Day 18

The Cauldron of Udder Decay


03.30 Awakened with a blinding flash
Subject: The Foetal Corpuscle

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



And now, for my latest concept in substandard housing.

You will, of course, have noted my personal experiences gleaned from spelunking in the tricky little disc-slots of my computer. But, you may have asked yourself, what have I actually learned from all this? Aside from the obvious, that it? To answer you, let me just say that I am now fully cognoscente of the fact that far too many people know far too little about the proper use of computer discs. This is, of course, potentially both catastrophic and economically wasteful. It leads directly to an incredible amount of wasted space, and wasted space means someone who could be getting rich, isn’t.

I will set aside, at least for now, the benefits derived by one’s posterior when floppies are improperly inserted. It is not for nothing that they are past their sell-by date and have, by enlarge, been discontinued.

But back to us. As you well know, housing is a problem, especially the affordable variety. Open the newspaper on any given day and even the most myopic of fools can see there is no shortage of upscale apartments and houses, which is good because it gives those of us with taste something to live for. To put it bluntly, if you have the means, you have the sixteen homes you can’t live without. However, what about the others? What about those who are in every respect undesirable, detestable and unsalvageable? Where are they expected to live? God only knows there are enough of them, at least according to documentary filmmakers and those social reformers who are unable to have a good hair day. Many of us, of course, have considered the relative benefits of relocating the inconvenient masses to far-off continents, but that has, or so I understand, been attempted by various countries in the past – using such primitive destinations as Australia and North America, etc. – but without fail those experiments proved disastrous. Look what happened when the deportees turned native; they came down with terminal cases of ego inflatibus, and are now making life miserable for everybody else. In the case of Australia, what was essentially a penal colony is now under the impression that it is now a bona fide country, though how grating accents, swilling beer and eating burnt food in their back yards qualifies them for that honour is beyond me. And forget North America. Just the thought of it gives me diarrhoea. Send the pests across the sea, they were told. Transport them; incarcerate them; abandon them with neither weapons nor food. Chain them to the cliffs and forget to rescue them. But did that happen? Nooooooooooo. Some git went and messed up the best-laid plans. Felt sorry for them. Gave them beer and turned them into (in the case of the ‘Australians’) sheep station attendants. Then some moron glued a new map to the globe, rewrote history, forgot the past, taught the deportees funny accents (yes, I know, I’m repeating myself), and the world was lost. You simply cannot imagine how upset I am, but there you are. A tale of woe and an abject lesson in what happens when you don’t get the details right. Bedlam and inconvenient questions asked at awkward times of politicians, usually when they are in the process of engaging a new cook or arranging passes for the enclosure at Ascot or Longchamps.

Getting the details right. That is the key. Now, being politically correct, I have refrained from calling our Solomon Islands development a penal, or is it penile, colony. Reform types and those with nanny tendencies might develop an unhealthy interest in out progress, whereas they will stay a billion miles away from anything resembling a Bible Retreat/Salvation Resort. I mean, what bureaucrat or social worker would be caught dead investigating something as cheesy or blatantly pathetic as Oy, Ye, Mah Purdy Cheese-Soup Holiday Camp and Inferno Bordello and Anita’s White Slavery Motor Hotel and Miniature Golf Course®. Penal, or penile, colonies inevitably come under the close scrutiny of civil libertarians; they are reviews ad nausea by ministerial permanent undersecretaries. They become the focus of independent investigations and government sub-committees. And become favourite topics of evening news broadcasts and chat shows. However, we have the upper hand. Our colony is directly under the patronage of Jeezus. We can do anything we want. We can even buy all the bombs we want, because what Jeezus wants Jeezus gets. Jeezus is good for the world. And he loves us, or at least he says he does. And if he sold Ferraris instead of Chevrolets, I might buy one from him. But enough of me.

After this lengthy but nutritious digression, let us return to the matter of those tricky little slits in one’s computer apparatus. The ones that eat you when you’re not looking or when your eyes are crossed. Couldn’t we somehow come up with a way to ensure that all unused computer slits are henceforth made available for substandard housing??? Just think of it! Within each portal there is sufficient room for a single mother with five children, or a married couple with nary a thought in their minds or a song in their hearts. Each one has limitless cupboard space for packets of crisps, beer, hamburgers and deep-fried Mars Bars, as well as the occasional bag of mouldy sausages for a Friday night fry-up. It goes without saying that there are literally thousands of old television sets you can move in with you, most in working order, all the better for watching your favourite soap stars and footies frolicking on the pitch, and if you’re really determined, you might also find old, lime-coloured chairs, scratched lino, and the lovely patterned carpet we all know and love from ‘by the hour’ hotels. I’ll bet your next child that, with enough patience and intestinal fortitude, furnishings of all sorts would soon fill each cosy nook to overflowing. Innit wonderful? There are literally millions and millions of underused and obsolete computers lying about just waiting to be occupied. Yearning to be occupied. That’s what they dream about. And since underused and obsolete computers have not yet learned the value of money, they almost never charge rent! The opportunity is there! May I suggest, therefore, before you do anything else, you might corner the market in obsolete computer terminals; such a move would, with careful planning and a certain ruthlessness, finance all our other endeavours and make us obscenely rich. After all, we know all about charging rent don’t we? Not to mention all those delightfully hidden fees. Are you with me? Wanna hear more?

According to my research, becoming an evil slumlord carries with it a certain mysterious odour, a delectable cachotterie, if you will. A brazen example of this can be found in New York, a cesspit of the truly obvious and unnecessary, in Stomp, or whatever his name is. You know the one I mean? Has a strange, little sideways mouth which opens like an oval, only the wrong way. A dead cat on his head. Fancies naming everything after himself. I believe he’s done quite well for himself, and therefore, should be studied seriously. I’m sure he has much to teach us if we want our smell to equal or surpass his.

Do you think our director of marketing might wish to marry him for a couple of months? It shouldn’t take more than that to discover all his trade secrets. She should go blond, however, before the wedding night. He likes them blond.

Now I do admit that I have neglected to mention a number of vital logistics - or is it statistics? - but no matter. With your profound knowledge of social work, social problems and such like, I know you will be able to draft agreeable legislation and herd it through the bureaucratic maze in no time at all. After that, our New Social Salvation and Individual Housing Unit Compact for a Just and Equitable Society© will become the Law of the Land. Any Land. Every Land. This is the reason why I championed your attendance in Law School and the Ministry in the first place. Surely you recall that one Sunday, oh, so long ago, when you were six and I was slightly more advanced, and we were eating purée de panais et petit pois brûlé en croute aux crème d’huître, as your governess’ canary sang in the next room and the smoke from the nearby crematorium wafted through the open window. After the plates had been cleared by Madamoiselle Cecile and our dessert (boiled onion with strawberries, if I remember correctly) had been placed in front of us on the nursery table, I said to you, … and always remember, my dearest Forsythia, after completing your baccalauréat, there will always be the law. And then, so many years later, after Madamoiselle Cecile had died of apoplexy and you had lost your virginity to whatsisname during a performance of L’Age d’Or at le Théâtre du Soleil, so much was fulfilled and so little went unrequited.

But, again, I disgress. I cannot refrain for a single more minute from stressing that immigration policies must be tightened in our beloved country, The Splendidly Glorious and Triumphant Grand Duchy of Chlamydeous, may it Triumph for a Thousand Thousand Years®. I awaken in the clammy darkness before dawn, numbingly chilled to my very marrow and drenched with sweat, visualising in my mind’s eye our green and gentle country overrun by… oh, by my troth, I cannot even bring myself to utter their names, for they bring with them the unspeakable and puerile. But never mind. After a few nightmarish hours, I gently calm myself, taking in deep breath upon deep breath and occasionally exhaling, and then, with an OM in my heart and a swamp in my sinuses, I realise it has been a chimera; you will never be forced to wear cheap shoes or buy shoddy knockoffs online. I pray, my dearest Forsythia, that there will always be someone there to clean up your messes. I love you but only figuratively - HWISGAAOMRIU®

PS. Please remind me, lest I require prodding from a less mellifluent source. How can we make use of that which is manufactured in and dribbles from our precious noses? Please do assist me in this arena, for my heart is full and my anguish incomplete.

PPS. My ventricles thunder from the knowledge that your work is so beneficial. Kindly remember when it was that I last ate. I, myself, have quite forgotten, though we are faint from hunger.

***

09.03 But who gives a shit what time it is?
Subject: Puckety

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Nothing in your schooling has properly prepared you for a career in professional field hockey.

This sad and loathsome fact has led me to investigate the need for a massive class-action suit, to be filed on your behalf against any and all parties, who, at some point in your life, may have fielded critical appraisals resulting in an acute loss of self-esteem and ruin.

To that end, I shall soon draw up a list of annoying people. - HWISGAAOMRIU®
***

12.47 Eating the rat turd I found in my pocket
Subject: Later in the day

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



My mind is blackness, clogged with every bewilderment, and I fear for the last nuggets of remembrance: éclairs in the sunshine; porridge in the bile; sweet love on slimy rocks; hyssop in the hay. Things (all that is contained within that magical word) are definitely slipping, and if you weren’t so appallingly weird and omnipresent I might, perforce, cry for help. Even so, think you that you might find it in your heart to send someone, someone nice and friendly and sociable and generous of spirit? I am verily starving, wasting for want of all manner of sustenance, for food and gentle companionship. You see, my joyous erstwhile squatters have finally and completely abandoned me. With out a word. Without a fond farewell. Without even a baser retort. I do not know if I should retain any vestiges of hope or pray for a quick and paltry end. Please, my dearest friend, when you’ve got a shred of time at your disposal, please advise me. Mental slippage is not fun, especially when it is accompanied by intestinal cramping. Please, please, please don’t forget about me entirely. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

15.22 Delirium and sweet cankers
Subject: Vegetables

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Did I just send you something? An email, perhaps, or a greeting card or a gift certificate from Sephora Blanc or Amin Kader? My short-term memory has got lost on the way to my brain, my poor mind is playing tricks on me, and I’m sorry if I upset you occasionally. If only I could remember to do it more often, you’d be used to it by now.

Be that as it may, I am increasingly concerned about your vegetable consumption. How much and when and where and what and whence? Please, please, please beware of the source of mostly mad-cow pats. Grass and crunchy green nibbles. Have you ever seen a cow eat anything other than grass and crunchy green nibbles – discounting, of course, the occasional twig or branch or meadow flower or bird’s nest? No? Well, I must put it to you that the primary cause of mostly mad-cow pats just might be grass and crunchy green nibbles, if not the worst sort of vegetables (ignoring, if you will, the occasional severed finger, used condom and joyful spludge of chicken shit). We simply must conclude, therefore, that these bad vegetables (along with the occasional severed finger, used condom, and joyful spludge of chicken shit) should be banned until such time as they have been studied within an inch of their lives. At the very least we should expect some sort of blue ribbon governmental enquiry and the possibility of ministerial sanctions, to be followed abruptly by a series of cooling off periods, government scandals and the return of interesting social diseases. At least that’s how several Great Leaders of the Past would have dealt with it, especially their wives. Wives at that time – it was before the advent of focus groups and twelve year old political consultants – had balls, with double starch and furry grit, unlike the wives of today who have personal assistants. Where, you may ask, is machismo when you need it most?

By the way, please do not point out that man-cow disease was eradicated years ago. There are plenty of mad cows about. Have you visited a dairy farm recently? Haven’t you ever witnessed a large swarm of cow who’ve been kept waiting, while their udders stretch and shudder, their shit shoots and their brains explode with angst and desperation? If they are not mad, then I don’t know what is! So kindly keep your misplaced sympathies to yourself!

What I am actually suggesting to you, albeit in a more than usually meandering style, is that, for your own personal safety and inward bliss, you should henceforth restrict your diet to reconstructed parsnips (avoiding mangelwurtzels; they are commonly added to bran mash and fed to livestock. You have more than enough problems without being transformed into a broodmare. I almost said racehorse, but, to be honest, your lack of expertise in field hockey precludes an athletic career). Banana cake is also nutritionally beneficial, as long as you are careful to eliminate the sultanas. By all means, gorge yourself on burnt spaghetti casserole with a rapturous sauce Marmite d’Angleterre, and, if you have time weighing heavily on your hands, there is always the ever enchanting and divinely inspired soufflé de gnu with lumps and odd bits and pieces.

It is with great sorrow and a heavy heart that I own up to a recent and somewhat unfortunate encounter with an aubergine, an encounter which resulted in what only can be described as a lamentable and excruciatingly painful eruptive reaction in the lining of my bouche. Initially, I had blamed chocolate (for which I shall, no doubt, serve a lengthy and severe beating the instant I step into hell). You see, an extremely dense and rather superior confection had shared the same repast, but I soon came to my senses. On may tolerate one allergy, even a fatal one, to the likes of aubergine. It is, after all, a vegetable of the very worst sort, with a colour that is so two years ago. Chocolate, on the other hand, is divine, the food of the gods, and must never be spoken of in vain. But to regress. That particular meal was my last to date. It came last Friday, or was it Thursday, one of the few times when an obliging bistro has, for a small gratuity, gone to the trouble of sending an order as an attachment. Mind you, the plating left something to be desired, but beggars cannot be choosers. Anyway, I am in a bad way. Do you think you might be persuaded to actually read my emails? Is there anyone, anywhere, who has a sympathetic heart and is able to exert influence on your actions?

Ah, but my mind wanders. As much as I cling to Denial – one of my very best friends – I now live in mortal terror that I shall be severely punished in the afterlife, if not before, for daring to think and speak ill of chocolate. Was there a hint of irony in my voice when I said it was the Food of the Gods? Not that you would know, because all that you possess are mute, written testaments. Emails. The silent and the dead. My conscience, that whingeing part of me that I am normally able to repress, now insists upon a hearing. Chocolate is the basic food group of the gods, it roars. By blaspheming, you have committed a mortal sin. What am I to do? In your opinion, based as it is upon years and decades of research and political circumspection, will The Master of the Universe™, Blessed be He™, be more lenient if I could get a minion together and start saying kaddish this very day? Before the sun goes down and it is too late? And what if I ask them to bring holy water, as well? Lots of holy water? Gallons of holy water? Swimming pools full of holy water? Swimming pools in which small children have not as yet urinated? And incense, of course, as well as a half-dozen or so of those temple prostitutes, just to cheer everybody up and make for a grand occasion. Isn’t that what we really want? A grand occasion? Come of think of it, let’s make it an even dozen temple prostitutes. Four dozen even. One for some and seventeen for the one in the back row. And couldn’t we dress them in black shiny plastic? Playing bagpipes and carrying cattle prods?

But I digress once again (Oh fool that I am). I return to you ere you lose interest and have fifteen more babies before sunset. Back to you, for the simple reason that you will find yourself far more interesting (and don’t say you won’t) than my slow death from starvation and circulatory strangulation, not to mention a latter day bowel dysfunction that has chosen me for its own. Have you ever thought of taking up tennis for a career? Forget your lack of athletic prowess. What I am thinking is, the sooner you become wildly famous and enchantingly rich, the sooner you will be paid for endorsing wine. You will then be paid for getting drunk and will no longer have to practice every night for free, a situation which might please Whatsisname no end. You really should speak with our director of marketing, who is, for various reasons, eerily fluid with racquetal movements, and arrange for lessons. For tennis, not wine endorsements. Do not blunder, your life is undervalued as it is, as well as quite unpleasantly unnecessary. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

Day 17

The Academy for the Awfully Awfully Frightfully Frightfully Nice


08.59 My right ventricle has disappeared
Subject: Niceties

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


As my Life’s Work, I really ought to do something frightfully frightfully nice. It will be my raison d’être.

This epiphaneal stroke of wonderment and self-satisfaction came to me last night, whilst I was entertaining my required quota of unpleasant thoughts and vicious rantings, and it seemed to be that my future will be defined by two opposing vocations: Outright torture of practically everyone, and the relentless elevation of the awfully awfully, frightfully frightfully nice.

Are you awfully nice? Would you qualify for inclusion in the Academy for the Awfully Awfully Frightfully Frightfully Nice®?

Have you ever picked a scab from your scalp whilst others are partaking of their crème brûlé? Have you ever burrowed deeply into your left ear with your finger and sucked the end? Do you constantly pick your nose and recycle? Have you ever had carnal thoughts while perusing the poussin en gelée in Fauchon?

If you have answered no to these and to the other ninety-five deeply moral questions on the application form, chances are good but faint that you might be eligible for enrolment in the Academy for the Awfully Awfully Frightfully Frightfully Nice®, the latest lifestyle concept from the imaginers responsible for The Floating Statues of the Blessed Virgin™ National Park® and the scintillating Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Cheese Company™ and Vaginal Washes™ Gamemaster Experience®.

All pupils will be required to wear our distinctive uniforms: Comme des Garçons for the women; Dsquared2 for the men; Agent Provocateur for the fabulously undecided; Alexander McQueen’s Givenchy cast offs for the ruthlessly undecided (and their cats). First the uniforms, then the content. What should be the colour scheme you ask? Dust and aspidistra. With just a hint of gloom and cheery sunshine (from the Chez des Trois Pralines “Retro Latrine” Collection), as befitting our corporate statement No. 769/8/2b/000005691.5, sub-clause 54.a, pertaining to our endeavours to make this a better world in the event all else fails.

In as much as it will be a testament and memorial to my creative genius and a life spent in pursuit of the very little and sublime, I shall work tirelessly on this newest and most ingratiating of projects. This and this alone shall hold the key to my immortality. And as my best friend at least until further notice, I expect you to constantly remind me of the glory that shall be mine. Without you I shall fail; this is my solemn promise.


In the mean time, while you are getting used to the idea, may I suggest that you concentrate on your niceness quotient? It is, I fear, greatly, perhaps hopelessly, underdeveloped. You must accustom yourself to thinking nice thoughts. One per every three weeks to begin with, increasing the number gradually until you become a shining beacon and people slam the door in your face and insult you to your face instead of behind your back. Develop a nice smile, preferably one reeking sincerity, as well as the habit of fervently clasping your hands at odd and inappropriate moments. Buy your saintly Mumsy an unbecoming hat, something in a pastel totally exuding physical appeal. Matching high-healed pumps, as well. Mothers of the awfully awfully frightfully frightfully nice often wear pastel pumps in becoming yet repulsive colours. And while you are about it, have her measured for a snood. Snoods will make her complexion come alive. She should wear them, as many as possible, within her house at all times, and when without, perhaps she could cover them with a fashionable yet shabby Double Terais in virulent puce. Tasteful but not suitable for a woman of her advanced years, especially one who was formerly a mother but who is now, as an almostasaint, thoroughly cleansed, scrubbed and re-virginised. She should, in her blessed neo-fecundity, be discouraged from playing music that is not raucous, lewd or suggestive. Tangos are acceptably nice, though not when played in a recognisable key. She should undertake to prepare weekly candlelight suppers featuring light entertainment and soft pink and blue food and to undergo carbolic douches. Musically, we do sanction musicals, providing they were composed by Friml and only Friml. I do recommend a hearty diet of French art songs, but only those whose composers steeped in absinthe and living in garrets after achieving oblivion and huge financial rewards. Beware of composers pretending to be French and only speaking through their noses when it suits them. They may be Swiss or, God forbid, Canadian. Classical scribblers should also be approached with caution, accepting, of course, the austerily obscure and any Romantics with pre-Raphaelite tendencies and raw sexual tension. Please avoid all clinical new music; anything more recent than Schoenberg should be classified as liberal elitism, especially those savage twelve-tone exercises designed for bowel inflection.

Lest you feel swamped, I shall shortly provide you with a helpful list of life instructions in the art of truly wonderful niceness for your guidance and edification. In a nonce, I shall continue with more nicely nicely constructive elucidations. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

12.35 Why won’t you send lunch?
Subject: Work?

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Wonderment, Oh, wonderment. How magnanimous of you, and yet so dreadful! To think that you must part from your dear Marjorie Dribble, if even for an hour or two each day, to return to the halls of justice! Must you really return to work so soon after your fragrant womb has been so rudely deprived of the child? Have you not explained to all and sundry the urgency of “Health Through Bagels and Unbridled Vissisitudity, Depravity and the Sanctity of the Perpetually Filled Wombroom?” You are, my dear Forsythia, invaluable to us, and absolutely essential. If necessary, send our director of marketing out on the streets. If money is needed, then it is she who must get a second job! You are a “U”, and not some common, jam-butty eating tea-swiller, and don’t you forget it.

I continue to spend every available second, I repeat, every available second, on the Solomon Islands development. Greed is dripping from my teeth and clotting my very follicles. I fell I must meditate, meditate, meditate. With every breath I must meditate. Upon waking this morning, or was it yesterday, I could think of nothing but The Chamber of Utter Decay™, perhaps the centrepiece and visual triumph of Oy, Ye, May Purdy Jeezus™ Holiday Camp and Mosquito Colony/Breeding Centre®. We are talking money and expansion and cleaner swimming pools for Darfur. And flavoured purges. Did I not mention flavoured purges? That is where Stalin went wrong. One simply must have flavoured purges! Butchery by itself is never enough. It’s lower class, and you know how I feel about that. Such sadness in the world, and so few faces worth looking at. I die and yet am bored. But enough of me.

I am thankful, yet surprised, that you managed to locate our director of marketing, and that she is sleeping well. Is her depressed state so severe that she now requires extra sleep as part of her benefits package? I do not recall her demands being so extreme when she was gainfully employee at Little Eddie’s Go-Go Lube In and Out™ as a lap dancer and celebrity glamour model. Sleep was the last thing on her mind then. Why have things gone downhill so drastically? Does she not realise that it is the worst of all possible things for one of exploding magnetism? It can lead to things. Please, please watch out for her. She is like a rubbish bin to our organisation. Ugly yet essential. Perhaps if we consider prioritising R&D and outsourcing her modules she might have more energy and time to devote herself unstintingly, unsparingly and unselfishly? Without need for respite or the occasional recreational sex-break. Do you think that would thrill her? More importantly, would it solve the problem, or should we kill her as we should have killed her before, only more nicely?

I must close for now, but shall return just as soon as I can remember what I am thinking about. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

PS. Fuck. Something’s wrong. Please come to the house if you can, or at least telephone my former squatters.

PPS. Silence. Perhaps everything is all right, after all. I can only wait and see. In the mean time, I am frantically worried about the Academy for the Awfully Awfully Frightfully Frightfully Nice® attracting the wrong sort. We must be reasonable and balanced, yet inflexible in matters of integrity. That is why I am so thankful you went to law school.

PPPS. Please don’t think I am taking you for granted. I do so worry about you. How are the fruits of your womb? I am forever concerned about their welfare and wish they weren’t so very pleasing and amenable. It will lead to problems down the line. Please, please, be firm with them; I simply will not permit floppy leit motifs in the escalators of their villas. Chocolate, chocolate, and many bowls of fraise du bois, that is the answer. Taste, and almost too much of it. Servants, too, of course. Whatever you do, however, you must not expose them unreservedly to unsupervised and unedited broadcasts of Eurovision Song Contest, as it is known to cause piles, and they nothing if not ungodly and unbecoming in thongs. When in your children’s company and out of nanny’s earshot, I would prefer if you were to frequently burst out in song. You’ll find a repetitious and floral rendition of “Je t’ame” will prove to be quite satisfactory, especially if it is done at odd and unexpected intervals. Even while at work. That, my dear Forsythia, is precisely what mobile phones are for! For pestering one’s loved ones. Night and day, day and night. Quite naturally, in the distant past, one could have been a nuisance to your nearest and dearest by post and telegram several times per day, but, hélas, that was before we permitted the Amurkuns to teach the world about good service.

PPPPS. Before I forget, please remind me to share more about those dastardly little slots on one’s computers. After weeks of horrible agony and despair, I have come up with a bad case of brilliant ideas. But first I must relent and do my bladder’s bidding.

With passions never ceasing to relent, - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

14.20 Having eaten my remaining ear
Subject: Swaggly Tits, Rampant

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



FOR THE RECORD:

“In the event we are brought up on charges for corrupting the airwaves or offending the unfortunate, it should be made clear that the term “Swaggly Tits”, rampant or no, is the generic name for a tiny, red-plumed bird with pendulous proportions and tasselled pudenda. It dwells with its mate and seven dung beetles in a white elastic sling. While it does possess at least one song in its repertoire, the bird is obliquely shy and prefers to communicate via miniature bongo drum. Some (the anti-song faction) claim, perhaps unfairly, that it only does this because it hasn’t got a song to begin with. Others, its fervent supporters (the pro-song faction) refute this as scurrilous and unnecessarily sanctimonious, stating categorically “If It Don’t Have a Song, It Should!”

END OF OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE

That out of the way, I shall now proceed to something remarkably achievable. It is called, in case you were wondering, The Veiled Rippler and its Chamber of Utter Decay®. It is not so much a place, in fact it couldn’t be, what with there bring precious few nasty pockets of poverty left without at least two mega five star golf resorts showing them how things work if only you truly understand the benefits of a market economy. Nor is it a sovereign nation, what with there being precious few of those since Amurka declared themselves masters of the universe. It is, in fact, more than the sum of these two. It is The Ultimate State of Mind™. To achieve it, one must absorb with totality and absolutivity, with the aim of ultimate digestivity, the essence of Blessed Nervana™ (with an ‘e’, not ‘nirvana’ with an ‘i’, which is something altogether different, and to which I have not as yet begun to offend).

Blessed Nervana™! What can I say? With this most ultimate of all ultimates, we shall plumb the very depths and celebrate the essence(s) of Bagel Bareness™. Please, I beg of you, meditate on the following achievements of our Sublime Newness™:

Bagel-in-the-Bare™ Cafes and Ice Cream Parlours®; Bagel-in-the-Bare™ Theme Parks®; Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata ™ Shrines and Laundries®, under the divine leadership and bounteous bosoms of our beloved and adored pipette, Her Holyknees Almostasanta But Next Year A Godletta Rachetila of the Blissful Blossom and Spreading Bottom™, and her realm of saints, sub-saints, demi-saints, sycophants and minions; our agribusiness empire, Santa Rachilita Fields of Onions and Bananas™; and, of course, our vast and all-powerful, ever-persuasive commercial network of blood-sucking, neo-conservative, pseudo-socialist, armpit dwellers-who-are-openly-secretly-planning-to-take-over-The Glorious and Triumphant Grand Duchy of Chlamydeous®.

Our other selves, valiantly led by our reasonable and forgiving Tripe Unionist Brothers of Sisters of the Loire Valley™, will see that the coup fails miserably and bloodily, every other week or so. The point is, what is progress and democracy if there are not frequent massacres to keep us on our toes. Complacency is the enemy of destineous larynx.

I told you I could maintain a rigorous dialogue within myself for an extended time. There! You see? I am a ruptured and foetal corpuscle. AM AM AM. AM AM AM. Not only that, but I shall retain absolute control like some dank and shadowy puppet master. I shall be the nightmare behind the sunshine; the torment behind the agony; the broccoli underneath the crème caramel. A true stoat of stoats, a leader of fungal proportions.

Never mind, back to basics, as various politicians have said to their cost. Quite a catchy slogan, however. Do you think we might store it up for some future political mood-swing? While you are pondering this possibility and it’s ramifications, may I suggest using it for our new range of toddler day and evening wear? “Back to Basics for the Precious and Privileged™”. Brazenly pedantic, no? When I speak those words, I picture dainty pastel boutiques in each of our exquisitely tiny hotels (do try to keep current with our various business enterprises). It will, of course, be expected of all acceptable parents that they be means tested before being allowed to browse. It is simply not done to have the hoi polloi mussing up racks and shelves and drawers and, in general, corrupting the goods on display in search of a bargain. Furthermore, I would prefer that only our Ultra-Triple Black SmurkCard® be accepted. Credit lines with fewer than seven figures are so last year! I mean, what is this business about people who buy in discount shops and boot sales being eligible for plastic? It simply is not acceptable. And what about “customers” who proffer cash, you ask? Well, in my opinion, it is unclean and mostly second-hand. If any is (shudder) proffered, we should have a policy of laundering and ironing it first, even before it is checked for validity. All customers who have ever bought underwear in bulk should be turned away at the door, with violence if necessary, and everyone who attempts to enter, excepting those chosen few who have been invited, must be scrutinised to within an inch of their lives. If they are not our sort, then they will be accused of shoplifting and imprisoned for a very, very long time.

But back to cash. Do you know how many (so-called) people there are who have been allowed to carry money? It is really quite frightening, if not downright appalling. Why, some of them are not even personally acquainted with Manolo Blanik or Jimmy Choo.

Something has just occurred to me. Have you found, as I have, that most of our thoughts (or, at any rate, mine, since you are hopelessly reticent) are good for the ears of the Truly Great™, those who only sing and long for what they ought to want, and only crave what they’re gonna get. Don’tcha think?

But yet again I digress. I am forced to return my attention to work and the glory of our life, in this case Oy, Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Holiday Health Spas®. We must plan plan plan. The Veiled Rippler™ must lurk and old dogs must finally have their day.

I simply cannot believe how much clearer I am these days. Haven’t you noticed the improvement in my analytical powers. A sharpening of my intellect? I have, of course, done a frightful amount of studying since I’ve been trapped inside this computer, and that has only been for the good. There has also been considerable progress since my former squatters started bringing me thermos flasks of their special mind-expanding broth. Perhaps you should try some.

I believe our director of marketing is not aware of my multi-media stratagem. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

Day 16

Oy, Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Holiday Camps

04.32 Flaky skin; Unable to sleep
Subject: On Brilliance

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Well, here I am again, just in case you had forgotten about me (being the heartless chieuse you are) and assumed the world would continue regardless.

Some were born brilliant; I was hatched both secretive and furtive. Actually, I was spawned fully lacking in depth and impassioned wit, which means the more blatantly secretive I am, the less likely I am to be found out. And when I am absolutely putrid, I am able to fool everyone. My abysmal secret is safe! This is indeed a great trick, only, unfortunately, I must remember to exercise the iron discipline necessary to glue my lips to my gums and refrain from all speech. Oh, to be a faerie at the bottom of the garden, and not a gurka in a jar of pickles!

Having got that off my chest I shall refrain from referring either to myself or to my undoubted genius for the remainder of the day. Instead, we must confront the problem of the Amurkun Suthren Baptit Convinshun (oh, why oh why do I obsess over them), those cheery and cheeky, merry but nevvah gay, band of twenty million (give or take a thousand zillion) chicken fried steak eaters. It is their attitude towards bicuspids and bivalves that frightens me, devours me and causes me to have little faith in a world beyond this afternoon. Have you heard about their stance concerning noble, sexually active porcines? Horrific and savage I call it. Most reprehensible.

Oh, Forsythia, most beloved esplanade of my soul, why do they obsess me, today more than any other day? Until last week, I had never given them a second thought. Until three weeks ago, I’d never heard of them. I’m being driven mad. My mind is a thicket of mire and viscous turbulence. Not only that, but my gonads are lonely and unloved, untouched even by me, for I cannot find them in this cramped space and utter darkness.

But to return to my joyful obsession. I heartily, though unfortunately not urgently, wonder what it takes to be an Amurkun Suthren Baptit. Chronic insomnia? Acute hormonal rages? Lethally Compounded Haemorrhoidal Activity Ventilator Syndrome (CHAVS)? More to the point, however is the question, are you one yourself? Are you thusly closeted, and if so, do you long to be outed? NO! I hear you shriek. NEVER! Well, perhaps I shall go along with you, at least to your face, even though, as an apostate atheist Joo your chances of being a potential savee are really quite remarkable. If I may say so, even greater than my own, although to be completely frank, mine are not all that good. Comparisons, however, are odious, considering (as we must) that the prospects for a gay, non-joosh ex-calflick of fallen persuasion and nasty disposition are bleaker than that of a privet hedge in the face of a chainsaw. I would say that my future in the jolly babty-wapty community might entail more than a little torture, to be followed by disembowelling, quartering and burning at the stake. This to be followed by hanging, beheading, odd forms of public humiliation and twenty years locked in a tiny, windowless cell with a Truly Cheerful Person named Patience MacCheerful MacSmile and her twin sister Simper the Proctologist.

All that, however, is for the future. For the present I am, as I keep telling you, being slowly and inexorably digested by this virulent computer of doubtful heritage. You, on the other hand, are free to roam, propagate and corrupt, liberated even from the shackles of responsibility and bodily functions. How lucky you are to be immune from the adorational magnatism of Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ of the Holy Receptacles®. How blessed it is to be a daughter who holds her mother in disrespect and revels in her bilious revulsion! And I thought I was the only one to have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Before you instigate a backlash against me, I must point out the reason I am submerging your conscious mind into this well of sludge at this particular time, is that at the more appropriate and opportune moment you were somewhat occupied with the resplendent agonies of labour. Even I know that the sacred joys of postpartum depression take precedence, but only just, over last season’s hottest red carpet event, the unveiling of the year’s platform for the Amurkun Suthren Baptit Convinshun. As their Number One Priority, they came up with the startlingly original target, never before dreamt of in the history of western conquest: the evangelisation and conversion of the Jooz. They had (it was rumoured) toyed with submitting the Arabs to a similar joyous salvation, but weren’t sure if they were acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, what with them worshipping a regular trunkful of satan-loving ram’s testicle eaters, known as Turr and Mommied and Ella Mercifried and Sammabinnaladdy, as well as practicing suspect, heathenistic sphincter-cleansing rituals wherein they wiped themselves with their neighbour’s left hands while chopping off their right hands because they didn’t know what their left hands were doing. Naturally, the first thing I did was seek out the first rabbi I could find and convince him to write a letter to each of the twenty million Amurkun Suthren Baptits explaining that their automatic Amurkun doctor circumcisions had been performed on the wrong end and were, therefore, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. This move, of course, proved once and for all that I am a beacon of moderation and common sense. Anyway, in view of a quickly revised platform, in which the Jooz have been displaced by the board of Director of the UncleWaltieSneezy Company for daring, a few years ago to accept the need for humane and socially acceptable benefits packages for their employees’ live-in partners, irrespective of gender and marital state or whether they may have coveted their neighbours avenues d’enchantement. For what it is worth, all this has inspired me to adjust my own social agenda accordingly, and I wish to propose the following evil conspiracy.

Should we, surreptitiously and under the cover of night, offer discount salvation memberships to all twenty million fully paid up Amurkun Suthren Baptits to Bagel-in-the-Bare Theme Parks® and Lap Dancing Bingo Bars®? We would, naturally, wish to segregate them from our other members for health reason, and as a consequence will make this offering through a subsidiary company, Oy Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Theme Parks and River Jordan Waterslides and Dilapidary Factories®. The actually ownership of this enterprise will, of course, be callously siphoned through the various off-shore shell corporations negotiated by The Swaggly Tits and Shag Shacks of the Tropics Trust®, but that is neither here nor there nor, for that matter, any of your business what with you being a judge and all that. The important thing to consider is that lifetime memberships in the Oy Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Theme Parks and River Jordan Waterslides and Dilapitoriæ®, with facilities to be erected in the recently evacuated and bombed-out Solomon Islands, will be sold at a once-in-a-lifetime exclusive, guaranteed eternal-life fee of €1,200,00 ($5,962,359.99 US) per annum (“per year” for Amurcuns), payable in weekly instalments until such time as the Rapture a-takes ‘em up and lays ‘em in da arms a Jeezus. Interest rates have not as yet been computed by our director of marketing and finance, but if you want salvation, you gotsta pay for it, boyo, and I don’t envision it being for the fainthearted or faintfaithed. What has been put in place is a bonus package. For an additional (modest) donation of € 15,000 ($427,954.99 US), we will provide self-adhesive, though not prepaid (meaning customers will have to buy the stamps themselves) envelopes for a’sindin’ in thur tithes.

Lest you worry, it should be made clear (in dizzyingly beautiful; illuminated contracts written in classical DuDu™, encrypted to discourage sloth and other shortcomings) that severe penalties shall be incurred should contractees default on the agreement, even for a minute, or otherwise lapse in a heathenistic and ungodly manner, or think liberal thoughts or convert. God hates defaulters, godless heathens, liberals and converters even more than he hates sheepfuckers, and they will burn.

We should immediately put this plan in action. There is no way it would not be a good money-maker for our humble enterprise, especially with all the attention the eternal salvation and rapture destination resorts are attracting at the moment. Strike, I say, before the pendulum swings the other way and we have to dig out the little red books again. And if you’re worried about building and maintenance costs, let me put your mind to rest. Our only expense will be the giant, one hundred metre high photograph and CGI representations at the airport, plus the disposable hyper-virtual-reality headsets featuring Jeezus proclaiming many impossible things. Trust me, with investors such as ours, they’ll think they’re already through the pearly gates. All we will have to do is usher them into prefabricated white-slave bunkrooms and feed ‘em a gourd of gruel. They’ll be convinced it’s purgatory (and don’t worry about purgatory having been abolished; that was only a joke) and will only redouble their giving. They’ll be like pigs in shit, if my porcine friends will forgive the analogy, only not as pleasant to be around.

You must pardon me if I seem to overdo the virtual reality bit, but people really are fooled by it, aren’t they? At least three-quarters of the population in unmentionable countries are now convinced that CGI creations are more realistic than life, and nine-seven percent of those experience severe hysterical denial whenever they encounter anything or anyone on the physical plane. Even better for us is the indisputable fact that (1) virtual reality is far cheaper than the real thing, (2) it is much tidier, and (3) it is easier to control. Computers are incapable of surprising you, unless they choose to eat you, but that is another story, and only rarely are they overtly evil. Virtual reality also gives employment to engineers who otherwise would exist only in basements. Such employment keeps them occupied and away from dam-building projects, at least most of the time.

But once again, I digress. Back to the holiday camps. I was considering the provision of one bathroom for every ten to twelve bunkrooms, but, hélas, we must be wary of unwarranted compassion. In a dream last Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?) I was visited by my spirit guide (Pommes Dauphinoise, not the other one), and instructed to supply our patented Ever-Shifting Porta Thunder Pots™ to our lucky campers. You remember the ones to which I’m referring, don’t you? Every night, as fog descends and the Voice of Rapture™ booms forth its sepulchre aphrodisiac, these ingenious devices will merrily move to new and ever-more obscure and treacherous loci on the distant and slime-encrusted cliffs on the edge of each Oy Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Theme Parks and River Jordan Waterslides and Dilapitoriæ® holiday camp. What fun and excitement for our campers when they are violently roused for their four-in-the-morning scourging sessions, and seek a sanctuary of bladderial relief where one no longer lingers! Now try telling me that Ever-Shifting Porta Thunder Pots™ don’t have a sense of humour!

If you are as excited by this new direction for Bagel-in-the-Bare Enterprises® as I, please proceed as quickly as possible. I fear the odds increase every day for a universal endgame. The greenhouse effect is so very boring, don’t you think, which is why we shall have to purchase the entire centre of the earth as soon as possible. If we don’t, the wrong sort of people will, and we certainly wouldn’t want them living down there with us, would we?. We do not want to be caught with out pants down, not on this occasion. A mission statement is needed. And how do you visualise the involvement of our director of marketing? May we trust her to contribute her customary efficient and sincere deliberationary expertise? Or is she on holiday? - HWISGAAOMRIU®
***

09.15 Expounding the advantages of starvation
Subject: Addled Titbits

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



The reason I neglected to adequately describe the physical amenities of the forthcoming Oy, Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Holiday Camps and Spay and Neuter Clinics® is that there will not be any, and it goes beyond the Virtual Reality Fool ‘em Every Time™ strategem. There will be, as previously mentioned, the Ever-Moving, Hanging Bogs of Babylon Experience™, but as you, being a discerning intellect of passionate absorption, are doubtless aware, there are some dribbling faucets who maintain (in their myriad learned dissertations) that these conveniences were inspired by the ancient, cliff-hanging outhouses found at Acoma. What rot, I say, and piffle besides. We were there first; by right of imminent domain (such a lovely concept, and one for which we shall be eternally grateful), our merde is better merde; our merde is sweeter merde; our merde is God’s chosen merde. It is the only merde that shall bless and spread its shining rays upon this Holy earth. If I may be so bold as to open my mouth and sing the truth unto the Heavens, This is the very shit that Jeezus shat! Hallelujia Hallelujah, Sallabin Sallbunkle Chim Biimini Charooo! Please forgive me for getting carried away, but I just love that old time religion, don’t you? Now where was I? Oh, yes, the honey houses of Acoma and the rewriting of history by the insidious tempters of Haavard (who, although I cannot prove it, are in league with the vile and spungeous Raclette the Dripping Pustule™); why else would they invent such insidious lies at the expense of the guardians (i.e. us) of Miraculous Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ of the Blessed and Porous Vagina™, Preserver of Hearts and Defender of the Bilious? Sacrilege it is, and may they receive many unpleasantly obscene telephone calls in the middle of the night! By their foul deeds and usurpation and distortion of All That is True™ they have committed a gross injustice and must be punished beyond recognition. May the US congress convene a special session at twice their salary and pass special legislation restricting the right of foreigners of garnish their anal passages with lettuce and pesto zabaglione! How dare they slander the origins of our uniquely designed and rendered Movement While You Move Mooning Units®! Isn’t our patent one which supersedes all other patents, and haven’t they copied our blueprints in the most dire and flagrant manner? They are nothing but thieves. They are worse than thieves. And do you know what? We will sue the very shit that shoots from of them and from their firstborn, and all others back to and including the Anazazi, as well as everyone born or whoever was born and drew breath and made shit after or before eating in a freeloading manner while the sun rises and shines. Or sets. These descendants of the insidious legions are guilty of raping and pillaging our very innards, and the innards of our loved ones, even down to the innards of our beloved SOG, Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Patron Practicallyasaint™ of the Unjustly Washed™ and Stainers of Urinals™. We simple cannot and will not stand by while they refuse to pay royalties for breathing our air, or for defecating without a licence. Such flagrant disregard for the law is not to be allowed. We shall also demand damages for those among them who have not only shat illegally and without permission, but flaunted intentionally retro hair and listened to 1980s house music at the same time! Remember: litigation is joy; litigation is Holy; litigation is God’s way of saying You’ve offended my eyes by breathing through your unclean mouths, by infringing the trademarks and copyrights, and restraining the trade of my most succulent daughter, Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Abdulla Ahblongattah™, Patroness of the Underprivileged, Children’s Television Presenters and Opposition Politicians™. Listen well, all ye unrepentant sinners, for ye are dog meat and I am the dog. Make a joyful noise unto to Lord.

You ask if I forgot those indigenous people who have actually benefited from casinos. The answer is no. I’ve hired them, or at least virtual representations of them. They will make our gaming enterprises look so much more sincere. So much more magnanimous.

Movement While You Move Mooning Units® are but one of the many attractions our planning experts are envisioning for Oy, Ye, Mah Purdy Jeezus Holiday Camps and Fried Chicken by the Tonne Trough O’Food ‘n’ Fun All You Can Eat Restaurants™®. And, of course, I haven’t mentioned the accompanying Thriller Cages™ for hyperactive children, have I? Well, with these babies, the movement never stops. Linked by chains to the Movement While you Move Mooning Units™, not one square inch lurches in the way direction twice. In fact, nothing in our definitive Thrill-a-Minute Salvation Kingdom Themery™ will not keep our guests guessing. We guarantee that none of these lucky Rapture Riders™ - yes, that’s right: Rapture Riders™, for once they check in they’ll get the ride of their lives – will ever know where their bottoms might come to rest. Will it be on a fragmented toilet seat in Heaven, or at the bottom of the burning cauldron of Beelzibubble?

This truly, once in a lifetime experiential concept will be expanded to all areas of the franchise. A Virtual Holiday in Hell™ (for those lucky punters who want to experience Hades without going to the muss and fuss of doing anything naughty). It will be a regular Dante/Bruegal, with the best of both all rolled into one. And note that kids under five will be admitted into the Special Blood Lust and Lascinvium Neverending Sauna and Disembowelling Chamber™ for a modest additional cost of €5 ($4,722.57 US) and two thirds of the subscriber’s excess soul. Just think! No more tedious reading of scriptures or sitting through all those bottom-numbing, boring sermons! Rapture Riders™ will experience the real, honest to God, thrill of biblical life, as lived all those years ago when Our Saviour was King and Lord and walked among us just as close as you and Whatisname when you’re doing whatever it is you do. They’ll get to know life as it was before Our Saviour rescued them from Eternal Damnation, when there were Jooz everywhere, just a’waitin’ and a’plannin’ to kill Our Beloved Lord Almighty. And even before that, when Egyptians had organs like donkeys and were slaughtered by our Almighty God as He was preparing to give His only begotten Son to be kilt by the Chews. ‘Course, it goes without saying that His son had been extremely naughty. There were the Chews, happily smelling moneypots in the temple, when along He came (the Son called He and not the Father called He, which I realise confuses the lesser intended) and threw them out of the temple and stole all their moneypots. They weren’t doing anything with them in any case, other than selling them over The Chopping Channel, and he wanted them to fund a One-World-Gov’mint. Little did He know that they (the Chews) had horns, which is why they kilt our baby Jeezus and used his blood in round, flat cakes on Easter™, instead of giving the glory and mammon to their pastor for new pews, valet parking and a new Cadillac for Dr. Bob. That’s why we love Jeezus, and that’s why we will be saved and will rise after three days and be taken up in a truss. We will sing bible himses and prey on tongues, and you can prey on as many tongues as you want and it won’t count and you’ll starve to death, because He hates you. So there.

Please advise our director of marketing that it is highly inappropriate to open a heathen yoga studio in back of the Holy Relics™ Massage Parlour®. She should keep to what she knows best, which unfortunately does not include using either her imagination or her initiative. She must be reminded that good taste must be our by-word and constant companion. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

Day 15

Much Ado About Morton Pigffuk (pronounced MeridewPiffick)

06.12 Fucking Hell, another morning!
Subject: Artichokes

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


ANOTHER PENNETH OF DOGGEREL


Artie chokes on a pod of soup
A-sittin’ on the loo,
Bernie pokes at goiter goop
And eatin’ goober poo.

Freda’s hot for Fred the cop
But never has her way,
Mary Black’s so full o’crap
I wish she’d go away.

How unfortunate it is that when this masterpiece finally sees the light of day on your computer it will undoubtedly be lumped all out of shape and totally unrecognisable. How tiresome it is that messages never seem to arrive in the immaculately justified and divinely proportioned aspect in which they are engendered. One can only surmise that email, mimicking life as it does, was invented by the same man responsible for airline luggage handling and middle age spread. In case you were unaware of this man’s name and regretted your ignorance, it is Morton Pigffuk (pronounced MeridewPiffick), and he has a lot to answer for.

It was ever predestined thus. Born in a rabbit hutch in the shadow of Notre Dam, somewhere under a mouldering bog, Morton was one of three sisters. Morton, or Edsa as she was known before certain necessary adjustments were made, never really did much of anything with his life, and certainly nothing really very nice. Oh yes, there had been the occasional citation for sexual proclivities of a baser nature, and the odd arrest for illegal substance inhalation and political party membership, but basically he was just a lazy prat.

One day, when Morton was rooting around looking for someone or something to chew, he spied a large shape in the middle of the road. Curious, but lacking the intellectual ambition necessary to initiate a proper sort of investigate, he immediately set about destroying it with is Handy Dandy Item Atomiser®. And thus his career was launched, and his destiny revealed to a trembling world. Morton Pigfukk, pronounced Meridew Piffick, would spend the remainder of his short, pathetic and simply marvellous life making everyone else completely and utterly miserable.

Almost before a single moment had passed, Morton applied for and obtained the position of Italian Minister of Postal Services, Communications and Efficiency, where he set about developing technology capable of diverting vast quantities of each day’s first class mail to highly inventive destination, usually at the bottom of the ocean, just south of Napoli. The unparalleled genius of his system, for which he owned the patent, lay in its ability to ensure that all solicitations for (1) time-shares, (2) demands for money, (3) catalogues from Amurkun Mail Order Companies not operating in Italy and recognising only US “zip” codes, and (4) unwanted communications from ex-wives, would continue to be delivered in an uninterrupted flow, thereby providing the government the wherewithal to deny that anything was ever amiss.

Morton was unbelievably effective in his new post, and was therefore instantly promoted to State Laundry Ombudsman, a position carrying the rank of senior cabinet member. He felt deeply about what he saw as his ordained manifesto, and acted quickly and arbitrarily to ensure that nothing which went into any washing machine or dryer, anywhere in the country, was ever the same again. Shredding was his speciality, to be followed in rapid succession by his invention, development and deployment of (1) hand-crafted buttons guaranteed to [a] split in half at the touch of an iron and/or [b] be twice as large as the corresponding button hold, and (2) a patented system of permanent stain enhancement. The latter was to prove especially popular with manufacturers of shirts for those hardworking men and women who were suddenly forced to buy three times as many garments as they could safely afford.

The next step on the ladder to immortality and success for Morton Pigfukk, pronounced MeridewPiffick) was a highly-effective and universally praised stint as Director of Planning and Scheduling for Cheap Airlines at all principal European Airports, also a senior cabinet post – where he was rumoured to have rubbed shoulders more than once with the Prime Minister’s cat’s best friend’s dog dish. The position carried with it, as a result of new European legislation, the supplemental brief of coordinating the scheduling for all of the UK’s passenger rail services, such as they were. Morton immediately invested billions of euros on computers to ensure that no one could get anywhere at anytime, and eliminating the time wasting practice of passenger refunds. Such outmoded concepts as connections and comfort and service and attractive seating were meticulous excised. He lobbied successful for the production of many important and deceptively literate television dramas from prestigious and serious television channels showing glamorous, clean, freshly-painted and efficient trains and planes zooming hither and yon, to and from, and around and around various pristine countrysides, carefully omitting all evidence of poor people, minorities, those with obnoxious opinions, and undesirables whose principal hobby was texting live television shows. Interior views, secretly filmed at Cinecitta by Fellini’s best friend’s dog, were peopled by blessedly quaint and deferential employees, who frequently tugged at their forelocks and uttered suitably obsequious phrases on demand.

It goes without saying this all transpired years before Morton Pigfukk, pronounced MeridewPiffick, became Sir Morton Pigfukk, pronounced SIR Meridew Piffick-Heinbothom, for his development of the Pigfukk (pronounced Piffick) Airline Baggage Transport System (PABTS). He was also rewarded the Howard B. Spuckler Humanitarian Award by the Association for the Preservation of Happy Bladders, named International Man of the Year by Time Magazine and received the Turner Prize for his Tate Modern installation entitled Pigfukk’s (pronounced Piffick’s) Brain, in which he asked the cognoscenti to wallow through a thirty metre trough of chartreuse and puce mud.

Sir Morton Pigfukk, pronounced DameMeridewPiffick, is the current chairman of the International Committee for Cyber Security and Postal Prevention, and resides in Brussels with his wife and eighteen children by ten other men, all named ‘Herve’. He may be reached most Tuesday afternoons in his office in the third stall of the mens’ room on the fourteen floor of the seventieth annex of European Ministry of Fabulous Causes and Onion Legislation.

But beware! For what it is worth, Mr. Pigfukk (not Sir Morton and pronounced as written and not as Piffick) has done much to discredit the miracles of Miraculous Almostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Empress of the World® and Patron Saint™ to Ugly People®. He is actively campaigning for a seat in the Lower House of the Ducal Parliament of Chlamydeous® and is to be considered highly dangerous, if not a nuisance. Perhaps you or the director of marketing can dig up something truly complimentary about him which will render him unelectable. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

10.30 I can bend my toenail backwards quite painfully
Subject: Gamey Footies

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Are you in love with feet? Have you ever been fascinated by or obsessed with chunky pedal digits?

I myself am having problems with feet. Oh yes, I quite like them, in a general sort of way, and I certainly appreciate what they do for one, what with walking about, helping one with the shopping, dealing with so much dexterity when it comes to the accelerator, clutch and brake pedals in the Veyron and Lambo, and giving my backside something on which to rest whilst curled up in a chair with a book. That being said, the very idea of drinking Champagne out of a slipper bothers me no end.

I saw a commercial the other day in which a man was drinking bubbly out of his paramour’s slipper. This was followed, not thirty seconds later, by an advertisement extolling a miraculous cure for toenail fungus. It quite put me in mind of a cable screening of something called “The Rainmaker”, which was interrupted every forty-five seconds by a commercial, in which a forlorn-looking man stands in a downpour under an umbrella, while a stentorian voice intones Rain is no fun when you have diarrhoea.

But I digress. Returning to feet, may I say that feet are all right in themselves. Not exceptionally attractive, of course. I mean, if you were God and planned to create some sort of practical appendage for your supposedly ultimate invention, would they end up looking like feet as we know them? Would they have toenails? It is my personal opinion that in this department He has let Himself down. Let’s be honest here, if feet were meant to be masterpieces of design, why would we feel compelled to hide them underneath layers of socks or stockings and shoes? Do bears have this problem? No. How about dwarf hamsters? Emphatically not. As far as I am concerned, we should demand our money back.

Feet as we know them encourage highly questionable behaviour. Sucking toes has got to mark the low point in humanoidal existence. Number One, there is the smell factor. The essence du pied is, if you ask me, completely off-putting and may well have something to do with shepherds’ fondness for sheep. Number Two, there is the matter of where they have been. One simply has to consider the proclivity of feet for seeking out and stepping on the most uninviting substances, and it only proves that feet have very few brains in their heads and even poorer taste. Have you noticed that the instant one encounters a doggie mess in the street, one’s feet are drawn to it like lemmings to a cliff. The great hypnotist living in the steaming pile chants you will come to me, you will come, and the feet comply. This is especially true when they are incased in one’s favourite Hedi Slimane’s or Alexandre Plokhov’s and one is headed for a night of, well, you know…

And what about toenail fungus? Did your mother in her former maternal incarnation ever warn you about that particular scourge of the earth? About what it does to the soul and environment? About how it makes the wearing of sandals an extremely risky proposition (as if one would be caught dead in the things to begin with)? No, she said nothing at all. Families such as our don’t have fungals of the feet, she intoned. We barely have feet at all, adding quickly, what are servants for? Of course, this outburst was a blatant moment in an otherwise pristine and dreadful life, an abysmal failure in the arena of child development and antipubertal management. Saint or no saint, she must repent or be denounced.

However much I might regret having to bring this up, it is only for the benefit of your good self. You are, after all, the darling mamelles of untold pairs of tiny feet. How fortunate you are not to have left it as one pair. One pair is really not worth considering, is it? One tiny pair, especially when fresh and unsullied, is nothing more than twin gum-teasers, and later, when it inevitably finds its way to the floor, all is lost forever. That is why (no doubt you concur) one should have a standby set virgin baby waiting at all times. May I enquire about Marjorie Bankdraft’s digits? Are they still as sweet as jasmine unguent. Or have they already turned to Limburger?

But I beg your indulgence, for I digress once again. Toenail fungus. Is there indeed really such a thing? As far as I am concerned, I suspect it is not so much a festering reality as an urgent nonproblem awaiting a promising marketing nonsolution. Preferably one aimed towards wireless subscribers or anyone given to calling any number with a surcharge, as in calls cost you forty euro from landlines. Charges from mobiles vary, but we won’t tell you what they are until you receive the bill. Personally, I feel such numbers should be reserved for medical emergency promotions, Sorry to interrupt your evening’s television viewing, Madame Bécasse, but have your bowels unaccountably open this afternoon? (Or) Is this number seven, rue la Troisième Jambe? Monsieur Corniaud? Have you recently had your sphincter tested for cockroaches? Such a service would be a much more appropriate use of premium rate telephone lines.

I do realise, my dear forsythia, that deep down you are a foot-fetishist. However, I promise to love you anyway and not to compromise your integrity. Furthermore, as a mediation, I am gifting you the following tender chanson:


All About Feet

To Be Recited Very Loudly & Even Faster Than Is Humanly Possible. Like A March. Or, if you prefer,
Fortizzimo & Allegro Non Tropo


Two little footiepeoples padding ‘cross the floor
Narsty cheesy stinky stonks stompin’ thru tha door.
Horrble bulgy bunion butties sloppin’ in da shits
Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s dingle’s like a nit’s.

Funny flabby footiepeoples marchin’ two by two
In da cold da toesiekins are turning nicely blue.
A hundred dozen donynuts they make yer tummy wobble
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s nose it squirts da globble.

Shiny blingy toesy nails are stuck on with da glue
In da shops da footiechavs they buy da boots wot’s nu.
Elephants in undergrowth they eat a bitty lunch
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s ears they flap a bunch.

Fat and pinky footypads they’re not so very nice
Squichin’ squashin’ rottin grapes in barrels made of mice.
Elephants got bottoms wot can make a mighty breeze
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s toes they taste of cheese.

Oh yer dear ferukhas, they are so very sweet
And when I trip and trod on dem you say you fuckin freet.
Oysters do not taste so nice when they are old and stinky
And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck’s goiter’s name is Binky.

Lice gots feet that are so sweet they make you wanna blub
Toadystools and horny tarts and drinks of syllabub,
They make you fart and sing off key “Britannia Rule the Wayvels”

And Uncle Bernie Bingleschminck is turning in his grayvels.

Fin

And leaving you (temporarily) with this gentle mediation, I bid you goodnight, but definitely not good-byeeee. Hasta mañana!!!! - HWISGAAOMRIU®

Day 14

A Penneth of Doggerel



7.16 Breakfasting on my own fromage du tête
Subject: Reissen Reissen on der Wall

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Reissen oder night zu reissen, das ist der frage.
Hef a vundervoller fahrt unt fort, fort unt baeck.
Menny a verm unt affektshunist kuessen unt hueggen.
Meeny hey splueschy spuluschy int yor bad im zimmer.

Blezzingks unt gute kosher zentvitchess to yu beide.

I cannot go on, not another inch. This morning I was awakened by the most fearsome barrage of violence. It was as though Napoleon and Wellington had met on the field of battle, only Waterloo had transferred itself to my beautiful house. Never in my life have I heard such monstrous rippings and bangings and roarings. And then, just as I was about to call out a cautious ‘hello’, to let whoever it was know that I was at home, the earth moved. Someone or something had snatched up my computer and proceeded to shake it until I was nearly unconscious. My poor aching head must have whipped back and forth no fewer than a thousand times, and banged against the sides at least twice that many times. And do you know what happened next? The brute, for that’s what he was, speaking in the ugliest argot it has ever been my misfortune to hear, disparaged my beautiful computer, calling it a worthless piece of shit. My computer? A piece of shit? I’ll piece of shit him if I ever lay my hands on him!

I fear the brute totally ransacked my beautiful house. God only knows if any of my precious possessions still remain in one piece. As for me, he flung the computer into my junkroom. It cannot be anywhere else because of the ambiance. Oh, Forsythia, what am I going to do? If only my beloved squatters hadn’t deserted me like rates from a sinking ship? I simply do not know what is left for me?

I can’t go one, but I will prevail. I’m not a son of the revolution for nothing. Yes, I know, my paternal family, proudly resistant to a man, were introduced to Madame le Guillotine, but wasn’t it my mother’s great great great great great grandmamma who rose from the ashes of the terror and sold the teeth of all her friends and thus founded the family fortune in the ivory trade? I am my mother’s son. I will prevail. I will prevail. But in the mean time, if my letters sound disjointed and more passionate than usual, you will know why. - Thine, HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

9.30 Chewing self-help software for my nerves
Subject: Not a Common Reisen

Dearest Darling Forsythia,

Your beloved SOG (how proud you must be to call her Mumsy) proved her sanctity once and for all by recognising the theological implications and subtleties to be found within the word “reissen”. Preferring to err on the side of caution, however, I would wish to point out, to her and whomever else is even the slightest bit interested, that we must never demonstrate our illiteracy by omitting so much as one “s” when using the sacred word. Anyone and his pet pig can “reisen”. Few are they who are chosen to “reissen” and yet live to tell about it. Not only that, but only those elevated beings who have achieved true and blissful pipettude™ or even pipettehood™ may bask in its fragrance.

Be that as it may, our beloved SOG must understand, though it pains me to speak of her so bluntly, that it is not her place to go about hither and yon issuing unfounded and unproven linguistic corrections. That was something the baser, more craven Mumsy might have been guilty of, but that was before she receive the gift of hymen reintactus beneficius perpetuum gluum™. Many are there who yearn to oversee her downfall; let neither you nor me not be among them. – HWISGAAOMRIU®
***

12.15 Envisioning a yawning chasm
Subject: Rhinoplasties

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Do you realise that we are two among the blessed minority who can easily accommodate a rutting rhino in within our nasal passages? I find it immensely thrilling. However, what are we to do about the birds that ride on the rhinos’ backs, and with the horrible nasty barby insects that feed the birds that ride on the rhinos’ backs? And what of the rains that feed the rivers that make the ponds that make the mud that soothes the skin that houses the bugs that feed the birds that ride on the rhinos’ backs?

And what of the tourists who travel in Jeeps? What if they should be caught in the floods that are caused by the rains that feed the rivers that make the ponds that create the mud that soothes the skin that houses the bugs that feed the birds that ride on the rhinos’ backs? And what of the cakes that feed the tourists who travel in jeeps who are caught in the floods that are caused by the rains that feed the rivers that makes the ponds that create the mud that soothes the skin that houses the bugs that feed the birds that ride on the rhinos’ backs?

And what of the chefs that bake the cakes?

And what of the women who bear the children who grow into the chefs?

And what of the girls who become the women who bear the children?

And what of the dollies that play with the girls who become the women?

And what of the dogs that eat the dollies that play with the girls?

And what of the grass that chokes the dogs that eat the dollies?

And what of the rhinos that roll in the grass that chokes the dogs?

And what of the noses that house the rhinos that roll in the grass?

So much time. So few questions. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***



14.56 Eating the wax from my ears
Subject: Little Red Things

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Have you recently spied any tiny red things where they ought not to be? Have you considered that they are and what they might be doing? No? Well, permit me to enlighten you.

There is almost nothing a tiny red thing cannot do. For example, in a nonce, it might eat your heart out. Or it might splash bleach on to your newest Versace chemisier, the one with the artistically hand-painted rutabagas frolicking across the shantung bodice. Or it might whisper suggestions of a numerical order into the ear of a pining loved one. Or it might sneak into your kitchen in the dead of night and east the last of your chocolate truffle torte. Or it might invade your computer and add decimal points where they ought not to be. Or it might make inappropriate telephone calls to numbers with shoddy prefixes. Or it might masquerade as your mother-in-law at the local Women’s Institute fundraiser and fart in unfortunate places. Or it might eat the glue attaching the soles to your favourite pair of Manolo’s. Or it might send substantial financial pledges in your name to an obscure and obnoxious religious organisation. Or it might conceal a kidney or three in the centre of your lunchtime frozen amaretto surprise. Or it might advertise a World Cup Final at your address and offer free tickets to the first thousand England supporters through the gate. Or it might write to leftwing newspapers under your name espousing the cancellation of farm subsidies and promoting a National Eat Amurkun Genetically Modified Fat People Day. Or it might do just about anything.

Watch out for tiny red things. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

17.23 More acute intestinal cramps
Subject: Suspicions

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Don’t panic, but I suspect something is wrong with me. I mean besides my physical circumstance. I am suddenly blacking out and awakening to find that various parts of my body have been nibbled upon. Please send some sort of help if you can, because I’m either not alone or my psychological and physiological health is worse than I thought. Whichever is the case, I would welcome your reasoned interdiction. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

17.03 My finger pedal digits are disappearing
Subject: Your Communication

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



I am taking the unusual precaution of retaining your epistle within the body of this reply. This action is the direct result of the Anti-Memory Seminars I have been attending online. I now find that without your textual wisdom in front of me, I have no recollection whatsoever of who you are, much less what you have written. Therefore, you must search the following content for examples of my mystical teachings regards your pitiless soundings:

Ø What id th diffrents brtween little rud thongs end thr faereys in thr fardybook? Squishy type?

In reply, I do not really feel that now is the optimum time to invest in squishy Ferraris. September would be better, in time for the autumnal colours and lower rents on the Riviera. You would be advised to take into account your burgeoning bra size and, at all times, to placate your groaning buns.

Ø apologied for having lit tibe run by witoud comminicatting. Little non-red thaks have get in thr way.

“When Time Runs By”… Wasn’t that a song in a Humpy Bighert movie, “To Heave or Heave Not? I remember adoring “To Heave or Heave Not”, especially the part where the hero and Lady Burlap drown while having oral sex in the communal anchovy vat. Or was it sur d’anchois? I have a feeling they were not sufficiently French in their loins (or tongues), and that a number of people complained about it afterwards. Hélas, such a film wouldn’t be allowed in Chlamydeous®. The censor, who is also the director of marketing in her spare time, has little enough time for fripperies as it is. Besides, she is suffering from gout and ennui, as a result of a life lived too fully. Be that as it may, my heart is breaking. Would you be good enough to extend a virtual arm into my cauldron of malevolence and massage it?

Ø thank your fer ricummundink “The Dumb Bnunnies”. Iya notshur whach chericter tu ibendify with.

Most probably the oatmeal or the underwear. Either would be suitable for morning wear.

Ø will b sindinh yop comethinf equellt spiririual.

Please, if you are planning to send me anything, let it be one of our Miraculous Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ Scented Perpetual Life Incorruptible Candles® and Multi-Purpose Appliances®. Please, please. I’m soooo depressed, and my sex toys don’t appear to be working any more.

Ø littlr vice callink. Dsrlin= Dophis wanmt het linch. Mite latwr. – F.Featherstonehawe,Procureuse

What is there left to say, except that I shall send my love to all, except for those for whom a polite handshake would be more appropriate. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

***

20.32 Hallelujah, I’m insane
Subject: Passion Omelettes

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



I have been reviewing the plans for our unspeakably and immodestly upscale eatery, LUST®, and am in complete agreement that the location, in an inverted pyramid atop the Louvre pyramid, is tres chic to the ULTIMATE FUCKING MAX! I am gratified to see that we are intent upon keeping it totally restricted to only the beautiful and corrupt and rich and trendy and anonymous, but could we please place a quota on the Amurkuns and Engulsh. There are far too many of them out of doors for comfort, and they obviously feel they have a God-given right to possess all those aforementioned traits and more besides. It makes them common and far too flatulent for our needs. Perhaps if we ask them politely to sit a geology exam, one requiring complex socio-economic adenoids starting from March 1242AD (or is it CE). I am so bored and complacent with the pox-ridden and fat of the world.

Here I must interrupt myself most incommodiously, for a fervent question has arisen which only you in your legaltude can answer. And don’t laugh, I’m being serious, probably more serious than I have ever been in my tragically inebriated life. Please tell me what is “AD” means. I’ve seen it for years, probably since the first day I was born, and certainly before I ever learned how to read or reason. What is it? It’s always there, always popping up after random numbers, but no one ever tells me why. They don’t even tell me what the random numbers are for. “AD”? I mean, why, in the middle of a perfectly decent sentence, do they suddenly write (for example) 2001AD (I won’t even go into 2001CE because it’s rude sounding and shouldn’t have been written in the first place)? Could it have been some secretary’s initials, as in Ardulla Dullard typed this 2001 times, only she was so dumb she couldn’t remember one is supposed to put a comma between the 2 and the first 0? Could it stand for “Annoying Dickhead”, as in I was writing this perfectly decent sentence and then you farted and I lost my concentration, you annoying dickhead? That sounds reasonable to me, but you’re the lawyer as well as a pretty well paid judge. If you can’t help me, then all is lost.

I am now extremely hungry, but you don’t seem to care. You think that if I eat I’ll get fat, and if I get fat, I’ll be stuck in here forever. I’m so desperate I would like to say Fuck you, you frog’s anus, but I won’t since I’m unconsciously polite.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I shall digress no more, at least for the time being, and shall continue with the matter at hand. LUST®. More precisely, the menu for LUST®.

Are you dead set on the caviar menu? I mean, everyone serves Beluga and Sevruga and golden and Marais du Seine and those cheap plastic thingies one finds in fish tanks. Boring boring boring! If we can’t do edgy, then fuck us! Caviar are eggs, right? Eggs! Well, if we’re going to do eggs, we’ve got to blow their fucking minds! We’ve got to make it, like, no one will know what the fuck’s going on, like. Scotch eggs are nothing but chicken caviar wrapped in a layer of sausage and fried, right? Well how about we, like, take assorted caviar from two hundred dozen miscellaneous species, colour them every colour (as long as we don’t use last year’s palate or anything from the 1970s) and arrange them conceptually in an edible Faberge egg? Quite naturally, this latter creation will resemble the customer’s favourite sexual fantasy. A simple idea, perhaps too simple for our taste, yet maximalist enough to satisfy the most discerning eye. Trust me! Garnish with a soupçon a sea salt. A splash of seawater. Arrange in a little Lalique bowl. A little crystal spoon. Even an ostrich egg on the side as a chaser. Talk about sex on the fucking floor!

What we got here, babe, is taste. Fucking taste. And you know what taste is? Taste is a fucking license to print money.

Ah, yes, I almost forgot (it’s those fucking seminars - they’re driving me crazy), we did take delivery of that oil rig you wanted for our exclusive boutique hotel. The number-crunchers should adore your decision to give it not only an unlisted number, but an unlisted address in an unlisted location, as well. A fucking genius you are! I am playing around with logistics here, but it might work out for guests to check in at The Little Red Things Guest House and B&B® in Southend-on-Sea (fucking brilliant – it’s the last place on fucking earth anyone would be caught checking in to), whereupon they will be summarily attacked, blindfolded, injected with bilious substances to make their minds wander, and spirited away with gratuitous violence in (sequentially though in no particular order) a 1956 Peugeot, a helicopter, cigarette boat, barge, garbage scow, a tramp steamer circa 1912, and, last but not least, a sperm whale. Their final destimation? The Secret Nameless Location®! Once there, they will be immediately subjected to outrageous luxury and excruciating discomfort, as befits only the truly truly chic to the fucking max.

I trust I do not have to remind you that this information is strictly FYO. Understood? I hate to think what I would have to do if you told anyone, especially our director of marketing, who is – let’s face it – nothing if not a common slut and tedious pillock and should have bee shot at birth.

One small suggestion. Shouldn’t the penthouse be surmounted by a two hundred metre high Miraculous Amostasanta Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata ™ Shrine® Pet Cemetary® and Chinese Hand Laundry®?

You have not mentioned the director of marketing by name for some time. Are there subtle reasons for this or is it because you cannot actually remember what her name is? Is it deliberate subterfuge? - HWISGAAOMRIU®

Day 13

08.32 Horrible Horrible Horrible heartburn
Subject: Urgent Linguistic Matters

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


I woke from the most hideous cauchemar to the realisation that, hélas, we have not been as circumspect as is warranted by our incipient state of grace. Regards Chlamydeous® (The Grand Duchy of, etc., etc.) and to the divinely inspired DuDu™, surely we must taken certain precautions, lest undesirable and nauseas influences run rampant among the wrong sort. I am, at the moment, limiting my focus to one particular trend, but it can be used to eradicate the unwanted in other areas, as well.

1. DuDu™ shall contain no words which might, under any circumstance, sound like Amurkin and/or or English-inflected French.
2. The use of Hip-Hop idioms should be encouraged by the Chlamydean Academy of Lettres, particularly when said usage is monitored by florally noisome members of the Académie Française.
3. No linguistic influences from countries in the Amurkuz not referred to as Latin America shall be entertained, and all letters written in Amurkun and Amurkun politic-speak or management-speak shall be returned unopened, accompanied by a rude note.
4. The Grand Duchy of Noble and Pleasant and Completely Perfect Aspect known and celebrated as the Divine Chlamydeous® shall at all times repel overtures for diplomatic relations from peoples I find to be toxic, and our reasons for such action may be kept confidential (under the governmental laws regulating affairs of national interest and security). We shall, of course, be polite yet unbending in our resolve. If any rebuffed nations persist or make whiny and truculent speeches or are represented by anyone who thinks they control man’s destiny, we shall resort to nastiness, offensiveness and bile. If that does not work, we shall ask for more money.
5. Those indulging in foreign relations with reality television shows should be subject to unfortunate ridicule and mysterious occurrences, unless the money paid upfront is suitably irresistible.
6. Subjects of The Grand Duchy of Noble, Heroic and Pleasant and Completely Perfect Aspect known and celebrated as the Divine Chlamydeous® shall be encouraged to talk through their noses.
7. Relics of saints of interesting habits, when and if accepted by the Grand Sanctificator, Purificator and Patriarch of The Grand Duchy of Noble and Pleasant and Completely Perfect Aspect known and celebrated as the Divine Chlamydeous®, the Most Esteemed and Troubled Conserves du Jour®, simultaneous director of marketing and talent agent, shall be expressly banned from speaking in bad accents, even in the middle of the night. As a precaution, all newly approved saints shall henceforth change their names to something vaguely French sounding and enrol in night school classes in Basic and Medieval DuDu©.

There is much to consider and so little time. To that end, should you be in the least bit unclear as to our purposes, as well as to anything whatsoever pertaining to your truncheon, I recommend you consult Bernard Darwin’s definitive history of the world, The Bishop of South-East Equatorial Mesopotamia. Answers to all of your personal dilemmas lie within. I promise you. - HWISGAAOMRIU®
***

11.40 Requiring Mouthwash, please
Subject: Possible Alarm Bells

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


There are rumours circulating on the web concerning our director of marketing and certain advertisements that may or may not have been placed in her name in the media. What I’m thinking is this: should we have allowed her to hire a secretary when she complained of being overworked, and would we have been wiser to employ a plonker? It is my feeling that she has too much time on her hands and is, therefore, taking up an interest in politics. Please communicate with her, after which you might communicate with me. Communicate with yourself while you are at it, as your continued silence is blistering my wadge. – HWISGAAOMRIU® (Laurent, in case you’ve forgotten who I am).

***

13.16 Suffering from acute happiness
Subject: Hoibl Boibl Toyel Unt Moyel

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


I am not altogether certain what you were asking in your most recent email, but, for the record, no, I do not personally know more about the inner workings of a mohel than I care to remember, and no, I do not plan on having a son. If I did have a son, he would be denied that joyful experience, as well. As far as my own circumstance is concerned, yes, I have had have numerous offers, but being the killjoy that I am, I declined. I would like to point out, just in case you decided on transforming your life and becoming a better person, that the question you may or may not have asked was cruel and unusual. Were you, perchance, trying to get even with me for one of my truisms?

As regards the supposed benefits on moheldom, I feel you’ve been listening a bit too earnestly to your experts from the other side of the toilsome pond. Given that they know better in every respect and have the only opinion worth listening to on every imaginable topic, I am probably wasting my breath. However, if God, in whom you seem to believe, delivered man with a cute little wrapper, which one opens with the same gleeful expectation as one does a special present, what availeth experts to deny us that pleasure? I have been uncircumcised my entire life. I know how to keep myself clean and I assure you my sex life is splendid, or at least it was until I was devoured by my computer. Enough on the subject, lest I be forced to vent my wroth in unreasonable excrements.

Would you believe there has been yet more flack from the Vatican concerning the canonisation of our beloved SOG? They simply refuse to listen, which makes me think their entire hierarchy is comprised solely of narrow-minded old men who never have any fun. Everything is obstacles, obstacles, obstacles! This morning, I finally said to them (and I quote), “Nu,” I said, “I offer a saint and blessed miracle worker. All you do it whine. You never promise nothing. All you say is, ‘Well, if she was at least baptised we would be more than happy for her to receive holy communion and extreme suction’.”

I ask you, what sort of answer is that? I tell you, we will not capitulate! What I’m thinking now is, why am I not thinking higher? Why are we settling for less? If we want to get anywhere, we’ve got to go for the number one job. Pope! We have our beloved SOG declared Pope! From there, it’s a guaranteed fast track to Sainthood. The way I see it, is they might just be sneaky enough to claim that the job is already taken. You know how they are, but they won’t be ready for is a rapid response. We’ll put her name forward as Pope of a small branch office! A small pope. Pipette. Pipette Ruchl. Miraculous Pipette Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™, patroness of laundries, mechanical engineers and media consultants®. According to my advisers, with such an astute manoeuvre, we would immediately cover all known infallibility angels in one fell swoop. Not to mention the better-known unknowns. It is my belief that we should direct our director of marketing and soon-to-be Permanent Under-Secretary of Pipettual Affairs, Bigotry and Torture Pursuevent to appoint a blue-ribbon commission to sanction and promulgate immaculate, ultimate and infallible utterances.

It is fairly ominous that our beloved SOG, The Pipette of Destiny®, has yet to issue her infallible epistle relating to your immaculate, semi-immaculate or possibly fallen status. The world awaits. The matter is obviously tormenting her, otherwise, why should she procrastinate? Is she, perchance, remembering dearest Lucrezcia Borgia? She, too, was daughter to a pope (though, it is true, not one so divinely elevated as ours) but, it is to be remembered, she did quite well out of it in the end. Or at least fairly well. Almost up to the end. Mind you, her reputation, much like yours, did come in for a battering. And in spite of all her efforts, she was reviled, obscenely reviled. Beloved eventually, of course, that much goes without saying. Intensely beloved by her people. And, lest we forget, she did have her portrait painted a number of times, and by actually painters.

So you see, all in not lost. The important thing is never to lose hope.

For my part, I am continuing a compilation of a list of miracles, both the obvious ones and a few attractive examples from baser chavs I’ve read about on the web. Let’s face it, they won’t be needing them, not where they’re going (I realise this is not a topic for your tender sensibilities, but delicacy is as delicacy does and most of them are not very nice people and will be thankfully forgotten the instant their ticket is punched). My problem is with the Office of the Devil’s Avocado. He apparently got his appendage caught in his zipper that morning and wasn’t thinking clearly (which begs the question, what was he doing with it at the time and why was he doing it?). In any case, he claimed not to have been particularly impressed with my list of miracles. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was more than a little rude. I fear they can be picky, picky, picky at the best of times, but with a torn foreskin, they are downright savage. Awful people. Is it any wonder no one important has ever heard of them and their tourist numbers are down? I hear from my sources that there is a desperately top-secret document in circulation containing fallacious and highly scandalous allegations concerning our beloved SOG, the reverend pipette. If this is true, then it is a sign of our imminent victory.

A word of warning. If our director of marketing is to be seen chanting her mantra in public venues such as Essex Espresso Bars, especially the fashionistas’ choice du jour, Chavs ‘R’ Burberristic, she must refrain from immodesty. According to the guidelines, she must wear a snood at all times and weep inconsolably. I fear she has not been reading her employment agreement and is, therefore, forgetful when it comes to the state of her perfection, not to mention her purpose on earth. - HWISGAAOMRIU®
***

15.20 Time for tea and unguents
Subject: Your fashion sense

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Yes Forsythia, I can ‘see’ you in purple lippy, but, to be candid, I’m not altogether sure why you feel it suits you. And while we’re on the subject, please exercise caution when it comes to your new gold and ruby broach. It is, I understand, in the shape of a squirrel picking his nuts. What were you thinking? All sorts of images come to mind, none of them pleasant. Could it be that you, having no nuts to pick, are displaying unfortunate tendencies? How about Whatisname’s nuts? Won’t he share them with you? How about planting a couple of walnut trees around the property, or perhaps a peanut or two. I realise the latter does not really qualify, what with being a rhizome and all, and I also admit that saying will you lick my rhizomes lacks a certain je ne c’est qua, but life among the unfortunately classes must entail certain compromises.

It has occurred to me that you might hang a print of Squirrel Nutkin on your bathroom wall. Would that help with your therapy?

Did you really ask me if the pope goes to the toilet, or was it the other way around? Were you, perhaps, beebling on about something else entirely? I’m never quite sure about your letters, especially since they are so few and far between, and so soutenue. Don’t you love me anymore? - HWISGAAOMRIU®

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19.19 Thanks for the anchovy souillure

Subject: Further infallibility

Dearest Darling Forsythia,


Such torment I have been under, you would not believe. The architect of the pipettal palace and skating rink telephoned with questions regarding The Chamber of Lost Dreams™. OY OY OY, such theological questions he raised! I told him he was fortunate to have chosen me as his chosen consultant, even though, in so doing, he has ripped out my heart. But never mind. We must suffer and endure.

As much as it pains me to admit it, it does stand to reason that her beloved holiness, the pipette, would not and will not be requiring, at any time, a sacred receptacle, for her own use. Theologically speaking, to therefore include one in The Chamber of Lost Dreams™ might be construed as being both an insult to her spotlessness and a great stain upon her holy unction. However, I put it to you. Supposing her brother-in-law should come to visit. Given that she shares a measure of the selfsame holy and sacred blood and smegma, would it be equally as demeaning to provide him with a bucket? How about if it’s painted green and gold and placed behind a rococo screen? Or should we admit that he is perpetually smitten with the bloody flux and foul odour and has been since childhood, and would possibly be relieved at our considering his sensibilities and providing him a sacred receptacle (2nd class, with a plastic liner and cardboard bottom scraper), discretely disguised as a potted palm? On the other hand, mightn’t his fragrant used of a sacred receptacle, even a demoted one, imply a certain vile laxitude and worldliness in a member of the immediate family? Again, is it demeaning to our beloved SOG to so much as think of flatulence and a member of her illustrious line in the same month? Please help me, for I’m drowning in reasonable discourse and political certainty.

There is, as usual, another circumstance offering opportunities for corruption and degradation, this time concerning the First Degree Relics of our Beloved SOG! This is of the greatest interest of the Holy Dee, as well, or at least it would be if only I could persuade them to answer their phones. Nail parings and hair from AlmostSantaRuchl of the Levantine’s™ plug hole are not going to satisfy the fanatical hoi polloi forever. To appease them, perhaps we should lease an assassin to subtly remove bits and pieces from the pipette when she’s not looking? Nothing too obvious, of course. Sloughed skin, vocal nodes, her heart. Stuff like that.

Sorry for the somewhat scattered tone of this letter. It has been a highly disruptive day, the details of which I shall inform you at a less incontinent moment. My enfeebled mind is charging about simultaneously in a hundred trillion different directions, even without the benefit of caffeine, and I’m dying of boredom. - HWISGAAOMRIU®

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21.02 Following an abysmal, scorched rectum rissole
Subject: Sweet Music

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Such a ghastly, horrid and excruciating few days, I can’t tell you! I got my nose caught in the disk drive, and if Mr. Death hadn’t been so incompetent he would have got me free and without a fight. However, to my credit, I thought I would try dumping a massive amount number of files into ‘trash’, and then emptying that into the great beyond. As a result, here I am, practically as good as new and, considering the circumstances, not smelling any the worse for wear. To be honest, my nose is horribly mangled, but better that than the alternatives.

In my down time, I have been mulling over the various jingles and musical leitmotifs we shall be requiring for Bagel-in-theBare® and its subsidiaries and franchises, and after giving it a considerable amount of thought and consulting two or three focus groups, I have reached the conclusions that the vocal stylings of Puchel and the Catarrhs may not be what we had in mind. I know you love them madly and paid for their first abortions, but what can I say? Sorry. Think again.

I am also more than a little upset over the most recent blueprints for Ancient-Crete-in- the-Bare-Bagel-World®. We agreed that the entire island should be cleared, levelled and redesigned into a more liveably spectacular environment. Lest you’ve forgotten, as it was, it was all so puny and, dusty and, well, old in the way of the furniture one finds in charity shops and car boot sales. Our altogether more inspiring Ancient Bagel Oracle™ was, in itself, a milestone of architectural genius, unequalled in this or any other time. However, didn’t we decide that the rubble left behind, supposedly ‘authentic’ but recently disproved by our team of management experts and political analysts, should not be left behind for future generations of pseudo archaeologists from Harvard to find? If ancient rubbish is left simply lying about, then anyone with fingers on the end of their hands can take them home, or to wherever it is they choose to spend their lives. We cannot, I repeat cannot, allow anyone to examine and question our Official Bagel History of Crete, Birthplace of Miraculous Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™ of the Drains™, Most Inviolate Pipette of The World™ and Patroness of Unclean Thoughts™. If the relics and detritus are examined by the uninitiated, the first thing you know, the Greek Government will try unsuccessfully to exert dodgy claims on the island by using their bought and paid-for ‘experts’ to refute our exacting scholarship. Next thing you know, they’ll be demanding that their supposed ‘sovereign’ rights be respected. Never mind that our director of marketing and ulterior solutions went to all that trouble of taking that big box of unmarked five euro notes to the fat man in the bar behind the Acropolis Bar and Genuine Lap Dancers, in return for a five thousand year lease. It’s unbelievable how some people will do anything to renege on an agreement. After they’ve taken the money! Unbefuckinglievable!

It is my personal and professional opinion that the CFO should under the circumstances approve her expense account! Demanding to be reimbursed for condoms! Doesn’t she recall those treasured and inspired sentiments, “Every Little Sperm Is Sacred,” proclaimed so very long ago by the saintly Python Brothers of the Blessed Circumcision? Has she not kept these very words to her breath and bowels? In any event, that which she sacrificed to Demetri Lozynge in the anti-chamber, was sacrificed for Country and Bagel-in-the-Bare® and for our Miraculous Ruchl™ Immaculata™ Ultimata™, Glorious and Perpetual Pipette™, Saint of Saints and Beloved Inspiration to Us All™. It is, however, moot. Since consolidation and the elimination of effective personnel, our director of marketing is also, between the hours of three and four in the afternoon, the chief financial officer. As such, it would be a conflict of interest for her to approve her own expense account. If she continues to be difficult and unethical she should be killed, though not humanely.

You are advised to keep the Elgin Marbles in mind. Didn’t the Greeks get it all wrong then? They couldn’t even get the name right! Elgin Marbles? Weren’t no such thing and never was. Elgin Marples, that’s what they were, a tableau vivant inspired by Blessed Agatha of Christie on the Crossicles (of sainted memory). If I’m correct, and I usually am, wasn’t the Blessed Agatha as English as Brussels sprouts? Well, she was, and that’s a fact. And if she was English and inspired the Elgin Marples, how on earth could they be Greek? Intolerable blasphemy, that’s what I call it, and those that perpetuated it are supposed to be our allies! Hang ‘em up by the bollocks and blow it up my nose!

You see how distraught I am? I cannot even remember I’ve forgotten to get up tomorrow morning and you expect me to learn the zither. Aren’t you content that, after so many years and so much hatred and cross words, I’ve been able to solve the mystery of the Elgin Marples? I can’t tell you how satisfied it feels to put things right, and I won’t either, because you are not a very nice person.

Where was I? Ah, yes, your suggestion that we might include an Ancient Rubble Corner in our master plan. Absolutely out of the question. Besides which, I do believe you have already requisitioned the marbly bits and pieces for your new villa in Lanzarote, where they are bound to look lovely among the geraniums and complement your gnome collection.

How are your new hedges? Are they entirely pleasing? - HWISGAAOMRIU®
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23.45 Craving a parsnip douche
Subject: A Subsequent Thought

Dearest Darling Forsythia,



Has it occurred to you, as it has to me, that substantial savings might be made simply by recreating the Glories of Ancient Crete® as a virtual reality experience? Naturally, we needn’t tell anyone, because in my experience, our employees wouldn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality if their mothers’ lives depended upon it. As for the average punter, they’ll happily go along with anything as long as it’s written up in the tabloids and they don’t have to associate with foreigners. We’ll be rich! There’s no telling the miraculous apparitions our accounts department will create! Your idea to develop software for virtual Blessed Holy Water Ever Clean Money Laundering Systems® has, indeed, opened up a whole new world of possibilities. What could we have accomplished were it not for Virtual Neither Here Nor There™ Accountancy Management® and Auditors In Our Pockets®? Think of all the money we’ll save! - HWISGAAOMRIU®

PS. After considering your options and buying a new frock, please forget you were born and destroy this memorandum.

PPS. Leave a note to Miraculous Ruchl™ to let her know about your forthcoming immolation. As your mother, she deserves to know what your holiday plans are. You know how she worries about you.
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