Now, I'm sure you all know of this parlour game. You must have played it with a group of friends - ideally whilst consuming alcoholic beverages. But, should you be unaware of the laughter and disgust that goes hand-in-hand with this particular game, here are the rules:
Each person takes a turn choosing a word or phrase for one of eight questions, in this order.
Man's name (or close approximation of a man)
Woman's name (or close approximation thereof. You get the drift.)
Place name
He wore
She wore
He said...
She said...
The consequence was...
Then the story is read (for example):
Tim met IDV down the cake aisle in Waitrose. He was wearing chaps and a bandanna. She was wearing a smile. He said "I like your style". She said "Are you coming on to me?". And the consequence was that their love-making brought the house down. Literally!
Traditionally, the game is played by writing the words on paper and folding the paper to hide the previous words before passing it to the next player. However, as this is the age of technological sophistimacation and paper has gone the way of the dinosaurs (ha!), we shall play it slightly differently. Instead, each player (you, the visiting bloggers) shall declare which of the eight subjects you are answering by submitting the question in the comments, and then email your response to me (my email address can be found in my blogger profile). These questions must be answered in order, so, for example, if MJ is the first commenter, she will only comment "Man's name" and then email me the name she's chosen. If Eroswings is next, he will comment "Woman's name" and email me the name he's chosen. And if CyberPete is third, he will comment "Place name" and email me his chosen location. And so on and so forth. This way, each commenter can see what subject has gone before but not see the answer, so making the outcome hilariously random. Or just plain weird. Of course, rudeness is encouraged (not that I would expect anything less...). If more than eight people want to play, or you want to play several times, just keep going. So, once the eighth commenter has commented, the ninth just starts the game again. In a few days time (date to be confirmed), I shall post the outcome of each game for your amusement/disgust, so stay tuned.
It is the 28th anniversary of the death of an icon to millions of former Blue Peter viewers*, an inspiration, a National Treasure, a man without compare: Joey Deacon.
Non Britlanders probably won't have a clue who I'm talking about. Not even if I do this: Eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwwnnnnnngggrrrh!" (fx: tongue behind lip, drool, contort), so here's a clip of the great man himself:
It's a bit quiet, so turn up the sound.
And if you still haven't a clue, then you areDenied a full understanding of the subtler nuances of flapping their clawed, twisted, limp-wristed hands together and biting their shoulder while standing behind someone who is doing something stupid. Forging their way in the world, being shafted by the government, and denied the small solace of being able to comment on some particularly imbecilic piece of govern–mentalism by pushing their tongue between their lower lip and their teeth and going Eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwwnnnnnngggrrrh! I mean, look at Iraq... they didn't find any WMDs and now the whole place is one gigantic clusterfuck. What's the most cathartic reaction? You could go "Oops, silly Tony got it wrong"... or you could go "Well, what the fuck did you expect, Joey Blair? Eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwwnnnnnngggrrrh! (flap, spasm) Tony is a deacon, (tongue behind lower lip) Ttttwnnnyyyyy zzzzzthth uuuhhh dddddEEEknnn (contort, drool) Mwwthmm gghhuuuuu nnnngh". Which - and be honest with yourself here - would you really prefer to do? Which one would be more appropriate to the situation, which one would provide the greater emotional release? It's the Joey one, isn't it... it has to be, unless your life has been impoverished by missing out on the whole Joey experience. I suppose it's a case of "what you don't know you can't miss", but the life of one who does not remember Joey Deacon must surely be sorely lacking.
Well, it's one of those things... if you weren't there at the time then maybe you'll never grasp it. You have to remember watching that seminal Blue Peter broadcast, you have to have that vivid memory of, the next morning, seeing someone's inadvertent clumsiness or stupidity inducing a reaction of "You fucking Joey! Eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwwnnnnnngggrrrh!" (fx: flap clawed hands, tongue behind lip, bite shoulder). You have to remember your reaction - whether it was the kudos of being the first one to call someone a Joey, the shame of being the recipient of the insult yourself, the immediate feeling of being slightly shocked but within five minutes calling people Joeys yourself, or perhaps you were the stuck-up git who made out that you found it really offensive while refusing to admit to yourself that really you thought it was just as funny as everyone else did. You have to remember the craze growing as Blue Peter continued in blissful innocence to feed the flames, until less than a minute's conversation was more than sufficient time for someone to have gone Eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwwnnnnnngggrrrh! and flailed spasmodically about. You have to remember the variety of insults in use, ranging from a quick and discreet shove of the tongue behind the bottom lip to the full-blown drooling-and-convulsing-on-the-floor spaz-out. You have to have been there. So, if you are a member of said segment, you may be wondering what this is all about... Well, it started at the time - which, if I remember rightly, was between The Wall and The Final Cut (just to keep up the irrelevant Pink Floyd reference, because I like Pink Floyd) - that the BBC programme "Blue Peter" made a series of broadcasts featuring Joey Deacon. Joey was a cerebral palsy sufferer who had been in institutions since childhood. When another inmate, Ernie, proved able to understand Joey's attempts at speech, Joey decided to write a book about his life and used the proceeds to build bungalows for himself and his friends. This heartwarming story was shown bit by bit on Blue Peter, along with plugs for the book, and we eventually got to see Joey and his friends move into their new bungalows and live happily ever after, or rather until they died, which was sad, especially as it wasn't very long after, not much of an "ever" at all in fact, at least for Joey, though I think the others lasted a bit longer.
Unfortunately, the programme producers had not thought through the consequences of showing lengthy sequences of a drooling, grunting spastic at peak viewing time. As implied in preceding paragraphs, the next morning people up and down the country were rapidly developing Joey impersonations into an art form. Kudos was obtained by going to new extremes in twisted and clawed hands, jerking arms, facial contortions, drooling, spasmodic vocalisations, attempts to eat one's own shoulder, and for special emphasis dropping to the floor, adopting a foetal position and undergoing violent grunting convulsions. "Doing the Deacon" was the hot new performance art, "Joey" was the hot new insult, and woe betide anyone with the misfortune to have the surname "Deacon" or a given name with the initial syllable "Joe". A whole vocabulary of mangled vocalisations developed, finely tuned to express different degrees of "Joey–ness" in whatever the recipient of the insult was being insulted for. A quick shove of the tongue behind the lower lip could be used to discreetly insult someone without (in theory) anyone not in the line of sight noticing. Joey was a phenomenon. Just not in the way Blue Peter had hoped he would be.
Looking back, it's hard to see what else they expected. It's human nature to take the piss. People know it's wrong, but that doesn't stop them doing it, and once you start laughing at it it just gets funnier the more out of order it is. And look at the size of the stimulus - a whole bunch of 25-minute programmes, each with most of the time devoted to the Blue Peter team patronising Joey as he grunted and twitched in his wheelchair, and watched by several million people. Given that sort of input, any group of people of non-negligible size is going to contain at least one person who starts taking the piss, and once one in the group starts doing it everybody's doing it. That's what people are like, and it's no good being all wishy-washy and trying to pretend everybody's nice, because real-world experience suggests that the most useful definition of a "nice person" is someone who manages to refrain from doing Joey impressions when someone in a wheelchair is actually present.
I was going to write my own version of the above but couldn't get anywhere near the 'subtlety' of the original, so I just copied and pasted from Pigeon's Nest. Besides, I haven't got much time right now (18:20 02/12/09) as I'm supposed to be getting ready to go to the cinema.
I know... I know... I was doing so well, too. I'd just like to let you know that I didn't have any choice in the matter. You see, I was bombarded* with Trek books, so I just had to read them. To ignore them would just have been rude! Actually, I did give it a month or so before reading them as I already had a few books lined up to read. Then, I started to read Pyramids, one of the early Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. I'd read this book loads of times before, but I was in the mood for another go, which leads me on to the first reacquaintance with Trek novels. Typically, I'd started to read Pyramids on the day that The Soul Key dropped through my letterbox and onto the doormat. I'm not going to dwell on The Soul Key because I have bigger fish to fry, suffice it to say that it continues on from where Fearful Symmetry left off and resolves the Mirror Universe plot line quite nicely. I don't particularly enjoy the Mirror Universe as I'd rather catch up with this universe, not its dark, faux-sexy, hammy** counterbalance.
And now, the feature presentation:
The Never Ending Sacrifice, named after the multi-generation spanning Cardassian novel once mentioned by Garak as the "finest Cardassian novel ever written."
Oh my gods! I love this book so much! When I first heard of it, I thought it may be a literal version of the Garak-mentioned Cardassian novel and immediately thought it'd be boring. Especially as the original is a repetitive epic that spans seven generations of service to the Cardassian state. I'm glad to say that my first thoughts were incorrect. The novel follows the life of Rugal - biologically a Cardassian boy but brought up on Bajor by a Bajoran couple - after his enforced return to Cardassia. The Cardassians had occupied Bajor and enslaved much of the population, the Bajorans in turn resisted and bombed many Cardassian facilties, including one where Rugal and his parents were stationed. His father survived but his mother did not and neither, Kotan Pa'Dar thought, did his son, Rugal, so he left Bajor and returned to Cardassia. Rugal was found and adopted by Proka Etra and Migdal and therefore regarded himself as Bajoran. Some years later, Kotan Pa'Dar discovered that his son was alive and returned to claim him, much to Rugal's horror:
This clip is from the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Cardassians" where Rugal first featured.
As you know, I'm not one for writing reviews, what with being so lazy, so here's Trekmovie.com's review for your perusal. All I'll say is that this novel is so good that it made me well up not once, but twice. This is no mean feat, as SP says I'm as emotionless as a robot. Which, to be fair, is kind of true...
Anyway, that's that for now. I don't have any more Trek books lined up to read. In fact, the next one I want to read isn't out in the UK until next year, so you won't be suffering more Trek-related bookends for a couple of months, at least.
* OK, so maybe bombarded was a little bit of an exageration. I'd ordered a couple of books back in Spetemeber. ** Honestly, have you seen some of the 'acting' in the Mirror Universe episodes of Deep Space Nine? One would expect William Shatner himself to turn up and start chewing on the scenery.
Sorry I've been a bit neglectful this past week or so - I've been trapped in the airing cupboard. Not in the Narnia-esque land back there (with its opening behind the hot water tank), as I had it closed off not long after I'd moved in after finding small hoof-prints and faun shit all over my best tablecloth and runner. Ooh, I was livid. It seems SP bought the house without having an occult survey conducted first. Naturally, I commissioned one when I moved in and discovered the house was built on an intersection of ley lines. Typical. No, I was trapped in the less mystical world of vast expanses of old sheets and dusty towels, plus the occasional empty spider exoskeleton and odd sock. It's a good job I'd had a big meal before going in there to search for a fitted sheet to fit the spare bed, otherwise I might have starved to death. Well, I certainly wouldn't have eaten those spider skins! Anyway, I'm back again now. SP came looking for me as he was fed up with making his own sandwiches for work, then getting home and having to cook his own dinner. Not to mention that he'd watched all his porn and needed further 'relief'! So, that's what I'm up to now. Well, not right now as I'm writing this update and SP had to go to work, so I'll tidy the house because it's a bloody pigsty, do some washing and walk Moom. I was going to carry out an occult survey on the garden with my patented portable crop circles to check for other unwanted openings, but SP's used all the cress in an egg sandwich. Still, at least he managed to make his own lunch today. Right. I'd better get on. See you out there.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"
Two Tims? It's the bloody best of times, then! I'll say. Rawr! Shush! We'd better let Witchface get on with it otherwise we'll be here all day.
In a sealed room in Castle DeVice, some of the Flying Monkeys had been working on the SpinTwist Portal, a new fangled but somewhat eldritch teleportation contraption. Suddenly, a wall that turned out to be massive doors split open spilling bright light into the smokey room. A tall slender figure appeared from within the light, walking forwards until it becomes recognisable as a witch. The witch flinches as theKiller Rabbit of Caerbannoglunges out of the smoke, but luckily it tears past and into the depths of the castle.
"Hmmm..." I said, surveying the corpses littering the room and adjusting my hat. Stooping, I nudged one of the fallen 'Monkeys with my boot. Not to my surprise, it grunted. "Are you sure you're dead?" I asked. Silence greeted me. "Hmm?" I prompted again. "Of course I'm dead" hissed the corpse. Another fallen 'Monkey to the left groaned in dismay, then remembered it's supposed to be sans life and stopped. "Fine. Suit yourselves, then" I snapped, turning on my heels and heading towards the shadowy controls of the SpinTwist Portal. "He has evaded me for long enough" I muttered to myselves through gritted teeth. "And I don't care if it is his birthday." I flailed wildly at the switches until Tim's image appeared within the targeting sensor. "Excellent!" I crowed. With a few more deft flicks of my fingers, followed by a mechanical hum that crescendoed to a coruscating electronic warble, Tim coalesced on the platform before me, having untwisted out of thin air. He appeared to be wearing black boots, red athletic leggings and nothing else. Oh, yes! He gazed around him, a look of wonder on his handsome face. Then he caught sight of himself in the reflective shielding around the platform just as I stepped out of the shadows towards him. "Rawr!" he growled, flexing his muscles and grinning at his buff reflection. * faints *
* faints * * faints *
* fai- * "I've got you" Tim declared, catching me easily in one arm. I looked up into his cheeky yet sexy face and: * -nts *
"What'd you go and give it away for, Beast?" MJ seethed after Tim had carried me out of the room. "I told you he wouldn't care if we were alive or dead" Beast said. "I knew we wouldn't get a look in - It's always about him and that Tim. And now he's proved it." "Oh, that didn't prove anything. This story's only just got going. Besides" she sniffed smugly, "I always get a starring roll" and she rolled her eyes in derision at Beast. Suddenly, the contraption clanked to life again. Another rabbit - this one placid and cute - materialised on the platform in the centre of the room where Tim and then the vicious Rabbit of Caerbannog had originally appeared. And a few moments later, the machine sputtered into life once more, depositing another unexpected guest. "That was unexpected" MJ said. This time Beast rolled his eyes then leaned over and stroked the fluffy white bunny, studiously ignoring the semi-naked man who staggered off the platform and out of the room.
I came to with my face pressed against a rather familiar bulge. Hello! I squinted upwards, attempting to confirm my suspicion before letting the bulge's owner realise I was awake. My gaze travelled up, skimming the chiseled six-pack, ascending the impressive fuzzy chest and over the clenched jaw to - Ding, dong! - Yes, my suspicions had been confirmed. My saviour really was Tim! My gasp of surprise gave me away. Naturally. "Ah. You're awake" he observed, raising an eyebrow and smiling from the corner of his mouth. "Uhhhh..." I drooled, but hastily wiped it up. "Um. Yes. Where are we?" I asked, somewhat confused at the pink and purple clouds of sunset racing by the edge of my vision and the wind whistling past my ears, and trying not to leer. "We're on Broom in pursuit of my duplicate" Tim answered matter-of-factly. Two Tims? I marvelled to myself at the possibilities as I hauled myself into a sitting position in front of Tim on Broom's shaft. "Your... Your duplicate?" "Yes" and the affirmation was filled with sexual intrigue. "It seems your SpinTwist Portal was infected with a strange magnetic type of ore - probably brought up with one of your test subjects -" Tim explained, "and malfunctioned, creating an evil duplicate of whatever was teleported next." "An evil duplicate? But why are we after this other Tim? I mean" I continued before Tim could answer, "I know why I'd chase after him, but why would you? Unless you're trying to prevent him from getting up to no good?" "Chuh!" he scoffed. "Haven't you seen how studly I am? I want me as much as you do!" "Ah, so you're the evil Tim." He grinned and I marvelled to myself again just as we entered the clouds. "Hang on a minute. Why are we chasing him on Broom?" "Because he escaped from your castle on... Well, on another form of aerial transportation." "But I don't have the spare Broom anymore" I wondered, trying to think of what he could have used. "And Poppins took her brolly back ages ago... Unless-" "Yes" Tim interjected, clearly a bit miffed. "He got away on that vacuum cleaner that was gathering dust in your broom cupboard." I rolled my eyes and berated myself for not getting rid of the damn thing at last year's vacuum amnesty at the Classic Broom Show. If only I hadn't been so lazy and actually bothered to take it, rather than lounge about in the garden slowly pickling myself in wine. "Shit" I said. "Oh, we're never going to find him in cloud this thick" Tim moaned. "Full stop" he ordered, and Broom came to a halt. "Z minus one thousand meters." Broom descended gracefully through the various cloud layers. I was very impressed at Tim's piloting skills: He'd mastered Broom's little foibles easily and handled the old thing effortlessly. We came to a gentle stop in a break in the clouds. They encircled us in bands of pink and gold, lit by the almost set sun. It would have been a lovely setting to 'get to know each other' but unfortunately, we were rudely interrupted.
From below and behind, a figure astride a vacuum cleaner rose through the clouds. It was the other Tim and he wasn't in such good control of his transportation as this one. "Yaaaaaargh!" he yelled, crossing his arms in front of his pretty face as he careered towards us. "Shiiiiiit!" Tim swore as he attempted to manoeuvre Broom out of the way, but was too late. The vacuum cleaner sideswiped Broom, it's hose caught on some bristles ripping them out of their binding as we veered away. "Oops! Sorry!" Other Tim shouted across the widening gulf. "Well, not that sorry. I heard you back at the castle and what you were planning to do with me and my muscular buttocks." "Oh, you'd love it" Tim shouted back as he wrestled with Broom's trajectory. "You know you want to!" "Urgh. Vom!" "Oh, come off it. I know you. I am you! You totally would." "I would not! Well... Maybe with you, but certainly not with IDV!" "There's no need to be rude, dear!" I yelled back. "If it's just the fact that I'm male, I could always drop into a new body?"
"Fine!" I huffed, but didn't have time for a full-on pout as we were rapidly losing altitude. "We're going down" I declared without resorting to raising my eyebrow to force the innuendo any further. "I know" Tim grunted, his look of disappointment mirrored my own as we realised that sex wasn't going to be forthcoming. "Can't you do anything?" "Well, I haven't got Wand, so there's no way to discharge thaumic energy into Broom to keep us airborne" I almost wailed. "Wait! There is a way! But-" "I know. I just hoped we'd have more time together." "Noooooooooooo!" I cried as Tim gripped my Broom's shaft firmly then shoved his other hand right up my the bristles. He was attempting to realign the bristles - A dangerous job when at rest, but pretty much fatal while in flight. "Remember..." I whispered to him as I touched his face in a certain way. He looked at me, his eyes alight with thaumic energies as his body dissolved in a magical fire that was absorbed into the bristles. Broom surged with power and broke out of the headlong plummet. Before he had fully dissipated, Tim spoke: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
To be continued. At some point...
"Well!" MJ sniffed. "Was that all I got?" Beast had nearly bitten his own fist off in an attempt not to laugh. "Hmmph!" she huffed and stormed out.
Right. Don't get your hopes up for much happening here. I've only posted this for continuity purposes. Nothing much happens in the first one, anyway - It's just to set the scene. And the scene is this: It's someone's birthday on Tuesday, so be sure to pop back then for a journey over the Cusp...
We are a witch. I say 'We are' because there are four of us in this one body. Although, technically, only two of us are proper witches: myself, Inexplicable DeVice, and my SubConscious. The other two are witches by proxy: The Host (who shall remain nameless due to the nature of his work) who supplies his body for interaction in the physical world, and his SubConscious - a stubborn and contrary piece of work if ever I shared a body with one. Together, we are a formidable foe with various collectable accessories (All sold seperately. Contents and colour may vary. Not suitable for children under the age of 3. No, 5. Actually, make that 8. Oh sod it, 16. And that's my final offer). Now bugger off. I'm busy!
