Letter to Ernesto 2

My Dear Ernesto

How cruel the gods can seem, and how their capricious natures thwart our happiness at every turn! Still, the bandages come off tomorrow, and the resultant gooseberry crumble was certainly worth paying Dr Sproule’s exorbitant call-out fees. You may infer from this, brother mine, that my latest venture into the world of catering has not been entirely plain sailing. I have nobody to blame but myself for this, as I was insistent that Agatha took time out from her pursuance of all things thespian in order to help me. This was by no means an easy feat, as she has in the past few weeks fallen under the spell of a frightful imbecile by the name of St Clement. This ghastly wretch has filled Agatha’s head with fanciful notions regarding her theatrical ambitions, and has no doubt made attempts to occupy other parts of her body too. I fear the worst in this regard and urge you to intervene in some manner.

Aunt Daphne sends her regards, and hopes that your expedition into the unmapped interior of Africa is proceeding as well as can be expected. Why she believes you to be on an expedition I cannot fathom, as I have made it clear to her on more than one occasion that you are a resident of Dundee, and have been for some six years. You know how she can be, Ernesto, mere facts are not permitted to distort her perception of the world and it is to be remarked upon how much worse she has become since the death of Uncle Thomas. Mother has become her ally in senility, and together they are indeed a force with which to reckon. Their most recent exploits have seen the complete destruction of the vegetable gardens, allegedly in the pursuit of “the fabled turquoise mole of Stuttgart”.  The bill for the hire of the digging contraptions alone is liable to bankrupt me.

In addition to this wanton destruction, I received a letter this last Tuesday morning advising me that the estate (for which I am legally responsible) is now at war with Lichtenstein and to expect “repercussive admonishments of the most krule (sic) nature”. This letter, as I am sure you have already surmised, is written in a style of handwriting that most resembles the perambulations of a drunken spider with green ink on its feet. Combine this with the use of lavender scented notepaper, and it is clear that the bent minds of Mother and her sister are at work here.

Now to matters pertaining to business. Our mutual friend at the Polish embassy has confirmed that all arrangements are now in place regarding the final shipment. Thank you for your endeavours in this regard; it is clear that your powers of persuasion are not to be underestimated. We may expect some terse communication from our erstwhile colleagues in Latvia, but I am confident that any action on their part will be small beer and easily confined. “Bart” also advises me that generous gifts, acknowledging our part in this enterprise, have already been despatched and yours will shortly be arriving in Dundee for collection. I am delighted to recount that mine arrived this very morn, and is currently upstairs getting undressed.

And so I must take my leave. Certain pressures below the waist prevent me from concentrating on this letter for much longer and my vision is already beginning to blur.

I remain, your loving brother

Frimley

Letter to Ernesto 1

My dear Ernesto

Thank you for your letter of the 13th, and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. Life here at Gimlet Mansions has been frightfully hectic of late, what with Agatha’s burgeoning theatrical career and the accompanying hoo-hah (of which, more later). Mother’s behaviour continues to be erratic and she is, as I write this, shampooing the lawn in preparation for the visit of Emperor Selassie of Ethiopia. I don’t have the heart to tell her he’s dead, as she has also prepared an extensive buffet lunch for His Imperial Majesty, the cost of which is certain to put a terrible strain on our already meagre finances. In addition, her enthusiasm for motorcycle speedway racing has simply shredded my nerves.

Cousin Ralph popped by yesterday, on his way to purchase eggs, and has asked me to send you his best wishes. It pains me to tell you that his appearance becomes ever more dishevelled by the week, and his excuses more fanciful. He now claims to have a letter from a certain Doctor Sproule, advising of his allergy to any form of grooming implement. I find this utterly preposterous, as I’m sure you do, and would welcome your support in this matter. Perhaps you could send me a letter of admonishment, which I may pass to Ralph in order to dissuade him from continuing down this ruinous path. His beard is frankly insupportable, to say nothing of the aroma emanating from his waistcoat.

And so to Agatha. While her enthusiasm (like her tuberculosis) is contagious, her talents are limited to an almost catatonic degree. Following her last audition, for a Senor Immolatione of Stuttgart, I received a hand-delivered missive from said gentleman imploring me to have dear Agatha sent to a secure institution "to preserve the continued positive effects of the thespian art and to ensure that its good name is not forever sullied in the eyes of the public". Needless to say I have not shared this letter's contents with Agatha, for fear of another psoriatic eruption, but I must find a way of somehow curtailing her activities in this sphere, perhaps with a financial inducement of some kind. Any advice you can offer me in this matter will be greatly appreciated, dear Ernesto, for I am reaching the very end of my wits. 

Work on the south garden continues apace and you will be delighted to know that the refugees have now been removed from the summer house and a commemorative pear orchard planted nearby. The onset of spring seems to revive the entire grounds from its wintry sonambulance and it is as if the whole of nature now delights in the pleasures of rebirth. This change in mood has certainly revived my flagging spirits; so much so that I have recently been able to impregnate one of the itinerant workers after several particularly vigorous couplings. The child is due for birthing in the autumn, and I do hope you will be able to visit so that we may celebrate its arrival in an appropriate manner.

And so, dear Ernesto, I must take my leave. Mrs Funge has just rung the dinner bell, and you know how she hates to be kept waiting (we have only just been able to remove all the blood from the scullery walls following the Lord Frankisham debacle). Do write back soon, as all the fellows at the bridge club are anxious to hear news of your adventures in the high pressure world of worm farms.

I remain, your loving brother

Frimley

101

I'm full of coffee and, having just watched Room 101, felt inspired to make a wee list of things that boil my piss, as a form of catharthis. This is designed, in the words of the great Peter Cook, "to get some things off my chest, and on to other peoples'."

Obviously this is a heavily redacted inventory, but I had to write this quickly as I've got some laundry to sort out:

1. Band competitions. Music is not a competition and musical opinion is always, *always* entirely subjective. Who is the best band in Cambridge? Who cares?
   
   
2. The Conservative Party. Do I really have to explain this one?
   
   
3. Ill-mannered people. Just how do you think that being obnoxious, rude or ignorant makes you a better person or the world a better place?
   
   
4. Celebrities. Hate the word, hate the concept, hate the magazines, hate the TV shows. The concept of celebrity demeans real achievement and needlessly elevates the perceived status of preening self-important performing chimps.
   
   
5. The recorded works of Stereophonics. Although I will grudgingly admit that it's quite an achievement making "beige" a musical genre.
   
   
6. Consumerism. Yes, I buy things, of course I do, but I'm increasingly noticing that people are becoming defined by what they own, not by who or what they are. This makes me twitchy.
   
   
7. Masterchef. Cooking doesn't get any tougher than this. Apparently.
   
   
8. Patriotism. You do realise that your country of birth is an accident and an irrelevance, don't you? You don't? Oh.
   
   
9. Writing “should of” instead of “should have”. Were you forcibly removed from school at the age of six?
   
   
10. Playing on people's fears and insecurities to either make money or exercise control over them. Applies to governments, advertisers, organised religions and psychics/mediums. Well done, all of you. No, really.

Plethora

Greetings

As I write, I'm listening to an Elvis Costello album. Brutal Youth, to be specific.  The thing is, I'm not really listening to it, am I? A significant proportion of my pathetically low attention capacity is currently devoted to writing these words on this here blog thing, meaning that I am not devoting myself to Mr Costello's lyrics (which I'm led to believe are quite good) nor his keen ear for a melody. In fact you could say that I'm doing Elvis a disservice by not focussing on an album which I'm sure took him longer to make than it's going to take me to write this.

And this is the problem (well, one of them, anyway).

When I was just a snot-nosed, scabby-kneed chavvy, music was not as easily accessible as it is now. Now it's everywhere, like swearing, or Stephen Fry. The most obscure (and quite often unlistenable) music is mine to hear, simply via a mechanical manipulation of my digits. The internet has presented a seemingly limitless aural vista for my delectation. Meanwhile, at the age of 7, I had three records that I listened to obsessively, at every opportunity that presented itself. Three. Not significantly less than the average digit count of a Portsmouth native (and I'm not including thumbs in this equation - there are places even evolution fears to tread).

These records were: Rubber Soul by The Beatles, Elvis Is Back! By Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly's 20 Golden Greats. Played again and again and again and again, fish fingers for tea, and again and again. I knew every note, every beat, every second of these records and if I listened to them now I would be mentally transported directly back to the front room of 5 Marie Road, Southampton SO19 0EJ.

The reason I used the word if in the last sentence is that I am struggling to recall the last time I actually sat down and listened to an album (or cd or whatever) in it's entirety, devoting all my attention to it.

Like many of us, I have embraced (to a limited extent) the opportunities provided by digital media and now have more music than I know what to do with. On my hard drive, on spools and spools of CDRs, on the racks of CDs and vinyl that I can see from here. And now, when I listen to music, it is usually on my iPod, on shuffle. Or in the kitchen when cooking dinner. Or in the car, another home-made compilation cd in the stereo. In short, I've stopped listening. Stopped listening properly, anyway.

I can often be heard extolling the virtues of such and such an artist, asking folks if they've heard this album or that album by so-and-so and the wotchamacallits. Luckily, I am rarely asked to go into too much detail about what makes the latest release from Fred Skillbuggy & The Crazed Shitrings quite so exciting, and a good thing too. Because the chances are I've barely played it through once.

We all know that New Year Resolutions are the province of the simple-minded (that's a fact and you can go and look it up if you can be arsed) which is why I don't make them.

However if I did make them (which I don't) then I would pick one album per week and just listen to it, as often as possible, from start to finish, with no other distractions. That way I could get through 52 albums in a year, and then maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to listen to all the music in my possession before I die. That is, as long as I don't ever add any more music to my collection, or die tomorrow.

stalk

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will surely have noticed that it has been some time since I posted anything, and my bulging email inbox pays sure and unwavering testament to the fact that literally millions of lost souls across the globe have been pining for the mental nourishment that they derive from my words of wisdom.

Leaving aside the moral obligation that I have towards these poor saps, my life has changed in many ways (oh so many ways) in the nine months since I last regaled the known universe with my tedious ramblings. So many ways, in fact, that to even attempt to list them here would be (at the very least) an act of stultifying futility and, besides, I have to go to work in the morning. So, I have taken my sharpest literary knife and pared away all that I consider to be superfluous, in order that I may concentrate on the most significant aspect of my life at the time of writing.

To wit - I have a stalker.

Yes, yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. It would be quite natural for you to assume that my levels of paranoia and self-delusion, already quite considerable, have now been inflated to such ridiculous proportions that I have, quite simply, lost my grip on reality and plunged head-first into the abyss of mentalism. May I assure you, dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. This shit is real.

And now you are no doubt asking yourself certain questions regarding the veracity of my pronouncements thus far. This is because you are in possession of a keen intellect and an enquiring mind - attributes that I'm sure make your parents very proud (and if they don't, then they should). I must assure you once again that I am not in the business of telling lies, not unless the money's right or it helps me avoid a beating.

 Your first question must surely be "who is the stalker?". Your second question would then be "why is he stalking this no-mark?". The second question I cannot answer with any certainty (although I have an inkling*), but the first is a doddle. I am being stalked by Freebie Boy.

Freebie Boy was mentioned in a previous post which concerned itself with the regular travellers on the X9 bus (AKA The Ship of The Fens), but for those of you who would like a brief re-cap, here it is:

My favourite passenger is Freebie Boy, a loose conglomeration of features seemingly thrown together at random by a deranged scientist during a particularly torrid acid trip (he reminds me of one of the pinheads from Todd Browning’s film Freaks, if I’m brutally honest). His haircut is a fabulous homespun delight and looks for all the world like it was administered during a fistfight with an angry relative. Mind you, this haircut is obviously not some random act of cruelty, as it does serve the very useful purpose of distracting ones attention from his enormous, throbbing adams apple, which I suspect has its own nervous system. He works for the bus company, although in what capacity I dare not guess, and riding on the bus for nowt is obviously one of his perks. The strange thing about Freebie Boy, however, is not his appearance or even the strange smell that he carries about his person. It is his ability to appear at random stops on the bus route, flagging down the driver for his free ride. It’s almost as if he lives everywhere and yet nowhere, a fen-spawned will-o-the-wisp, alighting on omnibuses at will and at random. One day I fear he may kill me and make pillowcases from my skin.

While all of my posts have clearly been inspired by the deep and abiding love that I have for my fellow man, even I am not too blind to see that there remains a remote possibility of my scribblings causing offence to those people to whom I have referred. I had thought that I remained safe from harm with regard to Freebie Boy, my assumption being that his ability to read had been negated by the amount of chlorine in his gene pool. How wrong I was.

It is quite clear that FB has gained access to this blog, which he is somehow able not only to read, but also to understand. His understanding has led to resentment and an obvious desire to exact some form of bizarre retribution upon my person, possibly involving the use of both a knife and a dildo.

"Come come, Nicholas", I imagine you thinking to yourself, "where is your evidence?"

My friends, the evidence is everywhere.

While browsing the second hand surgical stockings in my local Cancer Research shop, whose face do I spy gazing at me from behind the revolving rack of dog-eared Patricia Cornwell novels? 

On the train in the morning, there he is. Nonchalantly standing with a copy of the Metro, pretending to read it as his eyes burn into my very soul.

Windsurfing in the Seychelles, badger-baiting in Chatteris, playing a(nother) gig at the sodding Portland, ordering a takeaway after a night out - whatever I do, he is there. 

Watching. Waiting. His cold dead eyes and frankly astonishing haircut striking fear into the core of my being. His enormous adams apple throbbing and his aroma killing all flying insects within a ten foot radius.

OK, maybe I have been hitting the caffeine a little hard of late. Maybe I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should. My home and work lives have been pretty stressful, it's true.

But you believe me. I know you believe me. Don't you?

*a baby ink.

Beefheart

I’ve refrained so far from writing anything in tribute to one of my musical heroes. Mostly, I think, because the plethora of tributes that were paid to him in the weeks after his death seemed to have all bases covered and I felt that what I had to add was not important. I mean, who really gives a toss about what a man in his mid-forties writes on a blog? Not me, that’s for sure.

However, the passing of Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, on 17 December 2010 needs to be marked by me in some small way, if only in recognition of the large part he has played in my musical life since I first heard him on the radio back in 1984.

The man responsible for my introduction to Beefheart was the DJ John Peel (in fact I would say that a great deal of my musical taste is either directly or indirectly attributable to the influence of this great man). Back in those days I was in the habit of taping Peel’s two hour show on a battered BASF C120 (ask your grandad) and then filleting the show, transferring the tunes that I liked onto numerous C90s, which I would then play to death.

I remember it very clearly. It was a Thursday night (although it could have been a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, really. I make all this shit up as I go along) and I was in bed, listening to the radio, with my trusty C120 rolling again. Peel was playing his usual wildly eclectic mix of tunes – in fact the shows were so varied, I am sure that the only person who enjoyed everything he played was Peel himself – and I was drifting into pre-snooze mode, secure in the knowledge that the whole show would be preserved come morning.

My reverie was rudely interrupted, however, by a tune that was quite unlike almost anything I had heard before. I was wide awake in an instant. Fuck me, what is this?

This was “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. It’s the second tune in the Youtube clip linked below, wind forward 2 minutes and 50 seconds and you’ll get the gist:

So this tune gets transferred to another tape, and is played constantly. I mean it was an obsession. Who was his Beefheart bloke and why did this tune have such a visceral effect on me? I was hooked. I couldn’t get bored with it. Still can’t, as a matter of fact.

Days pass and on a fine Saturday evening I find myself at some kind of gathering at someone’s house. I don’t remember whose house it was, although I’m sure I went there with friends, and I certainly left in a far more inebriated state than the one in which I arrived. None of this is important. What is important is that someone in that house decided to play “Circumstances” by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. At volume. Bloody hell it’s that tune again.

And so it began. Later that year I got my first full-time job in an HMV shop and vigorously utilized the generous staff discount, often to the detriment of food. I bought all the Beefheart records I could lay my hands on and immersed myself in them. From the off-kilter rhythm and blues of “Safe As Milk” through to the career epitaph “Ice Cream For Crow”. And I loved all of it, even the bad stuff.

Beefheart’s music has a singular quality about it. Plenty of people have been influenced by him, but no-one, and I do mean no-one, sounds quite like him.

Anyway, I’m not going to bang on too much, as writers better (or better paid) than me have already showered fulsome and fully deserved praise onto The Captain since he died last year. I just wanted to express my gratitude to a man who enriched my life, although I know that 600 or so words cannot do him justice.

(As I write this, I can hear Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” coming from my nine year old daughter’s bedroom).

Mollusc

Mythical creatures abound in literature and folklore – Kraken, Yeti, Cyclops, the Loch Ness Monster, Intelligent Portsmouth Male etc – and yet there remains one whose legend has not spread outside of its supposed habitat. A creature that, despite its enormous size and the frequency of reported sightings, remains almost unknown outside of East Anglia.

I refer, of course, to Xybythgnys - the Giant Fenland Whelk.

I first became aware of this beast while attending an all-night cheese and mescaline shindig, which had been organised by the friend of a friend of an ex-friend of an avowed enemy. I was discussing the best way to cook lobster with a vegan, a Rabbi, and a vegan Rabbi, when our culinary discourse was interrupted by a man who very closely resembled a raving lunatic, possibly because this is exactly what he was.

It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? is what I very nearly said.

And so it came to pass that, over the next seven or eight hours, this briney old sea-hound twisted my brain into plaits with tales of a creature so terrifying, so utterly vicious and repugnant, that the very mention of it had been known to cause outbreaks of alopecia and rickets in even the most bohemian and cynical circles. An omnivorous demon, slithering across the dark flatlands of eastern England, striking terror into the hearts of man, beast and assorted hybrids of same.

While it is easy for modern types, with their iPhones and bootcut trousers, to scoff at the superstitions of web-toed cretins, I was intrigued by the tale this man told and I found myself wanting to discover more. After the party I also discovered I had married a trio of welders from Birkenhead, but that’s not important right now, and anyway it was never consummated.

I began my research by watching a long-forgotten documentary from 1968, “Xybythgnys – Mollusc of Malice”, hosted by Professor Humphrey Pumphrey, which I was able to stream from an Estonian website. After that I streamed some other material from the same website, not directly related to my research, as a relaxation aid.

The story of Xybythgnys has its roots deep in the mysticism of the Far East (Lowestoft) and traces of the myth can be found in most towns and villages (apart from Wells-next-the-Sea, where they shun the whelk in favour of a cult dedicated to the Winkle of Destiny). Statues, battered and eroded by salt spray, still stand as testament to the power of the whelk along the east coast of England.

Xybythgnys (reproduced by kind permission of the Pumphrey Archive)

I visited Professor Pumphrey at his research centre in Hunstanton, from where he curates the Xybythgnys Archive, a treasure trove of information for the committed Xybythgnysphile. Here are stored newspaper articles, books, eyewitness accounts and photos of alleged sightings of this legendary mollusc. From these we can gather that the flesh of the Xybythgnys was much sought after in Tudor England, due to its supposed aphrodisiac qualities, with rich individuals paying huge amounts of money for what they believed to be the creature’s oozing flesh (although which was usually human tissue, illegally harvested from a leper colony).

Here is an extract from an instruction pamphlet, published in 1542, on the correct usage of mollusc tissue in an erotic context (courtesy of the Pumphrey Archive):

“First take ye the muscle, and having examind such as to be not worthy of entrance to thine lady’s chamber, rub the ooze of the welk along its length. Then shalt thou be of such inflamed proportions, and of such rigidity, that yea verily a cat could not scratch it.”

Unfortunately there is little direct evidence of the existence of the Xybythgnys, other than in the folklore collected in Professor Pumphrey’s cupboard. What photographs there are appear to be, at best, blurred black and white Polaroid snapshots of common sea whelks with no surrounding landmarks to help establish the size of the creature, and the “historical documents” are nothing more than yellowed pieces of paper covered in badly typed nonsense, with obscene doodles in the margins. When I questioned Professor Pumphrey as to the providence of his evidence, he said “Where’s Marjorie? She’s normally here by now. She brings me the paper. You don’t look like Marjorie.”

It was at this point that the good Professor soiled himself and I was politely asked to leave the nursing home, as it was getting near nap-time.