No Neck Monsters

Beasts....

There is no reason to say that the stereotype or cliche should loose its power just because of repetition - despite what structuralist critic par excellance M. Roland Barthes claims in one of his impenetrable essays (and lest we forget, he was not bright enough to avoid being run down by a milk cart in Paris). No the stereotype retains its power to shock or amaze, Grump can assure one of that. Take, for instance, the image of the village idiot.

Grump elaborates: The village fool, the inbred, slow, mentally and physically challenged, freak show, gurning loon straight from the cherished pages of Cold Comfort Farm. He has been watching a perfect example of this stereotype in action for the last year. Infact, a whole family of them. Through his window he can often see an interchangeable gaggle of village 'types' pass by (you have met some of these already: Fat Lady on a Horse, Noisy Dog Lady; Inept Postman...) but most disturbing of all are the No Neck Monsters.

If one is lucky, and this is entirely subjective of course, one might witness the slow, inexorable progress of a family of spasticated characters shuffling along Main Street. Once in the morning around 8.35am and again around 3.30pm. Grump enjoys these shows, but there are those of you who may, how to put it delicately, be horrified by this display of regressive genetics. We have here, in the Village, an extended family of special needs 'people'. How they have bred is a question of taste frankly too disturbing even for Grump's perversity. He recalls Mr Goldblum's comment in Jurassic Park that "life finds a way".

A matriarchy of mongs... you never see a male family member older than 5 years, and a fearsome, wobbling, shuffling Queen leads the pack. She only ever wears black - even on the hottest day. Loose, tent-like garments cover rippling, pasty flesh. Her hair is dyed a gothic, unnatural black. Her face is an alien moon, red and cratered. Big Mamma, as we shall call her, shuffles along with her own daughter - a younger version of herself, who slowly orbits Mamma - and her four grandchildren, off to primary school each morning. The kids, barely formed slabs of flesh in tatty school uniforms, a remedial sculptor's attempts at human form, gibber and hoot like monkeys. They walk by Grump's cottage, sometimes stopping to stare blankly at the horses from the stables across the road. The kids fix their beady black button-eyes on them. Suddenly, in a flurry of comprehension, they jab sausage fingers towards the horses, yelling excitedly in some barely comprehensible, guttural tongue. No, Grump has never seen the progenitors of this delightful family group; he does not try to imagine the nightmare romance that created this.

Grump notices that it is almost time for their return journey. He quickly settles in with a cup of tea to watch the circus arrive.

Grump Returns

No excuses offered; no explanations provided.

The Grump has been away for over a year but now he has returned. Where has he been? What sights have his jaded, red wine-hazed eyes taken in? What adventures has his chaise longue-stiffened body been thrown into? Well, it would be all too rude to interject reality and thereby upset your own fruity scenarios of his perversions and predilections... needless to say the truth of the matter is that Grump's divided self, at once capable of incredible laziness and frantic bouts of energy, needs to express itself. And these days his own wistful repose avec livre et vin is being threatened by an increasingly frantic rage. He has never been more angry at the mundanities and intrusive demands of life!!! Sanity is threatened. He cannot rest or resist the urge to tell all once again. Oh yes misery loves an audience. Thus it is that he returns to the electronic terra incognita of the online blog to vent forth (after forgetting his own password!) The blog is cheaper than therapy, and Grumpydoctor knows no psychiatrist who offers clients wine....

Noisy Dog Lady

She tests Grump's patience this one... everything about Noisy Dog Lady makes him grind his teeth, clench his fists and shut tight his eyes in consternation and disgust. She has been annoying him for over a year now. Well, this morning it finally became too much and Grump feels he must now vent forth or have at her with a cricket bat.
Who is this latest Village loon? Only the skinniest, loudest, most ignorant woman in Christendom. She woke him up this morning. Again. Day off and he was perfectly enjoying a lie-in, resting after The Flower's whirlwind of scattered clothes, her roaring hairdrier, ozone-raping clouds of hairspray, banging of cupboard doors, and the heated babble of Radio 4. The Flower departs for work with a final slam of a car door and a crunch of gears. He sighs and settles back. Soon joined by Hector Hoob the family cat who curls up at the foot of the bed, Grump drifts off... Only to be rudely awoken half an hour later by a woman seemingly getting to grips with an amateur stage monologue for the Village drama group or suffering some schizoid episode and speaking to thin air. VERY LOUDLY. The rational part of Grump knows that this is a conversation between locals, not some lunatic working through some hybrid between 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'The Archers'. Yet he can only hear one voice (as the other in the conversation from the road below is pitched at polite, neighbourly levels). And what a voice! Alternating between a raspingly dry bark and a Bedlamite's bellow. Talking about absolutely nothing of consequence. Platitudes pitched at a titanic volume: "MIGHT RAIN, DON'T YOU THINK"; "SO MUCH FOR SUMMER"; "HAD TO TURN THE HEATING BACK ON"; "HAH, HAH, HAH - NOT MUCH OF A DROUGHT, EH?". With fingers shaking in anger and the effects of too much of the grape the previous night, Grump eases the bedroom curtain aside and sees her.
Yes. It could only be the scourge that is Noisy Dog Lady. She stands there in a typical outfit. 7.30am and she is resplendent in baggy blue shorts, walking boots, a sort-of fisherman's vest (matching blue) and a plastic golfing visor! She is striking a pose, hand on hip, bellowing at a local retired type from the bungalows up Main Street. He hangs back, buffeted by the volume. She looks as if a medical student has dressed up a skeleton in Oxfam's rejects. These bizarre clothes hang off a tall frame that is painfully thin. She is all sharp edges and cruel angles. "DON'T LIKE THE LOOK OF THOSE CLOUDS," comes with a slash of her arm like a sword.
At her feet are two dogs - greyhounds, bony-looking things lounging and panting in the puddles, rib cages visible through sleek fur. One detects Grump's curtain-twitching, raises it's snout and peers up. It blinks slowly. It seems to smile cruelly. Noisy is ignorant of the scrutiny.
Five minutes later and she is away. Legs scissoring, head back and dark hair flying around a hatchett-face, pulled onwards by her hell-hounds. From Grump's window she is a scarecrow costumed by an eccentric farmer, brought magically to life and sent out into the world to scare off local children rather than the birds. She will be back at lunch. She will return again in the evening. Back and forth, back and forth.
Noisy Dog Lady. Oh my....

Field(s) of Dreams I

Grumpydoctor is nine. It is one night lost in a cloyingly sticky summer, and he is peering out of his open bedroom window in the Police House at East Bridgford, enjoying the breeze. Grump has been reading by torchlight and nobody knows he is still up. A current pile of books rests on the bedside table, some he still remembers fondly: Willard Price's 'Amazon Adventure', C. S. Lewis' 'The Magician's Nephew', 'A Comet in Moominland', Susan Cooper's 'Over Sea, Under Stone', Alan Garner's 'Weirdstone of Brisangamen', Ray Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles', an inprint of 'The War of the Worlds' that terrified him deliciously.... copies lost to age and taste, shamefully abandoned. Where did those go? His child's library has been carelesly broken up and scattered, disseminated by charity shops and secondhand dealers, those books brittle and faded now but still working their magic; creased and scarred by their journeys, owned by any number of strangers. He wants *his* books back. Feels a frisson of shame.

Palm against glass, Grump is staring across the lawns and towards a cornfield at the end of the property which shimmers under a luminous sky. That field haunts his childhood. Even now he hears it rustling, sighing, tall stalks animated by moonlight and a whisper of breeze. He wonders what might be hidden in the corn. What might move secretly along its dark rows. What multitude of monsters can see him - a small figure, hand stilling the restless curtain - there in the window? Almost every night, whatever the time of year, the young Grump will wake with a start and cross the room to peer behind the curtain. Something of a ritual. Has he heard something? Is he convinced that he will miss the passage of something extraordinary out there beyond his back fence? Something or someone he hopes to see and be defined by for the rest of his days?

Grumpydoctor just a few nights ago.... getting ready for bed:

Another village. Other fields. He is closing his bedroom curtains, not at all happy with their kitsch '70s vibe, and waiting for The Flower to finish her endless nightly routine in the bathroom. The only light is from the lamp his side of their sagging bed. There is enough moon for Grump to see clearly across the road to the stables and paddock where three horses stand, mournfully it seems, heads bowed. Then comes an incredible sound, incongrous in the stillness, the rushing, thundering passage of a late train along the Grantham to Nottingham line. Grump sees it, a darker than dark shape pushing on through distant fields, now passing behind the shadowy tree line. A horn sounds (not a whistle these days of course) and it is a rude, angry, unnerving note that punctuates the quietude.

And the first thing Grumpydoctor thinks of is Bradbury's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'... Mr Dark's Pandemonium Carnival coming to town, arriving by train.

He remembers.

Raiders of the Lost Arse

What is happening to grump's house!? Every day it seems another package arrives for The Flower from one shopping channel or other; all sizes, containing mysteries... grumpydoctor never sees the contents. Just the mountain of leftover boxes building up in his bedroom. A QVC stockpile. Old shipping notices and invoices flutter around him like autumn leaves shaken from protesting trees; a breeze through his warping window frame sends reams of paper skirling into the air...
Just the other day it occured to grump that his red-painted chap's boudoir is in danger of resembling the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Downstairs, as he reclines on the cat-ravaged sofa, surely he can hear the wooden floor above groan under the burden?

She must be stopped! This mass consumption madness has to end!

And the village postman is in league with her. Just the other day the knock at the door had a certain mocking timbre to it. Another box. Another mysterious 'product'. Now this fellow has already suffered grump's wrath, having been caught with his arm through the letter box, scrabbling about blindly, feeling for mis-delivered mail with spidery fingers. Grumpydoctor, in gentleman's dressing gown at the ungodly hour of 10am, uttered a distressed cry as he witnessed the hand of a stranger scuttling about, emerging from his letter box. "What the bloody hell!" grump may have yelled. "Posted the wrong letters again! Sorry!" Again!!? This man demands watching. Who knows, perhaps half of the boxes, cartons and packets upstairs have nothing to with The Flower. They certainly have no function in the grump's universe.

Freaky, dreamy images...

grumpydoctor, navigating the oceans of information without compass or guiding star, washes up on the shores of this genius site - the weird and wonderful images of an american photographer. no porn here just dream-like, faintly disturbing and brilliant images (I sense his old pal The Captain might find that hard to believe...) Take a sneaky peek at the following:

http://www.parkeharrison.com

Prohibition - hows that again?

Grumpydoctor notices a new bar opening in Nottingham. He usually can tell, the senses tingle at the thought of a fresh venue. Yet it doesn't take very long to upset the grump. He isn't one to be a regular in many establishments. All too easily bored or let down and then... well he takes it very personally. This latest Nottingham bar has already gotten off to a shaky start - and it hasn't even beckoned grumpydoctor over its threshold and enfolded him in its dubious faux-opulence and slaved him to outrageous bar prices. Not even open yet. Quelle problem? Well my dears it is simple: the name. The name of the bar is "PROHIBITION". (!!!!) What to make of that. Bad enough that it is on the site of the previous badly-monikered "Quilted Llama" (eh?) and that was near-indefensible but this? What next? Why not call a brothel "Eunech". Consider this blunderingly bad teaser from Prohibition's website:

"Prohibition Nottingham Opens Soon
Prohibition is coming to Nottingham in April 2006. This stylish cocktail bar will embrace the opulent style décor of it's siblings in Manchester and Leeds. Specialising in cocktails and shooters, the extensive drinks list and enticing menu will equally please lunchers, the after-work crowd and evening revellers. Situated in the old Quilted Llama site in the Lace Market, Prohibition promises to bring effortless style to the city, with a focus on excellent service levels and drinks and food menus to inspire exploration. Be part of the action, this is one Prohibition you'll definitely approve of!"

Who 'thinks' of these names? Oh dear, oh dear...

Duffy Poem - nice!

Stealing

The most unusual thing I ever stole? A snowman.
Midnight. He looked magnificent; a tall, white mute
beneath the winter moon. I wanted him, a mate
with a mind as cold as the slice of ice
within my own brain. I started with the head.
Better off dead than giving in, not taking
what you want. He weighed a ton; his torso,
frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill
piercing my gut. Part of the thrill was knowing
that children would cry in the morning. Life's tough.
Sometimes I steal things I don't need. I joy-ride cars
to nowhere, break into houses just to have a look.
I'm a mucky ghost, leave a mess, maybe pinch a camera.
I watched my gloved hand twisting the doorknob.
A stranger's bedroom. Mirrors. I sigh like this--Aah.
It took some time. Reassembled in the yard,
he didn't look the same. I took a run
and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out
in rags. It seems daft now. Then I was standing
alone amongst lumps of snow, sick of the world.
Boredom. Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.
One time I stole a guitar and thought I might
learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once,
flogged it, but the snowman was strangest.
You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?

Carol Ann Duffy

Mexican Director Steals Pen

It is with some amazement that grumpydoctor realises that acclaimed director and writer Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams, Amores Perros) has wandered off with both his pen and a copy of The Night Buffalo, Arriaga's own latest novel (lent out as the poor fellow forgot his annotated copy for a reading). Grumpydoctor, assisting with an evening talk and signing at 'B' cinema in Naughty Nottm with the much-lauded Mexican, found this all great chin-stroking stuff, but the students and wannabe cineastes in the audience couldn't keep politics out of the discussion for long and it soon began to drag. Hmmm... On returning to collect some corporate clobber from 'Big W' booksellers that served as table covers and a backdrop for the talk, grump discovers the lack of a certain stylo and livre. So, Mr Arriaga, wheres my bloody pen gone? And - with all due deference to your undoubted artistic talent, wit, intelligent and charm - just because you *wrote* the novel doesn't mean every copy belongs to you! However, if you just happen to be chatting on the phone to Naomi Watts or Cate Blanchett (I hear she is in your latest movie) then send the grumpydoctor's love and all is forgiven. Ok, amigo?