SAUSAGE LIFE

The race towards total imbecility is apparently unstoppable. Words which were once perfectly serviceable as nouns are now routinely mauled into verbs, (and vice versa) by people with no discernable grammatical sense whatever. You know who I’m talking about – actors, broadcasters, politicians, tragic wannabe reality stars and semi-vegetative talent-show judges, all role models for the unfortunate young. I pity our poor children, condemned to tread this linguistic minefield of gobshitery, who will grow up ‘birthing’, ‘transitioning’ and God forbid, ‘decisioning’, as their beautiful language crashes to the ground and bursts into flames. I have sent a copy of this poem to all secondary schools in the vain hope we can stem the tide before it’s too late.

To Be or Not To Be, That is the Ask

When I cut with my scalpel

I make an incision

When I make up my mind I’ll have made a decision

When I’m being precise

Then I speak with precision

So do me a favour and please don’t transition.

READER: Lol!

MYSELF: What are you laughtering at?

READER: I was just thoughting……

MYSELF: Well obstruction it.

BOOK REVIEWS

Potatoes of Bolivia 1900-1945, (Mauricio Fondo, Cabeza & Calabaza $15.99)

Holiday reading at its blockbusting best.......Fondo’s tight plotting and gritty characterization, combined with his signature surrealistic approach to geography have delivered a hard hitting neo-realistic sure-fire best-seller. The story revolves around two distant cousins, Tetera and Maceta, who, after a chance meeting with Marcello Stromboli the capo dei capo of the Andalucian Mafia in a La Paz karaoke bar, find themselves hopelessly entangled in the murky world of condemned meat. Set in a gated community of Norwegian trawlermen in Lake Titicaca, centre of Bolivia’s crime-infested potato industry, Calabaza’s often torrid prose has been favourably compared to the novels of Dame Barbara Cartland.

Boris Through the Looking Glass (Carroll Lewis, Drinkme Press, 10/6d)
In Lewis's extraordinary new novel we are introduced to a topsy-turvy world peopled with imaginary creatures, where the voracity of facts is tested to its limits. Truth is elastic, and able to swerve in whichever direction the recipient prefers. Facts and figures waft around like confetti, and the inhabitants quibble constantly about whether things are truths, half-truths, or not true at all, based entirely on what they do or don’t know. Perfect for reading in the burns unit after you’ve overdone it on the sunbed.
WARNING: Unsuitable for children, or suitable for children, depending on who did or did not recommend it.

POETRY NOW

Patrick Carabine’s latest collection Alien Breeze is out now. Here’s a preview.

THE PC CONSPIRACY
By Patrick Carabine

In the lexical swamp of today

There are things which

we can’t do or say

Like “I feel a bit queer.”

have some fags with our beer

or cavort like a bachelor gay.

In this difficult literary era

we don’t know if we’re

Victor or Vera,

The N-word the C-word

the wedlock-free B word

are all in the ear of the hearer.

It’s the P word

The S word

The educated guess word

The vaguely more-or-less word

That gets you in a mess.

Alive words dead words

ignorantly said words

fatally unread words

all-too-quickly spread words.

Each ill-considered mutter's

drawn directly, like the rain

through the gutter of confusion,

swallowed swiftly by the drain,

there to disappear like hieroglyphs

forever unexplained

Are we too afraid to utter,

hid behind sardonic shutters,

not your fake-phonemic margarine

but proper English Butter?

WARRIORS MANAGER CALLS IT UN GIORNO

Tributes pour in for Italian soccer supremo

Sergio ‘The Horse’ Peccadillo, footballing legend and manager of Hastings & St Leonards Warriors FC for over twelve months, will announce his retirement after their final home game of the season against Cockmarlin Thunderbolts, which will, sadly, also mark the Warriors’ relegation to the Nuclear Waste Disposal Solutions League (South) after only one season in the top flight.
After calls from some quarters for his removal following a litany of heavy defeats (including this season’s ignominious 8-0 exit from the first round of the Wendy’s Nail-Bar & Escort Agency Cup to arch-rivals Herstmonceaux Cannibals), the self-proclaimed Italian Stallion has finally decided to hang up his gold Rolex, Armani suit and Gucci loafers. Often mocked for his tenuous grasp of English, Sergio will nevertheless be remembered for his tactical genius. “I’ll never forget the boss’s first training session,” mused midfield enforcer Nobby Balaclava, “he gave us all a bowl of fettuccini and a glass of wine and took us out gambling. Afterwards, we all went to a pole dancing club in Cockmarlin where Welsh wizard Craig Cattermole famously got a three-match ban for simulation. True, we lost our first three games 8-0 under Sergio, but he soon settled in, and by mid-season our defeat average was down to respectable 4-0”.

As former Warriors’ goalkeeper Tim Smegma recalls: “Sergio was a breath of fresh air, particularly after the club’s previous disastrous appointments, like Spanish chorizo millionaire José Pypebahn, who’s sausage-based philosophy famously condemned the club to the lowly Hobson’s Denture Fixative League (south) for two seasons, or Gus Toylet (pronounced Toylay), who was sacked after only one game for match-fixing, money laundering and running an unlicensed escort agency.”
“Above all”, added Dutch groin-kick specialist Ruud van Smoot, “Mr. Peccadillo was a gentleman. I think this is perfectly illustrated by these inspirational words which he whispered into the ear of each and every one of the lads on match day as they filed out of the dressing room at kick-off time: “May I borrow your bicycle? My refrigerator is out of order”.

Sausage Life!

EPISODE 1:
Travel & transportation

EPISODE 2:
Body Parts

Click image to connect. Alice's Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode will centre around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs and a number of surrealistic and bizarre phone-ins and commercials from Bird Guano. Not forgetting everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

NB: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A PAID SUBSCRIPTION TO SPOTIFY, THE SONGS WILL BE OF RESTRICTED LENGTH