I was seized by a most inexplicable urge to do something linear and squarish and, possibly not at all beautiful; certainly not pretty, let alone cute. For cute there’s always the Shoggies and the rest of the fattybomboms. So, I came up with this here thing on the left which, as well as being linear and squarish and not pretty is also a little bit nasty, as are all institutions wot claim to act as bridges between us peasants and the divine, or The Source or whatever. A pox on them all. Naturally, no sooner I had finished it that I had the twin itch to do its counterpoint. So here she is, on the right, looking at a relative ease but by no means pious or complacent. Do vote if you feel like it.

Update 17/09/15 Faith Floats. Septimus Wyndbagg-fffoulkes, aka The Floating Reverend, has drifted into the vaporous heartland of the Frequent Mutation Tribes (United). Coming across the Accidental Tortosnails and their companions, the Symbiotic Birds, he has launched into a most eloquent and passionate delivery of his special kind of scriptural dribble. The fortuitous molluscoids and the birdies are natural atheists, congenitally communist, circumstantially communitarians, temperamentally anarchists, hermaphrodite, parthenogenetic and of a sunny disposition, therefore they are totally bemused by the discourse, which they regards as a curious mixture of absolute twaddle and coals to Newcastle, but are impressed by the son et lumií¨re display that accompanies the babble. They are also very polite and hospitable to a fault; therefore they will listen patiently to Septimus’ cheery prattle, nod wisely, give him lunch and send him on his way with many wishes of health and good fortune.

Septimus is the nogoodnik second son of a wastrel second son of an impoverished aristocratic family. With not two pennies to rub together, nor a square inch of land to call his own, he was, therefore, destined for the ministry, as he was too small and even-tempered for the army. He was lucky enough to find a sponsor who paid for a few years at the University of Dylath-Leen whence he emerged with a lower third in Theology, a First-Plus in Rhetoric and a Past-Master-With- Knobs-On in Performing Arts & Showmanship. So he’s not much cop as preacher as such, but he’s awfully sweet-natured, highly imaginative, very funny, extremely laid-back and so scatter-brained that he can start preaching the delights of renunciation and end up with a fiery vindication of profligacy. He also has panache, chutzpah (hence the totally bogus extra small f in his surname) and bottle aplenty. He has not, to date, converted a single soul to anything -in part because it’s nigh impossible to figure out what he is on about half the time, but he’s made a name for himself with the flâneur fraternity and he’s frequently asked to lunches, dinners, suppers, poker games and garden parties. So his life ain’t half as bad as his wobbly origins might have anticipated. I like happy endings, don’t you?

That is, of them who see things for what they are. Mostly pie in the sky, I know, given that the world now functions according to the diktats and decrees of the psychopaths who run it, the Carl Roves and Henry Kissingers and that kind of freakish fauna, but one keeps on knocking on that door, one does. As one must.

Update 31/08/15. The Amphibious Vermicelli have been at it again. This time they’ve managed to inveigle the poor Blubber BumBum, who’s a little simple-minded and very easily led, into one of their dodgy experiments. The generously buttock’d creature has great psychic aptitudes and is a marvellous conduit of and for electromagnetic whatsits, so the wicked annelids have persuaded him to connect a human brain with whatever passes for the mind of a Repulsive Moon-Beasts of Leng, just to see what happens. Given that the brain belongs to someone in the current Tory cabinet (it has been ingeniously “borrowed. whist in her sleep), I’m not sure who is going to get the greater shock. Personally I’m inclined to pity the poor Moon-Beast. Update. I can now reveal that the brain “borrowed” was Theresa May’s, who never even noticed its absence the morning after (the experiment dragged on a bit). The wretched Moon-Beast is still in A&E but it’s expected to make a full recovery. Tough cookies they are, these beasties. Fortunately for them…

Update 04/09/15. Another day down in the Beautiful South, another black kid gratuitously murdered by the “Law & Order”. Is anybody keeping count? I used to, but I lost it a while back, there have been so many in the past year. Here’s what some recent eye-witnesses have to say on the subject: Mr BlackBlob and his young son Squiddy, just back from a transatlantic visit to distant relatives, are telling their friend Mrs MicroDragon .“a third cousin dimensionally twice removed of Mrs Worm’s, how pigs will fly before they set foot again upon a land where harmless creatures are being wantonly bumped off, in public and with total impunity, by demented yahoos in blue armed to the teeth, according to a selectively colour-coded yardstick (or rather taserstick).

Back in 05/03/15 I threatened some more of those ad hominem attacks. Somehow I forgot to fulfill my promise (possibly because I uploaded them on the other site). Well, I hate to be forsworn so here they are.

And here be some more. Por mucho pan and all that, you know.

And some more-more and that’s it, I swear.

This is yet another experiment, this time in the layout department.

I’m totally fed up with this clunky, chunky, graceless old format of text, text, text and then a block of thumbnails. It’s boring and messy and diabolically time-wasting if you want to correlate a text entry with its image. It’d seem so much more logical and rational to have one discrete paragraph per picture and to separate one image from the next by aligning them right/left and pairing them each with its companion text. If any, of course; some of the images are “sin comentario“. So here we are with two lovely old jokes out of very old Punches.

The one about the polar bear must be one of my Top Ten Desert Island jokes of all times. I must try to find some more of those old Punchers. Also, I’ve just “discovered” that justifying the text is vastly more aesthetically pleasing and massively easier on the ojo, look you!

I can’t imagine why I never though of any of this before. After all it’s fucking basic and simple and not brain surgery. Perhaps I am lazy. Or going gaga. Or something not very nice in any case. But there you are, I have now. Better late than never, innit?

Update. Having found out how easy it’s to use this more airy layout, I’ve started doing the same to older posts. It’s a bit of hard work so I’m going about it the shuia-shuia way, but in time I might manage a few back pages.

23/08/15. I’m going to experiment with a new posting policy. One, two pics max. per post. If I don’t like it I will amalgamate posts and bundle them into 6-8-packs, as per usual. So here’s the first of the solo posts.

Roll up! Roll up! Come see a most wonderful Fly-By-Night Circus!
BigNose McGurk and His Children. A Sob Story with a Happy Ending. For the Silver Bunny and Rose Macaulay.
This is the story of Leo(pold) “BigNose” McGurk, a serial single father.
Soft of heart and chronically naive, he got himself mixed up, time and again, with a string of heedlessly unscrupulous misses who soon after giving birth to a strapping lassie or lad, left him literally holding the baby.
By the time he had collected a dozen of such semi-orphans finances were getting strained and things were getting a trifle out of hand and Leo acknowledged that drastic action was needed to provide for such an extensive family. Unwilling to betray his proclivity for unsuitable females or sell the babies into slavery, he decided to set up a nomadic entertainment troupe. And because all his children are very pretty, indecently healthy, bright as lights and possessed of a keen sense of fun, Leo’s Poly-Dimensional Flying Circus prospered rapidly and acquired great renown all over the Badlands, from the marshes of !Ting to the underground canals of Crapston Parva.

Such was its fame that it soon reached the ever-vigilant ears of the Shoggoths, who punctually despatched Rosie to lend a hand with the after-hours babysitting and the running of the finances. The delightful Imogen, Lapsed Larva once of the Final Void, offered her services as acting part-time* usherette and ice-cream & maracas girl.
The travelling jamboree has since been renamed The BigNose & Rosie Itinerant Flying Circus, in recognition of Rosie’s invaluable contribution to the concern and to underplay the poli-dimensional element of the spectacle so as to preserve the mystery and the element of surprise. Leo may well be non-female-savvy and a hopeless administrator but he has three priceless talents: a gift for parenthood, an unerring aesthetic flair and a past-master’s technique in the matter/energy/dimensions manipulation department.
See him here, making some of his niños appear out of nowhere in particular and cascade through the Loopy Singing Hoops. Behold! even Roderick, one of the defecting Lloigor (full-time blasé creatures as they are), is impressed and utterly charmed.
The circus has so thrived that the two eldest children are now at the University of Upper Leng doing PhDs in classic quantum mechanics and funky biochemistry respectively. Three of the deserting mothers have made pacific overtures with a view to obtaining access to their forsaken offspring. Rosie is dealing with their appeals.
Alien anthropology -word to the wise. The females of Leo’s species (Probuscicus Levitans) are universally notorious, as much for their beauty, glamour and social graces as for their mindboggling fickleness. You’ve been warned.
*Imogen has not given up her post as Chairlarva of the Spartacist League 2.0

Please note there are two versions. I dearly love the blue one (I would, wouldn’t I?) but it displays kind of too dark on certain browsers (looks spot on on the tablet, where it was made). Again, feel free to vote if you can be arsed.

16/08/15 Voyagers. Still in full view of the spires of Snoopton-on-Scree and not two steps into the Mountains of Uncertainty, Magdalena the Martial Teddy, Emiliano “The Mexican” and their guest, a young Flowerette on her first Grand Tour, are set upon by a posse of Plug-Ugly beasts. Oh, dearie me. These chaps… do they ever learn? The Flowerette is called Incy and she’s just decided Grand Tours live up to their riotous reputation. Note. I’ve uploaded an alternative, very, very slightly different version. In time I may decide which one I like best. Feel free to vote.

Update 19/08/15 The Grief Custodian. Bring him your tears, your grief and your deepest sorrows. In his cavernous belly, where stars germinate and suns are hatched, he’ll keep your heartaches and your gripes fresh and crisp until you need them again. Or until the galaxies grow weary of their merry spinning dance, whichever comes first.

Sometimes is as bitter as bile. Today’s … kind of OK. Those Bubbles, they might make us proud, yet. Unless Uncle Sam decides to send in the marines, that is. Anyway, good luck to them. Well fucking done. May the “infection expand! Sad update27/08/15. Look I don’t really want to talk about it, all right? I said it was too good to be true. And I still think that next is snap election (on the offing already) and possible Golden Dawn here I come. Oh grief… Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Update 11/07/15 Never one for missing a chance to fulminate against dastardlydeedness and iniquities and having just heard of the latest Tory machinations, Mr Silky Bombarder, the wise old spider shaman prepares for his Ritual Deportation of Toxic Miasmas knees-up armed with the tools of his office: the sacred Crickitt Bat of Righteous Ire, the shrill Trumpet of Ruinous Exposure and the most holy Merry Maraca of Public Disrespect. Riding the sharp linear splendour of his spontaneously combusting aura, a pack of opportunistic Cagnolitos of Tindalos, forever on the lookout for unusual angles and attracted by the electromagnetic hoo-ha, have infiltrated the gaudeamus. They are much taken with the sacred Crickitt Bat, which they deem not only geometrically kosher but also extremely groovy and full of interesting possibilities. We wish them all a very happy shindig and even happier conjuring. May Chaos prevail!

Update 23/07/15 It never rains… I’ve been graphically alive but buggered if I feel like talking. So, here’s the latest batch. The first if for Iain. Yes, again. Got a problem with that? No, I thought you wouldn’t. The other two are small rants on the vexed question of “freedom” of speech in this our beyond proto- and practically neo- fascist western societies. And for the ongoing “Je suis sodding Charlie” mawk fest, and for those of us who refuse to buy into it and DO NOT belong to what my compadre don Attilio “El Caffarenito”described, more or less, as  the easy, comfortable and comforting one single beating heart of “social” media. Fie, sirs! And even faugh!

Update 29/07/15 Rosie and BoomBoom are back fromtheir recent jaunt to the Equivocal Strata, where the Discontinuous Flowerettes invited them to attend a most intriguing ceremony; the more so because they offered no explanation whatsoever for the procedure, so that my bemused rubbery darlings are sadly unable to tell me whether they witnessed an alchemical marriage or a shotgun wedding, although they reassured me that they had a right riotous time and that the Flowerettes send their kind regards. Thus the cookie crumbles in the Fuzzy Heartlands.

Update 09/08/15 Introducing some recent arrivals: the Bipolar Worms and their Minders. The Worms are creatures of subtle psyches and cunning instincts, who can tell you what is what on either side of the fence on demand, any day of the week; but they are also somewhat delicate and a tad fragile, hence the fully tooled up Minders. The Minders look small and harmless but do not be fooled by appearances. They can apply the Sacred Crikkitt Bat to spectacular, almost pyrotechnic (not to mention lethal) effects.

The New Look! Gone is the glamorous but heavy-on-the-eye black. Say hello to a clearer display.

Update 11/08/15 Hey, hey! First post proper since the New Look. This here be my take on an event that is also NOT sodding Charlie. A tad beyond the officially approved date but better late than never, I say. Here’s a little memento mori for all the poor buggers, all 300,000-plus of them (a conservative estimate which does not include those who died later on of radiation poisoning, or had to live with hideous mutations, or even the victims of the Tokyo blitz), who died a horrible death at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, back in 1945, for no better reason that that psychopath and much-loved genocidal moron, Saint Harry Truman, though that a display of wanton sadism would scare Stalin. (And did it scare him? Did it bollocks!)
They, the dead 300,000 are not Charlie, either. People like them, the Great Disposables of the Earth, Washed or Unwashed, never are!
But I AM them. You can bank on it. Happy anniversary.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/01/no-je-suis-charleston/

A little blanket  In Memoriam for all my dearly departed of the last couple of years. (Howard, Gore, Ash and Iain). Gone but not forgotten, indeed. Your music lingers.

Update 13/06/15 The HoverBugs have been quarrelling for the second time this season. Most unusual, as their squabbles are customarily a highly formalized bogus ritual. So the LoveWorms have sent for the Chunky Peace Envoy and asked her to soothe the choppy waters with her levitating metchik. She’s doing all right, as we can see. She’s half way there already. The other micro-organism will soon calm down, go into a trance and wake up refreshed and with no memory whatsoever of what the goddamned argy-bargy was all about. I’d like to point out here that the CPE has an over-the-average success rate (97.7% in fact) in this kind of manoeuvrings, and her fees are exceedingly modest (travel expenses, board & lodgings and a fiver a day, which she invariably donates to the local Merriment For All Creatures charity). Which is why she was never given the job for the Middle East instead of that ghastly dangerous clown wot used to be our prime minister. Pah!

Update 20/06/15 The stardust-spawned Small Fry have summoned the Chubby Ancestor and its entourage to the yearly Festival of the Crossing of the Fire & Brimstone Bird. They also invite you all to join in the revels, si le cÅ“ur vous en dit, and share in the blatantly defiant delight of greeting the onset of darkness.We wish them .“and any of you who may choose to attend- well. Likewise great joy, endless grooviness and a speedy recovery from the hangover that will ensue. (The Ancestor has brought a few kegs of the high-grade Leng Moonshine Candy, AOC, 120% proof. Novices beware.) Now I’m off to build my own bonfire and to weave a few miniature wicker baskets for to burn in effigy a few grandees of Cancerous Crapitalism. Happy solstice!

Update 24/06/15  St John’s Day in Spain. Bonfire night was last night, for them. Salut!. Now, for something totally unrelated… A couple of Vermicimorphic Farfalloide anchorites have found a strange being asleep in the woods and are much intrigued by it. They think the creature might be an apostrophe. The otherworldly but highly imaginative hermits have no idea what an apostrophe is, but still they think the little entity might be one such thing. No, I don’t know either. Ask BoomBoom; he might know. (For Robert Sheckley, also gone but not forgotten).

Update 26/06/15 Agravación Delaney, the young Irish witch, congratulates her Zapper Wolves on completion of a highly successful Special Op. The beasties themselves are rather chuffed with the outcome, too. See their smug little smiles? These wolves were, originally, a gift from the Morrigan, who as well as a substantial pack of black dogs, has a nice side line in highly versatile (or Heisenbergian) wolves. Pedantic Footnote. Delaney: Irish surname. From Dubhshláine. Dubh: dark, black + slán: defiance (or Sláine, Gaelic for the river Slaney; possibly Right but less Romantic). Agravación: An avant-garde Spanish name. Her mum was called Irritación, and her granny Visitación del Dios

Update 03/07/15 I though that that find in the forest would have a tail…  It has had. To wit: Lost & Found. Part II: Possession Is 9/10s of the Law. Following a very nebulous tip from the HoverBugs the Bearoid Monster and his missus, distraught parents of the lost (and arbitrarily renamed) “apostrophe”, have finally managed to locate their missing offspring and so an unfortunate fortuitous meeting has occurred in the National Gallery (after hours; relative time). The ensuing argument has quickly moved from initial manifestations of joy, relief, and incipient gratitude (“Erwin, my baby, Bumba be praised! Oh, you kindly folks, thankyouthankyouthankyou!”), to the first inklings that all is not as it seems (“What do you mean, “your” child? It’s ours. We found it in the woods.”, “Are you crazy? This is our eldest, Erwin Oriol!”), and well beyond acrimonious assertions of ownership v duty of care (“You lost it, we found it. It’s ours.” “Piffle! Return it at once!” “No.”). It has now reached the stage of mild insults and discrete threats exchange. I’m off to find the Peace Envoy before things get beyond mending.

Here’s a little bit of what your soul may fancy. Behold the young VeggieBats guard the stony RosaMundi ever so lovingly and the small but perfectly designed devotees do their devoted bit. Bon profit.

Update 21/05/15 Quickly, a couple of “tiles” I made for an ailing mate and the first, perhaps of a series depicting the life cycle of groovy alien races.

Update 25/05/15 Here be the two latest. A little bit of free mysticism and a watery Maternitá (wich is far more cheerful than a Pietá, lets face it). 1. Dakini Dance: The soul’s equivalent of anti-rust oil, this whirling 3-in-1 troika of Dakinis is now on a special offer: invoke one and get  three. No need to state your requests or articulate your prayers. The girls will know what to do. Just fix your gaze on them and watch them spin (each wheel on a different direction) until your head swims in a sea of holy confusion. After a while it will either explode or you’ll attain total clarity. Either way, no more perplexity. Happy meditating!   PS. These are genuine Dakinis (Cold Waste, Plateau of Leng branch), proper Sky Goers.  No relation whatsoever to any silly elf-like fictional folk.

2. Deep Sea Life. The young Mermaid has just got a little tadpole. It’s her first and she’s thoroughly chuffed, of course, although, for her scaly life, she’s not at all sure how things came to this particular pass. She does remember, vaguely, a really wild party, at the Whites of Yha-Nethlei, to celebrate the Subsuming of the latest batch of Innsmouth Home-comers, where cartloads of extremely exotic beverages were consumed by all & sundry. Beyond that everything else is a pleasant blur. Be it as it may, the other sea creatures are duly filing past to offer their offerings, congratulations, best wishes and the occasional mildly snide remark.

Desperate note 28/08/15. Here be bugs! It’s either that or there’s a curse on this page. NO matter what I do the layout persists in coming up totally wonky and not at all what I want. I give up. Make the best of it, folks.

Primero deMayo. May Day. Day of Rosa-red dreams and Promethean fiery hopes. All done (in) and gone, now. But as Mehitabel would advice us: Toujours gai! Toujours gai!

Update o4/05/15 And now, for something slightly different and to somewhat assuage the pre-election blues…a little bit of frivolity!: The Well-Dressed Demonette’s Summer Caper. She’s wearing an exclusive Maison Shogg little number designed especially for her by her devoted admirers Rosie & BoomBoom. Over a cute neo-romantic peasant style blouse of pure Unresolved Waves muslin, she has a dark matter bodice embroidered with semi-tame particles, which could go rogue at any time thus adding variety and an element of surprise to the outfit. The bloated skirts and supernumerary petticoats are made of authentic HyperSpider’s silk, woven for the occasion by her half cousin twice removed, SpiderGirl, with an embedded motif of real pulverized bones of transnational CEOs and City of London PR men (and women). The classic pompom-shaped earrings and matching horn guards have been forged with -honest-to Joe (Stalin) Purloined Moscow Gold, personally nicked by the Shoggies from the vaults of the Dolores Ibarruri Charitable Foundation, and fashioned by Vulcan himself for the stylish miss, to heighten the irritation factor just in the off chance that any elderly members of the Ancient Régime be looking. Dry Blood of the Proletariat red stockings and black Flamenco pumps put a playful element in an otherwise exquisitely nightmarish creation. We wish the young lady great success at the Larvae garden party. Go knock ’em out, girl! Also in today’s entry: Two old wines in new-ish bottles. So there.

Update 10/05/15 In between post-election despondency and pre-birthday blues, here’s the latest. It has the distinction of having been banned/rejected from two groups on Ipernity, on the flimsy grounds that they are “family groups” (whatever that means) and therefore the language is “unsuitable”. One could almost admire the sheer hypocritical chutzpah of either statement (who decides what is “suitable”? families never swear? children are not exposed to swearing outside these groups? and so on; don’t get me started…) were it not for the repulsiveness of it. ‘Nuff said.

Update 12/05/15. It’s always best to end on a silly note. Especially a silly note with long sharp fangs. Even if the fangs are pretty cryptic. Entienda el que quiera entender, chaps.