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!