They say “It’s The Thort that counts” and they are right. Here The Thort is counting how many pounds he saved by just thinking about buying a Valentines present this year instead of actually doing it..
Beastlies: The Furry Perdling
If you have lost something, and you say this simple rhyme:
O Perdling, O Perdling
Won’t you help me find this thing?
…then up to seven business days later the Perdling will email you a series of questions, such as”where did you see it last?” or “is it in your pocket?”
Five days after that it will appear and point somewhere that the item definitely isn’t, to help you eliminate that area from your enquiries.
Then it will eat its way into your face and lay its furry eggs in your brain. Basically, don’t say the rhyme, is what I’m getting at.
Friday’s Short Story: The Designer Fire Brigade
I phoned the designer fire brigade this morning. They were very friendly, considering I was having to shout over the sound of the fire alarm. We arranged a meeting and I went in to discuss my fire-fighting needs.
We sat in a very nice little conference room, and Melvin, the head designer fire fighter, took me through the process of assembling a mood board. They gave me a pile of magazines, some scissors and a Pritt stick. First of all we concentrated on the colours and shapes that summed up my living space at the present moment: I found lots of warm colours, reds and golds, and carefully pasted them into a collage, along with some photographs of people looking sad. Melvin seemed very pleased when I had finished. “Oh, is it hot in here or is it just me?” he said, sort of fanning the air round his face with his hand.
Then I had to put together a second mood board to help me visualise how I might like my living space to look after the designer fire fighters had finished with it. Again I cut pictures out, the colours now cooler – lots of blues and greens, more oceanic. Pictures of kitchens and bedrooms not filled with acrid smoke. And I found some shots of people looking happy. One in particular, of Matthew McConaughey leaning against a chain fence in a sun-drenched Los Angeles alleyway, really seemed to sum up how I would feel if the designer fire brigade could effect the kind of transformations their brochures had promised. Again, Melvin nodded in approval.
He would take the boards, he said, and present them to his firefighting team, perhaps on Wednesday, and they would discuss strategies and solutions, and could they get back to me some time next week with a game plan and, a ha ha, a price plan?
Anyway, by the time I got home the urgency of the project had gone, really. I phoned the designer fire brigade and thanked them for their help and advice. They were very understanding. These things happen, they said, and the final bill, when it arrived, would reflect that, they said.
And as Melvin pointed out to me, charcoal is the new black.
******
The Designer Fire Brigade by Harris
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Beastlies: Cheryl
That word you thought was on the tip of your tongue? It’s not. It’s on the tip of Cheryl’s. She sticks her tongue into your head and steals the word from you, swallowing it whole. Then, two days later, when it’s of no use to you, she regurgitates it and and spits it back into your brain. She’s a complete… a total… oh, what’s the word…
Beastlies: The Spiny Panteater
Interestingly, despite its name, the Spiny Panteater is fluffy and eats socks. Note: it is not to be confused with the Fluffy Sockeater, which is scaly and eats babies.
Friday’s Short Story: The Barbarian
The barbarian stood atop the pile of bodies. He did not think it too many. In fact, he did not think it enough so he went looking for more bodies to add to the pile.
He ventured into the lingerie department. He looked at the scraps of lace and cotton and felt nothing but rage. Rage was pretty much his default emotion so we should not read too much into that. He found two ladies behind the tills and slaughtered them mercilessly. Their gender barely registered with him, and I think we might see that as a positive, even feminist act.
It would be very easy to say the barbarian had no business being in Marks and Spencer in the first place, but of what use is that to us? He was there. We can look into the root causes of his presence: a quest, a wizard, a portal etc. etc. A direct line of cause and effect can certainly be plotted there, with hindsight, starting with a dread prophecy uttered on the seven hundredth day of the third endless winter on the desolate frost-scorched plains of the Blüdrealms and ending with, for example, Malcolm Tovey’s head on a pike in the men’s formalwear department of a major high street retailer in Middlesbrough, but of what use is that to Malcolm?
And by extension: of what use is my writing this, to anyone? And yet write I feel I must. Are these not the songs we must sing? Of blood, and steel, and slacks. (The slacks suffered minimal damage, but were sadly no longer saleable.) And so my song is sung and cannot be unsung, or de-sung or whatever.
The barbarian is still in there, if you want him. He’s in the food hall, covered in bits of staff and customer, staring in wonder and dread at a packet of prewashed kale. He’s not my problem anymore.
******
The Barbarian by Harris
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Friday’s Short Story: Secret Origin
A bat flew through Bruce Wayne’s window. Superman was rocketed to Earth from a dying planet.
I was nine and tidying up the bookshelves in the corner of the classroom, because I was a good boy and I got asked to do things like that. The rest of the class were busy with a maths worksheet. I didn’t like maths. I liked being a good boy. I was quiet, I kept myself to myself. I liked tidying the shelves, putting everything in order.
The classroom door opened and in came Mrs Ramshaw; huge, hairy and angry, a furious grey-permed sunset of a face above a formless planet of a body. With her was a little girl who had obviously just been crying.
“Mrs Murphy, Shelley says that one of the big boys made her cry at dinner time. Shelley, can you see the boy who made you cry?”
Shelley scanned the class. Everybody, boys and girls, looked guilty. They fiddled with pencil cases, looked at the ceiling. I tidied the shelves.
It was me. It was me who had made Shelley cry. I wasn’t a good boy. I was a bad boy. I had done it and I was going to get told off. Mrs Ramshaw would shout at me in front of everybody. I might get the slipper. My stomach felt cold and empty as fear and guilt and more fear replaced the blood in my veins. Being told off was the worst thing in the world. The universe was looking at me, cold indifference had turned to icy interest. This was not an improvement.
“Can you see the boy, Shelley?”
I kept tidying. Putting the shelves in order.
“No,” said Shelley.
Shelley couldn’t see me because I was tidying the shelves because I was a good boy.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Murphy. Come on, Shelley. We’ll try Class C.”
They left.
School is where you learn the most useful lessons. Everything was in order. I didn’t get told off. Good boys tidy the shelves during maths and good boys don’t get told off. The emptiness in my tummy turned to warmth. The best feeling in the world: relief. I had got away with it. And the shelves were neat and tidy and the universe was looking away from me again.
I would never be bad again. Honest. I’m a good boy.
I am very quiet and keep myself to myself.
******
Secret Origin by Harris
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Question Time panelist pauses for applause which never comes
Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade, was said to be in a state of shock on Thursday night after he paused for an applause break during the BBC’s Question Time and was instead met by stony silence.
An audience member described the harrowing scene, saying, “He made a comment about the previous Labour government that he thought would please the audience, something like “I know you are but what am I?” – I mean, not that but that was the gist of it – and then he just sort of raised his eyebrows at the audience as if to say – go on then, give us a clap.
“But the audience just sat there looking at him. And then he tried to smile. It was horrible, like a shark with wind.”
Another witness said, “He gazed into the audience like a hopeful puppy staring at a crisp. You know, if the puppy was evil and the crisp was some money in a disabled woman’s pocket. The audience stared back in silence as the long seconds ticked by. A single, throaty cough broke the silence at the 20 second mark but by then it was too late. He looked at us, and we looked at him. We were locked in a weird kind of loop. We were stuck.”
After three hours of excruciatingly awkward silence the emergency services were called, and Mr Fox was winched out of the building, after which the audience could finally relax.
A BBC spokesman assured viewers that David Dimbleby was unaffected by the ordeal, as “He really doesn’t have a clue what the hell’s going on these days.
“As long as he’s warm and there’s a bottle of Chivas Regal nearby, he’s golden.” he said.
Costa Coffee misspells “Lukewarm Milky Piss”
Costa Coffee shops were this morning accused of misspelling ‘Lukewarm Milky Piss’ on their menus, instead spelling it ‘Flat White’.
Customer Adam Tungsten said, “I saw the words ‘Flat White’ on the menu, and I thought I’d have one as I rather enjoy overpriced caffeine products. Imagine my surprise when instead of two shots of espresso topped with velvety microfoam bubbles, I got a big cup of frothy urine. It was a really big cup, it took me ages to drink it.
“I mean, obviously I drank it, it cost me £2.60, but I was definitely disappointed. I prefer my coffee hotter and less salty, if I’m honest.”
A spokesman for Costa admitted their mistake saying, “This is too funny! We were genuinely confused about why our Lukewarm Milky Piss was so popular – we wondered who could possibly be buying all those bucket-sized mugs of beige wee. Have you tried it? It proper, proper mings. Ah well. Mystery solved I guess!”
Costa’s menus will be updated later in the week, as ‘Murky Ditchwater’, ‘Tooth-rotting Sugar Slurry’ and ‘Pricey Cup of Liquid Cack’ were also found to have been misspelled.
Budget: UK Vaginas to Donate £12million to Charity
British vaginas are set to donate a whopping £12million to charity thanks to new measures announced by Chancellor George Osborne in his eighth budget.
Instead of abolishing the tampon tax, he has pledged to take the money currently levied on luxury items such as tampons and sanitary towels, and donate it to charities affecting women, such as Breast Cancer Care.
Osborne defended the move, saying “If you choose to own a vagina, you are much more likely to develop breast cancer, it’s perfectly logical
“It’s important that women are empowered to pay for their own cancer care. As for the more masculine cancers, well, it’s important that women chip in for those too.
“I don’t know, I am so high right now,” he added.
A spokesperson for one vagina hailed the move, saying: “I think it’s fantastic that vaginas finally get a chance to contribute something useful to society.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that vaginas have played a large part in our current population crisis. It’s payback time.”
In a statement George Osborne said: “It brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘cash flow’
“But seriously, I think we can be proud that Britain’s vaginas are among the most generous in the world, which is ironic for a country currently governed by a bunch of greedy cunts.”
Ramshackle Charm 