DULL

I wrote a post about 'Dull News' in Newspapers about a year ago. It tackled the mind numbing banality and often vapid news stories which erupt in small town England. The sort of thing such as, 'Dog bites man' and other reports of mind numbing inanity. You would think in an age where all the world's news is just the flick of the wrist and a finger fumble away there would be something important to report. But small town England (bless em) is content within its parochial and short sighted viewpoint and is keen to ignore a global theatre full of majestic drama and frank insanity. Can we really blame folk in Chippen Camden if they contemplate, not at all, the complex weave of international politics and its Machiavellian machinations? Much better to drink herbal tea on a fine summer's afternoon and smell the roses in ones perfectly maintained garden. Simpler times, indeed.......

So there we have it, for good or for ill, Flaxen's dullest news stories from a place not near you, possibly.

Shock horror! How could it be that 'Boots the Chemist' is closed? Perhaps the shoppers came outside normal opening hours. Surely this story needs to relayed to all the good burghers of Smalltown so it doesn't happen to them. Arse biscuit.

Add caption

Poundland thief has struck again. What could our master criminal be using the tin foil for? I suggest he is making a tin foil hat to save himself from an alien abduction and a good hard anal probing. Fear not good citizens for Inspector Mugumbo of the Yard is relentlessly persuing the thief with his crack 'Poundland Squad'. Fumble biscuit.

Sunny Birmingham, is a city not far away from my home town of Tipton. Clearly there is mysterious link between the Papa's visit and his resignation. Could it be that after visiting this incredibly crap city, Pope Mugumbo suffered a deep malaise culminating in a desparate despond precipitating his spiritual desolation? I think we should be told. Only Brum can do that. Crack biscuit.

Why not release your anger and frustration with a good 'tanty'? You could always take out your frustration on the little kiddies, especially the one who comes into your shop for a 5 pound item and labourisly counts out the amount in pennies.... Deserved of death in my opinion. Finger knob.

Shit, aren't all 2 year old boys noisy? Why not offer the little brats 10mg of Valium with their blue pop. That'll slow the little buggers down. Muffin bollocks.

 Pareidolia strikes again! Imagine the Editor: "Hold the press, we need to get this picture of spilt milk into the early edition. Look, it slightly resembles a sheep with black legs, how fucking amazing. You better be quick because there is a light drizzle forcasted and we may lose this beloved artefact and the populous of Taunton may never see the like again". Ferret, moist crinkles.

Shit on a stick. Imagine you are a patient on a busy ward and instead of a gown the harrased over worked nurse produces a pillow case. As you already have the requisite number of pillow cases you are at a loss of what to do with the surplas variety. Mayhap you could cunningly fashion a gown with a pair of scissors and surgical tape. Or you could place the unadultered garment upon your head and shout: "Wibble bollocks". I prefer the latter; it takes less work. Fart numbing buttocks.

Yea, this why I advocate involuntary euthanasia for the over 80s. Come on, let's face it most octergenarians are completely useless and gaga. Would be a kindness after all, Poor Alf has not received a letter in years, except from a rather frisky Maltese, called, Peanut. Woof, bloody woof.

O dear, the hat up the tree phenomenum. And a red 'bobble' hat at that. Surely this is some sort of spoof? Published on the 1st April, perhaps? No further commentary required.

Refer to previous. The hat was of obvious sentimental value. Clearly little of criminal consequence occurs in this soporific backwater. The police should instead harras motorists and extort money for minor infractions. O bugger, they do this already.

That's enough today folks. Today is my birthday and I have a duty to engage in some serious drinking with my second bastard seed. 

The Battle of Mons

Britain entered the First World War with a small but highly professional army. The Germans, French, Austria-Hungarians and Russians raised millions of men ready to take the field while Britain mustered an army of only 80,000. The Germans thought it a fine joke and laughed that if the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) landed on German soil they would send the police to arrest them. The Kaiser famously referred to the BEF as: “That contemptible little army”. The French Premier expressed the sentiment with subtle Gallic humour. When the French Premier, Poincare was asked how many British troops he needed, he replied: “Just one, and I’ll make sure he gets killed”. Poincare appreciated that British power would take a while to get started, but once fully mobilised would represent a formidable asset.

During August the German juggernaut seemed unstoppable as its vast army corps smashed and wheeled through Belgium. On the 22^nd of August, the BEF reached the Belgium mining town of Mons and dug in. On the 23^rd two German army corps blundered into the entrenched British. The British rifle fire of 15 rounds per minute devastated the Germans as they attacked in massed frontal waves. So accurate and deadly was the British musketry that the Germans thought they were being decimated by machine gun fire. In fact, the British had only two machine guns per battalion.

Enter the Angels, from upon high. It seems that divine providence was sent to aid the British during their gravest peril. It was duly reported that a troop of Angels appeared within the British lines. A story eagerly pounced upon by the British press and regurgitated for a gullible public. In truth, god was hard pressed to choose between the armies as the Germans proudly sported, 'Gott mit uns' on their belt buckles. Mayhap god was partisan after all and supported the underdog in spite of the blazoned exhortations from the Teuton. Yea, truly, gods are fickle creatures, full of whims and caprice. How many Germans were killed by ‘Angel fire’ is difficult to discern as there are no official contemporary records of this sort of thing.

The British general, Sir John French decided to try his luck for a second day and stand firm against the inevitable enemy attack on the morrow. However, to his right, the French were withdrawing and to prevent the annihilation of his gallant little army he had no choice but to fall back in concert with the retreating French troops. After three days of retreat, the British turned and bloodied the Germans once again at Le Cateau. However, the story of this battle will have to wait another day.

To be fair the engagement at Mons was a relatively small affair especially in comparison to later Great War battles, but it did represent the first battle of the war in which the British participated. The British, on the defensive, suffered a loss of 1,600 men, while the offending Germans suffered relatively heavy losses of 7,000. This emphasised the main problem of modern warfare- defence had become immensely strong and attack, therefore, had become proportionately costly. And this was a dilemma faced by all combatants throughout the war, a dilemma never completely resolved, at least in this conflict. As for casualties, the relative loss favoured the Germans. The loss of 7,000 meant nought in terms of the millions of men deployed. For the British, this rate of loss could not be borne for long. By the end of the year, the British professional army was almost spent leaving a cadre to train the mass armies to come. Their place in the line was filled with territorials from Britain and men from Britain's wide spread colonies and Dominions. These men would have to hold the Western front until the million man army came into line during 1916. This new army of enthusiastic volunteers would be bloodied in the summer of 1916 at a place called the Somme. On the first day of the Somme, the attacking British would sustain 60,000 casualties. Perhaps the Angels were busy that day…. 

And lets not forget the report of English longbow men entering the fray. I wonder how many Germans were riddled with arrows?

This is more like it! 

Suffer the Little Children

The other day I was reading an account of a child, in Ireland, who was systematically subjected to acts of sexual abuse, over a 7 year period, by his parish priest. What that poor child endured is beyond comprehension. What is particularly sickening is the Catholic hierarchies’ response when the horror came to light. The boy in question was sent for 'Religious Counselling' during which he was told by the presiding nun, "that god would forgive him, eventually." The priest concerned continued to 'serve' with impunity and without retribution. When the priest died it became apparent that he had abused at least 12 children under his power. This remains a conservative number. Others no doubt exist but out of a misplaced sense of guilt and shame will never come forward.

During the abuse the child was repeatedly told by the priest that if he revealed what was going on he would be ruined- this referred not to the wicked priest but to the boy. The abuse became known when the boy confided in the family doctor, who rightly informed the authorities. Appallingly nothing was done. This was a time, not so long ago, when the Catholic Church held immense influence and power in Ireland and their reach into rural areas was particularly pernicious and complete. How times have changed in Ireland, in part due to the revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated on their young flock. The revulsion of the population and the loss of prestige of the Catholic Church has been swift resulting in a backlash which has shaken even the Vatican to the core. Even the ultimate intermediary between god and man, the Pope, has become reviled in what was once a staunch and wholly Catholic country.  

As for our pious servant of god, the priest of our story, I wonder how he managed to salve his conscious and clean away the mark of sin before meeting his god. A god, reputably unable to endure the presence of the impure and those tainted by the enduring stain of iniquity. But here is the rub, our turbulent priest need not have tossed and turned at night because his enlightened belief system allowed for total redemption and removal of taint as long as he appealed for total forgiveness that only a god can give. This gift to mankind originated 2,000 years ago when god in one of his guises came to earth and allowed himself to be sacrificed by being nailed to a piece of wood. Thus all of our sins can be forgiven because man/god died in the most horrendous manner conceivable. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? The same god that would cast a good man into the fiery pit of hell, for eternity, for the mortal sin of non-belief. Apart from the blatant ridiculousness of sacrifice and suffering as a means of universal atonement, how can we square the judgement of god with the concept of a just and beneficent deity?

I am no fan of religious systems. Catholicism is particularly wretched in my eyes. A religion stuck with an ancient Greek belief system layered over Judaic thought thickly rendered, afterward encrusted with a dense layer of impenetrable liturgy and a philosophy derived from the Middle Ages- I’m looking at you, Thomas Aquinas. A philosophy discredited by modern and even late medieval savants. A primitive religion adorned with a threadbare cloak of intellectual respectability. At least some of the Protestant sects have changed to suit modern times and have discarded much of the arcane philosophy and silly ceremonies. Although it is also true that many, especially in the Southern States of America, have regressed and mutated to a state barely above the literate. This applies to the fundamentalist variety where talking in tongues and rolling about the floor in the ‘Spirit’ is de rigueur.

I think I may have digressed.

Child abuse is not restricted to the Catholic Church, any organisation which holds sway over the minds of children such as schools, youth groups and scout camps are not immune from this abhorrent abuse. Those men with a proclivity for this sort of thing (and it is always men) will always be drawn to situations which involve access to children. What makes the Catholic variety peculiarly loathsome is the hypocrisy dripping from a theocracy supposedly obsessed with sin and moral rectitude.  An organisation so protective of its power that it is willing to tolerate vile predators within its midst, at all levels, and indeed allow them to prosper. Some of the shit sticks to the secular authorities who failed to prosecute errant priests and were therefore complicit in these heinous crimes. Thus the depraved priest was rarely brought forth for secular justice and as we can see there is no celestial punishment awaiting the repentant sinner at death. What justice then for the fragile children broken upon the sadistic wheel of lust and depravity?  I’ll leave my readers to ponder on this obtuse and gravest of conundrums.

Flaxen's Random Images of Redemption

Of course double standards is the way to go. Frankly I'm so upset that I'm going to burn down a Mosque and then a Church.  Should even things out, eh?

And here is the true message from the 'religion of peace'. Do not doubt that Islam is a barbaric and primitive religion. Born from the Dark Ages, it should reside within the realm of the dark where the light of reason doth not shine. It has no right in a developed society based on the fruits of the scientific method. Tis an anachronism, but a dangerous one. And yet we allow these people to flood over Europe's borders. The West will rue the day it let those of an alien culture and mindset insinuate into the fold.

Yea, the liberal left is full of hypocrisy. Regardless of the agenda, they will only tolerate their own agenda. Anything that involves contrary discourse is shut down, where possible, thus denying free speech. Disagree with a leftie, and except voluble and violent disagreement. Sensible discourse is not allowed with anyone with the temerity to mount dissension. Merit and facts accord for nowt and expect to be cow towed with the usual emotive words, such as: racist, sexist, misogynist and fascist. What a wretched bunch of twats.     

How times have changed, but not for the better....

Shagger as a babe, with siblings

To soothe my heaving breast

Witiwangi Day- Again

I must apologise to my regular readers. This is a post from several years ago which has been resurrected on several occasions. Also I'm a very lazy man and writing this shit is time consuming and often mentally exhausting- unless I'm experiencing one of my frequent reveries. Arse.

Today, I have a day off work in celebration of a treaty signed between the British and the Maori in 1840. Anyway, in order to commemorate this very special National Day, I have decided to resurrect an old post of mine from two years ago which characteristically takes a humorous glance at this most solemn of occasions. Happy Waitangi Day. Although written as a jocular interlude it does make some salient and serious points. For those who would like to view my opinion on 'Maori Affairs' you can catch it here:Waitangi Day reprise. 

Shouldn't have brought a stick to a gun fight

Happy Whitiwhangi day! For you dozy benighted Pomms, Whitiwhangi day (6^th February) is New Zealand’s National Day. It celebrates the signing of a solemn treaty between the ‘British Colonial Governor of Her Majesty’s Government’ and the Maori in 1840. As a slight digression, I would like to introduce the less educated amongst you to the noble race which is Maori. Ethnologists are of the opinion that the first Maoris arrived in New Zealand as Asylum Seekers sometime in the Middle Ages. They found a bountiful land colonised by a peaceful and equally noble race, called the Moriori. Mutual respect was only marred by the fact that the Maori had an irrepressible appetite for human flesh. As it was against their culture and religious custom to eat their own, they decided to eat the indigenous people. In very short order they had porked their way through this fair people and moved on to eat all the large birds, mammals and frogs. Today, the only indigenous creature left in New Zealand is a highly camouflaged, fast moving and slightly tasteless marsupial, known in the Maori language as ‘donttastlikeKFC,ehbro.’

To return to our Solemn National Day. It is reputed that the Governor of 1840, Sir Effingham-Peffingham was suffering from syphilitic ague prior to and up to the signing of the treaty. Some say he deviated from standard British Colonial Policy, of the time. Usually, British Army drill was to send the local chocos off to an early grave and at double time. Of course, when faced with the local duskies waving fruit and sharpened sticks the best response was always to ‘fire a volley’ and finish off the wounded, and less fleet of foot, with the bayonet.

Unfortunately for the Empire, Sir E was suffering from delirium tremens on the day of the signing. For his entertainment, the local Maori Warriors performed their formidable war dance, ‘The Haka.’ The stout warriors, all painted and covered in feathers, reminded the Governor, in his delirium, of the Nelson Rep chorus line. After all, the Governor was notoriously short-sighted and thick.

The treaty was duly signed by the Governor and the Tribal Leaders. Luckily the Maoris could not read or write English. The clause they failed to notice (stupid Maoris), was the bit about allowing White Folk, known in Maori as Pakeha to shoot any Maori on sight on Whitiwhangi day, as long as it was before noon. Good man that Governor.

As usual, I celebrated ‘Whitiwhangi Eve’ with four bottles of medicinal red wine (as is the custom) and awoke next morning feeling like a Frenchman’s crotch. After retching up over the dog, I noticed that it was 11.50am. I panicked somewhat as I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to legally shoot someone. So without further ado, and without getting dressed, I reached for my father’s trusty 303 Lee Enfield rifle. The same weapon he had used to shoot unarmed German prisoners at the battle of El Alamein. Shortly after this incident, my father’s contribution to the war effort was permanently curtailed due to wounds inflicted during a brisk encounter with the renowned, and much feared SS SeamStress division. These Valkyries could sow SS runic insignia, in silver thread, on your epaulette in under 20 minutes and double stitch at that; fucking amazing! During the battle, my father received a puncture wound to the arse from a rusty bodkin. The infection rapidly spread to his cock and as a consequence, he spent 6 months in a Venereal Disease hospital in Blighty. The word around the camp fire, at the time, was that my father had caught the infection after an intoxicated and ill-judged liaison with a wild, desert, she-goat; absolute nonsense. It is well known that you can catch this sort of thing from toilet seats and dirty sewing baskets.

With shaking hands I slammed a fresh magazine into the Lee Enfield and rushed onto the porch. Luckily for me, I saw a Maori in the adjacent field, not a 100 paces away. I raised the musket to my shoulder, took careful aim and slowly squeezed the trigger and was promptly rewarded to see my quarry spiral to the ground. I rushed inside for my trusty scalping knife and bounded over to the fallen Maori to gather my well-deserved trophy. Imagine my disgust when I realised that I hadn’t shot a Maori after all but shot my Dutch neighbour, Mr Neils Van der Pump. In mitigation, I have to say that his Indonesian wife had been standing close by and she does look a little bit Maori. I did consider shooting her as well and could hardly miss from two paces. But I suppose I’m a sentimental old fool and it didn’t seem quite right to shoot her under the circumstances, as her husband had suddenly took quite poorly. I did offer to apply a tourniquet to the wound on his neck, but neither of them seemed too keen on the idea. So I left her to administer first aid and retreated back to my bed to sleep off the previous night’s excess. I had hardly fallen asleep when I was rudely awakened by the local plod. Thereafter all is a blur. I remained in custody for several months prior to trial. Poor Mrs Saxon had to work 20 hours a day to keep the farm afloat. She did contact my flaxen haired cunt of a son to ask for help. But he was too busy finding ‘spiritual enlightenment’ on a commune in Perth, Western Australia. Spiritual enlightenment, my arse! From what I can see, he spends his days banging small breasted Asian ladies, sometimes two at a time (nice work if you can get it) and judging from the photos some of the ‘ladies’ aren’t real woman at all.

I finally had my day in court. I must admit I raised a spirited defence. However, things looked bleak after the prosecution’s final summing up: “Your Honour, I submit that Mr Saxon is a demented, chronic alcoholic with a tenuous grasp on reality. It is recorded your Honour, that after a particularly heavy and prolonged drinking bout, he thought he had turned into a canister of ‘Shake N Vac’ (Alpine Dew) and was found by his wife rolling naked on the carpet shouting: ‘I am fragrant, suck me off with the vacuum.’ I rest my case your Honour.” But bugger me if I didn’t have a stroke of luck. Poor Mr Van der Pump had lost the power of speech after my ill-fated shot had destroyed his larynx. This same lucky bullet had also divided nerves in his spinal cord and consequently he was paralysed from the nose down. The upshot, of course, was that he was unable to provide a verbal or written deposition; in other words, a piss poor witness. The case against me rested on the sole testament of his Indonesian wife. This poor cow couldn’t speak a word of English and her Court appointed interpreter had just been deported as an illegal alien. The outcome was not in question, and I was promptly, and deservedly, found innocent and freed.

I confess that after this encounter with the law, I am truly a wiser but not a sober man. Although, I have to say I can’t wait for Mr Van der Pump’s children to grow up so I can shoot them on Whitiwhangi Day, before noon. After all, they do look a little like Maoris……..              

   

Chloe

I consider myself as a rational fella and consequently, I will have no truck with anything which smacks of the supernatural or miraculous. The supernatural does not exist and miracles do not occur. A miracle, as I understand the word, is the suspension of natural law. Now you may think this is a bold sweeping statement for a scientist to make especially as we are expected to maintain an open mind. But this only applies to our natural world and phenomena within it. By definition, anything considered supernatural is beyond nature and therefore beyond our senses. Even if a supernatural realm did exist we would never be able to perceive it. For all intent and purpose, supernatural phenomena are equivalent and tantamount to non-existence.

I used to be less rational. Up until my early 20s, I actually believed in ghosts, paranormal events and supernatural worlds which could be perceived, albeit darkly, if we searched hard enough. As my scientific education advanced I evolved into a true sceptic. There was no dramatic or romantic 'Road to Damascus' moment and my stance toward the supernatural changed by degrees (literally) over several years until I came to realise that the Natural Universe is surely mysterious enough when viewed through a rational and critical lens, so why posit something which can never be demonstrated? You could say that my intellect, 'grew up' and no longer dealt with childish things.

I present this brief introduction to emphasise my rational scientific stance before I relate a series of rather uncanny events experienced by my wife, who for the purpose of this post will be referred to as Mrs Saxon. I did think of calling her Mrs Mugumbo, but that wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Just over a year ago, Chloe, our beloved Maltese Terrier bitch died. She was 14 years old and succumbed quickly to liver disease. At the time we were on holiday in Bali and felt guilty for not being there to comfort her at the end. My wife took it particularly hard as my wife and Chloe had a very strong bond and everywhere Mrs Saxon went Chloe was sure to follow.

Mrs Saxon has subsequently struggled with her grief and in quiet moments will shed a silent tear. All this understandable, we form strong emotional connections with our pets and I think this is particularly so with our dogs. Now, this is where it gets a little interesting and spooky. About six months ago my wife started to see Chloe around the house. Just a brief image of a furry flash, briskly glimpsed. As we own two Maltese Terriers, both of which are very much alive, she rationalised that it must be one of them. Then one day she saw a fleeting flash of white fur in her periphery whilst our other two Maltese dogs were nestling on her lap.

My wife kept the visitations to herself and was reluctant to share the phenomenon with her highly sceptical husband fearing ridicule. Finally, she could keep it within no longer and blurted the story out one evening. I didn't laugh, I'm not a fool, but listened intently. I asked her if she honestly believed that what she was seeing was really Chloe? To her credit, she said no. She had the sense to realise that whatever was happening was likely an illusion born of grief, guilt and perhaps hope. Now some might say that Mrs Saxon is witnessing the shade of our dead dog stopping by for a brief visit; the bond between my wife and Chloe cheating and transcending even death. However, I would be very unhappy with such an explanation as it entails grave epistemological consequences. If one dead creature can materialise then why not all dead creatures? That being the case our ordered methodical world would collapse and melt into unpredictable chaos. Nothing would be certain anymore. But of course, this is not the case. We really do live in an ordered predictable universe, quantum physics excepted.

Chloe visits often, apparently, about once every two weeks, and it is always a cursory sojourn- she may pass a door or disappear into an adjacent room. So what is the answer? My wife feels tremendous grief, loss and guilt. Three very powerful emotions. Could her psyche be conjuring up images of our dead dog to provide some form of comfort in her desolation; a soothing mental salve? I would say yea, and my wife certainly thinks this is the case.

I’m interested from a scientific investigative perspective. I’ve asked my wife to keep note of dates and times and provide a description of the manifestation. Under the circumstances you might expect my wife to tell me to: ‘Bugger off’ considering the emotional content, but no. We hope to move soon and it will be interesting to see if the ‘ghost of Chloe’ travels to our rural idyll- I predict closure. I will keep my readers informed, unless I forget, or can’t be bothered to put pen to paper.