Open to Doubt

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Open to Doubt Page 13

by Marcus Achison


  “Is there an equivalent powder for us girls?” Myrtle Loashin.

  “There’s no better knob refurbishment balsam,” Sir Brian Gloatis.

  “It even works for us brash Americans,” Bubba-Lee Zuckermann.

  “This gear will recondition any bacon rod,” Mr Pandoozian.

  “I agree!” Mrs Pandoozian.

  “There doesn’t seem to be a price,” Hamish McHamish.

  “Just order it for fuck’s sake,” Hilda McHamish.

  The Diary of Peter Sensipanties (aged 35)

  The day-to-day goings-on of a man who hates everything and everybody

  10th September

  4am

  Up for yet another pee. Had the last one ten minutes ago. Don’t know what’s causing all this peeing. Can’t be the beer. I only had ten bottles. And ten whiskies. So it can’t be that. I must be drinking too much water or milk. Since I was up I decided to watch a bit of TV. There was something on about a man having a sex change to become a woman. It seems quite common these days for men to become women. Knob off, tits and fanny on, and you’re ten grand worse off. I don’t understand it. Weird thing is, as a man he was called Hilary and now he’s a woman he’s called Charlie. What a lot of shite. I’d rather spend the ten grand on drink. Went back to bed.

  11am

  Woke up because the stupid dog was licking my face. I was soaked in dog saliva which smelled and tasted rancid. I punched Sammy Davis on his cold damp nose and he ran off barking. Just got dressed without a shower. I’ll have a shower tomorrow. Them next door are using that noisy fucking lawnmower again. I’ll need to throw more stones and broken glass on their lawn tonight. The stupid postman rang the doorbell again because a letter for me was too big to go through the letterbox. I grabbed it out of his hand and told him to fuck off.

  2pm

  Some fat guy came to the door saying he wanted my vote in the upcoming bi-election. I told him he could have my vote if he would fuck off and not come back. Had a nice lunch of fried cheeses. A pound and a half each of Cheddar, Stilton and Brie, fried in the pan with shredded cream crackers and a pint of double cream. Fantastic. Sammy Davis appeared looking for his lunch but I had no dog food left. He had to make do with a family size packet of cheese and onion crisps. I don’t think he liked them. He growled the whole time he was eating them then spewed the lot up on the floor. I tried to hit him on the head with a tin of tomato soup but he ducked and I smashed the glass in the kitchen door. The noise made the dog shit himself then he bolted upstairs. I cleaned up the mess and shouted on Sammy Davis to come down and apologise but he never showed up.

  5pm

  Watched TV for a while. There was a programme on about a guy who could talk to animals. If he was here I’d tell him to tell Sammy Davis to fuck off. The Jehovah’s Witnesses came to the door so I invited them in. When they sat on the couch I told them to listen clearly to what I had to say about the bible. Take your bible and ram it up your arsehole and stop bothering me I said. They left in a hurry. Job done. Two minutes later, the pizza guy came to the door and expected a tip. I grabbed the pizza and told him to fuck off.

  10pm

  Got on the drink. Beer, whisky and wine. Fantastic. Watched a programme about how to cook a healthy meal for two quid. What a load of shite. Who wants to eat lettuce and peapods? Sammy Davis appeared and jumped onto the couch and sat next to me. I told him the next time he behaves badly I’ll bag him up and throw him in the canal. He got the message. Better get drinking. Only four hours until bedtime.

  Items Free to a Good Home

  Are you thinking of modernising or upgrading your garden? If so, why not visit Ovary and Syndrome Ltd Advanced Gardening Techniques. We can provide the following speciality services: Lawns converted into mud or deadly quicksand, ornate beautifully sculpted hedges burnt down in under ten minutes, lily and frog ponds easily filled in with tar or rubble, decorative flower beds completely covered in gravel, shale or giant boulders, trees up-rooted and burned on site, driveways constructed from the finest sawdust and orchards pilfered. Ovary and Syndrome has been consistently rated as one of the alphabetically-listed gardening services in the phone book over the past nine years. Highly regarded British gardening magazine The Divot has used words such as unbelievable, astonishing, unimaginable and breath-taking to describe our work. We only charge the very finest prices and all our staff are fully available to start work immediately in between trips to the local pub. Visit our website at Unit 501, Intercoarse Industrial Estate, 52 Legman Street, North-Eastern Skonkage or phone Sebastian Chubzy on Skonkage 9991. O & S Ltd is governed by the British Society for the Advancement of Concrete.

  Free to a good home. Five year-old mentally disturbed warthog. Can be temperamental and burst into tears and can charge, bite and slash with razor-sharp tusks. Can occasionally be wrathful if pepper is put up its sensitive nose for a laugh. Answers to the name of Jeff Warthog. Phone Dexter Bogrole on Gubbenstery 8484.

  70 year-old gerbil for sale. No use in the company of other old gerbils. Prefers to be with aging mice and middle-aged swans and likes to be addressed as Mr Gerbil. Only eats steak and chips. Phone Cheeky Benson on Gubbenstery 6000.

  Classically trained child for sale. Speaks Arabic and Swahili, plays the harp and has a PhD in Mother’s Day card design. Comes complete with receding hairline, squint eye and bow legs. Will consider long term rental or swap. Phone Shirley Acrid on East Buntyside 5555.

  Celebrate the rapidly approaching New Year with a highly refreshing tin of Ear Oil. Comes in strawberry, potato and curry fragrances. Make sure both your earholes are in pristine condition. Order now from Highly Pungent Chemicals Limited, East Pognettoland Estate, Skonkage.

  New Album Reviews

  By Top Tunes Magazine’s Algernon Buboes

  The Dank Collection by Taylor Dank

  Track Listing:

  1.Rotate your head for Jesus

  2.Steal my tractor, steal my heart

  3.My horse was not to know (with Clint Sebum)

  4.I lost my fluid in El Paso

  5.Stop and think, I’m only fourteen

  6.Ellwood and his brother fill me up

  7.My cherry pie is for the Lord

  8.He’s only my dog and he’s deaf

  9.My Uncle Joe opened my locker (with Conrad Hymen)

  10.My gulch is never dry

  11.I’ll always enjoy the beef

  12.One man’s woman is another woman’s man

  At the age of fifty, country and western sensation Taylor Dank has decided to release her first collection of greatest hits, and what a powerhouse album it is. It contains her first five smash hit No.1 singles and what she describes as seven other songs. The opener, “Rotate your head for Jesus,” was her first No.1 and it’s a real cracker. It is written by Dank’s long-time collaborator Cassius (Big C) Bubboth and it refers back to when the teenage Dank got her head stuck in the church railings. Her mother, Ethel Dank Senior, coated Taylor’s ears in butter, battered her rear end with a spade and told her to “rotate her head for Jesus”. The rest is musical history.

  “Steal my tractor, steal my heart”, was written by Dank herself as a tribute to her late brother Dexter, who did indeed have his tractor stolen when he was only 25 years old. This sent him spiralling into a deep depression and he committed suicide by putting his mouth over a Fire Department power hose, turning it on full and bursting himself to death. My only criticism of this track is the rather inappropriate heavy disco beat. Track 3, “My horse was not to know”, was Dank’s first duet when she teamed up with veteran crooner Clint Sebum. The clever lyrics tell a tale of an aging horse being transported to the slaughterhouse but being told it was going for a day out to the seaside to play with the donkeys. It certainly is a tear jerker, especially the stunning line, “and then Dobbin was sawn in half”.

  “I lost my fluid in El Paso”, has become a country and western classic and beautifully paints a picture of a young girl going to the cash and carry in El Paso to buy her firs
t container of brake fluid. However, the tragedy is that she forgot to pick it up at the checkout and went home without it. It’s a haunting number and has since become a classic end-of-evening weepie. “Stop and think, I’m only fourteen”, was Dank’s first foray into the fledgling genre of country and western rap. Basically, it is a comic tale of Dank’s father, Buster Senior, trying to marry her off to his brother, Dwayne Senior, and her pointing out that she is under age. It’s the song that contains the often quoted line, “Ma papa said go and I said no, so he punched me on ma muthafuckin nose”. Track 6, “Ellwood and his brother fill me up”, is Dank’s reflection on her youth when she travelled to borstal every morning and walked past a garden containing the dysfunctional brothers Ellwood and Peahead Tumbleweed. Ellwood couldn’t stop jumping and Peahead used to ride around the garden on the back of a pig barking like a dog. Dank said these poor boys made her cry every morning for over five minutes. Her sweet melodic voice booming out the lyrics accompanied by full-on bagpipes is indeed very touching.

  “My cherry pie is for the Lord”, reflects Dank’s commitment to her deep religious beliefs. As she says in her autobiography (Danky Wanky Pip Pop, published by Quigley & Snarrion) she was brought up Hindu-Catholic but converted to Hindu-Protestant after witnessing a priest slapping a dog in the mouth for fouling the pavement. Through her catchy lyrics she claims if she ever learned how to bake she’d bake a cherry pie and give the Lord first bite. Exhilarating stuff indeed.

  “He’s only my dog and he’s deaf”, was co-written by Dank and her long-time friend and local toilet attendant Billy-Ray Afterbirth. The pair have collaborated before, but never in song writing. In a recent interview in the Daily Squawker, Dank said Billy-Ray Afterbirth is the finest songwriter to still be a toilet attendant she’s ever met. The tune itself is a statement about which Dank claims to feel very strongly, i.e. why are hearing aids not made available to deaf dogs in the state of Texas.

  “My uncle Joe opened my locker”, is another duet, this time with Scottish jazz aficionado Conrad Hymen. Hymen, famous for opening up Scottish accordion-based jazz to the rest of the world, really lets rip on this number dedicated to Dank’s uncle Joe, who once helped her open her locker at the local tennis club when some bad boys had glued it shut. Dank’s gentle almost incoherent warbling combined with Hymen’s lung-bursting shouting and heavy Glaswegian accent makes for stirring stuff. The only acoustic track on the album is the quiet, almost apologetic “My gulch is never dry”. Dank performs with only the New York Philharmonic Orchestra as backing on this stripped down and bare hymn dedicated to Dank’s childhood memories of maintaining a moist gulch for the flowers in her garden despite the hot weather.

  The penultimate track, “I’ll always enjoy the beef”, is a sordid tale of the restaurant once owned by Dank’s uncle, Goober Senior. The Cow Flesh Inn, as it was known, was very successful in its heyday and a young Taylor Dank would frequent it while absconding from borstal. However, she soon discovered that every dish she ate made her violently sick except the fried beef. She describes this track as a tribute to the chef, Big Lester Heaves. Very thought provoking.

  The closer on the album is the slightly confusing “One man’s woman is another woman’s man”. When asked about this track during a recent radio interview, Dank tried to explain the title by talking about a relationship she once had at borstal when she was sixteen. She claims to have fallen in love with a fellow inmate called Jim-Bob who later had a sex change to become a woman called Prudence Gunzy, who later became a lesbian called Madison McDuff. It’s a beautiful song tenderly performed by Dank at her very best. Curiously, it is the only song I’ve ever reviewed that contains the line “my love is like a Wankel rotary engine”.

  Chemical Sanitisation Systems

  Pavements for Rent

  Rent the pavement of your choice and walk on it uninterrupted by pests, drunks, idiots and religious zealots. Stand, sit or roll around on your exclusive sidewalk. Free of dog shit, broken glass and chewing gum. Be the envy of passers-by as they bump into each other while you stroll gracefully in any direction you want. Trespassers get what for. Hourly, weekly and monthly rates on request. Don’t delay.

  Ron Chutney’s Dog Handling Course

  Teach your dog to:

  Bum the carpet

  Growl at the wife

  Jump into the canal

  Recognise coriander

  React badly to a klaxon

  Piss the floor when scared

  Bravely run off cliff edges

  Vomit up too many sweets

  Phone Ron on Scrutto 007 747.

  New from Zerpon and Glank, Quality Dog Suspension Systems. Hanging Dog Baskets. Enjoy a welcome home every night as you are greeted at your front door by your favourite doggy in a hanging basket. Suitable for all dog sizes and small horses. Comes complete with cosy blanket, hot and cold running dog food and set of two brandy glasses. Order before next week to qualify for a free framed photograph of a dog licking the side of a boat.

  Musical Instrument Sale

  One inch Cellos

  Rubber Trumpets

  Wooden Cymbals

  Whoopee Cushions

  1000-kilowatt Loudhailers

  Accordions containing mice

  Drum Kits with attached cat

  Billy Mongo’s Musical Instrument and Agricultural Swine Handling Warehouse, 1958 Aging Lesbian Boulevard, Gubbenstery.

  Film Reviews

  By our moving pictures editor Raymond de Biliousness

  This week we take a look at two contrasting new films. The first is from acclaimed director Sir Herbert Futty and the second is the debut feature from newcomer Bertrand Ganzo.

  Sir Herbert Futty’s latest arrival The Pig Men is a real hair-raising shocker and quite a deviation from his last movie, the historical epic, The Trousers of the Baboon People. Whereas Baboon People chose to glamourize the daily life of the modern trouser-wearing baboon, Pig Men is a nerve-jangling story of the dangers of attaching a man’s head onto the body of a massive pig. The main protagonist is Dr Ron Butter, who runs a highly secretive research lab on the outskirts of Ponteland, Northumberland. In an attempt to breed a crack military fighting unit, Butter grafts the heads of paralysed soldiers onto the bodies of giant, well fed pigs. His idea is that when the pig men are in the field of combat they would not need feeding because they could eat any old shit lying around. Also, clothing and other items such as deodorants and personal stereos would not be needed, thereby saving a lot of money. All goes well until the pig men break out of their pigsty and go berserk in Newcastle city centre. On one fateful freezing Saturday night in winter, a platoon of these highly trained porcine fighting units slaughter innocent men and women queuing outside night clubs, whose only crime appears to be that they are wearing only bra and knickers or boxer shorts and sporting dozens of ridiculous tattoos. The bulk of the story centres on the police’s attempts to round up the pig men and convert them to truffle hunting rather than mass slaughter of under-clothed, tattooed night clubbers. Futty maintains the gut-wrenching tension throughout and the denouement is spectacular. I loved it (1/10).

  The second new feature this week is Terror in Spunk River Canyon, by first-time director Bertrand Ganzo. The story is a dramatization of actual events that took place in 1962 when a party of boilermakers and seamstresses from the village of Penisworthy in Devon were holidaying together in Skunkville, Alabama. The self-appointed leader of the group is 59 year-old master seamstress Hubert Babbage, who persuades the rest of the group to sail 150 miles down the Spunk River from Skunkville to Bunionville. Following a brief protest on safety grounds by 59 year-old master boilermaker Judith Vengeful, the group agree to go. They hire a 300-foot wooden raft and stock it with 1,000 litres of water, 500 litres of buttermilk, 100 litres of malt whisky, a jar of Vaseline and 5,000 family size tins of the pungent herring delicacy surströmming. The main thrust of the story then focuses on the mishaps that befall the group on their voyage. At one point, they are atta
cked by a herd of over 100 aquatic mountain lions and only make good their escape by poisoning the lions with the surströmming. On a particularly rough section of the mighty Spunk, Agnes Lungbate, a time-served arc welder falls overboard and has to swim behind the raft for over 100 miles before being reported missing and pulled aboard. The thrills come thick and fast and Ganzo handles the action expertly. A strange aspect of the film is the director’s request that his actors miss out every second word of dialogue. This is very confusing at times and makes the entire cast sound like toddlers. Overall though, a shocking, if slightly odd, inaugural feature from a director with a bright future, if he includes all the dialogue. Stirring stuff indeed (2/10).

  New Family Pub Opens

  The Buttered Nostril

  By our new pub reporter Olivia Mouthparts

  Central Gubbenstery’s newest and biggest family pub opened last month and has already made the headlines for various reasons. The pub is the brainchild of local millionaire Iain Ladypup, who has spent the last two years overseeing construction of the massive facility. The pub certainly is big. It measures four lacrosse pitches in width and two polo pitches in length and is 185 shaftments high. It has over 500 staff and parking at the rear for two million cars. However, recent reports in the press have been less than favourable and that may be due to some of the unusual incidents that have taken place in the pub.

  As an opening day attraction, Mr Ladypup arranged for a tiger to be brought in with its expert trainer from Las Vegas. The tiger was supposed to leap from chair to chair and then be rewarded with some strips of meat. Instead, the tiger ate two members of the public who had popped in for a quick drink. A 33 year-old Egyptian woman and a 59 year-old man from Eastern Iraq were devoured by the huge cat as they sipped their opening day beverages. As the tiger was about to pounce on one of the bar staff, it was shot in the anus by local farmer Hogarth Larpide who had luckily brought his blunderbuss along to the new super-pub. The tiger roared with pain and was then quickly clubbed over the head with a hammer by local joiner Gideon Ballnut who had luckily brought his tools along on his outing to the new bar. As the tiger tried to limp back to its cage, local stonemason Roger Dango managed to thump it on the side of the face with two spare half bricks he had in his pocket. As the great beast slumped in its cage, bleeding and in agony, local electrician Peter Nutrient quickly wired it up to the mains via its ears, tongue and genitalia and gave it a few strong jolts of electricity. This caused the cat to thrash about while roaring and vomiting. After about five minutes of electricity coursing through it, the tiger caught fire, but this was quickly extinguished by local drunkard Hubert Spewpan who peed on the suffering animal.

 

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