Our newest and weirdest village correspondentWembley Harrisoffers his take on the week's news. This week: What is the true face of KIG?

"Don't overreact" said our favourite weather-shepherd Lester Gosbee last week.

Sound advice Lester, sound advice, but have you read the news? The pride of Frittenden's undiseased lambs are the least of my worries. Just look in the Kent Messenger - disembodied spirits are whispering lies to children in Tunbridge Wells, the KIG men still plan to destroy Bearsted, and a panel of experts has just ruled a "rude and disgusting" beer-swilling peasant, who once smashed a man's skull with a hammer, to be the greatest Maidstonian of all time.

And if Lester were to cast his weather eye beyond the Frittenden horizon he would see, like I can at this very moment, a huge cloud-bank of glowering malignity heading in our direction, fast. Dust storms capable of hurling plagues across oceans are brewing in all four corners of the earth; unmanned ships full of drugs are drifting of their own accord into shipping lanes; and the Iranians still won't tell us what those noises we can all hear coming from underneath their mountain are.

Reaction, Lester, is entirely justified.

Dark and unseen forces are at work in a manner not known since Sauron unleashed hell on the good men of Gondor. And yet oddly, in the face of such dangers, I have found myself unable to lift a finger or move a muscle.

The situation began a couple of Fridays ago, when my friend Alan brought a TV round to the camper van, saying I had to watch this new programme about psychic mind control. Well, I don't normally give such things the time of day, but I didn't want to appear impolite so I let him fix it up on the side, by the microwave.

"You'll love this, Wembley" he'd said, struggling to catch his breath with the excitement, "it's that tv magician fellow."

"What? That little Wizbit creature?"

"No, this one's called Darren, and it's been said that tonight he's going to stick everyone watching the show to their chairs."

"But Alan! Stop!!" I cried, but it was too late. The presenter had said we'd be liberated from his spell by a "release tone" which would sound toward the end of the programme, but we lost reception halfway through and I've been stuck in my armchair ever since. And I can tell you, an armchair is NOT THE BEST place to be stuck if you're a renegade village correspondent who might need to swing his rolling home onto the road at any time of day or night in order to get on to the next story or escape the clutches of our adversaries.

Additionally, this particular armchair has not been comfortable since a stray cat wondered into the van on Tuesday and took up residence next to me, down the side of seat. I could do nothing of course, being completely paralysed. And it's all the fault of that blasted TV wizard!

Yes... not even the television is safe in these dark times. Wizards are waiting to spring out, steal our brains and leave us paralysed like zombies. And not all of them are polite enough to do it on TV in front of our faces. Have you noticed that black car parked across the street recently? When was the last time you saw it move? Is there someone inside there... watching us? And look at that tree in the garden - wasn't it three feet to the left yesterday? Who is behind KIG? Will these relentless questions ever end?

Whoops, stop a moment. Go back a bit there... did I just say "Who is behind the Kent International Gateway?" Have we perhaps stumbled upon the dark core of the whole thing? Good Lord, I think we have... look at it there, yes, there, just to the right of Bearsted - where the KIG men are planning to build their "poisoned citadel of greed" - there's something moving in the fields, I can see it through my power-periscope... a man in a dark suit with a metal detector and a spade is scraping away at the top soil... hang on... there's something under there, gleaming, like Saxon gold, except... by the great Dark Age god Woden! That man in the suit - it's Darren, the TV wizard! And, oh horror, he's looking my way, he's holding up a sign... focus periscope, adjust lens.. it says "MY NAME IS NOT DARREN". Gadzooks! All is really not as it seems with this chap, is it?

Indeed. And all is not as it seems with KIG. Talk to anyone in Bearsted and they will tell you the same thing... they can feel it, sense it, but they can't see it, and they don't believe for a minute that what the men in black suits say they want to build is the same thing they really plan to build. KIG is merely a "stalking horse", they say, and hiding beneath KIG's hairy flanks is an army sneaking silently towards Bearsted, armed to the teeth with dynamite, drills, and huge engines of war controlled by goblins.

Or put it another way; we've seen the plans for the warehouses - those giant concrete blocks big enough to house Bearsted itself - but we haven't seen inside them. Only within their nebulous, unseen interior lies the truth. And, just as with Shrodinger's cat, that truth will not be defined until the last moment when the suits open the box and unleash its dreadful contents on the poor citizens of Kent. If only it were just a cat in there, and when they open up the box a bemused moggy was to come stumbling out into the field, blinking in the sunlight, and wander off into the woods. How we would laugh and celebrate!

But no, the reality is likely to be far worse than a confused cat. The question for Maidstone now is how long can we fight, or perhaps how long should we fight? Because rest assured, once this box of horrors is kicked out of the garden, another one is sure to pop up in its place, filled with something just as dreadful and uncertain. And what are we to do when, faced with this "mystery box", a disembodied voice begins to murmur close to our ear, and asks us simply "deal or no deal?" I can hear it now whispering somewhere nearby..."deal or no deal" it whispers again. No, please, I don't want any deal, I just want things to stay as they are! Please! Oh, it's only the TV, it's just turned itself back on - and, as if by magic, some other bearded wizard with a load of magic red boxes has appeared on the screen.

We must remain vigilant,


Wembley

Wembley archive - here.