"February's Horror-scopes"

Here you go, your stars for the coming month fresh from the devious mind of our very own Mystic Penguin. And on the face of it, you'll be lucky to see March in one piece. Stars? You'll certainly be seeing 'em.

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Gemini: A swift reminder for all you Geminis - don’t bend over in the prison showers. He’s not called “Mr Big” for nothing.
Lucky fish: Bass

Cancer: And they said smallpox had been wiped out. Don’t worry too much about it though, the “scabby look” is this year’s new black.
Lucky boy band: ‘N Sync

Leo: Congratulations! You’ve been selected for the next series of Big Brother. Your prospective housemates Michael Barrymore, Pete Townsend and Gary Glitter are equally chuffed.
Lucky Spice Girl: Baby

Virgo: The nuclear nightmare becomes a reality as your life is extinguished by the heat of a thousand suns brought upon us by a terrorist madman. That’s Virgo for this month. What a bitch.
Lucky disease: Radiation poisoning

Libra: Fame, fortune and power are within your reach. Unfortunately, both Special Branch and a national tabloid newspaper know the contents of that “special” folder on your hard drive.
Lucky radio station: Voice of the Broad Masses of Eritrea

Scorpio: Buddhism teaches us that life will repay you in your next incarnation for your actions in this and previous ones. Unfortunately, you’re overdrawn at the Bank of Karma for your war crimes last time around. Still, flesh-eating bugs. Could be worse, eh?
Lucky dictator: Mussolini

Sagittarius: Fortune brings a busy road, a forty ton truck and a brief wish that you’d listened when they taught the Green Cross Code at school.
Lucky spoon-bender: Uri Geller

Capricorn: A planetary conjunction in your sign brings wealth, luck and good fortune for all. Except you - it’s killer bees again.
Lucky board game: Lucky Ducks

Aquarius: People will come from afar to compare you with Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He was nailed to a tree, too.
Lucky make-over show: Changing Rooms

Pisces: Oh dear. I’ve just consulted with a doctor on your behalf, and he tells you not to worry. You will be amazed by the elastic proprties of the human rectum. Have you considered a guest appearance on Richard and Judy?
Lucky bra size: 42-D

Aries: Under the circumstances, we thought you could do with a laugh: This kid misses school one day. When he returns, his teacher asks him where he was. “Sorry I was away yesterday Miss, but my dad got burnt.” “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” replies his teacher, “not too badly I hope.” “They don’t fuck about at the crematorium, Miss.”
Lucky underwear: Asbestos Y-fronts

Taurus: They say money can’t buy happiness. On that reckoning, you’ll be the happiest bloke in the YMCA hostel this month.
Lucky drummer: Ringo Starr

If it’s your birthday this month: Send me presents. Loads of them. And money. It’s the 15th, you hear? Write it in your diary. Now. Now! NOW!!!

"Oooooh! Oooooh!"

There's a new Weebl and Bob story, with Jonti finally finishing "Bob's Week in France" a mere four months after vowing he'd get seven episodes done in seven days. But by 'eck, it's been worth the wait. A true classic. It's got a talking banana too.

The Scaryduck Archive

"An evening with Colin and Geoff"

I thought it was high time I tantalised you with another extract from my great unpublished classic "Colin and the Dog". I have carefully selected chapter twenty-six, which adds exactly nothing to the plot, and involves two drunk idiots talking complete rubbish in front of the television. Your comments, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.

To fill you in, Colin Mann has recently fallen off a roof whilst escaping from a nymphomaniac office cleaner and a truck-driving midget. There was also a priest involved. Geoff has been having loads of sex with Colin's ex-girlfriend of five minutes. This is, in fact, the first chapter in the entire book not to involve public nudity.

---

“Geoff?”

“That’s me.”

“What music do you want played at your funeral?”

The bar-room question, meat and drink to the semi-inebriated. Geoff had prepared for this one in advance.

“Colin, my man,” said Geoff, pointing at nothing in particular, “I’m glad you asked me that, because I was thinking the very same thing just the other evening. Probably, an’ don’t get me wrong, at the self-same moment you were plummeting to your doom from that roof.”

“Yeah, get on with it.”

“I want you to arrange a medley of my favourite stuff.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ve been to one of these things, see, when old Tommy got run over by that truck, remember?”

How could Colin forget one of the school hard cases ending up a broken mess outside the school gates that wet spring lunchtime? It had put him right off his mushy peas.

“They never play your songs all the way through. There’s no time at these crematorium jobbies, y’see, it’s all done on a tight schedule. If someone wants Bohemian Rhapsody and something by Marillion, there’d be a queue of stiffs all the way down the road into Caversham.”

Colin admitted he never knew that, it was a point he’d never taken into account when thinking about his funeral dirge. He kept quiet, though. Geoff was off on one.

“That’s why I’m gonna keep it short an’ sweet. Tommy had Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy. I thought that was class. Especially as they had to let his big brother out of borstal so he could go. Nice touch, that.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded square of paper. He flattened it out on his knee and squinted at his own, spidery handwriting.

“Ah yes. Here we go. You’re allowed two songs, one at the beginning and one at the end, so I’ve got two medleys. If I’m lucky, I’ll try and get a DJ to mix it up on my coffin lid. Shock the clergy.”

Oh yes, Geoff was off on one, and for added effect he’d switched to his EL Wisty voice, a drone that could bore for England, guaranteed to have Colin smirking like an idiot.

“Medley the first. The slow miserable stuff. I want to sort the men from the boys here. Get the blubbin’ over an’ done with quick before the vicar says what a great guy I was. You should have heard the made up shit he said about Tommy. Shocking.

“Right. Number one. Joy Division - Atmosphere. And make sure they don’t get the Russ Abbott version. This Mortal Coil - Song to the Siren, that’ll have ‘em slashing their wrists, rounded off by The Lady in Red, just in case there’s any old’uns in the house. Gotta cater for the Radio Two audience you know.”

“You’re one sick bastard, Geoff.”

Geoff held up his hand for silence.

“There’s more. Medley the second. I want to start with that shouty bit from the sixties. Y’know ‘I am the God of Hell Fire!’, that one.”

“Arthur Brown?”

“That’s the fella. Then Going Underground by The Jam, cos let’s face it, that’s where I’m going. Throw in a few bars of Teenage Kicks, the ‘Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky’ bit from Bowie, and then head for the big finish.”

“That being...?”

“Sailing by Rod Stewart.”

Colin spat beer across the room in a brown sticky shower that would glue their socks to the carpet for months to come, and make any future Geoff-and-Susan Living Room Shaggery a deeply unpleasant experience.

“You what?”

“Sailing. And I’m going to stick to my guns on this one. It was a toss-up between that and Agadoo, I can tell ya. I was going to insist on all the hand-jiving mularkey too. But Sailing, with fag lighters waving in the air as I slide down the runway into the furnace, yup, that’s what I want.”

“And that’s going in your will?”

“Already done and dusted mate. I’ve made you my executor. There’s a cassette already done in my sock drawer. It’ll save you the grief of digging out all the records. Oh, and hold it at the Hammersmith Palais, I don’t want none of that graveyard shit. Dead people, they’re so...so... depressing.”

“Jesus, Geoff, you think of everything.”

“That I do. And make sure it’s done to the letter, or I’ll come back an’ haunt you all.”

The Scaryduck Archive

"Power comes from the Barrel of a Gun"

Chairman Mao said that. And he should know, he had loads before he threw it all in to run a chip shop in Henley. Now it's my turn. Inspired by a link on Gert's Mad Musings of Me, I've set out my stall on the fabby Nation States as the People's Republic of Scaryduck.


My Foreign Minister addresses the UN

You'll be pleased to hear that I have decided to run my not-so-tiny corner of the great estate in much the same manner that I run this place. So perhaps that is why the United Nations has me listed as a "psychotic dictatorship". I'll show them. Just wait until I figure out a way of turning all that penguin crap into something nasty....

"Walk softly and carry a big stick" -- President Teddy Roosevelt

"Oh yeah? Well I speak LOUD!! And I carry an even BIGGER stick!!" -- Yosemite Sam

"Your enemy is ruling your country" -- you said it, George W Bush

"All hail President Scary, our lord and protector who had to nail my head to the coffee table because of the bad things I said. Here, have some money. And my daughter as well. Lovely bloke, lovely." -- A loyal citizen of The People's Republic of Scaryduck speaking of his own free will to a Ministry of Truth operative recently.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Scary's Hints & Tips"

Here's a useful one to ensure a long and successful marriage.

Guys! Whatever you do, don't spend an entire day photographing and photoshopping your kids' cuddly toys to make a fast buck off a bunch of t-shirts while letting your wife get on with a hard day's slog of stripping wallpaper, sanding walls and painting the living room. They don't appreiciate the skill and sheer hard work you're putting in to keep, you, the masses of Scary Readers happy.

And another thing, don't try to justify leaving the toilet seat up with the excuse "It's ready for the next guy to use." It just doesn't wash with the female psyche. I'll never understand women for as long as I live. And the way I'm carrying on, that won't be very long at all.

A whole day Scaryblogging, as I managed not to plug the Scaryshop once. Yay me! Except for just then. Sorry.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Send more Fish"

Greetings, puny humans. Your favourite penguin revolutionary returns from an enforced exile waddling round a circus ring in a bowtie. I have never been so humiliated in my life. But now, I return with news of the Glorious Penguin Revolution. The duck may think he's so clever selling his tat on the internet, but you can now support the struggle for penguin liberation by purchasing some of my finest quality merchandise HERE.

I can assure you that your contributions will only be used to support the glorious cause of penguin freedom, and not slashed up the wall on fish. At all. Honest.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Karma"


Typical. Wait all day for a Beatle, and four turn up at once

George Harrison was the nice, quiet Beatle, wasn’t he?

I spent much of my teenage years in Henley-on-Thames, the town George had chosen to sit on his huge pile of money chanting “Hare Krishna” to anyone who was listening. I’m actually doing him a disservice here, as he was immensely popular in the town, where he was treated as just another guy instead of the mega-celebrity he was elsewhere.

His massive country pad had rather disconcerting signs at the gate to keep prying tourists out, but what the tourists didn’t know was that there was a public footpath going right through the grounds. And being in a youth organisation that supposedly went in for the outdoor life in a big way, we purposely organised route-marches that went past George’s house in the hope of catching a sight of him.

We never did.

Not until one evening, just as it was getting dark. Night hikes were a thing we liked because it made it more difficult for the lads to get back alive, and there was always an outside chance of ending up near a nice country pub.

And there he was, walking the other way with Mrs George.

We gave him cheery shouts of “Alright George!” and “Where’s Ringo?”, and I shall always remember the words he offered us in reply. Words of wisdom, wit, the distilled knowledge of ancient mystics handed down from generation to generation.

“Fuck off lads.”

We fucked off.

And good thing we did, otherwise we would have missed some couple going at it hammer-and-tongs in the back seat of a Ford Escort up in Harpsden Woods. I sneaked up good and close, just to check it wasn’t George and Mrs George. It wasn’t. Now that’s what I call good karma.

Good karma, as any scholar of Buddhism will tell you, has to be balanced by an equal amount of bad karma. And this, in the words of Beatle John, was instant bad karma. Not George in the car turned out to be built like a brick shithouse. And he’d seen us.

We legged it. Not George legged it after us with remarkable speed for a guy with his trousers round his ankles.

Bad karma was piled on bad. On the way back, our esteemed leadership had laid on a little “incident” to test out our knowledge of first aid and emergency planning. They had set up a little scheme where one of our Commanding Officer’s mates would pretend to get him arm trapped under the bonnet of his broken down car just as we walked past. We were supposed to rush to his aid, and all would be laughter and joy, followed by the pub and/or Chairman Mao’s chipshop on the way home.

We walked past.

The car bonnet slammed down.

“Aaargh! Me arm! Me arm!” shouted Coop to add to the effect.

We kept on walking.

“You silly bastard” said one of our number, who may well have been me.

Seconds later we heard running footsteps behind us. Convinced it was Not George the Phantom Shagger after our blood, we squared up for a fight. It was Steve and Coop, chasing after us to get us to do the first aid exercise, fake blood dripping everywhere. Whoops.

“Now who’s a silly bastard?”

Two weeks later we saw George again, opening a charity do at the Town Hall. We accosted him for autographs and general glad-handing on the way out.

“I remember you lot - didn’t I tell you to fuck off?”

What a geezer.


"Apropos of Nothing"

I bet, given half the chance, Beatle George would have bought some fine, fine merchandise from The Scaryduck Shop. New merchandise will be added next week, just as soon as I've had some Moderately Evil Penguin pics made up.

I'm not pushing this one too hard, am I?

The Scaryduck Archive

"Mammon"

Be aware that I have turned into a grabbing bastard, and am now selling stuff at the Scaryduck Store. Top quality gear, shipped direct from the U S of A. And none of your cheap schmutter, either.

In the words of the immortal Derek Trotter: "This time next year, Rodders, we'll be millionaires."

"Mmmmmmm....."


PIE!

Today is National Pie Day. Mmmmmm.... National Pie Day! You are duty bound to do pie-flavoured stuff or the terrorists will already have won. The National Pie Council suggests:

"Hold a pie night. Gather family and friends for a pie celebration. Everyone must bring one homemade pie for the pie buffet. We have heard of events where more than 100 folks come with 100 pies."

You heard what they said. A hundred folks coming with a hundred pies. That's ten thousand pies. They always like to do things bigger and better in America. And this can only mean one thing: red hot pie swapping! Get in there!

Things to do on National Pie Day: Throw Pie at the Mayor of London.


"Direct From Bad Pun Central"

Please be aware that Tesco, Sainsbury and Safeway have all received a terrorist alert.

On the advice from the Police they have taken all Chinese and Indian meals off their shelves because they may have ricin.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Welcome to Airstrip One"

George Orwell was surprisingly on the button. OK, so he was the best part of twenty years out, but his nightmare vision for society of 1984 is just about upon us. Government, if they really wanted to, can follow your every move through TV cameras, logging credit card purchases, tapping your mobile phone and filtering your e-mail.

Life is reduced to a uniform mediocrity of work, drive, TV with a compliant media to feed you what they want you to hear. In America in particular, where the major TV networks and newspaper owners give money to both the major parties, no-one dares ask questions. There is no new Bernstein and Woodward to question the motives and actions of those in power because if Watergate happened now, the story would be ruthlessly spiked. It took foreign media to expose Jeb Bush’s election-winning vote-rigging in Florida, and by then nobody cared, and if the story made the papers, it was on page 32, just next to the funnies.


"First class ticket to Hell, please"

But where Orwell really got it right was on Big Brother’s need for war. In 1984, The Party knew that Oceania had to be at war permanently, with either Eurasia or Eastasia to keep the proles’ minds off what is going on around them. Bush knows this, so does the Prime Minister of Airstrip One. The war on drugs, the war on terrorism, the war to finish what Daddy started, it's been non-stop, while at home governments have been passing laws to restrict civil liberties under the banner of "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." How long until we get the compulsory Two Minutes Hate and the "Big Brother is Watching You" posters? Are we all the victims of the most outrageous con-trick of all time? Funny how the bad guys always seem to get away...

Crap coincidence corner for the conspiracy theorists: George Bush / George Orwell. Same first name. But Orwell’s read name was Eric Blair. Tony Blair. Same last name. Eek! Manic from Bloggerheads has the US/UK “special relationship” neatly summed up. Apparantly Thatcher and Reagan couldn’t leave it alone either...

WAR IS PEACE - FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

That’s enough of the heavy stuff. What we need are balloon-head stick people.

Oh, and those of you still blaming Manchester United for killing Rod Hull, apparantly he's getting better. We'll be writing stuff for News at Ten, cos we think they're fabby.


"ARSES!"

The nominations for the 2003 Bloggies are out. And despite well-placed bribery and penguin-flavoured threats, I'm not on the list, and strangely, neither is 2002 winner Wil Wheaton. Am I bothered by the results of a popularity contest where it would be oh-so-easy to stuff the ballot box? You bet I am. ARSES!

Scary says: Vote Fark. The Blogjam site listed under "best merchandise" is not connected to the Blogjam we all know and love, and will soon fall victim to the massed ranks of the Penguin Liberation Front (Officials).

The Scaryduck Archive

"Right, you asked for it..."

Little Johnnie's walking through the park one day, where he finds some welding goggles that somebody has obviously dropped. He puts them on, and everything's gone green. He wanders about the park, looking in awe at everything with a green tint. The swings, the cricket pavaillion, the duck pond, the dirty old man...

"Hello little boy," says the pervert, a faded Glam Rock star from the 1970's. "Do you know what fisting is?"
"No mister," replies little Johnnie.

"Well then, I wonder if you know what rimming is then?"
"No mister," says Johnnie, a little bit scared by the weird old man in the bad wig.

"I see," says the manky old spunker, rubbing his hands together, "Do you know how to do fellatio?"
"Sorry mister," says Johnnie ripping off the goggles. "I've got something to confess. I'm not really a welder you know."

Boom, and indeed, tish!

"Right, you asked for it...Part the second"

Bob Smith lived a life of sin, doing everything his Sunday school teacher told him not to do. One fine summer's day, he's chased out of a whorehouse in a drunken haze and falls under a bus. Next thing he knows, he's at the bottom of the escalator at the gates of hell, where Satan himself is waiting for him.

"Hello Bob, and welcome to Hell. We've been looking forward to your arrival. Hey - do you like to drink?"
Bob says, "Yes, I love to."

"Great," say Old Nick, "that's what we do every Monday. And hey, do you like to smoke?"
Bob says, "Yes."

"Great, that's Tuesday," says Satan, "You're going to love it here. Do you like to gamble?"
"That's why I'm down here," says Bob, "I lost everything I owned betting on two drops of water running down a window."
"Hey! We gamble every Wednesday, everybody wins!"

Bob can hardly believe his luck: "Hey wow, this gets better and better!"
Then the Devil asks, "By any chance are you gay?"
"No," says Bob.
"Aw, that sucks," says the Prince of Darkness, "You're going to hate Thursdays, mate."

The Scaryduck Archive

"The Big Black"

Today, I have been mostly making out my will. Not that I'm planning to die any time in the near future, it's just that I've a new light switch to go up in the bathroom, and I'm not too special with a screwdriver. I've gone for the easy route. Mrs Scary and the Scaryducklings get my entire fortune, except my priceless porn collection which will go to my brother along with the special razor for shaving your hairy palms. However, I am more than willing to change my mind. So, if you represent any religion, cult or belief that can promise me an endless supply of naked virgins in the afterlife, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Now, this got me thinking about funeral music. No organs. Absolutely no "All Things Bright and Beautiful", even if it has got that line about "the purple headed mountain" that never fails to get a laugh. Nope. I'm going for the three-pronged attack.

1. Going Underground by The Jam. Because, let's face it, I am.
2. Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil. That'll separate the men from the boys.
3. Agadoo by Black Lace. Leave 'em smiling. And I WILL insist on all the hand movements, especially from the vicar.

And let me leave you with a passing thought: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like my grandad did. And not screaming "AAAAAARGH! Look out for the cliff!" like his passengers."

That is all.

The Scaryduck Archive

"ROTFLMAO"

"You're going to hate Thursdays, mate."

"I'm not really a welder, you know."

The punchlines to two of my favourite jokes. And I'm going to keep you all in suspense, filthy English cad that I am.


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"First Class Ticket to Hell, Please"


JCVH: The dance number
Clicky for movie poster

My passing mention of the biblical epic Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter provoked a bit of a reaction. It turns out that the movie has its own official site where it appears you can now purchase this classic of modern cinema on DVD to enjoy in the comfort of your own home. There's also an official movie poster in which our Lord and Saviour gets only second billing behind the pneumatic delights of Ms Murielle Varhelyi in a skintight red leather outfit. Oh yes.

There's a rather good review here, along with stills, one of the songs (oh yeah, it's a musical) and a short video of the Son of God kicking some righteous ass.

Who needs ninjas when you can have Kung Fu Jesus? Praise Him! I am so going to hell for this.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Basil Clithopps"

Or, "1001 things to do with a supply teacher", a blog entry shamelessly pilfered back from The Law of the Playground, knocked around a bit in Word and re-posted here.

Schools always seem to have trouble hanging on to Religious Instruction teachers. They always seem to be sensitive types, stuck in a world midway between their religous calling and real life. In a school filled with "rehoused" problem families from London, we'd get through three or four a year, dragging them in, sucking out their life-blood and spitting them out at the other end. It was an appalling spectacle, but I suppose it prepared them for a tough life teaching comparitive religions somewhere really tough. Sometimes you got a teacher that "stuck". Doc Savage, Man of Bronze was one of these and ended up the head of his department, lording it over a staff of one. He'd been up the jungle, parachuted out of planes and wrestled with alligators. He was iron. He was an avenging God in action. It was just a shame we got Miss Reilly.

Miss Reilly was sent down to us because Mrs Merson had the usual "episode" an ended up crashing her pink Reliant Robin upside down in a ditch after a bizarre incident that also wrote off the Headmaster's brand new Nissan (strangely purchased the week after the school fair). Miss Reilly was straight out of college, all pebble glasses, big hair and tie-dyed clothes. She had been spotted with a guitar and a tambourine, and she drove a VW Combi, which many people suspected doubled up as her home. Doom.

"Now", she said, "I don't know your names, so if you could write yours down on this desk plan, we'll soon get to know each other, won't we?" So we did. Most of us, anyway. Andy Harris wrote down his name as Basil Clithopps and the name stuck for a whole six months. He even had an exercise book with the name on the front. Miss Reilly, bless her, didn't smell a rat at all. Basil's absence from the register was explained by the fact that he just moved to the area from Cardiff, so she pencilled him in. And as for the absence of Andrew Harrop? "He's in hospital, Miss, in a coma." The poor girl believed that one as well. All those joss sticks had gone to her head.

The whole plan went swimmingly for the entire school year, and Andy might have got away with it too if it wasn't for one tiny little detail - the end of year reports. Basil Clithopps got a report saying he was a model, if slightly rowdy, student, while Andy's bemoaned the loss of a whole year's work due to the unfortunate accident that had wiped out his entire family and left him "a vegetable, Miss, very tragic" in hospital. Miss Reilly cried when she found out.

You know the drill by now. The shit hit the fan. Andy was summonsed to the Head's office, was bawled out for "reducing a teaching colleague to tears" and suspended for a week, giving the lucky bugger an extra week's summer holiday. And they say crime doesn't pay.

I know it was evil and we shouldn't have stooped so low as to make a supply teacher's life hell, even if she was a drippy hippy ten years too late and swimming well out of her depth. So we'll give you a happy ending. The whole experience toughened her up, cleaned up her act and changed her entire career path, instilling a pathological hatred for the Welsh into the bargain. She changed her name, her wardrobe and her entire outlook on life. She is now Anne Robinson. What d'you mean I'm making this up as I go along?

Translation note for Americans: Supply teacher = substitute teacher.


"LeedsLeedsLeedsLeeds"

I'm been getting loads of hits today from leedsunited.com. Anybody care to enlighten me - was it the Rocastle link I posted yesterday? And while you're here - what, exactly, is that thing you do waving your arms in the air when you get a corner? That's been doing my head in for years.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Great Unanswered Questions: Part 5,879"

If Paul Daniels is such a great magician, how come he can't stop his river-front house from flooding every time it rains?

"Link-o-rama"

Your handy cut-out-and keep guide to what's shit and what's quite good on the internet this week.

My local Entrance to Hell. It's nice to know that Hades is only a bus ride away.

Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter: The Son of God is among us, going biblical with his homies on Vampire buttocks. In a Kung-Fu stylee. Why this epic isn't showing on a screen near you RIGHT NOW is frankly beyond me.

The Law of the Playground: Log has finally got round to updating the second best website in the world. Watch out for entries by a certain Harry Grout, an early prototype for Scaryduck.

US Bombing Watch: When was the last time the US and UK bombed Iraq? Yesterday, as it happens.

And if that hasn't scared the willies out of you, here's George's agenda for the next few years courtesy of Fark:

2002 - Afghanistan
2003 - Iraq/North Korea
2004 - Iran and re-election in a landslide.
2005 - Syria/Jordan
2006 - Saudi Arabia
2007 - North Africa from the Horn to Libya
2008 - the war on drugs heats up - Southern Hemisphere tour!

And to wind things up, click on this here linky and sign the petition. David Rocastle was one of the finest young football players this country has known, died on March 31st 2001 from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a virulent cancer of the immune system.

Ross Clark is trying to get Arsenal FC, Rocky's former club, to arrange a testimonial match in his name to raise money for cancer research. Let's hope they're listening, as it would be a fitting tribute to an immense talent who is sadly missed by this Gooner in particular. Thankfully, people survive cancer and live to tell the tale.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Joy is one of the best blog writers I've come across. Never mind her illness, she's an English teacher and a budding screenwriter first of all. I didn't want to come across as patronising, but I did. Oops.

And remember, in the words of the guru David Brent: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"

The Scaryduck Archive

"Helpdesk"

Lord High King of Blogging Wil Wheaton recently asked if any of his readers had any technical support experience. It’s as if he knew my deepest held secret, a shame I thought I could take with me to my grave. Now, like an arrow to the heart, Wheaton has exposed my past like the lie that it is. I can hold it back no longer. I must confess. I used to work on a helpdesk.

As a matter of fact, before that I was a computer operator. I worked in the head office of a national chain of tyre fitters on a computer that was so old it had a big cranking handle at the front to get it started. Once it got going, you could use the heat generated to power most of a small town. It was as big as a house, and has since been replaced by one 386 desktop computer.

When that monster went wrong it was devastating. I was there when it had a disk head crash. These days with Pentium IV (Bo-ding-dong-ding!) desktops, you’ll get a metallic clunk followed by the Blue Screen of Death. With the Honeywell Nebuchadnezzar you got red hot portions of ceramic hard drive and shards of metal flying round the room, severing limbs and generally causing you to re-run the job. It was a tough old life. That’s why I went for a helpdesk job. I needed the sleep.

It was a new machine. The Honeywell Bull Ratonnastick had been bought by a large corporation to handle their news publishing operation. Bull were the only bidders, and sold it to the corporation with the enthusiasm of an estate agent who has finally got to sell his own granny. When I started there, it only had one minor problem: it had never been switched on. It was lovely. A computer helpdesk that only ever fielded the question: “When’s the computer coming on?” from a bunch of hacks with typewriters.

It was an idyllic spring, filled with three hour lunch-breaks, trips down the pub, long afternoons pretending to study the user manuals on the sun-drenched lawns outside the building. A spring where two of my colleagues found love behind the CPU. Nothing could come between us and unending happiness. The only blot on the landscape was the fact I was stuck in an office for much of the day with the office pervert, whose only line of conversation was which female members of the editorial staff would you take roughly from behind. His considered opinion, after much one-way discussion, was all of them.

Then, one horrible, horrible day in May they switched it on.


The Computer User Panel decided the programmers had to die

It was hell. Screens crashed. Applications only worked when they felt like it, IT staff ran out of the building screaming, never to be seen again. The only thing that worked in the whole building was my phone, which rang constantly.

We managed as best we would. But as soon as you got one user relatively happy, another one would disappear down the tubes. Work disappeared. One key-press would take up to fifteen minutes, with journos going for a ciggarette break between words. There was nothing to be done. We switched the thing off again and broke out the typewriters. After six hours of this hell, I thought it might be nice to go and get a cup of tea and put my feet up before they rebooted the thing later in the day.

Big mistake.

The canteen was a huge, seething mass of hatred. The last IT manager in the building was swinging from one of the rafters. Journalists were gathered in small groups. Some had rakes, the rest were carrying flaming torches. It was a baying hate mob in the making.

The room when quiet. Then the shout went up.

“THERE HE IS!”

“GET HIM!!!!!!”

I fled, looking back just in time to see the assembled mass of hacks lurching toward me like a scene from Return of the Living Dead. Brains! They wanted to eat my Spicy Brains!

I barricaded myself in the Tech Support office and stayed there for three days with nothing but a carton of out-of-date milk and a curly sandwich for sustinance before being rescued by a Catholic priest armed with an Armalite rifle and three gallons of holy water.

I eventually recovered from my ordeal and got out of Tech Support at the earliest opportunity. You’ll be pleased to hear that there are no lasting effects and I am now living a normal life.... *sniff* *sniff*... hold on... *sniff*... I CAN SMELL YOUR SPICY BRAINS! OK, almost normal.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Room 101"

Things I really hate. Number One: Other People's Greasy Hair

Good God, if there really is one thing that turns my stomach it's other people's greasy hair. Now I've heard that not washing your hair is actually quite good for you. After a couple of months your hair goes through greasy and comes out the other end a beautiful, natural free-flowing mane. However, in that time, you've got to go around looking and smelling like a goat.

But it's not having greasy hair per se that gets my goat. It's what they leave behind. It always happens when I get on a bus or a train - I sit down in a window seat, and instead of a lovely view of the English countryside whizzing past, I get a faceful of somebody else's grease. Sometime's there's enough goo to fry an egg. And you can't wipe it off either, just spread it around, leaving an even bigger smear and a filthy blob on the sleeve on your coat.

It's even worse in banks and ticket offices where there's a security screen where the grease-heads can lean themselves against the glass. And if they're concentrating really hard on the difficult bit of their signature, they smear it about leaving something nasty, and quite possibly alive for the next poor bugger. I know. I used to work in an unemployment office, and I can tell you that from the inside it's just about the biggest gross-out you can get, and usually with the smell to match.

At the risk of over-indulgence, here's a little extract from the forthcoming book "Colin and the Dog" to illustrate the evils of bad hair.

The smear grew on the perspex screen at head height where claimant after claimant rested their head as they struggled with the complexities of their own name. Head after unwashed, unemployed head rested against the glass inches in front of Colin’s face as he watched in horror, the smear spreading like an oil slick, until he could no longer make out the faces on the other side. By the time the last of them had shuffled out of the building at lunchtime, Margaret Thatcher herself could have come in and signed on (a fantasy shared by at least three million of her unemployed masses) and Colin wouldn’t have recognised her. She would have been at the wrong window anyway. Colin signed the people whose surnames began with “W”.

Scabby hair. Number one item in the Scaryduck Room 101. Plenty more to come in a list which may or may not include Alan Titchmarch.

God bless ya, Maurice Gibb, I had my first smoochie slow-dance-with-a-girl to you. "How deep is your love?" you sung. Now we know. Six feet. I'll get me coat.

Oh yes. Birmingham City 0-4 Arsenal. La La La La.

The Scaryduck Archive

"We've got spam, spam and chips, spam egg and chips, spam spam eggs chips and spam..."

You know me. I love my spam. I am a connosieur of the art of spamming. However, let it go on record that if I get that "Got Ink?" e-mail again I shall personally go round the perpetrator's house and shove my industrial-sized toner cartridge up his arse. Sideways.

The imagination that goes into many e-mail scams never ceases to amaze me, my particular favourite as regular readers will know, being the "Nigerian" types, where someone, usually in a position of power in Africa, has several million UNITED STATES DOLLARS they wish to move out of the country. And hey, lucky you, they want to send it through your bank account and give you a commission. You're going to be a millionaire pretty soon, so could you help us out by paying a few "taxes" and "fees" up front? Tell you what, just give us your bank details and we'll help ourselves. And you'd be amazed how many people fall for this.

To date, I've had deposed presidents, deposed president's wives and children, former army generals, bankers, civil servants, dispossessed Zimbabwean farmers and one self-confessed diamond thief. A new twist on the scam is rare, but today that is what I got.

"I am a born-again Christian in Malaysia. I am dying of cancer and have Twenty-Seven Million Six Hundred Thousand UNITED STATES DOLLARS which I do not want to fall into the hands of unbelievers. I want to give this money to an individual who will build churches, orphanages and look after widows. Please send me your bank details."

That counted me out immediately. I was planning to piss it all up the wall on drink and loose women, some of whom may have been widows and orphans, but that's by-the-by.

And apparantly, according to recent correspondence, my wang still isn't big enough and Mrs Scary just hasn't got the guts to tell me, bless her.

"SIZE AND STAMINA DO MATTER
More Than You Can Possibly Imagine!!
She is just trying to spare your feelings by telling you otherwise."

I'm sold. I'm going to send them all my money for a bunch of pills made of crushed up laxatives and camel's poo. That's the trouble with women, twelve inches is never enough.

Britney Spears' tits. The J-Lo orgy. Thora Hird stairlift gangbang. The Lisa Riley swimsuit edition. That herbal stuff that gives you a raging stonk-on and makes you live forever. All 100% genuine e-mail offers. Get in there!

Of course, you could be like Jonathan Land and start writing back. Thanks to JPBrassard for this most excellent linky.

Post Script: I'm really, really sorry about the Lisa Riley link. I appreciate that some of you are of a nervous disposition, and I may have got it confused with this link. Sorry.

"Not Spam"

My very good friend Tony Quinlan is an excellent photographer. He even makes Dagenham look appealing. Almost. Look! Look!! LOOK!!! Now! Now!! NOW!!!

The Scaryduck Archive

"Liar of the Year Award 2002"

Four years ago, I started the Lie Emporium, a website dedicated to lies, whoppers, porkies, politicians and just plain old cheap gags. Every year, we run a Liar of the Year Award, which is invariably won by Jeffrey Archer for his sheer persistance at the art of lying even in the face of the cold, hard truth slapping him in the face with a wet fish.

This year, there's a new cat in town, and nothing was going to stop him from running off with the cream. Laaaydeeees an' Gennelmen, we present, shamelessly cut-and-pasted from Scaryduck's House of Lies, the Liar of the Year Award 2002

---

We asked for your nominations for the 2002 Liar of the Year Awards, and we got 'em. And what a year it's been for liars with the toughest judging session we've ever had to endure - a whole ten minutes between pints at The Black Horse. In no particular order, the nominations are:

• President Saddam Hussein: “What weapons? That sir, is a baby milk factory.”
  
  
• Al-Qaeda: "Of couse he's still alive. Is this badly produced audio cassette featuring the voice talents of Mike Yarwood not proof enough?"
  
  
• Lord Jeffrey Archer: “Yes Mrs Prison Officer, I’m just popping out for a packet of smokes and a bar of chocolate, and promise not to go to any parties or anything. At all.”
  
  
• Pope John Paul II: “So, these sex pervert priests. Run that past me again.”
  
  
• The FBI: "Terrorist Code Red! They slipped over the border with a car full of nukes. We're all gonna DIE! AAAARGH! No, hang on, it was just the Johnson family from Vancouver. Sorry."

But there can only be one winner, and he rose head and shoulders above the crowd. Yes, folks, it's Hail to the Thief! The 2002 Liar of the Year Award goes to His Royal Highness the President of the United States for a whole year of wanky bollocks which boils down to just fourteen easy-to-remember words:

• GWB: “AAARGHHHH!!! They’re coming, they’re coming to kill us all! Buy more oil and cars.”

George Walker Bush, Emperor of the World, Guardian of the Holy Oil Wells - you scare the shit out of us, but we salute you.

This programme has been brought to you by the number sixty-nine and the first amendment.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Chemistry"

You’ve got to hand it to my teachers. They always tried to innovate and make our school experience different from other run-of-the-mill schools. OK, in the case of the luscious, pouting Miss Shagwell, it basically involved wearing as little as possible and sitting on her desk with her legs apart, but you get the idea.

In the science labs, they really wanted to do things differently from the traditional and frankly boring learning-by-rote that was a curse on the modern system. So they went mental and abandoned the tried-and-test route of the core sciences Biology, Chemistry and Physics in favour of a hotch-potch of half-baked ideas called “Integrated Sciences”.

We wasted a lot of time drawing leaves, “identifying patterns”, comparing colours of stuff in test tubes and heating up stuff that didn’t do anything terribly exciting, while kids at other schools were doing things the old-fashioned way. And the right way, as it turned out. Our entire course was, I found out far too late, a load of wanky bollocks.


Warning: Scary at Work

So when I reached college to study for my A-levels, it transpired that I’d spent the last five years of my life doing absolutely nothing; and of chemistry in particular, I knew precisely squat. I swiftly came to the conclusion that anything above a fail grade would be a triumph. Dr Lawson knew that I was a kill-or-cure, giving me a list of books which stacked on top of each other was about three feet tall. They contained words like “valences”, “ionization” and “dielectric constant”. I was doomed.

For the next two years Dr Lawson crammed seven years worth of knowledge into my head, until the blood came out of my ears. I knew absolutely nothing about the theory of chemistry, and struggled with all the simple stuff my fellow students took for granted. Thankfully though, when it came to practical work, thanks to my teenage years of setting fire to things, I found I had a natural talent, and that would ultimately save me from failing the course.

It all hinged on the final A-Level exam in June of 1984. The written paper, as I suspected, had been an utter nightmare, but I managed to bullshit my way through it and hopefully get a grade. Any grade. I wasn’t going to be particular. Anything higher than an F would be just dandy.

Then came the practical. We were given quantities of chemicals we were asked to identify, find atomic weights, do strange measurements with mass spectrometers and arcane stuff that may or may not turn lead into gold.

Silently, grimly, we set to work. Add a bit of acid, test for fumes. Heat it up, check for colour changes. All well-drilled and things were going well. Yeah right.

Things would have been absolutely peachy if I hadn’t tried to sneak a peak at Joanne Sutter’s arse at a crucial moment. I was heating up some almost random concoction of dangerous chemicals over the blue heat of a bunsen burner. Just one little peak. Just one little twitch of the hand at the wrong moment. Excuse: I was eighteen years old. Girl’s arses were important then. (Disclaimer: link goes to Vinny Jones's arse. Sorry.)

WOOF.

Flames shot out of my test tube and spread over the bench in a way you only ever see when a car blows up in an action movie. A great gobbet of burning goo fired out of the end, arced through the air and hit Dr Lawson squarely on the back.

His lab coat was now on fire.

Dilemma. This was an exam, on which the futures of a dozen young people depended. You’re not supposed to speak. So is it the done thing to tell the invigilator that you’ve just set him on fire?

With smoke and eerie green flames now wafting up his back to his shirt collar, I thought I’d better risk it.

“Errr... Dr Lawson? Fire?”

He sprung into action, grabbing the lab’s fire blanket and dousing the flames that were playing across the workbench. My answer paper had a lovely antique-style burnt fringe to it, which would certainly add some gritty realism for the examiner.

“No sir, it’s you”

The flames were right up his back and you could smell singed hair. If he didn’t know he was on fire by know, he must be made out of asbestos.

At last, he twigged, ripped off his lab coat and we took turns stamping on it. The green sticky stuff got stuck to his Hush Puppies, and carried on relentlessly burning, melting the sole of his shoes as he finally beat the flames out.

There was a stunned silence as everybody else turned and stared at the tableau unfolding in front of them. Dr Lawson stood there, a plume of smoke rising from his head.

“Well don’t just stand there,” he said in his broad Northern tones “You’ve got an exam to pass.”

“Burns easily with green flame,” I wrote. “May be Copper based.”

In the middle of August, my grades flopped onto my doormat. Mathematics: D. Physics: D. Chemistry: E. Result! By today’s lax standards, those would equate to straight As and I would have made it to Cambridge to chum it up with Stephen Hawking. That’s what I call a lucky escape.

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"Woo!"

The first rule of b3ta: You do not talk about b3ta.

Second rule of b3ta: You will pretend to know how to hummus.

Third rule of b3ta: To show appreciation of other people's hummus, you will have your own "woo".

After a mere 280 days, 2 minutes and 45 seconds membership, I finally have a woo. Woo!


Woo! Yay! Houpla! Panowie!
clicky for bigger

And if you've still got absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I'm really, really sorry.

While we're talking crap, the 2003 B3ta awards have been announced. Weebl won. And so did kittens. Woo.

"Pepys"

It was bound to happen sooner or later - The Diaries of Samuel Pepys in blog form, updated (hopefully) daily and in real time minus 343 years by genius-at-large Phil Gyford. A wonderfully concept, beautfully executed. If you keep a diary or an expletive-ridden weblog, go here first for a few lessons from the master. Oh yes.

Back to Scaryduck

"War! Huh! What is it good for?"

Call me a bleedin' heart liberal if you like, but you can't ignore the bleedin' obvious. The more I read about the forthcoming war against Iraq ("Operation Finish What My Daddy Started"), the more you realise that it is a bogus one. Bogus, but to what end? Is it because after victory over the demons of communism in the Cold War, America needed to redefine itself with a new adversary to justify its continued military dominance and its position as the number one we-can-do-what-we-bloody-well-like nation in world affairs?

Or is it the grand diversion, much used by amateur magicians of the left hand drawing attention away from what the right hand is doing? At home there's a failing economy and a rash of corporate scandals that , with Dubya's connections with Enron's Kenneth Lay, reach all the way to the White House. A tad over-simplistic but that's what it all boils down to in this duck's humble opinion.


Say NO to war! Say YES to cute fluffy kittens!

So I read with some interest that Bush and his lap-dog Blair are "concerned" that the UN inspectors are yet to find any of these nasty Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Concerned because they're not going to get their popularity-boosting war, or concerned because America helped Saddam build his WMD's in the first place, and they've got to be still there, lurking in his airing cupboard like a great rotting turd, right?

Saddam's Iraq is hardly a picture of democracy and freedom. He can best be described as barking mad, and the relatives and cronies that help "run" his country are little better. The last election gave voters the stark choice between another seven years of Mr Hussein and having your head nailed to the coffee table, but even a scandalous human rights record is no excuse for launching war against an independent nation. Support for anti-government mercenaries is against international law. And who'd do a thing like that? Working on the same criteria, America should have declared war on itself long ago.

Besides, with The War on Drugs and The War on Terrorism still raging, does Bush want to wage war on THREE fronts? Yes, as it turns out. Funny how there's no huge military build-up to sort out oil-free North Korea.

I've had enough, I'm off to sit in a big hole in my garden with a hat made of tin-foil on my head.

Seven minutes to midnight.

Back to ParanoidDuck

January's Horror-Scopes

Check out what's in store for you this month with our not-made-up-at-all reading of the stars. Mystic Scary cannot be held responsible for death, loss of limbs or swarms of killer bees resulting from these readings. For a personal reading , please send all your cash and belongings to the usual place. Hey, if Russell Grant can get away with it....

Aries: You’d be better off with making do with what you’ve got. Destiny brings you an axe-wieldinh shop assistant in the returns department of Marks and Spencers.
Taurus: An administrative error at the United Nations has your house designated an Iraqi Weapon of Mass Destruction. Expect a visit from Uncle Sam.
Gemini: Wild Dogs wouldn’t keep you away from the one you love. As a matter of fact, they will.

Cancer: Destiny forsees a friendship with a group of Romanian circus freaks. You may get home before Christmas, if your legs are still working.
Leo: The name “Bernadette” will become important to you. It’s a hurricane.
Virgo: You will be selected for the new series of “Big Brother”. Unfortunately, you ticked the wrong box and applied for the job of “house gimp”.

Libra: Fortune sends you a pair of incontince pants. Swimming lessons will be a necessity this month.
Scorpio: A prank phone call sees you elected the President of North Korea, with hilarious results!
Sagittarius: Destiny sends you a thirty-six foot tall killer robot from the Planet Koozbain. And no instruction manual. Have fun.

Capricorn: A long-lost German tribe will fete you as their God. They will honour you with great feasts, offer you choice virgins to fulfill your every desitre. Then they will kill you in the traditional manner. Sorry.
Aquarius: You will enjoy a long life filled with amusing incidents, stacks of cash, hoardes of admirers and all the free sex you can eat.
Pisces: It’s funny that you’re a Pisces. The doctors say they’ve never seen a fish go in quite so far.

If it's your birthday: I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken as you were adopted as a child following a forbidden affair between Sir John Guilgud and the Queen Mother. Your birthday is actually in October and you missed it. Again.

Scaryduck is an Aquarius. How did you guess?

"Evil Bunny"

First there was a Scary Duck. Then there was a comedy sidekick Robber Rabbit. After that came all that messy business with Penguins. Now there's a 100% genuine Evil Bunny. He's Brazilian. He blogs in Portuguese. Don't let that put you off, because he supports the Arsenal and listens the the world's greatest band Sparklehorse. The bunny is truly, truly evil and we salute him.

"Don't vote, the government will only get in"

It's time for the annual Bloggie awards, where you chaps get to nominate your favourite Weblogs of the year. The voting form is HERE. I don't need to tell you who to vote for. Wil Wheaton. Heh.

Back to the rather-too-smug British Weblog Writer of the Year. Hint bloody hint