The Register caught up with Salmon Days at its exquisitely-restored palazzo in the hills above Florence to ask about its hopes for the future...

What are your hopes for the future?

Salmon Days: I hope, as we all do, that Information Technology will effect an enlargement of consciousness enabling every man and woman to become almost godlike philosopher-artist-scientists: with powerful super-computers integrated into our cortexes in constant communication, humanity will be, to all intents and purposes, a single immortal bio-mechanical entity. We will most likely live in sort of ornate Scandinavian-type forest temples - you know The Lord of the Rings? Like where the elves live, except with computers - and generally congregate around the really beautiful water-features to chat about, y'know, philosophy and science and so on. Technical Support will be housed underground, probably.

Now, Salmon Days will be produced in a special smoked-glass ornate pyramid in the centre of the complex, or maybe floating twenty or thirty feet above it but definitely still in the center of the complex, I won't abandon that, uh, that concept; anyway, the idea is that each episode will be downloaded directly into the artist-philosopher-whatever's cortex, accompanied by a powerfully addictive neural stimulant. I think there should be a kind of gong, also, to announce it.

As time goes by, the Chuckle Pyramid, which we will almost certainly be known as, will be able to use the threat of withholding episodes until our, like, demands or whatever are met. I think it's going to be a very exciting journey for all of us.

But if we all live in this forest city being artists, will a light-hearted swipe at the failings of IT within an office environment be all that relevant?

Salmon Days:n... yes, but, ah, you see, you haven't thought this through, have you? What will the Chuckle Pyramid be for if it doesn't produce episodes of Salmon Days, hm? There's the hole in your argument.

Moving on, then, what ambitions do you have for this first episode?

Salmon Days: Well, we want to touch people in a very special way. We want them to feel simultaneously uplifted and tense? Sort of hot and bothered yet very gentle at the same time - that's what we're aiming at.

A mixture of, like, remorse and despair. Regret, dismay, dread, shame, numb fury and a sort of generalised anxious unhappiness. Deep unhappiness - that's been our light-entertainment touchstone throughout. But at the same time we want to make our viewers remember how very precious life is, how unimaginably long the odds are against existing in the first place - something like 200-1, I believe.

Well, are there any subjects which you'd prefer not to...no? Uhm - I was wondering how you'd respond to those who'd complain about Salmon Days' occasionally off-colour humour.

Salmon Days: There are always the knockers, aren't there? They say - how is the Chuckle Pyramid going to float? I say - you've got to dream something to make it come true, y'know. We could probably have it hanging from something, some overhanging thing, I don't know. It's like my new security fence here: all these Italians saying it doesn't blend in, it's a monstrosity, blah blah... I mean, how do they know? They haven't seen it from the inside, have they? You see my point? Salmon Days never means to offend - not my style, bad taste; not my style at all, young man. Our marvelous prawn (marvelous to work with, that prawn) is the opposite of bad taste - a little trap for the pornografiends, you know. If people take offence, then

I'm sorry, life is full of sorrows we can't avoid. For instance, I was going to put "No animals were harmed during the making of Salmon Days" after the final shot, you know, to reassure the animal-lovers, and then I thought: how the hell do I know? We probably drove over plenty on the way to the location. And during the making...probably some yak stood on a landmine in Afghanistan while we were filming. Let's face it, Many millions of animals were harmed during the making of Salmon Days" is probably nearer the truth.

...you can't offer false comfort, is the idea...

Salmon Days: Exactly! And of course, once I got thinking about it, I remembered that I had, in fact, harmed quite a few animals during filming - rather badly, actually. So my first instincts were proven right!

I wondered if we could bring things to a close by summing up Salmon Days' philosophy?

Salmon Days: It's a very small, fragile, very, very unique planet. We're one of a kind. Can you imagine, say, Windows XP happening twice in the universe? Inconceivable. We're very precious. Look across the terrace, dear boy, past the searchlight installation - it's beautiful, isn't it? The rows of cypresses, the bell-tower, the swifts above the poppy-field. The real Tuscany. That's Salmon Days to me: a celebration of all the glories of being alive. Little hill-towns, rows of vines, razor-wire, sentry-towers - it's such a privilege to be alive! Motion and pressure sensors, tempered-steel chainlink fencing, ravenous German shepherds - the real Tuscany. And Salmon Days is in its modest way a joyous celebration of all this.

Thank you.