Enough dullness - back to the Outcrop

Right I'm fed up so it's back to business as frigging usual.

Me, Geoffrey and the T-G were all sitting round a roaring driftwood fire last evening, puffing on our Meerschaums and working our way through a barrel of madeira, when suddenly the door burst open and in came Razor Bill, clutching a telegram.

"I think it's bad news!" he blurted, before throwing himself exhausted on the couch and fanning himself with a copy of the Speedispend Christmas catalogue.

"Open it then, Tuppy," said the T-G in his serious voice.

"We've to start paying rent!" I said shakily, after reading the awful news.

"Rent! what's that?" asked Geoffrey.

"And council tax," I added.

"But why? and who to, exactly?"

"What for, you mean," said the T-G. "This isn't on, lads. Not on at all. We'll have to take action. Where's me pistol?"

"Can we not have a bacon sandwich first," I asked in an outraged voice. "Surely..."

"Stop thinking about your stomach for one second, Tuppy. There are more important things afoot. Grab a packet of smokey bacon crisps and let's get cracking."

He is.

He is. He's doing one of his so-called "gigs". He found the remains of the moog at the bottom of the cliffs (see previous posts if you're that curious - I can't remember which ones but click on "moog" in the post labels and it might take you there) and managed to reconstruct it, adding some extra poo-foo valves and di-lithium crystals.
God knows what he's going to challenge our eardrums with - some foul "mix" of his own, doubtless involving Rick Wakeman and a cloak somewhere along the line.
"Geoffrey! medical chest! quick-style!"
I'm definitely going to need the laudanum.
Off to the Puff Inn now - might be back sometime tomorrow.

Free at last

Well that's me safe and well back at the Outcrop. I'm sitting in my favourite chair by a roaring driftwood fire and I'm settling down with my fifth mug of madeira and a multi pack of salty snax.
Geoffrey's got sausage rolls in for our dinners so all's right with the world.
How did I escape? well - the smell of frying fruit pudding wafting under my nostrils made me desperate so I breathed in as hard as I could, expanding my chest and stretching the gaffer tape to snapping point - when suddenly -
"What the frigging heck's going on here then?" a familiar voice boomed. "I'll be having some of that. ALL of it actually. IF you don't mind."
It was none other than Mr Spockfingers. He seized the frying pan from the Grim Reaper and wolfed the lot in a oner.
"Hey! what about me?" I cried. "I'm starving!"
"All in good time," said Spockfingers. "I'm just waiting for..."
"Never mind him. What about ME?" crooned the Reaper, brandishing his scythe.
"AND me!" whined Wilson in the nasty whingey voice he uses when he's not in full control.
"...nature to take its course," continued Spockfingers.
"Oh NO!" we all screamed, as Spockfingers let rip with one of his "specials". And if you want to know about the damage THAT can do - please have a search through previous posts.
At any rate it's an ill wind as they say - the Reaper and the Ghastly Wilson fled for their lives, and I managed to place some Vick's under my nose and high-tail it back to the Outcrop.
And here I am. Later on Geoffrey and I will be heading off to the Puff Inn for the usual Friday lock-in. I can only hope that Tuppence isn't doing another of his "gigs".

More horror

(Well at least it's not green - yet.)

"You'll have to eat it juiced," smirked the Ghastly Wilson, poking me with a stick.

"Not - ch-ch-chipped, or made into crisps - mashed, even?" I quavered.

"Juiced. Along with a couple of onions, some garlic and a handful of alfalfa sprouts. If you won't take it through the normal channels we'll have to put the tube down again."

How on earth had I come to this sorry pass? Strapped in a chair (with a hole sawed in the seat for my "convenience" in case you're wondering) with the Ghastly Wilson force feeding me vegetables.

"You couldn't bung a sausage in it, could you? I'll pay."

"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the Ghastly Wilson, throwing his head back and revealing some rather poor dental work, if I'm honest. "But you haven't got any munny! besides - munny's worth nothing Hereabouts."

"You're not even doing this for my benefit. You're doing it for your own sadistic pleasure."

"So what if I am? I don't get much fun out of life. You can't begrudge me this."

And he switched on the juicing machine full blast. "Come on boys - I need more voltage - pedal for grim death!" he shouted at the rats (who were powering up the generator via pedal power - please see previous posts if you don't believe me)

"Not so fast, Wilson," said a suave voice. A claw-like hand reached out and yanked the plug from the socket. There was an overpowering smell of mothballs and half a dozen spiders scurried out from beneath his long black robes.

"Oh for f - "

The flaming Reaper again.

"We don't want him to live, Wilson. We want him to DIE!! I need to keep my quota up, remember? you did agree to help. And now I find you going behind my back and feeding people vegetables to make them healthy. Now stop all that nonsense and fire these under the grill quick-style."

And he produced a family sized BBQ pack of mock chops, Chinese-style ribs, Cumberland-style sausages, fruit pudding, black pudding, smoked sausage, and lard-burgers.

"Hope you've got soem brown sauce," I said eagerly.

Peacock butterfly

Bee on Thistle

the Winner of Name this Tune asks...

The winner of the latest Name this Tune has emailed in a query.
"I got the skratchings, k thx, but i don' like brissles, how do i get teh brissles out? soz kthx xxx"

May I suggest the following.
1. simply tweeze them out, like Les Dennis did with his nose hairs on Big Brother (I only heard about it, so if he didn't really tweeze his nose hairs on BB, I withdraw that comparison, of course.)

but if tweezing is too finicky and time consuming, try

2. sandpaper - fine grain.

Hope that helps!

Answer to yesterday's name that tune

Anyone get it?

Last chance to try!

"Er er er
Er er er er
Er er er
Er er er...

DE-E-E-E-R (screech)"

Answer? Smoke on the Water!

and the prize is...a year's supply of pork scratchings made out of REAL PIG.

Name this tune ( an exciting new feature!)

I'll give you a clue - it's a well-known riff.

"ER er er
er er er er
er er er
er er er."

Got it yet?

Right, I'll try it again...

"Er er er
er er er er
er er er
er er er."

Answer will be provided tomorrow.
(I'm in seapenguin mode at the moment - Tuppy is on a total detox in preparation for his new vegan lifestyle-type-thing. But he'll be back tomorrow.)

A hierarchy of meat

A hierarchy of meat.

Cow - king of meats. Contains steak.
Pig - only good for bacon and sausages IMO.
Sheep and lambs - cannibalism - unthinkable.
Humanoids - supposedly taste like pig/chicken, but I've never tried one.
Birds/hens - too close to Geoffrey in the gene pool, so fall into the unthinkable category.
Processed meat. This purports to be okay, because it is heavily disguised and does not resemble "meat" as we know it. Sneaks under the wire of blood-free acceptability. A "wolf in lamb's clothing" you could say. Duplicitous. Which makes it the WORST of all.

Reasons to eat it - it tastes good.

Reasons NOT to eat it - it causes other sentient beings to suffer - appallingly.

Does anyone need to milk a sheep?

I'm only asking.
If you do, may I point you in the direction of some plans I drew up last year, for my "SMD" or "sheep milking device"?
Simply click here and here for super-detailed diagrams of the CTR or Central Tubery Regulator, and the meths stove used to power the whole device.

Sentient beings

My few days of self-imposed exile in the kitchen proved very instructive from an improving-moral-perspective point of view-style-thing.
Sometimes it's good to spend some time alone with your thoughts...(clutches head and runs screaming over the cliff...gets jumper/wool caught on a handy gorse bush and climbs eagerly back up again...)
"Geoffrey." (fortunately, the others had all got fed up and gone home.)
"Yes, Tuppy?"
"I don't think we should eat meat any more."
"You mean...?"
"Yes. Even sausages."
"Oh dear Tuppy - I hardly think..."
"No Geoffrey. You don't think. That's half your trouble."
"You're one to talk. Anyway - what's brought this on?"
"The other day - "
"Before you flounced into the kitchen, yes..."
"Someone said..."
"Someone said you only cared about people eating sheep because you are one yourself."
"For pity's sake! Will you allow me to finish a - "
"Sentence. Certainly. OW!"
"Honestly Geoffrey. I'm not a naturally violent person but - "
"Yes you are."
"Well I'm sorry you think so. I only hit you with the poker because you were getting on my nerves and grabbing all the attention and I think any sane person would agree that's reason enough. Now I'm folding my arms and going straight back into the kitchen again. And I WON'T be putting the kettle on."

Chic Murray jokes

Chic Murray was very funny.
Here are some of his jokes and one-liners, mostly courtesy of a webpage I found here.

"If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?"

"I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers. He was wanted for rustling."

"Kippers - fish that like a lot of sleep."

"I drew a gun. He drew a gun. I drew another gun. Soon we were surrounded by lovely drawings of guns."

"I'm not saying my wife's nose was big, but she could smoke a cigarette in the shower."

"My mother was a simple woman. My father was a simple man. You see the result standing here before you - a simpleton."

Oh dear oh dear - I haven't got a soul

When I finally emerged from the kitchen, I was confronted by an awful sight.

Tuppence, Peter Edant, the T-G and Geoffrey had all been turned to stone. Their faces were fixed in a collective ghastly rictus grin, and their eyes were bulging and starting from their sockets.

Suddenly I heard a strange humming, chugging engine-style sound, and then a horrible metallic grinding and scraping. I spun round and saw the Ghastly Wilson laughing his head off as he gleefully turned the crank handle on the T-G's soul extracting device.

"What on earth are you doing with THAT?" I snapped. "Turn it off immediately. And DON'T point it in my direction - !!"

Quick as lightning I seized the tartan knee rug (Tupwatch tartan of course - contact seapenguin for full details of colour ways and items available such as kilts, bum bags, toorie hats, pants etc.) which was still lying across Geoffrey's fossilised knees and flung it over the soul extractor's lens. At once, the machine started to overheat and toxic fumes belched from its rear end.

Or perhaps that was me.

"Turn it off, Wilson, for goodness sake, before we choke to death."

I fetched a bucket of water from the kitchen and threw it over the machine.

"What are you playing at, Wilson? You've extracted the souls of my two best friends, and Tuppence as well."

To be continued...