"Horror-Scopes"

Is it the end of the month already? Time for another slice of wanton doom, death, destruction and home cooking.

Aries: Destiny sees your name selected for an important governmental duty. You will be sacrificed to the Greek Gods to ensure the success of London’s Olympic bid. Count yourself priveleged, it was either you or Fatima Whitbread.
Lucky cricketer: Ian Botham

Taurus: A long forgotten family secret is revealed, and you must now live with the knowledge that TV’s Noel Edmonds is your father. Good thing you haven’t found out that thing about Su Pollard...
Lucky condom: Durex Elite

Gemini: The war against drugs may have been won, but you try telling that to those Secret Service guys outside your house. Fates sees an encounter with a tall, dark stranger and a catering size bucket of KY Jelly.
Lucky bone: Fibula

Cancer: This month’s full moon in Uranus sees friends, family and fortune flocking to your door as your popularity reaches new heights. Only joking. It’s Ebola again.
Lucky country: Iran

Leo: Saint Margaret descends from on high to reveal that you are a direct descendant of Joan of Arc. We strongly advise against playing with matches.
Lucky goat: Angora

Virgo: Weeping, wailing, the great gnashing of teeth. Blood-sucking demons walk the Earth next month, preying on virgins for their foul flesh-ripping rituals. Unfortunately, they’re also slightly illiterate.
Lucky Penguin: Adelie

Libra: A bizarre set of circumstances involving a Tesla Coil, six kilos of enriched uranium and a vat of chocolate flavour ice cream sees you proving Albert Einstein wrong and becoming the first human to travel at faster the speed of light. You will also be the first person to find out if your major organs work outside your body. But, as they say, c’est la vie. Or not, rather.
Lucky Sherpa: Tensing Norgay

Scorpio: SpongeBob Squarepants is a cute little cartoon fella that lives under the sea. Destiny sees an unpaid debt to the local mob, and the strong possibility that you will be joining him.
Lucky OMD single: Enola Gay

Sagittarius: Destiny sees an unfortunate misprint in the new edition of your local phone book, the delivery of thirty five tonnes of hardcore Danish pornography and an encounter with “Bubba” in the prison showers. Destiny can be a real bugger sometimes.
Lucky TV Detective: Ironside

Capricorn: It is in your nature to be worshipped and venerated by those around you. Lucky you, then, that November 1st is the Day of the Dead as you'll be guaranteed a bit of worshipping at least once a year. Oh. Are you still here?
Lucky Haircut: Mullet

Aquarius: “You can’t sneeze with your eyes open” says conventional wisdom. Congratulations on being the first person ever to see the back of their head without an elaborate series of mirrors.
Lucky Holiday Camp: Butlins

Pisces: Creatures from the Cthulhu mythos? Surely they exist only in the deranged mind of HP Lovecraft and his twisted followers. We’re not entirely sure ourselves, but destiny sees more tentacles than you can shake a shitty stick at, and a six hour wait sitting on a rubber ring in your local emergency room.
Lucky Greek Island: Lesbos

If it’s your birthday: I think you’ll find that you were adopted, given away by disgusted parents at the sight of your twisted features and brutal nature. You missed your real birthday last month, nobody came and nobody cared. You know that song “Eleanor Rigby”? That might as well be about you. And you smell of poo.


"Nigerian Scam/Tentacle crossover"

I noted with interest this week, the swearing-in of Olusegun Obasanjo for his second term of President of Nigeria. In his inauguration speech to a nation beset by religious strife, political intrigue and corruption, he called for peace, unity, trust and YOUR BANK DETAILS AND FAX NUMBER IN THE CONFIDENTIAL MATTER OF TRANSFERRING NINETY-TWO MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS TO YOUR COUNTRY. I GOT YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS FROM YOUR COUNTRY'S EMBASSY, MONEY IS CURRENTLY IS SAFE BOX MARKED "TRACTOR PARTS FOR EXPORT ONLY".

Sounds a totally reasonable offer if you ask me.

And while we're brushing by the subject of foul Lovecraftian tentacled creatures in the Horror-scopes, I received this 'ere linky from Joy. An object lesson in dealing with those Nigerian scammers if ever I saw one.

Tentacles are great, aren't they? On the Scaryduck list of top three things I can't live with, I put them right up there with pickled onions and kittens. In a jar.

Thank Cthulhu that Kitten Week is over. It was driving me mad with its fluffiness and wanton cuteness. Regular bloggage starts... about ten minutes ago.

The Scaryduck Archive, now with added tentacles

"Bloggery"

I've changed the font to Verdana as part of an ongoing attempt to destroy the bland hell that is Arial. Good / Bad ? You tell me. I was that close to trying out Wingdings. Or would you rather have my other other choice of Georgia?

Kittens. Time to post more kittens for the hairy-arsed former Hell's Angel.

"Molly Moo"

The following is a blatant repost of a story I first published last October. It's undergone a complete rewrite since and is republished now as part of Kitten Week. So, sit back and cower with terror as Scaryduck Productions proudly presents:

"Lesbian Rabbits Turned My Cat into a Man-Hating Mentallist"


Poor, sweet Molly Moo

This is Molly. She is my pet cat, and you couldn’t ask for a lovlier, fluffier little companion. But look again. Look at her face. She has a dark, dark secret that would twist the mind of any cat that has experienced the traumas she has, and seen the things she’s seen. If Sigmund Freud was alive today and could talk to cats, he’d have a field day. Molly never knew her father and her mother's an alley cat, but give a kitty an even break, eh? The truth is simple: LESBIAN RABBITS TURNED MY CAT MENTAL.

Molly is three years old. When we got her as an ickle fluffy little kitten we also had an ickle fluffy little rabbit called Wiggles. Thanks to a misprint by the Rabbit Insurance office, she became known as Wigless. Wigless was a girl rabbit. We knew this because a) she hasn't got a Johnson, and b) she's since had ickle fluffy baby rabbits. She was cute and had one floppy ear and a lovely wiggly nose. And come to think of it, big brown "get it here, you fluffy ball of rabbity sex" eyes, which should have been a warning to us all. Evil lurked inside that ickle fluffy rabbit mind.

Wigs lived in a rabbit run. I built it myself, and several hours’ work resulted in a Hilton-style bunny paradise. But after repeated escape attempts and Keystone Cops chases up the road, it soon resembled a cross between Stalag Luft 17 and the Battle of the Somme, complete with wire buried to a depth of three feet and a watchtower. She craved company, so it was only natural that we should put ickle fluffy Molly in with her to play.

It was the cutest, fluffiest thing you ever saw. They sniffed around each other. "Meow" said Molly. "Honk honk honk" said Wigs.

"Meow"

"Honk honk"

"Meow" "Honk" "Meow" "Honk"

It was lovely. We watched for a while as the new playmates gamboled whimsically in the rabbit run. Words cannot describe the sheer fluffy beauty of the scene. But evil was to rear its ugly head. Evil with long, floppy ears, bushy tail and a craving for carrots and innocent kitten flesh.

Seconds after we retired from this peaceful vista we heard a "meow". Then "Meow". And a louder "MEOW", followed by a pained "MEOOOW". Surely these two fluffy playmates hadn't fallen out? Surely they weren't fighting over the little sparkly rubber ball with the bell in it? Far from it. It was far, far worse than we imagined. Wigs was on top. And there is no other way of putting it. She was humping the hell out of poor, sweet, innocent Molly, and with every demented rabbity thrust came a pained "MEOW!" as Moll was lunged deeper into the muddy quagmire.

It was no good, something had to be done. Alas, it wasn’t going to be me doing it as I was paralysed with laughter. Not even Mrs Scary's cries of "Don't just stand there, hit her with the yard broom" could save me. In the end, and after a supreme effort of self-control, I managed to crawl up to the run and pull her off, tears running down my face. Whereupon she tried to hump my arm, the filthy little slag. She was going at it like...err... rabbits and nothing was going to stop her.

In the days that followed she tried to hump anything, including the guy next door, the milkman and her own hutch. We blamed the phases of the moon, those long lonely nights, her all-carrot diet, and nothing we tried could stop her. So, in the end, we gave her an old football, and she soon grew to love it like a special friend. Morning, noon and night.

"Daddy, what's Wigs doing to that football?" the Scaryducklings would ask.

She had to go.

Molly, on the other hand looked like a tiny lion skin rug. We peeled her up out of the mud, and she slunk off to the shed and hid under a bucket, and has lived there ever since. We take her food and keep her warm, but she's not half the cat she was and is scared of anything bigger than a bug. She's a mental case, and I blame filthy, depraved lesbian rabbits. Lesbian Rabbits must be stopped. If we do nothing now, the war on sex-case bunnies is already lost.

The Scaryduck Archive

"The Scaryduck Kitten-o-matic"

What Kitten Week really, really needs is a great big list of stupid kitten links. So, here's a great big list of stupid kitten links, tried-and-tested for 100% kitteny goodness. Thanks to everybody to sent stuff, if you think I've missed out simportant kittenage, leave linkies in the comments section and I'll shoe-horn the little buggers in.


"Don't ask"

* Dress your cat up as a chicken. Or a tiger. Or a frog. But why, in the name of sanity, WHY?
* Random Kitten Generator for all you random kitteny goodness. From the same creative genius that brought you Kittenfilter.
* Punk Kittens. The original and best. Look at Nohands go! Now they want to take you to a Gay Bar.

* Cat Clay Pigeon Shooting. Never mind how sick it is, just reload!
* Not real kittens. Sorry.
* My Cat Hates You. No, really, she thinks you're a git and has never forgiven you for that fart-powder-in-the-catnip business.
* Bonsai Kitten. Original spoof site, still reeling in the humourless after all these years.

* Rate My Kitten. The original Nohands kitten, now available as a postcard. And if you still can't get enough of the little bugger, there's a huge Nohands Gallery to completely rot your brain. Awwww!
* I expect you've only seen this about 10,000 times before today. Make that 10,001, then. But did you know that Cliche Kitty has his own blog? And loads of friends, and a shop.
* Mittens still wants your spicy brains.

Kittens. Loads and loads of kittens.

"Not Kittens"

Our congratulations go to former Beatle Paul McCartney and his lovely not-a-gold-digger-at-all wife Heather Mills on the news of Ms Mills' pregnancy. We would like to crush any rumour right now that the only reason they are having a kid is so they can cheat at the parents' three-legged race at the school sports day. That is all.

The almost completely kitten-free Scaryduck Archive

"Scientific Breakthrough!!! Earn $$$!!!"



We at Scaryduck Labs are pleased to announce the scientific breakthrough that has eluded the world’s greatest brains in the world for centuries – perpetual motion.

Combining the two well-known scientific principles that: a) toast always lands butter side down, and b) cats always land on their feet, we have found that by gluing a kitten to the back of a slice of buttered toast in the correct alignment, a kitten-toast device will spin around indefinitely to avoid hitting the ground the wrong way up. Furthermore, by arranging several dozen arrays of KittyToast devices in parallel, we can wire them up to the National Grid and supply a small town with free electricity for the foreseeable future.

And the great this is that the basic technology already exists to make this amazing breakthrough possible. There is already a plentiful supply of kittens volunteering to be glued to toast for the betterment of humankind; and by utilising a combination of existing McDonalds Fruit Pie thermodynamics and advanced ‘Pop Tart’ technology, the toast will have a half life of at least 30,000 years and will never need reheating. We have also devised a simple Mouse Cannon to ensure that the rotating cats can be fed without having to stop the device for unnecessary meal breaks.

Naturally, the KittyToast has already been stomped on by the dog-loving oil-burning US Military-Industrial complex, operating under the guise of PETA activists. Punks.

The Scaryduck Archive

"The Russian Kommunist Kitten Joke"

There was a man digging salt in a forced labour camp somewhere in the frozen wastes of Siberia. His comrades asked him “How did you get here? Are you a trotskyist, revisionist, sicophant, or just another enemy of the people?” The man paused in his digging and told his story.

“I was the head master of a school, a kindergarten, actually. I never got involved in politics, not at all. But one day I heard that Stalin in person was going to visit my school. So I started thinking very hard about what I could have done to impress him, and I asked the children if they had something that they would like to tell to comrade Stalin. So, there was this little girl, so nice, who said: “Well, I would say this to comrade Stalin: my cat has just had a litter of five kittens and they all are good communists”.

I was delighted of having such a promising young pupil and some days afterwards, when Stalin came, I hastened to introduce her to him. So the little girl came up and said aloud: “Comrade Stalin, my cat had a litter of five kittens and they are all good capitalists”. As Stalin’s guards were dragging me out, I asked the girl a question: “Why in the world did you say that? Hadn’t you said last time that the kittens were all good communists?” And she answered: “Yes, but by now they have opened their eyes”.

The Scaryduck Archive, Comrade

"Kittens"

Thanks to a rather compelling request from the local chapter of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club, it's Kitten Week at Scaryduck. And who are we to argue?

Kittens are great, aren't they? We here at Scaryduck Labs are of the firm opinion that if we mail a kitten to every world leader, there'd be no more wars. Let's look at the facts. President Clinton had a cat called Socks, and he hardly got into many wars at all apart from those messy misunderstandings in Somalia, Iraq and Yugoslavia, which were all the fault of careless dog owners. President Bush, on the other hand, is the owner of a satanic hell-hound called Barney who has convinced his master of the need for constant global warfare.

And let us not forget our very own Tony Blair. One minute, Britain is at peace with a cat called Humphrey living at Number Ten, the next minute, Humph's been done away with and our once-revered leader has turned into a warmongering savage. He's not known as Bush's poodle for nothing.


What's the time? Time for kittens!

Dogs: evil. Kittens: cute and fluffy. No amount of warped dog-ist propaganda is going to change that. When was the last time you saw some red-coated fox hunting buffoon charging round the countryside shouting "Tally Ho!" with a pack of cats? Our point exactly.

A well-aimed kitten dropped in the laps of world leaders would change the face of world history as we know it. And that is why we have developed this Kitty Cannon - time, accuracy and fluffiness is of the essence if our mission is to suceed. Don't worry, kitty-lovers out there, each kitten is specially trained and is provided with his own cute little helmet. And we've hardly lost any so far. Thirty to forty, tops.

Kittens: The answer to this world's problems. No kitten ever started a war (apart from that unfortunate "Let them eat cat" business in the Frech Revolution). Think love. Think pussy.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Mud Hill"

This one’s for Pinky, who asked nicely.

My family comes from London. For reasons best known to my parents, most of us moved west to Reading and onwards into the West Country. My father now lives in Cornwall, and is in the process of buying a boat so he can get even further west. On the other hand, the rest of the family moved east and ended up in Basildon, a rather unfortunate sprawl of pre-fab concrete and pebble-dash on the Thames Estuary. Most of Basildon are displaced cockneys getting away from the smoke of London. “Out of the frying pan” as they say, “and straight back into another frying pan.”

My grandad lived in Basildon, where he settled down after the war as a postie, as did my Uncle Dave. He lived in Castlemayne in a house that was permanantly being rebuilt, when he wasn’t also building his own art gallery up in Langdon Hills. We spent long summers visiting, spending weeks at a time with my grandparents having the extended holidays that you can only dream about, while my parents joyfully got rid of three little turds for the entire summer.

When we were there, we’d spend days at a time playing with my cousins, Jane and Andrew. Andy was possibly the most accident-prone person I’ve ever met, always sporting new bruises, a hideous gash and once had an accident so hideous, they had to freeze it to get it out of the zip. And two streets behind their house was a local landmark known as Mud Hill.

Mud Hill was a hundred foot high hill rising up from nowhere among the houses to tower over the entire estate, and all the local kids would gather at the top, racing each other down to the bottom, dicing with death on foot, by bike or by go-kart. Of course, we had to have a go. Oh yes, did I mention the pond at the bottom? There’s a pond at the bottom. A deep, muddy pond that was filled with frogs, toads and all kinds of slippery stuff.


Blummin' hell, it's that Chopper bike again

And how do I know this fact? Well, it’s like this... Andy had the prized possession that any 70’s kid could dream of - a Raleigh Chopper bike. It made him the Prince of Cool, and afforded his a certain priveleged position with the local kids, and being his older, wiser cousin, I was allowed to have a go on it. The first time was great. We all hauled the bikes to the top of Mud Hill, mouted up, and raced for the bottom, the first past the tree being the winner. Easy, we could do that all day, and we did.

It was only when the number of kids outnumbered the number of bikes that things took a rather more dangerous turn, as per usual. It was decided that we’d have a “two-up” race. That’s right, two up on a bike, screaming down the north face of the Eiger. I should have known better, but I mounted up behind Andy on his Chopper and led the way down the hill to certain glory. First gear. Second gear. Third, the gear change clunked as Andy pedalled like hell and we picked up speed.

It was then that Andy’s accident-prone gene kicked in. He’d spent most of the previous day working on his bike, and let’s be charitable here, one or two of the bolts weren’t as tight as they might have been. Not least the one that holds the handle bars on. We screamed down the hill, Andy clinging onto the useless handlebars, and me clinging onto Andy. We hit a bump, veered to the right, and all of a sudden the pond was looming up in our crosshairs.

It was no good. We tried leaning over to try and steer ourselves away from our fate, but to no avail. The bike plunged into the drink, throwing us arse-over-tit into the muddy depths. It was cold, it was muddy, and unseen life was crawling up my t-shirt. But far, far worse than that, we were the objects of ridicule of our peers and close family members.

We staggered to the bank, our shoes covered in plates of mud, over feet being sucked back into the quagmire. We looked like the creatures from the black lagoon as we hauled the blackened bike from the clutches of the deep.

My brother was the first on the scene.

“My go now!” he said.

Andy and I looked at each other, the same evil thought filling our minds.

“Sure, there you go.”

---

"A Call for Kittens"

Following unspecified threats of violence from a certain hairy-arsed former Hell's Angel, next week will be Kitten Week on this site.

I need kittens. I want kitten stories, kitten pictures, cute kitten sites and any stuff you can think of with fluffy ickle kitty cats. Yes, I do know about Cat Scan, Rate My Kitten, Kittenfilter, The Random Kitten Generator and Bonsai Kitten, but anything else should be parked in the Speak Your Brains section below. Not that I'm desperate or anything, but no kittens equals an appointment with huge bearded men on motorbikes. I'd rather be in a prison shower.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Movie"

Okay, so I might have been a bit hasty declaring Ghostbusters the greatest movie off all time. Yes, I forgot Spinal Tap, and yes I forgot Animal House, Braindead, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Lord alone knows what else. Therefore, this is open to a vote. Speak your brains on your top slacking-off movie, and it will be declared the greatest film ever. Nothing arty and NO chick flicks (execpt Fever Pitch, which is a bloke movie/chick flick hybrid). You will be sneered at.

Joy sent me a link to this movie, and I now declare Vampire Lesbian Kickboxers the greatest movie I've never seen. I also note from its IMDB listing that it is “currently awaiting five votes.” It is now your patriotic duty to go to IMDB and give this one a ten. Go. Now. NOW.

"Bog"

Another thing Joy was talking to me about last night was the female desire to toilet train their men. Funny she should mention this as it is actually the subject of my PhD thesis towards my Doctorate in Geezerness (This may actually not be true) "The social functionality of the public convenience in gender politics." If you'll pardon my indulgence, here is a brief extract:

"It is a disappointing aspect of the male/female nexus that women just do not realise the important social function that a raised toilet seat performs. It's a known fact (Winklemeyer, p.879), that due to the greater alcohol intake, men need to go to the toilet more than women. Therefore, the next user of the convenience IS MORE LIKELY TO BE MALE. This follows that leaving the toilet seat up is only making life easier for the next user who will not have to raise the seat.

“However, in the complex world of gender politics, the empowered woman may still believe this is further evidence of outdated male dominance over their female slaves (Frantzen-Schmitt, p.27), she should consider that a raised toilet seat is less likely to have piss on it. In the words of Einstein’s 1950 paper on the subject, “Girls, we're doing it for you. Now stop your fucking whining."

“In the light of this theorem, I propese the provision of corks to all women who need extra time to get the seat down. Put your knickers on love and go make me a cup of tea. White, no sugar.“

"Sweary Friday"

Now I suppose you'll be wanting me to finish the week with one on my Scaryduck stories. You may choose between "Ford", "Cow" and "Mud Hill". Two of these involve youthful dunkings into local watercourses, while the other features more shit than you can shake a ...err... shitty stick at. Choose-o!

Dr Scaryduck's Laboratory of Blokedom

“The Greatest Story Ever Told”

A quick flit through the excellent Internet Movie Database gives a list of what is supposedly the Top 250 movies of all time. It is, in our humble opinion, a huge steaming pile of bollocks. The Godfather? Big load of arse. Citizen Kane? A load of fannying about with an old sled and the focus knob on the camera. That amateur Welles didn’t even bother filming it in colour! This list of shoddy film-making, acting and pisspoor quality production is only notable for its absences.


Citizen Kane: Citizen Arse, more like

Where, for crying out loud, is “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?” And “Wayne’s World”? Did Mike Myers die in vain? And bugger me rigid, where in the name of all that is holy is “Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter”? This list is a sham and a scandal, with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” included at no.52 just to throw us off the scent of an official cover-up.

So, what, we hear you ask, is the real greatest film of all time?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ghostbusters.

Let’s face it, it’s got killer plot, it’s got Bill Murray at his sarcastic best, it’s got the End of the World (almost), it’s got a levitating Sigourney Weaver, a giant marshmallow man, and perhaps the greatest film gag of all time:

Dr. Raymond Stantz: Everything was fine, until dickless here cut off the power grid!
Mayor: Is that true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, Your Honour, this man has no dick.

Genius. No other movie comes close. The day someone opens a fridge door in Casablanca and there’s a whole temple arrangement with a demon shouting “ZUUL!” inside is the day I drop my bacon sarnie. An no-one, repeat no-one has ever stood at a pub urinal with several drunken mates shouting “Don’t cross the streams! Don’t cross the streams!” as a result of watching Schindler’s List, which shows up Spielberg as the slacker that he is.

Let us not forget the theme tune, which I bet you’re singing in your head RIGHT NOW. Amadeus, one of IMDB’s so-called “great movies” had to get Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - a dead guy - to do their music, and there was not one decent dance beat, bassline or sing-a-long “I’m not afraid of no ghost!” to be heard. An utter shambles. Ray Parker Jr was very much alive when he ripped the tune off Huey Lewis. Mozart wouldn’t have understood a twelve inch dance remix if it came along and slapped him in the face.

And Orson Welles take note, Ghostbusters made rather more money at the box office than your so-called “classic” Citizen Kane, and we are yet to see Citizen Kane II: The Wrath of Randolph Hearst. You’ll end up doing the Transformers movie, you mark my words.

What makes this film oh-so special? The storyline, the cutting edge effects, the high comedy? Wrong, wrong, wrongity-wrong. If you ask us, what sets it apart from the pack is that Ghostbusters is just another slice of everyday life in New York City:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions!
Mayor: What do you mean "biblical"?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath of God type stuff! Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, and volcanos!
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

It could happen. As a matter of fact, it’s probably happening right now.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ghostbusters. The greatest film in the world ...ever ever ever.

Soon: The Ferrero Rocher “Ambassador’s Balls” ad - taking the advertising industry by the scruff of the neck and shaking it until it screams - an in depth analysis.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Pie News"

Weebl is on holiday and has allowed guest animator Manny to make a new Weebl and Bob episode. It's really very, very good. While on his hols, Weebl was "bitten by an eel". I've never heard it called that before.

“Christ on a Bike”

There’s been a lot of bandwidth wasted on the net in recent months over the question What Would Jesus Drive?. The general consensus reached after America re-invented Our Lord and Saviour in their own image was that he’d cruise around in a gas-guzzling SUV, flipping the bird at us lesser mortals taking public transport.

What a load of bollocks.

We kidnapped a couple of vicars last night, and down the barrel of a gun, we forced them to take a look at the evidence with cool heads and a funny smell coming from under their cassocks.

Jesus, the long-haired kid of a local tradesman, would have dreamed of burning up the streets of Nazareth on a Harley, but in truth, all he would have got from his old man would have been a Raleigh Chopper. Even then, he would have been the evny of the local kids. Who then, could have foretold that the King of the Back Alleys would have become the King of the Jews? Well, all the angels and stuff might have been a clue.

Years later, after a stand-up argument with his dad over his habit of hanging round the docks with crusty old fishermen, Jesus would have been his own man with his own place and his own set of wheels, the apprenticeship in the carpenter’s workshop long forgotten after His stout refusal to work for The Man. With His long hair, beard, open-toed sandals, a fully developed social conscience there’d only be one car for Him.

Behold! The Citroen 2CV.

The cutting edge of French automotive technology, designed (and I shit you not) to take a peasant, his wife and a pig to market, or a bunch of hippies to a Hawkwind concert at a top speed marginally faster that the donkey that carried His old lady to Bethlehem. It would, of course, he held together by a “Nuclear Power? No Thanks!” sticker with one of those rainbow wossnames in the back window.

It would be a quite righteous set of wheels.

Older, wiser, and recognised by his peers as the Messiah and the Saviour of all mankind, it is clear that the 2CV would have to go. With a posse of equally hairy disciples all clamouring for a lift to the Sermon on the Mount, He would have had to trade it in for something far more practical.

It’s a mircale! He drives a Volkswagen Combi!

And let’s face it, there’d be no riding into Jerusalem on the back of an ass. Be it weddings in Canaa, fishing trips on the Sea of Galilee or a trip down the morgue to pick up his old mate Lazarus, the Combi is perfect for the long-haired Saviour about town and His mates. And hey, if temptation ever got the better of Him, there’s no need to find a motel for His laydee friends - room service is included!

It is worth pointing out at this stage, that in the face of a hostile occupying power, there is no way on God's Earth that He would have bothered with a driving licence, let alone road tax and insurance. The Old Bill would have crucified him.

Judas Iscariot, on the other hand, would have driven around in a spanking new BMW 316 after unexpectedly coming into some money.

Here endeth the lesson.

Scaryduck - Going to Hell so you don’t have to.

"Boosh"

The mighty Arsenal win the Cup. Again. And a jolly good time was had by all.

"Quack"

I found a copy of the Daily Star on the bus on Friday. Nothing remarkable there, I was planning to use the comic as something for my ickle puppy Harry to poop over as he still can't get to the toilet on time. On page three of this remarkable piece of journalism (apart from a young lady with hardly any clothes on) was one of those little windows full of useless shit you didn'y know. Ten Celebrity Collectors it screamed. Number One: Kim Basinger - Inflatable Ducks.

Inflatable Ducks? Are those regular inflatable ducks, or inflatable ducks with realistic orifices? We all know the stories about certain film stars' nocturnal habits, but lovely Kim Basinger? I'm shocked and surprised. If she wanted a real duck, she could have just come round here.

Strangely, a google search of Kim Basinger Inflatable Ducks has failed to throw up any evidence of her particular pecadillo. She's kept that one quiet.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Firestarter”

“I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter” - The Prodigy
“Shut it, lightweights” - Scaryduck

Every year around the 5th of November, the village of Twyford holds its bonfire carnival in memory of some poor Catholic bloke from York who had horrible things done to him in return for his botched part in trying to blow up the King and his Parliament. A fair exchange all round, I suppose, giving us English protestants the chance to set fire to stuff, totally legally, for several weeks a year.

The carnival is a torchlight procession of decorated floats from the station to the recreation ground, where there’s a fairground, the mother of all bonfires and what is reputed to be the largest display of fireworks in the south of England. The bonfire is what can only be described as a towering inferno, built over several days from railway sleepers, wooden palettes and all the trees within a five mile radius. You can feel the heat of this conflagration over one hundred yards away and it burns all night to the sound of local teens puking up over the side of the fairground twister.

The following day was always very different. Where there were several thousand people the night before, the Sunday saw several dozen kids meandering round the rec looking for dropped change while the fairground folk slowly took their machines to pieces. The largest crowd was always around the embers of the fire; which the night before had been the size of a house, now reduced to a smouldering pile of ash and still pumping out a tremendous heat.


"I'm really gonna catch hell when me dad hears about this"

There were dares. On pain of being called a poof, you had to walk across the flames, hoping beyond hope that your flares wouldn’t catch fire. On reaching the other side, you were formally inducted into the hard lads’ club, while the trembling pooves on the other side still had to face their ordeal. Those who had made it were easily identified. They were the ones with smouldering trouser hems, smoke still rising from the soles of their melting shoes.

My brand new trainers were completely wrecked with the imprints of red hot nails all over them, and it took me hours that afternoon to pare off all the blackened rubber with a knife to keep my parents fom finding out. Stevie was less fortunate. He was wearing his school best Dr Marten’s boots, which where now leaking air at an alarming rate and making a terrifying farting noise as he walked.

But the real fun was to be had with the stuff you could throw onto the fire. There were heaps of torches which had made up the torchlight prosession the night before, great long things dipped in wax, that stoked up the fire nicely. We would also throw on great armfuls of rubbish, which the Great Britsh public had thoughtfully left behind; and when the flames were really licking up round our ears, singeing the fluff off our parka coats, on would go the first of the fireworks.

We really were that stupid. Gaz, one of the tougher kids in school had brought his own supply, which he ladled on liberally. Within seconds, it was like a war zone, as we dived for the cover of our bikes, hedges, other kids, anything. A rocket fizzed past my head and exploded halfway up the only tree for miles around. I still swear to this day that it actually parted my hair, leaving a frazzled streak across my scalp. An inch lower and I would have grown a third eye socket.

Fireworks, we all agreed, were just asking for trouble. Anyone could throw a firework on a bonfire for an easy laugh, and besides we were rather attached to our facial features rather than risk having them blown off by a passing airbomb. We would, it was decided, use our imaginations.

“Meet you back here in twenty minutes.”

And what an arsenal we collected. Every single bin, shed and garage was raided for every last aerosol can, paint tin, and anything marked with those wonderful words of wisdom “Keep out of direct sunlight, do not burn or puncture.” Wise words indeed, There would be no puncturing. Plenty of burning.

An experimental can of underarm deodorant was cast onto the flames. Minutes later, there was a satisfying explosion, and the Great Smell of Brut wafted round the park. This was good, and was immediately followed by a shower of cans as everybody flung their booty onto the fire. The resulting cacophony was something to behold, and I’m pleased to report that there were only minor shrapnel injuries and very few burst eardrums.

Then Gaz came back. He had just one item for the fire. It was a one gallon Castrol GTX oil can. You should understand that is wasn’t one of those plastic wussy things you get these days. Cold steel. About to get very hot steel. Straight onto the flames it went.

“Errr, Gaz mate?”

“Yuh.”

“Was there anything in that oil can?”

“Yuh. A bit.”

“How much?”

“About half.”

“Oh shit.”

We watched as the can developed an ominous bulge. We backed away slowly. The bulge got bigger, until the can was almost twice its original size.

“Lads,” suggested a mature yet rather frightened voice, “I think it was time we legged it.”

There was a general agreement, followed by an unseemly scramble for bikes, coats and molten shoes.

BA-LAAAAAAANG-NG-NG-NG-NG-NG-NG!!!!!!!!!!!

The fireball was a good thirty feet across, and the heatwave knocked us off our feet. A rather pleasing mushroom cloud hung over the recreation ground. Several of the fairground people could be seen running around in wide-eyed panic, still clutching their oversized spanners. As a matter of fact, several of us kids were running around in wide-eyed panic too, as an explosion like that could only mean one thing: trouble. At the very least, a visit from the local Plod; at the very worst - parents.

No pack-drill, no questions asked. We legged it.

When the coast had cleared, and the bomb disposal people had gone away, we went back to survey the wreckage. The fire still burned, and would do for at least another two days. Of the oil can there was nothing except a small crater in the ashes.

“Hey lads,” said Gaz.

“What?”

“My dad’s got another one in his garage....”

The Scaryduck Archive

“Dyb Dyb Dyb”

Last night, Scaryduck Jr donned his Beaver Scout uniform and went for his first ever outing with the group - a trip to the council offices to meet the Mayor of Weymouth and Portland.

I know from first hand experience how dull these events can be both for His Excellence and for the visitors, so I primed The Boy with one or two questions to spice things up a bit for all concerned.

“What, exactly, do you do?”

“My Dad says that in an age of budget cuts and soaring council taxes, the post of mayor is an expensive anachronism, wasting money that would be better spent on providing better services to residents.”

“Can I come to the next public flogging?”

“Do you always wear your robes of office to the Luv-a-Rub Massage Parlour, or is that only on official business?”

They were permitted to touch the Mayor’s staff, which is three hundred years old and has “a big round knob on the end.”

The Mayor’s Parlour is now on the “Never Again” list.

“Variety: Dead”

You may have noticed previous posts regarding what is passed off as “entertainment” in my locality. Sunday sees the arrival of Jimmy Cricket at the Weymouth Pavilion, a hideous pile of concrete tacked onto a hideous concrete pier, and alas, the only decent sized venue we have in the town.

God bless Jimmy, I’ve nothing against him, but its the support acts that make me cringe. He’s got a whistling act, someone who plays the xylophone, and I’m pretty sure that at some stage a drunken Scotsman appears to play the spoons. If it wasn’t twelve quid for a ticket, I’d be there in a flash. And that’s pretty much the pinnacle of popular culture in the town. Being a holiday venue, the place is swarming with end-of-the-pier acts, plying their grim trade from holiday camp to holiday camp, with awful karaoke cover versions, unfunny stand up acts and non-magical magicians. Oh, and clowns.

Clowns exist for one thing and one thing only: to be evil and eat childrens’ spicy brains. That’s two things, and the sooner that fact is drummed into the minds of our impressionable youth the better.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Weymouth. The beaches, the countryside, the relaxed pace of life, the great carved wang on the hill just up the road - it’s just that there’s far more inordinately cheerful people per square mile than I’m used to, right?

And Christ on a bike, we’ve still got the Barron Knights and a night of accordian music to endure. Is there no end to this torture?

“Geekness”

Just over a year ago, uber-geek Wil Wheaton unwittingly got me into this blogging business and gave my writing the kick up the arse it deserved. So if it wasn’t for the Head Monkey, I wouldn’t be where I am now - sitting up half the night beating my brains out for content to please you, my faithful readers. Punk. Wil’s got a book out, and apparantly it’s rather good.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Running in the Family”

My daughter Scaryduckling (aged eight) was off school for the whole of last week with the same nasty flu/virus/lurgi thing that I was struck down with. She tells me that when she went back on Monday, she found that one of the kids in her class had gone round telling everybody else that she’d moved to another school; while another put the story round that we were off on a holiday in Florida, and that relatively expensive gifts would be forthcoming on her return. So, the first things she heard on Monday morning were “Where’s my present?” and “What are you doing back here?”

Why the long face?

Why didn’t I ever think of doing that when I was at school? These kids are comedy genius in action. I just tell my pair that they’re adopted and we reserve the right to send them back to the Childrens Home at any time. They firmly believe that the movie Stuart Little is a documentary, and every car journey is a trip into the unknown. Keeps ‘em on their toes. Bad Parenting is the new black, y'know.

(Note to Dorset County Social Services: Some of the above may not be 100% true.)

“Mail from the chief”

My Fellow Americans.

These are dark days for our country. Never before have we faced such a threat from the forces of anti-Americanism who seek to put an end to our freedom-loving way of life.The people, and I use that phrase with great caution, would rather we live in a totalitarian regime, where dissent is frowned up, where children are hauled out of their classrooms by the Secret Service for showing dissent and people are blacklisted for daring to use the Freedom of Speech we take for granted.

We, as Americans will never let that happen, and we will use our armed might to crush any third world nation that dares say otherwise, whether we’ve sold them weapons in the past or not.

As your President, I have made it our role to rid the world of dangerous Weapons of Mass Destruction, and to this end, I have launched, on the back of massive tax cuts, a multi-billion dollar programme to build more nuclear warheads above and beyond the sixteen thousand we already possess. We take this huge risk, my fellow loyal Americans, not to pump money into an already bloated military-industrial complex, but to rid the rest of the world of nuclear weapons by cornering the market ourselves. It is a risk that is well worth taking, and one reflected by the many shareholders of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other all-American industries.

Homeland security is our number one priority. We must safeguard your American way of life, where you can drive to your local mall and spend your tax refund on duct tape and plastic sheeting without the threat of Johnny Foreigner blowing you to tiny pieces with some fiendish yet unspecified weapon that may only exist in my imagination.

To this end, we are declaring war on Vanuatu forthwith. It will be a long, bloody conflict (for them, not for us), and I’m sure we’ll find some incriminating evidence several months after the shooting has finished, and just in time for my re-election. Those devious bastards deserve everything that’s coming to them.

As patriotic Americans, you will display every confidence with my new appointments of the Director of the CIA and the Head of the Department of Homeland Security, and I wish Sam R Binladen and Saddam Eagleburger III every success in keeping us free from the enemies of the state. Whoever they are.

Love,

George.

"Rad, dude"

Tony Hawk is a skateboarder and teen icon of some repute. Tony Hawks, on the other hand, is a comedian and writer who once hitch-hiked around Ireland with a fridge by way of a drunken bet. He also has to field semi-literate e-mails from skate fans desperate to find out how to "ollie", whatever that is. I bet you any money Tony Hawk doesn't get e-mail asking when the next Morris Minor and the Majors single is coming out.

Q: dear tony hawks can you tell me some tips on skate boarding.

A: Yes. Try not to fall off.

"Mammon"

I reserve the right to pimp the Scaryduck Shop at any time. New stock coming up, just as soon as I can get that bastard penguin to stand still long enough to have his picture taken in various compromising positions.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Ten”

People keep telling me that I’m going to hell, and frankly, I believe them. But rather than look at the effect and point you towards that “Which Circle of Hell Will You End Up In?” quiz (Woo! Fifth!), I thought I’d look at the root cause and find out where I’ve gone wrong.

I. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me : Yay me! One out of one, even though it’s been over a year since I saw the inside of a church. I’m one of millions who “Go to the church inside my head”. Translation: “Look, it’s Sunday morning, I got pissed last night, and there’s no way I’m going to get up early, sit on a cold bench and curse my piles while a bloke in a dress lectures me on morality. Jesus and me, we’ve got an understanding.”
II. Thou Shalt Not Take The Name Of The Lord In Vain Ah. All the good work of the First Commandment flushed down the toilet with a whole webpage of dodgy gags about the Pope.

Vatican officials have finally attributed a bona fide miracle to the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta, paving the way for the Nobel Prize-winning nun’s sainthood. It is understood that Teresa actually managed to cancel her AOL account at the first attempt, and never once received an “Increease You’re Penis Size” e-mail. A miracle indeed.

And a Frost/Arden special:

"How's that girlfriend of yours?"
"We split up."
"Oh yeah?"
"She didn't like this joke I made about the Pope."
"You idiot, you know she's a Catholic."
"Yeah, but I didn't know the Pope was."

III. Remember The Sabbath Day, To Keep It Holy: Hey, don’t look at me, blame a secular society, B&Q opening hours and Sky Sports. And watching West Ham getting relegated counts as a deeply religious experience.
IV. Honor Thy Father And Thy Mother: Hi Dad. RIP Mum. That is all.
V. Thou shalt not kill. : No problem there. I only kill kittens.
VI. Thou shalt not commit adultery: I’m with God on this one. I’ve had first hand experience of the Sixth Commandment, and to be perfectly honest, it’s not worth the aggro. Princess Di may have saved my nads back in 1997, but she failed miserably three years later. Repent ye!


First Class ticket to Hell. Change at Basingstoke

VII. Thou shalt not steal: I have a 35p packet of rub-down letters on my conscience from 1984. Excuse: penniless student desperately trying to jazz up a lack-lustre project folder. WH Smiths, however, are still in business despite my career as a master criminal.
VIII. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. : OK, so I let Matty next door take the rap for setting fire to the school hedge. That wasn’t strictly false witness, I just hid for three days until the heat was off.
IX. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's ox. : I’ve never lived next door to any oxen, which is perhaps no bad thing. However, before I moved, the woman next door did closely resemble a moose, and a really ugly one at that with the same amount of facial hair. And antlers. There was not even a hint of coveting.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. : “I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer that I gave previously.” Enough time has passed since I moved house to ask the question: “How the hell did you manage to have TWO kids?” My current neighbour is, apparantly, a retired Town Crier. The only thing I covet is a decent night’s kip.

So, let’s see the scores on the doors: Good: Five. Bad: Four: Undecided: One. Still, what’s heaven? Wandering around in a nightshirt singing hymns and watering pot-plants. At least it’s warm in hell, even if I’m going to hate Fridays.

Soon: The Seven Deadly Sins. They might want to make a movie out of that.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Eh Steve!"

I can't believe I've been running this place for over a year and have never once mentioned Strongbad. So, here's a mention of Strongbad. All I want to know is how he manages to type wearing boxing gloves.

"Sick Part the Second"

Due to the fact that I mooched off home from work yesterday still feeling dreck, I forgot to bring my disks with all my web content and ker-aaazy stories with me. Unfortunately, this means the tale I had planned for today will now be held over until at least Monday. Which is a shame, because it involves football hooligans, celebrity nudity and bare hairy arses. I can only off my apologies to any fans of big hairy arses who may be reading.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Sick"

Oh grud, I feel ill. I arms are so stiff I can hardly hold the mouse, and my nose resembles the Niagra Falls, while a small band of Spanish dancers are doing the flamenco in my head. But for you, dear reader, I shall struggle on. Your generous donations of beer, money and sex may help aid my recovery.

"L33t"

Someone on b3ta pointed out to me that Albert Einstein may have been the world's first AOL-using l33t haXX0r are recently unearthed documents showed the first draft of his famous Theory of Relativity read as follows:

3 = |\/| C sqrd! WTF!!!!!!1 LOL!!!!!!1 OMG!!!!!!1 ROTFLOLOLOL!!!111

"Proof positive," he said.

"You daft bugger," I replied, stealing his idea to use later...

"Music"

Is this the worst music festival on the planet? I work in Reading, home of the famous rock festival which will be headlined this year by Blur, Linkin Park and Metallica. Less than an hour up the road, there’s Glastonbury which will feature the likes of Radiohead and REM. So I moved to Weymouth, where we get a Meatloaf tribute act, a Status Quo tribute act and those musical giants Slade who parted company with Noddy Holder several years ago, so in essence they’re a tribute act as well. The place will be packed out, naturally.

It is worth noting that Weymouth’s top musical groups (being a seaside town where end-of-the-pier and holiday camp variety is inescapable) are a Steps tribute act and a Tina Turner tribute, where Tina is rather whiter than I remember her in her Private Dancer days...

SARS, thy name is Hysteria

Aaargh! I just realised that here I am displaying "flu-like symptoms", just a week after meeting a very nice man from Radio Taipei International. And. We. Shook. Hands. Now I feel it is my duty to spread fear and ill-informed paranoia around the web. Alternatively, I could just have a cold.

However, I did receive my first SARS Nigerian scam e-mail:

Dear Friend,
Firstly,i have to introduce myself to you.My name is Tony Wang Zhucheng from China.I wasinvolved in the export of small commodities with an office in central beijing but my businesses have been shut down since the outbreak of the SARS epidemic.Before the SARS epidemic and panic in my country ,i had already concluded arrangements to deposit the sum of $9million(nine million dollars),in one of the private security companys in Europe...

yadda yadda yadda....

Yours Faithfully, Tony wang Zhucheng

I'm going to reply to him. And when we meet, I'm going to sneeze all over the bugger.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Blatant Repost"

OK, I'll admit it, I posted this a couple of months ago as a quick something I tossed off one afternoon. After a quick write-through inspired by the theft of Potter Book Five from the publishers, I've been leaving this lying around where gullible fans might find it. As a matter of fact, I was rumbled on one Harry Potter forum by some squirt who pointed out some subtle grammatical inconsistensies between mine and JK Rowling's work, before telling me to "Get a Life". He had a picture of Ron Weasley as his avatar, and failed to notice that my user name was "Patrick Bateman". Cut. Paste. Send to people. You know it makes sense. That is all.



The new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is due to hit the shelves of your local bookstore in June. However, thanks to the persistance of our spies, lies, blackmail and sheer good looks, we've been able to secure an exclusive extract to whet your appetites. And it's not just any old extract, oh no! It's the very nub of the book - what exactly is the Order of the Phoenix?

Harry Potter Book Five - EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT!!! OMG!!!1 LOL!!!111 ROTFL!!!11

The waiter at the Wizard's Cauldron on Diagon Alley came over to the table by the fireplace, notepad at the ready. Harry made up his mind quickly and ordered the beef stew with dumplings, washed down with a flaggon of butterbeer. Hermione, sensible as always, ordered a salad. Ron mumbled to himself for what seemed like several minutes, lost in the endless menu that promised delights that a mere muggle just wouldn’t be able to comprehend. While his companions sat patiently, he couldn't decide between the cheeseburger and pasta, and eventually asked for both. Satisfied, the waiter turned to the fourth guest at the table.

"And what would sir like for his main course?" he asked.

"Steak," said the Phoenix, a small flame licking round the top of his head, "and don't skimp on the chips."

"Very good sir," replied the waiter in a tone that suggested mythical beasts came to his restaurant all the time, "and how would sir like his steak prepared?"

The Phoenix paused for a second, weighing the options. His eyes lit up, and a smile came to his face. "Very very very very very well done."

The waiter thanked them all, and clutching his precious notepad, retreated to the kitchen with the Order of the Phoenix.

"ARSE!"

Shamelessly nicked from Popbitch today:

Best news I heard all weekend - Man Utd are in the hunt for promising US Major League keeper Tim Howard from New York Metrostars. Nothing that exciting there you may think, but Tim suffers from severe Tourettes. At last a real use for Playercam.

I phoned the Tourette's Syndrome Association for a quote. They told me to fuck off.

"Football, again"

From Tony Q: Manchester City Football Club are asking for people to vote on a new name for the West Stand at their new ground. Go here and vote for Colin Bell so that it`ll always be known as 'The Bell End.'

"And finally"

Some music.

The Scaryduck Archive

“The Big One”

Here at Scaryduck Towers, we never dodge the big questions and are never afraid to tackle the issues that affect society head-on. In matters of war, politics or the arts, we will never shirk our responsibility to you, our readers, in facing down the demons that haunt the world we live in today. That is why today we have steeled ourselves to find a solution to the quandary that is facing our freedom-loving western ideals as we speak, a question that our governments dare not face, the problem that dare not say its name. Until now. Today, we ask: Who would win a cat fight between Tatu and The Cheeky Girls?

To resolve this controversy, we spent literally minutes feeding data into Metatron, the Scaryduck Labs supercomputer, and with hands trembling and after a short ceremony, we hit the Enter key. The results, as they say, were Earth shattering.

Round One: “Touch my bum!” sang the Cheeky Girls, and right from the start there was some veritable ass-kicking. In our analysis of this mighty rumble, the Russian girls come out kicking, scratching and hissing, gouging at the eyes of the sylph-like Romanian twins. But it’s the ballerina training of the Cheekies that pays off with their disicpline, strength and coordination picking of the Tatu girls almost at will. Lena and Yulia fight back, pulling hair and screaming obscenities, but its to no avail as Monica and Gabriela have the upper hand, leaving the Russians a bleeding and broken heap on the floor. Round one to the Cheeky Girls, and a nation of Loaded readers weep into their pints.

Round Two: Despite their pummelling, Tatu are not to be defeated. The filthy teen lesbian chic slappers didn’t get where they are today without treading on a few toes, and this battle royal is no exception. Through a network of underworld contacts, hushed acquaintances and a man called Sergei, a Russian Mafia hit is arranged on Cheeky Girl World Headquarters in downtown Cluj. No mercy is shown, no quarter is spared. Even hardened crime scene officers turn away in disgust at this flagrant misuse of marital aids.

Round Three: Tatu's victory can only be short-lived. As night falls and a full moon rises over the sordid Tatu love-nest (copyright The Sun 2003), the Transylvanian double act rise from their icy graves to wreak their awful revenge on their pop rivals. At the head of an army of zombies, werewolves and vampires, chanting the dread incantation “Cheeky cheeky!”, awful and bloody revenge is meted out on Lena and Yulia, their skulls smashed like so many egg-shells and their spicy brains devoured in a sickening, cathartic feeding frenzy. Tatu are cursed to walk the Earth as undead ghouls, their shattered bodies knowing nothing but unending pain, decay and the Eurovision Song Contest. Cruelty knows no bounds. Final victory goes to the Cheekies, but at a price.

So, there you have it and a vital lesson is learned. In war there are no winners, only undead brain-guzzling novelty pop acts that even Pete Waterman wouldn't touch with a shitty stick.

Next week, we shall be asking another burning question: Which of the “I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!” contestants would be the first to commit cannibalism, and what exactly would Ant & Dec’s spicy brains taste like? And thrown from a great height, what would be the first to hit the ground - Ronan Keating or a large over-ripened watermelon?

"Meanwhile, back in reality..."

It's no good. I'm still in denial about the football.

The Scaryduck Archive

By popular demand - "Tent"

Nelson: The pervert’s choice

I’ll tell you one thing that’s really crap - when other people are having sex and you’re not. That’s crap. When you’re fifteen and other people are having sex, and the only naked ladies you’ve ever seen are in magazines with the pages stuck together, that’s really crap. What’s worse is when these people are supposedly your elders and betters and making such a public show of it. Come to think of it, that’s not crap. It’s funny. And from here on in, I’d better be pretty careful not to name names. They’re still alive, and by all accounts, vengeful. Regular readers will know that I spent my teenage years as an air cadet. This essentially gave me the opportunity to go flying, shoot things, run round the countryside with a wooden gun shouting “Na-na-na-na-na-na!” like Private Pike and go flying while shooting things. Did I mention the flying and shooting? Some of this time was spent camping with my comrades and fellow teenage erks under canvas, in the middle of nowhere, freezing our nads off.

And that’s where we were this fateful night. Halfway up a hill somewhere in Oxfordshire, wishing we were all somewhere else instead, like tucked up in bed cataloging my collection of adult literature. We spent a long, tiring day tramping around the countryside with full packs on our backs, and charged around for short periods of time shouting shouting “Na-na-na-na-na-na!” like Private Pike. After this, we cooked up freeze-dried rations that closely resembled cardboard, before turning in for the night. And that’s where our problems started.

Victor, our leader on this particular exercise had a new girlfriend. Sue was a rough-and-ready outdoors type who jumped at the chance of wearing combats and mixing it with sweaty and hormonal teenagers. She was also a casualty nurse who regaled us with stories from the Emergency Room, proving that not everything you read on snopes.com is an urban myth. She had seen them all, and most of these appeared to involve either couples carried in “locked together” or people with statuettes of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson stuck in unexpected orifices, accompanied by unconvincing tales of woe (“I was dusting the pelmet with no knickers on, and I tripped and fell...”).

We thought Sue was great, and our hero-worship for Victor knew no bounds, not least for his choice of female companionship. But bugger me sideways, the public displays of affection really got us down, especially when you’re trying to get some sleep. The scene is set. We mere plebs and teenage perverts were all sleeping under a parachute suspended from a tree on the edge of a clearing. Vic and Sue had a tent on the other side, which remained suspiciously empty for the major part of the evening as they sauntered back into the local village to find a pub.

Unsurprisingly, they arrived back at the campsite around closing time. Fair play to them, they managed to find their way back up a pitch black hill in the middle of nowhere without getting lost, but the giggles and over-dramatic shushes proved there were more than a few drinkies sloshing around inside them. Purely medicinal, of course. With a struggle of boots and combat jackets, they managed to wriggle into their one-man tent, where the close proximity and the warming effects of alcohol all-of-a-sudden and totally innocently made all their clothes fall off.

This was no bad thing, except in their drunken haze, they had left a torch on and the entire episode was being played out like one of those Indian Shadow Theatres, only without puppets and with added filthy sound effects. It was Shed who first noticed. The two of us had drawn the dreaded guard duty and he was the only soul to notice the loving couple’s return to camp.

“Hey! Look!” he whispered, “They’re doing it!”

And by God, he was right. We watched agog for a few minutes as the silouettes played out their loving game of “doing it”, oblivious to the outside world in general, and me and Shed in particular. We knew what we had to do. We waked the other lads. It would have been selfish not to. You would have thought they would have been pleased to have been woken from their dreamless slumber to be faced with shit-hot cadet leader shaggery, but the number of “Bugger off ya bastards” simply beggared belief. Still not a single one of my comrades stayed in their sleeping bags when they learned what was going on across the clearing.

“Oh! Vic! Vic! Give it to me!” she cried as tears of barely suppressed laughter poured down our cheeks.

“Here comes Mr Sausage!” he replied.

Mr Sausage? MR SAUSAGE? That kind of talk could lose our entire respect for the guy, if it were not for that fact that we was, at that time, committing the number one hope for all teenage boys: Seeing A Lady With No Clothes On. It was a hope that was being fulfilled for all of us, albeit in glorious Shadowvision on the side of a tent.

Before long, it was apparant that Vic had reached his vinegar strokes, and with a scream that could be heard halfway to Oxford, provoking news reports of a panther on the loose in the local countryside, they finished the job in hand. We applauded. It seemed the polite thing to do. The occupants of the tent went very, very quiet.

Breakfast the following morning was prepared in embarrassed silence. Hardly a glance was exchanged between the two sides of the camp. Vic could take it no more and swallowed his pride and approached his audience of the previous night.

“Least said about last night the better, eh lads?” he said, a look of desperation on his face.

“Oh yes sir”, said Shed, “Mum’s the word, we won’t tell anyone.”

By Sunday evening, it was common knowledge across whole swathes of South East England, and it was rumoured the BBC were producing a special edition of Panorama just in case anyone had missed the blow-by-blow accounts that were doing the rounds. Fair play to Sue though, after this baptism of fire, she stuck around, regaling us for several years of her adventures in extracting statuettes out of perverts (you need loads of vaseline and a special expanding clamp, apparantly), and proving on at least thirty-seven different occasions how difficult it is for a young lady to keep her clothes on while in polite company.

That is, however, another story. And perhaps best told by those who were there. Fuck my luck.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Letter to James Randi"

Dear Mr Randi,

Firstly, let me congratulate you on the dignity you have lived your life despite your most excellent comedy surname. Secondly, I note with interest that you are still offering the sum of one million dollars to the person "who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." Well, Amazing Randi, me old mucker, you'd better start counting the dosh, because I've seen it with my own eyes. Twenties will be fine.

You see, and you'll kick yourself for this, it was your arch-nemesis Uri Geller, who, in front of several thousand disinterested spectators, actually made Exeter City Football Club disappear from the football league. This is the kind of paranormal stunt that could not be done by a normal person, and let's face it, Geller just isn't normal. All the energies have to be right, and me old mate Uri himself was up all night sprinkling crystals all over the pitch and deflowering virgins in the goalmouth, before sacrificing a goat in the centre circle by way of half-time entertainment. Not even the great Paul Daniels at the height of his powers could have managed this stunt, but then Daniels has never been told to fuck off by my good self in the way I did to Uri.

In short, Randi, cough up. I fucking hate football at the moment, and the less time spent on this subject the better. Used notes, behind the hot water pipes in the gents toilets, Basingstoke Station. And if there's any hesitation coming up with the funds, I've still got the Debbie McGee negatives, and I think you know what I'm talking about.

Yours etc, Scary.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Hurry up and die, you old bugger!"

There's an apocryphal tale doing the rounds about a stage version of Anne Frank's diary. It was so long winded, so badly acted, so downright boring that the stalls were shouting "She's in the loft!" during the second act whenever someone in a Nazi uniform appeared. The trouble is, I've got the same problem with my reading habits. Only without the Nazis.

I like a nice biography. It's good to read a book about the great and good of the world and how they got their names so well known. I've also got a thing about polar exploration, so I've read fine biographies of Shackleton, Scott, Amundsen and that fraud Peary who never made it to the North Pole no matter what you read in an atlas. All of these men died young, usually somewhere freezing, leading to rather neat, concise books.

Which is more than can be said for Fridjoft Nansen, father of polar exploration. He may have been the first man to cross Greenland, he may have made the first truly serious attempt at the North Pole, but he achieved all of these things in the first half of his seventy years. The result was that all the best stuff was in the first coplue of hundred pages, with another three hundred about his life in Norwegian politics. Fridjoft, me old son, you were a true hero, but even I was crying out for a fatal heart attack by page 650 and your fourth job on the League of Nations.

However, I read that book about Thatcher, and for all my cries of "Hurry up and die, you old cow!", she still resolutely refuses to turn up her toes. Bitch.

The Scaryduck Archive

"The Muffin Man"

I'm back from my adventure in that there London, and I can report, comedy fans, that absolutely nothing of interest happened to me whatsoever. Sorry.

I did, however, quite literally run into the King of Camp, Dale Winton, outside my hotel in Drury Lane, almost bowling him under the wheels of a passing taxi with my case (otherwise known as The Black Hole for its ability to weigh more that even the heaviest creatures on Earth even when empty).

My total conversation with this giant of televisual entertainment was as follows:

Winton: Whoops-a-daisie! Mind how you go!
Scary: Ungh.

...which is rather better than my usual record of insulting celebrities. I firmly believe that Uri Geller still has the indian sign on me after I once told him to fuck off. Incidentally, the 37th greatest British variety talent is far shorter than he appears on TV (it's the law apparantly, where all TV stars must be under four feet tall so they can fit on screen. Newsreaders are exempt as long as they remain seated, while nineteen foot tall Matthew Kelly has to stand in a specially dug hole), and he is also very, very, very, very, very, very suntanned, giving him the appearance of a walnut in a comedy red suit.

On the way home, I also found that Waterloo Bridge is about three miles long, and only a complete fool would try to walk across it in the pissing rain with Vanessa Feltz on their back. Live and learn.