XIIth, Act 1 Scene 1

Misery when affected was unhappy when not in company.  Horse was never unhappy, but he had seen a very good opportunity to be miserable. Everyone else on the estate had tried it, often frequently. Nearly a week before Livvy had told him that no true poet was as constantly happy as he. That had worried at him greatly, for he considered himself a very great poet. He told Curious every time they pretended to rehearse how great a poet he was. Curious sat on the sofa they had rescued from Harper Road. Without any electricity they rehearsed. At least they sat with guitars in lap whilst Horse explained how very miserable he intended to be.

            “We could go to the Hart?” said Curious. Much slighter than Horse’s muscular frame only his sister still called him George. Two blocks over and Curious had electricity. He knew how to trick the wires from the big box where it fed all the flats across that floor. Curious had never told anyone else how to do it. He claimed his squat had been overlooked. With power and hot water his flat was always occupied by grateful women. The television was always on. Night or day people that would otherwise speak at great lengths about the evils of the box would sit and bathe in its glow. They watched a lot of childrens television. Curious looked nothing like a monkey but he did have a cowboy hat.

            “Livvy doesn’t drink there,” said Horse.

            Curious looked puzzled, “No, but everyone else does. Mostly. Sort of, and in this weather, with the girls playing pool?”

            “I am not interested in girls,” said Horse.

This was news to Curious. In a world where the boys were alike ill-fed, dark-eyed and hollow Horse was athletic, tanned, and took a pride in his appearance. If the girls liked the boys to be ill-fed, dark-eyed and hollow then what they liked better still was Horse. The boys had called him that because he left the girls like addicts in his wake. Two at least, Curious knew, would come to the flat to get their fix of his friend when the mood took them - and both had boyfriends. Horse never locked the door. He was extremely likeable, though not everyone liked him; one of those boyfriends for a start. Curious said, “Since when?”

The door that was never locked opened. Both men looked up. Carrying Red-Stripe Val found them with a face delighted with her day. She did not offer to share. Curious liked Val. She was just the right side of crusty from goth. All that stored up delight and laughter still washing over her from too many years of Alien Sex Fiend. She didn’t look at Curious; Curious was used to that. She kissed Horse briefly before looking out the open half of the sash window. Twenty years of paint on the frame and it had taken Horse and Curious an hour to chip it open.

Impatient, Horse said, “Well?”

“She’s not interested.”

Horse sighed. He had expected that. “See?” he said to Curious. “I feel miserable already. Livvy doesn’t want me. I’m appalled.”

Val finished her beer and found another from a calico bag. She still didn’t share. “Her father died recently you know. She’s upset.”

“We’re all upset,” said Horse. But he nodded. “I am especially upset. I was just telling Curious how upset I am. But I understand. She must be very miserable. I understand that,” then, “how long do you think she will stay upset?”

“Honestly?” said Val. Horse nodded. If he was going to be unhappy then he would have to plan it all out carefully. “I suspect she’ll find herself less upset come Glastonbury. It has that effect on people.”

Curious knew Val spoke from experience. Only last year she had herself been very miserable, in black and purple. The sun and her fishnets had left a white mesh upon her legs a day into the hot sun. Horse had helped her recover from that. They had recovered loudly and often. Curious knew that because he had been in the next tent over. “Let’s go to the Hart,” he said again.

But Horse would not. He had decided to be unhappy, and almost certainly to be in love.         

Britain Leads Medal Table

The British Olympic Team soared into the lead on the medal table today when the women’s Violent Underpass four beat up anyone that wouldn’t hand them over.

Pictured here celebrating their win over... everyone, the four Olympic heroes (in the required uniform of Croydon face-lift and single, giant, tooth) twatted their way to victory using only foul language, mugging-bats, and someone else’s iPhone. Team Captain Shazny ‘Street Ripper’ Bell personally lifted seven gold medals after ram-raiding her own team after Jessica Ennis didn’t show her no re-spec.

The triumphant Violent Underpass victors are said to be celebrating in the local KFC, in hoodies, having melted already melted the medals down for hula-hoop sized earrings and gold sovereigns the size of dustbin lids.

The Daily Mail is said to be delighted.     

Dinosaur Cloned

Not pictured; cloned dinosaur

The sort of scientists who probably wish there were a few more employers with their own volcano lairs announced today their success in the first reluctant cloning of a dinosaur. Long the real aim of scientists with little interest in engineering, the first living example of a creature extinct now for more than seventy million years, the announcement by Professor Challenger was followed by the admittance that the dinosaur in question was actually ‘a bit shit’.

The source of the DNA is still a closely guarded secret, but given the result it’s a certainty that the result itself is somewhat unique, certainly specific. ‘We would have preferred almost anything else,’ admitted Professor Challenger. ‘But we weren’t given the opportunity to be picky, so the Davesaurus it was.’

The little know Davesaurus, the first fossils of which were discovered in Arizona in 1992, was already one of the most remarkably intact of any thunder-lizard. Indeed the wealth of knowledge gleaned from it offers up one of few really complete stories of extinct life on earth. Less than a yard tall, composed almost entirely of arse, and capable of only a small waddle it lived entirely upon a diet of proto-slugs, defended itself through a perpetual fog of generated methane, and even in the gallery of lizards through the millennia is widely classified as ‘so ugly it’s mating ritual relied entirely upon a mutual hatred for all other forms of life’. Discovered by renowned paleoarchaeologist Dr. Wilfred Horne it was named for the man whom he knew full well had been shagging his wife.

Nonetheless, exciting news. Or not so according to Professor Challenger who already set to turn down academic prizes galore was keen to reiterate that the Davesaurus was rubbish. ‘Look, honestly, it’s shit. That’s not just me, that’s a scientific classification that was come up with just for the Davesaurus. It sweats oily stools, it attacks anything the least pretty without any intention of eating it, and it’s pink. Plastic pink. It doesn’t roar so much as whine, incessantly. It’s entirely nocturnal as that way it can keep everyone else awake. And it’s really good at bingo. It’s just a fucking awful dinosaur with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and frankly it’ll be the first living creature even to have become extinct twice.’

Radio 2 have expressed interest in the Davesaurus taking over the breakfast show.   

Mars, Curiosity, and the Pound Shop

Breaking news this lunchtime as NASA lodges a very loud, somewhat formal complaint with lecturers at Leicester University over events taking place since the successful landing of Curiosity on Mars. Curiosity, the most highly advanced lander yet sent to the red planet initially saw jubilation in NASA when the signal was received confirming that Number 5, was indeed alive. Shortly into the historic deployment on the surface of Mars however Curiosity was forced to a complete stand still after loitering too long outside the Pound Shop it found there.

‘It was blocking the loading bay,’ Professor Challenger of Leicester University has announced by Twitter.

NASA are not said to be happy, threatening that if they had added the death laser as was originally intended they would have almost certainly lasered to death  the obstinate owner of the Pound Shop, Beagle 2.

Beagle 2 the British Mars Lander that arrived back in Christmas 2003 immediately set about it’s now revealed mission to create an environment suitable for a future manned mission to Mars. Having successfully deployed a Wimpy bar by March of 2005, in the time elapsed before the arrival of Curiosity branches of W. H. Smith, Clinton’s Cards and now the Pound Shop were all built according to plan. ‘It wasn’t originally a Pound Shop,’ Professor Challenger was quick to point out in a further tweet, ‘It was quite a nice little book shop, but we couldn’t have expected the impact the Kindle would have up there so after a few months as a charity shop for Scope it was deemed more financially viable to make some sort of profit out of watery superglue and giant boxes of rubbish washing detergent.’

NASA (whilst demanding the immediate release of Curiosity) are likely to have to accept that only customers were allowed to park there. Already top men at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are having to make tough choices as to what they will most likely need in Curiosities ongoing mission. So far the basket leaked includes three slightly grubby plastic footballs, a bag of bent nails, and a frankly awful bendy plastic toy that might, almost, be a tractor.

‘That’s all Curiosities allowance gone,’ NASA are reported as saying.

‘Pocket-money,’ Beagle 2 is said to have corrected the flashy newcomer.   

Miss. π

The third character I’ve plucked from G. D. Holbourne, Miss. π   appears briefly at the end of This Word Is Wicked, one of the earlier stories, but only named eight years later after two more appearances (or by description it can be assumed it is she), both in passing. By the 60s Holbourne’s ‘Garden’ was more commonly used and whether ret-conned or always intended Miss. π  became more central, albeit never the central protagonist in Scandal Scandal, and similarly so in the full length novel Jennifer Lions.

Competent, somewhat ruthless, Miss. π  was clearly someone high up in the Garden, and if she never had to fight she typically made sure she had a clutch of fashionably-suited henchman to deal with such things for her. Her first name is never given in the stories though when asked on the matter in 1973 Holbourne (doubtless pulling the interviewer’s leg) answered ‘American’. I like Miss. π   mostly because despite the time the tales were written, she could be male or female in her actions and attitudes. She’s still starkly feminine, and indeed a very feminist character, but without specifically being so. She is, because she is. Clever stuff.

Another ten minute sketch though to be honest almost twice that (as I had to redo an arm and the feet before I was happy enough with it).

From Jennifer Lions:

‘Her manner of dress fashionable, it was cut where her body was assuredly not. Her eyes if too large were not out of proportion to her head where that could be seen at all above the collar of her buttoned suit. Not by her mannerisms alone, but those about her, this was a woman used to authority. Hers.’  

Lay Grouter, Ten Clenched Tight

The Princess delighted to read of herself

In pamphlet, and gossip, and papers

Of her exploits quite often the night just before

Whose details quite gave her the vapors

 

 

For company each morning she had many mirrors

Where she’d dream with the utmost affection

Of the love that she held for the love of her life

Simpering back through the power of reflection

 

 

Her beauty so lauded in each printed word

Her beauty she’d cry, was a curse

The most wondrous creation in all of the land

(So it ought, since it came from the purse)

 

 

At times on inspection she’d let out a cry

At a wrinkle (a flaw that was barred)

It would be taken away with a cry and a curse

To be placed far below under guard

Not a clock was allowed, nor a calendar hung

Without time there could never be rot

Each day was the same so that she remained so

Her birthday she had ordered shot

Her hair was a mop that she kept in a hat

Her stomach a small jar of good prunes

Her skin she kept stretched on a rack by the bed

Her breasts were inflated balloons

Her feet ever pointed were ever well heeled

Her lips were a poet’s cliché

Her hips had been made of a rather fine vase

Her bum was composed all of clay

Her youth had been famous for decades now past

All that time in this city, she reigning

A nip, and a tuck, and a big bloody saw

Of the Princess there was little remaining

Where once she had struggled in corset and wasp

For her beauty then ever near fainting

Yet the mirror assured her, she remained ever young

Even if the mirror, in truth, was a painting

 

 

The Princess whose beauty a fact set in law

Was a singer, a writer, a sleuth

(All things really done by uglier hack

For beauty could make its own truth)

 

 

So she sat and admired herself through the day

Knowing not one minute a doubter

Ignoring the sounds from under her bed

Where lurked our brave hero, our Grouter!

The young man whom so far, you may well recall

We have swooned to his adventurous deeds

In his quest for that prize that beats in his heart

Or his trousers, to see to his needs

‘I come,’ he declared. And he had, as they say

On the carpet, the rug and veneer

‘Sorry,’ he said as he wiped on the wig

‘Is the Beautiful Princess not here?’

‘I admire your wit,’ the Princess declared

‘I admire your youth, and your pluck!

‘Tell me your quest, your desire, in a word...’

‘Nah,’ said Grouter, ‘I’ll be all right.’

The rhyming disturbed he backed under the bed

Like a fawn to the tiger, in a shrub

He hid until alone he might safely emerge

And creep like a thief to the Club

Where the Angel, the Boffin and Vixen had gone

To throw shapes on the brightly lit floor

To pray long and loud at the temple of dance

Though his name they had left on the door

Unreality Television

I’m not saying that things in teleland are feeding off themselves like the serpent Ouroborus with tail firmly thrust into the mouth but the latest reality television show soon to hit the airwaves isn’t even set in... reality.

The Only Way Is Arioch (TOWIA) sees several members of the dying elder race of Melnibone thrust into a beach house where acting awfully they will be filmed for our pleasured hatred. Melnibone (overthrown at the hands of its own last true Emperor Elric after his cousin Yrkoon usurped the throne) a nation of decadent chaos-worshipping slavers would seem ideal to spark both controversy and debate. Early showings have not however garnered quite the reviews the producers are likely to have been hoping for.

‘They just lie around,’ said one.

And, ‘I think they’re screwing, but it’s all wormy and goes on a bit, and no one says ‘Oh yeah’ a lot.’

Then, ‘Cymoril is a bitch.’

Indeed, the grand cliff-hanger to this first episode has many confused. Having turned their backs on the vows made to the Lords Of Chaos (who’da’fort’it) the house mates ride out swinging howling runeswords, secure the Horn Of Fate and now look set to end the world. Also, they spent all their food budget on black lotus blossoms leaving the slaves they took in their Ivory Barges from downtown Margate to do all the cleaning. Also, their tasks. And, everything else.

TOWIA, coming soon.  

What else are you going to watch?