Fracking the Classics

Snap!

Yesterday, a crack opened in the absolute underpants of English Letters. When past-modeliste Ivan de Squawk let off in the British Museum Reading Room, the ghost of Jacob Marley was seen to waft up from the floorboards. The Dickens, what? "A Christmas Carol" scribbled here? Surely Not! Marx wrote his "Das Kapital", followed by ten thousand lesser fractors that did scratch and fidget on green leather armchair - but never the inventor of "Oliver Twist"! Of "Martin Chuzzlewit"? Of "Bleak House"? Yet, before his very eyes, more than a hundred Korean tourists snapped Marley's ghost ventilating through authentic gaps in the Reading Room's floorboards. It seems inevitable that old Charley Boy was an incognito Reading Room arse after all - begging many bios to be rewrit. And pray, what else does de Squawks's trumpet involuntary mean for the wearers of literary belts & braces? That the Bumsbury underground contains a subconscious well of Old English Gas? That new Fraction Rights will be auctioned off - 4G style - by a cash-starved gov? Surely Dem Libs would never allow it?

Click Neg!

Fear not, already Bold Moves are a-foot! The village the Brontës vicaraged has been braced for subsidence. A hosepipe ban around Jane Austen's cottage has been in force for over a century. Last weekend, in a nifty move, George Orwell's remote Scottish island of Jura was towed to safety across the Atlantic and into Lake Michigan. Meanwhile, overnight the B.Army has sealed off a ten mile exclusion zone around Stratford-upon-Avon, deploying Mark Ib tanks, armoured carts and banks of surface-to-air fiddle-Sticks. Even the boarded-up ice-cream parlour on New Brighton prom (most recently an adult shop) where John Lennon first whistled "She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!" has been awarded grade 2.1. with Hons..

>So, Prof. Quatermass, how exactly does the fraction process work?

Q Pegged for Action

>Well Johnnie, it's important to tap into the correct real estate. For example, if you're after new works by Joe Orton, it's no use boffing in public lavatories built after 1967. Equip yourself with a decent Blue Plaque guide and a stout pair of walking shoes. And your flageolets, of course; swallow at least one tin of 'em before setting out.

>So what of the environmental consequences?

>Johnnie, as you know, there's still a helluva lot of work to be done in the lab, PCR results to shred into the pot and a watchamacallit, a microbiological vivisection of the genetic code. All that needn't hold us back, though. Remember, there's nothing like a good long fart for keeping out the cold on long winter nights.

>I should coco!

Snap!

>No, Johnnie, you should Horlicks!

Never Snap!

poetry republic
3 members >to welcome poets, poetry readers & critics >to post poetry by members and others >to focus on ...

Books we've read

The Society Of The Poem
by Jonathan Raban

Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

View this group on Goodreads »

The world's most least

Not Quite Concorde

a) The world's most least airport is, of course, the Graunaid nepswaper. It isn't a conventional aripotr in the sense that winged fiends don't frig off or land on its centre folds every fifteen seconds. Nor do Bombay troubaducks spend much time nestled up between its UK and foreign travel pages. Moreover, it is not a pansweepr in the conventional sense, fot it trots not out the dead donkeys of obscure celebrities' husbands/wives. And what's more, it has no flipping page 3. Yet does it have a cracking page 2b, on which topographical errers vie with the nosegay poses of Messrs Watson & Holmes.

On Her Majesty's Pleasure

b) The world's most unbendiest banana is, of course, the Queen's Own. Imported from less than one country, the sovereign's Handy Boomerang is available in Unbent, Jolly Unbent and I Don't Believe He Isn't Straight. Available from hawkers' barrows at select English football stadia, Her Majesty's Own Unbendable Banana is a member of Equestrian Equity.

Two Little Bears?

c) The world's Silliest Lies Show has, of course, been parked outside the Saturday morning children's slot on Channel Fork for the past month. Known in the trade as Biz's Lizzes, the show is hosted jointly by Ozzie harse painta Rodolfo de Harris and English redhead soap-groupie Rebecca Brookside. Formerly broadcast on BBC Wan, this family entertainment trundles out its trendy host of under-age spankers, e-knicker swappers and grainy spy-cam murderers. Between hopeful acts, Rodolfo leads community singing of "Two Little Baggers", "Jock the Jack with the Extra Pack" and "Stairwell to Hell". Meanwhile bored sultry Rebecca chills and cooks the old boys' socks. Love 'er!

Ronnie Aitch Corbett

d) Finally, it's over to the World's Least Youngest Man... who is, of course, Ronnie Aitch Corbett. Corbett, who swears he never laid 'ands on either Sooty or Sweep, has been more or less younger for more years than he dares to remember. Neither does he do impressions of his former partner, Ronnie Who's A Barking Biggsie Then? Instead, there he sits in his Emmanuelle Chair a-reminiscing of his days not at Oxford or Cambridge. Love 'im!

Wilfred Aitch Bramble

dd) But, of course, least most finally still, we have the silliest of all soliloquies from the least most Pan-Londoner of all...

Harry Pull Thy Pants Up Corbett: "You dirty, filthy, 'orrible little old man, YOU, I 'ate you, I does, you dirty old fellah; despicable, that's what you are, downright despicable!"

Old Mr Steptoe (toothless grinning:) "Aw get orf, 'Arold; do give over!" (mug wumps)

Sock it to 'em!

poetry republic
3 members >to welcome poets, poetry readers & critics >to post poetry by members and others >to focus on ...

Books we've read

The Society Of The Poem
by Jonathan Raban

Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

View this group on Goodreads »

Sock Puppet's Summer Fiction Wish List

Not Another Beach Book Bitch?

"The Newsmonger's Niece" by Greenham Swallow (Beddly Hadd, 35p)

Swallow This?

Set deep in the bogs of Westminster, Swallow's latest chirp follows corn merchant Deryck Luckless' search for the ideal incestual tryst. A bevvy of impotent back-benchers, a blind Police Commissioner and four generations of Thames boatpeople aside, Luckless' co-creations are all coarse-wittled, folksy folk, modelled in gnarled driftwood and daubed with yellow ocre and burnt umber. The plot, a potted palmtree Airfix would have been proud of, is sinewy, withered, ashen, cracked and shrink-wrapped in woad. The page numbering is (deliberately?) mixed-up and in several places the reader is asked to rip out perforated sheets and deposit them in an eco-friendly bag (provided). Finally one is left with a strong, mawkish feeling of Arglwydd Mawr!


"Packing It In" by Felipe Rope (Little Brown Jug, £19.95)

The Wrath of Rope

From a belated attempt at fixing (sic) crack cocaine to reminiscences of stuffing envelopes with JFK election bumf, Rope's latest novel is all of three hundred words long. Nevertheless, impatient readers should be prepared for some spectacular yawns. Each word has been meticulously cross-checked against a sub-set of Chinese ideograms, Mayan Codices and the Coney Island telephone directory. Rope, whom The New Yorker reports to be reaching the end of his namesake, has recently given several interviews longer than many of his books. However the torn and frayed doppleganger wafting in the wake of this his final publication is effectively a roaring silence.

"The Brother-In-Law of God" by Sallyman Mumbrush (Shiksa & Goy, 30 shillings)

Blasphemy or Blasted Phoney?

As the old efnic saying will have it, "The goodwife's ambulance is her husband's wheelbarrow" this is a tale told by an Iscariot, a three-times denier of holy writ, a Mammoth of Mammom of Moron. The trouble with this kind of faith-based suspension of disbelief is how you are often left with the feeling that barefaced heresy is itself an inverse form of worship. Meanwhile, to preview the plot: a goat goes missing from the family yard leading to a year long fleece-hunt during which the brother-in-law of God - for whom read, Patriarchal Kid - empties the coffers of many good shekles after bad, till bankrupcy do kick him up the turnip plot. I won't reveal exactly how Mumbrush manipulates the old deus ex-machina device into salving the Prod... except to say s/he does so with all the blots and howlers we have come to expect from his/er quill. Not to be read in public lavatories. Beach ban in operation on the Isle of Man.

"Poignard Pick-Me-Up" by Trucksie Lasse (Madman House, Free-On-Demand)

Linda van Rundstedt is still in bed

Loosely based on the sex-romps of pop groupie and songstress Linda van Runstedt, this quasi-autobiography of life on the road during the early 1970s is about as erotic as a museum dedicated to the Victorian chair leg. Having said that, if nifty turnings turn you on, you may well get your rocks off to Trucksie Lasse's latest horn pipe. As lacking in wholesome graphic sex scenes as "Shifty Fades to Grey", it seems doomed to become a classic. Recommended as a flagrant train-read. Also available in OO gauge.

"Funny Bone Cholera" by Millicent Handle (Lunatic Press, £9.95)

Live Dead!

A history novel or a novel history? Tower of force or tour de farce? Simultaneously set in three different locations of the time-space continuum, this book needs to be nibbled at by the reader like a triple decker jam sandwich garnished with raw onion, horseradish and mandrake root. And having shaken the hand that holds it, the novel then emits a dense cloud of purple smoke which engulfs the wings of the deepest armchair. Whence, as if history itself were become history, it then asks us to believe a new strain of cholera bacillus is the reincarnation of a twelfth century coptic monk come to revenge his people on a uncaring god. Ms Handle's antidisestablishmentarianism is renowned. No doubt this latest book will have many tacky prizes renamed in her honour.

Sock it to ya!

The Complete Pancake

Dangerous as a pancake

In Four Synonyms & A Syllogism

Blind as a pancake

Serving #1: Driving like a pancake!

Pull over, puddin'ead! This lane is for grown-ups with licences. Got an engine in that box, have we? Strewth, I've seen car bombers with more Highway Code.

Right as a pancake

Serving #2: As fat as a pancake!

Q: I say, I say, I say... did you know sugar contains as much as 90% water?

A: No, mate, your knickers are over your head there. Sugar contains 100% sugar.

Hot as a pancake

Serving #3: Room to toss a flipping pancake!

Talk about the low ceilings in Hobbiton, have you seen the chandeliers in the Brighton Pavvy? Dripping with them!

Daft as a pancake

Serving #4: A pancake by any other name...

…would taste as bland, pass the honey, Lemon!

Bent as a pancake

Serving #5: All good pancakes come to an end.

Ah, this one is over! So what good will come of it?

High as a Pancake!

poetry republic
3 members
welcome readers/writers/critics

Books we've read

The Society Of The Poem
by Jonathan Raban

Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

View this group on Goodreads »

How-To-Write... a Cheque

...or: cheque this art...

Americans will flinch at the "que" on the tail of this old literary curio. Notwithstanding "diner’s checks” scribbled on napkin by aspiring waiters, or those national-stereotype “Czechs” whose Lightness of Being is Unbearably Not Slovakian, the grand Olde English Promissorie Note has lost much of its currency - and not a few of its currants.

Biro on Bog Roll

A flashed wad of cheques is a rare sight indeed these days of Stephen Fry-by-night, elf-publishing and other stabs of pen. Whether copper-plated on mock vellum or crudely tattooed across the arse of water-buffalo, the original cheque is nothing less than a literary means of conveying value between parties. Except on bank holidays, it may be seen hovering over pools of stagnant syntax, or drowning in the phlegm of newspaper touts.

Echo! Echo!

Letraset on tin foil, Biroed on bog roll, Chinese woodblock printed, iced in cochineal on retirement cake or scratched with blue-black ink from the dregs of Bob Cratchit’s well, all that really matters is latex plays no part in its manufacture. Beware the crossed words “Acc. Payee Only”, which deal a severe blow to a cheque’s social mobility; as do frankings of less than fifty smackeroos by your Flexible Friend. A truly great cheque will have digits running into seven figures proclaiming, for Pity’s sake, the latest Lottoman Empress. In addition to its face value, such a cheque, cleared by the banks, may be framed and flogged off at Sodabuy’s in aid of the smiling polio victim.

Letraset on Tin Foil

Even a cheque contaminated with derivatives of hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree) may have intrinsic value; when, for example, its dodgy payer is a household name. Again, any bone-fed auction house may be contacted to assess the potential. Other examples of unkind payment: shiploads of rotten spuds delivered our way under the Marshall Plan, Confederate Dollars, fake chocolate money, misspelt innuendoes (“earos” for “euros”, “ponce” for “pence” & etc.) and the absolute vanishing of inks.

Tattoo on Buffalo 

Let us leave, buy the bye, the How-To-Writes of "cheque's-in-the-post", "Travellers' Cheques" and "chequebook journalism" for other, more fastidious correspondents to sign off on.

Chinese Wood-Blocked

And proceed, not before meantime, to the "post-dated cheque" so beloved of impoverished students and the absolute bane of slum landlords. Do be careful when passing these delicate notes, if Referred to Drawer they may easily turn to Cack-in-the-Attic.

Never Sign!

poetry republic
3 members
welcome readers/writers/critics

Books we've read

The Society Of The Poem
by Jonathan Raban

Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

View this group on Goodreads »

A Shipping Forecast

It's not as though we've never been here before. First there was the opera, then the T-pot (which I bought and broke the handle), and most recently the Netflix mini-series with Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson's cat. No apologies for any lack of origination, except to say, this fanhood has been lifelong; that despite living ex-patria for two decades, I've listened in as regularly as allowed on UK holidays and local Internet speeds.

Only circumstances have changed. Back when, in Blighty, I most recently remember waking up early, damn early, after late-night drinking bouts, listening to the broadcasts between draughts of water, stupefied, head pounding, eyesore, red-nose, sneezing, coughing, scratching arse, praying, Arglwydd Melys, never-again. With warnings of gales in Chromarty, Dogger and German Bight, intestines churned, war having broken out amongst those that suffer on the sea, crying to be heard by Thee.

Nowadays, of course, such blasted drunks are less frequent because of age and pressures of parenthood, living in lands without proper pubs and two hours before Greenwich Mean Time means times are called while England is still in the throes of night rages, late revellers rolling home. At seven AM local, Internet-tuned to Radio Four's anschluss with the World Service, followed at five-twenty GMT by the morning's Shipping Forecast.

I crane with an actor's ear while the weatherperson - a cross between scientist and thespian - delivers the ten minute set piece either as a promising drama school audition or syllable-perfect Gielgudian unflap. On another level, the SF is like playing a hand of patience. Will the reader stumble or fall at those guttural Scottish place names?

Will the numbers, the repetitions, the monotonies and threnodies breakdown in coughs, splutters and over-apologetic frogs-in-throat? Is the reader a young, inexperienced, angst-ridden tenderfoot too eager for a clear round? Is precipitation in sight, or is s/he a case of the aloof, urbane, RP pooh-er of visibility?

A few years back, I stoop to recall, the SF was under threat. It was one of those periodic shake-ups the Beeb goes through when Auntie clears out the cupboards and consigns a new generation to grow up without bloop-eaters. Unlike Mrs Dale's diary or Jack Demanio's clock, The Shipping Forecast sailed on beyond its natural retirement age. Now, even in the age of GPS, we still get our daily fix of solo yachters pouring over their charts in heavy seas while tuned in to the Home Service. Long may she sail.

Hoop-La!

poetry republic
3 members welcome readers/writers/critics

Books we've read

The Society Of The Poem
by Jonathan Raban

Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton

View this group on Goodreads »