“Let’s get some breakfast from this bread shop,” said ex-England left-arm seam bowler, Alan Mullally.

“You’re ordering,” said William Shakespeare.

Mullally led the way through the open door. “Why am I ordering?” he asked. “I don’t speak French.”

“Because,” said Shakespeare meaninglessly. It was hot in the boulangerie. He pulled his sheer linen collar away from his skin in a pointless bid to release some of the warmth from his body.

“Bonn joo-er,” said Mullally to the immaculately dressed girl behind the counter.

“Bonjour,” she replied, kindly.

“Er, le breakfast?” said Mullally.

“What the fuck was that?” interjected Shakespeare.

“Breakfast is ‘breakfast’ in French, isn’t it?” asked Mullally.

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t,” replied Shakespeare. “But even if it was, is that how you order food? You just name the meal?”

“I’m trying,” said Mullally. “It’s not my fault that my 19-Test career didn’t prepare me for ordering food in France.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t repeatedly pitched the ball eighteen inches outside off stump you might have learned a bit more,” muttered the bard, snidely.

“Hey, that’s uncalled for,” whined Mullally. “I’ve got 58 Test wickets more than you have anyway.”

“Christ knows how.” Shakespeare folded his arms and looked at the wall.

Alan Mullally folded his arms and looked at the opposite wall.

The girl seemed nonplussed.

Eventually, Mullally spoke again. “You do it,” he said. “You order us some breakfast. You’re supposed to be a wordsmith, aren’t you?”

“In English,” shrieked Shakespeare. “I’m not exactly known for the quality of my French sonnets, dickhead.”

“Your English sonnets are hardly dynamite,” spat Mullally.

Shakespeare glared at him, but opted not to take the matter further. He turned to the girl. “Pain or chocolate,” he said, rhyming ‘pain’ with ‘rain’.

“Monsieur?” said the girl.

Shakespeare clawed at his sheer linen collar once again. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, just give us some food. Anything. Can’t you see we’ve got low blood sugar?”

“Croissant?” the girl suggested, pointing at one.

“Pointing,” cried Shakespeare. “Fucking pointing. Why didn’t you think of pointing at what we wanted, you fucking dipshit?”

“You didn’t think of it either,” said Mullally.

Shakespeare looked the blond paceman directly in the eye. “You were scared you’d point a foot-and-a-half to the left of what you wanted, more like.”

William Shakespeare shifted uncomfortably on his sun lounger. Christ it was hot here on Bora Bora. He could feel his hose sticking to him and sweat was collecting in his codpiece. Even his summer ruff wasn’t making a difference. He’d have to retreat to the shade.

He stood up and grabbed the back of his sun lounger. As he dragged it towards the palm trees lining the beach, he noticed a striking dark-haired girl reclining on her own lounger roughly where he was heading. Shakespeare stared at her thighs for a moment and concluded that she wouldn’t mind company. However, upon drawing closer, he realised they had met before.

“Nice ruff,” said Kim Kardashian, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head, revealing immaculate makeup. “What’s it made from?”

“Er, linen,” said Shakespeare veering away slightly and depositing his lounger.

“That spot’s not going to be in the shade for long,” said Kardashian. “Come a bit closer.”

Shakespeare stood still for a moment, but then reluctantly shuffled his sun lounger a few feet closer to Kardashian.

The curvaceous, raven-haired no-mark stretched her arms behind her head and thrust her chest in the air in a parody of a stretch before returning her gaze to the bard. “Linen, you say? I love linen. It’s such a sensuous fabric.”

Shakespeare looked down at his stout leather shoes. “You can use it for tablecloths,” he muttered sheepishly.

“Or for beds,” drawled Kardashian, slowly sliding one foot towards herself, raising her knee. She stretched again, and her cleavage rose.

The bard exhaled audibly, expressing both boredom and indifference. “I might go and get a drink,” he stated, starting to get up.

“What’s the matter?” asked Kardashian, her voice climbing towards a wail. “Don’t you find me attractive?”

Shakespeare turned to face her. For the first time, he looked her in the eye. “It’s like I said last time we met, you’ve got a great rack and everything, but that’s all there is.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” said Kardashian, hopefully.

“That doesn’t really count for so much, you know,” said Shakespeare. “It doesn’t make for lasting appeal. Something vital is conspicuous by its absence.”

“I really don’t understand,” said Kardashian, moving to a less confident, less contrived position on her lounger.

Shakespeare looked out to sea for a moment. When he turned back, he said: “Imagine a really flash car, like an Aston Martin or something.”

“Okay,” said Kardashian.

“It looks great and you’re thinking about buying it, but then the salesman reveals that there’s no engine.”

“Right,” said Kardashian.

“No matter how good it looks, you aren’t going to want to buy that car, are you? It’s just a shell. It lacks all of the complex machinery that makes that curved piece of metal into a car.”

“I could drape myself across the bonnet for you,” said Kardashian, stretching her body once again, as if demonstrating what she would do.

“Christ alive, you’re a fucking moron,” said Shakespeare, despairingly.

“Just a coffee please, Neil,” said Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Neil Codling from Suede placed the order in perfect French then smiled at Ellis-Bextor.

“You seem to speak the language very well,” she said.

“Yes, I lived here for a year or two,” said Codling. “If there’s a better city on earth in which to recuperate from chronic fatigue syndrome, I don’t know it.”

“It’s quite breathtaking,” said Ellis-Bextor. “The history, the architecture – it’s all so romantic.”

“Many an afternoon I would while away my time in the Louvre,” said Codling, tossing his head slightly to remove his fringe from his eyes. “I would sit there, pondering the many possible pharmacological treatments for my malaise, little knowing that the art surrounding me was the true cure.”

“Great art is so uplifting,” said Ellis-Bextor.

“That’s how I feel about Groovejet,” said Codling, catching and holding his companion’s gaze.

Ellis-Bextor’s face reddened to a colour ever-so-slightly pinker than bright white. “Well that was primarily Spiller’s work, you know.”

“Not at all,” replied Codling. “It’s the vocals that bring the humanity to the music. It’s that which touches the heart. It’s that which affirms one’s faith in mankind.”

“Spiller asked me to try and make my voice as emotive as possible,” said Ellis-Bextor.

“Is she banging on about fucking Groovejet again,” said William Shakespeare, strolling towards their table, voluminous breeches rustling with each step. “Sorry if she’s boring the tits off you, mate. She goes on and on about that fucking record. I tell her I’ll stick my boot up her arse if I hear the name Spiller one more fucking time, but she doesn’t listen.”

“On the contrary,” said Neil Codling. “It’s a topic that greatly interests me.”

“Well you don’t get it day-in, day-out, do you? It would be a topic that would piss you right off then, I can tell you.”

“Where have you been?” asked Ellis-Bextor, with overcompensatory enthusiasm.

“Well there’s a story,” said Shakespeare, brightly. “I have been at Cimitiere de Montparnasse. And do you know what I found there?”

“I believe Charles Baudelaire is buried there,” said Neil Codling.

“Too fucking right,” exclaimed Shakespeare. “I almost pissed myself. Who’s the fucking king of prose-poetry now, eh?”

“He was a great poet,” said Codling.

“He’s a dead fucker,” said Shakespeare, with a huge, shit-eating grin.

“This’ll be worth 15 minutes, tops,” said William Shakespeare.

“Well I hear it’s one of the most, er, spectacular fountains in the world,” replied Sophie Ellis Bextor, choosing her words carefully.

“No fountain is worth more than 15 minutes,” continued Shakespeare, rounding a corner and seeing a throng of people. “If the fountain is worth looking at for longer than it takes to do a shit, I’ll be impressed.”

“Are you going to try and defecate in the fountain?” exclaimed Ellis-Bextor, grabbing Shakespeare by the shoulder.

Shakespeare shrugged her off. “Of course I’m not going to do a shit in the fountain,” he said. “Are you mental? I literally just went.”

“But you would do it if you hadn’t just gone?”

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t have just gone if I wanted to shit in Trevi Fountain, would I? I can hold it in, you know.”

“I can’t believe I’m even discussing this,” Ellis-Bextor said, more to herself than to Shakespeare.

“I like privacy, you see,” continued the bard. “I don’t want to be squatting down in public. I’d feel rushed. I hate feeling rushed when I’m having a shit.”

Ellis-Bextor swanned off, as only she could. She tried to work her way through the crowd towards the edge of the fountain.

Shakespeare followed her. “I mean I’m not against dropping some shit in the fountain. Maybe I should have planned ahead. I could have dropped a log in a bag or something, but you can’t be certain about the consistency, can you? You don’t want to be standing there squeezing a thick paste out. It wouldn’t be worth the effort. What would I gain from doing that?”

“Give me a coin,” demanded Ellis-Bextor.

“Why?” said Shakespeare, reaching inside his jerkin.

“Actually, give me three,” she said.

Shakespeare handed over three euros and Ellis-Bextor flicked them into the fountain.

“What are you doing, you mad bitch!” screamed Shakespeare.

“It’s a tradition,” answered the alien-faced vocalist.

“You’re literally throwing money away, you fucking nutcase.” Shakespeare’s nostrils flared and he seemed to be on the brink of violence. He brought his right hand alongside the left side of his face and his eyes bulged. For a sickening moment it seemed as if he might backhand his coin-throwing travelling companion, but then the hand dropped again.

“Three coins,” exclaimed Ellis-Bextor in a bizarrely confrontational tone of voice. “Three coins will lead to either a marriage or a divorce, they say.”

“Fuck this and fuck you,” said Shakespeare. The hand that had threatened now shot back inside the jerkin. When it emerged, it was grasping a fourth one euro coin.

Shakespeare gripped the coin firmly between thumb and forefinger and brandished it in Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s face. “Marriage or divorce, eh? It’s ultimatums, is it? Is that what this is? Well what does four coins mean then?” and with that, he threw the coin into the fountain.

Ellis-Bextor looked shocked. “I don’t know what four coins means,” she said, trembling slightly.

“I’ll show you what four coins means,” said Shakespeare, gripping her by the upper arm and steering her away from the fountain. “I’ll show you what four fucking coins means – and unlike that fucking fountain, it’ll be worth at least 15 minutes.”

Ellis-Bextor seemed to go slightly limp as she was shepherded away, so the bard released his grip and threw his arm around her shoulders instead. He held her tightly, but not so tightly that he could have stopped her hand from snaking down the front of his breeches.

“Look at it,” said Sophie Ellis-Bextor. “It’s quite breathtaking.”

“My breath’s been taken away by the fucking cold,” said William Shakespeare.

“An ice hotel,” said Ellis-Bextor. “An ice palace, if you will. Quite breathtaking. I’m so glad we came to Jukkasjarvi.”

“Stop saying that,” ordered Shakespeare.

“What, Jukkasjarvi?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong with saying Jukkasjarvi?” said Ellis-Bextor, slightly put out. “That’s where we are. We’re in Jukkasjarvi. It’s only natural that we’d find ourselves saying Jukkasjarvi from time to time.”

“Oh, you’re just putting it on now,” said the ill-tempered bard. “I’ve not found it necessary to say that word once.”

“That’s because you can’t say it,” said Ellis-Bextor teasingly. “You’d never have managed to get here on your own.”

“Oh fuck you,” said Shakespeare. “Maybe if I hadn’t got here, I wouldn’t be so fucking cold anyway.”

“I told you to put on more clothes.”

“What?” The bard was genuinely confused. “I’ve got a sheer linen collar to keep the wind off my neck. I’m wearing my warmest jerkin. I’ve even got a doublet on. What more do you want?”

“How about an actual pair of trousers.”

“These hose are padded, you know,” shrieked Shakespeare. “That provides insulation. And I’m wearing thick stockings.”

“You never wear appropriate clothes,” said Ellis-Bextor with a degree of weariness.

“Appropriate for this weather, no. Nothing’s appropriate for this fucking weather. My scrotum’s taut, for fuck’s sake. Look at it.”

Shakespeare pulled the waist of his hose forward and tried to usher Ellis-Bextor in closer so she could look down at his genitals. The whey-faced popstrel took a step backwards.

“Look at it!” screamed Shakespeare, waddling towards her, one hand lowering his clothing at the front, the other reaching out for her.

Ellis-Bextor backed away. “No, I don’t want to see your taut scrotum. Pull up your breeches before you embarrass yourself.”

Shakespeare picked up speed, almost jogging towards her with his shrunken parts on full display and his lowered clothing hobbling his steps. “Look at it! Look how taut my fucking scrotum is.”

Ellis-Bextor came up against the wall of the hotel and Shakespeare closed in. He didn’t touch her, but got close enough that her escape was barred. Frustrated and unhappy, Ellis-Bextor started to cry.

“Look at my fucking bollocks,” he growled. “They may not be as big as Chris Rea’s, but that scrotum is much, much tighter. Look at it. Look at it!”

Sophie Ellis-Bextor looked at it.

“This is going to be amazing,” said John Power from Cast. “I love these haunted house rides.”

“Is it a ride?” asked Shakespeare. “I mean, it’s not a rollercoaster, is it?”

“You know what I mean,” said John Power from Cast. “Anyway, I think we do get into some sort of car at some point. This bit’s just the queue really. Creepy, isn’t it?”

“It’s hardly fucking terrifying,” said Shakespeare.

The pair took in the ambience as they queued. One room appeared to stretch. Paintings morphed into macabre images as ghostly sounds played. Eventually, they reached the front where they were invited to climb into a ‘Doombuggy’.

The Doombuggy stopped in front of different scenes and various tricks were used to scare the passengers. Shakespeare remained nonplussed, while John Power from Cast was rather more edgy.

At one point, a door banged right next to them. John Power from Cast jumped and reflexively grabbed Shakespeare by the knee.

“Get the fuck off me, you mop-haired twat,” said Shakespeare.

Eventually, the Doombuggy reached the balcony above a ballroom. Beneath them, a woman on a staircase was singing. After a moment, she looked up. At a window, there was a phantom, who laughed.

“Holy fucking shit,” cried Shakespeare. “Can you see that?”

“Yeah,” replied John Power from Cast.

“It’s a fucking ghost,” said Shakespeare. “We’ve got to do something.”

“What the hell do you expect us to do?” said John Power from Cast. “We’re on a ride.”

“Tie him up,” instructed Shakespeare, without a moment’s hesitation.

“What?” said John Power from Cast.

“Tie him up,” repeated Shakespeare. “Tie up the ghost. Tie him to a chair. That’s what I did last time.”

“Last time?” said John Power from Cast.

“I had a ghost in my house once,” said Shakespeare. “He said he was fixing the boiler.”

“Ah, Paris,” said William Shakespeare, pronouncing it in the French way.

“Shall we head out? See what this city’s got to offer?” said Sice Rowbottom from the Boo Radleys.

“Let’s,” said Shakespeare, rising from his seat.

The pair walked out of their shared hotel room into the corridor. A few paces down the hall, a man at the opposite end caught Shakespeare’s eye.

“That’s not… That’s not… No, surely not,” said the bard.

“I think it is,” said Sice, brightly, as the man in question stepped into the lift. “It’s Chris Rea.”

“No,” said Shakespeare with disbelief. He hunched down a touch and quickened his pace. “Chris Rea. Chris fucking Rea.”

“What’s the matter?” said Sice, jogging for a couple of steps to catch up. He grabbed Shakespeare’s ludicrously puffy sleeve and attempted to gain his attention.

Shakespeare shrugged him off. “Chris fucking Rea,” he said in a venomous voice. He went to start running, but Sice sensed danger and grabbed him with both arms.

“Get the fuck off me,” said Shakespeare, wriggling.

“Stop. What’s the matter with you?” said Sice. The lift pinged and the doors closed. Rea had gone.

Sice released Shakespeare, who whirled round. His face betrayed his rage. “Do you think he’s got bigger balls than me?” he demanded.

Sice was taken aback. “What? I don’t know. What the hell are you asking that for?”

Shakespeare produced a knife from inside his jerkin. Grabbing Sice by the throat and raising the knife to his neck, Shakespeare said: “Who’s got the bigger balls, Sice from the Boo Radleys?”

“What?” said Sice, frightened and confused.

“Whose balls are bigger, Sice from the Boo Radleys? Whose balls are bigger? Mine or Chris Rea’s?” Shakespeare’s grip tightened and the knife pressed into the Britpop singer’s flesh.

“Yours. Yours,” spluttered Sice.

Shakespeare’s grip on Sice’s throat loosened slightly. “Well they aren’t,” said the bard, sadly. “Chris Rea’s balls are bigger. Chris Rea has the bigger balls.”

Shakespeare released Sice and dropped to his knees. The knife fell from his hand and as he stared at the floor, a single tear hit the carpet.

Sice remained frozen. Shakespeare spoke again. “Chris Rea’s balls are bigger than mine,” he said and his silent crying suddenly became audible.

Huge sobs emanated from the deflated playwright. “Chris Rea’s balls are bigger than mine,” he wailed again.

As the miserable noise reached a crescendo, Sice felt he should speak. “I don’t even see how you can know that,” he said.

Shakespeare ignored him. He had reached the point at which the pain remained, but the tears had dried up. He tried to force out just a little more, the effort causing his torso to convulse.

Having failed, he looked up and staring straight into Sice’s eyes, he said: “His scrotum is tighter than mine too, Sice from the Boo Radleys.”

“Here are the keys, monsieur,” said the man. “It is parked in space B4.”

“Thanks very much,” said William Shakespeare, who then turned and addressed his travelling companion, ex-England left-arm seam bowler, Alan Mullally: “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What car is it?” asked Mullally as they descended the steps to the car hire company car park.

“It’s a Peugeot 206,” said William Shakespeare. “I hope it’s got air conditioning.”

The pair emerged into a small underground car park and made their way along the row of cars, looking for space B4. As they approached the car, they suddenly realised that it was surrounded by a pack of velociraptors.

“Oh no,” said Shakespeare. “This doesn’t look good.”

“Don’t worry,” said Mullally. “It’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. The velociraptors looked very menacing and it seemed they had been tampering with the car. The windows were wound down and there were distinctive claw marks on the doors.

“Excuse me,” said Shakespeare uncertainly. A velociraptor was blocking his path to the car. The late Cretaceous beast sulkily stepped aside, just far enough that Shakespeare and Mullally could squeeze past with some difficulty.

“Just get in the car,” ordered Shakespeare as Mullally went to put his bag in the boot. The English playwright was finding the situation very uncomfortable and just wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

Mullally examined the car’s interior. “This is shoddy,” he said. “Look at the state of the mats in the footwells. These raptors have filthied the place up something rotten.

“Shh,” urged Shakespeare with some agitation. “We can deal with that when we return the car. Let’s just get out of here for now.”

“We really should raise the issue now,” said Mullally. “How else can we prove that the car was in this state when we picked it up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” seethed Shakespeare through his teeth, turning the ignition.

“Well I disagree,” countered Mullally, opening the glove compartment. “I mean look at this.” He pointed at something fleshy. “Is that a gizzard?”

“It doesn’t matter,” repeated Shakespeare. “Let’s just go.”

The velociraptors were still milling around threateningly outside the car, occasionally peering in at the two holidaymakers. As Shakespeare tried to pull out of the space, they blocked his path.

“Oh God,” said Shakespeare. “They’re not moving.”

“They’ll move,” said Mullally, unconcerned.

The raptors stepped aside just far enough that the car could get by. In first gear, Shakespeare edged through the narrow gap, but as he started to turn the wheel, the car stalled.

“Shit,” said Shakespeare. “Shit.”

“Don’t get so riled up,” said Mullally. “Just ignore them. They aren’t going to do anything.”

Shakespeare ran a finger inside his sheer linen collar. “It’s fucking roasting here, Toady.”

Toadfish looked at him with contempt. “Why do you dress like that? You look like a gay.”

“Why do you dress like that, you fucking chump. Who do you think you are, standing there in your shorts and T-shirt handing out style advice like you’re the king of fashion.”

“Why do you always do this?” said Toady. “We’re standing here in the shadow of one of man’s finest architectural achievements, but you can’t concentrate on its splendour because you’re too hot and you’re pissed off as a consequence.”

“Is it my fault it’s a million fucking degrees?” screamed Shakespeare, lifting his breeches slightly to pull at the stockings clinging to his thighs.

“No, it’s not, but it’s your fault you’re dressed like a prize tit,” said Toady. “This in front of us is the culmination of the development of the Doric order, but all I’m getting is ear ache.”

“Ear ache this!” said Shakespeare thrusting his middle finger into Toady’s face. “Greece has been shit since we got here, all because of you. This is a weak holiday, man. Weak!”