The Upside of Down (Again)

 

i - With Slouch of Beast

An idiot and a madman are out mooching with their guns. The madman says, “Look, Pat!” and lunges at some imaginary foe with the old rifle and bayonet, “Stick it where it hurts!” he cries. “Don’t like it, do they? Jolly well don’t...”

So yer idiot just stands there, gawping at the madman for about five seconds. Then his face goes all dead pan and he shouts, like he was calling for his sarnies and stout, “Aw, just shoot the bastards.”

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang… sudden shots are exchanged across the clearing. Idiot and madman hit the deck simultaneously as fire bursts from clumps of bushes on either side. Bish, bang wallop, so to speak, bodies slump outta gaps in the shrubs, land on the turf, brains shot out.

“Are they all down?” asks the idiot (incidentally played here by Mr B. Spoke Hoolligan).

“Everyone but you and I!” cries the madman. “So, where’s our loot?”

“Follow me! I’ll be right behind ya!”

ii - ceci n’est pas un poème

Belarus invades

Europe using migrant hordes

screaming human rights

first deployed are god

bombers next come hoodies bare

armed with frightened kids

foreign language food

vendors then inscrutable

music smells of feet

images that pluck

Western consciences & serve

sanction servers right

till with cocaine end

games & heroin the White

Russian horde prevails

iii - Lost The Plot Lines

#1: You’re accused of possessing a dangerous weapon, the bullet that kills you. At the inquest, a PC (2b politically correct) says it was resisting arrest. Also cited, a dodgy safety catch, and lights that had changed. Thankfully, objections overruled, the judge orders pizza without coleslaw; and the jury retire for another recount.

#2: Corporation tricks the rich into believing their minds can be transferred into cloned copies of themselves as youngsters, then go on to lead second lives in new locations. But all that’s moved is the punters’ loot into accounts controlled by a gang of high tech perps. Loretta d’Orgazmo investigates.

#3: Private crimes require a private dick. Someone pour gear oil over your aura? Insulted by your bridesmaid/best man? A sibling escaped to warmer climes leaving you to care for the aging crone? Your neighbour's a snark for the Fashion Cops? Never mind, Nevin the Nose will sort you out. Family secrets uncovered with discretion, skeletons put firmly back in the closet, dirty washing taken in for questioning, and all your opinions vetted for deadly snake venom/snide.

#4: And in other news; rape trials fall apart after perpetrators turn into undercover cops. Fire brigades seek arsonists for insurance work. Nuclear submarines on standby used as canteens by people smugglers. Social media moghul pushes window cleaner off ladder. Incompetent surgeon wins own hospital in fake draw. Story teller found beaten senseless with selfie-sticks at lakeside beauty spot. Six year-old shoe shine boy behind hoax anthrax cure. & etc..

#5: By the way, we are being watched. Right now. Everything said, done and thought by us is going down in a report that will land on someone's desk at 10:15 tomorrow. The question is whether they are bothered to read it. Shall we buy their lazy, good-for-nothing indifference? Well, that’s just fine. But there’s no need to contact them. As we know, they’ll learn our decisions within 24 hours. And meanwhile, on Episode Two…

iv - Tripi Palet

don’t go making fun

now we know where joking leads

all our yesterdays

Black & Asian folk

got their issues pick a bone

anywhere you like

still it’s rich a Home

Secretary invokes Canute

fighting on the bitch

chess it ain’t them pawns

multiracial types the whites

outta sight tonight

cross the channel while

Sharon’s underwater raft

puts to sea in chains

v - Joe Blob on A Cooking Sock

If I remember correctly, their language was filthy and at root they had little coherent to say. Eliot, however, wrote a terrific treatise on The Pertinence, which was Faber’s first blog roll. Or was it a fig roll they published? My poor head is not what it was. Though I fondly recall the gents in Harrods, worth every Pound. Everyone should pull their teeth out and stage a revival. Lord knows how much we need cheering up those days. What with AIDS and then young Covid turning nineteen the whole world has changed utterly. Actually, what would really do the trick is a good old fashioned dose of salts. Or a jolly hard kick up the jarvis. But I might have read that gag somewhere else. Possibly here.

vi - quick gadget inspection

thanks to natural gas

as the cold comes creeping back

warm your monkey’s brass

when you gotta thirst

give the kitchen tap a twist

plumbing at its best

if a catchy song

stops your mind from wandering

radio’s a thang

so the post is late

get a tablet phone & ert

out your days on Earth

plus you gotta eat

twice a day or once at least

microwave a feast

vii - Sherbert’s Impropriety No 7

First performed on the legless piano by a string of conjoined haggises, this devastatingly important work was later transcribed for playing backwards during The War. A stoned critic writes, “Fetch my earplugs would you, Snell?” Sherbert unfortunately croaked during the composition, and the piece was further unfinished by his grandma, who thought it was a kind of German pudding. Then taken for a Turkish bayonet charge, it was to be interred on the Isle of Arrant but at the last moment got exchanged for an American radiogram, circa 1929.

viii - enough said

blunder bus defence

riding shotgun on retreat

risky seat to take

should they get a voice

those whose guns have said it all

marching home in state

put it ornery

talk like folk can understand

same as everyone

look they’re damaged goods

victims of abuse themselves

babes from household woods

let them speak but peace

that’s another can of pus

words for bitten tongues

don't stand for it