checking your emails

haha

"I'm just trying to work out whether you're trying to grow a beard...
or if you think you've already got one?"

Pirates

Hurrah for the ginger guild of pirates!
now, lets all sing the guild anthem:

gingers are the coolest
people in the world
oh
gingers are the best

chorus:
   and pirates like to plunder
   pilage rape and loot
   pirates are so crazy
   and they dont have shiny boots

we are all so different,
maybe short or tall
but
gingers are the best

chorus

so let's unite as gingers
all gingers everywhere
cos
gingers are the best!

Carol

What a lovely castle, thought Carol, all turrety with lovely crenellations. She swam down to have a bit of a closer look but on the way caught sight of a beautiful open clam shell nestling in the gravel. The way it shimmered pinkly in the aquatic light floating down from above was so beautiful. Darting across to have a closer look she noticed a beautiful pink fish darting towards her. How pretty the fish was! She waved and the beautiful pink fish waved back. It clearly didn’t mind being a clichéd reflection in the side of the tank and was happy just to mirror Carol’s movements. Feeling cheerful, Carol was going to ask the beautiful pink fish its name but just then she noticed a castle. What a lovely castle, thought Carol, all turrety with lovely crenellations. She had a fleeting moment of existential guilt at perpetuating the myth that fish have a 3 second memory but that was soon swept away by the guilt of knowing that she’d only had existential guilt because it sounded posher than normal guilt. She particularly liked the gilt edges on the crenellations of the castle turrets – and it was a lovely castle…

She was shaken out of this downward spiral of cliché, preconception and guilt by the nerve-jangling sound of the fire alarm going off. Peering out of her tank past the people running for the large double doors, she saw that a large pink bat flew had flown in and shot straight into the fire alarm, breaking the glass and setting it off.

Taking off her pink sunglasses in surprise, Carol realized that it was in fact a black bat and she watched as it fluttered onto the windowsill. What on earth was it doing now – it appeared to be contorting its face into the strangest of expressions as it stuck its head under its wing and peered around the room. With dawning comprehension she realized that it was actually trying to cast sly glances around the room whilst not being entirely sure what a sly glance was. Perhaps it was something to do with being blind she reasoned.

Boring quickly of the chiropteran visitor, Carol wondered where Dr Stone had got to – it wasn’t like him to be this late to morning surgery and the lack of patients screaming in pain and fear was beginning to unnerve her. Although their screaming as they had run from the fire alarm had almost made up for it.

shiny

hurrah for shiny new blogger!

the terrible tale of terry

once upon a time there lived a sea cucumber called terrence, or terry, for short. as our story begins he is 4 years old, just approaching middle age. terry looked around him. the same scene greeted his eyes as had done every other day for as long as he cared to remember (which was about 2 days). he sighed heavily, wondering again how he came to be here and, more importantly, how he could come to be somewhere else as soon as possible. it was the same every morning - the clams to the left of him, turtles to the right, here he was stuck in the middle... alone.

how he wished that betty hadn't left. but that was the trouble with star fish: so selfish, so unreliable, so impulsive... he'd known he would never be able to hold on to her for long. beautiful betty! he decided to write a quick song, in her honour:

a one, a two, a one, two, three, four...

no, he thought, too upbeat. start again:

one, two, three, four
la la la laaaaaa

no, he thought, it needed more words. how about:

#betty
#beautiful betty
#bubbly betty
#betty boo
#i'm blue without betty
#blue boo baloo
#bagheera too
#i wanna be like you hoo hoo
#the KING OF THE JUNGLE
#Yeah!

sighing, he realised that he'd got carried away again. he tried to imagine the jungle - it must be an amazing place! but a poor sea cucumber like him could never hope to see it. he would stay here for the rest of his days, mourning the loss of sweet betty. just the thought of her made him tremble.

#betty my darling
#betty so sweet
#my love if you had any
#i would kneel down at your feet
#but you only have things
#i don't know the name of
#and anyway i don't have knees

#i'd like to hold you in my arms
#but i don't got no arms
#and i'm singing like a redneck
#oh why oh why
#do i have to be a sea cucumber
#when i want to fly
#with you, my betty
#over the sea, through the sky
#betty

oh what could be better than betty, he thought. even butter couldn't be better than betty. some people couldn't believe that butter wasn't better than betty, but betty beat butter anyday. hands down. well...

he wondered why he'd suddenly got a fixation with butter and realised that it was time for his morning toast. that was another thing about the sea, he just couldn't get his toast to that particular level of crispiness he liked. the sea always had other ideas - and it was bigger than he was. oh well - he had learned to put up with the soggy variety. of course, not having a mouth, he was never able to enjoy the toast as much as he'd like, but still he made it, every morning.

hang on!!! what was that? he peered in to the gloom. surely it couldn't be... it couldn't be betty could it?

his heart quickening, he leant forwards, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever those things were that he didn't know the name of. but through the gloom came somebody completely different. a turtle!

"hello," said terry.

"gulp," said the turtle.

hmm... thought terry, as the digestive juices quickly... um... digested him, he really wasn't as friendly as he looked!

as his endoskeleton crumbled, terry's last thought was hang on, i dont have an exoskeleton, that must be why my endoskeleton is crumbling. it wasn't a profound last thought, but it was all he had.

Inspiration - Chapter 9

As Felix came to, he couldn't help feeling like he had been battered from head to toe by an entire kitchen full of stainless steel saucepans. Which wasn't far from the truth, except that he didn't have an entire kitchen full of stainless steel saucepans. As he gingerly felt around him he winced – it felt like his arm was broken in two places (it was). More worryingly, it felt like he wasn't wearing anything except a lion skin cape (he wasn't). Entirely confused by his surroundings and a little bit weak from the pain, he decided that by far the easiest course of action was to black out for a little while longer, so he did.