h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

<...but I really think it would be better to stand here with the Palace of Kulture as a backdrop because viewers will... what? Radio? Oh, okay.>

Well, Roland, Martin, Jeremy and Unmemorable-Stand-In-Guy, the situation here in Poland is much simpler.

As a country which been stumbling forward with an effectively existence-free economy for several decades -- at least since its 'liberation' by the Soviets late in WWII -- Poland could be seen as evidence that economics and alchemy have more than a little in common.

But that's another story. The big news is, it seems this country is in fact connected with the shooting of the president in Florida.

Hello? Can anybody hear me?

I'm here in the Washington DC catacombs...

Well, OK, I'm in a really smelly storm drain, but it's just about under the White House, I think. I'm hoping to get this message out to the world, or the BBC, by reverse-podcasting on a converted Apple device.

I have evidence that that the now-famous quail-hunting episode was originally intended as a convincing display of the administration's hands-on plan for battling bird flu.

When it went awry, General Jan Kowalski (a highly misplaced CIA official) 'carpe'd the diem' and leaked the story as evidence of yet another Department of Homeland Security faux pas.

<...what do mean you 'lost your feed'? Is that all you can think about, eating? This is real news, buddy, and it's our job to expose... an iPod what? Oh. We're back on the air? Live? Right now? Ummm...)

Uh, informed sources have informed me that (and I quote) 'the shooting became necessary' (unquote) to avoid revealing the fact that the president's brain had already been removed some months ago.

My sources claim that the politically clever if not exceptionally bright brain was surgically divided into equal parts and transplanted into the heads of identical twins identified only as Lech and Jeroslaw. The brothers were then promptly elected President of Poland and Leader of the Polish Legislature respectively after a hinterlands campaign based on a Return to Good Old-Fashioned Family Values.

Although the brain's work seems finished now, there is no word on plans for its future, either divided or reunited. I'll continue to follow the story.

Back to you, Moriarity.