You know what it’s like. You’re sitting at home, quietly minding your business, when a Random Morphogenetic Event drops in out of the blue and next thing you know you have become an effing monster. Oh, well!

Crossroads. Recently, and not for the first time, some clever clogs tried to tell me how I should or shouldn’t speak, and how I should not use “bad. language and so on. I retorted that a): there is no such thing as bad language. There’s bad grammar and bad syntax and bloody awful spelling, not to mention sadly misguided folks that say “nukular. instead of nuclear. End of. And b): that I’ll be buggered if I let anyone tell me how to speak. Ever. Why, they’ll be telling me how to think, next; and then how to behave, and then that I have to fall flat on my face and worship them because their fucking angry sky gods have put then at the top of the feeding manger and so on. That’ ll be the day!:-)

In addition to its Rage of the Gorgon spirit, today’s pic and its blue companion are the first in a random mini-series marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
Let’s make one thing clear:  I have no romantic beliefs in this specific Revolution in and of itself, as it all ended in floods of Stalinist tears and further rivers of Blood of the Proletariat. But it happened, and, for a while, it worked. What once was could be again. And it could be better. Or better done. Or better managed.  Or better something. Any road, it’s worth keeping in mind.
Up the Potemkin!

AntiValentine2017. So here we are again; another round of consumer frenzy’s in the air .“not to mention the telly. And while the general public are busy contracting the pseudo-organic roses and the soi-disant fair trade chocolates our little corner of South Hackney boils and bubbles with the traditional Anti-Valentine knees-up., which will begin officially tomorrow and may last, easily, until the end of next week.

This year’s MC duties have been allocated to the capable and ever-cheerful Big Beata, a third cousin twice removed of the delightful Venus of Willendorf. See her here, carrying the Cantankerous Wheel of Fortune, assisted by that hardy perennial awkward git, Emiliano, a veteran of several successful insurrections, three young Shub-Niggureths on furlough, a devious Flying Fish and, as a link to last year’s card, our old pals the defecting Lloigor, Rhys and Rhodri.

The entertainment will be unsurpassably groovy, if I say so myself. As well as the usual tableaux vivants (and mourants), Bach concerts, poetry recitals and bulk waltz-ins, this year we also have a few seminars on Post US Election Mass & Meedja Hysteria and discussion groups on the many health benefits of schadenfreude.

As ever, entrance is free and all are welcome, even fifth columnists and agent provocateurs, since the Shub-Niggurath herself will be attending -and she simply adores agent provocateurs, especially if sautéed in a light batter and served in a bed of Lilloorian salad with some allioli.

This year we have taken over the whole borough and there’ ll be room aplenty, so there’ s no need to book either. The usual free kit is available at the designated dead drops: de-stressed ice cream, real Chinese meals, subversive T-shirts, universal de-hypnotizers, all.“gauge bamboozlers, Guardian Sludge antidotes, I Love Rosa rucksacks and so on. And because 2017 is the 100^th anniversary of the Russian Revolution we’re also giving away gloriously proletarian caps and high definition repros of my top ten favourite Rodckenkos.

Happy Non Valentine Day me old hearties!

And here be the B&W version. Bon profit, nens.

Another year in. Fuck knows what it may bring. Really, today I’d rather do a Scarlett O’Hara…and think about it tomorrow. Today, here be Fifi “Red Socks. the Hyper Penguin and her young protégé, Oops, one of the far-too-many Young of the ineffable Shub-Niggurath, wishing you a wonderfully contrary 2017.  She’s taking Oops to visit the oracular Cthulhian roses, to enquire about the New Year’s odds on the integrity of the EU, the Trump presidency and the outcome of the 3.45 at Kempton Park. On the way there she catches up with the latest inspirational bon mots, plastered all over the frail walls of the reality tunnel to relieve monotony and for the amusement and instruction of the weary traveller. ‘ppy New Year folks.

Is that time of the year again.  Darkness drifts gently away and the days get longer by and by. Not physically noticeable, but the blood and the imagination know it’s happening and that’s good enough for me. This year the honour of leading the celebratory shindig falls to Ding and Dong, the Bomber Harriers. Dong takes away the gloom and the bad taste of the Scottish debacle and the moronic Brexit that lingers between my clenched teeth. Ding brings light and merriment and frippery and large doses of persiflage. Something tells me this coming year large doses of persiflage are going to be much needed. Overseeing the ritual is Manolito, the Hardy Perennial Alien, wielding his astral chums and wearing his rude T-shirt, assisted by my favourite alter ego, Spikky, the Spaniard in  Your Works and her bosom pal Emiliano “The Mexican., the  Problematic Penguin. And behold! Even the timid and antisocial Repulsive Moon Beasts of the Plateau of Leng have emerged from their quarrelsome seclusion to bid farewell and greet the darkness and the light respectively. All is fluffy.  Happy Transition, folks! PS. I’m truly amazed that I’ve actually managed to finish this here thingy in time, what with the crappy health scene and the high levels of New Computer Neurosis and all. And it will have to double as both solstice card and the Ashok Chandra Patel Memorial Service. Ash left me bereft, bored and bewildered 4 years ago come Friday. I buggeringly miss him so… L

They just don’t make them like him anymore, do they? Here be a little something to mark the passing of one of the greatest irritants of the Bastard Right ever. Made out of residual affection for the guy and possibly “con ánimo de offender.* the bien-pensants on Main Street. Hasta siempre don Fidelito. It was a pleasure to have known of you.

*Con ánimo de offender. (With the intention of offending/Aiming to affront). A collection of some of the most delightfully outrageous articles published by Arturo Pérez Reverte in El Paí­s, some ages ago. Highly recommended.

So… perhaps the Scottish vote and Corbyn (twice!) and Brexit were not a gaggle of Black Swans after all. Perhaps there is a trend on the rise. Dodgy, true, but possibly better than the BBC/Guardian/NYT/etc. party line. 🙂

williamblum.org/aer/read/144

Sketch. There’s a first for everything, obviously. Never done this sort of “for the Family Album” thingumybob collage stuff before. So here it is, a tribute to some people who have not only amused, inspired, moved me and made me think (the bastard…), but somehow have strengthened not only my resolve to live one more day (one at the time, easy does it) but to live it as if I was going to live forever. And as I was cobbling together this Rogues Gallery, sodden with the images and thoughts that each character brought back from the bottom of my erratic memory, I kept on humming bits from The Mikado, especially the one that starts with:   There is beauty in extreme old age!.. And goes on to ask:

Are you old enough to marry, do you think?

Won’t you wait till you are eighty in the shade?

There’s a fascination frantic

In ruin that’s romantic.

Do you think you are sufficiently decayed?

And today’s deep mystical question is: Can Gilbert and Sullivan be classed as a guilty pleasure? Answers on an e-postcard, please.

Update 13/11/16. And here’s the last of this mini series. Please note how BoomBoom looks in total rapture at Mick. He thinks he’s cool. 🙂

Dream big. Dream strong. Dream loud. Dream the kind of dream that will shake the ground beneath our feet and rouse the sheep and make the leeches scamper off in fear. Dream the songlines of a new world with the face it had before greed and intellectual laziness corroded it into its present unseemly sorry ass state. So says the Mother of Bumba and her associates. Rosie and Edwina sing semi-canonical Socialist Lullabies to the hatching dreamlets and double as backing group to the very famous boy band The Teddy Bear’s Picnic. Magdalena keeps the watch and her cub keeps the flame. Out there in the void, the Dancing Balloons have decided to fall in love right now rather than wait for a still distant and definitely unreliable spring, especially if the Hellary Harpy wins the election -which she will, the ghastly creature.

Update 29/10/16  Waiting for the GSV Ethics Gradient. Picture by Xavi Pagés, the best faux nephew that ever graced a prosthetic family. Even a devout atheist needs an object to pray to, sometimes. For me it’s either The Mother of Bumba or the good Culture ship Ethics Gradient. Each night I pray that it’ll come and make me an offer I couldn’t possibly refuse. It passes the time, you know!

 Update 06/11/16. The Tunnel. aka La ley del embudo. Here’s a little something for darling Xavi’s birthday: his very own space craft, the good starship Persiflage. May it help him navigate the hideously crappy times that will follow the enthronment of the Hellary Harpy, that fast friend of everything that’s wrong and vile and stupid and illegal and underhand and …………… (enter your atrocity of choice here). If you thought the Obama regime had narrowed the funnel’s neck beyond the practicable, let alone the tolerable, wait and see what she’ll do to the world. Mothers of America and its little British minion, start packing the wargames kit of your children, soon to be sent to the Baltic to fight the Red Devil and shed their expendable blood in yet another fraudulent conflict with an imaginary enemy. Oi, are we fucked…

Darling Declan, officially my favourite Pendejo of all times just got hitched. Best of luck to them. Here’s the Shoggies and Co. with their version of this strangest of human institutions. Salut!