Recently, I’ve come across a guy on Ipernity who uploads pictures of snails on his page. Also, occasional information on the mysterious workings of snail brains. I’ve concluded that he likes snails. So this is for him. As usual, that deep. Update 31/0514 Yesterday I got an email from Schiffer announcing that the 10 complimentary “author’s copies” of my deck are on their way to South Hackney, via Byakhee Express. (No, sorry, it’s FedEx. My mistake.) So, here’s the “poster” announcing the happy event. The Deck is now flesh & blood. Or ink & cardboard, really. Welcome to the family, oh wee bundle. And to round up a day of wonders, behold! young Olufemi’s got himself a girlfriend. Olay! Her name is Adebola; Bolita for short. She just wandered into one of our tactical briefing sessions, out of the deep dark forest, sashayed her way into our midst, batted her eyelids at poor Femi…and the rest is mythology, as they say. And here they be, the happy pair. Olufemi’s showing Bola the newly-minted book and he’s bragging a bit, saying: “I’m in it, don’t you know…” And she’s saying “Blimey! That’s nice.” And “So, who’s the blindfolded bint with the dog, the cat and the rat and the snakes on her bonce, then?” And so on. We’re all are really happy for Femi, who, we all think, works way too hard and has but few distractions. Bola will see to it that he doesn’t overdo it from now on. She’s awfully glamorous and very good-natured, but you can sense the iron claw beneath the velvet paw. (Atta girl!) Update 11/06/14 Waiting for what has to happen to actually happen (oy! am I getting restless…), I sit and meditate. Meditation’s a grand thing they tell me. The Turtlelettes are not quite so sure. Thank Bumba and his darling Mother for the good ol’ faithful, ever-vigilant WakeUp Croc, I say. (The Shoggies are having a laff…) Update 16/06/14 You know how it goes…You do a pic with a croc; someone says “what a nice croc!”; next thing, you’re doing a pic with nothing but crocs. Oh,… you don’t know? OK, only me then. In any case, voilí . Have more crocs. Next time: piggies! (Unless it’s mice, of course.) Update 17/06/14 The story so far. HanuPiggy, riding his chariot of clouds, clad in his best ceremonial dress and carrying his sublime two-headed truncheon, has come to have tea with Calpurnia and meet her babies, who were born a few years ago. The monkeypig is a very busy creature and couldn’t find the time until now but all the same everybody’s awfully glad to see him. The friendship between the Rats and HanuPiggy goes back a long, long way, even to the times when HanuPiggy was an ordinary pig called Tarquin who meditated a little too long on Hanuman, the Hindu monkey avatar, and strange transactional shit happened as a result. And if you want to know why he didn’t get a monkey’s tail as part of the deal, the answer is that who needs a tail when you’ve got twelve pseudopods? (You can only see six in the picture; the other six are hidden behind his enormous bloomers.) Update 21/06/14 Come greet the return of Darkness with the Solstice Wasp-Demonette! Dance around her bonfires. Drink the heady wine of Decline. Sacrifice to her a Warren Buffett or two (if you can catch any); or even an Obama or a Cameron, she’s not fussy. But on no account will she take Nigel Farrages. Even a fiend has got standards, what!

I did say there’d be another Odessa massacre, didn’t I? Let’s hope it doesn’t get any worse. Meanwhile, gather your Potemkins, folks. We’re going to need them. Update 07/05/14 It is indeed a day of woe for a narcisist when even his own reflection starts taking the piss. Update 11/05/14 Happy 67th birthday to me. So far the only one that has remebered the date (other than The Fenian) has been the automated system at the Nightmare Network. Don’t you love computers? To celebrate all the lovely death and decay I see all around me, I’ve decided to upload the heartwarming story of how the Shoggoths ambushed the Fatty Orphan in a remote corner of the Gardens of the Twilight Zone. Instantly spotting her as “one of us” and much taken by both her size and her substance, and just for a lark, they offered to worship her as a goddess. The bulky miss was a bit uncertain to begin with, but soon entered into the spirit of game and has actually decided to stay in the TZ as a resident tutelary presence. The Shoggies ara making arrangements to introduce her to Milady of Willendorf (with whom they are in excellent terms) and Milady can then introduce the Sugar Dumplin’ to her chum, the Shub-Niggurath (to whom the Shoggies most definitely don’t talk). At which point, and if I keep going the way I’m going, I think we can legitimately get the Really Big Girl’s Club going in earnest. Size Os of the universe, tremble & quake in your silly Jimmy Choos! Hai! Hai! Update 15/05/14 This is for the two lovely Medialens Davids and their merry variety of Buddhism. The events that inspired it are too long-winded and convoluted to detail here. Soko ni! Update 19/05/14 I swear to Bumba! The Shoggies are getting SO excentric, lately. Here they be, strongest creatures in the hood, and they insist on being carried, and on getting piggy-backs. Honestly… Perhaps it’s an excess of Smarties beginning to affect their electromagnetic fields and they’re becoming like children? Or, as probably rightly I suspect, they just take the piss? I lean towards the second hypothesis. Update 23/05/14 To end on an exemplary note -which makes a change from a happy one, here’s the story of the Pulcinio Polemico, a mini documentary sponsored by Nu-Clear Causic Soap Inc. Bringing Cheap, Cheerful and Efficient Satitazing Devices to Disadvantaged Parts of the World Since 1963. The story so far: The Polemic Pulin -a Genoese variety of high-octane baby chicken- has come to the Dismal Plains charged with the task of introducing the Doodlely Dudes to the raptures of the Dialectic Method. The Dudes, who are unadulterated innocents and prodigiously ignorant to boot and have never heard of Marx, let alone Hegel, are therefore not understanding a single solitary word of the passionate diatribe delivered by the fiery chickie. But thinking it a sort of groovy alien music, and being very musical themselves, they respond in kind. Observe that even the little Triangulated Creature, who never sings or even ever makes a sound, is suddenly attempting a timid tune. Xeno-Zoology Footnote. The Triangulated Creature is a profoundly unhappy being, for it is not in its nature to be triangulated. Triangular yes, but not triangulated. It was forcibly thus moulded by the evil spells of a wicked Third Way warlock who caught it off guard one evening as it was coming home from the George and  Orange. Taking advantage of its small size, limited brainpower and high level of ethylic intoxication, he inveigled the poor wee thing into experimenting with fashionable ideologies. Bozhe moi!!  A sad case if I ever heard one. But now, perhaps under the influence of the vivid coloratura of the Pulin’s rant, we might see the beginning of a slow recovery, who knows? Hope springs eternal.