tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66367588593032187642024-03-13T19:02:28.060-07:00 scumsters Words By Alan McCormick and drawings by Jonny Voss
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-44346402251567979502021-05-22T08:34:00.006-07:002021-05-22T09:22:46.551-07:00IT'S OVER<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGlzS4w277Y/YKkkJ0LW9tI/AAAAAAAACPU/EAt0_ZYDmvUrSl_K72Qg2Kqibv3FRq3KQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1649/bridge.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1649" height="206" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kGlzS4w277Y/YKkkJ0LW9tI/AAAAAAAACPU/EAt0_ZYDmvUrSl_K72Qg2Kqibv3FRq3KQCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h206/bridge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">That whole polluted mass thing, sub species of the sea, nets, giant flotsam, carrier bags, batter scraps, its stinking skeleton and head like a pumped up trout, waddled its way over the waves to introduce itself to Ulsterman Michael Fish junior, the son of the famous weather disseminator Michael Fish senior.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Get back to the tidal waters, ye sardine sons of Satan!’ cried Michael Fish junior.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘We are harbingers of environmental and maritime catastrophe.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘The climate doomsday scenario, eh? That’s the cunning tongue of Papist dogma, and you are the fish spawn of vile Vatican venom. Back to your deep dark waters, I bid ye.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘In you we have picked the wrong human to warn mankind.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>‘Take your wicked wilful words and drown them in your long Roman robes of blood and Piscean blubber.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘We’ll be off then but don’t say we didn’t warn you.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Hook off, and don’t ye think leaving any of your sick roe or landing any one of your repugnant thought processes over here – not amongst our great united band of brothers, you won’t.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>No more, I tell ye. No, bloody more!’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Ungrateful or what?’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And the polluted mass thing dragged itself back over the shallows, and, reaching the drop of the sea shelf, sunk itself into the tarry deep chill of ocean and disappeared.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Michael Fish junior met his father for a mug of tea and fish and chip dinner.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘The high priest of tricks and tuna came, Da, and tried to say the waters were drying up and going bad.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Eat you cod, Junior, and drop the Paisley talk.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Everything is going to be just fine.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-9296272996367273762020-10-18T10:36:00.009-07:002020-10-18T11:04:39.719-07:00 Barnaby Benson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H6fXAUyp4Ng/X4x9G1Vm_3I/AAAAAAAACHA/PtFhVcXZOwwJEoaynWsjZae9oPrBgx_lgCLcBGAsYHQ/s560/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.35.44.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="420" height="479" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H6fXAUyp4Ng/X4x9G1Vm_3I/AAAAAAAACHA/PtFhVcXZOwwJEoaynWsjZae9oPrBgx_lgCLcBGAsYHQ/w359-h479/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.35.44.png" width="359" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In all their agonising and perpetuating of the myth that hard work leads to achievement,</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Barnaby Benson was an outlier, a slow-down, even-breathing sage of the virtues of doing nothing.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Eschewing the inherent stresses of searching for enlightenment by following mantras and rules,</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Barnaby’s approach, if it could be described, was as fresh as the melting rush of a mountain glacier:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Listen to metal and drink coffee and beer if you like them, rant at the television at night if it helps,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>just allow yourself a moment to breathe and empty your head and feel the ground under your feet’.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was as simple as that and though Barnaby Benson had no followers or friends or underpants of note,</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And spent lots of time ranting at the television, sometimes he was as quietened as a deserted school at night.</p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-35176502183750377142020-10-18T10:33:00.004-07:002021-02-01T06:59:54.064-08:00 When WE WILL RUN FREE<p><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4AlGAywKAK8/X4x8BjAZ0rI/AAAAAAAACG0/Y-zDov5-mVAGw5BrHb5H2JocZ37wRQyCACLcBGAsYHQ/s573/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.30.27.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="440" height="475" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4AlGAywKAK8/X4x8BjAZ0rI/AAAAAAAACG0/Y-zDov5-mVAGw5BrHb5H2JocZ37wRQyCACLcBGAsYHQ/w365-h475/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.30.27.png" width="365" /></a></div><b></b><br /><p></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When billionaires blew rockets to burn, we filled balloons</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">with spittle, and flew like Icarus towards the sun,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">skinned up palms to escape ourselves, to rescue a neighbour’s cat,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">shouted in cones, ranted from rooftops,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">held umbrellas just to caress the currents.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Once we mingled, cycled in an umbilical cord,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">a lycra chain-gang, in parks, in cities,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">crossing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>squares, linking hands on skyscrapers,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">thoughts of jumping banished by who we might fall on,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">a lonely road now with just our breaths, and memories.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">After this, the clamp, the civic shut in,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">will come the release, the new build,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">going into shops like entering a circus, the shrill cry that follows the roar,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the kiosk sign that says all fear gets left inside,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">we’ll find each other then, clowning around, ignoring hoops for the air outside.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-12585037853775120782020-10-18T10:29:00.003-07:002021-02-01T07:00:19.698-08:00 THE OPTIMIST RECYCLIST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bzWgpxUoYE/X4x7JcnKDuI/AAAAAAAACGo/yTa-kw7152A7PJXQMHYQZ6HY0IC3mVMDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s591/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.27.06.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="449" height="608" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bzWgpxUoYE/X4x7JcnKDuI/AAAAAAAACGo/yTa-kw7152A7PJXQMHYQZ6HY0IC3mVMDQCLcBGAsYHQ/w462-h608/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.27.06.png" width="462" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the low tide scrub hinterland fringing the canals of East London, all manner of life is exhumed: carved out cats, whose missteps had fatally wrong footed them into a starving badger lair; an empty marmalade jar divested of its fairground retro goldfish prize (three consecutive hoops on a roadside cone); a deflated helium balloon crash-landed from a child’s party; a bird spectacularly entangled and carried away by a goal net unfastened in a gust of wind.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Under this moody sulphurous globe of late autumn, amongst all the death and detritus, a woman walks, head down, wringing her hands in a vain attempt to wipe away thoughts, her brain frazzled and beset by fear. She doesn’t notice a resurrected, reborn half-dog-half-cat holding a Dyson leaf collector in its reconstructed paws; nor the legless, one-claw-one-hand surgical philosopher with his chest clasped tight in fish gut. It’s a pity for his words are exemplary: <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Do it to yourself, do it to others, patch up the armless and fill the poor souls with their stuffing taken out, put crows eyes on crows feet, jumpstart a de-frosting Iceland salmon and sew an aqualung through its spine, taxidermy the taxi driver who lost all recall of his knowledge, give him a dog’s memory for treats and plant a Satnav into his frontal lobe<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>. . . ‘</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As he speaks, his lone claw chops creative life shapes into the sky, whilst his hand reaches in his pocket for a long discarded Strawberry Quality Street.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>‘I hate these,’ he thinks. ‘If only I had the power to summon new life, not just resurrect and re-shape the lifeless, I could bring forth a chocolate caramel, or a purple clad toffee brazil.’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>He spits the strawberry cream out and the half-dog-half-cat hoovers it up.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘Waste not want not,’ munches the half-dog-half-cat.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The surgical philosopher, who has been closely watching the rejected chocolate disappear into his splendid domestic creation, is suddenly struck by a big idea. ‘Pass me the leaf collector,’ he commands, ‘for I can fashion something from it that may have benefit for life-form as we know it, something for the greater wellbeing of our planet.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">His words take flight towards the angst-ridden woman, who had passed by only a moment before: ‘Madam, would you allow me to adapt the leaf blower into a strimmer and splice it directly into your brain? Not only might it help you shed unnecessarily negative thoughts but it might shape burdensome worries into manageable bite-sized chunks’.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The woman turns: ‘Are you insane: some kind of DIY Jesus with ideas above your station?’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘You’re not ready,’ the surgical philosopher surmises. ‘It’s understandable, I feel your pain, your confused state. But when you are ready, you know where to find me.’</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">‘In the looney bin,’ she replies, and yet even as she say this, she finds her feet taking small steps forward, drawing her imperceptibly towards the surgical philosopher, to a life without worries, a life without hands or feet.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-19772774401282918552020-10-18T10:25:00.006-07:002020-10-18T11:03:42.096-07:00 Man in shower<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Man in pane<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Condensation<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Man get hot<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Palpitation<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Man bit stuck<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Constipation<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Man do fart</span> <br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; text-align: center;">Fumigation</span><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">!</span></span></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OPoknzz1q2Y/X4x6L0xcBSI/AAAAAAAACGc/3Nuu5gA23dIEY1rc6bMo7sLXzhrZSeG8gCLcBGAsYHQ/s475/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.22.34.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="356" height="514" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OPoknzz1q2Y/X4x6L0xcBSI/AAAAAAAACGc/3Nuu5gA23dIEY1rc6bMo7sLXzhrZSeG8gCLcBGAsYHQ/w386-h514/Screen%2BShot%2B2020-10-18%2Bat%2B18.22.34.png" width="386" /></a></div><br /><p> </p>Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-47106479631194782182017-02-23T07:24:00.002-08:002017-02-23T07:24:56.643-08:00THE HIKE <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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‘Oh, lone is the path that turns its head, that coils the slopes, and reaches unseen peaks.’<br />
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A ramble no more amongst congested city parks, devils careering on wheelie boards, arses slung from low-hung jeans, bins stocked full with detritus: used pampers, split micro-brewery plastic tankards and tomato splattered pizza cartons.<br />
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Out into the big sky and mountainous ranges, the air rare and tight, the urban hiker takes his beard for a wild unanswered whistle and a solitary testing climb. No mobile reception, no wifi, just him and his lightly groomed, much-coveted facial hair.<br />
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‘Beard, I like it. I like it very much,’ he says.<br />
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The beard tenses, its follicles frosting with the cold, tightening its grasp on the skin around his master’s mouth to produce a satisfying satisfied grin.<br />
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‘I want to shout, “I’m smiling because I’m happy!”’<br />
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The beard has other ideas and tightens its hold further so the hiker can speak no more. He is forced to sit down with his beard at the mountain’s peak and listen and watch, the cold mist rising from the valley to join his own exhaled plumes of breath, his heart slowing to a single beat, everything laid out before him.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-92137078574942281842017-02-23T07:15:00.002-08:002017-02-23T07:15:42.231-08:00MILLICENT MARTIN<br />
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Millicent Martin was a man on a mission. He’d already mentally left the fog and fug of his life behind: the screaming child, the nylon duvet that gave him shingles, the carpet that rucked up each time he tried to do a squat jump on it. So what was Millicent Martin intending to do? Millicent Martin was going to raise havoc. He went into the loft and bought down the Maasai spear from his holiday in Kenya when he eighteen. His wife cried ‘No!’ but Millicent Martin cried ‘yes, bloody well yes,’ and set off down the high street to find an impala to impale. Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-45564820164240723952016-10-20T12:54:00.002-07:002016-10-20T12:54:29.093-07:00MONSTERS WITHIN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Mister Tindall runs the sweet shop. Mister Tindall lives alone. Mister Tindall has no friends. Mister Tindall is a monster.<br /><br />Me and my brother call him names: yellow fangs, pus breather, custard eyes and banana ears; these are our yellow names for him.<br /><br />He is the ugliest man in the street. He is the ugliest man in the town. He is the ugliest man in the world. He isn’t even a man. <br /><br />Once he was wearing sandals and I saw claws where there should have been toes. He has a hairy back that’s way too hairy even for a very hairy man. He has spikes where they have no right to be. He owns a tail. <br /><br />Dad says he’s the sort who would sit behind a screen in a darkened room and target bombs onto innocent streets and faraway playgrounds. Mum says Dad is being ridiculous but asks us each day if we’ve actually seen his tail. She has a strange worried look when she asks this. Like she’s remembering a nightmare and isn’t sure if she’s our Mum anymore.<br /><br />That’s the effect Mister Tindall has. He upsets everyone and everything. That’s why we don’t go into his sweet shop, except when he’s not there. <br />There are pink gums, red gobstoppers, small stacks of Dracula milk teeth, and jars with body chunks floating in formaldehyde.<br /><br />A new rumour has started going around town. It says Mister Tindall is fearful of his own reflection, and is as scared of us as we are of him. He’s a coward and can be got at! Last week Dad rounded up a posse and they took flaming torches and stood outside his shop for hours not saying a word. <br /><br />We still hurry when we pass the shop on the way to school. In class we all daydream about him. On the way home we write graffiti on his walls, like ‘leave our town’ and ‘you’re not welcome’. At night we hear him rubbing away the words, and once we heard him cry.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-92004945005566757312016-10-19T12:00:00.000-07:002016-10-19T12:00:03.067-07:00AN UNHOLY GRAIL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Quiet now. The night is Devil black.<br />Sleep now. The Knight waits for attack.<br />They mass behind. They storm and plunder –<br />The giant evil birds, the filthy scalded cats,<br />The tombstone tenants, faces racked by thunder.<br /><br />Hope shines out from the door in a negative of night,<br />The moon above is full and on the other side of dawn<br />The cheats and murderous burst out of the earth,<br />The horned devil finds a good place from which to strike,<br />All light gone and night undone, the Knight waits.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-5037283020974154492016-10-19T11:57:00.002-07:002016-10-19T12:07:42.840-07:00Conker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You said to bring a conker<br />I did?<br />To play conkers<br />I did?<br />Look, I’m not sure why you keep saying that<br />I did?<br />Yes, that phrase, I’m not sure why . . .<br />Can I see the conker?<br />You’ve got one too?<br />Can I see the conker?<br />I think I’m going to go<br />Can I see the conker?<br />I’ll leave it here; I don’t want to play any more<br />You’ve got nice conker<br />A nice conker?<br />You’ve got nice conker<br />Bye then<br />Nice conker<br />Excuse me?<br />Nice conker<br />I’m off<br />ConkerJonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-78039019855986259022016-10-19T11:54:00.001-07:002016-10-19T11:54:24.259-07:00CREAM CRACKERS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Mum always said I was simple but vain: a lethal cocktail in her book. Granddad said I was ‘as smug us a bug in a rug’; whatever that meant. But I’ve always had this notion that I could be a hero, something, someone to look up to, a pinnacle –‘ <br />‘An icon, lad,’ Mum said. ‘They call this an icon.’ <br />‘Not on a plinth to stare up at, but a fully fledged blood and guts hero.’<br />‘An icon!’<br />‘So how do I do it?’<br />‘Do it?’ Mum said. ‘You’re crackers, lad. Just stop with all the dirty talk, your brain is made up of crumbs: crackers plain and simple, that’s what you are.’<br />Jacob’s Cream my brother used to call me. Only he meant it in a sly, saucy Old Testament way.<br />‘You’ll end up with a permanent spot on Looney Tunes like your brother if you don’t shut down the hero talk!’ Mum warned.<br />My bother had shut it down. He’d followed the words of an angry bishop who said radical Muslims were damaging status quo. Devoted to Saint Francis (Rossi,) my brother tried to crucify our neighbour, Mister Khan’s cat. Cat would have none of it and backed him up in an alleyway and clawed at his face.<br />I visited him by his new bed in his new room. ‘Cover my foot in coal dust and hand me a bandana,’ Granddad used to say to us when we were small. We had no idea what he meant but it always made us laugh. I tried the line again but my brother didn’t even smile. ‘Still spitting crumbs, Jacob?’ he asked, rubbing the scratches on his cheeks.<br />When it was clear he wasn’t returning, I tried to shut down the hero impulses for good but the hero words just kept coming. <br /><br />Many years later, Mrs Vance, who lived next door, got her self in a spot of bother.<br />‘I’ve got myself in a spot of bother, Thomas (“that’s my name. Please, remember it!”).’ <br />Sidney Groat was a moneylender, old school. Kneecap Sid some called him: one tap on each knee with a hammer for each day you were late with a payment. Mrs Vance was four days late, plastic hips, plastic kneecaps and all. ‘Call me the bionic woman,’ she used to say whilst pulling out her dentures, and then holding them above her head to make chopping shapes in the clouds.<br />‘Could you help an old woman in distress, Thomas?’ she asked.<br />‘I’ll sort it, whatever it is!’ I said.<br />I lay in wait for his next visit. Tap he went on Mrs Vance’s door, which I was sure she felt as a threat deep in her (knee) bones. <br />I burst out of a bush with my nephew’s Spiderman mask on. ‘Step back, Mister Groat or you’ll be spinning in my web and eating worms for dinner,’ (another of Granddad’s phrases).<br />‘Who, the fuck are you?’<br />‘Jacob Cream,’ I said.<br />He laughed, and this gave me my chance. <br />I took out my carrier bag (‘5p, daylight bloody robbery!’ Mum would have said if she were still alive), and pulled it over his head and tied. His arms waved; his face made moving shadows inside the bag, an angry wide mouth. He fell onto his knees after a while.<br />Mrs Vance stepped out. ‘ What have you gone and done? I only meant you to warn him off!’<br />Hard this hero stuff, hard to know where to draw the line. I didn’t fancy ending up sitting on a hospital bench next to my brother making hedgehogs from pinecones so I ran.<br />Mrs Vance helped Mister Groat up and they looked down the street to see if they could spot me. Mrs Vance should have got out her dentures: I was high up in the trees beside the clouds. <br /><br />I’m up here now. If you look carefully you can see fine crumbs falling from the sky when I speak. And if you’re in trouble, I’ll stop talking and come down and help you. Like most heroes I’m a better listener than talker anyway, ‘a transistor radio with knobs on and no battery inside’ as Granddad used to say.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-79491010940614490912016-10-19T11:52:00.003-07:002016-10-19T11:52:48.564-07:00POLICE! CAMERA! ACTION!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4MxijwlQi5s/WAfAy-FTYsI/AAAAAAAABXI/lBVlSe9c-0A3T7cXVqRZvJQWEMJ8E7jwQCLcB/s1600/police%2521cameara%2521action%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="435" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4MxijwlQi5s/WAfAy-FTYsI/AAAAAAAABXI/lBVlSe9c-0A3T7cXVqRZvJQWEMJ8E7jwQCLcB/s640/police%2521cameara%2521action%2521.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Police! Camera! Action!<br />Another disaster programme done and dusted, and the TV anchor-man made from slime and Milk Tray slips away to the park. Clothes off, neck hair swept back, his metamorphosis into a creeping creeper creep happens within his own moving fog of smug. His form glides as much as it hunches and when he arrives in the park he sets about worrying the deer by whispering crime statistics and the phrase ‘buckled Austin Princess’ into their hot felt like ears. ‘Bastards’ is a word he savours for unsettling the stags, their bony coat stands tensing as if they might rut and cut at any moment. But as quick as he was there, he’s gone again. Back to the studios and into his early evening television suit, a Chaplin dung stain mopped off his top lip by his adoring assistant, his tiny hooves clasping the calf insoles of his smart heeled shoes.<br />Smile! Smarm! Action!<br />Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-21644238877348368442016-10-19T11:50:00.002-07:002016-10-19T11:50:42.649-07:00QUINCY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pdSlmHIk3h4/WAfAUAZxqMI/AAAAAAAABXE/PVfLDe2MYwo5E0ugl9ckxrLG6xveZkTXgCLcB/s1600/QUINCY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="470" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pdSlmHIk3h4/WAfAUAZxqMI/AAAAAAAABXE/PVfLDe2MYwo5E0ugl9ckxrLG6xveZkTXgCLcB/s640/QUINCY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />‘I swear I saw it, I did, I did,’ says the lippy horseman pointing back towards the island.<br />‘You saw what, may I ask?’ asks the armless one.<br />‘Fungus Face, Mister Mask the Fungus Face! He made some bad ju ju down there.’<br />‘Do do?’<br />‘Ju Ju! He do an autopsy or something on someone or something, I don’t know what. Couldn’t make it out.’<br />‘You should go back and make it out,’ says the armless one. <br />‘Come on! Who do you think I am, Poirot or Quincy?’ asks the horseman<br />‘Quincy.’<br />‘And who do you think he is?’<br />‘Quincy.’<br />‘Well, I’m not going back, not for you, not for no one, not even for Quincy.’Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-39850656069143199162016-02-27T09:42:00.005-08:002016-02-27T09:43:33.329-08:00TRUMPS<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gPO7koZcrhc/VtHgGNsNiFI/AAAAAAAABP4/pgSVWVttEdM/s1600/TRUMPS.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="432" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gPO7koZcrhc/VtHgGNsNiFI/AAAAAAAABP4/pgSVWVttEdM/s640/TRUMPS.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
‘I’ve got the whole world in my hands, I’ve got the whole world . . . oh, hello, there. What do you think I should I do with it now?’<br />
‘Behind you!’<br />
‘You want me to put it behind me?’<br />
‘Look behind you!’<br />
‘Ah, you want me to drop the world in the volcano? Okay then, here goes. Drum roll, please . . . ‘Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-52644451965676458352016-02-27T09:42:00.001-08:002016-02-27T09:43:40.961-08:00HEELS!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z1AJUHL7RNM/VtHfyO-HzMI/AAAAAAAABP0/5kMhrbVo7B4/s1600/Heels.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z1AJUHL7RNM/VtHfyO-HzMI/AAAAAAAABP0/5kMhrbVo7B4/s640/Heels.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Ere, want me to help you with your heels?<br />
No thanks, I’m quite okay.<br />
Heels!<br />
Yes, heels.<br />
Rhymes with feels.<br />
Yes.<br />
Can I?<br />
No.<br />
Heels! I like heels. I like your heels and I like saying ‘heels’! <br />
It’s a free country.<br />
Heels!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-4344689425052919182015-02-26T06:20:00.000-08:002015-02-28T09:42:08.121-08:00THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN SITTING IN A PARK DRINKING BEER.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X60XnHkzufk/VO8rZ84AH-I/AAAAAAAABDI/f6WHFlcKfBQ/s1600/park%2Blarks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X60XnHkzufk/VO8rZ84AH-I/AAAAAAAABDI/f6WHFlcKfBQ/s1600/park%2Blarks.jpg" height="385" width="640" /></a></div>
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There’s more to life than sitting in a park drinking beer<b>.</b></div>
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Says who?</div>
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Says I. Just look around, Jack: what do you see?</div>
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A bunch of twats?</div>
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The man with a dog: what’s he thinking?</div>
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I can’t feed my dog so he’ll eat me.</div>
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Your view is jaundiced.</div>
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The wide-faced twit on stilts will get his stilt stuck in a
drain and fall on his tit.</div>
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What makes you so angry?</div>
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People saying ‘there’s more to life than sitting in a park
drinking beer’.</div>
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Okay, do want another one then?</div>
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Does the Pope wear Speedos?</div>
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I don’t know what you mean by that.</div>
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Please yourself.</div>
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Promise you’ll lighten up when I get back?</div>
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Pinkie promise. Now, piss off and get the beers. </div>
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When Arnold is gone, Jack’s heart suddenly bursts and tiny
splinters pour out and scatter onto the ground. </div>
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<br /></div>
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When Arnold returns he finds his friend lying on the ground </div>
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Jack is speaking softly and Arnold bends close to hear what he’s
saying: I see it now, lovely birds, lovely people, lovely friends!</div>
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And then he’s gone.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The night falls onto the park. Arnold drinks both beers, and
then lights a bunch of splinters to find his way home.</div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-4210583077435173552015-02-26T06:18:00.000-08:002015-02-28T09:40:34.506-08:00Steps of rain<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iN374rfgetc/VO8q5BtjJRI/AAAAAAAABDA/aPjVer28Fo8/s1600/image.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iN374rfgetc/VO8q5BtjJRI/AAAAAAAABDA/aPjVer28Fo8/s1600/image.jpeg" height="400" width="252" /></a></div>
Plink it. The rain it does. <br />
Take it from me it says it does. <br />
It rain. Refrain. It stain. <br />
I, it drain. <br />
For all man kind. <br />
For brethren for friend it rain. <br />
It pain. <br />
And again and again <br />
it fall.<br />
The rain <br />
..<br />
..<br />
..<br />
..<br />
the rain.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-57947734383997015862014-12-18T10:05:00.004-08:002014-12-19T04:33:22.112-08:00THE END OF THE KNOB<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BxK6pYf4ZFo/VJMXQ9j1hRI/AAAAAAAAA-w/mbR_dmad4jA/s1600/mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BxK6pYf4ZFo/VJMXQ9j1hRI/AAAAAAAAA-w/mbR_dmad4jA/s1600/mountain.jpg" /></a></div>
THE END OF THE KNOB<br /><br />It was a strange mission and details of it were kept secret even from the <br /><br />climbers. The team chosen were all experienced, veterans of the Himalayas, <br /><br />and set about reaching base camp with a unifying sense of professionalism <br /><br />and a common desire to get to the end, wherever it was.<br /><br />At base camp they were told they were to climb Peter’s Knob.<br /><br />‘Non heard of dis one,’ said Pascal Piste, the team leader.<br /><br />‘It’s a penis, gentlemen,’ replied the Base Camp co-ordinator: ‘my name is <br /><br />Peter and the penis is mine!’ <br /><br />The tent was silent for a moment for this was an astonishing thing to hear, but <br /><br />then one by one the elite climbers began to laugh.<br /><br />‘You can laugh all you like but tomorrow morning you begin my ascent. I <br /><br />commend your aptitude and skill and wish you all the luck in the world.’ <br /><br />‘Mes amis,’ spoke Pascal. ‘Le Knob de Pierre, c’est dificile, mais un climb est <br /><br />un climb, non? Nous must travail et succeed, oui, oui?’<br /><br />‘Yes, wee,’ said the climbers and the next morning they allowed themselves to <br /><br />be miniaturised and set to work.<br /><br />It took seven arduous hours, jagging and faltering amongst bumps and <br /><br />crevices, vein cracks and old love scars, but eventually they arrived at Peter’s <br /><br />Summit, where they planted their flag.<br /><br />Peter looked down at them disdainfully, and with a series of monkey like <br /><br />scratches sent them plummeting into a dark abyss.<br /><br />‘Never said anything about planting a flag you egotistical amateurs!’ he cried.<br /><br />‘Are we in a cave?’ asked climber Two.<br /><br />‘It’s warm and the odour is profound,’ said climber Three.<br /><br />Climber Four kept coughing, and Pascal voiced what surely they already <br /><br />knew: ’how do you say dans le postérieur dans Anglais, mes amis?’<br /><br />‘It sounds almost the same in English,’ they said, before a terrible thing <br /><br />engulfed them all.Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-40456649563518981202014-11-27T03:16:00.002-08:002014-11-27T03:16:28.285-08:00FROM CHAOS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dD4_nSYF43M/VHcH30YyoqI/AAAAAAAAA9M/pg3vqCjwsW4/s1600/DSCF2634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dD4_nSYF43M/VHcH30YyoqI/AAAAAAAAA9M/pg3vqCjwsW4/s1600/DSCF2634.JPG" height="448" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>FROM CHAOS</b></div>
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From low, the semi-elongated-dwarf–bird-cat looks up at the
absurd magnanimity of the metropolis and sighs. A cloud drops low and showers
the steps before him. He will go no further.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Up in a bone tree in the high part of the city, a squat owl
surveys everything. He has nothing wise or profound to say. He is looking for
mice. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It is left to a parakeet busy sucking on the trail of a
tsetse fly to explain but it’ll take a near eternity to hear his words, as
birds either cannot speak or we cannot understand them if they do. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6636758859303218764" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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No matter, we know a bird who swallowed a fly . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-18180904188831581372014-11-24T02:35:00.002-08:002014-11-27T03:18:49.348-08:00JAZZ ROCK<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--v8nl6hZi1Y/VHMJ0t_neCI/AAAAAAAAA88/yWhm-DDYACA/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--v8nl6hZi1Y/VHMJ0t_neCI/AAAAAAAAA88/yWhm-DDYACA/s1600/photo.JPG" height="364" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><b>JAZZ ROCK</b></span></div>
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The cry of a trumpet: ‘I beseech you to go JAZZ’, it says
and the spiky tail rocker transforms into a giant, pubic fuzz ball.</div>
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<br /></div>
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‘You is scrambling my brain in pussy weed, my horny friend,’
says the rocker. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The jazzster keeps blowing those difficult notes and the
shaggy rocker rolls off, all hairy biker and tumble thatch. </div>
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<br /></div>
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‘Look at her go,’ croons the trumpet, suddenly sad and slow.
‘She’s got a bearded mass and a furry ass!’</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Not she, I’m he,’ says the rocking fur ball, spitting
hairs. ‘Just stop the jazz!’</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the horn is done.</div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-769433966729561742014-11-24T02:29:00.000-08:002014-11-24T02:29:23.632-08:00 LITERACY AND GOOD MANNERS (COUNT FOR EVERYTHING UP NORTH)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6636758859303218764" name="_GoBack"></a>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DtCd_tw_FLw/VHMIKygZmSI/AAAAAAAAA8w/MihWnT_oavU/s1600/DSCF2655.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DtCd_tw_FLw/VHMIKygZmSI/AAAAAAAAA8w/MihWnT_oavU/s1600/DSCF2655.JPG" height="640" width="441" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>LITERACY AND GOOD MANNERS (COUNT FOR EVERYTHING UP NORTH)</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The giant bad ass Penguin (call me Admiral) stomps forth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the way he meets a basking whale.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Heh, Penguin, where you heading?’ asks the whale.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Call me Admiral,’ says the Penguin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Admiral, where you heading?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Where am I heading?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Yes, where are you heading?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘North.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Give my regards to the Polar Bears.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Yes, I will.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The giant bad ass Penguin (call me Admiral) stomps north.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the way he meets a spoilt child.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Heh, waiter, bring me lollypop,’ says the child.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Call me Admiral,’ says the Penguin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Admiral, bring me lollypop.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Bring you a lollypop?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Yes, bring me a lollypop.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘No.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Give my regards to the Polar Bears.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Yes, I will.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The giant bad ass Penguin (call me Admiral) stomps, and stomps.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Polar Bears wait on an ice cap.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Heh, Admiral, it’s good to see you,’ say the Polar Bears.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Thank you for your literacy and good manners,’ says the
Penguin. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Come closer so we can shake your hand.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘I’d be pleased to.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Sorry, but this may hurt.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Ouch, go easy if you will.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘We’re hungry, please don’t take offence.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘None is taken.’<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6636758859303218764" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-46347785100978264312014-11-21T11:06:00.000-08:002014-11-21T11:06:22.782-08:00 CLOWNING AROUND<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-09xullv8x-I/VG-M4tmIpZI/AAAAAAAAA8g/c0u3zZ3_6Eo/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-09xullv8x-I/VG-M4tmIpZI/AAAAAAAAA8g/c0u3zZ3_6Eo/s1600/photo.JPG" height="465" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>CLOWNING AROUND</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Coco was more than usually annoyed; he was downright angry:
‘which of you freaks called me a clown?’ he barked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was Bum Face Martin but he was never going to own up so
the swans confessed instead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘I knew it,’ said Coco. ‘Never trust a bird that’s named
after matches.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bum Face Martin sniggered and whispered ‘clown’ but Coco
didn’t seem to hear, he was busy banging on about swans: ‘evil critters with
long beaks and stupid feet!’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bum Face Martin wondered about saying ‘just like clowns’ but
he thought better of it, there was no way of knowing how Coco would react when
he was in this kind of mood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After enduring a tirade of insults the swans flew off and
Coco turned to Bum Face Martin and said: ‘I knew it was you, Bum Face, but I
just don’t like swans!’</div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-71705804528088839392014-02-21T09:56:00.001-08:002014-02-21T09:56:44.691-08:00WaterWorld<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yA1Yy2epVtw/UweTAu6CxAI/AAAAAAAAAso/TN-PtqrLAMo/s1600/image.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yA1Yy2epVtw/UweTAu6CxAI/AAAAAAAAAso/TN-PtqrLAMo/s1600/image.jpeg" height="447" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b><i>An
old lady and an old man sit on an inflatable sofa</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">He said it
was like 1938 to 1939 all over again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">I know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Teetering
on the brink, dithering in the face of disaster. All all too late, nothing to
do about it, we were all doomed. Doooomed! No one believed him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Not now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Earth
heating up, waters rising, washing us away in the swell! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Leave it.
Let’s rest a little.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">I worked
for him after they put him in a nursing home, tight as a tack he was.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Was he?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">He was! I
put his dentures in a tin and shaved his whiskers with my fingers to save on
razors.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Of course
you did, makes sense now you say it. Now, are you going to buy me a drink, I’ve
come a long way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">I don’t
know you, do I?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">You do, we
talk ever day. My drink? Please?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Another one
said Noah’s ark was real, found the planks and everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Everything?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Don’t need
Noah now, and a boat would be a waste of time. They’re building rockets to Mars.
Branson’s in on it; he’s one of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">One of who?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The chosen
ones, been selling tickets on shuttles to his rich friends for years; we’ll be
left to fend for ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">He wouldn’t
do that. He’s got a nice smile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Dinosaur
teeth, they all have: Cameron, Charles, Camilla, Cilla.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Cilla?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Black! Cilla
Black! My scrotum is litmus. All that itching, it senses things, can tell a bad
one from a good one, it knew the deluge was afoot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Rained 400
days so it must have been very itchy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">And 400
nights, sandpaper on nylon sheets. I’ll get you that drink now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Daft sod, I
was teasing you. Where are you going to get me a drink from?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b><i>Their
sofa wobbles in a swell, the gloop of dark water twisting and spreading under
the moonlight</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Could use a
cup to scoop it out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">We don’t
have a cup. And we can’t drink; it’s contaminated.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">We’re done
for then?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Of course
we are. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Can you
swim?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Can you?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Used to be
able to.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">There you
are then. Why don’t we hold hands, have a kiss maybe, share some of the old air
raid spirit?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">My scrotum
is telling me this isn’t going to end well</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">You don’t
need your scrotum to tell you that. Now shut up and give me a kiss.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">But I don’t
know you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">We’ve been
married for sixty years you silly old fool, now hold my hands and give me a
kiss.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b><i>Bert
takes Mary’s hands in his, and kisses</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">‘Oh, your
lips are dry, love’, <i>he says.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b><i>And a
wave suddenly moves them from view as a large rocket passes over the moon</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>.</b></span></div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-42191053100825652472013-10-22T05:17:00.001-07:002014-11-27T03:18:02.444-08:00Pizza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Be_nZ_u0KMI/UmZsY-C0nZI/AAAAAAAAAjI/lVZjQq7ylo8/s1600/clear+A6+pad+2007+6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Be_nZ_u0KMI/UmZsY-C0nZI/AAAAAAAAAjI/lVZjQq7ylo8/s640/clear+A6+pad+2007+6.jpeg" height="640" width="432" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>PIZZA, PLEASE</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Thing
is, you always have to wait hours for your meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, you have to wait for a waiter. It can take hours to
get their attention and often they will look right through you as if you’re invisible,
an empty wooden chair. You know better than to click your fingers. You try
smiles at first, raised eyebrows, come here gestures with your body, your arms,
your hands, your mouth (you mouth ‘come here, please’ and ‘I’m a hungry man, help
me, please’) and you even gesture with your nose, a little vague nostril crinkle
as if this were a universally understood language of restaurant etiquette. When
you finally get a waiter’s attention by shouting ‘I’m over here’ you have to wait
for them to bring you a menu. This can take hours. Then, when you finally have
the menu in your hands, you have to wait for the waiter to come back and take
your order from the menu. This can also take hours. And there is nothing worse
or more depressing than waiting hours to order food, time slows to a
melancholic mumble and you start to feel like you may never eat food again.
When the waiter deigns to return he tells you he can only take your drinks
order even though you know exactly what food you want to order. It’s a pizza
restaurant for Christ’s sake and you want to order pizza. When you tell him
this he looks at you as if you’re mad and says another waiter will come and
take your food order. ‘That’s the way we do things in restaurants, okay?’ When other
people in the restaurant stop glaring at you for daring to upset the staff,
‘they may pee in our coca cola now’, they stare towards the waiters like
malevolent wolves in a zoo might eye their keepers, half hating them for being
so slow but also pleading with anxious eyes and needy smiles for them to come near.
Why should you plead with them or even smile at them? It’s their fucking job to
come and serve you, and so you keep your back turned and wait. And you wait for
hours. Literally for hours! You see these other people have their order taken;
you even see some get their food. Pizzas! And they dive on them, tear at them,
like they’re hacking away at the doughy carcasses of fallen flat pack monkeys.
Sometimes they smile at you with bloody tomato paste around their lips to say ‘your
time may come soon, fucker’. Their smiles initially seem apologetic and
sympathetic, but you can’t help feeling they’re also triumphant. So you try not
to look at them but you can’t quite help it, each pizza slice being crammed between
their stupid lips causing bile to churn and then rise into your mouth. It
doesn’t help that you’re eating alone. Like a lone man without a child sitting
in a playground, you are an unwanted presence. It suddenly occurs to you that
it’s possible that you might die here: of starvation, of loneliness, of neglect.
You need to eat and you have a right to eat, god damn it! You’re not a bad
person, you’re not anything really, and you’re not doing anything wrong. You
feel a moral indignation, the sense of being left out of things taking over and
you turn quickly around to voice your need, your order! And as you do, the wine
waiter arrives and spills your bottle of wine over you. Damson notes, hints of
tobacco and bloody carnage all over your bloody head. You look like an extra in
Carrie. ‘Sorry, Sir,’ the waiter says. ‘I’ll get you another one.’ You’ve been
here ten hours, you’re completely soaked in wine and the waiter has gone before
you could say anything, probably never to return, and you still haven’t had
your food order taken. You get up and start walking. The other diners crouch
over their pizzas as if you’re about to steal them. But you have another idea
and soon you are running and then bounding towards the kitchen. The waiters
notice you. Four of them, fucking four of them! Where were they when you needed
them? They circle you but you’re too quick and you bang into the kitchen. The
chef hears you amidst the clamour and clatter of falling pans, and then sees
you in your bloody shirt and your bloody face and he reaches for his cleaver.
You duck but it’s the wrong thing to do and a swish of the blade meant for your
midriff takes your head clean off. Now you have their attention! In folklore there
is a minute when a severed head still lives and is able to communicate.
Sometimes with a blink or a reproachful curse but in your case with a formal
request in two sentences: ‘I would like a mushroom and pepper pizza. And I
would like it now.’ The pizza is brought to you and a slice is cut and slid
across the floor and into your mouth. It tastes delicious, miraculous even, but
not quite worth the wait.</span></div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6636758859303218764.post-85630482449746560892013-08-02T09:08:00.000-07:002013-08-02T09:08:48.998-07:00SWIMMERS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fTnenJ_Wu9w/Uft8WbhIeQI/AAAAAAAAAgE/5O7f3S7FMZc/s1600/swimmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fTnenJ_Wu9w/Uft8WbhIeQI/AAAAAAAAAgE/5O7f3S7FMZc/s1600/swimmer.jpg" height="374" width="640" /></a></div>
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Betty Boothby, the hotpot beer pourer at Lance a Duck, has
only gone and got the swimming bug. Not the tummy trot, thicko, she’s doing
widths and lengths like a duck in a summer pond. And she’s good! The girl’s got
stamina. So she’s going to lard up and swim over and plant her arse on some
Normandy rock or other. Her swimming mate, her personal trainer, gets under her
shit and is a nasty sort called Paddle Foot Steve. Says the North Atlantic
whalers are on the way every time she gets into the channel. And he guzzles her
Lucozade sport drink and eats her wotsits when she’s not looking: what a
fucker! Anyway, funny thing is, just as she spies the Tricolour on some French
nonce’s beachside garden, she’s harpooned by a Jap whaler. Don’t make him right
or nothing, he’s a fucker after all, but it is funny: funny in sad way that
makes you think. Poor bloody Betty, didn’t deserve that, did she? </div>
Jonny Vosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545599071740061391noreply@blogger.com