Sects (3)

Horn-rimmed professor continuing:

One remains overwhelmed – amazed by the intensity and ingenuity of their desperation (Escape Artists). Why did these die-hards choose to attack the wall even when they knew they would not succeed? With those tall men – those upright sentinels one sees in the museum photos all hand-picked, expert marksmen – yes, one might balk at their decorated uniforms, the parades before visiting dignitaries – but with their charmed lives – and all these forbidding techniques of surveillance – the odds were always staked against them (Beserkers). Is it any wonder that they should have reverted to the most occult practice to bring the wall down (Telepathists)?

Sects (2)

Interjection – almost raised as an objection - from the hovering professor:

“Just three of the more famous, aforementioned sects operating at the Period of High Occupation. Beserkers and Escape Artists speak for themselves…Telepathists were inevitably more to fore during the Great Period of Decadence.”

Sects

But what of the so-called sects themselves? - Those Beserkers and Telepathists? And Escape Artists we have barely mentioned?

Army of Peeping Toms

If the wall was designed to keep the various enemies within, the record shows the apparatus of paranoia embodied in the activities of the secret police working under enormous strain. The meticulous documentation of suspects, the cold games of coercion, the planting of turncoats and double agents, the ongoing spying turned the defenders into a morbid army of Peeping Toms and Moral Relativists.

Who was the enemy?

But who was the enemy for the defenders if not some dark force – comprising the flutter of ghostly trepidation?

To quote one of the recently declassified documents from the vaults of the secret police:

The precise analogy is with an underground sect that seeks to undermine the very foundations of the wall… And yet we are forced to conclude: it is not just one sect we are dealing with but a proliferation of sects that splinter before our very eyes only to start up elsewhere.

Purpose of the wall (?)

While one can see in the story of the wall how human beings adapted to its particular misery, it is hard to know what the planners and builders of the Wall were thinking. People were kept in, but to what purpose?

The defenders inevitably talk about a necessary evil, and not as it seems so obvious now a matrix of social control and demographic separation.

Bureaucracy of the wall

“The system of vetting was dependent not just on microchip identity cards but duplicated documents such as this… and this. – Not surprisingly a vast bureaucracy attended its organisation… The bureaucrats (in keeping with the history of occupation, even if it is contested that this was ever an occupation in the strictest sense) were stationed well back from the Wall in fortified offices… No expense was spared the defenders. As both bureaucrats and military fought to justify their budgets – and fell in and out of favour with successive governments, small towns grew up around the Wall. Perhaps the greatest irony of all this was that the defenders were heavily dependent on the workforce living behind the wall to provide the cooks and waiters for their gourmet restaurants, the staff for their designer shops and the domestic servants for their luxury homes.

Seven - Seven - Eleven

“Turning now to the register for seven - seven two thousand and –

“Eleven.”

Bizarrely the viz of another professor but minus the horn-rimmed spectacles is hovering above that of the lecturing professor. He acknowledges his colleague with a raised eyebrow before going on:

“As can be seen from the above eleven, - hem - seven - seven two thousand and eleven -”

Schwarz’s Diary (extract)

“Today at the checkpoint an old man comes armed with two enormous loaves of bread… One of the loaves falls from a table and begins to roll across the floor. The old man chasing after the bread, suddenly remembering where he is - puts up his hands and whales something we do not understand… It is in dialect. Just in time I put my hand on Schwarzer’s rifle and stop him from pressing the trigger… Schwarzer tells me sorry but the man reminds him of his father-in-law. Well, I joke, you can be forgiven for seeing a bomb in that loaf of bread. Schwarzer is always complaining about his father-in-law!

The truth is, they come in their thousands. We cannot keep them all out. Each day I feel the need to speak out about this onerous duty.”

Shoot to kill

While the area surrounding the wall was defined both legally and ipso facto as a military zone, the policy of shoot to kill was formulated mostly upon the discretion of the commanding officer. Besides the threat of court martial, there existed an elaborate procedure of checks and balances to prevent accidental death. - As can be seen, however, in the following extract from the diary Officer Schwarz, which I will now take the liberty to read, the officers in charge were men burdened by a strong sense of responsibility and a degree of agonising that would have impressed the most conscientious objector.

Surveillance

At certain intervals along the Wall, there were 10m vertical steel poles housing highly powered stadium lights and surveillance cameras. Adjacent to the Wall, on the side of the defenders, stood huge and foreboding turrets and watchtowers (such as this one) where observers and marksmen were stationed. Every millimetre of the wall it appears was scrutinised by both human and electronic eye.

“Groomers”

Curious to note the role of the “groomer” (pictured here with his steel-wire brush and bullet proof vest… If those Vader-esque helmets had a weakness it was in the back of the neck, between the top of the vest and the bottom of the helmet.) Curious to note, in spite of the high risk involved from rogue marksmen the job of “groomer” appears to have been much sort after. Perhaps I might suggest because it was so well compensated (Soft Laughter at the blown up dollar signs projected on the wall). Your average “groomer” at the High Period of Occupation could comfortably afford a villa on the Spanish Riviera together with swimming pool and Filipino maids.

Sobering facts

First a few sobering facts:

When it was planned, the Wall was 670 km long. By the end it was over several thousand kilometres.

To the casual observer it is somewhat puzzling to imagine it from this stretch of wall… Today what remains is about twenty kilometres of the thick concrete. - About eight metres high in most places, but higher in others…

At some points the wall was over a hundred metres deep. It was three times as high and twice as wide as the Berlin Wall. It was surrounded at a distance by nests of barbed wires, rolled like stacks of hay piled high around it.

High voltage circuits ran through the so-called “smart fences” that lined the perimeter of the barrier. Between the fence and the wall was a trench over two meters deep, studded with piercing metal spikes. Outside the smaller fence was a path of finely ground sand that was groomed to make footprints visible.

All along the Watchtower (2)

And yet, it is with an ominous feeling one turns to contemplate the shadowy hand – dare one say - of posterity embodied in that lonely cenotaph:

All along the Watchtower
Where the princes kept their view

The memorial tells the statistical story… the numbers of the dead (mostly, of course, of those living within the confines of the wall) – how long will they remain not just in the historical record but in the record of our memories? How long will we feel morally bound to keep listening to this long player? Who of us will continue to search their conscience? –

All along the Watchtower

Walking for the first time on the neat path that cuts through the grass verge, the observer homes in on the deserted doorway.

Wishing now to see for oneself - and without the obscurity of the lens, the observer switches the camera off and carries on walking towards the doorway…

Filming the view from the top, one sees in the distance a group of anoraks embarked on their charity walk… (Loud laughter)

The Lecture Hall

Looking down from the top of what appears to be a lecture hall. In front of her students in their hundreds, taking notes. Projected onto the far wall a slide of some kind of tower-like structure.

Below the projected image is the tiny figure not as it turns out the horseman but of a professor with horn-rimmed glasses and white coat…

The Syrian

The Syrian came down on the plain
Like a wolf on the fold
Where all the fool’s men
Were coveting all the fool’s gold
When the fool failed to hold
Onto his gold
The Syrian sprang
And to a man
Declared the gold
For Mr Chavez
And ze proles

The Monkhouse fades to the sound of one hand clapping and general Trappist laughter

The Muse Is Coming On

Coughing into the mike, the Monkhouse spins on his heels and raises the Wide Arch of his Satirically Compulsive Brow. Throwing his voice Hair Bear style:

Because we are in a literary mood, and literary moods do not take us that often, but since Lord Gordon aka Byron the B is to hand we can assert with some confidence the muse is coming on.

Worst case Syriana

“Now for those misquotes and poor attributions in full:

Bush 43 overheard to Premier Blair at the G8

Those Syrians are a bunch of ****holes”

The Monkhouse on the burst rapping into the mike, tapping between bursts and spinning his bow-tie

“Saddam Insane launching his scuds into the Inter-zone of his imagination

It is the mother of all battles, the womb of all conflicts, the placenta of the apocalypse

G. Clooney on being pipped at the post for best post-Bond pin-up by – of all people - W.Rooney

It is the worst case Syriana

Bush 41 producing a lexical slight of hand that belies his aphasia and ground breaking diplomacy

I am telling you guys, there can be no linkage

And finally, just to keep you on your toes, sparring partners, Greg “the White Shark” Norman on the eighteenth at Royal Troon:

It’s a whole in one, erseholes.

Five minutes

And the bodies? What did they do with the bodies?

They dug a ditch and put the bodies in crates… Crates from the warehouse. Some of them couldn’t be bothered. And they smashed the crates as they threw them in. That was their five minutes.

And yours?

Like I said I already had my five minutes.

Soccer field (2)

Something we used to say, my father said it often in those days. Sooner or later our five minutes will come.

And the opportunities finally came.

Yes.

Vengeance?

Yes, blood vengeance.

Did they come for you? They were excited?

Yes. Yes.

What did they say?

They said. Grab your gun and come down to the soccer field…

Eternal youth

What happened then?

In the warehouse?

Yes.

I remember she had on this white T-shirt, she got in London. It had a picture on it of an eagle.

An eagle?

Yes, an eagle with two heads. I remember I was teasing her. Why’s it got two heads? You don’t like it, she said. It’s symbol. What symbol? I said. Power, pride. No, she said, a symbol of eternal youth…

And what happened to her? Did she get a beating?

They took her away… I never saw her again.

Peeping Tom

… He was spying on us

Your cousin?

Yes, like a peeping tom.

He was in love with her, too?

One of those ironies. Life is full of them.

And they found you?

Yes. They found us…

Sniper’s bullet

Listen I’ll explain…

What happened?

That’s right. It’s an old story, but people won’t see it like that. People in this region like a drink, a beer. They like their spirits.

Your cousin was a drinker.

He was a hothead and a drinker. There was a fight one evening in the pub… Words were said. The police were called in. They took him down the nick. My father went along to talk to the police.

They released him?

He didn’t do anything wrong. Anyway everyone knew who he was. - The son of a chief.

You didn’t agree with his politics.

Even if we didn’t share the same views he was still my cousin… I should’ve looked after him

How did he die?

A sniper’s bullet. - We were out on patrol, and they shot him in the back.

Soccer field

And the warehouse… was near the soccer field.

That’s right. Just at the back of the soccer field. We used to play there as kids. Me, my cousin, and the others… My cousin was captain. He was our best player. He could do tricks – just like Maradonna. Could have gone all the way. The talent scouts looked at him, they liked what they saw…

But he never played.

No… That year we won the championship in the last game. I set it up, put the ball in the box and my cousin got on the end of it and scored. We won the game. - One nil. Like all the best games, you win in extra time. With five minutes to go.

Coffee bar

Where did you meet?

To begin with, in a coffee bar.

That was possible?

There was a back room… The manager was a good sort. A regular Friar Tuck. He took a liking to us. Treated us to banana splits and extra cappuccinos. – She always liked that, the frothy milk on the cappuccino.

You were lucky.

For a time. Then, we met in secret. Had to, things were bad.

Where?

In the warehouse… belonged to her family. They sold computers, things like that. - Stereos, Tvs.

They were rich then?

Stinking.

A Nightingale

You fell in love with her voice?

(Laughs) Right, she was a singer. One day I heard her in a concert. My cousin was there too. She had a lovely voice. Can’t explain what it did to me inside. It was like a (muffled).

A nightingale…

It’s a romantic image, but that’s what she was. - A song, a bird, a nightingale.

Wall

I came home one weekend. Was a party, organised by her friends. -

You didn’t like them.

I already said. They were phonies.

Phonies?

Listen, unless you lived there, how could you understand? Everyone puts up barriers… In this case there was a wall. You couldn’t pretend there wasn’t. - Not in that context. And yet that’s what they were pretending.

The wall had come down…

Right, the wall had come down and we could be friends, even if it was just for one day.

Before the war

Before the war…

Before the war, I was studying in the city. I don’t like cities. The idea of the city I mean, in the abstract. Too many people I suppose. You can’t breathe. I like grass, trees, hills. – And birds, of course. I like watching the birds.

Best-looking in the class

Who was she?

A girl I used to know. We were at school together.

You fancied her?

We all did. She was the best looking in the class.

What was she like?

Brainy, mostly, and quite disrespectful of us. The others said she was a goodie two shoes… teacher’s pet, but I don’t think so. I think that’s just the way it was. She was a girl, you know, in a class mainly of boys. The last year she went abroad.

Where?

To visit relatives in England. - Funny, I remember she was going to London to the wax museum, Tower Records. Everyone in the class was jealous.

And were you jealous?

I didn’t see her for a year. She never wrote me a postcard.

You weren’t friends then?

Listen, it’s boys and girls. You never mix, just look at each other across the classroom.

There weren’t other reasons.

No other reason. Things were different then.

Meaning.

There were no troubles, just normal things.

In the Chatroom (4)

I’m getting worried… Knight Rider hasn’t posted for over a week. It’s very unlike him.

Let him go, Hoarfrost. Let him fly to the sky swim to the moon, or whatever else he’s doing in his tripped out head.

I’m serious… The last thing he sent me was this piece by this journalist, Sylvie Durer

Sylvie who? Sounds like one of those naked French chicks.

Sharkhole, I did not know your tastes ran to D. Hamilton.

My tastes have always run to violent extremes, Whoresome. What about that drink?

Get away with you! I’m serious, she’s got street cred.

Don’t all artistes?

Anyway, sharkhole, think you should read it…

Summer day

The next thing I remember, it was early in the morn. I was walking along the road up the ‘ill from my ‘ouse. I thought ‘twill be a beautiful summer day.

Dreams of Flight

From the first dream of flight
Sent to Daedalus
The spastic fall of his first born
That seems to inspire
All those bird flapping imitations
Was an invisible Pledeian hand
in Leonardo’s ornithopter
And with all those failed Wrighters
That took us to the brink
Of Guerre de plume
(Dog-fight over the Frog Skies)
Through little Hurricanes
And Spitfires
Diving Stukas in the tub


Through the manless flights of the V1 and V2
That terrorise my Granny
In the London East End

Bring on the Jet Age
The Age of the Rocket
And the failed compact over Concorde
Monsieur Heath and Monsieur D’Estaing
The Sputniks and the spaceniks
Those Apollonian dreams
Are now scrap on our Moon

What is left to us of pretty flight
But the double edge sword
Of in flight info-(at)tainment
And the hijacker on board

Rocky et moi

Rocky et moi speak for a long time I feel. Of course, we have not solve the problems of the universe with our little talk, but we touch on many hidden matters, not least the terrible visions of flight that have dogged Mankind

Voice of Rocky

Out of the densité - of trees - I can hear the voice of Rocky.

Good evening, doctor.

(If I said something back, I don’t remember what, probably ‘ello…)

Densité

With the aid of power point, Miss Wallace attempts to trace her tangled path through the woods of Burnham and what she describes as the densité – one assumes she means mass of trees where she encounters the alien racoon.

Miss Wallace in the Woods of Burnham

“En ‘earing of the rush of the type suffered by mon cher ami, Monsieur Dieterling…” (Miss W smiles coyly over at the said Dieterling who is sitting with pen and pad at the front of the lecture hall… Allbright turning to Dieterling whispers in his ear. Dieterling who feigns not to hear Allbright, carries on scribbling).

“This rush that appears in the nether regions is particularly direabolique. And when I hear mon cher ami, Monsieur Dieterling was in need of the cure I decide to go tout de suite into the woods of Burnham.”

Close Encounters

In close encounters with earthlings a block or telepathic screen is set up, and a substitute, invariably an animal or insect is projected in its place.

Miss Wallace describes a memorable walk in the woods with a certain Rocky Racoon (not to be confused – as she puts it - with the direbolique MacCartney track).

Sunlight

Pledeians are particularly sensitive to our sunlight. Hence the sunglasses… and a preference we are told for Foster Grant’s.

Breathing

Over the millennia Pledeians have evolved extra breathing capacity that depends on apparatuses not unlike the inhalers used by asthma sufferers.

The Doc’s Hex

Wing nuts and Russian Mafia types be warned! Put those nukes away! The Doc puts a hex on you! The Doc spreads love and peace with hickies!

Lung Capacity

While Pledeian DNA is not dissimilar to the human, it appears they have half our lung capacity. This Adele explains in her best demotic French was due to mutation génétique. The origins of this mutation génétique are murky, though it is thought a war terrible visited their planet causing havoc with the atmosphère. -

Pointy ears

Miss Wallace wishes to stress:

The aural orifice in Pledeians is not quite as pointy as that of the Vulcan race … According to Miss Wallace, the Vulcans were dreamed up by Gene Roddenberry after a historic visitation during the Cuban Missile Crisis that had him slipping into Kruchshev’s dream space. (JFK dream space being adeled – as it were – with too much pussy)… Indeed Miss Wallace is not denying that it may have been this Vulcan – cloaked Pledeian intervention that saved mankind from the error of its ways.

Pledeians

According to Miss St Clair’s friend and confident, Adele Wallace, Pledeians are distinguished by their pale skins and pointy ears –

Punch-lines

Ask a stupid question!
Don’t give it any succour.
Well, first they need to smoke a peace pipe.
Sheep don’t grin.
They will eat anything that flickers, including those grinning sheep.
Only operate in the red light district.
Around the time of the full moon you can’t get them to do anything.
Fall asleep on the job, before it’s in the can. Sorry, that’s two punch-lines!
Claim to be confused by the number of mushroom shaped bulbs.

Lightbulbs

How many doppelgangers does it take to change the bulb?
How many tuplas does it take to screw the tuber?
How many dead Red Indians do you need to bayonet the old soldier?
How many hopeful monsters are required for light bulb duty?
How many grinning sheep does it take for the onerous task of changing old Byron the B?
How many Tasmanian devils will beat it through the desert to get to change the light bulb?
How many Translyvanian Vampires are needed when darkness descends in the average white family?
How many American werewolves are you going to call to change the lightbulb?
How many dog-tired Insomniacs are going to step out of bed to change the friggin’ light that’s popped above their head?
How many haughty hallucinogens will spring from their acid fuelled dreaming to spike the bulbous pear?

Stand-up Monkhouse

Hells bells! What is this? – Miss St Clair seems to have got hold of a stand up Monkhouse.

What prey is tha’?

Is a kind of limbo comic, obsessive compulsive teller of jokes, who scatter guns you from the Beyond.

Light-bulb (2)

How many poltergeists does it take to screw the bulb?

They gonna break it, silly!

Punchline (1)

Two, one to check its aura.

Lightbulb (1)

How many psychics does it take to change a light bulb?

No More Good Will

For while L. Springer, in those days… was much bitten by the notion that a humanistic contribution could be made by the new communication technology… much of the responsibility for this vision lay with Perrin… Perrin then communication director with Springer Ink as the company was formerly known. – For the chronically shy and hesitant Perrin where communication had – since his schooldaze - been a fraught and alienating business… Perrin’s mother was a non-stop trashcan of verbiage, his father a silent mouse scurrying across the bookcase, his school buddies frighteningly hip to his latent homosexuality… When Perrin, curiously forthcoming around his boss, managed to persuade the stationery mogul that the Springer One (project name) would – and could in some modest way help to restore to humanity the subtle and oft underestimated joys of communication…

Love Lost at Sea

And so it goes, the dream that began all those years ago, the first of many Flying Busby and Berkeleys to criss-cross our skies…

Strong human emotions

As we have seen, Professor Hex, non-humans, and in particular Pledeians get a buzz off of all strong human emotions.

You mean, Professor Horn. They are like junkies!

Precisely, Professor Hex, too much apoplexy always goes to the head.


The two venerable professors – Prof. Hex rumoured to have just celebrated his hundred twenty-first – Prof. Horn at a more modest hundred and eleven stoop and cackle into their telescopes

Dead Pledeian

Meanwhile, on the dark side of the loon… in one of those cloaked spaceships favoured by Klingons – and therefore undetectable to all those except the adepts at PARASITE - lies a dead Pledeian.

Blue Ice

When investigated by city police, the mystery ice was believed to have been blue ice that had fallen from a plane. Blue ice being a euphemism in airline industry for ice that falls from leaking plane lavatories.

“I’m not saying what it is,” sez Ciechaowksi, “but it made me think of something else like a meteor… Frankly, right now I’m still a little paranoid about planes flying overhead.”

Alien Ice

The mystery ice fell about 7.30 p.m. Saturday
Mr Ciechaowksi was in his garden mowing the lawn. He’d just got to the turn by the rhododendron bush when

Satellite of Love

Through the thin air
Of earth’s failing
Atmosphere
The satellite of love
Falls
Ridding as it goes
Alien Ice

LPGW 1

A close up of the said object with GOOGLE GALAXY reveals a distinctive number-plate in the upper case of Arial Alternative

Near Parabola

Somewhere high above us, where the stars twinkle brightly and the gaze is no longer obscured by the general haze of carbon and human fog can be seen something moving …Trace its eccentric arc, a near parabola in the night skies.

Em apology

Em, we apologise for the, em, temporary blip, but this is due to, erh, a technical fault currently beyond our control. If you will just bear with us, however, blogg-erh is doing all it can to get things back on line -

Apoplexy

If the liberal press were merely perplexed by the roll call of great and good that made up the so-called “Cricketers” Commission, bloggers everywhere were naturally in apoplexy.

Jabba said:

I’m telling you, nutmegs. That guy Doug Walters is thoroughly untrustworthy. He’s just a stoolie of Carson and the Doc.


Sharkhunter said:

Walters is a puppy in comparison with the Waugh… That guy is the all time Rottweiler of dirty tricks.

Ramon said:

Miller can bowl ‘em over fast, Goochie puts up a solid defence.

Jabba said:

Strategy is not his strongest suit, however.

Sharkhunter said:

These guys sold their souls long ago. Old Nick keeps stocking them fires and rubbing his hands with glee!

Jabba said:

I’m telling you, man. Truman is the only one with any integrity. He is a knight of the realm!

Sharkhunter said:

Integrity my erse! That guy bought his Yorkshire peerage off google! -

Twentieth Man

A Third Man, and perhaps even a fine leg have been attributed to Mr Greene. In a little known work – unpublished I believe until the early nineteen eighties - Mr Greene has also written of a Tenth Man. Recently there has been some mention of a Twentieth man, but as for the twelfth, no one, not even Mr Greene has come up with a convincing scenario.

Twelfth Man

Who was the Twelfth Man? (ed)

The Commission

President of the Commission: Doc Savage (for it is he!)

Commission members: Doug Walters (formerly chief engineer of Boeing); Frank Carson (Senator); Steve Waugh (CEO of Soft Machine); Keith Miller (CEO of Tennent Construction); Sir Fred Truman (Knight of the Garter); SF Barnes (of the Brewers Fame); Pelham “Plum” Warner (the old codger); Graham “Greybaby” Gooch (Personal Trainer to the Stars); GL Jossop (the Slogger on the team); Sue Barker (just a sup to the Wolfian feminists)

Crisis Management

Both Airline Company and Government were, however, in broad agreement over whatever conclusions were drawn. Whether it was the unthinkable (terrorists) or the regrettable (mechanical fault or pilot error), both were prepared to accept the findings of the Independent Commission that had just been set up in what the right wing press hailed “a deft piece of crisis management”.

Statement of denial (2)

A second statement of denial was released to the Press in which the government, while averring its support for both the Airline Company and the police, called for a speedy resolution to the mystery.

Statement of denial (1)

A statement of denial was released to the Press in which the Airline Company, while averring its support for the police, admitted to its fair share of anxiety.

Cartoon Flash

P.O. hanging, like Tom Cat,
Onto board of sinking ship
As sharks circle
In wild bid to divert sharks
Desperate Dan
Hurls his good friend
Jerry Mouse
Into blue yonder
Only to see dorsal fin
Of Jaws 2 turning
Ominously
Menacingly
On the horizon

Exasperation

Why would we take a thing like that? – You have to think we’re nuts to lay ourselves open to such a charge. My God, I dread to think of the resultant feeding frenzy!

Close up

Of half-chewed fingernails and top of half-chewed pencil

Split Screen

Commissioner shrunk, gnome-like, at desk
P.O.– with – note - dangerous white streak in hair - smiling through grits

Boot in the door

The Commissioner felt like a travelling salesman trying to get his boot in the door until an exasperated press officer came on the line.

Room 106

The Commissioner looked out of his office window; there was not a cloud in sight.

It was yesterday, said the man. Yesterday it was overcast.

And that’s why you called us.

It just didn’t seem right.

Room 105

Could you recognise him again?

You kidding… The Man was wearing shades… I thought, man, shades on a day like this.

Room 104

Anyway we was working like we always do when on comes Track of My Tears, on the radio. Joe was doing the chorus. You know the bit where it goes

Take a good look at my face –

Room 103

Fuselage, mainly… Me and Joe, we’re in packaging. Joe’s The Gaffer and I’m Mr Cling, or sometimes Mr Klingon. This other guy we know – Arthur, he’s built like shit brick house, is The Pallet. He gets to use the forklift.

Room 102

You say he had a pass?

Listen, it looked legit. Thought he was part of their recovery team.

The airlines?

That’s right. They’ve been coming down to pick up bits and bobs.

Room 101

Well, I’m not saying anything, but you know…There’s so many guys coming and going, you tend to assume, you know, they know what they’re doing…

Man comes forward

Eventually a man had come forward with information for the police concerning the recovery of the black box.

At no time during the interview - which was conducted with the shades down and the spools running in six different rooms since copies had to be forwarded to the relevant dps - had the interviewee appeared nervous or unsure of himself. In fact, he had taken full advantage of the leather upholstery facing the commissioner’s desk.

In the Chatroom (3)

Knight Rider is a crazed fool.

I must protest! Knight Rider is full of meaningful insights. - What are you, anyway, a wing nut?

What kind of crazed fool would spend his Saturday afternoons harrying cops?

It’s a noble cause!

My erse! He is a reckless pamphleteer!

My erse! He is a musketeer! One for all etc!

Nice one, Jabba! Ollie Reed was a dish!

One for you, Hoarfrost! Michael York could not touch Ollie with the proverbial sprag!

Well… I say you are all crazed fools.

In the Chatroom (2)

Has anyone seen or heard from Knight Rider lately? - Only we were supposed to go for a drink…

That cheeky bastard, he’s probably on the lam.

What do you mean?

I mean, Hoarfrost, put the dress away. It’s not going anywhere.

Fuck you, Hammerhead.

I hunt sharks, not ham. Anyway, how ‘bout a little drink-ee poo?

Thierry del Fuego (3)

Some people – filthy denigrators to the memory thereof claim that Thierry betrayed Che to the Bolivian authorities, but we say this is an out and out lie. The day Rodriguez et al came for the guerrilla supreme of global revolutions Thierry was holed up in the jungle with yellow fever.

It’s the God’s truth.

(Signed: Ramon)

Thierry Del Fuego (2)

Some hastily gathered facts: grew up in the Antarctic extremes of the Amerikas. Went to school run by Jesuits (as is often the case with young revolutionaries)… Having received instruction in cunning and casuistry, ran away to sea. Jumped ship in the good old US of Erseholes. Hoboed up and down the star spangled banner with his faithful harmonica, bible of beats… Just in time for the Cuban missile crisis got embroiled with nefarious bods (see Rodriquez and Escobar). Played with electricity up at Fort Manning, though never got into a crap game with Bilko. Ran a Hawaiian shirt business in Santa Barbara until struggling with supply side Capitalism, ditched his partners… Was with Che, finally - briefly, in Bolivia

Paean to Thierry

Thierry, my old friend we have not forgot you, even if you have forgot us!
Thierry, you ersehole as the British would say!
You stole my hopes with your cock-eyed theories of revolution!
You stabbed me in the back with your despotic determinism!
You cut off my balls!

(Signed: Sharkhunter)

Thierry Del Fuego

Burnt up revolutionary,
Has-been of lost causes,
Incapable poet of the plebeian

Where are you now, Thierry? – Living it up most likely on a desert island with lovely booties.

In the Chatroom (1)

In the chat room the weathermen come and go
Talking of Thierry del Fuego

Black Box of Flight 911 (2)

When flight nine eleven turned from its seemingly innocent trajectory, the Commissioner, like everyone else, had been watching television. The image of the plane and the sudden, buckling - toppling of the tower - like the chimney steeples of his childhood - began to prey on his mind. Everything it was felt hinged on the black box, and the black box had not been found.
Maintaining it reflected badly on the police that they still had not found the black box, the commissioner exhorted his officers. Although, in recent months, they had received no threats, they were under pressure from all sides. The thought they would have to conduct a witch-hunt under his jurisdiction frankly appalled him. - Even if the black box contains what we do not wish to hear, he told them, we must aim to settle all this idle speculation.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, bored cops affect to listen, scratch balls, dream of dames - get randy, craving that H. Winterman waiting for them in the rain.

Illustration

To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings… It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherché movement, the result of some extraordinary exertion of intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not infrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation

Draughts

In draughts… where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen.

Analytic Mind (2)

The writer was quite explicit. It was – to draw an analogy - like the difference between a master chess player and the accomplished draftsman (“battuta”!). To quote unquote

Tales of Mystery

Taking it as a sign; the Commissioner went out and bought a copy of the Tales of Mystery.

Analytic Mind (1)

The fourth pamphlet that landed on the Commissioner’s desk had no apparent connection to the issue in hand. Instead, it discussed the theory of the analytic mind.

Bored cops (2)

Bored cops, chain-smoking, foul breathed dipsomaniacs, idealist cops, closet queers, sadistic cops, dirty cops, hopeless cops, fair cop-s, cops we know and love like George from the Sweeney, big fat Stavros from Kojak, undercover creeps like Serpico, saintly thugs, celebrity cops like Jack Vincennes… All wondering – just for a fraction of a second - what is going on in the gubernatorial head?

Authorial Flashback

The whole effect I have to confess was quite stylishly chilling as dressed in Versace jeans, leather booties, abandoned shirt showing wisps of curly hair though thankfully not medallion he enters stage right to scare Macbeth… On the point of exit, he turns to the other ghosts. Brow puckering in over drive - a look of total drama school perplexity seems to confound the admonishment as if still grappling with that tricky line from several scenes back:

What are these so withered and wild!

Banquo figure

The Commissioner did not see his men, rather something spookily indeterminate – just beyond his field of vision… Vat was zat? – A Banquo figure…

Mother of Pearls

Everyone shut up, quit fooling, and look sharp… The boss is about to speak. Sharpen those pencils! Scratch notes! Hold onto those mother of pearls!