sweet effay

What is the in-joke behind the name of the eponymous hero of Dick’s short story ‘James P. Crow’? I tried searching the Net, but my connection is currently so bad that I am thinking back longingly to the old days of my 14.4 modem. Then I remembered all the slavering Sci-fi freaks who hang out here, and thought somebody’s bound to know. All I got were some vague references to the American Civil War so is it something to do with slavery?

Check this out:

'Zombie' worms found off Sweden

And just to prove that scientists are cool, what do they name it? 'Bone-eating snot-flower'. Absolutely marvelous.

Them what know me know that, due to various horrors incurred for sins in past lives, I’m a bit wobbly on my pins at times. So I’m standing on a footstool playing DIY hero when my knee gives way. No worries I think as I tumble down, I’m only a foot or so off the ground. By some horrendous quirk of fate, undoubtedly brought about by all the bad karma I have generated being rude to people. I manage to fall in such a way that I smash my right eye socket into the handle of the hoover. Does it have the soft brush attachment on the end? No, it has the big hard plastic thing for sucking shit up from crevices. By some miracle I manage not to enucleate myself, but I now resemble Two-Face: My left side is the usual mixture of boyish good looks and rugged charm, whilst the interesting discolouration around my right eye is distinctly reminiscent of Alice Cooper. Not, I should stress, Alice back in the days when he was cool and sounding like he meant it when he sang 'I Love the Dead', but Alice as he is now; haggard and with badly applied make up.

Going out in public should be fun: People will either think that I’ve come off worse in a fight (“No, the man we are looking for is the one who gave him those scars”), or I can tell them the truth and they’ll think I’m the sort of twat who can’t even be trusted with a vacuum cleaner...

Amazon, with their unerring sense of product targetting sent me an e-mail this morning suggesting that I buy this piece of filth. Notice how a certain Sham 69 song has been slipped in amongst all the other well known 'cricket anthems'. Skinheads and cricket: a marriage made in heaven. Expect to see Sham feature on every compilation aimed at nostalgic adults from here until Christmas.

They never seem to bring out the compilation I want though: It would be called The Very Best Sad Dad Album in the World Ever and feature a carefully selected mix of rare early punk and metally Goth type stuff, screaming electronics, and Ennio Morricone film scores. The TV ad would be great: Home in Surburbia with typical sit-com type dad opening his Christmas present. Cut to fast edits of grainy footage from Stacia to Nick Fiend to Lee Van Cleef. The final shot has a pastiche of the old cassette ad starring Pete Murphy only, rather than looking cool, Sad Dad is slumped in an armchair drooling and clutching an empty bottle of gin to his chest.

I'm going to shut up about Sham 69 now, but I will just say that Martin is spot on when he says that the UK Subs were a lot better. Which chorus would you rather sing along to, 'Hersham Boys' or 'All I wanna know is does she suck'?

Finally, who would have guessed that those clever record company bods would have put 10cc's 'Dreadlock Holiday' on a cricket album? I heard it for the first time in years in a pub the other day (The Compleat Angler in Norwich, should you want to ensure your ears remain unsullied) and it really must win the prize for the most racist piece of crap ever to grace the Top Twenty.

Arioch, I beseech thee make the Tories elect David Davis. That way we may never have to worry about these evil people gaining power ever again!

Stop apologising my arse! Even if the soul destroying, privatizing, back-hander grabbing, cock suckers of corporations feel comfortable with such policies, they should still be on their hands and knees to the British public for being the most ineffectual and pathetic Opposition in living memory.