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Wednesday 28 December 2011

Victory in Wellingtons


A ripple of phuts was followed by a ground shaking kerump.   Josie was thinking that he should perhaps be following his nose in some other direction when the grass beneath his feet shook again. Leaves quivered on the hedge ahead and white smoke billowed above it.   Two large black and white birds fluttered into the air above an elegant wooden squeezer stile at a gap in the hawthorne barrier and then resettled on its posts.   Potkin thrust his head through the gap to see an open field falling away from his vantage point.   The smoke was just settling out in the hollow like an autumn mist, spreading layers of white and greys, when another crash made his ears ring.   A jet of orange fire and curls of smoke streamed from the confusion and some dry grass flared up.
There came another volley of pops and several cracks.   Beyond the smoke, on raised ground he could make out a small crowd of spectators. The children, who made up the majority, were crying bitterly.   With each new boom they jumped, quivering, and the weeping increased.   Mothers tutted and consoled.   Fathers in baseball caps and summer shorts sucked on their 99's, licking the ice cream before chomping on the flake.
“You are witnessing,” said one of the magpies, “or would be, if you could see anything but the fug of war, one of the great moments in British history; and it is happening right here in our Whitebottom Meadow,   An English general, haughty and beaky, inventor of the vulcanised rubber galosh, and the chip butty, over all commander of the British red coats and a small contingent of Prussians or Belgians or something like that, is about to defeat the diminutive emperor of France, along with his feared Vieille Guarde and the French Foreign Legion.   It will be forever known as the Battle of White Bottom. “
“I think we’ll give history a wide berth.” suggested Potkin.
The magpies looked a little crestfallen, but Josie was in full agreement. Passing quickly through the stile and keeping close beneath the hedge they skulked round the edge of the field, as far from the action as they could contrive.   Every time the smoke started to settle out into undulating sheets another explosion would send new clouds rolling outwards. Volleys of musket fire added to the noise and fog.   Cries and shouts and curses echoed across the field.   Someone knew some very rude expressions.   A small group of horsemen  emerged into the light, cuirassiers akin to the one they had met earlier and lancers with mortar board helmets like woefully inadequate bird tables balanced precariously on their heads.   They were followed by scarlet clad cavalry, with tall, black bear skins, riding heavy, matching greys; who charged in pursuit, line abreast, knee to knee.   Pursued and pursuer did a turn around the field and then wheeled back into the smog.   A roar went up, the musketry rattled once more and the wailing of  infants transended any morally acceptable norm.   Somewhere a shrill fife was piping out O'er the Hills and Far Away.
By the time our heroes reached the far side of the meadow they were shivering from terror and an excess of adrenalin.   Passing through a kissing gate, fiddly for a cat even at the best of times, they found themselves in a long straight grassy avenue lined with trees.   To left and right it stretched away as far as the two cats could see.   The noise of battle faded and was gone.   Heart rates settled to something close to normal.   Josie was the first to decide they had reached another nice spot.   It was, he felt, the ideal place for their second sandwich stop.
Eventually replete with shrimp paste sandwiches it was time for an afternoon nap.   Josie soon began to drift into sleep where he was pursued by an angry jay.   Joined by the two magpies, they dive-bombed his head while he careered down a grassy bank to lose his footing on the moss-covered wood of a narrow bridge.   He was looking helplessly up into the malevolent eyes of the birds as the mermaid caught him.
Meanwhile Potkin was barely disturbed by the twitching, mewing tabby bundle beside him.   He lay with his feet tidily tucked under his body and gazed meditatively along the length of the avenue. Quietly he composed a seascape with gulls, tan sailed fishing craft and a walrus.   The holiday sun warmed through his fur.   He had just made the walrus rise into the air and turn a long, slow, tail flapping summersault when Josie awoke.
“I’m exhausted, Potkin.   Do you want to hear about my dream?”
The walrus fell and Potkin’s creation dissolved.
“Time to go on.” He snapped.

Tuesday 27 December 2011

YoYo Pond

They emerged from the thickest of  the threatening wild-wood where tortured dark oaks and chestnuts hemmed in on the narrowing track and cobwebs laced across their path, brushing their faces.   Part of the stream's steep bank had collapsed to provide a handy drinking place for the wild creatures of the forest.   They could make out the delicate prints of deer and fox in the soft mud, but also something larger.   It was a round, deep paw print with the clear indication of claws.
"The spoor of the Surrey Beast." explained Potkin.   "At dusk it can be heard stalking through these woods and the whisper of its breathing silences the birds."
"But only at dusk." asserted Josie, seeking reassurance.
"Mostly." replied Potkin casually.
 Josie spent much of the time looking over his shoulder as they moved onwards, and as a consequence twice walked into an inconveniently placed tree.   He was also listening intently for heavy breathing, but eventually realised that the eery muffled thumping was his own heart beat.    It was a relief when they came upon an aging plank bridge and a clearer path that led uphill away from the river and its menacing undergrowth.
“I think we’ll go this way.” said Potkin.
“So long as we’re still following our noses,” Josie felt it was the right decision, but wanted to be sure they were still following the only advice they had had so far.
As the ground levelled out they came upon a pond hidden amongst the blackberry thickets and long grass. It was round, still and very green with its carpet of duck weed.
“Like a billiard table,” said Josie, who had never seen one, “It looks as if you could walk on it.”
“Want to try?” Potkin countered.
“YoYo Pond,” a voice croaked.
Josie and Potkin looked round and the frog continued, “It’s called YoYo Pond or The Vanishing Pond, because it disappears as soon as you hop away and isn’t there when you hop back.”
“We met a girl like that,” said Josie, “Is it interdimensional?”
“We think she was a fairy,” added Potkin.
“Beats me,” said the frog, “but the people in the pond only age while its here. Some of them are hundreds of years old.”
“People in the pond, what people in the pond?”
“Just people.” Even for a frog he did not philosophise greatly. “If you look down into the water you will see them.”
“I want to see.” squealed Josie, tugging Potkin by the fur, “Come on lets have a look.”
Potkin held back, “I don’t do water, I’ll just stay here.”
Josie stepped up to the edge of the water, parted the cover of green weed with the tip of a paw and peered into the darkness. At first he could see only reflections on the surface, but slowly he began to discern movement below. The world down there was shadowy and indistinct. A mottle of light or dark specks drifted back and forth, plant like shapes wafted in slight, thermally driven currents, something animal darted and lurked. Then Josie noticed the perfectly circular, tiny patch of pale blue far down in the depths. He moved so close that his toes and nose were touching the pond. He stared as hard as he could. It was sky, a circle of sky. He could see clouds and the dot of a skylark. He could hear its song echoing faintly. Tiny, chubby fingers curled at the edge of the circle and a face looked in. A girl child, with curls and a strange form of bonnet was staring up at him with shining, emerald eyes. Her features rippled with excitement.
“Mummy! There’s a pussy cat down the well.”
Josie was tipping forwards. In drawn out slow motion he was plunging. His head swelled and began to spin. His tail twanged taught and he was jerked backwards. Twisting his neck round in amazement Josie could see Potkin tugging with all his might on the tufty, tabby end of his tail.
“OK, OK, I’m back, you’ve saved me.”
“We thought you were going in. What did you see in there?”
“I don’t know, nothing much. I think I came over a bit peculiar.”
“You’ve still got a strange look in your eye. Come away from the edge,” said Potkin in a concerned tone, “Perhaps we should continue on our journey.”
“What’s all the excitement?” asked the frog indifferently as he leaped towards the water.
He landed on his back in a tuft of grass as Potkin and Josie opened their eyes.
“It’s true then. It really does disappear when you’re not looking.”
“You looked away, didn’t you?” the frog croaked angrily, “Now I’ll have to sit here until the pond returns. I really fancied a gentle swim and a juicy larva snack.”
Our grinning and rather self-satisfied adventurers felt it was time to 'hop' off.   They were whistling a sea shanty in duet as they swaggered on their way.

Their path led up to a low ridge and then descended into an area of coppiced trees, shrubbery and hedges. A small blue-grey bird was flying just ahead of them chat-chattering in annoyance. A crack of breaking twig echoed loudly from a copse to their right and through the hedge crashed something very unexpected.
A huge black horse wheeled ahead of them, it’s long and equally black, crinkled mane streaming in every direction. Surmounting the horse and struggling to control it, was a towering, darkly uniformed man. A breastplate gleamed. A bright steely helmet topped with a massive, scarlet plume obscured the face.
"Le Blucher est-il arrivé encore?  Meard alors!   Êtes-vous avec les Allemands?"
“Wha…” said Potkin who had lost the use of all his limbs and the power of speech.
“Parlez vous Anglataire? Je ne compredre pas,” tried Josie in what he hoped was his best French.
The cuirassier threw up his shoulders in a Gallic shrug, uttered a, “Poof!” and regaining mastery of a steed that was now thrashing limbs and streaming horsehair in so many directions it seemed about to lose coherence and fly apart, wheeled it about and thundered back into the undergrowth. There was an inrush of air, and a flurry of leaves and twigs wafting to the ground behind him.
“Wha’ the?” managed Potkin.

Sunday 13 November 2011

Strange Encounter

Girding their loins, well, Josie girded what he hoped might be his loins, he and Potkin passed through the gateway and headed off into the wilderness.   They dropped down steeply into a small, wooded vale, eventually coming to a rustic spruce bridge across a splashing waterfall and clear, midge-speckled pool.
Potkin suddenly shot down a rough path that skirted the pool and tracked the sun-dappled stream that flowed from it.   Josie followed whilst formulating some very important questions to ask just as soon as he caught up.   Where were they going and was it really a good idea?
Tiny helicopters danced above the waters of the pool.   Josie was familiar with the Chinooks that flew over his cottage, bound for RAF Odiham, but these miniature craft shone with iridescent blues, sporting dark roundels on their transparent wings.   Meanwhile Potkin had come nose to nose with a very large dragonfly.   Josie was still absorbed with the flying jewels.
“Do you think they’re fairies?” he enquired.
“I don’t think so,” replied Potkin, “And this one looks bloody annoyed.”
Josie looked beyond Potkin and saw the large, winged creature with a billiard ball head and an angry, compound-eyed stare.   He sat down.   Then, rather unsteadily, he stood up again.
“Could we skirt round it and try not to look threatening?”
“I’m guessing that to him we don’t look at all threatening.”
They backed up gingerly and made a wide detour through the underbrush before rejoining their path. The dusty track was less used now and the trees grew closer together.   Blackberry bush and nettle tangles, tumbled onto the path.   Little sunlight penetrated the leaf cover, Josie and Potkin drew closer together as the shadows darkened and the boscage thickened.   There were some very strange noises coming from the undergrowth.
After a nerve wracking few minutes they rounded a gnarled and twisted old oak and found the river to be snaking in a lazy curve about a shingle beach.   Golden light dappled through the thinning foliage, leaves rustled and the water splashed in a friendly sort of way. The two cats became much more confident.
“This looks a nice spot,” said Josie, “Fancy a sandwich?”
- ~ -
Splot.   A dollop of water arrived on the tablecloth.   Potkin was peering upwards for signs of rain when the splot happened again.   Josie looked round and there in the river was a something.   Potkin could see it too, well almost.   It looked roughly humanoid, probably female and was possibly naked, but he could not properly focus on her.   It was as if she was not really where he was looking or he was not looking where she really was; and some of her bits were transforming.   She had been idly flicking water at them with a large fishy tail, but now she seemed to have developed legs, much too long and ending in slender feet, her peroxide sheep-shag of hair was morphing, to fall, blue-black and straight beyond her shoulders, and her skin was shimmering with milky, rainbow colours.
“What are you?” asked Potkin.
“Where are you?” asked Josie.
“I’m a water nymph,” she explained, “and I’m - er - between dimensions.”
Josie was getting his worried look. One more phrase he didn’t understand and he would have a panic attack.
“What’s dimensions?” from Potkin.
“Hmm…. you know what happens when cats walks through walls?”
“I do know it’s quite difficult,” said Potkin, “you have to concentrate very hard as you approach the wall and then at the last minute think of nothing; and whoosh, you’re on the other side.”
“Last time I tried that,” Josie joined in, “I bumped my nose”
“As you pass through the wall you are momentarily interdimensional; well, that’s where I am.   My friends and I are looking in on your world, sort of visiting.”
“Why?" asked Josie, "And what do you get up to while you’re here?”
“We observe, meditate, read poetry, indulge in frequent, uninhibited sex, grant wishes and splash passers by.”
“Would you like to expand on the, er, sex bit?” asked Potkin.
”And the wish granting,” chipped in Josie, optimistically, “Can you do anything about these? I’ve been saving them since I was very young.”   He took two small and very shrivelled objects from a threadbare velvet pouch and placed them in her outstretched, delicately elongated hand.
“I do tricks, not work miracles,” she said, casually tossing them over her shoulder into the water.   A snail, floating by on its upturned shell, slurped up one of the diminutive nuggets with a gulp and continued down stream.
Josie looked a little disappointed and sighed.
Potkin quickly changed the subject, “We’re on an adventure but at the moment it's all a bit random.   We don’t have a purpose.”
"Serendipity governs all." she replied with authority, "Embrace the chaos.   Your journey already is the purpose, follow your noses and your quest will be revealed.”
Apparently content with her reply, she rotated slowly in a non-dimensional sort of way and slid out of this reality.   A pair of dark, purple-blue beautiful demoiselles dog-fought above the spot where she had disappeared.   Just for a moment the recently vacated stream seemed to hold to her shape and then seeped back into place.
“Can we have our sandwiches now?” asked Josie.
“And the pop too,” added Potkin, “That was all a bit exhausting.”
They ate quickly, packed away the tablecloth and leftovers and resumed their journey down stream.
“I suppose she was quite nice really,” Josie mused.
“But what was she on about?   Was she being helpful?” said Potkin.
Josie was still being thoughtful, “She never claimed to be helpful.”

Thursday 3 November 2011

A Very English Odyssey

...Best we move quickly on to a proper story.   This is a tale of Potkin, who you have met before, and Posie (or Josie) who was as old as Catmethuselah when I knew him, but is much younger in this adventure.   It's a sort of coming of age road story kind of thing. 

Josephine was a sandy, longhaired tabby; not long haired like an over designed pedigree, but practically, tastefully and elegantly longhaired.   There had been a misunderstanding in his early youth and in fact he preferred to be called Jo when he was out with his pals.   Most people called him Josie, which was alright he supposed.   He lived in an Edwardian cottage in a very civilised part of England; and life was good.
Today though, he was bored.   He had eaten all his food, cleaned thoroughly between his toes, sculpted his litter into fanciful landscapes and explored behind the sofa.   He decided to wake Potkin.
Potkin, a solid, black and white London longhair had come to their new home with Richard on the same day that he and Joy had moved in.   He and Potkin were still a bit wary of each other, but when it came to mischief Potkin was definitely the expert.
“I’m bored,” said Josie.   Potkin pricked an ear and opened one amber eye.
“It just so happens I’ve been planning an adventure.
“Pack for a long journey,” advised Potkin.
Josie carefully buttered sixteen slices of bread and then layered them generously with shrimp paste.   He doubled them over, stacked them neatly corner to corner and placed them in an airtight box.   Next he looked out several tins of tuna, but they seemed inconveniently heavy and were discarded.   This left space in his box so he made more sandwiches filled with the smoked mackerel remnants left over from Richard's breakfast.   He shared out some biscuit snacks and after a little thought spread the last of the paste on them.   From the fridge he took two small bottles of pop, he folded a tablecloth and looked out their boonie sun hats and wellingtons.   The load was divided equally between two small but capacious rucksacks.
“What now?” he asked.
Through the cat flap, left down the close, across the lane and down a gentle slope to the corner, here at the busy main road they were at the limit of their territory.   They waited patiently for a gap in the traffic, crossed carefully and headed down Nutshell Lane.   It was a pretty lane, winding lazily between flint and brick cottages and lined with wild flowers and trees.    The sun was shining, a light breeze rustled the leaves, the air was fresh with country smells and they were both feeling pretty good about their adventure.   Ahead of them the lane dipped down, then climbed, twisted to left, then right.   Insects buzzed around their heads and bird twitter filled the air.   Josie chatted excitedly at Potkin until a gaudy tan bird with a crested head and black and white striped wings barred their way.   It was ramming acorns into the gaps between the cobblestones.
“Are you watching my nuts?” demanded the bird.
“We rarely concern ourselves with items so small..." (There was a short pause.) "...and vegetarian,” replied Potkin as he stalked past.   Josie scampered to catch up.   The bird watched them pass with obvious annoyance; then disinterred his stash and moved it to somewhere less public.
Further down the lane they came to a chocolate box, flint built cottage, its frontage festooned with pink dog roses.   'Rose Cottage' proclaimed a carved sign hanging in the porch where a kindly and rotund old lady in a wrap round pinny was standing before the door.
“Would you two little kitties like some milk?” she asked, popping briefly indoors and emerging with a bowl and jug.   Josie was about to decline on account of milk making him excessively regular, but Potkin plunged head first into the bowl the instant it was put down.   Fearful of being left out, or appearing rude, Josie joined in.   As they drank they were petted and cooed over.
“Very nice,” Potkin thanked her as a last drip of milk ran to the end of a whisker and fell off.   “We’ll be sure to call again on our way back.”
They departed, tails high, the lane ascending yet again.   On rounding a bend they came to a weathered and rickety wooden gate.   The duo stopped to take in the view.   Ahead, unkempt fields and blue-green woods fell away from them, stretching across a wide, sun drenched valley to a hilly horizon way in the misty distance.
“Where have the houses gone?” asked Josie
“There aren’t any.”
“I’ve never been anywhere were there weren’t houses.   What is it for?”
“It’s country,” explained Potkin.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Dark Fluff in the Vacuum

"Richard!   There's something wrong with the vacuum, it won't suck up."   Joy's cry from the dining room was agitated and strident.
Boz was curled on the living room sofa with a ginger and cream, banded tail draped across his nose.   He raised one eyebrow and half opened one eye.   "Good, perhaps, now, we can get some peace around here."
Richard was surprised, he had not considered that fawning subservience was required of a hoover.   However, armed with a Phillips screwdriver, a wire coat hanger and eternal hope he readied himself for an attempt at a repair.   The yellow Hoover télios class 1500 lay in the middle of the dining room floor whining pathetically.   Richard unplugged it from the wall socket, spread out a used copy of the Fernton Bugle to receive the contents of the distressed appliance and then removed an access cover from the machine.   The stout brown paper bag within was bulging and stretched close to the point of losing structural integrity.   He detached the bag and emptied it over the newspaper.   There was a puther of normal dust which spread out to hang in cloudy layers across the room and then a dark mass flopped out over a full colour photograph of the town crier, in full regalia, and a short article about inappropriate dealings in respect of a lucrative but unpopular proposal for a town centre shopping mall.   The heap settled gently, its lumps and folds resembling black mashed potato and wire-wool, tar black rivulets and pools seeping into crannies, its boundaries blurred as if it was not quite in this world, its hyper-black core sucking in colour from its surroundings.   The dust cloud, slowly at first, gravitated back into the primal entity.
"What on earth is that?"   Joy was standing in the doorway holding a wrought iron toasting fork out defensively in front of her body.   Boz peeped from behind her skirts.
Richard could not take his eyes off the hypnotic murk.   The intense blackness seemed to draw in everything around it, filled his field of vision, tugged at his mind, his soul.
As Joy watched in horror, writhing black fingers of fluff reached out towards her husband.
"Get away from him, you bitch!"   She thrust her toasting fork into the mass.   The iron chilled in an instant and was tugged from her grasp.   She jerked back screaming as the weapon was drawn into the slowly pulsing form.

Richard watched as the blackness clouded over, blackly.   He was tumbling towards the blacker than black core.   Faint pin pricks of light began to appear and multiply, pastel clouds hung in the void, vast clouds of fluff; fluff within the universe and a universe within the fluff.   The clouds towered above him, the points of fuzzy light grew into swirling galaxies.   An immense tilted catherine wheel spiral rushed towards him, around him.   Ahead was a single, boiling honey-gold star.   Orbiting gas giants spun past, billowing elemental clouds and storms thousands of miles deep, magnetic fields crackling from pole to pole - and now he was falling towards a sphere of vapour cloaked rock.   He was through the cloud in a heart beat and into drizzle, giant rime-heavy wings slowing his descent.   Below, the bleak junction between pallid grey land and a heaving black sea; a web of gunmetal highways and charcoal grey rooftops; a canyon-like street, a bustling sidewalk.

He is inside the saloon bar of a dockside ale house.   The grey-brown linoleum is cracked and sticky, the anaglypta wallpaper shades of tobacco, upholstery faded and threadbare.   Faded and threadbare locals at black iron, marble topped tables, too heavy to throw, stare into their flat pints, thin light from shabby wall lamps struggles to penetrate the pall of cigarette smoke; fall-down-drunk sailors grope their tattooed escorts, slop beer, leer and cheer at the pole dancer.   Her death-white body writhes around the chrome shaft - bored, unsexy, mechanically caricaturing the procreative act on a low stage.
Richard, out of body Richard, is at the step-high dais, drinking in the body odours, her blue-white flesh containing his view, every purple thumb and tooth imprint, each livid indented bra and knicker-elastic scar sharply detailed.   The blanched belly envelopes him.   He is dissolving into the bland, self absorbed, all absorbing eternal feminine...
There is a clatter at the cat flap as Phoebles bounds in from the yard.   Tail high he prances and somersaults into the dining room, certain as ever of the overwhelming joy his presence will provoke.   And then he stops, puzzled.   No one has looked up, no one has moved.   The little group before him stares, motionless at a lumpy black mass of...
"So that's where you've been all this time."   Peering into the fluff mound he has seen something treasured.   He leaps into the middle of the outspread newspaper, dust and fluff flying in all directions.   There is a collective gasp.   Boz sneezes.
Phoebles emerges clutching the limp, grey, filthy form of his favourite one eared catnip mouse, more furless, featureless and tailless than ever.   The company, fast recovering its equilibrium, regards him and sighs.
"...What?"

At a quantum level Dark Fluff is constantly and spontaneously flicking in and out of existence.    These transients are known scientifically as Quirks.  To the observer of one small area of space such events are barely detectable, but at any one moment in time, across the entire vastness of our universe the net mass of all the fleeting and tiny flufflets is significant.   Very occasionally a number of coincident creation events will occur in close proximity and sufficient mass will accrue for gravity to come into play.   As the conglomerate grows fluff enters our Newtonian World and that is when the true mystery of Dark Fluff becomes apparent.

Monday 5 September 2011

Me and Phoebles' Hols in Dorset

At the weekend me an' Phoebles went on a trip to Dorset an' we met a mermaid!   Honest!
She'd got feet and clothes and things 'cos they do when they are ashore.   Well a bloomin' great tail would'na be very practical on land, would it.   Anyway she an' her mermaid mates is running a B&B an' a mermaid shop full of mermaid pictures an' stuff.   That's a snap of us outside the shop, but there's no mermaid 'cos she's inside.   An' the shop is very old and haunted by dead smugglers an' things - it's real exciting!
Anyway I got this idea they could turn a bit of it into yet another catnip franchise an' sell me dad's Old Tar Catnip Plug an' cut it with seaweed.   But we've not suggested it yet 'cos mermaids can turn a bit funny.

Wednesday 31 August 2011

All Hands to the Pumps

LibertéÉgalité and Fraternité
A postwar cabinet was planned to be held at the site where the first sparks of Armageddon had been struck, Angel Alley.   An upstairs room above the Freedom Press was procured and all interested parties were invited.
All the -ists were there, the various anarchist and communist sub sects and every shade of socialist, they all wore different hats and button-hole badges shaped like flags and all the flags were different and it did not matter, and no-one got upset.   They were also all noticeably subdued after what they perceived as their poor performance during the incident in Cable Street.   There were ships' cats and dock cats and ratters and The Kittens of Chaos and sailors and stevedores and tagareen men and thespians and jugglers and a man who pretended to be a statue and an ex- Lord Mayor of London called Dick.   Billy Bragg came along to provided the musical entertainment.
Larry spoke, "Around us today we have a traumatised, demoralised nation and it is up to us to step up and restore its spiritual health.   Limehousesailortown, the Land of Green Ginger, all the sailortowns in all the ports in all the world will be a beacon of hope.   Spreading their concepts of freedom, equality and co-operation to all.   The people will see that whenever they are not giving orders or taking orders they are like the sailors and cats and entertainers and crimps of sailortown.   You do not have to be told what to do or have rules about doing what you want when you want.   You work together tirelessly and unconsciously for a society where everyone in sailortown, resident or visitor, consumer or supplier can have the time of their lives.   And we outsiders can have it too, by embracing co-operation and liberty, minimizing constraints, nurturing the vulnerable, setting  happiness and fun on the highest of pedestals and nailing the wizened hearts and brains of the bullies to the doors of their banks and institutions.   Now, let's go out and spread the word.   A new day has dawned."
For the hydrophobic townspeople Sailortown had always been dangerous and scary and perhaps it still was, a little bit.   But winkles were spreading into the suburbs and no-one had the will to stop them.   Limehousesailortown did not change, of course, but the world about did - and people were constantly surprised and pleased and sometimes amazed.   People cooked or hammered or painted or brewed because that was what they enjoyed and were good at and there was always someone who needed a cook or a hammerer.   And if someone did not pull his weight no one minded, much; though they were often much too busy when he wanted something and he had to get used to being introduced as, "This is Tom/Dick/Harry, he's neither use nor ornament."
Larry kept on the policeman at the door of Number 10; the tourists liked him and he could live at Number 11 with his wife and children, which was handy for work.
Phoebles was made editor in chief of the independent, Limehousesailortown based broadsheet 'International Catnip Times' which, drifting away only minimally  from it's 1960's underground roots, promoted the etiquette and socio-political efficacy of catnip consumption -  and, less popularly, the music of the sitar.
Bozzy's catnip franchise spread out of dockland and into a grateful and receptive world at large.
Ginsbergbear won the Man Booker Prize for his writing, because all the other nominees let him.
Ferdy took the Dragon Rapide home to Surrey and gave aerobatic displays at country fairs.
Googleberry got his ice-cream.
And everyone could have lived happily ever after.   Except that the Merovingian Lizard Kings were still in their mountain stronghold, Les Chats Souterrains still occupied the tunnel system that honeycombs the earth's crust and Mr Fluffy still harboured a plan.





Monday 29 August 2011

Revelations

Conquest 
Next morning the papers trumpeted the government's successes.   Hundreds, nay thousands, of arrests had been made and the courts put on special alert to take the vast number of arrestees.   The Loyalist marchers had liberated the docks, though the media did not dwell on the fact that they found the gates to the various docks lying open with the pickets gone and braziers cold - and the ships cats curled up asleep aboard their respective vessels.   
The PM arrived at Lime Grove Studios to deliver his victory speech live to the nation.   He had elected to sit at a heavy oak desk, solid and reliable.   What he got was cobbled together from chipboard and lengths of 4x2, but it looked impressive on camera.   Behind him union flags, quite a lot of union flags, flanked a gilt framed portrait of the sainted Lady Thatcher in sky blue twinset, displaying a winning smile and clutching the legendary handbag.   He had on the dress uniform of a Major-General in the Grenadier Guards with slightly too many medal ribbons - to signify the conquest of the rebellious East End, victory over subversive socialism.   Mr Fluffy sat on his lap, purring and receiving an occasional limp wristed stroke to the head.  
He had read through his speech on the Autocue and supervised the correction of a couple of typographical errors, but would never be comfortable with the mechanics of seeing the words scrolling upwards in front of him.   Make-up had given him a last primp and powdered Mr Fluffy's nose, the cat had sneezed a smallish glob of nasal fluid onto the PM's trousers.   The floor manager was standing next to the camera, counting down with his fingers... 3 - 2 - 1.   
A  red light comes on above the Autocue and the Prime Minister begins to read.
"Yesterday saw a...
Total victory for strong governance;
Triumph for patriotic zeal;
Vindication of righteous indignation,
Forged in the white heat of battle;
Glorious manifestation of the Big Society at work..."

TV crews waited outside the courts for the arrival of the van loads of criminal anarchists... all morning.   No-one came.
It was lunchtime when the first information appeared on Twitter and the first images of arrested anarchists in ski masks flashing their warrant cards and being released were aired on Youtube.   It transpired that all those arrested had been working undercover as agents provocateurs for one agency or another - with the exception of the three Kronstadt sailors, all of whom claimed diplomatic immunity and were escorted to an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-114 flying out of RAF Northolt for a free trip home and a hero's welcome.  
War 
Ferdy was a long time in the tiny yellow inflatable life raft, paddling furiously for the shore.   Not that it was far, but a breeze was blowing his little boat all over the dock, his plastic paddle was swivelly and badly designed and mostly he was downhearted about his best present ever just sinking like that.   He'd watched the bubbles where it went down, rising and popping, for quite a while.   Then he got cold and decided to be philosophical about the whole day.   Once ashore he managed to catch an omnibus that was not only going onto the Isle of Dogs, but all the way down to Island Gardens.   In fact he alighted at the North Pole... Really.   It is a common alehouse on the corner of Manilla Street.   From here he crossed Millwall Dock at Pepper Street and then struck out cross country.   There was little indication of the fog that was bedevilling the East End and as he approached Mud Chute Farm Ferdy could see the Dragon Rapide, a magnificent scarlet Dragon Rapide, sitting at the end of a rough, grass airstrip. 
The pilot was tinkering with one of the two Gypsy Queen inline engines, but as soon as she spotted Ferdy's flying helmet and goggles she waved and rushed towards him.   She wiped some of the oil off her palm and onto her boiler suit and shook his right wing stub, vigourously.
"Beryl, Beryl Clutterbuck.   And you, I am sure, are Mr Ferdinand Desai."   Beryl was a tall and imposing presence, but Ferdy could not take his eyes of the little red Dragon Rapide.
"Come and have a good look over her.   She's an ex-millitary DH89A Dominie.   Those Gypsy engines produce 200 horse power each and she can fly at 157 miles an hour, on a good day.   I've got a thermos flask of lapsang souchong and a packet of Duchy Originals ginger biscuits in the cockpit.   Do you like ginger biscuits?"
Ferdy wondered if he had died in the crash and gone to dodo heaven. 

Near to the aircraft was a canvas ridge tent with a pair of Lloyd Loom chairs ourside, one pink and the other painted blue.   There was also an ambitious Dutch dove cote on a pole, with a brass bell hanging beneath it.
"It's the communications centre," explained Beryl, "The pigeons are for long range messaging and the bell is to scramble the air crew - that's you and me.   We'll wizz up to The Gun for supper," she was ushering him into a shiny black Morgan V-Twin Super Sport as she chattered.   The little three wheeler shot off towards the inn, situated close by the Poplar dock and West India lock gates, famed as a venue for one or two of Nelson's trysts with young Emma.   Ferdy found the journey to be exhilarating, a bit like flying, but with your bum only twelve inches off the deck.  

Much later they returned to the tent and settled down for the night.   Soon after dawn Ferdy was woken by the brass alarm bell and the smell of cooking.   The breakfast fry-ups were magnificent, rustled up on a primus and washed down by billy-can tea.   But soon it was time for their mission.   Ms Clutterbuck settled herself in the pilot's seat.   In the back with Ferdy were bundles of pamphlets tied up with binding twine.   With a roar and a whirr the Dominie bumped and bounded along the makeshift runway, lifted lightly into the air and headed for West London.   Once in the air Beryl started to laugh, a light hearted tinkling laugh that persisted almost all the time she was airborne.   She had the side windows open and her long blonde hair writhed in the draught.   Once off the ground she was a goddess. 
"We'll start over Hyde Park and the festival and then spiral outwards, make sure we cover as much territory as possible.   Ferdy, you open up the bundles and begin shoving the pamphlets out as soon as were in place."   The young  bird unhinged the cabin door and placed it carefully to one side, then he cut through the twine on the first bundle with the larger of the two blades on his Victorinox Explorer.   As soon as he saw the big wheel and the Steam Fair below he started scattering the flyers.   "Haha, fliers eh?" he shouted to the pilot.
These were not Slasher McGoogs' usual rants.   These were factual and detailed.   The first few bundles revealed the contents of Mr Fluffy's archive, information on the misdeads and indiscretions of the rich, the famous, politicians, law enforcement chiefs and judges.   Anyone who might one day be persuaded to do him a favour, or be suseptible to blackmail or intimmidation.   Next came the photographs - telephoto images of peccadilloes and parties, liaisons, meetings and luxury holidays at exotic resorts, politicians, policemen, spies, media oligarchs, bikini clad Chattes Souterraines, flaumige kätzchen.   Then there were bank statements, payments made and received, false and exaggerated claims, frauds and embezzlements.   Finally the e-mails, so many e-mails - threats and cajolings, cover-ups and conspiracies, self seeking fawnings, advancements, promises and threats.     
Nor were civil servants exempt, nor bank managers, local councillors, traffic wardens, nor swimming pool attendants, anyone who's lust for power had compromised his integrity, smothered any vestige of compassion; all were named and shamed.   There was Mr Fluffy himself - the fantasies and lies, the threats and bribes, and his dealings with Les Chats Souterrains, so tied in with their machinations that he was no more in control of his destiny than any of his victims.   And... evidence against Slasher McGoogs, the catnip scam and so much more; was this his final joke?
At the bottom of each page was the web address where every revelation could be reread, cross referenced, provenances were detailed, sources revealed; all available on line with a link on Facebook.
As the last leaves fluttered down Ferdy fell back, physically exhausted, but also stunned by what he had read.   Was there not one honest man, good and true, anywhere in this blighted world?
Famine 
Whilst gestating the culmination of his machinations the Grey Pimpernel had absorbed William Morris' more radical tracts avidly and with careful attention - When preplanning the revolution, he had read, look first to the needs of the people.   There will be no support if your actions result in famine and deprivation.   Well before contemplating the inauguration of strife, plan for the peace.
In the blackest streets  of Bethnal Green, Poplar, Whitechapel, Canning Town, soup kitchens sprang up - veggie soup, vegan soup, carnivore soup - every conceivable flavour for those who love soup.   And there was crusty bread.   The fish fags and tagareen wives and pleasure kittens had been baking all night and day, every variety of bread that multicultural, multinational sailortown could devise.   It fell biblically from the heavens.   Their aerial propaganda mission done, Ferdy and Beryl took it in turns to pilot the scarlet Dominie over London's East End, laden with bakery produce, tied to little parachutes with string.
For those who craved more than soup and cobs, Brick Lane became a street market of curry stalls and the rival baigel shops threw open their doors.   In Salmon Lane  trestles down the length of the street were laden with decorative bowls of sweet and sour pork, skewered chicken satay, sticky rice, Singapore noodles.   Kelly's Eel and Pie shop in Bow had extra tables, borrowed from neighbouring households, out on the pavement.   M. Bloom (Kosher) and Son Ltd set up a take away stall next to Aldgate station giving out salt beef sandwiches with kosher mustard.   And all over town humble British chippies were frying flat out to keep up with demand.
Absolutely not prearranged was the arrival of a Frisbee shaped aircraft in Victoria Park, the occupants of which set up a marquee advertising Vegan food.   The resulting riot led to the visitors' hasty departure.   It would appear that they eat some very strange things on the planet Vega.
In time Co-operative stores sprang up, general stores, clothing stores, chandlers, butchers and grocers, owned and run by the people, for the people.   Local neighbourhood Co-operative banks became established to oversee a system of IOU chits received for labour and favours which slowly evolved as cash became worthless and mutual aid and support grew to be the norm.   The lending libraries were reopened.
Death
Thus began the slow death of the establishment.   As the only person left in No10 not compromised, hiding, or attempting to flee the country disguised as a washer woman, Larry took charge.
The City, refusing all attempts at reassurance or consolation, collapsed, imploded and disappeared from the socio-political scene.   The pallid, grey streets of the square mile were deserted and silent, traffic lights cycling through their colours without an audience, the regular stomp of the City of London bobby, the only sound.   The only activity, the fluttering of pigeons evading the stooping kestrel.
An Extended Royal family departed from St James' Park in two customised X Class Super-Zeppelins, almost 700 feet of raw airpower bound for Canada and accompanied by a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III laden with a Roles-Royce Silver Ghost 40/50, two 4887cc Silver Wraiths, a Toyota Land Cruiser, an Austin Mini Moke and an extensive collection of hat boxes and suit cases filled to bursting with fine jewellery and state regalia.   They were closely followed by the entire Cabinet and Mr Fluffy in a commandeered Douglas DC3 Dakota.
Les Chats Souterrains melted back into their tunnels after first pillaging 430 Kings Road for its punk and leather gear.


A 40W bare bulb hangs above the oilcloth-covered table.
Phoebles is rolling catnip spliffs, deftly, with one paw and depositing them in an old bacci tin.
Ferdy waits for a kettle to boil, a  pot of Russian Caravan tea ready to receive the water.   He has piled a large number of ginger biscuits precariously onto a plate
Ginsbergbear is composing an epic poem about their latest adventure and desperately trying to rhyme 'Tory Prime Minister' with a synonym for 'Capitalist Running Cur'.
Boz is slobbing in a worn and scuffed leather armchair, tufts of horse-hair poking through tears in the cushion.   He has been reading Fields and Factories, flicking through the tedious sections and seeing if it will fall open at the racier bits.
The end credits for Apocalypse Now run through on the old black and white telly, forests burn, music clangs.
Consuella Starcluster comes to the door
“There’s a phone call.   Who’s gonna take it?”
Boz clambers out from the belly of his armchair and goes down to the pay-phone on the lower landing.
“Hello.   It’s Strawberry.   Googleberry’s back.   Says he got locked in someone’s shed.  He has a bit of a limp, but otherwise he’s fine.   Working his way through his third portion of smoked salmon and some funny fish egg things he had in a tin.” 

Wednesday 24 August 2011

A Second Battle in Cable Street

The front ranks of the Nationalist marchers were staring into Hell.   Ahead smoke curled and flames crackled.   Shadowy wraith-like figures scurried across the crimson haze.   A roar of defiance filled the air and chilled the blood.
Boz was on the barricade waiting for the exact moment to signal to Phoebles.   He was proudly wearing his best telnyashka under a flamboyant Makhnovist Cossack, bum-freezer jacket and his little Kronstadt sailor hat was perched on his head.   He felt that he looked pretty good.
Michael Winner was at the head of the advancing column, waving  a large flag of St George,  when the first salvo of bombs hit.   He was floored by a wobbly, water-filled condom and stepped on by a Royal Marine Trombonist.   A wavy, jiggling line of riot police rushed forward, making chuff chuff train noises, and formed a defensive barrier between those who had fallen and the looming presence of the barricade, they banged their shields in time to each other and muttered a deep throated, tuneful 'Whoa-whoooooooo, whooooooooa-ha!   
And then pandemonium errupted.   There was yelling and screaming and clattering and clashing.   Everyone opened up with every weapon they had, at anything they could see.   Firing short accurate bursts with the X Ranger 1075 from the Town Hall roof Ginsbergbear was having a devastating effect on the Nationalists, but down below in the thick of the melée water was flying everywhere, there was the steady pop, pop, pop of Burp® guns and flour and water were combining into a dreadful paste.   Some tear gas had been deployed in the early stages of the conflict, but it had clung to the fog, refusing to spread and lingering in intense isolated pockets.   Hurling their bombs over the heads of the front line combatants the Kronstadt sailors could have no idea of the havoc they wrought, every so often Boz gave them a reassuring thumbs up from his vantage point on the defences. 
For the moment the Women's Institute Anarcha-Feminists were manning (a term that I am sure they would object to) the field hospitals. but they were armed to the teeth and eager to join the fray on the flimsiest of excuses .   The essential tea urns had been set up  on a conveniently located trestle table by two pacifist Quakers and a jewish transvestite named Manny who had not wanted to endanger her expensively manicured nails in battle.   They also serve who only serve the tea.
La Columna were engaging Metropolitan Snatch Squads and a detachment of Eton school boys in nearby side streets.   The boys' Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s and La Columna's STR80-AK47 Aquafires were pretty much equally matched, but experience was to win out and the toffs were soon routed.   One snatch squad was captured and, with no provision for restraining prisoners, was released on a promise that they would go straight home.   Elsewhere the conflict was confused and messy.


Locked in a stale mate at the barricade the Nationalists deployed their secret weapon, two mounted police vans.   The  vans were lashed howdah-like to the backs of elephants, blue lights flashing and sirens 'nee-nawing', but the elephants proved as ineffectual as they were ridiculous.   They quickly faltered under the Kronstadt sailors' artillery bombardment and were rendered skittish by tear gas stinging their eyes and trunks.   At this opportune moment Ferdy arrived on the scene in the Cierva C.19, screaming out of the sky, bonksie-like in a steep dive, to unleash a stick of flour bombs with devastating accuracy.   Jumbo ran amuck, charging back through scattering ranks of riot police.
Sadly, autogyros do not do dive bombing, or if they do, they do it but the once.   Trailing smoke and oil and popping rivets all the way, Ferdy just managed to hold it together long enough to ditch in the chill waters of Shadwell Basin.

Meanwhile, back in Cable Street, the cobbles were drenched and slippery, gutters running with those fluid residues that are the byproduct of armed conflict.   The Anarcho-Surrealists had regrouped and united with the Situationist and were holding their own.   Scary clowns were recklessly hurling pails of confetti.   Boz was just checking the last few magazines for his AK47 Aquafire, water was running low, when Phoebles pointed to a young lad with a severe limp approaching them urgently from the rear.   He was being held up by one of the Anarcha-Feminists.
"Talk to him.   He's gone to a lot of trouble getting here."   She left the lad with Phoebles, picked up an abandoned Burp® gun and clambered onto the barricade.
The youngster had come up from the sewers and was the son of one of the Yorkshire miners.   His Kier Hardie cap was awry and dried blood stained his left cheek.   
"T' Cats Sootrins 'as been guidin' t' Met Snatch Squads through 'tunnels.   We'n bin overrun int' sewers.   Thou's gonna be cut off an' surrounded.   Me da' says I gorra warn yer."
"Good lad." said Boz, "Phoebles, take him to the rear and get him a cupper... make it a mug, strong and sweet.   And tell everyone back there it's time to go; we'll hold on here for a bit longer."  
Phoebles returned just as the howling Snatch Squads and Chats Souterrains emerged from the sewers.   Once on the the surface they assumed a cuneum formation, several wedges in fact, so probably cuneii or something like that... and charged. 
Boz raised one eyebrow. "I meant you to go too."
"I know, but..."
Heavily out numbered now the defenders battled on, periodically releasing small groups from their number to escape through the surrounding, winding alleys and passages.   One catapult crew remained with a fast dwindling supply of bombs.   Whilst unsuccessfully urging others to follow, a ski-masked mob of Anarcho-Syndicalists rushed on to the barricade crying "No retreat - stand firm!"   They planted a Confederación Nacional del Trabajo banner securely into the rubble, "Rally to the flag!"
Ginsbergbear could see the circle of Nationalists tightening on his comrades.   Riot Police were hammering on the doors of the Town Hall.   It was time to go.   He picked up the X Ranger 1075 and headed for the stairs.
Phoebles and Boz were standing back to back, one magazine left in Bozzy's AK47 Aquafire and the last two ping pong balls in Phoebles' Burp® gun.
"Not exactly going to plan, eh, y'old bugger." muttered Phoebles.
"Ah, but you've not heard my Plan B yet, pal." 
Softly the distant, tinkling notes of Die Walküre drifted on the gentle breeze that was just beginning to clear the day long fog.
"That'll be the Plan B where we're unexpectedly rescued at the eleventh hour?"
Headlamps and ice-cream cones flashed as the Vicecream van, with a newly fitted Audi turbocharged V12 diesel engine grumbling under its bonnet, careered westwards along Cable Street and burst in on the scene.
"That's the one!" replied Boz.
With the Kittens of Chaos balanced precariously on the roof-rack lobbing a fusillade of smoking baked potatoes down onto their hapless victims Aunty Stella gunned the Vicecream van through the rear ranks of besiegers and slewed round to halt within inches of the lucky pair.
"More spuds, more spuds We're running low on ammo up here!"
"Get in... Now!"
They piled through the open serving hatch.
Nationalists were all round the van and advancing up the lower levels of the barricade.
"We'll never reach anyone else."


Consuella Starcluster dominated the highest point on the pile.   With bodice bursting to reveal her ample and heaving  breasts and waving a republican flag with a single red star centred on its golden stripe, she was totally surrounded by warring Anarcho-Syndicalists and Metropolitan Riot Police.   And she was screeching defiance...
 "¡Vare a la mierda!"  
"¡A hacer puñetas!"   
"¡A tomar por el culo!"   
"¡Descojonarse, mearse de risa!"   
Turning to look down at the euphonically wagnerian vehicle she produced a fully loaded Saturator STR100 Lightning Strike super hand cannon from under her full skirts and proceeded to carve a swathe thro her would be captors.   Springing gazelle-like down the rubble she reached the vicecream van, vaulted through the hatch and spun round to continue firing on anyone who had been stupid enough to pursue her.   Aunty Stella jabbed the accelerator pedal, wheelied the van through a tyre smoking handbrake turn and was gone.   
For a while the remaining defenders atop the barricade fought on, but they were quickly subdued and bundled into waiting black marias.   

Tuesday 23 August 2011

The Barricade

That evening the Prime Minister appeared in a simultaneous transmission on all major television channels.   He was flanked by union flags, and Mr Fluffy stood behind him, one paw on his shoulder.   There was, he announced, to be a rally in Parliament Square the following morning.   He urged all right minded patriots to be there as it was to be followed by a march to Tower Hill.   There they would regroup before  proceeding down Royal Mint Street, along Cable Street and on into Limehouse and Poplar.   They would retake the docks, by force if absolutely necessary, restoring normality and stability to the nation.   The broadcast ended with him standing, hand on heart whilst the National Anthem played out under slow mixes to old footage of Battle of Britain Spitfires and selected clips from Sink the Bismark.


A council of war was convened in an upstairs room in Charlie Brown's.   This legendary dockland public house, legendary at least amongst the world wide maritime community, is  more properly named the Railway Tavern, it sits on the corner of Garford Street close to the gates of the West India Dock and is always referred to by the name of its renowned, broken nosed, ex-pugilist landlord, the self proclaimed 'uncrowned king of Limehouse'.   The building had been commissioned by Charrington and Company, it is some five storeys high, over a basement, is crowned by a copper-covered cupola and aspires to a bastardised Baroque style.   The interior is a museum of curiosities gathered from all parts of the world, gifted by seaman sailing into the docks of East London. The majority of the souvenirs and nick-nacks in the collection, hanging from ceilings, nailed to walls, crowded on shelves, are from the Far East and Polynesia.      
Boz was (sort of) chairing the meeting, which was degenerating into something of a buffet; cheese sandwiches and beer had been provided, on the house, by the proprietor, Charlie Brown.   Ginsbergbear coughed and Phoebles banged a beer mug, freshly drained, on the table.   The ships' cats and a small contingent of Kronstadt sailors, being more inclined to action than the rest, shushed the disparate anarchist and communist factions and eventually gained their attention.   Boz recounted what he could remember of his one sided conversation with Slasher McGoogs.   Much of his concentration had been taken up at the time by the ugly automatic pistol that was being pointed his way and he was still a bit shaky. 
It was agreed that the march must be stopped and that it would be halted in Cable Street near to St George's Town Hall.
The Brick Lane Zapatistas were put in charge of constructing and manning a series of sturdy barricades, whilst La Columna  would help to secure the side streets and alleys.
Those Marxist-Leninists, Trots and Maoists present put aside their doctrinal differences and, declaring that the time was not yet right  for action, retired to The Prospect of Whitby on Wapping Wall to wait out the coming events.
With time of the essence the company then downed their beers, polished off the sandwiches, made use of the tavern's urinals and litter trays and proceeded down Cable Street to make their preparations.


Fuelled by strikers’ braziers and the smoke from burning police cars an old fashioned London fog had descended on the East End.   A red glow from bonfires and torches coloured the smog and suffused the shadowy buildings that lined the street with a crimson light.   Curling smoke constructed sinuous dragons which twisted through the air above the scene.
The anarcho-surrealists in panto costumes were dispatched to form a redoubt at the junction of Cable Street with Dock Street.   Much in evidence, as with most of the irregulars, was their weapon of choice, the Classic Burp® Gun manufactured by Ack-Ack Inc of East Detroit Michigan.   They had strict instructions that theirs was to be a delaying action only, there was to be no last ditch stand.   When overrun they were to fall back and melt away, their job then would be to harry and slow the marchers.   They were joined at the redoubt by Snowdrop in ballet tutu and Red Army budionovka pixy hat, on her unicycle, juggling flaming brands and assuming tenuous command. 


In Parliament square the Royal Marines' Regimental Brass Band played a medley of Elgar's more stirring tunes before a high podium and lectern that bristled with microphones.   From here the Prime Minister gave yet another rousing speech,  though it transpired that he would not himself be on the march - prevented by an unfortunate prior engagement.
Rank upon rank of black clad riot policemen in visored helmets, already rhythmically tapping their truncheons against their shields, formed up behind the band; then came paramilitary cadre units of fundamentalist Young Conservatives and public school boy volunteer brigades, uniformly equiped with Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s; finally the massed irregulars with Burp® guns and assorted cheap water pistols bought, en route, from a branch of Lidl Stiftung and Co. KG.
On arriving at Tower Hill, their ranks swollen by thousands of patriotic peasants with pitchforks, flaming torches and of course, Burp® guns, they encountered the East End fog.   The column was also joined by the dark shape of a Metropolitan Police medium range pursuit airship which, forced to fly too high above the fog bank, was to play no significant part in the day's events.   The band struck up once more and the advance into the alien maze of streets that lay beyond the walls of the great city began.


The primary barricade spanning Cable Street, constructed from iron bedsteads, pallets, up turned carts, assorted furniture and the occasional shell of a motor vehicle, being completed and topped with red flags, black flags, red and black flags, the Brick Lane Zapatistas took up their positions.   Silhouetted figures armed with STR80-AK47 Aquafire combat water weapons mounted the barricades and presented clenched fisted salutes to the featureless mist.   They shall not pass!  ¡No pasaran!   Consuella Starcluster with the republican flag draped across her bodice and wearing a profondo rosso frigian cap with the blood, puss and scab rosette of her spiritual homeland, topped the highest pinnacle.   
Kronstadt Sailors under the command of Phoebles, who was wearing a saucepan on his head and which he feared may well be stuck, manned giant rubber catapults (three man bomb launchers), in a line behind the barricade, with a plentiful supply of water bombs and flour bombs.
Track had been removed for some distance north and south of Shadwell station to prevent the Government  from deploying its armoured trains.   Ex-miners from Wales and Yorkshire had come in via the backroads to avoid police road blocks and they were to guard the sewers and underground tunnels against surprise attack.
Slates were removed from the roof of the Italianate Vestry Hall so that  Ginsbergbear could take up a commanding position above the cornice with his powerful Exploderz X Ranger 1075 water machine gun.   The defences were ready.


There followed a nervous pause in the proceedings until, far in the distance, could be heard a marching band playing Colonel Bogey.   It faltered and was drowned out by the cries and clamour of conflict.   The anarcho-surrealists had gone into action.
To the rear, amidst the reserve troops and baggage an ex-colliery brass band responded with the Marseilles and Internationale and a small Welsh choir sang out a baritone rendition of Lloyd George Knew My Father.





Sunday 21 August 2011

Kanal

The manhole was dingy and deep.   Boz went first, then Phoebles, then Ferdy  and Ginsbergbear brought up the rear, replacing the cover above his head in the interest of health and safety.   Clambering down a corroded iron ladder they descended, gingerly into the wondrous construct that is the subterranean world created by Joseph Bazalgette.   They were in a sewer, and Ferdy was wearing his best Rupertbear tartan trousers!   He produced a Penlite torch and flashed it along the tunnel.   It just about picked out a running shadowy figure.   "Got him!"
And thus began such an epic pursuit that it was recounted around the winter fires to kittens' kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and...
The victorian brickwork  enclosed vast vaulted chambers, wide tunnels, cramped oval culverts, described elegant arches, steps and pavements, water channels and weirs. there were iron stairs, ladders, walkways and pipes.   Ahead they would hear the clatter of heals on stone, the clank of soles on grating the splash of shoes in water; sometimes close, sometimes far away.   They ran alongside fast flowing streams, splashed through sluggish shallows, waded as water in the narrower passages deepened.
Eyes watched them from almost every side tunnel.   The rats down here were the size of Gloucester Old Spots, but remained aloof, neither helping McGoogs nor hindering our heroes.   Sometimes eyes on stalks, emerald or mauve or both at once, popped up out of the liquor, looked around and sank again followed by a stream of bubbles.
Often they thought they had lost him amongst the maze of passageways and interconnecting tunnels, but each time someone would hear a splash or scrape ahead and off they would go again.   When, eventually, the battery in Ferdy's flash-light died they found that many of the strange shapes floating on the liquid in which they paddled glowed a feint and unearthly green, casting just enough of a glimmer to see by once their eyes had adjusted.
A regular metallic ringing ahead hinted that someone was climbing an iron ladder and, half swimming, half wading under a low archway the quartet found themselves in a high chamber at the foot of a long vertical shaft.   The ladder ascending one side was new and galvanised there was a tiny circle of light at the top.   Within the chamber a noisome, gaseous vapour was writhing sluggishly across the surface of the sludge.   The climb began.
They emerged into the mind blowingly awe inspiring Pump Hall of the The Cathedral of the Sewers.   The great beam engines hissed, nodded and clunked to a slow rhythm, cast-iron pillars, arches and galleries soared in a dazzle of red lead, sky blue and gilt.   They were within the Abbey Mills Pumping Station whose architectural wizardry had eclipsed the Taj Mahal, the Brighton Pavilion and all but rivalled the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station.
A door banged.   The great outer double-doors had been flung back and were rebounding.   The gang rushed through and out into the blighted wastelands that straddle the margins between middle earth and the world ocean.   Ahead of them scrambling and lurching across the marshes ran Slasher, coat tails flapping around his bent form like a wounded bat.
"Come on!" cried Boz between rasping breaths and they resumed their chase onto the hinterland that is the Lea Delta.   Mist clung languidly in the canals and channels between tussocks of coarse, grey grasses.   A sullen sky loomed, a dense, wide mass over the land of doom, pressing fortitude and vigour down into the very boots of the pursuers.
Ginsbergbear was winded and beginning to split along his seams; Phoebles was germinating the hint of a possibility that his love of food was in the early stages of compromising his waistline and stamina;   Ferdy was failing to understand why evolution had deprived dodos of the more useful parts of their wings without making their legs longer; and the dank, sodden salt-marsh, after so many hours wading through Mr Bazalgette's slurry, was not helping with Boz's rheumatics.   They were thrashing and gasping through the mud and bog plants as Slasher McGoogs struggled onto a long and weather beaten wooden jetty - at its far end the low, rusting form of a battered old Bovril boat, belching black smoke from its stack.   This was the final destination of London's night soil.   Liquid and solids were separated and the purified water bottled and lightly effervesced by a process known as methanisation, for sale to the Savoy Hotel as a palate freshener for those who had been tempted towards the famed civet poo coffee.   The lumpy bits were loaded onto the Bovril boats and taken into the North Sea where an artificial and highly fertile reef was being built up for the benefit of the native marine life.
As his pursuers closed, a rotten plank cracked beneath Slasher and he fell forwards twisting a trapped foot.   He got up, limped a few paces and collapsed again.   Phoebles was jubilant and Ferdy managed a merry, "Ahaa!"   They would be able to surround him at last.
But then Slasher was on his unsteady feet, splay-legged and swaying.   Something cold, black and threatening sat in the hand that he waved towards them.   Ferdy and Phoebles, Ginsbergbear and Boz each had the unpleasant and highly personal experience of staring down the dangerous end of a Mauser Red Nine.
"Stand still!  Stay where you are!   Hands where I can see them!"
No one was arguing.
"This has gone far enough.   Now listen.   I am going away; something of a cruise.   You won't hear of me for a while.   But you lot have work to do.   Boz, there's a battle coming.   Let it - you couldn't stop it anyway.   Put up a good fight, but no heroics.   Don't let anyone get seriously hurt and when you loose - and you will lose - no fighting to the last man.   Disperse - and definitely, DON'T LET ANYONE BE CAPTURED.   That last bit's really important.
"Now, Ferdinand, soon as it's all done get down to the Isle of Dogs.   We've got the Dragon Rapide at a temporary air strip on Mud Chute Farm, the pilot will have a little job for you.   All of you... Don't screw up."   He turned and began a long slow limp down the jetty.
Several figures appeared on the Bovril boat.   They had wrinkled walnut hides, faded, moth-eaten guernseys, bandanas, stubs of clay pipe.   Some cast off the mooring lines, some helped Slasher over the rail.   The black funnel-smoke intensified, a shrill steam whistle sent plovers and sandpipers soaring skyward, and the bronze screw churned water beneath the stern.   The unassuming vessel left the jetty, rippled the mirror surface of a Thames at slack water and turned for the open sea.