Procrastination

 The time is fast approaching midnight and it is Sunday evening. As such there is school tomorrow starting at eight thirty in the morning sharp and there is a 3 page history essay and a write up on a Shakespearean play due in tomorrow, both of which are as of yet looking resoundingly uncompleted.
 I am currently procrastinating in the same way that a man who has been pushed from the empire states building procrastinates the inevitable collision with the ground by flapping his arms and hoping the bingo wings he's acquired through many years of unhealthy eating will somehow catch the wind and allow him flight.
 I admit that procrastination is not the best way forward nor is it the best habit to have since it tends to manifest its self in moments of pressure and immanent danger where concentration and willpower as opposed to the desire to do anything but what you're meant to be doing, are necessary. It's true that no airplane has ever been saved by a pilot procrastinating the emergency flight procedure with the plane falling apart around him as the ever increasing emotional and air pressure take hold.
 However in other less potentially fatal circumstances, procrastination may prove its self the mother of invention (in which case the pressuring work load would be the brutally abusive and sadistic twisted father of invention). I am willing to bet serious money, in relativity to the total sum of my pitiful finances (so about five pounds and fifty seven pence) that if ever a time machine is invented, it will be invented by a procrastinator creating a machine out of the manic desire to travel back to that very morning so he could get started on the bloody 3 page history essay a few hours earlier than he actually did.
 I've just given it some thought (which also took some increasingly precious time. Time is currently going through a period of extreme deflation. I am pretty sure that if time is money then the time now is worth at least a hundred times more than the time this morning) and it seems that I'm yet unable to come up with a working time machine. Hence, with sixty five minutes to midnight and the prospect of getting up at six in the morning tomorrow. I shall now leave this place to start my history essay.

Musical Musings

 Last night at my school there was a small charity musical festival of sorts titled TILT where several bands composed of students of the school stood on stage to sing and play various instruments. A festival I did not attend due to several reasons. Firstly the tickets cost five pounds, with five pounds I could buy myself a decent meal at KFC or Subway or maybe even a medium portion of fries at Caffe Rouge. Secondly I was quite convinced that if I were to buy some fries to sit silently crying and eating, all alone in a dark corner of Caffe Rouge, I would still have a better Friday night out than those attending TILT due to the fact that the latter had been organized by a certain member of staff called Miss Peel.

 In order to get an accurate mental image of Miss Peel, first imagine an ordinary woman. Then throw her into a cave in which dwells a horrendous dragon. The dragon then hungrily devours the woman's face, scarring her both physically and psychologically thus creating a pitiful twisted miserable human being. Miss Peel is that dragon. She can often be seen hungrily patrolling the school grounds, blond hair flowing behind her like beer regurgitated out of a car. Her features covered by a bullet proof layer of fake tan which nonetheless fails to conceal the crater like frown lines on her face, bearing greater resemblance to battle scars than wrinkles.

 Because TILT had been coordinated by this monstrosity, I had been under the illusion that it would inevitably be horrendous seeing as the only thing remotely close to a party Miss Peel had ever been present at was, in all probability, her own summoning where she stood in the middle of a five pointed star as the Satanists who had brought her forth from the deepest depths of hell chanted and danced around her. However contrary to my expectations, Facebook news feed has been reliably informing me that TILT was a resounding success (as well as reliably informing me that if I Facebook like a particular photo of Jesus I will more than definitely go to heaven whereas if I were to ignore it, eternal damnation awaits) with accompanying photographs.

 I have never been a musical type of human being. My taste in music does not range much beyond anime opening music (beyond this geeky borderline lies the terrifying vastness of popular culture, a place in which many a strange and horrifying beings dwell, giving out numbers and getting down on Fridays) and my only instrumental experience is the six months worth of utterly futile and fruitless violin lessons I took at the age of ten. Nonetheless even I had to concede that the photographs of people with guitars strapped across their chest, standing heroically on stage, smoke swirling around them and the flame like orange light to their back, were impressive.

 Thus, for the first time in more than six years, I have begun to consider learning an instrument. However though I am blessed with the natural ability to annoy or torment, as well as the talent to ably articulate or compose aimless articles abound with artistic alliteration and draw decidedly disturbing doodles, I was not born with a single musically able bone in my body. So unmusical am I that if I were, having been killed by some ancient slightly arts-and-crafts type tribe, made into drums I would still create a horrible non rhythmic cacophony, unpleasant to listen to (which in this case, I suppose, would be some sort of petty revenge).

 Tone is to me what ghosts are to most people. Something to be vaguely believed in and feared but never actually detected by the senses. I can keep rhythm in the same way football players can keep out of the paper. I am, also, by my own admission an extremely lazy individual, such a picture perfect representation of Sloth that I would volunteer myself for a portrait if a new illustrated bible were to be printed in future. Hence its surprising I've kept up this blog so far, let alone start to learn a musical instrument. Thus, when all these factors have been considered I am left with only a number of options: a)The triangle b)The rectangle c)The pentagon d)The hexagon e)The heptagon f)The octagon g)The nonagon and h)The decagon.

 Though it does occur to me that (like the protagonist of some moralistic novel in which, for example, the main character starts off motivated by good will and attempting to gain money with which to hep the poor starts a lucrative business manufacturing carpets. Then over time is seduced by the allure of money its self and having run out of good carpet making material begins to round up and skin the poor to create cheap rugs to sell. Finally, having seen some suitably moving scene, the protagonist realizes that he, in compromising and pursuing alternative goals, had lost the main purpose of his deep moral journey.) I have wandered off some way from the original purpose of learning a musical instrument which was to look impressive in photographs. And while polygonic instruments are great in their own special way, one thing they are not is impressive when on stage.

 A triangle simply cannot compare to the sheer magnitude of having a large guitar hung casually across your front like some large artistic shoulder bag packed full of awesome. Perhaps size is the issue here? Perhaps if there were some instrument, like a triangle but thicker and a meter in length, it would have the same gravitas as a guitar whilst maintaining the easy playability of a polygonic instrument. Sadly, at this moment in time, no such instrument exists. So until the day such a contraption arrives to revolutionize the musical scene, I shall regrettably be forced to postpone taking up an instrument.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

 The dark robed man glided slowly across the dead earth of the graveyard, its soft soil transformed into a quagmire by the pelting rain. He stood in front of one grave stone scarred with the words "Entrepreneurial Confidence". Lifting a thick leather bound book before him as if preaching to an invisible congregation, he began to utter a series of deep ominous words with a rhythmic droning rumble that would drill fear and uncertainty into the mind of any who heard it. His tone, the speed of his immaculate pronunciation and the volume of his voice simultaneously rose as he snapped the book shut, raising both hands violently skywards to be blindingly silhouetted by the sudden and vibrant flash of lightening. A moment of silence punctuated the scene, then a slow trembling shudder ran through the ground, gently at first, like a colossal beast shaking its self awake from slumber. As the quake reached its climax, the ground before the gravestone cracked then, after a moments pause, exploded upwards. Fragmented soil flew through the rain, pelting the old necromancer with a mixture of mud and water but he continued to smile, transfixed by the figure climbing out of the fractured wooden coffin.
 ...That was not how my entrepreneurial confidence was resurrected today but in terms of the dramatic mental impact it had on me it could be comparable to the slightly over extended and tenuous metaphor above. For my confidence as an entrepreneur has been dead a fair few years, ever since a school competition titled the Social Entrepreneurs Project (SEP for short, I do feel its shame they didn't title it the Entrepreneurial Social Project in which case the abbreviation would be ESP giving the misguiding but nonetheless interesting suggestion that it is some program associated with psychics) whose basic aim was to raise money to help children in Africa.
 A friend, called Faisal, and I decided we would buy sweets cheaply then resell them at school at a far higher price. Since Faisal lived in New Malden (despite being Pakistani, or more importantly, not Korean which meant he was treated as an immigrant within a community of immigrants, like some sort of Matryoshka doll of mild racism) we decided to buy a vast quantity of penguin bars (about thirty pounds worth of confectionery in total) from his local Iceland as well as some Japanese sweets called "Haichu" (A chewy fruit flavored sweet which gave you happiness and diabetes in equal quantities). Our ploy went a little like this, "The people at school shall all become addicted to Haichu and penguin bars, relentlessly eating and buying, trapped in a vicious cycle of sweet consumption and craving (cue evil laughter)"
 However, as if to prove there is some karmic justice within the world, both Faisal and I promptly became addicted on our own stock of foods (I on Penguin bars, he on Haichu). Like hunters who had been ensnared and captured by the sheer excellence of their very own traps we had finished off our entire supply of teeth torturing treats by the end of our first day of business. However we still had our pride as businessmen, and as true vendors we could not allow our customers to not pay, even if the customers were ourselves. Hence we paid for our ridiculously over priced confectionery (while being bitterly aware that it was over priced and even more bitterly knowing that we had already paid for it once) thereby successfully making a profit on paper but in reality making huge losses in terms of money, dignity and confidence in enterprise. At the end of a tough week of being social entrepreneurs we had actually gained nothing apart blood sugar levels and weight.
 From that crushing tragic defeat forth, I had never thought I could ever be a, entrepreneur. It was one potential aspiration which had become less of a career path and more of a 120 mile per hour career motorway utilized exclusively by trucks, the middle of which I would have to walk, trying to deftly dodge the metaphorical vehicular executioners lest I be splattered thinner than my chances of becoming a successful businessman. However, on this very day, my eyes were opened, then kept open with a contraption of metal wires as I was metaphorically put through the entire Clockwork Orange experience (though generally more positive and pleasant) to a whole new possibility of career for me.
 Today, at my school, it was Make A Difference Day, abbreviated with self deprecating humor to MADD. A day dedicated to charities of all kinds (ranging from childrens' hospices to cancer research to helping infants in Africa) where the school grounds are littered with sweet vendors, coconut shies, sport competitions, buskers and various other fairground style activities all raising money for charities. The day also gave permission for students to come in dressed not in the usual suits but in their own home clothes. So there I was, dressed in my lavender colored shirt, violet trousers, purple tie, jet black top hat and billowing dark coat, feeling thoroughly misanthropic as self righteous charitable souls walked around smearing their goodwill in people's faces.
 Then as I was harassing a group of buskers by tunelessly joining in on their singing, one of the people running MADD approached me with a tray full of sandwiches in their hand. Apparently there was an excess of sandwiches and she, along with several other tray bearing laborers, were now attempting to rid themselves of the sandwiches by distributing them for free. I, like other great business leaders before me such as Lord Sugar or Steve Jobs, in one inspired entrepreneurial move exclaimed "I'll take the whole tray!"
 Quickly I began to run amongst the crowds, attempting to sell my sandwich to passers by for just twenty pence while also eating some of them myself as I hadn't had lunch. However, despite the fact I did everything to make them seem appealing (verbally promoting them, rotating the tray seductively, threatening potential customers with violence) none of them seemed to sell, perhaps due to the recent economic downturn or the fact that the sandwiches were getting drier and drier by the second, losing what little appeal they originally had or the fact that there were other people going around giving out identical sandwiches for free.
 Very soon my legs were tired from running, my voice hoarse from shouting, my heart heavy with despair and my stomach heavy with sandwiches yet I hadn't sold a single sandwich. I sank to my knees, my will (like a "shatterproof" ruler in the forceful hands of a curious child) on the verge of breaking, was I to lose at this first hurdle on the road to business success? To be defeated like other business tycoons before me? Defeated like Murdoch by the Leveson Inquiry, Woolworths by the economic downturn and Steve Jobs by cancer?
 As I sank deeper and deeper into emotional submission a voice called out to me, a lifeline cast from the banks of the river, a blond, stupid and gullible lifeline called Hugo Speak (An individual whose bar of chocolate I once snatched and ate after he said "I wonder what it would be like to live in a lawless society") and his clueless words echoed in my grateful eardrums like the tinkling of gold coins on a marble floor "Oh, how much are those sandwiches?"
 "Twenty pence," I replied cautiously, hardly believing my luck but grasping onto it with all my strength nonetheless.
 Now, the brilliance of a charity event where many things are being sold for charity is that people instantly assume any goods being sold are being sold for charity. Example one, Hugo Speak spoke to say, "Well I'll pay fifty pence since its my donation." Donation to my wallet, I thought but did not utter. "Oh my money's in my bag" he announced and began to slowly unzip his bag. However even as he did so, I realized there was someone walking behind him, a tray full of sandwiches identical to the ones I had in every respect except his were completely free. If he were to call out to Hugo at this moment the entire deal would be blown. Silently willing the blond haired idiot of a customer to hurry up and take out his money, I watched my competition edge ever closer, sweat on my brow, the tray shaking in my nervous hands.
 Then, with a sudden clink of a fifty pence coin and the swift selection of two triangular sections of bread, the transaction was complete. I had a fifty pence profit and my customer had a dry tasteless sandwich he could have had for free. Of course he had the benefit of having the emotional satisfaction of thinking he had given to charity, a benefit I destroyed with a few smug words. I proceeded to quickly flee across the school with a very disgruntled customer behind me, a tray of sandwich in my arms, a profit in my pocket and a bright future in business ahead of me.

Mental Health

 I'm sure you have walked down the street one wind swept evening, shoes squelching wetly in the light drizzle, to see the ghostly pale form of a plastic bag, mutilated by some hungry urban fox somewhere, half drifting half rolling miserably across the road. Perhaps you, upon seeing it, put aside such environmental concerns as the biodegradability of plastic and stopped to look at the bag in order to briefly wonder what an apt metaphor for a tired and downcast state of mind the plastic bag could be. In which case I take this opportunity to humbly apologize to you for stealing your metaphor.
 However recently I had been feeling a little empty, lacking in confidence and an absence of general happiness, in short, I felt like a torn plastic bag. Of course I still had a certain amount of class and dignity in so far as being a torn plastic bag from Waitrose, not from Sainsbury's or Tesco's but my days of being a bag from Fortnum and Mason felt well and truly behind me.
 I'd been assaulted by a sudden torrent of doubts, I got the feeling that I wasn't as full of offensive witticism or snide remarks as I used to be, that I had become generally less amusing. Where was that verbose abusive flare with which I used to articulate statements designed only to irritate and upset? Where was the mind with which I had taken every opportunity to weave the most inappropriate and emotionally scarring of jokes into the conversation? Is this a mid-life crisis? In which case does that mean I only have sixteen more years to live? To put plainly, I felt like some spark that had burnt stubbornly in me for the last ten years or so had quite suddenly given up and vanished with a tired sigh, leaving behind only a fast dispersing smoke-like remnant of vaguely amusing cynicism.
 Even in the darkest of times however, there is light. On the very hour I was feeling least confident about myself, almost as if by fate, my school held a lunch time assembly on "Mental Health". An assembly there to cover lack of confidence, depression and other symptoms of teenage pubescent angst. With as much hope as someone mildly dejected can muster, I was, along with everyone else in my year group, shepherded into the assembly. Perhaps, just perhaps the talk would improve my mental health.
 As the chatter dies down, I wait in anticipation as the talk begins. The two women in charge walk onto the stage, armed with an optimistically colored power point behind them and a presumably helpful speech in their grasp. They open their mouths in preparation, I assume, of great enlightening words that will open my mind to the wonders of psychiatric treatment.
 "Hello," the first woman, let us call her Messiah One, announces while the second woman, Messiah Two, fiddles with the power point presentation, "We're here to talk to you about mental health. Do you know," a healthy pause as the power point changes slides, "That we all have different personality types."
 By which she of course means human beings are all, believe it or not, different and individual... my eyes are opened, not to new and enlightening facts about psychiatry as I had hoped but to the now painfully apparent fact that this talk is an irritatingly patronizing game of State the Obvious. With that comes the realization that I might as well replace the two women, Messiah one and two, with some suitably wizened looking bearded homeless man off the streets and he would fulfill the role of Messiah far better than the two on stage both in terms of appearance and genuine ability to enlighten.
 At that moment, fueled by vexation, my motivational spark rekindled and roared into a full blaze. And like the fallen warrior rising from amongst the corpse littered battle field to face the oncoming enemy or the limp fighter rising from amongst the graying bushes with the aid of Viagra to face the on coming...... I slowly raised my hand high into the air to make a contribution: an intelligent, malicious, needless, spiteful, cynical, provocative, irritating, misanthropic contribution to be articulated confidently and verbosely with a facetious grin across my lips.

The Badminton Balance

 Every Wednesday, due to my school's policy of forcing some form of exercise on pupils whether they enjoy physically strenuous and largely pointless activities or not (like a slightly less potentially fatal version of conscription), I play badminton. Now, reader's who thought badminton to be entirely an issue of swinging the racket at roughly the right time in the right direction at the right speed and angle, may be surprised to learn that the most important aspect of playing badminton in my case is in fact, balance.
 Badminton is governed by balance: the balance of the weight and leverage of the racket in your hand, the balance of your body as you move across the court and most vitally, the balance between doing too little exercise to be criticized by the teacher and doing too much exercise to unknowingly join the rank of the "Lads" (A collection of muscle obsessed base humans, remarkable living fossil of what I imagine caveman society may have been like). For badminton is a slacker's sport, the last resort, the final safe haven, the one remaining defensive fort, the single hole in the net for those of a non-sporty persuasion and succeeding as a slacker presents its own set of challenges.
 First rule of slacking is that you never talk about slacking. Slack too obviously and you are placed on the teacher's warning list which entails coaching sessions with the teacher present, eyes peeled and glaring (A Hawk-Eye specifically there to judge whether your effort is "IN" or "OUT"), beside you. Hence you must always appear to be keenly playing badminton when the teacher is near. In short, to succeed you must become an agent; feign loyalty to sports but in your heart allow the passionate, though slightly damp and tired, fire of the slacker to burn. However be very cautious of accidentally succumbing to the enemy ideal, start genuinely taking badminton too seriously and the path to becoming a "Lad" opens ( A slippery downward path lubricated with vaseline, sweat and protein shakes).
 Become too good a deceptive agent and gradually what started as a feigned interest in badminton blossoms into genuine love of exercise. What was only a tiresome itch in your muscles becomes pain to be enjoyed. What was a friendly match played merely to humor the teachers in charge becomes a competitive battle to prove your powers as a man are superior to that of your opponent. Soon before you know it you'll be pumping weights in a gym sexually aroused by the very prospect of developing muscles but only capable of a one inch erection due to all the steroids you've taken.
 Therefore the path of the slacker is a hard one, perhaps the hardest. Working enough but ensuring not to work too much. Playing some sports but forever resisting the urge "to go gym" (That is the correct "Lad" term for going to a gym. As Underling Sheep succinctly put it, "There is too much muscular density in that sentence for any prepositions"). We slackers must find the Middle way, we are the Buddhists of exercise preaching the message of love, peace and always having at least ten minutes of sitting down after a minute of any remotely physically strenuous activity.

Rabid Pet Hates

 With a strong determined beat of its abstract wings, the temporal rises into the heavens, soaring ever higher, swooping and ducking as it glides across the skies. Time has flown and it is already new born October, who like a baby is yet to dentally develop but will soon quickly do so and with it, the biting cold start its chilling attack.
 The leaves on the tree have shriveled and crumbled, slowly transforming from the smooth beauty of a fair young maiden to the wrinkled repulsiveness of an old man's ball sack. The elegant lushness of the green trees fading to be replaced by the smudge of orange and brown like the finger painting of an artistically untalented child with leprosy.

 Indeed the series are changing. The year has driven out of the warm safari of the summer series to travel down the darkening road of the series of autumn and very soon we shall enter the dark cold tunnel that is the series of winter. Yes, that's right, I did say "series of winter" and doesn't that feel unpleasant and perverse? Nonetheless if people are going to start replacing the term "series" with the word "season" then I don't see why I shouldn't do the opposite and see how they feel.
 The use of the term "season" when referring to a British television "series" is a pet hate of mine. A pet hate which often growls and strains on its leash while out on walks, very occasionally breaking through the metal bonds to pounce upon any stray Americanization of British Television, sharp toothed mouth violently frothing and aiming for the jugular.

 One such recent occasion was when I was walking towards the massive ugly square construction with a totalitarian atmosphere that constitutes the school dining hall with one Underling Sheep (An extremely normal individual, the picture perfect image of the default white middle class boy of average intelligence, wit, athletic capability and social ability) and Hunter Swift (A young lady whose life appears to be governed largely by bridge, botany and bi-curiosity. A fast shuffler, mild stalker and notable as the only female wearing a waist coat). We were discussing the unsatisfactory nature of the previous Doctor who episode in which the Pond's bid their farewell.
 "I mean there are so many ways to save them," I complained, listing briefly the many solutions to the problem of Amy and Rory being trapped in Manhattan that I, a mere Earthling of sixteen years, thought of within the first five minutes of the end of the episode. Solutions which somehow the several hundred year old Timelord had failed to find.
 "Yeah," agreed Hunter swift, a little way away, across the courtyard, stands the great hall upon whose towering face is embedded a clock. Its horological mechanisms ticking away restlessly, a merciless movement of cogs and gears, tick, tick, tick, tick, "I get the feeling they're going to be brought back in about five seasons." tic- Time stops.
 "Say that again," I mutter, clenching my fists. Closing my eyes as I grit my teeth. Underling Sheep, having heard one of my rants before, stops beside me, eyes fixed pleadingly on Hunter Swift to get it right the second time.
 "I get the feeling they're going to be brought back," she repeats, a tone of confusion entering her voice.
 "In?" I whisper, my blood pulsing through my veins.
 "In about five seasons?" Comes the wavering reply from a now thoroughly confused Hunter Swift. Underling Sheep lets out a despairing sigh, letting his eyes fall tiredly to the ground. A moment of silence. I click my knuckles and draw in a deep breath.
  "ITS SERIES NOT SEASON! FIVE SERIESES TIME! NOT FIVE SEASONS TIME! I GET THE FEELING THEY'RE GOING TO BE BROUGHT BACK IN FIVE SERIESES TIME!" I roar, voice bouncing off the walls of the Quad, several pupils pausing to look round.
 "Oh shut up!" wails Hunter Swift, "I can use season if I want!"
 "No," I demand, waving my arms in frustration "It is a British television show, it will therefore be referred to as series and not season!"
 "I'll do what I want," she retorts, voice volume almost matching mine, "Besides YOU MAKE WAY MORE ERRORS THAN I DO!"
 As I open my mouth to form some sort of retort, one boy in the year above walks by, stating as he goes, "It's FAR more, not WAY more. Far!" Disappearing through a door within the next moment, leaving us to stand speechless.

 PS. Hunter Swift later gleefully pointed out "series" is a plural term and hence the correct term was "five series time" not "five serieses". What a petty individual.

The Case of the Anonymous Riddler

 It has been a few weeks since the sixth form term began and though initially the invasion of girls into what was previously an all male educational institution was seen with hostility and suspicion (like the landing of early pioneers in tribal lands), thanks partially to the continuous efforts by the school staff to valiantly yet awkwardly promote "Mingling" through school barbecues and tea parties, the gender barrier (which first seemed as damningly sinister as the Berlin wall and as colossal as the Great Wall of China) has been breached and so far (unlike early pioneers in tribal lands) none of the females have stolen our land, extorted our wealth, destroyed our culture or brought disease (though that may be left as an unpleasant surprise to discover when inter gender relations within sixth form penetrate new depths).

 I for one have acted as a friendly native welcoming these strangers into our lands and promptly integrating them into my personal culture (grown in a Petri dish labeled "weird and wonderful")by near forcibly converting them to my Detective Agency. With the exception of a few for whom I am yet to think of an underling name, such as Olivia (an extreme Lord of the Rings fan with whom I discuss youtube and Tolkien's work, often together), most new girls I have conversed with have gone through the initiation process of being given an underling name (by which they will be referred to for the rest of eternity... if I were to find some way to live eternally).

 Though some still refuse to accept their fate, such as Underling Salmon (an often bitingly sarcastic character, occasionally as cold in attitude as her native Iceland) most have passively joined the Detective Agency, such as Underling Spirit (A tall individual who gives off an atmosphere of gentle tranquility. Of a generous nature, so determined by myself as I borrow her Paperchase rubber every mathematics class) while some have even supported it enthusiastically, for example Underling Solo (An orange haired mistress of memory who appears to be able to remember even the slightest of personal details if mentioned once) and Underling Swirl (A french girl often adopting the appearance and attitude of a six year old with occasional glimpses of someone five times as mature).

 The incident, began last Saturday, when, with a sinister buzz heralding the arrival of a new message sent to my phone via the invisible cybernetic strings which seems to bind most of developed society today, I received a text message from an unknown number. Within the round friendly corn colored speech bubble were simply written in a collection of pitch black pixels "Only you can hear this". Ignoring the fact that it made little sense to claim anyone, not even me as suggested by the message, could actually "hear" a text, the message was quite obviously sinister (Positioned, in terms of the sinister scale, two notches above the dark and stormy night in a crumbling castle but three notches below the trench coated figure in a night time alley way).

 When I demanded the villainous sender's fiendish identity, several devious texts malevolently came flying my way, three enigmatic words:

"Ursus major perro"

 and two suspiciously traditional riddles, in which, the malicious sender claimed, menacingly, that his/her devilish identity could be discovered. Seeing this as a challenge to my not inconsiderable skills as a detective, I set to work.

 From the fact that it was an unknown number I swiftly worked out that, seeing as I updated my list of contacts roughly two weeks ago, the number could only belong to someone I had met recently or someone I had known for a while but not bothered to add to my contacts in which case they would be thoroughly dull people worthy of being disregarded by myself and thus not the sort of people to send me interesting messages, from this I immediately narrowed my list of suspects down to the new girls at the school. From there began the challenge.
 The first riddle went thus:

"A box without hinges, key or lid

 yet inside golden treasure is hid."

 After a moments thought I correctly deduced that the answer was "egg".

 However seeing as this proved no help at all, I progressed to the second riddle.

"Alive without breath,

 As cold as death;

Never thirsty; Ever drinking

All in mail never clinking"

 After a slightly longer period of thought I deduced the answer to the riddle was "fish". From there I considered all of my Underlings and the possible meaning of these questions and their respective yet equally mysterious answers. Soon I reached one conclusion, an Underling mildly malicious enough to attempt to harass me in this way whose number I didn't have and who was associated with "fish"... Underling Salmon. It seemed to make sense, the pieces falling into place, however I couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something more to these riddles. Ignoring this I continued with my hypothesis, perhaps "ursus major perro" was a constellation found in the general direction of Iceland?

 With this thought in mind I contacted Underling Butler (A snide but intelligent underling with a wide knowledge of astronomy and zoology who surrounds himself with too many books and too few friends). "Yes, what is it?" he questioned irritably upon answering the phone, his posh accent and upper class pronunciation galloping through the mobile phone connection like a polo pony through the town center.

 "It is I, Veritable Galanthus," I announced as per usual, "great detective and your immediate superior. I have a request, underling Butler."

 "What is it O' Great detective?" he muttered sarcastically, a mixture of mocking amusement clinging to his tone like stench of garlic to breath, the sort of insulting condescending manner of speech that will cause problems for him later in life. Ignoring his attitude, I gave the rough context, including the precise nature of the riddles and proceeded to inquire about the words "Ursus Major Perro".

 "I'm terribly sorry," he responded after a moment of thought, using the malignant tone of voice that has so permeated the core of his very being that nothing short of surgery could remove it, "But I can't say I know what that means beyond that it has something to do with a great bear. Whatever it is its not a constellation."

 "Well, you're useless," I concluded, "Farewell."

 "Oh," exclaimed Underling Butler a moment before I hung up, "the riddles you mentioned are both from the Hobbit though."

 As those words rang in my ear, the metaphorical penny began its slow earth bound journey, plummeting through many meters of air as cognitive gravity gradually but inevitably took hold. Then after a minute of silent vertical descent, it hit the ground of understanding with a reverberating metallic clink of comprehension. "Olivia!" I shouted.

 I later learned from her that "Ursus Major Perro" or "great bear perro" was a reference to the surreal animated youtube video, "Mr Ando of the Woods" which she showed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqzt3T4R38c

Perhaps Underling Sinister would be a good name...