SQUID ID

The psilocybin mushrooms are in the fridge but he dare not take them because of the things that can be seen in the non-patterning of the beige tiles in the hotel bathroom. The effect is like a smoke image produced by holding a candle under white paper or a pale surface, or perhaps like floating an oil based or semi-soluble paint in water over a white surface. Totally irregular, no two tiles are the same, but given a fairly lively imagination and a bit of concentration, many snapshots from other places were being shown on the bathroom wall tonight:

· The land of the flat faced bat-cat with tufted ears and a knife-sharp-toothed grin

· The sheikdom of the eyeless Arab

· The skies flown by the awe inspiring pterodactyl

· The planet ruled by the monkey with lightning coming from its eyes

· That location of which the blunt-toothed gargoyle speaks animatedly

He cannot tell, because he cannot go there, perhaps even with the assistance of psilocybin mushrooms, ( although the quantities of them that he has taken so far give him the feeling that he might be starting that journey), but none of the above seem as though they might be good places. Yet, although the faces of their denizens and rulers, as shown in the bathroom wall tiles, have fearsome aspects, they do not seem to be bad places either. Merely very, very different places with unknown rules based on huge tessellated and towered mental structures discerned dimly through the swirling patterns of the bathroom tiles and the complicit smirks of their understanders, for demons are always good and bad.

On Christmas morning one can wake up feeling free of demons, for a second or two at least, until you realise that you are on a package holiday in Tenerife. Trapped in vast leisure Industry mega-factory thousands of miles from mainland Europe. Stuck on a strip of sand and lava between the saw-toothed mountains and the sad Atlantic, hemmed in by motorways and patrolled by short trousered police on electric scooters and private security dressed up in Tyrolean costumes or as gnomes. A temporary escape can at least be made on a whale watching catamaran cruise.

Grinning tanned reps assemble enough Angloid lardbuts to load up their catamaran and then sail slowly south, plying the lardy ones with free booze the while, lest they get any thinner. Riding low in the water, the catamaran soon comes across the pod of pilot whales that usually sleep on the surface near here.

The whales whistle to one another to maintain their relative positions and formation, the catamaran cuts its engine and circles them. The lardies look on, drink, point their videos and cameras, drink, stand up, drink, drink point at the whales, drink, eat sandwiches and , drink. The captain of the catamaran tells the lardies a story about the pilot whales.

“This whales are short-finned pilot whales. They is sleepings now, please do not shout, we do not want to disturb thems. This whales is not eat plankton, this are toothéd whales, have tooths. This whales eat gigante squid. This squid is living very, very deep in the sea, 400 metres perhaps. At this deep the whales cannot see, but each whale have in his head this echo-location, he is like sonar, so he find the squid. The giant squid is very, very big and the short-finned pilot whales is only quite small, you can see…..”

We could see, the pod that we circled was about ten or twelve beasts big. These beings were black, six or seven feet long, one at least with its smaller whale calf following. Their dorsals cut the sea’s surface and it was possible, after a bit, to see that individual whales had different fins. One was curled over, almost into an ‘S’ shape, others were almost sharply triangular, most followed the damned bell curve between these two extremes, being rounded off triangles. Sometimes the whales coasted along all fins above the surface, and at others, perhaps when the boat got too close, they dipped under the sea top and rose up again a few yards further on. This motion was like the way dolphins swim, but without all the showy leaping, squeaking noise and begging to track suited guards for herring.

Now the captain of the catamaran psychoanalysed the whales: ““This whales is very clever, they do not sleep like us who is dives deep in sleep and is probing the Id underneath, and all this collective unconscious and all this. Underneath whales is ocean, we fly over it like birdes is fly over us. To us ocean is one blue thing, is one mass of water, is saltwater, is wet water, is one blue wet thing. But ocean is not one thing, he is not homo, he is hetero watter….”

The lardies, who the captain was apparently addressing, were by now either so pissed on free beer and wine that they couldn’t understand what he was saying, even if they had been able to understand it anyway, (when sober, which was infrequent), or they were Dutch or Scandinavian, or as was the case with the two of them with the most developed mentation, they were arguing over the only one last free bocadillo left between the two of them and who to sue about it, given the zero-sum situation about bocadillos which appeared then to prevail on the catamaran i.e. that some other greedy lardperson had consumed two of them instead of his/her single bocadillo ration.

“….he is watter of different levels.” The captain continued. “ This levels I speak of is levels of temperature, of pressure, of consciousness, of being itself, which, (one assumes), entails different world views. But goes up, the other goes down, the whales and squids that is. In day, the ocean segment where squid is frolic descend, he go down and short finned pilot whale cannot dive so far, so he sleep here, but their breathing is voluntary, so they is trifurcate their brain: swim, sleep, breathe all at once. Clever whales.

At night the squid level rise and the clever whales dive, but unlike the psychoanalytically trained captain of catamaran, they is conscious when they go so deep. I can only reach the level of the squid when I sleep, sleep, and sleep. The squids are big, I know, I have seen the vast expanses of their tentacular reach, the enormity of their jet propelling ink-farts, the snip-snap-snapping of their cannibalistic beaks, and the rolling and focussing of their football-sized eyes. But whales is smarts, when they swim in id of squid, whale is ego, grab squid and climb, climb, climb. If you have dived, you know, even from small depth, too much pressure change too fast is bad, so squid explodes, bang and whales eat him.”

Lardies paid no attention.

“Please only take one bocadillo each. “ One of the Capitan’s assistants admonished, but it was too late.

“Now is time for swimming, we go to swimming, place.” the captain announced

The lardy-laden catamaran sailed away from the pod of pilot whales to an inlet where so semi-conscious lardies swam in the shallows, others slumped on deck, all drank. The boat now played music to accompany these proceedings, presumably as this would no longer distract the short-finned pilot whales from their quasi-sleep.

As the lardies swam, displaying the full extent of their tattoos, the music was sort of ambient, chill-out, Holgar Czukay style stuff. But then after the lardies were all back on the catamaran and as it glided along the coast on its way back to its harbour. Past the fish farms., the artificial jetties, the new luxury up-market style town apartment style complexes with double electric fencing, searchlights, watchtowers and very Tyrolean security staff, and the shacks of the island’s small underclass, made of bamboos and bits of old tarpaulin. As the catamaran glided past all of this in the dry hot merciless sunlight of a near equatorial Christmas which was at least not in Britain, the sound track changed to some kind of reggae filth. This moved a mother of chavs to wave her breasts at people on shore, they probably could not see what she was doing, but this did not deter her from sending messages in mammary Morse or titular semaphore, all the while shouting; “Whooo! Whooo! Whooo!” and “Whoooo!”. Fortunately the embarrassing woman shut up soon because she was sick, mostly over the side of the boat, (although some of her vomit got on the deck), before the catamaran docked.

The catamaran docked and he climbed back up past the ‘friendly’ Irish pubs and Scottish pubs and German pubs and English pubs and ‘happy’ English restaurants and German restaurants and the reassuringly English, German and Spanish supermarkets and mini-markets, some of which sold proper crisps, baked beans and Smirnoff at only €5 per litre. Until he reached his room in the Tenereifoplaza hotel where there was the psychedelic bathroom wall displaying:

· The land of the flat faced bat-cat with tufted ears and a knife-sharp-toothed grin

· The sheikdom of the eyeless Arab

· The skies flown by the awe inspiring pterodactyl

· The planet ruled by the monkey with lightening coming from its eyes

· That location of which the blunt-toothed gargoyle speaks animatedly

He did not feel psychologically strong enough to cope with these alternative realms yet (psilocybin mushrooms or not), especially as their analogous relationship to the relative depths, diving capacities, and predatory behaviour of short-finned pilot whales and giant squid were only just beginning to sink in/up/down/into his own sun-frazzled anglo-brain.

So he chilled out with some artisan style Gomerian potato crisps and a nasty 72% double-brewed malt beer called “Specialer Vole-Twaart” (or something), whilst looking at live TV shots of a tsunami drowning Sri Lankans on Sky News.

It was horrible, you saw the brown surge of water, you saw two men standing on the side of the partially capsized bus, the vast tide swirling round their feet and after a bit you realised what could be happening inside the bus. God rest their souls, they go to heaven or a better life. But why should God rest them? Wasn’t it He/she/It/None of the above who had an itch in the nose and went: “arrr, errr… errrr. Errrr

TSUNAMI

Never mind, what can you do?

Immediately the answer is eat the buffet hotel meal that he has already paid for. Drink too much red wine and have a piece of diced carrot from the Russian salad lodge firmly in his moustache to the disgaut of his fellow singles holiday clients. Then go and see the floor show in the Tenereifoplaza ‘Bougainvillea’ performance area. It is the great DERMO and his glamorous assistant Katrin Gigantbox. He is a sort of shiny black plastic trousered bad latin knife throwing act who saves himself by Tommy Coopering but has to speak 25 euro linguas so ‘communicates’ mostly by fast claps and stamps and shouting “OY” or “HAY” (or something like that). His major talent is balancing bits of furniture on his chin whilst accompanied by fat Polish tart. He balances:

• Plastic chair
• Stack of (approx) 20 glasses
• Plastic table
• Wooden armchair with stuffing
• Wooden coffee table
• Plastic lounger from next to hotel swimming pool
• Sofa (3 seater) (Polish tart removes cushions)
• Medium sized aluminium ladder

Then brings on puma cub on lead, end of act.

Now it is night, the level of consciousness is sinking towards the Id as the level of water in which the giant squid swims rises. The kingdoms concealed beneath the bathroom tiles emerge from their dimensions to connect a human brain and call it into their thrall.

Soon there will be an empty Hotel room.

P. R. Murry

Extract of Bus Blog From the Future (Zolan Zeitgeist's)

FRAN TELLS A STORY ABOUT GRANNY ADA

New was not a word they would have understood. On Planet Gossum people lived entirely off what had been made or grown before. If I had to say what creature they most resembled it would be a carrion one, like an ant, gleaning and cleaning and making do - except they were all too different to really be like ants - they were scavengers - yes - scavenger creators! that's what they were. People called Gossum: Poor Gossum - low grade - high activity, and said, "If you lived there, my dear, you would spend half your working time farming and half of it picking up things to make and mend, but mark this! you would spend all your waking life talking".

My granny Ada Dementiana was a great talker, she came from there to Oldearth by accident. She and her college friends were headed for Prisdel on a day out but the bus driver missed the 462 bus strobe and came in on a 47 one instead. By the time they had alighted and stopped talking for a minute long enough to realise their mistake - Prisdel being nothing like Oldearth - the bus had gone again.

You know, Gossums were very resourceful and clever but really had no idea what the rest of the universe was like. No-one had vids let alone threedee ones. None of them had been away from Gossum before so you can imagine what it was like to come to such a profligate planet as Oldearth. Ada kept a journal, she had stitched random photos together and wrote on the back of them - like everyone on Gossum, she believed in the spirit of the collage, the shock of pain and pleasure as we turn a forboding page!

We know from her journal that at first she thought everyone on Oldearth had poor eyesight because they wore spectacles and they often stumbled. Of course they had glasses on so they could watch soaps all the time and anytime, as well as see to negotiate their way. Vidspecs - she had never seen them before! but when she did find out I think she knew it was, well, as she said: "a bit unhealthy!"

She talks about the fact that everyone wore new all the time - she keeps on repeating new - playing with it - as if she is both shocked and delighted with the thought of it - " new cars, new clothes, new gadgets, new smoke, new cough, new sky, new this, new that!" But then after a few days: "Found some old new clothes in a second-hand shop, fancy patterns - very, very, very cheap - yum, yum, yummy! - did some unpicking, cutting and snipping - then some adding and stitching and - wow - what a sight! Look now! - I am made up! Now I am at home!"

A few pages on and she is going on about the rubbish: " Its up to the eaves in some places. I ask them why. They say all the valleys are filled, so there is nowhere else for it to go. I say to them, "'Look, where I come from we would have been all over this, ransacked it! its a treasure trove, there's enough prime material here to make you all trillionaires!' But the fact is that new is so easy to come by that new is what they must all have!" And a week later she is complaining about the air, and that she will have to wear a gas mask, and don't they know about converting polycarbonates to oxygen and the rest, and why does everyone talk about Buggerenders all the time, and why can't you get fresh water anywhere?

It turns out that Granny's lost party all got temporary jobs so as to get by whilst they waited to return to Gossum. Some of them made metal and electronic things from scrap they picked up, and some like Ada made fashion garments from rags and remnants for the costume trade and called their wares the New New New. But in the week before their bus was due the fuzz got to hear about them and they were taken in for questioning and then thrown in gaol on suspicion of unlicensed labouring, pilfering from waste sites, going round undesignated areas, not paying taxes and looking suspicious. Then there was a court case and they were declared illegal aliens and there was another case and they were accused of being terrorists and ordered to be deported to Oblov and other planets for reprocessing, which really meant that because one had been sent to another quite separate administration one could be tortured.

It was reciprocal really. When Oblov collected some suspicious visitors they would be shipped off to Oldearth and tortured there, and nobody the wiser where they had gone. Why does anyone want to torture anyone, eh? Is it retribution?

You ask why if they were all young and innocent they would be so mistreated? Why didn't anyone in authority say: "Hang on, this isn't right, this stinks, these people seem OK so why should we not believe them? It was our Interstella bus brought them here, why don't we just send them back?" But the fact was that they were different - I mean no basic difference physically - but they seemed different in a weird yet undefinable way and they looked like they could see what was going on and the Oldearthers felt that just by being there and asking questions was unsettling, especially when Gossums asked things like: "Look if half a trillion people are watching Buggerenders are you sure you want to as well? Wouldn't you like to be different?"

I think it was because Oldearthers felt guilty that they contrived all sorts of bogus accusations to hurt people from other planets and get rid of them. According to Ada they said things like: "You're after our blokes! You're scroungers after our generous welfare give-away thises or thatses! You've come to snatch our children! You have come to steal our jobs!"

It wasn't more than three years after this the waste caught fire and set the air alight and the whole of Oldearth went up like a catherine wheel, and then it was easy for people from other planets to say: "Well they should have done this and done that and it could have been avoided." But those Oldearthers were so soft headed from the vids they were blind to the signs, when the blaze started they thought it was the next spectacular episode of Buggerenders. The fact is, they needed strangers however weird they looked! They should have listened. If they had not been so keen to deport them, strangers might have shown them how not to die.

Most of Granny's friends disappeared on Oblov. She was on the run for a year before she got away dressed in gent's clothes. She slipped on board a188 and the bus conductor gave her a conspiratorial wink and didn't look at her papers or tickets and when she alighted in Farout at the end of the line she invited the conductor out to dinner - there still were conductors on Interstella buses at that time. They had fourteen children - all girls.

Why had no-one at Oldearth bus station suspected her of being anything other than a regular Oldearth female? Her gent's suit was brand new!

Emile Sercombe

New Beast On Kilburn Streets

Ou sont les fucking Drunks de Kilburn d'antan

It pads as soft as a Yeti on snow,
It has no physical form or smell
Nor can its dread presence be discerned
By any bloodcurdling howl, shriek or yell.

It pads as soft as a Yeti on snow,
Through shadows, alleys, shop doorways and gates
Past the fragrant wheelie bins
To where the drunks used to congregate

There, by the side of the cash machine,
They loved to urinate, vomit and sing
And when stout citizens passed them by
To offer to smash their fat faces in.

But now those merry drunks have gone
Like yesterday's fashion, like yesterday's snow
Like dissidents wearing concrete boots
Flown out over the ocean where nothing will show.

There's a drunk-shaped silence beside the cash machine,
Stout citizens pass and start to forget
How bourgeois normality once was perfumed
With cider smelling breath and threats

For it padded up softly as a Yeti on snow,
Led the drunks away in firm legal embrace
It came and went, it was an ASBO
And when our turn comes, we'll be gone without trace.

Peter Murry

DOOM

Heavily plagiarised from extracts of OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT, Wackernagel and Rees 1996 & VALUING THE EARTH, Daly and Townsend. 1993. Found on the dieoff.org website. Any inaccuracies are my own.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases. The system runs down. All energy is used up, all concentrations of matter are evenly dissipated, all gradients disappear. There is no potential for further work. The system completely degrades.

Systems that are not isolated, such as the human body or the economy, are subject to the same forces of entropic decay. This means that to maintain life, stability and growth, they must import high-grade energy and material from the outside and export back degraded energy and material.

Nothing can live in a capsule of its own shit.

The human economy is complex and dynamic and although you would not believe it from the endogenous obfuscations of the economists, it is an open system dependent on a materially closed, non-growing ecosphere. The economy needs the ecosphere for its production of high grade energy and matter and its capacity to assimilate waste.

After a certain point, the continuous expansion of the economy, can be purchased only by increasing decay in the ecosphere. When and where consumption by the economy exceeds production in nature the depletion of the natural capital will become obvious. There will be reduced biodiversity. There will be air, water, and land pollution, atmospheric change, melting ice caps, disappearing glaciers, increasing desertification, moving monsoons, rising tides etc.

It will begin to feel as if you are living in your own shit and the only escape is to leave the planet.

Zolan Quobble