Monday 27 May 2013

My Kind Of Bastard

I was a most peculiar child, precocious and extremely sensitive. I am possessed of an uncommonly good memory and can pinpoint many of the seminal moments of my childhood. Which is how I can trace my fixation back to the age of six. I can remember November 1990 extremely vividly. Margaret Thatcher Leaving office after her cabinet turned against her. John Major, Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd all vying for the leadership. A marvellous stroke of luck for the team behind House Of Cards. Former Thatcher aide Michael Dobbs wrote the novel inspired by his time in government, which was, in turn dramatised and improved upon by Andrew Davies. The central figure was Tory Chief Whip Sir Francis Urquhart, given dramatic life by the incomparable Ian Richardson. I watched transfixed as the modern Machiavell schemed, manipulated and murdered his was to the top. Whether he was putting rat poison in Roger O'Neill's cocaine or throwing a besotted, yet perplexed Mattie Storrin to her death from the roof garden of the houses of parliament it didn't matter. I was in love. F.U's hold over me endured, for both sequels: To Play The King and The Final Cut. Of course as I grew up and saw him in other things I managed to distinguish Ian Richardson from F.U. For example I thoroughly enjoyed his turn as Professor Joseph Bell in Murder Rooms {2000-01} along with retrospective performances such as Sir Godber Evans in Porterhouse Blue and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet to me he was never as attractive as when he was a bastard. When I recently watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy {1979 TV series} I felt the same attraction overtake me once more. Ian portrayed Bill Haydon, a.k.a Gerald, the mole in The Circus {based on real life traitor Kim Philby}. This performance gave the spell greater potency and he is for the moment, my main dramatic crush. To see him hysterically laughing and weeping alternately was mesmerizing. His large sad eyes framed by impossibly long eyelashes, wet with tears attempting to justify himself to Alec Guinness' impassive George Smiley. That's not to say this sort of reaction is reserved for the late, great Ian Richardson oh no. When I was seven my parents took me to the cinema. I wanted to see Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. While the other little girls in the audience were busy swooning over Kevin Costner and Christian Slater, I had fallen desperately in love with Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham. I say desperately in love, it was probably more like a species of Stockholm syndrome. As I was compelled and terrified in equal measure by Rickman's Satanic, sadistic, sex offender baddie. Yet when my Mother asked me how I'd enjoyed the film. I told her I'd enjoyed very much, but was saddened the Sheriff had died, so now there couldn't be a sequel with him in it. I felt the flame re-ignite aged 18 when I caught sight of him in the HBO TV movie Rasputin. The sight of him with a feral beard, dancing sensuously with some attractive gypsy women in a taverna, before leaping atop a table and masturbating was truly a sight to behold. Another man who could also engender a similar response was George Sanders. While watching Hitchcock's Rebecca when I was about nine I remember feeling a thrill of expectation when George padded through the window with silent, feline grace and began to purr away in his basso profundo voice. Of course I was right George was an unrepentant cad and bounder who'd been having it away with his own cousin, the eponymous Rebecca. The fact that the deceased, wicked, anti-heroine shared my Christian name, augmented my delight. Unsurprisingly, many years later, he was asked to provide the voice for Shere Khan in The Jungle Book. Yet If I step back and analyse them, all three have something in common. It is a sort of silky malevolence associated with the British upper class. They are a trio of dastardly dandies capable of all manner of sophisticated cruelty and treachery, also all three are ever so slightly camp. This sort of attraction to the wickedly camp was not confined to human beings. I also found Shredder from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mumm-ra from Thundercats perversely erotic. In fact I'd have liked to see them go to war over me. Though my money was on Mumm-ra. He'd had years contending with the might of the Thundarians where as Shredder was just the henchman of a giant haemorrhoid inside a mechanical suit, whose chief opponents were a giant rat and some moody teenagers with green skin. I mean they were supposed to be reptilian yet, never had to bio-thermoregulate. Plus the fucking pizza delivery man would have seen them at least once. Pizza parlour boss "Where are you delivering to tonight Brad?". Brad : " Those freaks who ask me to leave it by the manhole cover". Pizza parlour boss: "What kind of freaks?" Brad: "Real Ugly ones boss. I leave the pizza, hide behind the bushes and watch to see who comes out. Some times it's the old rat man, others it's his deformed, green kids." Pizza parlour boss: "Deformed?" Brad: "They must be bad boss, if their Dad won't let them out without their masks on". I digress. Though I've often wondered who would emerge the winner out of Shere Khan and Scar form the Lion King. Scar voiced of course by Jeremy Irons mmm..... So now you know my secret: I am attracted to effete, villainous men. There, I said it. The peculiar charm of the right kind of bastard.






Thursday 23 May 2013

The Screwtop Letter


The Screwtop Letter

The origin of this communication is somewhat mysterious; I awoke to find it on my pillow,

the morning after a rather taxing and emotional evening. While I am no demonologist,

I believe there are some rare insights contained in the following correspondence.

 

 

My own dear nephew Absinthium,

I was delighted to learn you had been assigned to the Intemperance Division of the Ministry For Gluttony. The head of your Alma Mater Dr.Gutrot asked me to correspond with you and share the benefit of my long experience. I told him I would be happy to oblige, as it is a long while since I was on active duty. The thrill of leading a soul to befuddlement, physical suffering and ultimate destruction are the only things I really miss about field work, since I was promoted by Our Father Below. Not wishing to incur his unappeasable wrath, I shall do my utmost in my present capacity. The key to the whole business of intemperance is pleasure. The pleasure engendered by imbibing alcohol is as old as human civilisation. It is, in the correct context and quantity one of the greatest earthly pleasures accorded to those revolting bipedal apes by the Enemy. As with all psychoactive substances, it is not the act of altering one’s consciousness that the Enemy objects to. Far from it, if it were so why allow plants with such potential to evolve? No, it is not the substances themselves which, when used responsibly, deliver some nauseatingly pleasant results, rather the human propensity for misusing them. Thanks to Our Father Below they are endowed with a predilection for abusing every freedom they are afforded by the Enemy. That, my dear Absinthium, is where we come in. While alcohol plays a central sacramental role in those appalling rites central to the worship of the Enemy, it is its very acceptability which makes it most open to abuse, along with its rather less satisfying cousin tobacco. Leaving aside for one moment the more exotic pleasures available to those simian flesh sacks, let us rather turn our attention to the mundane. The bored housewife with her bottle of sherry or gin, the stressed accountant with his whiskey bottle in the top drawer of his desk. These are the people who provide us with the bulk of our entertainment. The well documented antics of certain debauchees, while more spectacular are more infrequent and tend to serve as a warning to the more sapient members of that accursed race.  One of the crowning works for a tempter is idolatry of substance. That is to say, convincing the humans that it is the booze which actually generates happiness as opposed to being a mere mood enhancer. It all starts with a pleasant experience say that disgusting, excessive celebration devoted to the Enemy every December. The feeling of community, warm log fires, comforting smells; gingerbread, pine needles and so forth, generate a feeling of well-being. Add a glass of sherry or gluhwein into the equation and the idiotic little creatures attribute the pleasant feelings not to the context, but to the fluctuations in brain glucose. So it begins, no auspicious occasion is truly special without a bottle of fizz, no birthday or anniversary of any other kind truly commemorated without a pint. Although it isn’t the merrymaking which truly delivers them into our clutches. Rather, the belief in alcohol as the universal panacea, for everything which could conceivably afflict the human race. That is where your bored housewife and stressed accountant come in. They’ve fallen into the trap of believing that they can generate happiness or relaxation with nothing more than a little help from John Barleycorn. And so you have them. They drink when they’re happy, they drink when they’re sad. They drink in order to endure existence. Although that isn’t the only fun to be had with these jelly bags, with their internal flora and fauna. Farting and belching their way around the office the day after the night before. Generally ill-tempered, perceiving simple inquiries as excessive demands upon their stressed systems. Oh, the discord one can generate! Not to mention the discomfort. To see one of those bilious primates trying to retain their dignity whilst vomiting or else running the length of the office, buttocks clenched to avoid befouling their costly new trousers. Of course, the more serious complications arise from the potential for sexual indiscretions while inhibitions are lowered. Infidelities, VD, unwanted pregnancies ect...Much to the delight of Our Father Below. The acceleration of physical decline and the ensuing bitterness are also a rich vein of pleasure. There are hospitals full of young people ravaged by the excesses of alcohol. Clear eyed, dewy skinned young things metamorphosize into sallow, saggy, spent wraiths with bloodshot eyes and broken veins. Their engorged livers fit to explode. And so you see they become very angry, seeing little or no correlation between their actions and the consequences. They are more inclined to blame an uncaring capitalist society or if they have any faith at all, the Enemy. Needless to say our department is one of the most successful in the lowerarchy, the only thing we imbibe to toast our success is the sweet draught of human misery.

                                             Your affectionate uncle

                                               Screwtop

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Future Tense Conditional


The year is 2013, I am lying on my ergonomic, orthopaedic body-moulding sofa. I am staring at the
ceiling watching cetacean philosophical discussion. I speak dolphin now, along with many other humans.
John C Lilly's pioneering research was embraced by both the Soviets and the Americans during the cold war. Dolphin along with the other cetacean dialects, whale and porpoise were cracked during the mid 80's and we've been directly interacting with the aforementioned species ever since." I live where I die, no breath in the ocean. Swim, eat, excrete, when still I'm in motion" continued
 Dr. Akaka Click one the most interesting philosophers of our time. Unable to concentrate, I simply issue a clear, precise instruction, first to 'Pause' and then to 'archive' the debate for later.
 I rise from my sofa and step over my sanitation bot, vacuuming away some dropped kale chips, for deposit in the recycling chute. I seek the recipe for the latest mind enhancing drug
on my computer and once I've found it, instruct a fully equipped 3-D printer to print out a dose.
 I swallow the resulting pill and don my Virtual Reality body suit for an interface conference
 with a set of like-minded strangers. We discuss the futures market for high efficiency atmosphere
purifying plants. That's plants as in greenery not plants as in factories. We all now live in eco-cities
since we recognised this was essential to both our continued survival and well-being. Flush toilets
are an ancient curiosity. All urine is drained away to have the nutrients refined out of it for use
in agriculture. All shit is instantly vapourised in order to charge one of the large batteries which powers all my appliances. I take several special tablets every morning to protect the ends of my
telomeres. I hope to attain a state of negligible senescence. If my efforts prove successful I will be  physically the same in 30yrs as I am now. I am psychologically geared to activating any one of the eight circuits of human consciousness at will. The drug I have ingested will activate the 8th circuit and generate a peak experience.

So much for that shit....

I'm sitting on my beaten up old sofa with terrible posture. Eating over-cooked microwave popcorn
while watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. A gathering of some the least evolved people in Britain.
I have lost the remote and so rise from my torpor in order to change channel. I trip over the cat, who,
although disinclined to eat popcorn, is more than happy to play with it. I would endeavour to clean the living room if only the Dyson wasn't fucked. My head hurts from the excesses of the previous evening. Far from desiring to be more 'turned on' to my current reality state, I seem intent upon blotting it out. I take a swig from an ancient, crusted bottle of Calpol in the absence of any proper analgesics and head out into the world. The planet as it exists now is not peopled by sophisticated transhumans, deeply engaged with their task of  'building the earth'. Half of these fuckers can't even be bothered to brush their teeth or indeed instruct their children to do so. The lingua franca is a peculiar, hybrid, argot a product of various cultural influences. Peppered heavily with Anglo-Saxon terms for various parts and functions of the human body. A body which, despite various personal efforts to slow the clock, is for the moment still subject to time's cruel onslaught. I reach into my pocket and breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the contour of my mobile phone. A multi-tasking appendage, part communications device, part prosthetic brain. If you can get 3g reception, 4g at present being a pipe dream for most. As I walk, globules of sweat pour down my back, adhering my fashionable yet impractical trousers to my flanks. As I appraise all that is the case, I am struck by the image of a precocious child, sat next to her Edwardian born Grandmother watching the TV. The year 1989, the programme Tomorrow's World. Tomorrow's Fucking World !!! Along with almost every late 19th-early 20th century sci-fi novel I ever read, served to further warp my already ill-balanced mind. I've always been a living anachronism, born in 1984, raised with Victorian/Edwardian values and conditioned to anticipate a brave new world. There is only one course of action left open to me: STEAMPUNK SUPER VILLAIN!!! It's the only logical solution, Floating through the sky in my aptly named airship: The Earl Of Beaconsfield, the interior furnished like a 19th century ship's cabin. Complete with wooden wheel and brass keys. I would be attired in tight, black, moleskin trousers, a white, Byronic shirt, blue velvet frock coat and steel-plated fetish boots. My half-shaved head and prescription flight goggles completing the ensemble. I would wreak havoc upon the shrink-wrapped, shrink-medicated, plastic worshipping hordes, forcing them to make more things out of cast iron and glass. Making it imperative to learn basic etiquette, rudimentary grammar and revere great historical figures along with their achievements. That way we could construct a future geared towards.....More people like me. A whole generation out of time. OUT OF TIME??? See you at the Omega point bitches.....!!!