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 a "Bizarre Love Triangle"

New Order sang about one without ever explaining what one was.

Whatever one is, I don’t think I’ve ever had one.

First up, is establishing what is being talked about. Is it a “Bizarre Love” Triangle, or a Bizarre “Love Triangle”.

The latter is easy to explain. Back in the mid 1980s “Love Triangles” were sex toys bought by those who had been mutilated in horrible accidents or attack by wild animals and could no longer achieve sexual pleasure through more linear devices. The Bizarre one in question was presumably seen in Affleck’s Palace in Manchester by a member of the band or their management, and was a custom made triangle studded with rubies and crystallised fish eyes for extra pleasure.

That deals with that. A “Bizarre Love” Triangle involves three couples who have intercourse with each other in a complex series of rituals designed to give birth to a mildly satanic creature with magical powers. Five of the group sit at each point of a pentacle in a place charged with power where ley lines meet, while the 6^th, always a woman, stands at the centre of the pentacle naked and chanting the words of power that will enable the process to succeed.

At a given signal, a diviner inspects the six with his rod, and the rod indicates which two should have sex in order to produce the devil’s progeny. It doesn’t matter if two women or two men are involved in the final act, because the spells cast have charged all of their bodily fluids with procreative force, and all internal cavities with the ability to nurture an embryo.

Exactly one year later, the satanic child is born, and grows rapidly. Within a year, it is fully grown, and capable or wreaking evil upon the land.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 18/11/13