The Terms and Conditions of Everything

Simon Donnelly
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  • Comedy Fiction
  • Updated Weekly

Nobody has ever read the terms and conditions. Not once, in the whole history of the universe. Then Maurice Pellow, recently made redundant after thirty-one years checking the little plastic ends of shoelaces, reads all 412,000 words of the agreement for his new smart kettle, and ticks the box. Honestly. A comic science-fiction novel in weekly chapters about sycophantic kettles, cosmic bureaucracy and the gloriously daft world we have built. Written by Simon Donnelly. New chapter every Saturday. Read by an AI narrator.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    Chapter 5: In Which Everybody Is Benchmarked

    Before Question Two, the Representative must be shown where his species ranks. Assessor Vell has prepared slides, nobody can work the clicker, and the league table includes a civilisation that turned itself into a spreadsheet, a species that has been circling back for ten thousand years, and Earth, very near the bottom. Over a meal deal, Perpetua warns Maurice that Vell has finally read the whole file. Back in Kettering, Sophie discovers what cousin Brenda has put on Facebook. Narrated by an AI voice.

  2. Oct 17

    Chapter 4: In Which Somebody Is on Mute

    The first hearing in eleven million years, and the room was built for twelve. Forty-one people have squeezed in to watch, the Undersecretary is joining remotely through a starfish-shaped speakerphone with a cat asleep on it, and nobody can get the screen to work. Assessor Vell puts the case on the papers: humans now have less attention than a goldfish. Maurice, who spent thirty-one years checking aglets, has just one small question. Where exactly does that figure come from? Narrated by an AI voice.

  3. Oct 10

    Chapter 3: In Which Nobody Can Find a Room

    Maurice Pellow arrives at the Bureau of Consequences with a cat, a kettle and a visitor's lanyard showing a man surprised by an owl. The fate of humanity is to be decided on Thursday, but first somebody has to find a meeting room, which in an organisation with four billion of them is easier said than done. There are Seven Questions on a laminated sheet, an Assessor who has never lost, a British plug that fits nothing in the universe, and, at the bottom of a box marked Hopeless, a file somebody would rather Maurice hadn't read. Narrated by an AI voice.

  4. Oct 3

    Chapter 2: In Which Everybody Queues

    Earth has until half past five on Thursday, and the first thing Maurice does is make a cup of tea. Then he rings his daughter, cancels the milk, and discovers that the only way to reach the Bureau of Consequences is through the queue at the Post Office on a Saturday morning. With a cat and an overly supportive kettle in a bag for life, Maurice finally meets the longest queue in the universe, and the one box he really, truly should not tick. Narrated by an AI voice.

  5. Sep 27

    Chapter 1: In Which Somebody Reads the Small Print

    There is a theory that the universe is held together by the simple fact that nobody has ever read the small print. At ten past three one morning in Kettering, Maurice Pellow proves it. What begins as a man trying to boil water ends with a light coming on in a filing department on the far side of the galaxy, a very old committee that has merged into one body, and a woman from the council at the door, apparently about the bins. She isn't. Earth has a performance review on Thursday. Read by an AI narrator.

  • 5 Episodes

About

Nobody has ever read the terms and conditions. Not once, in the whole history of the universe. Then Maurice Pellow, recently made redundant after thirty-one years checking the little plastic ends of shoelaces, reads all 412,000 words of the agreement for his new smart kettle, and ticks the box. Honestly. A comic science-fiction novel in weekly chapters about sycophantic kettles, cosmic bureaucracy and the gloriously daft world we have built. Written by Simon Donnelly. New chapter every Saturday. Read by an AI narrator.

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