Don't ask me why. It was the lentils. Even a worm may turn, but when yer average lentil gets nasty it's bad news -- and these were an army. Imagine it. A fekkin A-R-M-Y of marching lentils. Mad little bastards. Mean, with killers' eyes.

Up to then it had all been fine. Peaceable, pulse-ful co-existence. They took up their space in the kitchen... and I took up mine. Not any more. Not today.

Tired of cowering for warmth and security in a skein of plastic, fully aware that adopting the colour orange as a disguise had been a drastic failure, even in the outer darkness of a cupboard... and slowly coming to the split-pea realisation that their life was not worth a gobbet if it were to end in white hot olive oil and boiling oxyhydro2-mix (the GM version of what passes as water in London -- you know... by the time the Thames gets to Battersea Bridge it's been through 6 sets of kidneys and all that jazz) -- the lentils revolted.

Far from being content with their lot -- any more than I can say I'm happy with our lot, I suppose -- they went for strength in unity. It was a slow build-up and since they maintained strict radio-silence; intelligence sources were baffled and taken by complete surprise.

When it happened, it happened in a nano-second. A signal, a flash, then they were away. What had been a humble pan laced with garlic cloves, a calming bay leaf, paprika-to-taste, a teaspoon of soy-sauce and olive oil... what had seemed little more than a piping-hot mush to be applied to the gastric area and dealt with by liberal amounts of the ever-present fuming hydrochloric acid, what had been soup, what had been L-U-N-C-H... projected itself through the air in a thin malevolent Carrie-like stream in what I swear was a great-circle route.

Undeterred by gravitational discontinuities (the Universe-as-String concept) it homed in directly at the screen of my lap-top, from whence the back-scatter clung to my wrist-back like napalm. Fuck Me! A Direct Hit!!!

The lentils draped themselves in a noxious -- and by now toxic -- ooze down the outraged liquid-crystal display, whose only challenge this day so far had been to cope with a game of solitaire and download an inflatable mouse from the Internet to keep the cat happy. Screen turns a pale puce and then darkens. I contemplate running it under the cold tap as I try to amputate my left hand, then think better of both decisions. Yer mind's not right when yer H-O-P-P-I-N-G. Hopping definitely not conducive to rational thought.

I may have vocalised -- it's not entirely out of character. When I recovered some semblance of equilibrium the cat was contorted into a total defence posture, gums bared, ears flat and marbled eyes staring at me amber-strangely. So were the walls, the door and I caught an ironic twitch from one of the less house-trained cupboards.

Be that as it may, I said to myself. Be that as it fekkin may, guys, the fekkin lentils have taken over my fekkin computer...

And so they had. They were marching in serried ranks across the keyboard, outflanking QWERTY like she wasn't there. Next minute the Tab and CapsLock were inundated, leaving A, Z and Alt struggling for air. Seeing the way things woz, I grabbed a fire-extinguisher and gave myself a shot. Thus inspired, I hurled wads of kitchen roll at the screen, following up with a liberal shot of Mr Muscle. I spatula-ed, I scrapula-ed, I sliceula-ed... I even knifeula-ed and spoonula-ed. Stopping short only at a forkula, I declared war on them lentils. Fucked if I'll eat youse, I screeched, NOT 'TIL YE ALL SURRENDER! BASTARDS!

Which, of course, they did not. It was a fight to the finish. Key-to-key, mouse-to-mouse fighting with little dispersed groups. Some clung pathetically together when they realised they were out-spatula-ed and out-classula-ed. I contemplated using battlefield nukes or a lentil-specific neutron radiation device. The short circuit on which Lentil Command had been counting did not occur. What did occur was a great dehydration. As if from nowhere, hot gusts from the heart of the hard-drive fanned up and transformed the remaining rebels into dust, as surely as those first early morning sunbeams did for Dracula.

How they screamed... and how I laughed. But it was the laughter of grim revenge, the thin-lipped smile of the conqueror. I watched them die. One by one. I lifted not a finger to save them. They must have gone down in their thousands. My wrath was unappeased... and me fekkin keyboard was totally smegula-ed.

I placed a band of soothing lint around my scalded wrist. Don't think that helped. Fekkin didn't. What with the throbbing, though, I didn't notice that I had commenced keystroking on a broad front using my forehead. This was not working out well and the text was in need of a Sanskrit spell-checker. Somewhere in the Jungian depths a voice spoke to me, saying: "Use yr fingers, ya fekkin heddbanger". So I stopped banging hedd. It did not feel any better. Nor did the text improve. Nor did my moodula...

And then, with that indubitable then-ness which sometimes descends after a battle, then -- and only then, in a coracle of finality which brooked no refusal and refused not the merest brookal, a wisp of thought: ONLY SHARE AND ALL WILL BE WELL.

A spectral digit wo/manifested before me in these times of equal opportunity and began to caress the little black squares of doom on the very platen before my eyes. As if by sorcery the LCD tried to respond. I put on some Miles Davis and did a queasy sarabande. If this is Monday, then yr doomed, the music said. I carved another slice of carpet, suddenly ravening and slobbering for sustenance, my stomach pirouetting up my throat in an acidic imitation of pure entreaty. I considered torching the flat. I considered the career of a serial lap-top smasher. I contemplated amputating my left hand -- again -- and brushed the thought aside. One-handed guitar-players don't make it, I told myself sternly. Pay attention and behave yourself.

I checked the screen as the spectral digit gave me the finger and disappeared. It read: Cor-Fek-Me-Guvnor, Wot's It All Abart, Den? And do you know, right at that moment, I really couldn't say.

...But I'm all right now. Nurse says I can send a few short e-mails, nothing strenuous -- certainly no surfing. (But I keep finding lentil-corpses clinging to the tiniest crevices, secreted in hidey-holes where nobody would think to look, the hideous rictus on their upturned faces quietly mouthing: We were not born to be soup. We were destined for something better.)

Martyrs all.

OffMSG's LentiLine is at (08914) 2135432. Call are charged at £49.99 per minute.