Characters

Aslant is the name given to the mystical lost king of the well-known furniture retail park, Njarnia, as well as the range of slightly wonky shelving that also bears his name.

He can be found at Journey's End, near the checkouts, where he informs customers that their purchases are temporarily out of stock and incites arguments over salad tongs, tea lights and assorted mass-produced plastic crap.

Bentkok the Bollokian is the 5th Lord Justice of the Planet Bollox. He is the eldest son of Perineum the Destroyer and Clungentia the Flaccid. Before embarking on a career in politics, Bentkok represented his planet at the Intergalympics, coming fifth in the 10,000 Light Year Sprint.

It is Bentkok's duty to ensure that the Purple Helmet of Dong is successfully passed onto its rightful heir and to lead the Bollokians in their ongoing conflict with the dreaded Ejakulons of Toss.

Educated at Clownbridge University, it was while studying for his first class degree in Plankology that James "Jimmy" Bondo was recruited to become a custard spy by the Clown Secret Service.

He rose quickly through the ranks, then fell down again, rising again, falling again... finding himself in the wrong department and getting locked in a cupboard for a while, before finally being recognised as the world's second most famous member of the Secret Services after Andy MacNab.

Reg Gallowman has been managing director of Baum Technologies Inc. since 1996, when he formed the company by a reverse takeover and merger of Oswestry Enterprises Ltd, Tornado Technologies SA and Rainbow Printing Supplies.

After a golfing accident in 2004, he had a hover-girdle and rotary cannon grafted onto his lower torso, which he uses to great effect to assert himself in pitch meetings and to routinely murder his staff.

The crew of the UKSS Costaguana are Captain "Chad" Chadwick, Navigator Arthur Cheung, Petty Officer Rachel Vince and Dr Greg Lainey. Brian is the ship's mate. He is an absolute pain in the arse.

Born on the planet Krapton but sent to Earth by his mother, Jor-Dann, Captain Nigel Justice has established himself as the world's leading superhero and part-time amateur football referee.

The Captain's powers can only be weakened by a rare toxic mineral (Kraptonite), which gives him a headache and makes him snappy.

Legend has it that before becoming Network Rail's most notorious brigand, Captain Goitre was working at a web design company in Hoxton.

After winning several web awards, Goitre was promised a partnership but was made redundant after a management buyout. He set up on his own, but when the work dried out he thought he'd try his hand at a spot of piracy... bought a train, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Heading up Tactical Intelligence and Training since its enlargement in 2001, Commander Cheeks has been a TiT man for most of his career.

A child prodigy, Cheeks' genius was spotted early by his parents when he constructed a fully functioning pump-action Lego crossbow. At his sister's funeral the same year, he resolved to devote his life to conflict resolution. In his Who's Who entry, Cheeks lists among his dislikes "criminality, parmesan and the Isle of Wight".

Born on the planet Earth, and raised in the mystical territory of Kingston, Neil was an ordinary student working at University Radio Bath when a freak accident exposed him to a massive overdose of Abba radiation.

When he awoke, he discovered he'd been transformed into the heroic Doctor Fox, with fantastic powers of wheels-of-steel spinning and chart music trivia.

The crime-fighting alter ego of supermarket shelf-stacker, Matthew Blake, The Flame became a vigilante after stumbling across an ancient Aztec curse on an archaeology fieldtrip to Mexico.

He has not, so far, prevented any crimes, but he has been responsible for several fires and explosions, causing £3.2m of damage. In 2008, The Flame reached the semi-finals of The X-Factor for his rendition of Elvis Presley's 'Hunk of Burning Love'.

A classic example of the perils of console addiction, videogames have literally taken over Gamer Girl's life: she is stalked by video game characters in tube stations.

Her relationship hit the rocks over a game of Wii Tennis and her boyfriend was then abducted by a Space Invader. She is currently an employee of Dancemat Enterprises Ltd, where she is a Generator, Level One.

The giant floating head haunts the tunnels and byways of Britain's road and subway network, living on a diet of tiny, three-dimensional, hovering pills and fruit and chasing and being chased by ghosts. Any similarity to a well-known video arcade character is pure coincidence.

Mark Eesmith spent several months in hospital as a child after a horrific road traffic accident. The drivers of all five buses claimed they did not see him crossing.

After a brief but unsuccessful time spent as a spy, he has now settled down and moved in with his long-term girlfriend. Allegations that he sometimes hangs about the ladies changing room at his local swimming baths are unproven as no one has seen him there.

Keith Broadstock is a fitness enthusiast and loner from Surbiton who stalked the Wrong Door film crew, deliberately getting in the way of their establishing shots. He can be seen jogging the streets of British cities in his distinctive red tracksuit, which he favours since it hides the bloodstains...

Single white female Loretta Libido is blessed with an insatiable, superhuman sexual appetite.

Criticised in some quarters for being a nymphomaniac, she's been lauded by the population of Soho for precisely the same reason. Send any correspondence, preferably pictures, to lorettaXXX@Hotmales.cum.

Trained by Grand Wizard John Virgo, The Magician uses the dark arts to perform outlandish snooker trick shots. Citing hatred for his nemesis, family entertainer Jim Davidson, as the reason he never got his Big Break, The Magician now hustles the snooker halls of the Home Counties wondering what might have been had he concentrated on his other childhood specialty, the javelin.

Dr Philip Rexbone is studying for a PhD in the field of Climate Disaster Evasion, and until last year held a prestigious lectureship in Prehistory at Nottingham Trent University, leaving by mutual consent after admitting anger management issues.

He is currently between jobs, after recently tearing his Jobcentre Plus personal advisor to pieces.

The Singing Trees are the bigoted, xenophobic, homophobic, intolerant, and narrow-minded inhabitants of the Magical Wood. They hark back to a better age, a time of cricket on the green, of ginger beer and skittles...a time when women were banished in their times of un-cleanliness, when the word 'gay' was harmless and friendly and when there were no nasty foreigners stealing our jobs. Anyone got a chainsaw?

The World's Most Annoying Creature is a genetic malfunction caused by a genetic splicing error in the Project Nemesis military bio-weapons experiment.

His skills include clumsiness and untidiness on an industrial scale, treading dog shit into carpets and repeating the same three or four jokes over and over and over again. He is unlikely ever to leave a dinner party.

The XOTANG MK3 'Carnage' is the most advanced giant 1950s-style robot in the world.

Weighing in at 234,840 tons (unladen), converting 39,000 pound-feet of torque and developing a staggering 97,500 horsepower in his 24 separate 6-litre, 12-cylinder, X3 engines, XOTANG has 134 separate hydraulic parts and a top speed of 17 miles per hour. He requires 1,638,147.5 litres of diesel per day or he gets all grumpy and forgetful.