The Lair

I've always wanted to have a lair, a secret bolt hole a few miles away, on the outskirts of town.

What is it's purpose? Well, in my wandering mind, there are two stories that tell of “The Lair” - one is the dissident escaping the fascist torturing secret police, the Okrana of the future oppressors. For some reason, this internal story always involves jumping into a river, and finding my secret entrance under the surface, in the river bank. They chase me, dogs close behind, but after I've jumped in the weed and lily clad water by night, they lose my trail.

I enter the airlock behind a door disguised as shale and mud, and within I have a supply of food to last three years in a storeroom beneath a livving accomodation about the size of a tent, well equipped with sensors, and means of communication with my fellow dissidents.

The dogs and torturers clump about the surfae lit by a quarter moon. But they cannot find me, and when things quieten down the modern day junta defying Scarlet Pimpernel can escape from his hideout, and resume tweaking the tail of the neo-nazis and leading the popular rebellion.

A real life fantasy tale from the riverbank.

The other daydream is darker. I am a killer, a mass spree killer, who has carried out a brutally bloody crime for reaons beyond his understanding. I am cornered, like Peter Lorre in M, a cornered rat, fear in my eyes. I escape by bicycle, unlit, in dark country lanes, and race for a bridge out towards some local woodland. I am like an American black helicopter, a mutilator of cattle and people, of uncertain but perhaps celestial background. In the wall of the bridge on the cycle path, is a false brick that acts as the key to my lair and laboratory...the wall opens up, and the bicycle disappears.

I take the sack of organs from my shoulder, and place it in the medical fridge, as I turn of the Inrfa Red monitors and laugh at the police helicopter. They can't see me, this place gives off no heat trace as I burn the remains and transmit messages back to my handlers off world.

Every day, the modern day devil rides out, and patrols plebeian streets for victims.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 18.02.14

Iain M. Banks - Fearsum Endjinn

Well, have just finished readingh this, my 5th Iain M. Banks novel, and delivered it back to the sad green trolleys where library books go when they get returned.

It's not one of his Culture novels, being an earthbound story with a side serving what might be called "Virtual Reality", but shares a lot of their characteristics - separate storylines featuring three or four main characters that gradually come together for the finale; an interest in aritificial means of mind expansion, and an initial threat to humanity from a rather vague source ultimately secondary to the threats its appearance pre-empts.

As ever, it is a brilliant, vibrant read, if a real headache to get into at first because of the phonetic text style speak one of the characters employs, but ultimately as with every other Banks sci fi work I've read, it has one major frustration. The ending is just a colossal anti climax that doesn't really seem to resolve anything.

It's maddening! The journey is always amazing and engrossing, but always far more interesting than the destination. I suppose that vague threats generate woolly endings, but it always disappointing from such a wonderful writer.

The Decadent Future - The Hunger Games, and The Fifth Element

It struck me, just before a lampost nearly did, as I cycled to work this morning, how much the capital city sequences of the "The Hunger Games" reminded me of the fabulous Besson and Gaulthier (oh yeah, and Moebius I think) created world of The Fifth Element...

I rewatched The Hunger Games over the weekend, and got stuck into the reasonably generous DVD extras, a rare thing on a plain old DVD these days. The powers that be want us to shell out for our extras on all The Blu Rays no-one seems to be buying. For all its origins as a piece of (horror word) "Young Adult" fiction , the film does end up being highly watchable yarn, thanks to a strong performance by Jennifer Lawrence.

And yes, I know it's a rip off of Battle Royale. Matters not.

So yes, at first that Effie Whatever person appears, and she's got fantastic shoes on, and a wig, and look, she keeps re-appearing in differently coloured wigs, and now Katniss and her drippy pal are in the big city, and everyone is dressed in these Regency inspired futuristic outfits or whatever, and it's all contrasted with the homey peasantness of the naieve kids, and also the gleaming holographic technology.

And yes, it reminds me of the Fifth Element, where the opression is more corporate than fascistic, yet the folks still live in super high rise squalor in apartments so cramped the shower occupies the same space as the fridge; yet folk dress in highly stylised parodies of fashions of many periods, and the entire aesthetically glorious world seems to be entirely populated by models.

There's a story to tell here I think, the comparison just begs to be made. Unfortunately, it isn't me to tell it. I love the idea of writing about film, but I just don't have the language. I want to write about the style and look of the film, but when trying to describe the wigs as I did above, I couldn't think of the right word. Restoration? Georgian? Ah, just go with Regency. That's probably close enough. I could use the word dystopia but it would probably just cause me dyspepsia as I tried to explain properly why it was a dystopia.

And then, actually trying to criticise one above the other, how can I do that without really knowing what the respective directors and designers were trying to state with their visions of the decadent future, and whether they achieved their goals or not. I haven't got any notes either, if I'd known I was going to be seized with the desire to write properly, I should have sat assiduously with notebook and biro making all the oh so logical and pertinent points I was going to make about both films.

I didn't. I was just taken heavily with the notion of writing about this idea as my hands cracked and dripped blood as I wandered upset amongst the endless racks and boxes, seeing the pen as the means of escape, but not knowing quite how to go about it...I love the Fifth Element more, and it looks far better, but why? *shrugs* I can't really explain it.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 28/01/2013

STORY - New Man New Woman

Someone tweeted "Where are all the real men nowadays?"

This made me think a little. What was a real man, for a start? The same as a "New Man"? Or an "Old Man".

What about women? Is humanity sleepwalking into fatal passivity. I don't know. And I'm not qualified to speak. But I thought I'd write about it anyway.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 06.04.2012

STORY - Sex Food Death

I wrote this inspired obliquely by a dear friend's misfortune, and just wanting to write. The library makes me want to write, there are odd people, and wonderful books.

So here it is, Copyright Bloody Mulberry 05.04.12