"Name that Penguin Redux"

Ladies, Gentlemen and citizens of Florida! The people have spoken. I asked for your votes to christen the small, flightless bird formerly known as Moderately Evil Penguin, and you stuffed the ballot box in your droves. So, in my capacity as returning officer for the parliamentary constituency of Antarctica South, the total votes cast are as follows:


You're not going to like this

Crabstick (Slightly Evil Party): 10 votes
Ming (Very Evil Party): 21 votes
Fishfinger (Monster Raving Loony and a bit Evil Party): 18 votes
Fletcher (Moderately Evil Party): 35 votes
Pengor (Hardly Evil at all Party): 49 votes

So, by the power vested in me, I hereby declare that the penguin shall now be known as Fletcher. And let that teach you an important lesson about democracy. I rule!

*cough* If you're mildly outraged about me cheating and trampling all over the democratic process, feel free to sign the online petition organised by the shadowy pressure group known as The People's Committee to Restore Proper Penguin Naming Procedures, which is in no way connected with the authors of this site. At all.

In the end, you will bow down to my superior knowledge. The evil penguins are out there. And they're out to get us.

All hail Pengor ... I mean Fletcher! Fletcher. That's it. Fletcher.

Edit: There may be a short gap in the blogging while I run and hide from the baying hoardes ...err... take a short holiday. I will return with stories of blowing stuff up when you least expect it.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Monday Link-o-rama"

"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of a pacifist organisation?" Yes folks, you too can make your Homeland safe you you and your fellow citizens with the Citizen Corps! "Community focus to engage all Americans." Except, of course, those foreign-looking types who live at the end of the street, and the Leclerqs at number 52, because that's a French name, isn't it?

Are you ready? I'm not. I haven't even thought of going out and buying duct tape and plastic sheeting. It's just a ruse because Dubya and Rummy are major shareholders in the US Patriotic Duct Tape Manufacturing Inc. The US Government wants me to panic now. You can't fool me, I'm saving all my panic up for when the big one drops, just like everybody else.

And let's not forget, our argument is not with the peace-loving Iraqi people. Which is why they're about to have several thousand tons of spiky metal dropped on them. If you're an armchair quarterback, or simply horrified by the fact that more Afghan civilians (remember Afghanistan? That was SO last year) died in the "liberation" of their country than American civilians died in 9/11, then keep an eye on Iraq Body Count. It's on five already, it had better stay that way.

Blinktag: Like FARK, only more so. Have a kitten.

Where are ya?


Official penguin naming ceremony tomorrow. Get your votes in!

From The Blacklist -- The following stories were true. Sorry to disappoint you, but I never got to see Fergie's polo mallets.
* The time I told Uri Geller to fuck off
* The time I was nearly on Blue Peter

Mild Pimpage: Offer from Cafepress - Spend $40 or more on products (not including postage and handling) at the Scaryduck Shop before the 28th of this month and get a five dollar discount. Enter the discount coupon code PREZDAY when prompted at the checkout. It's not much, but whoop-de-doo, it's free money.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Electricity"

The science lab is your friend. It has all sort of stuff that you can use to burn, maim and annoy your fellow students and, if you’re really lucky, your teacher. We thought nothing of leaving gas taps on for the unsuspecting smoker, leaving the lids off highly toxic and reactive chemicals and using the everyday items around us to create life-threatening weapons.

Dr Jenkins once showed us how to make Nitro, and we wiped out large sections of the school garden. From that day we never looked back.


Don't try this at home

For wanton cruelty to your fellow student, you just couldn’t beat electricity. Provided you were well earthed, you could wreak havoc on anyone you liked without fear of ending up a shrivelled black crisp on the floor.

So when we were introduced to the marvels of static electricity, we were in heaven. Mr Wilkinson wheeled in a contraption with two huge silver domes which appeared to be powered by a bloody great handle and the world’s biggest elastic band.

“Gentlemen”, he solemnly announced, “I give you the van der Graaf generator.”

It was ace. By turning the handle fast enough, you created a huge static charge, which arced across several inches from one dome to the other. When Mr Wilkinson told us the charge was several million volts, that was it, we were sold. With your hand on top of one of the domes, you too became live and had almost magical powers of sending sparks flying across space from your fingertips. Wa-hey-hey!

As soon as his back was turned we started to take the piss.

“Hey! Nob-Head, come here!” said Ju-Vid, king of the cruel and unusual practical joke.

Nob-Head (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent) was the most hated kid in our class. He was an unreconstructed stool-pigeon and teacher’s pet, who would sell his own granny to the police for the reward money. He also had an unfortunate facial feature that made his nose look almost exactly like a penis. A very small penis. To match his real one. Frankly, you couldn’t tell which way up he was.

“By that name, I assume you are addressing me”, said the slimy little twerp.

“There’s no one else here with a prick on their head, so yeah”.

Nobby walked across the lab to Ju. Ju had his left hand on the dome, hair standing on end as Ernie pumped the handle like fury. Rob, Geoff and I stood well clear, knowing full well what was coming.

“And how can I help yo-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!”

Ju lifted his right hand, and in a scene redolant of Michaelangelo’s Birth of Adam with the addition of schoolboy sniggering (only without the nudity and beards), reached out to touch Nobby.

There was a loud CRACK! as the spark flew six inches and caught him square on his nasal todger.

Nobby was lifted off his feet and flew backwards across the lab, scattering stools everywhere, before coming to rest under a desk, clutching his big end.

“Sir! Sir! He did that on purpose sir!”, he said pointing at the evidence, a small, yet growing red spot on the end of his dick, making it resemble the Jap’s Eye even more than it did before.

“Um... Yes... Well...” said Mr Wilkinson, trying his damnedest not to laugh, “We’ll soon put a stop to that.”

He told us to stop it. So we did. For about five seconds. Nobby never learned. We must have caught him twenty times that day. On the nose, on the ears, up the arse, anywhere. He must have truly thought we had it in for him. And we did. The guy was responsible for more detention than any other kid in the school, and this was sweet, sweet payback.

But as usual, Ju just had to take it too far. He found a way to rig himself up to the mains current using some spare wire, a rubber mat and the biggest pair of rubber gauntlets you ever saw outside of a kinky fetish video.

“Hey, Nob-Head!”

“Yessssss Julian”, he sadi, sounding like gas escaping.

“I’ve been bugging you for far too long. It’s time we buried the hatchet. Let bygones be bygones. Whaddaya say?”

“Well, I suppose your behaviour towards me has fallen somewhat short of the standard expected...”

“Less of the chat - let’s shake on it. Put it there!”

The circuit breaker went, the lights failed and there was that stunned silence you only ever get in the classroom when you know that someone’s going to get crucified. Nobby Nob-Head staggered to his feet, straightened his tie and blazer and for the first time in his life stood up for himself.

The foot connected with Ju-vid’s groin with a sickening crunch. There was a sharp intake of breath (and not just from Ju, I can tell you for nothing) and he keeled over in a gibbering heap on the lab floor.

“You... you.... you...” stammered Nobby, struggling to find the right word, “You utter, utter CUNT!”

There was a murmur of approval. Nobby had come of age. Only those looking for a kicking ever commented on his nose. Ju-vid never bugged him again, mainly because he was supended from school for the next three months.

Nobby, it turned out, was the only person who took notes when Dr Jenkins made the Nitro. Just for that, he was allowed in our gang. It was safer that way.

The Scaryduck Archive

"The Blacklist"

There are now fifty-two official Scaryduck Stories (see the whole list HERE). There are also four in reserve, plus another twenty-five under development. However, due to reasons of taste, decency and the fact that I may be forced to resort to fiction, the following tales may never appear on this site:

* The time we pretended to be Catholic Priests to try to pull nuns
* The time nothing got blown up, destroyed or otherwise smashed into a million pieces
* The time we got mixed up in the civil war in Nicaragua
* The time Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi came round my house, begging me for sex
* The time I told Uri Geller to fuck off
* The time I was nearly on Blue Peter
* The time the Virgin Mary appeared to me in a digestive biscuit
* The time I puked in the swimming pool at RAF Waddington
* The time my dog shagged Sebastian Coe’s leg
* The time Sarah, Duchess of York invited me back to see her priceless collection of antique polo mallets
* The time I got kicked out of a job interview for laughing when the boss introduced himself as “Mr Bender”
* The time I accidentally mooned the Lady Mayoress of Nottingham

Two of the above episodes actually happened, and I may have mentioned one of them at least once or twice before in passing. Penguin Pie for the first correct guesses. And it wasn’t the puke one. We never found the culprit. It was someone else, I swear.

The “under-development” list has swelled from twenty to twenty-five in the time it has taken me to write this entry. You should be getting the benefit of this brainstorm in about six months at the present rate of publishing, you lucky people. In the meantime, you have a choice. Tomorrow, I shall post one of "Rocket", "Gun Club", "Electricity" or "Cross Country". Vote in the "Speak Your Brains" section. That is all.

The Scaryduck Archive

”Name that Penguin!”

Right, I’m begging for a favour. All-round harbinger of evil and fish, Moderately Evil Penguin, needs a name. A proper name that conveys everything that it is to be a slightly out-of-order flightless bird.

The thing is, Scaryduck Jr (aged six) has got me writing him Penguin Stories for bedtime, and frankly, Moderately Evil Penguin just isn’t the kind of moniker you have in kids’ stories. You can cook children alive in ovens, have people’s heads cut off, but give them a daft name, that’s when the parents start getting angry.

I’ve got sensible names for all the other penguins in the gang: Flossie, Mossie, Chunky, Trevor and Beans. But I’m having trouble coming up with a name for a spectacularly stupid and moderately evil penguin bent on taking over the planet’s fish supply, and then, who knows, the world.

I’m toying with Ming. Or Fishfinger. I know you can do better, post your suggestions in the “Speak Your Brains” section. Yeah, I know, “What’s in it for me?” Pie. Fish Pie.

Edit: You can now vote for your favourite crap penguin name. Over there. On the left.

"Trouble"

Word of the day in Scaryduck Jr's handwriting class was "around". Operation Mess-With-Teacher's-Head came up with

Pollution, all around
Sometimes up, sometimes down
But always around
Pollution, are you coming to my town?
Or am I coming to yours?
We're on different buses, pollution
But we're both using petrol
Bombs.

Ryk the People's Poet, we salute you. The only trouble was, Ryk's masterpiece was far too long for the little darlings to write before the register was called. So we ended up with "I ran around the playground" like everybody else.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Buzzcut"

Today, I cut my own hair. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is not something you should try in your own home. On the Scaryduck Good Thing/Bad Thing scale it's down there with playing catch with hand grenades. For a start, no matter how many mirrors you use, you are unable to see the back of your own head; and in all probability you have probably not spent several years of your life as The Incredible Double-Jointed Man in a circus freak show. There can only be one end result, and no matter how many people you tell, there is not a cat in hell's chance that the mullet will ever make a comeback.

After running, screaming, into the street a passing barber helped me out with a rather fetching number three. It's fuzzy, and Mrs Scary is now able to keep me out of harm's way with a handy piece of velcro. How handy.

The Scaryduck Archive

”A Small Victory”


My, what a big chopper

Regular readers may be aware that I’ve been playing a small part in the campaign to save our local Search and Rescue Helicopter at Portland from the axe. Whiskey Bravo is based just over the harbour from Scaryduck mansions, so it's become a bit of a feature of my life down here. After being kept on hold for the best part of a year while the minister responsible for the Coastguard Agency scraped together money from down the back of sofas and his kid’s spare change bottle, a decision has finally been made…

Whiskey Bravo has been saved!

Never mind that it’s the busiest rescue helicopter in the whole of the UK, government bean counters thought we might be better served by moving it sixty miles up the coast, leaving the many divers and boat users in the area another hour from rescue. Thanks to a huge local campaign led by Janine Gould of Weymouth Dive Centre, our local MP Jim Knight and Martin Lea of the Dorset Echo amongst many others, sense has finally prevailed.

Many thanks to those of you who signed our online petition, I hope that your support from around the world went some way to helping our cause. Oh ,and let's not forget the guys who fly and operate Whiskey Bravo. Their bravery and hard work has saved many lives, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. God, I’m gushing now. Thank you all.

Manly blowing-stuff-up blogging will return as soon as possible.

"Pop Quiz"

Who said the following:

"The people can always be brought to do the bidding of the leaders. All you do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce pacifists for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

a) George W Bush
b) Herman Goering
c) Josef Stalin
d) Tony Blair

If you thought is was George, shame on you for doubting The Lord High Emperor of the World! (/sarcasm). It was, in fact, arch-Nazi Herman Goering, but frankly, it could have been any of the above. Apart from Joe who had salt mines for that kind of eventuality.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Arses"

It has been brought to my attention that the latest fashion statement for young ladies is the low-slung pair of jeans. Now, I've got nothing against fashion, I am especially indebted, as a man advancing in years, to whoever it is who has decreed that the tight white t-shirt is fashionable for the eighth year in a row. But, alas, the Fashionistas have spoken.

Now, on a filthy rich supermodel the low-slung jean probably looks quite good. After all, their backsides are used for nothing except as an entry/exit point for the enema tube, and with the latest teflon thread technology, there is always the risk factor involved insofar as they've got very little to hold the clothes on. A bit of supermodel builder's bum may get a few people a little excited, especially if you're the kind of person who gets turned on by people who have second job as an olympic javelin.

However, on normal-sized people, like the other 99.999% of people in the known world, low slung jeans on regular-sized arses are a recipe for disaster, especially if the wearer is still clinging on to last year's hideous fashion of bare navels. A man has enough trouble knowing where to look as it is, and there are enough distractions for the average road-user without introducing another.

So let me, as a man of the world say this: Ladies - Know Your Limits! If you want a builder's bum, get a job as a brickie. And I've got somewhere to park my bike as it is.

This message has been brought to you by the Dirty Old Men's Society of Great Britain (Honourary President: Bernard Manning)

The Scaryduck Archive

"Pink"

We were drunk, as usual. We were also at Craig’s house, which saved us the necessity of staggering home after closing time. Craig’s parents had a pretty relaxed attitude to college students sleeping on their floor just as long as we made it to the toilet in time. On this occasion, convsersation swung back and forth, but soon settled on the pros and cons of law and order.

“Christ, I’d never want to end up in prison,” I said, “sounds like hell.”

“It is,” said Craig’s Dad, “I’ve been there.”

This was a major shock to us all, not least to Craig, who after ten pints of Old Bastard was just about to find out something unsettling about his old man. We cracked another six beers, and he told us the story.

It was the 1950s. Ray had just left school, and had been called up for his National Service. He ended up in the Royal Air Force, invariably doing his best to look menacing while guarding an airbase from the Red Menace which would come surging out of the Russian Steppes at any moment. Ray likened it to a Butlins holiday camp, where the entertainment, such that it was, consisted solely of getting shouted at by your Sergeant and peeling potatoes in the cookhouse. And that is why they valued what little time they had off-base so much.

And so it happened that Ray and three of his barrack-room mates went out on the piss one night, where they got mind-numbingly drunk in the way that only young men let off the leash can manage. And when you’re drunk, you do stupid things. The first of these was someone deciding to take a short-cut home from the pub across the airfield instead of tramping several miles around the perimeter road. Halfway across, they stumbled into the runway controller’s hut, where bladders were relieved, and two cans of paint - one red, one white - were found.

It was only when the reached the Canberra bomber sitting on the apron that drunken stupidity really took hold. They looked at the aircraft. They looked at their two catering-sized cans of paint which were meant to be used to paint the hut in a checker-board pattern. A decision was made. They would paint the plane. And several hours later, it was done. The Canberra, the cutting edge of the UK’s medium range combat capabilities, was pink. All over. Inside and out. All over the controls, inside the air intakes and up the jet exhaust. All over the control panels and up the incredibly expensive sensor tubes. It was a work of art.


Geniune pic of the pink Canberra. Honest.

The following morning, the entire base was made to parade in front of an enraged station commander. Heads were about to roll. An important piece of military hardware had been more or less written off for months, and there would be no rest until the culprits were found. They didn’t have to look far. Ray and his mates had hardly had the chance to sober up from the night before. And they were also the only four men on the entire parade square covered from head to toe with pink paint. It was a fair cop.

Ray got six months in the military clink peeling spuds in the cookhouse and scrubbing the toilets until they gleamed, watched over for every minute by NCOs that were in practice for the world shouting championships. Then they let him go home with a stern warning about not painting any more planes, where he forged a career with British Rail where he managed not to paint any trains either.

I still don’t know if he was making the whole thing up or not, but it’s the kind of story you desperately want to be true. Ray swore on the dog’s life that he was speaking the truth, and who were we to doubt the words of an ex-con? And besides, a pink bomber - it’s symbolic on just so many levels, isn’t it?

"Pimp"



Never too proud to pimp the Scaryduck Shop. Literally several satisfied customers. Cheers Alberonn, you're a peach.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Birthday"

Today, I am thirty-seven years old. It’s that age where you give up any pretence of being young and have nothing to look forward to except years of grey fading to eventual black. I can still skateboard, and kick a football round the park, but my body has discovered new ways of punishing me for this, mostly involving trading in my thirty-four waist jeans for a thirty-six, and having knees that feel like they’ve gota handful of gravel in each one. But am I down-hearted? Things can’t get any worse than my thirteenth.

Unlucky for some. It was the school half-term holidays, and I had my best friend Cookie round for the day. Mum took us all into Reading to go to the cinema. It was a double bill of “Gold” and “Diamonds are Forever”. We sat in the dark for FOUR HOURS, and Mum still made us stand to attention for the national anthem at the end. Most of us were barely able to stand at this point.

By the time we got home, we were bursting with energy. We had foresaken the Kentucky Fried takeaway at Cemetary Junction because of the nasty rumour attached to it (you know - that Urban Myth about the cinema punter biting into a rat rather that juicy, succulant chicken), and had the old standard of Cookie-round-for-tea: Egg and Chips. Mmm.... egg and chips.

Things started to go wrong from there on in. There was a knock at the door. It was Mrs Wilson, our neighbour, in a state of agitation. She arrived home from work and opened the garage door to find Mr Wilson hanging from the rafters, dead as a dead thing, tongue sticking out in a grotesque impression of Buster Bloodvessel. An ambulance was called, and the police, and, because he had used some pretty heavy duty knots, the fire brigade. We were confined to a back room. The party was cancelled. The selfish bastard.

When you’ve got four kids in a confined space, all pumped up on Sainbury’s own-brand Rola-Cola things tend to get a tad excitable. Forgetting the unfolding drama next door, we decided to re-enact some of the more exciting moments from that afternoon’s cinematic masterclass. In other words, we beat the crap out of each other.

There is one particular move, in Diamonds are Forever’s final scene when 007 throws either Mr Wint or Mr Kidd (I can’t tell one effeminate assassin from the other, you know how these things are) over the side of the cruise liner by way of an aggravated wedgie. My sister decided it would be a good idea to try thid out. On me. In the film, Mr Wint/Kidd’s fall is broken by the sea, and it was just his bad luck that he happened to get blown up by a bomb just seconds later. The only thing to break my fall was a concrete floor.

I don’t remember an awful lot of what happened next. There was blood, there was a certain amount of unconsciousness followed by rather a lot of egg and chips chundering all over the floor. The dog, always one to take the side of the victor, waded into the melee as well, biting me hard on the leg and leaving a scar I still have the best part of twenty-five years later.

Mum kept her head at this scene of devastation, and refused to let them cart me to hospital in the same ambulance as the late Mr Wilson who had buggered up my birthday. Instead, I lay in my bed, a lump the size of a peach on my forehead, snoozing, groaning and puking for the next day and a half. I got a bike for my birthday, a lovely sleek racer, which I wasn’t allowed to ride for a week.

And there’s more. A couple of days later, my grandparents rang from Northern Ireland to ask if my present had arrived. It hadn’t. The bloody IRA had only gone and blown up a mail van at the airport, obviously in league with Mr Wilson and my bloody sister to bugger up my birthday even more.

Ah, golden days. You don’t get birthdays like that any more, thank the stars. Sean Connery still owes me an apology. And Gerry Adams. I'll let Mr Wilson off, just this once.

"Stuff"

ManYoo 0-2 Arsenal. Bobby Charlton! Zoe Ball! Angus Deayton! Can you hear me? Your boys took one hell of a beating!!!

The Scaryduck Archive

"Scary's Hints and Tips: No 4,924"

More of my helpful pointers to make the Middle East a safer place to wage war.

Coalition troops! THIS is your enemy. He's a slimy little turd, kept in power by a deeply flawed election, who will think nothing of ruthlessly doing away with his enemies, terrorising his people and striking out blindly against those who he detests. Keep your eyes open, he could be anywhere. THIS, however, is President George Walker Bush who ...err... you get the idea.

Combatants should also bear in mind that while THIS person is your enemy, THESE people are not, even though they may reside in the same country as the mad bloke coming between you and your oil. Rule of thumb: Saddam's got a moustache, kids by and large don't. Still, easy mistake to make and I'm pretty sure CNN will understand if you drop your laser guided bunker-buster on the wrong building. You can't be too careful these days.

Edit: If you're wondering where all the funny stuff is, there'll be something arse-rippingly hilarious tomorrow. Promise. A Scaryduck's 37th birthday special, no less. In the meantime, here's a little number I tossed off just now for the wonderful peeps at Wil Wheaton dot net...

"February 15th 1966"

London. Beatlemania. World Cup Triumph just months away. A reborn, optimistic nation surging ahead with the power of youth.

In a hospital just off the swinging King's Road it is a different story. It is Tuesday morning. Outside, London is drifting to work, through Fulham, Chelsea, Battersea to the City and the West End. Inside, there is already work afoot. In short, the mircale of life. A father paces up and down, cigarettes are smoked, brows are furrowed.

Then, at eight o'clock, the sound of the woman's cries give way to that of a baby. The door opens. A nurse, all starch and authority comes out.

"Mr Duck? It's a boy."

He rushes in, to see Mrs Duck cooing over her newborn son.

"See?" she says, "It's a boy. It's the boy we always wanted."

The nurse is the first to congratulate them both. "What are you going to call him?"

"Well call him Scary," said my father, "Scary Duck."

And so I was born.

Cake, anyone?

The Scaryduck Archives

"Scary's Hints and Tips: No 4,923"

Here's one for our lads in the Gulf, sent by our all-knowing leaders to take part in The War to Liberate Iraq Of Its Oil.

THIS is a Scud missile launcher, bringer of death, terror and destruction, and may be used by your enemy in the forthcoming conflict. Note the large pointy thing with the explosive warhead. It is not your friend. THIS, however, is the former Kadimiya textile factory in Baghdad, bringer of coats, sheets and dresses, and staffed by civilians when your colleagues engaged in a previous conflict dropped a large bomb onto it.

Just getting things straight up front. You know how similar these things look in the fog of war. If they're going to make you fight, you might as well do the job properly.

The Scaryduck Archives

”Not Big. Not Clever.”

My son’s school encourages us parents to take an active interest in our childrens’ education. Which is A Good Thing. This active interest involves a – some would say – rather lengthy session when the kids are dropped off in the classroom where the parents are expected to stay behind for a while to help our little treasures with their handwriting. And God knows that Scaryduck Jr needs it.

The trouble is that after several months of “The cat sat on the mat”, some of the dads are beginning to get a tad rebellious and have started encouraging their offspring into writing down stuff that would vex any teacher of six-and-seven year old darlings. This is A Bad Thing. We know that Miss C is doing a fine, fine job in the face of overwhelming odds, but Operation Do-Teacher’s-Head-In has unfortunately been received with rather worrying enthusiasm by several of the parents in Class One.

For example, this morning the blackboard read: “How many words can you think of with the long ‘or’ sound? Write at least six interesting sentences with your words.”

More. Audacious. Organism. Orwellian. Morpeth County Durham. George Walker Bush. Formic Acid. Paul Gascoigne.

She wanted “interesting.” We gave her interesting. Your mission is to guess which one of these sentences actually made it into Scary Jr’s exercise book:

More: Bobby Moore was the greatest Englishman that ever lived.

Straw: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is merely a pawn in United States imperialist policy towards the Middle East.

Floor: Square-faced pop singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor had a hit with “Murder on the Dance Floor”.

Poor: The huge majority of the World’s population is poor and unable to feed themselves without humanitarian aid.

Door: Shakin’ Stevens had a huge number one single with Green Door in the ninteeen eighties.

Caught & Tour: My Uncle Victor got caught up in the civil war in Nicaragua whilst on a cycling tour of Central America.

If you said it was Shaky, then award yourself a shiny! Miss C, if your ever read this (and I hope for my sake that you don't) we’re really, really sorry, and we promise to stop all the sniggering at the back of your class. It'll be "The cat sat on the mat" tomorrow and we'll like it.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Sick"

Oooooooh, Scary is sick. Not life-threatening sick, just chucking-up-lumps-sweating-like-a-pig-generally-feeling-like-I've-got-a-Frenchman-living-in-my-head sick. And the worse thing is, it keeps me awake all night, so I get to feel rotten twenty-four hours a day. Which is just lovely.

Send pie. Sterilised pie.

2.30pm update: I've recovered enough to foresake the bucket and come on here and thank the lovely Pinky for the lovely pressie she got me off my Amazon Wish List. That's the second mystery parcel from strange women that I've had to explain to Mrs Scary. I'm not at liberty to divulge the exact content of said package, except for the fact that Ziggy plaaaaayed gui-taaaaaaaaaar! In the meantime, we love Pinky. Send her "O".

Still need pie.

The Scaryduck Archive

“An Apology”

The management wishes to apologise to our fellow diners in the staff restaurant for the spectacle we caused during supper last night. We pledge that these scenes of riotous behaviour will not happen again. Not until next time, anyway. Perhaps a full and frank explanation is in order.

We were discussing recent book purchases, and my boss Swiss Toni admitted that he was now the proud owner of Roger’s Profanisaurus which he had bought through Amazon (a snip at GBP 7.99). In an in-depth discussion of this work of literary genius, Swiss confessed that he didn’t know what “Rodeo Sex” is. So I told him.

Rodeo Sex, as I am sure you are all aware, is a derivation of the act of doggy-style coitus. Just as you reach the vinegar strokes, you say something along the lines of “Your sister likes it this way as well.” The challenge is to see how long you can stay on.

I am afraid to say that this revelation caused a certain amount of food to be spat out, and scenes of a boisterous nature which cannot be tolerated in polite society. We’d particularly like to pass on our apologies to Her Majesty, we’re pretty sure you’ll be able to get the gravy off your regalia, ma’am.

"How Rare!"

A big thank you to the mighty cr0m at Weebl and Bob for this 100% realistic portrait of yours truly. You have to watch it. It does stuff. Blink and you’ll miss it. ARGH!

The Scaryduck Archive

"Cake"

To celebrate Scaryblog's first birthday, I've written a story about cake. Crap cake.

I never wanted to do home economics. The trouble was, the metalwork class was far too small and it was bursting at the seams with kids wanting to make ashtrays for their bedrooms and getting wrapped around the lathes. On the other hand, home economics was virtually empty, with Miss Orton teaching to a small knot of girls made to do the cookery class by their parents.

We were given a choice. Hot sweaty metalwork with the sadistic Mr Callaghan, or the easy life cooking cakes with Miss Orton. Mr Callaghan was the king of the cruel and unusual punishment, normally involving particularly inventive ways of inflicting pain on his hapless pupils. We put this down to the fact that he had lost a foot in a bizarre and unspecified classroom accident, and as such, it was his life’s mission to wreak his awful revenge on the poor kids that came through his workshop. He was known as The Penguin. On the other hand, Miss Orton was a lesbian, something she told us every five minutes, but as far as we knew, the girls she taught weren’t. It was no contest, me and Tim, who really wanted to be a museum curator, and this is as close as the curriculum got, signed up in a flash.

Tuesday mornings became ace. We came in and cooked stuff. Cake. Pie. And once, a whole three course meal, which we then ate, bursting at the seams. Pretty soon, the message got about that Scary and Tim were having a great time stuffing their faces while Mr Callaghan was crushing their bollocks in a vice, and within weeks there were further defections from the metalwork class.


On second thoughts, the battery acid might have been a mistake

One day, the fragrant Miss Orton came to us with an idea. Mr Bull, the school headteacher was about to celebrate his 60th birthday. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were to make him a cake? Too bloody right it would, that man made our lives hell with petty rules, meaningless punishments and a habit of lecturing us all to sleep in morning assemblies. At the time, there was a strict one-way system operating in the school corridors, punishable by instant death. This was one of Bull’s big ideas to, and I quote “prepare us for our entry into a structured and ordered society”. You had to walk halfway round the school just to get to the class next door, and transgressors were taken away to the “special” classroom, never to be seen again. That was what he was capable of. He was a Justice of the Peace and dreamed of the day he got is stupid long wig and the chance to hang ‘em high in the High Court. He had to pay. We would make the cake. Oh yes.

It was a beautiful cake. We spent a wonderful Tuesday morning all doing our bit to give Bull the happiest of birthdays. Sugar. Magarine. Flour. Eggs. Vim. Icing Sugar. Some mouldy cheese somebody found at the bottom of the fridge. It all went in, and more. Despite our giggling protests that he was taking it too far, Seany dropped a huge green, pulsating loogie right into the mix. Seany had been on the end of Bull’s wrath far too often, and today it was payback. We did, however, physically restrain him from putting his finger up his arse and rubbing the result into the mixture so that “he really would be full of shit”. We didn’t want to poison the old goat. Not much, anyway.

The coup de grace was “Happy 60th Birthday Mr Bull” piped out expertly in green icing by Tim, a skill he is undoubtedly putting to use now in his chosen career as a museum curator. We didn’t have any green food colouring. So we used washing up liquid.

At the end of the lesson, as we all packed up for lunch, the secret door to the forbidden zone opened, and in walked our leader, Mr Bull for a royal visit. Miss Orton grovelled and fawned round him, and it was all we could do to stop her from spreading rose petals on the very ground he walked upon. Eventually, she lead him over to where we stood with The Cake.

There was a brief, sycophantic ceremony. He complimented us on our cooking skills, expressed his deep joy that his students had thought of him on his most special of days. We sung “Happy Birthday”, and he blew out the one oversized candle planted in the middle of our masterpiece. It was all we could find, and after That Thing When We Made A Bomb In Science Club, that was probably not all bad. We hoped, then, it would be all over, but then we heard the words we dreaded.

“Won’t you boys join me in a slice?”

Not on your bloody life, mate, we know what’s in it.

He took a knife, and cut himself the biggest piece you could imagine, the great guts. He wasn’t known as “King Kong” for nothing. He tucked in. We held our collective breath, waiting for the eruption. It never came. He demolished the slice in about two mouthfuls, swallowed, and said, “This is actually rather good. You won’t mind if I take the rest home for Mrs Bull?”

Of course we didn’t mind. As a matter of fact, we were all for making him another one, just to finish off the job good and proper. Fair play to him, he showed up for work the next day showing no ill effects. Hardly surprising, the amount of washing up liquid we used to get the icing the right shade of green probably left him with the cleanest insides in the known universe.

A victory for the kids, for the first time ever. And like that episode of South Park where Kenny didn’t die, I felt strangely dissatisfied. This just wasn’t right, and I’m still waiting to be collared for this one now, over twenty years later. You'll be pleased to hear that Mr Bull is still alive and meting out bizarre punishments from the comfort of his centrally-heated bench in the High Courts. I’m still out here, running free and as guilty as hell. The cycle of crime and punishment is yet to be fulfilled.

The Scaryduck Archive

"One"

One year ago today, I signed up for a weblog to see if it was any good. It was. I wrote about blowing things up and a huge all-pensioners brawl at Reading post office. I chose the template with the pebbles over the brown-purpley-green one. I think that was a pretty good choice. From the outset, I tried to be different from the conventional diary style of many blogs, and went for daft reminiscences from my life as a social retard. I'm thirty-seven next week, so there's plenty to choose from. And contrary to rumours, YES they are all true.

In the last year, I've moved to the seaside, narrowly escaped death by randy dolphin, sent a dog shit through the post, won some award or other, gave my prize money to British Gas, got scabies, made a whole pile of online friends, got my political conscience pricked sometime around early September and got kidnapped by my arch nemesis before being rescued by heavily armed special forces rabbits. That really happened. Honest.

Looking back at my very first post, I vowed never to publish cute fluffy pictures of my cat on the grounds that she's an ugly man-hating lesbian mentallist, turned to the dark side by sex-crazed rabbits. Sorry.


Scaryduck's Swearycat

My finest moment? The high water mark thus far is also the most requested: PiSS. All my Scary stories are archived here. You will be pleased to hear that I have enough of these tales on file to last another six months, and three out of the next four involve things getting blown up.

There will be a short period allowed for festivities, during which musical chairs will be played. And sardines, if enough laydez show up. Pie-shaped cake, anyone?

"Two"

Smokehammer is back.

Arseblogger is offering a cheap, reliable blogging and hosting package at blogfc.com, which I've agreed to pimp for him as he's still got the negatives. Will that do, mate?

The Scaryduck Archive

”Things I have learned this week”

1. On repeated viewings at the point of a gun, Pretty Woman is still a film about a kerb crawler.

2. After watching, the Michael Jackson interview t’other night (you lucky US viewers get it Thursday), I am convinced that, by turns, Jacko is a genius, a child in a man’s body and, to use the correct technical term, crazy-go-nuts bonkers. Unfortunately, the genius side hasn’t been seen for a fair few years.

3. Velma from Scooby Doo is a fox.

4. My opinion is often wrong or at odds to perceived wisdom. However, if I shout it out loudly and often, it becomes the truth. Better still, I just put it on the internet, because everything on the net is 100% true.

5. My proof-reading sucks. Thank you, kind readers, for pointing that out.

6. My friend Barry is convinced that David Beckham is a direct descendant of King Arthur, and has the evidence to back up his claim. He found it on the internet.

7. You are never too old to skateboard.

The Scaryduck Archive

"On the other hand..."

...exploring space is a complete waste of money and Saturday's tragedy is just an example of the dead-end street we have entered by pouring good money after bad. Discuss.

My alomst-but-not-quite blind support for the US Space Programme seems to have thrown up a cloud of controversy amongst you. Good. I think space travel is A Good Thing, others think that we should be getting our house in order down here before we start looking up there. We could have both, but at my age I'm getting increasingly cynical about it ever happening. That's the way of the world, innit?

Oh, and pressing a point home, space does belong to us all. It's not some nicecy-nicey Star Trek fantasy, it's part of a UN resolution. That is all. Case closed.

Happy Blogiversary to Gert who's fabby Mad Musings blog celebrates its first anniversary today. My Blogday, for the record, is Wednesday. There will be cake, and quite possibly, pie.

The Scaryduck Archives

"Gagarin"

On 12th April 1961, taking off from Baikonur in what is now Kazakhstan, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space. His flight lasted a mere one hundred and eight minutes, but he returned to Earth the most famous man on the planet. However, within seven years he would be dead.

Gagarin was pushed by the Soviets as the epitome of the Communist ideal. Handsome, dashing even, a family man, he was paraded as a goodwill ambassador as everything that America wasn’t. And at that moment, America wasn’t winning the Space Race.


Yuri Gagarin

But as the sixties progressed, spurred by a JFK-inspired zeal, America set its sights on the moon, and slowly but surely they were to gain a lead they would never relinquish. However, despite the esteem which the Soviet government held him, the unconditional love was not returned. Gagarin became disillusioned with the cutting of corners and unnecessary risks his colleagues were being subjected to.

When it became clear that one of his closest friends Vladimir Komarov was due to take part in a mission doomed to almost certain failure, he railed and ranted against the establishment and command structure to no avail. The mission went ahead with inadequate control systems.

“You have killed him!” Gagarin shouted on hearing of the launch.

The mission was lost, Komarov died on re-entry.

Gagarin was removed from the space programme, upset that the secrecy veiling the Soviet space programme was shrouding serious shortcomings. He became, in short, an inconvenience to the Party. In 1968, on a routine training flight, his MiG-15 jet crashed, killing him instantly. Some say he may have been shot down. There were no official witnesses.

Forty years later, and again we mourn the victims of man’s never-ending quest to discover the Earth and what lies beyond it. The speculated cause of failure is, once again, the dangers re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Were corners cut? Were lives put at risk when they shouldn’t have been? In monetary terms, the NASA’s budget for safety is just a fraction it was fifteen years ago, and several ex-staff members are on record saying that America’s space programme is just “an accident waiting to happen.”

Space travel has always been a calculated risk. Men – and women – have been strapped to the front end of what is in effect an enormous bomb for the last four decades, and have trusted the judgement of the scientists that they will return to Earth in one piece. What they don’t need is the accountant looking over their shoulder making sure that everything is done within budget.

In the long term, mankind’s very future may depend on what is being done right now in space research. The ultimate achievement would be to find somewhere else to live, after all we may need it at the rate we’re messing up this planet. Seven people died, not just in the name of American pride, but in the name of the entire planet’s hopes and aspirations. In an atmosphere of war and anti-American feeling, it would be wise to remember that space belongs to us all, not just to whoever manages to plant a flag. The Columbia Seven: victims, heroes.

The Scaryduck Archive

"John, Paul, George, Ringo and Kennamatic"

This morning I have been mostly watching out for Kennamatic on the Abbey Road Webcam, frantically taking screengrabs as he diced with death on the famous zebra crossing. One of us must be absolutely mental, I'm not entirely sure which one though.

"France"

Our parents must have been mental. Not only did they let us go on school trips, but they actually allowed us to leave the country. To France. With teachers, some of whom were madder than we were.

The Hotel Perfect, we found, was from from Perfect. It smelt funny, was only about ten feet wide and a hundred feet tall. And they put an entire party of schoolkids on the top floor. It was OK for most of the party, but James and I were forced to share with Mr Douglas, who had bizarre habits at the best of times. He had a beard, too. Totally irrelevant, but some of the girls had to share with Miss Harper, and she had a beard as well.

The hotel staff, alas, smelt funny too, and just to rub in the national stereotypes, they all had beards too, mostly under their arms. The only thing the Hotel Perfect really had going for it was the fact that it was slap bang in the middle of the Paris red light district. The hotel couldn’t cater for large parties at mealtimes, so they worked out a deal with the Moulin Rouge (yes, THAT Moulin Rouge) who fed us in their rather tatty-looking cafeteria that looked exactly like a school dinner hall. The food was exactly the same as well. So much for that famous French cuisine.


"Pompt-de-pompt-de-pompt-pompt"

Every day we marched off through the streets of Paris towards Montmartre, and every day Mr Douglas and Mr Townsend would be accosted by dirty old men who tried to drag them bodily into the sex cinemas. Miss Harper sometimes got dragged along too, but only until they realised she wasn’t a bloke after all. With the staff distracted, it was no problem for the fourteen year old entrepreneurs to stock up with packs of dirty playing cards to sell on at a profit on our return to school.

Some days at the Moulin Rouge, we didn’t have time for a sit down meal, so they gave us all packed lunches. They were decidedly French affairs involving fruit, hard boiled eggs, a carton of drink and a bread roll with something hideous lurking inside. Call us fussy rostbifs but these usually went completely uneaten, and often accompanied us back to the hotel of an evening, where they died horrible, horrible deaths.

The problem was what to do with them. With the teachers out of the way - they were going “to church”, almost certainly a euphemism for some local bar and/or knocking shop, we were left to our own devices. Holiday crushes were resolved (usually by a slap round the face, though Tracey and Grant’s attempt at “the sex” was cruelly scuppered by a brawl in the corridor over whose turn it was at the keyhole), and the jinx were definately high.

In the end, we ended up in Harry and Gray’s room. It overlooked a small courtyard about six hundred feet below, crisscrossed with laundry in the traditional French stylee. With mountains of inedible packed lunches staring us in our bored little faces, something was bound to give.

We played football with an orange. We kicked it round a bit, but when Brian, hardly the Kevin Keegan of the party gave it a hefty boot, it flew out of the French Doors (or as we were already in France, I s’pose they were just called doors) and rolled over the edge of the balcony. We all legged it outside to see the end result. We arrived just in time to see the orange hit the courtyard with a splat, pulp and juice flying in all directions. This was good. Actually, it wasn’t, but that’s the way fourteen year old minds work.

A new game! Soon a shower of lunch was raining onto the courtyard. The idea wasn’t to hit the laundry, that would have been mean. The idea was to try to hit the splat of the last object thrown down there. This was, naturally, a recipe for disaster. Let me confess. I throw like a girl. As a matter of fact, even girls throw far better than me.

So, I confess that the yoghurt pot slipped out of my hand in the most girly way imaginable. Instead of falling in a graceful arc into the centre of the courtyard to land with a splodd with the rest of our detritus, it spun straight down and out of our sight. Instead of hitting the ground, it bounced off a handy canopy shading a window on the second floor like a stuntman in a between-the-wars movie matinee and spun in through the door of what we took to be the laundry room.

There was a scream, followed by an intelligable stream of shouting in French. An old dear, aged about a hundred and fifty staggered out into the courtyard, her chest spattered with pink goo. I had scored a direct hit on Charles de Gaulle’s grandmother. She was followed out of the door by several other ancient scrubbers, all covered with pink goo and a burly looking guy who looked like a lumberjack on his day off, who had so many tattoos and yoghurt that there was hardly a patch of bare skin.

If they saw us, there would be no doubt: I was going to be his bitch.

They saw us.

There was a tirade of French shouting, and loads of arm-waving and gesticulating in the way that only the French could manner. There were no actual words, it was all “Lu Lu Lu LuLuLULULU LU!!!” accompanied by a wave of the arms in our direction, follwed by a scream of “Pompt de Pompt de Pompt-Pompt” and the curse of the gallic shrug. We were doomed. Garlic was being prepared.

We were saved in the nick of time by Mr Douglas returning from “church”, his breath reeking of communion wine, propped up by Miss Harper, singing hymns from the sacred book of St Nigel Starmer-Smith, patron saint of Rugby Songs. He sobered up enough from his deeply religious trance to make us go down and apologise and clean up the mess we made.

Madame de Gaulle accepted our grovelling and “Je m’excuses” with a shrug and the word “Bouf!”, but the lumberjack was something else. He was a construction worker called Jean-Pierre and spoke perfect English. He broke out the smokes and a bottle of wine, and we spent the rest of the evening “apologising” to him, watching football on French TV until we were very tiddly indeed.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” said Mr Douglas, as we staggered back at some time approaching midnight, his night manipulations cruelly disturbed by our tumbling through the door.

“Yes sir,” we replied.

So come the next day.... we went up the Eiffel Tower. With packed lunches. At the very bottom they were filming "Condorman", a turkey of epic proportions. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to Michael Crawford for shouting "Mmmm Betty" right in the middle of his take. And all the stuff with the oranges, obviously.

The Scaryduck Archive