Outside Claire's apartment, a mysterious stranger sneaks away having deposited his song distracting cargo of French words. He hopes it has been a successful mission. At any rate, he's been paid well to do it. It has long been rumoured in certain mystical circles of the lower order that if Claire the very important rock musician completes her song and transports it over a wire to a phone box dweller, then the mystical circles could wind up looking very silly. In fact, it is likely that they would be seen as squares in the coming revolution. They really don't want this to happen as they have put a large amount of funding into the notion that they are circles. Although they realise that large proportions of the money they spend is a completely useless waste of good tap water and cups of tea, very few advertising executives are willing to admit to this fact outside the inner circles of the mystical orders which they make.

Chocolate cake is a very popular order, indeed it is likely the most popular order that advertising executives ever make. This is because advertising executives are extremely susceptible to advertising. They have to be to prevent their heads from exploding when presented with a brand new concept that involves cute puppy dogs and toilet paper. Most of them are a little edgy, in the manner of the cliffs of Dover. Often they are crumbly as well, in the manner of the chocolate cake they like to eat so much. The reason that advertising executives like chocolate cake so much is that once, a long time ago in a galaxy not so far removed from this one as to be noticeably different, a group of senior advertising executives were trapped watching a looped presentation of a Sara Lee concept for a little too long. The doors had been jammed. Literally that is. The filling in a tray of slightly too tightly rolled jam rolly pollys (who had incidentally forgotten how to be spelled correctly), had escaped rather precipitously when the leading advertising executive present had given it his best shot and just done it. All over the doors, as it happened. Since there was no Spray'N'Wipe present, there was nothing to be done but brave it out. A technician had thoughtfully moved the VCR running the looped concept tape into the next room and super glued the cable to the TV with no off switch that was always used for such presentations. This was a precautionary measure to ensure that none of the senior advertising executives had any possible opportunity to 'Just tune up the picture a little bit', resulting in a fire alarm. There was no way of stopping the tape. It is a pity that senior advertising executives are unable to look the other way when a TV is on in the same room as themselves. They watched the Sara Lee concept tape for at least seven hours before a technician came in and told them that the tape was likely to break if they kept the meeting going any longer. By then the damage had been done. It wouldn't have been such a disaster, except that the concept tape was so very good at advertising chocolate cake. By a curious twist of fate that may or may not prove to be ironic, the tape actually contained as its sound track the very important song that Claire the very important rock musician would be in the process of writing by the time you read this sentence. The concept was of course produced a number of years ago, so I expect some sort of time travel was involved. It is a pity that the origins of that tape can not be pin pointed exactly. Time travel would be rather nifty in many ways, and was wasted when it was used to addict senior advertising executives to chocolate cake. I told you that it was a good song.

Addiction is a disease. It can be caught from advertising executives. Since the particular advertising executives exposed to the Sara Lee concept tape were very senior and well connected, they passed on the addiction throughout the community of advertising executives that often meet in mystical circles and discussed what to order. Here is the mysterious fact: Nobody except senior advertising executives ever eats chocolate cake in a public restaurant. The Jenny Craig advertisements have done that job. If you see somebody eating chocolate cake in a restaurant, he or she is a senior advertising executive. There's a simple test. The next time you see somebody eating chocolate cake in a public restaurant, order some yourself (I know, this goes against all your beliefs, just play along with me for a little while. You won't have to actually eat it). The moment your chocolate cake (disgusting stuff, isn't it) arrives, look pointedly at the chocolate cake eating suspected advertising executive, and make that finger snapping gesture that ends with your hand poised in the shape of a revolver. They will return the gesture. Then, and this is the clever part, push your chocolate cake away - with your LEFT hand. Immediately the advertising executive will cringe as he or she realises that you are not in fact one of them. If you really want to scare advertising executives, end this sequence with a grin that starts small and gradually grows to Cheshire cat size. This really annoys them. Senior advertising executives have, over time, developed a desire for chocolate cake that is so severe that it ranks higher than the desire for useful household cleaning products that will cut their household cleaning time in two. This is a piece of information that they jealously guard, hence the annoyance of any senior advertising executive that you really your knowledge to. They may even hit you. Don't say you haven't been fully warned.

The mysterious stranger slinked away without gaining any of this knowledge, which is a shame since it would have been most useful information for the stranger to have and would quite possibly have averted any number of catastrophes that are due to take place in the near future. The destruction of Peter-Bowman's phone box, for example, would never have taken place if the mysterious stranger had fully understood the senior advertising executives desire for chocolate cake. Just wouldn't have happened. Perhaps it is lucky that the mysterious stranger didn't over hear me just now. It would have lead to a quite different end to the story and probably wiped out advertising as we know it. This would have been a greater disaster than you might imagine. Puppy dogs would have lost employment globally. Then they would have arisen in multitudes and swathed the earth in a dizzying coating of extremely soft toilet paper and killed us all. Such things are worth keeping in mind.

It is worth disregarding the mysterious stranger for the time being. Claire can do all the boring leg work and keep us up to date as to his behaviour. She's a trained private detective as well as being a very important rock musician. This means that she is probably the very best person to have on the trail of the mysterious stranger. Or the very worst should you happen to be the mysterious stranger in question. If you are a mysterious stranger, my condolences.