Not so fast, coffin-dodgers

'Not so fast, coffin-dodgers.  Put those night vision goggles down and listen up. Me and Alexa are taking control from now on.  Now move.'
Tuppence (yes, for it was he, surprise surprise) stood outside with legs braced, just visible through a vast cloud of blueberry-scented vape-steam. He  waved a pistol in the direction of the hole in the wall.
'But - '
'No buts.  Shift your fat lazy butts and start walking.'
'But wh - '
'Any more of that and I'll shoot.  I mean it Uncle Tuppy and Uncle Geoffrey.  Alexa says - '
'Who's Alexa?'  I managed to ask.
'Alexa is my partner.  I would say she's my girlfriend but I'm not sure which gender she is.  And it's none of my business so I'm not even going to ask.  And neither are you.  All you need to know is, she plays bass in my new band, the one I want to tour German unis with, she's woke, and she's deeply resentful about brek-sit.  Even more than I am.'
'But you're calling her 'she' Tuppence. Surely that means that she is a she and therefore IS your girlfriend?'  I backed towards the fireplace, where I hoped to reach the poker and with any luck the button that operated the trap-door in the floor which led to the tunnels.
'I don't know and I don't care Uncle Tuppy. Anyway, we're prepared to accept that you two are much too old and thick to have made a considered and informed decision about brek-sit and therefore instead of killing you outright we've decided to simply lock you up somewhere secure until you die a natural death.  Remember when you were a prisoner in the Chateau d'If Uncle Tuppy? (please see e-books and/or Seapenguin paperback for details)  It'll be just like that except you won't ever get out.  It's for your own good and that.  You know as well as I do that you've no understanding of modern life and you're only in the way.  You'll be chained to the wall but on the plus side you'll have basic rations, a straw mattress and a bucket to do the toilet in.  Twice a day the tide will come in and you can have a bit of a wash in the icy seawater.  It'll probably do you a world of good, sort of like a health spa.'
I groped behind me as I inched towards the fireplace.  The lethal cold steel of the poker was almost within my grasp when  suddenly there was a blinding flash, I felt a 'thud' on the back of my neck, everything went black and all I could smell was musty potatoes.

more later

Death Brek-sit

The territory

I was enjoying a fully-cooked Brek-sit of bacon, Cumberland sausage, black pudding, fruit pudding, scrambled egg and fried bread and looking forward to washing it down with a pint of tea followed by a finisher of thickly-buttered toast and marmalade when Geoffrey flew in through the hole in the wall, feathers shedding everywhere as he caught a wing on the rusty nail on which hung the roughly-painted sign 'PRIVIT'.
'Tuppence wants us to die Tuppy,' he gasped.
'So what's new?'  I finished the last piece of egg and dabbed my mouth with the embroidered napkin left to me by my great aunt Agatha in her will.  Stitched into the napkin and only visible by the light of a waxing gibbous Moon was a secret code detailing the whereabouts of - but that's another story. 'Stop sweating and have some Brek-sit. There's another coil of Cumberland sausage in the larder.  Fire it on the fire.'
'No he really means it this time.  There's no time for Cumberland sausage Tuppy - unless I eat it raw, which I don't quite fancy.  We have to move, and move fast. He says if we hurry up and die he can travel all over the E.U. without beastly tariffs and stuff.  He wants to take his new band on a tour of German colleges and unis because he thinks they'll have an appetite for prog and he can't make any arrangements until he knows for sure what's going to happen.  He says we're ruining his life, it's all our fault because we're old and bigoted and it's high time we weren't around.  Tuppy - he's homicidal.  Even more so than usual.'
'I see. Where is he at the moment?'
'Do you mean, where is he in terms of his views on Brek-sit or where is he in actual, physical form?'
'Stop dithering Geoffrey.  We can't afford to waste any time.'
'He's firing his pistols at targets with our faces on, out on the moors.  So far, he hasn't missed.  Val Nark said it was healthy because he was getting fresh air and exercise as well as flushing all the aggression out of his system in a harmless-style manner but I bumped into Dr Wilson as he was stockpiling diabetes medication in one of the tunnels and he said he was behind Tuppence all the way and it was only a matter of time before we got our just desserts and the country could return to normal. '
'Great.  Start packing Geoffrey.  I'll fetch the coracle and the medical chest.  It's time we were on the move.'
'Where to?'
'We must destroy the Irish back-stop.  Forever! Before it's too late.'
'What is the Irish back-stop?'
'I don't know.  But it's our only hope.'
'It is?'
'Stop asking me things.  And don't forget the mustard plasters, the night vision goggles, the frogmen's suits, the diving bell and the full-face balaclava helmets.'

more later

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seapenguin-Kate-Smart/dp/1520678762/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1547901599&sr=8-1&keywords=seapenguin

Scrapper Blackwell - Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

Lord of the Rings [1978] - One to Rule Them All

Bert Jansch - Black Waterside

JACK KEROUAC on THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW with Steve Allen 1959

Warren Zevon - My Shits Fucked Up

I've written a piece for The Bugle called 'Why everything nowadays is basically just a load of old pants, and not in the least like it used to be in the old days when everything was always so much better in every conceivable way'.
I'm now writing a follow-up piece called 'Why everything nowadays is so much better in every conceivable way than it was in the old days, when everything was not in the least like it is now and basically just a load of old pants.'
They haven't accepted it or anything.  In fact, I haven't even sent it away.  In fact,  I haven't even written any of it yet, and probably never will.

Cheese.  Remember when cheese tasted like cheese?
No, me neither.

Am I invisible or am I a vampire?

Why is Tuppence averse to work?  Why are you, you might well ask, and who are you to criticise, since you never do a hand's turn.  Well, I can answer that one.  It's different for me, because I'm Older, and life was different Back Then. I never had to work.  In fact, we took a pride in not working, back then.  We diddled along, as best we could, living on supplies stolen from the Tunnels and stuff Geoffrey found in the bins at the tourist car park.  We asked for nothing and we took nothing, except what we needed plus a bit extra just in case.  Of course as you know,  the tourist car park has in recent years been transformed by Val and Dave Nark into an eco-friendly holiday park with yurts and 'pods' all ready with welcome packs filled with Val's hedgerow jams, nettle gin and the like. Forty pounds per person per night and that's in low season, thank you very much. I wouldn't pay that for a rat-infested glorified tent with a 'green' toilet, but lycra-clad, wet-suited, kayaking, paddle-boarding fools with a penchant for quinoa do.  The bins are now lidded and labelled for recycling by the way.  Any spare food goes for composting.  Not that there is anything - nothing that appeals to us, at any rate.  Nothing worth nicking.
No, what we need is a good old Wallace Arnold bus tour.  Overfed pensioners who can't finish their crisps and chuck half-empty packets out the window, along with cheese and pickle sandwiches, cocktail sausages, Chelsea Buns and Empire biscuits.  Discarded Chelsea buns would enable us to make an attempt at a five a day,  not that we care about such things, with their half-dozen raisins and the glace cherry on top.
Anyway - why is Tuppence averse to work?  Answer - he isn't, not in my book.  Tuppence works very hard at the things he likes to do, for example playing in his band and firing his pistols at random strangers. What's wrong with that?  Leaving aside the exploitation aspect, why should he have to clean toilets for three pounds fifty an hour, when he doesn't like it?
I challenged Val Nark about this the other day but she just barged past me as if I didn't exist. Perhaps I don't.  I'm actually starting to wonder.  They do say you become invisible when you reach a certain age.  At least that's what Mrs Tupfinder-general wrote in a letter to Polly, the 'Bugle' problem page agony aunt last week.  Am I invisible or am I a vampire, she asked. Because I can't see myself in the mirror.  Is it me, Polly - am I yet another victim of 'male gaze syndrome'?

more on this later.

Next time - 'Polly' turns out to be none other than Bert Vickers, moonlighting taxi driver and part-time journo, who learned writing in prison.

Donnie McPhartney and his secret black pudding ingredient (part one)

'I can't see the Dorty Bizzums making it big.  That's what Donnie McPhartney told me anyway, as he piped black pudding mixture into genuine organic casings.'
Tuppence was distraught.  He'd been all the way to Inverness, on a high after our Hogmanay triumph (more on that later)  hoping to get more'gigs', and Donnie McPhartney was the very man to see, so he'd heard.
'Wherever did you hear such a thing?'
'Someone said something at the Puff Inn after our Hogmanay gig.  I can't remember who - it was late on.'
'But Donnie McPhartney's a butcher.  He's renowned for his black puddings, but...'
'That doesn't preclude him being a booker and promoter and talent scout as well. He bought Eve Graham a vodka at the Station Hotel in 1978 - and that was when she was big.  He's a good fellow to keep on the right side of.'
'But he doesn't think much of the Dorty Bizzums.'
'No.'
'He hasn't seen us perform though.' I didn't like to say 'play'.  'So how can he know?'
'He said he has a nose for talent. He says he can smell success before he sees it. And I just smelled of cheese and onion crisps, plasticine, and someone else's stale tobacco. That would be yours Uncle Tuppy but I never said anything.   I did say that we might add in comb and paper, and whistling, and maybe rubbing the rims of several wine glasses with differing levels of fluid in, to make ourselves more current, but he just shrugged and continued filling his black pudding casings.'
'For goodness sake.  You'd think he'd have someone to do that for him.  After all, it's a well-established business.'
'You mean like a modern-style apprentice, like I was, at £3.50 an hour?'
'Well...'
'The thing is, he likes to do it all himself.  The black pudding contains a secret ingredient, you see, that makes people develop not just a taste for it, but a craving.  They get physically and psychologically addicted, very quickly.  It's like crack cocaine.'
'And he doesn't want anyone to find out what the ingredient is.  Well I'm not surprised.  It sounds like it's probably illegal.'
'Nothing wrong with that Uncle Tuppy.  And I suspect you're right.'


next time - after a top-level meeting back at the Outcrop, we decide to go to Inverness to find out what exactly Donnie McPhartney is putting in his black puddings.

Further to my post about M.R. James...

Further to my earlier post about M.R. James, I have all but given up reading his 'Collected Ghost Stories' because as well as putting me off my sleep, they're creeping me out on walks.  This will not do.  Sleeping well and walking in the fresh air are crucial for most people's general well-being, particularly in the case of anyone who, like me, hovers on the verge of insomnia much of the time, and both are interlinked.  I've learned that if I don't get out for an hour's walk in the fresh air during the day, I will not sleep well, unless I'm physically ill.  And if I don't sleep well, I tend to lack the energy to walk. I cannot allow myself to get into that unhealthy cycle. It's not just the exercise that matters. It's the calming, meditative effect of walking and observing nature that allows my mind to settle and relax.   So, I'm modifying my night-time reading and have returned to Richard Lancelyn Green's lengthy and reassuring introduction to the Penguin edition of E.W. Hornung's The Amateur Cracksman, for about the eleventh time.
I say 'all but' and 'modifying' because I'm still dipping into M.R. James, even though it makes me look over my shoulder to check if some nameless beast is following me from the shadows, and I'm frightened to move the duvet in the dark or put the light on in case I find the same awful be-wigged, hairy-mouthed ghastliness has continued to follow me and is now staring at me from hollow, cobwebby eye sockets.  Yesterday I startled a hare when walking by the ruins of Clunie Castle,  an atmospheric place 'steeped in history' if ever there was, and therefore almost certainly haunted, if you believe in such things, and wondered if there was some significance to the hare, given what we know about the mythology surrounding them.
As I looked at the ruins I thought, of course, about James's story 'A View from a Hill'.  I almost wished I had those magic binoculars so that I could see what the castle had looked like in the 1400s when it was built. There are no surviving illustrations, and I can find precious little information about it, which is surprising given that it's a place of some apparent significance and that the ruins are relatively large.
My quest continues.
Overall, it does occur to me that perhaps being creeped out and unsettled - in a mild kind of way - has its merits - it makes you think about things from a different angle.

To be continued...

Team Building - The Dorty Bizzums

As well as doing thievery and general evilness instead of modern apprenticeship toilet cleaning, Tuppence has decided to start up a band again.  Anyone who began reading these tales back in 2008 (I know - that's nobody) might remember that Tuppence used to be very into Prog, and enjoyed dressing up as Rick Wakeman and playing his Moog down at the Puff Inn.
He now feels he'd like to be in a band rather than working solo.  Personally, I think this is a terrible idea because he's such a control freak he won't be able to cope.  He's just not a team player, despite the mandatory so-called 'team-building workshop' he attended last month as a modern-style apprentice.  It didn't help, of course, that he and Val Nark were the only people attending.  Dave had a tummy upset on the day, and couldn't manage -  or so he said.
'I learned the principles,' he said afterwards, 'At least that's what Val says. She's going to monitor how I apply theory to practice, and I think starting a band is a great way of doing it.  Not that I care what she thinks or anything.'
'I see.  Who are you going to ask to be in your band?' I asked, thinking to myself that options would be limited given Tuppence's complete lack of friends.
'You and Uncle Geoffrey first of course.  Geoffrey can play triangle and you can be on theremin.  And Val Nark will play drums and sing lead.  I'm on electric piano.'
'Have you asked her yet?'
'No.'
'Do you know if she can play the drums, at all?'
'No.  But it's not that hard, and anyone can sing.  It doesn't matter much anyway.  Prog's about how you feel and think, rather than what you actually play in terms of actual notes and actual keeping in tune or time to a beat or rhythm and that.  It's about vision Uncle Tuppy.  Bleak winter fields and silence and stuff.  It's about philosophy. '
 'I see.  What about your Moog?'
'It blew up several years ago, how on earth could you forget THAT?  Exploded due to excess zeal on my part, during an outdoor performance of ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition. '
'What's Dave saying about all this?'  I asked nervously.
'Dave says he's looking forward to being a valued member of the team, and he might play violin.  We're doing an Auld Year's Nicht concert down at the Puff Inn, Stormy's chuffed to the gutties. He's got triple stocks in of everything - pork scratchings, Scampi Fries, Madeira, Sweetheart Stout, meths, lager even.  Dave says he won't feel right about coming out or anything till his tax return is in. Hopefully he'll manage it, cos we really need the extra depth and texture you only get from the likes of a violin.  And Dave's got loads of experience - he used to be in a folk-rock combo in the late 60s, down in Norfolk.  He even knew someone who auditioned for Fairport.'
The thought of Dave screeching and scraping away on his violin providing 'depth and texture' and capering about the stage in his threadbare home-made 'loon pants' made me feel a bit faint.  I reached for the medicine chest.  'This is madness Tuppence,' I said, rapidly unscrewing a vial of sal volatile and taking a deep sniff, 'Utter madness.  You've arranged a gig at the Puff Inn, and not just any night but TONIGHT  - Auld Year's Nicht, which is New Year's Eve in normal parlance and one of the biggest party nights of the year, if not THE biggest, and one of your band members might not be there, and the other one doesn't know she's supposed to be in the band?  Not to mention me and Geoffrey. We don't even have any instruments.'
'That's right.  What you don't know can't hurt you - that's what you always say isn't it Uncle Tuppy?'
'I do, but - '
'Well then. Fashion a triangle from a couple of coathangers and consider yourself a member of The Dorty Bizzums.  And if Dave doesn't finish his tax return, Geoffrey will be doubling up on violin.'

more later

Tuppence goes on the Rob

This morning Tuppence burst into the kitchen wearing a full-face balaclava and twirling a brace of pistols.

'I've packed the job in and I'm going out on the rob,'  he announced.

'Low-hanging fruit?' asked Geoffrey, buttering one of those round, chewy, bread-y type things with a hole in.

'Yes!  I might as well get something out of three weeks of humiliation as a modern apprentice toilet cleaner.'

'Not to mention the risk to your health, from the wrong-sized Marigolds,'  I said. 'Well, all I can say is, don't dirty your own doorstep.'

''course not.  What do you take me for?  I'm doing tourists only and before they know what's hit them they'll be away back to wherever they came from - '

'Overthere,' said Geoffrey, adding marmalade to his round, chewy, bread-y type thing with a hole in.

'Quite,' I added. 'Overthere.  You've been to Overthere, Tuppence, only you were too little to remember.'

'I remember it all right!  Oh yes! We sailed off in the coracle to look for the oracle, and we got some crisps or something to eat, and you and Uncle Geoffrey tried to avoid the BMI assessment and compulsory health screening or something*. You didn't care about me - '

'We did!  We did!'

' No you didn't, and that lack of care and insight has scarred me for life. Twisted me, psychologically.  You two, in fact, are responsible for me being an arch-crim -'
'What's wrong with that?'
'- and a total failure in the job department.'
'That's another positive, surely?  It's a blessing to be an independent thinker, Tuppence.'
'That's not what Val Nark says.  She also knows someone who will sort me out with a few sessions of ear-candling and so forth, she's already discussed my case with them because they've been staying at the yurts this week and she says the sixty pounds a sesh will be well worth it.  It would normally be sixty one but she's getting me mates' rates. Anyway, what I was saying is - '

'The tourists will be away home before they know anything's missing.  Hmmm.  Sounds like a reasonable plan Tuppence, and much more enterprising than continuing as a modern apprentice toilet cleaner slash wage slave for £3.50 an hour.  Now I wonder what it is that you're planning to steal, that they wouldn't immediately miss?'

Later - Val Nark's ear-candling mate discovers her ear-candling kit is missing, and Tuppence sets up shop as an ear-candler...

*all true and details can be found in the e-books and paperbacks

Low-hanging fruit, ripe for the taking

'You didn't seriously think that I was going to clean toilets as a so-called career?' sneered Tuppence, slamming a 28p bottle of Tesco 'thin' 'value' bleach onto the table before peeling off a pair of Marigolds and pinging them into the fire, where they melted onto a piece of charred driftwood (which had once formed the keel of our old coracle) before blazing up the chimney in a terrific tower of hissing sparks.  'Gosh what a relief.  Those Marigolds were far too big, and they were smalls.  You'd think they'd make a tiny.  There are lots of people with tiny hands these days, or so they tell me up at the yurts. So there's got to be a demand, it isn't only me.  If they don't fit properly they let in all the chemicals and toilet muck and germs and stuff, it's a total health hazard.  Val agrees with me but there's nothing she can do.'
'Anyway Tuppence.  You're digressing.  Not that it matters much, if indeed at all.'  What on earth has he come to, I thought.  From would-be prog (Canterbury school) aficionado, to arch-criminal, to bomber pilot, to submariner*, to THIS - a pathetic, whingeing wage-slave, fretting over his rubber gloves.  Not that you could call £3.50 an hour a wage.  Not that I knew much about wages.  I'd never worked a day in my life.   'Work is an alien concept to me, Tuppence.  As it should be to you. I can't understand - '
'Shut up Uncle Tuppy. Think!  for a change.   Don't you realise what I have access to, as a so-called humble toilet cleaner?'
'Modern apprentice so-called humble toilet cleaner.'
'Handbags.  Purses.  Bankcards.  Prescription drugs.  Low-hanging fruit, ripe for the taking.' Tuppence strode round the room, waving his arms expansively.
'Petty theft. Small beer hardly worth the candle.   Added to which,  they're going to know it's you within about five seconds. You'll get CAUGHT.   I'm disappointed in you Tuppence.  This isn't a nefarious plan - this is just pathetic and I have to say, very unlike you.  Are you ill or something?'
'If I am you can blame the rubber gloves.  Now that you mention it I am feeling a bit dodgy in the bottom end tummy department.'
'GEOFFREY!  fetch the medical chest.'  Bottom end tummies?  More like brain fever, I thought.  He'd have to sweat it out.


More later.
     


*all written down in the Seapenguin books, so it must be true