My Beautiful Friends - Gallery 1

Fear and Loathing in the House

Dear Chroniclers,

another rainy Saturday passes at the House. The Hounds have been walked, reallyfried has visited and mrs electrofried continues to struggle with the alien life-form that arrived in her Christmas stocking, courtesy of Cook, just a few weeks ago.

The lights of doom

The alien in question, if fading eyesight serves me right, goes by the inexplicably mis-spelled name of "Sonny, the DVD recorder", the words writ large in letters red, black and bold on the carton in which it arrived. And now, unpacked, it sits skulking in the corner of the TV Lounge.

The little green flashing lights that illuminate its fascia refuse stubbornly to co-operate with either the complementary remote-controller we found secreted amongst the wood-shavings at the bottom of the carton, or our own sturdy, valve-operated teak-clad edifice of a TV set. We are, dear Chroniclers, currently at something of an electronic impasse.

A matter of no little import

Having made discrete enquiries of the local Trading Standards Office, we are lead to believe Cook may have acquired the wretched thing via some dubious bartering at a recent Little Wittering car-boot sale. Rumour has it bottles of cheap Turnip Gin may have exchanged hands.

Worse still, we suspect from the "Made in Slovenia" label sellotaped loosely to the bottom of the devilish instrument, that we may be in possession of what might politely be described as a grey import. Certainly, Cook has previous form in the dark world of counterfeit consumer-goodery. Two previous convictions stamped on her "Care in the Community" order bear witness to this - as she took great pride in telling us some little while ago, having just entered indentured service with the House of electrofried.

So it appears likely, despite our careful nurturing of the florid-faced woman, that she has made a return to ways of old. And whilst we're on the subject, Fetlock the Butler was not entirely impressed either with the Louis Vuitton handbag and matching sock-suspenders that were his Christmas Box lot from Cook this year.

Puzzling Instructions

Back to our TV Lounge, and the silvery machine continues to remain a Sphinx-like electronic mystery - not even the hieroglyphics of an accompanying instruction manual can unravel its arcane inner-workings.

If truth be known, the booklet is as impenetrable as "Sonny" itself. It speaks in strange, acronymic tounges of "HDD" and "SLP", it reels off bizarre algaebraic formulae such as "DVD - RW/DVD - R" and "DVD = R DL" and then, to top it all, it contains perplexing entreaties to select a pattern from "A" through "E" according to our input jack.

So far as mrs electrofried and I are concerned, we have no input jack, at least none of which we are aware. And even if we did, we would be loathe to entrust it to the vagaries of a Slovenian grey import of uncertain jurisdiction.

A spring in the air

Had it not been for the interjection of Fetlock's feather duster, then matters may have rested there - a sullen, uncommunicative object glued to the floor of the TV Lounge. Not unlike our own, darling teenygoth, come to think of it. But no, our faithful retainer sprang into action earlier this Saturday morning with unexpected alacrity!

He was stationed at the time by the front door to the House, talking to the spot-encrusted delivery-boy from Mrs Puri's 24/7 Balti'n'Booze Emporium, ("Chicken Vindaloo and super-strength continental lagers our speciality"), the poor lad being the latest victim of his ongoing attempts to master the art of casual English conversation. Hearing mrs electrofried's plaintive cries of despair as she locked swords once more with the combined might of "Sonny the Sphinx" and the unintelligible instruction manual, Fetlock broke off talks to make haste toward the TV Lounge.

His parting words to the frankly bewildered youth were,"Mi lahko daste kak ne prospekte o Bledu in okolici v angle ini?", which roughly translated means, "Could you give me some brochures about Bled and the surrounding region in English?" And with that cryptic observation, he scooped up his trusty feather-duster in one hand and made his way down the Hall.

Fettled and dusted

Fetlock's mastery of the feather-duster is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Quite who schooled him in the ancient art of dust-removal, or indeed, why, remains a mystery to us all - but something for which we in the House are eternally grateful. Suffice to say that even the most Herculean of domestic-cleansing chores (to wit, the annual spring-clean of the living quarters allotted to young teenygoth) are no match for the electrofried's Butler extraordinaire once he in full flight.

And in full flight he most definitely was this morning. Fetlock appeared at the door to the TV Lounge, feather-duster clenched tightly between his teeth, and promptly proceeded to leap, ninja-like, the length of the room.

"Do not be fretting, electrofried mrs." he pronounced, duster to the ready.

"Fetlock curing it, he will!"

It was all over in a flash. The duster bobbed and weaved its way across the fascia of "Sonny the Sphinx" until at last it yielded its treasure. A secret compartment slid open to reveal a tray into which DVDs should be placed. To our astonishment, its crude plastic mouldings contained not a silver-circled disc, but rather a badly decomposed turnip.

Fetlock assured us this was quite standard practice in more rural areas of Slovenia, where mass-produced consumer frivolities are often put to good use in storing the winter essentials. The turnip duly removed, he bowed deeply to the lady of the House before making his way back down the Hall.

My biggest mistake

All appeared to be going well at this juncture. "Sonny the Sphinx" was now primed and ready for action, its flashing green lights duly compliant for the first time since its Christmas unveiling.

So why or why, did I elect to carry out the programming?

Cream teas and "Rain"

I might have known it would all back-fire with hideous consequences.

The Very Reverend Giblets, our encumbant at the Church for the Terminally Bewildered Anglican, chose to pay a passing visit to the House this same afternoon. As cruel fate would have it, he was accompanied by several parents of good-standing in the parish, their assorted offspring all regulars at the Youth Group run by mrs electrofried and I.

With teenygoth gagged and secured discretely out of sight behind the aspidistra, Cook was duly despatched to the kitchens to make up some light cream teas. Meanwhile, as mrs electrofried assembled the expectant parents around the TV set, I duly loaded up "Sonny the Sphinx" with an uplifting but thoroughly modern Christian DVD (such things do exist) called "Rain" by the rather splendid Nooma team.

"Let's show you the sort of things your children are watching with us on Sunday evenings."

Having effected the introductions, mrs electrofried, gesticuled in my direction to press the Play button. Little did I realise there were in fact two Play buttons. I hit the one for the hard-drive and made my way back to the sofa as these words from my dearly beloved rang out across an otherwise hushed room:

"Electrofried, what on earth have you done???????"

Mint Hotel madness

I really should know better, but ever since my teenage years I have been a closet affecianado of the works of the sadly deceased Hunter S. Thompson. His classic, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", has long been a favourite of mine and it would have been churlish not to have recorded the film version when it was aired a few days ago on terrestrial TV.

Those familiar with Thompson's drug-raddled journalistic style will no doubt recollect the infamous scene from the book when Dr. Gonzo checks into the Mint Hotel heavily under the influence of mescaline. Terry Gilliam's faithful interpretation of this vision from Hades saw a group of astonished parents nearly choke on their scones and jam as "Sonny the Sphinx" spluttered into action.

A now silent audience watched in disbelief as a hideous tableaux unfurled on the screen before them - Mint Hotel patrons transformed by the evil drug into rampant, reptilian blood-letting monsters. You could have heard a pin drop ...

Banished to the Tower

The Youth Group seemed strangely quiet this weekend. I hear rumours our tenure as leaders may shortly be coming to an end as once more I've been banished to the Tower...

... and all I have to keep me company are the flashing lights of "Sonny the Sphinx" and three months worth of the omnibus edition of "Eastenders"". I shall keep a stout heart as I complete my penance.

yours as ever,

electrofried (mr)

Inside the Horology Factory

Stories from the Apocalypse - Fly

Oh my, I hear a crash and now the lights go dim .... so what am I going to do?

Guess the kid was just chewing on a sweet. A garishly-wrappered chocolate kiss-curl sweet and when I first saw his flaxen hair I thought, "I remember that face". I followed him down the road - he was skipping and singing a low song, some kind of nursery rhyme chant. I stopped in my tracks when he looked up at me. And there I was, frozen in time.

The kid smiles and holds up the wrapper. It bears a series of pan-toned images of a grinning child who consumes chocolate and blows bubbles into the air. One of them breaks free and drifts up, a hideous bubbled reflection that breaks open in the air, coating the candy-wrap in white stickiness.

The kid smiles a second time, drops the paper on the ground and walks away. As mysteriously as he comes, he fades from sight. So what's this candy-wrap stuck to the pavement? I go up to it and circle, endlessly round and round and round the white helix. Mesmerising. And time becomes a loop.

I guess the fly gets there first. I notice it just before the kid disappears from sight, circling around his head before it breaks off a loose buzz-bomb pattern to go investigate. The stickiness.

A fly crawling across the helix in search of sweetness, just look at those legs! I get down on my hands and knees to examine it. Eating the dust while my head cradles the cracked pavers, I see black crystalline rodding. Coxa, femur, tibia, tarsus ... all carrion-juiced and callaphora. The fly is there and sucking up the trail. Will it lay its eggs here, right here on the candy-wrap pitch?

It stops. For a second I think it's flaxen-haired and looking back at me, then the fly returns to its helix. Sucking up to the sweet spot at the centre of all things, oblivious to a world spinning around it. I watch it for hours as the sun begins to sink behind us, burning a deep cinammon glow to the summer air. Time for sleep as day one ends.

Early dawn and I'm out once more, pounding the beat. Sure enough it's there, the paper-wrap, stuck to the pavement and not even the morning breeze is going to free it up. It's there for the duration. But what's this? The fly's gone and in its place a creeping spider. It's stalking the helix. I can't believe this, it's stalking the helix! I watch it, hair on end and eyes aglint, the legs scurry in slow-motion as it traces out the stickiness.

And there's no sign of the fly, not a trace - just disappeared into the ether like the flaxen-haired kid. Now there's just a pregnant Buddha-bellied arachnid down there, crawling around and around and around. I get down on my hands and knees again. The early-morning sun has yet to warm the ground and the flags cold-kiss my cheek. I'm candy-wrapped now, staring at this waxy square of garish coloured paper and the streaks of stickiness radiating from the centre. Drawing me in.

The sun rises inexorably. I hear in the distance the first of the traffic as it begins to cut a bloodied swathe into the dawn bird-chorus. It gets louder and louder, swelling as the cars and trucks and cycles and buses and pick-ups and hot-rod day-time madness roar through thick, dark clouds of sulphur-scented vapour. It's rising up to form a low feral moan, punctuated by the dum-dum beats of passing pedestrians as they pound out the pavement towards the candy-wrap.

It's as if I'm invisible. They walk all over me as I lie flat to the ground staring at the spider.

Eventually the traffic begins to thin. I take the chance to grab a break, a short, sharp, shot of morning tannine, and then it's back to my station, this time armed with a deck-chair. I set it up to the right of the candy-wrap and get out my book. No-one's going to walk over me now! I turn the pages. One, two, three, four as words and pictures spring out and draw me in. They draw me to a pot-bellied dark star diamond of flailing legs that scurry endlessly around. Laying eggs in the dying dust of day two.

The bluebottles hatch first. They're there to greet me the next morning, feasting on the body of the fallen spider. Maggots tearing out the heart of some open system circulation in tissue sinuses. Special venous channels. Dead arachnid. This is the next chapter of my book as I sit and read in deck-chaired isolation, the thundering pedestrians breaking each side of me as I turn pages. Turning pages! The crawling maggot brains sucking out the sweetness absorbed by the spider, taken from the fly that crawled the helix. Round and round.

A third sun and it's back to the chair. A spider hatching and the arachnid rises - a myriad of scurrying legs sewing the soft white maggot wriggles against the garish-coloured wrap and where there was once stickiness is now the heaving mass of callophora cadaver. Oh my! I can't look away, nor can the passing stream of pedestrians. They look, too.

When we stop to observe, then time stands still and we're both frozen. Glance up for a second from these lines and see my tap, tap, tap ... ping. Let me offer you a candy-wrap and invite you deeper into the helix white stickiness blur. Do you really want to come this way? A flaxen-haired child stares out, a halo of flies around his head. Day four beckons.

They all saw it in front of them. The heaving mass of insect life and now the birds descend, shutting out the low feral-moaned traffic. Feasting on the spider that ate the fly that went round and round a white spiral, candy-kiss curl. The birds are here! Winged and graceful they descend in slow-motion patterns, cutting through the air to pluck off the arachnids one by one. A silhouetted eagle circles, high - overhead. It counts off the day and now.

Where did that fox come from? This morning, this fifth morning when I come to plant out the deck-chair it's looking up at me. A rictus-grin corpse beside the still sticky wrap. Perhaps it's come hunting for an angel-flight - the birds have long since gone, but I can see between the white-teeth grimace a solitary bloodied feather. How I wish the eyes would close; when I sleep they come to me, eyes open and staring. I need some tea real bad and I unwind the stopper of the vaccum-flask. I need to read my book too, so I uncork the pages. But still I feel the cold lupine stare from somewhere deep within. I can't shake it off, even when the waiting sun comes.

And then the first crash. Day six and it wakes me from bright midnight dreams. Crashing metal and screams and then ... just silence. It's that half-way place between night and day, the time where we dance briefly before the clock begins to tick once more. The time of possibility. And now I awake, bleary-eyed, to fetch out the deck-chair.

The wheels still spin as I take up post. The windscreen lies cracked before me, a head rising up stiff and bloodied through it to salute the new day. Was it the stickiness that brought the fly to feast on spider, that took the birds that caught the fox, that brought this .... That brought this driver to stare at the candy-wrap spinning and take his eyes from the road, to crash.

I set out the deck-chair once more, as blue lights descend, spiralling out into the warming Summer air. A flaxen-haired child accompanies the procession, around his head a buzzing halo of flies.

I hear the mounting as day seven arrives. Sucked into the sweetness, one driver after another, just molten metal and ramming up against a blue-lighted wall as fly becomes spider and is eaten by the bird plucked out by the fox and metal hits metal taking out the power-lines and now.

The lights grow dim ... so what am I going to do?

From the Morning