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Luffbucket
"In Luff We Trust"
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Livejournal Hijack
I’m on the verge, man. I am almost on the verge...

You know a while back, when I posted about all those good things I got lined up to entertain you all, about my family and history and celebrity stalking and how they all intertwine in an interconnecting series of cross-referencing posts, even though I vowed never to post anything interconnecting or cross-referencing ever again? You remember that, right? No?

I see that my version of "a while back" is like a few days inside my brain, a week tops, but in reality it’s been several months or something. Well there you go, you see now why I continue to be absent from this place while still being theoretically here. Because I am here, it’s just that you can’t see me. I am like hovering or lurking or doing something else, but I am online, I can see you, but not necessarily enough to be able to read you, ho-ho! All right, I’ll do some comments.

I don’t know why I’m punishing myself about this, really, because I have partly kept to my side of the bargain by continuing to publish my old stories in [info]wild_kingdom, and I do write something of substance ever so often, it’s just not as often as I would like, and what does creep out often seems to involve America in some way.

Anyway, the interconnecting series of posts is almost ready. Well, almost. A handful has become a fistful, which has expanded to become a rather proud bushel, but they are on their way, I assure you, a whole dozen of them, and each one a beauty.

And in the meantime, along with this post to read, I have a proposition for you all: Following on from the successful series of guest posts in [info]daruba’s journal about the rights and wrongs of porn (sorry, pr0n), I would like to fill the void of my absence by you writing my posts for me. Now doesn’t that sound good?

Just imagine it, being complicit to a virtual kidnap sanctioned by the kidnapper himself. That will be something to tell the grandchildren when you all hit 30 a few years from now, along with your gender-reassignment surgery.

So send your post to me, here at Luffbucket@aol.com, and the best will be passed off as my own. Okay, okay, the best will be showered with urine gifts and I will lavish spunky love upon them. But remember, it has to be a post that you’ll be proud of, even if you want it done anonymously, something that is uncensored and true to yourself, the length really doesn’t matter, neither does the subject matter.

All contributions will be posted, and the best three will win a DVD from a selected list of cast-offs that I have in my collection, or a specially made "Ivor Cutler’s Musical Companion" compilation CD of my own creation.

It’s over to you now, folks.

Current Mood: in for a real kicking

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War of Lies
It’s a horrible thing to be lied to. I don’t know about you, but lying for me is one of the greatest sins. It’s right up there with racial, religious and sexual intolerance, and the callus taking of an innocent life. It’s a big thing for me, like a line I will not cross under any circumstances. I don’t like lying and I don’t like being lied too.

And that was the impression I was left with when exiting the cinema after watching "Fahrenheit 9/11." Yeah, I know you’re thinking that this is a pretty predictable equation for me to make: that my reactions plus that film multiplied by my political views would equal no big surprise at all. Your surprise would have been if I didn’t like the film, and that’s a fair point. It would be extremely difficult for a liberal or democrat to come out thinking anything else.

And with that point of view in mind, I can understand why republicans are generally staying away from the film. If I was them I suppose I would too. It would be like for me, and my left-wing sensibilities, sitting down in a fascist alternative world to watch a film about Adolf Hitler and how he was justified in his genocide of Jews and Gypsies and Slavs. It pulls against everything you believe to be true. They are wrong, you are right - but the film says different.

But sometimes you have let go of your political elegances and have the courage to open your mind to an alternative way of thinking. You have to have courage to admit that, despite your fervent views, your views could actually be wrong. And it’s a hard thing to do, very hard. Anyone who is a republican and saw that film just to hear the other side’s point of view deserves a big pat on the back. I’ll happily take off my imaginary hat to you in deference to your inquisitive mind and plucky courage.

It was easier for me to sit through the film because Michael Moore and my good self are singing from the same hymn sheet. What he was saying was echoing what I’ve been saying on here on a number of occasions, over a number of years, but he did it in a way that brilliantly combined the deceit that I’ve been witnessing only in small-unrelated segments. I had the pieces of the puzzle, he had the complete picture, or as complete a picture as any private citizen could have on the machinations of a corrupt government. It was a brilliant but in no way perfect film. Moore depicted Iraq post-invasion as a peace-loving happy place, which blatantly ignored the imposing threat of Saddam Hussein that must have cast a shadow over everyone, but paradoxically it can be argued that for the average Iraqi life can only be worse now, now they have “liberation” from their tyrant in their bombed-out, insurgent-infested streets. And the way Moore depicted the Coalition was also marred by his own personal views. The Coalition was laughable, consisting of small Caribbean Islands and poverty-stricken east-European states like Poland and Bulgaria who through the use of their landing strips were given massive multi-dollar kickbacks. But to leave out Great Britain’s misguided inclusion in this great Coalition of Freedom was a bad decision. He didn’t have to jimmy the figures to make the motley crew of nations that sided with America a running joke, because they already were. But these are minor criticisms in what was a magnificent effort of peeling back the official truth to reveal the lies.

So at last I come to the question that I have been dying to ask from the beginning, the question I have asked before in other posts without any real resolution: What was the War in Iraq all about? What was it for? It wasn’t about the threat of chemical attack, because that was a lie, and it wasn’t about weapons of mass destruction, because that was a lie as well. And it wasn’t about the attack on September 11th, because that had nothing to do with Iraq, and it wasn’t because Saddam was an infamous dictator and sadist that Iraq was invade, because America has in the past and continues to have close relations with fascist regimes that serve their purpose in world politics.

So if Iraq wasn’t a credible threat to America and Great Britain or even to it’s close neighbours, and if there was no connection to that infamous day in September, and if it has nothing to do with deposing one of a number of monsters in high positions that used to be America’s friend, then what the fuck was it about?

If any American is reading this you should be ashamed of your government, just as I am ashamed of mine. And I don’t mind admitting it. I voted for Tony Blair in a wave of optimism and euphoria, I helped him into power, and now I am ashamed. The trouble is, the more right-wing you become, the more you refuse to acknowledge your mistakes, because at the end of the day it’s about accountability, it’s about taking stock and saying "we were wrong". And no one wants to be proved wrong; no one wants to admit they were deceived into believing something that has cost so many lives

And it’s not your fault you believed in the Bush administration, just like it wasn’t mine in believing in Blair’s. We want to have faith in our governments, we don’t want to believe that the vote we cast was a wasted one, and that because of this, because of our mistake in trusting our elders and betters who should have the moral judgement to know better, countless thousands of people were killed: Iraqi people, American people, British people. And they all died for nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Current Mood: a plucky little fucker

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Neighbour Most Foul
I was just saying goodbye to my eldest sister and seeing her out the front door (a high-light of the evening) when we spotted Ben sitting on top of the side gate that separates us at No.4 from them at No.2. Ben is not the neighbourhood brat in search of nighttime fun but the neighbourhood cat in search of free food, which I inevitably give him.

Ben the Cat is also from No.4. Not our No.4, you understand, but the No.4 across the road. There are two No.4’s down our road. Actually there are three, and I am continually worried that they receive my continental porn and I receive their free sample sachets of Shake N’ Vac.

Anyway, as I was saying goodbye to dear sister and saying hello to dear old Ben, I noticed a pair of feet poking out from the open gateway of No.6, our neighbour to the right. Not to the right of late-lamented ex-president Reagan, you understand (whose death I still rejoice) but to the right demographically. No.2 is the home of two scientologist women of no relation but plenty of hot lesbian lovin’ and No.6 is the home of Mr & Mrs Chiccetto, once of Naples or Roma or somewhere else of suitable Italian flavour.

Mr Chiccetto was hiding. Before our arrival, he had been standing there in his front garden, up to god-knows-what, and then having heard No.4’s door open and my sisters conversation about Ben the Cat as we walked down the garden path, Mr Chiccetto had stopped, fearing that he had been caught in the act. And unable to move back and forth behind the hedge in case he was noticed, Mr Chiccetto had opted instead to stand still, playing statues in the dark.

I saw Mr Chiccetto’s feet. My departing sister saw Mr Chicetto’s feet. Ben the Cat had seen Mr Chiccetto’s feet. And finally, Mr Chiccetto himself had seen his protruding feet and realised they were exposed to the now silent occupiers of No.4’s front garden. The game was up. Mr Chiccetto jumped forward as if he were playing a gladiatorial game of hide-and-seek, giggled, walked past us, cheerfully and innocently said "hello" and jogged off into the night.

He jogging down and away from the Chiccetto homestead, passed the Luffs at No.4, passed the silently praying scientologists at No.2, passed dog-shit-alley that leads to the council estate, passed the vandalised phone box, and then onwards. He just kept on jogging, looking over his shoulder at us and across the empty road to other darkened homes.

Two important things to take note of here: 1, Mr Chiccetto never says "hello" to the Luffs. He will say hello to the postman, the milkman, the dustman, the man from Prudential Insurance, and the woman who collects for SCOPE the spastic society, but he will not say hello to us, not even to acknowledge our existence with a smile or a nod of his head. 2, Mr Chiccetto never jogs. He doesn’t sprint, he doesn’t run, he doesn’t jog, and he doesn’t even walk quickly. Indeed, if given the choice, he would prefer not to walk at all if he can help it. One thing I will say for him, though; when Mr Chiccetto does decide to jog, as he did on this occasion, he does it with the same determination and skill as when he drives his poor battered car - off and on the pavement, wildly, without the use of a breaking mechanism and with total disregard for the rest of the population.

My sister looked at me, Ben the Cat looked at me, and I looked at them. Sadly I could not offer them a suitable explanation for his odd behaviour, and neither can I offer one to you. Some things are simply beyond clarification and rational thought.

Some things simply are.

Current Mood: mmm...marmite

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D-Day
It’s the D-Day celebrations over this weekend, a time when we commemorate the huge sacrifice the Allies made to end Hitler’s occupation of Europe. And yes, you heard me right; I said the Allies. Children today could be forgiven if they thought that the only ones on those beaches that day were the Americans, so saturated is our media of their achievements, so warped are our perceptions of who did what and when. But it was an Allied victory that day: the British, the Americans, the Canadians and a contingent of the Free French. We fought and died together by the thousand.

And I say this because we seem to be trapped in a revisionist culture where America’s role in the second world war is heightened and our roles are reduced to a mere walk-on part in history. Not the Americans publics fault, but the politicians they vote for and the culture of invincibility they endorse. And as 9/11 showed you, to believe that you are untouchable and invincible can only make you weaker in the long run.

Films like "Saving Private Ryan" and the series "Band of Brothers", though technically brilliant, have the stain of revisionism on them. They talk about Montgomery in disgust and Eisenhower with awe. British soldiers are seen manning sandbag checkpoints and happily making tea while the American soldiers move up to the front, as if we were simply there to support their troops rather than fight along side them. They belittle this countries effort, their commitment, and their bravery. They forget that this country stood alone against the Nazis when America wanted no part in the war, until Pearl Harbour made them reconsidered their view that it was none of their business. They forget that we were fighting the war on multiple fronts against multiple foes: in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia and at home, and all the sea between. And they forget about the food shortages we had to endure and the Blitz where our cities were reduced to rubble, and how despite it all that our resolve grew stronger and we fought stubbornly on.

"We saved your ass in World War Two, buddy" is the common moronic phrase we hear over here. The truth is that none of us could have won the war alone. Not the United States, not the British Empire and not the Soviet Union. It was a joint effort that made us prevail, a combination of economic superpowers that finally overwhelmed an enemy that were superior to us in training, in equipment and the will to win. Forget films like "Escape To Victory" where German soldiers are categorized as dumb comical figures. The Germans were unequalled in history in their efficiency and technical ability. If Hitler hadn’t decided to make the fatal error of invading Russia then our world will be a very different place today.

If any of you want a truer account of what happened on D-Day, then I suggest you watch the film "The Longest Day" because it gave a farer assessment, it stuck to the facts, not fairytales aimed at easing fears and massaging egos. It showed the Allied together, fighting together, as friends and brothers in arms, and free from the egotism and the telling of tall tales that would blight history in the years to come.

Remember and celebrate the truth.
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The Bracklesham Triangle
So I have this day when I am standing at the train station, and I am there not to get on a train but to get in a car, and the car is aubergine black and pulls up and pulls off and then turns to the right in a market town on the south coast, and after it turns right it turns left and then eases to a stop in an almost empty car park.

And then the occupants ([info]luffbucket and [info]ella) get out and walk the short distance to the bowling alley where two games are played (84-72, 80-60) and then diet cokes are bought (with ice) and partially drunk, but not wholly drunk because there is a moment of weakness on my part where a £20 note is spotted on the floor and the member of staff cleaning the floor spots it as well and asks if it is mine, and without hesitation I say that it is and she hands it to me.

And then I notice that two other members of staff are pacing the floor, up and down, around and around, and they are looking for something and I realise that it will only be a matter of time before the one washing the floor will interact with the two pacing it, so I whisper to Ella that we leave our cokes to fend for themselves and get the hell out.

We hide in the nearby foyer of the cinema until we think the coast is clear then we sneak back to the car and speed off, and I look back and notice that the two who were pacing the floor are outside the bowling alley on a cigarette break and that the one washing the floor had come out to talk to them and thus my deceit is revealed.

I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to tell Ella to turn back, and not guilty enough to stop myself from ordering us food at a converted church that is now a bar which was once called the Slurping Toad but is now called something else, and not guilty enough to stop myself from ordering two more diet cokes (with ice and a slice of lemon) and we laughed at our good fortune and not thinking about whether the previous owner of the £20 note is cursing my name and hoping I die a terrible death.

During the meal I talk of occupations and training centres and college courses I have known, and Ella speaks of occupations and employees and complete dipsticks she has known, and the conversation naturally moves to [info]wock and his penchant for pointless procrastination and the delight he has given us over the past few days, and our meals consisted of her sandwich of dead animals and my chips and onions rings which hopefully did not.

The car park ticket was overdue by twenty minutes but Ella was not punished and to celebrate my deceit (and now her deceit) we went to the beach, not West Wittering beach because that is private, thanks to Margaret Thatcher, and not East Wittering beach because we couldn’t find it, thanks to Tony Blair, but to Bracklesham Bay, filled with pebbles and concrete and salty waves, and it was here that we discussed Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and "Reservoir Dogs", well probably, and the loaning of my DVD to her, which is definitely.

And on the beach with the tide coming in and the sun sometimes peeking behind the clouds, we investigated the possibility of life on other planet, or on the container ship that we could see lurking off the coast through a telescope, and Ella said that the line of floating Bertie Bassets going out to sea light-up at night to become a glowing runway for the inevitable invasion, because everyone expects an interplanetary invasion to come from the skies, not the sea, no one is watching the beaches, especially Bracklesham Bay, and maybe that's why the West Wittering beach is private because the aliens landed there already.

There’s also the speculation that radio masts are aliens in disguise (Ella’s theory) that there exists between these pebbled beaches a triangle of strange goings-on, unexplainable and deadly (my theory) that Ghandi himself rode down the Chichester canal on a barge (my theory again) and that most celebrities deserve to be stalked (general opinion) but soon the speculation had to end as time was drawing near, and we got back in the aubergine coloured car and drove away, away from the coast and the sea-salt sea and inland to the homely delights of TV dinners and cosy nights in front of the internet.

Another [info]luffbucket and [info]ella adventure is over. Until next time.

Current Mood: Bonnie & Clyde

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The Ostrich Club
Here’s a quick ditty about America and the torture, abuse and murder of Iraqi prisoners. Everyone has had their say on the matter, I’m sure, and I feel it’s time I left fuming silence behind and vent my spleen. Well, not venting as such, because I am feeling very calm and peaceable of late, what with one thing and another, but still: "let right be done" as a fictional lawyer once said in the closing scenes of The Winslow Boy.

So here goes...

When I first heard the reports that American personnel had brutalized inmates at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, I was not shocked by it. I was shocked that someone was brave enough to go public about what was going on there, but I was not shocked that such things were being carried out. I knew they were. It stands to reason. And the reasons are plain once you strip away the veneer of patriotism to the grubby underbelly of what lies at the heart of the war and those that are driving it back in Washington.

The reason for the war is legion, depending on your political persuasion. Some think that America is fighting for freedom and democracy, is honest and decent in it’s intentions, and is the shining light in a sea of darkness, despite the fact they have put more despotic leaders on the thrones of more countries than anyone else in history, that they have undermined democratic elections in south and central America (if that democratically elected party is undesirable to their interests), that they give arms and aid to those that are the leaders of brutal but compliant satellite states (like, um, Saddam Hussein) or are an enemy of their enemy (like, um, Osama Bin Ladin).

There are those of us on the other hand who think the only reason they went to war in the first place was that there is an itch in the White House that needed to be scratched. There is the theory that it was simply a search for power, a need to flex that considerable military muscle and have a permanent place in the Middle East, just like the old crusaders did. Some say it was done for commercial reasons only, to find and secure a new source of oil to fill those big ol’ petrol tanks back home. Others say it was simply a petty vendetta carried over from the previous gulf conflict, where mass-murderer and one-time-friend Saddam Hussein put a price on the head of George Bush Sr. Personally, I think it’s a combination of all those things, to varying degrees. Whatever your take on the reason for going to war, you can be sure it was nothing to do with the 9/11 smokescreen and it was nothing to do with Weapons of Mass Destruction. I think both those excuses have been well and truly exposed for the bullshit they were.

But this is not about the war; this is about the recent treatment of prisoners by America, though both things are irredeemably connected. To make you understand why this "thing" has come about, I’m going to have to delve into fantasy a bit (some republicans probably think I’ve done that already, but bare with me, it’s nearly over).

In the 1960’s, in Britain (or the UK, if you must) we had a politician called Enoch Powell. He was a conservative minister for health in Edward Heath’s government and was made prominent for two things. The first was to encourage immigrant workers from the Commonwealth to work in the National Health Hospitals, because there was a labour shortage (and a damn fine job they do now, even to this day), and the second was to demand that these immigrants be sent back, in his famous "River of Blood" speech, either because the labour shortage became a labour surplus or because he didn’t like seeing a growing number of black faces walking down the streets of his constituency.

Now, after that speech there was a wave of racial violence in areas where these poor people lived, because the speech gave the green light to all the racists out there, all those with an axe to grind and are searching for a cause in which to wield it, all those that I refer to as Darwin’s Mistakes; the sperm with bent tails that by rights should never have fertilized the egg but somehow did. So what has this to do with the war and how prisoners were treated in those detention camps? Well, quite a lot.

Imagine that Enoch Powell, instead of being derided by the country and sacked from his ministerial job, was in fact applauded and rose in station until he became Prime Minister. Imagine that his hatred grew, that he no longer masked his speeches in classical rhetoric and instead became blatant, became a figure of channelled hate to the level that, say, John-Marie Le Penn is today in France. What would life be like for those who are different from the norm? How would Britain treat its minority population, its Blacks, its Asians, its Jews? The green light that was shown in that earlier speech would have mutated into an unwritten law, where racism was accepted, expected, even encouraged. This is an alternative history of Britain that thankfully never came to be.

So, there’s the theory, the imaginary possibility. And now here’s the truth.

If you ignore international law, if you treat the United Nations with utter contempt, if you decide to start a war on a smokescreen of lies, and if you disregard the Geneva Convention on Human Rights, the cornerstone of modern civilization and how we treat each other, then yes, you will inevitably get Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. It is obvious. The green light shines from the White House for the entire world to see, from the oval office, from the leather chair in which sits your Commander-in-Chief.

President George Bush Jr and the hawks in his government from the very beginning disregarded how we, the rest of the world, felt. He had a mission, and to that end, he would carry it out, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the cost. And that cost, friends and neighbours, is the breakdown in trust, a tearing away of global prestige, and a growing hatred around the world directed at American soil.

Was it worth it?

And if you think that it was, then my advice is to vote for Bush again in the upcoming elections, because after Iraq there will be another adventure, and another and another…and the only ones punching the air shouting "USA! USA!" will be those with their heads stuffed firmly up their arse. The muffled sounds of the Ostrich Club.

Current Mood: "let right be done"

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Jonah's Journey Through The Belly Of A Whale
So, as predicted on its conception (a biblical spanner in the works if ever I heard one) my little everyday experiment of snog-posting has failed. I have not posted every day. I have not even posted ever other day. I have settled instead into a once-a-week wimp-out clause that gives me scope to think up something interesting but without the usual "artistic" pressures involving deadlines and expectations and other pretentious crap that you’re unlikely to believe. But do I despair at this further evidence of failure? Do I clench my buttocks and hold my breath in protest that my brain refuses to work how I want it to? Well no, as it happens, I don’t, because though the dilemma of everyday posting remains, though I still have stuff to say that demands more than a once-a-week outing from my muddled subconscious, there may very well be a solution.

And it is to this end I have created another journal called [info]midnight_muse who might have scared you in the last few days by appearing on your various friends’ lists without invitation. Fear not, he is not a celebrity stalker but yet another poisoned offshoot of yours truly, though I cannot vouch for his character yet as Young Ivor has so far failed to put pen to paper.

Funny that.

And funny also that I mentioned celebrity stalking because there may very well be a series of posts here vaguely related to that subject, not that I'm a professional stalker or anything, but rather more about how these celebrities have accidentally interacted with my life. And it's funny that I've mentioned those because before I can release any of them from captivity, I have another two posts waiting in the wings about world wars and families and how they sometimes converge into a vast conflagration of hair-pulling and ankle-biting. And, funnily, those sharp-toothed posts seem to interlink with those later celebrity posts in some strange way. And stretching the fun even still further until your stomach really hurts, I have to get old goat-boy to write something in that iceberg-white holily-laundered new account of mine, probably about a film I've just seen, a dissertation on the perils of an imaginary world, or of a world that has never been but should have been…or something. And if that's not enough for you to get along with I have also decided to give myself a nice little biography of parallel lives on my info page, all nazi-like and jackboot happy. I'm as productive and well-oiled as a whale's rectum, and no mistake.

So, a nice round-up of things to come, then.

Current Mood: Digestible And Smelling Sweet

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Inflammation Of The Foreskin Reminds Me Of Your Smile
Imagine you said: "I love you" to someone. Imagine you said it without sincerity and that you said it simply for something to say, because you thought this was what they wanted to hear, and you wanted to hear what it sounds like leaving your lips because you’ve never said it before.

And then imagine that the person you said it to first looked shocked, then confused, and then finally they smiled, reaching forward to pat you on the head as if to say "there there..." A pat on the head as a response to I love you.

Imagine also that this person has patted you on the head before, when you were in pain, when you had kicked out and then made the pain worse. Imagine there’s a belief system in place in someone’s head that states if you hurt yourself, cause yourself discomfort elsewhere to bamboozle the messages sent to the brain and thus lessen the impact of the original hurt. And imagine still further that when you tried to cause yourself discomfort elsewhere by kicking the skirting-board you accidentally made it worse by kicking too hard, and then you really were in pain.

And then in walks that other person, in walks the person you said I love you to without sincerity, and in an instant she has worked out what you had done and why you had done it, and then went over to you and patted you on the head.

A pat on the head for I love you. A pat on the head for a stubbed toe.

There there, Mr Luff, there there...

Current Mood: I'm your spirochaetal clown

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Remembrance Of A Dream
In 1999, like a swansong from the damned, I embarked on one final project in my role as failed-writer-in-residence, one last chance of redemption on a road that was long and cold and silent: I set myself the task of writing ten short stories in ten weeks. Here would be my creative salvation; here at last I would make some money from the thousands of unpaid hours I had put in writing unpublished books that no one wanted to read.

Of course the project failed, marking as it did the 11th consecutive year of sweat and tears and the end of any serious ambitions I had of a career in writing. Well, it failed financially anyway, for even as my ambition floundered and breathed its last, I was left with a series of stories that I have read and re-read and have grown to love. The passing of time makes you objective to your errors, you see, and soothes that oh-so critical eye.

Anyway, I plan to publish at last (if that’s the right word) the best of those stories in the [info]wild_kingdom community over the next few weeks. One of them "My Brother, My Brother" is already there, soon to be joined by its brethren ("Great Dreams", "Ancient Lives", "The Hermitage", "An Old Sense of Adventure" and "Golgotha") like a reunion of the weird and wonderful under a twilight zone roof.

I hope you enjoy them.

Current Mood: pre-menopausal

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A Visitation of Lemmings
Strange to think, that our most talked about seaside holiday location "Beachy Head" is also our most popular exit point for those with suicidal tendencies, though it’s not something they put on the glossy brochures, I can assure you. Personally, I think that’s a mistake. Infamy should be advertised, whether it be sordid, suicidal or downright scandalous, and if only the local authorities could see this it could turn out to be a real money-maker for them. But alas my opinion means nothing to our elected body of elders and betters, and so the visitation of lemmings jumping to their rocky doom remains a largely untalked of and unseen event, except to those in the know who gather on overcast days on the weeks leading up to Christmas. This is primetime for those in the depths of despair, a nirvana for those with nothing to live for, or who aren’t expecting many Christmas presents. It’s good clean underground entertainment, and most definitely a spectator sport.

And all this talk has reminded me of Ivor Cutler’s 80 Meter Race where he describes with a beautifully calm lilting Scottish voice, the bizarre happenings of a race held on top of a cliff, 80 meters long in theory, but the finish line lies somewhere beyond the cliff’s edge, and anyone plummeting off that cliff is instantly disqualified for falling too far. You get the impression, however, that these runners were quite aware of the obvious dangers involved and were perhaps volunteer lemmings in some kind of strange lemming-related experiment, though some were having second thoughts at the edge of the precipice, but isn’t that always the way.

Even that bloke in Quadrophenia ended up going over that cliff, riding down into a sea salt sunset on Sting’s lovely little two-stroke Lambretta. Poor Phil Daniels, slipping jellyfish slippery as he did into the Davy Dark, and poor Leslie Ash who had to kiss the miserable mongoose during a scene in the film. I think she played the part of "love interest" or "blonde bimbo" or something. These were the days before her "trout pout" of course where she decided to inflate her lips with helium to kick-start her career on television. Why couldn’t she get a boob job like everyone else? According to a website Leslie Ash’s lips are now officially more famous then Leslie Ash, and this is something she can use to her advantage: even if she never works on television again at least she can rent her lips out as a bouncy castle.

Current Mood: pronouncing a personality

Prisoner
Moe Lester
Name: Moe Lester
Statement
"I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people. Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look."

"Acting is child-like in the sense you believe what you are. You surprise yourself at what you are saying. A good movie, if it’s real and entertaining, creates its own world. It’s consistent and real, but not reality."

And there you have it.
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