“We are but beasts,” said they to one another, “dumb brutes fit only to be tethered to posts in nasty and forlorn little paddocks. It was an ill thing that we did in making sport of the Mayor and the Lady Mayor. We are indeed no better than the beasts of whom we speak.” —
Medusa
Thus, as they made their way past the Central Library and the Cathedral, they had forgotten their remorse and their blood was up once more. And their temper was by no means improved by the sight across College Green of Constable Wifebeating-Cokehead and his fellows awaiting them in serried ranks of blue. Withal, wiser heads prevailed, and so they did not sally forth and do battle with the bacon sizzling on the griddle, but rather took their way back to the Bearpit, and there dispersed, promising to reassemble that evening, when they would flush the other original of the pair of puppets from what they knew from St Just to be his skulking place in … er … Squattocrat Towers. —
Squattocrat Towers, Constable Wifebeating-Cokehead, St Just
Towards evening, Superintendent ‘Gloucester’ Oldspot and his inspectors of bacon received certain intelligences, to the effect that sympathisers of the mob who inhabited a … er … squat near the Mynah’s Arms in St Werbuggers were planning to show a subversive film rejoicing in the title —
St Werbuggers
In the twilight attending vesper, the crowds began to gather once again, their focal point this time being the junction of Stokes Croft and Ashley Road. Clutching cans of Special Brew and Munters Blinding Cider, from these they swigged. Smoqued roll-ups, exotique cheroots, craque. Some chased the dragon or snorted quetamine, and were thereby incapacitated. Some of them as on the previous night bore flaming brands, the soot from which begrimed them, and gave them the appearance - very much complemented by their behaviour - of zombies and of chthonic deities who had risen from their sepulchred repose and staggered about among the questionably living. —
Chthonic
Among the faceless multitudes who thronged that place, there were here and there to be picked out certain individuals with whom the reader will have some familiarity. The poncemaker Dr Mark Wankstain was much in evidence, of course. That delusional polytechnic postmodernist imagined that the outbreak of civil disorder mandated some application on his part to poncemaking, and on this account clung like a limpet to the coattails of the BBC gimps, who had set up a broadcast facility operating out of the Black Racist Centre in Hepburn Road behind the Ghastly Hipster Opposite Turbo Island. His amanuensis, the gorgeous Ms. Gamina Dročerpyatova, was intermittently with him, but maintained her habit of dashing off on a whim whenever some diversion or other presented itself, which appeared to cause the good Doctor some anxiety, insofar as, upon becoming conscious of her latest flit, he would break off his “yeahyeahyeahyeah’s” and hobnobbings with BBC gimps, and peer among the crowds of churls and varlets, desperate for a glimpse of that elusive fawn. When not thus employed, and during those fleeting intervals when the whereabouts of the elusive fawn had been ascertained to his satisfaction, that randy Zeus would betimes address a friendly word or two to Mr Crass Cheseham, who had a habit of materialising at his elbow in order to accept the brown envelopes doled out by that luminary in the role of pork barrel dispensary. Mr Crass Cheseham upon quitting the company of Dr Mark Wankstain would re-attach himself to Miss Minerva Ledwitch, and make a show for her benefit of his largesse, by extracting from the brown envelopes doled out to him by hand of Wankstain quantities of folding matter, which he presented to various rogues whom he sought out, prominent among these being St Just and Mr Francis MacMahon, and once or twice the gorgon Medusa, although he did not look directly at her when he did so, fearing like everyone else that to do so would turn him to stone. —
Black Racist Centre
There came, towards 3am, a time when in her infinite wisdom Medusa the gorgon found recalled to what passed for her mind the charivari which had been the original focus of the whole exercise, and to this purpose immediately sought out that ensemble. The guardianship thereof had devolved to those stalwarts of rude mechanism Solomon the sapient and the harlequin Hieronymus, who had built a sort of shrine outside the Craquepipe & Slappers, that the low-born and credulous might approach in reverence and …er … squatting or on bended knee make oblations. There she found them, Solomon conducting for the benefit of his congregation of Gummidges some specious simulacrum of ceremony, the cod solemnity whereof was sadly offset by the caperings of Hieronymus whom, not at all recognising the value of holy tomfoolery, Solomon was rebuking just at the moment when the gorgon approached. —
The Craquepipe & Slappers
Thereupon, the shrine outside the Craquepipe & Slappers being hastily dismantled, the charivari was trundled through the clogging smoke to the graffito’d frontage of … er … Squattocrat Towers, where a mighty throng had convened itself. St Just, not looking directly at the gorgon, withal yet feeling his blood run cold, vouchsafed that, being in possession of the keys to that palace, he would essay to produce before the crowd the knavish perrokit skulking within. So saying, that noble youth girt his loins and bounded up the steps, and flourished the keys aforementioned, and selected one and thrust it into the lock and turned it. The great door yielded, withal the hinges thereof most sorely did protest the insult. St Just, framed in the doorway, turned and faced the profane vulgus, looking very much as though he were preparing to address to it a few humble words on the matter of his having greatness thrust upon himself. Withal, an involuntary glimpse of the gorgon’s writhing dreadlocks drove him to the verge of petrification, and he turned about mechanically, and disappeared into the bowels of the Snatch seat. —
Lord Snatch, The Craquepipe & Slappers
“Yes, well,” said Lord Snatch drily, “let me not to the revolutionary’s zeal admit impediment. Clearly, we must not keep the tricoteuses waiting. If you want the parrot, he is malingering upstairs somewhere. He has given us to understand that he is melancholic, although I dare say a jaunt in the tumbril may lighten his mood.” —
Hawksmoor Perroquet
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