NOW You Make With The Monsters

Many, Many Moons Ago -

(which is a shorthand way of saying that I can't remember when and have no intention of checking) I recall that I wanted to use a werewhale in BOOJUM! and despite a thorough search of the internet <all of fifteen seconds>* I could only find one pic-

     What's that?  Why did I want a picture of a werewhale?

     Well, obviously I - um - I wanted it to - to - O okay I've no idea why, I just did.  

     There was only a single picture available.  Art?

This one.  I remember this.

     NOW - now there's an embarrassment of riches.  What do you get if you want a picture of a werewhale?  Art - get into second gear!

     That's merely a sample.  So - pictures, comics and - Egad! - sculptures all available.  I tell you, the youth  of today don't know they're born, why way back <Mister Hand intervenes to redact a ton of self-pitying waffle> can on the end of a string for a telephone, none of -

     Where was I?

     Oh - yes.  Werewhales.  Actually they have nothing whatsoever to do with my real topic of conversation today, which is -  WEREWHELKS!

     Nothing like a bit of upper-case in bold to add a frisson of horror, eh?  I bet you've got that horripilation going on now.

     The - er - kind of embarrassing thing about werewhelks is that currently we're sort of in the same position as with werewhales a couple of years ago, except even more so.  Can I find a picture of an hideous be-shelled monster sprouting taloned limbs as it prepares to rend it's hapless human prey from the nave to the chaps?**  Art -

Can I what!

     You'll just have to use your imagination.

     The "Why?" as to werewhelks is a lot more easily explained than werewhales - obviously I was simply years ahead of my time with those - because I mentioned them in my introductory blurb on today's Facebook promotion of BOOJUM! alongside the Potatobot and Hamsterminators.***  They were the lead-in to Weaselnanas, a creature so absurd that - well, that they went down a storm, being better received than anything else for ages.  Truly, there is nothing more peculiar than people.

     Except maybe the Naked Mole Rat, that's pretty peculiar.

The next pet craze is here.

     Right, time to bungee cord the motley to the back of Lewis Hamilton's Formula One monster as he does a practice round at Silverstone!

A Little More Musical Critique

Okay, I've finally gotten over The Exploding Brain Song, as I have dubbed Turin Brakes' "Painkiller", so we can continue with this frankly dodgy song.  Take it away lyricist -

"You need something better than the bacon and eggs"

O Rly?  What's this, sinister vegan propaganda masquerading as a popular song - I think we should be told!

"The creaking in the walls and the banging in the bed"

Rather than shilling for a vegan diet, mate, I recommend you get a surveyor in, it sounds like you've got serious subsidence problems.

"You give me so much love that it blows my brains out"

 - aaaaaaaand we're back to Exploding Brains, again.  No wonder they sing about needing a painkiller; a neurosurgeon would probably help even more.  Sheesh.  I think that's quite enough for today, you brain-exploding buzzkills.

The very apotheosis of romantic love, Turin Brakes style.

"When everyone's super -"

Ah, yes, the world's dullest supervillain name strikes again: Syndrome.  The whole quote goes something like "When everyone's super, no one will be super", and we riffed a little on that yesterday.

     The phrase also struck a chord with me.  

     "What was that comic book," I asked myself - out loud for there were no colleagues or passengers to scare - " - where everyone WAS super?"

     It took a bit of digging to find it, but I was referring to "Top 10", set in the fictional (obviously!) city of Neopolis, where everybody, but everybody, is superpowered.  Art?

It ought to be in your - 

     It's a police-procedural that came out around the same time as "Powers", with which it shares much DNA, and both of which are distant offspring of "Hill Street Blues"-

     A moment's respectful silence, please.

Finally -

You probably won't be overly familiar with the actor Laurence Payne, especially since he died a good 9 years ago; unless you are of the generation who were watching children's television back in the late Sixties, when you will have seen him playing the titular character of "Sexton Blake" - no sniggering at the back there!

Ol' Lol

     Rather to my surprise I do know something of his oeuvre, since he was the male lead in "The Trollenberg Terror", which Art will now illustrate -

Oooh! An "X" Certificate -

     And I think at that point we can shut down composing for today.

*  The hideous truth courtesy Mister Hand

**  Whisper who dares, I nicked that from Shakeyspeer - "MacBeth"

***  You'd better believe you can get pictures of those.