Meeting Strangers. (For Jane Austen.) It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single FlatFish in possession of a large cave and several square feet of tasty seaweed must be in want of a wife. Or two. Pushy mothers are not the sole preserve of the human race, obviously.
Social Life
The Storyteller. Sometimes on moonless nights with nothing half decent on the telly I metamorphose into this blue blob-like thing, borrow a few cats from the neighbours, gather my Shoggoths and I tell stories. They are all arbitrarily made up and bear no relation whatsoever to any known narrative tradition, foreign or domestic. The Shoggies really like them and the cats are too polite to say what they really think about them -but they keep on coming back for more. Recently a stray Cagnolito of Tindalos has started dropping in to these soirées (more like gatecrash, I think; I don’t remember inviting him, honest), but nobody minds because he behaves so well we are all beginning to wonder whether he is truly one of that ilk. Why, last time he actually showed up with a bag of cat biscuits, a large carton of Smarties and a bottle of a very nice red of uncertain origins (the label was ever so fuzzy and it was smeared with what looked suspiciously like blood). What’s the Final Void coming to, that’s what I’d like to know?
It Never Rains II
Funny old life. You plod through one of those long dry periods where nothing happens and nothing will come and then you get the art equivalent of the runs. Not complaining about the diarrhea, though. I’m enjoying this abundance enormously. So, here they are, the latest paridas.
BoulderFish. A very distant relative of our old chum BoulderGirl, he fulfils a similar role in all & sundry aquatic environments. That is, he shadow-dances dimensional insurrections into being and, on a good day, he’ll be able to call up a watery sipapu . If you’re very, very, very lucky, you might find him lurking temporarily in the depths of your water tank. Offer him a little cake or a few drops of vodka and he’ll see what he can do. A word of caution. Do not overdo it with the vodka. He’s extremely susceptible to high-proof spirits and you don’t want a riotously drunk and possibly disorderly BoulderFish on your karma, trust me. And here’s a wee link for your delectation and instruction in case you didn’t know a Sipapu from an ordinary hole in the ground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipapu
Brief EncounterV. Those two unrepentant troublemakers Rhys and Rhodri have caused the mother of all psycho-magnetic storms just for the hell of it -either because they were bored, or because they were tetchy owing to the last bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon being corked; or perhaps they were thinking that Wales is getting too respectable, what with the Brexit vote and all, who knows. Indeed who can know the workings of a Lloigor’s mind. Fact is that all sort of innocent bystanders have been caught in and left to cope with it best they could. The tiny Crinkly SlugThing, a tough enough creature in normal or semi-normal circumstances but pretty defenceless against howling psychic gales, has been reduced to hitching a ride on the tail of Gwen, the Bobbly BearGon*, much to the beastie’s surprise. Well, there’s the Lloigor for you. Totally out of control, often out of order, but who’s gonna dare say “boo” to them? *Exozoology Note. A BearGon is a hybrid myffological being, half bear, half dragon. Originally a species native to East London, they moved to the Brecon Beacons several centuries ago, when Hackney started becoming fashionable and Epping Forest was enclosed and turned into a playground for Tudor brats.
Tadpole Tittle-Tattle. The Tories should autoeuthanase for shame. It’s bad enough that their alfresco bribe to the Paisleyites makes any decent person’s piss boil and that we all feel compelled to blush ourselves radioactive on their behalf at such obscene shenanigans, but when this sort of brazen jiggery-pokery shocks the exquisite sensibilities of small, delicate microorganisms like the Webby Tadpoles to kingdom come, the offence is beyond unforgivable. I feel like quoting stern bits out of Ecclesiastes, or my all-time fiery favourite* and advocating the reinstatement of public hanging, pour encourager les autres, I do.      *But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew 18:6
Small Mercies
Small Mercies (aka Ugly No.1). Here be a perfect example both of the simple, innocent delights of a jolly old ad hominem attack and the health benefits of selective schadenfreude. Take a leaf off this here Ugly’s book: No matter how ungainly and ill-favoured he may be he will never-ever be as repulsive as the Orange Duck. And whatever his intellectual shortcomings, they are NOT, I repeat NOT a patch on the stupidity of, say, a CNN news editor or a BBC grandee. Now, apply these values to yourself. See? You feel better already. You’re welcome.
On Being Late
The Revolution has been postponed again, courtesy of the Scottish vote, a perfectly futile yet hideously expensive Brexit, the Strumpet presidency (not that a Clinton one would have made any difference, I hasten to repeat for the Nth time), another incompatible coalition here at home, the sad fact that neither the Guardian nor Rupert Murdoch have spontaneously combusted for shame, the hysterical rise-and-rise of rampant misogyny and this latest abominable practice of incinerating the redundant Great Unwashed in their own homes. (Je suis Grenfell, anyone?)
Postponed. Not cancelled. That’s what the little carrier Pigeons of Discreet Doom have come to tell Rosamond “I Care Only for Trees” Delany (twin sister of the Wibble Joggler) and her companions, the Keepers of the Forest Primeval. Look, they say, things are pretty fucked-up, granted, but look closer. The slave corporate media is in disarray; independent news and commentary outlets are mushrooming exponentially*. Jezza’s still alive and kept in place by the young and the very young. Vlad the Impervious is being breezily and brazenly sarcastic in public.Theresa May is shooting herself in the foot again and again, currently by allying herself with the hell-bred heirs of the Ranting Reverend Ian “The Dogwhistler” Paisley, and soon to be dead meat, see if she doesn’t. And there’s still plenty of good women out there; many of us in the wilderness, true, but still we are here, there and everywhere. Rosamond is incandescent; she is the impatient type and thinks that all this waiting-waiting is very bad; and it’s getting on her tits as well. She’s on the verge of stamping her foot and saying “Well, I’ll be damned!” The little Mafioso worm is more philosophical about the whole sorry affair. “Life is long…. he muses.
*And here’s my latest discovery:Â https://www.thecanary.co/
Solstice In, Solstice Out
Here we go again. Time for the other Solstice, the one that requires the oh-well-what-goes-up-must-come-down kind of philosophical approach and a good deal of defiance. So, here’s an obstreperous maiden to remind me of this. The Noli Me Tangere dictum is more of a warning not so much to touch her (she quite likes a good hug, she does) as a caution not to annoy, irritate, aggravate, vex, break her balls or piss her off. She’s a Snake Woman and the battle axe she carries is her child, flesh of her own flesh, look you. Have a happy transition folks.
State of Play?
Thanks for asking: it’s totally SNAFU and plummeting fast. I ache from the root of every hair to the tip of every toe. And I’m sure I don’t know how, or even if, I’m going to survive another 5 years of Tory Tyranny. And “they” persist on not bringing back Babylon 5. But at least my Worms (or Wyrms) are in scandalously good health. Hey, hey! Menos da una piedra, right?
The Seventy Year Itch
Birthday Blues & Birthday Fluff. So, we got to be seventy. Unbelievable! According to the Indian palmist who read my palm in a deserted train station in a godforsaken town somewhere in South India, I should have been dead good ten years ago (and he considered 60/65 to be a good, long life, too, bless his saintly chappals). So, here we are. Old, fat, shapeless, unseemly, disabled, female, foreign, grumpy, cynical, pessimistic and more fond of puncturing balloons than ever. Hardly anybody likes me and most folk hate my politics. But a couple of amiable souls love me and the Shoggies & Co. love me and, were I to believe in him, Jesus would love me, be it only because he’s supposed to love everybody, even Henry Kissinger. And so, rather than go eat worms, I make friends with them and invite them to tea. And they repay me with their secret jokes and infinite kindness. And although I have more than one regret (sod off, Edith Piaff!) and I know we are born to die anyway, I scorn pomp and defy circumstances and take great comfort in the poetry of a 15th C.Spaniard who really knew his poetry from a hole in the ground. Here’s to you, don Jorge! And here’s to you, young Gorgon. May your next birthday find you as unrepentant. Or find you at all, really, the way things are going… 🙂
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