My wife and I were standing out in the freezing cold, searching the night sky with binoculars and getting stiff necks when, quite suddenly, it struck me.
It was one of those moments of innocent, blinding clarity. Like when the lad announced that the Emperor was not really wearing new clothes.
All was revealed as we scoured the void between Orion's belt and the naughty bits of Taurus. The explanation was simple. Everything fell into place.
There is no Halley's Comet.
I base this stunning revelation on three simple facts: 1) I have not seen it. 2) Neither has anyone I know. 3) The Sun devoted a page to it last week. What more proof do you need?
The whole thing is pure fiction. My wife told me to shut up. She is a simple country girl and thinks you can hear comets. So I will tell you lot the truth instead.
Halley's Comet is not a heavenly body but an ancient con-trick perpetrated by Them (authority) on Us (the peasants) for more than 1,000 years.
While we peasants are outdoors getting cold, trying to figure out which is the Pole Star, unable to tell your asteroids from Uranus, we are unlikely to be plotting any trouble.
Put the word about that only a fool cannot see the comet and everyone will suddenly spot it.
My goodness, Emperor, what a brill comet. And what smart new clothes.... Furthermore, if the peasants are at all superstitious, Authority can blame any number of cock-ups on a comet and the masses will believe it.
Since its invention by Queen Wantonthe Slack in 342 AD (when she badly needed something to divert attention from her affairs with a number of Celts) this so-called comet has been dutifully "seen'' by any peasant at all interested in keeping his head.
King Theobald the Wimp blamed it for his defeat by the Great Dragon of Clent (now believed to have been an earthworm) in 770 AD.
His son Alice the Strange whose 20,000-strong army was routed by three Welshmen and a border collie at Darlaston in 805 AD, also put it down to the comet.
According to his court astrologer, Wise Kevin, the phenomenon appeared only on nights which were too cloudy to be penetrated by the eyes of mere peasants.
Later, Harold's battered army blamed the comet for their defeat by a few boatloads of sea-sick French at Hastings in 1066.
Wayne, Thane of Dudley, actually imposed a comet tax to finance his Pilgrimage of Grace (to Majorca) in the summer of 1237.
The Hundred Years War (1337-1453 and you're quite right, it doesn't add up) was scheduled to last only a fortnight. Both sides blamed the comet for dragging things out. And so it goes on.
Got a problem? Invent a comet and blame everything on it. I am amazed that this non-existent phenomenon was not proclaimed a few months back when the pound almost fell below the dollar and the natives were getting very restless.
Instead, the powers-that-be have saved it for November, doubtless to divert public horror from Northern Ireland holding us to a draw and the Miss World contest.
Obvious The sinister manipulators behind this confidence trick (including, I fear, Mr Patrick Moore) tell us that Halley's Comet gets its name from an 18th century astronomer of that name. Poppycock.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (City Final edition) refers clearly to "Hally's Commette.'' But language changes. Queen Wanton, writing some centuries earlier, named it Wally's Comet, for reasons which have since become obvious. Stayout in the cold if you must, missus. I am going in.
