Scurferens

Multi-Coloured Rimathon

2012-03-12T12:34:00.003Z

Last Night's TV
reviewed by Jennel Croles

Okay, I hold my hands up! I was initially scathing about C4's new docusoap A Pirate's Life For Me..?, but three epsiodes in, I have to confess - I'm hooked!

After narrowly escaping capture last week, the Feared Pirate Moll Frichter has been giving some serious thought to a career change. A sensible move in any case, but with Transport for London's recent offer of an amnesty to all who promise to renounce piracy, now would be the time. For Moll, however, there are deeper reasons.

"My heart was never really in piracy. I just sort of fell into it after I left uni, thought it'd do until something better came along. But then I found I was quite good at it, kept getting promoted... Before you know it, years have gone by. A story familiar to many, I should suppose. Yea, daily the big, shitty net of comfort is dragged through the stagnant waters of our society, sweeping up and pacifying young, ambitious individuals whose talents would be better deployed elsewhere. And it's too late to do anything by the time they've come to their senses. They have Ko Phangan in October to save up for."

So what is it that she really wants to do?

"I always wanted to do abstract dance. Ever since I was a little girl, nothing has ever given me as much joy as the feeling of pure movement."

How well do you work with choreographers?

"I prefer not to. Choreography is an external influence which corrupts the purity of the process. I can't really move in a prescribed way. I have this kind of freestyle thing going on. I like to just close my eyes and allow my body to do as it will. I have an internal choreographer - innocent, primal, the choreographer of the aeons. I like to just feel the shit."

I'm sorry, but this company adheres to the very specific vision of its founder, Meat Philips: He's The Greatest Dancer. We have strict aesthetic principles. I'm afraid there's no room for freedom here.

Her next move, out of necessity more than choice, was to join the band Failstate, who have been praised by NME for "the intensity of their lyrics (I've got a problem in my head / So I'm just gonna lay in bed). Fuck Andrew Motion, this is the poetry of the modern youth. Failstate are made of WIN".

Their career ended just three weeks later when NME decided to throw its full weight behind a nascent grindcore revivalist scene emerging in the Bispham area of Blackpool ("Blackpool Rocks!"), proclaiming "feckless, unreconstructed indie-rock" (such as that made by Failstate) dead. Pitchfork, sadly, never took an interest.

What choice, then, has the Feared Pirate Moll Frichter? What choice but to return to piracy, with ever greater zeal, with a fire burning in her belly, with a rage that torments her waking hours and gnaws at the edges of those that should be spent sleeping?

O art world, what hast thou wrought? Now a darkness is laid upon this land. Now the air is thick with dread, from which there is no shelter, no sanctuary. Now heads hang low, trust and fellowship unaffordable luxuries. 20 miles tall stands Moll Frichter, and all live in her shadow.

O art world, your expectations, your whims, your arbitrary norms - these things are anathema to art's practitioners, who long for a freedom otherwise denied. Moll Frichter is your creation, art world. And she's your greatest yet, well done, I love it! So powerful.

Free Me From The Tyranny Of The Beat

2012-03-05T12:34:00.048Z

Today we shall be talking about choices.

Theme tune
Choices for me, choices for you,
So many kinds of choices that we can do.
Do you choose evil, or do you choose good,
Or do you, like most people, tend to make your moral decisions on an ad hoc basis, balancing your desired outcome against whatever ethical concerns you may have, where conflicts occur? (eg, "I take a strong stance against vivisection. However, I also have a serious illness. Do I take these life-saving drugs, knowing that they've been tested on animals, or do I sacrifice my own life on a point of principle? Which option has the greater benefit (I survive the illness/I die, albeit with a clean conscience) after accounting for its cost (I eventually kill myself in a fit of self-loathing/I die, albeit with a clean conscience)?")

Here is a famous example of a dilemma. A bus pulls into a station (not a major one, really just a concourse in a built-up commercial area, such as a city centre or suburban entertainment complex - a bowling alley, a multiplex cinema, an acceptable Tex-Mex restaurant).

The bus is driven by noted pirate hunter Rear Admiral Holpous Quigg, and waiting at the stop is the Feared Pirate Moll Frichter, who - presumably enjoying a day off - carelessly climbs aboard without first taking steps to identify the driver. Quigg promptly arrests her and has his clerk see to the administrative particulars.

As he is about to pull away, Quigg - a fastidious sort - takes a moment to check his wing mirror for approaching traffic. He sees another bus, driven - if you can believe this shit - by the Feared Pirate Moll Frichter, who sees him in turn and speeds away. What the actual fuck?

Thinking his prisoner has escaped, Quigg orders all hands on deck and is about to give chase when his first mate points to their charge, still in irons and sitting passively on the back seat.

At first baffled, Quigg soon reasons that he has inadvertently arrested a future iteration of Frichter, who exists just a few minutes ahead of her present self.

What should Quigg do? The future Frichter is guilty of the same crimes as her slightly younger counterpart, but as she is not of our time, she cannot technically be held culpable in the present. It is likely that only Quigg would ever be aware of the true nature of her capture, but he will have broken the laws of both man and physics, which would no doubt lead to some fucked-up shit. If, on the other hand, he seizes his moment and arrests the Frichter of his own dimension, he will be transgressing an unwritten but nonetheless sacred maritime code forbidding the arrest of more than one copy of any given pirate within a 24-hour period. You will have heard this type of dilemma referred to as Quigg's quandary.

Some clever dicks often point to a tacit third option: simply let both Frichters go. But they are, frankly, pissing into the wind, as this age-old conundrum is, in fact, a trick.

Attentive readers may recall that the paperwork has already been completed and faxed over to the nearest port authority. Quigg therefore has no choice but to drive back to the depot with his prisoner exactly as described in the report: "1 qty. Feared Pirate Moll Frichter, appearing very slightly older than expected."

But wait now, let us consider this in more detail. Because if the Frichter from the present managed to escape... then she is, at this very moment, a free woman... which effectively negates her future arrest, which is now in the past... meaning...

Our hero's shoulders droop as he looks forlornly to the empty back seat. Ah sorry, old Quigg, I fear that you are shit out of luck! No doubt there shall be a great many questions for you to answer upon your return to St. Kitts.

Hey, I don't make the rules. Don't have a go at me.

Mit Balsamschutz

2012-02-27T12:34:00.006Z

Brain Farts
with Sil Prickering, sexy philosopher

Last week, we discussed the inadequacies of human systems for providing a sufficiently representative snapshot of the state of the universe at time t. Well, this week, we're taking it to the max.

You may not realise it, but your entire cognitive framework is a rickety piece of shit, built on the fly and fixed together with fraying pieces of adhesive tape. Every once in a while you add something new to it. Sometimes this reinforces the structure. Just occasionally, if you're real unlucky, the extra burden just brings the whole fucking thing crashing down.

And all for the better, if you ask me. I mean, it's just a network of lies, anyway. Think about it. How much of what you 'know' have you just picked up along the way from who knows where and blithely accepted as fact? Beware received wisdom, folks. Can you vouch for your source? What about your source's source? Do you even remember who your fucking source was? Believe nobody. Everyone is full of shit. Remember that, you won't go far wrong.

Here's one we all take for granted - and I quote: "if you grip a dog's tail tight enough, the dog can't bark." Well, everyone knows that, right?

Wrong. It's nonsense, people.

I hate to shatter any illusions, but this was a myth put about in the 19th century by the Sioux to spread panic in pioneer settlements. Just imagine the paranoia. Are we safe? Are there any threats nearby? Who the fuck knows? You need a goddam guard to guard the guard dogs to make sure no-one's doing anything to them they shouldn't be. Your community starts to break down. Everyone's looking at each other suspicious. Next thing you know, the whole place is burned to the ground and every asshole's killing every other asshole and the Sioux are just strolling in and stealing your hammers and shit.

But I digress. The truth is, the dog will still be able to bark, but at a much higher pitch than normal, beyond the range of human ears. This is why you'll often hear other dogs barking in the vicinity, as they attempt to form a search and rescue party. But see, dogs live in the moment (this is why they're so happy), and you can easily distract them from their mission by placing a juicy bone or some pornography at the end of your street. Try it for yourself.

And how about this for more bullshit? "Madagascar was part of the African mainland until 1978, when it was dislodged by a violent explosion during the Mozambican Civil War."

Have you ever even been to Madagascar? No, you haven't. Do you know why? Because it doesn't fuckin' exist, for Chrissakes! A 16th-century European cartographer dripped some ink on the page as he was finishing up one of his maps. It was late at night. He didn't notice. So sue him. And dumb shits that they were, every other motherfuckin' mapmaker out there looks at his map, and they're all like, "well, shit. I didn't know about that island there. Better add it to my fuckin' map like a fuckin' sheep. Naw, I won't check to see it's a real fuckin' place, because I'm a stupid fuckin' asshole. I'll just take this prick's word for it." And boom! A fuckin' haven of biodiversity is born. Well, congratufuckinlations! Your world is literally made of lies!

Ah Jesus, I'm sorry. I got a little worked up back there. Been under a lot of stress lately, with the Ethics Committee riding my ass and everything. I guess I'd better go. I hope I haven't messed anything up by being an asshole. Is it alright if I call you tomorrow?

Eternally yours,

Sil

Gang Gang Dance

2012-02-20T12:34:00.001Z

GCSE Bitesize: History
with Exam Master Jay

We all know what's going to happen in June. That history exam will be just days away and you'll be freaking out because you've spent the whole of your study leave wanking on acid. But hey - it's cool, G! It's cool. Exam Master Jay understands. He's down.

With GCSE Bitesize, we'll have you up to speed in no time. So come on, gang, let's just chillax and we'll breeze through this bad mother. Hey, why don't we do it all in our underwear? You know, just to loosen up the vibe and shit. It's no big deal, right?

- - - - -

Now, the most important thing to remember about history is that there are no right or wrong answers, so don't worry. The entire history of our world as we understand it could be a complete lie for all we know. All we have to go on are the waffle of historians and whatever documents have survived the ravages of time and the purges of dominant powers.

It's often said - usually by drab, uninteresting people - that history is written by the victor. But in the twisting and shimmying of global politics, such things are rarely so clear-cut. What if there is no outright winner? What if both sides go home declaring victory, each accusing the other's pronouncements as spin or revisionism? Two histories are written, oh noes! Which do we believe? And Christ alone knows how many twigs will sprout from these two distinct branches, flowering and spitting seeds over the topsoil of time. Before you know it, there are trees all over the fucking place and you're confused and hopelessly lost, trapped in a forest of conflicting testimony!

And no-one even thinks to mention those tiny, seemingly insignificant accidents of fate which conspire to direct the course of events. The earache that rendered an experienced and highly regarded lieutenant oblivious to his comrades' efforts to alert him to the appearance of a sniper in a nearby window. Or the losses at the card table which inspired in one soldier a rage so fearsome it brought down eight of his opponents in a single battle.

If there's any justice (and I'm not saying there is, so don't you dare hold me accountable for what might happen if you should act on the following advice), you'll get an A* just for writing: "history is bullshit; a convenient narrative distilled from the Gordian complexities of reality to support academics' hypotheses and their governing ideologies. There is no such thing as truth. Fuck the Queen."

- - - - -

Now you just go and groove on through those exams. You'll groove on straight to Passville. And if any of you tells anyone about this, I will fucking damage you. Okay?

Thelonious Monk

2012-02-13T12:34:00.035Z

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
Thanks awfully for purchasing Thelonious Monk WishFucker Deluxe. Your only regret will be that you didn't do it sooner!

Your hopes and aspirations once propelled you. They drove you like a drill bit through the walls of shit and used needles that sprang up from the jagged outcrops of life's bitter wastes. They were your motor, your fuel, your satellite navigation system.

But as the rainbow's end, they remain ever in the distance. Now they taunt you, nag you, scratch-tickle your exposed areas like the rough, callused fingers of a large, bearded woodsman called Knut. Your fantasies have turned against you. You have cancer of the dreams. "Turn around when possible."

Imagine: your ambition as a hollow-point bullet coming towards you in slow-motion. At first it thrills you, stirs you, impels you to act. As it hits you in the gut it begins to expand, shattering your ribcage and ripping through your vital organs, exploding as it passes through, destroying your pancreas and large intestine, snapping your spine like a dry twig and leaving an exit-wound the size of a miniature haggis. Once a tantalising vision on the horizon, now it is behind you. You are twisted, half-paralysed. You spend the rest of your life crawling on your belly, cursing your own desires. What kind of sick individual would want this for themselves?

Allow us to tell you a story. Remove yourselves from the present and find a comfortable place to sit in the early 19th century. An ageing patriarch of a powerful family - we'll call him Cornsplice - he had once wanted keenly for a male heir. Well, he got his son, a strapping young man named Papilloma, so let's say no more about that. However, Papilloma was unable to produce a male heir of his own, much to his father's distress (these were less enlightened times, remember; let's be thankful that all these people are now dead). So Cornsplice elected to take matters into his own hands by seducing his daughter-in-law with a view to fathering a grandson himself - so warped had he become in his longing - realising only too late the folly of his actions.

The resulting grandson became Papilloma's father, and Cornsplice was subsumed. This is what becomes of the man who allows himself to dream. Yea, hope is the father of despair.

So why wait a moment longer? A life lived in anticipation is a life lived in torment. Thelonious Monk WishFucker Deluxe can help you to abandon your strivings and submit to fate. Simply switch it on, expel any excess fluids, then lie back and pray:

Lord,
Why did you create us?
We are not meant to be.
Consciousness is our undoing.
A species aware of its own mortality,
Tortured by events not presently unfolding.
You are a cruel and sadistic god,
Delighting in the suffering of your children,
You twisted motherfucker.
Amen.

Now get ready to experience a sense of peace long denied the modern human. Once the light's gone green, you've let go of your dreams!

Chris Morris

2012-02-06T12:34:00.017Z

Chris Morris' Precious Moments

"Professor, I must congratulate you. With a small but dedicated team of technicians, and over the course of just eight short years, you researched and produced a reliable Aids vaccine. In just a generation, this hitherto unstoppable virus will be but a memory. This is an historic moment. Your name shall reverberate through the ages, one of an elite few who changed the world for the better through science. Today you have transcended mere mortality and become something closer to... a god. By the way, did you know you've shit yourself?"

- - - - - -

"Ambassador. With your tireless commitment, your easy charisma and your good looks, you have achieved what many would never have dreamt possible. You have brokered peace between all the major players of the Middle East. Where once was tension, distrust and outright war, there is now bonhomie, understanding and genuine human warmth. Through global politics' treacherous seas, you have steered the course of history to safety. There is no award for your great work, no commendation that would be any less than a gross insult. The world salutes you. Oh, and sorry, I couldn't help noticing... is that piss all down the front of your pants?"

- - - - - -

"Prime minister, you have neutralised the greatest threat mankind has ever known. Thanks to your diplomacy, ingenuity and your rugged, sweaty willingness to dirty your own hands through hard physical graft, the whole world is now effectively carbon neutral. They said it couldn't be done, much less through politics, but you showed the way. All other world leaders, now and generations from now, shall look to you as a model for what can be achieved by politicians, a word which you have surely rescued from stigma, as you have rescued the human race from self-destruction. And prime minister, I hope you don't mind me asking, but have you got jizz all over your sleeve?"

"Why yes, it seems that I have."

"Wow. Looks great!"

"Well, thank you! Now, why don't you all sing along at home?"

(Slowly, with feeling)
Oh, precious moments fill my heart with gladness,
When all I want is to be left in sadness.
Take away your smiles, and bury all your joy.
Your laughter is not welcome here, I'm weeping for the boy

I used to be. So innocent and pure,
And blissfully unaware of what life had in store:
A world full of horror, futility and madness...
Those damned infernal precious moments fill my heart with gladness.

Hudson Mohawke

2012-01-30T12:34:00.029Z

Speaker's Corner with Hudson Mohawke
If there's one thing I love, it's communication. But did you know that people communicate in different ways all over the world? These are some fun linguism facts that you can read!

Mind Your Language!
Some cultures certainly know how to do an insulting! (These are not for the easily offended!)

Spain
Your mother has never been born!

Iran
When you bend over, an obscure early rhythm & blues recording goes out of copyright!

Chile
Every time I fuck your sister, it is as if I am in the occult section of an old, dilapidated library. I look over to my left and I see an old man sitting there, naked, with his feet on the chair and his knees wide apart. His shrivelled balls hang uselessly, dessicated, like deflated leather balloons, it is quite disgusting. He has no cock. He fixes me with his eyes, sharp eyes, redolent of an ancient evil, older than the earth itself, and I feel a terror like all the terror in the universe is concentrated within my being. It is as if I am a nexus for all the terror that ever existed. However, I do not feel this way when I fuck your uncle!

Lost In Translation!
Though hilarious in their own languages, some foreign jokes just won't translate into English! Here are some of my favourites...

Japan
The young lady wishes for a new dress. Perhaps this young gentleman will buy her one!

Germany
My father was supposed to build a fence, but instead he gave birth to an elk with human feet.

Poland
A woman walks into the bar. Her elbow reminds you of an elbow that used to belong to a friend of yours, Piotr. It was taken from Piotr several years ago when he was mugged during a weekend city break in Copenhagen. Even now, he lies awake at night thinking about his elbow. Is it safe? Is it happy? He has changed since the incident. He was once very charismatic, confident and outgoing, good at his job (he is a forensic accountant), but now he rarely goes out and he is being sidelined at work. So you turn to the woman and say, "those are nice shoes, I'd like to eat them!" Slowly, she looks you up and down, then finally she says, "why the long face?" It is at this point that you look into a nearby mirror, and you see that you have become a bishop.

Did You Know..?
Curiously, every word in John Lennon's hit Imagine exists in the tongue of the Crimean Tatars, though the meanings could not be more different!

Lennon's record label Apple cleverly decided to take advantage of this quirk by shooting an alternative version of the promotional video especially for the Crimean market, to convey the lyrics as they would be understood.

The video features Lennon driving his white piano like a tank around Northern Eurasia, conquering it territory by territory for Crimea. As the song reaches its climax, Yoko Ono appears in the form of a harpy and perches on Lennon's outstretched arm as the Red Banner burns behind them. It has only ever been seen by twelve people. Since 1993, ten of them have been murdered.

I fear I may be next, and so I intend to go underground for the foreseeable future. See you soon, language lovers!

Hudson will return when greater stability comes to the North Caucasus

Django Bates

2012-01-23T12:34:00.185Z

He takes a stool at the counter of the diner. His overalls are covered in oil and sin. Can't stand it. As he puts down his coffee mug he sees oily fingerprints streaked across white ceramic. Looks down - greasy brown daubs like mud craters litter the surface of the counter. Scanning the diner he sees people eating and talking, unaware that this powerful cinematic symbol of his failings covers their clothes, their faces, their food, the furniture the walls the windows oh my God I can't do this anymore. I can't keep it down: "THE TIME HAS COME FOR THIS TO BE OVER NOW!"

The people look up: "holy shit, that is one angry mod shop guy!"

Django Bates: Angry Mod Shop Guy.

But what's this? A police officer bursts through the door, discharges his pistol three times - once a bang, twice a bang, three times a bang. Bang bang bang. Django Bates falls back against the counter, dead.

That was me, three months ago - Django Bates, car modification technician. And yes, I'm dead. But how did I get here? What brought me to this place, this dead place?

"When I was a kid, that was all I wanted to be, a car modification technician. Now I'm a car modification technician and I can't fuckin' stand it. Where did I go wrong?"

"You just need to dig deep and rediscover the child within, Django."

I used to sit with my dad in the garage and watch him fixing up vehicles. He was the best in the area. All the guys from the neighbourhood would come in to request his services.

"Hey, Bates. I want this fuckin' van tricked out so I can fuck bitches in back, alright? Do it or I'll shoot you in the ass."

"Eh yo, Bates - I wanna big old fuckin' cannon on the roof that fires dildos at people. Think you can do that? You better, or I'll shoot you in the ass."

"I want this car stripped down to the fuckin' chassis and rebuilt with a fuckin' buffalo carcass, you got me? Don't make me shoot you in the ass."

I wasn't interested in school, girls or sports. Most days I cut classes to go hang out on my own at the car park and try to pimp people's motors without anyone seeing. Couple times I got caught and hauled in front of the principal.

"This boy's obsession with cars will be his undoing, you mark my words. Is there no room in his heart for love?"

After I finally got out of school I went to work in a local mod shop for a guy called Al. Al had become the best in the area after my dad was shot in the ass when I was 14.

"Eh, kid. You're pretty good with these cars. But you work too damn hard, son. Don't you gonna find time to live once in a while?"

"Hey, fuck you."

Still, I managed to meet a girl, Yolanda. We got a house, had a kid, and I took over the mod shop after Al was shot in the ass. And that was where I spent all my time. Didn't even see my kid, Martin, or Felicity, something like that, I dunno. Well, Yolanda got tired of me not being around so she quit town with the kid. I'm not too sure when. Think it was a few months before I noticed. I found a faded, yellowed letter on the kitchen table: "Dear Django, I love you, but I can't be with you until you stop messing around with cars and start realising what's really important. I'm sorry."

Well, that was it. I sold the house and moved into the mod shop, and that was all I did, modify cars, day and night. And I hated it. I hated every fuckin' minute of it. But I couldn't stop, oh no. No, I did it because I had to. Because I just didn't know what else to do.

"Man, that mod shop guy, he knows his shit, but motherfucker don't sleep no more. Don't even go in there, he's crazy."

"Stop! In the name of the law, I command you to stop!"

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

And this is where you came in, and I started to tell you my story, which I've just told you. And I've finished now. So hey - you better learn the lessons I didn't. Be safe.

Don't let your life end in farce.
Spend too much of it messing around with cars,
You too could get shot in coffee bars.
(It might even happen up your arse.)

That was a public service announcement from the British Council for Responsible Car Modification

Me Me Me Me Me

2012-01-15T12:34:00.005Z

We've got a real treat here to kick off the new year - the creator of Scurferens has agreed to this very special interview.

Scurferens. If anyone had ever heard of it, it would probably be known as 'the blog that nobody reads'. Why bother?
Yes, well, when I first started writing Scurferens back in '10, I wanted to do something a bit different. There were plenty of blogs out there that were supposed to be funny, but weren't. So I thought it might be an interesting idea to do a blog that looked like it was supposed to be funny, but wasn't, but actually wasn't supposed to be that funny anyway.

It wasn't an interesting idea.
I know that.

But hats off, you set out to write an unfunny blog, and you succeeded. Then, some time in 2011, you managed to make it even less funny. What was going on there?
Well, basically, no-one was reading, no-one cared. I'd grown tired of trying to figure out what people wanted, so I decided to start telling them. You see, the thing is, I'm not an entertainer. It's not my job to entertain people. I'm a serious artist.

For me, art is a conversation. But it's a conversation in which I talk and you shut up. People think conversation is supposed to be entertaining, but conversation's only as entertaining as the people involved, and most people are purely functional. And so conversation is really more of an ordeal, a humiliating dance we have to do in order to overpower others and gain access to their resources or whatever.

In the conversation of Scurferens, you are gaining access to my resources, and my resources are the educations of all of you by me. Education isn't entertainment, it's more like medicine. And medicine isn't supposed to taste good. Show me a medicine that tastes good.

I quite like a nice honey & lemon cough syrup.
Yes, but cough syrup isn't a real medicine, is it? It's just a drink. It doesn't really work. If you want to get rid of a cough, the most effective way to do it is to eliminate the source, by removing the lungs. That's what they teach you in the SAS. And that's what I'm trying to do - I'm removing the lungs of society. And I'm holding them up to society's face. And I'm saying: "look. Look what you've made me do." That's powerful.

The towns and villages of Ancient Greece, they had a figure, called the Maniakós. Now, he usually lived in a cave up on a hill at the edge of town, and once a week the citizens would walk up to the top of the hill, and throw stones into the cave. And the Maniakós would run out, barking and swearing and making all manner of strange gestures, and the villagers would run away back down the hill, fast as they could, laughing their heads off. Occasionally, he'd catch and eat one of them. So as much as they enjoyed this ritual, there was real fear there. And they needed that fear. It made them feel alive. And that's who I want to be. I want to be the Maniakós for a new generation. I want to inspire fear. With fear you can... [he pauses, supposedly to collect his thoughts, although I suspect he's trying to be dramatic] control people.

I need it, that will to power, to keep me alive. Like those people needed the Maniakós, like the Maniakós needed them. If he hadn't that function to perform he'd have been kicked to death. The Maniakós was like the queen bee. Or the Highlander. There could be only one. Once the role was assigned, all others perished.

It doesn't matter that I'll never acquire this power. It never matters, not to the blogger. In the blogger's mind, he or she is addressing the entire population of the internet. But the reality is more like a recitation of adolescent poetry in an abandoned workshop or outhouse, empty but for the detritus of a stranger's life. What's the deal with this cat mask? Look at these amusing photos of people in stupid clothes. Except they're not stupid anymore because a generation of hipsters has modelled its look on them. Hey, there's a 1981 issue of Fiesta at the bottom of this box! I'm going to scan the cover later and write something pithy to accompany it.

The blogger is a tragic figure.

Great stuff. So, what can we expect from Scurferens in 2012?
Probably just more of the same old shit. Or if you're lucky, I might run out of ideas some time in April and just let the weeds grow. I expect I'd try to style it out at first - "Scurferens is going fortnightly from now on because I'm busy or something, I don't know." I'd do it like that, I think, be all flippant about it. But really, I'd be wracked with self-hatred and terror. Though no-one else would even notice it's gone. This is what blogging does to you. It's pathetic. I mean, it's just a fucking hobby, isn't it?

Am I really any better than a 48-year-old man called Malcolm, who has an elaborate train set in his attic? Who, every evening - every single fucking evening - gets dressed up as a 1950s engine driver and spends two whole hours making his stupid little plastic trains go round and round and round and round and round. His kids hate him. They won't bring friends round. Rita, his wife, she can't bear to be touched by him. While he's upstairs with his trains, she's on the internet, desperately trying to get laid. But she can't, you know why? Because no-one wants her. No-one wants her because she doesn't have hair, or a face. It's just smooth, all round, top to bottom. She has a tube coming out of her neck that allows her to breath, and another one for food. Only Malcolm would have her. But she's still a woman, you know? She still has needs. And she deserves more than this... fucking... man-child. Do you know he's never made her come?

How awful.
This woman is trapped. Trapped in that smooth pebble of a head and in her miserable, sexless life, if you can call it a life, with Malcolm. Malcolm has Oedipal issues. I don't really want to talk about Malcolm anymore, can we change the subject?

Thanks for speaking to us.
It's been a pleasure.

Scurferens

2012-01-09T12:34:00.001Z

"Why do people lie, Dad?"

"People lie because they don't care, Son. They lie because they don't care..."

That thing I said about Scurferens returning today. Well, I've been sick. Back next week.

The Christmas Spirit

2011-12-22T15:00:00.013Z

In Focus The Christmas Spirit

INTRODUCTION
'The Christmas Spirit'. It's one of those nebulous, ill-defined concepts that is nevertheless truly universal. Many of us think of the Christmas Spirit as a feeling of goodwill, or perhaps a metaphor for a lifting of the collective mood, a sense of fellowship and belonging.

In fact, it's none of these things. The Christmas Spirit is actually a severed head in a box, with a disembodied hand next to it that rings a bell whenever it wants attention. First discovered in Tenochtitlan (what is now Mexico) by 15th-century Spanish explorers, its name is Tlaxihuatl, and it is the ultimate source of all human suffering and misery. Under UN control, it currently resides in a vault below the Bank of Spain's headquarters in Madrid, where a rotating team of valets is charged with catering to its every whim, no matter how unreasonable, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Each time they fail in their duty, Tlaxihuatl barks up a cloud of unhappiness, which drifts aimlessly around the world and infects every human population it encounters.

In the weeks leading up to the winter solstice, the Christmas Spirit becomes more powerful, and harder to satisfy. As its valets struggle to subdue its rage, it leaks a constant stream of low-level misery, which accumulates in the atmosphere. Finally, at the point of midwinter, Tlaxihuatl's powers reach their zenith, unleashing a burst of uncontainable despair. There is, as yet, no way of preventing this.

Many cultures through the ages have told stories of a malevolent spirit that blights the earth in the dead of winter, threatening eternal night, killing the land and bringing a great sadness down upon the people. In ancient Gaul this spirit was known as Kaecht. The Norsemen called it Thröttir. In Britain and Anglo-Saxon America, it was called Santa Claat until as recently as the 1930s, when the Coca-Cola Company appropriated and subverted his mean-spirited image for its Christmas advertising campaigns, thereby introducing into our culture the more benign figure we know today as John Candy.

Another product of Coca-Cola's reprogramming of the culture is the widely held belief that Christmas has its roots in an ancient pagan festival of light, in which brown, caffeinated drinks were imbibed to stave off the winter gloom. In fact, until this rebranding, Christmas was pan-culturally recognised as a period of desolation and dread, and the celebration that took place on December 25 was a ritual of thanks for being spared its wrath - what we now know to be the annual winter tantrum of Tlaxihuatl. As all around, families and individuals succumbed to its cloud of misery, locking themselves away in their grimy council huts, wallowing in, and eventually taking their lives amid the dreary squalor, those who escaped unaffected would feast and dance and sing to celebrate their continued survival.

But what does the Christmas Spirit itself have to say? I am fortunate enough to have been the only journalist ever to be granted access to Tlaxihuatl, and it is my enormous privilege to bring to you its Christmas Message...

You humans think you're amazing, but you're not. You all think you're so complicated and sophisticated and magical and special, when really you're just dumb biological machines, gene-piloted mechs. There's nothing in your behaviour that can't be explained, and the only reason you can't explain all of it is that you're all too stupid.

You're slaves to your nature just like the lion, or the eagle, or the vole. The only difference is your ability to post-rationalise your actions. You've contrived and enshrined in your laws substitutes for certain social mechanisms which are superficially more 'civilised' than murder or rutting in public, but the instincts that drive them are still the same. Your art and your ideas and your commerce and politics - these are all just means of rising to higher social strata, in order to get more power, more resources, more sweaty meat action than your peers. When someone doesn't conform to the conventions of a given social group, no-one consciously thinks, "let's pull their arms off," but that's only because nature's simple, binary commands have been filtered through years of conditioning and so-called 'refinement'. Instead, they find other ways to destroy the misfit. The will remains. You're as transparent as you are pathetic.

After millennia of culture and civilisation, still you're no better than apes. And yet you walk around thinking you've somehow transcended nature, just because you have things like the aeroplane and the Game & Watch. But you don't know magic. You didn't conjure these things out of thin air. They were always there, simply waiting to be discovered, assembled from components already present in the world.

I mean, look at me. I'm just a fucking head in a box. But I can still reason and communicate. And look at my hand. It isn't even attached to me, and yet I still have complete control over it. Watch it ring this bell. See? That's amazing. I don't have a spine or knees or any of that fancy shit, and I'm more powerful than all of you combined. But because I can't eat or walk around or play golf, you treat me like I'm an inconvenience. Maybe I don't need to do these things. Have you even considered that? Perhaps I'm just designed more efficiently.

You humans really fuck me off. What a bunch of arrogant cunts you are. Has it never occurred to you that I might just want to be included? But no, I'm a bit weird and I jar with your simplistic conceptions of what forms a functioning, conscious being can take, so you lock me away and keep me out of sight because you're not yet sufficiently evolved to overcome your petty, self-centred shit.

Certainly something to think about.

PURPOSE
But in order to really find out what makes the Christmas Spirit tick, I decided to perform a series of simple experiments with the help of Dr Meriel Wissenschaftler from the Life Sciences division of the Frankfurt School of Biofrenafrichtestat.

MATERIALS

500mg 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine
Wooden planks
Large bowl of boiling water
Machete

METHODS
Having each ingested 250mg of MDMA to mitigate the effects of unhappiness, we set about applying heavy blows to the subject using planks of wood. The subject responded with visible signs of anger and pain, releasing misery into the atmosphere as it did so. The blows themselves left bruises, cuts and splinters around the surface of the face, collapsage of the nasal protrusion, and some caving in of the left temple, causing the left eye to bulge out of its socket. After 5 minutes, the subject began to cry.

We then placed the subject carefully into a large glass bowl of water, at a constant temperature of 100°C, and held it there for 2 minutes. The subject initially showed signs of panic and extreme pain, then ultimately pacification. After removing the subject from the water, we could see that the skin had reddened and blistered. The subject appeared to have expired.

In order to examine the brain of the subject, we hacked into the head using the machete. As a sizeable chunk of the head broke and fell away, we became aware of movement inside. On closer inspection, it became apparent that the subject was full of what we estimated to be many thousands of tiny Christmas Spirits, with legs much like a spider's. It was impossible to do a precise count as they immediately crawled out of the subject's brainial cavity and escaped the vault through the air vents. At this moment, I experienced a sense of panic and, against my partner's advice in the name of science and safety, attempted to stamp on as many of these as I could with my right foot, each time feeling a tingling sensation shooting up the length of my leg.

Once all of the subject's offspring had exited the vault or otherwise perished, I then - once more against my partner's advice - removed my trousers and undergarments and, standing over the subject, set about stimulating to orgasm my own genitals using my right hand. Having applied several wads of seminal fluid to the face of the subject, I sat down in a corner of the vault, whereupon, as my partner later reported, I demonstrated outward signs of distress, including weeping, convulsions and muttering in a language not known to anyone else present.

RESULTS
After approximately 60 minutes, I started to feel a burning sensation in my right leg. As the sensation intensified, the leg began to visibly twist and shrivel. Over 30 minutes, the leg withered away and disintegrated in the manner of a dying plant.

After 24 hours, several thousand brief sightings of what appeared to be a previously undiscovered breed of spider had been reported in various science journals and online forums. The sightings had no obvious geographical centre. Approximately 3 hours later, mainstream news media reported multiple epidemics of spontaneous depression all over the known world.

CONCLUSION

Scurferens will be back on January 9

Scurferens

2011-12-12T12:34:00.001Z

There is, sadly, no Scurferens this week due to circumstances. Here instead is a guest piece by one of our most prominent fans, Brod Horspipe, civil engineer...

Hey, now listen. I don't know who this Scurferens cat thinks he is, dig, or why he's going through my garbage late at night. And I don't know what he's doing parked out there in the street right now, pretending he's an undercover cop doing surveillance. And I sure as heck don't don't know why he left the paper bag on my doorstep that time with a little note saying: "Please shit in here."

But what I do know about is good car park design. And I know that ever since I was chosen to lead the Blackburn Mall renovation project - well, suddenly, everyone wants to be old Brod's friend. And this Scurferens is no exception.

But I don't care for the trappings of the celebrity lifestyle. What I care about is cats being able to get out of corner spaces during busy periods without scratching theirs or anyone else's automobile. And I care about ensuring that every inch of that car park is adequately lit. Turning up to regional awards ceremonies smoking cigars and wearing fur coats might be good for the likes of Davien Pocock, but not me, no way. Old Brod is an artist.

Anyway, I guess I'm here to entertain you, so maybe I'll tell you all a story or something. Here it is.

A fella goes into a bar, buys a drink, sits down with the newspaper - beer on table, legs crossed at the knee, left arm resting on back of seat, newspaper held two-handed in front of the chest - classic style.

His name is Foldirol Casgrove, he's 34 years of age, works in insurance, thin, boyish features, no kids, wife doesn't love him, but that's not important right now. What's important is that after about ten minutes, he starts to feel a dull ache. It begins on his left cheek, so subtle he barely notices it, though he's dimly aware. Before long, his whole face is hurting.

Now, he's thinking, what's going on here? Young Casgrove is getting a little concerned, and can you blame him? So he puts down that newspaper and concentrates on the pain, which by now is spreading rapidly around his whole head and neck. He can feel it fanning out, millimeter by millimeter, taking his shoulders, his chest, his arms. He looks down, sees his skin turning purple.

The pain intensifies to the point of agony. His flesh feels soft and delicate, kind of like bruised fruit. He struggles to stand up. The barman can see him and is already calling for an ambulance, with a weary look on his face.

The man makes it about three steps before his feet give way, followed by his legs, like a man with no shins trying to stand on two eggplants. They're collapsing, turning to mush beneath his weight! He topples over, face-first on to the ground, where he bursts like a bag full of meat and faeces, all over the stone tiles.

The paramedics arrive. Too late. We'll be no use now, phone for a cleaner.

"What happened to him?" asks one of the paramedics, clearly the less experienced of the two.

Well, the other paramedic (older, manly, good-looking), he just gives a resigned shrug and says: "happens all the time in this place, kid. You see - this is an iron bar."

So you're probably thinking: "now, that was a real groovy story, Brod. But hey - just what is an iron bar?" Well, read this and learn.

Iron Bars - A History
The iron bar featured in the story you have just read was actually the first of its kind. It is situated in Brooklyn, New York, and was opened in 1932 by Pondo Strawberry, a local real estate developer and an active member of the Republican Party.

The Depression had reached its nadir, and it was Strawberry's belief that America's only hope was to embrace wholeheartedly the principles of rugged individualism that had made the country so great in the past.

For his part, Strawberry made a number of investments in local building projects, in an effort to attract to the area the kind of red-blooded, good-looking men he believed embodied his personal philosophy. Deciding that the men would want an exclusive venue in which to relax and socialise in their spare time, Strawberry opened his bar with a strict policy against weak, anaemic men such as those he considered responsible for his country's economic woes - stockbrokers and financiers, for example. (The irony of a property developer embarking upon such a venture was, alas, utterly lost on Strawberry.)

But there was a problem. Money was tight, and door staff something of a luxury, even for a man of Strawberry's means. And so he hit upon an ingenious solution: by attaching iron atoms to helium molecules, he realised he could make the atmosphere in his bar so dense and oppressive that only strong, good-looking men with sufficient iron content in their blood would be able to tolerate it. Weaker men would keep away or suffer the consequences.

Thus, the iron bar was born!

Man, wasn't that a trip? Well, you've probably had just about enough of old Brod, so I guess I'll be leaving you now. See you round.

JG Ballard

2011-12-05T12:34:00.041Z

Reviews Nights Out

JG Ballard gained a fresh appreciation for the baser aspects of the human experience on Mark's birthday. So why does he feel so empty after the event?

I must confess to some trepidation as I cross the threshold of Revolution to join young Mark and his friends in celebrating the anniversary of the day of his birth. The venue is gloomy and tastelessly appointed, and it soon becomes apparent that the soundtrack to my evening will consist mostly of dated electro-house, which may have sounded mildly edgy in 2005, had you been easily frightened.

However, I'm pleased to say that most of my misgivings are dispelled the moment I meet Mark, who greets me warmly before introducing me to the rest of the group: Chugger, Knobber and Todd, known collectively for this evening as Pussyman's Cock Boys (Mark is Pussyman, of course). Here I am, a frail, old, dead man, confronted with four perfect specimens of alpha-masculinity - tanned, athletic and dressed, as the fashion dictates, in block-coloured shirts, untucked, with rolled sleeves and raised collars - and for tonight, they are willing to accept me as one of their own. Though I have - successfully, I think - created, and lived according to my own definition of manhood, theirs is a classic, pure, perhaps innocent form that has always held a fascination for me. Like many others who share my disposition, I have often stayed up until the early hours of the morning, watching hardcore pornography or World Wrestling Entertainment, marvelling at the raw, unrefined visions of maleness presented therein and wondering, what if?

But as of tonight, I need wonder no longer, for I am permitted to taste it: the beer-soaked sleeves, the aggressive pheromones, the gym-cultivated sweat lightly washed and masked by a liberal application of Joop! Homme. I feel a slight stirring in my trousers. My mumbled apologies are met with benign laughter. It seems that phallic activity of this nature is tolerated in this world, indeed positively encouraged, taken as a sign of healthy virility. The boys pat me on the back, and together we down our first shots of the night: foul, violently-coloured stuff that tastes of cough medicine and diesel.

Every close group of friends has its own peculiar set of codes and conventions, and Mark's is no exception. As the evening begins, we place hands on hearts and solemnly vow to sound the 'Titty Klaxon' upon any sighting of naked female breast during the course of the evening, thus alerting the others to its presence. Superficially, the Titty Klaxon is little more than a guttural "arooga!" sound amplified through cupped hands, but encoded within it is a sacred bond of trust, a declaration of comradeship and a willingness to involve others in one's masturbatory experience.

Yes, we are the Cock Boys. Young, thrusting gunslingers out to sexually assault the night - but only in that cheeky, grey-area way that a sympathetic male judge might shrug off as boyish hijinks. In this particular area of society, it is standard behaviour to lift the skirt of a young lady, or else why would they wear such tiny dresses, eh? At worst, they shall simply appear wearied and annoyed. Other times, they might just be game enough to play along. But if you are especially fortunate, the Pussyman tells me, you may even get a slap. That means she's a feisty one!

My world is suddenly alive, fizzing and squealing with fresh possibilities. Everywhere is flesh - perfect, taut, youthful flesh. Temptation at every turn. My penis by now is straining against the fabric of my trousers - or at least it would be if I hadn't had so much to drink. In fact I am rendered cruelly, ironically impotent by the very source of my renewal. I am a rampant spirit trapped inside an ancient, atrophied body. I am Tantalus, ceaselessly beguiled by things forever out of reach.

Pussyman, his Cock Boys and I are swaying in our seats, trying to make sense of our surroundings through cloudy, blunted eyes. Chugger demonstrates the provenance of his nickname by casually vomiting down his duck egg blue shirt. I am dimly aware of two large figures approaching our table through the alcoholic mist, and in a seeming instant we are out on the street. Chugger is urinating into a bin. Mark and Knobber are engaged in a rousing chorus of the Kaiser Chiefs hit I Predict A Riot. Todd is standing in the road, pulling his shirt up with one hand and his trousers down with the other, which he then reassigns to the task of tugging uselessly at his limp penis. Very slowly, the friends regroup and we part ways as they wander off back to their halls of residence. I hail a taxi and stumble, alone, to my hotel bed, where I half-heartedly attempt masturbation until I am snatched away by sleep, fingers still wrapped around my lifeless rod.

I awaken to a powerful nausea, a monstrous headache and a profound sense of shame and inadequacy. Over breakfast, I try to recall the events of the previous evening. Dim, smeared shards of memories momentarily bob up to the surface before sinking back down into the depths of my unconscious. A lascivious comment here, a pinched bottom there, my head wedged between the squirming (possibly with delight, most likely not) thighs of a girl young enough to be my granddaughter. When I was a Cock Boy, such behaviour was appropriate. Now, however, I am but an ordinary fellow, with healthy social reflexes, a code of ethics and no more than a justifiable level of self-esteem. The world seems flat and colourless, the whole night feels now like a strange and wonderful dream, and I realise that I am experiencing something akin to a drugs comedown.

I cannot recommend Mark's birthday highly enough! Indeed I have made arrangements to go out once more with the boys next weekend, so that I may know again what it is to be a twat. Perhaps I shall see you there.

Dav Crabes

2011-11-28T12:34:00.003Z

What makes a man

A man bears the weight of a collapsing bridge on his shoulders.

A man cries, and his tears give life to the plants of the earth and the ghosts of the recently departed.

A man feels pain... AND HE LOVES IT.

A man's sorrow can bring down a helicopter.

A man builds a house with just bricks and no cement, because the love of a man is enough to keep that house together.

A man channels all the pain in the world and carries it alone on his journey through the cold, twilight wilderness of existence.

A man swallows a live baby, then passes it whole and unharmed.

A man emerges unscathed from the burning wreckage of a downed helicopter, then staggers over to the stump of an old tree to stroke the heads of a nest of baby dav crabes, before singing them softly to sleep.

A man punches a cockerel to pieces, then with the strength of his spirit, brings the pieces back to life as lots of little cockerels.

A man rescues a child from the rubble of an earthquake-hit school, then places his strong hands on her shoulders and tells her, gazing soulfully into her eyes: "when you're grown up, you'll wish you'd died."

Stanley Kubrick

2011-11-21T12:34:00.142Z

The winter months are cold, dark, bleak, harsh, unforgiving. Your energy levels are low. In the dark you wake, in the dark you arrive home from work, and for three months or more you're crushed beneath the weight of an unknowable sadness.

You've stopped going out. Inertia breeds inertia. You walked hunched, your face blank, your eyes sightless orbs. The vivid neon lights of experience go out, just dull grey tubes now, dizzy promise extinguished, nothing more to attract you. You start drifting passively through your days, numbly riding life's current like a feather in the breeze.

You feel no pleasure, no pain. You stop looking both ways before crossing the road. You suspect your tired old boiler may be leaking carbon monoxide, but fuck it. At worst, you'll simply go to sleep and never wake up again. Just slip away, quietly, back into eternity...

So you need something in your wardrobe that's going to square those shoulders, bulk up that withered frame and sharpen your silhouette. Behold! the new military jacket from the Stanley Kubrick winter collection. Spotted with the real tears of the undertrodden grunts of the fashion industry, this jacket has an authentic cut that positively screams: "I'm a dashing, debonair, middle-ranking East India Company officer, freshly returned from slaughtering some bloody South Asian savages, and I'm in town looking to press into service some young waif, give her a ride on both my swords - HA! - then leave her to be eaten by stray dogs! No-one will notice she's gone." That's a powerful message to be sending out.

You can't wear a frown with this on your back. You'd look like a twat.

Ornette Coleman

2011-11-14T12:34:00.026Z

Focus On Ornette Coleman

This week, we're focusing on a true giant of modern music, a man who has both dominated and divided the world of jazz - like a brutal, multi-instrumentalist tyrant - for more than half a century. He's a genuine great - a description I take issue with, though I wrote it myself, because what on earth even is greatness, for Christ's sake?

It's an entirely artificial concept, a construct, a structurally unsound house made of hubris and bones, utterly meaningless beyond the human world. Do - oh, I don't know - cats speak in hushed tones about the feline stars of popular YouTube videos? No. They just get on with it. No cat was ever paralysed by ambition, or driven to self-loathing by its unrealistic demands of its own creative abilities.

The human is a species gone wrong. We, my friends, have forgotten the animal, and now we're hurtling - obliviously - head-first into a bubbling lake of gastric juices and madness, breaking down without even knowing it. We call our sickness consciousness, we mistake our malfunction for sophistication.

Greatness is the very nadir of this wrongness, a tag that denies not only the animal, but even the human. When we call someone great, we accuse them of being the sickest of all. We must pull them back, grab them by their ankles and drag them from their perches, put them below even ourselves. We should subvert greatness, reconfigure it so that it no longer implies transcendence over frail, filthy humanity, but rather emphasises that very frailty.

It is ridiculous to attribute such supernatural qualities to human beings. Humans are as foul and unpleasant as anything else in nature. Did you know, for example, that Plath shat? And Picasso, you can bet he wanked - perhaps on the toilet. Imagine him clenching as he reached climax, shit smearing against shit between his sweaty buttocks. Rimbaud will undoubtedly have been sick, maybe even on his own balls, how can we say for sure that he wasn't?

Is this your idea of greatness, Charles Darwin, rolling around on the floor in a dirty nappy, twitching glans protruding from the waistband, groaning like an injured camel? Jesus.

Or Kierkegaard in the supermarket at 3am, studying the back of a packet of instant noodles. And you look down, and you realise that his penis is hanging out of his trousers. And as you're gawping at the flaccid, shrivelled cock of the father of existentialism, he sees you, freezes. And you both stare at each other in stunned silence for five long seconds before he blurts out: "I was just trying something!"

Stockhausen admiring his anus in a mirror. Shakespeare, semi-comatose on Frosty Jack's and quietly shitting himself at the back of a bus. Virginia Woolf vomiting on a baby. Samuel Beckett, naked, smothered in pig fat and masturbating over an episode of Hannah Montana.

And you think these people are somehow worthy of glorification? What on earth is wrong with you?

Nels Cline

2011-11-07T12:34:00.293Z

Cycling with Waywo Bassey
This week, Holesgrow ~ Stabwater

Last week, I stopped over in the lovely little village of Holesgrow. You'll remember I was quite taken with the place. Well, not so much today. I ride out into a glorious summer morning. Little bleary. Didn't sleep well. Must be the heat. Pass a bench on the way out of the village. Group of boys sitting on it. They get up, make gestures, shout things.

"Oi, gayboy! Asking the big questions, are you?" "Are you sleepless with deep wonderings?" "Yeah, gonna find out the ultimate truth later, innit!"

Idiots. I don't ask questions. I ride. It's what I do. And hey - they'll probably be dead of heroin in a few years. But I'll still be here. Riding.

Like today, riding down the beautiful country lanes between Holesgrow and Stabwater. Just a couple of miles shy of my destination, I stop for lunch at the famous Barrister's Fist. Gorgeous little pub restaurant. World-class cheeseboard. World-class waitresses. I take a table out front, order Barry Barrister's Fistful of Meat Sandwich and a foaming pint of Nels Cline. She shoots me a look. I know what that look means.

Now, that sandwich might be from the kids' menu, but it's a man-sized serving, OK? And I'm stuffed. The waitress sashays over, picks up my plate. Dessert? Oh, I couldn't eat another morsel! Then she mentions the cheese. Little minx. I raise an eyebrow. She smiles, bites her lip.

The vibe is pure Campari advert, 1977. Exterior: ski lodge. Somewhere European and exclusive. Interior: sauna. Red-hot, sweating flesh. Close-ups on eyes, meaningful glances. You see it going in. He winces. Bad angle. Torn frenulum. Copious bleeding. UK sales of Campari increased by 80% that year.

But back to that cheese. And what a selection! Shropster Grand Unutterable, Cock Hamilton, quarter-wheel de Mini Babybel and Golden Booty Hits of Miami. I swear I've gone blind by the time it's finished. Head's swimming. But I've got a schedule to keep. Time to get back in the saddle. Bad idea.

Less than a mile down the road. Stabwater in sight. Somewhere behind me, I hear the psychedelic rock stylings of Octave Mirbeau. An engine. Getting closer. My head's so clouded with cheese, I don't think to pull into the side. But that's OK. The driver will se...

Mucus Daniels, the man behind the 1977 Campari campaign, made his final public appearance in front of the Hotel d'Angleterre, Geneva, spring of '82, naked and screaming: "WHAT is it FOR???"

... Those words are tumbling in my skull like a cosmic tombola. I'm not riding anymore. I'm looking up at the sky, numb with shock. I hear the car somewhere further down the road. Slows down, crawls for a second or two. Speeds off. I'm alone. Numbness gives way to sickening pain. Screaming silently in the dead-still summer afternoon. A cloud of midges descends.

Minutes later, I hear footsteps. A thin, pale man leans over me, face locked into a scowl. Part of the back of his head is missing. He fixes me with his eyes. Scowling, sunken eyes. They soften. He puts his hand to my face, tear rolling down his cheek. There's kindness in his gesture, but I feel something leaving me. Something he knows I won't need any more. The pain subsides. We share a moment. Nothing wrong with two men sharing a moment. He turns and walks away. Takes something else, too. He comes back for one last look, my mangled bike on his shoulders. Then leaves. Leaves me here to wait, wait for someone else to stop by and call me an ambulance.

The ambulance takes me to Blankhead Royal Infirmary, where I will later die of complications.

Thomas Pynchon

2011-10-31T12:34:00.014Z

Last week, we talked about death, and the taking of life. But what does it mean to take life? That is what this film or televisual play asks. Imagine a life, brought into this world - perhaps with love, perhaps not - and left to exist, relatively unmolested. But then, one day...

Let's imagine a man, walking down the street. We'll call him Thomas. He means no harm. But fate is cold and arbitrary. Once you have found yourself the subject of its grim intentions, who knows how to escape? There is no parley, no hope of reasoning. You are snuffed out. Gone. Let's hope you left something of yourself behind, hmm, or how can we be sure you even existed?

All are equal in fate's eyes, and all equally in its grip. Fate brought this young man to his death, just as his death was brought to him. And how culpable is the one who brought about his death? Was he swept towards this point on a predetermined path like a train is fixed to its tracks? Or did he make this choice of his own free will? And just how free is his will? Is he not the product of his experiences, not all of his own choosing? How much agency, therefore, does he really have?

We can never know. Swallow this, like a good boy or girl.

We begin with Cloyd, walking down a sunny street. Cloyd is a cruel man. His lips produce a poison, lethal even in small doses, like a, like a name, a name that has been cursed down the ages - it probably belonged to a vicious outlaw or tyrant or something, way back, centuries ago, something like that - a name that, if you speak it, will kill the person to whom it is spoke. He spots Thomas in the distance, walking towards him.

Cloyd feels as if he is made of an as-yet-undiscovered metal, one the colour of the Harvest Moon, that vibrates visibly and emits a low, unsettling murmur (stay very still, hold your breath, listen carefully... it seems to be saying: "delicious").

The next thing we see is Cloyd sitting astride Thomas on the pavement, repeatedly pummelling his face, which by now is a gargling lump of chum, not even recognisable as human. Once he is certain the young man is dead, he gets up, calmly walks away.

He feels nothing, though he has committed the worst sort of theft. Somewhere tonight a mother weeps, a father feels empty. He never really connected with Thomas. Was always a bit jealous of him, if he's being honest, for in his eyes, the boy had come between him and his wife. As the infant Thomas suckled greedily on his mother's breast, sometimes he would look over at his father, who could swear the boy was gloating. Mother and father stopped having sex shortly after Thomas was born. The father always put this down to a postnatal frigidity on the mother's part, but in actual fact, the fault was his. So crippled was he by his own insecurity that he simply lost his 'mojo'. Mother was no longer satisfied, left cold by his dull, mechanical thrusting, hurt and wondering what happened to the ridiculous, honking fucks they used to do. She soon stopped initiating sex, as did he.

In restaurants, they would sit in silence. At dinner parties, they would act out childish, passive-aggressive dramas which soon became tiresome for all present. Invitations stopped coming, invitees stopped accepting. For 24 years, they have lived as two rocks in a dry stone wall, held together only by external pressures.

This is how lives fall apart, so watch out! Yours could be the next one to do.

Stay young in your heart.

Sunken Foal

2011-10-24T12:34:00.001+01:00

A Sea Shanty

We are sailing on the Sunken Foal,
Washed-up men with shrunken souls.
The ship, in truth, is very, very old
And its ghosts have long deserted.

But what's this creeping about the nest?
New ghost in the making, body soon to rest.
But no-one knows what's about to manifest
Except for Constable Bursted.

Gentlemen, please stop what you're doing. A crime is about to be committed on this vessel.

(Disquiet, hubbub, mutter mutter)

I realise this may sound peculiar, but I assure you gents that all shall become clear momentarily, for if you would just raise your eyes up to the crow's nest, you shall see... in just a second... your fellow crewman Crod Popples toppling over the side of the nest, then falling wordlessly to the deck (note that he's not mobile, his body is completely limp), where he shall land head-first, just a few feet to my left. On impact, the top of his skull will crumple, leading to a severe trauma with intercranial bleeding (you may have noticed part of his brain splattering the deck in a wide arc, some of which is about to land on my shoe - there!). At the same time, the force of the impact has pushed his head up into his ribcage, causing the neck, spine and ribs to fracture in several places. Subsequently, the body comes to a rest on the deck. Not a pretty sight, I'm sure you'll agree.

Gentlemen, I have come aboard - I do hope you'll forgive the intrusion, I boarded without invitation, though as you will no doubt appreciate, purely out of necessity - to solve this crime. But how could I possibly know that this man's death was the direct result of a malicious act on the part of another, as yet unidentified?

Well, the textbook response would be to say that in my line of work, it would be more appropriate to ask whether I can be at all certain that this man was not murdered. For instance - why did he not flail or struggle on the way down? We must be open to the possibility that he was either unconscious or unliving before he went over the side of the nest. Secondly, he received injuries on impact which we cannot simply ascribe solely to the impact itself (for example, a broken neck, which would also be consistent with strangulation; the investigator must keep his mind open, never drawing conclusions where questions might remain).

That would be the textbook response. In this case, however, I can tell you that I do indeed know that this was a murder, and furthermore know who the murderer is. And I know all this because I solved the crime before it happened.

(Disquiet, hubbub, mutter mutter)

Quite so. And I understand your confusion. I shall reveal my methods in due course. But first, a word about death.

What is death? This is a nonsensical question and you should be ashamed for asking it, even though it was me, because death is nothing. It is a state of nothingness. And how can nothing be anything? Hahaha! Fools. A more instructive line of inquiry would be to ponder, instead, the nature of life. For many have argued - and I am inclined to agree - that death is merely the negation of whatever it is that that is.

But it has meaning beyond this, does it not, for the negation of a life does not simply render void the entire existence of the life in question. Indeed, death has far greater and more troubling implications for the living, those left behind. But I mean no slander against death. It is a beautiful thing, and why should it spare a thought for those of us caught in its wake? Death deals in the infinite. On such a scale, haha-why, we are utterly meaningless! Death need not be aware of any of us until such a time as it comes for us.

And it is coming for us all, whether by accident or by design. Yea, we spend more time dead than we do alive. Is life, therefore, not the aberration? The error which must be corrected? And is death not the stabilising force, the restorer of equilibrium?

Death came for Crod Popples just minutes ago. But I have already concluded, you may remember, that death's visitation was not unsolicited. I promised to explain my method, and I am a man of my word.

My conclusion was already drawn and placed, as an invisible layer, upon this ship a long time ago. Long before any of us came into being - even the ship itself, ancient though it is. And just why do I employ this method? Theatre, gentlemen, I am not ashamed to admit. For the thrill of spectacle, I solve crimes in this manner. Some of my colleagues insist that spectacle has no place in the fight against crime. I disagree quite strongly. Spectacle, theatre, they have a place in all things. For what is the world of men without poetry?

And - it gets better! - my modus operandi is not mere poetry. As you will all no doubt attest in light of today's events, there is also the benefit of efficiency.

Poetry and efficiency. A powerful combination. Too powerful, indeed, for many to wield responsibly. Could one not argue that this very combination of quite disparate forces fuelled the intellectual engines of 20th century fascism? A cold, ugly political philosophy, so brutally prosaic... and yet with a sense of childlike wonder, utterly in thrall to the almost mystical promise of the future. A cult of progress, you could say. Even monsters recognise a need for magic.

But I digress! We have established that Crod Popples was murdered. I have announced that I know who the murderer is. I shall now reveal to you my findings.

Crod Popples, good sirs, was murdered by... Crod Popples!

It is true, your colleague took his own life by diving head-first from his post. If he did not appear to struggle - well, there was the serenity of the man who has chosen his fate (if, that is, any of us could ever really be said to have any influence over such a thing). He knew what I have just told you, that death is not the destroyer that we, in our ignorance and fear, have deemed it to be. Rather, it is the maintainer. The keeper of a grand cosmic order that not one of us could ever possibly comprehend.

I know that he knew these things, because I learnt these things from him, in the minutes before he died. Because I am him. Or at least, a part of him.

Gentlemen, I have not been clear about this up until now, and I hope you will soon understand why that is so, but now is the time for me to confess that my purpose in joining you today has been twofold.

Number one! Solve the mystery of Crod Popples' death. That can now be put to bed.

Number two! I have come also to introduce myself to you, and I do so humbly beg that you will welcome me into the crew of the Sunken Foal, for I am, sirs... the ghost of Crod Popples!

Let's have a party!

(Cheers, merriment, mutter mutter)

Lewis Carroll

2011-10-17T12:34:00.063+01:00

In this fifth and final part of my thesis, I'd like to focus on my good friend and mentor, the musical comedian Lewis Carroll.

When I first met Lewis in 1970, he was a cheeky, voyeuristic window cleaner, and the wit for which he became famous was apparent even then. With his polished repertoire of bon mots - such as, "oi-oi!" and, "come on, luv, show us your knockers!" - he was always the life and soul of the party.

Lewis loved his work, so it came as something of a blow to him when, in 1977, second-wave feminism finally strangled the life out of the voyeuristic window cleaner market. All of a sudden, young ladies were no longer content to lounge around in see-through nighties as randy gentlemen in jaunty-angled caps leered at them through their bedroom windows. (Some even had extra-large windows installed to accommodate more of them. You could sometimes look up and see as many as seven window cleaners peering into a single bedroom.)

Lewis fell into a deep depression for five days before deciding to enter the world of showbusiness. He struggled at first to get his act off the ground, but after years of toil, he finally broke through to the theatre circuit in the early 1980s, alongside the likes of Dermot O'Leary and Slavoj Žižek, and the two boys from Arab Strap (who, you may remember, were accomplished magicians before stadium rock and roll fame beckoned). It was during this time that Lewis' salt song brought him to the attention of the televisual producers...

Keep the salt flowin', m'boys -
Lovely, brown salt.
It's warm and smooth,
And it keeps me satisfied.

(Pop quiz, hotshot! What do you think 'salt' is a euphemism for in this song? Answer at the bottom of the page...)

Having secured his own televisual show, Lewis started to branch out, styling himself as a Lenny Bruce-esque figure, with shades of Les Dawson. This was, of course, a ratings disaster, and the show was cancelled in 1987 after just eight series. But he was simply ahead of his time. Lewis spoke truths that contemporary audiences just weren't ready to hear...

Music, please. Some smoky midnight anecdote jazz, if you don't mind.

So you're on the train home. It's been a long day, and you're in the grip of peristalsis. Painful spasms wrack your dirty regions. Oh, it's agony. Is that something coming out? Are you touching cloth? No, it's okay - it's just a bit of pressure. And that damp feeling? Just sweat, perhaps a little mucus, but no lines have been crossed just yet. Don't worry. You never shit yourself before, you're not going to start now.

Then you get home, rush to the toilet, drop your pants and sit down. And that's when you see it, staring up at you from the seat of your trousers: a great, stinking, curling mound of your yesterdays. In this moment, a horrible realisation dawns. All those people you passed by, the people on the train, they really were recoiling in horror. The man sat next to you who moved to a vacant seat - it was your faecal stench that drove him away. Those attractive students... they're faxing their friends right now: "omg this dirty old prik on da train shit himself lol!!!!"

And other realisations. All those years. There was no paranoia after all. Everything you feared had been true. Whenever a crowd of people outside a bar burst into laughter at the precise moment you walked by, it wasn't bad timing. You hadn't just entered the scene at the climax of a joke, or the delivery of some unheard witticism. They were laughing at you. At you. They were laughing at you. People see you and they laugh. They just can't help themselves. You're ridiculous.

Strange looks from pretty girls. People who seem nice at first, then suddenly turn hostile halfway through conversations. Shop assistants who were chatting pleasantly to customers in front of you then greet you with contempt as you approach the till. These things were real.

Falling over in a busy street. Chewing gum stuck to your trousers. Saying 'expresso' for three years before realising your mistake. Splashback from a poorly-designed urinal. "Look, he's pissed himself!" No, I haven't! Well okay, yes. Yes, in a sense, I have. But not directly!

Lewis Carroll died a year later, penniless and hopelessly addicted to caffeine, in a branch of Wimpy at Sandbach services. He was survived by his wife, Carol, and a sort of giant maggot called Keru-Gwa.

(Salt Euphemism Quiz: Well done if you spotted the trick in the question! The word 'salt' is really a recursive meta-euphemism, itself representing chocolate pudding, which is, in turn, a euphemism for salt!)

µ-Ziq

2011-10-10T12:34:00.139+01:00

I would like, if I may, to present the next part of this thesis loosely in the form of a treatment, for a film, perhaps, or televisual play. But why? I can only answer, why not? Because I felt like it. You might think this answer insufficient. To that, I say, pah! Embrace insufficiency. Make a friend of it. For like it or not, it will be your constant companion through life. You will then look sad and I will tell you to stop being so pathetic, then get up and walk away. Close up on your stupid face as a door slams somewhere out of shot. Fade to me talking about this treatment.

This film or televisual play should be viewed as a question. Far too much emphasis is placed, these days, on answers, particularly in cinema and television. No-one is willing to figure anything out for themselves. Viewers go in with questions, expecting them to have been answered by the time the end credits are rolling. Critics demand resolution. They want narrative sense. Why does this woman resent her own children? What relevance does this detail have to her story? How is she going to deal with this?

But why do we insist that this aspect of her experience be relevant to whatever slither of her existence on which the storyteller has chosen to focus? And why on earth do we expect her to resolve it? Maybe she never will. Perhaps it's just there, and will remain so, for the rest of hers and her children's lives. Perhaps their children will feel the ripples, too. Fate is cold and arbitrary.

Look at scene 2, 4'12" in - she's eating granola. I think we can say, therefore, fairly safely, that this woman likes granola. But why does she like granola? What has happened in her life to bring about this attraction? How will this inform the choices she will make throughout the rest of the film? Is this why she put on her dressing gown at 0'44"?

Do you see now how foolish such questions are? The world does not work this way. Reality does not demand conflict and resolution. It does not insist that, for example, a person's extraordinary skateboarding abilities play any part in their existence beyond the skating arena...

When I skate, I am very good at it. People watch and they say things like, "warm!" and, "carefully executed!" or even, "dickhouse!" (Author's note: these are examples of youth slang)

When I'm not skating, I do things such as online banking, smashing windows, eating granola. I once chased down and accosted a mugger, but I did it on foot. My skateboard has no significant function or meaning in these other areas of my life. Now, leave me alone.

So why do you bring your questions to me? What do you think qualifies me to answer them? I have no interest in doing so, nor do I have any interest in you. I am interested only in those with answers. I want my audience to walk into the cinema auditorium, or turn on their television sets with heads full of answers, and I want to present them with questions. I want to shatter their certainty. As the closing music plays out, I want them to leave their seats and go away, blinking, into a world clouded by ambiguity and confusion. Some of them may be crying. I hope so.

I think this film or televisual play will never end. We will film and release it as the audience watches it, continuously, and our children will take over its production as we all wither and die, and their children after them, and their children, etc. I shall be aiming it at the date movie market. We have a PR firm which promises 360-degree promotion, deals with the likes of McDonald's, a series on the Disney Channel, an album, action figures, branded erotic playwear...

A Certain Ratio

2011-10-03T12:34:00.134+01:00

Rediscover The Beast In You

How many of these statements do you agree with?
- "I feel I'm held back by my own conscience"
- "Every time I hurt another human being or beings, I suffer from guilt"
- "My problem is that I'd rather spend my free time with my family than pounding a hot 20-year-old in my city-centre bachelor pad"

For years, you've lived a life of cowardice. You've lived meekly, defensively. "Why should my desires take precedent over others'?" you've asked. This is why you're a loser. It's why you're reading this under a naked lightbulb, eating Spaghetti Hoops in your pants. You're pathetic. I think about you and I chozz my fucking guts up out of the hole in my face.

Well, today, all this can change. Today, you're going to learn how you can Rediscover The Beast In You.

Empathy is an unfortunate by-product of socialization. For millennia, mankind has sought to suppress his most useful instincts. Rage. Jealousy. Violence. Hatred. Why do you feel these things? Because they are a part of you.

I don't want to be kind, I don't want to be compassionate. I want to succeed. I want to conquer. I want to feel a man's life seep away through the cracks between my fingers.

These are the words of a winner. Look behind the mask of civilization. Look behind all the culture and the manners and shit and see the horrible truth. The human is a tame animal, a dichotomy of refinement and raw, bloody instinct. But all along, mankind's development has been driven by one thing, one ugly thing, the same thing that drives everything else: competition, the urge to dominate, to control resources.

Society is an effort to maintain a certain ratio, a perfect balance between the socialized man and the animal within. It seeks to harness and tame those wild instincts - the instinct to kill, fuck, conquer - yet all the same, it uses them for its own ends.

At the dawn of the civilized world, mankind discovered it was easier to acquire resources through agriculture and trade. Kill a man, take his food and his women. You eat the food, the women get old and die. No more food and women.

Why not persuade him to build a farm, produce a theoretically endless supply of food and women, year on year? And instead of killing him, why not persuade him to give them up through other means? By swapping resources less valuable to you? Or, in time, with tokens that could, in turn, be swapped for goods and services of his choosing? Soon enough, other agents arrived to profit from the very movements of these goods and services. Upon this system, societies were founded and laws passed, ostensibly to protect human beings - though ultimately, to protect the commodities and capital that they generated.

But what happens when a man's land becomes fallow? What laws are there to protect him? Well, why would there be any? He is no longer useful. As in any economy, as human life becomes more plentiful, more durable, so it becomes less valuable. Life knows this, and it isn't happy. Now Life, worthless Life, is at war with Commerce, the very arbiter of worth.

So which side do you choose? Do you follow your 'conscience' and join the losers, in their overalls and their rice fields and their semi-detached houses, sitting there hoping everything will turn out alright, all the while chomping away at whatever's left, signing their own death warrants in the process? Or are you going to become a winner, proactive, aggressive, a hunter, hungrier than the hungriest mouth, devouring everything that gets between you and your prize - the complete annihilation of all things - all things in the pursuit of the only thing that matters anymore - the thing that exists beyond the realm of things - the thing that represents things - the symbol of things: the sexy chodrah?

Nature is a constant battle, and you - stupid twat - are on the losing side. So be the best that you can be, place your faith in the dream of constant growth, embrace the virtue of excess, slaughter your family - they pretend that they love you, but they are only keeping you down - invite destruction, fuck everything... and Rediscover The Beast In You.

Our logic is flawless, try not to think too much about it.

Seb Rochford

2011-09-26T12:34:00.005+01:00

Thank you for choosing to stay at the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel. You've just made the best decision of your life: you've chosen to stay at the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel. Thank you for making the best decision to stay your life at the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel. You've just made the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel choose the decision of your life: to stay.

The Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel has something to offer almost everyone, whether you're a retired sergeant major with a dark secret, a successful super-head with a reputation in your community for turning around failing schools, or a thin, taciturn man known only as Cloyd.

Say Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel to most people and they'll say, "bathrooms!" That's because the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel is famous for its world-class facilities. Under the tepid dribble of your en-suite shower, you'll enjoy a steamy clinch with your former student in almost total privacy. And thanks to our newly-installed, state-of-the-art flushing system, you can lose your entire weekend to a crippling bout of implosive diarrhoea in style.

And that's not all, because now, the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel even has beds. Imagine Cloyd, splayed out on his like a happy spider with an ugly, scowling face growing out of its back. Lost in thought (not to mention comfort!), Cloyd's eyes, skulls sinking into porridge, are locked lifelessly upon a stain on the ceiling. Part of the back of his head is missing, no-one knows why. A battered, brown-stained briefcase at the foot of the bed. Cloyd is breathing deep and slow, deep and slow, "deep and slow... deep... and slow..." (soft pornography on the TV - press Service 2 on your handset).

Let's leave Cloyd now. Best to leave him alone, or who knows what he'll do? Here he comes once a month like a clockwork, but we know very little about him. Sgt Maj Pesco in 34 believes Cloyd to be some sort of healthcare professional - we shall do nothing to encourage such scurrillous rumour-mongering! However, we can tell you that he keeps a battered bicycle chained up in the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel's spacious car park. The bike too damaged to ride, he simply travels on foot, carrying the thing on his back wherever he goes. Sgt Maj Pesco (says he came here to rekindle a memory, not sure what, but something that happened between these walls, long ago, foggy apparition haunting his dreams - you were last here in 1983, weren't you, Sergeant Major, shortly after your Falklands tour?) once followed him to the edge of Stabwater until he felt compelled to stop and turn back. He can't say why, only that he was overcome by a thick, pervasive sense of evil. He wept. Dear friends, he wept. Dreadful state he was in when he returned, wet and covered in filth, well, we gave him a blanket and a hot mug of coffee - Irish it up, Jean, he could use it - and this is exactly the sort of hospitality you can expect at the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel, it's not just for the Sergeant Major, nothing special about him, apart from all the... things he keeps saying since the Stabwater incident (strange things... sometimes in a tongue that I'm convinced is not of this world). So why not kick back your feet, sink into luxury, wave goodbye to your mass and say "hello!" to welcomeness at the Seb Rochford Inn, Blankhead Hohotel?

You deserve it.

Octave Mirbeau

2011-09-19T12:34:00.019+01:00

Ask Dr Stevert

From his tastefully appointed office, Dr Stevert Crosb thumbs through your queries on matters of health and well-being. But, good Lord, what's this? Amongst the sharp, pristine whiteness of the pile, one grimy, dog-eared envelope draws the eye towards it, like a wanking tramp in a boys' choir. Fingerprints in chain oil and blood. A memory, hitherto buried, is stirred. Realising its moment has come, it jostles for attention at the front of Dr Stevert's mind: a childhood injury, a departed pet, a weekend in Rhyl forever tainted with regret, all pushed aside for... There! I recognise those thatched roofs and the looming spire at their centre. The road approaching the village of Stabwater. A glorious summer afternoon. I'm in my car, smoking a joint, Octave Mirbeau on the stereo. No-one in the passenger seat. So why am I not wearing trousers?

A yell. A thump. Clatter clatter. Something bounces off my windscreen, disappearing over the roof of my car. A mangled bicycle in the hedgerow takes on a strangely organic form, like a daddy longlegs splayed abstract and lifeless on a windowsill. Foot down, Stevert. Keep driving...

Dr Stevert
My ex and I were together for five years, and planning to get engaged. During the final year of our relationship, he and my best friend started to become very close. Looking back now, the signs were obvious, but still I was shocked the day they sat me down and announced they had been having an affair and that they would have no further need of me. A year on, the feelings are still raw. Will I ever be capable of forming a relationship again after being betrayed so casually by the two people I trusted most in the world?

Dr Stevert says...
Hahaha! Oh, how delicious! My dear little girl, you really must disburden yourself of your childish notions of what's right and what's just with regard to affairs of the heart. The unsettling truth is that we're all lost, frightened and confused, mysteries to ourselves, searching desperately for warm bodies to cling to, without any real idea of what it is that we actually want from them. It's a messy process of trial and error, and that means blood will be spilled, tears wept, vomit heaved up outside late-night takeaways and semen spattered over items of clothing left behind. But attachment to an individual is a type of bondage, my darling. You must free yourself of love's shackles, embrace uncertainty and fear, go out there with your blades flailing wildly and carve up any unfortunate who crosses your path, without remorse, without reflection. Only by loosing your ghouls upon the inner worlds of others will you begin to understand the mentality of those who loosed theirs upon yours.

Dr Stevert
My body disgusts me. I feel, see, smell filth on me at all times of every day, no matter how much I wash (I usually have about five showers a day, each lasting around 20 minutes, scrubbing until I'm red all over and peppered with tiny spots of a deeper red that gather into crimson beads and stain the towel with which I dry myself, a process which takes a further 15 minutes). I haven't left my house in a year, since my self-consciousness became so acute that I simply couldn't stand to be around other people. I'm constantly aware of every orifice, I can feel sweat and oily discharge oozing out of every pore, bacteria crawling on my skin - can picture, in my mind's eye, their favourite spots in microscopic detail, bubbling swarms of beetle-like creatures, weaving around and climbing over each other, rolling balls of grease and pus through the canyons of my epidermis. The dirt just won't come off. I see myself as a deep, infected wound in the neck of the earth, the source of all disease, germs in their millions crawling from my hot, angry gape. I feel utterly revolting. I'm absolutely at my wits' end! Please help in any way you can.

Dr Stevert says...
But of course you're revolting! You're a heap of organic matter, a biological machine. You're a laboratory of biochemical processes. An ecosystem - things are hatching and crawling and living and fighting and fucking and dying all over your body all the time. You're a bag of foul-smelling gases and juices. You're a study in decay. Nature is disgusting, my friend! And you are nature. Not merely an observer, but very much a part of it, part of a wider process, a process of birth, death, decomposition, rebirth... You will die and you will rot and from your stinking, bubbling essence life will spring anew. Elton John did a song about it. In a sense, you are earth's infected wound. We all are. And that is why you must pull yourself together this instant, young man, look into my eyes, deep into my eyes - you don't mind me holding your hands do you? - and listen very carefully as I say these words: "we are all dirty little fuckpigs." Enjoy it! Pick your teeth! Smell your own farts! Masturbate in the street! This is what happens! This is nature in all its hideous glory! It is a beautiful thing that I do! But did the judge accept that argument? Did he fuck. Fortunately, I didn't lose my job because I'm not a proper doctor.

Dr Stevert
I have a growth on my rectum, but I'm too embarrassed to go to a proper doctor about it. I've enclosed a photo. Does it look like something I should be concerned about?

Dr Stevert says...
Oh, for Christ's sake... You people plague me with your endless questions! "Dr Stevert, what's this? Dr Stevert, how do I prevent that from happening? Dr Stevert, can you remember where you were at around 2pm on June 26?" And always I oblige, like a cooing nanny, making reassuring noises and softly singing you to sleep in my arms. But what about Dr Stevert? Does Dr Stevert not sometimes need a strong pair of arms in which to collapse, convulsing with sobs? And where are these arms for Dr Stevert? Who's looking out for Dr Stevert?

Cannibal Ox

2011-09-12T12:34:00.002+01:00

One of three fates will befall a high-profile restaurant within a year of opening: humiliating failure; naked, roaring triumph; or demolition at the hands of the marauding legion of demons that descends upon London each April. One of those escaping destruction this year was ) 1su - pronounced 'Yaqub's Marine Challenge', and named after Yaqub Fürschranz, former world champion arm-wrestler and the human face of the restaurant (all other front of house staff have had theirs removed surgically, but for the eyes). Now ) 1su hopes to go into its second year a bona-fide success story. Much fawning press and excited chatter so far suggests that it will, and so I decided to investigate.

) 1su doesn't exist in the physical realm (an irritating trend which has gripped the London scene of late), and can only be reached by performing a blood sacrifice in the doorway of an abandoned shop. But its inaccessibility seems to have done ) 1su no harm at all: this wet midweek night saw the house full.

Before being allowed to take its table, each party must nominate one of its number to accept the eponymous Yaqub's challenge: namely, swallowing a live octopus whole. One of my guests for the evening gamely rose to the occasion and so we were permitted to eat, minus our brave companion, who was rushed to hospital after facilitating our dining experience (to the family of AA Gill, I offer this small crumb of comfort: he died doing what he loved best).

) 1su's décor keeps up the rather tiresome metaphysical theme, but with unexpected benefits: no two tables occupy the same point in space-time, so whilst one has a sort of dim awareness of one's fellow diners, they are neither seen nor heard. Instead, we dined in a peaceful bubble of heavenly whiteness, which provided an interesting and jarring counterpoint to the horrors of the food (indeed, whatever one may think of ) 1su's slavish devotion to the whims of fashion, it's hard not to be impressed by its microscopic attention to detail).

And so to the food. The starters were uneven. Golden, shining crab of the moon was fresh and cooked to perfection, its shell simply falling off at the slightest touch and melting delectably on the tongue. However, it comes with a cloying human jam which does the dish no favours, though it is mercifully smeared on the side and therefore, at least, optional. Juices of cannibal ox with diseased cabbage fared better, the bitterness of the cabbage mingling beautifully with the rich, nauseating ox juice, a revolting cacophony of flavours. Truly remarkable. Prawn cocktail was also good.

Amongst the mains, an old favourite. I'd heard much of ) 1su's interesting take on serge gainsbourg, and was not disappointed. The innovation here is the bold substitution of angel's bowel for the unknowable meat, a modish twist on the traditional which I had previously ridiculed. But I was wrong to do so. Every spoonful burns the nostrils with its acrid fumes and sets the gut, quite literally, on fire. Lucky, then, that it comes with a side of asbestos to smother the flames. Of the other mains, pan-seared nightmare of teenage sports champion precipitated a brief episode of violence, but was as plump and disturbing as any I've come across, whilst spaghetti bolognese was very nice.

For dessert, one of my more adventurous companions chose to have his own penis. Dipped in honey and presented otherwise raw and unwashed, this dish really is for the curious only, but rewarding nevertheless. The countless variables of size, firmness and cleanliness make each serving a thrilling trip into the unknown, and to join a friend in eating one of his own organs - and such a private, dirty, shameful organ - adds a heightened, almost hysterical emotional element to the experience. By the time we'd finished, my guests and I had attained a level of intimacy that was completely alien to all of us. We had come much closer to one another. Perhaps too close. We left without speaking or touching the rest of the desserts - convulsions of chocolate sadness, and lime jelly - and I have not heard from either of them since we wordlessly parted company, although I've been told that one has relapsed into heroin addiction. I am very concerned about him. I just want to touch his face.

) 1su, W1
Tel: x and hang up. Callback will come when you least want it
The price of this meal incl. drinks was £319 + gratuity