Morris Dancing Is My Life - Part 1

Yesterday I was mugged by the retail chain HMV. There was no violence, but it was definitely a mugging.
I bought a computer game. They’ve re-issued Goldeneye and I was lulled, by nostalgia and the desire to pretend to kill people from a distance, into buying it. It’s a good game. So the sleek and practiced thug who bags up my purchase nonchalantly throws in a bit of over the counter banter.
‘It’s only a pound to insure it for a year. In case it gets scratched.’
Now I never buy this sort of insurance since Lynn Faulds Wood
(mother of quintuplets Ben Folds Five) off of that Watchdog convinced me it was tantamount to fellating an uncircumcised incubus and not nice or good for me.
But it’s only a pound. And what if it gets scratched ?
So I hand over my shiny quid and slope off home to kill Oddjob.
Obviously the game doesn’t work.
There are rules to these sorts of things, and it follows that if I buy insurance for the first time, I’m going to need it.
Now all I need is the receipt. Which I had, of course, thrown away. A trivial matter to get it out of the bin. Except fate is conspiring this week, the stars are in alignment, Tarva and Alambil are in conjunction and Coriakin-invisible is taking a big thick piss in my mouth.

The Duck’s Egg’s Tale
I bought half a dozen duck’s eggs this week, from a farmshop. Big yolked, unpasteurised loveliness. It’s not much of an anecdote and you can see where we’re going. Now, I cooked four of them for breakfast, but two, because my fridge is a bit on the knackered side spontaneously froze. So I unsentimentally dumped the two frozen unfertilised embryos in the bin. They had gone gelatinous and by the time I threw away the receipt, they were a little on the ripe side, in a way that only an oriental gentleman can appreciate. Just to set the scene I also dumped half a dozen full nappies from a teething one-year old into the receptacle. Now she is an angel, so much so that her feet don’t quite touch the ground, but don’t let anyone tell you that their brown jewellery doesn’t smell just like everyone else’s.

Now there is a ray of light here. One I don’t deserve. The angel’s mother, herself a paragon of loveliness intercedes.
It is at this point Simon Bates should start playing the music from ‘Our Tune’ (itself the tune from Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet –the one with Michael York).
I pop out to buy some milk and when I return there is the receipt on the table. My wife smiles like the saint she is and I resolve to buy her some wings. I’d write to the Pope about her, but he’s a former child Nazi who’s become something much worse, and I don’t really want to court the favour of the invisible man with a beard.

All chipper I’m back to HMV to be greeted by a different sales assistant. She’s all cheery and has bright orange hair. At least she is until I explain my difficulty.
‘This game. I bought it here, yesterday. It doesn’t work. I keep getting an error message. Can I have a new one please ?’
She consults with her brethren.
‘Sorry. We’ve sold out.’
‘Well can I have a refund ?’
Pause. Hasty huddle around the cauldron.
‘Yes. You’ll need to sign here and give your address.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘We can’t authorise the refund without it.’
So I get my refund. But there’s,in the words of Columbo,
“One small thing bothering me.”
The pound. That has not been refunded.
Now I know. It’s only a pound. But you see it’s mine.
I paid a pound for insurance for a game which I, through no fault of my own, no longer have.
‘You haven’t refunded the pound.’
‘We’re not authorised to.’
They say that Lucifer was a redhead.
I get a look that tells me it’s only a pound and would I please go away because I’ve interrupted their day enough. And I know it’s not their fault. But it is somebody’s and they’re going to pay. The very precise sum of one pound because it’s mine and I want it back. And I know how. Using Morris dancing.

Simon Fox is the CEO of HMV, he lives with his wife and three children in Berkshire. And he owes me money

Short & Sweet

Well, it is father’s day today,
and I have a badge. Which pretty much makes me the happiest person alive. Ever. So my thanks to Tarquina Superba and her mother (there was a card too and I’m grinning all over my daft face.) and for those of you who have no interest in the sprig of the Blancmange line – a recipe for chocolate brownies.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
3oz/85gr self raising flour
9oz /250g caster sugar
6oz/175g butter

1 tbspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 mars bar
200g cooking choc – dark chocolate at least 75% cocoa solids

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar until they are pale and thick (like the son of my mother’s second husband)

2. Melt 175g of the chocolate, the cocoa and the butter together in a bain-marie (look it up)

3. Add the results of 2. & 3. together, add the vanilla essence, fold in the flower. Add the chopped up pieces of Mars Bars

4. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking tray. Pre-heat the oven to 150-185 (Gas Mark 3-4). Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

5. Now turn the oven off and leave it for an hour. Take it out of the oven and leave to cool.

Time for bed. Icing tomorrow. Good night all.

Actually tomorrow is now today thanks to the miracle of editing- so here's the icing.

Very simple: 1/3 butter to 2/3 icing sugar and add 2-3 tablespoons of cocoa powder.
You might like a lot of icing or virtually none. The two important things are:
i) Get the ratios right so it doesn't end up too gloopy.
ii) Make sure the brownie has cooled,otherwise the icing may melt.

Mix it all up, apply icing and that's it, you're done.

Brendan the Spy Part 1: Ass. Man & The Lezza.

BRENDON THE SPY
I met him, when, as young men, we both attended the same 6th Form College. He was retaking his GCSEs in between acting as a secret agent for Her Majesty’s Government. Some of you may have been a mite more credulous about such a revelation, but really his credentials were impeccable. He told us everything (perhaps the only clue that these stories were not of the first truthfulness). So brilliant were the deceptions that he even had cover stories for his lies:
Brendan the Spy was recruited by MI 6 at the age of 17 owing to the skill he demonstrated at Cooden Air Pistol Club at the age of 9.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”
Another version was that he responded to an ad in Friday Ad. ‘Wanted Spy. Must be British,’ or somesuch.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”

In several evenings of drunken sincerity he told a number of people how he had acquired a scar on his leg.
1. He parachuted into France, landing on the edge of an old airstrip somewhere in Normandy. The government was using trainee spies because foreign governments would have no record of them, making them ‘Perfect Spies.’
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.

2. Using the codename H.17 he parachuted into Bosnia. With the rest of his team he abseiled up a building (yes) and killed everyone in an office.
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.
That story was told to us by his then girlfriend. As he told her, he wept and punched the wall, all was silent outside Errols Kebabs except for his anguished cry, “I’ve got blood on my hands.”
I know what you must be thinking, how on earth does he have a girlfriend ?
I had first met her sporting a t-shirt that he had had made for her. It had a passport photo of them both (thankfully small, for her sake) with the immortal words ‘Yum Yum, He’s The One’
He wasn’t it turned out. You may be surprised by this, after all he had a pet name for her, ‘the Lezza.’

Brendan (the Spy) quickly decided that GCSE Maths and English weren’t for him, he was (as he often told me), “such a smart bloke” so qualifications were largely irrelevant.
He had got a part time job which became a full time career, working at the local independent cinema, he was rapidly promoted to Assistant Manager,or Ass. Man as he insisted we call him without irony. The Proprietor of the cinema would routinely empty the till and spent the day in the pub avoiding creditors. Brendan in a gesture of lofty patronage would employ a few of us: someone on the till,an usher, whilst the Ass. Man put on the film. He didn't really know how the projector worked, and it was not uncommon for the film to get shredded whilst we drank snakebite on the roof. There is some sort of moral to this tale about not leaving your livelihood in the hands of a seventeen year old and his mates but it was lost on us. The owner eventually and inevitably lost the cinema, last time I saw him he gave me some speed and told me of his elaborate plans to ‘get it all back,’ that was a decade ago. More recently I heard he ran as the BNP candidate in the General Election last year.
Some evenings he and Brendan would drive up to Galley Hill, “to watch the gays.”
I recall BtS sauntering into the cinema one day clutching an envelope bearing the legend O.H.M.S.

‘See,’ he said proudly. It contained a letter from H.19 (Robbo) to H.17 (Brendan the Spy). It confirmed that his ‘transfere’ was approved. He was going to Europe, Switzerland most likely, so he and the Lezza could stay together when she had a year abroad at University. I was puzzled, the letter was written on tracing paper. “Easier to burn,” he informed me sagely.

The Lezza went to University then moved to Paris. She is fluent in French and German, with a passable knowledge of Italian. She is always rather vague about what she does.

Brendan, for a long time, worked in a series of mobile phone shops. After some months each would close and he would move on. He did go to France in the end, leaving behind debts, an estranged wife and a young son who gets into trouble at school. The boy’s teacher thinks he would do better if his father was in England. It is just another in a long line of sacrifices Brendan the Spy has had to make for Queen & Country. Defende Regnum young man, Defende Regnum.

Marc Singer Sideways Acting Masterclass

I have known actors, maybe you have one downstairs, it’s possible you may be one yourself. It’s not important.
But this is.


The Beastmaster.

It is the incredible tale of a young man, Dar, son of Zed, brother of Tal.
It is a world where only women, villains and animals have names longer than one syllable.
Owing to a prophecy that Ma-ax (High Priest of Ar –played by a young Rip Torn – you know, he plays an old Patches O’Hoolahan in Dodgeball. The young Patches is played by Hank Azaria from the Simpsons, and Huff, and Grosse Point Blank) will be killed by ‘Zed’s unborn son’ , one of Ma-ax’s witches teleports him pre birth from his mother into an ox, then teleports away (cackling). She gets killed before she can sacrifice him by a balding merchant. Just before she dies she is suddenly, briefly naked before putting her clothes back on to leap into a fire. When she dies, she cackles too.

The young man grows to young manhood. In the mean time Zed despite being held by Max for all that time has somehow managed to sneak out of the pyramid where he is being held hostage (did I mention he’s been blinded) and father a second child. He then sneaks back into his cell. The old devil.
Dar becomes a man, for some reason (maybe to do with being in the ox) he can talk to animals, like Dr Doolittle. It’s not long before he’s got a small menagerie – a panther,an eagle and 2 ferrets.
He uses his gift to see through their eyes to spy on girls bathing in a pool (in the Director’s cut they’re bare-chested – one of them, Tanya Roberts, was a Bond girl from Living Daylights). There are some fights, one of the ferrets dies biting May-Axe in the nuts and then exploding. Another witch turns into a dove. She cackles when she dies too. It might be a family tic
The Beastmaster’s younger brother is made king , wearing a big nappy. The city rejoices.

It’s a great story only made better by Marc Singer’s unique approach to acting. Marc you may remember was cameraman Mike Donovan in the original V (he also played an emerald miner who was Bobby Ewing’s friend from college in series 8 of Dallas (the one that was a dream) – he has used the powerful acting technique that he developed in all his work. It is very simple but incredibly effective; wherever you are supposed to be and whatever you are doing, always present your side profile to the camera. Whilst it isn’t the most natural pose in the world it does ensure that the audience can always see all the acting you are doing with your face, all the time.
Of course the technique has its detractors, Al Pacino was famously dismissive, ‘I never heard of that,’ his eyes seemed to say.
But for the naysayers amongst you, including local actor Stephen Yardley (Ken Masters – Howard’s Way not Streetfighter), I suggest you look at the results of what happens when Marc doesn’t use the technique. It isn’t nice.








Not Nice.

Poop Deck Shanty

‘Daddy’s set fire to himself and has to go away.’
This was how my paternal grandfather’s (Leonard Sexbeach Blancmange,you may well have heard of him) departure had been announced to his sons. His daughter was too young to grasp the detail.
The First Pair of Hands to Advertise Washing Up Liquid on Television (my grandmother’s proud boast) gestured expansively into a resigned shrug. And that was that.

My great grandmother, on my mother’s father’s side, was immensely proud of her small feet. She used to hide in the cupboard and pray in a language she made up, when she wasn’t smuggling fresh produce over the German/Austro-Hungarian border. Her husband was a celebrated gambler, swearer and less well-known plumber. He tried to kill himself in 1927 but only succeeded in shooting himself in the back (not easy) in one of Berlin’s municipal parks.

Actually Leonard had fallen asleep with a cigarette whilst waiting for his wife to come home from the affair she was having with an out of work actor called Wallis Bramhall Leviathan. You might have missed him in the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood, every Christmas half my family would stare and point:
‘There he is.’
‘Is that him ?’
‘I think so.’
There he was, third tree on the left or somesuch, I have never been able to identify him.
He became my father’s stepfather and as for L.S.B., well no one I know ever saw him again. My father and his siblings were never curious. It transpired he expired, a furious alcoholic, in a small village in Wales in 1993, I never found out the details as I was no longer on speaking terms with his son, my own father, who did not find out the fate of his father until 2007, by then Norris Spoonpudding Blancmange, was quite literally living illegally on (if not in) his own shit. With impeccable foresight he had sold his house to pay off his second wife and with the meagre remains he had realised romantic notions of a nautical existence. This was interrupted by a brief residence at the local camping site before he ‘climbed aboard’ the Manati* of Wry. The illegality and the excrement derived from his unwillingness to regularly empty the septic tank on board, instead plumping for dumping his untreated load straight into the river where it accumulated upon the sandbank on which the pride of the waves was firmly lodged, ensconsced like a gravid hippo in it’s own faecal tar.
Something of a regular supplicant at the altar of Bacchus himself, it is only a matter of time before he stumbles on the gangplank and plunges headfirst into a thick brown mess of his own devising. I hope, gentle reader you will join me in wishing him a bon voyage.

* Manati from the Taino (pre-Columbian people from the Caribbean) word for ‘tit’

My Year of Dallas - the End. For now.

EPILOGUE


I don’t know if it was a dream, or a nightmare but I am done with Texas, there’s nothing for me here now. Dallas just has too many memories.
The day I crossed the border was the last time I dreamt of the man in red. He’s standing at the roadside waving, there’s a nasty leer on his face. I just keep on driving.


I still get a card from Clayton and Miss Ellie at Christmas, the message is always the same and it’s not handwritten but I am grateful for even the smallest of kindnesses..

I don’t know if you can ever put the past behind you but I try. It’s been three years since I last spoke to a Ewing and there isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking of J.R. But I woke up this morning feeling lighter, more carefree. I’m surprised by the letter on the mat. It’s from a young wildcatter, name of Blake Carrington, he sounds keen and it’s been so long since I’ve seen enthusiasm from anyone. He’s invited me to Denver, Colorado, just to talk. Well I think I like the sound of that. I think I like it very much indeed. I decide I’m going to go, and I’ll make him a gift of a pork pie. One of the Gourmet kind, the one with pickle.

Ray and Me

RAY

Now that Ray Krebbs has discovered that he is Jock’s son he is looking to become a serious player. I have started noticing things about him. Little changes. He doesn’t wear plaid so much, and he definitely doesn’t have sex with Lucy in the barn anymore, now that she is his niece or half niece (if there is such a thing). Though this may be more to do with him being married.
I like his new wife, Donna, but am worried that she will leave him because he can’t cut the mustard as a big man, a Texan man, a man of power.
Late at night, when no one but Ray is awake, I telephone him and try to re-assure him but we both know that, what he is, won’t be enough to keep a lady like that. Sometimes he cries down the telephone to me:
‘All I know is ranching,’ he sobs,’ it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s all I’ve ever loved. I can’t change and I don’t want to.’
‘Not even for the woman you love ?’
And then I feel cruel and heartless for what I have said. I wouldn’t upset Ray for the world. Then I start to cry too. There we are, two grown men sobbing our tragic hearts out at three o’clock in the morning. It’s terrible.
That’s why I suggested we go into property development.

This cheered Ray up a lot. Even though neither of us know anything about it, I think it’s a project we can both work on. I am sure it will be a success.

Hurray, I have found the perfect project for me and Ray. It’s going to be a themed island for monkeys: Ray Krebbs’ Monkey Island. I will remain a silent partner, which is OK by me. I want Ray to get all the glory, then he can feel proud of himself and so can his wife. Maybe then he won’t cry so much anymore.

Ray’s all fired up about the Themed Island idea. I got him some books from the library about monkeys and he’s read them all, cover to cover. He’s been telling me all about them, apparently monkeys are quite similar to cattle in some ways which should make things a lot simpler. Ray knows everything there is to know about cattle. He tells me things have improved with Donna a lot, especially sexually. I am really pleased for Ray, that sort of thing is important in a marriage. I have always thought of Ray as a considerate and generous lover and it’s important that Donna sees that side of him. He needs to show her his vulnerability as well as his strength for their marriage to build a strong foundation from which it can grow. Much like a property development.

Well things certainly have changed. Ray’s no longer interested in Monkey Island, him and Jock and Punk Anderson have gone in together to develop some swampland. I have to say, I’ve seen a different side to Ray and I’m pretty disappointed. Property development was my idea, and now he’s just brushed me aside to spend time with his dad and his buddy. I thought we were better friends than that Ray. I suppose I was wrong.

Ray doesn’t answer my phone calls anymore.

It’s not about the money, though I did have to re-mortgage my house to buy that island in the Medway, it’s about friendship and trust. I know Ray wanted more than anything to be accepted by Jock and his friends and family, but I feel like he has betrayed me to do it. It wouldn’t have been so difficult to include me in his new deal. I suppose he just didn’t want me around. I won’t say it doesn’t hurt, but I’ll get through it. I hope Donna never sees this side of him though. It’s not a pretty sight I can tell you. Maybe a cheese and onion pasty will cheer me up. Especially if I pop it in the microwave first. Warmth and comfort, oh Ray why can’t you be like pastry.

Good news. They’ve discovered oil in the Medway and I’ve sold the oil leases on my island to J.R.. He says with any luck I’ll be an oil millionaire, just like him. He’s being kind, trying to make me feel better after what happened with Ray. He knows the value of friendship unlike his half-brother. Well Ray Krebbs there’s more to being Jock’s son than just having him as your father, you’ll realise that one day, I just hope I’m there to see it. I get home to discover J.R. has sent me a 10 Gallon Hat, just like one of his. Inside the hatbox is a small note, it says simply: ‘For a true friend.’
I am not embarrassed to admit that I weep uncontrollably for over an hour and a half.
To celebrate my good fortune I treat myself and my hat to a night out in a Travel Lodge. Dinner is a Luxury Sausage Roll from the Gourmet range and a Steak Slice, then it’s on to the arcade for an evening of games and a whirl on the fruit machines. I wonder, would my life be any richer if I had someone to share all this with. Probably not.

Two days later, I get a postcard. There’s no picture. It’s from the library. The books on monkeys are overdue and there’s a small fine to pay. Ray never returned them. I don’t know, sometimes you think you know a person and then they go and do something like this. Some friend you are Ray Krebbs.

My Year of Dallas

It's possible that you are unaware of the fact that there are 357 episodes of the soap opera, Dallas.
It is not possible that you are unaware of the soap opera, Dallas.
Now there are 2 TV Movies (War of the Ewings and Return to Dallas)
There was also the 'mini series' Dallas the Early Years (divided into 2)
Finally there was the cast reunion: Return to Southfork.
Which gives us a total of 362 watchable episodes of Dallas.
Which is 1 a day for a year with 3 days empty days. Now I'm sure you can fill them with something - your spouse's birthday/ a religious festival or two, but we both know it's not the same. Note I haven't included Knott's Landing (a mere 344 episodes)- though some do guest star Bobby, J.R. and even Kristin.
Anyway here is part of

My Year of Dallas:

J.R. EWING

I want to tell you about the time I met Mr J.R. Ewing in a motorway service station.

At the time I was on the road a lot. I worked for a well known producer of savoury snack foods popular with the roadside community. I can not name them as they are real and may well come after me, but suffice to say they made a lot of pasties, sausage rolls, savoury slices and pork and pickle pies.

I had just received a big order near Thurrock, when there, before me, unmistakeably was Mr J.R. Ewing of Dallas, Texas. Live, in the flesh, larger than life itself. He was enjoying a scotch egg bar from a rival manufacturer whilst trying to obtain a toy from one of the many quality vending machines. We recognised each other at once.

‘Hey there boy. How’re you doing ?’
J.R. is all smiles, he is always pleased to see me. We have been friends for many years. I think it is because he knows that, whatever happens, I am on his side.
‘Good to see you J.R.. Always good to see you. Let me get you a drink, it’s been too long.’
The shop doesn’t do his usual, bourbon and branchwater, so we make do. I have an energy drink made from bull sick and he has a Fanta. We sit on the kerb and catch up:
‘ . . . ever since young Bobby took up with that Barnes woman he’s started getting interested in the business. Now I’m out on the road whilst he’s in the office with daddy.’
‘Don’t worry J.R., you’ll think of something. You always do.’
‘I don’t know. It really isn’t looking good for ole J.R..’
‘Anything I can do to help ?’
‘I don’t know, this isn’t like selling pasties. If I could just think of a way to ruin that Barnes woman. Maybe if Bobby saw her with Ray. They used to have a thing a while back . . .’
‘That’s not a bad idea. But I’ve got a better one. Not far from here, deep within a forest, lives a witch. Now apparently she has an enchanted spinning wheel. It’s said whoever pricks their finger on it, will sleep for one hundred years. Find that; if Pam pricks her finger, then there’ll be no need for Bobby to stay in the office. He’ll be back on the road in no time and you’ll be back with your daddy running Ewing Oil, where you belong.’
J.R. looked at me with tears in his eyes. Tears of gratitude.

Disaster. The spinning wheel was lost in transit. It was being shipped back to Galveston on one of Mr Eugene’s oil tankers. I think his wife Sally may have been responsible. She is a very tricky lady. Mr Eugene is no fool, he knows what’s going on, but doesn’t care. That Sally, she is one fine woman, even if you can’t trust her. I send her a Chicken and Mushroom slice as a compliment. I wonder how J.R. will take the news. He’ll need me by his side at this difficult time. We arrange to meet at a Little Chef on the way to Welwyn Garden City, but I am forced to abandon the rendezvous. It is clear I am being followed; Bobby and Cliff must have got wind of our plans and are trying to use me to get to J.R.. I can’t let that happen. I ditch my car and go cross country, they won’t be able to follow me. But I am wrong, they have hired a spotter plane. I am able to get a message to J.R.’s secretary, Luella, from a public telephone. Hopefully he will get it and just keep on driving.
I am forced to spend four days hiding out in a bunker on a nine hole golf course, just to be safe. I can not say, but I think the heat is off. At least for now.
When I get home, on the doorstep is a bottle of champagne, a pair of slippers and a tin of Quality Street. J.R. always takes care of his friends.

I’ve just seen Sue Ellen having lunch. I spotted her queuing for the All You Can Eat Buffet at Pizza Hut and she wasn’t alone. I know she didn’t see me though. I like to be careful. That woman is a tramp and a drunk, I don’t know why J.R. puts up with her, he really is too good for that woman. I’ve decided to help him out by spying on her and finding out her plans.
I sneak around to the back of the building and find myself a spare uniform. Hang on someone’s coming. Don’t panic, keep calm. Remember J.R. fought in Korea. What would he do ?

Fortunately it was only the Assistant Manager. I’ve left him tied up in the store room under a pile of pizza boxes. I doubt he will raise the alarm anytime soon, I clubbed him pretty hard, and when I hit people they stay down. Just like Jock taught me.

I pretend to take the order from the table next to Sue Ellen, she doesn’t even notice and only has eyes for her new man. I don’t see who it is at first, he has his back to me, and then he turns his head and I realise who she’s with. I nearly blow my cover and my cool when I see her companion; none other than Cliff Barnes. I just think what would J.R. do. He needs me now, he needs me to be strong. For him.

‘ Deep Pan Supreme Family Feast with Super Cheesy Garlic Bread.’
I look at the excitement, the bare unconcealed greed on their fat faces. Don’t you understand what’s going on, how can you be happy when J.R.’s arch-rival is in the next booth, having lunch and more besides with his enemy’s wife. But they don’t understand, how can they, little nothing people, barely real at all. They can’t even begin to comprehend what this will do to J.R., sure he’s tough, he’s had to be, but he loves that woman, why does nobody but me see that. I throw their order in the bin, it’s the least I can do, maybe it will teach them a lesson. Now I’ve got to speak to J.R., he must know at once and it is better that he hear it from me than from some stranger.

J.R. doesn’t take the news well. He puts a brave face on it, but I can hear the quaver in his voice, most people wouldn’t notice, but I do. Most people don’t realise how vulnerable he really is, they just see the hat and the face he shows them: ‘Good Ole J.R..’ But I know the real him, the boy behind the man, who yearns for his daddy’s approval and his mother’s love. He’s had to fight for everything. Gary and Bobby never had to get their hands dirty, it was all laid out on a platter for them, just like breakfast at Southfork every morning. Not J.R. though, he earned every cent of it. Now he’s got a new fight on his hands, a fight for the woman he loves, and I’m going to see that he wins it.

Tutankhcolman & the Norwich Shroud

The Shroud of Norwich is soon to return to its rightful place – bunged in a cupboard far from the prying eyes of history. Few know of the relic and its association with ‘The Old Ones ’ known to the simple folk of Norwich as the Coel Men (literally translated as ‘The Ancestors’). It is said they are the last of the line of Coel (opinions divide if this was indeed the venerable king of rhyme and legend often mis-spelt Cole. Some think Co-El was from another planet entirely, a dying world, and may have been the brother of No-El Edmonds, both scions of the House of El).
Whilst making war on the Romans, the Coel formed an alliance with the Northern Wicca and it is from this line which the Norwich Colmans descend. For whatever reason they were certainly long lived, but being desirous of even longer life, through their arts devised a powder that when a body was covered with it kept them alive even beyond the grave. The process left a waste product,a yellowish powder that was then sold to the masses as a desirable condiment.

After several centuries, more and more powder was required to preserve them as the living dead. The Colman patriarch sought other methods to ward off death. Initial talks with a Confederate soldier, the notorious voodoun necromancer, Saunders came to nothing when it became clear that his secret blend of herbs and spices created mindless, brain-eating monsters (it was this that was responsible for the Kentucky Derby Zombie Massacre of 1878)

Napoleon’s attempt to raise an army of the dead in the Nile kingdom had captured the popular imagination and ever since there had been a steady stream of amateur Victorian necromancers all keen to learn the secrets of eternal life and avail themselves of a bit of jewellery or pottery. In the murky backstreets of Cairo, Colman purchased a shroud inscribed with the spells against death itself. Saunders was not to be outdone, posing as a rival, he travelled under the pseudonym Colonel Mustard. A clash was inevitable, and the two saucerors fought a running battle which left most of downtown Cairo covered in a fine yellow powder. Neither could claim victory but importantly for humanity when the dust cleared,the shroud lay in two pieces, one remained in Cairo, the other taken to Norwich castle and thankfully forgotten. Until now