Fiendish Succubae shatter a Tender Heart...

If you expect the Maid Lottie to amuse you with more skittish play...well...I care not for your disappointment, for the cruelty I have suffered is beyond tolerance.

A rare flower, crushed under French Heeled Boot!

I have endured a grave treachery – the pain magnified by the perverse nature of my persecution! Sweet Mama! A tender girl can face no greater foe than one drawn from the ranks of her own jealous gender.

 

What queer fever brings forth this accusation?

Ha! Let me draw from the well off bitter experience.

Scant weeks ago I was the object of the Crown Prinz’s  favour and indulgence. I was his Personal Secretary, but - of course - my charms had demolished all professional restraint. He showered me with Regal Gift and while I sat upon his generous lap he pledged his everlasting devotion. Of course, I was under Secret Orders to foil his sordid Prussian Project, but being only human, I could not fail to be stirred by his infatuation.

Then...the arrival of those vicious harpies changed everything, and my gentle heart was broken into pieces

Hush Hush my child, and take pause, you beg.. but no, I must finish this.

The Indeceny of those bullying witches.

I recount the cruel behaviour I have endured.

---------------------------

Instance 1. Company House, London. November 15th of this year.

On arrival in the office of Josef Geldhabe the Countess Fifi mistook me for a Chaise Lounge. While kneeling by the CFO’s filing cabinet, carefully ordering his yearly accounts, I felt her Parisian rear quarters press down upon my back. Before I could register complaint her companion Lady De Monfort tossed her cape over my head.

When CFO Geldhabe stood to remonstrate, the French vixen buried her sharpened nails into my sides and began to scream. A moment later she raised her hand to her brow and fainted.

I could not free myself from under the supine body as the sharp heel of her boot was pressed tight against my tender portion. I cried so long and hard I lost consciousness.

Instance 2. Company House, London. November 16^th of this year.

On the subsequent morning I skipped to my darling’s chamber full of cheer and keen to put the previous day's misfortune behind me. But as I opened the door... I was shocked to see the Crown Prinz cavorting with those hussies round the mahogany desk!

As just yesterday, it was I  - being playfully chased with horse-whip - I could not understand the sudden mis-direction of his regard.

But when I approached my Lord with gentle question, the Countess Fifi turned sharply and hissed at me with such violence I staggered back and fell into the fireplace.

My dress and wig swiflty ignited and - accompanied by the cackle of cruel laughter - I fled the room in fiery humiliation.

Instance 3. Company House, London. November 17^th of this year

Again with good cheer, I....

-------------------(transcript interrupted)------------------------

Bletchley Park: ok thats enough of this...

A Hand of Bridge with the Gloating Overlord!

The Drowned Man was weak, alone and de-moralised.

But as the Psychonautical survivors of the Royal Society can testify, the Gloating Overlord requires more occult conditions for Psychic Invasion.

-------------------------

I am a well-bred son of Surrey stock, sound in mind, spirit, shoulder and calf. And yet my duty to the Queen has dragged to me the most intolerable cesspits of Indigenous squalor. I speak not off Calcutta, Khartoum or Shanghai... but those unmapped zones beyond which most white men have yet to venture.

Places where physical and mental torment compels the Noble Explorer to imbibe the Sweet Poppy for his very survival: the accursed cities of Xinhua, Ttxechocalan and Salford.

The Scum of Media City!

I am not proud of what I have ingested in Defence of Her Majesty’s Honour (in truth there are few Imperial Officers alive who have consumed as much Heathen Horse), but I do not regret my selfless sacrifice. It has caused deleterious effects upon my spin-bowling, marksmanship and (as Abigail can testify) marital relations; but nevertheless as a good soldier I must make the best of my hand and toss down the high Spade with a wink and a smile.

 

A Metaphor

Unfortunately my best Spade was woefully trumped by the Astral Hand of the Gloating Overlord.

 

Enough with these endless Bridge Metaphors you splutter..!

Well in Plain English, the Monsters that lurk beyond the Abysmal Plain can only enter our dimension through the psychic dreams of the Opiated Sleeper...

Is that clear enough for your slack wits!! Forgive my lack of patience, but having to continually re-organise my atoms after mental agitation gives me Welsh Temper

------------- So....to return -----------------

The scheming Trickster who manipulates those Abysmal Terrors (with the slick charm of a Hebrew Banker) needs more than just Poppy to gain entrance to our Queens Realm...

As subsequent investigations of the Royal Society’s Psychonautical Supper Club have discovered, the Gloating Overlord is an entity that thrives on pain and death. It seeks agents in the various dimensions it infiltrates, and these agents must smooth its transgression through the violent sacrifice of innocents. 

So, you retort.. the Monster would seek some Turk, Hun or Spaniard for its bidding...

Nay, here the plot thickens... The Overlord seeks not wilful massacre by Psychopathic Mongol, but something more terrible...

...what ancient legend calls the “The Angel of Death”... One whose very presence brings misfortune upon the innocent.

What on earth does this superstitious nonsense have to do with The Helmeted Hero of Helmand...?   

Well, sit quietly and listen my friend, and I will recount my tragic history...

The Siege of Kandahar Part III

I tossed the executioner’s revolver into Macpartout’s lap.“Make every shot count you Foul Jock Cur..” I muttered in encouragement, to rouse his rum-sodden spirits...

But before we could raise our gun-arms, the rampart collapsed. A fusillade of Hindu Cannon reduced the East wall to rubble and our bodies were toppled like chess-pieces.

Through divine intervention my stunned body fell upon soft cushion, as beneath me lay a mattress... a mattress filled with the Smack-ruined corpses of the Regiment.

So yet again the Lord smiled upon his Champion, for though half-crippled, and woozy with Helmand-Poppy, I found myself surrounded by the arms and munitions of the Queens Finest.  

Eyes closed I raised and fired, reloaded, then shot again. Roaring violent curse and kicking out with my barely functioning legs I caused panic amongst the invaders.

More in fear at my Christian anger, than by my blind shot, the vile tide ebbed then fled from the ruined Fort.

Alone (with scant Ghurka help) I faced the Horde!

But the Drowned Man's respite was brief.

As darkness fell, amongst the rubble and cooling bodies of my death-drugged comrades, my morale began to sink.

The loyal Ghurka tended their wounded, rearmed and marshaled the lower wall; but I knew without the virile command of a white-sahib the Fort was lost. And yet I could not sustain my spirit. Perhaps it was the realisation I might never see my darling Abigail again, or perhaps it was the diminishing energy of that long distant Opoid-breakfast. Whatever... I felt close to surrender...

And it was then, at my weakest, I first heard the seductive voice of the Gloating Overlord!

To be continued....

The Siege of Kandahar Part II...

The Drowned Man on the Bugles,

Deserting the field, the Afghan coolies rent the air with their womanly shriek. It was every white man against the horde.

Granted, MacPartout was barely recognisable as British Stock: but as I turned to face the blood-crazed Thuggees of Kali, there was no time to split whiskers. The heathen filth swarmed the walls, and the two of us held the Fort alone.

And the Regiment? Where the blazes were those limp cowards, you roar?

The lack-lustre support was disgraceful. But it was - arguably- a consequence of my own action.

For the sake of factual accuracy and historical record, I consult my diary...

On expulsion from Kandahar Fort

November 1st, Kandahar Fort

Having mistakenly shot the Garrison's Mascot (an irritating goat), I fall victim to devilish prejudice. My superior - Quartermaster Longfellow - in a fit of unreason - dispatches me, as punishment, to scour the district for supplies and larder. A miserable task for a Gentleman.

The half-witted cheer of my Ghurka cavalry, and Sturgeon's skittish antics, spare me despondency...and yet...

...how I miss my fair Abigail.

November 2nd, Kandahar, District of Keethvaz,

The local Chief-turban says there is no wheat, rice or tobacco in the whole region. The Thuggees have confiscated all! But as he still possesses a few cartloads of Finest Poppy, I disburse the Queens Tender and move swiftly on.

November 3rd, Kandahar, District of Monikalee

To my confounded surprise it appears yet again that the Thuggee has appropriated all consumables bar the Brown Sugar! So, a trifle discomforted, we fill our pallets and sally forth...

November 4th, Kandahar, District of Preetipatel

Not Again! Chief Turban gives us the self-same runaround! Dammit man, though fully provisioned with Opiates, we are still absent edible Squaddie-tuck! Quartermaster Longfellow will not be impressed...

November 5th, Kandahar, District of Snyde-bhoona

Find the toad MacPartout... etc. etc.


---------------- Okay lets skip forward a few weeks ------------------


December 1st, Kandahar Fort

On return, an unfortunate misunderstanding occurs.

After 4 long hungry weeks, Fort Kandahar erupts in starved celebration at my return; but the ferocity of their exult, brings mental pause...

I could not, in all conscience, dismiss their cheer with the nonchalance of a Frenchman. To protect their sapped morale, I made a soldiers choice, and declare a virtuous untruth.

I announce that we have procured ample oatmeal for the garrison. It was an inaccurate description of the manifest, but such is the burden of leadership.

I assumed of course, that Quartermaster Longfellow would examine the stock with professional zeal. But the prejudiced fool neglected his duty and murdered the regiment.

December 2nd, Kandahar Fort

Due to a sickening display of feminine weakness, the Garrison has fallen into a Morphine-Coma!

With disgusting greed those supposed Knights of Victoria fell like gluttons upon Longfellow's toothsome Smack. As they suckled - so he pushed heedlessly the Heathen Horse!

Unconscionable weakness amongst the soldiery!

And having grown womanish in their month long's indolence, the Gruel's spice brought sleep, and then death upon the regiment.

So only I, The Drowned Man, mildly-addled by this Oriental Breakfast of Hallucinogenic Porridge, faced the Rabid Cult alone.

 ...to be continued....

Terror on the Orient Express

Lady De Montfort extends her silk gloved hand in gentle greeting,
 
I must continue with my tragic tale of humiliation. If you can stomach this disclosure of vicious abuse, please read on...

I resume.

Seeing how traumatised the staff of Pickman Publishing were by the immoderate antics of its beastly CFO, our noble employer Jurgen Horst whisked us away via Orient Express, for a weekend of relaxation and cleansing, in Baden-Baden.

A vengeful trap was laid...

An act of unrivaled generosity only a twisted Socialist could resent... well...as we shall see...

 

Geldhabe’s first act of aggression was to make us share the Ladies Car with his revolting ogre Sweetlocks. It was an act of violence against feminine dignity that would shock even a Chinaman; and that hirsute, deep voiced hag was to persecute us, with vicious insistence, from Paris to Strasbourg.

It was not enough that her verbal (and bodily) expulsions were in-ordinate in their frequency and pungency. She actually tried to board our cabin and ravish our dignity.

From embarkation at St Pancras, we insisted on keeping four cabins and a locked door between us and the temper and volume of her snore; and the potency of her odour.

Clap Clap! Our honour was surely secured you exclaim! Hah! So we innocently thought...

It was as the Express curved sharply through the mountains of the Swiss Cantons, that the sleeping troll was hurled violently from her bunk, through the door of her cabin, and into the corridor. 

Surprisingly this brutal treatment did not rouse the monster from her slumber... 

However, as the Express pulled higher through the Fifa Pass, her rotund figure began to roll, and gravity propelled the bloated horror head over heels towards our door...

And yet - unfeasibly- these acrobatics still waked not the beast. So, cringing on the far side of our locked cabin door, we trembled with relief.

Disaster on the Blatterhorn...

Then as the Express crested the Blatterhorn, it shrieked its steam whistle to ward off an imbecile goatherd, and so Disaster Struck. 

Rudely startled the Sweetlock reared up, its bizarre hair and visage smashing the glass of our cabin door. The foul-dressed witch rolled it's head in confusion before brazenly focusing it's piggish eyes upon my confederate.

And at last my Countess’s composure broke...

My sweet companion has a sensitive and easily disturbed temper, but in this instance I cannot fault her response. Her dark eyes wide with anger, she raised her claws and launched herself like Un Coq Sportif against the intruder.

It took two train guards and the Coal-shoveller to drag the Countess from the flayed bulk of Sweetlocks. My brave defender was still heaving with hatred, her exquisite mouth and manicured hands filled with the rude tart’s coarse hair.

Victory? Nay, the Geldhabe had one more foul trick to play...

...To be continued...

A Lady Abroad!

Bonsoir, ma chere amis, 
 
The Lady De Montfort greets you from her Louis Quatorze writing desk in the Royal Suite of the Horst Wellness Schloss, Baden Baden.

 

Baden-Baden. Our rustic hostel...

It can, on occasion, feel youthfully spirited to “go native” for a few days and swap the gentile refinement of Kensington for the rustic charms of an exotic abode.

But.. as you would imagine ...there have been foreign complications.

The Countess and I must bravely resign ourselves to a cramped existence on the top floor of this modest resort. It maintains, scandalously, only four bedrooms, three drawing rooms, two balconies and a glass-roofed aviary!

Mon Dieu!

But, I wager, being hugger-mugger with the divinely fragrant Countess La Chapelle is 'un situation' our gentlemen readers would (gladly) shed their knighthoods for!

 

Two titled ladies abroad in a shabby and confining residence

Hahaha...I jest of course.  I suppose this virile foreign air makes me a tad indiscreet.

It appears – by the cavalcade of mail we receive - that the Clubs of Piccadilly obsess over our every delicious movement. Well perhaps (secure your monocles!) I will disclose some of the thrilling (and vigorous) aquatic exercises we have been subjected to by our stern Teutonic Doktors!

But...before you loosen your waistcoats and cummerbunds, I must deliver a sobre slap and reprimand to your mounting excitement. A tragic event has occurred that casts a poor light upon the management of this popular broadsheet. I hope this painful disclosure will energise those Members of Parliament who have influence on the board, to demand the dismissal of Geldhabe from his post as Chief Bully of Titled Womanhood!

--------------

Since being requested by the dashing Beau D’Arcy, to rescue his faltering journal, the Geldhabe has made it his personal mission to humiliate the Countess and I at every turn. I cannot for the life of me understand why we are so despised, unless perhaps he is an Invert, Socialist or Hebrew?

On the first day of our arrival at Company House he behaved like an animal. We had an appointment to meet the Head of Finance, and fully expected a respectable Guild-Man to bow and offer us Chateau Le Pen and choice pastries... but instead.. we were confronted by an unwarranted assault upon our delicate senses.

I will be brief.

On entering his office, the sight of his filthy and impoverished presence caused the Countess to shriek and faint.

In my defence his lack of masculine pedigree made him, at first, all but invisible to my gaze; but after my adorable cousine collapsed, I - in a terrified act of self-preservation – managed to focus my eyes upon his repugnant form. It took a strength of will ( I never realised I possessed)  to remain conscious and  emit a reflexive squeal of revulsion at his foul display.

What transpired next will startle you to your chivalrous core. Call for strong Brandy. I myself must pause and fan my tender brow with a Gold-Plated Horst Frauenhilfer...

A Gold Plated Horst Frauenhilfer

 

I resume.

Rather than scrape, simper and apologise to us for his disgraceful behaviour, the revolting civilian took umbrage.. At US!

He called for his leprous Type-hag Sweetlocks to expel US from the building! (I am sorry if this disclosure heats you to angered ejaculation... I counsel you to better spend those energies in letter and remonstrance to the Board.)

Fortunately by then the charmingly exuberant Herr Horst had entered the room, and on sight of the Countess sprawled prettily upon the carpet, hooted with emotion. Thus engorged with manly passion he chased the insufferable Geldhabe from the room with Kick, Horsewhip and Prussian Curse.

You relax and sigh with relief at our timely rescue.

But... the bespectacled knave had not finished with your gentle correspondents. Biding his time till on foreign soil he had prepared more vile stratagems against our honour!

Enough! Let us retire and compose ourselves...

Yours tenderly,

The sorely mistreated Lady De Montfort

"Morale Boosting" Office Vacation..

Apologies subscribers, but a spontaneous "Morale-Boosting" weekend to Baden-Baden organised by our CEO Jurgen Horst means there is no-one in Company House to produce the print journal. And as our servers are also down following unpaid bills it appears the "digital" (whatever that means!) version will also be affected. It will be a few days before we can get back on our feet.

However galling the situation, stay positive and remember the Drowned Man is probably having a far worse time Beyond the Abysmal void.

Regards,
Josef Geldhabe

We need to talk about Westworld.

"Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"

I was, for the first few episodes, a fan-boy of the JJ Abrams reboot.

Carried away by the trailer and the kick-ass pilot, I cut my Critical Faculties by a self-willed swipe on the "Behaviour Tablet". I wanted it to work because I was sold on the pedigree: the Nolan input, Raman Dajwadi on the decks and Hopkins channeling Tyrell.

I also loved the mechanics. The world design, the train hub and the abandoned sub-levels. The narrative misdirection was so well done. It was HBO slick... and the 30 year fast-forward from the original opened up space for ideas about novelty exhaustion and decadence.

But....

----------rewind----------

We can't discuss the Abrams remake without an evaluation of what made the original tick like a clockwork motherfucker.

Michael Crichton's self-scripted and directed blockbuster scared the jimjams off my generation. A staying up late memory of child-unsuitable HORROR.  (CF. Coma, Andromeda Strain etc.). 

70's medical creepiness is on another level.

Synopsis

Two executives take a holiday in a robot Disney theme park where they can fuck and kill without consequence. A virus which self-develops in the base AI blocks the robots from accepting sexual advances and self-murder. They rebel: a tourist is killed by the Black Hat cowboy. The park locks down after "system reboot" and this traps and suffocates the minimal staff in a glass box HQ. Alone and unopposed Black Hat Yul Brynner relentlessly stalks the last surviving tourist ...to conclusion.

Applause.

Health and saftey rules flouted in 80's automated factory.

Influences

Westworld is historically important (for the horror genre) as the analog mother to the digital Terminator.

It introduced the heat sensor; the face melt (and metallic skull) ; the halting speech and spastic robotic motion; the sun drenched Californian sets, void of human presence; and finally the climax in the machine maternity ward (perhaps I'm pushing it, but the T2 finale where molten metal destroys the T1000 recalls the use of 'primeval fire' in the destruction of Yul Brynner)

Terminator was inevitable because the chase-film genre (Duel, Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear etc.) had been given a Westworld bio-mechanical upgrade. So many ideas were thrown up by that android death chase that James Cameron had no alternative but to grab them and run.

Horror
 
The film was scary because of Yul Brynner. His face and his walk are equivalent to a 20 million dollar horror budget. The behind the scenes Disney stuff was also creepy: the white coats, the dead techs by the buggy in the desert, the corpses in the control room. It was a gloriously simple premise, worked up and out with ruthless efficiency.

(N.B. The reboot is anything but simple).

Nooo.. the Black Eyes!!

Westworld fed off wider post-Nixon cinematic anxieties. The Psychiatric-Industrial complex of The Parallax View is one aspect, the anti-sexual revolution fears of the Stepford Wives another. Conspiracy theories about a right-wing backlash: against the loss of male power - using robots and mind control.

There was so much cool stuff bubbling under the surface of this simple chase movie.

Jurassic Park

Crichton was happy to retread and reference his best fictional ideas. So the dissected robots in Westworld's central lab, were 'transplanted' from the donor suspension room in Coma; the dead techs and absent sense of authority recall the Andromeda Strain.

Westworld itself was most brilliantly re-manifested in Jurassic Park...one flea-circus that is very very hard to follow.

Ex-MD Crichton loves his lab scenes...

Jurassic Park is the Platinum package Westworld remake... and its apex predator DNA is 30% Spielberg, 30% Crichton, 20% ILM, 10% Casting, and 10% John Williams. It kept things really simple: hubris. Mankind pushing its luck and getting fucked up when the electric fences go down.

Westworld Reboot

Why on earth couldn't Abrams just stick to the formula? Set it up, get it rolling and then knock it all down...with amazing casting, locations and some clever Battlestar stuff about AI and divine creation etc. It writes itself.

Instead we've got the daily narrative repetition used, essentially, for soap opera purposes; the really slow, half-baked moral awakening for tourists and hosts; a poorly plotted Corporate politics side-story; and just shit loads of un-earned revenge bunk with over-empowered victims turning the tables against not very nasty bad guys.

I was always a big fan of Spartacus, Season 1. Its "Kill them All" finale emotional credits were painstakingly earned over the prior 10 episodes; and then brutally spent with an exhilarating and cathartic 20 minute massacre.

With Westworld, episode 5 we get the dull as F "Blondie" shooting some vaguely threatening robots, and then a camera zoom over and back as music wells like she is fucking Carrie. No she is not. At least not now.. stop frittering away your payback credits. Earn it slow spend it big...

And finally, its just not scary or morally queasy. It could be, with the deserted basement level full of de-activated robots. But by now I know in my bones it won't be. It hasn't got the chops for it. And you can tell by the nervous way it references its glorious forbears.

Red butchers clothes. Back of the net.

Conclusion: The Shadow of Hostel.

Eli Roths Masterpiece. I really hope you have seen it, if not do so right away. It is no way near as boring or gory as the Torture Porn movies that it supposedly spawned. It is the most disturbing of its peer group. It is a subtle, clever and sick movie; and it is much greater than the sum of its parts.

A Bush era, Rendition-friendly Swiftian satire on Western Tourism. And its funny, and gross .. but with a twisted moral heart.

And unlike Westworld it has the balls to actually delivers on its premise. I wont give a review here.Watch it with an open mind. If you are in the right frame of mind you won't be disappointed.

It's most twisted elements are not the torture, but the straight scenes with the Elite Hunting clients. Seemingly normal executives on a very strange vacation. The moral journey they undergo in Hostel is a masterclass in horror and humour compared to Westworlds risible pair. (That Jimmi Simpson - what a bottomless void of tedium - paired with Blondie, they flatline the shows energy levels.)

The scene in Hostel where the two execs get changed into butchers gear and casually chat about outfits is one of  the most creepy parts of the film. (And just to settle accounts, Westworld steals the imagery of the red butchers outfits, the hosing down of corpses in a clinical setting, and the naked interview victim in a chair.)

The concept behind rich people using sentient organisms as expendable playthings is horrible. Westworld needs to deal with this in a grown up way with requisite moral outrage.. otherwise its just sensationalist slave-porn.

Final slagging off comments... for my benefit not yours. (Spoilers)

1) So we have Arnold as some vengeful Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell AI overlord. Ok, I don't like it, but fucking get on with it.. its taking ages to play out.

2) The Thandie Newton side story where she intimidates techs using the Queens English into upgrading her into Roy Battie is an insult.  Lets just compare and contrast Replicant intimidation techniques please...

how robots get what they want from lowly techs...example A

3) The HQ map zone is an illogical counterpart to the Jurassic Park/World control room.  Lets just have desks and a big NASA screen. And the Head of Security ...well...

In Defence


Its not trying to be horror: it would never have got commissioned, and had such a budget, if it was too dark.  Its not a 90 minute movie, so of course it has soapy elements to make up the season run plus sequels. And it is very entertaining and well made.

Ok.. but it is a remake of a horror classic. They could have spent all that money remaking the Waltons if they wanted soap. And if True Detective had the knackers to pull off mainstream (hard) horror, then HBO basically flunked it for all those Volvo adverts.


I hope it pulls itself together, but I doubt it.

Regards
Editorial staff of The Drowned Man

Advert: The Social Event of the Season

By Invitation only, minimum donation a modest 10,000 pounds!

Excerpts From Josef Geldhabe's Diary....

Bletchely Transcript: Sir Hugh, you have 3 minutes before communication breaks..

Sir Hugh: Golly ok here we go...

Wednesday 16 November, London
Josef Geldhabe: ...and frankly Penrose's Department is playing me for.. as the Britishers say..  "Silly Buggers". He has the lion-share of the black budget.. and this is what he spends it on...

Back from the Opera and  en-route to Madame Jo-Jo's. Huzzah!

As i returned by foot in the early hours of the morning to my freezing attic room in Lincoln's Inn I saw him career past with Beau D'Arcy, and FT Kipling on a carriage pulled by one of his "creations" on route to another West End debauch. They hurled Anglo-Saxon insults at me and splashed champagne all over my secret telegrams from Berlin.

I cannot even afford a Secretary and Transcriber who can take dictation without falling asleep and snoring like an Ox...while these charlatans carouse like Turks!

Beau D'arcy is another spendthrift wretch. In full control of the Piccadilly Portal Kitbag Purchases he has rifled through a cool 4000 pounds sterling in little over 3 weeks. This would be justifiable if he was actually interested in keeping the Drowned Man well supplied in accordance with our secret mission...but his personal animosity to the "Helmeted Hero of Helmand" is beyond measure!

He destroys any communications the Editor at Large sends to his wife or children, adds incendiary powder to his tobacco, and halves the quantity of coolie food rations so as to cause "That Metal-headed Freak an Indian Mutiny he will never forget" ... Wholly against the purpose of our mission statement: "Do not kill the Golden Goose".

In fact the only supplies delivered in any quantity are opium chews and endless litres of Morphine. I fear he wishes to put the Goose in an Astral Coma!

And I know how those 4000 pounds were disposed off; The Saturday after D'Arcy hired De Montfort and La Chapelle (those vicious tounged harpies) - I witnessed the three profligates emerge from Libertys, trailed by footmen laden with hat-boxes.

While I, in Lincoln Inn, re-heat cabbage soup over a spluttering coal fire, with only rats for company!

Scheisser Arschlochen!!! (Bletchley - untranslatable)

The Mad Prinz as Hoch Agent?

I have spoken to Karla at Centre about this insubordinaton, but I hear nothing. And last week I was ordered to send all my communictions to Berlin via the cretinous sex-crazed Crown Prinz. Is that fool supposed to be the new Hoch-Agent for Centre? The Kopf boggles!!!

For the first time I have my doubts about the nature of this mission.

Why are we here? First it was to seize control of the Portal for the Prussian Military High Command. Then it changed to allowing Horst Manufaktur access to Abysmal Veil technologies..
  
...but now heavens knows what our purpose is.

Why would a German Spy mission employ so many ludicrous English clowns? And why would that famous simpleton - The Crown Prinz be given authority? I sense sabotage or mis-direction...

This organisation is riddled with spies...my desk has been inexpertly searched. Of course that harpy Lady De Montfort is my chief suspect. In fact the only one I trust is the semi-somnolent Frau Sweetlocks. No spy agency worth its salt would employ such a clumsy, homely and frankly flatulent female agent.. no she is completly authentic, of that I have no doubt..

Sir Hugh Berwick-Stanton: WHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTT!!! HOW DARE HE...!! DAMN TEUTONIC NANCY-BOY!!! I'LL...

-------------Transcription breaks----------------

A few words on rabble-rousing blue stockings...

Her Ladyship,  The Honorable Antonia De Montfort (Court Correspondent) writes...

As that dreadful greyish swarm of feminine mediocrity staggered and surged down Fleet Street, I uttered those fateful words...

"Vulgar, Vulgar, Vulgar"

The most exquisitely well connected Court-Correspondent in England!

I spake...to my fair companion Countess Fifi La Chapelle while perched on the Lord Chief Justice's Mahogony Bureau. We were surrounded by the paper petitions of the various inbreds and simpletons who throng this uncouth nation. Fifi fanned her exquisite visage with a commoner's Death Certificate before tossing it casually out of the window onto the bonnet of a grim-faced Suffragette.

"Ah Mon Dieu.. and the smell!" She winced prettily...

We were not referring to that dreadful march... (the cessation of which was our current endeavour. Employing droit du seigneur we had stormed his Lordship's office to demand immediate rifle fire!) No I referred to that ill-smelling dwarf-queen Victoria, with whom I had to spend a disagreeable hour this morning at St James's Palace.

"Vulgar shoes, vulgar hair and yes the smell.. ha...week old Turnip soup!"

A pointed pause..."I am sorry ma chere Antonia.. Qu'est que Turnip Soup?"

I blushed, and endured a mili-second of agonising self-doubt... Countess Fifi is perhaps the only person alive who can (momentarily) make me feel "démodé" and "nouveau..."

I flashed back... "You mean you have not heard of that stinking charlatan Signore Turnip Soup.. he performed at the Stuttgart Opera last week...."

Now it was her turn to blush...I felt an immediate thrill.. Oh what it was to feel alive...only the murderous bloodsport of ---

---------------Transcript Breaks-----------------

My God,  what idiot hired that intolerable De Montfort? The woman is crazed and half-blind with snobbery. Unless one has featured in last months "Milady's Boudouir" she literally cannot see you. The one time she visited Company House (at the behest of that sniveling dandy D'Arcy ) she tried to hang her parasol on the loyal Emilia's nose!

If asked to cover a High Court Judgement.. that blasted woman will churn out a dissertation on the coarseness of some poor chits ankles.. and this in a serious Journal! My old faithful subscribers must be catatonic with shock!!! Enough is enough!

My beloved publication is being thrown to the wolves in their hunger for circulation.

Returned to my virile manly self!

Sorry.. Sir Hugh Berwick-Stanton here...and out of "character". Bletchley says I have a bare 3 minutes to deliver my report.. so without further ado, here are excerpts from the diary of that dog Geldhabe, carefully filched from his desk by the fragrant Lottie (wink wink!). Bletchley lads on the translation what what! None of this foreign drucker nonsense...

Tuesday 10pm.
Another endless meeting with the Board. I don't know how much longer I can continue working with these idiots!. I, Geldhabe, Bismark's favourite student...compelled to lower myself....

---------------Transcript Breaks-----------------

Spare a Worm to save an Empire!!!

Why - you ask askance - would a gentleman soldier befriend such a wreck of a man? Surely (for the Palsied Cur's own sake) a swift end to its miserable existence was a moral obligation?

A painful but justified Act of Mercy

Yes, I could no longer deny the demands of my Christian conscience: cold execution was the only option...to spare his life would be a crime against God and human decency. One look in the wretch's eyes...my god.. never had I seen such cringing lust for self-destruction.

As he felt the cold barrel press against his forehead.. he gargled a pitiful "Help, help".. and I replied kindly..  "Help is finallly at hand ...you sad Scots Bugger...!

But - as I cocked the hammer and chambered the merciful round - word came of the Thuggee attack..!!!

Mounted Terror in the Afghan Badlands!!

The vile Pashtuns had allied themselves with the Crazed Cult of Kali and had committed hundreds to the assault on Kandahar...

...my arm dropped to my side: the pistol slack in my grip. And in that moment, by sparing the Worthless Cur's toxic life.. I changed the course of history!

What lurid sentimental balderdash.. I hear you shriek?

Nay, fair reader -  in this brief moment, what little spark of humanity that spluttered in the whisky-scorched remnants of his soul, flared up and caught tinder.

In short... it was then, that MacPartout finally proved the worth of his miserable existence: by saving the The Drowned Man, he saved the honour of the Regiment and thus broke the Siege of Kandahar!!

That Putrid Scots Tramp had proved a biblical truth:

The lowest and most degenerate of animals still serves a purpose in the Divine Plan!

And so we are bound.. I to him, for his brave sacrifice on the walls of Kandahar fort, and he to me -

MacPartout has never forgotten that, when I stilled my trigger finger (a cold barrel pressed to his temple) he was gifted a final chance at redemption.  It was the most difficult choice of my Christian life.. to rid the Lord's dominion of another worthless piece of human refuse... is of course a noble deed!

...and it would be false of me to say there are not days when I rue my decision...

But in the quiet of the night, a quiet broken only by soothing rhythms of a Scottish Sea-Snore; a light whistle betwixt tusks; and with the comfort of his warm mammalian bulk cushioning my weary feet.. I know that I did right by him...and my conscience is soothed.

I must pause now.. for I have manly tears in my eyes...

----Sniff, Sob, Snort, Cough, Splutter, Wheeze-----

...Dammit MacPartout.. my Afghan Socks are still smouldering!!! The room chokes with smoke you fool!!!

The True Story of the Seige of Kandahar...Part 1.

...Why on earth would you maintain such an unruly Tramp in service, you quite reasonably ask?

Well our relationship goes back decades..it is a bond that.. unfortunately for myself.. cannot be sundered - despite almost costing me my fortune, sanity, marriage.. and now footwear!

On Patrol with Sturgeon and the Mounted Indian Guard!

I discovered MacPartout while I patrolled the lawless hills of Southern Afghanistan. He was found (not unsurprisingly for a Glaswegian) screaming incoherently while writhing in a dusty ditch.

My first thought was of course for my fine Arab stallion "Sturgeon" who was easily startled by the foul stench of the lower orders...

It was after a few minutes of disgusted perusal that I determined he was speaking some bastardized form of English..

He garbled about being a lost missionary from Edinburgh, a doctor - who  had been kidnapped by the Pashtuns for 5 years, and had escaped by throwing himself from the Tora Bora mountains. He begged for water. The man was clearly insane with thirst, but I only had a flagon of coolie-rum with me so I - with unwilling distaste - bent closer, and poured its contents into his gap-toothed maw.

For the next few weeks as I finished my tour.. I dragged the crazed imbecile behind my horse; of course I tied his hands with stout rope - for the reputation of a Glaswegian Hobo was... questionable - to put it mildly.

Whats-more... he was so brain-fogged and stupefied that he claimed - to despise alcohol and to be in fact a Methodist Preacher of the Temperance Movement!!

Gufawwwww!..What Balderdash... Hah... I know I know! Both Sturgeon and I whinnied with laughter as we galloped across the Afghan plains.. his scrawny body tripping and skipping behind us, occasionally falling flat on his drink-sodden face to the cheers of my Ghurka horsemen!!

After 3 weeks I returned to Kandahar Fort and the continuous ingestion of Coolie-Rum had returned the hopeless alcoholic to something resembling mental coherence. Yes he slurred and staggered ..  but surely that was the natural state of those unfortunate to have been born on the cobbled yard of a Glaswegian dock.

Bessie was the only one who could bear his stench!

We never heard him mention that brain-fevered nonsense about the Edinburgh Temperance Mission again  - thank god!!

...To be continued.

Never Hire a Glaswegian Walrus for a Footman...

Damn that MacPartout...

The Drunken imbecile tried to light my pipe wholly forgetting he now possesses flippers for hands!! The smoking pipe fell to the floor and swiftly ignited my favourite Afghan socks... the only keepsake I have from the dreadful siege of Kandahar!

Anarchy follows the Drunken Exploits of a Sea-Tusker...

To add fuel to the fire - literally - the Scottish Sea-Mammal, used a flipper to toss his water dish onto the flaming footwear...

Surely the water would extinguish the fire you exclaim!

What the inebriated Tusker failed to recall was that just minutes earlier he had filched 3 weeks of Coolie Rum Ration and poured it into his bucket sized water receptacle...

The socks, my pyjamas, the Persian rug all went up in flame!!!

It was like the Burning of Byzantium re-enacted by an Intoxicated Toothy Sea-Jock!!!

The Quality of Service rendered by this whisky sodden domestic has - in all honesty - been deteriorating for years now...but even by his appalling standards this was a new low..

....To be Continued.