She has been spotted just over the border. Next to a bus stop. The dutiful observers have marked her condition as no higher than "foetal". This marks the culmination of a series of events that started with the street being in a state of disturbance because she had decided upon a dirty protest: lying in the gutter all night had been the final straw – the final straw in question being the one that had been inserted into the last cider bottle of the intended journey home.
She was a card-carrying dipsomaniac. She needed to be. It was not possible to be a dipsomaniac without displaying a dipsomaniac card. Service would be refused. This was just one example of the social engineering endeavours put into place by the new ecumenical government. The card details were electronically tattooed to her forehead. In accordance with the brotherhood junta edict, the expiry date was her expiry date, and would jolt her braincells to extinction and release her soul to its destination at that particular time on that particular date if the alcohol hadn't done the job first.
Fortunately, the obligation to possess what would hitherto have been regarded as an infringement of civil liberties in such a conspicuous fashion was slightly obviated by the removal of any need to carry a bus pass – for, indeed, she was of that age. Dipsomaniac-card carriers were simply breathalysed on their stumbling attempts to board the bus and evicted if their blood contained insufficient alcohol.
This is where our story truly commences. She had drunk mightily the previous day, but had consumed such a huge and unselective quantity of food that her system had delayed the induction of alcohol and for the very first time she had failed the breathalyser test on the last bus back home across the border. Hence the sleeping in the gutter, and hence the blurred decision the next day to undertake the dirty protest.
She had bought up all the supplies of cocoa from all the supermarkets in town and had smeared herself in it. A light drizzle had fallen. It had creamed her chocolate-based purchases to a spiked but wobbly second skin. She walked down the street with this second skin pulsing like an Ivory Coast glacier. Whenever she stopped, it was several seconds before her coating came to a halt, so she gradually built up a huge pectoral fin of semi-liquid, semi-solid chocolate which eventually hardened in the newly emerged sun and meant that every time she subsequently turned around to scream her protests at passers-by, a ridge of pure plain minimum 70% cocoa solids smacked those closest to her to the ground. She didn't care. She was sober, but out-of-control and inconsolable. "Fair transport policies for drunks," she screamed. "Respect for the teetotal and temporary sober! But no half-measures for the half-cut! Equal rights! End this discrimination now! No more picking on the confusion of this nation's alcoholically-affected semi-coherent senior citizens!"
Pedestrians slalomed away to avoid her. Youths videoed her harangues on their mobile phones. Fat boys ran up to her and licked her. Fat girls broke bits off her fin and ate them until her stomach was as smooth as the head on the finest stout. She stared at herself in a shop window and carefully inscribed the single word "SHAME!" into her false front in mirror-writing.
But by now she was frozen into her giant Humpty Dumpty Easter Egg of Protest. The sun was hot enough to bake her into imprisonment, but not hot enough to melt her free. She could do with a drink, but had smeared her face too enthusiastically, so she could now neither partake of anything potable nor continue to shout her protests. Her mouth was cemented shut. Only her nostrils were clear, so she could at least breathe.
She staggered down to the public stage area outside the town hall. Four men dressed in the cowls and robes of the newly set up monks' militia appeared. They stared at her. They powered their lasered eye-beams at her. She started to melt, but her chocolate coating did not. She liquefied and slithered to the curved base of the egg, like an embryo, occupying a mere one eighth of its capacity. She had no control over her movements: she had become merely the swithering swoosh of churned-up body-matter and mangled brain-matter that she had aspired to all her life.
She became aware of monkish hands reaching for her elliptical shell and then she was rolling down the street, asymmetrically and erratically gaining speed, her liquidised remains slopping against the constraining walls of her peripatetic prison.
She picked up speed, her memory telling her that she was skedaddling over a narrow bridge, and she felt her momentum carry her up a hill, around a bend, then up and onto the level, rolling all the way until she became aware of the crossing of the border, because, instantly, it started raining. Her dirty protest Easter egg shell started to thaw.
And now she crawls out of her chocolate cocoon, a slither of primeval sludge fudge. She has been strewn on the earth, and is without form. Her life will have to begin to evolve again. She will need to build up her structure, atom-by-atom, slowly allowing her limbs to emerge and strengthen and gradually, again atom-by-atom, willing her internal organs to regrow. The task will be long and hard, but she will take on board lessons learnt, and the process will culminate in a new body, a new resolve, a new inner purity.
But in the meantime, she could murder a drink.
Showing posts with label Ill Humour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ill Humour. Show all posts
Worst of all Possible Days Blues
Well I woke up this morning, and I opened my eyes. I looked up at the ceiling. It fell on me.
Fortunately, I knew that since I lived in a bungalow, no more ceilings could fall on me. I brushed the debris of the ceiling away from my eyes and looked up through the tattered remains of the roof felt at the newly exposed roof tiles, twitching and groaning slightly in the encroaching heat of the morning. The roof fell on me, spearing cracked-off baked-earth daggers down and into me, like I was an arrowed martyr.
I brushed the blood-specked shards of the roof away from my body. I looked up at the newly exposed dawn sky. The sky fell on me, plunging at me in a powdery shake of disturbed cosmic matter.
I brushed the dust of the sky away from my eyes. I waited. I opened my eyes. Before I could focus, the solar system fell on me.
I clawed the drooled ooze that was the sun-melted mess of planets from my hair and I opened my eyes. The universe fell on me. This was not starting out the best of all possible days.
Furthermore, I was now in a dilemma. If the universe had fallen on me, where was I, since I was clearly not in the universe?
Moreover, I noticed that I was narrating in the past tense, possibly in a reaction to the remorseless trend for unbridled breathless present tense exposition that seemed to have taken hold of the literary zeitgeist of the nation, not to say the universe. This presented a further dilemma: if I was relating these details from a post hoc standpoint, where could I possibly now be, following the collapse of the universe?
I stirred uneasily on the bed. Uneasily was disinclined to move, which seemed unreasonable as she was an adverb, and hence her whole function was supposed to be the modification of action.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Distantly, remotely, inexplicably, surreally, dangerously, in an isolated fashion, in an alienated fashion..." she intoned. In spite of all my efforts, she was still incapable of speaking anything other than her own language: adverb-speak. It was a language high in variety, action and nuance, but low in style, contrast and coherent information. Possibly purchasing a bride from the Roget's Thesaurus Marriage Agency (Bangkok branch): mission statement – hundreds of brides to meet your exact requirements and thousands more to allow you to explore interesting serendipitous byways of your desire – had been a mistake.
"But how does our current position relate to the universe that we used to inhabit and which is now in pieces on the bedroom floor?" I enquired.
"Interestingly in a totally removed fashion alternatively separately externally," she replied.
This was not helping. I was tempted simply to give up. My life was without form and my marriage was without form and my surroundings were also without form. Even though everything was dark, I was clearly – and I use the adverb carefully – as I also did that one – in a post-universal universe. How could things possibly get worse?
"Please tell me: is this real?" I asked my wife.
"Fantastically imaginatively delusionally neurotically creatively post-traumatically unknowingly," she replied.
"So this isn't real?" I enquired. "This is a set of mirages, and I am in a linked series of ever-superseding dreams?"
"Indubitably," she replied.
"So how do I get out of here?" I asked.
"Imitatively repetitively intuitively perseveringly doggedly painstakingly in a disciplined fashion" was her response.
"So the only way out of this predicament is to embrace my inner adverbial mode of expression?" I asked.
"Certainly" she replied.
"But my whole prose style is based upon the removal of adverbs at the least provocation," I stated.
"Regrettably" was her single word rejoinder.
"OK. OK. I get the picture," I snapped in an exasperated fashion. I mean "I undoubtedly understand that I need immediately to apply myself stringently to diligently devising a set of solutions to this predicament in a determined and dedicated fashion."
"Exactly," she replied.
I repented immediately of my previous arrogance. Why hadn't I listened intently to the words of my wife before? Why had I merely sulked deeply and not attempted to interpret her words comprehensively?
In the dark, I clung tightly to the hand of my wife, carefully envisaged all the trusty documents of my library and pillaged them remorselessly for all available adverbs to assist me generously in my task of dreaming the universe promptly back into existence.
I intoned my mantra: "This is positively optimistically constructively affirmatively unquestionably in an upbeat fashion assuredly confidently certainly the best of all possible days."
The universe evaporated away from me and the drooled ooze that was the sun-melted mess of planets from the fallen solar system was back in my hair.
Again and again I repeated my mantra and the solar system evaporated away from me and the powdery shake of disturbed cosmic matter that was sky was back on me and then the sky evaporated away and the blood-specked shards of the roof were stretched across my body and then the roof evaporated away and the debris of the ceiling was caked across my eyes and then with the final repetition of my mantra: "This is positively optimistically constructively affirmatively unquestionably in an upbeat fashion assuredly confidently certainly the best of all possible days", the ceiling evaporated away and everything was calm.
And now, I feel the present tense swirling in on me. My eyes open, and I take cognisance of the world about me. I am aware that Uneasily is lying beside me, as still as before. Relief swells into me. The adverbially-enhanced power of positive thinking has worked. The ceiling is in place again, with the same minor expansion cracks that it had before. It creaks slightly, in a reassuringly familiar and solid fashion. It falls on me.
Clinging On - A Christmas Explanation
I am - to use one of the demotic phrases of your tribe - pleased to meet you. I realise that having what you term a conversation with a flea clinging to the anal hairs of a donkey may not be an everyday experience for any member of your species - in fact, I understand that some of your inhabited settlements are so benighted that the very expression "flea clinging to the anal hairs of a donkey" is actually a term of insult - so I shall attempt to make allowances, slow down my communication metabolism and attempt to establish clearly the appropriate mental conversion processes that will transmit my thoughts via your comparatively primitive "speech and hearing" mode of communication that you have evolved to use - we can only hope that it is fully functioning.
I am ready to deal with your query. Please be assured that I witnessed the events from a very similar vantage point to that which I currently occupy - my precise location being, of course, at the whim of the ass in question - a period ago that your culture would regard as a long time, in fact approximately two of those units that you refer to as centuries. As requested, I shall proceed to explain what happened the night that the couple arrived.
First of all let me clarify that they were not put amongst us as rejects who had no other place to go to, which is an ignoble hypothesis disseminated by an ignorant majority of your tribe. As has been recently accurately documented by one of your leading scribes, but ignored to a quite inconceivable degree by other members of your species, and your tribe in particular, their location amongst us was the result of an act of kindness by the innkeeper to ensure that they were in a quiet place, as far away from the bumbling tumble of the swarming revenant censused hordes as possible. Believe me, there is no peace where there are bureaucrats, or any massing of the recipients of their bureaucratic largesse. Moreover, it was that time of the year when the cold starts to intrude, and for those inhabitants of this earth not able to snuggle up into the steam of an equine rectum, the proximity of tied-up beasts of burden can provide a welcome blanket of heat and on this occasion was indeed a desirable boost to the body warmth of the couple and by extension to that of the woman's own hidden-away tied-up yet-to-emerge beast of burden.
I saw it all from my vantage, clinging where I am clinging now, having satiated myself on whatever scraps or crusts I could find in the sweating cave of muscle where I had habitually located myself. You will observe that I have not moved far, merely transferring my allegiance to successive generations of donkeys, a creature whose life-span appears to be even smaller than yours.
I saw them come in, and tether their ass next to mine. I saw her lay down and rest among the splinters, whilst he stood quietly by. Her halo was immediately apparent, but if he had one, it was invisible to me.
I was not the only example of insect life here. On one occasion, there were also three beetles, crawling across the stones in a line, each with a cross-shape on its back. The man made as if to crush them, but his wife restrained him, picked up the middle one, and held it to her distended belly for a while, before returning it to its middle position. Why she did this, I do not know, because word travels not so much slowly as not at all to the likes of us, and this was a gesture that had no cultural resonance to me and still does not. It is undocumented by your species. The two of them watched the beetles scuttle away beneath the wall and I never saw them return.
The moment soon came when it was time for the child to come out. The mother screamed and spat among the splinters, and yelled in a language I could not discern, while he stood by, quietly, interlocking her clenched fists with his, with the servant woman standing close to them with buckets of cold water, and it came out, and it was a he, its unsliced appendage nestling at the vee of its thighs. The child had no halo that I could discern either. The servant woman reached out, snapped and tied the tether, and smacked the backside of the boy, and when it yelled, all the hooves of the cattle, horses and donkeys drummed together but out of time with each other as if… But no, my role is to describe, not to assign my own interpretation of significance.
They were suddenly not short of visitors. Your testimonies refer to shepherds. They were here. They had been told, much against their wishes, to come to the city to be registered. It is in their tradition to visit new-born babies, to establish a hidden link between the new outpouring of life and the fertility of the pastures upon which the well-being of their beasts depends. They spoke not a word while they were here. Their ovine odour upset the animals. My donkey had a loosening of the bowels that provided initially extra nourishment but subsequently an uneasy abode.
Six meretricious rogues came later by a small number of those units of time that your species refers to as "days", each pair bringing a present between them. Again, the narratives of your officially enshrined documentaries would have it that there were merely three of them, purely because there were three presents, and I believe that other facets of your information system have gone so far as to ascribe totally spurious names to them. Nor were they philosophers: they were pedlars, wrapped in the cheap colours of cheap finery, trying to sell their wares after they had handed over their obligatory gifts as both offerings and samples. She and he, however, had no money, and so the six of them continued on their way, to pester the assembled temporary migrants and attempt to avoid the officials.
And shortly after this, the couple and the baby left, taking their own donkey with them. I was tempted to change my allegiance and switch arses, but security has always won out over adventurousness in my consciousness. As they moved through the stable door, she brushed her hair with her hand, and her halo fell to the ground and shattered.
So there we have it. This is what I saw, and this is what I know. I can state no more.
Moreover, tomorrow is a once-in-a-year treat in the calendar of this particular donkey-anal-flea, that time where I change my diet for just one day to absorb the nutrients that prolong my longevity and keep my sense of recall sharp, and I shall sneak out of my muscular home to feast on the remains of the discarded shards of ancient halo. It is Christmas, after all.
I am ready to deal with your query. Please be assured that I witnessed the events from a very similar vantage point to that which I currently occupy - my precise location being, of course, at the whim of the ass in question - a period ago that your culture would regard as a long time, in fact approximately two of those units that you refer to as centuries. As requested, I shall proceed to explain what happened the night that the couple arrived.
First of all let me clarify that they were not put amongst us as rejects who had no other place to go to, which is an ignoble hypothesis disseminated by an ignorant majority of your tribe. As has been recently accurately documented by one of your leading scribes, but ignored to a quite inconceivable degree by other members of your species, and your tribe in particular, their location amongst us was the result of an act of kindness by the innkeeper to ensure that they were in a quiet place, as far away from the bumbling tumble of the swarming revenant censused hordes as possible. Believe me, there is no peace where there are bureaucrats, or any massing of the recipients of their bureaucratic largesse. Moreover, it was that time of the year when the cold starts to intrude, and for those inhabitants of this earth not able to snuggle up into the steam of an equine rectum, the proximity of tied-up beasts of burden can provide a welcome blanket of heat and on this occasion was indeed a desirable boost to the body warmth of the couple and by extension to that of the woman's own hidden-away tied-up yet-to-emerge beast of burden.
I saw it all from my vantage, clinging where I am clinging now, having satiated myself on whatever scraps or crusts I could find in the sweating cave of muscle where I had habitually located myself. You will observe that I have not moved far, merely transferring my allegiance to successive generations of donkeys, a creature whose life-span appears to be even smaller than yours.
I saw them come in, and tether their ass next to mine. I saw her lay down and rest among the splinters, whilst he stood quietly by. Her halo was immediately apparent, but if he had one, it was invisible to me.
I was not the only example of insect life here. On one occasion, there were also three beetles, crawling across the stones in a line, each with a cross-shape on its back. The man made as if to crush them, but his wife restrained him, picked up the middle one, and held it to her distended belly for a while, before returning it to its middle position. Why she did this, I do not know, because word travels not so much slowly as not at all to the likes of us, and this was a gesture that had no cultural resonance to me and still does not. It is undocumented by your species. The two of them watched the beetles scuttle away beneath the wall and I never saw them return.
The moment soon came when it was time for the child to come out. The mother screamed and spat among the splinters, and yelled in a language I could not discern, while he stood by, quietly, interlocking her clenched fists with his, with the servant woman standing close to them with buckets of cold water, and it came out, and it was a he, its unsliced appendage nestling at the vee of its thighs. The child had no halo that I could discern either. The servant woman reached out, snapped and tied the tether, and smacked the backside of the boy, and when it yelled, all the hooves of the cattle, horses and donkeys drummed together but out of time with each other as if… But no, my role is to describe, not to assign my own interpretation of significance.
They were suddenly not short of visitors. Your testimonies refer to shepherds. They were here. They had been told, much against their wishes, to come to the city to be registered. It is in their tradition to visit new-born babies, to establish a hidden link between the new outpouring of life and the fertility of the pastures upon which the well-being of their beasts depends. They spoke not a word while they were here. Their ovine odour upset the animals. My donkey had a loosening of the bowels that provided initially extra nourishment but subsequently an uneasy abode.
Six meretricious rogues came later by a small number of those units of time that your species refers to as "days", each pair bringing a present between them. Again, the narratives of your officially enshrined documentaries would have it that there were merely three of them, purely because there were three presents, and I believe that other facets of your information system have gone so far as to ascribe totally spurious names to them. Nor were they philosophers: they were pedlars, wrapped in the cheap colours of cheap finery, trying to sell their wares after they had handed over their obligatory gifts as both offerings and samples. She and he, however, had no money, and so the six of them continued on their way, to pester the assembled temporary migrants and attempt to avoid the officials.
And shortly after this, the couple and the baby left, taking their own donkey with them. I was tempted to change my allegiance and switch arses, but security has always won out over adventurousness in my consciousness. As they moved through the stable door, she brushed her hair with her hand, and her halo fell to the ground and shattered.
So there we have it. This is what I saw, and this is what I know. I can state no more.
Moreover, tomorrow is a once-in-a-year treat in the calendar of this particular donkey-anal-flea, that time where I change my diet for just one day to absorb the nutrients that prolong my longevity and keep my sense of recall sharp, and I shall sneak out of my muscular home to feast on the remains of the discarded shards of ancient halo. It is Christmas, after all.
An Agricultural Rap
Everybody in the house, please say “no”!
Everybody in the house, please say “heavens, no”!
When I was born I was locked to the earth
Been agricultural since the day of my birth
Squeezed by the system like pig manure
As I searched for a footing that was hard and sure
But it was soft and squidgy every step of my life
But I oozed through school to a job and a wife
And a proud position on Daddy’s farm
That I fell right into without a single qualm
It was just another step along the family tree
To a total loss of my own identity
And I knew it was a sop
And I felt like a flop
Just a pretty boy fop
Who wasn't much cop
And they caught me on the hop
I was meant for the chop
There was nothing I could stop
I had to work for my pop
And I felt myself drop
Right through the slurry with the crust on top
Singing
Scissors scissors scissors!
scissors scissors scissors!
Stone stone stone!
stone stone stone!
Paper paper paper!
paper paper paper!
Chills you to the bone
No one hears you groan
When you’re all alone
So that's the life that I'm living now
Disseminate the bull, inseminate the cow
And remembering to get it the right way round
To avoid being trampled right into the ground
And I could never be hip
With this stiff upper lip
I’m about as street as month-old sheep dip
So though other rappers talk about bitches and hoes
I don’t like to fraternise with those
Yes other rappers talk about hoes fulfilling needs
But the only hoes I know are used to slice weeds
So that kind of talk just seems rather silly
I don’t call women “ho”, I prefer to say “filly”
And other rappers talk about bling and bitches
When I’m clearing ditches
When I’m up to my britches
Trying not to queer my pitches
When every twitch is monitored
By the kitchen witches
Try to get by without hitches
And I’m trying to avoid glitches
Then life don’t seem a rose bed of sparkling diamond riches
No life is hard and messy as a bovine infection
And down these mean lanes a man needs protection
Because life is a beast that’s erratic as the weather
So I carry a blade, in fact two joined together
But life takes your scissors and blunts them with stone
That walls you back in your discomfort zone
Life takes your stone and wraps it in paper
Stifles your zest and wrecks your capabilities
Life takes your paper, cuts it with its blades
Inflicts a mental wound that never ever fades
But I don’t like to cuss
Don’t like to make a fuss
Don't like to tussle
With the things that make me flustered
If life’s lost its lustre
Don’t be a sourpuss
Because it all comes round again like the Archer’s omnibus
Sing…
Scissors scissors scissors!
scissors scissors scissors!
Stone stone stone!
stone stone stone!
Paper paper paper!
paper paper paper!
Chills you to the bone
No one hears you groan
When you’re all alone
Sorry, don’t mean to moan
It just sort of lowers the tone
It could be worse, I own
The queen’s still on the throne
Everybody in the house, please say “heavens, no”!
When I was born I was locked to the earth
Been agricultural since the day of my birth
Squeezed by the system like pig manure
As I searched for a footing that was hard and sure
But it was soft and squidgy every step of my life
But I oozed through school to a job and a wife
And a proud position on Daddy’s farm
That I fell right into without a single qualm
It was just another step along the family tree
To a total loss of my own identity
And I knew it was a sop
And I felt like a flop
Just a pretty boy fop
Who wasn't much cop
And they caught me on the hop
I was meant for the chop
There was nothing I could stop
I had to work for my pop
And I felt myself drop
Right through the slurry with the crust on top
Singing
Scissors scissors scissors!
scissors scissors scissors!
Stone stone stone!
stone stone stone!
Paper paper paper!
paper paper paper!
Chills you to the bone
No one hears you groan
When you’re all alone
So that's the life that I'm living now
Disseminate the bull, inseminate the cow
And remembering to get it the right way round
To avoid being trampled right into the ground
And I could never be hip
With this stiff upper lip
I’m about as street as month-old sheep dip
So though other rappers talk about bitches and hoes
I don’t like to fraternise with those
Yes other rappers talk about hoes fulfilling needs
But the only hoes I know are used to slice weeds
So that kind of talk just seems rather silly
I don’t call women “ho”, I prefer to say “filly”
And other rappers talk about bling and bitches
When I’m clearing ditches
When I’m up to my britches
Trying not to queer my pitches
When every twitch is monitored
By the kitchen witches
Try to get by without hitches
And I’m trying to avoid glitches
Then life don’t seem a rose bed of sparkling diamond riches
No life is hard and messy as a bovine infection
And down these mean lanes a man needs protection
Because life is a beast that’s erratic as the weather
So I carry a blade, in fact two joined together
But life takes your scissors and blunts them with stone
That walls you back in your discomfort zone
Life takes your stone and wraps it in paper
Stifles your zest and wrecks your capabilities
Life takes your paper, cuts it with its blades
Inflicts a mental wound that never ever fades
But I don’t like to cuss
Don’t like to make a fuss
Don't like to tussle
With the things that make me flustered
If life’s lost its lustre
Don’t be a sourpuss
Because it all comes round again like the Archer’s omnibus
Sing…
Scissors scissors scissors!
scissors scissors scissors!
Stone stone stone!
stone stone stone!
Paper paper paper!
paper paper paper!
Chills you to the bone
No one hears you groan
When you’re all alone
Sorry, don’t mean to moan
It just sort of lowers the tone
It could be worse, I own
The queen’s still on the throne
Instructions for the Utilisation of the Intra-Nostril Anti-Snoring Calliper.
Please read these instructions carefully and in full before carrying out any of the operations.
Take a sedative.
Take a deep breath. Hold the breath.
Take the object and hold it beneath one of your nostrils – it doesn't matter which one, as research suggests that the phenomenon is always symmetrical.
Extend the slider into your nose – don't worry; it is made of thin metal for this very purpose.
Take it easy.
When you feel pain, stop, and secure the slider at the position where it has started to impinge against your internal protuberance.
Take the reading. Breathe out.
Pray hard. To whatever god you support. Think of the number on the scale. Concentrate hard. It is essential to communicate the exactly correct measurement to your brain, and as a result to configure it in an appropriate fashion.
Look hard. Close your eyes and gaze into your brain. Ensure that your vision of the distance between the protuberances of your brain matches the measurement that you have just taken.
There – the snoring will have abated tonight, and will not return, if you stay with the process. The object has done its work and no longer has any function for you: it has become decorative.
Place the object on the mantelpiece. Be careful about the angle at which you place it. Make sure that the inevitably disturbed nasal congestion does not run down too quickly. Avoid letting the substance touch and hence spoil the surface of the mantelpiece. We have observed that the particular type of marble that you have chosen for your mantelpiece is hard, but also slightly absorbent. Let the snot dribble slowly into the obscure angles of the device. Let it crust into whirls and edges. This will add to its decorative value. Rotate the device intermittently so that the snot catches the light evenly. The slider should remain locked at your reading. This is important. Your subconscious needs constantly to refresh itself with a reminder of the topography of the inside of your nose and also needs subsequently to remodel the bumps in your brain accordingly; otherwise, you will start to snore again.
However, it is essential that, to your conscious mind, the object remains purely ornamental. Do not fear – once you have carried out these instructions correctly, your conscious mind will have forgotten all this after the first night's sleep and these instructions will be rendered incomprehensible.
It is also essential that the object, having relinquished its utility, genuinely remains beautiful to you; otherwise, as has been previously attested by others, it will lack any qualification to remain in your house, which will cause you to reject it, fail to notice it, and start to snore again.
Do not touch the snot. To remain beautiful, to catch the light in a pleasing fashion, it is essential that its shape be formed purely by the breeze, the sun and gravity. That way, the essence of the room will be kept in balance.
Watch it solidify to intermingling patches of transparency, translucence and opacity.
Watch it shine in the light, draped on its thin metal cover, like newly budded life formed by the machine.
Continue to ensure that it catches the sun, but keep it away from permanent direct sunlight, so that the beauty of the muted greens and greys doesn't fade.
Remember that the object has no meaning, but also remember that even solely attractive objects have a reminder embedded within them, namely, in this case, that the world is, like dried snot, merely the waste product of a higher being, that the world is less elastic than it was, but also that the world is still beautiful.
Please sleep peacefully.
Mr. Worthington Attempts to Visit Champagne Elizabeth
(A Tale of Modern Shopping)
I went to the superstore to see my friend Liz
And I stalked her to her lair beneath the bottles of fizz
But her doss roll was empty - she was nowhere in sight
She must have gone for a walk – unless she'd stayed out all night
But I crouched to the floor despite my creaking knee
Just to check if she was under there hiding from me
But when I straightened up, what did I see
But a pair of bone-brained bouncers staring quizzically?
"Is there a problem, sir? Are you looking for mice?
No? Or maybe you've spilled a bag of long-grain rice?
No? Perhaps instead you'd like a bit of heartfelt advice
And I really do hope I won't need to tell you twice
You see we let people stay here - we let them stay for free
As long as they're pillars of society
Because we're fussy about the inmates of our cosy little nests
The people who undertake our sociological tests
So we don't allow riffraff and we don't allow pests
And most of all, sir, we don't allow guests!
Now, sir, since we find ourselves at this particular junction
I would like to say without compunction
You might prefer to use the store for its allotted function
Do something radical if you don't mind me dropping
A hint but perhaps you might like to do some shopping
That way you might not get yourself barred from the store
Because if you do get barred, we won't see you any more
Not without you risking your life and your limb
And the only people risking that are very very dim
Because should you be barred and try to sneak in on a whim
Well, select your burial method and choose your hymn."
They were not very happy, made no attempt to mask it
I thought one of them was about to blow a gasket
And having no desire to end up in a casket
I turned on my heels and located a basket
Conveniently abandoned by a man who'd run away
When he saw the men in white coats over suits of bouncer grey
So I picked it up in spite of my piles
And my swimming head remembering the night on the tiles
And started to clock up my pedestrian miles
Pursued by the bouncers with their phoney professional smiles
Until I dipped into my burgeoning armoury of wiles
When I spied a nun, so while they waddled down the aisles
I hid inside the habit of the wimpled sister
She didn't seem to mind - it was all just grist to
The mill, so I thanked her – I even kissed her
She looked at me as I were a bursting blister
And gagged and reached for a bottle of Lister-
Ine and swigged it - I thought that fisti-
Cuffs were on the cards; I knew I'd really pissed her
Off when she said prepare to meet your maker, mister!
And I was driven into a state of trembling contrition
By that blast of religious anger like nuclear fission
Which meant that my sole remaining ambition
Was to embark upon a scatter-shot shopping expedition
And I threw stuff in at random in my panic-stricken haste:
A butter-drenched salmon you don't need to baste
A jumbo-sized catering pack of bloater paste
And a pack of fishnet tights – sheer to the waist
In a rather fetching shade of autumn russet
I don't know why I picked that up – I started to cuss it
(I prefer the reassurance of a good thick gusset)
Because you really can't imagine the outraged fuss it
Causes if you ladder your tights in the pubs that I frequent
It's a bigger faux pas than having stocking seams bent
But as I went towards the checkout, the bouncers were assembling
Seeing them there, I started shaking and trembling
To the literary eye they were clearly resembling
The Lancastrian army in King Richard the Third
A bunch of heavies pursuing an agent whose drink is never stirred
And the lynching party in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
So not wishing to enter this Theatre of the Absurd
I thought I'd better turn and head for the hills
In the shape of the bank of automatic tills
With their beeps and their squawks and their zombie queue of three
And the man standing there with his override key
(The key to his future redundancy)
I chose the closest scanner and she started to drone
She asked me if I'd got a bag of my own
I pressed a random button then picked up the tights
And dropped them in my panic on the glass of flashing lights
Her voice broke in: "Put the item in the bag"
But I was frozen to the spot - my attention starting to flag
She sighed about the instructions that I'd clearly not followed
She waited a while then audibly swallowed
"Please put the item in the bag, Mr. Worthington, put the item in the bag"
I gasped "How do you know my name?" in astonishment
She replied in a tone of barely concealed admonishment
"You reached out to me with your fingerprint
And when you did, I thought I caught a glint
Of intelligence. Even though it's not the most scint-
illating glimpse into a human's mind
When you do this job you take what you can find
Now even though your faculties have clearly declined
Please put the item in the bag
I can scan the barcode of your synaptic gaps
I can analyse every behavioural lapse
I can review your life's few triumphs and your many mishaps
Now put the item in the bag
I've absorbed a sample of your DNA
So I know that you'd prefer to avoid an affray
But I also know you lack the means to pay
Still - put the item in the bag
Your bag's too heavy; your life's too dense
You've stopped fully functioning – you've stopped making sense
It's time that you stopped sitting on the fence
And put the item in the bag
You're trapped by the machine - you know you can't fight 'em
So don't make a fuss, don't try to spite 'em
Or they'll simply scan your heart and say "Unauthorised item!"
Now put the item in the bag, Mr. Worthington, put the item in the bag
You've few close friends but three enemies near
They've seen you: I don't want to put the fear
Of God into you, but when you start to run
You need to beat the bouncers, but don't neglect the nun!
Now flee for your life - don't forget to take your loot!"
So I sprinted outside with the goons in hot pursuit
They caught me straight away - they made a surfboard of my skin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I felt the mouth blood pulse, and dribble down my chin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I could feel them separating my yang from my yin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I felt my presence loosen and start to thin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I was all shook up and shaken all about
I suddenly passed over, with a final shout
Of swelling up then quickly diminishing pain
And I was drifting away on the astral plane
Away from my spreading corporeal stain
The number of spectators was starting to swell
The police were on the scene, the ambulance as well
And the nun was standing there, prescribing final rites
Immersed in a shower of flashing blue lights
And then she lit a pair of kitchen cupboard candles
Whilst they unzipped the cloth and they straightened the handles
And as I floated up on a cloud's wispy snag
I saw my self below me like a scrap of rag
But I clearly heard them say, as they paused for a fag
"Let's put the item in the body bag."
I went to the superstore to see my friend Liz
And I stalked her to her lair beneath the bottles of fizz
But her doss roll was empty - she was nowhere in sight
She must have gone for a walk – unless she'd stayed out all night
But I crouched to the floor despite my creaking knee
Just to check if she was under there hiding from me
But when I straightened up, what did I see
But a pair of bone-brained bouncers staring quizzically?
"Is there a problem, sir? Are you looking for mice?
No? Or maybe you've spilled a bag of long-grain rice?
No? Perhaps instead you'd like a bit of heartfelt advice
And I really do hope I won't need to tell you twice
You see we let people stay here - we let them stay for free
As long as they're pillars of society
Because we're fussy about the inmates of our cosy little nests
The people who undertake our sociological tests
So we don't allow riffraff and we don't allow pests
And most of all, sir, we don't allow guests!
Now, sir, since we find ourselves at this particular junction
I would like to say without compunction
You might prefer to use the store for its allotted function
Do something radical if you don't mind me dropping
A hint but perhaps you might like to do some shopping
That way you might not get yourself barred from the store
Because if you do get barred, we won't see you any more
Not without you risking your life and your limb
And the only people risking that are very very dim
Because should you be barred and try to sneak in on a whim
Well, select your burial method and choose your hymn."
They were not very happy, made no attempt to mask it
I thought one of them was about to blow a gasket
And having no desire to end up in a casket
I turned on my heels and located a basket
Conveniently abandoned by a man who'd run away
When he saw the men in white coats over suits of bouncer grey
So I picked it up in spite of my piles
And my swimming head remembering the night on the tiles
And started to clock up my pedestrian miles
Pursued by the bouncers with their phoney professional smiles
Until I dipped into my burgeoning armoury of wiles
When I spied a nun, so while they waddled down the aisles
I hid inside the habit of the wimpled sister
She didn't seem to mind - it was all just grist to
The mill, so I thanked her – I even kissed her
She looked at me as I were a bursting blister
And gagged and reached for a bottle of Lister-
Ine and swigged it - I thought that fisti-
Cuffs were on the cards; I knew I'd really pissed her
Off when she said prepare to meet your maker, mister!
And I was driven into a state of trembling contrition
By that blast of religious anger like nuclear fission
Which meant that my sole remaining ambition
Was to embark upon a scatter-shot shopping expedition
And I threw stuff in at random in my panic-stricken haste:
A butter-drenched salmon you don't need to baste
A jumbo-sized catering pack of bloater paste
And a pack of fishnet tights – sheer to the waist
In a rather fetching shade of autumn russet
I don't know why I picked that up – I started to cuss it
(I prefer the reassurance of a good thick gusset)
Because you really can't imagine the outraged fuss it
Causes if you ladder your tights in the pubs that I frequent
It's a bigger faux pas than having stocking seams bent
But as I went towards the checkout, the bouncers were assembling
Seeing them there, I started shaking and trembling
To the literary eye they were clearly resembling
The Lancastrian army in King Richard the Third
A bunch of heavies pursuing an agent whose drink is never stirred
And the lynching party in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
So not wishing to enter this Theatre of the Absurd
I thought I'd better turn and head for the hills
In the shape of the bank of automatic tills
With their beeps and their squawks and their zombie queue of three
And the man standing there with his override key
(The key to his future redundancy)
I chose the closest scanner and she started to drone
She asked me if I'd got a bag of my own
I pressed a random button then picked up the tights
And dropped them in my panic on the glass of flashing lights
Her voice broke in: "Put the item in the bag"
But I was frozen to the spot - my attention starting to flag
She sighed about the instructions that I'd clearly not followed
She waited a while then audibly swallowed
"Please put the item in the bag, Mr. Worthington, put the item in the bag"
I gasped "How do you know my name?" in astonishment
She replied in a tone of barely concealed admonishment
"You reached out to me with your fingerprint
And when you did, I thought I caught a glint
Of intelligence. Even though it's not the most scint-
illating glimpse into a human's mind
When you do this job you take what you can find
Now even though your faculties have clearly declined
Please put the item in the bag
I can scan the barcode of your synaptic gaps
I can analyse every behavioural lapse
I can review your life's few triumphs and your many mishaps
Now put the item in the bag
I've absorbed a sample of your DNA
So I know that you'd prefer to avoid an affray
But I also know you lack the means to pay
Still - put the item in the bag
Your bag's too heavy; your life's too dense
You've stopped fully functioning – you've stopped making sense
It's time that you stopped sitting on the fence
And put the item in the bag
You're trapped by the machine - you know you can't fight 'em
So don't make a fuss, don't try to spite 'em
Or they'll simply scan your heart and say "Unauthorised item!"
Now put the item in the bag, Mr. Worthington, put the item in the bag
You've few close friends but three enemies near
They've seen you: I don't want to put the fear
Of God into you, but when you start to run
You need to beat the bouncers, but don't neglect the nun!
Now flee for your life - don't forget to take your loot!"
So I sprinted outside with the goons in hot pursuit
They caught me straight away - they made a surfboard of my skin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I felt the mouth blood pulse, and dribble down my chin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I could feel them separating my yang from my yin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I felt my presence loosen and start to thin
They put their left feet in; they put their right feet in
I was all shook up and shaken all about
I suddenly passed over, with a final shout
Of swelling up then quickly diminishing pain
And I was drifting away on the astral plane
Away from my spreading corporeal stain
The number of spectators was starting to swell
The police were on the scene, the ambulance as well
And the nun was standing there, prescribing final rites
Immersed in a shower of flashing blue lights
And then she lit a pair of kitchen cupboard candles
Whilst they unzipped the cloth and they straightened the handles
And as I floated up on a cloud's wispy snag
I saw my self below me like a scrap of rag
But I clearly heard them say, as they paused for a fag
"Let's put the item in the body bag."
A Response to Kubla Khan
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure-dome decree."
Note: Coleridge’s biographer, Richard Holmes, has stated that the Moghul emperors’ pleasure domes were in fact portable devices and hence could be considered to be the early precursors of the caravan.
To the editor, “Caravanserai, the magazine of portable gracious living in the United Kingdom.”
Sir, I read with great interest Mr. Coleridge’s review of the new four-berth model “Stately Pleasure” developed by Mr. Khan of this very site and would wish to crave your indulgence to make a few points, some complimentary and some critical. However, before I start, I should also like to point out that there appears to have been some mishap at the printers as the article seemed to end in a rather abrupt fashion.
Point 1 To begin: I was very impressed with the section: "So twice five miles of fertile ground/With walls and towers were girdled round:/And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,/Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;/And here were forests ancient as the hills,/Enfolding sunny spots of greenery./But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted/Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!/A savage place! as holy and enchanted." This is an almost perfect description of this site and the general air of tranquillity with which it is imbued. Mr. Coleridge obviously made detailed notes of the setting when he inspected the vehicle. Thank you! It captures the atmosphere precisely and accurately, especially now that the long-awaited refurbishment has finally ridded us of the couch grass, bracken, boggy areas, giant hogweed, mosquitoes, wild dogs, cow pats and midges that took the edge off our enjoyment in previous times.
Point 2 However, this brings me to the section "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea. Whilst it is true that Alf does indeed run everywhere, or at least did, before his unfortunate recent altercation, which need not detain us here, I have never heard him referred to as a "sacred river" before! I assume that this expression has been transliterated orally and should have read "naked shiverer" as this is, of course, or rather was, an accurate description of his normal state and the condition it tended to impose whilst exposed to the rigours of the north west Somerset climate, in spite of the regular and commendable turn of speed he obtained. It has to be admitted that these changes in Alf's circumstances have indeed caused him to tend to shun human companionship by spending as much time as possible underground, but I see no reason to dwell on these matters. A little more delicacy as to the repercussions of these sorts of statements would be appreciated in the future. He is still down there, in his caverns measureless to man, and he does not appear to intend to come out. Moreover, the expression "As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/By woman wailing for her demon-lover!" is pure speculation on the author's part. This is a rumour that I had hoped had been well and truly scotched. The lady in question has suffered enough.
Point 3 On the subject of indelicacy, there is also a reference to a “sunny dome”: this is not only a needless slur from someone who, if I recall correctly, has a full head of hair, but also irresponsible advice. I am rather challenged in the follicle department myself, but cover my pate with a hat at all times, even when the weather is dull, a habit I would urge should be observed by all my fellow "baldies". One cannot be too careful.
Point 4 And as to “A damsel with a dulcimer/In a vision once I saw:/It was an Abyssinian maid,/And on her dulcimer she played," this, I regret to say, is simply a complete departure from the truth. "The Abyssinian Maid” is a long-established and very enjoyable cruise vessel, but the "music loud and long" referred to is always from Fred Fleet and his Minehead Rhythm Manglers, who do not possess a dulcimer, which anyway would be rendered inaudible by the combination of trombone, tuba, five-stringed banjo and megaphone-amplified vocals they favour and would also be in sore danger of damage from the one of the traditional alcohol-induced mêlées that regularly occur towards the end of the cruise. Furthermore, whilst Rosie, the Manglers' resident vocalist has often, to my certain knowledge, been described variously as madam and mistress, to refer to her as a damsel is to stretch credibility to breaking point, I'm afraid!
Point 5 One – possibly the only one - of the Stately Pleasure's deficiencies is its absence of internal sanitary facilities, and the section “And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,/As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,/A mighty fountain momently was forced:/Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst/Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail” must surely be one of the most powerful descriptions that has ever been committed to paper of that regrettable phenomenon of being caught short in the night when it’s freezing outside and the dew is rising. In these circumstances, one simply can’t beat streamlined, winter-gauge Gortex trousers to pull on for protection against the elements yet elimination of perspiration in the course of the dash to the facilities made simple by the sleek contours of the garments. "Fast thick pants were breathing" indeed. An ideal advertising slogan and a very responsible piece of advice. Visitors to this site may purchase them from the camp shop.
Point 6 And finally, “For he on honey-dew hath fed,/And drunk the milk of Paradise.”: Exactly! My attitude to caravanning to a T! Thank you!
In conclusion, sir, on balance, we are all grateful for Mr. Coleridge's visit and would be happy to accommodate him again. In particular, there is an old sailor, who has retired here, who wishes to have a word with him about some matter.
I remain, as ever, your most obedient servant,
A Person esq. (Xanadu Caravan Site, Porlock, Somerset.)
Note: Coleridge’s biographer, Richard Holmes, has stated that the Moghul emperors’ pleasure domes were in fact portable devices and hence could be considered to be the early precursors of the caravan.
To the editor, “Caravanserai, the magazine of portable gracious living in the United Kingdom.”
Sir, I read with great interest Mr. Coleridge’s review of the new four-berth model “Stately Pleasure” developed by Mr. Khan of this very site and would wish to crave your indulgence to make a few points, some complimentary and some critical. However, before I start, I should also like to point out that there appears to have been some mishap at the printers as the article seemed to end in a rather abrupt fashion.
Point 1 To begin: I was very impressed with the section: "So twice five miles of fertile ground/With walls and towers were girdled round:/And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,/Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;/And here were forests ancient as the hills,/Enfolding sunny spots of greenery./But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted/Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!/A savage place! as holy and enchanted." This is an almost perfect description of this site and the general air of tranquillity with which it is imbued. Mr. Coleridge obviously made detailed notes of the setting when he inspected the vehicle. Thank you! It captures the atmosphere precisely and accurately, especially now that the long-awaited refurbishment has finally ridded us of the couch grass, bracken, boggy areas, giant hogweed, mosquitoes, wild dogs, cow pats and midges that took the edge off our enjoyment in previous times.
Point 2 However, this brings me to the section "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea. Whilst it is true that Alf does indeed run everywhere, or at least did, before his unfortunate recent altercation, which need not detain us here, I have never heard him referred to as a "sacred river" before! I assume that this expression has been transliterated orally and should have read "naked shiverer" as this is, of course, or rather was, an accurate description of his normal state and the condition it tended to impose whilst exposed to the rigours of the north west Somerset climate, in spite of the regular and commendable turn of speed he obtained. It has to be admitted that these changes in Alf's circumstances have indeed caused him to tend to shun human companionship by spending as much time as possible underground, but I see no reason to dwell on these matters. A little more delicacy as to the repercussions of these sorts of statements would be appreciated in the future. He is still down there, in his caverns measureless to man, and he does not appear to intend to come out. Moreover, the expression "As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted/By woman wailing for her demon-lover!" is pure speculation on the author's part. This is a rumour that I had hoped had been well and truly scotched. The lady in question has suffered enough.
Point 3 On the subject of indelicacy, there is also a reference to a “sunny dome”: this is not only a needless slur from someone who, if I recall correctly, has a full head of hair, but also irresponsible advice. I am rather challenged in the follicle department myself, but cover my pate with a hat at all times, even when the weather is dull, a habit I would urge should be observed by all my fellow "baldies". One cannot be too careful.
Point 4 And as to “A damsel with a dulcimer/In a vision once I saw:/It was an Abyssinian maid,/And on her dulcimer she played," this, I regret to say, is simply a complete departure from the truth. "The Abyssinian Maid” is a long-established and very enjoyable cruise vessel, but the "music loud and long" referred to is always from Fred Fleet and his Minehead Rhythm Manglers, who do not possess a dulcimer, which anyway would be rendered inaudible by the combination of trombone, tuba, five-stringed banjo and megaphone-amplified vocals they favour and would also be in sore danger of damage from the one of the traditional alcohol-induced mêlées that regularly occur towards the end of the cruise. Furthermore, whilst Rosie, the Manglers' resident vocalist has often, to my certain knowledge, been described variously as madam and mistress, to refer to her as a damsel is to stretch credibility to breaking point, I'm afraid!
Point 5 One – possibly the only one - of the Stately Pleasure's deficiencies is its absence of internal sanitary facilities, and the section “And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,/As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,/A mighty fountain momently was forced:/Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst/Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail” must surely be one of the most powerful descriptions that has ever been committed to paper of that regrettable phenomenon of being caught short in the night when it’s freezing outside and the dew is rising. In these circumstances, one simply can’t beat streamlined, winter-gauge Gortex trousers to pull on for protection against the elements yet elimination of perspiration in the course of the dash to the facilities made simple by the sleek contours of the garments. "Fast thick pants were breathing" indeed. An ideal advertising slogan and a very responsible piece of advice. Visitors to this site may purchase them from the camp shop.
Point 6 And finally, “For he on honey-dew hath fed,/And drunk the milk of Paradise.”: Exactly! My attitude to caravanning to a T! Thank you!
In conclusion, sir, on balance, we are all grateful for Mr. Coleridge's visit and would be happy to accommodate him again. In particular, there is an old sailor, who has retired here, who wishes to have a word with him about some matter.
I remain, as ever, your most obedient servant,
A Person esq. (Xanadu Caravan Site, Porlock, Somerset.)
Shipwreck
I reflected that there were more noble - if not necessarily less painful - ways of being shipwrecked. One could be the victim of a mutiny, the sufferer of an attack from a great white whale, the recipient of a jolt from an iceberg.
One could find oneself the companion of rogues, ruffians, gentlemen, officers, tigers, hyenas, zebras, gorillas; one could be reduced to cannibalism, stuck on an island in rags, bereft of companionship, hallucinating for a drop of fresh water. But all of these circumstances at least contained an element of grubby dignity, some indication of what it was still to be civilised, an attribute that was not the first thing that came to mind when confronted by the prospect of the undeniable reality of one’s being cast adrift on an inflatable goat, grasping at its ingeniously curved air-filled horns just to stay afloat. Of all the predicaments that can befall one, this must surely be the closest to absolute degradation.
Let me say at once that the pneumatic beast was not mine. It had been abandoned by its owner before she leapt into the lifeboat. Yes, I did say she; this goat was a billy, not a nanny: conspicuously so, and this may well have been my initial saving, for the member - and, as I have hinted, a right honourable member it was - acted as a kind of keel, or centre-board, counter weighting me into some semblance of an upright position as the swell grew and wobbled around me. I have no idea what my expression - or indeed what its expression was, but I suspect that one if not both of our faces betrayed at least a hint of blind panic. I had a minor advantage: at least I was in the driver’s seat, so to speak, as we bobbled ever further away from the stricken vessel that had been my workplace and - presumably - its play place.
As we tossed and buckled, I became aware of a sort of manically steady propulsion from the inflated animal, as if it were anxious – presumably justifiably - to put a number of nautical miles between it and its most recent experiences. But how? In a state of apprehension, I examined – carefully - the hindquarters of the creature, to ensure that no puncture had caused a sort of inadvertent jet propulsion because surely such a means of locomotion would not last us long. There’s only so much you can pump into an inflatable goat after all, life-sized though it may have been, and hence only so much that can escape from a fully-inflated goat because once it was out it was out, so to speak, and I would then be floating temporarily on an ex-goat plastic pancake before proceeding in a downwards direction to the bed of the sea.
This momentary reassurance that the creature was still intact gave way almost immediately to several clashing species of foreboding. What was causing the goat to behave like a boat, not a raft? Was it achieving this feat itself? Were we being pushed by fish? Sea mammals? Sea snakes? Or were we being tugged away by a rogue current? We had no provisions on board. I’m sorry; I mean, of course, that I had no provisions on board, because the goat was quite clearly not on board – it was, in a manner of speaking the board itself, and to the best of my knowledge it had no need of provisions, infinite performance without sustenance being presumably one of its prime –and most desirable - qualities. Therefore, if this inexorable progress was some sort of magnetic attraction to some distant – and as yet invisible - stretch of dry land with a water supply, it could only be to my advantage. However, if the creature were buffeting ever further into the depths of the oceans, towards a sort of Sargasso Sea reserved for breeding inflatable goats, I was quite clearly doomed.
Desperation gave me impetus; I inflicted a canoe roll on my (presumably) unwilling accomplice, completing the circle with aplomb like a white water kayak splashing fool, re-emerging to a dripping vertical having discovered no other creature or extraneous device in the immediate vicinity: no shark, no dolphin, no lifeline, no hidden motor, no herd of super-powered plankton; the thing was a mystery.
The goat, undeterred by its complete rotation, had not slackened pace. Its whole demeanour was of a placid but determined creature that had no intention of being deflected from its path but no intention of hurrying either – much like a goat, in fact.
Being without chart or compass, I tried to hazard our position from the sun; we were travelling resolutely in a south-by-south west direction; we were not, as far as I could tell, vacillating from a bearing; if this were a current, it was straight as a plumb, only in a horizontal plane, of course, if you get my drift, except of course drifting was the last thing I was doing. But no matter.
I attempted to twist the goat horns towards a different direction but met a mysterious contrary force; I tried the other way, with equal lack of success; I tried to yank the horns backwards, as if they were a joystick and the goat could be persuaded to leap into the air; this was of course a stupidly pointless activity and it met with as little success as my previous manoeuvres. The goat bucked a trifle, then continued.
There was quite clearly nothing for it but to comply. I settled down for the ride. Then, as if sensing my compliance, without moving its head or parting its lips, it spoke; it spoke sort of telepathically: inaudibly, but quite clearly.
“Vletzta schnoerker krautzten splinken schmetlimg bruncken schnartpfaltz gerlausen kreuschtlemtvelski tvartski tvulski,” it commented.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak goat,” I replied.
“Tvoi airchtolf schnilterfwa sickyuk schnausenpronker,” it continued, sounding more irritated.
“Or inflatable goat either,” I apologised, suspecting that it was expressing itself in some deviant dialect and that that was the cause of its irritation.
“Ulchtava hendernschplott,” it seemed to growl and then it was silent.
“Do you not understand English?” I enquired.
No reply.
“I should dearly like to communicate with you, if we could just find a common language,” I demurred.
No reply.
I held my tongue.
“Now you’re listening,” it alleged.
I released my tongue in a panic.
“Ghallt sprankt blundblurdesvott frahstrenstrack,” it asseverated.
I grasped my tongue again.
“That’s better; I think you’re finally getting the picture,” it conjectured.
“Can you hear me, with my tongue held still like this?” I enquired.
“Perfectly.”
“In that case, please could you answer one question?”
“Certainly.”
“Tell me how you manage to propel yourself.”
“Well, there are chemicals in my appendage, the original purpose of which need not detain us, that are reacting with sea water and there is quite clearly a powerful surge of molecules towards our unknown destination that is stringing out with sufficient viscosity to keep me connected to it and sufficient power to pull our combined weights at the same time. To put it succinctly – and crudely - these are chemical spermatozoa chasing towards some magical goat’s egg on an island somewhere in the far distance and the future so you may presumably be in luck – there may well be dry land and fresh water.”
“This sounds like unexpectedly good news. Extremely unexpectedly; I must confess that I’m quite surprised that they make you quite that sophisticated – chemically, I mean.”
“Oh, yes, everyone at Priapic Propensities is a trained scientist. You get what you pay for with our organisation.”
I removed my hand from my tongue and we were silent for a while. We drifted, inexorably,
He then spoke to me again. “Budltht glairchtrin benufdgot.”
I held my tongue again.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said that I appear to be on the verge of becoming empty. If I lose connection to the thickness of what is coming out of me, we shall in all likelihood be properly cast adrift.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I suspect not. I don’t think that there’s anything that can be adjusted; I certainly have no recollection of anything. But perhaps you’d like to check, just to be on the safe side.”
“Hang on a mo; I’ll have a look.”
Again I swung my body into and out of the weed-drenched water, this time swaying around the goat’s girth as it stayed upright in its natural position. I held my tongue again.
“Nope, nothing there.”
“Well, you’d better just pray, then.”
“Thank you for that reassurance.”
“Not at all. I shall do my best to hang on. As should you. It’s getting dark. Tie yourself on.”
Round Robin
We thank you for your communication. However, why do you think that we care about your daughter’s prowess? A worthless paean to the glib and the superficial.
Do you really think that we care that your son has swum the channel? Let him sleep with the fishes, say we.
So, you have been up in a balloon? Yet you do not regard this as the worst form of blasphemy? Down, heathens, down towards the hell you will surely reside in.
As an example to you to attend to the pure and proper way of disporting yourself, let us tell you of the activities of our family and our endeavours to share and spread the light this last year.
Shortly after the New Year, the two of us and our son Tarquin sojourned forth across the bleak and pitiless moor in the very unforgiving depths of winter’s malevolence to preach the true word to the unresponsive and heathen hordes of the neighbouring village. We were waylaid, cut by thrown stones, and made to depart the village with immediate alacrity, but our faith never wavered in the despondency of our untimely eviction.
The following month, at the time of Shrove Tuesday, we had cause to remonstrate with our neighbours as to the unholy, unbridled and unsuitably abandoned fashion in which they celebrated the eve of the Lenten time by cooking great swirls of fried batter smothered in sugar and lemon juice and thrown upwards out of the pan so that it landed the other way over in a devilish reversal, all the while causing the creation of such vile quantities of acrid smoke that the stench was like that of hell itself. Such abandoned celebration of the dark arts is entirely unsuitable in a worshipful community.
Throughout March, we obeyed the tenets of Lent and made best endeavour to hide from the temptations of the flesh and the mind by withdrawing our physical and mental processes from such lures and inducements, a state described by some spiteful individuals with inadequate knowledge of the power of the spirit as “hibernation”.
And then came April and Easter – ah, happy time! The time of feast after the famine. We celebrated by scourging ourselves within a cubit of our very lives, to replenish the lifeblood of faith that had been clogged in our bodies the winter long.
May brought a brief visit from our daughter, birth-named Chastity, but now exulting in the reduced soubriquet of Chas. She said that now she had left the parental home, she felt weaned, and hence was able to leave the “titty” behind. We did not understand what this meant. She now travels the country with what is apparently known as a dance troupe. Personally, we are glad of it as it gives her ample opportunity to visit numerous places and attempt to convert the indigenous pagan hordes to the one true way. She assures us that this is the case, even going so far as to use the expression “until I communed with them, they had no idea what heaven could really mean.”
June and the longest day. The day of greatest provocation to our ideals by these locals who use the whole historical panoply of fertility, harvest and extended daylight as an excuse to indulge in the most libertine and unfettered behaviour imaginable. Tarquin took advantage of the length of the day to leave the parental home later, all the better to observe the participants in the concluding throes of their drunken carousing. When he returned, much later, to report back, his eyes were agog at the sights he had witnessed, and no amount of courteous persuasion could inveigle him to part with what he had experienced, even to his parents. We were concerned that the shock could have a lasting effect.
July was the month of our anniversary, of the renewed celebration of the opening of our eyes to the burning light of heavenly revelation, and we were happy to receive a surprise present in the form of a tethered goat, clearly from some of the more enlightened members of our neighbourhood community, who wished, out of modesty, we assume, to remain secret. The goat is, of course, the very epitome of our quest. It is ruggedly individual, even in its stubbornness. It defends its beliefs with the certainty of all horned animals. It feeds without fuss. It fertilises the earth. It survives. It endures.
At the end of August, we finally ate the last of the goat. Times had been hard, but the Lord had been kind in the guidance of his offering.
In September, Tarquin left to go to University. He had convinced us that this would best suit our mutual aims in that he could use the skills he had acquired at school to apply to the conversion of souls on a rather larger scale. He was intending to go at the same time as someone he had met on Midsummer’s Day, someone he had converted that very night. She has visited us on a few occasions. Her name is Tash and she has the rapid gift of laughter, for she smiles all the time she is with us. Tarquin has reassured us that he will continue to monitor her progress towards conversion extremely closely.
Throughout October, we were blessed with the opportunity to allow our thoughts to drift, undisturbed and unmolested, towards the rewards and responsibility of our spiritual destiny, unencumbered by the welcome but nevertheless distracting presence of our children.
However, November brought us a visit from Chastity, who, we were both delighted to observe, had lost that rather gaunt look of hers, that we had associated with pressure from the vanity of her associates, and had started to fill out in face and body in a rather more becoming fashion. Tarquin and Tash also visited. Their appearance is much changed also, both in the colour (or rather lack of it) of their clothes, and the arrangement of their hair. Tarquin assures us that this reflects a policy of outer ostentation and inner austerity that lends itself best to the conversion process by gaining the confidence of their fellow students, who, he declares, are ripe for acceding to the power of revelation.
December brings us to this so-called month of festivity and your communication.
We thank you for your offering, ill advised as it undoubtedly was, and trust that our attempts to apply a necessary corrective to the ill-conceived paths that your lives have taken in the previous year will have been received in the correct fashion, as a much-needed shaft of truth in the miasma of your flounderings towards establishing some form of significance on this earth that is but a temporary and worthless resting place.
However, please note: if you do not send this refutation of your facile, trivial meanderings when you should have been worshipping the Lord your God in a state of appropriate humility to at least ten of your so-called friends before the week is up, the worst and most lasting form of evil luck will surely descend upon you and drill you into the earth like the termites you assuredly are.
We wish you a Very Merry Christmas.
Do you really think that we care that your son has swum the channel? Let him sleep with the fishes, say we.
So, you have been up in a balloon? Yet you do not regard this as the worst form of blasphemy? Down, heathens, down towards the hell you will surely reside in.
As an example to you to attend to the pure and proper way of disporting yourself, let us tell you of the activities of our family and our endeavours to share and spread the light this last year.
Shortly after the New Year, the two of us and our son Tarquin sojourned forth across the bleak and pitiless moor in the very unforgiving depths of winter’s malevolence to preach the true word to the unresponsive and heathen hordes of the neighbouring village. We were waylaid, cut by thrown stones, and made to depart the village with immediate alacrity, but our faith never wavered in the despondency of our untimely eviction.
The following month, at the time of Shrove Tuesday, we had cause to remonstrate with our neighbours as to the unholy, unbridled and unsuitably abandoned fashion in which they celebrated the eve of the Lenten time by cooking great swirls of fried batter smothered in sugar and lemon juice and thrown upwards out of the pan so that it landed the other way over in a devilish reversal, all the while causing the creation of such vile quantities of acrid smoke that the stench was like that of hell itself. Such abandoned celebration of the dark arts is entirely unsuitable in a worshipful community.
Throughout March, we obeyed the tenets of Lent and made best endeavour to hide from the temptations of the flesh and the mind by withdrawing our physical and mental processes from such lures and inducements, a state described by some spiteful individuals with inadequate knowledge of the power of the spirit as “hibernation”.
And then came April and Easter – ah, happy time! The time of feast after the famine. We celebrated by scourging ourselves within a cubit of our very lives, to replenish the lifeblood of faith that had been clogged in our bodies the winter long.
May brought a brief visit from our daughter, birth-named Chastity, but now exulting in the reduced soubriquet of Chas. She said that now she had left the parental home, she felt weaned, and hence was able to leave the “titty” behind. We did not understand what this meant. She now travels the country with what is apparently known as a dance troupe. Personally, we are glad of it as it gives her ample opportunity to visit numerous places and attempt to convert the indigenous pagan hordes to the one true way. She assures us that this is the case, even going so far as to use the expression “until I communed with them, they had no idea what heaven could really mean.”
June and the longest day. The day of greatest provocation to our ideals by these locals who use the whole historical panoply of fertility, harvest and extended daylight as an excuse to indulge in the most libertine and unfettered behaviour imaginable. Tarquin took advantage of the length of the day to leave the parental home later, all the better to observe the participants in the concluding throes of their drunken carousing. When he returned, much later, to report back, his eyes were agog at the sights he had witnessed, and no amount of courteous persuasion could inveigle him to part with what he had experienced, even to his parents. We were concerned that the shock could have a lasting effect.
July was the month of our anniversary, of the renewed celebration of the opening of our eyes to the burning light of heavenly revelation, and we were happy to receive a surprise present in the form of a tethered goat, clearly from some of the more enlightened members of our neighbourhood community, who wished, out of modesty, we assume, to remain secret. The goat is, of course, the very epitome of our quest. It is ruggedly individual, even in its stubbornness. It defends its beliefs with the certainty of all horned animals. It feeds without fuss. It fertilises the earth. It survives. It endures.
At the end of August, we finally ate the last of the goat. Times had been hard, but the Lord had been kind in the guidance of his offering.
In September, Tarquin left to go to University. He had convinced us that this would best suit our mutual aims in that he could use the skills he had acquired at school to apply to the conversion of souls on a rather larger scale. He was intending to go at the same time as someone he had met on Midsummer’s Day, someone he had converted that very night. She has visited us on a few occasions. Her name is Tash and she has the rapid gift of laughter, for she smiles all the time she is with us. Tarquin has reassured us that he will continue to monitor her progress towards conversion extremely closely.
Throughout October, we were blessed with the opportunity to allow our thoughts to drift, undisturbed and unmolested, towards the rewards and responsibility of our spiritual destiny, unencumbered by the welcome but nevertheless distracting presence of our children.
However, November brought us a visit from Chastity, who, we were both delighted to observe, had lost that rather gaunt look of hers, that we had associated with pressure from the vanity of her associates, and had started to fill out in face and body in a rather more becoming fashion. Tarquin and Tash also visited. Their appearance is much changed also, both in the colour (or rather lack of it) of their clothes, and the arrangement of their hair. Tarquin assures us that this reflects a policy of outer ostentation and inner austerity that lends itself best to the conversion process by gaining the confidence of their fellow students, who, he declares, are ripe for acceding to the power of revelation.
December brings us to this so-called month of festivity and your communication.
We thank you for your offering, ill advised as it undoubtedly was, and trust that our attempts to apply a necessary corrective to the ill-conceived paths that your lives have taken in the previous year will have been received in the correct fashion, as a much-needed shaft of truth in the miasma of your flounderings towards establishing some form of significance on this earth that is but a temporary and worthless resting place.
However, please note: if you do not send this refutation of your facile, trivial meanderings when you should have been worshipping the Lord your God in a state of appropriate humility to at least ten of your so-called friends before the week is up, the worst and most lasting form of evil luck will surely descend upon you and drill you into the earth like the termites you assuredly are.
We wish you a Very Merry Christmas.
Ode from a Camel
I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser,
Built like a desert Battle Cruiser
Carrying my pendulous stored-fat oozers
Far across the sand.
My shoes are
Killing me but I still stand.
Any snoozer
Gets the chop.
On this job.
No room for a slob
It's strictly piece-rate, cash in hand.
I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
I don't stay in much so please excuse a
Certain lack of social graces
I'm just so used to going places
Always seeing different faces
Always kicking over the traces
But you'll never see me in camel races
Never put me through my paces
No I just stand alone and tarry
And watch the maniac
Heaving one-humped Dromedaries
Charge around the track
But do they never don't they ever
Get a cardiac?
And do they never don't they ever
Sense their obvious lack?
They seem to be as happy as Larry
Despite their obvious drawback
Dromedary Schmomedary
Only one mammammammary
I mean would you let your daughter marry
Someone with half what they should carry?
Inside their skinny sac(k)?
Dromedary Schmomedary
No contest; know what I mean, 'Arry?
They can't compete with my bumpiness
My technicolour grumpiness
My onefold twofold humpiness
My centrefold-like lumpiness
If they try to get pugilistic
If they dare try to resort to fistic
-uffs they quickly meet their match
Natch.
'Cos I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
Fifty contest - never a loser
And if you've got a beef
I'll thump
You in the rump
'Cos I'm the chief
And if you give me any grief
I'll pump
My saliva through my teeth
I trumpet
"How's that for an aperitif?"
Victorious, I slump
Onto my haunches with relief
Another desert stand-off won
Bactrian Camel 2 Dromedary 1.
So whose a
Well-'ard boy then? I am, loser!
Don't pick a fight with me down the boozer
'Cos I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
And I'm triumphant, macho, butch
But wait! Perhaps I do protest too much
Do I use too much verbosity
To proclaim the simple philosophy
Of my [undoubted] superiority?
Yes? Is this too wordy a response?
Yes? Well, let me try to be concise
I say Why get the hump only once
When you can get it twice?
Built like a desert Battle Cruiser
Carrying my pendulous stored-fat oozers
Far across the sand.
My shoes are
Killing me but I still stand.
Any snoozer
Gets the chop.
On this job.
No room for a slob
It's strictly piece-rate, cash in hand.
I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
I don't stay in much so please excuse a
Certain lack of social graces
I'm just so used to going places
Always seeing different faces
Always kicking over the traces
But you'll never see me in camel races
Never put me through my paces
No I just stand alone and tarry
And watch the maniac
Heaving one-humped Dromedaries
Charge around the track
But do they never don't they ever
Get a cardiac?
And do they never don't they ever
Sense their obvious lack?
They seem to be as happy as Larry
Despite their obvious drawback
Dromedary Schmomedary
Only one mammammammary
I mean would you let your daughter marry
Someone with half what they should carry?
Inside their skinny sac(k)?
Dromedary Schmomedary
No contest; know what I mean, 'Arry?
They can't compete with my bumpiness
My technicolour grumpiness
My onefold twofold humpiness
My centrefold-like lumpiness
If they try to get pugilistic
If they dare try to resort to fistic
-uffs they quickly meet their match
Natch.
'Cos I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
Fifty contest - never a loser
And if you've got a beef
I'll thump
You in the rump
'Cos I'm the chief
And if you give me any grief
I'll pump
My saliva through my teeth
I trumpet
"How's that for an aperitif?"
Victorious, I slump
Onto my haunches with relief
Another desert stand-off won
Bactrian Camel 2 Dromedary 1.
So whose a
Well-'ard boy then? I am, loser!
Don't pick a fight with me down the boozer
'Cos I'm Grumpy Gus, the Bactrian bruiser.
And I'm triumphant, macho, butch
But wait! Perhaps I do protest too much
Do I use too much verbosity
To proclaim the simple philosophy
Of my [undoubted] superiority?
Yes? Is this too wordy a response?
Yes? Well, let me try to be concise
I say Why get the hump only once
When you can get it twice?
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