WoooOOOoooooOOOOooo

Something different for this all Hallow’s Eve - a short story owing just a little to Messrs Gaiman and Pratchett.

After quarter of a century sitting on his arse, Brian knew all the taxi drivers’ secrets. Where the best spots were, how to pick up a big tipper, that tricky drive-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road bit outside the Savoy, that ungodly stuff about going South of the River. The A-Z doesn’t exactly say “Here be Monsters” where it ought to read Lambeth or Wandsworth, but it’s not too far from the truth.

Read it here.

Only one entry so far for the Make Mrs Duck laugh competition, you miserable burgers. Did I forget to tell you about the free beer, money and sex for every entrant? That'll be it, then.

The Scaryduck Archive

Oooh! It’s a competition!

I have in my possession a copy of the brand spanking new and totally updated Roger’s Profanisaurus – the ultimate dictionary of swearing, profanity and coarse language – just released into the shops at the price of £9.99. You, however, yes you, can win a copy for absolutely nothing, zip, zilch, nada courtesy of your Uncle Scary.

The premise of the competition is simple. Make Mrs Duck Laugh. That is all you have to do. She’s not been at her best recently what with one thing and another (mostly as a result of having an idiot for a husband), so it’s your job to cheer her up a bit.

We’re looking for jokes, gags, funny stories, pictures, whatever, but they must be your original work. Mrs Duck herself will be the judge, and her decision will be final. Due to the adult nature of the prize, entrants must be over eighteen years of age. Send your entries to robberrabbit@fastmail.fm by November 15th 2003 and the long-eared buffoon will pass your entries over to Mrs Duck just as soon as he’s out of police custody.

Extra credit, of course, will be awarded for tales in the same vein as Scary’s Scary stories.

Write-o!

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Paper Round

Pete's mum: a study in blubber

Fourteen years old and stony broke. It was no good - fifty pence a week pocket money just wasn’t doing it for me. After all the necessary expenses - 2000AD comic, a quarter of sherbert lemons and a bob or two for the pron fund, there was precious little left to pay off the school bully. Faced with poverty, I had to get a job. I took myself down to the local newsagents and begged them for a paper round. They told me to bugger off.

A couple of weeks later I got a phone call. It turned out they no longer wanted me to bugger off, and had, in fact, the highly prized vacancy of delivering newspapers to the citizens of Twyford. Three quid a week, take it or leave it sonny.

It turned out that the Pepall twins were moving house, so I got one end of the London Road, and my brother got the other, nicer, end. I’m not saying that parts of my round were rough, but the tarmac road actually ran out halfway through, and you would often approach some of the council’s finest housing across lawns several feet deep in grass, burned out motors, abandoned Wankel rotary engines and dead postmen.

I’d get up at six in the morning, cycle down to the shop, run round the houses as quickly as possible, ripping number eighty-eight’s unfeasibly large Daily Telegraph to shreds trying to get it through their unfeasibly small letterbox, get home by seven and do my homework before going to school. This got me a) paid and b) evenings to myself. Sorted.

Fridays were the worst, though. That was the day the Maidenhead Advertiser came out. For a town were precisely nothing happened, they certainly managed to fit a lot into their weekly newspaper - about one hundred and twenty pages of it, I kid you not, in a volume that would make JK Rowling blush. You couldn’t even fold it in half, let alone make it small enough to fit through a letter box. The miserable buggers on my round, too lazy to go down the shop and buy it for themselves often got their copy one sheet at a time. And while I was struggling with that lot, it turned out that my brother’s round had a punter who had his porn delivered with his morning papers, fuck my luck.

My round had the unfortunate effect of bringing me into contact with Peter, the school drongo. Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip), was an obnoxious little turd, who could often be seen wandering the village, lost in a daze, reading “Commando” comics through broken National Health glasses worn, squinting, like a monocle; and dressed in his Army Cadet uniform, the only clothes he possessed outside of his school clothes. He lived with his mum and his nan, two enormous, frightening women, who would often wade into fights to defend their son’s honour, which was bloody, often and reminded one of Norwegian whalers flensing their catch of blubber.

I had to deliver the Daily Star to his house, perhaps the most forbidding in the whole village, and every morning I had to endure the sight of Peter’s mum with a face like a melted owl getting dressed in the living room window. In retrospect, she was probably trying to tell me something, which has left me scarred for life. She was enormous, even through the wrong end of a brass telescope she would loom over you like something large and loomy, and possessed a voice that was perfectly suited to warning ships off the rocks at Beachy Head. I reached a deal with the milkman where we'd meet by the gate and "do" the house together. Safety in numbers, as it were.

One day, Darth who ran the paper shop (I never found out his real name - he wheezed and groaned like the Star Wars villain through years of Capstan Full Strength high tar cigarettes, earning the name by default) announced that Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) would be starting a paper round. He got Pennfields, the next road along from my round, and perhaps I’d like to show Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) the ropes?

No. Fucking. Way.

I showed him the ropes, like a good boy, and the complaints soon started rolling in.

His second week on the job, if things weren't going badly enough, it snowed. About six inches of the stuff and blowing up a horrible Arctic blizzard, so my brother and I left our bikes at home and walked to the shop. The whole affair took an hour longer than usual, but we got round and earned our precious fifty pence for the day. Riches. Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip), on the other hand, brought his mum’s Raleigh Shopper bike, and spent the next twenty minutes carefully rearranging the newspapers in the basket on the front while we warmed our bones in front of Darth’s ashtray. Then he got on his bike, cycled a full ten yards up the road and fell off, flat on his face. Newspapers exploded across the road, and whipped up by the wind, flew in all directions across the High Street and over the Post Office.

We laughed.

“Didn’t hurt,” Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) said defiantly, blood running down his chin.

Darth went ballistic. He was so cross, he nearly dropped his cigarette. Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) sheepishly picked up what was left of his papers, and diasppeared into the blizzard, rounding up loose lifestyle sections and Daily Mail health scare specials like Captain Oates on his last fateful walk into history.

The next day, it rained. Buckets and buckets of freezing cold rain. We had our bikes, our waterproofs and our special thick plastic newspaper sacks to keep the newsprint nice and dry. Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) turned up in his Army fatigues and his mum’s Raleigh Shopper with the wire basket on the front, still filled with what was left of the previous day’s newspapers, which he had diligently rounded up, and taken home to dry on the radiator. They were now soaking wet. He piled the new day’s papers on top and spent another twenty minutes carefully rearranging them while Darth watched, shaking his head at the shop window, a sprinkle of fag ash giving a cheerful Chrsitmas effect.

Then he got on his bike, cycled a full ten yards down the road, and fell off, his glasses skidding under the wheels of a passing car with a sickening crunch.

We laughed.

“Didn’t hurt,” Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) said defiantly, blood running down his chin.

The papers spent another day drying out on his radiator, and were delivered the next day. I should know, as I had to do it, as Peter (pronounced with your tongue pressed firmly against your lower lip) had got the sack for being "a useless - wheeeeeze - tart". After protracted negotiations with Darth, during which I genuinely thought he was going to die, I was offered an extra pound for the honour of doing the extra work. I should have held out for two - I was virtually chased off the estate by irate punters who thought I was to blame for a week’s worth of newspaper buggery.

I had the easy end of the deal. Peter’s Mum (pronounced with an air of abject terror) went down the shop and ripped Darth limb from limb, before rushing home to try and shag the terrified bloke who’d come to read the gas meter. Over the next months, I saw enough quivering flesh and brassieres constructed by the best of the British shipbuilding industry to last a lifetime, and all for fifty pence a day. Friends, desperate for any naked flesh at all, thought I the luckiest kid in the world. Au contraire, they were the lucky ones.

The milkman, the postman and I still meet at the same victim support group. We’re getting there.

Public Service Announcement: Please do not feed the trolls

The Scaryduck Archive

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers

Earlier this year, after finding a discarded copy of The Stage on a train, I mentioned the murky world of tribute acts. I wondered at the time how much lower could the world of entertainment go. And now, after literally seconds of shocked research, I have realised there are new, deeper, darker circles of Hell. The professional lookalike.

I’ve seen unconvincing Del-Boys before, but now I bring you the unpleasantness of a man who hopes to gain employment by posing as Tony Blair. In his dreams. I can tell you for a fact that he previously worked as a Fred West double until the old sod strung himself up by his bootlaces in Bristol Nick. Others who have seen this image have commented that he is actually doing both Tony and Cherie Blair, and I can see their point. Utterly frightening.

I mean, who in their right mind would book a Pat Butcher and Curly Watts double act for their party or function - unless it is one of those events that features ritual slaughter to Cthulhu and his dark minions? Worse still, and I’ve been to one of these things and still bear the mental scars, who thinks that no corporate shindig would be complete without someone who looks like Sven Goran Eriksson. On a dark night. In a snow storm. Through stained glass.

The clincher for me is this man, and I think we’re sailing on dangerous ground here. A Matthew Kelly lookalike. A deadringer for someone who does a lookalike TV show. If the pair ever meet (an event which must be avoided at all costs), the matter/anti-matter explosion could be the end of all of us. Or, as I suspect, no-one will notice.

“Tonight Matthew, I’m going to be a smug bastard.”

Ip Dip

It's that time of the week again. Choose this week's Scary story from Golf (includes arses), Eighteen-ish (contains pr0nography) and Paper Round (contains nudity), or any number between one and thirty-two corresponding at an as-yet unwritten tale of mirth and woe. Speak your brains. Choose-o!

And seeing as Wild's challenge to make me include the words "evil pickle" in Lab of Doom was so successful last time out, I will rise to any reasonable bait.

Oh, and something special is coming for Hallowe'en.

The Scaryduck Archive

Poop

"Dad," said Scaryduck Jr, "Mum says you've got to go out and get some free poop from the council tip."

Oh. God. No.

It was true. The council was giving away free crap today, and I had to get my shovel down there pretty sharpish, beat the pensioners off with the sharp end and bring back as much as the car could carry, or I would be the one ending up in the big hole in the Scary garden.

So, off I went to the tip for some of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's finest muck and brought back six sacks full of warm, steaming crud. She was right, there was some amazing filth there.

You must think my life's a real bed of roses. It ought to be, with all that crap on our garden.

Woof

While I'm here, could some kind soul please tell me why myself and Gert are listed on the no-way-tacky-at-all UK Dogging website? And yes, I do know what dogging is.

Terrible

Staggering off the last train into Weymouth on Friday night, I had the misfortune to arrive home just as after-the-pub television started. Just when you thought TV couldn't get any worse, Channel Four gave us Dirty Sanchez, a Welsh version of Jackass. Two words for you: Naked Paintball. I need say no more.

Moodoo

New Weebl and Bob. And cows. Lots of cows that make the beefs.

The Scaryduck Archive

Clock

If you live in one of those countries that’s far too sensible to change their clocks twice a year, you will be unaware that the rest of the world has bade farewell to summer and welcomed in twenty-three weeks of winter by turning the clocks back one hour. I myself have prepared for this by not only prowling the house attacking time-pieces with a large stick, but also with a week of staring at Excel spreadsheets programming up very expensive broadcast equipment with new times and frequencies. And it might even work.

Greenwich Mean Time, therefore, is something very dear to my heart. The global standard of time, named in honour of British dominance of the seas in centuries past, the prime meridian running through east London, dividing the world into hemispheres, and the time zones that we all know, love and confuse the hell out of travellers.

GMT, however, is dying on its arse. There are those *cough* the French *cough* who don’t like the idea of being reminded of that fact the British whupped them on a regular basis over a long period of time, especially since the prime meridian also runs right through much of their country.

Hence GMT is now referred to as UTC – Universale Temps Coordinee (or something fiendishly similar), a standard time no longer controlled in London, but a nuclear stand run from some soleless box somewhere on the continent where they’d crap in your airing cupboard given half the chance.

But did you know that UTC was actually the second choice of name for the world time standard? Oh yes, and I’m not kidding you on this one iota, but the original name, proposed by the scientific community for the replacement for GMT, was Coordinated Universal Nuclear Time. I leave you to work that one out for yourselves.

The idea was quietly dropped. I trust you enjoyed your extra hour in bed.

Edit: All the above may turn out to be completely untrue, but I stand by my total lack of research in the face of people far cleverer than I am. So there.

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Others Like Me

Found at last: people more mental than myself. B3ta is asking for stories of the most evil prank you’ve ever played, and there are acts in this thread that would never even have crossed my mind as a callow youth, such is the mixture wanton cruelty and drink-fuelled stupidity. For example, planet115 confesses:

Take one tube of smarties with a few left in, insert live wasp, leave on prominent display. It works brilliantly, with the unexpected bonus that people usually shake the tube to see if there's any inside -- the wasp *hates* that. Note, unless you have Bruce Lee-esque coordination and reaction speed, don't try to trap the wasp using the smartie container itself -- catch it in a glass or something and tip it in. This was a schooltime favourite, with pretty good results, until somebody realised that if the victim poured the sweets straight in their mouth they might actually die.

A lot of these sound like they’ve come striaght from the spiffy Playground Law site of which a certain genial Harry Grout of this parish has been a semi-regular contributor.

At this point, I am not permitted to mention a close relative of mine, rather aggrieved at her boyfriend's not-too-touching birthday present (the confession that he was shagging half the female staff of the supermarket in which he was the manager), sewed an entire packet of Captain Birdseye's finest fish fingers into his brand new three piece suite while he was out having a knee-trembler with the girl from frozen veg. None the wiser, he gave the fishy furniture to his mum.

But I never told you, right?

No Hands Kitten: The truth at last.

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Lab of Doom

With added doom, arses and evil pickles, by popular request

Miss Shagwell: hard at it

In the grim existence of youth in a Middle-England secondary school, science lessons were the highlight of the week. After the hard slog through dismal Maths, French, and English classes, we only had science, games and design to keep us vaguely sane. And sanity was the last thing that was going to come out of an hour and a half on the school playing fields. Our games masters brought us to despair with their maniacal love of cross-country running and no-holds-barred rugby; while our school’s arts and design faculty was staffed entirely by misfits, outcasts and psychotic metalwork teachers.

Mr Callaghan, it was (named changed in case he’s still alive), who was rumoured to have lost a foot in an unspecified workshop accident - entirely the fault of an inattentive pupil - and had forged himself a replacement out of cold steel. He was known as The Penguin, and not because he liked swimming and raw fish.

Science it was, then. Our school invested a lot in the sciences, with a brand new Science Block heaving at the seams with enthusiastic staff and an explosive store-room. It was just a shame that the subject was taught so bloody badly. The teachers were, by and large, faultless. They struggled with a daft, confusing syllabus as much as the students, and tried their best despite the tools they were handed. And speaking of “tools”, some of my fellow students weren’t exactly top drawer material, either.

If you got a decent teacher, you were halfway there. We had three. For Physics, there was the enthusiastic Mr Wilkinson - a former nuclear scientist who built nuclear weapons shortly before all that trouble with his CND membership.

In Biology, there was the pneumatic Miss Shagwell, whose short, tight lab coats (I’m sure you’re supposed to wear clothes underneath) were the stuff of many a young lads’ sleepless night battling the evil pickle. She, alas, was transferred to another school once news of her extra-curricular activities with sixth-formers and an appearance in a certain gentlemans’ leisure magazine got out. For shame.

And in Chemistry, Dr Jenkins. He was... strange. Piercing blue eyes that could cut you in half. Unworldly mannerisms. He was always recruiting for Science Club (of which more will be told on another occasion), an activity which was clearly a front for an Illuminati-inspired takeover of the world using knowledge gleaned from brilliant young students.

His lab was The Lab of Doom, and we, dear reader, were his underlings, like Igor to Dr Frankenstein.

He stared at us with those cold, cold eyes as he handed us our assignments for the day.

“What are the properties of coal?”

Stupid bloody question. Set fire to it and it burns, end of story. But, in order to get an A grade in science, you had to go through the whole gamut of tests, with chemicals, microscopes, and when you’ve really got bored, fire.

And that’s what Graham, Tim and I did, at our workbench specially selected to be able to view Miss Shagwell’s arse teaching biology to a rapt audience of teenage perverts through the partition wall. With our sample of black dust scraped up from the coal hole behind our house, we set to our task with grim determination.

Add water to coal dust. The water goes black.

Add potassium permanganate - the purple and seemingly harmless standby of the school lab - to coal dust. It goes black.

And anything you can lay your hands on to coal dust, and bugger me rigid if you don’t get a test tube of black liquid.

It was no good. This day in the lab was going nowhere fast, and only Miss Shagwell’s rear view could save us from insanity. Thirty minutes in and we hadn’t even set fire to anything, let alone cause a window-shattering explosion that would close the school down for another week while they had the structural engineers in.

Tim summed up our feelings for the whole sorry affair: “Sod this for a laugh.”

We piled up the remains of our coal dust on an old tin lid perched on an asbestos sheet, and properly attired in lab coat and protective goggles, Graham trained a bunsen burner on it. Wussy orange flame, two minutes. Nothing.

Okay, highly inflammable coal dust, if you want to play it that way, we’ll give you the high-powered blue flame and see how you like it. So we did. It glowed a bit, but nothing.

Now, in retrospect, the following might be seen as rather fool-hardy, but with Dr Jenkins elsewhere trying to keep the matches out of the hands of our differently educated classmates, there was no one to tell us the grand act of folly we were embarking on.

Two bunsen burners. Then three. Full heat. Not a hint of a flame. The odd crackle maybe, but the raging inferno we expected was simply not happening. The tin lid, however, glowed white hot and started to melt.

What was happening, however, was that the concentrated heat of three bunsen burners going at full-throttle on one spot on the asbestos was causing it to expand. And expand it did. The only trouble with that was that the cooler parts of the mat were quite happy as they were, and didn’t have much truck with this trying-to-get-bigger thing. The hot bits were quite insistant, and godammit, their atoms were going to jig about like buggery if the cold bits wanted to or not.

After a full five minutes of not paying attention to our all-to-bleedin’-obvious fate, our attention had wondered. No longer were we waiting for the raging inferno that was never going to occur. Miss Shagwell had turned to write something on the board next door, and we were enjoying a rather fetching profile, resembling a contour map of the Brecon Beacons.

BLAMMO!

Actually, it was louder than that, with a ringing in the ears to follow.

BLAAAAAAAAMOOOOOOO!!!!!!-eeeeeeeeee

There was an explosion of coal dust and white-hot asbestos that has probably shortened my life by upwards of five years. The tin lid scythed through the air and embedded itself in the side of my Adidas bag (a fiver from Tadley market), sending up black clouds of smoke as it burrowed its way through the melting plastic.

Tim, Graham and I stood there in stunned silence as twenty-five pairs of eyes trained on us. Dr Jenkins calmly strolled over and flipped off the gas supply. We looked at each other. Smothered in coal dust, we looked like the Black and White Minstrels, and the removal of our lab goggles just made us look even more ridiculous.

Miss Shagwell stifled a laugh and went back to her blackboard, still wobbling in a rather suggestive manner from barely suppressed laughter. In fact, everything she did was suggestive, even it turns out, laughing at poor, victimised students.

From the back of the lab, some of our classmates started to laugh, and if this was an episode of The Simpsons, Nelson Muntz would have chosen that exact moment to go “Ha Haa!”

“Well,” said Dr Jenkins (or Tucker, to anyone who watched Grange Hill), “that’ll teach you.”

Teach us? Teach us?! Surely that was HIS job. We nearly had our heads blown off, and as we spoke, structural engineers were being called in to remove splinters of asbestos from the fabric of the building. And worse, Miss Shagwell, the object of our youthful desires had laughed at us. Crushed. Totally and utterly crushed.

The next science lesson, I kid you not, was entitled “The Properties of Human Blood.” And yes, blood was spilled. Everywhere.

The Scaryduck Archive

Onion Bag

To the Museum of Reading to visit the Homes of Football photographic exhibition. Entirely the work of one Stuart Clarke, who has spent the last decade or so taking over 60,000 pictures of life in and around football grounds, both home and abroad. His work is quickly achieving iconic status, such as the image of this lucky man outside Everton’s Goodison Park.

Personal favourites tend not to show the action on the pitch - there’s the two girls in the pie stand at Tranmere, the laundry at Elm Park and the club shop at Alloa Athletic. But the number one, top of the pile just has to be this crowd scene from Liverpool’s Kop End in 1992, just for the kid right at the front. Liverpool encapsulated in one image. Magic.

And to keep the scholars happy, there’s a jolly nice Victorian reproduction of the Bayuex Tapestry on the floor below, with all the nudity, swearing and penguins covered up.

Story Time

Right, you know the drill by now. Select the next Scary Story from ‘Golf’, ‘Lab of Doom’ and ‘Eighteen-ish’, or any number between one and thirty-one corresponding to an as-yet unwritten tale of mirth and woe. Your pick in the Speak Your Brains section, if you’d be so kind. Choose-o!

The Scaryduck Archive

Exams

I sat my Open University exam today. Three hours, three essays on politics, governance and society in the Asia-Pacific and my brain hurts.

It was completely unfair. Everybody else in the room seemed to get the fun exams. The geology paper consisted of a pile of rocks which they had to identify followed by a stoning round the back for someone caught talking ("Two with points, a flat one and a packet of gravel"), while a sneaky peak at the maths question revealed my worst fears about the dumbing down of education today:

"Using the keys of your pocket calculator, spell the words 'SHELL OIL' and 'BOOBIES'."

Now here comes the confession. Exams and Scary don't mix. I can't handle the pressure, and let's face it, when the rest of the class is sitting at home revising, I'd much rather be doing something far more interesting, such as sitting at home watching TV (mock O-Levels), sitting at home composing electronic ambient classics (real O-Levels) and sitting at home reading pornography (two year A-Level course AND retakes).

Now, in normal circumstances, this wouldn't be a bad thing as I always seemed to muddle through somehow, gaining barely adequate passes to make parents and teachers alike shake their heads with woe. However, my wing-and-a-prayer attitude to studying didn't always pay off. Remember this time last year when a certain person who is neither scary nor a duck won a certain Best British Blog Award on the strength of his writing? An award where the judges gave this duck impostor a shedload of cash with the praise, and I quote, "Magnificent - well-written, focused and insightful... the best writer of the bunch, the content is excellent." With me so far? Let me take you back to June 1982 and my English O-Level then...

Woe! Don't talk to me about woe! I didn't read half the books. Shakespeare bored the shit out of me, Huckleberry Finn got eaten by the dog, and I was far too busy pre-dating the Aphex Twin by a good ten years to be bothered with My Family and Other Animals. In the exam I was asked some bollocks about Henry IV Part One, so I drew a nice picture of a penguin called Gilbert, and seemed well pleased with him. I failed my English O-Level, and now I have been asked to judge a writing competition. Heh.

So, back in the present, I was forced to hand in all my notes, my mobile phone and my fake broken wrist cast with all the answers cunningly disguised as people's signatures ("Asian Values are part of a constructionist theory of identity. Best Wishes, Brian"), and all I could think about was small, flightless birds and the problems of sending them through the mail. Faced with the question paper I had, you would too:

'Discuss the role of government-business relations in economic performance in the Asia-Pacific region in the 1990s.'

So I drew them a nice picture of a penguin, and they ought to be thankful for small mercies.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Scaryduck’s ‘Did You Know...?’ No. 343”

Known throughout the world for her kind and gentle nature, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Theresa of Calcutta was also an accomplished sportswoman who won a gold medal in wrestling while representing Albania in the 1968 Olympic Games. However, she provoked a huge moral outrage during the medal ceremony when she joined silver medalist Sister Wendy O’Merkin in the infamous “Nun Power” salute from the rostrum.

”Stuffpile”

Sunday is Mrs Scary’s birthday. Happy Birthday, gorgeous.

Monday is my Open University year final exam, socio-economic wossnames in the Asia-Pacific. Help!

To those of you who have sent me money for a Twunt mug – I’ll be making on order for them just as soon as I’ve returned from my holiday in Rio. Err… actually, you’ll have the goods within a week. Ten days, tops.

The Scaryduck Archive

”Sticky”

Writer’s Block – the curse of the blogger. Even this duck gets afflicted every now and then, where the words get stuck inside you like a verbal Pot Noodle, and only specialist treatment with a large, pointed stick gets them out.

All I wanted to do was write something erudite and witty for you with perhaps one or two chuckles thrown in, and life has thrown up a blank screen for me to stare at. I could be lazy and throw up another Scary’s ‘Did you know…?’ of which there are a plentiful supply; or a huge pile of links swiped from Blogdex and doing the rounds on every blog in the world; or even something I wrote several weeks ago that might come in useful now. And no, you’ve already had a Scary story this week and you’re not getting another. This has led me to lie awake half the night trying to come up with something for your delight and edification, while spending the other half of the night trying not to think about ladies’ arses. So, it’s your fault then.

During a freezing morning mucking out the fish-pond in a howling gale straight off the Urals, I’ve come up with absolutely nothing that is of any use to man or beast:

* Why is the shipping forecast on Radio Four so good at sending people to sleep, when the whole point of warning you about hurricane warnings in Portland and Rockall is to keep you alert?

* Why haven’t we heard about lesbian bishops? Good grief, the church is missing a trick there. They’d fill the pews in no time.

* Where do they find the people to go on the Tricia show? Is it anything to do with the fact it’s made in Norwich?

* The way I write the letter “f” so it comes out backwards can be described as "somewhat freaky, you left-handed weirdo."

* What is it with women and “I Will Survive?” Is there some kind of girly test where they must be able to recite the lyrics while under the influence of alcohol and male strippers?

* I once went to school with a kid known to both pupils and teachers as “Phallus.” After several months of ignorance, and thanks to missing out on a classical education, I had to ask the obvious question. “Hey, why is that kid called Phallus?” The answer, unsurprisingly, was, “Because he’s such a prick.”

* The world is full of problems and tragedy, and somebody’s got to take the blame. Personally, I’m putting my money on David O’Leary. He’s got shifty eyes.

There, that’s just about sorted it.

The Scaryduck Archive

“You will bow down before me Son of Jor-El!”

Greetings to readers of the esteemed Manchester Guardian. I expect you’ve come here looking for words of wisdom on the forthcoming British Blog Awards. So here they are: Enter the Guardian British Blog Awards, and you too can win enough money to pay for a hot water system in your house like I did. It’s better than a night out with Jim Davidson, which, apparently is the second prize; and certainly beats trying to take a bath on the seafront at Weymouth, with all the subsequent courtroom shenanigans that goes with it.

Regular readers of this page will know what ill-informed and juvenile lunacy to expect, but with one minor change. In the interests of impartiality, I’m temporarily removed my blogroll from this page until the judging is over. It’s only fair to give everybody who has entered a level playing field, although you will be allowed the weapon of your choice once you have been admitted to the gladiatorial arena.

Good grief, you mean you haven’t read the rules yet?

Let the backstabbing begin!

*cough* Buy my merchandise! *cough*

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“Scaryduck’s ‘Did You Know...?’ No. 354”

Mobile phone users! Think twice before talking dirty to your wife/husband/girlfriend/main squeeze on your mobile. In order to maximise profits, all calls are routed through your local prison, where the inmates are employed to operate the system as cheap labour. This is why they are known as “cell” phones.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Mushy Peas"

Mushy peas made my life hell. Words cannot describe my hatred for mushy peas. They’re not natural, obviously the result of some sort of evil scientific experiment involving nuclear waste pre-dating genetic modification by several decades, and there seems to be an endless supply. Mrs Scary loves mushy peas, and she accuses me of being strange. She might have a point there, come to think of it. Dissolve to 1972....

I still remember her today. Blue-rinsed perm, horn-rimmed glasses, scowling face, monstrous sheepskin coat. Mrs Green the dinner lady. The harridan of Melcombe Infants School on the Fulham Palace Road. I was six, she was evil, the battle was lost before it even started.

Let’s clear up one misconception. The six year old Scary was by no means naughty. Slightly adventurous, maybe, but not bad. He just wanted to be A Good Boy and stay out of trouble. And by and large, I suceeded, it was Mrs Green who brought me down.

I actually liked school dinners. Those were those pre-Thatcher days when you actually got free milk and a decent sized, balanced meal, usually with a rather yummy pudding to finish the whole thing off. Naturally, Thatch came along in 1979 and murdered school meals - my kids’ school doesn’t even have a kitchen. The cow.

The only problem was Thursdays. Thursdays promised the best evening TV (Blue Peter, Tomorrow’s World and Top of the Pops), but first you had to negotiate school and mushy peas at school dinners. Torture.

In order to get your hands on your pudding and your route out to the playground, you had to first finish your dinner, show your plate to the dinner lady, who would then allow you to join the queue of duff. Four days a week, I had no problems with this. Thursdays, though, meant mushy peas and the wrath of Mrs Green. It was no good. I couldn’t even force a single mouthful down myself, and my attempts to get to the slops bucket without her seeing me always ended with failure.

And when you were caught, you weren’t sent back to your table. Oh no! You were sent to the Naughty Table, where you had to stand and finish your meal in front of the entire school. And because it was right next to the playground window, your humiliation was completed by older kids coming up and giving you “spacker” faces from the other side of the glass.

Entire Thursday lunchbreaks - a whole hour and a half could be spent at this table while Mrs Green glowered at me and my fellow mushy pea dissenters. “Waste not, want not” she told us. Too bloody right - it was nuclear waste.

Revenge was not long in coming. It was a particularly rainy day in the London Borough of Hammersmith, and mushy peas were on the menu again. True to form, as all my friends tucked into a rather lovely looking sponge pudding with pink custard, yours truly was at the naughty table again, trying to outstare a pile of green goo on my plate, and losing. It came to my attention that there was something under the table that I hadn’t noticed before - a pair of Dunlop’s finest wellington boots. Mrs Green’s wellington boots, which she had worn to work, and changed into a pair of carpet slippers once she got there. Dear reader, I simply don’t know what came over me...

An experimental forkful of peas found their way under the table and into a boot. Then another, and another. No evidence, just forkful after forkful of those cursed peas surreptitiously disappearing off my plate, and as far as everybody else was concerned, into me. My plate empty, I was able to strut to the front of the school hall and present my plate - completely wiped clean - to a jubilant Mrs Green who gave me a smile, the like of which I never want to see in my life again. She was so pleased with me, I was allowed extra pink custard.

I shall spare you the sordid details, but I was called to the headmistress’s office later that afternoon to confront a grimacing Mrs Green, and my mother who had been called out of work (no big deal - all she had to do was cross the road). Head bowed, I apologised to her, the head, Mrs Green and anyone who happened to be in earshot, and dammit she would make me like mushy peas in future. She didn’t fight a war for children like me to waste perfectly good food, you know.

But a plan had formed in my head. Every Thursday, I would slip a greaseproof paper bag - lifted from the kitchen drawer at home - into the pocket of my shorts, and with Mrs Green’s attention elsewhere, I’d load the bag up, stuff it back in my pocket and furnish an empty plate to the old bag, convincing her that I was a reformed character. However, this presented me with the same problem with the tunnellers from The Great Escape - what to do with a pocket of crap once I’d left the confines of the prison hut.

Flushing it down the bog didn’t seem to work. For starters the toilets just didn’t seem to have the power to take a bag of shite round the U-bend, and secondly, you had to run a gauntlet of juveniles chanting “Who’s in the bog, then?” as soon as you entered the cubicle. And most tellingly, living in a third-world inner city, these were outside toilets, and my classmates were masters at the art of “highest mark on the wall”, or in this case “over the door.” I was soaked in piss and still had the evidence, sopping wet in my pocket.

There was only one other place I could think of, and here I must blame my father for regaling me with stories of how they used to ping their rock-hard peas at the school trophy cabinet at his school in Greys. The trophy cabinet with its sole trophy was just round the corner from the boys cloakrooms. I waited for a quiet moment, opened the cabinet and slipped my package into the house cup, and pushed down the lid until it stuck. And there it remained, forgotten, festering, until the last day of term.

I shall spare you the sordid details... all I am saying is give peas a chance.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Culture Shock"

Overheard on the train today:

Very plummy old lady: "Excuse me young man - is there a restaurant car on this service?"

Cockney Geezer train guard: "Blummin' 'ell love - what do you think this is? The Orient Express?"

Who says you can't get decent help these days?

"Late, again"

Arses.
I missed National Poetry Day
Which took place on
Thursday.
Which is a good thing
Because I’m not Betjeman
Or Thomas Hardy.
Arses.

"It pays to increase your word power"

Gert started it, banging on - in shocked fascination, I hope - about "dogging" and "roasting" for days on end. Thrashing around on google and ...err... specialist discussion fora, I now know what "docking" is, and frankly I didn't think it was possible. Apparantly some bloke from 80's rockers EMF could do unspeakable things with a lemon, but this really should be adopted as an Olympic sport where men in blazers can award points for style, control, damage and aggression. No hang on, I'm getting mixed up with Robot Wars...

"Cheap Joke at those less fortunate than myself"

BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme is holding a small competition to find Britain's biggest waste of space, "drawing attention to land that is sadly going to waste and blighting their local environment." I've got my nomination sorted - 748 High Road, London, N17 is a shoe-in.

The Scaryduck Archive

“He’s fallen in the water”

If there’s one thing I can thank my father for, it’s introducing me to the Goon Show, perhaps the finest example of radio comedy these isles have ever produced. Every week they would produce a radio show of such complete madness that radio audiences were kept in thrall for the twelve years of its run, making household names of Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine.

The Goons came together at the end of the Second World War, ex-soldiers, who one way or another had found themselves entertaining the troops, and finding themselves demobbed continued to meet in a London pub, writing and performing comedy. They got their break by selling their ideas to an uncomprehending BBC in 1948 as “Those Crazy People”, leading one BBC governor to ask what, exactly, this “Go On Show” was all about.

The lynchpin of the Goons’ success was Spike Milligan, who, as a jazz trumpeter of some repute, entetained his comrades during the war, filling the gaps with comedy as his act developed. He met Harry Secombe (“a whirlwind of shaving foam and farting”) while on tour in Italy and a partnership was formed. Milligan, suffering from what is now called post-traumatic stress, and latterly a manic depressive, found himself in the stressful job of turning out a script a week for the show. In his own words, it nearly killed him, but from such torment came works of true genius.

The writing may have been one thing, but bringing the scripts to life was another. The duties were more or less split up. Secombe only really had one character - himself turned up to eleven, who became Neddy Seagoon, the blundering hero of most of the shows. Milligan played most of the “idiot” characters, such as The Famous Eccles, while most of the characterisations fell to Peter Sellers, a superb mimic and inveterate practical joker. The entire Bluebottle chacter (all cardboard cut-out and string) was based on a Boy Scout leader who once turned up at rehearsals to ask for a favour, leaving Sellers in hysterics at the scene before him. A legend was born.

You have not experienced comedy until you have heard the Goons. They’re the people who influenced the Pythons, who influenced the Altenative Comedians, who influenced today’s stars. Instead of music tapes, our car would be stocked up with The Phantom Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill on Sea, Six Charlies in Search of an Author, or my personal favourite, The Greenslade Story, the tale of one man’s quest to become a BBC continuity announcer.

Alas, the Goons are no more, with Sellers, Bentine Secombe and Milligan all shuffling off to the great barrack room in the sky. They all went on to be famous in their own right, but they were always, always known as “Ex-Goon...” But what a legacy they left behind. I’ve got a Goons quote for every occasion, be it Bluebottle, Seagoon, Eccles, Moriarty, Henry Crun, Minnie Bannister and the other one I can’t spell.

Look, just get over to the Goon Show archive and listen for yourself. If I was you I’d start with the classic “What time is it Eccles?” sketch - Milligan and Sellers working in perfect harmony - and work through. Or better still, tune in to BBC Radio 7 on Mondays - either on digital radio or online to hear the real MacCoy.

More Goonery:

The scripts: here and here.

Goon Show Preservation Society

Let’s face it, any comic who can fool the BBC into having a character called “Hugh Jampton” is alright by me.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Spot the Difference"

“When I ask contributors for donations, the money won't go to my campaign, it will go directly into my bank account. You have a problem with that?” - California governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger

"How many times do I have to tell you -- I didn't steal the money from that charity thing. It was just resting in my account." - Father Ted Crilly

"Quack"

Like sticky tape? Like ducks? Love wrapping ducks up with sticky tape? You bastard.
Join the duck tape club!

"Hooky Street, again again"

Still looking for a couple more orders to make this whole Scaryduck Twunt Mug thing worthwhile. You know you want one. Your life will be shallow and empty without this fine example of English craftsmanship. Better still, get two - one for home, one for work. Ah go on. Go on, go on. Go on, go on, go on...

The Scaryduck Archive

“Hooky Street, again”

Scary mugs! Get yer luv-er-ly Scary mugs here! Oh, yes, we now have top quality duck-flavoured drinking receptacles for your hot beverage delight.

After weeks of thrashing around, losing discs, waiting for the guy at the printers to come back from holiday, losing more discs and generally forgetting to get my arse in gear, the all-new Scaryduck mugs are now available. After rejecting bloody awful designs from the likes of Laurence Llewyllyn-Bowen and Geoff Banks, we’ve settled for the classic TWUNT look by Lyle at D4d, who gets a freebie for his troubles. The price per mug is a very reasonable GBP 7.50 including p&p to the UK. American readers may like to purchase an identical mug from the Scary store at Cafepress as it may well work out cheaper.

I won’t be selling these through a shopfront - e-mail me at scaryduckATfastmail.fm (change the 'AT' to '@') with your firm orders and I’ll tell you where to send the money. I will accept cash, cheques drawn against a UK bank, postal orders and payments through paypal. I need ten firm orders before I go ahead with the printing. Coming soon - Twunt-brand jetpacks. And a monkey butler.

“I heartily endorse this fine product or service” - Krusty the Clown.

"Doing the rounds"

Would you buy a book on Freud from this man? Hint: Make the most of the puerile humour offered by the author's name by reading the reviews. Damn you internet! I've only just recovered from the Happy Tree Friends.

Readers may also be interested in this title.

The Scaryduck Archive

"Fireworks"

Kids! Don’t mess with fireworks! It’s not big and it’s not clever.

Grown-Ups! Don’t mess with fireworks either.There are paid professionals out there whose soul purpose in life is to mess with fireworks so you don’t have to.

This arrangement works fine. It’s just very, very dull.

Now, if you still insist on letting off large quantities of explosives and lighting huge bonfires in the privacy of your own back garden in the name of celebrating some Catholic guy’s doomed attempt to blow up the King four hundred years ago, here’s some friendly tips for you:

Number One: Don’t light you bonfire by hurling on a load of petrol out of a milk bottle. You’re setting yourself up for all kinds of trouble, mostly involving a long wait with other burns victims at the Royal Berkshire Hospital; and on November 5th, the waiting time in casualty is approximately six weeks.

Number Two: Don’t use the same milk bottle as an improvised launching tube for your rockets. It may be the only suitable thing you’ve got to hand, and it may be OK for the Russian space programme, but you’re setting yourself up for all kinds of trouble. Again.

Number Three: Do not attempt, under any circumstances, to let all your fireworks off at once.

So, come November fifth Nineteen Eighty-Something, we had the obligatory Pyromaniacs Anonymous fireworks party, and I can assure readers that no drink was involved. Merely stupidity.

Straight from the off, Geoff ignored warning number one, and the effigy of Guy Fawkes burned merrily on the bonfire. Yay, and hardly anyone was hurt in the ball of flame as a pint of petrol spontaneously combusted. Lovely blue flames, and hey, who needs eyebrows anyway?

Then we flagrantly ignored warning number two. I remember it well. We had already set fire to the fence with a catherine wheel nailed in with a six pound club hammer, so things weren’t exactly going particularly well. In went the rocket - it wasn’t a particularly big one either. Geoff lit the blue touch paper at arms’ length with the wimpy little smouldering taper that’s been provided to save your life. The fuse smouldered for a few seconds, as we all stood back to wait for the thing to fizz into the air and detonate with a disappointing “pop”.

Only it didn’t. Instead, as the gunpowder caught with a flash of sparks, so did the petrol fumes left over in the milk bottle. There was a mightily impressive explosion that brought excited cheers from the watching masses.

But the firework still hadn’t finished its work. With its primitive motor still powering on - a legacy of thousands of years of Chinese pigshit-and-sulphur technology, Newton’s Laws stated that it had to go somewhere, and this somewhere was up at an angle of approximately twenty degrees. Straight towards Geoff’s house.

How we laughed.

To be honest, it was a chance in a million. But as they say, chances in a million come up nine times out of ten. The window had only been left open a few inches to air the room, but like a guided missile, the thing found the gap, and gasps of awe changed to shrieks of parental horror as it entered the house. Free it was, free to steal things from the fridge, rustle through the laundry hamper and shit in the airing cupboard. Or, on the other hand...

“That’s our bedroom!” shrieked Geoff’s mum.

...free to explode with a disappointing “pop” on the bed.

“Pop!”

How we laughed.

There was a scramble for the back door, muddy footprints up the stairs, the bedroom window flung open and a flaming duvet was flung into the garden, where it joined Guy Fawkes on the happily raging bonfire.

As precocious youths in charge of the pyrotechnics, the shit quite naturally hit the fan, and Geoff spent the next three months paying off new bedding out of his paper-round money.

At that moment in time, we still had a big tin box full of fireworks. Adult interest in the fun had waned somewhat in favour of a punchbowl later described as “rocket fuel mixed with antifreeze, and no, you’re not having any” by rat-arsed parents, and we were left with a large quantity of lethal weapons to dispose of.

And there’s where rule Number Three went for a burton. It was like the artillery bombardment before the Battle of El-Alamein, and the whole lot went in minutes five. Fun. Great big, fat, stupid, life threatening fun. We saved the airbombs (now banned by a pussy-footing, wimped out government) to let off down the railway arches the next day, and peppered the surrounding area with a barrage that would have shamed the RAF at Dresden.

Geoff’s mum, now considerably cooled off, came down the garden towards us, as we hurled buckets of water over the evidence.

“Sparklers, anyone?”

If the bloke from the garden centre behind Geoff’s house happens to be reading this: we’re really, really sorry about your hedge. Honest. It grew back, didn’t it?

The Scaryduck Archive

"First Class Ticket to Hell, change at Basingstoke"

Another Sunday damnation special. I ought to get to church more often...

It was encouraging for those of us who espouse religious tolerance to see the Archbishop of Canterbury meeting with the Pope yesterday. I couldn’t help thinking that Rowan Williams (clearly Salman Rushdie in a frock) blew it big time with his present to the Holy Father. I know God's representatives on Earth don't get out to the shops much, but he gave His Holiness a rather handsomely bound bible. The leader of the Catholic Church. A bible. You damn fool Williams! Didn’t it occur to you that he may already have read it? Several times too, I’ll be bound. The poor bloke’s busting for a decent read, and all he gets is another bible to go with the autographed first edition in the Vatican Library. I would have bought him this to show him what he’s missing, but then, this handcart to Hell has already left the station.

And if I'm heading for damnation, I might as well do it in spades. Happy Tree Friends: surely the finest animation to come out of the internet since...uh... the last one. Sick, sick and thrice sick, I laughed until I puked.

The Scaryduck Archive

”Back in the Madhouse”

The Scaryduck family menagerie has grown again. Scaryduckling’s ninth birthday passed with the addition of Getaway Driver Hamster to the family (an accomplice to the already far-too-evil Robber Rabbit). The first thing Hammy did in his new cage was to jump on the little wheel and run around it like a mad bastard for a couple of hours. Cute, eh?

Which beggars the question: How the blummin’ hell do Hamsters know what that wheel is for? Is it genetic? Is it drummed into them by their parents? Or is there some sort of ancestral memory that is forcing them into this task, day in, day out in hamster cages around the world.

So the saying goes: If a butterfly flaps its wings in my garden, it may be starting a hurricane in China. What if hamsters are doing the same thing? There may be some cause to this mad hamster nonsense. If they don’t run around in their wheels like mad bastards, the world will stop spinning round on its axis. Or something. And what are the gerbils up to?

Then I realised this is, ultimately, bollocks. The Earth was spinning on its axis long before hamsters and red plastic wheels came along. They’re obviously doing something else. Something sinister. Some hidden agenda. Obviously, they’re keeping the US-backed military-industrial complex and its puppets George Bush and Tony Blair in power. Hammy, you’re a bastard.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Horror-Scopes”

OCTOBER - Your stars from astrocenter.com who really, really don’t make it all up as they go along. We just jazzed them up a bit for the real world. Hey, don’t blame us if both your legs fall off while you’re out shopping for trousers. It’s not our fault - it’s pre-ordained in the heavens. Really.

Aries: A re-assessment of your financial goals may be called for at this time, dear Aries. A couple of sessions down the docks with a sign saying “Get it Here” should do the trick.
Lucky teletubby: Po

Taurus: Don't be surprised if someone who has been feeling resentful of you for a while decides to choose this month for the big confrontation! Take no chances. Go out and get yourself tooled up if you know what’s good for you. Guns. Big Ones. And don’t forget the ammo.
Lucky cheating diving Man United horse-faced git: Ruud van Nistelrooy

Gemini: Watch out for Taurans this month. Go get a gun.
Lucky rock band: Faith No More

Cancer: You run into an old friend to whom you have been attracted to for some time, and will have the night of your life with screaming, rampant sex. Don’t worry too much about their nasty rash, you’re already infected. Ebola. Again.
Lucky Dr Who: Tom Baker

Leo: Are you romantically attracted to someone whom you know through your work? Be careful how you tread, as it’s not the done thing to shag the customers. Especially if you work in a supermarket. And especially not if you’re a prison warder.
Lucky Bond girl: Pussy Galore

Virgo: A new moon in Uranus means that your skills will be recognised for what they are. Who’d have thought Italian TV would be making a documentary on the world’s greatest masturbators? At least your mum won’t be watching. Unless she’s Italian.
Lucky noise made by a cow: Moo

Libra: Now is the time to realise that project that you’ve spent the last two years planning. North Korea is open and ready for invasion. Do it! Do it NOW! And don’t spare the nukes. No hang on, got that wrong. You will find 50p down the back of the sofa. Sorry.
Lucky singer/songwriter: Elvis Costello

Scorpio: Pay attention to your dreams. They may be filled with some wonderful ideas that could help you out on the path to success. However, the one about having kinky bondage sex with Margaret Thatcher and Kate Moss in the middle of Picadilly Circus is bound to get you into trouble.
Lucky boderline boiler: Liz Barker out of Blue Peter

Sagittarius: With Mercury rising and some bollocks about Venus doing the tango in Libra, expect things to get a bit wild this month. Our crystal ball sees mind-expanding drugs, a trip to the zoo, followed by a night in the cells. Don’t worry though, your fingers will grow back.
Lucky fruit: Michael Barrymore

Capricorn: Today you might discover a previously untapped talent, perhaps an artistic gift, dear Capricorn. This could be rather thrilling for you, but it'll probably take some getting used to. You might wish to join Virgo on Italian TV.
Lucky dead children’s author the famous children’s author Madonna has never heard of: Enid Blyton

Aquarius: You will be especially radiant and glowing this month, dear Aquarius. Still, that twenty kilos of enriched Uranium in your back garden will come in handy in your plans to blackmail the leaders of the world for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Thank God for the Niger connection, eh?
Lucky computer that sounds like a character from Only Fools and Horses: Dell

Pisces: According to your 100% geniune not-crap-at-all stars, a new moon in Libra means romance is sizzling this month, and you will pull out all the stops to celebrate your relationship. Obviously, you are a church organist in love with someone who owns a frying pan. Why do I bother making this stuff up when people get paid to do it already?
Lucky French cartoon character: Asterix the Gaul

If it’s your birthday: After a life-time of searching, you will at last be able to confront your long-long father, after the band of the Coldstream Guards turns up to play “Happy Birthday” at your party. Lucky old you.

The Scaryduck Archive

“Behind the Sofa”

Two words: Gay Daleks. And I’m not just saying that because Russell T Davies of “Queer as Folk” fame is to write the Dr Who comeback. Some of my best friends are stereotypes. But think about it of a bit. I’ve always though the whole concept was a bit suspect. You never, ever see female daleks, do you? All those butch, manly pepperpots cooped up in a spaceship together, plotting the downfall of the galaxy under the command of mad scientist Davros, a confirmed bachelor if ever I saw one. There’s an awful lot of pent-up aggression in that set-up that’s just got to come out somewhere.

“OOH. I’LL. SCRATCH. YOUR. EYES. OUT.”

Perhaps that’s why they’re so angry. Alienated from an …err… alien culture with no concept of gender or sexual equality, they’re thrashing out at society in the only way they know how. Maybe, and I’m prepared to be corrected here, there ARE female and itty-bitty kiddie daleks out there, living in happy family units in heterosexual harmony, going on day trips to the dalek equivalent of the Lakeside Shopping Centre. It’s just that they’re not scary enough for Dr Who and K-9 to battle to the death.

“DAD. DAD. TABITHA. KEEPS. TRYING.TO. EX-TERM-IN-ATE. ME.”

“TOBY. STARTED. IT. HE. KEEPS. POKING. ME. WITH. HIS. PLUNGER.”

“RIGHT. THAT’S. IT. DON’T. MAKE. ME. STOP. THE. CAR. AND COME. BACK. THERE.”

“NOW. YOU’VE. GONE. AND. ANNOYED. YOUR. FATHER. THAT’S. THE. LAST. TIME. WE. TAKE. YOU. ANYWHERE.”

Come to thing of it, I’m having difficulty imagining how daleks would “get in on” in the first place, be they gay or straight. They just don’t have the equipment for it, unless those bobbly bits have some function they’ve never told us about.

“OH. LUCINDA. YOU. HAVE. SUCH. A. BEAUTIFUL. EYE. STALK.”

“OH. GREG. THE. WAY. YOU. THRUST. YOUR. RAY. GUN. MAKES. ME. FEEL. WONDERFUL. INSIDE.”

“FANCY. COMING. UPSTAIRS. FOR. A. QUICK. ONE.”

“WE. CAN’T. GREG. EVERYONE. KNOWS. WE. CAN’T. GO. UP. STAIRS.”

“OH. BOLL-OCKS.”

And don’t get me started on the Cybermen.

The Scaryduck Archive