I Had a Dream.

A lady stopped me in the street, just outside Poundstretcher. I knew she was a lady because she was wearing a tiara and an evening gown in the middle of the day. She told me she was doing some kind of survey. She had surveyed everybody else, and if I didn't take my turn, she told me, people would think I had something to hide. Next to her was what I thought, at first, to be a fruit machine. She grabbed my left hand and shoved my fingers into four slots in the contraption. Then she took my right hand and did the same.

She tightened the holes with a handle on the side of the device, and I squealed, 'Ahh, you're hurting me'.

Then looking straight into my eyes, in a tone far too sinister for the high street, she said, 'No pain no gain', then she tightened the holes a bit more.

I asked her if she could elaborate on the nature of the survey and if could she tell me how long it would take. She told me to shut up, and slapped me around the back of the head.

In the Poundstretcher window just in front of me, I noticed a "Your Country Needs You" poster, and I thought about my great-grandfather who was stationed in India during the Great War. A red light started to flash just above my left hand and just below my left nipple.

'Hmm', she said, and I wondered why.

Reflected in the window was a swelling crowd, and from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a bobby in a pink uniform. A screen lit up before me, and it started to show a series of images. First, there was a picture of David Cameron, the British prime minister - I winced. Then came his sidekick, George Osbourne - I winced heavily. Barack Obama was next. Lights started flashing, and I felt a tingling sensation in my fingers.

Someone in the crowd shouted, 'Racist pig'

What the hell is going on? I thought.

Just above the shop, I noticed a huge screen with speakers on either side. All around it were flashing lights and bells braced for action. It was attracting much attention, and I started to feel like a goldfish in the stocks.

I have a dream, the 1975 Donny Osmond flop, started to play. It seemed to have stopped the flashing lights, and the calm continued during a poem entitled Ode to Mussolini. Then there was a clip of The Stylistics miming to their hit You Make Me Feel Brand New. The flashing lights started again, and an electric shock shot up my arms. The 1979 dance-floor favourite D.I.S.C.O. set off more lights, and the Johnny Mathis Christmas Album triggered lights and bells. The pink policeman started to put a cordon around me, as the machine frazzled me with electricity.

The growing crowd was booing, and some of them started throwing peanuts. A plain clothed humanitarian came up behind me and put a black rag doused in white spirit over my nose and mouth. Then on the screens, there was a clip from Blankety Blank with Terry Wogan and an all Aryan panel. The bells and lights settled down again, but I could smell violence in the air. The humanitarian pinched my left buttock, and I felt dirty. The image of my favourite weather girl made me feel dirtier still.

Looking down, I saw blood on my fingers, and I tried to formulate a statement about human rights, but I could not be heard over a scene from The Swiss family Robinson. The lady decided to give me some more information.

She came over and whispered gleefully into my ear, 'Didn't you know? It's Kill a Xenophobe Week, and they're so hard to come by in this town we have to make our own'.

She pressed the "toast" button on the machine and said, 'It's so exciting. Let's up the game', then she pulled the "indiscriminate-wipeout" lever, and she laughed like a psychopath on a roll.

On the screen, there was a still of Nelson Mandela, and from the speakers, to my horror, came a perfect impersonation of myself.

'I hate that do-gooder', it said, and the crowd jeered and hurled more peanuts at me.

'There's something wrong with your machine', I protested.

'There's something wrong with you', snapped the so-called lady.

'Help!', I pleaded, to no-one in particular.

Rolling on the pavement, a man in a straight jacket said, 'The machine never lies', and then he rolled away.

A mugshot of a pale South African president from the old days appeared, and the voice said, 'That's more like it'.

The crowd were furious, and in the panic I attempted to show them my solidarity with an unrehearsed rendition of the exquisite James Carr song Dark end of the street. I felt like Neville Chamberlain trying to sell Hitler a bunch of dead flowers.

And there I stood - helpless and shaking. In the Poundstretcher window, I could see the blood-thirsty mob behind me spitting, grinding their teeth and rolling up their sleeves. The dumb machine rattled uncontrollably, and in the distance, I heard Dancing queen being performed by a lame tribute act. I'd forgotten it was Gay Pride day, and I desperately wished I was at home. Above the crowd, an ensemble of fat hairy arses floated by.

The joyous sound of the carnival was at odds with the accompanying, long forgotten, negro-prison-song, and in desperation, I attempted to join in the cacophony with the Etta James' classic Stop the wedding. Lights flashed like an army of dirty old men in raincoats.

I took a deep breath and croaked inaudibly and out of tune, 'Wait! Wait! Stop!'.

And stop I did, open-mouthed, as the entire crowd began to chant, 'Kill! Kill! Kill!', over and over again.

'If only I could show them my rare Jamaican 45's', I muttered to myself, 'I'm sure we could work something out'.

In the window, I looked for a black face, but I couldn't see one.

Buffalo soldier by the half Glaswegian superstar blasted from the speakers, and every single light, bell and buzzer in the vicinity was going nuts. Electricity surged through my body, and my fingers were being crushed. I wondered if I'd ever see the ten little off-white digits ever again. A cacophonous crescendo filled my ears, and it became clear that I would never get to PC World alive. At the top of my voice, I tried a verse of Young, gifted and black, but it was smothered by the sound of Al Jolson singing Mammy. The machine rattled like a toolbox in a spin dryer, and smoke started to rise from the back.

The grand finale was a clip from the infamous Black and White Minstrel show - old time racial integration, 1958 to 1978. No-one was looking at the screen anymore, and I could hear foghorns in the distance getting louder and louder. A goldfish bowl smashed on the pavement, as the crowd broke through the cordon and came down on me like a tonne of lumpy custard. The world was spinning, an angelic choir started to sing Over the Rainbow, and I wished that Judy Garland would wade in to save and then caress my poor mutilated fingers.

A regiment of fattened pigs in jackboots marched through my brain then 'Thump!'... The noise subsided, my eyes snapped open, and I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Unable to get back to sleep, I went to the kitchen and mused over the nightmare. I tried to imagine a version of the Etta James song renamed "Stop the Civil partnership", and I thought of my great-grandfather crawling through enemy minefields.

Such precious gems should not be tampered with, I told myself. Besides, "Civil partnership" has too many syllables.

I made myself a jam sandwich and sat at the kitchen table for the next two days, trying to ignore the annual orgy upstairs.