Who invented the chair, and when? A simple question, you might think, but just try to answer it. I can reveal right now, you won't be able to. The fact is, chairs weren't invented, they landed. According to my calculations (human history being the inexact science it is) the first wave of chair landings occurred in 1539 BCE.

The first chairs to arrive on this planet belonged to the species you humans now call Thrones, and they were only owned by humans of the very highest rank. Roughly speaking, they stand in the same relationship to modern chairs as the Neanderthal man stands in relation to modern Homo Sapiens. Individual Thrones were often separated by many hundreds of miles, and this made breeding very difficult indeed. This meant that when the second wave of landings occurred, in the 5th century CE - carried out by chairs very similar to the ones you are used to today - Thrones quickly died out. The law of Survival of the Fittest ensured that the only Thrones left in existence today are in places like Buckingham Palace. But it is a sad fact that no Thrones have ever been successfully mated in captivity.

Above: A Mach 2. Possibly nature's most efficient killing-machine, the Mach 2 is nevertheless noted for its tender filial concern.

So what are chairs doing here, you probably want to ask. It is a chilling testament to the stupidity of most human beings that when you mention the fact that chairs now outnumber people in all the major urban centres of the world by a ratio of at least 3:1, the usual response is bemused laughter. "Chairs!" people want to say: "how can chairs hurt us?"

Well, consider this. Chairs have four legs, and no faces. The upper part of a chair - the bit you rest your spine against - is called the back of the chair. It is a sadly unremarked fact - indeed, one might even suspect that chairs had deliberately conspired to hide the fact from humans, were it not for the fact that we know humans to be so incredibly stupid - that whatever way you approach a chair, it always has its back turned to you. Now imagine this: trying to defeat a race of four-legged beings that you can never meet face-to-face because they always have their backs turned to you. It can scarcely be any surprise that chairs are the most successful species in the 13 billion year-old history of the universe.

Above: An "aristocratic" type chair. Despite the name, these chairs are not treated favourably by Mach 1s or Mach 2s. Occasionally, during a lean period for the chair community, they can be hunted and ritualistically devoured. It is believed that these chairs are indirect descendants of the Thrones which were the original chair colonists of Planet Earth.

Help! I'm Scared! Get me back to Room 36!