Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World

I've always been interested in UFOs, Lake Monsters and other Cryptids, and as the famous UK magazine called it, "The Unexplained". And that is despite knowing it all to be nonsense.

I think it is always going to be a part of humanity to want their lives to be full of mysteries, to not want everything to be explained lest the world becomes boring.

I can't remember when I became interested in all this stuff, but I've got a feeling that Arthur C.Clarke's Mysterious World, which was first shown in around 1980, was a big part of it.

Right from the crystal skull - a wonderful object we now know to be a modern fake - rotating to face the camera in the opening titles and causing the terrified me to look away before its unearthly eyes gazed upon my child face.

There were, I think, 12 episodes, some dealing with non-supernatural stuff we don't know the purpose behind - chalk figures, the Nazca Lines, the Tunguska event etc - that I as a child found a bit humdrum compared to the episodes that dealt with the real hard stuff - The Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, Yetis and Bigfoot.

Narrated by soon to be TV-AM newsreader Gordon Honeycomb in doom laden tones - "Is this a photograph of Nessie's flank?" - I have always remembered the story of the Scottish forestry worker who was attacked by two spiky balls that emerged from a spaceship.

The (faked) photography of the Loy's Ape cryptid was always pretty scary too.

But the most famous imagery from the show, to me anyway, is the Patterson Bigfoot film from 1964. Now accepted to be a pretty blatant "man in a suit" fake, back in the day it attracted serious scientific study from academics, and serious outbreaks of sleeping with the light on from me.

All text Copyright Bloody Mulberry 16.08.20

What is Going on with Betelguese? I hope it's not Boring!

Betelgeuse, Alpha Orionis, the blazing orange star that marks the shoulder of Orion, the celestial hunter, well it's been going through a weird time lately.

First of all it faded so much it went from one of the ten brightest stars in the sky to being one outside the top thirty and nearly outshone by Bellatrix and its other less famed constellation-mates.

"Was it going to go Supernova?" wondered more click hungry astronomical sources and even I looked at it with excitement, wondering if at any second it would suddenly flare up and blaze brighter than the full moon and cast us all in starlight the likes of which no pair of eyes on this earth has ever seen.

Of course, it didn't, and I can see with my own eyes that it has started to brighten noticeably again. probably some dust built up in its atmosphere and then was blown away to free the light again. Boo, mundane, boring, dull.

Could it be more exciting? Perhaps it was a giant signal, a giant curtain of star-proof material, held before the star and then let go to signal the start of a giant space race, a race of super powerful spacecraft looking to see who could be the fastest to Rigel and back. Perhaps we will soon see (from 600 years ago obviously) their hge glowing ion trails shining through the spaces in the stars as they rip space time to pieces as they compete for the universe equivalent of the Indy 500?

Maybe a Dyson Sphere was being constructed, and someone fucked it up and broke the whole thing, a sleepy multi tentacled crane operator the size of the moon drunk on the fucking job fucking typical.

Maybe they were just repainting Betelgeuse and ran out of paint.

or perhaps, just perhaps, perchance, perhaps, a massive solar sail was being unfurled on a generational ship designed to sail space to the Earth and render us slaves, or worse still food?

The sail has now stopped blocking the starlight, and the ship to end civilisation is on the way.

Copyright BloodyMulberry 17.03.20

The Planting

The Planting

How I came into possession of the sapling that I dug out a whole for near my fruitful orchards is a
mystery. Well not a mystery, I was given it by a friend, but its provenance, who knows.

I knew it was unusual, and I joked to my friend that it was probably “other-worldly” to which he
laughed and got into his car and drove off.

He said that just growing fruit was boring and I needed something else to do. Something different. 

And different it certainly was. It’s bark was purple and shiny, its leaves blue green and succulent,
and as I was to find out after I let it settle in for a few days with some eco frienly (of course)
peat substitute and a minor watering, it grew quickly.

For a year, unbothered by sun, rain, frost or snow, it made its way upwards, overlooked initially
by the pear and apple boughs but gradually growing to surpass their height by the end of year two.

In its third summer, some of the leaves gradually turned blue, then purple, and then boughs
drooped towards the ground, opening up like elongated lilypads, curling invitingly inwards
and waving in the breeze. They ended up with their pointed tips just touching the grass of the orchard.

Alas after that, the tree began to sicken, the bark grow cankers, the leaves yellowing at the
edges. I had no idea what to do.

My friend came to visit me, and berated me mildly saying that I had not looked after his gift properly.
Ok fine. 

But then he said it was no wonder my wife had left me for a younger man. This I could not
tolerate. You know I hadn’t thought about it in so long, and where she was, and where he was, I
had almost succeded in forgetting about it. They were out here, somewhere, buried and buried in
my memories, in this orchard, the orchard I had put my life into, the trees and fruit I had concentrated
on to the exclusion of all else, the apple tree where she was, the pear tree where he was, and
this, this fucker, was trying to bring it all back and make me think of people again, horrible, idiotic
love sucking people, ugh, well, I knew what I had to do, there and then, to make me well, to
make the tree well, to make everything well.

I punched his cunt face in the face, and shoved him into the vulva count of a leaf that was
beckoningly so invitingly for him, with all of my might. 

The leaf, more substantial than we could imagine, enfolded him like a lover, before crushing his
cunt body like a fist around a ping pong ball and absorbing all he was with great thirst.

Then the leaf rose from the ground, dripping, and as fast as a bird flies across the disc of the sun,
the tree began to heal.

And me with it. 

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 28.02.20

Have we been too Harsh on Alanis Morrisette?

Critical re-appraisal time, prompted by me hearing my sweetly singing colleague quietly singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morrisette. Twenty years old now, that song. Crazy.

(BTW - "Crazy" by Aerosmith is even older, 23 years old).

She had an amazing impact, did Alanis. I thought "You oughta know" was astonishing when I heard it, even if it was castrated by Radio 1. "Are you thinking of me, When you __________ her" my tower hi-fi used to say. What? "Instruct?" "Massage?" "Cook?".

Oh. Fuck. Oh fuck.

But then a bit later "Ironic" came out, and things started going a bit haywire for our favourite Canadian chanteuse. First up, people began to talk about her acceptable, but hardly Cindy Crawford, looks. "She's got a big behind" said others. "Is that a hint of a moustache problem?" mused an unsubtle minority.

But the real problem was "Ironic" itself. It wasn't. Ironic. English lit. smart-arses have been on its case ever since.

"Oh, what she's singing about isn't ironic" they would chirp. "They are just things that piss you off a bit. That's not irony. Tchah."

And looking at the song 20 years down the line, they are right. It isn't really ironic. Not being able to smoke on a fag break is an annoyance. Dying the day after winning the lottery is a pisser as well. Rain on your wedding day is a drag, but it isn't even remotely ironic. "Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife" is just bad culinary planning.

However, I'm going to be charitable. I think being a chap who is afraid to fly, who then musters up all his courage and steel to get on a place only to be immediately killed in a plane crash; well, at the very least that is certainly in the ball park of irony. I might even be so bold to call it, here and now, actually Ironic.

Sorry Alanis. We've been far too harsh on you. We should take at least one, tiny bit of it back.

Even if we can't forgive the unflattering nudity in the "Thank You" video.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 20.05.15

Who Will do the First Striptease in Space?

We live in a world now where such things as lap dances have becom regarded as a common, low brow, peasanty-footballer viewing pursuit, and burlesque, although still an exotic pursuit, is something that can safely be discussed on 7pm chat shows and other mass media.

Nudity for pleasure on Earth is just sooooo over.

Other frontiers are of course available. Despite the recent Spaceship 2 accident, the race for leisure trips into space goes on unabated. Soon it won't just be the preserve of serious types with degrees in aeronautics, “The Man in the Street” - as a Tory councillor type patronised me the other day – will be up there too.

And where there is leisure, there is pleasure.

Up until now, as far as is known, being naked in space has been a purely practical exercise for the purpose of showering in a pretty unromatic bag of water droplets. To live permanently in space, one would think there must be breeding in space and there have been rumours that on one military shuttle missions, experiments into the practicalities of weightless sex were carried out. Results unknown.

Newton's third law will be a real headache for sex “up there”.

One would think however that shameless exhibition would be a lot easier, and I reckon it will happen a lot sooner that you think. I'm surprised that no-one was hired a so called “vomit comet” for adult movie production purposes, but I guarantee you that pretty early on in the space tourism industry, one of the major adult production houses will hire an entire flight of Virgin Galactic or their equivalent, and even if “fluidic exchanges” may be banned on grounds of risk of short circuit, stripping off should be no problem for folk of any sex.

It will be filmed, streamed, and sold. I give it seven years, tops, before it happens.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 01.04.15

  

"My Only Wish, to Catch a Fish"

I am a sociapathic criminal, alone in my lair with my devil ponderings.

I have so many enemies. I have a very large pond concealed under a false floor that drops away when I press a button on my megalomaniac console – don't worry, I also have an app on my mobile phone if I'm walking around a bit – but its deep, dark water is empty.

I have no suitable predators to put in it yet.

The agony of choice...

To have a concealed pool full of sharks, well, that jumped the shark years ago. Bloody Blofed and his Selachian cliches. Besides, they are protected, and as a committed environmentalist I cannot use an endangered species to tear my enemies limb from limb. I was a big fan of Steve Irwin, I used to love watcing him getting chased up trees by Komodo Dragons,  so I'm not going to use Stingrays. Horrible things. Frisbees with a toxic prong.

Jeremy Wade teaches us that there are many dangerous fish in the rivers of the world. The beautiful arapaima of South America, the repulsive, slimy wels catfish of Europe and the prehistoric looking giant alligator gars of America. All of these have their merits, but they are difficcult to transport and would struggle with captive living I suspect.

Piranhas schmiranas. All been done before. And as Jeremy Wade has shown, they aren't always that deadly. Sometimes, they are just too docile to strip a human being to the bone to order.

The other problem with most of these species is that they are a bit dull to look at. Electric eels can kill for fun, but they look like the inside of someone's colon. I man, urgh. For an aesthetic villain such as myself, no dice.

So, I made a decision. What fish could be better to keep in a freshwater tank than a neon tetra? The most familiar exotic aquarium specimen of all, beautiful, glowing red and blue ornaments to any fish tank.

Te trouble is, they only grow an inch long. They aren't going to eat many people at that size. But, genetics my friends! Even now my scientists are researching a way to make them grow to three metres long, with teeth like daggers and an irresistible desire for human flesh. No mtter how many men, women and children I throw to them, they will come back for more.

And my flesh eating fish will be as pretty as faeries, and swim amid their plastic pirate ships and treasure trunks. And my fortress of suffering SHALL BE COMPLETE!!!!

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 25.03.15

Ye Olde Terminator

My head spends an awful lot of time on idle thinking. Such things may or may not include...

1) - A meeting at the Bond Villain's volcano headquarters. Blofeld type chap sits at the end of the table, stroking his squashed face ugly Persian cat with one hand while fiddling with a cigar cutter with the other. Henchman sit around, fat ones, thin ones, scared ones, oriental ones, ones missing eyes, ones missing limbs. There is a solitary woman amongst them, sporting the correct number of eyes, arms and legs, but looking rather chubby.

"Gentlemen, before we discuss the implementation of "Operation Terror" can I just take this opportunity to give our best wishes to Jacqui from HR, who is going on maternity - and by the way, it isn't mine! Seriously, we wish you all the best, and enjoy being a mum!"

The fingers sporting rings containing poison pick up an envelope from Clinton's Cards. A factotum with a claw for a hand passes a bunch of Waitrose flowers over. A tin of Celebrations is opened, everyone goes straight for the malteser ones.

Well, it happens like this in every fucking workplace I've been in, why not Doctor Death's?

2) Due to navigation error, the Terminator goes too far back in time and finds himself having to kill a 13th Century ancestor of Sarah Connor. Naked, he first has to cloth himself.

"I want your jerkin, your bootikins, and your donkey" he announces to a passing peasant, before taking himself off down the Blacksmith's to get tooled up.

"I want a phased pulse rifle in the 40 megawatt range"

"Prithee Sire, only what you see!"

"The sword, the dagger, and the mace"

"A fine choice young master. All these weapons would surely grace a stout castle, which art thine fancy?"

"All of dem."

"Crivens! Thou shalt not do that, my liege."

"Wrong."

SWIPPPPPPPPEEEEEEE....kudummmmm