The Seapenguin Diaries

Whinge of the day - Writing for Free Stinks

2012-02-01T10:11:00.003Z

Oh your blog's lovely! Superb, actually. Lovely art work. I love your writing. Really? Is that so? Is it really?
Fuck off - I'm not interested - unless you're going to give me some money. HARD CASH.
Try writing this for four sodding years, with all the crap and bullshit I've had to take, and then come back and talk to me.

No, I'm serious. I'm too old to grovel to anyone (except my non-existent bank manager) never mind a twelve year old publisher fresh out of "uni.". I'm definitely WAY too old to accept an insulting offer to "write for my blog - no money, of course, and not even a proper "thank you, I really appreciate this", but lots of weekly page views!!!!!!!!"

For pity's sake. No. Been there and done it, thanks.

It's the same for everyone, I know, but me, I'm fed up writing for nothing. I'll keep this ticking over for now with a daily whinge (can't muster any humour at the moment), and I'll cobble a couple of Kindles together (eventually), but that's IT. If nobody buys them, too bad. I'm not submitting anything, anywhere that doesn't pay. If I can't write well enough to earn money, then I'd rather not do it at all.

There are lots of places where you can get work published, especially on the internet. But they don't pay. It gives you a boost to start with, you're prepared to do it for so long, and then you start to think - wait a minute. All this effort, for whose benefit, exactly? If knowing that a few people have enjoyed your work is enough for you, then fine. It used to be enough for me. Not any more.

If you're going to write for free, you might as well run a blog like this, and write whatever the hell you feel like writing, knowing you're 100% in charge of it, and sod the lot of 'em.

Really completely hacked off at the moment, and feeling like a complete and utter mug.

Walk 1; round a muddy field. Theme; homicide.

2012-02-01T01:14:00.001Z

Trudging round a muddy field in January is not conducive to happy thoughts.
It's not even frosty. You miss the satisfaction of hearing your footsteps crunching down upon the icy "sod", and the healthy, pleasurable sensation as your boot-heel hits the frozen ground and the vibration from the earth travels up your leg from foot to hip. There are no puddles to jump upon, no windows of ice to crack and shatter and split. You're plodding through an acre of "glaur", and you know you're going to drag an unreasonable proportion of it home with you in the tread of your boots, and on the bottom half of your jeans.
As you plod, you curse as you stumble over large stones, and skid into furrows, and grab on to prickly blackthorn bushes to save yourself from falling over into even muddier ditches. You don't even have a dog to keep you company.
The only visible wildlife is a wren, flitting rapidly away from you towards the tangled refuge of a bramble bush. All the colours are dull. Browns and greys, mainly. There is no sense yet that spring is on its way. Everything is dead as can be. A reluctant stream trickles along between muddy embankments still strewn with the slimy remains of last year's vegetation.
You wonder pointlessly if you might see a flock of fieldfares or redwings; you know you won't, because it isn't quite cold enough.
Your thoughts turn to home, tea, and a fire.
But it's not enough to lift your spirits. You really want a trip to Antigua or Morocco. Instead, you pass a dilapidated farmyard with a broken fence, a few scrawny hens, a pile of discarded tractor tyres and a rusting corrugated iron shack, and you think, that looks like the home of a Deliverance-style banjo-playing one-toothed homicidal half-wit, and what's more I really hope it is, and I hope he's in there, watching me, with a rifle trained right between my eyes.
Ker-boom.

Quote of the day - Dylan Thomas

2012-02-01T00:24:00.000Z

Reading Dylan Thomas tonight. Very tired, so can't be bothered to write anything myself. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe...

Quote of the day at any rate is from "I Have Longed to Move Away".

"I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind."

Yes I think I know that feeling. Some literary critic might well say, no, you don't know. That is not what he meant, at all.
I don't care.

We have a Visitor....

2012-01-30T13:30:00.001Z

I'm off to the railway station to pick up long term blog reader and my friend for an eye-watering thirty three years - Aloysius St John von Pierce-Bladder (not his real name). He is staying over for a day or two.
Take away tonight, most likely. Then a jolly session of Name that Tune in five hundred, via the several thousand "tunes" on his laptop, possibly. Glamis Castle tomorrow, maybe....blog silence for 24 hours, definitely....probably..........

Attila of Roses, and George Orwell

2012-01-30T11:34:00.003Z

Still browsing through George Orwell's Diaries. I've "done" Down and Out in Paris and London and I'm now On the Road to Wigan Pier.

"It sounds utterly appalling Smithers."
"Indeed, m'lady."
"Clogs. No lavatories. Cobbles. Blocked drains. Hare lips. Unemployed people with no teeth. Monstrous meat pies. Cold tripe and vinegar. Slag heaps. Canals. Blind miners. Women with shawls on their heads. Gosh, Smithers. I'm having a funny turn just thinking about the ghastliness of it all."
"Don't fret, m'lady. Whitlow has saddled the Arabian for you, and Mrs McFaffinfridge has made up a cold collation in the picnic hamper."
"Yes I rather think I might enjoy a canter along the north wall Smithers. What exactly has Mrs Mcfaffinfridge put in the hamper today? She's been acting strangely."
"Definite glint in her eye, m'lady. I think she's trying to be prescient, m'lady. Trying to think about what you might like yourself, only you haven't quite thought of it yet. Trying to be the perfect servant, m'lady."
"Oh dear, Smithers."
"Quite, m'lady. Going by the reek of vinegar in the butler's pantry this morning....and the empty packet of suet in the wheelie bin, and the discarded note to the butcher, asking for three pounds of scrag end..."
"Oh for heaven's sake Smithers. I can't eat that muck. Dump it at the gate for the poor people to scavenge, and make me up some salmon mayonnaise sandwiches, the way I like 'em."
"Right away, m'lady. And might I be so bold as to say, that is a rather charming perfume you're wearing. M'lady."
"Why thank you Smithers. It's called Attila of Roses, by Chanelle; Lady Marguerita's manservant fetched it from Paris for me just this morning."
"Lovely, m'lady. Do you happen to have the matching bath milk, body lotion, and talc, as well?"
"That's quite enough Smithers. You've started to sweat and it's not attractive. Fetch my sandwiches and calm down."

Iron Clad

2012-01-30T11:02:00.000Z

I was really amused by this picture in Private Eye - Cameron morphed on to Thatch. as The Iron Laddy.
Shudder.

Marianne Faithfull - No Regrets

2012-01-30T00:19:00.000Z

DONOVAN- ATLANTIS

2012-01-29T23:49:00.000Z

Striding forwards into Old Age - terrified

2012-01-29T09:02:00.001Z

Life feels like a constant process of dodging the Grim Reaper at the moment. Is Death avoidable? No, of course it isn't. We must take what's coming to us, and in my view, it isn't good. Wouldn't life be marvellous, if only there was no illness, no suffering, no Death? yes, of course it would. You'd have to do something about the population, of course - but that's all been written about before. (I have written any number of blog posts about this, featuring blog characters including The Grim Reaper - links below)

Having lost a friend this week, who is of my own generation, I'm feeling selfishly overwhelmed by terror, and guilt because I should not be thinking about myself in this way. Caz is not the first friend I've lost. Someone else died, a year or two back. She took her own life in the course of a severe, agonising depressive illness, and that was a different thing altogether, to deal with. Caz was "taken". She did not want to go.
And neither do I.
When I was young, I had two friends around my age, who were killed in road traffic accidents. Awful, at the time. But when you're young, you never think it's going to happen to you. A shadow passes over the sun. Someone was here for a while, burned brightly, like a firework, and was gone...and life continues.
I lost my father when I was young, but his was a slow death, that lasted several years. A different grief. Other relatives passed - aunts, uncles, grandparents. It all seemed sad, but normal. Then, you get older. It happens fast. All of a sudden you're in the Death Zone yourself.
Everyone has grief to cope with. In the midst of life, we are in Death, as they say. For many years, I lived with an illness that I thought was going to kill me. It didn't. Then I became profoundly depressed, and I wanted to kill myself.
Hope is the only thing in life, but what is the point in Hope? We're all standing on a crumbling cliff top, waiting to plunge into the sea. All you can Hope for, is some kind of reconciliation, dignity and acceptance.
I had an elderly aunt, terrified of dying, aged 90. I was about twenty or thereabouts, and for some reason I can't quite grasp, she told me how afraid she was, on the telephone one evening. She was a marvellous person, with a powerful religious faith. You'd think that her faith might have helped; but no, she was afraid of being Judged, by that Old Testament God figure. "And his Wrath was terrible..." "Vengeance is Mine..." There must have been something in her past, preying on her mind, and blown out of all proportion. I can't imagine that it was anything remotely awful, by most standards. No, I never found out what it was.
When I look back on my own life, I don't think I've done anything terrible, really. I've made countless mistakes and errors of judgment, but overall, I try to be a "good person". Failing horribly, mostly. I'd say the things I'm most proud of, if there is room to feel proud, are when I've helped other people. That immediately sounds po-faced, but it's true, and it makes me think that maybe my time on earth has not been a complete waste. I wish I'd done better, though.
The things I feel worst about, are when I've broken faith with people, let people down. I wrote a story a year or two ago, called For Gus, in which I tried to explain what it was like to break faith with a dog - with innocence. That is worse than anything.
I've never been a "game player". I've never, ever, set out to "win". Which is just as well, because I never have. I just have not seen life in those terms, and I find it hard to relate to those who do.
You have to find the joy in life. It is there. I mentioned inanity before; there's a lot to be said for inanity. Not the desperately aggressive laughter of clowns though. Real joy. I have glimpsed it, on occasion.
I'm sure it will return.

What use are scraps of knowledge?

2012-01-29T02:12:00.000Z

The question of the ego, put to me after I had battled with the bathroom plumbing and as I was picking spiders' webs off my knees, is still with me.
I studied the tri-partite intrapsychic economy for about three years. I should know quite a lot about ego-formation, although I studied Lacan more than Freud. But I've forgotten most of it. Was it all a waste of time - all that brain-busting? I often wonder, and really I don't know. It was a sight more interesting than CBT that's for sure. And it made me see straight through the self-help, psychobabble garbage I used to read so avidly "before". Tick boxes, assessments, evaluations of this and that. Measuring the unmeasurable - attempting to fit human beings into categories and convenient little boxes, to suit the assessors rather than those seeking help. I quickly learned how destructive and limiting these things are. That is a good thing. Human beings are complicated. That is also a good thing.
I suppose the best thing about learning is, the more you learn, the more you realise that you know very little indeed. About anything. Least of all yourself.
Anyway - tonight I picked up the Freud Reader, and had a delve through for the first time in ages. Where to start? The essay on Leonardo da Vinci's childhood caught my eye, and a sentence relating to Freud's controversial suppression of the seduction theory jumped out. Blimey - it all began to flood back...early Freud is worth a look.
Too late to write more tonight.
It occurs to me this, however.
When I was at uni., I'd read a book or have an idea, and I'd think, I will expand that in an essay. When I was on Twitter, I'd have a thought or read some rubbish somewhere, and think, I will tweet that. There's nothing really wrong in that, but still.....I think I need to find the right balance, for me, between thoughtfulness and inanity, because I enjoy both. But I am lazy and have a butterfly mind/attention span of a gnat, so inanity generally wins.

2012-01-29T01:16:00.002Z

The Nature of Ego, and Bath Problems

2012-01-29T00:25:00.000Z

Do you think it's possible to have a choice as to whether or not you have an ego?

This question just put to me, 12.15am..

I've just had a relaxing bubble bath RUINED by the drainy pipey thing coming adrift when I let the water out after; I had to remove the whole side panel off the bath, crawl underneath into the spidery filth, (our bath is suspended over a hole in the ground - I kid you not ) and hold the U bend on "manually", clad in only a towel, to prevent the bathroom floor getting flooditt. No I didn't think of putting the plug back in and calling for assistance.
So, I have no answer RIGHT THIS MINUTE!! Ask me tomorrow morning after a bacon sandwich & three mugs of tea. I'm sure I'll be up for a really good discussion about "the nature of the ego" then.

2012-01-28T21:01:00.000Z

I am a Homicidal Maniac by the way. Tea, anyone?

2012-01-28T01:53:00.000Z

That'll be a no, then.

Suit yourselves. I don't mind being on my own for a while. Like, the entire rest of my life. It'll very likely be short anyway. I can feel a horrid disease coming on.

Other people tend to get on my NERVES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a bit.

I bought a new set of knives today - along with new night vision goggles, a black knitted full-face balaclava helmet with "NUTTER" sewn on in big white capitals, a blond wig, tights, gaffer tape, a length of sturdy rope, some polythene sheeting, and a detailed map of Your Area.

On Gulls, and quote of the day (Louis MacNeice)

2012-01-28T01:30:00.002Z

I'm very fond of seagulls. Herring gulls, that is. Gannets, I also particularly love to watch. But you can't feed them crisps.
Gulls are not so beautiful, but they are full of character. And I love their cries, and the way they take off from a ledge and soar. Real survivors, gulls.
I was watching one from a coffee shop in the Overgate in Dundee today. Very bedraggled it was. Perched on a handrail, hoping for scraps, it was watching us carefully through the glass. They know all the signs of an approaching food source.
In some cities they are a pest - too bold by far. But I haven't experienced that. I've met assertive gulls, I've met cheeky gulls, but I've yet to meet a rude one.
Like human beings, gulls are generally better on their own. Gangs of them can be a little frightening, rowdy, and very very noisy.
Funny how books fall open at the right place sometimes. I was just thinking about gulls, and at the same time thinking I'd read some poetry before settling down for the night. My book, The New Anthology of Modern Verse, 1920 - 1940, opened at Leaving Barra by Louis MacNeice. It's not a favourite poem, but it does mention gulls, so it's quote of the day.

"I never shall visit that island
Again with its easy tempo -
The seal sunbathing, the circuit
Of gulls on the wing for garbage.

I go to a different garbage
And scuffle for scraps of notice,
Pretend to ignore the stigma
That stains my life and my leisure.

For fretful even in leisure
I fidget for different values,
Restless as a gull and haunted
By a hankering after Atlantis."

Barra is the metaphor, but this poem always reminds me of Waternish, Skye, and the island just offshore that Donovan used to own. (his song Atlantis). It's one of the most beautiful places imaginable. We landed there once when out sailing, and two eagles took off into the wind just yards away. When you go there, it's like you're living in your own imagination. I can't describe it. You would need to go, and just sit, and allow yourself to be.

How I gassed a sparrow

2012-01-27T18:42:00.007Z

It's not been the best of days. I've had worse mind - never let it be said that I'm a whinger. Oh no.
First off, I am wakened at half six by a bird trapped in the eaves. Birds often shelter in there, they're quiet, and they always find their way out without any problem. This one is well-stuck. Flap flap flap. Hop hop hop. Flap flap flap. Hop hop hop. Panic panic panic. It's probably only a sparrow, but it sounds more like a buzzard or an owl. Or an eagle. Or a veloce-frickin'-raptor.....tap tap tap....TAP!!!!!! Hmmm..... only thing to do is to niftily remove a bit of the panelling from the inside. Using a saw, a hammer and a jemmy. Either that or remove some of the stonework from the outside...with a wrecking ball...neither of these options appeal.
So, I decide to squirt in some lethal gas - no, of course I didn't! I'm not a complete monster, despite pernicious rumours to the contrary.
Great. Wee birdie gets out itself, somehow. Cup of tea. Phew. We should really do something about that hole...yeah.
I have had three hours sleep. This is not good.
It's a bright clear day, and bitterly bitterly cold. The lid of the coal bunker has frozen shut, and requires prising open with a claw hammer. I realise too late that I should perhaps have tried thawing it with some warm water first, just as I burst the lid, the hinges snap off, the side of the bunker splits open down the seam, and half a hundredweight of dross spills on to the gravel.
Switch on Netbook to check emails etc.. It crashes. I have no back-up. The wee circley twirly thing is still circling and twirling five hours later.

Reviving lattes, and a bedraggled gull

Think Beano, People's Friend, Sunday Post....great Dundee building.

Luckily, I can use Barry's laptop, and I have emailed any important files. But it's not the same. And I feel bitter, resentful and twisted because Barry has a posh laptop and I only have a puny and pathetic Netbook. I deliberately give him the mug that he doesn't like when I make a cup of tea. Then I cruelly tell him there is no raspberry jam left when I know full well there is an unopened jar at the back of the cupboard.
Feel slightly better.
Post arrives. A demand for £90, from Lidl no less. Apparently, I overstayed my welcome in their scabby car park by 20 minutes last Saturday. Possibly my most expensive shop, anywhere, ever. I'll try Harrods or Fortnums next time I want some strange meat and weird looking shit in jars with unreadable labels.
Ah well. We head into Dundee for the afternoon - things to do. Have a look at the Alan Robb exhibition in the McManus galleries, after. I'm not a huge fan, but Barry was keen; Alan Robb was head of fine art when he was at D. of J.. The current, related exhibition in the Lamb gallery is definitely more to my liking, with really fab work from Robb's 1980s generation of students.
My favourite thing in the McManus remains the wee David Mach gargoyle. I love that. Yes I do.
Tum ti tum.

Shut Up - the Buck (et) song

2012-01-27T08:34:00.003Z

Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut your fucking ugly face and fuck off.
Or, I will kill you, simple as.

With what will you kill me, dear master, dear master? With what will you kill me, dear master, with what? I want to know so's I can take precorshuns.

With a bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza,
With a bucket dear Liza,
Dear Liza - a buck (et).

A buck(et) - ?

You 'erd. I'm going to drown you in a fucking buck(et). Or that. Now shut your trap while I have my fag.

Good MORning all!!! havva nice day-hay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy fucking Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Think I've Had Quite Enough

2012-01-27T07:44:00.000Z

"Ah!"
"You were saying, m'lady?"
"Yes I was Smithers. I was saying. In fact, I've been saying it all along."
"Gosh, m'lady."
"Quite, Smithers."
"How lovely people are, m'lady."
"Indeed, Smithers. Pop the kettle on, there's a good fellow. And I think I'll have kedgeree for breakfast today."

Windy

2012-01-27T00:51:00.000Z

I can't believe I'm still blogging about wind.
On reviewing past posts, I see that the first EVER, was about an over-ingestion of cabbage. Spockfingers, the Highland cow character that I used to write about when I was still doing the Tuppy/Geoffrey/Rocky Outcrop posts, also released Tuppy from the belly of the Orca by blasting his way out by means of an enormously powerful "anal emission".
Blimey.
All of this is being edited down at the moment. It's an absolute pain to be honest and I wish I could just dump the blooming lot - but I'm sure it will all be marvellous when it's done....

Medical tip of the day - the hidden danger lurking in your bog roll

2012-01-26T22:29:00.005Z

"Doctor Kilmore, I've an awfully itchy arse. And I've no idea why..."
"LOL! Do you perchance happen to use coloured lavvy paper Mrs Mcfaffinfridge?"
"Oh yes! I like that nice coloured soft multi-ply patterned stuff."
"Hmmm."
Apparently quite a number of people are Elergic to the dyes and additives, hence liable to irritation of the "mucous membranes".
It's also very damaging to the environment, apparently, due to the trees that are chopped down to make it.
The recycled unbleached stuff is supposed to be better. I imagine it is, especially after the turnip coleslaw & gassy lager. That's if you can find any - I know I can't, locally.

There is an environmentally-friendly bog roll called Satino Black, 'parently. It doesn't sound much like bog roll to me...but there you go. It sez it in the Grauniad so it must be true. I've not seen it in the Co, Tesco, Lidl or Semichem mind.
I hope to get a bushel of it sent to me forthwith, now that I've plugged it. Satino Black. Got that?

Recipe of the week - turnip coleslaw

2012-01-26T21:52:00.002Z

Extreme wind alert. Hurricane force. Bridges closed to high-sided vehicles. All sailings cancelled till further notice. Yeah yeah yeah. Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Stand clear.

Empty a room in ten seconds flat.

I thought I'd share a wee receipt with youse, ken.

Turnip Coleslaw.

Grate 'n' mix to taste, raw turnip, raw kohl rabi, raw cabbage, raw beetroot, raw parsnip, raw green pepper, raw radish, raw carrot, raw apple, raw onion, raw garlic, with a wee grating of cheese, a sprinkling of fresh peas, splash of cider vinegar, a generous squirt of chilli sauce, a dash of Lea & Perrins and a spoonful or two of mayonnaise. It is exceedingly volatile *belch* *explode*, especially if consumed with a couple of gassy lagers and a Bird's Eye onion burger OR an "onion bridie". It's *even* worse than the falafel/beansprout mixture I had on Saturday.

Old Souls

2012-01-26T15:16:00.003Z

You know that thing where you catch someone's eye, and you know you've not met or seen them before, but it's like you already know who they are, on a more significant level than surface identity?
It's not really the same as physical attraction, although often there is an element of that.
You might be on a train, and catch a glimpse of a stranger's face as they wait on the platform. You'll never see them again, but you'll never forget their face.
I don't know what that is, but it's a powerful thing, and probably best not to trust it. Really.

A psychologist would likely have some smug explanation all ready just to take the wind out of your sails. Oh yes it's this, or that. I know what that is. It's what I say it is - not what you imagine it might be or could be. It has no life of its own. It can be defined, and limted, and put away in a convenient little box.
How incredibly boring. Go away and buy yourself a new car. Plug your new book of meaningless, reductive platitudes. Take another ski-ing holiday. Have some guacamole. Fuck off.

Don't like 'em. Bit of a generalisation there, but really I am not keen. Physicists are a completely different kettle of - well, can't be fish, but atoms, or string, or something.

String theory. Funny how that always makes me think of thongs. Tongue twister.

Farting in Morse Code

2012-01-26T14:55:00.004Z

Look carefully at this box of BryMay matches. Very carefully - I know the photo is a bit blurry but it's the best I can manage. I've been puzzling over this one. How WOULD you leave a message, for your companions, using only five pieces of fence post?
I can only imagine that one might use them to build a fire, and then use your jumper to make smoke signals.
Or, if you were skilled at passing wind, as some are, you could try farting very very loudly, in morse code. And if it was dark, you could use the matches to light them, thus facilitating ease of communication to/from afar. A bit like the hobbits frying up second breakfast on Weathertop, and attracting the Black Riders. Where the fence posts come into that, I really don't know.

Today's thoughts about blogging. Quite boring - I shouldn't bother.

2012-01-26T13:40:00.003Z

The blog was phenomenally busy with traffic yesterday. Maybe it was the Burns night thing, I dunno. It was the same at Christmas.
It gives me the willies actually, because I've no idea who anyone is. Obviously, when I look at the stats and see "Russia" and "Macedonia" and "Germany" popping up, I know they're spammers, and they don't count.
I reckon most traffic from the UK and USA and Canada will be fairly genuine.
It all fills me with anxiety, anyway. I just take it from day to day at the moment.
I suppose the good thing about Twitter is, you can pick and choose who is following you (although if you have an open account, and with all the fake and multiple IDs, you can't really). It's different with a blog. It's open to "the four winds". Sorry - five. North, south, east, west, and "self-generated".
There are also a lot of hits on things that pop up in general internet searches, such as Les Dawson quotes. So, I've deleted the posts about Les Dawson to minimise that traffic. I suppose I should be encouraging it but I'm not really interested.
If you start a blog featuring loads of well-known TV programmes, comedians, books - anything well-known, really, you are guaranteed to get tons and tons of hits. You could build on that with advertising on your site and so forth. Yawn. Now there's an idea for someone. More yawning. Maybe I'll think about it. Yawn. At the moment, I can't be bothered.
I lurch between thinking, oh it's quite good fun getting a lot of hits, and, I'm a bit scared, because I don't know who, or why. Gulp.

Today's #McPhail - Wee Ecky Salmond

2012-01-26T11:50:00.001Z

I can't even be bothered with this so-called consultation on the referendum, except that it worries me. I have no interest in Nationalism. I do not want the UK to split up. I do not want Scotland to have further tax raising powers. Petty divisions are dangerous. This is a negative, potentially very destructive thing and I think that Alex Salmond is a self-serving, aggressive, arrogant fool of a man, who is creating trouble where there does not need to be any. You only have to look at Northern Ireland. The history there is different, granted, but it does not take much for human beings, anywhere, to tip over into factionalism.
I will definitely be voting NO and NO in any referendum.
Where is the Labour Party in all this? they are USELESS. How dare they let their supporters down like this!
A parcel of rogues right enough - the whole lot of 'em.