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I concede that the initial imagery of the house is a boon for Jungians. However, if you have a Freudian interpretation I would be equally happy to hear it. I don't care if your analysis is one of perverted guess- work, a gift from the gods, a genetic predisposition or the product of too many years of crystal-gazing during government- sponsored classes at the local high school learning about the tarot. Runes, numerology and dream interpretation. And it doesn't bother me if you're our much-maligned Prime Minister or enclosed in the deepest, darkest pit of our illustrious judicial system: can someone please tell me what this means?

I find myself in a large house. I'm aware that the house has many rooms. And although I'm seated on a sofa in the lounge, I have an intimate knowledge of the outside of the house and its surroundings.

It's a two-storey wooden building, large, rambling, inviting and set well back on the block. There don't seem to be any other properties around it. The garden is lush with Australian natives and deciduous trees, but it's overgrown and unkempt. From my position on the couch I know the season is spring but there are collections of leaves in the driveway, suggesting autumn.

The inside of the house is painted in calming earth tones, soft creams with borders of white. The paint in many areas is peeling, cracking off the walls. This does not make the house decrepit; rather, it gives it a comfortable, lived-in look.

On the couch is a close female friend of mine. And she's sitting uncomfortably close to a tall, good- looking stranger (he's a stranger to me, but it appears they are well acquainted). There are many others moving through the house. The lounge, it seems, is a meeting place for all sorts of strange people and projects.

In one corner, the members of an aspiring theatre troupe are running through their lines. I notice in their number another friend I have not seen for years. He turns to me and smiles. I walk over, my hand extended to shake his, but as

I approach he lifts his arms to show me he has lost both his hands.

I am shocked by the stumps but admire the way the long sleeves of his shirt have been neatly stitched over the top so that no gnarled flesh is exposed. I ask him, "How on Earth did this happen?" He looks me square in the eye and says softly, but with conviction, "oh, you know."

After this exchange I flee the lounge and find myself wandering through many sparsely furnished rooms. I open the door to a bathroom and find a beautiful tiled floor, a deep old bath, a shower with an enormous shower head, two friends of mine, Flacco and The Sandman, and, curiously enough, a pool table. They're attempting a difficult shot and keep hitting the cue on the rim of the bathtub. They decide to move the table. As they do so, they smash the ceramic base off the toilet. Water begins to gush out of the hole in the floor, flooding the bathroom. I'm shocked by this development but Flace and Sandy seem unperturbed. 1 leave them trying to complete that difficult shot as the room fills with water.

I enter another room. The first thing my eyes alight on is a large, curved sculpture. It stands about waist high, is three metres long and looks like a headless eel. The surface texture is seductive: highly reflective silver with tiny painted scales.

Facing the main body of the room I discover three highly motivated, yet dedicatedly nude, people. They're not embarrassed by their nudity, but 1 feel a little embarrassed for them. Each of them is holding what appears to be a stick dipped in silver paint, about 30cm in length.

On closer inspection I find they are mackerels. They're holding them across their stomachs.

A woman in her forties with a warm face smiles at me. "We're getting ready for the show," she announces and thwacks herself with the mackerel. Every time she strikes herself with the paint-soaked fish it leaves an impression on her body - the same brilliant silver and delicate scales I have seen on the headless eel.

I return to the lounge but everyone has gone. In the distance, a dog barks. I wake.

A great deal has been written about Scientology of late. It's filled the pages of women's magazines and Sunday papers and has stood accused of being the "other woman" in this century's most grievous tale of magical love gone wrong. Coffee shops have become crowded with concerned parents balancing leaking, flatulent offsprings on their knees. They all ask: "What hope do any of us have at cracking eternal love if the couple of the millennium, blessed with good looks, style, intelligence, business acumen and loads and loads of lovely folding money, can't make it work?"

Much of what has been written about the church has been based on fear and ignorance. A small cohort of hate-motivated journalists has tried to slander the church using Tom as a scapegoat. For comparison, I've watched Battlefield Earth, quite possibly the worst film ever made, to gain a greater understanding of the break-up and the religion itself.

The film is based on a book of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard (LRH), who also wrote the bible of Scientology, Dianetics. This would akin to the Apostles having a sideline writing Mercanaries of Gor, or if Mohammed turned his hand to a few tales of swords and sorcery featuring Kull the Conqueror. LRH is not only the physical and spiritual father of Scientology, he is also the supreme OT (Operating Thetan*), a philospher, the grand auditor, the greatest word clearer and... dead.

This normally restrictive state was not the final word for L. Ron. In fact, since his demise, his literary output has continued unabated. Most surprisingly he's a regular contributor to Scientology News. Proof, if any were needed, that he's an extraordinary man (although personally I find it's in the wearing of cravats that his true genius is best illustrated).

So here is my dilemma: if this film was written by the creator of Scientology and if, as Scientologists claim, through a process called clearing, they've access to 100 per cent of their brain power - how, on any planet, could you allow a film like Battlefield Earth to be made?

The church may not be discredited through documents amassed by jealous reporters, but I reckon if Battlefield Earth 2 comes out, the whole thing will go down the gurgler faster than a Thetan at the family planning clinic. Never before in the history of cinema has artistic theft been so blatant and misguided.

The opening of BE is Xena: Warrior Princess crossed with the Arthurian legend. From here the script "borrows" the idea of the "forbidden zone" (Beneath the Planet of the Apes) and the quest for enlightenment begins. Our hero/saviour sets off to find a future (last seen in Twelve Monkeys), suffers the fate of crashing through several sheets of glass (Replicant death - Blade Runner), flees through exploding columns surrounded by gunfire (The Matrix, or anything by John Woo), and comes face to face with the arch-nemesis of humanity, the Pychlos, a hybrid form of Klingons (Star Trek) with hairstyles stolen from Bootsy Collins and George Clinton during the most crazed psychotropic years of their "cosmic funk" band, Parliament (hence "Psychlos").

In its final ten minutes the film, in a spectacular display of filching, rips off the battle with the Death Star (use the force L. Ron), pays homage to the explosive-strapped sacrificial lamb of T2 and plunders the visual imagery of Raiders Of The Lost Ark in a shot-for-shot closing scene.

Along the way we visit Star Wars-type bar, the jail scene from Tango And Cash (who knows why?), El Cid's horse and some of the better sets from Dr Who. If L. Ron pilfered all this for the film, it makes you wonder how much fell off the back of a truck for Dianetics.

I've heard from people in the know that our Nic saw the flick and showed Tom the door - case solved. I hope this brings some stability back to our community. If you want your love to last, don't rent Battlefield Earth. Now, more about what really happened...

* Theta is Greek for the numeral 8 and has second symbollic meaning - death. Scientologists claim the Thetan is a spirit being inhibits the foetus a few weeks before birth. (Yeah, right.) P.S. If any OTs are reading this, please do not report me as a Type 111 PTS (Potential Trouble Source) to the RTC (Religious Technology Centre). Even though I'm aware all the above is of interest to the IGN (Inspector General Network), I must inform you that I've been implanted this lifetime.

Some dweeb, some acne-encrusted, bend-eared, over-eager sales assistant with barely a week's worth of experience in the area of feeding himself tells me, through his developing baby teeth, this is the best fridge for my needs: top of the range, smart, compact and from a reliable company. He even shakes my hand when he sells it to me. Bargain, I think to myself. I have entered the other world and survived my initial purchase.

A month later, the first of the premoulded white plastic shelves in the door cracks under the weight of a single carton of eggs and a bottle of mayonnaise. I'm thinking I should ring the company, but I don't. I want to give the fridge the benefit of the doubt. The carton of eggs and the bottle of mayonnaise have joined the assorted mustards on the second shelf.

A month passes. It seems to be sagging. The second shelf gives. The eggs, mayonnaise and mustards descend to the third and final shelf. Did they ever test the load bearing capability of these shelves? Did they test them in the weightlessness of space? Three times the weight in the same space. I know the maths is wrong.

One week later, the shelf is gone. Lying there in the broken rubble is the remainder of my pathetic condiments. My dried chilli mix (nam prik klang dong) is scattered over the floor, fusing with the mayo. I won't be able to make it to Chinatown for a week. Can you sue for inconvenience? For lost condiment trauma?

There are no shelves left in the door. The only functioning part of this side of the machine is the "softline" transparent butter cover - sitting there proudly protecting nothing and blissfully unaware that it has failed dismally at the one thing it was meant to be good at.

It's over between me and the fridge. I'm thinking (again) that I should ring the company, but life keeps getting in the way.

I store everything in the main body of the whitegood. I know something will go wrong, but I'm not prepared for what does. It's the rubber seal. The rubber seal that runs around the door and opens with a seductive "thhpok". The rubber seal that gives the fridge its identity, that separates the fridge from a cupboard, has come away from the metal. Now the length of rippled rubber hangs limp and useless as the pizzle of an anorexic hippo. It trails on the floor.

But then why should it have any pride when the shelves just gave up?

It's little more than a closet - a wet closet. A miserable rainforest, because with no seal it rains constantly inside the fridge. A visit to the fridge has become a visit to Ireland, but with none of the local colour. Salamanders, green tree frogs and a can of Guinness are the only things that could survive in this environment. The butter has no chance. Pools of poisonous "fridge water" loitering above like damp stalactites are eddying in the Allowrie. It's enough to make you sick. Can you sue if you're poisoned?

I should contact the company, but what else can go wrong?

The constant rain shorts the light. The one transcendent grace the appliance offered was illumination in darkness. The light pour out, surround you, warm you and invite you to tuck into leftovers. With the light on, you had choice. No light - no choice. And danger lurking everywhere. Not the danger of slicing your probing hand on a razor blade in a hastily packed overnight bag, or searching for shoes and stumbling across a present from a jealous cat. No, it's the danger of sinking your finger into a rotting cucumber, or popping the single cherry tomato in the crisper like a bloodshot eyeball, or knocking the coagulated milk to the kitchen floor at four in the morning. The dangers of the darkened fridge cannot be overestimated.

There was one last insult, one final, cruel, humiliating blow. With the rubber ring as loose as Liberace's lips after a night on the Las Vegas tiles, the fridge was easily penetrated by pests. This summer, to my eternal shame, I've opened the useless door and flies have groggily departed after a night of feasting. There is nothing you can say to loved ones when flies depart your fridge. You wilt under their gaze, you begin to rot.

Can you claim for eternal shame?

Should I mention the name of the company? Would that be a good thing? An act of revenge? How can I? Revenge is a dish best served cold.

The Sphinx, a mythological creature from Greek and Egyptian folklore, asked a question that Oedipus alone could answer: "What is it that has one voice, walks on four legs in the morning, on two at midday and on three in the evening?" That filthy, soon-to-be-blind Nimrod correctly answered, "Man." Today, the response may be trifle more specific. It is, "Michael Jackson."

Michael has "one voice" - a voice that has unified generations of disco dancers across the globe. And, despite being a genius from an early age, Michael is known to have crawled for, at least, the first few months of life. He dances very well on two legs. Most importantly, he recently addressed a faculty at Oxford University on the maintenance and caring of children. Footage of him approaching the lectern clearly shows he was WALKING WITH A CANE. Thus, the three legs of legend.

Some cynics may suggest that, as Michael is a "man", he would therefore conform to these criteria. But this was only the first link in unravelling a mystery as old as time itself.

It's often been suggested by tacky columnists that Michael, through the skilful use of LA's finest plastic surgeons, has been trying to transform himself into Diana Ross (who was in turn trying to transform herself into a younger version of the same). What if these forecasters are mistaken? What if Michael is striving for something never tried before in human history? What if Michael Jackson is attempting to become a myth? If he is not only the answer to the riddle, but indeed the monster posing the question? What if Michael Jackson is becoming the Sphinx?

The riddle of the nose: If ever there were more evidence needed, look no further than Michael's nose. There is indisputable photographic proof that something odd is going on in and around that proboscis. For years rumours have circulated that an excessive amount of plastic surgery has diminished the cartilage, allowing the nose to collapse back into the head. People have assumed this was an accident. I believe it was always the purpose of the surgery. And why? It seems so obvious now - the Sphinx at Giza has no nose!

At first this seems an outlandish claim and yet it can be backed up if one is to further scrutinise the appearance and behaviour of the king of pop. Let us begin, then, with:

The riddle of the glove: Michael always wears a glove, occasionally two. We've been informed by major women's magazines that this is to protect his sensitive skin from the ravages of a strong breeze. Perhaps there is another reason. What if dark forces are at work beneath the gauzy cotton and diamantes?

Medical and scientific advances have made it possible to transplant limbs and genetic engineering has advanced the concept of "hybrid species". Michael has the money and the willpower to manipulate corrupt members of the scientific community.

We know that the Sphinx possessed the body of a lion and the head of a man. MICHAEL HAS A MAN'S HEAD. And it is possible that, beneath that all-concealing glove, the heavily furred paw of the king of beasts is already developing? Could this be a first stage of an experiment that will eventually see Michael Jackson become the human embodiment of this mythological creature? Stranger things have happened, although not recently.

For those sceptics out there, consider this: his lustrous hair is often referred to as "a mane". And, as with a lion, it makes him seem larger than he really is. Michael stands a compact but perfectly formed 90 cm - the same height as the male lion. He has referred to his own children as "his cubs". And two years ago, while fleeing fans in Amsterdam, he was clocked at a land speed of 45km/hour - eerily close to that of the big cat in "kill mode".

The riddle of faith: Michael often talks about god, but which god? Could the god that Michael refers to be the Canaanite god Haurun?

If so, other piece of the puzzle fall into place. The Egyptian Sphinx, built at Giza around 2613 to 2494 BC, is thought to be a combination of two deities - Haurun and the sun god Horus. To reinforce the relationship, the Sphinx faces east and the rising sun.

Michael's landmark album of the 1980s was titled East. And he appeared on the cover in a bandana featuring a RISING SUN (or was that someone else?).