'Go and live on an island in the middle of the sea.' The advice provided by the SSE Garfield. He may have been joking. It is difficult to be certain when it comes to oracular stuffed toys. 'On an island in the middle of the sea you can be sure of discovering a valid work of life. There's nothing else to do.'

Peter-Bowman was unsure of the logistics that would be involved in moving his phone box to a sufficiently deserted island in the middle of the sea. On being assured by the phone company that they would undertake to move his phone box to any location he desired, given adequate funding, he realised that it would all be much simpler than he had first anticipated. He made the move the next day.

'It is certain that using the phone company as a home removal service has many benefits,' Peter-Bowman told his Garfields once the move had been accomplished. 'They tend to break far fewer teeth then would be expected.'

Peter-Bowman had quite a magnificent collection of teeth in his phone box. His parents were far to poor to cater for the absurd exchange rate the tooth fairy had been offering at the time. This resulted in Peter-Bowman having three complete sets of teeth. His baby teeth were contained within a small leather pouch drawn together with a snake skin collar. His secondary teeth were mounted in a lovely display case of oak. His tertiary teeth were still, for the most part, held in his mouth, though a number had become quite loose of late and it seemed to Peter-Bowman that his fourth set of teeth were imminent. Peter-Bowman was quite a concern to the dental industry.

Looking at his intact collection, Peter-Bowman was satisfied that his teeth had been in good hands during the transition from a busy urban street to a deserted island in the middle of the sea. Such small mercies pleased Peter-Bowman amazingly, and he performed several celebratory hop scotch games in honour the the phone company and her magnificently tooth worshipping employees. Peter-Bowman was grinning the whole time, as only Peter-Bowman can grin.

As the sun drowned, Peter-Bowman set out to explore his new home. He discovered that it was in fact exactly the same as his old home. The same four walls with oracular Garfields attached (curiously enough, in transporting Peter-Bowman's phone box to a deserted island in the middle of the sea, the phone company technicians had positioned it precisely along the same compass axis as it had always had, leaving the Garfields free to practise the same advice as they had always provided). Even the holy book of numbers remained in place. Peter-Bowman felt right at home as he curled up to sleep that night.

In the morning, Peter-Bowman realised that something was a little odd. The sun appeared to be rather more shaped like a horse shoe then he remembered. This was somewhat disconcerting to Peter-Bowman. Suddenly, it occurred to Peter-Bowman that exploring his phone box when positioned in a new place probably didn't really qualify as exploring his new home. He looked out the window and saw a large coconut. The coconut was in the process of falling out of a tree. Peter-Bowman considered this for some time. 'That looks like fun,' he thought to himself. For some time after this, Peter-Bowman amused himself by falling out of trees.

To begin with, he realised that he would have to learn to climb a tree. This was not as easy as might be expected. He understood the basic movements involved in climbing trees. He just could never seem to put them together. It was much easier to climb on to the top of his phone box and fall off that. This was not very satisfactory though. It was very easy to do, but Peter-Bowman did not sense the feeling of freedom he was certain that the coconut had as it fell from its tree. He had long discussions with coconuts on the subject. They told him that the falling was not really what they were all about. The falling was a possibility, even a probability, but really they were only in it for the fame. Peter-Bowman didn't think this was a very sensible way to think about things, but then, he was living in a translocated phone box at the time. The conversations generally ended when the coconuts began laughing at him. And so he ate them.

Peter-Bowman did eventually grasp the technique of climbing a tree. He did it by watching very young coconuts, from a concealed observation point. As the baby coconuts emerged from the sand, he watched them gently nudge against the nearest coconut tree until it began to lift them up using a sinuous bark motion. This was clearly the answer. I imagine that most people are scoffing at this. 'That's not how coconut's grow,' they say. 'Coconuts grow by ...' and the pause. Because you've never actually watched a coconut growing with the same intensity as Peter-Bowman, have you? You really have no idea how coconuts grow, you've probably never even seen a coconut tree, and yet .... Peter-Bowman watched the baby coconuts emerging from the sand and crawling to the nearest coconut tree carefully. They seemed to be using the waving motion of microscopic hairs on their outer bodies as a form of propulsion. It was slow, but it worked. From this, Peter-Bowman discovered the answer as to how he was going to climb a tree. He began to dig a hole to bury himself in the sand.

It was hard work. At times Peter-Bowman wished that he had been able to discover how it was that the baby coconuts buried themselves in the sand before their emergence and tree climbing abilities were fully grown. He had studied them for so long that he felt that behaving as they did was the only rational means of increasing his knowledge of such matters. He dug on.

After a time, Peter-Bowman had reached the depth he had starting digging in order to reach and so stopped. He looked up at the sky and began filling in the hole around him. This was rather difficult as he was not a particularly clean digger and had tended to throw sand over his shoulder in a rather haphazard way. After scraping at the nearest pile of sand for some time, he got out of the hole and began to dig a second hole of similar dimensions, so as to have enough sand close at hand to bury himself. This took rather longer then he had hoped, and the moment was spoiled by numerous baby coconuts dragging themselves out of the sand around him and finding their way to the top of coconut trees. The whole thing seemed to be much easier for them. He had never yet seen a baby coconut digging holes in the sand in order to experience the experience.

At length, Peter-Bowman had sufficient sand on hand for the purposes of burial. And so he proceeded to bury himself. He took the precaution of sucking on a length of grass while doing so, as he had heard that certain South American people used this trick to breathe while under water. Unfortunately Peter-Bowman neglected to use a hollow piece of grass, and it's difficult to determine what would have happened to him had it not been for a naval detachment happening upon his island and deciding to investigate the asthmatic pile of sand they discovered there.

'I am an adventurer through space and time, and there is my phone box,' said Peter Bowman. The naval party promptly hit him over the head, in the belief that it was good to hit lunatics over the head, and carried him and the phone box on board their ship. Promptly they were disciplined for not bringing back any water or fresh supplies, and hence they must leave this narrative. Peter-Bowman was brought before the captain. Captains need a good laugh as much as anybody.

'Now then. What's your story?' The Captain was a traditional sort and so blew smoke from his briar pipe into Peter-Bowman's face. Peter-Bowman was reassured by the scent of good tobacco, as he was certain that nobody who smoked such an expensive brand would eat him.

'My name is Peter-Bowman. I was investigating the climbing behaviour of coconuts.'

'Are you mad son?' The Captain as very traditional, in all ways.

'Many people have said so. But they went away in the end. My SSE Garfield told me that I might find a work of life on a deserted island. I believe I have found something like it in the behaviour of coconuts.' Peter-Bowman was quite eager at this stage to discuss his theories regarding coconuts. They fascinated him and seem to point to a metaphor of some kind. As yet, he could not discern which one.

'Well then. Where's your diary?' The Captain held out his hand. Peter-Bowman kissed it. 'Enough of that. I want to see your diary, log, or journal.' The Captain was quite demanding.

'I don't exactly have one.' Peter-Bowman pondered what the point of this discussion was. He suspected that he was one day destined to have a diary, but as yet he couldn't even spell x correctly, so there seemed to be little point.x

'Well, what about your notched stick then?' Again the Captain held out his hand. Peter-Bowman knelt and licked it, in the hopes that this would suffice. He sadly shook his head.

'What! No diary, log, or journal? Not even a notched stick? And you expect me to believe that you've been stuck on this deserted island in the middle of the sea for years? I'm afraid that this is no good, no good at all.'

'Actually, I ...'

'Silence! We've had a lot of this you know. Fake castaways wanting nothing more than a free lift home. And you bring a phone box with you. Are you wanting to make disreputable phone calls? Our lines not good enough for you?'

It was at about this point that Peter-Bowman realised that talking to the authorities was doing him no good at all. He promptly began singing in a loud a surprisingly tuneful voice. The Captain threw him in his phone box for the remainder of the voyage.