciousness has made even Dennis wary of crossing them.

But what of Dennis's eternal victim, Walter the Softy? This is the cross that Dennis has to bear. He has menaced him to the point of insanity. Softy Walter now resides in a special hospital, the victim of one practical joke too many. Perhaps one day, he will escape to exact his revenge.

Minnie and her second-in-command, Ivy the Terrible, use their feminine ways to get what they want. When the tide started to turn in Beanotown, and the kids realised they could run the place without the adults, they were the first to take the initiative while Dennis was still being counselled in caution by his dog, whom he claims can speak to him. The Perils, as they have become known, are feared by the adults for their viciousness and cruelty. It is said that Korky the Cat was kidnapped from Dandytown purely as a show of strength. He is now kept in a cage, overhanging the sewers of the city.

He will kill again.

Bash Street marks the dividing line between Dennis and Minnie's territories, and those who try to cross will soon encounter the Gang. The turning point was reached when the class took a trip to the sausage factory. Good-natured simpleton Smiffy misunderstood one of Teacher's commands and pushed him into the machinery.

Since then, the rest of the Gang has protected him, telling him that Teacher went to Dandytown for a long rest, and that they help people to cross the road when they are running a brutal shakedown on passers-by Thanks to the deals struck with Dennis and Minnie, they have no interest in expanding their territory, but have become known for their harassment of all forms of authority. Even traffic wardens are not safe.

Their means of torture are simple. They drag you, kicking and screaming, into the broom cupboard of Bash Street School. After 10 minutes alone in the darkness, the door opens and Plug steps inside. Time has not been kind to the ugliest child at Bash Street, and he has grown more monstrous still, his features a grotesque parody of the human form. He apologies humbly to the victim, assures him that no-one will lay a finger on him and that he will be released shortly.

I am not an animal!
I am a human being!

Then he pulls the bag from over his head. This is how Walter gets new cellmates.

The other residents of Beanotown, the human ones that is, live in constant fear of the syndicate controlling the town. As they get older and start to become more aware of what they are capable of doing, surely things will only get worse?

Other residents we may recognise include Billy Whizz, now confined to a wheelchair after he ran so fast his shoes caught fire and inflicted third-degree burns to his feet. Surrounded by reminders of his past glories, bitterness wells up him like pus from a wound.

Lord Snooty and His Pals have at least the benefit of a castle into which they have retreated, determined to shut out the world and pretend they are still living in the past; an era when the aristocracy meant something. Ball Boy was lucky enough to get headhunted by Melchester Rovers, leaving his home town for good at a young age.

Calamity James is not yet fully aware of his potential. His ability to attract bad luck would make him the perfect killing machine, needing him to only be near his victim for them to suffer a bizarre and gruesome death. No contact and no weapon. It will not be long before Dennis and Minnie realise this - and try to use him on each other...

Can any stand against this approaching tide of violence? Surely the adults of the town still have power? Only that which they are allowed. They live in terror of what could happen if the word "no" were uttered. The local police do little more than pick up litter, but there is someone who might be able to make a difference. A young man on the force, gifting with a remarkable talent for manipulating human behaviour, an almost uncanny skill at convincing people to do his bidding and making them believe they thought of it. He used to have a nickname, but now he just uses the one his late father gave him. Roger.

This is for you, Dad. For what they did to you.

There are stories that Beanotown used to be home to talking animals. No one has been able to prove this, but there is corner of the disused, rotting zoo that is home to a group of strange creatures. A lemming that can read. A family of grizzly bears that scratch an existence from the dump. A three-legged pig, once a close friend of a powerful man. And a black bear, a wretch that can remember his life as an equal of men. A bear that wears braces.

Now, I appreciate that this is quite a long pitch, but you've got to agree - you would definitely read this, wouldn't you? Interested parties, make yourselves known. The bidding starts at £5.