Friday 24 December 2010

Merry F*cking Christmas

WARNING! If you think you might find a story entitled Merry F*cking Christmas offensive, then please stop reading here.

1 AM

“Merry Fucking Christmas!” screamed the dwarf as he pulled out from under his rain coat a Remington 31 shotgun. The Elves made a dive for cover but it was to late for Erika and Klaus whose guts were then peppered onto the outside walls of the workshop.

As the dwarf reloaded, Pips tried to make a run to the back of the sleigh, but sadly he was not quick enough - with one shot, the dwarf blasted his brains to soup.

The four remaining Elves, paralysed with fear, watched open-mouthed as the dwarf then clambered onto the front of the sleigh and called over to his  accomplice

“Come on Goebbels “

From behind a Christmas tree, another dwarf appeared and replied

“Ya Hitler”, before racing over to join Hitler on the sleigh. As they took off, Goebbels pulled out a Bren machine gun and let off a full magazine into the remaining elves - none survived

2 AM

Baby Jesus had been looking forward to this cigar all year. It was a Romeo y Julietta Churchill and something he always treated himself to at Christmas.  He carefully guillotined the end and went to reach for the matches.

BANG BANG BANG !

The walls around Baby Jesus splintered and one of the rounds turned his treasured cigar into dust. Then, through a hole in the wall, Hitler peeked and pointed his shotgun directly at the saviour  

“Nighty Night” said Hitler before pulling the trigger and blasting the son of god into the kingdom of heaven.

3 AM

Santa stared at the pools of blood that surrounded his workshop. He had feared this day for a long time. An old women called Ethel had predicted on the day of Santa's birth,  that one day two dwarfs named Hitler and Goebbels would murder all the elves, steal his sleigh and then wreck havoc on Christmas eve- including the murder of Baby Jesus. - Thank god Santa was prepared!

With time of the essence, Santa wasted no time going into his workshop. Concentrate, he said to himself as he went up to the balcony, where a large iron pole was waiting. He pulled up the back of his shirt and ran backwards into the pole. It took a couple of attempts, but finding the right momentum, he manage to get it to break the skin. Now the hard part, He knew for his plan to work he musn’t pass out from the pain. With great gusto he began to push the pole further into his back and upwards along his spine.

4 AM

Hitler and Goebbels had parked the seligh on the roof of the Rockefeller centre as they had a pressing matter to deal with. It was Goebbels who had in fact noticed first that Rudolf appeared to be circumcised , that would never do. He dragged Rudolf to the back of the sleigh and then pro ceded to tie Rudolf by his penis to one of the running boards.  With Rudolf tied, they soon set off again, with a somewhat bumpy take off.

5AM

The Metamorphosis, as painful as it was,was now complete. Santa was no longer santa, but rather MECHANOID-CLAUS !!

6AM

Hitler and Goebbles had got bored of flying around, especially as the blood from Rudolph’s corpse had got on their nice clean clothes, so instead they sat in central park, taking pot shots at .. well anyone who walked by. The tally so far was 23 to Hitler, 18 to Goebbels

As Hitler was about to take aim on a 63 year old women who was feeding the pigeons. MECHANOID-CLAUS Appeared

Goebbels dived for his bren machine gun and began to fire wildly at Mechanoid-claus - he cursed as the bullets bounced off, before starting to cry like a little girl as Mechanoid-claus picked him up and squeezed him till his ribs cracked and pierced his lungs.

HItler tried to run, but Mechanoid-claus manage to grab hold of his neck. He threw Hitler face down to the ground and then pulled down Hitlers Short.

“You’ve been a very naughty boy “ Said Mechanoid-claus as he pro-ceded to unzip his fly …


12 AM Xmas Evening

Santa pulled out of Miss Claus and wiped himself with a towel.  

“I do enjoy these games of ours “ he said before putting on his red trousers and heading off to deliver all the presents to the boys and girls

Saturday 18 December 2010

In the Lake Of the Woods

This was another rescue from the last day of Borders and thankfully not another big pile of Dodo droppings like Clara Hopgood was. This book also made us do something, which I have not done in a very long time...

I had been reading this book on the bus traveling home from work ( I would read it on the way to work, but thanks to First Group habit of phantom buses, my hands are normally frozen by the time by bus comes along) and I got to the last 100 pages, and decided; Right going to clear and evening get a bottle of wine and finish this book on the comfort of the sofa. I think the last book that I did that for was Robert Graves Claudius the God - about five years ago.

In the lake of the woods, starts of with John Wade and his wife escaping to the lakes of Minnesota after John’s dismal performance in the elections for the US Senate. They take up a small cabin by the lakes, and are attempting to work out what to do with their lives next. Their relationship is pretty strained and we begin to see that there is more to John’s loss of the election than meets the eye.

John also suffers from nightmares which revolve around his father and his Vietnam past. One night, he awakes and goes into the kitchen where he has a near mental breakdown moment (oh that poor cactus). Sleeping in the next day, he awakes late in the day to find that his wife has gone.

At first thinking nothing of it, it is not till twelve hours later than he starts getting concerned and eventually the local police are involved and a search of the lakes begins.

There are two things, which make this a cracking read. The first is the character of John Wade through the use of flashbacks and his own internal monologue we get glimpses of his past and over the course of the book, a really nice 3D character is formed. The second, is the author uses a couple of really nice plot devices. The first is a mix of fictional and non-fictional sound bites - mainly to do with the Vietnam war and the investigation into his missing wife. Plus, why his campaign for senate failed. The information is dripped at a really nice pace. The second, and I can imagine fellow Leeds Savage member Maz commenting “I see what you did there” , is about every third or fourth chapter is a Hypothesis on what actually happened to his wife.

All throughout this I was wondering how the author was going to end it, and the way he does, I think is clever. I can see some people not liking the ending, especially if you like a book to wrap up on closure.

I can highly recommend this book, and looking forward to a few more people I know (including Mazzz In Leeds) to read it, so we can discuss the ending.








Saturday 11 December 2010

Tao Te Ching

Meh!  I have known a couple of people who really rave about this book, and I thought I would give it a read, but after reading it, not exactly been blown away. I also can’t help but think that it is in some ways, very pop philosophy. Next time I meet one of said people, I am going to ask them to actually explain what they think it means - in a nice way of course

So what got my back up about the book ? I think firstly, I never felt engaged by the writings. Something like Marcus Aurellius’ meditations, I can get very lost in and even though I found it confusing and annoying, the Tibetan Book of the Dead still had a great deal of engagement to be found. With the Tao Te Ching, It just seems to be a collection of some very odd sayings all thrown together - I cant think of any that I read, that made me want to stop and think.  To give you an example

“My Words are easy to understand and easier to put into practice. Yet no one in the world seems to understand them nor are they able to apply what I teach “

Can’t be very good choice of words then. I think the other thing that bugged me is the style that it is written, its all a bit flowery and a bit la-de-da, which might be the fault of the translation but I think also to do with the style of philosophy. On the note of translations, this was the by the same company that I bought the Tibetan Book of the Dead from and as before l not going to moan about a book that cost 99p nor recommend it either.

Going back to the book, another gripe is, it also seems to lack any backbone which is stressed by the opening line

“The Tao that be be described is not the eternal Tao”

So great, all I am about to read is not the real deal and then finally to add insult to injury the text then calls me foolish

“When a superior person hears of the Tao, she dilligently puts it into practice. When an average person hears of the Tao, he believes half of it, and doubts the other half. When a foolish person  hears of a the Tao, he laughs out loud at the very idea . If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn't be the Tao”

And in case you are reading this wondering what Tao is, then to slightly paraphrase chapter 4 and 5 of the Tao Te Ching

“The Tao is like an empty container
it can never be emptied and it can never be filled ….
It is hidden but always present …

… The more it produces; the more you talk of it , the less you comprehend It is better not to speak of things you do not understand “ - the missing bits in the above are about straw dogs, which I didn’t include as it might have made you laugh, and then you would have been foolish.

So to the sum up the Tao Te Ching, a book which is not meant to be understood and if you do understand it, the more you understand it, the less you understand.

Kind of makes me wonder if Yoko Ono would of been a far better artist is she had done nothing at all.

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