The box aroused my curiosity.  Not being a cat I wasn’t worried.  A little red wooden box, quaint and innocent, mounted on a badly-painted red wall. The box had a door, suspiciously without a handle.  Now why would there be no handle?  Scratched on the door was the word ‘help’. I got out my keys and set to work.  Five minutes later I was still at it, hacking frantically at the box. The door swung open…

I woke up in an antiquated pub that I didn’t recognise. Groggy, confused and with a throbbing head. It was crowded. Muttering, clinking, men telling tales, little round tables with little round stools. They dragged me to a table in the corner where a dodgy-looking character in a Manchester United shirt tapped away on his laptop.  Cigarette in one hand, whiskey in the other, a flickering candle setting the scene.  “Sit down,” he said, “let me get you a drink.” “There’s only one Leeds United,” I said, regretting it immediately, he obviously hadn’t recovered.

Elegance walked over, a lady in red, heels clicking on the ancient floorboards. She set a tall glass of beer on the table.  German it was, Erdinger perhaps, or Schneider’s Wiesen Edel Weiss, it’s hard to differentiate with such a throbbing head. “I’d have preferred a stout,” I said.

“My name,” he said, “is X, and I’ll get you a stout in a minute you pernickety sod. I represent the Illuminati. The red box is a teleportation device, a portal to wherever we want. I got it installed last week, knew you couldn’t resist.  I’ll cut to the chase. We like your blog. The observational humour, the wit, the beer. We’d like you to blog for us, be the Illuminati’s representative for the blogosphere, you know, give us a friendly, modern feel and all that, we’re fed up of all the bad press. We’ll pay you very well, give you anything you want.”

“No thanks,” I said,  “I won’t do anything for a Manchester United supporter.”  Seconds later I fell out of the red box onto the floor.  X, Elegance and Schneider’s Wiesen Edel Weiss were nowhere to be seen.

OK, so I made all of that up, you got me there.  I’m possibly crazy, a total fruitcake. But I do wonder what is inside the little red box, mounted above the urinals in the Old Bell Tavern.  Maybe next time I’ll force open the door with my keys and take a look.