Gorgs Graphic Souk

Odd Cagnolito. The story so far. A young mutant Cagnolito (formerly of Tindalos Prime) crossing a dicey forest in the Vacillating Shift is suddenly accosted by one of the local talents, the Mafioso Wooden Poppet, with verbose promises of protection from nebulous perils and other equally vague extra-curricular risks. Matilda, on a break from minding Bonny Brown Bunny and doubling here as a spirit guide and paranormal cicerone to the adventurous canine, is counselling the youngster to ignore the overtures of the woody chappie, in part because said offers and threats are mostly hot air and in part because the ligneous laddie is so scatterbrained that he may start trying for intimidation and then switch, for no reason at all, to advice on the best inns, youth hostels, cocktail bars, discos, free swimming pools, restaurants, tapas bars and beauty parlours in the region. Well, that’s the Vacillating Shift for you, innit. Consistency is a word that even if It looked it up in the dictionary it still wouldn’t make sense to It, poor dear. By the way, if you ever find yourself travelling in this most perplexing of districts, I can recommend the Inn of the Seventeen Boons. It’s cheap, cheerful, the sheets are spotless, the food scrumptious and the landlady’s a good friend of mine, so a bit of name-dropping will get you a few free drinks as well.

Target. Poor Bonny Brown Bunny has gone and done it again! She has opened her big loud mouth once more and now she’s being targeted by one of the Righteous Brigades -we are not quite sure which one; is it the Rabid Avenging Shirleys? Is it the Thou-Shalt-Not-Sport-A- Keffiyeh Coterie? Or perhaps is the neighbour next door, who think this country’s being swamped by non-British-born undesirables and that our only hope lays in the deranged neurones of Nigel Farrago? Who knows. They are so many and they all look and sound pretty much of a muchness. Poor old Bun-Bun… As Matilda, the Cynical Birdie, Bunny’s bodyguard and political advisor, keeps on telling her, she’d be well advise to join a lay Trappist order and have a quiet life for a change, but you know what chromatic rabbits are like: obstinate mules one and all. Still, we have started a collection to send Bonny on a fortnight retreat in the beautiful Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, near Ulan Bator.

The Gorgon Film Institute presents: Brief Encounter XII. aka Easy Rider II. Series Crappy Movies Rehabilitated. Here be a nice wee ad hominem attack. Long time no do. Here’s to the real scroungers, the true freeloaders that ride on the back of the misery of the powerless and the unloved and the forgotten, and ask and plead and demand and moan and whinge and rant … and get! My current favourite is that comedian turned clown turned buffoon and now official court jester and village idiot to the political elites, Volodymir “GimmeGimmeGimme!” Zelensky. (Mind you, lately he’s also been getting a lot of stick but then again that’s one of the occupational hazards of a fool.) And as a kind of side dish, the same discourtesy (and more…) is extended to that genocidal parasite, Benjamin Netanyahu, may he burn in Gehenna, sooner rather than later.

Recognition. What can I say that I haven’t said many, may, many times before? What can anyone say that will have the slightest deterring effect on the theological genocidal Fire&Brimstone fury of the perpetrators, the obscenely servile acquiescence of their minions and the hypocritically vapid attempts of dissent of a few big girl’s blouses that only yesterday were toeing the party line? Any time now they, the BG’sBs, will be paying homage to that much yapped about but never meant fiction, the two state solution. Said two states will consist of an increasingly expanding Greater Israel and a tiny wee, two-square-yards of a cenotaph to a now extinct landless nation, in some remote corner of, say, Antarctica. Gaza will be renamed Trumpistan-Sur-Mer and Lebanon Bibi’s Folly. Oh, how happy we’ll all be…

Twin Ghosts. This is a little something from me to me. To cheer me up. Bumba knows I deed it.

A Pretty Pickle. No matter how hard I look, I cannot see that anything short of a global cataclysm would reverse the flow of that river, become a riotous sluice from the sewers of not only the pestilent dominance of the powerful but also the hypocritical poltroonery and the dazzled obedience of its servants; not to mention the bovine indifference of the We The People, wilfully blind to anything that doesn’t impact them directly…or so they think. Today is voicing solidarity with the Palestinians and tomorrow will be merely wearing a keffiyeh. And the day after that They will come for me, and you, and your children and your neighbour and your sisters and your cousins and your aunts. And you will not hear Them coming because you’ll be to busy panicking about that attack from Russia that Sky News has been promising you lately. Get the paper bags out of storage and beef up the kitchen table! And have a spiffing weekend.

Going Walkies. Yes, follow the disobedient fish wot swims against time and tide. It’s the only way to ensure the survival of your soul, otherwise you may grow so accustomed to rank, sadistic stupidity and atrocities-as-spectacle that you’ll end up confusing Gaza with The Great British Bake-Off and believing that Donald Trump has more than one brain cell and Keir Starmer a moral compass. Have a splendiferous life…if you still have one.

Sulking (Prov. 1:16) That’s it really. All is said. But for good measure have this:
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
Ecc. 1:15
And this
For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecc. 1:18
Stay in the shade and have a spiffing weekend.

Well Met 2(1). Having exhausted their capacity to put up with the psychotic godawful mental retardation of current politicians and their mindlessly engineered sociopolitical events in this miserable plane, the merry Reddish Larvae and their chums, the Bijoux Dinos, have decided to migrate to the OtherOtherworld which is nearly as pleasant as the Otherworld but not quite so dicey. On their way there they have come across the Zen Worm and, captivated by its peaceful countenance and modest demeanour (not to mention its Teddy) have invited it to join them in said alternative level of existence. ‘You really don’t want to hang around here much longer, mate’, they say. ‘Why, any time now your poor old Teddy might be forcibly enrolled into the PCC (The Patriotic Cadets Corps) and eventually sent to fight some imaginary evil Russians in some godforsaken corner of the planet. Or worse…’
I can easily guess which way the wise worm will swing. I wish them all all the best and I wish I could go with them.

Solstice ‘25. It’s broiling hot and really there’s no reasons to be cheerful anywhere you look. All the same, have the merriest Solstice you can grab. Build a politically incorrect bonfire in your garden/balcony/common. Jump over it; it’s traditional. Make a burnt offering to the tutelary of your choice (you never know, it might work…)
Stay cool. Life is short.