Official Red Ryder Carbine Action Two Hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle

The approved way to relieve office stress, perhaps that caused by everything turning up in the last two days again or a series of minor fires, is to lob bits of furniture out of the window. (It's enshrined in the by-laws of several unions.) But no one tells AMIGA POWER what to do lest they want most of a desk ricocheting off their bonce as they stroll beneath, so when AP went wrong we expressed our mild botheredness by loosing several clips of plastic pellets from the official mag gas-operated replica firearms.

This fine tradition, instituted by resident pop-rod expert Cam, began with the Stayr 9mm semi-auto pistol and its rounded, friendly edges, advanced through the spectacular pump-reload Uzi and (after briefly detouring past the AP52 cover electric minigun, which tragically had been packed by the prop company in preserving grease as if a real bang-stick, which irretrievably gummed up the thousand-beads-a-minute works) came to a swooping halt beside the exactly accurate M16 which may or may not have been used at some or many times to pepper the BT building opposite through open or ajar windows.

Of course, we did not simply blast away in an aimless duelling frenzy. (You could have someone's peeper out like that, or there was only ever one gun in the office, we forget which.) An element of icy, dead-eyed forethought was generally deemed an important part of the calming ritual, which led to two popular methods of phalange exercise.

METHOD ONE. The cross mighty being is handed that day's roster gun and shooed out of the room. One or more highly trained support staff fish eight to a dozen plastic cups out of the horrible drinks machine, carefully draw little faces on them, and place them, upturned, at strategic positions around the office. The cross mighty being is then beckoned back inside and has thirty seconds or fewer and a single clip of brightly coloured ammo to find and dispatch the ambushing beakers. (Nobody failed this course, so the penalty was never quite determined, but probably would have involved being tied to an item of furniture and thrown out of a window.)

METHOD TWO. An empty cardboard box of the type used to deliver sample issues of the latest AP is opened at the top and placed on its side on top of a convenient filing cabinet. A picture from another mag, often a celebrity's, is stuck across the opening. The vexed mighty being then stands at the other end of the room and fires continuously at the flappy target for anything up to twelve days.

After Cam left, we diffused tension in much the same way except with carefully balanced throwing machetes. Or are we lying? Or are we lying now? Or were we lying then?

No. Yes. No, hang on, no. No, we've lost track ourselves now. Bah. Grrr. Where's that oily chainsaw?