|:neutralising the pH level:|

SOME COUNTRIES ADJECTIVEST NOUNS

Dr DogChop wonders if you saw this episode:

The first section was shown over a grainy black and white video of a man stood in a phone box.

Operator: Hello caller, this is 911. Which service do you require?
Caller: Just give me the fucking police!
Operator: I know this may be important but i must ask you to moderate your language. This is a family service.
Caller: Police please! Just give me the police!
Operator: Putting you through now, have a nice day!

There is a click and a short wait as the call is connected.

Police operator: This is the police. What seems to be the problem?
Caller: The problem seems to be my car, which is on fire.
Police operator: Can you give me your location so that I can pass it on to the fire service?
Caller: I'm in front of the lottery box in Azville. The one by the supermarket.
Police operator: They are on their way to you now. May I ask why you called the police and not the fire service?
Caller: I suspect foul play.
Police: OK, I'm dispatching a unit down there now.

In the next scene, the owner of the car is sat on a bench talking to uniformed police.

"OK, sir. Tell us exactly what happened," said the first policeman.

"I stopped the car, got out and came over here to buy a ticket for the lottery. I've been accumulating sets of numbers because I can't bear to let them goin case they come up but I haven't bought the ticket, but I am not at all addicted." He took a pull on his cigarette and carried on. "When I turned around I noticed there was a burning rag dangling out of the petrol tank. The flames hadn't quite reached the inside when I turned around, but I was too scared to go near the thing in case it exploded."

One of the cops had pulled out a notebook and started scribbling in it, pausing every so often to remember words and how to write. He asked, "Did you see anyone near the car?"

"Yes I did. I saw him stood over there on the other side of the road."

"Not next to the car," the copper asked.

"No, he was stood there with his hands in his pockets, whistling and looking at my car. At that point the fuel tank exploded and I fell over. I looked over and the guy and he was still stood there with his hands in his pockets. I asked him to do something but he shouted that he was busy."

"Did he say what he was doing?" The coppers were both interested now. This beat speed trapping and donuts.

"He said he was actively not crossing the road to piss on my car. Then he laughed and walked away."

The coppers scribbled and frowned. One of them said, "What happened next?"

The victim looked embarrassed and carried on with his narrative. "I chased him down and asked what he meant by it. He asked if i had happened to notice those funny lines on the road. I turned round to look and then he was gone as quick as shit off a shovel. I didn't catch him."

The copper with the notebook pointed with his pen at the smouldering wreck of the car with the firemen still hosing it down with foam. "Has that moved since you stopped?"

The victim huffed like an infuriated mother and said, "What? Apart from all the glass scattered around the landscape? No."

The copper pointed at the funny lines on the road. "You do know that it's illegal to park on a crossing, don't you?"

"So fucking what? It was only for a minute. What are you going to do about this?" The man was loosing his cool quickly.

The copper said, "There isn't much we can do, really. We'll take statements from the people around, shopkeepers and the like. We'll ask people about the description you are going to give us. In truth there isn't a great deal of evidence to work with. You said you didn't see the guy next to the car, right?"

The victim took an extra-long toke on his cigarette before throwing it into the bushes. One of the coppers looked at it pointedly, but the guy launched into his diatribe without noticing. "Unbefuckinglievable. What do we pay you people for? What is it that you do for a living? Where were you while some cunt was setting light to my car? Eh?"

"We were speed-trapping innocent motorists while real criminals were roaming free amongst society, weren't we Trev?"

"Yes," said Trev.

The interview grew more heated, with lots of arm waving and shouting on the part of the victim.

After the interview was over, Trev and Bill the coppers got into their patrol car and drove-off to trap dangerous drivers instead of capturing real criminals. Trev fished his mobile phone out of the glove compartment. He dialed a number.

"I know it was you." A pause. "Why? because it had you name written all over it, that's why. Who else was going to be setting fire to cars at lunctime on a Wednesday? Cars parked on crossings?" Another pause for reply. "You don't need to lie to me today, the guy was a cock so we were forced to give him points for his parking skills. But do me a favour - no more burning cars, ok?" Another pause. "By the way, say "hi" to Mrs. DogChop."

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 5 Noteworthy retort(s)

THE WORLD TURNED ON ITS FEET

DDC is being swept by waves of positivity:

There is some hope for my country - here it is. It is wrapped in a cricket site but it could be almost anything to make me happy.

The TV has been the spiritual leader of the country for some years now, inciting youths to violence but as yet upunished by anti-terrorist laws and, indeed, in no danger of being so punished. You can take our freedom, but you can't touch our TV. This is why there is a generation gap between myself and my sister Lucretia DogChop, who is a mere ten years younger than me.

The TV is a good yard-stick for popular trends and thinking and the cause of my joy is this little tid-bit. The cricket got more viewers than Big Brother. For those of you who don't like / have no idea of cricket, I would feel the same if someone told me the news had got more viewers. Since when did Britons watch TV concerning what's actually happening now?

Next thing people will be voting again and asking questions about the ethicality (is that a word?) of the stuff they buy in the shops

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:10 AM 2 Noteworthy retort(s)

CYCLIST PIZZA FOR DINNER DEAR

DDC wants to know:

Those coppers are mighty good at staking out the same road everyday. I had to dodge into the crapmarket to avoid them yesterday. It is some nonsense about all those cyclists I knocked into the river the other week. Luckily, no-one saw my number plate because a bright pink cycling top got caught over it. If these guys aren't closet transvestites then my name isn't DDC.

BT3 recons that the bright pink tops are to ensure that motorists can see them, but I think it might be safer if I didn't see them. Anyones else get bored of cyclists wingeing about cyclists' rights and bad drivers and road conditions? I'm not against cyclists per se, just certain members of that group who take the piss. I'm prepared to be reasonable about this.

The right to use the road - no probems. It is a pretty wide track and there is usually enough space for two cars and two bikes.

The right to use bike, road and umbrella symultaneously - yes problems. The track is not wide enough for you to weave in and out, holding the umbrella in variable winds on a busy road. I'm sorry but in these circumstances you have to be aware of the fact that rain is not dangerous whilst your alternative is.

I'm sure that most of you cyclists out there are saying, "I never do that." Right enough, most of us drivers don't pull out in front of cyclists so now we are both on high ground, morally speaking, so let's not take it for granted that cyclists are good and drivers bad.

The right to use the road - yes

The right to use the road and the pavement intermittently - No. Here is the procedure:

1. You cycle along the pavement.
2. The dirvers see you and dismiss you as no immediate risk because you are on the pavement on the opposite side of the road.
3. Driver procedes as normal, occasionally checking his mirrors and potential hazards / hold-ups.
4. The cyclist shoots across in front, the cyclist joins the flow of traffic and the driver brakes a little. He thinks, "Stupid twat".

This is what happens most times, varying slightly with the manouvre involved and the level of profanity of the driver. Ok, so the driver doesn't see the cyclist, doesn't brake but does notice the fucker once he goes under the wheels. Whose fault? Who gets the blame, though?

I could keep going with tales of cyclists going through red lights, cyclists getting pssed and riding their bike home, cyclists on the roads with their dogs on leads, cyclists shooting up the inside of moving traffic.

Here is the plan - you stick to the rules and so will we. If the rule book goes out of the window then it is every man for himself and my car is dark red so I am sure i won't be able to see the blood too clearly, eh?

BT3 scratches an ongoing itch:

Clearly the funniest thing you've written here is: "I'm prepared to be reasonable about this." When? Where? And other such questions. The rest has some worthwhile recommendations that even the goofiest looking cyclist should understand.

Then there are these elements: You call cyclists closet transvestites; imply that they're better off - with regards to their safety - indoors; admit to knocking over an unsubstantiated number of them and such and such. While I find it has caused quite a few triggers to go off in my own psyche, being the push-ya-bike-with-ya-feet model citizen and former recipient of a front bumper through my leg that I am, I'm somewhere between crushed and resolute in my support of getting cyclists out of harm's way.

DDC, I'd be inclined to disagree with you had this post been fingered a decade ago. You know that. Scooby Doo theme. I was youthful [Revelations 38:187] and a heterosexually overcharged, chunky thighed, protruding calved, shaven [bar goatee], tanned man cursing atop his expensive bike as I made my way through the Adelaide Hills while drivers of all kinds of permutated motor vehicular propulsion sped past.

Forward to now, if you don't mind: I don't give a rat's shrivelled butthole on the end of a wooden skewer about the rights of cyclists, nor their perpetual pleading for a fair go, at least not if they're the cause of a chaotic metal based human sandwich. In the next two paragraphs I will address the two prime causes of car / bicycle crashes: people who drive cars and people who ride bicycles.

Driving is fraught with danger. We established long ago that any yin yang over a certain age may sit for a written and then physical driving test. No front page beckoning there. We also established, off the record, that the vast majority of those who sit the exam will pass. It's a proven fact that generating new drivers keeps insurance companies and private medical insurers afloat, enabling the system's pistons to generate steady forward motion. Still no eye contact from the Editor or anyone in the print room. If it's beginning to sound predictible it's probably because it is. Getting a driver's licence is a procedure, and not a difficult one at that.

But when you take a squiz at the other side of the coin, where one could rationally expect to see similar structure in ensuring kids know what's required in order to become proud owners of leg-powered vehicles, the situation gets murky. A licence is immaterial where hopping onto a bicycle is concerned and rules that apply to motor vehicles on public roads may or may not be taught by parents. I'm leaning on the may not be side of the fence with this one because parents usually tell kids to stay off the road with a justification along the lines of 'or you'll get killed' without delving into complex explanations.

It's here that habits form and eventually mature into problems such as those you've described, DDC. Using a mobile phone and an umbrella while riding a bicycle? Poke my urethra with a corkscrew and label me ticked-off! It's preposterous to think that any certified sane driver wouldn't veer into the slimy little turdeater to thrust homeward the point that an act so devoid of common sense shall not be permitted to go unpunished. There are single celled organisms in France with more common sense than that and I know that as a proud father of three, if one of my kids did anything remotely as numbskulled as that I'd be out in the middle of the road faster than Mighty Mouse on speed forming a single person barrier to enable the driver on the receiving end of such shenanigans to act as nature intended; knock 'em down and don't let 'em get back up.

It may sound radical, possibly even predetermined, but I think that if a few or perhaps three-hundred or so instances such as what I've described occurred in every country for the span of a few years, there'd be no doubt about the role of cyclists in the overall scheme of public road use.

As far as I'm concerned, the picture looks a little something like this:

1. Bikes belong on roads, not footpaths.

2. Under no circumstance should cyclists use mobile phones whilst in motion.

3. Umbrellas and bikes, much like the use of bikes following consumption of alcohol, do not mix.

4. Roads are too narrow and ought to be widened. I'm all for knocking down as many houses as possible to enable this to happen because I believe anyone living on a main road is fucked in the head anyway. I strongly believe there wouldn't be much argument from main road dwellers that couldn't be eradicated with mace or any other potent chemical. [This will be my platform for running for local government when the time is right, by the way].

5. Penultimately, but certainly not leastly, kids - no matter what age - should be aware of road rules before they even dare ride on one. I cannot stress this point enough, DDC, because the very nature of road utopia hinges on this. If your child is six and s/he doesn't know the road rules then get him / her off the fucking road. They don't belong there no matter what misconception you're fiddling with.

6. A road is for those who understand it's a privilege and not playground.

Having said that, admittedly, there's nothing that gives me more of a free thrill than to ride my pushbike home after a night on the slop and the mystic smoke. If you've seen footage of how the Tour de France riders pee on the go you'd agree that it's quite a sight to behold. Well, that ain't nothing, mate. I crap on the go when required, especially when the browns turn to liquid, and I've never dropped or gushed on myself. Not once. Mind you I've turned more than my share of heads and caused countless accidents but it's all fucking funny when you're on the other end and not considered responsible for any likely accident, innit? Ai?

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 PM 6 Noteworthy retort(s)

SEXY Q and A

BT3 responds to MJ's Sexy Q&A:

1) If, while looking for a spare shirt in your best (male) friend's closet, you were to stumble upon a full-on gimp suit, would you ever mention it to him?

Definitely not. Inquisitive passivity is one of my weaker points – newborn puppies and trim women of any colour sans silicon being my weakest points - and I'm usually at the giving end of a boot to the groin whenever someone ums and ahs to me about something, whether that be a question or an answer. If there are questions to be asked, I ask them. If there are answers to be answered, I answer them. More often than hardly ever the answer isn't what the person expected, which usually leads to embarrassment and/or involuntary bowel movement on their part. In this situation I foresee only one course of action; I'd squeeze my lard into the gimp suit, casually walk to where my mate was preparing breakfast and say: "Do you think this is appropriate for the Country Club?"


2) I don't know your relationship status, but for the purpose of this question you're single. Let's say that you had an honest shot at getting it on with Angelina Jolie. Yes, indeed, a sure thing. If it meant that a video of the two of you together would circulate the Internet, thereby placing you in the ranks of sexual superhero-dom in the minds of many (world-class sleazeball in the minds of others, but hey at least you'd be getting laid consistantly), would you go for it?

There's no doubt in my mind that I would go for it, especially if the results are as you predict. There's also no doubt in my mind that anyone has an honest shot at getting it on with Angelina Jolie. She doesn't give off a picky-choosy scent. I'm a regular exponent of Fantasy Sex and with Angelina underneath, on top, to either side, in front of and behind me, I'm inclined to go the Multiple Character Fantasy Sex route[!]. Natch, my mate's gimp outfit would play an important role - perhaps during foreplay - and forty-five minutes later, when I was ready for the real deal, I'd reach for the orange beanie, fins, mask and reefer while I did Angelina in the style of Steve Zissou. Of course, I'd opt for something more masculine during the rear entry and double penetration portion of the horizontal aerobics; say, a New York Yankees uniform complete with an Alex Rodriguez signed bat. I'd offer Angelina the option of which item would be inserted in which hole and at which time but I'd want first dibs in the chocolate starfish because you never know where Rodriguez's bat's been. For the money shot I'm thinking along the lines of domination again and with Angelina being such a bulky, masculine femme I'd be inclined for an all-out scaremongering approach in receiving the goods. I'd have to dust off my Texas Chainsaw Massacre mask in readiness for the finale but methinks it would capture the moment's aesthetic value. Once all was said and done, and Angelina was reaching for a towel, I'd tell her what a fucking lousy root she is, ask if she had Beyonce's phone number and tell her what a great mate of mine Billy-Bob Thornton is and that she should keep her ovaries to herself for a change. I'm getting tingly just thinking about this, MJ. Good question!


3) In eleven words, no more no less, recount a [fictional or nonfictional] sexual scene involving watersports.

Parents' pool. Sixteen. Perfect pH. Twins. Standing doggy style. Multiple orgasm.


4) Have you had the requisite experience to observe whether the pussies of vegetarians taste different than those of omnivores? If so, what's the verdict? Is one better than the other?

Fuckin' oath! Once you've had vegetarian gash you never go back; and I don't mean these 'I'm vegetarian but I eat chicken' or 'I'm vegetarian but I eat fish' or 'I'm vegetarian but I devour entire cows once a month' type of bitches either. The genuine vego pussy is the best free meal a heterosexual male or a homosexual/bisexual female will ever have.


5) You're single for this question too. Let's say that a wealthy friend of yours, in a drunken state of insistant generosity, crams a wadded up $1000 into your hands and tells you to take that and go get laid. You decide to follow his instructions, but you challenge yourself to do it without purchasing a prostitute. Assuming that you must spend the entire grand on this effort, how do you go about it?

For the record, getting laid or being short of cash has never been an issue for me, as I've attested in various court cases in the past, so the $1000 bill could serve multiple purposes other than acquiring the services of a professional. You know it's funny that you asked this question because DDC and I were at a Ballet recently – the proper, professional kind – where the Former Royal Ukrainian Ballet Company was in town for a week and I happened upon several delectable delights. Now I ain't the world's foremost nuclear physicist, as my initial misspelling of the title attests, but it struck me that these femmes would be consumed by the demands of their chosen art, so much so that there'd be barely enough time to slip a quickie into the equation. I'd be inclined to check ahead for a break in schedule, say, a sightseeing / trip to the zoo day, and make a move on at least three of the dancers a few days prior to this day. Assuming the $1000 could be spent on anything, I'd buy the ladies some good old fashioned Australian beef and King Prawns with all the trimmings, including some delicious desserts like a pavlova and fresh mangoes, strawberries and star fruit. I'd cook up a barbecue for us in the comforts of my Aussie hideaway, whereby they'd eat until they were swollen. Then we'd drink French plonk from each others bellies and adjourn to the spa – I love it hydrotherapeutic – where nature would take its course and we'd witness day breaking atop eucalyptus trees. If there was any money leftover, I'd be inclined to call them a taxi and send them on their way to their next performance, ensuring they had my URL details to forward onto their fellow Ukrainians upon arrival back home.

So there you have it, ladies and scrotum bearers. These questions, which I have answered with serious time devoted to thought, were supplied by MJ. As the rules of this exercise stipulate, I make the continuation of this assignment open to anyone willing to be interviewed. If you would like to receive five new questions and be interviewed, let me know. Of course, if you'd care to comment on anything here, as always, our operators will be undressing as they take your call.


THE RULES:

1) If you want to participate, leave a comment below asking to be interviewed.
2) I will respond by asking you five questions (each person's will be different).
3) You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4) You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Excreted by Kaufman @ 9:11 AM 4 Noteworthy retort(s)

TO THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD

Dear scientific world,

I did it! I did it! I did it and I enjoyed it! It was me! I caused the Guinea Pig Farm to be closed down.

How good am I? All that sufferering over! What skills! I stole the guinea pigs, all 600 hundred of them. The cute little creatures making their little snuffling sounds. They are still here in my house. I don't know what to do with them yet. Nobody wants them and to release them would be savagely ironic as they would certainly die in the wild, a place for which they have no aptitude for survival. It was worth it though!

And that lab technician, he won't be back for any more! I found his story very flimsy - "I just do the cleaning and autoclave the instruments". Instruments filled with guinea pig livers and spleens and blood! All those lives! Weellll, he won't be torturing any cute animals anymore. Not after those peadophilia rumours came to the surface. Working in a guinea pig farm is virtually the same as forcing yourself upon children. He deserved it, and so did his family who also reaped the rewards of his alleged scout-mastery.

The icing on the cake was my penultimate manouvre. I had my "good idea jeans" on that day. Having drunkenly come home to think the matter over, it struck me that all the guinea pigs brought into the world by this farm, even though most met their demise in other places, were ultimately the proprietor's responsibility. Thousands of tiny guinea pig souls screaming for revenge from the afterlife. Screaming for some recompense.

Then it struck me! The perfect way to bing justice to the situation. That night I crept into the local cemetary armend with spade and shovel. Despite having dropped out of school at 15 to go and live like swampy and the other heros of our time, I can still read just enough to make out a name on a head-stone. I found the one I wanted and did what was necessary.

I have the Grandmother! I have the Grandmother! The screams of the guinea pigs are quietened by the act. In the final act of justice I gave her putrid remains to the decendants of those very guinea pigs which trouble my sleep each night. While the farmers wail with anguish the guinea pigs feast on her remains and the smell of their life fills my nostrils.

Here in my guine pig palace I toast my victory. My quest to end suffering amongst animals before people is advancing.

It was ME!

Yours sincerely,

Doctor Dogchop

P.S. If you don't believe it, take a look at this and come back and tell me you don't believe it.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 PM 13 Noteworthy retort(s)

I KNOW THIS PLACE

BT3 slashes over deep third man for a fuckin' massive six:

It wasn't an uncomfortable flight or a bumpy flight or a flight demanding the passengers' involvement apart from assuming the roles of passive observers. The quadruple-lingual, smooth-talking Captain was taking care of the business end of the ledger, chiming in as if on perfect galactic cue whenever drowsiness or uncertainty crept into the passengers' minds. Laughter abounded in four sets of waves whenever the Captain spoke, broken only by the anticipation of the punchline. Unlike passive observers, the process of getting to the destination was an enduring and exhaustive one; one that most humans couldn't emulate more than once each year; twice at most. Captain Vandross did it three times a week in both directions.

Interplanetary travel is going to be demanding, Devo had primed himself as if preaching to an audience that precluded anyone else. He had a way of reassuring the most dubious listener and he did it with resounding success and regularity.

The commencement of the twenty-four-hour journey was delayed by seven minutes, a minor glitch on an otherwise efficient operation. Since the use of protein as a fuel source, the number and time of delays to intergalatic travel had fallen by ninety-seven percent. It would've reached the three-digit barrier had it not been for persistent meddling from the Liberal parties throughout the vast expanses of E3. According to the leader from the Southern Quadrant, their fingers weren't obese enough from the various pies and they needed more time to rape the planet of its natural resources in order to reap the financial rewards that were due. Entrenched in stabilising trading routes with planets that bore entities with hapless reproductive genes, the Liberals were now officially the heaviest people in the known universe. The World Faction had bought the story, including all rights, and the decision to reach one-hundred-percent protein efficiency remained a target for future generations to strive for, the World Faction claimed.

The journey to Vendor included a rest and refuelling stop at E3's solitary moon, the Moon. The transit would be unsatisfactory to warrant even the briefest visit to the morbid yet curious cobalt faces on the Moon's surface that had been opened for tourism since the turn of the century. The Moon's airport was slightly better than useless for anyone too lazy to purchase gifts from their destination. Dice of all sizes were very popular. The Moon's airport catered with impeccable detail to anyone infatuated with sleeping sprawled across hardened plastic chairs. The latest models included retractible armrests and self-inflating pillows, which could be engaged through a revolutionary weight-based system that worked by resting ones head on a chair. The pillows also worked when resting ones rear on them although the majority of passengers in the Moon's Slim Shady Transit Lounge found the experience an invasion of privacy and preferred to stand.

The realisation that time spent in a confined space was taking its toll on virtually all of Devo's senses. In particular, his sense of touch was A.W.O.L. If it weren't for regular refreshments from the slender and wobbly flight attendants, Devo's body could've dosed into a permanent deep sleep with gangrenous tissue, a liver drowned in alcohol and a bladder sticking to the ceiling as evidence of his premature demise.

Devo's mother had instilled in his mind two key issues to survival: "You make sure that you can flee at any given moment," she'd say whenever the two attended midnight mass. "I don't mean with a week's written warning, young man, but at twice the speed your legs can carry you. And make sure you imbibe as much liquid as possible. Do you hear me?"

Devo heard his mother's persistent garbled voice seven years after her tragic encounter with a Strawberry Lassi and an indoor fountain. Walking to the large glass of freshly prepared Strawberry Lassi, Devo's mother slipped on a patch of yogurt that had landed on the floor. As she slipped, she cracked the back of her skull on the fountain, donated to the Conner family and blessed by Reverend Timothy. Devo's mother's death was deemed to be accidental drowning caused by a fruit shake.

The lack of regular blood circulating to his lower back, backside and legs was mutating him into a shellcasing of his former self. He likened it to being consumed from within and wondered whether his exoskeleton would be peeled from the seat and thrown into the rubbish bin with leftover consumables when the flight concluded. The hard liquor and embellished wobbling of the flight attendants' faces gave his cheeks a radiant glow. Intergalactic travel had its moments.

The lack of quality entertainment aboard the vessel, primarily the miniature TV console in the back of an android's head and female Siamese twins with a plate twirling act they had unleashed onto the public prematurely, caused Devo's mind to wander time and again. The battery operated TV remote control, attached to the armrest of each seat, was experiencing jitters of its own so Devo resorted to choppy bouts of something that to an untrained eye resembled sleeping. Occasionally he read. Often he chuckled.

"It was on one such miserable morning that Keith Hingstrom's father swore off hunting forever. They were riding a tank-sized swamp buggy in hot pursuit of a scraggly, half-senile bobcat. Suddenly Keith began firing wildly at an object high in the sky - a bald eagle, it turned out, a federally protected species. The attempted felony was not consummated, due to the young man's shaky aim, but in the fever of the moment he managed to blow off his father's left ear." *

Fortunately for the traveller beside him, a robust man with four chins and an accent that Devo found curiously difficult to ignore, Devo was prone to thinking in a positive manner in certain situations. He noticed the robust man get so engrossed in the soft-porn film he was watching from the back of his own android's head that the man was obviously unaware of his bulging hard-on. If he was, he didn't show even the slightest interest in concealing the weapon. Would the airline staff see it? he wondered. Devo also noticed the robust man's hands, which had visible laceration marks along the first and second knuckles. Dumb-assed mongoloid fuck, Devo thought. He took evasive action by turning his head fearing the mongoloid would sense Devo's stare.

Devo deep in thought: This is one of those situations when positive thought is required more than a stationary circus sideshow or the allure of Androiman femmes gyrating their silicon parts. I cannot get caught up in a conversation with this dick.

He placed the headphones on his head as a decoy. They had the desired effect though the music was shithouse.

"We have to accept travel on a grand scale for what it is; a test of psychological endurance," Devo had said in the past. His assumption fulfilled itself. Devo felt ambivalent. He ordered another drink. A double.

Lacking human company for this journey to Vendor made the psychological endurance test twice as challenging. The weirdo to his immediate left was further proof that nothing was simple. Other humans were present; only an ignoramus would think differently, but Devo wanted to share nothing more than a casual nod or a glance with them, especially the chunky chin collector with the lacerated knuckles sitting beside him. I'm on holidays and when you're on holidays everyone else can get fucked, he thought.

The Vendorians aboard spoke a dialect and a tempo of Devo's native E3ian that was beyond his grasp, except for the sprightly Captain Vandross and his spontaneous four-dimensional repartee. Humans are everywhere on E3, Devo thought, and I spend most waking moments talking to them. I don't need to speak to any of them here, he reckoned, trying without success to remove his left foot from under the seat in front of him. He couldn't. He was paralysed. Devo had neither the desire nor the energy to waste the luxury afforded to him twice a year on trivial and ultimately futile matters such as talking to fellow E3ians on distant planets or the journey to and from them. Lunatics like that usually wanted to exchange personal details and "catch up" back on E3. It pissed Devo off and he didn't want a bar of it.

His struggle to realign his back would take several hours of several days following the trip's completion, but such discomfort was rejected as trifle in the bigger picture. The untold riches he would find through experience alone kept him focussed on what he was travelling vast distances for; to relax and to observe culture from a civilisation vastly different to his own.

Vendorians were comprised of liquid, no bones. It fascinated him.

He had ventured to Vendor only once before; his partner was with him then. Together they had seen achievement and a sense of pride in the Vendorian way that he hadn't seen on E3. Through shared ideals and common goals Vendorians lived and worked together. not against each other. When a Vendorian accidently got his flying cape stuck on a flag pole in mid flight and was helpless against gravity as they plunged to meet their maker, a fellow Vendorian would inevitably fly to his or her aid saving them from a fate worse than sitting next to a dipshit. In the year that Devo and his partner last visited, Vendor had three deaths to citizens of the planet; two of them caused by tourists.

Competition was a soiled word for Vendorians and affording petty indulgences were outweighed by the desire to serve and to receive adequate compensation for the effort. Vendor was a place of immense intrigue as not only did everyone fly but no money ever changed hands. No local currency existed and foreign currency was never accepted, which made travelling through Vendor one of the more pleasant experiences in the galaxy as the chances of being robbed were about as likely as a pregnant pig falling on your head.

Vendorians traded only in dingers, the E3ian equivalent to a prolonged hug. A bowl of fruit, for example, could cost anywhere from one-and-a-half dingers to two dingers depending on how much an individual was willing to barter. Bartering was wholeheartedly endorsed by both sellers and potential buyers as the Vendorian race had a sharp sense of humour and a sharper inkling for anyone with advanced dingering capabilities. The most popular Vendorians were often those with prosthetic limbs; birth defects such as elongated limbs or more than four limbs; Vendorians with superior epidermis softness from minimal solar contact; Vendorians with the ability to hug with their legs without leaving the hugee nauseus. Dingerers of such advancement were the E3ian equivalent of celebrities and were seen marketing various products and techniques to advance the cause of dingering.

It was common knowledge that to engage in a dingering that spanned more than two minutes would conceive a child provided a female Vendorian was involved. While breeding between various species could be evidenced throughout Vendor it was not endorsed by the ruling party, which ensured its political views through vast billboards and painted skyways that highlighted the inefficiencies of Vendorians with partial or entire spinal columns.

The Vendorian healthcare system was a shambles. Any foreigner unfortunate enough to be caught off guard and treated for a medical emergency could consider suicide a less excruciating experience.

The twenty-four-hour-and-seven-minute journey finished without incident. Devo's bladder was ready to explode but he managed to retain every drop of fluid through the two-hour foot shuffle at customs. He flagged down a passing Flaxi, hopped into the two-man cape and was dropped off in the centre of Slymon, Vendor's capital city. He gave the Flaxi Flyer six dingers plus a dinger tip because of his superior attitude. The Flaxi Flyer felt indestructible. He loved it when tourists tipped.

Beings with lesser confidence would've been cautious about the consequences of arriving at the centre of a populated city without a fixed plan or a hotel booking. Devo wasn't at all flustered. He had survived the journey and the customs foot shuffle, arguably the most difficult part of the equation, and he was ready for the cracking summer holiday to begin.

I know this place, he thought. I've been here before. Let's fire up and get cracking.


* Carl Hiaasen. 'Stormy Weather.' Pg 185. Macmillan, 1995.

Excreted by Kaufman @ 9:11 PM 13 Noteworthy retort(s)

LITTLE EMILY SAT...

... in the second pew, wishing it were all over. She had hated church for three weeks, ever since that fateful Sunday when it hadn't been her but her food. As loud as a fart in a church.

Today was extra bad because there was a woman sat next to her, shaking and muttering. It wasn't even French, but something foreign like Russian or something. She looked like something off the news, like one of the "before" pictures of Serbia. She had a flowery head-scarf and amorphous old woman-type clothing. No-one ever remembers old womens' clothing.

On Emilys other side sat her mother. Her mother was in her sunday best - low heels, smart suity-dress thing and a hat. Her mother never usually wore a hat.

They kept droning-on, the woman to herself and the priest to anyone who would listen. Today, the priest was talking about miracles - wine into water, death into life, evil into good. At least he wasn't talking about fornication again. Her mother had said she wasn't sure what it meant. Emily thought it sounded like thornication. "Oh God! I wish he would be quiet," she said under her breath.

As she did so, the woman beside her began to tremble even more. Then the muttering stopped and so did the shaking. The woman stood up and started walking down the aisle towards the preist. The preist looked down the steps at her and said, "My dear, if you would like to talk with me, you must wait until the end of the service." He said it with a jaunty smile and the congregation laughed accordingly.

Emily didn't laugh, maybe because she wasn't in a laughing mood, probably because a thought was begining to dawn upon her. She had asked god for the priest to be quiet, and lo, it had happened. She was eagerly awaiting what would happen next. The priest was remaining quiet, waiting for the woman to go away, and the woman was trembling and muttering again.

The priest smiled again and Emily recognised that smile. That was the smile of the busy parent, the overstrained teacher or the auntie who doesn't like children. "My dear," he said, "I'm..."

His words tailed-off as the trembling foreign woman reached into her handbag and brought out a knife. It was a big kitchen knife, with a bright orange plastic handle and a long blade. The woman shouted something in her incomprehensible dialect. She was clearly waiting for an answer, though the priest looked as confused as anyone else. The assorted church-goers began to murmur and one or two father-like figures seemed caught between sitting and standing. The woman shouted again, gesturing with the knife and narrowing her eyes.

The priest swallowed audibly and said, "I don't understand." The woman bowed her head and the priest took a step forward. There was a cry and a scream as the woman, holding the knife in her right hand and drawing it close to her left ear, slashed savagely down across the priest's face and chest. The scream was hers, the cry his. The blow spilt his blood on the altar, but no so much. It left him reeling backwards and clutching his face, the blood flowing around and through his fingers. The second slash gushed blood like a shower head and the priest crumpled to the floor.

The half standing father-types were at the altar now. Two of them caught and arm each and a third wrenched the knife from her white-knuckled hand. The woman went limp and began to weep. A man and a lady knelt by the priest, trying to press back against the slowly weaking torrents of blood sluicing from his neck.

The next thing she knew, emily was outside the church and all of the women were crying. Emily wondered if God might help her through maths next week.

If you think this is a little far-fetched read this and tell me if you still think so.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 6 Noteworthy retort(s)

THE NUMBER 3

Bische closed the door and walked away raging. The meeting with Chief Superintendant Anders hadn't gone well. As he stormed down the corridor people made a visible effort to get out of his way. He slammed the door on his way into his office.

Sergeant Swan looked at him aprehensively. "It didn't go well then."

Bische told him to fuck off. "Of course it is all my fault that the killer didn't leave any fucking evidence. You know he threatened me?"

Sergeant Swan looked impressed. "Never. What with?"

"A transfer to Wales. Stop fucking laughing!" Bische threw himself into a chair. "Anything come of the interviews?"

Sergeant Swan tapped the big pile of folders on his desk. "I was just in the middle of them when you walked in. One thing seems certain. Everyone who worked for him thought he was a bit of a tosser."

"Everyone thinks their boss is a tosser."

"Yes, sir"

Bische scowled at Sergeant Swan. "If you keep that up I'll have you doing comunity outreach before you can say, 'racially motivated beating.' You know where Moss Side is, don't you?" he scratched his head. "Any of these office fairies look like a killer?"

"Not really. There are couple of very fly individuals in this office." He opened a file. "This one in particular has a nice flair for sarcasm. He doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of us. He said he'd give us Angela Lansburys phone number if we needed any more help."

"Any potential as a scapegoat?"

"Not at this stage. You know how suspicious the CPS get when evidence myseriously appears a week into the investigation."

Bische sighed deeply and rocked back onto the rear legs of his chair. "Any luck with the charlatan?"

Swan looked puzzled. "Eh?"

"The psychologist. The profiler - has he finished the auguries yet?"

Swan was surprised by this. Bische was truly running out of ideas if he was willing to talk to a criminal physchologist. "I'll give him a ring, shall I?

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 1 Noteworthy retort(s)

THE NUMBER 2

John Bische strode through the doorway on the stroke nine. At that point he became detective Bische. He had recieved the call during his morning ablutions and had taken great pleasure in speaking to his boss whilst emptying his bowels.

The uniformed constable lead the way to the lift and pressed the button. He looked at the detective and decided to say nothing. Bische was not a morning person. He literally wasn't a person in the morning. He looked at Bische, with his brown leather jacket and shaven head, and came to the conclusion that the detective looked more like he should be on the recieving end of the law than the dealing.

The lift came, they entered and the doors closed. The muzac in the lift was music of the lowest grade, worse even than boy bands. Bische looked at the constable, "The music alone is enough to make you want to kill."

The lifted pinged as it reached the 5th floor. The doors opened to show the Soco boys swarming over the crime scene like the flies on the corpse in the corner office. One of them handed Bische a pair of rubber gloves. "Detective Bische, you took your time."

Bische walked towards the body, which he could see through the open door of the office. "I was having a dump. These things can't be rushed," he said. "Not very pretty, is it?" He nodded into the room. He spotted a pile of sick just inside the doorway and turned around to the SOCO guy. "If that was an officer on this force I will see that he is put in the stocks at noon in Picadilly Circus. Have we met before?"

"No, the name is Williams. The barf belongs to Mrs. Smamantha Morro. She's the cleaner that found the guy this morning."

"Are you done in here?" Bische pointed with his chin into the room.

"For now," Williams smiled, "We can't do any more until the Doc has been and taken a look at the body."

Bische asked, "What can you tell me?"

Williams frowned, "Fuck all right now. We've got a bunch of prints off the door handle, the desk, the shelves. Nice and clean really. Better than the usual assault-cum-murder that I usually have to deal with. Nothing in here that shouldn't be. I might be able to tell you more when we get the ceiling out."

Bische walked away without reply and had a quick look at the body. Middle-aged and slightly overweight, the body dangled about it's own height off the ground. Bische could see the cable above the head. He could also see the black line around the neck where the fine wire had sliced through the flesh. The victim had bled just a little, and the blood had run down to stain the collar of the shirt he was wearing.

Bische could see no way the victim could have contrived this by himself. "Fuckin' arse," he said.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 4 Noteworthy retort(s)

THE NUMBER

The number peered down through the crack. Natural light spilled into the room like townies into a country pub. Natural light has no business being in a corner office. The Number did have business in the corner office, though.

The Number was peering down from above the desk, widening the crack for a better view. His body wieght was spread over four points where pipes and air-conditioning aparatus were able to take his weight and prevent him from plunging down through the false ceiling. He tilted his head for a better view of the target.

Below was a balding head, not the baldness of Vin Diesel, nor yet the semi-baldness of the barcode. It was a dandruffy circle of thinning hair, revealing dandruff and a pink scalp. The head was directly below, which showed that the Number had got his calculations right.

The light in the room below dimmed and the number could see the target pressing the button of a remote-control for the blinds. The electric whirring of their motor covered the sound of the slowly withdrawn ceiling tile. Had he but looked up, the target might have seen the death that awaited him. He didn't look up.

As he reached for the reciever of the telephone on his desk, a loop of thin wire dropped around his neck. As his hand came into contact with the telphone he was jerked off his chair. The Number continued to reel him in, using a pulley system anchored to a bolt set into the floor above. The victim kicked and swung like a jazz metronome, doing his sadly insufficient best to draw one last breath. One kick sent the chair rolling a few inches but the Number remained unmoved as he stared down at the victim clutching at the wire below. After a short number of seconds all movement ceased as the victim slid into unconsciousnes. Within a minute he was dead.

The Number tied-off the wire, retrieved his pulley and replaced the ceiling tile with the wire coming from a crack along the edge. The Number crawled back along the ceiling space to the store-room from which he had started. He dropped silently to the floor and put his shoes back on.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 PM 3 Noteworthy retort(s)

REVELATIONS OF SECRET HOODY DEN DESTROY BUDDING POLITICAL CAREER

DDC has been having a few issues:

I was sitting in this very spot last night. It was a night like any other - I had been out to the pub, possibly got a couple of girls with child, had chips, dodged a lawsuit and come home to wow the public with my comedic genius. The fingers were poised, the blood had once again been forced out of my caffeine-stream.

Then Mrs. DogChop turned-up and scattered my thoughts to the four winds. "What yer doin'?"

I fixed her with a stare and said, "Contemplating your demise. Get back on your rug!"

She got up and sat down on her tattered corner of cheap Axeminster. "Dave came round," She said.

I turned round, "I hope you told him to fuck off. Did he say what he wanted?"

"He said something about the area, and the good of the children and something about a three pronged fork. I didn't really understand, he seemed to be choking on his own self-righteousnous. His car had a baby crucified on the top of it. Is he one of those Hells fairies?"

By this point my concentration had completely gone. My wife has this technique for getting me to talk to her. I asked her, "Was it about the PTA? I thought that all finished with the injunction. Arriving at school with a model child on top of the car... It has a certain flare to it. I was thinking about asking to borrow it for one of those pro-life bashes."

Mrs. DogChop (she has a first name, but I can't remember what it is), got up and put the kettle on. She came back with a cup of tea and a piece of paper. "He gave me this. He wants to start a neighbourhood watch."

"Why?"

"It says that the area is crawling with scum and villainy," she quoted. "His campaign is based on three promises. He's talking about a curfew for anyone under 18, a ban on hoody-tops because old people don't understand them and Stoning to Death for youths who grafiti the park benches. I mentioned your idea about the brown macks, but he said he had one of those so they couldn't be banned."

I could see it all before me. Thousands of old biddies going through the garbage and monitoring the area through their net curtains. I asked Mrs. DogChop, "Why do they need net curtains? Why would anyone want to look into their houses?"

"Some old women have some very attractive horse-brasses and carriage clocks. In the right quarters these can fetch millions of pounds. Don't forget the appeal of old wood-sided TVs and Bakelite telephones."

I sighed. This was going to have to stop. The last thing we needed in the area was a hightened interest in other people's business. Specifically, mine. This kind of things has a serious impact on my leching and wenching, not to mention those highly exhilarating midnight dumps in the park. Too many twitching curtains would spell the end to the nocturnal defecation frenzies. Where would I be without my crapping sprees? How would I get through the slow weeks?

As I left the house I grabbed some change for the phone. I crossed the park, narrowly avoiding one of my own hasty donuts on the way. It had been one of my more daring offerings, being in full view of the houses and in the exact geometric centre of the sand-pit.

I crossed to the phone, inserted my money and palpitated at how much the price of a phone call had gone up. "Hello, police?"]

Twenty minutes later the bluegoons pulled-up outside Daves house.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:13 AM 9 Noteworthy retort(s)

IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A HOLIDAY 2?

DDC knows that he shouldn't listen to other peoples' conversations but feels that all moral considerations probably didn't make it through customs:

We were sat in a restaurant in another one of Mrs. DCs food-selection nightmares. I had ordered something delicious and mouth watering, whilst Mrs DC has got something so spicy the spoon melted when called upon to dispense said curry. Ho hum, another noble sacrifice from DDC and Mrs. DC got to eat what I had ordered. "No, don't worry darling, I wasn't that fond of my ring-piece anyway. Anyway, I only said 'ask for a mild one' once or twice."

As I was forcing down spoonfuls of magma and the better half was much more happily eating my food, a German walked in with his, for want of a better word, doxy. Alas, just as English is the international language of business, it is also the international language of sleaze. Just like in the victorian times but on a global scale. I don't actually know that the guy was German, but I am filling-in the blanks, as it were.

The atmosphere between them was really quite exquisitely frosty. Neither said a word until well after they had sat down and been looking through the menus for a while. I consider myself a master at spotting these things. The dropping of the bags on the floor was a clue. The speed of page-turning, whap-whap-whap, was another.

German filanderer: So I will be going back to Germany tomorow. (back to my wife and family)

Thai Wench: Yes, I know. You will be back in November? (with your wallet?)

GF: Yes. I will be missing you. (in bed)

TW: I will be waiting. (reluctantly, for the money)

At this point their voices dropped to sotto level and we were mercifully spared the obviously grizzly details of some conversation, in which she wanted some money and he was damned if he was going to give it to her. There was a thin layer of civility smeared onto the top of the conversation. I have no grounds at all for this assumption, but I think she wanted money for her Grandmothers hip opperation or something equally transparent.

Once again, the conversation rose to the surface, like a stubborn floater.

GF: I've had enough!

TW: I see (I've wasted the morning when I could have been out with Francois)

GF: I've had enough of this chicken.

Up to this point, I had been mildly disgusted with both of them. They had seemed caught up in some kind of ritualistic dance. He was just there for the sex and she was just there for the money. At this point I started to get the impresion that he was just playing with her. I began feeling a bit more for the woman.

Their voices dropped like a pair of hyper-compacted potato-turds (everyone knows that potatoes give the healthiest stools) and we could hear no more. A glance in the mirror showed that the Thai Wench was most likely in anger mode 47. This is composed of rapid-fire questions and most usually employed by teachers and parents. It might typically run along the lines of: "Who do you think you are? What do think you're doing? Do you think I am going to let you do this? What would your mother say?"

The German, like a true cock-sucker, backed down once she got him on the back foot. I couldn't beieve what I was hearing. On the one hand he was cracking cruel jokes about dumping her and on the other he was allowing himself to be bullied into whatever was going on now.

GF: So I am going to the airport now. (thank god)

TW: And I am going home. (likewise)

GF: I will give you the money for the taxi next time. (in your dreams)

TW: OK. (I won't hold my breath)

GF: Bill please!

They stood up, split the bill and left. I was left to ponder the conversation whilst translating for Mrs. DC. My bowels were already rumbling premonitorily.

The whole thing remains one of the strangest conversations I have ever heard. It is more or less verbatim, though I tidied up the grammar and pronunciation a bit. The parentheses are mine, more to give you a clue as to the way the things were said than anything else. This was my first glimpse into the murky life of what emerged to be what Morissey might describe as an international playboy, though an ageing one.

The relationship was obviously not purely financial. Both seemed to know know that he might or might not be back at some point but neither wanted to admit it. What was going on? Any ideas?

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 PM 3 Noteworthy retort(s)

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A WOMAN....

...turned down for a seven pound blow job.

No account of Thailand is complete without a few lurid tales of sordid back-street fumblings and guilt ridden striding through town, looking neither left nor right. Not unless you have a decent bone in your body. No pun intended.

The sex industry in Thailand, and indeed throughout Southeast Asia has had a fair bit of coverage, and morally is quite sewn-up as far as I am concerned. Thank you America for turning the place into a bastion of child prostitution and money-hungry cum-dustbins. Thanks to the entire world for perpetuating this. I caught British, German, Japanese, Australian, French, etc., men in some of the most degrading conversations I have ever heard. Don't forget, I was the sex slave of Maggie for many years, so I really do know what I am talking about. There are only a few of us that know the true meaning behing the addage, "Margaret Thatcher, milk-snatcher". Enough of that.

Anyway, I'll get the ball rolling with an absolutely true series of events which may interest one or two of you:

It was about two O'clock in the afternoon and we had about an hour and a half to kill while we waited for Mrs. DCs tailor-made dress to be completed. We were wondering aimlessly down the highstreet looking for something to do. Mrs. DC spots a massage parlour and, being partial to this kind of thing, suggests we give it a whirl. Fuck it, thinks I, why not?

We handed over the cash and ten minutes later I am stretched-out on the slab waiting for the woman to arrive. I avoid catching a glimpse of the woman on the off-chance that she is a hag. Things progress as normal, with me being beaten and prodded, often pleasantly.

After about 20 mintues feet, back and shoulders are done and she is working her way up my legs. As she is doing so, from the next cubicle I hear an American guy say, "Wow, two girl massage!" By this time, in my cubicle, the woman has reachedthe top of my legs and is massaging my buttocks. I must admit that the old chap is waking-up, however involuntarily.

The massgae woman takes a hold and says "1000 bhat". From the next cubicle at just that point I hear, "Oh my God!" The woman in my cubicle asks me turn over and then points next door, following-up with a hand gesture meaning "explosion". She says, "500 Bhat". I say, "no". She relinquishes my member

There followed a whispered conversation, very fucking quietly on my part seeing as Mrs. DC was three cubicles away, in which the price crept down and the masseuse got more insistent. She got down as far as "Good tip" before abandoning hope and muttering something and making some kind of gesture. I didn't need to be a linguist (I speak four languages by the way) to spot the significance of that.

I still have a slight suspicion that the money was only a side-issue. I couldn't really tell her that I was refusing on principle (I could but might loose my cods) so I pointed out that Mrs. DC has supernatural powers as far as detecting wrongdoing on my part. I also pointed out that she would hardly need them, separated as we were by three pieces of nylon curtain. The clincher was the point that Mrs. DC would recognise my dog-like yipping as the massuese got closer to creaming me off. She conceded my point and lost interest.

From this point on, the quality of the massage fell extremely and I started to wonder if I might have been better to relax my morals for the sake of the massage to follow. Once the hour was up I met Mrs. DC outside, who wax waxing lyrical about how good the massage had felt. I told her how my massage had gone and prepared to weather the storm.

Surprisingly, she seemed quite interrested in it all. I think that she is finally getting the hang of the fact that I don't lie to her, and certainly wouldn't have brought the matter up if I had had (!) anything to hide. She had heard all about this kind of thing, but encountering it this closely was kind of exciting for her, I suppose. Anyway, I'm sure it gave her something to talk to her friends about. It might help to convince them that there is some good in me, though I couldn't give a shit, to be completely honest.

What do you think about that?

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 PM 8 Noteworthy retort(s)

EXCUSE ME, IS THIS BLACKPOOL?

Ah yes, we were at the snake farm:

Half-way round the tour of the shanties and refuse of the Grand Canal, we pulled up at a rotting dock and the boat-guy motioned us to get off and have a look. Those of you who read the first part of this, all three of you, will remember we payed shit-loads for this experience. You can imagine that I wasn't best pleased at having to pay further money for something that was included in the tour.

Outside the door there was a statue of a man being eaten by a boa-constrictor, which was nice. Personally, I hate snakes more than I hate cleaning and saying sorry. As a child I used to wake-up in the middle of the night hearing hissing sounds and pissing myself 'til the sheets were a smelly kind of tie-dye yellow.

We wondered inside and the guy at the gawping pit shouted that the show was starting and we'd better hurry. On the way through the ethno-tat stalls, I spotted Burt and tipped him a nod. He was shovelling stuff out of the bottom of a tank into a bag marked "Fertility Remedy". We hurried over to the little amphitheatre and sat down right at the fucking back.

It was like a concrete bowl, with four ranks of seats to sit on and a concrete plateau in the middle. Around the outside of this was a chicken-wire fence up to about knee height. Off to one side was a grinning grand-father type with a microphone and a twitch. I got the distinct impression that he had been pensioned-off after too many bites. A bunch of four guys were standing by a cage. Curiously, next to them was one of those photo-opportunity things. It had holes for you to put your face through and you were magically transformed into Rama I, the famous king of Thailand.

The guy starts droning on over the microphone - yes they have antivenin and the snakes almost never bite anyway - They can only see movement, so keep still if they come your way - and your faithful correspondent is is desperately fighting to keep his bowels under control. One of the guys steps up and hooks two king cobras out of of the cage. He then procedes to taunt them a bit before offering them tempting snacks. Like his face and his knees. Basically, the fucking lunatic is waving bits of his body at the one snake, dodging it when struck. Imbetween, he is grabbing the other one by the tail, which is intent on making a bee-line for a toddler on the other side of the arena.

By the time he had finished, I was in a cold sweat. That was no mean feat in that heat and humidity. Next came the Rat Snake. This one could jump. It could jump like a terrier, say four feet off the ground. Most of my nightmares had been about snakes being trodden-on or hiding in a drawer. Now I had material for another few. Especially as the fucker could jump considerably higher than the fence supposedly containing it. We find out afterwards that it is not poisonous. Like that matters in a nightmare?

I sat and watched an array of slithering death being goaded by nutters, slipping into what I can only describe as a blue funk. The grand finale was a guy picking-up a black mamba or something in his teeth. Whatever it was, it was a really poisonous snake and he picked it up in his mouth.

I recall leaving the place in a daze. Burt was there, trying to sell me some crap - Dog-penis earings and table-cloths with elephants on them. If they want to make money, they should be selling beer. The state I was in, the first one wouldn't even have touched the sides. Anyway, we escaped without buying anything. Onto the dock, which was strewn with bits of rope and dead branches, etc. You can imagine what I made of that, I'm sure.

So that was the snake-farm. My one final thought on the matter concerns the cuttout in the snake pen. What was that about? After much thought I came to the conclusion that it was an elaborate man-trap, designed to cath and eliminate only the most witless of tourists. Good luck to them, I say.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 3 Noteworthy retort(s)

BURT GOES TO THE CAREERS OFFICE

Dr. DC takes a look at the world of Thai careers advice:

Burt walked in and sat down at the desk. He didn't notice that his chair was smaller than that of the advisor because he wasn't that observant. The advisor was called Klahan. He smiled at Burt and said, "Good morning. You are Burt, am I right?"

Burt agreed that his name was Burt.

Klahan looked at him and said, "Burt isn't a very Thai name."

Burt agreed to that, too. "My mum couldn't think of and Thai names after I was born, so she named me after Burt Kwok, the guy off Harry Hill."

Klahan soldiered-on, looking down at a paper on his desk he said, "I've got the results of your psychomentric test here. Let me just explain how this whole thing works. You took this multiple choice test a few weeks back. No doubt you were worried about how the results were going to turn out, based upon a number of fears and peer-pressure. Mixed in with this was the fact that you didn't know why you were taking the test, nor how it worked.

"I can tell you now, that this was designed to slot you into your future career, to give us a guide as to what you mght be good at. Isn't it amazing that a 30 minute multiple choice test can tell us so much about your personality? In no way is this a cheap substitute for interviews and profiling. I'm perectly convinced that psychometric testing is a useful tool and in no way flawed."

"How old are you now," he asked Burt.

"Ten"

"And what do you want to be when you grow up?" Klahan was smiling in the way that only adults do to children.

"Football player," said Burt. Although his education had been virtually non-existant, he still knew the proper name for Soccer.

Klahan's face fell a little. "That doesn't match with the profile, at all! The list of suggested professions includes the following: Farmer, Taxi-driver, Tuktuk driver, Longtail Boat driver. Er, lots of different kinds of drivers."

Burt wanted to say that it wasn't up his street, but he was too depressed even for a shitty pun like that. Something of this must have shown in his face.

Klahan's tone softened a little. "I'm afraid that there is no call for professional Thai footballers. We must add to that the fact that your literacy level is way too high. Being able to do interviews without an autocue would set you apart from your team mates."

Burt asked, "Have you got anything else?"

Klahan raised a speculative eyebrow. "I don't suppose that you would like to work in Patpong, where you could be buggerred senseless by sweaty, guilty foreigners? In some cases, the pay is almost moderate!"

"I'd rather choke," said Burt, quietly.

"That can be a part of your duties too!"

"I meant 'no'," Burt said, almost silently.

"I quite undersatnd. So according to this highly accurate and useful test, you are a bit of a thrill-seeker. No doubt that is where the driving jobs are from? You are not afraid to cheat foreigners of their money - we get that in virtually everyone. You also have good decision-making skills and a ruthless cruelty hidden deeply within you. You have a domineering personality, yet you sometimes submit to authority. Are you sure you won't consider the Patpong position? No?"

"I see from your face, not... Then we are left with one last option. I must warn you that it requires a certain attitude and the job has quite a high turnover rate."

Burt looked worried, "I'd rather work in Patpong than in McDonalds, sir."

Klahan smiled, "I'm afraid the time for shitty puns passed many paragraphs back. No, the snake farm is advertising jobs again."

"I see," said Burt.

Klahan looked at Burt again, an honest, open look upon his face. "I must tell you that I think it is a better job that I was forced to offer the last boy who was in here. He is off to do direct sales for a gas company."

Noting the doubt plastered across Burt's face, he plunged on. "I must stress the attractions a job like this has to offer. The hours are short and the pay is good. When you add to that the amount of tips a tourist trap like this can generate, you could buy a hovel on the Grand Canal within a year or so."

"The starting position is an apprenticeship. You will get bed, board, 10p a day in wages and a 10th share in all the tips. There are genuine management opportunities within two years. Only last week a middle-mangement position was created as a result of a venom-induced paralysis."

"What would my day to day duties be?"

"A typical day might include cleaning snake display cases, flogging bits of shit to tourists and bribing longtail boat drivers to lure unsuspecting tourists to the farm." Klahan could sense a sale.

"What bits of shit?"

"You know, wooden elephants, fake nike hats and wooden penisses."

Burt, looking releaved, said, "Not literal pieces of shit then?"

Klahan thought for a second. "My boy! You are going to go far in this business! If you say something like that to the owner of the farm, he will love you like a son. A little time inventing a folk-remedy and I think you really could sell snake-shit to these fools that flock to our doors every year."

"One last thing, though. You will be asked to hold a cup into which a man will milk his cobra." He paused, seeing some doubt on the face of the young boy before him. "I must remind you, when we finished with the shitty puns we also dispensed with the viz-like double entendres as well. Milking the venom from the cobra is part of the floor show."

"Ok", sighed Burt, "I'll take it." He had promised himself he would take anyting other than the sex shows in Patpong.

Twenty minutes later, Burt emerged from the office and flashed a smile at his mate Dan. "Snake Farm," he said. His mate gave him the thumbs-up.

Dan stood up and walked to the door. After he knocked, Klahan said, "come in."

Klahan said, "It's nearly lunchtime, so we had better get a move on. I haven't got many jobs left. Some kind of taxi-driver, perhaps? the name is Dan, right?"

Dan agreed that his name was Dan. "Yes, when I was born, my mum couldn't think of any Thai names, so she named me after the most admirable foreigner she could think of - Dan Quayle."

"I see."

Dan said, "I don't think I want to be a taxi-driver. I wouldn't mind swindling foreigners but I have weak lungs. I don't think I could handle the smoke."

Khalan looked at him and said, "I agree. How about this? You will be working with tourists. The job involves milking snakes in front of foreigners. To start with you will only have to hold the cup."

Dan's soul welled-up at the thought of working with his friend Burt. "The snake farm?"

Khalan smiled, "So you heard the last guy?" He stopped smiling. "I'm afraid we haven't passed the double entedre stage yet. I'm afraid all the positions at the snake farm are full, for this week. I'm afaraid the one eyed kind of snake farm I'm talking about now."

"I suppose I could wear a mask"

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 6 Noteworthy retort(s)

NOW I UNDERSTAND HOW IVAN MILAT FELT

DDC wants to know - Is this your "holiday":

Alice and Mandy stepped off the boat with the air of people who had managed to stay within their back-packing budget of $7 per day. Foetid, unwashed air it was, born of days living in basic accomodation.

Both were essays in the same subject - both had a big rucksack on the back, smaller coordinating one on the front. The casual observer would have spotted the expensive hiking gear, with space-age materials with things like "TEX" and "WEAVE" in the title. Things that the locals seemed to get on fine without. The astute observer will have noticed that there was a bulge the size and shape of a half-breeze block in the top pocket of one of the bags. Maybe it was only me that noticed that.

For want of anything better to do, I tailed them to the temple to see if I was right. In stereotypical style, both wordlessly agreed and dropped both bags about 20 meters from the entrance. The bulge was revealed as - I'm sure anyone who has been anywhere will have guessed - a fuckin' Lonely Planet Guide. This is the problem with travel, nowadays. If it's in the the Lonely planet, it's hardly worth going anymore. I used to refer to it as THE BOOK, because it mirrors the bible very closely.

I once heard it said that people who take the bible too literally, who follow it too closely, are climbing the signpost to enlightenment. Make no mistake, there is no hidden agenda about the concept of god here, just about these lunatics that try and tell me gay people are evil because it says so in the bible. Likewise, I'm not averse to the idea of the "traveller", though I think that living a hollday through a guidebook is missing the point entirely.

I couldn't do it. I literally couldn't go away and live somone else's holiday with my nose in a book. I overheard a conversation between two groups of travellers, who were basically ticking off the list of approved visits. It is like one of those bus tours, where the money gets siphoned off at approved intervals. Ko Tao - tick. Ko phiphi - tick. Cambodia - tick. Ko Similian - tick.

Great - so now you have experienced the entire country! But wait, so has everyone else! And you spent all your time with backpackers! Did anyone spend any time with any Thai people? It's ok, I'm not including an evening at patpong with the ladies in this... No? Maybe? How about people not connected with tourism? Definitely not, or my name isn't Doctor DogChop.

By all means, read the book. Not doing so would be inviting disaster and time wasting. Here's an idea - how about reading it at home and then leaving it there?

So Mandy and Alice checked the not-so-very-fucking-lonely-planet-anymore to check the price. They are stood in front of the board with the prices on checking the price in a book.

I ran across the way, took a big backswing and kicked the book into the river. "Open your fucking eyes!" I snarled at them and stomped off. Or I didn't, but I half wish I had.

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 10 Noteworthy retort(s)

DON'T TOUCH THE WATER!

DDC has a couple of things he wants to get off his chest about Thailand:

I'll try and keep it short, just to get the ball rolling. I did notice that we got more comments while we weren't writing - I suppose that is some kind of hint, yes?

Anyway, it went something like this...

Tuk Tuk Driver comes over to ask us where we want to go. "Where you want go?"

Mrs. DDC chimes in before I have had a chance and says, "We want to take a longtail boat." At this the guys eyes start spinning dollar signs like in a cartoon. Mrs. DDC asks, "How much?"

Tuk tuk driver takes a look at Mrs. DDC and stacks on another couple of hundred Bhat. I had kind of promised myself that I was going to leave her to it in these situations, but when the guy said, "Three hundred Bhat", I couldn't resist and said, "You should be on TV with Benny Hill," with a laugh.

I don't think he knew who Benny Hill was but he took my meaning perfectly, so Mrs. DDC got to start again, from the more realistic starting point of 150 Bhat. A couple of minutes later we were firing through the streets, snatching gulps of air between clouds of diesel fumes and rotting sewage smells. I had been in bangkok for a few days, so I could tell that we were heading across the city. It wasn't the closest point to the river, but who cares? It was Mrs. DDCs day, so I swallowed it and saved all my bile for you lucky, lucky fellows.

After ten minutes we were in the boat. I hadn't stepped-in at the haggling stage this time, so the boat guy had massively overcharged us. I decided to give the wife some coaching at some point. "Can you give me a discount?" is not a strong enough opener. As a general rule, you should try and get about 1/3 or less of the original starting price offered by the driver. After ten days, I was starting to think that somewhere high up the ancestral tree of Thailand there was a highway robber.

We were firing down the river at a fair pace for a boat this size. If you haven't seen one, they have a screw on the end of a long pole, which can be swept from side to side or lifted from the water altogether. Like in The Man With The Golden Gun. We would occasionally stop to take photos of things, nothing too momentous, though. The main part was supposed to be the Grand canal.

We fired through the openening and I was instantly impressed. "Nice slums!" The driver had slowed down at what was obviously a regular photo opportunity. Well, it looked kind of Olde Worlde, but more specifically Thirde Worlde. I snapped a photo of the hovel, and then we moved on. We wove our way through an assortment of rude huts and even ruder semi-palaces, often next door to each other. Having admired the poverty gap we raced past a few temples and were dropped-off at the snake and aligator farm. I will talk about this at a later date.

We boarded the boat again, me in a cold sweat - no mean feat in that humidity. We barrelled past some more temples and slowed down for the slums again. Let's not forget the floating garbage!

At a later stage the driver condescended to give us ten minutes to look at a temple by the riverbank. Then it was all over.

Sorry for those of you who are waiting for a punchline or some kind of purpose to this monlogue. That is kind of how I felt at the end of the boat journey. It was like being given a tour of Mos Isely. A more wretched hive of filth and villany you will probably find very easily, but probabbly won't be expected to pay for a tour of it. The good news was - I found my muse! It was hiding in the snake farm.

More to follow! Bate that breath!

Excreted by Mrs DC @ 9:11 AM 5 Noteworthy retort(s)