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The white stripe

February 01 2025

Another time-bendingly absurd adventure from the equally absurd mind of Chris Sampson


NB: Trying to make sense of the plot may cause brain damage, so just enjoy the ride...


“You may not like it now but you will/The future will not stand still.”

So sang Adam, of Adam and the Ants, on Don't Be Square (Be There) back in 1980. As with most prophecies, it was pretty vague. So, what didn't people like in 1980 that they like now? Thatcherism? Seemingly imminent nuclear annihilation?  A world free of fake news or TV shows nostalgic for the, er, 1980s?

Throughout recorded history, would-be soothsayers have tried to predict the future using a range of bizarre methods including goats’ entrails, tea leaves and crystal balls. Adam Ant was no better or worse than any of these, he just preferred to use his lyrics.

But only in our own era does modern sage Nostril-Damus dare to, erm, pick out a future using only his bogies and finely-tuned nasal hairs. For 2025, he foretells a form of Thatcherism-lite in Downing Street, seemingly imminent nuclear annihilation (courtesy of Messrs Putin and Trump) and, yup, more fake news. S'not fair, ya think?  Well, wipe the prognosticator’s phlegmy visions away with that embarrassing hankie you have, and check out this bold premonition from Nostril-Damus: our very own time-travelling sleuth, O'Haggis, will return to the pages of the Pavement!

But how can this be?  Wasn't he lost forever in a badly-plotted Victorian prison drama a couple of issues ago (see issue 152), while his accent, The Tone, escaped to meddle in – erm, I mean, investigate – a mystery last ish? Wasn't there some guff (pun intended) about a Flatulence Visualizer™, while Bunter Hunters hunted down those in 2035 deemed too chubby to work?

Yes, yes. But that was 2024, and this is 2025. As Nostril-Damus will surely predict, abandoning last year's nebulous plots is so now, so this year, that no one feels cheated by unresolved stories from the last ish. Ahem.

The 'plot' now is that Adam Ant's white nose stripe (you know the one: a painted strip across somebody’s nose, usually running over their cheeks. For a brief moment they were all the rage) has escaped from 1980, and is sticking itself onto schnozzles throughout history. O'Haggis has been tasked with returning it to its rightful place in history.  First, he spies it in an 1840s sepia photograph-o-gram of Queen Victoria, nestling upon her royal snout.

Then O'Haggis notices the renegade Ant-stripe in a portrait of tobacco-and-potato importer Sir Walter Raleigh, sagging on the bridge of his nose as his head sits atop a spike at Traitor's Gate. Was he executed for bringing lung cancer and COPD to Britain via baccy, and for making us fat and causing untold spud-related deaths?

As someone dying of ciggie-related COPD – and chubby due to being an ex-chip scoffer – this writer thinks it serves the [redacted, obscenity] right!

Anyhoo. O'Haggis nobly – as befits the lovechild of Mary Queen of Scots and Malcolm X – pursued his quarry throughout the centuries, until finally cornering the rebellious nasal ornament in the modern day.

Of course! Where else would Adam Ant's nose stripe be today, than on the hooter of the singer of an Adam and the Ants tribute band, called Madam & the Pants? 

O'Haggis saw it on one of their posters and joined the thin crowd at a scuzzy central London pub, the main connection to the 1980s being, he thought, that the venue's toilets looked like they hadn't been cleaned since about 1980. Otherwise, it was all nostalgia – at 2025 prices, natch.

O'Haggis waited for Madam to belt out a few covers before accosting her during the intermission.

“I'm here to return your stolen nose stripe to Adam in 1980,” he told her at the bar, as she handed over a £20 note for a half lager [central London, tourist-fleecing prices, eh?].

“Ah!” Madam responded, “Nostril-Damus predicted that you'd come!” She then fled the bar, abandoning her Pants.

Madam ran, but could not hide, for O'Haggis was of course a time-traveller, and could pick his moment to retrieve the mischievous nose-piece, which he did in 2035. As they dodged Bunter Hunters – and tried to block off the noisome stench of Flatulence Visualizer™'s – they had the sort of dramatic showdown that looks good on film but, to be honest, is a bit crappy on paper.

O'Haggis held out his hand, silently demanding that Adam's stripe be returned; Madam sagged, knowing it was over; 10 years older now, wizened with midlife ailments, wistfully conceding that she'd had a good run for her money but that it was now time to give up the...

Sorry, cliché alert! Cliché alert! Let's get to the denouement before our readership burns every issue of the Pave to avoid any more such guff: “But hold on, O'Haggis,” Madam breathed sensuously. “Weren't you called McHaggis in all your previous misadventures? What gives? Huh?”

“Ah!” our hero emitted. “Well, you see, according to multiverse theory, there are an infinite number of universes, which differ from our own universe by…”

“By as little as a single atom,” Madam interrupted. “I know! Don't patronise me, you mansplaining [redacted, obscenity]! And some universes differ greatly; ones where Hitler won World War Two, or one where this was written properly, by a real writer and not some sausage-faced hack!”

“Well, yes,” O'Haggis conceded. “So, in answer to your question, I'm the version of McHaggis from a universe where I'm called O'Haggis instead.”

“Right,” Madam tutted, rolling her eyes.

O'Haggis grinned, nodding, holding out his hand for the nose-stripe. Madam handed it over.

“One more thing,” she said. “What's with all the [redacted, obscenity] stuff?”

“Well,” O'Haggis confided as he set the controls for 1980 on his time-travel device, “Nostril-Damus foretells that there will be more censorship from 2025 onward. An AI algorithm now senses foul language and self-rectifies errant writings instantly.”

“Oh,” Madam said in a sort of summing up sort of way. “That brings us neatly to the end. Give my regards to Adam when you're back in 1980.”

“Will do,” O'Haggis grinned as he zapped out of 2025 to return the nasal decoration to its rightful era.

So, do you like it now? No? Well, you will. Given enough time.


THE END

But hang on…

AUTHOR'S PLEA:

Your humble scribe really does have terminal lung disease. He hopes that one day in the future, people with time-travel capability will read these lines from the Pavement and take pity on him.  They will, he hopes, either take him to their own era, where COPD can be cured, or at least go back to the 1980s to stop the silly [redacted, obscenity] starting smoking in the first place. And perhaps to check out a certain nose-striped singer of the era.

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