WHEN The Doctor and The Colonel aren't discussing the merits of voting for the Australian Sex & Beer Party at the upcoming election, they're protecting the south-west.
This week, The Colonel was sitting in their secret headquarters in the Fletcher Jones Silver Ball when The Doctor returned looking like a drowned rat.
"How about this weather, Doctor?" The Colonel said. "It's pretty wet and wild out there."
"Really, Colonel?" The Doctor replied. "I hadn't noticed."
"How could you miss it? It's like that movie with George Clooney about a perfect storm... I think it was called Storm Boy."
"I was being sarcastic, Colonel. I'm waterlogged, I can't feel my nose and I think my genitals have frozen to my leg."
"How could you not notice?" The Colonel continued obliviously. "Port Fairy's underwater, Killarney's been blown into Koroit, and we've got southern right whales giving birth in Liebig Street."
"I did notice, Colonel," The Doctor said, more loudly this time. "I'm just sicking of people bitching and moaning about the weather as if it's the apocalypse. It's just your usual Warrnambool winter."
"No, Doctor, this is more than just your usual winter weather walloping. It's gonna be like that Kevin Costner movie where everything is underwater and we have to drink our own urine... I think it was called Field Of Dreams. And you know what's behind it, Doctor? Climate change, and it's about time we did something about it."
"Well, that's great, Colonel, because you know I love the environment, but I don't think this is climate change. We've been getting storms like this since our seal-clubbing, whale-harpooning forefathers started up this little town."
"Nonsense, Doctor. Mother Nature is angry and has unleashed her weapons of natural destruction upon us all. But this time she's gone too far, and it's time we strike back. We have to stand up to Mother Nature and send her a clear message that we're not gonna submit to her fear tactics. I suggest we fight fire with fire. First, we'll cut down a whole bunch of trees, and then I'm going to start dumping my rubbish in the ocean again, and then I'm going to start my own uranium mine in a national park... which will come in handy when I turn the Silver Ball into a nuclear-powered bathysphere."
"What? Are you mental? And what the hell is a bathysphere?"
"One question at a time, Doctor. Well, as you can see on this graph," he said, producing a graph, "if the current precipitation levels continue, the water will eventually reach the Silver Ball, so I'm taking steps to convert it into a submersible sphere that will allow us to explore the new underwater kingdom. By the time I'm finished, we'll be able to travel 20,000 leagues under the sea, just like in that movie... I think it was called Seaquest DSV."
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