BBC - Shropshire - Features - The Eventful Adventures of Morris Telford -

Phil, our self-appointed pilot and navigator, appears to have gone to the same school of aviation as Icarus.

He's under the impression that all the dials and switches and little flashing lights that litter the cockpit are for novice pilots, and that all he needs is a compass and a general idea of wind speed.

I'm a great believer in letting people fulfil their potential.

...But even in my most optimistic moments, I'd be hard pressed to entrust my life to someone who thinks they can accurately gauge the wind speed of 50 tons of high-tech, high-speed, winged metal... just by licking their finger and popping it outside for a bit.

This cavalier attitude makes me uneasy, but there's no escape from the frivolity. The men have found some video games in one of the rooms and are playing Space Harrier with the volume turned up far too loud, which to be quite honest is jangling my nerves a bit.

This isn't helped by Phil doing barrel rolls every time someone gets a high score.

I'm going for a lie down.

I had to go up to the cockpit personally to tell him that while the UK sports some lovely beaches, some of which are almost completely free of radiation and sewage, none of these lovely beaches are quite that big, or have camels on them, or indeed, pyramids.

After half an hour of arguing, Phil conceded that we probably were over Egypt after all and stopped looking for Big Ben casting it's shadow over the Nile.

It was while we were arguing that Phil knocked a button on a hitherto untouched control panel and a screen lit up with all sorts of satellite navigation, GPS and hologramatic navigational sensors.

It was very impressive and looks to all intents and purposes like an expensive special effect. I clicked a few icons, entered the postcode for my house in Moreton Say and clicked the "auto-navigation" button.

The plane banked sharply to the right and steadied. A little message lit up in reassuring green which said "Course Locked".

Phil wasn't very happy, but I managed to distract him by telling him that we'd found a sea lion in one of the Jacuzzis.

By the time he realised it was just Trent having a bubble bath I'd locked him in.

Phil got loose again and tried to take control of the plane.

One of the Alaskans, a tall man called Obican Rumus (with long silver-white hair and painted nails), thought it was a good idea to keep Phil from the controls, so he locked the door to the cockpit and threw the key down the toilet.

Unfortunately no one was in the cockpit at the time.

After three hours of trying to fish the key out with some string and a magnet, I gave up.

Although I did manage to retrieve a gold tooth, a pair of cufflinks that were inscribed "The Gipper", a tiny, beautifully detailed, die cast toy soldier and a coin marked "One American Dollar" dated 2023.

The coin had the image of George W. Bush on it, but he looked much older, had an eye patch and what looked like a mobile phone but may have been a cybernetic ear.

So the plane is on autopilot and we have no way of getting into the cockpit. I'm just hoping that among the satellite navigation, GPS and hologramatic navigational sensors, there's also something that automatically lands the plane.

Despite everything Steven Watson did, I hope he's OK and lands on something relatively soft.

I must admit, just before he jumped out of the plane, I did sense a nearby evil... a terrible chill of foreboding, like the Shrewsbury marathon running over my grave. So maybe we really are over Devon.

The one and only good thing about Devon is, it's relatively near Shropshire. So I actually hope Steven was right, it means I'm nearly home.

The plane is juddering and some of the men are talking about jumping out. I counted the parachutes and we are one short.

I haven't said anything to the men - It's my fault they are here, I'll go last.

I've wedged myself between the back of a seat and some sort of storage locker while I type this.

A few of the men are trying to break into the cockpit.

One of the Alaskans jumped out a few minutes ago, I hope he remembered his parachute.

If this is the last time I send an entry in from my palmtop, then goodbye and remember - I did it all for Shropshire.

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