American Fez

The Bloody Assizes

Workmen are erecting enormous grids of scaffold in Copley Place at the moment. But, alas, it is not the variety of scaffold from which miscreants are hung by the neck until they are dead; which is a shame, since I have a long list of candidates for the gallows that I would have liked to submit to the relevant authorities were the scaffolding being built with that particular type of punishment in mind.
No. It seems that the scaffolding is taking the shape of several television camera gantry towers, and that, or so I am told, these video machines will be recording certain words and emotions that John Kerry wishes to address to assembled crowds at some point in the very near future.
But I could have been misinformed about that.

Why Blogs Suck

... because there is some robotic, conceited bore calling himself EditorialPundit or something who only writes one sentence per post on his blog, linking to yet another tedious, banal, idiotic news story about Bush wiping his nose on his hands or Kerry kissing Ronald MacDonald, but he still gets forty odd comments every time, not to mention being linked to by all the other inane pundit zero-personality blogs that only serve to perpetuate this current climate of non-opinion and disposable culture that we are forced to endure.
And yet many of Pepys' People (see my links over on your left, and many many others I don't even know about yet) write reams and reams of original and interesting sentences and only ever receive one or two comments at best. Tops! Max!
Once again quality is lost in the filthy folds of that stinking, threadbare winding-sheet woven from the faded and stained rags of consensus mind blogs and consensus mind blog readers.
This is why blogs suck.

Sink News

Ah there you are. Sorry I missed you before, I had just stepped out for a minute. I was leaving demanding comments on the Jockson's weblog. Anyway, seems that they wash their own dishes over there. Takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose.
I personally have never washed a single dish in my entire life. My mother used to deal with them in the early days, and then after I fired her I found some poor, unfortunate female roomate to perform all those tiresome scrubbing and wiping chores for me.
In more recent times, however, I have hired a Mexican maid to take care of the dirty dish issue. Although we have some communication problems at times.

"Do the dishes."

"No. I vacuum and dust only."

"Well vacuum and dust the dishes, then. As long as they get cleaned I'm not too fussy about the methods you employ."

"I no touch dish in sink. I am a maid not a washer. I vacuum and dust your apartment."

At which point, of course, I'm forced to remove the dishes from the kitchen and throw them all over the living room floor: "Okay. So now you vacuum and dust my apartment. Yes?"

I'm afraid it's all rather Sergio Leone. Still, it's better than doing the dirty work myself. That's unheard of.

Intellectual Rigor Mortis

One of the more important and pressing of the cultural problems caused by the decline of intellectual standards in contemporary America is that nobody will understand what my Hallowe'en costume is supposed to be.
I am thinking of attending the functions I have been invited to dressed as "Portrait of a Man with Red Hair", Walpole's Jekyll and Hyde-esque novel, which I think has excellent Hallowe'en potential if only I could be certain that the other party guests had read the book as thoroughly as I have - and I just can't make that assumption. Which leaves me with my other idea: "Evelyn Waugh Entering The Roman Church After Confessing His Latent Homosexuality." But I fear that Enoch Soames would never speak to me again should I celebrate the Samhain season in such a manner.

Make You Very Crossword

Has anyone tried downloading the Spectator crossword in PDF format yet? The grid prints out in such a splodgey fashion that it's virtually unreadable; like trying to solve a Rorschach Ink Blot Test.

You Are What You Eat

I spent several minutes this afternoon standing in line at the bank with a sinewy young woman whose skin tight tee-shirt featured the exhortation "Eat Pussy" plastered over the front of the garment in a balloonish, glittering pink, sans serif typeface. The bank was quite busy as usual and - as usual - there were only two cashiers working.
The first was a prim, efficient, stone-faced and stone-haired elderly woman who looked as though she had been refusing to cash checks there since before the invention of paper money.
And the second was a spruce, still well-tanned guy in his early twenties, who - it seemed to me at least - was the sort of guy who, while enthusiastically endorsing the eating of pussy by others, would probably not be inclined to partake in such an exotic repast himself.
Undoubtedly the woman in line with me was hoping that when her turn came she would be called by the young man, because she kept glancing nervously in his direction.
Alas, her prayers were not answered and such an eventuality did not come to pass. So I watched her shuffle sullenly off, arms folded over the slogan printed covering her chest, towards the desk from behind which the stern, implacable, elderly woman laid down the banking laws, where, I hoped, another sort of "pussy" devouring would occur.

Stargazing

Besides the Boston Red Sox inspired champagne corks creating brand new constellations in the celestial sphere, there was a total lunar eclipse in last night's sky. And very interesting it was too, although from my vantage point in the polluted atmosphere of the industrial North East it looked as if someone were merely drawing a filthy brown veil over the moon in slow motion.
For some reason, such anti-climatic events in the firmament always remind me of the time my father made me order Stargazey Pie while dining at a novelty restaurant many years ago when I was still a very small boy.
It is an extremely bizarre dish comprised of herrings baked into the crust with the heads poking out of the pie surface so that their big bulbous fish eyes are staring up at the canopy of heaven. My father always sincerely believed that, since we neither hunted nor gathered the quarry ourselves anymore, both surf and turf should always shock their respective consumers: memory has mercifully blocked out the meat concoction my father requested from that strange kitchen.

The Voice of Radio Free Nothon Oireland

Hollo. Wulcame bock. Thot wos the Jockson Foive and thoy wos sungon "Shock Yer Buddy": sunds loike the wok o' the Dovol to shock yer buddy loike thot, bott the Jocksons are a gud-foorin' fommalie, esposhally yer man Joormeen Jockson who oi mot in Bolfost lost munth. Ot layst he sod he wos Joormeen Jockson bot oi con nivar toll. Onnywe, Gud bloss hom .. ond noo: the laytost frum Potter Gobril ... Slodgehommer!

(Oh my God I am cracking myself up here. I'm so sorry. That's the last of it. Normal service will resume tomorrow)

Neighbors From Hell

Life in Cranmerville has changed considerably ever since Paul and Mary Papist moved in next door.
They arrived last October. It was a typical Schism Street weekend afternoon. I remember the occasion well as I was out in the backyard raking some fallen leaves for a bonfire (foreshadowing, eh!) when their moving van pulled up. The furniture removed from the van was extremely ornate - mostly continental design, my wife informed me - with scarlet fabric much in evidence. Some of the pieces looked rather disturbing, I must admit, particularly the appliances marked "rack" and "thumbscrews", and I was relieved to see them immediately taken down into the basement.
After most of the furniture had been moved inside, a small car with a sort of bubble shaped glass roof appeared, and two figures emerged from it dressed in flowing scarlet robes and fancy-style skull caps. This pair were, I was later to discover, Mr. and Mrs. Papist themselves.
I waved hello to them, and they shook this weird metal orb thing on a chain at me with smoke coming out of it. "Funny smell," I thought, "Hope their cooking isn't as bad."
Let them settle in, we thought, then we'll invite them around to one of our "Pin the Ninety Five Theses on the Donkey Fun nights."
However, they beat us to the punch and invited us to one of their "at homes": you know the sort of thing, wine with crackers and cheese, except the Papists didn't serve any cheese.
My wife seemed to get along with them quite well, and before too long she was always talking to me about our new neighbors, providing me the latest Papist news when I came home from work: the Papists this and the Papists that blah blah blah. Soon it was trips to the movies with the Papists; joint backyard barbecues with the Papists; sponsoring the Papists for their Mother Theresa Leper-a-thon; weekend vacation getaways to Lourdes with the Papists; even golf lessons with the Papists.
And then horror of horrors, I return from an expedition to the hardware store and my wife is in the kitchen with Mary Papist: "Luther" she hoots, "You'll never guess, but the Papists are putting in a pool!"
I decided that enough was enough ... "Right!" I said to myself "Where's my stake, er, I mean my rake?" ...

Five Masterpieces of Modern Humor

Here are five humorous creations from relatively modern times that made me laugh out loud. It is interesting to note that the American contributions are written or drawn, whereas the two British selections are performed comedy. Interesting. Besides Craig Brown and the late Auberon Waugh (much funnier than his homosexual father), I can't think of any British writer of humorous prose whose work hits the heights of Donald Barthelme or Ian Frazier.
Anyway, here is the list:

1. The School by Donald Barthelme

I'm a big fan of big Don B., especially his works with collage. In this short story a junior high class attempts to keep pet animals. They all die. Hilarious. Should be available in any anthology of Barthelme's short fiction.

2. Here Comes The Judge by Peter Cook.

Recording of Cook's satirical version of the judge's statement to the jury - "You are now to retire, as indeed should I" - during the murder trial of the British Liberal Party leader and M.P Jeremy Thorpe. You might want to read Auberon Waugh's book on the whole case prior to listening so you have some bacground: "A self-confessed player of the pink oboe".
I have this on twelve-inch vinyl and absolutely no idea how you can get hold of a copy.

3. Brandy By Firelight by Ian Frazier.

Frazier attempts to justify the novelistic sentence, "she had a laugh like brandy by firelight." Consequently, different vintages of brandy are placed beside fires created from different sources, such as "damp mattress slung over gas heater", to see what kind of laugh is produced. Very funny. I think this is published in Frazier's Coyote vs Acme. Alas, Frazier hasn't written anything this good for quite some time. In fact, only the other day I used the phrase "early Frazier" in a conversation about humorous prose.

4. League of Gentlemen, "Christmas Special: the vet sequence"

The steam locomotive puffs its way along the tracks of Edwardian England. The Railway Children in thier frocks and sailor suits run across grassy hillsides to wave ecitedly at the train as it passes by. Alas the children are greeted by the sight of a naked backside mooning them through one of the windows.
I saw this on a pirated BBC, video standard converted VHS tape. It was damned funny too.

5. Cartoons by BEK.

Stoic, grim, often bewildered, thickly-outlined people and beasts confront the world and its strangeness.
Printed in the New Yorker every week and often the only thing in there worth looking at.

Guest Blogger: The Rovrond Onion Payslie

The Jocksons are domnod Rummen Cothlocks in league with the Dovol, Sehtonne homsolf who walks the Oth calling homsolf the Paype. May they all rut in Holl.

The views expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Stephenesque or his subsideries, since we rather like the Jocksons a lot, even if they are domnod to etonnol dumnayshun. Furthermore, we would like to say a quick "hollo" to all our freinds in Nothon Oirelond.
You know I love you all really.

Medieval Dinner

Rotisserie chicken is an execution of meat. Basted instead of flooged, it makes no odds, the condemned meal is skewered on its gibbet and paraded in the marketplace like a common criminal: an innocent bird tortured and condemned o'er spit and pyre for the cruel pleasures of that Grand Culinary Inquisition comprised of spiteful chef and salivating diner. Which is fine by me because I quite like a bit of rotisserie chicken every now and then.

Draconian Thought For The Day

If the old Athenian lawgiver were alive today he would pass extremely severe sentences on all those pundits who whine there is too much violence on television. Indeed he would oh yes indeed. In fact Draco would proclaim, and rightly so, that there is actually too much television on television.
Poised on his plinth like a champion discus thrower, Draco, elegantly folding his Himation around his powerful body, would declare that television broadcasts should be restricted to a single episode of Why You Must Do What I Say (presented by your cruel but fair host, Stephenesque "essential viewing") shown twice every day at lunch and dinner, then we would all be better off.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the matter. That, my friends, should be the law. And transgression of the law should be punishable by particularly painful and public execution in the Agora.

Unconstructed Idea Needs Help. Apply Within.

I've been trawling this possibility along the idea bed down deep in the dark, murky depths of my brain ocean for some time and haven't caught anything yet.
It's something about a revolutionary dove that flies around calling out "coup! coup!" He carries a booby trapped olive branch in his beak and wears a Che-type beret.
Obviously would work well as some sort of editorial cartoon. Oh well.

What Is A Pundit?

It's a good question: What is a pundit?
Well, generally speaking, in my experience at least, a pundit is an arrogant, sanctimonious magpie of opinion whose views change depending on the prevailing wind from whatever hot-air source the pundit thinks it is fashionable to steal from at any given moment. A pundit is always wrong. He is not reliable. He is not loyal. He has no passions worthy of the name. He trades ideas, faiths, hopes, and fears like a corrupt broker grandstanding at the most cynical of stock markets.
A pundit is the quintessential bore. He will not shut up his stupid, repulsive mouth nor the tedious stream of inane, banal, pithy and desperate platitudes that issue forth from it like a foaming torrent of diseased and stinking egotistical bile.
A pundit is the garbageman of truth. Ye shall know him by his sweaty palms.
In fact, a pundit is rather like one of those colorful pieces of paper called "stickies" that associates leave plaster to your computer screen with worthless information scrawled on them. A pundit - like a stickie - should be removed immediately, scrunched up into a ball, and thrown in to the nearest trash can as quickly as possible.
The thought pollution of punditry is what is wrong with everything; especially the blogosphere, which will one day soon become uninhabitable because of it.
You have been warned.

Vegetables That Should Never See The Inside Of A Cooking Pot

Number One: The Eggplant

They call Deadly Nighshade the "Devil's Cherries", but it is a description that could easily apply to Eggplants also.
Indeed, this disgusting vegetable - often adopting the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing disguise of Aubergine - has many other properties in common with that poisonous flower.
For instance, both look reasonably attractive in their natural state, yet when stewed in the frying pans of the unwary both are suddenly transformed by black arts into the bowel evacuations of Satan.
Eggplant = Slow Death By Occult Corrosion of the Stomach.
Do I make myself clear?
Should your wife or child happen to be innocently browsing the fresh produce at your local greengrocer, and, bewitched by the evil enchantments of the misgotten hunchbacked crone who haunts the fetid stench of the eggplant aisle, they are led astray into that hideous place that is shunned by daylight and all good Christian chefs, and there, forced by the foul charms of dark terrible incantations, they are tricked by evil powers into the wretched purchase of an eggplant ...
.... Look, I just don't like them, okay.

Five Film Soundtrack Albums Everyone Should Own

Inspired by my weekends purchase of the ultra-sugary and chocolates-and-flowers romanticism of Yo Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone, I have consequently assembled a list of five great film score albums that should enliven everyone's home this wintry season. Relive and re-enact the epic scenes of classic cinema in the comfort of your own home. I do.

1. Contempt (Les Mepris)
The film is pretty and colorful, but yet actually rather boring. Fortunately the glorious images of the nude Brigitte Bardot in her prime make it all, er, bearable, and these fabulous images are easily conjured to mind again and again by Georges Delerue's repetitive yet strangely moving score. This an import CD so it will cost you, but the naked Brigitte evocation is worth every penny (disclaimer: obviously you have to watch the film first).

2. Fellini Rota Anthology
Nino Rota's brilliant music written for the films of Fellini. Relive your favorite bits of La Strada, Roma, La Dolce Vita, 8.5 and other great Fellini classics while driving along in your car! Another import CD. Oh well, you have to pay for quality.

3. Vampyros Lesbos
The Six Wisdoms of Aspasia? Of course. This is actually a compilation of soundtracks for films by the weirdo film director Jess Franco. The full title of the CD is "Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party".
How can you go wrong?

4. James Bond Themes
Everyone should have a compilation of James Bond themes, especially if you are a man. There are quite a few to choose from.

5. Yo Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone
I threw this in because I am enjoying it so much at the moment. "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" performed on a cello. It's so wrong. Like eating a whole can of syrup.

Our Mutual Friends

Monday morning is trash pick-up day in Back Bay; but it is also Carnival, considering the vast herd of irregular clad rag-pickers, dust-sifters and bottle collectors who drag their clanking, cumbersome bags and rattling, rusting push-carts through the alleyway behind my house like refugees from some mud-soaked, rained-out medieval fayre.
Although that image isn't quite right, since most of them appear to be of Chinese extraction, dressed in a strange mix-and-match fashion of traditional Oriental costume and the sportswear of yesteryear, as if they got lost on the Long March, wandered off the path in some sort of somnabulistic daze; put to sleep by constant readings from the Little Red Book, and then suddenly waking to find themselves transplanted in a strange, incomprehensible land whose more and customs of which are impossible for them to understand, forced to scrounge around amid the detritus of other people's lives for that one object, that piece of base material they can transmute into scavenger's gold. In many respects, this modern form of hunting, gathering and then recycling is merely another type of Cultural Revolution, I suppose.

Sunday Doom

I have just returned from an expedition to Borders BooksMusicDVDMagazinesNick-NacksAndEverythingUnderTheSun with Yo Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone and a new (my third -why?) paperback edition of Anthony Powell's The Fisher King.
I have also decided to change my hibernation reading from Samuel Richardson to Henry Fielding. I shall begin, I think, with Shamela or whatever it is called.

Long Winter Nights

As the long winter nights draw in, my hibernation plan is to read the complete works of Samuel Richardson.
And yours?

Guest Blogger: Marc Steyne

Why John Kerry Will Be Humbled In The Dust In Front Of His Wife And Children

by Marc Steyn

(exclusive to the New Hampshire Gooseberry Fanciers Gazette)

There's a great scene in Jerome Kern Jerome's 1930s smash hit musical "Three Men and a Bum" in which the curtain falls and everyone goes home. During the first night interval, Field Marshal O'Loon turned to me - I was working for the General Staff at the time - and said: "In the future it will take a strong, gutsy leader like a George W. Bush to vanquish Zarphoon the Space Ape in hand to hand combat while the great deadly Yamoolian Fleet waits in the Enchanted Frost Nebulas of Zoikmoon 7."
The Field Marshal may have been slightly ga-ga at the time, but he had a point.
Unlike John Kerry, who has about as much point as a blunt pencil (whaaa? - Ed). Hey, John Boy, read my steak tips: No new ketchup. You're already married to 57 different varieties of flip-flop (calm down, Mark - Ed).
When I am shopping for exotic beard shampoos at my local Wal-Mart, many of my fellow Canucks call me long distance to ask, "Shall I dig up my lettuce patch and build a bomb shelter if Kerry becomes President?" It's a good question, like the one posed by Princess Cutesy in the new Disney smash hit ... etc

How the World Works

Many years ago my father was asked to perform some important restoration work on the interior of Anne Hathaway's cottage. Having been expelled from school that year and finding myself at a loose end, I agreed to help my father with this intricate and highly skilled work. After much conscientious mental struggle and many long periods of profound doubt concerning my abilities, qualifications and level of maturity for completing any tasks I might be appointed to undertake, he finally assigned me to the difficult job of ripping up many of the original yet sadly decayed floorboards that were still extant on the upper floors of that noble Stratford tourist attraction.
Employing a combination of claw hammer, large hatchet, and brute strength, I managed to dispatch most of the rotten wooden planks I encountered to the dumpster situated in the garden below without causing too much damage to the priceless artifacts that often impeded me in my work.
During my tea breaks, I would often march up and down the rooms in which I labored declaiming powerful passages from the Bards great store of dramatic verse, injecting my daily heroin allowance into my hungry veins as I did so, much as Shakespeare himself must have done in his day.
It was on just such a tea break that the edge of a scroll of brown parchment paper tied with a dusty red ribbon caught my blood-shot eye. It was poking out through one of the enormous holes I had accidently made in the Elizabethan writing table located in the corner of Anne and William's master bedroom. Scarcely able to believe my luck, I dropped my syringe and snatched the scroll from its hiding place and rapidly unfurled it:
"The ftory of Princeff Chriftiana and her fordid Lufts, by William fhakefpeare writing as Miftreff Gwendolyn" was written in violet ink at the top of the page.
What a find! I had been carrying around a ounce of black opium and looking for some rolling papers all afternoon. Nice. Smooth. Just like drinking a fine aged port.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Miss Gloria Perkins!

Damn. I wanted to write this book. And I think that I am uniquely qualified, since I have read all of Johnson's books, he is my hero, and I have actually been to Stoke-on-Trent (I was studying defunct industry at the time - don't ask. I didn't.) Damn, damn, damn.
But never mind. I shall write my own memoir about someone I'll invent. So eat your heart out P.J. - this fabulous biography could have been about you!

Gloria Perkins: a biography

Gloria Perkins was born in 1928, just another delicate piece of porcelain fashioned with skilled and expert artisan fingers from those famous inverted acorn cup-shaped brick kilns of the Potteries, that fiery red, brimstone black and smoke stack skied industrial Midlands mecca called Stoke-on-Trent.
The first and only daughter of artistic, bohemian parents, Gloria grew up in a liberal, gypsified atmosphere of free love, exotic dance, unashamed nudism, and multi-colored paint brushes submerged in turpentine like rare and valuable exhibits preserved in jars of formaldahyde.
Seductive, coy, desirable, ethereal, reclusive, mysterious, and dangerous, femme fatale Gloria acquired many nicknames in her lifetime - "The Stoke Jezebel" and "Queen of the Perfumed Garden" being the most printable - and inspired no less than forty different characters in the black magic novels of Eldritch Hawke (most notoriously as the Sapphic Magus in "Dark Pubis", published by Editions Grotesque in 1950)

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Apropos the Below

It is not very reassuring to know that the Social Affairs Unit - who apparently can't even be bothered to venture outside to the theater anymore - feel that they should be able to lounge around indoors with their feet up watching endless re-runs of Dixon of Dock Green while the poor, homeless, and hungry are forced to huddle outside without any shoes watching through the windows of the wealthy as well-tanned cookery show presenters prepare fantastic meals from fabulous foreign destinations.

Note to Blimpish: Dixon of Dock Green, eh! I DO research the nonsense I write ... many people don't think I do, but I do.

SAU vs BBC

This versus This

And may the best Auntie win.

My Five Favorite Cemeteries

As we approach Hallowe'en - I'm going to parties dressed as "a wardrobe malfunction" - I thought it would be really fun if I listed my top five fave burial grounds ... in reverse order!
Now, I know what you're going to say, you're going to say: "Stephenesque, you old bone-yarder," that's what you'll say, "I'll bet you were the kind of miserable looking teenager who hung around dressed in black while posing in artsy photographs with your pale, wispy girlfriend looking all ethereal in Boston graveyards."
But no I did not. No. I refute that suggestion entirely. Anyway ... here's the cold corpse countdown:

5. Maclunatick Kirk Yard, North Madmanshire

Wild, inhospitable Hebridean burial ground set in a wild, windswept landscape on a craggy hill in an
inaccessible island miles away from the nearest village: "De ye nae hear the spine-chillin' cries o' tormented souls as they float through yon heather in search o' vengence for the wrong that was done unto them in life?"

4. The Valley of the Kings

Finally, Dr. Englebert, after fourteen long years of endless digging our quest is at an end. Beyond this ancient door, unopened for thousands of years, is the final resting place of Amenhotpot, last of the great Pharoahs of the Cuppasoop Dynasty!

3. Golgotha

Not a grave site in the traditional sense, I know, but you can't beat: " ... And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull ..."

2. Granary Burying Ground

I live just down the street and I would like to be buried here when I die, but, alas, they tell me that it is full up already.

1. Baron Samedi Memorial Resting Place

Dum-di-de-dum dum-di-de-dum. Whooooooo Ha! Heh heh! Yeeeeeeaaaah! Haha! Dum-di-de-dum dum-di-de-dum. Agggggghhhhi! Ho ho ha ha! Dum-di-de-dum dum-di-de-dum ...
"Come on, Daphne. I don't like this place. Let's get out of here. These infernal drums are giving me a headache. I'll just ask this enormous, silent, wide-eyed, strange native the way back to the hotel..."

Justified and Ancient

Does anyone remember something awful called "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu"?
No? Neither do I really. It's a just vague memory.
But these days it seems that the blogosphere has been invaded by science-fiction obsessed sites with - the very similar - "mu.nu" written after the site name.
For me personally, first came Llamabutchers.mu.nu, and now it seems, strengthening their fleet comes Texasbestgrok.mu.nu, neither of which are particularly ancient, I suppose, but they are both very justified.

Guv'nor

I am currently writing a contemporary British detective series that challenges the conceived notions and stereotypes of other cop dramas you may have seen from the BBC.
The series is called "Guv".
Now, I know all the other detectives are called Guv as well, but this is about a Guv with a difference, because Guv D.I. Short is a dwarf: a tough-talking, hard-punching, no nonsense-taking dwarf who has risen through the ranks to take charge of Scotland Yard's latest undercover crime fighting team.
Although there are murders and other crimes as well, most of this groundbreaking mystery series will concentrate on the difficulties Guv encounters as a small person in the large person's world.
For instance, there is Gloria, Guv's six-foot tall, heroin-addicted girlfriend. She is a former prostitute who is still entangled with one of her former clients - the Chief Constable for the area!
And then there is D.S. Smike, Guv's Dickensianly named sidekick, who is slowly dying from some weird wasting disease that even modern medicine cannot comprehend.
Part One of the show is called "A Bell For The Leper."
Guv and Smike are called to the scene of a triple murder, but leave again almost immediately because Smike has to go to hospital for some more tests, and Guv must pick up Gloria's exzema prescription from the chemist. In the shop he meets the Chief Constable for the area who is buying a packet of glow-in-the-dark condoms for the weekend. Guv goes homes and gives Gloria her prescription, asking her what she is doing that weekend as he does so. She lies, as usual, replying that she is going to see her sister in Stoke. Guv trashes the house and locks himself in the bathroom where he discovers that he is losing his hair. Suddenly a call comes through on his radio from Scotland Yard: they have traced a yellow van belonging to one of the murdered men ... it's in a parking lot in Stoke.
And that's the end of Part One. Gripping stuff, isn't it?

The Johnsonian Belch

It is no difficult thing to imagine Shakespeare's deep and sonorous voice echoing around the Globe as the Bard declaimed his own soliloquies; even Kit Marlowe's reedy trill floats and plays easily in the mind's ear.
But divine the sound of the Johnsonian Belch? A true, honest-to-God Dr. Samuel Johnson belch? Nay sir, and thrice nay, I say!
To this day, the Johnsonian Belch remains an aural mystery to human understanding and euphonic perception; a basso vibration so far removed from the conjurings of modern science that it can not be duplicated by even the most sensitive and fine-tuned components of audio equipment .... unless your name is Fred Lumper, and you are the subject of an in depth study by Dr. S Baldwin, B.S.E
Stout, florid of face, and suffering from a touch of the gout, Fred Lumper perches precariously upon the rickety wooden stool in his kitchen, powdering and re-shaping horse-hair wigs. Every thirty seconds, Fred interrupts these musty labors by licking his lips as he chooses a ripe and pickled gerkhins from the special jar beside him, he then pops this juicy delicacy into his mouth and washes it down with a flagon of ale.
Every two minutes Fred will stoop down to rig a large slice of mutton or beef from the joints of meat arranged around his boots. These portions are often accompanied into Fred's mouth by thick slabs of wholemeal corn bread, more ale, several pickled onions, a radish or two, boiled potatoes, a selection of raw carrots, and yet even more ale.
After the digestion process is complete, Dr Baldwin places his omni-directional, state-of-the-art microphones in a semi-cicular pattern around Fred's blubbery lips and gives the signal. Fred will then select an archaic word at random from the ancient, dusty dictionary which lays open on his ample lap. As he pronounces his chosen word Fred will simultaneously belch into Dr. Baldwin's mircophones, and the resultant noise is recorded on to Dr Baldwin's digital tape deck.
By varying the order and total poundage of the food stuffs consumed by Fred, in tandem with a reduction or increase in the quantity of ale Fred drinks, and also a correct pot-luck word choice, Dr. Baldwin hopes to one day capture an authentic Johnsonian Belch - as it would actually have been belched by Samuel Johnson himself - on his whirring machines.
We wish this Boswell of the Belch - God speed!

If I Were A Lettuce

If I were made of lettuce, I wonder what type of lettuce I would be?
Cool iceberg perhaps; or richly-hued chromatic romaine; butterhead bibb maybe; or even a sort of rangy, free-wheelin' organic loose leaf.
Would slugs be attracted me? Would I make a good, reliable salad for the discerning Waldorfian?
Alas, I would almost certainly be shallow-rooted and aphid-harried. I think that just comes with the territory, as it were.
I don't think I'd like to have bits ripped off me for lining a ham sandwich. Nor would I like to be the decoratiive bed for some ridiculously microscopic vegetable appetizer at an over-priced swishy restaurant. I'd feel so manipulated, so used and abused.
But overall, if I were a lettuce, I think I'd like to marry a snow pea.

Guest Blogger: The Pope

I am typing to you now from the computer room at the Vatican, which is where they put me when I am not being wheeled around to wave at American tourists. I shall be brief as I only have ten minutes because Cardinal Gimattio is next on the sign-up sheet. I often think it would be a blessing if we had more computers, but Cardinal Spengler tells me the Holy Mother Church can only afford the one Commodore 64 ... such is the Will of God, I suppose, even if the little green letters do hurt my eyes.
Anyway, blessed be our brother Stephenesque for granting me the space on his blog to write these few words to you, my children, and I would like to seize this opportunity to reveal that ... Oh. Yes Cardinal Gimattio, what is it? Oh no. My time is up? I see. Oh well ... and I was going to tell you about the ... oh dear, how disappointing.

Guest Blogger: Marcello the Cynic

If you are desirous of seducing a twenty-something Bostonian female with cynicism aforethought, then you best plan of action is to inform the leggy, lithesome blond that you are voting Republican. This will gobsmack and infuriate the gorgeous ingenue to such an extent that she will not be able to tear herself away from you. Indeed, she will probably also drag her friends over to argue with you as well.
So now you have your choice of five or six pretty young Bostonian things, all of whom are giving you their undivided attention; at which point you lean in closely and whisper to the Venus of your choice that you're really only a fiscal Republican and that you don't actually believe the right wing nonsense you are saying, then wink conspiratorially at her. Meanwhile, continue to loudly bait the other girls as before (there is nothing a woman appreciates more than thinking that she is privy to a secret other women do not share).
At this juncture in the seduction proceedings, you begin paying sole, overt, and serious attention to the opinions of the Madonna you have picked. Make her feel intelligent, even if she's just spouting banal nonsense from the Op-Ed pages of the Boston Globe.
Eventually the other girls will become bored of their justified fury and begin to drift away, leaving you alone with the young Bostonian babe of your dreams. If you fail to score now, then you should start to think about making campaign donations to Barney Frank.

NB: Don't attempt the reverse on a Republican woman. She will merely sneer in your face.

Five Books I Couldn't Even Be Bothered To Skim Through

Following the lead of Outer Life - the blind leading the blind, as it were - here are five books that I "should" have liked but didn't. I am not going to be as lengthy in my reasoning as he, since I believe that if I don't like a book, then it only deserves a brief and terse dismissal. Anyway, here we go ....

1. Tarr by Wyndham Lewis

This is a novel written by a man who forgot what "A Reader" is. Absolute bilge of the most tedious kind from the first sentence onwards. It's supposed to be about an artist in Paris, might just as well have been about a snail-salter in Miami. Should have stuck to the paint-pot Lewis, all your books are crap, except The Apes of God, and parts of Rotting Hill. Is it any wonder he remains an obscure figure with tripe like this clinging to his name?

2. The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

The greatest first sentence of all time. Goes downhill considerably on the second sentence. Is any wonder LPH had a weird relationship with his servants?

3. The Inmates by John Cowper Powys.

Masturbation and vivisection. Masturbation and vivisection. Come back Jobber Skald all is forgiven. Is it any wonder that JCP ended up writing bizarre Welsh fantasy science-fiction for "aware" children?

4. Anything (joke) by Henry Green

Books bad. No good they said. Station cold, foggy, no-one reads books. No "the" ....but, oh look, there's one! Reading Henry Green is rather like reading a Whale Watch. Is it any wonder HG wound up drunk and crying on the stairs so that Dig had to step over him every time she went ot bed?

5. The Bible

What's it all about? Beats me. Is it any wonder that God ended up with the Vicars of Bray, Stiffkey, and Dibley?

Shaving Ravings

People often ask me, "Tell us thou great sage," they say, "How do we shave ourselves properly in a manner pleasing for our womenfolk to behold, for we hath been exiled from the lips o' the fairest for she saith that our stubble be of the sore-making quality of a cheese grater. Grant us this boon oh learned Baldwin, that we might once more taste the ruby pleasures of our brood mare's kiss."

"Well, let's see, oh worthless gravel-faced supplicants." I say unto them. "If, when you have completed your morning's shave, ye look down into the bathroom sink and it appeareth like an seal cull in the Antarctic, if great ice bergs of shaving foam drift twixt great slicks o' blood upon the waters, and the stubbly bits that thou hast cast off laith marooned upon the side o' the enamel sink like so many bludgeoned cubs, then you're doing it wrong ... But, alas, the only true way to prepare for thy morning shave is to petition Hercules to smack you on both sides of thy face several times with a hot, damp towel, so you're probably out o' luck."

Advertisement: Stephenesque scapes his facial hair off the romantic hero's way - with the sharp edge of a medieval broadsword, new from the Arthurian Legends line of personal grooming products, featuring the all-new, adjustable moisturizing comfort strip. Why not try one on your hollow cheeks today. Morgana le Fay says: "Mmm. My man is soft and silky smooth every time." Free toad's-wart blood staunching charm with every broadsword you buy!

Please Ask For Assistance

I was dragged to one of those modern, houseware-purveying "craft" stores; the supercilious kind that pay for their square footage by hawking faux distressed furniture, rollercoaster-inspired CD storage units, psychedelic colored glassware, and candles that smell like a Phoenician whore's armpit to a consumer base comprised - apparently - of the mentally insane and the easily charmed.
"If anyone has any questions ..." the etiolated, mincing owner prompted the milling Bedlamites in that oily, effete tone common to his peculiar genre of salesman.
"Yes. I have a question." I said "Why is everything you sell so horrible and disgusting, you terrible old queen?"

Bitter Poesie

Note To Jackal: the following example of bitter poesie was rejected by Contusion, the quarterly literary magazine published by New England's venerable Old Scrotum Community College .... twice!

Remember me to distant Barbary
Whose environs most irregular I trod
With dyslexic, anemic Margery
In search of the savage Gooey God

We fed on stodgy, solemn porridge
Made from milky, melancholy oat
Oh that gentle laxative repast which
E'en gave the cannibals cause to gloat.

As they boiled a sort of human soup
Made of missionaries misadventured
And lost Explorer goop.
Oh those naughty natives so pointy dentured!

My Political Philosophy Revisited

Since the laughably named "candidates" still do not provide a solid platform with which to attract my voting finger, I once more print the articles of my political philosophy. Perhaps the Powerful Oil Interests or the Powerful Ketchup Interests will take note this time.

My Political Philosophy

1. Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, everyone can vote, free speech and all that boring old crap, obviously.

2. It is a lot of fun to sail to foreign and distant lands, make contact with the natives, and then trade our ill-fitting, itchy underpants and polyester socks for their valuable raw materials such as coffee, root crops, and gold. Afterwards we can set up factories in their villages for the cheap manufacture of those ill-fitting underpants and polyester socks, force them to watch loads of drink and drink gallons of pepsi-cola. When they are too fat and stupid to fight back, we start taking the valuable raw materials for free and begin selling the underpants to some other poor, unsuspecting primitive. This is just the way the world works.

3. The United Nations should be renamed 'The Honorable Society of The Last of the Mohicans', or the 'Count of Monte Cristo Club' - they can vote on which name they prefer. Come to think of it, I am not too bothered, actually.

4. The automobile should be replaced by the horse. People can ride into work on the long trail and arrive covered in dust. This will also create lots of jobs for the company ostler, the company blacksmith, etc; thereby solving the unemployment problem in an amusing and nostalgic way.

5. Television should be taxed. If you want to watch TV you will have to pay the government on a show by show basis. The money raised should be used to fund publication of the New Criterion Bumper Summer Fun Special Featuring Souvenir Pull-Out "The Survival of Culture" Wall Chart.

6. Every Wednesday night is Quiz Night! Everywhere! YOU the People are the Quizmaster. YOU the People pick the teams. YOU the People can save the really hard questions for the communist insurgents ... and then disqualify them later. Yeaaaaah!

7. Shhhh. Come closer for we must whisper .... number seven is a secret that can only be revealed to the Seven Temple Adepts of the Stephenesque Cabal in the Mysterious Corridors of Power.

8. Everbody gets to have a little bit of garden they can plant things in.

Fact .... or Fiction?

Beethoven's favorite part of "Orfeo et Eurydice" was always when both duelling banjo players exploded. Bereft of his hearing and accompanied by his faithful lap dog Gregor, the famous composer would often attend morning and teatime operetta for the sole pleasure of watching Herr Los and his Pyrotechnic Team of Bremen interpret the great eighteenth-century Slovakian exploding arias in semaphore with their flaming flags and colorful fireworks system.
Insulated by his own fatty tissue and a thick layer of woolen knickers, Beethoven observed these musical festivities from the infamous "Ice Box" at the Fatzenlaidezingge Opera House on Gerd Loinz Strasse. The German maestro was often uncomfortable during the performances due to his devotion to the "Brazilian" bikini wax, the rough stubble of which would irritate the legendary musician's delicate fingers as he massaged his own spindly legs. Fact .... or Fiction?

Blimp Blip

A little more blog housekeeping to do, although since I'm only adding one new blog this won't be as all-inclusive and wide-ranging as before, this isn't the full scrub-round-the-back-of-the-toilet-job sort of housekeeping previously performed.
Anyway - he said, untangling the vacuum cleaner chord and searching in vain for little "nook and cranny" extention piece that always gets lost - anyway, Blimpish is the latest blog to be added to the James Panero Weblog Ring. No. He's not fat, you cynical sods. The blog is named after the David Low cartoon character, Colonel Blimp, made flesh and transfigured as Clive Candy in the marvellous Archers film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the DVD of which features commentary by Martin Scorcezzy, droning on and on about himself instead of talking about the film.
In fact, while I'm on the subject, I recently purchased the DVD of Fellini's Godlike La Dolce Vita which has a banal and uninformative commentry track by Richard Schickel (sp?), who fails to identify the Velvet Underground's Nico, who appears in several shots.
But the worst DVD commentary of all must surely be recorded by some woman or other on the Criterion Collection version of Hitchcock's Thirty Nine Steps: "the camera tracks across the room. Hannay sits down. The camera dollies in. Hannay stands up ..." details we can plainly see for ourselves, all spoken in the dreariest pseudo-intellectual-film-nerd voice I have ever heard (and I've heard a few in my time).
However, be that as it may, I think the BEST DVD commentary must be provided by actress Gloria Stewart for James Whale's splendid The Old Dark House, as she recollects working with, not only James Whale, but the great Ernest Thesiger also, and Charles Laughton too. Good stuff

All Men Are Prospero At The, Er, Dessert Island

See Also: All Men Are Hamlet At The Dessert Tray

- - - -
Alarums. Enter Prospero in cook's hat attended by pastry chefs with mixing bowls and spoons

Prospero:
Now my menus are all o'erthrown,
and what dinner I have's mine own,
which is microwavable; 'tis true,
I must eat here seated by you,
on communal tables. Let me not,
since I have my kitchen got
and defrosted the chocolate, dwell
in this bare pantry by your spell:
but help me pick the ice cream brands
with the help of your good hands.
Fat stomach of yours my cakes
must fill, or else your tummy aches,
which is too bad. Now I want
molasses to enforce, sugar to enchant,
and my dessert is toffee,
unless I be relieved by coffee,
which brews so that it assaults
aftertaste itself and frees all faults.
As you from carbs would pardoned be,
let your indulgence be fat free.

Mourning the Morning

And so we commit the corpse of Thursday Morning within its misty shroud to unhallowed ground. No great mahogany coffin and no consecrated tomb for the remains of Thursday Aurora shall there be.
Beneath a shady cheek of weeping willows, Thursday Afternoon, that old pellucid gravedigger rests his sun-kissed arms upon an impassive spade. And I, silken hankerchief in hand, the solitary mourner I, do crumble the remorseless clay upon the mournful grave as it began to rain: "No." I cry "And no again, indeed no breakfast for me today! Oh dear departed Thursday Morning where is thy two eggs scrambled with sausage legacy with a side o' buttered toast?" All that remains is a pang of hunger and a grim, gray stone engraved with the legend "Lunch Menu". Pilgrim take heed!

Occam's Razor

The previously plugged Jackal's blog is pretty good if you wish to fly high amid the lofty thoughts. It is actually called "Secession" - something to do with Gustav Klimt, he who created pictures of lesbians shrouded in shiny chocolate bar wrappers.
Meanwhile ... Occam's Razor, you were wondering. Well, what if Occam's Razor was fitted out with one of those convenient aloe moisturizing strips and a triple blade action for that really close, clean, comfortable shave that she will absolutely love - would logic, then, have a more kissable face?

Archeology of the Home

Last night, with desperate finger, I burrowed through a crust of old papers and bric-a-brac hoping that I might discover a formerly disfavored pair of cufflinks inside (a flickering recollection printed on disintegrating parchment crammed into a dusty corner of the neglected archives stored in the right-side of my brain seemd to point in that direction). Alas, despite my dismantling of the crust, the small black presentation box containing the cufflinks was not to be located therein; but I did come across an old poster advertising an entire series of Powell and Pressburger films at the MFA, sponsored by the British Council and Piper-Heidsieck champagne, that I attended, well, must have been five or six years ago at least; and also a floor plan of the Prado, neatly folded; an old notebook, too, marked "ideas for stories", all of which were terrible. The rest of the components of the crust, consequently thrown away, are too embarrassing to reveal. Meanwhile, I eventually found my cufflinks (I am wearing them as I write this) in another drawer in another charnel house of unwanted material that should meet Anubis sooner rather than later.

Life Contra Derrida

Most graduate students of literature, mythology, and ethnology, in fact anyone who has read the pioneering work of Joseph Campbell or the Brothers Grimm, will be familiar with the ancient, multi-cultured and multi-versioned, epic mystical legend of "The Hero's Journey To Take The Trash Out".
On a very mundane level, of course, this well-loved tale simply tells the heartbreaking story of an ordinary lovable hero who is cursed by Apathia, the evil siren of Notbotheredom, so that he forgets to take the trash out again, a terrible enchantment resulting in dire consequences for his simple woodland cottage. However, as Campbell and others have shown, on the symbolic plane, the hero who forgets to take his trash out actually stands for "Everyman"; the mythical character whom Campbell also called "Average Joe" and "Bachelor Man"; and the hero's forgotten trash is really today's edition of the Boston Globe, some pickled herrings, an old milk carton and some coffee grounds, a twix bar wrapper, empty egg box, and a whole bundle of junk mail. In a version of the legend written by the Brothers Grimm, it takes the hero several weeks to recover from his bewitchment and finally take the trash out.
Ultimately, "The Hero's Journey To Take The Trash Out" is a very deceptive tale, colored with highly complex layers of nuance that will never fully reveal their true meaning.

Futurama

Remember the old days of the clunky "car phone"? Well, coming to an ear garage near you soon is the "phone car" - a sleek, utility cell phone that does fifteen miles to the gallon!
Why not ride your phone car to California? Driving is free on nights and weekends!
Add an extra family car seat for only ten bucks more every month! Add up to six seats per plan!
Take pictures of the roadside scenery with your phone car's headlights as you pass by: they're also a digital camera with 8X zoom!
Store up to sixty speeding violations! Today!
No parking hassles. Your compact phone car fits snugly into this beautiful leather case (some restrictions may apply)
Personalize your highway image - download thousands of traffic-horn tones from honky-tonk to just plain honk!
Die in a six phone car pile up because the reception is terrible at that intersection! ... Er. No. Wait a minute. That's wrong ...

The Rule of Law

Should you ever read one of those Bible-thick monthly political journals of conservative persuasion -especially one featuring an article by either Peter Hitchens or Roger Scruton - then you will undoubtedly come across - usually on every other page - the laughably intriguing phrase, "The Rule of Law". It's an amusing piece of traditional dogma that such solemn commentators hold in high regard and view with considerable veneration. Consequently, it is hard to believe that Hitchens or Scruton or their friends have actually had any dealings with "The Rule of Law", the prosecution of which, for the average person, hasn't changed since the chancery days when Mr. Jarndyce still lived at Bleak House.
I myself was once heavily fined for calling some wheezing, windbag judge "an ineffectual old queen." It took him five minutes to reach that verdict, but two bloody years to settle the case we were all actually there for.
"The Rule of Law", indeed, you might as well flip a coin in zero gravity.

Why This Blog Is Like It Is

I occupy most mornings by composing written nonsense for various work related projects - usually bowdlerizing the more obtusely tedious aspects of subjects this particular scribe doesn't fully comprehend himself - and then I spend all afternoon doubting whether the intended audience actually ever read my document or not. It's rather like the case of that desperate Turkish spy in Pascali's Island who sends his reports to the Pasha's men, and receives his regular stipend in return, but is driven to distraction because he can never know if his reports are ever analyzed because no Ottoman agent acts upon them. Still, it's better than those times when I feel like a character from Hard Times because there simply is no work to do.
Anyway, in between work assignments, writing the oddness presented on this blog is like getting drunk at lunch.

At the Auctions

A splendidly rewarding day at Sothebys yesterday, where, tapping the side of my connoisseur's nose with an elegant, authoritative finger - so respected by the auctioneer's seasoned eye - I successfully outbid a dreary assortment of less-wealthy collectors and epicene dilettantes for two finely framed superb oils by Sir Turpentine Paynte-Beynumbars R.A. (Lot #59356)
The first, Sir Launcelot At His Stool (1897), is especially notable for the fine technique with which Sir Turpentine renders the knight's facial contortions as that lover of Guinivere grimaces from the muscular strains prompted by his solitary task. Also outstanding is the exquisite textural detail the artist has applied to his depiction of Launcelot's abandoned pile of armor - perhaps shed hastily in the hero's hour of need - glinting in the dark, clammy nook that provides the haunting backdrop for this excellent and important picture.
The second work, Diocletian Ravishing A Slave Girl(1892), is, of course, the famous painting that was banned from the exhibition of the Royal Academy in the year it was painted. This genre scene, ironically commissioned by the Prince of Wales, obviously dramatizes the unwonted advances made to a Gaulish slave girl by the lusty Roman. Noteworthy is the treatment of bright, golden light that plays across the line of the slave girl's breasts and illuminates her other most private regions as it passes. The remainder of the scene, including the figure of the red-blooded emperor, is purposefully left shrouded in mist and shadow - a technique common to most of Paynte-Beynumbars' maturer canvases.

Only cost me $5 million for the pair (a Paynte-Benumbars record) after fending off some late, stiff competition from representatives acting on behalf of London's newest museum, Tate Old Crap.

My Five Favorite Wart Hogs

1. The Prussian Blue Wart Hog
Bred and trained to be the ultimate truffle-hunter by nineteenth century Junker families prior to the Treaty of Schleitzenholden in 1893, when truffle hunting with wart hogs was outlawed. It is said - though not verified by reputable sources such as myself - Bismark's most personal christmas cards always featured a picture of a merry-looking Prussian Blue with a sprig of holly behind each ear and a truffle impaled on each tusk - hence the traditional German christmas greeting: "May Your Hog Snuffle Your Truffles To Your Seasonal Satisfaction, Herr Lippe!"

2. The Bald Bastard Wart Hog
Seldom caught, rarely tamed, and even more bald than a regular wart hog, the Bald Bastard - also known as the House of Hanover's Hairless Hog - is one mad, bad and dangerous to know wart hog. The only known example of this beast in captivity could be found in the personal petting zoo of Archduke Felix the Handless during the First Hanoverian Upsadaisy.

3. Tuscan Tuskless Wart Hog (see also Walloonian Wartless Wart Hog)
As the animal's name implies, a native of Tuscany and doesn't have any tusks. Plain and simple. An honest and straightforward wart hog if ever there was one. No funny stuff here. Alas, the Tuscan Tuskless' trusting nature means that it is easily hunted and killed by Tuscan peasants, who make a nice living by turning the beast's skin into expensive leather handbags for rich British and American tourists: a tragedy outlined in the best-selling book and film Wholesale Slaughter Under the Tuscan Sun.

4. Wart Hog de Paneros
According to Mrs. Norma Douglas, shavings from the tusks of this elegant wart hog make a fine aphrodisiac for wealthy Roman perverts looking for something a little "extra". But I don't know anything about that.
And moving swiftly along ...

5. Lucy In The Sty With Diamonds
A lady wart hog, or "wart sow". Extremely pampered personal pet of the Sultan of Piggsea who can boast of owning a set of diamond encrusted tusks and ruby-red warts. Embalmed and buried with the Sultan when he died, Lucy can be seen via a glass panel built into the side of the tomb (closed Thursdays, no flash photography)

All Men Are Hamlet At The Dessert Tray

What a piece of work is a flan!
How creamy in custard!
How infinite in toppings!
in form, in baking, how sweetened and caramel!
in eating how like a strudel!
in consistency how like a tart!
the dessert of the world!
the paragon of afters!
And yet to me, what is this quintessence of eggs?
flan delights not me; no, nor cherry flan neither,
though, by your lip-smacking, you seem to say so ....

From: "Hamlet: the tragedy of a chef who could not make up his mind whether to bake or grill the fish and do you think it would be better with rice or fries?"

Starring: Sir Laurence Olive-Oil as the Naked Gourmet
with
Sir John Don't-Feelgood as the Ghost of Hamlet's Taste-Tester
and
Sir Alec Guinness-Stew as The Gravedigger

(Total Running Time: 2 hours either side or until crisp inside.)