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. 

Advert: Buy now while stocks last!!

Warranty does not extend to use in the Carpathian Region

More Humorous Anecdotes from Beyond etc. etc.

Sabres High Faithful Grenadiers!

In all honesty I have been struggling to recall anything vaguely humorous that has happened to me of late.. I know this is not what my publishers.. or their advertising agents... want to hear.. but Dammit man... this is the Heathen Hell of Yaarh'Gul (The Unseen Village) not an End of Pier Dinner Dance in Clacton on Sea!

I have been told by that ill-breathed gin-sump FT Kipling to - simply - describe what I can see out of my window in a comical and jocular tone... so...let it not be said that I am unwilling to take direction for the plebian horde's entertainment!

At this point of time my "window" is a disturbed miasma of atomic non-dust that  - occasionally - discloses a Giant Screaming Eye!!!

A large Eye occasionally comes into view...

Oh Dammit, Bessy is waving something at me.

Apparently in a few minutes I will receive camera and photographic stock through the Char-hag Portal to Piccadilly...

------------Transcript breaks------------------

Lottie Sweetlocks bids U a secretive welcome!

...I trip gaily in, through the benign intervention of those dashing Gents at Bletchley Park (Locked up for hours with their dry Logbooks, they must be dangerously thrilled on receipt of my girlish communiques..).

Agent Sweetlocks - Brittannia's most seductive Spy!!

Har Har... I jest of course, It is Sir Hugh Berwick-Stanton here, undercover for her Majesty's Secret Service.

I must confess it feels a corseted lifetime ago since I contacted my old bridge and Polka partner Mycroft Holmes at the Ganymede club to discuss my patriotic fears...

Mycroft...a seasoned Spymaster for Empire since being recruited in the Harrow Junior Footlights, has fought her Majesty's wars in places and times unbeknownst to all but a handful of Imperial Spooks!

It was he - who, in whispered and coded terms - ordered me to don petticoat, stockings and fetching ankle boots for Queen and country ...

As the last bastion of subterfuge against the cunning Hun, my mission was to re-infiltrate Pickman Publishing. And then - as a lace gloved and rouge-cheeked agent of espionage - bring their dark, devilish plots into the righteous light of judgement.

But... it was not an easy charge to accept. It took me at least 10 - 20 seconds of feverish cogitation to decide in favour of this gender-swapping deception.

And I must confess, as a rough-handed Son of Empire (of strong-loined Hampshire stock), learning the ways of womanly charm and fragrant seduction was a fearful endeavor.

But with Emilia's ceaseless diligence, I  (within a nights span) developed the attitude and simpering coyness of a fair maid.

Sir Hugh Berwick-Stanton was transformed from the base matter of Writhing Manhood.. into the Fluttering Lepidoptera you see before you.

A Patriotic and Manly Transformation

It has not been easy to maintain my virile identity...being so long undercover.. and having to suffer the vile amorous attentions of foreign hands and eyes. I admit, it can sometimes confuse and muddy your sense of duty and purpose.. but rest assured I remain resolute!

I will bring this foul sordid conspiracy to justice...here are some of my findings, and Lord help me but I feel this depraved endeavor is just the tip of the Teutonic Iceberg!!!!

Oh gosh... out of time again... a tender kiss and girlish blush...your beloved... Lottie Sweetlocks x x x

March for Justice!!

Britain's womenfolk will be silent no longer!

Meeting of the New Board...continued. Transcript.

Josef Geldhabe: Year end revenues up fourfold... but...but - our costs have spiraled out of control! Dr Reginald Penrose it seems your signature attends these bills with dangerous frequency!

Dr Penrose: Back off Joe..that's classified..You know it, I know it...

Josef Geldhabe: But 492 Pounds on flowers in a month! All to 12 St. James Place!

Dr Penrose: ..."Operation Kleine Schweinhund" Joey-boy...

Operation Kleine Schweinhund!

Josef Geldhabe: Ahh yes..  but 820 Pounds on Caramel Macaroons?

Dr Penrose: ..."Operation Kleine Schw..."
 

Josef Geldhabe:  (Interrupting) Yah..Yah... Ok.. But 20,000 Imperial Yen on a Mitsubishi Sushi machine? Then...8,000 Turkish Dinar on an Ottoman Automated Chess Calculator and Mein Gott 120,000 French Francs hiring Madame Tussauds entire workforce for 3 weeks...what on earth?

Dr Penrose: ..."Operation Grosse Schweinhund" Joey.. Ease up old boy....

Operation Grosse Schweinhund!

Josef Geldhabe: This is impossible, even with the increase in Subscription fees, we cant possibly cover these bills! Crown Prinz bitte, wir brauchen mehr Geld! Crown Prinz...

...Oh where has he gone to now?

Julius T Drump: That no good hag-hound be unda the table, sucking long n' hard on that there Hussy's hairy toes...

Josef Geldhabe: Ach Nein!! (panting audibly) Ruhig Ruhig.. Ok..Dr Penrose.. Bitte we must cuts make to your departmental bills.. here, here - what on earth is this.. 450 pounds on Bolivian Laburnam seeds...

Dr Penrose: ..."Operation Kill the Fat Pig"

Lottie Sweetlocks emits a strangled roar, and Jurgen Horst yelps as he is kicked in the face and then yelps again as he smashes his head on the underside of the conference table..

Josef Geldhabe: Please, Herr Horst, leave the Fraulein alone, she is engaged in important work...

--------------------Transcription Breaks ------------------------

Advert: Why not speak to foreign exotic women?

Not recommended for use in Fiji or the Amazon basin

Meeting of the new Board of Pickman Publishing; Transcript

Dear Subscribers - at least those on a 36 Month Payment Plan,

I: Josef Geldhabe, the Chief Financial Officer for Pickman Publishing, cordially welcomes you...etc. etc.

The new Board

Clockwise from top left: Jurgen Horst (CEO); Josef GeldHabe (CFO); Julius T Drumpf (Brand Manager EMEA); Beau Darcy (Head of Digital and Multiple Universe Outreach); F T Kipling (Head of Sports and Culture); Doctor Penrose (Health Correspondent and Head of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics); Lottie Sweetlocks (Secretary to Jurgen Horst); The SprechDrucker 1900.

It is an unfortunate aspect of English Corporate Law that our Annual General Meeting of the Board of Pickman Publishing must be held publicly and subsequently published in the journal.

For this purpose I have requested our in-house Transcriber, Frau Lottie Sweetlocks to take minutes and also maintain a full audio record of the meeting.

As a consequence of our Noble Publishers understandable reluctance to speak the native pig-tongue of this dismal island we will be again using the miraculous Horst SprechDrucker 1900.. Available of course for purchase... see forthcoming Advert for details...

Anyway Gentlemen.. and .. and Lady? Goodness me Frau Sweetlocks what on earth has happened to your hair? This is a board meeting!

Lottie Sweetlocks (secretary to Jurgen Horst): (giggling childishly), I am so sorry Mr Geldhabe, Mr Horst has been chasing me round the conference table all morning!

Jurgen Horst (via SprechDucker 1900): HAW HAW HAW,  Cheeks of flavour place in my greased palm, begs the Goaty Slap Merchant.. HAW HAW...

Lottie Sweetlocks: Oh Horsty you saucy cove..  (Giggling..)

Josef Geldhabe: NEIN ENOUGH...bitte bitte, lets just get this over with..

Julius T Drumpf: You want me to smoke this fat goose-groper with ma 6-shooter Boss? He sounds like he's got Injun Brain Fever.. we don't act in Good Christian fashion... he'll be Rapin' and Scalpin' the 3 Counties by Noonsy... Devil be dog-damned he's already got his pecker out!!

Josef Geldhabe: NO DRUMPF.. HE IS ze Boss.. you can't shoot him. Mein Gott..

Julius T Drumpf: And the tubby broad with the beard who talks like an ass-coveting Preacher?? Could tie her up and sell her to the Chinaman.? Get 15 gold nuggets for a freaky piece like that.. Circus comes round but once a year folks.. lets milk this hair-chinned Hussy for all the dimes she got... you hears me?

Josef Geldhabe: ENOUGH, SILENCE EVERYONE!! GOTT IN HIMMELL. (Pants audibly) Frau Sweetlocks whats first on the agenda?

Lottie Sweetlocks: Errr..  top of the page it says... Destroy England

Josef Geldhabe:  NEIN, Scheisser.. thats for Office Use Only,  Next Page.. top..

Lottie Sweetlocks: Statement from Chief Financial Officer...

Josef Geldhabe: Oh thank god.. thats me...

----------------Pause in Transcript-----------------------

From our Sports Correspondents...Transcript

Kipling in the Stands again!!!

Good day Punters!! - I raise my Pitching Wedge TO YOU!!.. Ball, Puck and Racket Hounds!!!!

Been a jolly strange week for us fans of an Imperial flutter....!

F T Kipling, Sports Journalist and Man about the Strand.

As a result of those spooky electrical storms (which Menaced the Members Bars of Piccaadilly), most of my fellow Sporting Journos failed to cover this weekends Newmarket Royal Spiv-Races.

More fool them - for they missed quite an upset.

The winning horse in the 12.30 Steeplechase - The Wicklow Twitcher - was disqualifiied post-race after the Trophy Team discovered her Jockey to be (for want of a better description...!) - a diminutive Irish Bog-Corpse!!

Disqualified Jockey, Brendan O'Bones

Damned queer! Lost a fair sheaf of sterling on that one...

 --------------Transcript breaks------------------

Hush Hush subscribers,

SIr Hugh Berwick Stanton discreetly calls

Jurgnen Horst's New Secretary!!

Haha, fooled you didn't I - "whose this pretty young slip of a maid" U thought, as U twirled your moustache! Gufaaaawwww!!, Well it may well been years since I played Cleopatra in the Harrow Junior Footlights, but I can still cut a coy curtsy when Nation and Honour call!!

Have I not blown my ingenious charade with this intemperate disclosure you retort?

...once step ahead of U my friend...no shall i say a dozen steps!!

Thanks 2 the surreptitious efforts of the Bletchley Code Team, I am able 2 secret this message into your Tuesday Sports Supplement.

How U ask. And Why? Both questions 2 be answered forthwith...

First, what the devil is going on with this Shakepsearean Blouse Swapping Pantomime?

A Patriotic attempt to save the Empire from certain destruction by the evil Hun!!! is the swift answer.

After lying comatose in agony for two whole days following my savage expulsion from Fleet Street, (tended to by the devoted Emilia)..I managed to recover somewhat only when the twisted Doctor Penrose absented himself from my bedside to visit his saucy neighbour Abigail ---------.

It was brave Emilia, who then discovered that the scrawny cove had been secreting Laburnam drops into my tea!! I was poisoned by my own doctor! Gadzooks!

The Loyal Emilia was also expelled from Fleet Street!

How deep did this conspiracy against me lie? Were my coal-scuttler and stable-boy also involved? I could trust only the saintly Emilia, until recently the finest typist in Fleet Street!

Hold on Bletchley say I need to cut the transcript. their cunning code can sustain secrecy for only a few minutes!!

--------------- Transcript Returns ---------------------

...Gosh must have dozed off after my brnady, anwyay this Jolly Journo has meetings to make and farthings to flutter. so till next Tuesday...

Toodle pip Imperial punters!!

Cover drive for Four!!!!

F. T. Kipling, Sports journalist and Man about the Strand

Staff problems in the Fifth Dimension

Damn Mi-Go just dive-bombed MacPartout - and now Bessie is barking so loud, tis bound to attract a frisky Old One!!!

What What? You splutter? What in Prince Alberts name.. is a Mi-Go?

Mi-Go's are the Irish Tinkers of Yarh'Gul (the Unseen Village)

Dont buy ANYTHING!

Itinerant, workshy, insectoid parasites who make our semi-existing lives a daily hell.

Yes on occasion they provide us with useful items.. re-regurgitated fungi-vomit to feed the coolies. And... MacPartout has managed to turn one of them into a sort of carrier pigeon that can transfer tuppenny missives between dimensions - reasonably efficiently.

But otherwise I would rather share a realm with Calcutta Cockroaches, than these abominations.

Bessie hates them... and barks incessantly in a Glaswegian accent whenever she senses their presence.

...in all honesty, despite the moral-boost she gives MacPartout and the Coolies, I wish Bessie had never fallen into the 5th Dimension.

I suppose in some respect it was my fault.

The Cursed Primrose Hill,

Since my last doomed attempt (resulting in three score fatalities ) to scale Primrose Hill, I now insist on securely roping together any expedition I captain.

As a consequence, the tragic final Expedition of the Psychonautical Supper Club of the Royal Society... resulted not only in the deaths of my fellow scientists but the wholesale expulsion of 25-30 Nepalese Sherpas, Johnnie MacPartout and Bessie the Beagle out of Piccadily and into the Abysmal Void.

As if I did not have enough to deal with... a brigade of restive natives, an alcoholic Glaswegian and an incontinent sheep-dog were dumped onto my trans-dimensional plate for good measure!!

Questions, questions.. yes I know..

Why would the vicious Servitors of the Gloating Overlord kill my comrades, drown myself (psychically and physcially) and yet spare the corporeal forms of some foul-tongued colonial soil-wallahs?

Have you ever tried to dismiss a Nepalese or Glaswegian lackey without payment?

Those buggers will follow you till the end of the earth for a missed Rum-ration...The brutal Servitors could not be faulted for Effort... ... But an Uppity Hindu (or Scot) with his dander up... will not take deferred wages lightly...

...So the ill-mannered worker had the upper hand over the Insectoid management...and even beyond the Abysmal Void, the stench of Socialism reeks and corrupts...

Anyway here I am, surrounded by the slack-witted detritus of Empire...with not even a bull-whip for company.

Glaswegian Dog whispering

But yes Bessie.. well Bessie wasn't actually roped to the party. But she and MacPartout are inseparable... I think she is the only one of us who understands his Jock diction.. so the silly mutt jumped into his arms seconds before de-materialisation.

Of course there were complications.. the weird voodoo of 5th dimensional physics has altered them both beyond measure.. but fortunately they are still able to fulfill their allotted tasks within the expedition.

Bessy was fused  with MacPartout.. and - in all honesty - his Hebridean atomic structure has not impoved her toilet: in terms of function, manner, regularity or odour...

half beagle, half Glaswegian...

Macpartout on the other hand is still recognisably himself, I am sure any wench on a Glaswegian dock would find him as attractive a man as his noisome peers...

MacPartout beyond the Abysmal Void.

What I find scientifically fascinating is that the Non-Euclidean Physics of the Gloating Overlord has fused MacPartout not with the atomic structure of an incontinent beagle... but with his OWN MOUSTACHE...If I can discover why, it will surely be the scientific discovery of the century.. eclipsing Darwin, Bell and Faraday!

By her Majesty's Grace,

Your Loyal Servant, alone yet unbowed,

The Drowned Man

Back Up and at 'Em...

Drowned Man here,

...back among the semi-living.. and as chipper as can be expected. Took a slightly more generous chug on the  - ahem - cough syrup -than perhaps was warranted.. and it knocked me for Six. Anyway, back again and Johnnie MacPartout decently whipped up some Ice cream and a cold compress ... so I'm feeling a tad more myself...whaterver myself is nowadays!!!

Anyway.. where the blazes was I?.. Oh yes the loneliness.. and the Portal.. Thank Mary Mother of God for the char-hag Portal.

You see, the thing about loneliness.. its not just the yearning emptiness of absolute solitude that bothers you.. its the of lack home comforts.

A well upholstered chair by a roaring fire, a fine English pipe with fine Imperial tobacco... Wisden's Cricketing Almanac, a hunting horn... and English Mustard hot enough to circumcise a Semite.

Thus gives the true English knight his Armour and Keep...

So.. with a small amount of assistance from  the Piccadilly Portal ....my entourage of 25-30 coolies and my old Kandahar batman Johnnie MacPartout...

Walrus lipped MacPartout.

I managed .. here in the dread 5th dimensional Abstraction of Yahar'Gul (The Unseeen Village)...to stave off the insanity of solitude by creating my own  slice of Merry England

I had to use every ounce of ingenuity though. A sequence of psychic shocks in London were needed to expand the portal to a size suitable for transmitting a large desk and the building materials necessary to create a Hunters Lodge here beyond the Abysmal void.

First off... Lady Somerset was encouraged to expose an ankle while riding through Hyde Park... that opened the Portal to a yards length. Then a Blackamoor entered the Royal Box at Covent Garden.. that gave us an extra foot...

Finally my sainted publishers, swallowed their moral doubts, and published a full page advert for the Drowning Man showing a fair maids shapely leg... the psychic uproar in London Town enabled them to toss a full size Royal Mail Kitbag full of "cough medicine" onto the Persian rug in my Servitor Prison Cell...

So, yes I am afflicted, betwixt non-existence and alien incorporation, and yet through my own single-handed valour, I have kept a stiff upper lip and created an oasis fit for a gentlemen.. in an alien hell of unimaginable psychic torment....

Pip Pip, Stumps up till the next innings etc.!!!

New Servers.. sorry for any inconvenience...

Hi dudes, Mike here from the Graphics dept.

Those of you not getting the offline version of the journal must be pretty pissed right?

Sorry guys.. Horst Waffen Manufaktur Hamburg insisted we shift everything onto their Apple licensed server farm somwhere in Norway... Cloud shit right.. supposed to safer etc. etc.

Good news is.. we all get shiny new MacBooks from that shorty Cosplay publisher dude..

Nice nice nice.. funny thing is .. German versions called a Herr Macbuch. Didn't actually think Apple let countries license their shit.. but what do i konw..On boot .. it shrieks "Ja Wull" at you and you get this icon...

Das Boot up

kinda weird right? But I like it.. so long as some other dude in Norway running IT and not me, its all cool.

laters
Mike

P.S. Think the Drowned Man has finally woken up from that weird trip he went on... so new post soonish I reckon

Non-review of "Anatomy". Spoilers.

Anatomy is an indie PC computer game where you wander round a house clicking on audio files. The audio story is vaguely spooky in a sub-Videodrome / Clive Barker kind of way.

Basically the  house is supposed to be alive.

the best designed room in the whole game. Yes.

When it finishes after 8 or 9 minutes you are told via a readme file in the game directory to replay it.

The game changes over the next few replays. It is mildly spooky. It would be genuinely scary if you had any confidence that its climax would be more than a jump cut plus sound effect... but sadly.. that's what you expect and that's what you get.

It reaps anxiety by abusing the expectation that you are playing an "Amnesia" style horror game..with horrible monsters, horrible deaths and genuine jeopardy.

So,  this is not just cheating, but .. in Jurassic Park terms... it is standing on the shoulders of giants and taking a massive dump.

It irritates me that anyone can seriously rate this "game" when this kind of "experience" was comprehensively mastered 18 years ago..

Exhibit One> Thief: The Dark Project. 1998. Level 6 -The Sword.

Garret (hero avatar, played by user) has to steal an object from a nobleman's mansion.

The higher one climbs - through the house - the more the environment distorts. Perspectives and proportions buckle out of shape. Dimensions alter.. the house becomes semi-organic... and alive.

And when you get to the top of it.. and just about survive...you realize you have to go all the way down again to escape.

It is one of the greatest horror game levels/experiences ever created...

Anatomy is the product of a game designer who has never played Thief.

Thumbs down.

Don't Pause Inland Empire!

David Lynch's Inland Empire is of course a horror classic. Universally accepted.

I agree...  and yet I've only seen the first half. And I will never finish it.

Not cos it's rubbish or cos it's not scary...but... cos I paused it and now I am trapped in a very Lynchian paradox.

This post is rambling round a fairly obvious point. All suspense relies on sustaining unbroken attention. You can't wander off half-way through a ghost story, and return with a can of coke expecting to pick up where you left off.

A very good, very strange movie...just donlt go to the loo...

The problem is, Inland Empire is 3 hours long...and it depends - for its tension - on long close ups, awkward pauses, long takes, and then after dragging out the unreal suspense to breaking point, gives you a sucker punch edit to a new scene, in a new narrative time-frame. It all works perfectly if you are trapped in a cinema... but in any other environment, at some point Inland Empire will make you pause it while you fuck off and do something else.

Then it is almost impossible to restart the tension and suspense. I re-started Inland Empire half way through about 5 times over 3 years. And it just never worked. Without re-watching the start, strapped to a chair..and doing the full 3 hours ...its a doomed exercise.

If you try to pick it up half way through.. all the cinematic tricks that seemed so spooky in the first half seem incredibly mannered and tedious.. the pauses, the long takes, the sound effects, the broken dialogue.. its practically unwatchable.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because of Kitty Horrorshow's "Anatomy". A computer game that demands you replay it multiple times - consecutively - to experience the full horror.

If you can manage that.. fine. But most people will break, have a sandwich, watch some rubbish TV, sleep, wake up.. and 8  hours later try and pick it up where they left off.. and it will be rubbish, just like Inland Empire is rubbish if you stop and re-start it.

Whats the moral? At the risk of repeating myself....all horror is short stories, a 10 minute bedtime ghost story; or a maximum 40 minute read late at night under the covers. Anything that takes longer necessitates a toilet break/cigarette/phone call interruption and then - in terms of tension - its game over.

Ok, end of post - you can relieve yourselves now...