Dear George,

I've been asking around and I'm starting to become a little concerned about you. I've spoken to a few friends and we're all rather worried that you don't really have the funds to pay for the life of bat-shit insanity that you've become accustomed to. I therefore feel duty bound to step in and offer a little advice to help turn your life around.

Now wait, I know you're feeling sorry for yourself after some of your recent money-spinning ideas went awry but that doesn't mean you should just give up. It seems to me that you just need a little push, a little encouragement. Go with something that you know people like, a crowd pleaser. You could maybe recycle one of your old ideas. Then, when a bit of money's come in from that, you might feel a tad more adventurous and you con really give your all to something original.

Which idea should you recycle? Well I don't know. There are so many to choose from...
Alright, how about this...Star Wars 3D! - Or Indiana Jones, it doesn't really matter, either are bound to be a rip roaring success!
What? No, people do still like Star Wars. I promise. Yes, Indy too. People are very forgiving.
3D: It's the way forward!
Come on, George I know I can win you round.

Oh, you're still skeptical...
Well now look, I know my last ideas for you didn't go down so well with the fans. C3P0 and R2D2 advertising TVs, aliens in Indiana Jones 4...well all of Indiana Jones 4, really. All that business with Boba Fett's voice and Hayden Christensen at the end of Jedi, but I say what's more important? Preserving a film beloved to millions or continuity?
Now you're with me.

Anyway there wouldn't be any problems like that with re-releasing in 3D. There wouldn't have to be any directorial tinkering, it's a purely technical process. A real money maker!
...Oh, you want to do some tinkering...Well, alright, but I'd get some advice from Spielberg on that side of things. He sure got it right with ET!

The fans...yes, the fans.
Well they don't have to like it, they just have to pay you the money, am I right?
And you do like money, don't you?

I'm glad.
I think this business could make everything better for you.
And pay no mind to the death threats, that wall around your ranch is...probably tall enough.

Lots of love.

SH

My good woman!

Oh, excuse me, I thought you were my great aunt. That monstrous woman seems to dog my every move, both in virtual reality and actual physicality.
She is a near indescribable horror, you know. Whichever angle you approach her from seems to bare new disgusts and loathes. For example I can tell you that the chest hair on that she-beast, curling over her deeply plunging neckline, reminds one of a rancid Pacific foam cresting two elephant seals that stretch out, basking, from her shoulders to her naval. The 'trunks' of the seals in this analogy are, of course, the nipples.
Her ankles, swollen to four times the circumference of her calves, look nothing so much like the purulent rump of Sir Patrick Moore, and the stench that erupts from them complete the image.

She has become a fleshy shadow to me, being, as I am, her only link to any sort of a family. I wish it were not the case as it, and this I may have mentioned, has caused her to stalk the living guts out of me! From the time I leave my front door to the time I once again enter my front door, a bit later on in the day, she bites at my footsteps, she nips at my knee-backs, she plucks at my elbones. She has even taken to swimming the butterfly in the river alongside my twice daily stroll to and from my place of work.

This wouldn't be a problem, as I'm sure your own great-aunt follows many of these routines herself, if it weren't for the incessant wail she emits from her gargantuan mouth-hole.

“hhhhhuuuuuuuUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH” it goes, “AAAAAWWWWWWAAAAAAAA” it continues, “GGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” it crescendos, “hhhhhuuuuuuuuuu...” it deminshes, before finally ending in a large belch. The whole cacophony then starts up all over again and repeats and repeats and repeats.
She is an abomination of the human species and ever since her bulbous half brother passed away tragically at the "hands" of a Breville toaster I have become the only member of the family not to have disowned her, the reason for this being, as you bloody well know, I am a communist and believe, with all my heart, that ownership is theft. I simply will not steal my own great-aunt, only to pawn her like a Christmas gift from my mother. It's the principle of the thing!

You're looking decidedly more pinched since I last saw you. About the face, I mean. You know, the usual areas of sag. The sag is not apparent however. It is disguised by the pinch! And the pinching is far more pronounced than it should be in someone of your age. I forget your actual age but you are clearly not one of the age that the look of you suggests, pinched and sagging as you are (though subtle may be the sagging). I'm sure last time I looked and talked at you you were looking as someone whom you might pass and comment about how good they looked for their age...whatever that age might be. Those days are clearly gone, my friend. Take a good long look at yourself next time you're in the mirror and tell me you don't already see shades of my great aunt growing in you. You've not met the woman, but by god you'll meet her younger, less hideous sibling when you stare into your own reflection. You might, on this damning summary of your visage, be tempted to now rid your house of mirrors, avoid your ghastly looks altogether, but I warn you, one day you'll be at a formal function for a friend of yours who might be getting married, divorced or having some other marital party, and you'll be dressed in your Sunday finest, you might even be on the verge of convincing yourself that maybe, maybe you don't look so bad You'll socialise, you may gad about somewhat, you'll positively strut around the golden and glittering marital party room. A pianist will work his magic and as his fingers dance gaily across the monochrome joy-board a favourite song will jump suddenly to your brain, now so free of the weight of the soul crushing knowledge of your sagging and pinched aspect, and you will decide that what would really lift your spirits would be to hear this song and you'll walk confidently over to the pianist and you'll open your mouth and the words will already be spluttering out, and you'll reach him and, BY THE GODS, that piano is so polished up that, gaping up at you from the top of that cruel instrument, you see again your monstrous mask and you will run, run from the party, run from the world, run for you life.

You'll trip, you'll fall in a river and you'll die.

Well, I must be off.

Don't startle me again...

Happy St Salmon's Day

Greets.

Saw a man today, ambling airily down Marchmain Avenue. He was an upright cat with looks to suit his posture: Mancunian brow, herbivorous elbows, stern buttocks protruding loftily from the usual area. His gaze swept in an arc from side to side following a long cylindrical tool as it thrashed about in a subdued manner.

You might say here, 'Stop!' or 'Wait!' or 'Shut the hell up you absolute lunatic!' as one man did to me quite recently, shortly before suffering a massive heart attack by my hands. You might then continue, "this object was both thrashing and subdued?"
"Why yes, you cock and balls, it was," I would reply "and when you see a fellow of this man's ilk you'll understand precisely what I'm on about!"

I approached him, trying to look uninterested by his swishing-wand and engaged him a fairly nonchalant manner

"Get your lips off my metal-detector, sir." He belched violently at me very nearly removing my false moustache. "That is my very expensive property, you shit, and if you don't start removing your body parts from it I shall have them removed (by court order)!"
I returned to face him eyeball to eyeball. Then, when it became obvious that there was no way to hold a conversation in this stance I took a step back leaving a 2'3" gap (69.5cm) between us.

"A metal detector!" I swooned (away from him, and slightly to the right) "of all the majestic devices to be held by you sir, that one takes the jelly!" I was clearly over-awed by this device, having not seen one since its first invention in the 1930s. A mélange of bodily fluids swelled in me at its sight.

"Indeed." he replied, continuing to swoosh his steel magneto-baton.

"Then that, by Henry, makes you a metal detective, does it not?" I asked with rhetoric, in the knowledge that I was lexically correct.

"YOU WHAT?" His tonsils nearly quit his head with the shout he levelled at me. "I am a 'Metal Detectorist', you heaving imbecile! A 'METAL DETECTORIST'!"

I kept my composure.
"Indeed. And do you, then, 'detector' metal for a living?"

"It is not a living, it is a hobby and I detect it, you...you..." His chest heaved. I could smell the yell brewing in his veins. I decided I must take action and immediately popped my larger cork between his rosy mouth-flaps.
He, of course, burst and Doggo had quite a feast that night!
I believe it was fine come-uppance for such wild and deluded use of the English language.

Doggo, by the way, is my new puppy. Kalim Gerald Barkleton Twing sadly passed away. The coroner's report mentioned something about dogs not being able to survive in the vacuum of space, but I say where else can you go to take a dog for a walk when you live in a space shuttle?

Anyway, the hearing's on Friday so I'll let you know how that goes. You never know, it might be back to lovely prison for me!

S-S-S-Sarlog

The further pontifications of Buffo Cribbins

Good Garland!
How fares your fine collection of asps?
What, me? No, no asps to speak of! not since that time in Leningrad. Those were the days, eh? Those nights we spent in jail. The food was top notch! Or should I say 'Top Nosh'?! Ho-ho, just my little joke, no need to point your pistols at me!
How I do love jail...
You know next year I fancy spending a few days in pokey down in Kuala Lumpur. I hear the service is impeccable and if you're very fortunate, you might get shivved! I love a good shivving, don't you?
What?
Then why do you keep a fragment from that one in Lenny in your kidneys.
Damn it all, sometimes I just can't figure you out...
Well, I'm glad you love a good shivving because...All right, now, put the pistols away, I said.
The man can't take a joke, it seems.
Well there are no rubber shivs in Koala Jumpur!
I should coco!


Now, I gave my word to the fellow who told me this little gem that I would never mention his name to another soul, but as you have no soul I'll gladly furnish you with this little factule.

His name was Buffo Cribbins, the famous cannonball giant and confidant of none other than Lady Stewardess Queen Victoria of Danelaw and Parts Beyond, and as I happened on him in the street we got talking, sharing stories, you know. We pepped and bazzed and flew the chute for what seemed like seven minutes (though it was actually six minutes and fourteen seconds) and in that time I grew to fancy Mr Cribbins something rotten. I shared with him my exploits and my adventures. My triumphs and my failures. My jam AND my marmalade!
And by and by Mr Cribbins (Buffo) told me of a land where bizarre things are made as real as my love for tambourines. A land where stinging nettles are used to make a drink, a land where man keeps bees, a land where gloves are worn on soles of the feet!

I vomited in stark horror at these tales and asked him where this place of madness lay and he said, "You bladdy idiot, yous got mad or sumfin'? You's a-standin' in it! Horf horf horf!" His accent modulated to suit his moods, you see.

The land he spoke of, of course, was England and he reprimanded me for being an imbecile as I now reprimand you.

It was all true!

Even the whole gloves on feet business!

What a world we live in!


He died shortly after.

I'll gladly take some more tea, but maybe not today...The pain is still too near for me.

Sarlog (BA Homs)


P.S. You totally owe me £17. I'm on to you...

Crustacean Delights

Hello.

Yesterday I stopped being a crab, as I had promised myself I would. Was it the right decision? Well, only time will tell. And as they say, time is money and money talks! So maybe money will tell. I'll make sure to keep a close eye on the pictures of Issac Newton I keep in my pockets.
I had been in a crably shape for quite some time, detecting various crab/lobster related anomalies which I won't go into here. Suffice it to say it was a completely great time and not at all a waste of my not inconsiderable detecting abilities.
During my time as a crab I managed to befriend various and sundry sea and land animals and plants and their combined knowledge and experience taught me a great many things. Here is a list of those things:
1, "Lost" is completely over/underrated.
2, A change is as good as a rest.
3, A bird in the hand is worth eating quickly before it escapes.
4, You couldn't do that in real life, it must be photoshopped.
5, Red sky at night, shepherd's alright. Red sky at morning, shepherd's a-yawning.
6, You're not allowed to say 'Eskimo' any more.
As you can see, these are pieces of advice previously unknown to mankind and for presenting them to the internet thus I believe I will be sat on the Nobel Prize for catering in no time.

One of my fondest memories of my time as a crab was when my whale friend, Boris-Martin Fantashelle, came up on to the sand for a bit of an old conversation. We talked for a good seven hours before he finally exploded. Those were the days.
Now all there is left to me is to readjust to my less crustacial appearance and to try and avoid holding my hand like a pincer and jabbing people who annoy me. But that, I know, is a problem we all face.

Sarlog Claws

You might have thought, prior to reading this, "Why, it has been many moons since Sarlog Homs last pumped the blogosphere full of his hot salty ideas" and, in a way, you would right in thinking so. However, moving fluidly between dimensions, as is my wont, I often experience time on a different scale to smaller animals and therefore what may seem like a matter of months to you is closer to a matter of many years to me. Also I've had a lot on, alright? Jeez, get off my back. No one pays me for this you know.
What?
Nothing!
I wasn't doing anything!
I've just been busy in general, okay?

Kittens

A man recently said to me:
'Why are there no Kittens in Saxon literature?'
A fine question, though actually it was asked by a woman.
I changed the sex of the asker to make the question more credible.
Did it work?
I feel it did!

Well, as my profession is DETECTIVE I decided to find out a little about this confusing and yet somehow perplexing conundrum.
What I have discovered is this short entry on Wikipedia:

Kittens -
Invented in 1604 by Sir Alfred Kitten as an alternative to puppies. If a man were to ask for a dog for Christmas, a good hunting dog with an excellent nose and proud aspect, this dog would initially be in the form of a trial-dog, or puppy. This, of course, was to save space and food and to act as a dog 'cooling off' period in which the new owner could decide whether they could truly allocate the correct amount of time required in caring for a dog. After this short period you could then decide to upgrade the 'puppy' to a dog or you could bung him in the furnace.
Sir Alfred Kitten had noticed, however, that there was no cat alternative. His good lady-wife has asked for one (for Christmas) and he had been reluctant to get one. He had heard stories from all his good friends at the man-house that there were wont to shit everywhere and didn't give a toss about their supposed owners. This didn't seem like the type of animal he would want to have or that he would want his wife to have.
Of course, men being men, they were biased and stupid - particularly in the olden days, I mean, really, they were some thick idiots back then, eh? With this in mind he resolved to find a way in which to create a puppy-cat in order that he and his wife could find out for themselves whether this animal was right for them. It would be a cat, much smaller than you would normally see dragging a rat carcass around in the street, and it would have heightened fluffiness and cuteness, so as to make the shitting/arrogance more tolerable. If, by chance, the experiment amounted to nought, well he could always chuck it on the fire.
So he locked himself in his "silver jubilee" workshop with little but a hammer and a cup and a half of brandy and he set to work. Over the coming days and nights his wife was disturbed on no less than seventeen occaisions by the eerie noises coming from her husbands hideaway, but not once did she enter, for that, she knew, would incur her genius husband's wrath.
After many days of toil in his workshop Sir Alfred Kitten emerged with his cat-puppy. it was everything he had hoped for. Cute, small...the woiks. And in his pride he named it after himself...
The Kitten.

So you see, the reason Saxons never wrote about kittens was because they hadn't been invented yet....

Alright?

Laters potaters!

Sarlie-H

A Very Fine Film Indeed

Dearest reader,

As a detective (of sorts) I often feel the need to detect.
Indeed, there is very little I will not attempt to detect in one manner or another. Maybe you will see me, of an afternoon, swinging a metal detector wildly around a local park, trying to discover which trees have gold in (very few) or if dogs are made of aluminium (they are!). Mayhap I could be spied asking an unusually large builder why his head is so big or asking a doctor of medicine why an eye goes black when one is hit by a builder.
You see, I will detect anything.

One recent and truly top-hole detection I have made is that of a curious film based on the much loved series of books by writer and mentalist Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sherlock Bones The Motion Picture."
The books, as you might have guessed, are about a crime solving dog with a Scottish accent and a penchant for leading fat, ugly children around in the name of detection, a dog after my own heart (as I am a man after a dog's heart!). It concerns smugglers, smuggling and attaching manquins to boats.

The film is an authentic representation of "Bones" in so far as he is a dog with a Scottish accent solving crimes, fat children, men in lycra shorts etc. etc. However, it commits that frequent and most heinous of crimes: transporting the stories to America, home of the brave, land of the fee, house of the Whopper, the big meg, the chilli on cheese, the cheese on toast, where's my beef, helicopter's folly, Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Any realism that the original books may or may not have contained is completely wiped away by this incongruity and after mere minutes of listening to the talk-boxes of some of these yankee doodles one, as always, becomes nauseous.

Another unfathomable detail is the glaringly obvious omission of "Watson", Bones' flying nursemaid with a brain capacity the size of a super-computer and "Moriarty: The Horse With The Force."

Despite these little snafus Sherlock Bones The Motion Picture is quite the rollercoaster ride of emotions. The main one being the need to punch fat, ugly children square in the jaw.
And in that way is it not 100% accurate to the book? I say 'yes'!

Any self respecting or self loathing fan of the mad druid Arthur Conan Doyle should immediately beg borrow or steal this moving photogram on Video Laser Disc or beta-max wax cylinder.

It's fun for all the family (although second-cousins may feel sexually uncomfortable during some scenes).

Watch it and report back to me.

HOMS