Dob Dob Dob-Dab Dab Dab

Dob Dob Dob-Dab Dab Dab

This little ditty has been reworked so often, I’m sick of it! Still this version isn’t bad. It’s no masterpiece, but will have to do for the moment. It will change after it has been edited, but in the mean time…






Last of the Rhodesians:

Going Down in a Blaze of Glory.


Returning to the Boy Scouts association of Rhodesia, mainly the 8th Mount Pleasant Troop, after an absence of two years was a serious mistake. Father had made me leave when I was thirteen just as I was on the way to becoming the youngest recipient of the Advanced Scout award in the land and had already passed a few of the Chief Scouts award tests. (This had replaced the Queens Scout Award after good ‘ol Smithy threw the Queen out whilst creating his Rhodesian dream.)

I had just been promoted to assistant patrol leader when, under the pretence that my poor school results were the result of my obsession with scouting, I was forbidden to stay a member, thus delivering another damaging psychological blow and added to reasons of why I was rapidly despising my father.

Returning after a slight improvement in school results, (Due to the fact I had been dropped a stream at Allan Wilson and I would now be moved to Mount Pleasant co-ed as ‘punishment’ for wasting Fathers money at the Tech-High, had cheered me up no end!) was definitely a bad move. I had channelled my creative abilities into my passion for gymnastics at M.P. School and found the whole scouting thing a tad boring now. I would not stay long, but as you will see, whilst I hadn’t planned such an exit, therefore I would not ‘Be Prepared’; still did not deter me from leaving in a grandiose style. I was a true and worthy example of Lord Baden-Powell’s vision of the British Empires version of the Hitler Jugend.


***



The Annual General meeting of the (Whites only) 8th Mount Pleasant (Salisbury) Scout Troop. 1974.

It was under a perfect cloudless sky that Friday evening, the stars twinkling so bright, as the parents and visiting dignitaries parked their cars. We had the Cub Scouts there too! Splendidly attired in their freshly ironed (by the maid) uniforms, they guided the cars into the field above the Scout Hall on Morning Side drive, Mercedes to the front, old bangers at the back. Gosh; this was so exciting for us! Almost all the parents (except mine, Father was now dead and there was no way I would invite my step-mother) and the Chief Scout of Mashonaland province would attend. There would be marches and then the Rhodesian Flag would be unrolled. Prayers and then speeches and awards to top Scouts were to be presented. At the end, the Senior Scouts would serve ‘Cheese and Wine’ to all the adults. It was so cool, so simplistic in the joys of manly companionship, so; so
a load of shite!

My good ‘china’, James Deams, and I fucked off as soon as the parents started to arrive. I had set up my portable tape deck in the Quarter Master store behind the back of the hall, Mike Oldfield, ‘Tubular Bells’ blasting out to cover the din of the main hall echoing to the sounds of repetitions of the ‘Scouts Honour’ and boring speeches interspersed with squeaky voices of Cub Scouts rhythmically chanting their cult logo; ‘Dob Dob Dob and Dab Dab Dab, we too daft, to be bad !’

Sipping coke and casting a concernedly eye at the dodgy mains wiring to the cassette player, I had been telling James about my latest and greatest ‘puppies’ adventure.
Lounging across some folded green canvas tents, he prompted me on.

I told him about ‘vraaying’ Gill Grady off, behind Penny Clarke’s parent’s garage at a party two weekends past. I told him we got hitched after that night of passion. James was dead impressed. Asked what sporting activities had been involved, I informed him it had been like a chicken takeaway, I had some breast (rather a lot of it actually), some leg, but no box to put my bone in; besides I didn’t try it, it was the first night and I had been madly in puppy love, making me forty five minutes later than my step-moms imposed returning home time. I had also suffered terribly from lover’s nuts whose frenzied cure had made me half blind.


‘Yeah, but she dumped me after only three days and I heard she was snogging some other wanker at next Saturdays party. I suppose being banned from the next two weekends parties didn’t help.’ ( I had lied to protect my ego. I had actually received via one of her pals a ‘’Dear John’ note during break on Wednesday. That cured my eyesight, but left me deeply scarred emotionally - till I got off with the note giver at the next party!)

James agreed that my ban had been a bit harsh, but there were plenty more parties to come.

By this time I had noticed that the exposed cable ends of one of my twenty odd bits of well stretched extension cable were drawing dangerously close to each other. We suffered under British sponsored sanctions and had no insulation tape. Well; there was some local stuff available, but I wasn’t about to lash out money on unnecessary expenses. If the copper ends touched they would short circuit, maybe plunging the well packed scout hall into darkness, so mindful not to try and make myself unpopular, I grabbed the ones closest to touching and cleverly pulled them apart with my bare fingers.

‘Fuck me!’ I screamed, ‘that hurt,’ the 240 volts making my eyeballs almost jump out my head. Don’t think I try that stunt again. James laughed his head off.

Then we were both called inside to help serve the parents and dignitaries the Cheese snacks and home grown wine, being as we were the highly responsible Senior Scouts. The Cubs were sent outside to play and the other Boy Scouts would mingle around with their Mummies and Daddies and show them their patrol dens, some manky animal skins and dirty Plaster of Paris castings of a horse hoof.
I had always been curious about the effects of alcohol on the human brain and I had presumed that only weak-minded individuals got drunk. Standing behind the long table, I decided to test my theory on myself, since the booze was all free…

I served one for one!

One glass red wine for the adults, one glass red wine for me!
Yes Siree, I drank that stuff like there was no tomorrow.
Tasted like piss and vinegar! Who cared? The more I threw the shit down my throat, the better it tasted and the happier and cleverer I felt. So what’s the big deal, booze is cool if you can handle it? I could handle it. Nothing was happening, I was unique! I would grow up to be the man who never got drunk!

I was drinking as fast I could get the red battery acid out the demy-john bottles and poured gushingly into the small glasses, even though I now started to hear loud voices of whinging disgust from boringly dressed old hags, through the strange noises in my head. (A bit like that roaring sound you hear when you stick your ears in a large sea shell.)

‘A total disgrace, what kind of an example is this Boy Scout setting?’
‘Who is this disgraceful Youngman? This must whole heartedly be condemned!’ Etc etc,
‘Fuck em,’ I drunkenly thought, this was the dog’s bollocks, I could see everyone double now. This was definitely the life for me. I feared nothing, felt super human, beyond reproach…I was God, and my fifteen minutes of fame was here and now.

I drank till the glasses and plates of cheese sandwiches fell out my numb hands and I staggered, completely shit faced drunk, against some appreciative half pissed laughing adults, thoroughly enjoying this Boy Scouts self propelled booze cruise spiralling like a giant rag doll around the hall. Thank God, I had some allies among the growing, braying mob of disgusted protesters.

A couple of responsible Patrol Leaders managed to corner me as I crawled dizzyingly around looking for a place to have a slash, my bladder was bursting from the high speed processing of a couple of galleons of pure gut and brain rot. They inconsiderately threw me outside, just when I wanted to burst into the Boy Scout anthem using as many filthy words possible and left me to the tender mercy of the thoroughly bored Cubs.

THESE little BASTARDS, noticing that I was too incapacitated to defend myself, decided to use me as their latest adventure game and taking full advantage of my complete inability to comprehend what was happening to me, they dragged me (dozens of them, like swarming locusts) to the garden tap. Their twisted infantile minds made them hose me down and roll me with all my proficiency awards; hobbies, swimming, skipping, first aid, wanking, the rare diving badge, in the mud, and then they pushed me back, gyrating a serious wobbly, into the fully packed hall!

As I staggered, soaking wet (I might have pissed myself by now, not that I could notice), covered in sticky mud, playing ‘flipper’ and bouncing off the guests, there were more words of insults and some laughter that penetrated my now strangely loudly ringing ears. However, I was suffering serious problems with my eye sight but attempted to smile at all and sundry as I did a great impression of a drunken Charlie Chaplin walk back to the cheese and wine table. I needed a drink.

Sadly, before I could grab a bottle of the plonk by the neck, I was rudely escorted out again, beaten hard across the face, forced to walk around the hall and between rapidly leaving cars, in what appeared to be some strange ritual to sober me up. Unfortunately, because I was too pissed to ride my bicycle, I was driven home and the back stabbing swines woke my step-mom up. What a wonderful apparition I must have made, strung between two seriously annoyed Boy Scouts, my arms being held around their necks like we were true buddies, mumbling incoherently on buckling legs.

Even in the state I was in, I vaguely understood what she said and I will never forget her words of support, as I slouched, blind drunk, dripping water mixed with recycled red wine and dribbling uncontrollably from my mouth.

‘THANK GOD HIS FATHER ISN’T ALIVE TO SEE THIS!’

I silently thanked God too! The bastard would have flayed me! I was thrown violently on my bed, where I proceeded, still fully dressed, to be very, very sick, and nearly drowned in my own vomit, but I turned my body around till I lay in my own putrid stinking red cesspit, but still able to breathe! I WOULD LIVE…


The next day my step-mom made me clean it up, even from the walls, where somehow I had managed to spray carrots and red wine almost two feet higher than my bed on to two walls; without the maids help. (Cleaning up, not throwing up.)
I had a really bad bad headache.
The stench was appalling, I couldn’t think of anything that smelt quite as bad as I did.
My guts were killing me.
I felt like dying.
And,
to add insult to injury… I had to walk all the way from my house back to the Scout hall to pick up my bicycle, sick as a fucking dog, ALL 3 miles!
And,
I was told by the Scoutmaster, that I was an absolute disgrace
And,
I would not be allowed to take any more of my Chief Scout award tests, till I showed more responsibility or some bollocks like that!


And, I thought, Fuck this for a lark, I was now a real Rhodie man at last, so I resigned from Scouts to pursue a career of drinking and chasing women, this being my true destiny.

Brave new world of a million niches beats the blockbusters.

I came across this article today

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5-2231917,00.html

and it confirmed something I have predicted since the start of the internet. Although the article (it’s an extract from a forthcoming book) only expands on the theme novel writing and publishing about two thirds of the way down, it is worth reading all of it to get the background.

What is very apparent is the continuing collapse of anything ‘mainstream’. I received an interesting Email this morning from a complete stranger commenting that my article ‘The Path’ was my finest piece of writing to date and to quote their words,
‘You may wish to consider, perhaps, the outrageous suggestion that your 'voice' could well turn out to be a tad quieter and more reflective than the joint-and-carling wielding-dj-to-the-cockle-warring-lager louts ;)’.
However, the lunatic story, ‘The Great Welsh Cockles War’, along with ‘The Path’ were both spotlighted on WriteLink, (an on-line writing community) the latter I thought was most definitely one of my weakest works! How odd. You can’t please everyone all the time. (It would be nice if that person contacted me again to chat about this a bit more.)

Should you adjust your writing to suit the audience or should the audience be simply allowed to pick and choose between various styles you write? What is for the writer more satisfying, a thousand people loving one fixed style, or 200 ‘fans’ spread between five completely contrasting approaches to literature. If you prefer the former, are you now not being dictated too? Are you writing to please yourself or to please others? Do you buy a painting for £100 because you like it or spend £20,000 because others like it?

One of the finest examples of this I take from the world of music: David Bowie, whose influence over nearly four decades of musicians is now legendary. One of his nick names is ‘The Chameleon’; an attribute to this mans incredible talent to change his styles. Sometimes, as far as I am concerned, with disastrous results. His work with ‘Tin Machine’ was for my ears, an abominable noise. ‘Let’s Dance’, his only solo number one in the UK, was along with the album, rather ‘mainstream pop’ when it came out in the ‘80s. He made plenty of new fans but unquestionably disappointed his ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ original supporters base.
Undeterred he stuck to his own unique style of NOT having a fixed style. Someone else who equals that stature in my opinion is Madonna. You may not like her personally, but you cannot ignore her great ability to constantly recreate her-self.

I doubt that either Bowie or Madonna is particularly concerned if any of their works bombs. They do what they do because they wanted to and they will continue to experiment in all directions for a very long time to come. I consider that a sign of true creative genius.

Sanctions and Recycling.

What a fuss they make in the U.K. “Oh dear, all our landfills are almost full. Goodness me, all these ‘new’ regulations from Europe. What ever happened to the good old days when we just fucked the shit into the Irish Sea, at least it gave the Paddys some flotsam to eat during the potato famine.”

Where I live, in North Wales, besides some rather half hearted attempt by the hotels to toss all glass into a separate bin, everything else goes in the black wheelie. As this is a seaside resort catering to the brain dead of the midlands, there is a proliferation of ‘Made in China’ rubbish shops. The boxes the tons of this plastic crap come in are stuffed with unbounded glee into ever increasing sizes of bins, some now resembling small containers. No effort is made to compress the cardboard so more could fit in; who cares – what you think council tax is for?
Then after the fat kids have been supplied with their plastic buckets and spade sets, guns and fake Barbie dolls from their grossly obese parents (Mum and Dad competing who has the most gut hanging out over the jeans) it’s off to the beach. Then by six in the afternoon the adults are rolling drunk down the high-street followed by screaming brats demanding replacement ‘toys’ as the last lot disintegrated into multicoloured shreds. Still; the good old council will clean it all up!

I will tell you how to cure the people of this nonsense, hit where it hurts; their wallets. Pay; I say and pay out the nose. I tell you about two other lands I lived in and make your own conclusions.

Rhodesia was a rogue state and as a result the international community of goody two shoes with shit for brains slapped sanctions on the land; the idea being that 28 years down the road
they can do it again but in severe moderation in a vain attempt to get the butcher of Zimbabwe to go away. It didn’t work then and the paltry effort imposed now is just worth a few silly lines in left wing rag mags.

Now when I was a boy we had real sanctions; yes siree, they didn’t ban us from travelling like the modern ones, we got jack shit officially from the outside and that made us strong. It became a normal way of life to recycle. This was war and we all mucked in. My Scout troop needed a truck for us lads and all the equipment. So we collected newspapers. Door to door we collected and tied them in huge piles and when there was a large mountain of the stuff threatening to collapse in the hall, it would be picked up and the troop would get two and half cents a kilo. I remember an awful row when I did my axe test between a committee member and the Scout Master. I had chopped a tree down in the Scout Halls premises and this rampant break of conversation rules was severely criticised.
Every home had a tin foil bag. The foil caps on the milk bottles would be washed and collected. We would take the squeezed balls to school where they would receive money from the scrap metal merchants. Every house had compost heap at the bottom of the garden for food scraps. Glass was as precious as diamonds. Every bottle was returned from where it came from. There were no fancy drinking glasses. Ours looked like jam jars; that’s because that was exactly what they were, just had the screw bit smoothed out. The breweries were forced to stop making the popular ‘Dumpies’ a popular 330ml beer bottle shaped somewhat like a Second World War Mill’s hand grenade. Oddly enough, besides the wasteful use of glass, these things were so thin they easily broke and the shards were lethal with both barefoot humans and wildlife receiving horrific cuts to their feet. Even as late as the mid eighties I would purchase a Coke where the contents was the same price as the deposit on the bottle (5 cents) and I would get a kick out of reading worn print such as ‘Bottled by Coca-Cola of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, making that particular bottle forty odd years old!
There was not one tinned beverage. (Besides the best orange juice in the world, Mazoe Bezant.) My friends would sometimes bring a tinned Coke back from a South African holiday and we would look at this thing in wonder.

I remember plastic bags hanging on the washing line! Our family were not poor but plastic bags were a rare commodity. In supermarkets your purchases were put into large recycled brown paper bags. You would never see the country-side ruined by free holdalls flapping from trees.

By 1973 our school note books were made from an off cream/white paper that reacted to our fountain pens like blotting paper and much to our delight we were all allowed to use ball point pens. These were also made in Rhodesia.
Around about 1974 the government calculated they could save over a million dollars of desperately needed foreign currency (approximately 600,000pounds then) by simply repacking cigarettes in recycled paper cardboard boxes with plain labels rather than the fancy foil such as the Benson and Hedges packs. Tobacco was Rhodesia’s biggest forex earner and at the time produced the finest in the world and was the third biggest exporter. Clever men flew around the world making shady deals and whilst we never got a fair price, it gave us the currency to purchase things we could not make – petrol and ammunition. The major tobacco companies refused to go along with the scheme saying it would tarnish their brand image. We didn’t give a shit about image and almost overnight the international brands disappeared to be replaced by new local names such as Kingsgate, Madison and Everest. These brands still exist, albeit in short supply; the farm invasions have reduced tobacco production by 70%.

Brass bullet casings were collected on the rifle range to be melted down, car wrecks were non existent. Rhodesia led the world in mine proof vehicles; you will be amazed what you can do with an ancient VW Beatle chassis!

Plastic toys were almost non-existent; any steel wire found would be turned into the most amazing toy cars by the African population in a perfect 1:20 scale with real moving parts. The steering wheel would protrude out the ‘roof’ and be used by the owner as he steered the prized possession around. Beaten flat old nails or other bits of scrap iron would be used to make Mbira instruments (see pic) and rubber tyres were converted into sandals, old inner-tubes made everything from catapults to just about the best way to strap things down onto a bicycle or car rack.

Rhodesian made vinyl LP records with recycled paper covers; all rare collectables now and the largest denomination note of ten dollars would be the cost of a night out with the girlfriend in a top class restraint, (hah hah, stupid spell checker, I meant restaurant ) not a wheelbarrow full of 50.000 Zimbabwe dollars needed now.

We became the recycle entrepreneurs of the world, a skill recognised by the dozens of lands that welcomed the ethnically cleansed White Rhodesians. Show me a rubbish tip - I’ll show you a fitted kitchen. We had no rubbish - we HAD the cleanest and most self sufficient land in Africa!

Bavaria, the wealthiest state of West Germany became my home for two decades. Even with zero understanding of the culture or language, I fitted in perfectly, as there was something about this spotlessly clean land and disciplined population that sub-consciously appealed to me. Recycling was relatively easy to install into their mind set. I became so use to separating the rubbish; I cannot even recall when it became law. Bringing things to the depot was always a treasure hunt and amongst some of the gems I picked up was a pair of large stunning Marantz speakers, there casings of wood putting the modern counterparts to shame. A quick assessment to the reason of their disposal concluded that the rubber around the main bass speaker had perished. For the cost of £3 for a plaster’s replacement sponge pad, cut into strips and a tube of silicon had them singing sweet as pie again.
When the loony socialists of Gerhard Schroeder took over nine years ago, the coalition government automatically gave their Green party members the environment portfolio. Some of the policies were down right bizarre, but some produced interesting results. A carrot and stick approach to household rubbish had anyone with a small garden install a container to create their own compost and even though we were a family of four, the smallest wheelie bin on the market would be only half full when it was emptied every fortnight. You needed bigger bins: you paid for it big time. Laws were passed to make car manufacturers take back their old models and minimum limits of recycled materials had to be part of a new vehicle’s construction. Roof drain pipes had adapters installed to pass rain water into large barrels, the water used for the garden, saving on both water and the stealth ‘water disposal’ tax.

A forced deposit on tinned beverages created a twelve month chaos which resulted in almost the complete obliteration of all forms of canned drinks. What riled the German public was that unlike their British counterparts; outside of a public gathering such as the ‘Love Parade’ or a pop concert, they didn’t have a tendency to throw the empty tins around the streets or country side. The beverage manufacturers instead cleverly created a recyclable plastic bottle with deposit. The beer bottle was pure brilliance, having a screw top and double walls that kept the contents cool and fresh.

More must be done to teach the British public the benefits of recycling; the celebrity obsessed youth should be guided by their idols (after they been trained and paid) and the charge of disposing rubbish considerably raised. However, the government along with the local councils, must also make more effort.

It doesn’t help much when the seaside resort where I live has only one allocated spot for a few bottle and paper bins. ALL supermarkets should have them in their car parks. Nearly all large shops in Germany actually have special bins where you can immediately strip the packing and leave it there. And the packing must also be tuned into saving the planet and not just catching the eye of the beholder.

THE PATH

I came across a path the other day. There should be nothing unusual about this. But in a way this was. Here I was in a small, neat and tidy little village a few miles outside Munich walking back to where I was staying. The sidewalk was wide and spotlessly clean; the perfect stereotype of a German habitat. And there it was: this eyesore, a blot on the landscape. It was not a very long path, maybe 8 paces. It connected the pavement to a shopping mall car park; cutting a compressed mud swathe through the neatly trimmed hedges. I, like many before me, walked this route rather than follow the road, thus saving me perhaps two minutes.

A path according to the dictionary; is a way which people pass on foot; line along which a person or thing moves, and also, a course of action. I like to think of it as method of getting from A to B by the shortest and most undisruptive quickest way. When I lived in Africa, paths were everywhere. In the suburbs no decent vacant corner plot would be normal without its obligatory short cut. In the bush they connected the various villages.

That leads me to tell you about one of the most amazing paths ever created; the 40 miles from Makuti, altitude 3730 feet, then down the Zambezi escarpment to Kariba, 1300 feet in now modern day Zimbabwe. In the early 1950’s the British colonial lands of Rhodesia and Nyasaland needed power for their rapidly growing industries; so the river that crashed over the magnificent Victoria Falls would be dammed at its narrowest point. This would create at the time the largest man made lake in the world. This tsetse fly and malarial infested humid white mans grave would be transferred into a major tourist resort with commercial fishing industry; along with the electricity its giant turbines would generate. Building the dam was not the first problem. Getting materials there was, for there were no roads at all.

The finest ordinance surveyors from Great Britain were flown in and poured over aerial photographs and maps, following contours through this rugged terrain to come up with a plan. They presented the Southern Rhodesian government with a proposal of £xxx millions and a completion time of xx months. It was greeted with ridicule by the Minister of Roads who swore he could build the road at half the price, in half the time and without having to look at a single picture or map. And he did. (Okay, he and the lads might have crossed checked now and then.)

I have been up and down that road many times. It is always exhilarating, especially the first glimpse of the majestic lake flashing like a blue jewel in the heart of Africa under its relentless sun. The wildlife is prolific; with herds of buffalos, prides of lions; if you are very lucky, perhaps a leopard. But what you always see is elephants. They would leave their huge piles of dung on the road for the giant beetles to gather and roll into balls to push home; the wrinkly leathered grey shapes would reluctantly wander off the tar road when a car approached, to disappear almost like magic into the dense foliage of the hills.

Thousands of generations of elephants had wandered this land, up to the cooler heights in summer and down again for winter, always moving for perhaps reasons as simple as a change in diet. All man had to do was widen and tar a path that was proven to be the quickest and easiest way. The stripped bark of the huge Baobab trees stood out like mileage markers along the route through those complex twists and turns.

The path for man of course deviated across a dam wall and onto now days Zambia. But what of the original path to the valley floor, trodden by beasts before Moses asked God to open one across the Red Sea. It is still there, under water now, but the lakes waters created many large islands which still to this day are visited by the elephants. They follow that path with incredible inner sense. They cannot walk it anymore so they swim. If they get tired they would take turns having a quick breather by standing on a travelling partner, whose feet would be on the path!

Rangers in boats once followed a pair for over 4o miles. It took them 24 hours before they struggled out onto the banks, close to death from exhaustion. I have been lucky to witness the swimming elephants of the Zambezi returning to their old haunts that even modern man cannot obliterate from times unknown out of the hidden conscience of these wonderful animals.

My little path in Germany connecting the sidewalk to the supermarket cannot be seen from space. Even if you could – who cares? The walk of the elephants can be seen though, and let me be your guide. Open up your Google Earth. The easy way is to enter, Kariba Zimbabwe, into the search bar or find Africa, that shouldn’t be too hard. Next find Zimbabwe, for those a little confused, it is due north of South Africa.
There you will see a huge lake. The dam wall is at these coordinates; 16 degrees 13’ 19,29” South by 28 degrees 45’44.17” East. It is easily visible. This is your starting point. In summer the road on this wall once set a world record of 53 degrees Celsius in the shade. Now follow the road east through Kariba town. There are some small roads branching off, one goes to Kariba Breezes hotel where a pal of mine, Pete, was killed in the nineties when returning drunk from the hotel bar he took a short cut home and promptly walked into a herd of elephants. He was using their path. Follow the main road north by north east till finally it meets the main Harare-Lusaka highway at 16 degrees 18’43,06” South by 29 degrees 14’44,31 East. What will really hit you is the amazing ruggedness of the terrain.

So next time you take a path, remember that yours could also have a mystery behind it, but never one as mysterious as the path of the elephants.

Post note: I couldn’t find the exact figures for the road’s cost or construction time. Although I most certainly have read them before. What I did come across amongst the massive amounts of data available about Kariba, including stunning pictures, is that it could be on the verge of collapse. Zimbabwe is now a bankrupt and failed state and no maintenance has been done on the wall for at least four years and the government doesn’t care. Experts have predicted a scenario that would make the Asian Tsunami of recent memory seem like a small wave. You can see on the map that its collapse would also destroy the next dam wall down stream holding back an almost as large a bed of water; Lake Caborra Bassa in neighbouring Mozambique.

The combined water mass would cut that land in half, engulf Madagascar and a thirty foot wave would hit Perth in Australia.

This is life Jim, but not as we know it.

Well I am sorry that there has not been an update for a while but I have had a rather hectic time moving and not having a direct internet connection. Now I do, albeit it is a little slow but beggars can’t be choosers at the moment and therefore I am happy for small mercies.

Lots had been happening in the world the last two weeks plus, most of it bad…hah hah hah. But not to worry, I have been entertaining myself writing this ludicrous black political satire. It is not that far from being finished actually. I reckon three or more chapters and it is a wrap, besides the work of going over it, tying up the knots and plots. Then I have to find someone willing to edit the lot for nothing besides 20% of profits unknown.

It could all turn out to be much to do about nothing but we will see. I have also been messing around redoing the chapters but I will leave the present part / chapters as they are. As I intend to try and SELL this, I will cut you off at least two or three thrilling chapters before the end.

So here it is, the next episode in the most exciting thing you have read since you were drunk in a poolside deck chair trying to get your head around the Da Vinci code.

The Y Files: The Tinny Blabber Code. Part Six.

Secret Agent Slapper spun the mighty machine through a 360 with the hand brake. Ramming the tortured engine into first, she floored the accelerator, causing the rear of the sleek gold metallic Jaguar convertible to snake wildly as it attempted to gain a grip. As it did, Dilly smashed on the brakes and pulled up in front of McDonalds on Beggers Street. She sniffed the stench appreciatively, the aphrodisiac aroma of burnt rubber making her nipples stand out.

Mildew scuffled over and climbed awkwardly into the passenger seat, signalled the classic Star Trek, ‘Engage’ arm movement, and Dilly put the ‘Cat’ through its fancy brochured advertised paces. No words were spoken besides Wolf’s request to head towards Birmingham, Dilly needing all her concentration controlling the huge horsepower at her disposal, zipped the machine through the yellow lit streets and the speedometer showed 120 miles an hour as she entered the M4 slipway heading north west.

Wolf rummaged through Dilly’s bag and attempted to read through his one good eye the crude script scribbled onto the paper napkins stuffed into the Co-Op carrier bag by the weak glow of the tiny cosmetic lamp installed in the visor.

“I gotta eat, Wolf, and I need some booze. I hope you got some coke for me in that little bag around your spare tyre. My nerves are killing me. Found anything interesting?”
Wolf looked up, “There’s a 24 hour service station coming up, pull in there. Yeah, you did well kid, this is pay dirt by the looks of things.”

***

“Get him out Tinny, now, and I don’t want that thing,” pointing to the Greatmaltpoo who was now engrossed dragging itself with it’s forelegs whilst it attempted to relieve the itching worms in its rear on the corridor carpet, “ever coming here again!”

Tinny obeyed his shrill wife and pushed the confused Divhead Bonkit, dragging his arse bound dog, out the door and slammed it shut. “You look a bit of a mess my dear, I’m not sure if yellow is a good colour for you,” referring to the congealed mess covering most of his wife’s head.

“Shut up you idiot. We have a big problem. That Slapper bitch took the CCTV footage, so I can’t prove she did this,” parting her hair with difficulty she showed Tinny the large quail egg sized bump, now a delicate shade of blue/black. She didn’t bother informing Tinny that she had started the fight. Avoiding the light brown ‘snail trail’ left by Bonkit’s recently departed dog, she went over to the Last Supper and released it from its catch exposing the naked back. The P.M.’s face turned into one resembling a dental student’s pickled deceased volunteers head.

“Sweet Jesus, we are fucked!” As an after thought, he added, “where’s the diamond gone from your ring sweetie?”
Cherry looked down at her left hand, still holding open the Last Supper. “That’s it, she is definitely dead, along with that fat shit fool Mildew. Stop farting around like some 13 year old examining the strange stains that appeared over night on his pyjama bottoms and take your thumb out your bum, engage brain and phone Alabaster Crampballs. I’m going for a shower. I want him here first thing tomorrow morning. Ka-pee-toh, Copy, Comprehendo?”

***

Dilly returned from the ‘Ladies’ restroom, sniffed loudly, looked at Mildew with Coked up sparkling attentative eyes. She sat down opposite him at the corner table in the tacky restaurant and immediately attacked viciously a double portion of ‘bloody rare’ rump steak, chips and fried egg. Between belches, she drank from the large pile of Heineken beer tins stacked in the middle.
There had been little problem organising the feast. The place was deserted of clientele at this time and the young Kosovo immigrant employee, (of the month, according to a huge plastic tag pinned on his hollow chest,) had wisely opted for alternative three, after his protest had resulted in Dilly placing her I.D. badge, her chrome plated 9mm PPK semi automatic pistol and two fifty pound notes onto the counter. With her hand still gripped around the weapon, she had simply stated to the terrified illegal, “Take your pick, and make it a wise one.” The service from then on had been impeccable.

“Ya look a ficken mess by the way, and you smell like this beer tin”, she told Wolf between gasps for air, and waggled her third beer at him.
Mildew ignored her and poured over the napkins. His right eye was hurting bad. He had refused food as he was on a diet, but happily accepted one of the proffered beer tins from Dilly. With his partner well occupied for a while, Wolf studied carefully what was in front of him. Finally he sat back and looked over at Dolly who had finally finished her meal and was lighting up a cigarette. She threw a quick look at the Kosovo who waved enthusiastically in agreement to let her disobey the ‘No Smoking’ sign.
“And?”
“Before I tell you Doll, how did the great escape go?”

Dilly laughed that way that only she could, a pure piss take laugh of sensual ridicule.
“Worked a dream, Wolfie, ya should have seen it man. I rush out, cameras flashing everywhere, brained Cherry babe appears for half a sec, then slams the door as I’m babbling to Sky News some tripe about dumping Blonkit. Best though, Gobby Browneye next door rushes out in his dressing gown to see what all the performance is about, and slips bare foot into the Greatmaltpoo turd on his doorstep. Hah hah hah. Then, he lands up on his back, cracking his head and they land up taking him to hospital. I simply squeezed the Sky News reporters second microphone a bit, promised him more if he dropped me outside the flat where me Jag was parked. The rest you know from the DVD.

Mildew had given up trying to read the napkins in the car and had watched the CCTV footage on the cars DVD, TV and navigation aid screen. “Well, it’s the famous ‘Granita pact’ reached between Tinny Blabber and Gobby Browneye ten years ago in an Islington restaurant supposedingly about who should be the next Labour leader in 1995. It was always denied that it existed, but here it is.” Wolf poked a finger at the small pile of paper napkins.
“What does it say.” Dilly peered at the creased and grubby pile trying to decipher the spidery scribble upside down but gave up and let Wolf explain.
“Basically it’s a list of all public services that will be systematically looted along with any state assets they can plunder. An agreed twenty percent is allocated to protect the whole plan and,” Wolf took the bottom layer out and spun it around so Dilly could read it better, “protect the finding off, or destruction of the pyramid should it ever be detected and investigated. It was also agreed that Tinny would hand over the P.M. job to Gobby after ten years, something that hasn’t happened yet.”
Two signatures near the bottom appeared above what looked like dried blood stains. “What’s this?” Dilly used the long manicured nail on her forefinger to tap the stains.
“That, dear Dilly, is what THEY are frightened off. My guess, they signed and sealed this with their blood. Once I can get a D.N.A. check on it I will know for sure. Presuming it is, it is irrefutable proof.”

Dilly lifted her finger off the napkin and stuck it inside her right ear, waggled it rapidly up and down for a couple seconds. Removing it and satisfied that there was nothing stuck underneath the nail, “Pyramid? What’s that all about then?” she asked curiously.
“We have to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina to prove my theory. I now believe 100% that Tinny Blabber was not abducted by Aliens, but is actually a direct descendant from one. I am sure the answer to the whole Tinny Blabber code is somewhere deep in a pyramid that is over twelve thousand years old in the Visoko valley not far from Sarajevo.”

The Alien stuff Dilly could easily believe after the experience at 10 Conning Street. She shivered slightly, remembering the awful experience she had just gone through. “Suits me Wolfie, you the man, I need to get away from here for a while anyway, but aren’t we heading in the wrong direction?” She had a load more questions, but knew from experience that Wolf would answer them in due course automatically as his talent for subterfuge really kicked in.
“First big hassle. Money.” Wolf didn’t even bother asking Dilly if she had access to any large funds. Besides her designer wardrobe, all of it ‘presents’ from various appreciative liaisons, she used most of her income paying back the huge debt of lawyers fees who had represented her twin brother Rodney.
“Next major problem; Alabaster Crampballs.”
Dilly stretched and yawned widely, then gave Wolf a screwed eyes grimace. “The man’s a friggin faggot freak, tried it on with me once. What does the ‘White Ghost’ do for a living anyway?”
“Well according to this, Dilly dear”, Wolf poked at the pile of napkins once more, SPIN is a secret organisation set up by the Blabbers to protect them from the truth coming out. Crampballs heads it.”
“Oooo la la la, Wofie, I gather you don’t like the man much,” the venom that Mildew spat the head of SPINs name out had surprised Dilly. Definitely no love lost here. “What’s up Doc?” Her pet line to Mildew done with pouting lips in an attempt to lighten him up.
Wolf sighed. “I just worked out that he is the reason I’ve been stuck in that damn cellar ever since Tinny Blabber came to power. Stuff him, I’m better. We still a jump ahead of the bastard. Were going to Ireland via a short stay at my safe house in Porkmydog in North Wales. Well, it’s actually a caravan in Shittysands Holiday Site, but we will be okay whilst I think of a plan to get some money together. We require a lot, plus we need a boat to get us to Bosnia-Herzegovina with out being detected and a trustful Captain and crew.”

Dilly stood up and went over to the counter. The young man in charge barely came up to her breasts, and smiled in a death grin of expectant imminent annihilation. “How may I help?”, came the high pitched tone of pure terror.
“When was the cash machine last filled, sweetie?”
“Er, one hour ago.”
“You don’t have a problem if I empty it then?” Flashing a deck of credit cards before the quivering wreck, now peeing down his left leg, Dilly added with a smile, “legally, of course.”
Without waiting for any response she strode over to the AT machine, and swinging her hips whilst whistling, Hey Big Spender, fed one card after another till the gaping maw stopped gushing torrents of cash. “Oy, you, bring me some of them plastic carrier bags will ya,” the attendant scuttled quickly over in response to Dilly’s request.

“Oh well, there will be some well pissed off Lords when they look at their credit card accounts at the end of this month. That’s the lot. I got stopped at the maximum. I reckon close on fifteen thousand quid.” Dilly dumped the four stuffed bags next to the beer tins now being hurriedly packed by the attendant.
Wolfie pushed the half crazed with fear Kosovo away.
“Brilliant, Dill, that covers expenses but we need more for the boat.”
Dilly groped in her bag and removed an almost pigeon egg sized object wrapped in printed Go With B.P. toilet paper. Freeing it, she presented Mildew the magnificent diamond. “Will this perhaps cover it?” Her eyes flashed with inner pleasure, and she squirmed in primeval pleasure against the back of the chair. It had been a long time since she last went on the hunt and this one was looking very interesting.
For the first time in weeks, Wolf laughed, a sound from deep down in his psyche, one of returning confidence in his own abilities.
“You stole Cherry’s beloved Kimberly Blue. You got guts kid, and she will be after yours big time. That’s the boat covered. How the hell did you manage this?”
Dilly shrugged nonchalantly, “let’s just say it had a long passage before arriving here.”
“You ready? I’m ready, lets go.” Mildew picked up the bags of money, Dilly being more powerfully built carried the 20 tins of Heinakin.

As the two approached the exit, Dilly asked
“Ya got a Captain in mind?”
“Yes, a genius and the most dependent man I’ve ever met, Captain James T Jerk.” Wolf stopped in front of the newspaper wrack.
Dilly walking behind him was forced to stop too. “Isn’t that the nutcase that blew up the HMS Sinkfast in the Nigerian Delta seven years ago? Is he alive? I heard the ship went up with the loss of over 900 lives.”
Special Agent Wolf Mildew stared at the headlines from The Daily Creep,
‘Massive Explosion on Pontoon Kills 15 Illegal Jet Ski Tourists in Estuary’
Heroic crew recovering in Bangemup hospital. Reported by Urine Heep.

“I think he is alive and knowing him, still kicking.”

The Y-Files: The Tinny Blabber Code. Part Five.

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The Y Files: The Tinny Blabber Code

My little experiment in writing satirical fiction has been great fun. Whilst I am the first to admit my technical skills need plenty of honing, I am hoping to do more about that by going back to school. I recently wrote a couple of more political spoofs. I suppose a mixture of Spitting Image, Tom Sharpe and Dan Brown meet the X Files is the best description for it.

After two short stories, I got so ‘in’ to the whole thing that in the next session of brainstorming I produced a 6k word sequel with plenty of space to continue. The whole thing became so absurd that I decided that I would use the little anecdote ‘The Great Welsh Cockles Wars’ and the political sketch ‘Heroin addicts etc, ( both posted here,) to actually be part one and two of a novelette. With such vivid characters, I just had to keep some or even maybe all into a story of what is now becoming a lampoon on modern day life.

So for your reading pleasure I present:

The Y Files: The Tinny Blabber Code. Part 3.

Wolf Mildew cast a quick glimpse at his image in the tacky Chinese made wall mounted mirror. The glowing green frame sent a pulsating signal to his brain, ‘I believe’, and noticing that he hadn’t turned into a wide eyed spaced out Alien abductee in the last five minutes, he brushed the few specs of dandruff from his immaculate Gucci suit jacket and waited for his ex-partner to arrive.

In fact, he was dying to sit down as his feet were killing him. Special Secret agent Dilly Slapper, 38-32-36, was late again. The very thought of her ridiculing him for creases in his trousers kept him on his toes. Mildew sighed, took a wilted Remembrance Day poppy out of his epaulette and started plucking the paper petals as he chanted softly to himself,

“She will, she won’t, she will, she…”

“Won’t! And that’s definite, you daft bald-headed fat twat, this better be good as I had to rush from the hairdressers, just as he was telling me what Cherry Blabber uses to dye her roots.” That was the usual style of entrance for the most desired Secret Agent in British Intelligence. Sadly she had none, but looked good and was known to execute a good hand job quickly and cleanly in the cleaners’ cupboard if it got her kicked up the ladder.

In fact, Dilly Slapper was so good at it, she was now Head Of Paralytic Research. Her expense account was rumoured to be top secret, but she spent considerable time in ‘The Nags Give Head’ pub, gathering important facts.

Wolf collapsed his ample arse onto the only stool in the tiny, cold, grey office deep in the basement of MI 69 headquarters. The Gucci pants ripped apart loudly as the Chinese produced fake disintegrated under the pressure.

“Gawd.Your so pathetic! What you want anyway, that’s so important huh! You been seeing Aliens again? I told you to stop watching Prime Minister’s question time.” Dilly lifted her right arm up above her head, and sniffed her armpit, exposing a couple of day’s stubble of dark hair. Wrinkling her nose up, she dropped her arm after first running her long lacquered nails through her freshly dyed peroxide blonde hair.

“Gawd, I stink, took me nearly 20 minutes to fire the head off, of the Head of C.O.C.K, (Covert Operations and Clandestine Killings,) this morning. Dirty old git, but I got me the keys to a new Jag convertible. My bloody arm hurts though. Anyway, stupid Alien man…what’s up Doc?” She snickered loudly. She loved ripping into Dr. Professor Wolf Mildew, Alien specialist.

The fact that it was him who had got Dilly Slapper through the front door was the only reason she even bothered to talk to him still. Promotion came via using her back door she soon worked out. So Wolf stayed in the cellar whilst Dilly had her head in the clouds. Even Wolf knew that offering HIS back door to any of the hierarchy, would result in his head in a sewer drainage pipe. Less his body.

Wolf smiled stupidly and reached for the half full pint glass of ale on the table. She had turned him into what he was now. Instead of Aliens and the Paranormal, it was Ale and totally Paralytic by knocking off time. But this time he would finally get her respect for what he did professionally. He could give her something she most desired, to be on the biggest television reality show; ‘I’m a Celebrity. Get me out of here’.

“I can prove that our Prime Minister, Tinny Blabber, was abducted by Aliens!” He almost shouted in his suppressed excitement.

Dillies eyes opened wide and pulling her right index finger out of her left nostril she flicked some of London’s accumulated CO2 carbon emissions onto the ceiling. Counting rapidly at the other accumulated balls of snot that were still stuck there, she gave up at nine, and concluded she came down here far to often.

“Big fucking deal, dick head. We all know that. Is that why…”

“No No, there is more!” Wolf interrupted, slobbering over his only clean shirt that he had worn for the occasion,

“His brain was operated on and impregnated with SPIN. And it’s highly contagious. Most of his cabinet is showing signs of the disease. It’s a plot to take over the WORLD!”

Slapper poked another long bright red finger nail between two bottom molars, trying to ease out a piece of Château Brained she had had for lunch. Smiling as the piece came loose, she chewed it for a fraction to savoir the memory, and swallowing, looked at Wolf and said,

“How he do that then? Shag Gobby Browneye?” She giggled at her crude referral to the present Chancellor.

“Exactly, your brilliant!” Wolf couldn’t quite believe how she jumped to that conclusion so fast.

Dilly wasn’t sure, she thought it was a joke, but with her afternoon ruined she might as well stick around and hear the rest.

“Go on Mastermind, and then?” Finding a corner of Mildews cluttered desk free, she attempted to pull one of her bright blue leather knee-length boots off.

“Look,” Wolf waved to a computer monitor showing a huge expanse of complex mathematical formulas. “This is what I call, The Tinny Blabber Code, and I am close to finally cracking it. I have put in all the tax returns of Tinny and his wife for the last 10 years and asked the computer to match the figures against the letters of the alphabet. The results are amazing.”

“Give us a hand pulling this bloody boot off will you; I think I’ve got a hole in my stocking. Anyway I don’t understand a thing you’re talking about.”

Wolf stood up awkwardly, and grabbing the proffered heel in his podgy hands, pulled it off.

“You bloody idiot, how the hell am I suppose to walk to my new Jag with no heel on my boot? Gawd, you’re USELESS.” The enraged former lap dancer snatched the heel out of Wolf’s hand and stuffed into her large alligator skin handbag with the Luis Vuitton logo emblazoned all over it.
“Hurry up, I’m getting bored.”

Wolf licked his lips and threw Dilly a foxy look. “Listen, all the tax returns are exactly the same every year. The identical amount of 19,169 pounds and 14 pence. It’s impossible. They are taking in millions, but that’s all they declare, year after year, before;” Mildew entered some letters into the computer keyboard and the screen changed, “so called expenses.”

Slapper looked vaguely at the latest screen offering through drooping eyes. The lunch session with Lord Goffrey Strongbow, along with two bottles of some fancy incomprehensibly named red wine, was dulling what little concentration she could muster. “You got any Coke?”

Wolf rummaged amongst his stacks of cardboard boxes he used as a filing cabinet and presented Dilly with a silver tin of sugar free.

“You sad fuck!” Dilly snorted at him. “Not that shit, you moron. Something to shove up my nose to wake me up!” Before she could continue, the handbag she had placed on the floor started to vibrate and create sounds like a demented frog on heroin. Ignoring Wolf, who was busy punching more details into the keyboard, she rummaged briefly and pulled out the bright pink mobile phone encrusted with plastic diamonds. Flicking the lid, she pressed a few buttons and perused the small screen before cackling loudly with laughter.

Wolf recognised that cruel tone of humour she had. The first time he had heard it was when he had presented his awaiting private parts for grateful compensation in the men’s bogs at the The Nags Give Head pub after he had arranged employment for her with C.O.C.K.

“Hey Wolfie, listen to this,” her bright red surgically enhanced lips pouted in his direction for a second, before reading from the text she had just received, “A man of mixed race goes to the Doctor. He runs on the spot and he tells the Doc that he can’t stop jogging. The Doc pours out some white powder from an envelope, uses a scalpel to create two thin long lines on his desk and tells the patient to sniff it. The patient does and stops jogging on the spot. He says to the Doc, “WOW, is that cocaine?” Nah says the Doc, its Persil, guaranteed to stop colours from running!” With that she shrieked with laughter.

Mildew was appalled. “You can’t go around receiving and sending stuff like that in this country. You will have the law on top of you in no time at all!”

“That’s true,” Slapper acknowledged, “the Chief Justice has a date with me later tonight…hah hah hah. Anyway gotta dash, so be quick. What you want from me?”

“Look,” pointing to the screen, “the sum repeated over 10 years is equal in the alphabet to the word SPIN.” And that’s where you come in,” Wolf added.

“I do? How you figure that out? Anyway, what does this SPIN mean?” Slapper limped over to the screen for a better look. One thing she did know about Wolf Mildew, the man might be an overweight drunken sot at 48, but he wasn’t a fool.

“I am not sure, but the secret is somewhere in 10 Connning Street. I think it will be hidden behind a painting. I need you to get in and look.”

“And how exactly am I suppose to do that? I can’t exactly see Tinny’s wife welcoming me with open arms, do you?” But Slapper was excited with the idea. If anyone could pull a stunt to get her photographed entering the P.M.’s private quarters, then Wolf could.
“You are to make ‘friends’ with M.P. Divhead Bonkit, the new Minister for Druggies and Dossers. He is a close friend of the Blabbers. I don’t need to explain to an expert like you how to wangle a dinner invitation, do I?” Wolf smiled and handed her a slip of paper.

“What’s this?” Dilly looked at the small yellow note scrawled with Wolf’s clumsy writing.

“It’s the name of a pet shop near ‘Nutter’s Corner’ in Hyde Park. Buy yourself a bitch. Preferably an Afghan hound and let it run free next Sunday at exactly 11.00 a.m. at ‘Nutter’s Corner’. Divhead always does his ‘Don’t blame me’ speeches there at that time whilst his dog shits all over the place. Once Divhead’s dog starts doing the ‘humpies’ with yours, you can break the ice. After that…well, nature takes its course,” Wolf added with a knowing wink.

“Phone me at home as soon as you have been penetrated…er, I mean you got in there...” Wolf ended lamely. “You pull this off, I swear you will go to Australia to eat Ant and Dec’s little worms on T.V.”

“Done. I will let you know.” Scooping up her bag, she hobbled to the door. “And get some decent coke in for next time we meet asshole!”

***

The Y-Files: The Tinny Blabber Code. Part Four.

“Well, Egghead, what you think?” Dilly Slapper did a quick spin on the spot in Wolf Mildew’s office.

Wolf whistled a spluttering high pitched tone. “Well done Dilly, you look fantastic.” That she did. Gone was the cheap tart look of Pretty Women fame. Now she was attired and groomed like a large breasted version of Geena Davis playing the part of an American President. “So when is the night?”

Mildew’s plan had worked a treat. Divhead Bonkit M.P. and the head of C.O.C.K. s paralytic department were as far as the press is concerned, a pair. Dilly gloated over the mountain of newspapers piled on Mildews desk from the previous week. Her image, along with the Cabinet member for the Druggies and Dossers portfolio, were spread on every front page.

‘BONKIT’S LATEST DOG’, screamed the headlines of the Britain’s best selling daily, The Sun. Below this was a photograph of Dilly and Divhead collecting a new dog for the blind.

“Next Friday.” Dilly paused a fraction, “shame about that plain clothes copper shooting the dogs in the head in broad daylight. All I shouted out was, “Help, there is an Afghan holding Divhead Bonkit hostage!” Next thing you know, this idiot runs over, and pumps four bullets into both dogs head. All I meant was that his bleedin dog couldn’t get off the bitch cos they were locked and howling their heads off and he couldn’t get home without his mutt. Anyway, what exactly am I looking for behind the paintings?” Dilly tossed The Sun aside to expose the next paper, The Daily Creep, Britain’s most popular satirical daily. The report was again written by their crack reporter Urine Heep.

‘Afghan hounded to death. Taliban shot in head at ‘Nutters Corner’.’ Dilly snorted through her nose as she read the title. “That; was a bloody stupid name for a dog anyway. Plus the thing stank. Won’t miss it at all. Poor Divvie was gutted about his mutt though. So Mr Alien man, what this SPIN thing look like?

Mildew looked down at the picture accompanying the article, the two dead dogs still locked together, surrounded by a gawking circle of drunken teenagers, and scratched his hole absentmindedly through a pink Turkish plagiarism of an Addidas tracksuit, as he pondered his answer.

“I think it will be a document of some form.” Wolf looked over towards Dilly. “Can you handle Bonkit okay? I don’t want you hurt in anyway.”

Slapper ran her long finger nails through her perfectly coiffured short Rosemary’s Baby styled hair and let out a demonical cackle of laughter. “You piss artist! Divvie is like putty in my hands...hah hah hah.” It was true. The man was blindly in love with her. He just couldn’t see it was him being taken for the ride. “I’ll dump the fool as soon as I find the SPIN. He talks the most complete twaddle anyway. If he saw the look on my face he would have a heart attack.” Dilly crossed her eyeballs and putting a middle finger from each hand into her large mouth pulled the corners out in a death grimace.

“Please don’t pull stunts like that when you’re having dinner with the Blabbers for gawd sake!” Wolf exclaimed, “they don’t like the piss being taken out of them.”

“Hey, Area 51 man, what happens if he got shit loads of pictures hanging all over the place? I can’t spend the whole time looking behind pictures. They will think I’m nuts or something.” Dilly tossed The Daily Creep on the side and grinned almost as broadly without her fingers stuck in her mouth, at the picture adorning The News of the World.

Mildew had been fascinated with the picture when he first saw it. The professional in him admired the paparazzi photographer who had managed to get such a superb image of the Cabinet member being flagellated with a white cane by an almost naked Dilly Slapper in knee height bright red leather boots. They both studied the picture taken through the window of Dilly’s bedroom in silence for a moment.

“Look, you can even make out our Rodney in the background.” A finger touched the spot on the image where a cheap Chinese tacky picture frame sat on a Ikea draws cabinet beyond the bed; where a prone, manacled, naked Bonkit, received some corporal punishment in sexual ecstasy.
“He told me he might be out on parole soon,” Dilly added. Her twin brother was serving out a 14 year prison sentence for flying a micro light into a Chinese pagoda in Legoland.

Wolf looked at the accompanying headline, ‘Divhead Whips Up Support!’ Then said to Dilly,

“Tinny Blabber’s ego is massive. He would have hidden SPIN behind a picture of special significance. During dinner, try and coax out of him his favourite paintings. Then say you need the toilet and see if you can spot it. Watch out for his wife though,” his look made Dilly withdraw her wisecrack. The Prime Minister would be an easy touch, but Cherry, his wife was pure poison ivy. Slapper’s female intuition spotted a dangerous feline from ten miles away, plus her hairdresser at Vidal’s Samoosas says she was a real bitch, that didn’t tip the girls and moaned about the Elton John music being played in the background. Instead, she asked,

“Did you phone Ant and Dec as you promised?”

“Everything is under control Dilly. I’ll have the press ready and waiting on Friday evening. Just get me the answer to the Tinny Blabber Code. I’ll be finally out of here. Your such big news now, you don’t really need me. Just think of it as a reward for my hard work.” Wolf’s tone was now equal to a left wing politician begging for votes from East End crackheads.

Look, I have a reward for you. Flashing a gold Dunhill lighter at Mildew, she flicked its top and spinning the tiny wheel, created a tall flame. Bending sharply over, she proffered the burning lighter near her buttocks, tightly wrapped in a cold coffee grey Stella McCartney designed trouser and belted out a noisy tune of methanol gas. The blue flash as it ignited made Wolf jump back in alarm.

“That’s disgusting, where you learn that?”

Dilly straightened up and snapped the lighter closed. “From Viz magazine, Handy Tips. It said that methane is the second largest cause of global warming and we should burn it off to save the planet. I thought it was a good idea and great fun too,” Dilly added, as she gazed on Mildews face that had grown very pale.


Using her eyes to really convey a genuine smile, Dilly looked at the poor pathetic creature rotting away in the ‘dungeons’ of M.I.69.

“Listen, Wolfie,” exhaling smoke rings from a freshly lit personally monogrammed Dunhill menthol cigarette, Dilly nodded her head slightly towards Secret Agent Doctor Professor Wolf Mildew, Alien specialist for C.O.C.K., “you done me good, I wont forget that.”

As Dilly left the room she turned and glanced at the semi-drunk obese balding figure looking at her so trustingly with bloodshot eyes behind Clark Kent styled glasses.

“Do me a favour will ya. Stop wearing pink. It don’t suit ya.”

To be continued…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZIMBABWE.

I am rather busy on another project at the moment, so I take the liberty of taking this article from The Times. If you are a reader from the European Union, you will also be thrilled to bits to hear that a brand new road built with your tax will soon be opened to great hoo-ha in Malawi.

The opening will be made by a guest of honour whose name will be given to the new road…yeah, you guessed it…Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Excuse me whilst I throw up.

Zimbabwe economy limps into anniversary.

FROM JAN RAATH IN HARARE

THE first time that Anna was arrested, two policemen confiscated her box of tomatoes, bananas, popcorn and a couple of cigarettes and ordered her to pay an on-the-spot fine of Z$250,000 (65p) for illegal vending.
When she refused to pay they took her Z$160,000 takings for the afternoon, put it in their pockets and left. Two days later Anna was caught by the police with her goods spread out on a sack. They told her to bring her goods with her to the police station.

On the way the police asked how much money she had. “Nothing,” she said. They said she could go. “No,” she said. “I want to go to the police station. I have done criminal things. Let’s go.”
“What’s your name?” they asked aggressively. She told them. “You are too cheeky,” they said. “Yes,” she said, “I am too cheeky.” She strode back to her corner, triumphant. Anna started trading on the street to pay her two children’s school fees. For millions of Zimbabweans, informal trading on a tiny scale has become the difference between life and starvation.
President Mugabe has declared the activity illegal. Every day thousands are arrested in police raids and lose their earnings and their goods, or have them smashed.
“I will be back there every day, selling,” Anna said. “They can come. I am no longer afraid of them.”

This is the reality of Zimbabwe as the country commemorates today the 26th anniversary of independence from Britain. Mr Mugabe has presided over the ruin of the country’s economy, once one of the strongest in Africa. The rapid impoverishment of Zimbabweans has been compounded by the destruction of the homes of nearly one million people, who have also been banned from making a living in his notorious “Operation Remove the Rubbish”, which continues after 11 months.
Last week the World Health Organisation said that Zimbabwean women had the lowest life expectancy in the world, at 34 years. The country has the highest inflation, at 913 per cent. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe estimates that a family of six needs Z$35 million a month to survive. Six years ago Z$1 million dollars would have bought a whole block of luxury apartments.

State school fees have recently risen by 1,000 per cent. “Zimbabwean children are faced with some of the worst hardships confronting children anywhere in the world,” a Unicef spokesman said.
John Makumbe, a political commentator, said: “Life has become unbearable and unaffordable. These people are waiting to vent their anger through mass demonstrations. We are on the brink. The element of (ordinary Zimbabweans’) fear is overrated. That point is going to become clearer in the next few months.”
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of what appears to be the dominant faction of the divided Opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, is capitalising on the rising mood of defiance.
He has promised in recent weeks that he will lead street protests to bring down the Government and has said that he is prepared to die doing so. He has hinted that the movement will start next month.
Mr Mugabe responded with a stark warning to Mr Tsvangirai: “If he wants to invite his own death, let him go ahead.”
John Robertson, an economist, said: “We are in a tinderbox situation. If something starts, it can become complete collapse and it can be started by street violence. They will call the soldiers out, but the soldiers may turn their guns on their leaders. They are having as difficult a time as everyone.

BACKWARDS STEP

1980
Name Rhodesia Capital Salisbury

Government White minority rule under Prime Minister Smith

Cost of loaf of bread Z$0.20

Land 4,500 white farmers own 70 per cent of fertile land

Adult literacy 70 per cent

Life expectancy 58 GDP per capita (real terms) US$3,377

2006
Name Zimbabwe Capital Harare

Government Nationalist ZANU-PF party under President Mugabe

Cost of loaf of bread Z$90,000

Land Farms seized from white ownership

Adult literacy 91 per cent

Life expectancy 37 GDP per capita US$2,100

Silly Mr Brown, please go away.

So the Chancellor wants to hand out more taxpayer’s money to educate the poor in Third World countries. Oops, I meant to say developing nations. What a load of hypocritical hogwash!
Pupils get paid to go to high school in the U.K., whilst university students have to pay ‘top up’ fees that will leave them in serious debt if they can manage to finish their degree. I would call these people poor!

When the last GCSE examination results came out last year, a young girl I know, proudly showed me her exam results. A large range of passed subjects, all with grades ‘C’ or above. One of them was an ‘A’ grade for German, despite that she could not understand even the most basic sentence of the language when I spoke to her in that tongue. Her knowledge of English, where she also achieved a high grade, was such that she could neither read nor comprehend, nor concentrate on any of my little anecdotes I print out and let people in this town read for feedback and comments. Any reading material I ever see in her hand consists of glossy ‘Celebs’ type rubbish.

I suggest Mr. Brown stop gallivanting around Africa and sort out the education problems back at home. Africa must sort itself out. Pumping donated billions into the continent has made a bad situation worse.

Zimbabwe produced one of the highest literacy rates in Africa for the first 15 odd years after achieving Independence. An incredible feat, considering that during the ‘Liberation Struggle’ the army of the ruling party effectively shut down or destroyed just about every school in the rural areas. After taking over the former whites-only schools, the government promised free education and although the qualifications, as in Britain, have been watered down, it produced a generation of a rather well educated population.

Today the Zimbabwean school system is in bits. The teachers are leaving en masse. Their wages barely cover the cost of 30 loaves of bread a month. They are forced to sell sweets or fruit and vegetables to their pupils to survive.
The government initiation of fees has resulted in a huge amount of the population unable to send their children to school. Many of the kids pass out in class from malnutrition. There is a shortage of everything, from desks to school books. The government now wants the children to report on their teachers.
At the University and Colleges, the situation is literally explosive. Over half the students cannot afford the term fees. Some colleges have erected fences in an attempt to stop non paying students from attending classes. Dissenting students are regularly arrested and beaten by the police or the feared secret service, the C.I.O.

Private schools supply the best education, but have been targeted by the ruling party who are attempting to cap fees as inflation passes the 900% mark. It is only a question of time till they collapse.

So what happened to that generation of well educated Zimbabweans? Most of them live abroad now. The economy and political chaos in their homeland cannot give them employment or if they find any, the wages are a pittance. There is hope though. Robert Mugabe and his corrupt ruling elite cannot hang on to power much longer. Should a regime change show transparency, honesty, respect human rights, personal property and above all, obey the rule of law, these people will go back and build a new Zimbabwe.

So I say to Mr. Brown: Stay at home and sort your system out here. The only education you must supply is teaching the crackpot despots of Africa the basics between right and wrong. Until they have that drummed into their heads, shovelling billions into another African black hole will only produce a few fancy examples to show on T.V. during party political broadcasts, which are watched by an ever larger dwindling British populace who are literally incapable of understanding at all what their leaders are waffling on about.

Instead they will download the G8 pop concert for their iPods, collect ASBOs, attempt to read The Sun and dream of becoming a celebrity.

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Please take time to look at this:

http://www.simonpoultneyfoundation.org/