The B52s

An unexpected hit has been scored by resident DJ Stefano Piacenza. The Egyptian doctors acting as one move into a silky camel walk. And indeed who can resist the infectious beat of the B 52’s Rock Lobster?

Pressing the old boogie button, the Doc sashays onto the dance floor where Hanoi Jane and Pussy Galore twist and shout between ogling Muhajideens. Kola Boof pirouettes on a pair of dangerously high platforms. The Sheik, ducking under flaying limbs, clutches his side.

Dear boy, I fear Kola will land me with a Springer by-pass, confides the Sheik as he staggers past the Doc in search of a pick-me-up.

Kola Boof

The Doc, meanwhile, who is just beginning to enjoy himself spies the Sheik, in fine fettle, on the dance floor with a stunning looking African looking lady whom sources close to the Doc tell him is none other than Kola Boof, ex lover to Osama B.

TV Clips

At the qat fest can also be seen, on a wide plasma screen, clips from late night Italian TV for which it seems the Sheikh has a special fondness. (Surely must be something to do with those short skirts and upstanding bazookas, ed).

The camera swings wide over the laughing studio audience. Up on the stage those ever game and leggy Kessler twins are doing a tap with Alberto Sordi playing a man with two left feet. The camera swings again into a clip of Fred and Ginger at their exquisite best before a wedding cake. -

Third Nipple

Overhead on the poof:

Raul: By the way, Francisco I have always wondered about that third nipple. (Reaching for an innocent look over twinkling eyes) - I heard somewhere it was a prosthetic. Or am I confusing that particular kink with your arch rival?

A pause in the conversation as on the soundtrack can be heard the Bond theme tune. And the figure of R. Moore in the scope of the assassin’s rifle.

Scaramanga (Grimacing since he is touchy around the subject of 007): Btw, how is Fidel?

Raul: He’s not so hot right now, but he’s a big boy and will be just fine. When I do take power, though, you think I should put in a Starbucks or a Macdonald’s first?

Two Old Friends

The two old friends chatting away about old times. Way back in the sixties it turns out Scaramanga helped out Raul and Fidel when the Americans were putting in some heavy duty hexes on Fidel. Indeed, there is an unconfirmed – and not unpleasurable to the ears of the Man with The Golden Gun - rumour that it was Scaramanga himself who foiled the plot to spike Fidel’s Havana with acid.

Who’s who of the Jihad

At the qat fest, according to the latest Monkhouse report, is a veritable who’s who of the Jihad: several Egyptian doctors arguing heatedly over the fourth chapter of the Satanic Verses; a suicide bomber named Khalid doing tequila slammers before his final mission; the notorious al Zarqawis posing for a group photo with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes ( see inset of L Ron Hubbard and his tomato plant); keeping company the short stop accountant, Manfredo Manfredinni (See BB Passim) over by the laptop dancers a Mohammed Atta double. And there in the corner of the room, reclining on the poof in between the two Pussy Galore and Hanoi Jane look alike dolls, special guests of the sheikh, Raul Castro and Francisco Scaramanga.

Doc v Homeboy Face Off

The Doc and the Homie proceed to the face off.
The Homie ducks and weaves.
The Doc remains immobile conjuring all his most heinous and vile hexes.
The Doc’s got the Homie on the run.
The Homie does one of those cool, mean back flips and is up on his feet.
From the dark recesses of a coke-fuelled mind the Doc produces a tattooed fist.
The Homie rockets into the stratosphere!

Dizzing Reality

Hey, you laid up wasted, pasted sixties freak!

Someone taking umbrage at the Doc. - The Doc swivels round with the AK-47 to come face to face with a Homeboy.

Homeboy now in the Doc’s face with that tricky finger jabbing only homeboys are masters of and an incomprehensible jive, the gist of which is:

Stop dizzing reality, man!
Reality iz a hardcore movie
And you cannot dig its grammar!
If you wish to deconstruct society, why not star in your own hard-hitting video complete with reality shots of the Big A going up in holy smoke.

The Doc, not to be undone, pulls himself up to the fullness of his rearing horse:

Listen, ersehole, reality happens to be dizzing me.

A Few Innocent Bystanders

Everyone is in furious babbling form, including the Doc who, having helped himself to some of that qat, exults in his and the Sheik’s triumph whilst waving one of those AK-47s. “It was a piece of cake! Nothing to it! Reckon I’ll jus’ mosey on down to the shopping mall and line up a few innocent bystanders. Watch out there’s a friggin’ freak running amok.” Osama’s boys chuckling knowingly as the Doc into his stride takes imaginary pot-shots. “You know all how it is with innocent bystanders. Have a tendency to get in the way at the best of times. - ”

The Rescue Squad

Poor, drugged Professor Danker hangs onto the emergency chute. Down below the rescue squad, Osama’s boys in a huddle of horses and rifles. Firecrackers going off, and general mayhem… Sheik your booty rolls up in the Merc handing out qat to all.

The Doc’s Ex Machina Contd.

Oh reality, you hard-bitten muse!
Take that! Touché!
When they put you in Guatanamo Bay!


Click your fingers and see!

Jabba Repost

Jabba The Hut said:

Information is uncountable, ersehole

Stormtrooper Query

Stormtrooper said:

Vat is going on? Where is the informations?

The Doc’s Ex Machina Interventions

The Doc has a plan
His ex machina interventions
Are always guaranteed to succeed
If you don’t believe it,
Click your fingers and see.

Or alternatively
Click here
To be one click ahead of the game.

40 000 Feet Up (2)

Okay, boys,
You are in the middle of the fucking storm
40,000 feet up
Next to you
In the Queer jet
Some tall curly-haired
Special Agent in an buttoned down
Oxford shirt
And tasselled brogues
Rome is long gone
And the antidote isn’t working

Flash forward

Ghosts of torturers past
Shaken by the demon
King rattle their cages
And crackle
In an electric storm
The Pope
Wings in with a
Crucifix

Fat chance!

40 000 Feet Up

Okay, boys,
You are 40 000 feet up
And it’s not just fucking raining

Empire of Ice Cream (12)

Dimly he was aware of the man standing over him. Professor Danker, the man said, we would like you to try these on.

It was a pair of flight goggles.

The man insisted:

Professor Danker, it will make your flight more comfortable.

Danker felt a pin prick in his arm. - Suddenly everything was in darkness.

Empire of Ice Cream (11)

The plane had been flying for several hours at high altitude when it started its decent.

What’s happening? He asked.

His question fell on deaf ears.

They landed in what looked like a military airport. There was barbed wire surmounting the fence and big, green transport planes.

Danker understood that they had stopped for refuelling. When they took off again, he had caught sight of a city below – was that the dome of St Peter’s?

Am I in Italy? Where are we going?

He looked round him. But nobody seemed to have heard.

Suddenly the anger rose up inside him.

Where are you taking me?

He wanted to shout, but his questions came out weaker.

Empire of Ice Cream (10)

He was taken to the airport; Danker was sure they were going to go through customs. Instead, they were met by the Swedish police. He was bundled into another car. They drove out onto the runway where a small jet was waiting.

Danker had never liked take-offs. A terrible lethargy overwhelmed him even as the plane climbed and he felt the drop in cabin pressure. He observed everything as if it was from outside himself, and there were no butterflies in his stomach.

Empire of Ice Cream (9)

Danker remembered things dimly. - Someone helping him into clothes, seizing his laptop and papers. As they pushed him out the door and bundled him into the service lift, he did not protest, even if he knew what they were doing was illegal.

They bundled him into a car, and drove at high speed, though always within the law.

Danker thought of his wife and wondered if she had got home safely.

Empire of Ice Cream (8)

Danker, who was to deliver his own paper the following day, was not given the chance. He was woken in the middle of the night. Improbably a man in a Cato mask was sitting on his bed with a needle in his hand.

Empire of Ice Cream (7)

They walked back to the hotel. Nylander said by the lift:

I’m looking forward to those fireworks – the grand finale of seem.

Empire of Ice Cream (6)

I scream, you scream, Nylander had said (ice cream in hand).

Then musingly:

It’s my only vice. The Munk vice.

Afterwards, he had ordered a Bourbon with ice; Danker couldn’t help commenting:

The only one.

Nylander laughed.

Which is the real vice, which is the seeming vice?

Nylander talked like that – rhetorically as if he was still reading from his paper.

Empire of Ice Cream (5)

At the end of the meal, Danker wanted to phone his wife, but Nylander had insisted on a walk.

They had stopped at a bar. Danker went to look for a phone; he couldn’t get through to his wife. - Nylander had seen the ice creams - quoting or was it misquoting?

The only empire is the empire of ice cream…

Empire of Ice Cream (4)

Danker was in the dining room when Nylander had come up and shook his hand. Nylander made a joke of the coincidence – their being in the same hotel. He called it fortuitous serendipity.

Danker had invited him to sit at his table; Nylander was good company. – Just like his paper. And this evening he had chosen to be provoked, especially about the groves of the Berkeley academe.

Danker laughed not just at the allusion but Nylander’s face pull…

We professors are dangerous, he had declared. We want to conquer the world and do it by stealth. Collusion and stealth.

He raised his glass. Here’s to the Berkeley Stealth Bombers, he said.

Empire of Ice cream (3)

The following day Danker had wandered along to the university to take his pew.

The conference turned out much as he had expected until someone - a Professor Nylander from Berkeley stood up and delivered one of those “controversial” papers designed to make everyone sit up and take notes.

Essentially it was a re-positioning of realism – criticism had to be grounded in reality, and not semantics – or as Nylander put it, the quibbling over nuance. The argument was a glib but muscular one, and he found himself improbably enjoying it - probably because of his own tendency to ellipsis.

Empire of Ice cream (2)

Danker considered hiring a car but in the end he had taken the train from Malmo so he could go over his paper.

He was in Stockholm by the evening. After a quiet meal in the hotel restaurant, he had gone up to his room and phoned his wife who was still with their hosts.

His wife had made a cake, and Danker was peaked.

A chocolate cake, he said. Well, I hope you keep back a piece for me.

His wife laughed. She wanted to tease him in her own tongue, but she had trouble remembering the word.

I must be losing my memory, she said.

Behind her sigh he thought he detected real exasperation. But he did not push it and they talked about other things.

When are you leaving? He asked.

Tomorrow, she said. We’re taking the ferry to Rostock. Hennig is going to drive me to the station.

They said goodnight; Danker promised to phone when she got home.

Empire of Ice Cream

The blanket wrapped round his legs and the warm glow still radiating from the island, Danker sat on the deck.

He thought about the walk along the windy beach, how they took it in turns to push the buggy. Little Walter clapping, hooting when they had set off the rocket from the top of the old lighthouse and sang Happy New Year in as many languages as they could remember. Hennig had even managed a toast in Norwegian.

Mel Brooks card

Move self and entire film crew to another theatre of operation.

What to do in the event of (3)

Which of the following would you not do if kidnapped by jihadists?

(1) play left wing journalist (D. Pearl)
(2) play wiseguy (H. Bogart)
(3) play straight bat (G. Boycott)
(4) play with yourself (Judge Clarence Speakes)
(5) play with minor (Black Stick Man)
(6) play God (Dr. Frankenstein)
(7) play dead (K-9)
(8) play for time (J. Bond with P. Galore)
(9) play the Mel Brooks card

Weapons of choice

Agents will be invited to select from the following a weapon of their choice.

(1) Scaramanga’s Golden Gun
(2) The common garden Ray gun
(3) Martin Mystery’s Murchadna (or paralysing ray-gun)
(4) OO7’s preferred Beretta .25 to 7.65 mm Walther PPK
(5) Martin Boorman’s German Luger
(6) Action Man’s Wilkinson Sword commando knife
(7) Captain America’s vibranium/steel alloy shield
(8) Captain Scarlet’s retro-metabolism

Sniper’s alley

To heighten reality and sharpen agents’ skills conditions in the field will be simulated in a sniper’s alley under the control of a four-foot midget who hides behind two-way mirrors and chuckles sadistically. Targets will be dressed as some of the world’s worst villains i.e. Mafia, Triad, Pirate, Yardie, Homeboy. The end game is to eliminate the heavily disguised Jihadist before he gets you.

Clue: Khalid may not be wearing his button down shirt and European hiking boots.

Khalid’s past: a jigsaw reading (4)

Khalid on the run: What do you do when you’re on jihad, all the money’s run out and you just want to leave?

For Khalid and his remaining men the only chance was to try and get a piece of the forty grand that Khalid had already delivered to the warlord.

“I can’t help you,” the Somali leader told him. “”We need the money for our fight.”

Khalid wasn’t a high-school debater; he was a holy warrior, so he did what came naturally: he put a loaded gun to the man’s head. “I’ll kill you or you help us get out of here,” he said.

(Instructions: click on one of three texts and exchange views with your chatroom partners.)

Khalid’s past: a jigsaw reading (3)

The Somalia years: Posing as a Red Cross worker, Khalid bribed a pilot to fly him from Nairobi to the Somali town of Luuq where he delivered $40,000 in cash to a Somali warlord… The conditions at Luuq were dire. At times the insurgents only survived by eating sugar. Khalid fought for two days straight until he and his men ran out of ammunition. Reduced to throwing stones, most were killed.

Khalid’s past: a jigsaw reading (2)

The Bosnia years: One day after a year at war, Khalid was battling Serbian snipers who were shooting into Muslim villages from a nearby mountain. Suddenly he came face to face with a Serb. The Serb got the jump, firing seven bullets into Khalid’s stomach, part of his guts leaked out into his hands. It took three injections of morphine to quiet his screaming. “You must be heavy drinker,” said the Medic from Bahrain. “No,” said Khalid. “I chew qat.”

Khalid’s past: a jigsaw reading

The Afghanistan years: Fought in Afghanistan for two years. He learned to use his weapon, to pray with the precision and punctuality of the Salafis, the Islamic purists who were driving the holy war. He had arrived in Afghanistan at a pivotal moment. The war against the Soviets was giving birth to a new breed of Arab fighters. It was there that the seed of allegiance was planted for thousands of young men who had flocked to the mountains of the Hindu Kush to help fight the communists.

Jihad profiling

Jihad profiling is an exercise to sensitise agents in the field. A typical example involves a Khalid identikit.

Codename: Khalid
Surname: Unknown
Place of origin: Yemen
Date of birth: 09/11/65
Hobbies: chewing qat, prayer
Married or single: Married to Irish waitress, Birmingham, England
Training: Jihad boot camp, Afghanistan
Skills: passport forgery, money laundering, camel-riding
Moment of conversion: Sanaa Mosque, 1989
Past life: Foot soldier of the Jihad, Afghanistan; front line, Bosnia; Somalia
Closest shave: Khost, Afghanistan. Car blew up as Khalid was taking a pee.
Future plans: Subject to changing geo-strategies in out of the way of places.


N.B. Students are required to complete the above exercise using question forms and the third person present simple before going onto the simulation exercise.

Qat: the medical analysis

A leafy, reddish green plant that contains amphetamine-like substances, qat combines the talkative affability of pot with the drive of speed. First comes euphoria and intense sociability – not ponderous marijuana-induced ramblings, but a deep appreciation of the flow of conversation. In this stage, five hours can pass in what seems like 10 minutes. Next comes reflective quiet – a comfortable silence descends as people look inward, contemplating the contents of their minds. The final stage is depression and insomnia – it’s not uncommon to see solitary cloaked figures roaming the streets, waiting for the effects of the drug to pass.

How to spot the Jihadist in the bizarre

Sometimes they may be chewing qat.

Clue

Clue: Who is Apollyon?

Consult your list of demons at the back of the accompanying booklet (compiled by PARASITE)

Those students practised in the arcane art of listening to Led Zepplin records backwards will no doubt be ahead of the game

Cockpit Voice Recorder

… Noyllopanoyllopanoyllopa….

What to do in the event of (2)

What to do in the event of demonic incantation

Click here for static of aircraft cockpit voice recorder… (Duration time 4 minutes 33 seconds)

Hijacker with Stammer

Air traffic controller Er, uh… calling… You’re unreadable. Say again slowly

Hijacker(to passengers in English) Don’t move shut – shut up…. Don’t move. Stop. Sit – sit down, sit down…

Air traffic controller. We just didn’t get it clear… Is that 911 calling?

Hijacker (in English) Ladies. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you all to remain – remain seated. We have a bomb. A bomb on board and we are going back to the airport, and we have our – our de- demands. So, please – please remain seated.

Take it in turns with your partner. Now you are the airtraffic controller.

What to do in the event of

What to do in the event of hijack: role-playing the hijacker with stammer. (Click here for hijacker).

How to spot a Jihadist (2)

Sometimes one cannot always fathom their act but be sure to remember they may be seen playing guitars.

Sambo: Oh, boss! I thought they were the red communists.

Boss man: Son, you is wrong! It is just Pete Seegar and the boys strumming their humble folk rhythms.

Re Passports

Sometimes, if particularly cunning, a Jihadist may be in possession of more than one passport that may wend its way into the ruins of the WTC

How to spot a Jihadist

To be rapped in nasally Dylanesque tones:

Sometimes they may have shaven their beards
Sometimes they may appear with one hand holding a cutlass
Sometimes they may appear slant-eyed, or single-eyed or even Cyclops-eyed.
Sometimes they may wear button down shirts and European hiking boots.
Sometimes they may swoop on bat wings wielding AK-47s.
Sometimes they may kneel before Bephomet.
Sometimes they may appear to stammer before uttering demonic incantations

Training tools

As an exercise: agents will be given a picture or pictures of a crowded scene full of bobble-hatted Wallies carrying knapsacks and binocolars (Click here for photo). They will have just forty-five seconds to spot the jihadist.

Nine Eleven Toolkit

Fred, the following is your fully interactive nine eleven toolkit to be adapted according to need and circumstances.

Kamikaze Trojan

12.10 (Virginia time coincidentally) S.A. Alvarez iz downloading various images of the Richards, in various states of undress, including the incriminating ring pieces hanging from their respective nether regions, when a Kamikaze Trojan - sporting Biggles goggles and yelling Howzat! - flies in and takes out a number of top secret files in the possession of the special agent.

Incident at London Airport (2)

11.50 Leaving her husband browsing in the book section of W.H.Smiths, Mrs Richards went over to the Body Shop.

12.00 Having purchased a number of discrete items, Mr Richards left the stationers to search for his wife.

12.05 Mrs Richards exited the ladies, and together with her husband walked towards Departures.

12.10 The Heathrow security system went into action. At the excitation of the hypersensitive security screener Mr Richards threw up his hands. He was subjected to a vigorous body search, while Mrs Richards was invited to take off her flip-flops.

A few minutes later the Richards were escorted to the interrogation room for further questioning

Incident at London Airport

10.30 Mr and Mrs I.A. Richards left their house in Godalming, Surrey.

11.15 Mrs and Mrs Richards parked their car in the long-stay car park at Heathrow

11.20 Mrs and Mrs Richards entered terminal C and made their way towards the check-in.

11.23 Mr and Mrs Richards joined the queue at desk 42 behind a family of Romanians.

11.45 The Richards checked in their luggage at just under the official weight of 40 kilos. They were seen to smile with visible relief.

The Doc’s Hex (2)

All over the world plotters are grabbing headlines
What will be next on their list?
A Prada bag? A Gucci wallet?
Don’t be a-feared… the Doc is here to put a hex on all plots and their proliferations!

Headline Plotters

The Grauniad

Plot Uncovered at Heathrow

The Sun

Plotters Foiled Again!

The Globe

Governments Ecstatic At Agent Success

The Forbean Times

It’s November the Fifth All Over Again

The Daily Pledeian

Earthlings to Celebrate Guy Fawkes Early This Year

The Plot

The plot, which was hatched some time in the early spring
of his imagination, was nurtured over a sempre-ternal summer
Cooked on a long beach
Looking out on a crystalline sea.
When the time came to reveal the plot, the watchers it seemed were ever vigilant.

Knight Rider Chatroom (2)

Sharkattack, I happen to know LS is nowhere near the Rockies, but out to dinner with Senator Carson’s wife.

Sharkhunter said:

No Kidding, Knightie! They’re having an affair?

Knightrider said:

It’s an old, old story, but I am sure you don’t want to hear about that.

Sharkhunter said:

P.S. Knightie, seen any ghosts lately!

Scholar of Strange and Mysterious (3)

The Monkhouse in an exaggerated whisper:

In a secret, locked room at Sandingham is preserved a skeleton that is said to be that of a Nephilim.

Langland Springer, 73, is currently convalescing in the Rockies.

Scholar of Strange and Mysterious (2)

In the hallway at Sandingham, along with the stuffed deer and goat heads is a plastercast of Bigfoot’s size nineteens. Langland likes to crack it really belongs to the Jolly Green Giant and not the Sasquatch.”

Scholar of Strange and Mysterious

In a glass cabinet between two Etruscan vases and a Roman bazooka are some pretty weird Inca stones depicting transplants, and illegal aliens.

Did you know that… (5)

Yorkshire housewives can be heard talking among themselves. “Well, I don’t know… What do you think, Dot? – You know what I say, Doris. I say that Springer fellow he’s never done an honest day's work in his life” But the Monkhouse is oblivious:

“Did you know, ladies, that Langland Springer is truly a scholar of the strange and the mysterious?

Springer Whizz

The Monkhouse pitching now to a crowd of sceptical Yorkshire housewives:

“ Having nightmares about those tax returns! – Worried about all that tricky form filling and bureaucracy! No need to wake up in a sweat about those April cruel reminders.

Here’s a little known whizz of Herr Springer, neat little scam if ever there was one. Why not take advantage of a cute get-out clause devised by nineteenth century corporadoes. - One of those small print skims everyone who’s anyone’s been milking since nine eleven. All you got to do is register yourself offshore with one of those London office boys. – Take it from an expert like L.S. and your liquid assets will rise by 50 per cent in five years. Those ill-gotten gains will go ballistic!

So my advice is:

Get yourself an IBC.
Mr Springer did.”

Did you know that… (4)

Mr Springer’s favourite misquote is

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
And yet the Springer must be bloody, resolute
And bold
Lest his stocks and shares go the way
Of Tremble Nee Holdings
And Saxfield Gould”

Did you know that… (3)

Pride of place in the Springer library at Sandingham is the original De Arte venandi cum avibus, that seminal text on the ancient art of bird flight and falconry.

Did you know that… (2)

Like the Roman emperors and the Greek Gods, Langland keeps his pet leopard, Cleopatra tethered to a Gothic twill in South Carolina.

Did you know that… (1)

“Langland Springer has one of the largest, most sought after private collections of African curios in the civilised world?"

Springer Stationery

“And now for a quick reminder of those early Springer Stationery products:

Cashing in on Swinging London:
The Bull Dog Drummond Biro!
Bond paperclips!
Mi’Lady Quills!

Trading off seventies dark-side and UFO-ology:
Ouiji board in the boardroom,
Colour Crayons of the Third Kind,
Portholes through the office furniture,
And not forgetting ET Smackeroos!

Sobering up for Eighties Power Dressing etc:

The Springer 400 fondly recalled by fantasy clerks and rude anatomists (You know who you are)
Spicy rubbers (Watch out, curry-heads!)
Stinky cushions for those of you wanted to shit the boss over hard copy."

Der Springer Heartfield

Finally, over what appears to be a Heartfield of Langland Springer in a golf buggy, a young stockbroker with her nose up a party straw, a shivering junky on the streets of Harlem, the voice of the Afro-haired Hair Bear can just about be heard:

Oh those opium dens!
Those opium dens
Give me the Mercedes bends!


Oh! No! Someone’s tripped the Monkhouse switch again!

The Opium Trail

Various images flesh across your computer screens in no particular order:

Goggle-eyed Mr Business
Reclining in first class seat of United Airlines

Shots of towel-headed camel riders
Lolloping over sand-dunes
Inter-cut with helpful BBC map of Afghanistan,
John Snow’s size fourteen Hush Puppies

Inter-cut with shots of
The A.J. Alvarez
Various moustachioed types
A-waiting on the ship’s a-loading

Close up of
Dude with uncanny resemblance
To Alfredo Garcia and therefore
Warren Oates

A long way away in Bari, Italy
Mr Canzano on the phone
To Mr Carmichael
So tell me, David, how much
Do you intend to fix this vessel?

Scenic shots now of Dubai City
Courtesy of the Emirates Tourist Board

Mr Business in darkened shades
Stepping off the 747
In his hand the all important attaché case

On the tarmac below
A black Mercedes Benz
And of all people – Frank Zappa
Dressed as Sheik your booty!

Langer's Imperial Past

From the same Forbean Times article:

Few people know this; but L Springer grew up in Imperial Singapore. His family, like the rest of the Brits, was caught cat-napping by the Jap invasion. The young Springer was forced to live on the streets – scrounging for scraps from locals and eating rats till captured breaking into a pharmacy in search of morphine. Of his experience in the Jap camp, the crypto-Buddhist Springer was once quoted as saying: Nothing is forgiven, nothing is forgotten.

After the war, Springer had immigrated to the States where he proceeded through a unique brand of drive and devil may care to accumulate a vast fortune from stationery products and photocopying machines before branching out into other media…

Springer Denial

A lawyer representing L. Springer has declared Mr Langland Springer has nothing but admiration for his Japanese colleagues… And even if privately he may wish to ritually mince-meat/samurai slice those Tokyo office boys he continues to plead
(1) his dodgy heart
(2) lunchtime “blooze”
(3) the trauma of a childhood spent in a Jap prison of war camp

Devious snakes

Overheard in the boardroom and then quoted later in the Forbean Times.

Damn those Japs! Have always bin devious snakes!

Dip on the Nikkei

Share Price of SpringerCorp currently holding on the Dow Jones has taken a dramatic dip on the Nikkei 500…

Knight Rider Chatroom

Knight Rider, you are back! Truly fantastic! Great Blog by the way! – Beirut is the Eternal Return! I dig! Are we still waiting for tragedy to come back as farce?

Yuck! Hoarfrost is coming over all gooey! – Anyway, where’ve you been, Knightie? Doing time in the soup kitchen?

I know, I know and taking it up the ****hole! –

Glad to see your on the ball, Knightie. – Talking of which, thought you’d be interested to check out these links.

Asymmetrical War (2)

Why I think now of that quote – a precise if unwitting description of the strategy of the filmmaker - I had at some point in the evening learnt he was half Serbo-Croat as well as Lebanese - who was in some sense waging asymmetric war on us – his audience. For how else, indeed, could he illuminate what was happening there in his city with its endless reprise of the mechanism of siege and the whole sorry business of reprisal and retribution?

Asymmetrical War

“They are committed jihadists (engaged) in acts not of desperation but asymmetrical war against us.”

Rear Admiral Harry “Chuck” Harris.

Short film about Beirut

The short film about Beirut, contrast to the other shorts, which feel like pop promos, was in three parts:

(1) Girl and boy flirt in front of soft-drinks machine. - A dozen mannequins looking down on them from the escalator.

(2) Taxi-driver picks up a bumbling Englishman, has to stop off for a cake. It is someone’s birthday. The cake is in the shape of an (American) Pie. In the end the taxi-driver offers the Englishman the cake.

(3) A gang of youths enters a local store to buy some beer. They start haranguing the boy who is working there. All the while his face remains hidden. There is tension in the air. Just for a second you think there is going to be a riot, but then it all fizzles out with barbed humour… the intervention of the shopkeeper. Finally we get to see what it was that was getting them so worked up: the boy’s face – with nasty burns all over it.

Thierry’s Anecdote

Thierry tells how they were chauffeur-driven in the Mercedes to a very posh restaurant. The host orders seafood starters – followed by spaghetti with mussels and clams. For the second course they are brought a huge fish with carnivorous teeth. While Thierry and Claude chat with their host, M. gets drunk. – They never finish the carnivorous fish. The Mercedes returns to pick them up. What does M. do? – Throw up? Fall asleep? - I missed the end of the anecdote because I had to take a pee.

Notes on a Lebanese filmmaker

I wrote these notes almost three years ago to the day:

Physically, he is all angles, and as thin as boy.
Only with the kind of face that has grown old before its time.
Saddened by a thousand hard-line movies.
When the fireworks go off (where the festival is being held it happens to be the saint’s day of the town), he seems to flinch before re-adjusting to peacetime reality.

As he talks, he sits with his legs crossed on the chair and chain smokes. He is on medication, but that does not stop him from drinking.

His dream is to go to London or Berlin. These places he feels are truly creative. London is the place to die. Its greyness helps you adjust to the idea of death… But it is in Japan he really wants to live. – A place he says where you can get healed.

Which links in my mind with his theory about the Jews, and why he is not afraid of them. - The Jews he says have missed the boat… While we – he means I suppose Christians and Muslims have our saviour (whether we believe in Him or not), they are still waiting for theirs. Consequently they feel it as a burden to their souls.

Hologram for Our Times

Chair: The Professors will now attempt to deal with a number of questions that have come up in the course of discussion.

Re Skulls in the Wall:

Prof Horn speaking: During the Period of Early Decadence a certain Colonel Kurtz is believed to have run amok in a remote section of the Wall, but this has been hotly denied by Belgian patriots and Conradian scholars.

Prof Hex chuckling: Marlon Brando, he dead!


Re Wall as Collective Hallucination:

Prof Horn speaking: Interesting point… and one which has been discussed at length by the Berkleyian school. To what extent was the Wall a product not only of the Shadows but some mass, or if you will forgive the pun - massive Delusion? – Well, I am not sure I know the answer to that question…

Chair (Turning to his colleague): Would you care to comment, professor?

Prof Hex (Distractedly): Quite agree, quite agree! Put him in a bottle. Project him on the Wall! A hologram for Our Times!

Beserker

H.R. Prof: Spare a final thought for the masked man or woman

Hovering Prof: It is unclear from the photo -

H. R. Prof: who falls just short of the wall.

Hovering Prof: This one it seems made it as far as the electric fence. Even if they never actually reached the wall, a Beserker was always buried with his proud record.

H.R. Prof (Irritated): Finally. – One concludes this lecture with consoling thought that behind this small echo of the greater human tragedy

Hovering Prof: One day the wall did come down.