Patricia was unwell, that was patently obvious. Since the miscarriage of our child she had stayed in our flat in a state of utter despondence, staring with her back to the windows at the bare walls. I tried as best I could to raise her empty spirits but it was of little use. The child we had for so long yearned for, had alluded us once again, with all its concomitant emotional devastation.
Patricia and I had tried for a child on several occasions, but her pregnancies had never lasted. As far as the doctors could see, there was no medical reason for this, and their only weak advice was that if at first we didn’t succeed, to try and try again. I suppose it was all they could say, but for Patricia each miscarriage, each terminated hope carried her further down the river of despair and I became concerned that one day she might attempt to harm herself.
Before I continue with this story let me tell you something of Patricia. She was a beautiful, gentle creature and as fine a wife as a man could ask for. Her delicate features still inspired awe in me each time I set eyes upon her, and the distress she suffered as a result of our inability to produce a child filled me with the deepest misery. Her eyes were of the subtlest blue, although of late an overcast greyness had invaded their azure splendour. Her hair, once lustrous and blond, hung limply as if the bitter disappointment that dwelt within her had transmitted itself through the very follicles of her scalp.
We had married in our late twenties and had settled into a small but comfortable upper story flat in a block close to Paddington Station. Here we had spent many enjoyable years, entertaining a myriad of friends from all social backgrounds. Of course as happens in later life, our circle of friends receded and dwindled, as each couple drifted into family life and the responsibilities this involved, until Patricia and I were the only childless couple among our old friends, and inevitably we became isolated. We didn’t blame anybody for deserting us; that as they say, is life, but having so little to do in the evenings gave myself, and Patricia in particular, more time to brood. However much a couple burdened with children might protest against the loss of free time and the complete overhaul it brings to their lives, let me tell you that having none and wishing you had is many times worse.

As luck would have it, my manager at the firm was a very sympathetic fellow – Mr Jennings was his name. Perhaps sensing some domestic anguish, he summoned me to his office one Wednesday afternoon and informed me of an elderly and valid client in The Isle Of Man who had some important documents to sign. I was to take them to him, leaving on the Thursday evening, and I would not be required back in the office until the following Tuesday morning. He let it be known that he would not look too closely at my expenses, within reason, and that if I wanted to make a romantic weekend of it and take a partner along, no one would be any the wiser.
Although October was in full swing, I was sure that Patricia would enjoy the excursion. The Isle Of Man has always exerted a mild fascination in me, being a part of the British Isles, but with its own parliament and customs. What the weather lacked in warmth and sunshine we would more than make up for with cycling and sightseeing; and the opportunity of leaving London for a few days could do Patricia and I nothing but good.

It was harder than I’d expected to coax my wife from her torpor – the prospect of Manx kippers did not have the effect on her that I’d imagined, but after some delicate manoeuvring in which I suggested that Mr Jennings might take offence at having his generosity rebuffed, and that with her no longer employed, we certainly needed my income and could not afford to risk biting the hand that fed us, she agreed.

And so it was that on Thursday 13th October, we took off from the London City Airport aboard the seven O’clock flight to Ronaldsway, and by nine forty-five were sitting down for late supper in the little dining room of our excellent hotel, although
Patricia had very little appetite. She was not a good flyer, and the turbulence encountered while crossing the Irish sea had drained every hint of colour from her face, until she was ghostly pale.

Our hotel stood on the seafront and was much to our liking. The beds, when pushed together, made a perfectly acceptable double, and the morning view out to sea through its rain lashed windows was almost breathtaking.

I concluded my business early on Friday morning and returned to our suite with breakfast on a tray for my beloved. Once she’d eaten and abluted, we put on our waterproofs and headed out on our hired bicycles to explore the island.
Now I don’t know if you are familiar with the Isle Of Man, but it is not best suited for bicycles. It is extremely hilly and wild, and is better explored by mountain railway or motorcycle. Still we persevered against the gradients and the weather for as long as our legs and our spirits were able. Finally when we could pedal no more, we padlocked our bikes to the railings of an old house, which the kindly owner told us we were most welcome to do, then set off with the aid of a tourist map and a bus timetable, which he had had handy. Of course the weather did not abate and the buses were far less frequent than in London, but eventually one came along, and we spent a decent afternoon passing through rugged scenery and making a mental note to return one day in the summertime.

The towns of Peel and Ramsay, even on a bleak wild day are well worth visiting, especially if you a fan of the comedian Norman Wisdom – to whom much of the Island seems to be dedicated. I purchased Kippers and arranged for them to be posted back to our London address, secure in the knowledge that we would return in plenty of time for their arrival, and I took the liberty of sending some to Mr Jennings at the office as a thank you for his immense kindness.

We were the only passengers aboard the last bus to Douglas, which left from Ramsay at a quarter past four. We had expected, it being a Friday, that many islanders would be heading into the capital for a night’s entertainment, a thought which I expressed to the driver. He explained that there wasn’t any, at least nothing better than might be found locally. Douglas out of season, was for bankers and high-flyers like us he said, and most of them just wanted a quiet life counting their money.

As we approached a village called Jerby, the bus braked hard then shuddered to a halt. The driver got out to inspect it, then informed us that there would be a delay to the journey as we had hit a cat, which was done for, and would need to be cleaned off, and that there was also the matter of a flat tyre to deal with. He declined my offer of assistance and made a rather unpleasant remark when I enquired if the cat had been of the tailless Manx variety. He replied that it might have been, but now it didn’t have a head either. He told us that he would need half an hour and that if we wanted something to do to pass the time, we should have a look in the village junk shop, which he informed us, was full of every kind of rubbish imaginable.
Having received assurances from him that he would not leave without us, Patricia and I alighted the bus, being careful to avoid seeing what remained of the cat, and proceeded in the direction he had indicated.
The junkshop, far from being a Dickensian style Old Curiosity shop with a bell above the door and a dusty old shopkeeper, turned out to be a world war two aircraft hangar, made from corrugated iron, completely at odds with its rustic surroundings, yet somehow blending in. A crudely hand-painted sign leaning against the side of the building was the only indication of its purpose. What such a vast junkshop was doing in this out of the way place, and how it was managing to trade heaven only knows.
What we encountered on entering this emporium however was nothing short of astonishing. Rows of shelving made from industrial scaffolding, stacked from floor to ceiling – the highest rows accessible only by long ladder, heaved with, quite possibly, everything that had thrown away for the past fifty years. Ancient gramophone records, military uniforms, stuffed animals, Amateur Photographer magazines, cigarette cards, postcards, Charles and Diana dinner services, all manner of knick-knacks, leftovers, gaudy ornaments, job-lots, bankrupt stock; in short, a cornucopia of ephemera, all laid out in no particular order, or so it seemed, and containing no doubt, one or two items of buried treasure – had you had a spare ten years to find them.
While I distracted myself thumbing through some Russ Conway 45’s, an entire box of them actually, with the middles removed, Patricia seemed genuinely galvanized, moving from shelf to shelf, delving through trinkets, trying not to miss a thing, and by the looks of it, hoping for something magical to catch her eye.
The proprietor of the establishment was a plumpish woman of indeterminate middle age, wearing a substantial amount of crimson lipstick and dark mascara, with hair rather like a lavender bird’s nest. Incongruously, I noticed that she was reading the Financial Times, while toasting marshmallows on a fork with a calour gas heater. She paid us no attention at all until Patricia quite uncharacteristically approached her.

“ Looking for something in particular? ”

What Patricia said next came as a great surprise to me.

“ Have you any Cuckoo Clocks?” she asked.
The proprietor thought for several moments, pursing her lips as she did so.

“ Isle J top shelf. It’s in bits but it’s all there. Nice little project to get it working again. Careful on the ladder won’t you?” she said.

How, amongst this plethora of junk, this woman purely from memory was able to pinpoint such a specific item quite alarmed me, and before I could do it myself, Patricia had bounded over to the requisite shelf and scaled the long ladder.

“ Found it.” She cried excitedly.

But as she reached out for her quarry, her twisting motion sent the ladder crashing to the ground, leaving her hanging in mid-air, clinging on for dear life, and the heavy shelf tottering dangerously towards disaster. I, with a sickening knot in my stomach realized that she was going to fall, bringing many tonnes of rubbish down on top of her.
With great presence of mind, the proprietor sprung to her feet and kicked a pile of military great coats directly beneath to break her fall, then threw her weight against the shelving to counterbalance my precariously dangling wife. Before I could get the ladder back in place to rescue her, Patricia’s strength deserted her and she dropped to the ground.
The coats cushioned her fall, and although shaken, she was not hurt. Her only concern was for the clock.

“ I want the clock, I must have that clock.” was all she could say as I tried to calm her.

And so it was that I gingerly ascended the ladder – this time, with the thoughtful proprietor holding it at the bottom, and retrieved the curious timepiece from its perch.

Perhaps out of some sense of responsibility for the potential disaster that had almost taken place, she would take no money for it. Patricia clutched the casing, and the bag of cogs, chains, weights and other workings, and we bade her goodbye and hurried back to the bus, which rather annoyingly, was just about to depart. The driver admitted that he had completely forgotten about us and that in another half a minute would have been gone.

During the remainder of our weekend break, I detected a palpable change in Patricia. Once back in our hotel room she had immediately cleared the small vanity table of our clutter, then methodically spread out the pieces of the clock and set about its reconstruction. The weather remained terrible, so there was precious little else to do, but she became so absorbed in the restoration of her unexpected purchase that I hardly got a look in. The only time she left the room was to accompany me on a small expedition to a hardware shop to purchase a set of small screw drivers, pliers and a tin of three in one oil, all of which would have to be abandoned prior to our return flight to London or risk a charge of air terrorism.

Having acquired the necessary accoutrements we made our way back across the public beaches, pausing briefly to look at rock pools and stare out to sea into the driving rain, at the passing tankers and cargo ships. The wind blew so fiercely that the waves appeared to be going sideways, forgetting to break on the shore altogether.
I told Patricia how much I loved her, although my voice hardly carried the few inches between our anorakked faces. We kissed, but not passionately, and the salt sea air stung my cracked lips. Having savoured the moment – albeit rather too briefly for my liking, we trudged back to our comfy little hotel and got out of our wet things. Patricia got right down to work on the clock, rebuffing my advances, and I judged it best not to press it, but to let her get on with the matter in hand. Not wanting to disturb her too much, I entertained myself as best I could, reading in the lounge, watching the mainland passenger ferries embarking and disembarking, and generally keeping myself to myself. At meal times I forced my company upon her, bringing up plates on a tray and attempting to engage her in trivial conversation, but she was not to be distracted.

Now I have practically no mechanical skills to speak of and I’d assumed Patricia to be the same. I was therefore much surprised by the progress she was making. With no formal training, she seemed to have grasped the concept of horology and was slowly but surely putting the clock back together. Having initially harboured reservations about her mechanical quest, I began to become quite enthusiastic myself. Not being a job for two people, I did not try to interfere or make a nuisance of myself, but offered encouragement and praise where I saw fit, and none too secretly marvelled at her ingenuity. The care and precision of her movements was a wonder to behold, and it did occur to me that perhaps in a past life she had been a clock maker, or that in some strange way, this was some sort of benevolent occult manifestation, perhaps brought about by her fall. The determination in her expression at times caused me a spark of jealousy, but I soon doused these with feelings of admiration and pride, that my beautiful wife, who had of late suffered so much with her own internal workings, was performing nothing short of a small miracle.

When at last she had done all that she could do; oiled every cog, un-jammed the workings, hung the weights and set the pendulum, she removed the reproduction oil painting from the wall – an unremarkable nineteenth century study of Douglas at twilight, and hung on the nail in its place, her precious time keeping machine. With baited breath I waited as she pulled the chains, bringing the weights upwards, set its hands at a minute to twelve then set the pendulum in motion. At first it swung back and forth for a few seconds then halted and I feared that perhaps Patricia’s efforts had been in vain and that another terrible disappointment awaited her. She was not to be so easily defeated however and made some very minor adjustments, altering its weight slightly, before once again setting it in motion. This time seemed more promising but again it stalled. I saw at this moment, a light go out in my wife’s face; her newly recovered self-belief transforming to despair before my very eyes, and I went to her. Then, as I embraced her with all the tender love and consolation a husband can bestow on a disappointed wife, the funniest thing happened – the clock started going by itself. We watched with barely suppressed joy as the pendulum – hesitant at first found its rhythm and fell into a regular motion. My wife - so cheated of the joys of womanhood, at once rejuvenated. I could feel the anxiety lift from her delicate frame as surely as if it had been vapour visible to the naked eye. Her back arched and her breast heaved with anticipation as the minute hand ticked down…and then it happened. The audible slide of the spring mechanism, the opening of the little wooden hatch above the clock’s handsome face, and then in full voice, the cuckoo, this marvel of wood-carving and Swiss precision engineering, for so long silenced, greeted us twelve times.
“ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo” …and on it went
Patricia groaned, a primal womanly growl, deep from within, and then moaned in ecstasies, cooing and yelping in a most astonishing manner. The force she exerted in her grip upon my hand was enough to tell me that something exceptional and unexpected had occurred, and I held her with all my strength until her tiny body relaxed, and at last, the cuckoo returned to whence it came. We lay without speaking for several minutes, still in one another’s arms, listening to the gentle to-ing and fro-ing of the pendulum, and feeling lighter and more carefree than we had done for many years.

The remainder of our stay in that magical Isle was amongst the pleasantest times I have ever spent. We deemed it wisest to stop the clock for the time being, especially after the hotel owner made a point of mentioning the elderly guests, and referring me to the ‘no pets in the room’ sign, without saying anything more, but coughing rather pointedly.
For the sake of expediency - in the light of the present very sensible in my opinion, terror threats regulations, I parcelled up the clock and arranged for it to be sent to us in London by registered post. It was against Patricia’s wishes that it be out of her sight, but once I pointed out the likelihood of it being confiscated by some over-zealous airline official, fearing it might go off in mid-air – we both laughed at this, she saw sense and relented.

Although it is said to be unwise not to wait until at least three months have elapsed, I could hardly wait to tell my friends and colleagues back at the office that Patricia was expecting our child. Absurd as this sounds it was as if the clock was bringing us luck. I took it upon myself to give the flat a bright new lick of paint, and we hung the miraculous timepiece in pride of place in the wall. Although not to the taste of everybody, having the hours marked by the bright cheerful call of a cuckoo, it brought a gaiety to our previously drab existences. Work became pleasant, knowing that at the end of each day, I would be returning to my darling wife, the baby growing insde her, and our delightful clock, which – with some fear of ridicule, had become almost like a pet to us.
Christmas was a joyous affair, although we stayed put, knowing that quiet Christmases in future would be few and far between. It is fair to say that I doted on my wife during these times, happy was I at the prospect of becoming a father, and of our lives at last, being complete.

The first sign that things were not all they should be occurred late in February. Patricia awoke with severe abdominal pains and bade me call for a doctor at once. Having held her hand while silently praying to God, and everything else I could think of, help finally arrived.
Dr Bird was an almost comical looking man, and rarely can a name have fitted its subject so perfectly. Short and plump, with a nose that would not have looked out of place in an aviary, and a pronounced waddle to his gate. As he attended my wife, stooping over her to do whatever it is that doctors do, I could swear that a feather floated out from the back of his trousers – How it had come to be there I couldn’t begin to speculate, but it was certainly not in our room before his arrival, and it was far too large and coarse to have come from our soft downy bedding.
Dr Bird explained that he rarely made house calls but in this instance, given my wife’s medical history, he had deemed it safer to come at once rather than have her admitted to hospital.
The news was not bad, but rather worrying none the less. Although the baby was still extremely small, he felt that there was a strong possibility of a premature delivery. This he said was not particularly uncommon – especially in women of my wife’s age, and that it should have no adverse long-term effects on our child.

“ Nice to get it out early I should think” he said to me with a conspiratorial wink, which seemed rather an odd thing to say.

At that precise moment, our cuckoo clock sounded from the living room, which was also unusual as it was neither o’clock or half past the hour.

“ Ah yes” said Dr Bird, “ Soon be spring.” And with that, he departed.

Over the coming days it has to be said, the blissful tranquillity of recent times departed and was replaced by something altogether darker. An air of foreboding descended on our little nest, making us feel fractious and ill at ease. Patricia and I argued over trivial matters or sat in the corrosive silence of old, keeping our own counsel, and much troubled by our thoughts. To make matters worse, the clock seemed to be going haywire, cuckooing at the least expected times, as if deliberately mocking us, and causing my wife and I on several occasions to almost jump out of our skins
With neither the time, nor the inclination to repair the thing, we let it disrupt our lives until we could bear it no longer. Patricia became almost hysterical at times, claiming that it was watching her, as though the mechanical bird inside was some malevolent living being, perched high above us, observing our every movement and amusing itself by choosing the most frightening moments to spring out at us.

Of course I had read up on pregnancy and knew all about women becoming a bit irrational, and so I tried to humour her by playing along. I did my best to reassure her that it was just a clock and was utterly benign – if slightly annoying for its deteriorating timekeeping.

“ If we don’t wind the wretched thing Darling it won’t bother us.” I told her, which seemed to do the trick.

Then one night in March I returned home to find Patricia in a frightful state. She lay on the floor trembling and sobbing and insisted that without any winding the thing had sprung out at her several times during the afternoon. It would be a fair description to say that she was terrified.
Well of course I did what any caring husband would have done under the circumstances. Although doubting the veracity of these attacks and dismissing them as nothing more than the over-active imagination of a woman with too much time on her hands, my wife’s emotional state was enough to drive me to immediate action, and I elected to have done with the thing once and for all. I lifted the abominable machine down from the wall and took it to the kitchen where I spread out some sheets of newspaper, then proceeded to smash it to pieces with a hammer, a rolling pin, and whatever other implements came to hand to bring about its complete and utter destruction. The wooden casing splintered beneath my blows, then I wrenched out the cuckoo and struck it again and again until it was unrecognizable. When I had satisfied myself that the thing was beyond any further use, I gathered the springs, cogs and pulverized fragments together, wrapped and sealed the mess, then to end the matter, took the parcel out to the dustbins and cast it out forever.

The next few weeks were pleasant enough; tranquillity returned – more of less, and the weather improved to the point where an early spring seemed likely. Patricia was still troubled occasionally by the cuckooing noise, but I pointed out – as tactfully as I could, that she was imagining it due to a chemical imbalance brought about by her fecundity and our impending wonderful event, which was usually enough to put her at her ease.

Then, on a warm April morning, just as Dr Bird had predicted, Patricia -quite suddenly, and extremely prematurely, began her labour.

“ My baby’s coming, my baby’s coming.” she yelled. “ Fetch Dr Bird”.

Her waters had already broken and she lay in the pool of warm frothing liquid that had formed from her nether regions, succumbing to the rhythmic power of her bodily contractions.
I telephoned him at once, and to my immense relief, got through to him right away, and explained the situation. His jovial manner reassured me, as did the news that he was nearby and would come almost immediately. He told me to prepare for a home birth, and to guard the nest until his arrival.
While I set about boiling water, arranging towels and making my wife as comfortable as possible, Dr Bird as good as his word, arrived almost at once, bringing with him a midwife. I did not hear them ring the bell or enter the flat, but with all that was happening around me, did not think to question how they’d got in.

“ Good job for you we were in the area” was all he said, as I thanked him for being so prompt.

I kissed Patricia and mopped her brow, and we prepared for our new arrival.

“ Now you stay at this end old boy” said Dr Bird. “ We’ve got some business to attend to down there.”

Patricia’s contractions were strong and regular, and she gripped my arm with enormous strength. The midwife poked around inside her, then announced that the dilation was complete and that it was now time to push.
As the Dr and I yelled encouragement, Patricia began to push, summoning superhuman strength to deliver our heaven-sent child.

“Push” we shouted, and my dear beloved pushed. “ Push” we repeated, and again my darling wife obeyed.

“ It’s coming” squawked the midwife, “ It’s coming now.”

My wife and I clung to each other as the final effort began. I called out words of love and encouragement as she heaved and hoed, mad with the excitement of seeing our firstborn arrive…mad. With. The. Excitement. Of. Seeing. Our. Firstborn. arrive…

What erupted from Patricia was repulsive, obscene, and of the devil. Somewhere between a foetus and a bird, with razor sharp talons, and the blackest eyes this side of hell.

“ Cuckoo, cuckoo” it screeched. It shot out at enormous velocity on the spring of its umbilical chord, repeating its diabolical greeting, splashing blood and viscera, and spraying glutinous milky liquid from its beak – for that it what it was. It then shot back inside my wife, then out again to repeat the whole foul process.

What dying agonies Patricia must have experienced in those last terrible seconds, I can only begin to imagine. To my eternal shame the horror of the spectacle over-whelmed me, and I fell into a dead faint. When I came to, the doctor, his unspeakable accomplice, and my poor dear wife were gone. That is my story, and this is the end of it. Whether you believe me or not is of little purpose. My life ended with the first cuckoo of spring.

Warning sign - Subjective opinions coming up.
Move over Glasvegas, get a job The Grants and your brethren, there’s a new best band in Britain –best by a mile in fact – so you all might as well give up now and go back to grave digging.
In the great tradition of hailing the new greatest bands in Britain, The Bog Hogs have yet to record a note, set foot on a stage - or even finalize the line up and musical direction – but that isn’t stopping them…Come on NME, front cover now - see your circulation rocket. http://www.darlingbudsskullfkcrew.freeserve.co.uk/JJ72%20NME%20Janu%202001%20.jpg The Bog Hogs have top management, their own office signs, a box for secret Bog Hogs messages, and special Bog Hogs tea – collected from used teabags, placed in a plastic bottle and labelled ‘Bog Hogs’ Tea Dust – to share’. It looks exactly like some early seventies hippy band’s pot stash…memo to self – do not mention Hawkwind or The Pink Fairies to them. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=128134856 The first Bog Hogs bust can’t be far away – but rather than breaking these butterflies on the wheel, it’ll be the making of them – and there won’t be any Mars Bar innuendos - The Bog Hogs are allowed nothing more tooth-rotting than A Chomp – very reasonably priced at 15 pence, http://www.ciao.co.uk/Cadbury_Chomp__Review_5309437 or for special occasions, a Curly Whirly priced at upwards of 25p.
Before legions of drooling A and R men flood The Guardian offices, desperate to stave off their inevitable redundancy, professional ruin, alcoholism, prostitution, glue sniffing, ebaying and death, http://www.adnax.com/views/viewsoflondoncharacters02.htm let me just say that The Bog Hogs are not for sale – and if they were – you couldn’t afford them – Universal, Warner Bros and the thing that calls itself EMI…They are out of your grasp….for many years to come
The music – for it is this that ultimately they will be judged on…as well as this piece of hype, is an effervescent blend of Shampoo, Daphne and Celeste, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vgGLSJrj7AM Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites and Crass anarcho punk seditious incendiarism – in other words, the absolute Bee’s Bollocks. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GCF460eTEv0 Blue Kangaroo – set to the tune of The Star Spangled Banner – is more subversive than anything the Woodstock generation could come up with…well more scatological at least. In fact, add Derek And Clive to the Bog Hogs’ influence list – all the songs are scatological – except for a faithful and gorgeous cover of Eden and Catherine’s song from Barbie’s Christmas Carol. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=S3NRQfeNDt4 - sorry about that clip.
Except for a rather unfortunate admiration for Cheryl Cole - whom they believe lives in a swamp and exists on a diet of wasps – wonder who told them that? The Bog Hogs are perfect. Yes of course I have a personal stake in the group…but my dealings are transparent. The band is my seven year old daughter Ava and her best friend Emma-Lee – I’m supposed to be in them too, although I might be their Ian Stewart – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stewart_(musician) relegated by some sharp as shit manager to side of stage for coming up short in the looks department. At the time of writing, I am that sharp as shit manager…as well as guitarist, roadie, and responsible adult, but by the time you read this, I may have been replaced by Irving Azoff, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Azoff and languishing in the line up of Ava’s nanny’s band – The Rocking Monkeys….which A and R men, you are more than welcome to wave your chequebooks at – three bus-pass aged ladies hammering the piano, ukelele and swanny whistle…Hinge, Bracket, and the lady from Mouldy Old Dough. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3bFGfIAJRvo
In these uncertain times, we’ve all got to do what we can.

Like this morning’s grey sleet and drizzle, wiping out what’s left of London’s beautiful snow, news of Lux Interior’s untimely death robs the world of yet more precious magic.
Lux Interior, gone at sixty, from a ‘pre-existing hearth condition’ – whatever that means. To me – at least, his age does not seem relevant, because he always seemed ageless - like something from Edgar Allan Poe.
For those of you not familiar with Lux Interior – can there be anybody? he was the singer, writer and high priest of The Cramps – a popular musical combo from America who specialized in trashy rock’n’roll music, but did it with such style, wit and panache that they elevated it to a whole new art form. Along with his partner and high priestess, Poison Ivy, they formed rock’n’roll’s greatest couple. Anybody who witnessed a Cramps show – she, unimpeachably, gum chewingly cool, looking nonchalantly on while her husband exposed himself, thrust his genitalia at the audience while swallowing the microphone and imitating an ape, cannot have failed to be moved by this object lesson in marital harmony. It might have seemed a tad rude I suppose -had the music not been so bloody wonderful.
Well I’m a Human Fly – I spell F.L.Y
I say buzz buzz buzz and it’s just because
I’m an unzipped fly and I don’t know why
I’ve got 96 tears in 96 eyes
Is there a better lyric than this? Try this:
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up
I turn into a teenage – Goo-Goo Muck
I could go on – and will all day. Next up is The Cramps DVD – Live at The Napa State Mental Hospital – note to young people attracted to a career in music – Watch this and weep.
I was fortunate enough to witness The Cramps many times – memory blurs on exact numbers, but Hammersmith Palais seems to crop up quite a bit on my corrupted data disk. I last saw them at the Astoria in 2006 and they were still superb. Recently I came back to them in a big way, playing them to my child in an attempt to cleanse her X-Factor poisoned brain, and it worked a treat – especially The Cramps version of Hazil Adkins She Said – a back woodsman’s tale of getting loaded on moonshine and waking up with a monster in the bed - the chorus goes ‘ Oo ee aa aa’ -Faced with Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, Cheryl Cole was toast – a perfect argument as to why the Cramps should be taught in schools
But, enough maudlin early morning mourning…Let’s send our sympathy and love to Poison Ivy and celebrate the life and times of Erick Lee Purkisher – Lux Interior, as he flies off through the mist aboard the twin engine Cessna with that’s come for him, with Buddy, Richie and The Big Bopper. Lux Interior RIP - I spell R.I. P

A very Happy New Year to you all. As we leave 2008 – the year of the Rat, 2009, according to the Chinese Zodiac is the year of the Ox and specializes in producing people who are eccentric, bigoted, and easy to anger. My own predictions for the coming year – and before you scoff, remember that I forecast the economic meltdown at this time last year while Robert Peston was still blowing a party whistle and wearing a paper hat, are as follows:
Fashion will see a return to popularity of the Donkey jacket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_jacket . Once favoured by labour leaders, the unemployed, and students, these eminently practical garments are going to fly off the shelves. Many will be adorned with the logo ‘Community Payback’ and may be given free by local councils as a reward to their young for acts of bravery.
The blanket will become a popular item – you’ll see a lot of people wrapped in these, sleeping in doorways.
Hirsuteness will make a comeback, for both ladies and gentlemen. Finicky personal grooming will re replaced by rough beards, sideburns and comb-overs for the gents, http://www.holytaco.com/combover-awesomely-bad-photo-gallery and a more natural look for the ladies. Brazilians and Hollywoods will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and nail and spray-on tanning parlours will soon seem as quaint as barbershop surgeons and pick ‘n’ mix counters.
Culturally, community singing is heading for a town square near you. A perfect way to pass an impoverished evening, adorned in the very latest donkey jacket fashions, warmed by a burning brazier and fed with potatoes from the public purse.
The smoking ban will be lifted in a futile attempt to get people back into pubs, but it will be to no avail. Temperance movements will rule the day, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REtemperance.htm and those unable to abandon the booze will make their own – all that’s required is water, sugar, yeast and some nettles. http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/
The Grey squirrel will become extinct by the autumn, following Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s popularization of squirrel stew. This will lead to a return of the red squirrel, and a brief swell of national pride…until people start eating them as well.
The economy will fragment into regional currencies, almost worthless against the euro, but up on the dollar. House builders will become ever more creative in their attempts to re-ignite the property market, offering alluring incentives such as visits to prostitutes for life…which will fail.
Vince Cable will, once again, be the man to watch in politics, until a newspaper accidentally prints his picture next to one of Bernard Madoff and their resemblance leads to an investigation showing them to be brothers who cooked up the whole economic crisis between them. http://www.finfacts.ie/artman/uploads/2/madoff_SEC_dec122008.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2007/12/20/CableMARTINARGLES192.jpg

The death of Margaret Thatcher will be greeted with wild celebrations, but lead to the unfortunate lynching of a man in Newcastle for putting a handbag and a giant blue M and S suit on the Angel of the North http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2006/12/05/angel460.jpg and calling it the Iron Lady. Her fun-filled funeral will be marked by a national holiday, which due to enormous unemployment will be rather unnecessary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEq-ImGWJ0
Natural Disasters. Nothing specific in the tea-leaves, just more of the same on-going global calamity. Carbon conscience will quietly recede as people are forced to burn anything they can get their hands on.
Boris Johnson will accidentally dye his hair raven-black.
Music will see the resurgence of the comedy record, Salvation Army bands, and the Wurlitzer Organ http://www.atos-london.freeserve.co.uk/ . Audiences will be less demanding, and will respond well to whistles, funny accents and rude noises; the X-Factor will be won by a priest.
Black Box Recorder will enjoy a very brief return to popularity, cut tragically short by the band being blown to pieces on stage by a cell of ex Brit-Poppers - aggrieved at their portrayal in Luke Haines’s excellent forthcoming book Bad Vibes http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Vibes-Britpop-Part-Downfall/dp/0434018465 - with a device intended only for him, but sadly over-estimating the size of the venue…Hyde Park it aint.
Finally, and I know I predicted this last year, spiritualism looks set to return to polite parlours up and down the country. Receiving advice from the dead will be seen as no more insane than seeking guidance from a financial advisor. http://www.heritagecentermuseum.com/exhibitions/permanent/images/QTMuseumSample.jpg Really finally, Jonathan Ross will be back in January.

Pop Music’s Holy Cows

If reports are true, a lovely elderly silver haired Canadian gentleman is trying out the funfair rides, and surveying the zoo at his recently purchased retirement home, The Neverland Ranch. http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2731240/Michael-Jackson-has-sold-his-Neverland-Ranch.html Pop’s hottest septuagenarian, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNu8m6212YM somewhat bemused by this late turn of good fortune, and well out of earshot of the braying musical librarians claiming Hallelujah has become Halitosis, can sleep easy tonight – and all his future nights, knowing that he has achieved what all songwriters dream of; creating a song that transcends all genres and styles, and can not be murdered – however hard the world might try – and it has tried.
Amazingly, I think Alexandra Burke has done a fantastic version of Hallelujah, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t-wrtwe69I achieving the very special quality of actually getting inside the song - every bit as convincingly as John Cale http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckbdLVX736U or Jeff Buckley ever did, and now it belongs to everyone, from the highest brow musical aesthetes, to the people whose next musical purchase will be Grandma We Love You by O-win K-Wig vs Dizzee Rascal’s Baseball Bat. http://www.nme.com/news/dizzee-rascal/41631 ( Note to musical librarians - the horde have caught up – don’t begrudge them – you had him for forty years…think in historical terms now – the next thousand years.)
It will keep A Fairy Tale in New York from the top spot yet again, which to my mind is a good thing – The British public got it right first time round with The Pet Shop Boys’ fabulous Presley cover, and no amount of nostalgic hand-wringing will change that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLDcQbe5GO8
I hadn’t intended to spray vitriol when I came home from the Colony Room’s 60th and final birthday celebration tonight, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRBfPCDgjvk but what can you do? Oxford Street, violent drunks, office parties, vomiting teenagers, sweaty drug dealers, last minute shopping…it puts one in a bad mood. What I had been pondering though, was, what other sacred cows are there in the pop canon whose covering would evoke such hostile reactions from their supposed custodians? Rolf Harris’s A Stairway To Heaven http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayzhJKy8H_A&feature=related didn’t sit well with Zeppelin fans – for obvious reasons, although there is – to my mind, a certain naive integrity to it – which I think would have amused Plant – if not Page. Madonna murdered American Pie, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6uEjifqTaI but I imagine Don McLean wasn’t complaining too much. My own musical outfit aren’t entirely innocent when it comes to re-imagining the works of others, having improved on Althea and Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iD_qZ3hTDo and Brel/Terry Jacks’ Seasons In The Sun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS1jrTNJRMA Our Reggae classic was recently used on BBC2’s History Of Fashion documentary – and my phone rang with congratulatory calls – I was delighted until I realized that poor old BBR wouldn’t receive a thin dime – and quite rightly so – I suppose.
Not meaning to get maudlin again, but the one cover version that does bring a tear to my eyes is another X-Factor classic -Without You by Badfinger – Mariah Carey’s piece de resistance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyBS_1vGwpU Pete Ham and Tom Evans’s doomed love classic, destined to rake in billions, after both its writers were dead – both by their own hand, having suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – in the shape of bent manager, Mafiosi bag-man Stan Polley. To me, this song now reeks of death, desperation and awful aching sadness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badfinger The comfort with Hallelujah is that its writer is still – very much alive…and judging by the performances witnessed this year, just this-side of early middle age.
Unless Leonard Cohen has been royally diddled once again, his coffers are going to swell substantially thanks to the wonderfully Stax-like named Alexandra Burke. http://www.soulsvilleusa.com/ He might even be kicking himself that he needn’t have trawled round the other-side of intimacy circuit quite so much this year – surely a man who either lived a life of simplicity on a Greek island, http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/hydra2.html or up a hill in California doesn’t need that much – unless he’s got more dependents than Screaming Jay Hawkins of course… http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/WolfFiles/Story?id=94216&page=1 which if the women I know are anything to go by, he’d certainly be capable of quite quickly.
Happy Hanukkah Leonard- it’s been your year.
Now, shall we give Simon Cowell a list of the songs for next year - that he’s not allowed within a thousand feet of…in the hope that he’ll do one – and get us all bitching again?

Squat Rock

As winter starts to bite, I’ve been noticing some non-seasonal changes to my leafy London neighbourhood. With Robert Peston’s grim predictions fast becoming reality, boards and security grills are going up over the doors and windows of the no longer ‘soon-to-be redeveloped’ millionaire pads, and the chintzy shops set to cater for them, leaving hermetically sealed tombs of affluence – which I hope will soon be opened. Now that slump singed-snouts have temporarily abandoned the trough – there is a lot of prime real-estate suddenly re-available in London – a golden opportunity for a return to bohemia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting

The laws on squatting are complicated, http://www.squatter.org.uk/ but the basic premise is that if a building is unoccupied and you can get in without a forced entry, you can stay there as long as you don’t wreck it, and as long as you push off pronto once an eviction notice is served. Often this doesn’t happen for months, even years. Occasionally the owners agree to let the squatters stay as free caretakers. In a few middle-England horrifying cases, squatters have become the legal owners of properties because nobody ever bothered to challenge them. Whether they went on to expand their portfolios and become property magnates in the Dragon’s Den is less well known.
The Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1023513/Councils-squatters-break-in.html would have us believe that squatters would occupy your pebble-dashed semi the minute you nipped out for a copy of Country Life. It once occupied the suburbia-terrifying role now taken by asylum seekers - my school friend’s mum wouldn’t let him come out collecting for Shelter with me because they supported squatting…he came anyway – coz we woz punks maaan! Anyway, now that asylum seekers are seeking asylum away from this land of bugger-all opportunity, it’s time for the squatters to make a return – otherwise the Daily Mail could go bust.

Before wealth and fame caterpaulted me onto the property ladder that poverty and obscurity have since caterpaulted me off, I lived in squats for several years. These were soon to be demolished flats near Vauxhall, and the legendary Bonnington Square
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20030817/ai_n12742210 ; vibrant communities inhabited by artists, writers, bands, alternative types, and occasionally people with real jobs. The common perception of acres of feckless hippies, junkies and escaped murderers is only partly true. Many co-squattees may well now read – or write for The Guardian. My neighbours at the time, were members of Wire http://www.pinkflag.com/ , The Band Of Holy Joy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7mws1Xb_yQ , even the dreaded U2 had a connection to the area. Without the squats of central London, it is unlikely that any of the great Antipodean bands – The Birthday Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birthday_Party_(band) , The Scientists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scientists or The Triffids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triffids would have hung around the capital for more than a few days…they weren’t your Earl’s Court types. The Sex Pistols spent much of their ascendance squatting in Hampstead http://www.retrotogo.com/2007/10/for-sale-hampst.html –a blue plaque is now in the offing. The only band to really ruffle the establishment – Crass, used to play in abandoned buildings and plough any profits back into anarchist organizations…imagine not being in it for the money? Terrifying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crass
Without encouraging anybody to break the law, I’d like to see a return to organized squatting – it’s like property developing on a budget. Abandoned Woolworth’s MFIs, and Foxtons, would make fabulous high street community centres, youth clubs, music venues or art galleries – because left empty they’ll become crack dens.
Anyway, I hope I’m not being too flippant – that’s not the intention. What’s happening now to people’s homes and jobs…except bankers and speculators, is appalling, and I am only focusing on a tiny part of the situation. There is some toughening up to be done, that’s inescapable, but so far, everybody I know seems strangely energized by the prospect…even me. The gentrification of whole postal areas, http://members.lycos.co.uk/gentrification/whatisgent.html and the pricing out of all but the most fortunate, looks set to reverse. Mind you, at the first site of a didgeridoo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QyL1O6141g I’ll arrest the buggers myself.

Back in the days of free-ish rail travel, a young man in Berkshire could tell his mother that he was nipping out for a few hours on a Friday evening, board a train to Reading using his one-stop school travel-card, bunk an HST to Paddington, http://www.whitstablepier.com/smr/pictures/hst_ready_to_go.jpg and be at the University of London student union to witness the finest bands known to humanity, before reversing the journey and returning home just around midnight, reeking of beer, cigarettes, and musical enlightenment.

Rough Trade Records, who are celebrating thirty years, put on fantastic gigs practically from birth. My favourite band at the time was The Swell Maps, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGlIki2vq5w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YweKU8ckalk&feature=related and it was primarily to see them that I made the Friday dash to ULU. Their first three singles - Read About Seymour, Dresden Style and Let’s Build A Car more than made up for having been too young to catch The Sex Pistols. The fact that band members Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks ( RIP ) served behind the counter at the Rough Trade shop was a revelation as well. Pop stars didn’t have to be rich…and they worked during the day – something I still find shocking. I had a bit of a thing for The Raincoats – I believe it’s called a crush. They worked at the shop as well, and I bought Fairytale In The Supermarket more than once..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZJt56z5Ywc&feature=related
While waiting at ULU for the Swell Maps, Cult Figures or Raincoats to take the stage, I stood patiently, open-mindedly absorbing exotic new music. I was a bit confused by the white men with dreadlocks and robes playing heavy dub, but their name Scritti Politti sounded promising. Dr Mix And The Remix – French Teddy Boys playing sheet metal Stooges covers over a drum machine and rolling on the ground, was right up my street.
Perhaps these days, Rough Trade is best known as the home of The Smiths, The Libertines and The Strokes, successful acts which by themselves could give the impression of a cunning business plan, but it’s the label’s idiosyncrasies, minor gems and one-offs which makes Rough Trade so special. Stuff without a cat in hell’s chance of making money, but containing strange brilliance – remember the Kleenex ep, or the mighty Disco Inferno? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkoB6tPygv0 For every Long Blondes, there’ll be a Hidden Cameras – Canadian gay folk church music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pwnRYcn1Y&feature=related
Where else would British Sea Power be at home, or Jarvis Cocker get to change his name to Darren Spooner and release an electro record called A Heavy Nite with Relaxed Muscle?
For a label started on a shoestring, which has often held on by a thread, Rough Trade has made it to thirty, and provided great musical entertainment and education - an unlikely British Institution. People have got gongs for less. http://www.royalinsight.gov.uk/output/Page4877.asp
Let’s Face The

Male Stripper – Man To Man

Having missed out on the wonderfully vibrant, utterly debauched and musically thrilling gay scene of New York in the late nineteen seventies and early eighties http://www.bitterqueen.typepad.com/ - by dint of age, location, and a rather parochial heterosexual streak which has dogged me ever since, I didn’t come across Male Stripper by Man to Man until hearing it at The Limelight Club in London in 1986, just prior to its UK release in the spring on 1987.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP4tj7mdLdU
Produced by the genius electro and hip hop pioneer Man Parrish, http://www.manparrish.com/biography/ it is three and a half minutes of hi-energy perfection ( the seven inch version ), made at the cutting edge of technology, when drum machines and sequencing were still a dark art, yet it is strangely, to me at least, one of the finest rock’n’roll songs of all time. Miki and Paul Zone – Man to Man, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_To_Man were straight out of Brooklyn, two poster boys - one a Tom of Finland Adonis http://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/ – check the video, when he sings “ Built like a truck, I’d bump for a buck” he’s not boasting, the other, perfect in seedy S and M leathers and mirror shades – like Lou Reed at his finest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMsGvYzedjA&feature=related
When I first heard it, and saw them perform, it really was a eureka moment. Addicted to the past greats of New York bohemian art sleaze – The Velvets, The New York Dolls, Man To Man were a revelation. Like a gay Suicide http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WqOMPakGCg&feature=related – even though Alan Vega and Martin Rev were fairly homo-erotic anyway, and no slouches in the electronics department, Male Stripper was completely on the money and up to date. The main loop of the song is a sequenced vocoder’d voice repeating “ I was a male stripper in a go-go bar”, the verses are wry confessionals, delivered with perfect Noo Yawk twang, and the chorus explodes like a head full of poppers.
Anyway, the reason for this blog is that this week’s Guardian pick a song section is about nightclubs, and not one person – so far, has mentioned this wonderful record. It’s a classic – THE classic. You don’t have to be an amyl-nitrate soaked handle-bar moustached leather cruiser to know it, it was a huge hit. Man Parrish started as a DJ at Studio 54, and worked with the greats – Klaus Nomi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2_mPkV4Ri8 and Cherry Vanilla, then went on to work with Michael Jackson, Chrystal Waters – La da di la da da – She’s Homeless, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaIGPlfH_rs Boy George, and almost me…
When I signed to Polydor in 1988, my plan was to record with him in New York, a Hi NRG and noise guitar album. My A and R man wasn’t overly keen, but Man Parrish was contacted and seemed up for the task. A trans-Atlantic phone call from the Polydor office was scheduled so we could talk it through. Sadly, the great man was out – although his answering machine message was hysterical. The A and R man, sensing that it was more the recording location than the producer I was after, offered three months at Electric Lady Studios http://www.electricladystudios.com/ – if I went with the bloke who’d just done the Birmingham Heavy metal band Magnum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D4IM56SZh0&feature=related Well what would you do?
The record I ended up making was rather different to a wild electro hi-energy masterpiece I had in mind, but very well produced.
Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now, but as this site is for the more discerning and open-minded musical explorer, check out Male Stripper by Man To Man…then vote for it. Long before Xenomania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenomania tamed the dancefloor, long before Kylie became the soft gay sweetheart who could charm old and young alike, leather men and muscle men who had an awful lot of sex, took immense quantities of drugs http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/07/meth-and-gay-se.html , and could make the most fantastic records with sequenced beats ruled the earth.

Let’s Face The Music and Dance

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that things are looking distinctly shaky in money land, and to quote the great Irving Berlin -There May be Trouble Ahead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM_oku87vso
Perhaps now is the time - while there is still an internet, and we’re not too busy putting our backs to the land growing potatoes, to rediscover some of the songs from the last Great Depression, and speculate about the music that could see us through our own unfolding disaster.
The most famous of all Depression era songs is Bing Crosby’s
Brother Can You Spare A Dime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU
“They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?”
NB. George Michael has covered this song.

However, not all popular music from the era of poverty, mass unemployment, starvation, forced migration and hunger marches was this bleak, - quite the opposite in fact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG-wjkB7gXM&feature=related
Faced with a set of circumstances anathema to most people, the Great Depression was an ideal environment for songwriters to work in. The brief was simple, to create magical little respites from the awfulness of reality that allowed people to laugh and dream - none of this existential angst and keeping it real nonsense. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xTTWHMCXdg

Of course, with the collapse of the economy – or as analysts were so recently calling it – the correction in the markets, there is almost certain to be a correction in pop music as well. For better or worse, many bands will go to the wall as the bubble bursts and public appetites change. Who do you think will survive, and who will crash? Which bands have enough substance, and which are destined to become toxic, sub-prime footnotes from the roaring-noughties?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHijqKBWAFw

Hey ho – so what to do with these…um…documents? Bin them and hope nobody ever mentions them again…or re-visit the past like a time traveller, post them on i-Tunes and perch upon the village fete ducking stool for any curious late-night drunks to knock me into the water…at 79p a throw. ( Like the consummate whore I am) I’ve plumped for the i-Tunes option. Even though many of the songs are cringe-worthy, there are a few diamonds among the car crashes, and perhaps the odd semi-precious stone… I’d certainly advise you to keep a bucket handy.

Anyway, for anybody with a strong stomach and your mum’s i-Tunes password, you could do worse than downloading my early back catalogue…not sure how much worse though. It’s available from 26th November. There won’t be any more reminders.

“How would you like it if it suddenly became fashionable for scrubbing brushes to be made from little girls’ arms, and hunters chased you?” She considered this for a moment.

“I’d keep my door shut”.

Exhausted by her argument I told her that if she felt the same way in four years – when she’s ten, she could have it, but I was sure that by then she would feel better disposed towards the animal kingdom, and ashamed for ever having coveted it.

“But that’s why you should give it to me now daddy. I’ll hate it then and I won’t want it.”

I am the victim of a hoax – a gullible buffoon, taken in and played by a master of chicanery. A couple of weeks ago, I was accosted in the street by a young man whose face was a bloody mess; somebody had obviously beaten the crap out of him. His eyes were swollen and the bridge of his nose was flattened and oozing an alarming amount of blood. Although drunk, baseball cap wearing, and almost certainly a pain in the arse, even in the innocence of sleep, he commanded the benefit of the doubt, and a degree of sympathy because of the gravity of his injuries – and I’m a sucker for people crying. Needless to say he required money, but this was to get home. Street instinct made me certain that he was a horrible little shit who’d visited this misfortune upon himself - a nuisance who had fallen foul of even nastier people whose shit-patch he’d trespassed onto, but even so – he was quite badly hurt, apparently vulnerable – and just possibly, if he got home in one piece, capable of mending his ways. Some humanity was called for, along with some cash. Luckily, I was returning from the….oh alright then - off-license, and had little left to give. I did offer to drive him to hospital or call the police and wait with him until they arrived. Pathetic as he was, he rejected my Good Samaritan offers and staggered off in search of richer pickings.

A week ago, the same whining voice beseeched me for financial assistance - he’d been in the wars again. Actually, he’d yanked off the money-scab so he could leak some more horrorshow cash-inducing krovvy - I’ve come over all Clockwork Orange I’m afraid. file:///Users/johnmoore/Desktop/A%20Clockwork%20Orange%20-%20Glossary%20of%20NADSAT%20Language.webarchive
I should have given this stinking pretend-leper – weeping like a devotchka, a good tolchock in the yarbles for his troubles, but humanity – and the ever-present fear of a good stabbing stood in the way. He was at it again last night – horrifying passers-by with his cunning stunt and making fools of us all. I don’t know how much he’s making from mutilating his face on a regular basis, or what reality-negating, bum-smuggled panacea he’s frittering his blood money on – although I could make an educated guess.
Perhaps he’s making a fortune, like The Man With The Twisted Lip (a Sherlock Holmes story) and on retirement will hire plastic surgeons to remodel his features at a Swiss clinic before entering the world of legitimate commerce.
As November’s 24/7 blitz bursts above the city’s rooftops and brown-field sites – once referred to as back gardens, I can’t help thinking - If crack could speak…