Councillor Phil Bent was in a jam.

He was in a right hole.

He had been given a wedgie on many occasions as Chairman of the Planning Sub-Committee but this was a first.

Buried up to his waist in an old Air-Shaft in Mountain Hare meant he couldn't move a muscle.

Below him a 30 foot drop and above him only sky.

His search for the 500 metre buffet zone at East Merthyr Land Reclamation scheme had proved fruitless.

He checked the Council Minutes.yes there supposed to be a buffet zone.

There was no such thing as a free lunch he moaned as he hung suspended in the air by his three spare tyres.

The human Michelin Man had for once been saved by his preference for cramming as many free helpings that his Council meetings permitted.

As the early Autumn sky changed to grey, he feared that he would be stuck here all night and his expenses ran out at 7.00pm.

His cries for help were only investigated by some curious Ffos-y-Fran ponies and the odd solitary ewe who had managed to evade the impounding truck.

Soon it would be dark he thought and he would miss his free lift home from Keith The Night Porter - the Mayors Chauffeur.

Why oh why did he bother wandering off from the Planning Sub-Committee - it wasnt even like it was his own Ward the proposed scheme affected.

In his opinion twenty years of open-casting dust and asthma was a small price for the electorate to pay for global warming.

A better climate for Wales was the ticket he had been elected on and besides the resulting hole would provide refuse tips for the next millennia and beyond.

No wonder he had earned the nickname Land-Phil by his beloved Cefn Coed electorate.

As he gently patted his money-belt and flab holding him above the Mine Shaft, he wondered if this was the first such occasion where a Local Councillor had been saved by some green for not being green.


Looking through his night vision specs , Zoltan the Environmental Protection Warden, could see lots of glowing red.

Carefully positioned in the gorse bushes on the moorland upwind of Trecatti Refuse Tip , he lay motionless in the coal dust in full khaki combat gear and on full alert.

In the distance he thought he could hear vehicles buzzing up and down the A4060 Slip Road and the gentle hum of traffic heading back up the Valley from their daily commute to the Welsh Capital.

What he could in fact hear was the buzzing of one million fly larvae hatching in Biblical proportions intent on plaguing the good chapel-going people of Dowlais together with the hum of waste from Trecatti Tip wafting back and fore in a visible brown haze above the lead and exhaust-fume layer rising 1000 feet above sea-level.

Zoltans infra-red glasses had tonight picked up more than the Nucleur glow of the Earth below Trecatti.

Zoltan could as see a blob -too large to be human near the old air-shafts of the Trebeddau-Brithdir Coal Seam , and it wasnt the trapped Councillor.

The eco-warden bore more face-paint than Teacher Bessie at its prime but boy did he love his job!!!

Catching and prosecuting Fly-Tippers was his life.

He had once caught more than thirty people in one week dumping their old white goods on Cwmbargoed Common during the Hoover scandal.

After handing in his collection of washing machines and tumble driers he had become the only person in Merthyr to get Free Flight from Hoover for bringing back the empties.

As the blob grew larger Zoltan was puzzled as the blob seemed to become airborne.

Tonight, the term Fly-Tipping was to take on a whole new meaning as the hatchling bluebottles, greenbottles and Crane Fly larvae began to create a swarm so vast that it would make the Mummy Returns look tame .


At Dowlais Rugby Club, the locals looked aghast.

For nearly a decade the Australian-Style Fly-strips suspended vertically from the ceiling had done their job.

The car park behind had developed its own eco-system as Venus Fly-traps had mysteriously sprung up in the grass verges and training area around the pitch.

Even the local dogs were adept at snapping flies out of the Blaen Dowlais air to supplement their sparce diet.

Tonight, however was different, the regulars of Elwyn , Big Dai and Chico sat amongst other bar-flies too numerous to mention.

As they flicked at the flies with their yellow Klondyke tickets they realized something was wrong.

Poor Ralph Twtchs bald pate had become the landing strip for a multitude of insects so much so from the Lounge Wayne Jones pushed in the glasses onto the bridge of his nose as he thought Ralphs hair had been restoredfirst Austin Healy he thought now Ralph Twtch.

How come there are no flies on you? Elwyn ask Chico licking his roll-up cigarette in true Clint Eastwood-style.

Its down to his Old Faithful lucky jacketmused Big Dai

Even local celebrity Maxi , who had been reputed to gobble anything in a fly couldnt cope.

The swarm of pests began to cover the bar ,the lounge and even disrupted the Friday Night darts match.

But still none landed on Chico.

The Polish- Scots darts team decided to abandon the game after three consecutive darts speared flying insects before hitting the dartboard .

Complaints by Wayne Jones that he had scored One Bugshead and eighty were ignored as the participants headed for the open air.



Up at meat factory , the Portuguese workforce looked to the skies as their Iberian intuition told them that something was wrong.

Panic spread as the Autumn sun turned black as the swarm of flies hit town.

Those with green cards hit out at the flying masses whilst those without used the closest thing available to hand to fend off the incoming insects.

Pig Trotters and Cow Bollocks became impromptu weapons to save the Tesco bound Products.

Every Little Helps was the battle cry as the work force fought to prevent Linda McCartney Sausages becoming full of Wings..





Alone in the dark , Councillor Phil Bent began to sweat.

What if there are wild animals up here at night-like the Monmouthshire Panther or worse still the living dead that frequent the Kirkhouse on a Thursday Night (Over 25s nite).

The snapping of twigs ten feet to his right made him start and for the first time that night he felt movement.

The first of his spare tyres gave way and he sunk one rung deeper into the mine shaft.


Gears roaring the L-Passo driving instruction car sped up the Twynyrodyn Hill, flying over the pink tank-traps that doubled as Dukes of Hazzard-Style ramps as the white Peugeot 106 flew to the sound of Roxettes Joyride as the Galon Uchaf duo put their latest acquisition through its paces.

Fitted with He-Man Dual Controls this car was a joy-riders dream, as the two teenagers took turns accelerating and braking in tandem.

As they completed their latest series of handbrake-turns and doughnuts on the Formula One racetrack known as the Goatmill Road the road surface bore more Michelin skid-marks than the underpants of a councilor trapped in a hole.

Having circled the magic roundabout fifteen times the Bogey Road exit was selected being the favoured option of the seasoned car-thief as it offered ample opportunity to dispose of the stolen goods without detection.

The eldest waster ElviS had stolen all kinds of vehicles in the past from BMWs to Mercedes even an ambulance once the time his Nana had nearly been taken in.

He had earned the nickname from his reputation that his car passengers Were all shook up after joy riding with him.

That and the fact he had tattooed the name Elvis on his forehead in Indian Ink with a mirror in Junior School.

The problem is the S was printed indelibly but backwards.

His sidekick Astra (named after his penchant for Vauxhalls and throwing fireworks in letterboxes) seemed kinda quiet tonight, probably because at 14 years old he was soon to leave school and learn the ways of the dark side on a full time basis.

Having relieved himself of the contents of the glove compartment , he non-chalently slung the Spandau Ballet Gold compact discs like frisbies at his Rock-a Billy partner who was fumbling for his lighter fluid.



Dont sniff too muchleave some for me!!! he roared as the car became engulfed in flames.

The red L Sign on top of the car was symbolic of the Hellish World these pair of devils lived in.

The destructive duo waded through the grassland common towards the twinkling lights of the Valley Capital.



The Gypsy family heard the explosion and their heads turned as one towards the sound high up on the common above Trecatti and then back to their inner circle.

They had arranged a bare-knuckle bout of boxing but their sport had been interrupted by the discovery of an intruder in their midst in their turf.

Looking out from his air-shaft prison Councillor Phil Bent could make several dirty faces and by the glow of the make-shift twig fire they looked like wild savages.

Hair all matted and lice-ridden, with clothes all torn and damaged they stared at him like a lion looks at a downed zebra.

They spoke in a Romany dialect which was not English but not quite Gurnos.

It was guttural and reminded him of the film 2001-a Space Odyssey.

The oldest Gippo- Magwar reached down and stole his pocket-watch from his waistcoat and began to tug at his gold tooth.

Be off with you shrieked the trapped Councillor as the circle of scavengers drew nearer .

Fearing the worst , he sucked in his diaphragm and let out a deep breath and this had the desired effect , like a squeeze-box contracting the air moved to nether regions and he emitted the latest fart ever heard by man or gipsy and his remaining spare tyres gave way and he disappeared into the void below.

Magwar actually believed (judging by the sound) that the Councillor had spontaneously combusted.

Landing with a squelch , less akimbo Councillor Bents undercarriage told him that he hadnt yet hit rock bottom.

His soft landing owed a lot to the hand of fate.

He had in fact crash landed on top of a fourth generation Brithdir Pit pony whose ancestors had been abandoned to die in the anthracite after the pit became uneconomic to work.

The pony was blinder and tougher than any Champions League referee and had pounded the narrow passageways and tunnels that riddled the mountainsides surviving on a diet of plant roots and other subterranean vegetation.

Making adjustment for the extra weight the pony continued its perpetual forward motion in the pit shaft pausing only to let the odd one go.

The Councillor knew he was moving , but in the pitch dark couldnt work out how - not that was until his steed backfired.

Too frightened to light a match in view of the circumstances he just went along with the ride until he realized that he had a laser pen he had bought in Harrods.

The novelty pen designed to commemorate the wedding of Peter Andre and Jordan gave him an idea.

As he pressed the top a cheesy grin from Andres teeth appeared lighting up the passage with an incandescent light.

He also discovered that if he unscrewed the top two beams of green light shot out of Katie Prices nipples.

Looking down in the half-light at his Steed, he couldnt help but compare the Pen bride to his current mount as the face beaming back at him had huge white teeth and shaggy hair the only difference was that his own Mysterious Girl smelled of horseshit.

As he bumped his way his way into the night he could help but think Im a local celebrity get me out of here!!!



Staring down from his perch high above the Trecatti Landfill site, a swarthy skinned Portuguese man watched the Slip Road uneasily.

Eduardo Torres-Gracia had only taken the job as Refuse Tip manager because of his bonuses.

His Lisbon-based Agency had lured him to the El Dorado of the Valleys cos they had told him the streets of Dowlais were paved with gold and the Terraces there were named after Portuguese Kings.

The reality of Alphonso Street Penywern was that due to the overcrowding from illegal aliens from Portugal and the Eastern Bloc countries and the number of stray dogs the pavements were covered in a different material.

Since coming to Merthyr he had lost everything he ever had treasured.


When he arrived he had a job in the Meat Factory , a wife, a house and his pride.

Those Solicitors he had engaged had cost him the lot.

His misfortune started when the sub-zero temperatures of the Meat Factory cost him the feeling in all his digits.

Soon his wife Angelica complained in the divorce papers that he was always cold towards her and complained of frost bite and hypothermia of the womb.

His claim for Vibration White Finger was refused on the basis that he was Portuguese and therefore could not possibly have white fingers.

His solicitors fees and his divorce had drained all his assets and he could not raise anything to fund an appeal.

So he had decided to get back at the Factory the only way he could .by freeing their workforce from their minimum wage prison.

He watched intently as the convoy of green trucks snaked their way up the slip road towards the Penygarnddu Slaughterhouse.

As the trucks slowed for the Blaen Dowlais bend , the tail-gates opened and the latest batch of illegal aliens rolled into the hard shoulder and headed up the grassed bank towards their saviour at the Tip HQ.

AS brief handshakes were exchanged between ex pat countrymen and Eduardo Torres Garcia the steady flow of colonists headed towards the Alphonso Street Ghetto amongst them was one individual in a turban who stuck out like a sore thumb.

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From Outer Space, just beyond the dark side of the moon, the spacecraft stopped dead.

The odour filling the spacecraft turned the heads of ZARG and Wazz the Venusian spacemen filling each of their three noses with noxious fumes.

A quick check on their scanners pinpointed the source of the universally offensive stench.

Looking down at the blue planet the creatures the could make out the Great Wall of China, the Himalayas and a strange gold/brown glow from an Island off Europe.

As the mother ship sped towards Earth she feared that one of her offspring was sending a distress beacon .

They had to be careful because the last time they spotted a glow it turned out to be a disaster at Chernobyl in Russia.

And as any self-respecting Russian in Y-Fronts will tell you have to be careful or Chernobyl fallout.

And have three Alien penises it was not a pretty site.




Trudging through the narrow back passages guided by the back passage of his Pit Pony , Phil Bent realized that if he was to get out of the Mine he should follow the pony towards freedom.

The smell was overpowering but he preferred it to the stench of rotting landfill that had grown stronger as he headed North.

He had put away his Pen (which incidentally doubled as a Compass-Jordans breasts being silicon pointed magnetically towards Venus) because he had encountered an ooze of green slime which seemed to glow with a luminousity of its own.

As the smell grew stronger the passageways became more congested as he passed the remains of Oil-covered sea-birds , barrels marked Sea Empress, dead cattle stamped BSE carefully disguised in Old MuckDonalds wrappings, and literally thousands of non-biodegradable Asda carrier-bags which appeared to be breeding.

As he reached a sorce of light he realized that he must be below the core of Trecatti Waste-tip.

Looking up through the Pepper pots he saw a flame burning bright blue burning off the methane and he sat down in a discarded wheelchair staring up surrounding by thousands of MuckDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut boxes..

At that moment he felt like Tanni Grey Thompson holding the Olympic Torch surrounded by the same sponsors.

Wading through unsold Merthyr Rfc Premiership Programmes which had been printed too early in that failed promotion season, colonies of white socks, discarded Muller Rice prototype Cherry Bakewell containers and free Spandau Ballet Gold CDs he trudged West in the hope of finding an exit.

His cries for help went not heeded by the Portuguese Tip Manager as he assumed they were the cries of the resident flock of seagulls flying overhead.

Eddie Torres Garcia had never seen seagulls this far inland and he believed that they were hatchlings mutated from the multitude of KFC boxes and their legs coated in breadcrumbs seemed to testify to this fact.


The Portuguese connection in Alphonso Street were busy checking into their new rooms.

Only ten to a bedroom was permitted and any Polish or Slavic guests were allocated attic or cellar space only.

Jobbi Jabbah the turban wearing Muslim from Leeds was given the coal cwtch on accounts of his religious beliefs.

The mobile ring tone of Eddie Torres sounded the all clear confirming that their escape had not been noticed by the Truck drivers.


High up on the Common , Elvis and Astra the car thieves turned up the collars on their shiny shellsuits and pulled down their baseball hats against the chilly Autumn wind.

Tonight the prevailing wind took the scent of Trecatti towards Gypsy Castle and Rhymney and they were able to breathe comfortably.

Wild Mountain ponies fought and frolicked over the ever decreasing patches of grassland worth eating that had not been contaminated by leachates.

As they reached the brow of a disused red ash tip they spotted a courting couple at play in the dingle below.

The mans teeth glinted pearly white in the pale moonlight and as they crept closer in true Stan Collymore Dogger-style they were startled to see a man being intimate with and talking to one of the Wild Mountain ponies.

Ive seen him before on televisionhis face, teeth and arse are familiar! whispered Elvis.

The only words Astra could understand with all those teeth and the Salt Lake accent was Crazy Horses wah-wah!!1

The man was no less than Donny Osmond back in Merthyr to trace his family roots and see where his past generations had hailed from.

The 1970s singer suddenly realized he was being watched and dropped the rear legs in fear of an Horizon expose.

He rang off into the night with white flares dragging in the coal dust .

That experience has ruined the song Puppy Love for me!!! retched Elvis discharging his stomach contents in the gorse bushes.

The close encounter of the first kind unsettled the pair whilst the second involved a two-headed rabbit with masses of human hair growing out of its head.

The sight of a Mountain Hare with Mounting Hare at Mountain Hare startled the pair as they stood motionless like they were mesmerized by the headlights of a mountain bicycle which thundered down the grass slope straight out across the slip road and under a Green mobile Auschitzcattle truck heading for the shambles in Penygarnddu.

The pair could not believe the look on the face of the Portuguese site manager E T Garcia as his cycle seemed to fly momentarily like a scene from a well Spielburg films.

Amazingly, in the space of three minutes the poor man was run over by four vehicles including a shop keeper, a taxi driver , Donny Osmonds chauffeur and finally a man wearing a Bridgend Nursing Park logo badge who was looking for the Park hospital in Bridgend.

It was ironic that the Asylum seeker should be killed by a fellow Asylum seeker wearing a BNP badge.

The cause of the crash was the Close Encounter of the Third Kind as a giant green spinning spaceship hovered over the heads of the pair.

Landing in a clearing of Gorse bushes the ship came to a stop with a bump and two odd-shaped characters appeared at the top of a light-filled ramp .

Poor Zoltan the Eco-warden had been crushed in his rush to capture the big onethinking this delivery of Fly-tippers was from the Planet Zanussi he had misjudged their landing strip and ended up part of the living landscape.

Elvis and Astra looked at one another in awe and the same telepathic thought was sent from sub-human to sub-human.

Did they leave the keys in the ignition.



Dez Cockney could hardly believe his luckhe had sold his house in Dagenham and bought three for the same price in Merthyr at Old Forge Park Dowlais.

He had rented the other two houses to 200 Portuguese immigrants and was making a fortune off the DSS in Housing Benefit.

He was collecting the rent of his tenant Angelica Garcia the former wife of the Tip owner when he noticed he was under surveillance.

The Ice Cream van parked in Azalea Drive had refused to sell cigarettes to some 14 year old truant rugby players which raised his suspicion that it was a DSS plant.




The DSS were watching the home of Mrs Garcia at the behest of Mr Gracias Divorce Solicitors.

As he opened the door of his other house he realized that his elderly incontinent tenant Mrs Runny had been trapped overnight in the Stairlift and the carpet below was ruined.

His years of roller-shutter door repair was to finally pay off as he proceeded to clear the jammed mechanism.

Kneeling in effluent he held his breath long enough to force the stairlift to continue its descent to the floor.

As he raced for the patio doors, he inadvertently let in a swarm of flies which had been stuck to the exterior glass like a scene from Salems Lot.

As he gasped and wheezed for air in the garden, his sharp London Eye noticed a glint of metal in the vegetable patch.

Where the carrots should have been he found different carets eighteen to be precise in the shape of a nugget the size of an egg.

After pocketing the item he made his tenant a cuppa Rosie Lee after her ordeal on the apple & pears .

She told him to take what he wanted from her allotment patch.

Des, beamed a broad grin as the Pearly King had found another goldmine in Merthyr.



Deep beneath the ground, Phil Bent thought he had discovered the source of the Nileor Morlais Brook at the very least!!!!

He had come to the confluence of three passageways and by his calculations he wasnt far from Caeharris House in Dowlais High Street.

The tunnel he had followed had been filled with Green ooze and lead away from the Tip under the Dowlais RFC pitch he had figured the same because of the stud-marks in the turf above and the fact that unlike the Scarlets rugby posts topped with sospansMerthyr Council Leisure Services had buried the posts upside down and the dragon emblems were below ground.

Coming face to face with Mary Twtch and Gwyneth Hopkins in that tunnel had scared him to death.

Tunnel two was filled with two kinds of cocoa solids which appeared to eminate from a certain chocolate factory and a cesspit formerly known as Morlais Brook.


Tunnel two was filled with all kinds of iron ore and phosphates from the old foundry site upon which Old Forge Park was built.

At the meeting point of this crossroads the soil and ground glowed with a yellowish hue the like of which Bent had only seen on the fingers of the nightmarish gypsies

No wonder those miners from Dowlais had emigrated to Canada , he understood now why the area of Blaen Dowlais was known as Klondyke .

Shoveling as much gold into his pockets as he did at his post-committee buffet lunches the Councillor tried to figure out what had caused the sudden bout of alchemy.

It seems that the merger of chemicals from the tip had combined with the base metals from the foundry site had fused with the cocoa solids creating a product made of Oxides and potassium with the chemical formula of OP-OK.

Whatever had caused it meant rich pickings for Councillor Bent.

Bent decided his best way out was to tunnel up through the pitch.

As he climbed through the hole in the centre-circle of the pitch he realized too late that the Uncle Festa lookalike bearing down on him was in fact the legendary Mark Onky Palmer and the resulting tackle was to put the councillor in hospital for the evening.

As the paramedic Dai Sullivan closed the ambulance doors he made a careful note of the cause of the accident.

Onky.

The third one this month he mused as he drove off at high speed towards PCH.



Aliens Zarg and Wazz could not believe their three eyes.they had only parked the ship up for three minutes to check out the glowing they had seen from space.

Thinking it was a fellow Venusian craft with its hazards on they had realised that they had made the same Chernobyl mistake again.

It was a semi-nuclear refuse tip surrounded by Wind Turbines and worse still they had been space-jacked by two-spaced out punkswho had displayed their own glowing middle fingers to their intergalactic cousins before screeching away at 100 miles per second.




Des Lynam was in shock he had received a Solicitors letter from the Divorce Solicitors of the Tip manager Eddie Torres asking for the return of their Ex-Gracia payments.

They were claiming that as Tip owners they held the mineral rights to the land upon which his houses were built.

They were no flies on that lot he thought but Im not giving up easy Ill make a big stink about the tip claims he thought.


Elvis & Astra had mastered the controls of the Venusian craft easily.

Compared to an ambulance it was a doddle - even the red laser beams and light on top were working.

As the spaceship shot raced over Gellifaelog, Galon Uchaf and the Gurnos at 3 Gs they passed over the three Gs Community Centre.

Pressing a button on the dashboard Elvis managed to buzz Dai Sullivans ambulance but sound like a helicopter.

Speeding passed Penydre High School the two vehicles raced at breakneck speed .

Sully and Elvis telepathically sent each other a message that the winning post was the speed camera outside the Penyfan View Police Station.

As the Police officer in the station eagerly pressed the button to fine the joy riders the camera flashed missing both vehicles but catching an unlucky Caeharris Taxi driver Fred overtaking the ambulance.

The joy riders decided to get their own back on the police who regularly buzzed their homes in Chopper Drug raids.

Hovering above the Police Station flashing their lights and lasers it was like Thursday Night in the Kirkhouse and some of the regulars now living in Ty Gwaunfarren Nursing Home left their beds in hope of a Cocoon style regeneration.

Down below Female Inspector Dawn Raid look worried.

The plods were panicking big timesome even stopped beating their prisoners momentarily.

Landing the spaceship with precision on the roof of the Police Station they began to spray-paint the roof with the letters UFO before legging it across the remaining gardens of Penyfan View and Forsythia Close that hadnt been exhumed




Two weeks later Councillor Phil Bent had recovered fully from his injuries.

He had recovered from his Onky tackle within hours but Dai Sullivan had dropped him off the stretcher on the way into casualty breaking his wrist.

The Council Chamber was silent as the future of the East Merthyr Land Reclamation Scheme hung by a golden thread.

The vote was tied at 32-32 and Councillor Bent as chairman had the Open casting vote.

As a short adjournment was called .

A buff coloured envelope was pushed into the hands of Phil Bent.

Like Neil Hamilton and George Graham before him he had a difficult decision to make.

The envelope was returned to the solicitor with interest and all the celtic energy he could muster.

Thanks for the tip! but no thanks.its an ecological time bomb waiting to go offI vote No.
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The cheer from the people of Dowlais and Twynyrodyn was heard at Trecatti Waste Tip.

Jobbi Jabbur the newly appointed Trecattis Site Manager sat dozing on an empty Cardiff furniture flat pack-backpack in place .

The Al Ikea sleeper was in place!!!!!!

THE END