Star Wars Kid! ROFLMAO!!

Hey guys! One of my readers has been surfing some of the weirder areas of the internet and has found this total gem!! It's a vid of a kid (hey, I'm a poet and I don't know it ;-)). Basically, he's acting as if he's a jedi from the Star Wars films, but the funny thing is that he's only a kid so not really very good.



Totally random! I pretty much agree with all the Youtube comments left - my favourite one is fargis9 when he says: "this is like the worst star wars vid i''ve ever seen :( oh and by the way hes fat!!!!!!!!)" I guess the kid is kind of fat which makes it funnier.

ENJOY!! :D :D

I'm loving bringing you all these weird vids and pics that you won't ever have seen or heard of before. I'm pretty much loving the direction my blog is taking. You guys like it too? Leave comments plz!! Better shoot off now - I've got to take my pills again (drag!)

Badgers! LOL

Hey guys!! I'm here to entertain you again. Here's another wacky video I found when I was surfing the net, so thought I'd share it all my lovely readers. And some less-than-lovely! I kid! I kid because I love!! ;-) Sure you'll love this - I'm probably one of the first bloggers to find out about this so remember - you saw it here first! It's totally random.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/badgers/

I Can Has Cheezburger?! LOL

Hey guys!! Spent today chilling out watching a bit of telly. Still trying to get my head around the weird stuff I've gone through recently - there's gonna have to be some pretty major changes round here. Need a bit of normality in my life...

Hey, just found this pretty funny picture. Thought I'd share it with you all - maybe give you a giggle!

Made me chuckle anyway! Lol!

Gotta dash - I've been on the net for way too long...just realised I'm really late in taking my Bhujeum pills today!! Yikes! Better get on and do that, lest my mind fissiparously dissipate and return me to my previously addlepated state.

...readers, an errant thought tugs at some metaphorical loose thread in my mind. Some nebulous, poorly-defined idea - perhaps a memory - gingerly tickles at my consciousness. I am perturbed. Something is not quite right. The picture of a cat that I have just posted is palpably ludicrous...why have I done such a thing? My perturbance has been joined by perplexity... perhaps these pills will clear things up, though for some reason the thought of them chills me to the marrow of several of my bones.

Whooa! Phew! Just taken the pills - feel a bit better now - back on track. Jeez, looks like I had some sort of episode there. Memo: MUST TAKE PILLS ON TIME FROM NOW ON!! That was weird.

The picture of the cat cracks me up though - totally cheers me up. Lol.

Matt Damon

So I've spent most of the last few days trying to basically clear out some of the junk round here. Jeez, I must of really been totally mad when I look at some of the stuff around my house. Most of the crap is pretty random stuff (dismantled Rubik's cubes and dozens of beige tennis shoes with no soles!?! Wacky or what?!) but I guess I'm pretty shocked at some of the kind of dark and heavy shit I've found (no, not literally!!) - at the back of a cupboard I found a drowned kitten in a bucket, an alphabetised collection of different pastries (which only had choux, puff & shortcrust!) with a number next to each one telling me how many pounds of that kind of pastry that a gypsy would have to eat before he/she would die, and some photographs of Billy Elliot with everything Tippexed out apart from his face and legs, with the words "Dance while you can Billy" written across it. Weird!

Meh, least I'm better now. I'm so glad Dr Fell managed to persuade me to take those pills cause without them I was clearly in a pretty bad way!

I've also been reading through this blog of mine. It's a total mind-bender let me tell you ;-)
I don't remember writing any of it and it's mostly all complete rubbish.

To be honest, it's kinda embarrassing and is taking me to a place where I'm not comfortable - I'd like some brain bleach! What I'm going to do after I've finished reading through all the entries is pretty much delete the whole lot. No one wants to read that guff!

From now on, you've got your all-new & improved Horton C. to entertain ya! The blog's going to have pretty much a totally new focus - none of the old shit. Basically, I'm going to be sharing with you some of my thoughts about the world of TV, music and movies and so on. Maybe chuck in a bit of my political rants and stuff too! Bloody Tony Blair, etc (Tony B-Liar more like!) Pretty much anything that takes my fancy! I'll have links to Youtube vids that I think my readers will like. Hopefully they'll be ones you haven't seen before - here's one to start you off - it's a really funny one about Matt Damon.

I'm probably one of the only bloggers in the world to pick up on this vid. You saw it here first!



Awesome. Anyway, like I say, you can expect more of this funny stuff on this blog in future. I'm gonna start deleting all the junk from earlier entries asap.

Freedom!

Well guys, I'm free. All I had to do was go up to Dr Fell and tell him that I'd taken the pills. He signed the release papers and said I was free to go. It was as easy as that.

So I said goodbye to the guys in the hospital and had to go and collect my stuff. See, this is where I'm kind of worried about myself. I must have been really wacked out when I first came to the home because some of the stuff I'd obviously brought in with me was just totally random and weird. What could I have been thinking? Tic-Tacs glued to a hard-boiled goose egg? I mean...wtf?! Apparently, I'd insisted to the warden that this was a genuine Faberge Egg and had to be treated with respect. Carpet swatches, two dead tawny owls, a bust of Pallas made from plaster of Paris, a copy of The Blood of Dracula by Jack Hamilton Teed (signed by Nanette Newman for some bizarre reason), and five Tesco bags stuffed with loft insulation.

I mean...come on! I must of been on something - that is just so INSANE! Anyway, I'm glad to be out of there now. I'm back in my house, which is in a totally shocking state. I'm going to have a load of work to do over the next few days to get this place into a livable condition.

I'm remembering to take my Bhujeum pills three time a day - really don't want to forget about those and turn back into a mental!

I am cured

Dearest readers, after the majority of my week was spent being cruelly brutalized by male nurse Pugg Muckle in a particularly uncomfortable place (the television lounge), I have subdued the tawdry throng of doubts jostling for attention in my troubled mind, bolstered my resolution, and decided to take the Bhujeum pills at last. I can stand this asylum no longer: I must be free, and if this is the only way in which I can bring about my emancipation, then so be it. My intention is to take the prescribed dosage of pills for but a short time so that I might convince Dr. Fell that I am 'cured'. After I have won my freedom, I will refrain from partaking of the pills and all will be well.

As I type these words I have before me the bottle of Bhujeum pills, which if taken, promise to make all my troubles softly and suddenly vanish away. Almost at once, my determination is rent by treacherous doubts. I do not know if I am brave enough to go through with this task. The idea that my personality, my soul, will also softly and suddenly vanish away, is one that punctuates my thoughts and appends the prefix 'in' to my decision.

I will do this. I shall do this. A pang, almost physical, strikes at my heart. I cannot do this. I shall not do this. And yet I must. I will.

Readers, I have placed two Bhujeum pills upon my tongue and will shortly swallow them. Tears are welling up in my eyes for I am overcome with emotion. Unaccountably, I feel as though I am about to be severed in some way. This is surely the wrong decision.

Readers, I have swallowed the pills. I await metamorphosis.

Nothing has happened. I feel no different.

I feel betrayed and sit passive, sunk in a lethargy of sorrow.


That last sentence looks odd to my eyes. It seems a bit wordy. What I should say is that I guess I feel kinda sad that nothing's really happened to me, you know? The pills haven't had any effect.
Here's me - the same Horton Carew as always. No different. Don't feel like anything's changed. This whole pill thing's pretty much been a total failure. Which really sucks.

Jeez, when I read over this blog post, I can kinda see why I haven't been getting many readers, you know? It's sort of like longwinded in style and takes yonks to come to the point. How's this for messing with your head, but I don't even like recognise myself in this post. What was I thinking writing in that weird old-fashioned way for Christ's sake? Hmm, well I guess maybe Dr. Fell and Dr. Gland have been right and there has been something wrong with me. God, this is so freaky!

Well, guess I'll go and have a word with Dr. Fell. Sure he'll be able to keep me right.

I Tell Fell

Today's discussion with Dr. Fell, wherein I did my utmost to convince him I was cured of the insanity from which he mistakenly thinks I am suffering, went as follows:

Me: Dr. Fell, I have taken your pills and find myself cured.
Fell: I will need to test your claim Horton.
Me: Feel free my good man, feel perfectly free!
Fell: Okay. Let's start with some word association. I will say a word, you must respond by giving me the first thing that comes into your head. Okay?
Me: Dokey.
Fell: Sorry?
Me: Ronnie Corbett.
Fell: We haven't started yet.
Me: I see. Will this be held against me?
Fell: Not necessarily. Let's start.
Me: Okay.
Fell: Hope.
Me: Sanity.
Fell: Love.
Me: I am sane.
Fell: Ambition.
Me: I am cured.
Fell: Dream.
Me: Release me.
Fell: Death.
Me: Sanity.
Fell: Pain.
Me: Sane.
Fell: Work.
Me: Compos Mentis.
Fell: Sex.
Me: Well-adjusted.
Fell: Life.
Me: Cured.
Fell: Bed.
Me: I'm sane.
Fell: Dark.
Me: Sane.
Fell: Night.
Me: Sane.
Fell: Wedding.
Me: Sane.
Fell: Hands.
Me: Sane.
Fell: Mother.
Me: Wicked soul trapped forever in a pewter scottie dog from the board game Monopoly.
Fell: Pardon?
Me: Sane.
Fell: Well Horton, it seems abundantly clear to me that you have not taken the Bhujeum pills. You are unconvincingly feigning sanity in a feeble effort to persuade me to release you. This I will not do. You are still madder than three geese. Go back to your cell and never try to deceive me again. Begone!
Me: Sane.
Fell: Oh do go away.

Alas readers, I have not succeeded and remain incarcerated.
Perhaps I should simply take the pills.

I take the pills

Readers, as you know I am fully committed to the idea of making this electronic interactive, so I have posed a question regarding my life which I have left in your capable hands. Once more, I see that the majority of my readers wish for me to take the pills. Yet again, this was the wrong decision.

As genuine interactivity necessitates me doing precisely what the readers vote for even if it was not part of my original plan or imagined narrative trajectory, I am obliged to do exactly what you have voted for. Thus, I must set the poll again until you vote for the correct response, which is "Do not take the pills".

However, I suppose that the results will once again favour "Take the pills" and I recognise that I cannot go on setting these polls indefinitely, because I am desperate to flee this place and all this humming and hawing (and unrealted heaving) is merely wasting precious time. Thus, I propose a compromise.

My solution is this: I will pretend to Dr. Fell and to those malicious readers who wish for me to take the pills, that I have taken the pills, then pretend that I am suitably 'cured' for Dr. Fell to sign my release papers. Then I will be free.

My pretence will begin at once...

I have swallowed two bhujeum pills as per the instructions on the bottle. I feel a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. These agonies swiftly subside. Now I feel younger, lighter, happier in body. I know myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be cured. I stretch out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations. I am cured! I am cured!

Now I will contact Dr. Fell and convince him that I can be released.

My Readers Have Spoken

Well, my dearest readers, you have voted and I am honour-bound to follow the results of your vote. I have used my mind to tally up all votes placed and find that "Take the pills" has won by two votes.

Thus, I must take Dr. Fell's bhujeum pills. Perhaps I did not make the situation clear enough: these pills, although they will make all the bad things in my life softly and suddenly vanish away, will also make my personality, everything that makes me me, softly and suddenly vanish away. Although I will be happy, there may no longer exist the entity known as "Horton Carew" to appreciate the new-found happiness.

I will allow you a second chance to vote correctly. As before, I will do whatever you vote because this electronic diary is fully interactive.

What must I do?

My gipseian and pigmaean readers, I must tell you that my quandary has not yet been resolved. This week I have hummed and hawed (and hornswoggled, though that is completely unrelated), yet I cannot decide what to do for the best.


I will decide the matter on the toss of a coin. Yes - hang it all! - that is what I shall do. Excuse me, dearest readers while I throw myself upon Fate's mercy. If the coin lands on heads, I will take the pills. If it lands on tails, I will not.

...I have the coin. It is a tuppence. Destiny awaits, gentle readers, destiny awaits.

I toss (the coin).

It has landed.

...Readers, I am afraid that the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say, gang affy gay. The coin has landed in a small globule of mashed swede upon the floor, directly side-on. It is neither heads nor tails.

Alas, Fate means for me to be decisive.

Thus, I will set up a poll: readers, you must decide my course of action. For you, this will be akin to a Fighting Fantasy 'Choose your Own Adventure' game book because I will do whatsoever you choose. I pray that my adverture does not end here.

Kindly let me know what I should do. Take the bhujeum pills? Eschew the bhujeum pills?

Advice from an unexpected source

As thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle was administering the second of my daily beatings this afternoon, utilizing for the sturdiness it offered a metal fire extinguisher, I thought long and hard about Dr Fell's offer. As Muckle was working on my shin bones, the excrutiating pain I felt as a sliver of bone split from burst skin and flew across the room momentarily distracted me from my musings and caused me to wail in anguish. Muckle answered my impromptu cry of agony by clubbing my gums with rough and blunt knuckles. His casual brutality and workaday truculence piqued my ire and I began roaring, expectorating a broken tooth in my fury. In my anger, I quite lost self-control and began speaking my mind, honestly and openly, for the first time since becoming incarcerated, telling male nurse Pugg Muckle precisely what I thought of his smug Irish face. Readers, my tongue became over-loose, not least because my styloglossus muscle had been terribly rent by Muckle's thrashings. Weeping, I told the pugnacious Muckle all about Dr Fell's offer of pills and, with a new-found boldness, told him that I intended to take these pills, quit this bedlam, then go straight to the Dundee Courier to expose the villainies and outrages daily committed in this den of terror.

Pugg Muckle sat bemused through my impassioned outburst, then struck me in the cheek with a tightly-balled fist.

"Now Horty, calm yerself down and shut yer trap, bejappers," he said (he did not actually say 'bejappers', but as Pugg Muckle is Irish, I feel obliged to sporadically insert such words into his dialogue so that you do not forget his ethnicity).

"You can choose to believe me or you can choose to disbelieve me: that's up to you, begorah," he continued. "I hold no special contempt for you Horty. This is just a job to me. True, I happen to greatly enjoy brutalizing lunatics, but there is nothing personal at work here. Truth be told, I've always looked forward to sessions with you and have enjoyed working with you, bejaysus. You rarely complain, and you can take a lot of pummeling before passing out. You always give me my money's worth! So let me give you a florin's worth of free advice: do not trust Dr Fell. At least I'm upfront about my love of torture, begob. Dr Fell is no better than me. He just hides his cruelty better'n a common or garden sadist, that's all, Bejam."

He then broke my nose by slamming my head roughly against a doorframe.

Food for thought though!

The Quandary Continues

Readers, I remain in a quandary.

Dr Fell, whom I do not like, though not for any particular reason, has raised the stakes in his proposition in an effort to persuade me of his point of view. If I follow his advice and take the bhujeum pills, not only will all the bad thoughts and events in my life softly and suddenly vanish away, but Dr Fell has also announced that if I take the pills I will be considered 'cured' and will be permitted to permanently leave Dundee's Home for the Irretrievably Demented. Readers, you will appreciate that freedom from this bedlam and house of horror is something I have craved since first I was immured. I am sorely tempted.

Perhaps having my personality softly and suddenly vanish away will not be as terrible a thing as I have been imagining. Perhaps the pills will just remove the negative aspects of my personality and leave me the good points. Maybe then my truelove, my ladylove, Carol Doocot will think more highly of me and I can be the man she deserves...

Dr Fell has left the pills in my possession. Even now I can sense that I am convincing myself to take the pills. But I must consider this more fully before making the choice. What should I do?

A hastily-sketched depiction of the Bhujeum pills

A Philosophical Quandary

My dearest and most pelargic of readers, I am in a quandary.

"But that is natural, Horton," you say. "After all, you are currently resident in a mental institution. A state of doubt or perplexity is the default state for a person in your predicament and should not be considered worthy of comment."

Dear reader, as usual you have jumped the gun and not allowed me time to elaborate. I must say that this lack of patience rates among your chief flaws and is not to be encouraged. Try to calm yourself for I am about to elaborate.

Today, I was visited in my cell by a Dr. Fell. I did not like him. If you were to press me, I would be unable to provide convincing or logical reasons for the dislike which I clearly felt towards the man. However, I am inescapably certain of how I felt: I did not like that Dr. Fell. He is a medical doctor and claimed to want to cure me of my supposed madness.

"In this bottle," he said (for he held a bottle, you understand), "I have Bhujeum pills. If you take these pills, all the strange things that plague you, all the aberrant thoughts that trouble you, will softly and suddenly vanish away. It will be like waking up from a terrible dream. You will be a completely different person."

I patiently explained to Fell that I am not actually insane and have been imprisoned in this asylum under false pretences. In a gentle and kindly voice he told me that the pills also work on sane people such as myself.

"If a sane person like you or I takes the pills, Horton," he said, "they just make the bad things in life stop happening and make happy things happen instead. They make us into different people. Better people."

This is the nature of my quandary, readers. I would like to live a life free of miserable events and tortuously episodic disasters, but I do not wish to lose my personality in the process. If I take the Bhujeum pills, I may become happy but will there be an 'I' to appreciate the happiness? If I take the pills and all the bad things in my life softly and suddenly vanish away, that would be indescribably wonderful, but will Horton Carew also softly and suddenly vanish away? This will require a great deal of thought.

On top of all this, I have developed scurvy through lack of vitamins.

The Last Recitation

My dearest and most anonymous of readers, I shall share with you but one more example of Robertson's verse. Thankfully, this is his last day of being a visiting speaker at the Dundee Home for the Irretrievably Demented as he has fallen out of favour with thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle. Robertson, having finished today's recitation to the inmates, was being shown out of the building by Muckle when he decided to try out some of his new material on the lumpen Irishman. Muckle suffered a small apoplexy, soiled himself, and has been left temporarily numb down the entirety of the left hand side of his body. Roberston has been told, in no uncertain terms, never to return.

Scheme Fowk Hae No Pretensions

See scheme fowk? They dinnae hae ony truck
Wi Markies food or ony o' that muck.
"This is no just food, but M&S food"?!
Aye it is! An' it's no even a' that good!
Thon Jamie Oliver says nae mair Turkey Twizzlers?
Thon ur scheme bairns' favourite treat, alangside rolled up Rizlas.
An' see thon Dr Gillian McKeith?
Aye, her wi the soor pus and squinty teeth?
Ah hear she's tryin' tae ban the butterie!
She'll hae nae luck persuading scheme fowk o' that. It's utterly
****** ridiculous, ken. An' takin' lettuce an' cucumber
Fur pack lunches? Talk aboot dumb an' dumber!
Nah, scheme bairns'll tak Cheezy Wotsits,
Curly-Wurlies, E-number flavour jeely tots. It's
Whit they thrive oan. Nah, gie the scheme fowk pehs
An' Special Brew an' chips wae deep-fried salt Ah sez!
Aye, scheme fowk hae no pretensions,
An' at the skale they goat detentions,
On baccy an' Buckie they spend their pensions.
An' tae the polis they dinnae pay attention.

See scheme fowk? Salt o' the ******* earth!
Are yiz mindin' Ah'm fae Fintry?

We are each of us relieved that we do not have to hear from Robertson any more. However, the sadistic male nurse Pugg Muckle has made it clear that if we do not do his bidding and submit to four daily thrashings all next week, then the next visiting speaker will be Dundee Courier columnist Anthony Troon.

We are on our best behaviour.

More Hard-Hitting Street Poetry

Readers, I will share a further example of Robertson's poetry, chiefly as evidence should he ever go on trial for his crimes. He is rapidly wearing us down - one inmate today sneaked into the kitchen and submerged his head in a large pot of boiling lentil broth, ultimately killing himself. Unfortunately, Pugg Muckle has now locked the kitchens to prevent anyone else doing likewise.

Doon at the Chipper on a Seturday Nicht

See scheme fowk? They love eatin' chips,
An' stickin' battered bits o' haddock past their lips
An' ken, sometimes they like a black or white
Puddin' supper on a Seturday nicht (night),
An' some o' them spend hauf their wage
On a burger in batter or a deep-fried sausage.
Maist scheme fowk will ask fur vinegar and salt,
Tae be added tae their suppers (the vinegar's usually malt).

Ken, goin' doon the chipper on a Seturday nicht (night)?
Scheme fowk love tae first get pished then get intae a fecht (fight).
Yis huv tae watch yerself doon there
So's ye dinnae get a pickled egg stuck in yer hair.

See scheme fowk? Salt o' the ******* earth!
Did Ah mention ah'm fae Fintry?

The Street Poet of the Schemes.

Readers, once more have we endured the recitations of the self-confessed 'poet of the schemes' Gary Robertson. Today he harangued on stage for two hours, enthusiastically bawling at us a great many of his poems. All the while, sadistic and thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle, with cotton wadding in his ears to avoid hearing Robertson's poesy himself, laughed as we writhed and squirmed in our seats.

For those of you unfamiliar with Robertson, perhaps a brief introduction would not go amiss. He is a 'street poet', who claims to write in an authentic Dundonian accent with brutal honesty about Dundee life. A denizen of one of Dundee's innumerable council house schemes, he claims to speak for all the poor 'schemies' who presumably do not possess the wherewithal to speak for themselves. I suspect he may be working class.

Though I do not feel comfortable making my readership suffer as I have suffered, I feel I should give you a flavour of what we inmates must endure. Here is an example of the verses today we heard:


Scheme Fowk at the Riverside Switches

Mind thon switches doon at Riverside?
Ken, when yis wur young an' starry-eyed,
They wis pure beezer. Eh, they wis magic,
Till the dodgems birled ye an' made ye sick,
A' ower some auld wifie and her bairn,
A' ower its heid an' bobble hat it wis wearin'.

Mind, when ye wis young, the switches were rare?
Toffee aipples stuck on sticks an' then yer hair,
As ye dunted the big 2p machines wi' yer erse,
Till the tinky carnie came ower lookin' a fierce,
Bawlin' at ye till ye started tae greet,
And ye got a skelp on yer lug and flung oot on the street.

Eh, ken, mind thon switches were braw?
A' the scheme bairns were taken by their maws.
Ye kent weel that the coconut shy wis a con,
But ye paid onywey fur a shottie then a play on
The puggies (but if yis won, a big lad aye stole it
Then bought baccy and a Rizla and then he would roll it).

But ken, when yis got older, ken, a teenage schemie,
Yis would still go tae the switches wi yer pals, twa or three,
But it wisnae rides yis had on yer mind,
At least, no rides on dodgems. Naw, yis wanted tae get entwined,
With some daft burd ahent the goldfish stall,
An' ******* **** her up against a wall.
Yer scheme pals and ye would get totally pished,
On cider and Buckie and, Christ, yis wished
Tae hae a fecht wi' the rival gang,
The 'Douglas Munters' or some ither bams.
Mind, you and yer pals wid chib them and batter their pusses
Wi' a length ae pipe an' they'd shout oot cusses.

See scheme fowk? The salt o' the ******* earth.
I'm fae Fintry ye ken.

The Visiting Speaker

My dearest and most sympathetic of readers, I will now reveal the identity of the visiting speaker, whose company we must endure each day this week as part of a cruel torment devised by our sadistic male nurse. Rest assured that I now look back fondly to the days when our only recreation was the removal of coagulated cats' droppings from the bottom of wire cages.

This afternoon, thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle, with his blunted, scabbed knuckles and his mighty belt buckles, lashed us into submission with a length of cable then he and his underlings hauled our protesting forms through to the community auditorium where they bound us to chairs with chicken wire. Laughing maniacally, he introduced us to the guest speaker, whom he had carefully chosen to offend our sensibilities and evince anguish and nausea in all residents. He then ran from the room so as not to suffer any injurious effects himself.

The visiting speaker appeared on stage clutching several manuscripts, which did not bode well for it meant that he intended to read from them for some considerable time. Dearest readers, the visiting speaker was none other than the Dundee 'street poet' Gary Robertson. He proceeded to read his work to us for upwards of an hour, either oblivious to the inmates' weeping and howling, or relishing the pain that he was able to inflict. At present, my nerves are too frayed, my hands too shaky, and my soul too despairing to permit me to relate much more of the horror I have witnessed today.

Suffice to say that one of my fellow inmates has just forced a propelling pencil into both of her ears and permanently deafened herself so that she will not have to hear anymore of Robertson's poetry tomorrow. Pugg Muckle promptly removed all such implements to prevent anyone else trying the same scam. As I write, the newly-deafened inmate sits smiling serenely, and we each look upon her with the greatest of envy.

Fresh Misery

After dinner tonight (the scrapings from a navvy's boots and a three-inch length of garden hose), thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle gathered together all inmates and announced that for the next two minutes, Dundee's Home for the Irretrievably Demented was to be a democracy. Certain inmates became excited at this notion and incautiously allowed their sense of hope to reawaken. I knew better and merely fortified my sense of despair.

Muckle declared that we were to take a vote. He felt that we were at risk of becoming mollycoddled so he had devised new tortures for us that would begin from Monday next week. As an example of, he claimed, unprecedented generosity on his part, we were to be permitted to decide, via due democratic process, which of the tortures we wanted to receive.

The options were as follows:

1) All footwear to be replaced with coils of barbed wire wrapped around the feet.
2) Our eyes to be sewn shut during the afternoon showing of Quincy.
3) Our current toilet arrangements (a bucket) to be replaced with a new system (our beds).
4) A visiting speaker each day this week.
5) Breakfast to consist of razor blades, with vinegar as a beverage.

After a little discussion among those of us capable of speech and abstract thought, we naturally opted for the 'visiting speaker' option. At hearing our decision, Muckle guffawed malevolently. He then told us, between laughs, exactly who that visiting speaker would be.

Readers, you will doubtless realise the horror of the situation when I tell you that I now wish we had gone for any or all of the other options.

A Disappointing Turn of Events.

Dear readers, I must report that my spirit is quite sapped. Because the inmate's duties at the Mid Craigie Cattery ended when male nurse Pugg Muckle and Cattery owner Mrs Imogen Pottle slaughtered all their cats to use as the contents of faux-haggisses, my escape plan has failed. I had planned to flee last Wednesday when Muckle and Pottle briefly took their attention from us as they retired for their three minute grapple in the Cattery. Alas, all visits to the Cattery have ceased until Pottle and Muckle can restock their feline supply, so that particular route to freedom is now closed.

Thus, I remain incarcerated in this terrible place. I will have to rethink my strategy. Male nurse Pugg Muckle has promised us fresh torments next week, as he does not wish us to become complacent with his current brutalities.

Final Preparations

Well, my dearest and most crassulent of readers, this may well be the last time you hear from me as an imprisoned man. You should not assume from this that I will shortly become an imprisoned woman. No, my gender is not the state which will shortly alter, but rather the adjective 'imprisoned', for I am soon to flee this dire place. Tomorrow I will be unimprisoned after I make my daring escape.

I have smuggled a few items in pockets and beneath folds in the white dressing gown that we are obligated to wear at all times. Three drawing pins and a single shredded wheat were all I was able to conceal. Perhaps when I am on the run, I will have need to affix a poster to a wall (in which case the three drawing pins will prove invaluable) or win the favour of Ian "Beefy" Botham (in which case the shredded wheat will become of inestimable value). Time will tell.

As one last indignity before I flee tomorrow, male nurse Pugg Muckle today smashed all but four toes on my left foot with the corner of a chest of drawers. It was purely for sport. It is reasons such as these that lead me to think I have made the correct decision in aiming to leave this asylum. Wish me luck for tomorrow. If I fail, my punishment will be so severe that I may not survive it.

A Message to my Lady Love, My Dove

Today found me melancholy. I spent almost all of this sabbath fixating unhealthily once more on Carol Doocot, my true love, who awaits my safe return on the outside. Doubtless she is reading these words, her eyes jewelled with tears, her lip a'quiver, anxious for my well-being. Carol, I will soon be with ye (you), for on Wednesday I mean to make my escape.

I am certain you have good reasons for visiting me not once during my incarceration and I look forward to hearing about them when I flee this place.

More Tales of Resident Lunatics

Readers, as my grim and miserable days in this grim and miserable asylum all follow the same grim and miserable blueprint, there is a paucity of interesting things to write about in this electronic diary. The only thing of any note that happened today was that the madman in the room down the corridor, who insists he is not insane and is actually a time-traveller from the year 2035 where a terrible pandemic has wiped out almost all of humanity, apparently disappeared mysteriously from his locked cell. Doubtless he has merely died of neglect and the wardens have disposed of his body in acid vats in the basement to cover their tracks.

To give you further evidence of the tediousness with which my days are filled, during teatime today, I found myself engaged in conversation to one Fyodor Myshkin, a somewhat dull young idiot who was impounded in this madhouse for his curious behaviour and worldview. However, I confess that when I spoke to him I found his hopelessly naive attitude and inability to understand the politics of the day actually highlighted many of the flaws and hypocrisies inherent to modern life. I found that this so-called madman's innate goodness and child-like questioning alerted me to many of my own prejudices and the depravity of our society. As is so common in this place, I again began to consider that we might well have things back-to-front and that it was not this simple-minded lunatic who was wrong in the head, but rather the rest of the world with all its ghastliness and horror. He quickly provided me with a definitive answer however when he began whooping like some manner of chimp, then pulled down his trousers and defecated in his bowl of soup.

Meet the Natives

My dearest and most curiously moist of readers, I suppose that I should tell you about some of my fellow inmates, whom, over our shared months of incarceration, I have come to regard as, if not friends, then at least as fellow inmates.

In the cell directly next to the left of mine is a slim young man who was jailed for pica. Pica is an abnormal eating disorder whereby the sufferer is driven to consume non-food items such as wax, sponges, bookmarks, convex lenses, snooker cue chalk, and Ginsters Scotch Egg Bars. This fellow eats all manner of crazy things and is therefore excellent entertainment value. Around the asylum, he will happily eat light-bulbs, Blu-Tack, bedding, forks, coat-hangers, and a poster of Rita Hayworth that I was intending to use as part of an escape plan. He was locked up because he developed a peculiar appetite for baby mice, which he ate alive and which led to his expulsion from numerous pet shops around Dundee. He also ate the kidney of a paperboy.

In the cell across the corridor from me is Elwood P. Stewart, an amiable drunk and quite the nicest, most affable chap that anyone would ever hope to meet. A favourite around the asylum, he is friendly, kind-hearted, and honest. His only real "crime" in our blinkered and judgemental society is that he claims to be accompanied wherever he goes by an invisible six foot rabbit, whom he believes is just as pleasant and happy-go-lucky as himself. When I consider how relatively well-adjusted and stress-free Mr Stewart's life is, I begin to ask myself, "Who are the real madmen in this world?" But then I remember that Elwood also skinned his sister in 1979 and the answer becomes abundantly clear.

In the cell to the right of mine, is Amy Winehouse.

A Dire Warning

My dearest and most alphabetical of readers, I have for you a dire warning. If any amongst you dwell within the city of Dundee and environs, then this dire warning is particularly applicable to you. If any readers amongst this subgroup plan to buy a haggis to consume tomorrow in celebration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, then this warning is very particularly applicable to you. But if any amongst this further subgroup plans to purchase their haggis from Aspick & Sons Family Butchers in Flensers Wynd, then this dire warning is especially particularly applicable to you. Take heed.

Today, we were woken at 2:00am and informed by thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle that he had a special project upon which we were to expend our energy until late afternoon. All we inmates were birched to fully rouse us for the day's work, then led through to the kitchens where the rancorous odour of festering cat corpses greeted us. Many hundreds of them lay strewn about the floors and work surfaces: clearly, they were the recently slaughtered remnants of Mrs Imogen Pottle's Mid Craigie Cattery. It transpired that this repugnant harridan was by no means the animal lover that her ownership of a Cattery would suggest, for, in league with Pugg Muckle, she had butchered all the feline creatures in her charge.

We spent the day scooping out the decomposing innards of these wretched beasts, grinding them up, and mixing them with sawdust and loft insulation. Handfuls of the resultant glop we stuffed inside uncoiled gentlemen's contraceptives until they were the size of mangos. These were then collected and boiled for hours in enormous pots. Readers, here is your dire warning: these unspeakable items were sold by Pugg Muckle to Aspick & Sons Family Butchers, who intend to offer them for sale tomorrow as discount haggises. Do not eat them if you are a cat lover.

All inmates were forced to suffer the indignity of eating some of these pseudo-haggises for our repast this evening. I confess I found them deliciously moreish, though I was disguted at myself.

Haggis

A Plan to Escape is Devised

Today saw our weekly outing to Dundee's Mid Craigie Cattery. These trips are ostensibly intended to lift us from our torpor and provide contact with the outside world as part of the asylum's social integration program. In reality, the only human being we see on these visits is the Cattery owner, a po-faced woman named Imogen Pottle who makes no effort to disguise her obvious contempt for us. She is the dowdy, cardiganned mistress of our thick-wristed male nurse, Pugg Muckle, and together they exploit our vulnerable, voiceless position in society by using us as free labour. She only tolerates our presence because Muckle forces us, under the threat of a sound thrashing with a length of birch, to muck out the cats' wire cages with our bare hands. It is humiliating work for a man of my standing.

As we scrabble around their accumulated feculence and the heaped corpses of their departed brethren, the cats themselves are half-crazed with hunger and terror, so tear at our flesh with their unclipped claws and screech wretchedly. Further to this, Imogen Pottle openly flouts the recent ban on smoking in enclosed places by smoking in this enclosed place.

At 3pm sharp, her and the male nurse Muckle leave us unattended and retreat to the back room to noisily relieve their base urges. At 3:04pm they return, their lustful appetites evidently satiated. I have decided that during next week's visit to Mid Craigie Cattery, I will risk all by using this brief window of opportunity to make my escape. It is a risky strategem but, as no other plan presents itself, it is my only chance.

A Synopsis of my Daily Life

Roote, the boss of this institution, has allowed me access to the internet cobweb for 20 minutes today, so I have elected to use this time to tell my readers about my daily life in Dundee's Home for the Irretrievably Demented. It is with no small amount of shame that I must admit that I have squandered 12 of my allotted minutes in considering the user comments on King Ralph on the IMDB (Internet Movie Database (IMD)). You must understand that some hapless goon had suggested that the title role would have been better played by John Candy, so I felt compelled to register on the website to (a) champion Goodman, and (b) patiently tell this boob exactly why he was incorrect. You will appreciate that I could not let his comment go uncontested.

That said, I will now use my remaining four minutes to give you a flavour of my daily life. It is a wretched and debasing existence. My lower lip trembles, my eyes blur, and my sweetbreads wince as I write these miserable words. Nurse Pawl forces all inmates to rise each morning at 3am (we are allowed a long lie until 3:15am on Sundays), and we are roused into consciousness by a cold shower and a breakfast of flax and powdered limpet shells. Our daily thrashing is administered at 4:00am by a lumpen Irishman named Nurse Pugg Muckle, who has needlessly huge knuckles and mighty belt buckles. We are then forced into the 'Labour Room' where we must toil for hours crafting trinkets to titillate the noveau-riche. At 12:00, we are given sleeping draughts and innumerable concoctions that keep us comatose until 3:00pm, thereby avoiding the need to provide us with luncheon. If it is not a Wednesday, when we are taken on our weekly outing (invariably to the local cattery), then we are permitted to watch Quincy until 4:00pm. We then receive the second of our daily beatings to keep us occupied until teatime at 5:00pm, after which we are dosed with cheap gin and ether, and forced to play carpet bowls until 7:00pm lights-out.

Now of course, I, alone of all the inmates, am permitted the additional luxury of 20 minutes daily to type words onto the internet. Alas, I must go now, for those 20 minutes have now elapsed.

I must escape this place soon or else I will go mad.

An Exciting Development

My dearest and most ombliferous of readers, I have an exciting development to tell you of. My ingenious scheme to escape this Bedlam is nearing completion, but because this institution is no longer equipped with a mute Red Indian, which was intrumental to my plan, I must remain captive for the foreseeable future. The Red Indian choked to death yesterday on a piece of Juicy Fruit.

This is not the exciting development. Rather, the previous paragraph was more expositionary. Do not fear, however, for I will arrive at the exciting development before long. You must allow me some time. I felt it important to precede the exciting development by telling you that I had an exciting development to relate. That way, I meant to capture your interest and engage your galloping curiousity, but furthermore, had I leapt straight in and told you the exciting development, you might not have appreciated that it was an exciting development and you may not have given it your full attention. Your impatience to get to the exciting development, necessitating this cautionary digression in order to calm your nerves, has rather let you down. I see I have once again misjudged the maturity of my readership. You are obviously ill-equipped to deal with too much excitement, so I must quickly let you know of the exciting development.

The exciting development is this: though I am to remain incarcerated in this den of chaos and clucking, I am to be allowed regular access to my electronic diary! Dr Anthony Gland has arranged it, having successfully argued for the therapeutic necessity of this confessional outlet. Thus, I will be able to keep you updated with the grim and miserable events in my miserable and grim life.

I realise now that the exciting development, having been built up by myself in earlier paragraphs to be something truly phenomenal, will likely now be received by my readers as something of an anticlimax. I will apologise only once for this, because I do not think it is a serious enough crime to warrant multiple apologies, and I am sure most of my readers are reasonable enough people and would agree. Sorry.

An Alacritous Update

My most anxious and preputial of readers, doubtless you have been worrying about my safety these last months. You were right to fret for me and I thank you for your compassion. I am having a terrible, miserable, episodic time of it in the Dundee Home for the Irretrievably Demented. Furthermore, I have no means of venting my overburdened spleen as I am forbidden from accessing the internet cobweb. It is only through weeks of planning, devious plotting, and some measure of degrading bribery, that I have managed to persuade the two hospital wardens, Perret and Sembadel, to allow me access to Dr. Biron's personal computer for just 20 short minutes. Such are the hardships I now endure. My time is limited so I must be succinct in my discourse and refrain from adopting my habital digressional mode of narration. Thus I must humbly beg my frustrated readership to weather the achingly sparse and underwritten prose you see before you now.

A grim update: it has become increasingly obvious to me that this carceral nursing home in which I am confined is, in reality, a sweat shop. We inmates are utilized as unpaid labour and are daily put to work crafting assorted luxury goods such as wickerwork, ribbon-weaving, Fuzzy-Felt collages, macaroni greeting cards, and gaudy baubles made with overmuch glitter. These are taken from us and presumably sold to wealthy merchants for vast profit, who in turn sell them to the bourgeoisie for even vaster profits. The inmates receive not one milky monetary drop from the plump udders of this cash cow.

I am languishing and dwindling in this ominous place. It has all the usual bleak accoutrements of mental institutions: white walls, nurses, restraining buckles, and a large mute Red Indian. The daily diet for all inmates is pemmican, carob, and medical gauze, all in tiny portions. As you will no doubt have observed, this diet is horribly lacking in the essential staple, bifidus digestivum, so we all suffer terribly. Further to this, we are daily pumped full of drugs which render the taker immobile and comatose. So at least it is not all bad here.

However, for the last week the wardens have devised fresh tortures for us, bringing in teams of small children festively bedecked with Father Christmas hats and tinsel, who sing carols to us in a manner that is little short of appalling. Their cacophonous screeching complete, they pass out shop-bought, budget mince pies then file out. I fear I may perish in this godforsaken place.

Thankfully, my plan to escape is nearing fruition...but, alas, I must leave that for another day because the wardens have returned to remove me from the computer. Farewell.

A Temporary Farewell

My dearest and most rambunctious of readers, I have much to relate. First, the bad news: I am to be incarcerated in a mental institution in Dundee for the rest of my natural life. I have seen through all of Dr Gland's sly euphemisms ("just a little place for you to relax", "a sort of calming hotel", "a hospital where we can help you to get better") - it is the loony bin for me. They believe me to be unhinged because of my recent public duel with Doocot's beau wherein I penetrated his torso with a fencing sabre to his permanent injury.

Tomorrow morning, I am to be packed away to the Dundee Home for the Irretrievably Demented. Within those walls, there is no form of access to the outside world, so until I can work out a way to escape, I will be unable to update this electronic diary. For this I apologise. In the mean time, I suggest you read over some of my earlier diary entries a day at a time and pretend they are occuring in the present. Until I can escape, I must bid you farewell.

But before I bid you farewell (in retrospect, I should have saved such bidding until the end of this entry because this appendment now appears amatuerish and somewhat embarrassing), I will tell you of some good news that has befallen me. Yesterday I received a visit from my ladylove, my dove, Carol Doocot. She called in at my house, looking careworn but succulent.

"Horton," she said, "I have brought you something."

Her words struck a chord in my heart which sang with strange music, with music so barbaric that, frankly, I blushed to find it harmony. Have I said that she is beautiful? It can convey no faint conception of her. With her pure, fair skin, eyes like the velvet darkness of the East Neuk of Fife, and red lips so tremulously near to mine, she was the most seductively lovely creature I ever had looked upon. In that moment my heart went out in sympathy to every man who had bartered honour, country, all - for a woman's kiss. She had a couple of spots on her chin though, which let her down a bit.

"I cannot help but feel responsible for your recent hardships," she said. "It was I who encouraged you to explore your passions for the purposes of Art. Those passions overflowed and turned against my economics student boyfriend, but had I not forced you to unearth those passions in the first place, none of this would have happened. I didn't know you were...unequipped to deal with those emotions."

Here she handed me a bag.

"I made this for you," she said. "Take it with you to the Dundee Home for the Irretrievably Demented. I hope it brings you some peace."

She left. Inside the bag was a lump of clay in the shape of a fat dove.

Some might say that this is a piece of sculpture conveying the theme of peace, created by a well-meaning art tutor to gift to a poor, bewildered lunatic. However, I know different. It is surely a hollowed-out container housing Doocot's child, to which I am the father. She has placed the baby in this clay womb because she trusts me, the father, to look after it. Inside the clay dove, the baby is in a state of suspended animation. Clearly, this gift is meant to give me hope. Hope that when I finally escape from the mental institution, Carol Doocot will be there waiting for me. Together, we will crack open the dove with some manner of hammer, and we will start our life together as loving and devoted parents.

It makes perfect sense. I knew I was not mad. Now, I must bid you farewell again.

A Ludicrous Charge is Levelled Against Me

Readers, not for the first time in my life, I am in trouble with the law. My duel with the suitor of Doocot was reported to the police, who have obviously been slipped some bribe because they have treated me abysmally. They have pulled out some ancient, dusty tomes of law and hooked me on a technicality: apparently some archaic statute or other still exists which means it is technically illegal for a man to commit attempted murder in the city of Dundee.

Attempted murder? you ask, italicizing the 'attempted' to convey your shock that I did not fully succeed in my quest to destroy Doocot's beau. You could equally have underlined the 'attempted' to emphasize it, but had you done so I would not have replied to your question because I consider underlining words for the purposes of emphasis to be much overused of late, and I do my utmost to discourage the practice.

Alas readers, I did not slay the beau. In the end, I merely wounded a portion of his trunk with my sabre. He survived my spirited onslaught. Thus, I have been formally charged with the pseudo-crime of 'attempted murder' which is a ludicrous notion to my mind. One would not be charged with 'attempted theft' or 'attempted forgery' or 'attempted kidnapping' (I assume), so why should 'attempted murder' be singled out and become a chargable offence?

I have been released for the moment. Dr Anthony Gland and a lawyer called Poove have had a word with the police and explained my position as a man of some clout in the community, so they have managed to ensure that I will not go to a real jail if I am convicted, but rather a plush hostelry designed entirely for the comfort of the inhabitants, up to and including padded walls.

I will keep you updated regarding this situation.

The Duel

Readers, you join me as I prepare to do battle with Carol Doocot's beau whom I intend to slay in order to prove my love for Doocot. When she sees me standing over his bloody corpse, doubtless she will realise how serious my love for her is and will devote her life to me. I hope she will help me dispose of the body discreetly so that we can avoid a scandal.

I am in Dundee University Library using their computer machines to type this message. As I will be updating you on the duel while the fight is in progress, I trust you will excuse any inelegancies. At the moment, Doocot's beau is standing by the photocopier, photocopying an entire chapter from Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy by Philip Booth. As he stands there, willfully breaking copyright agreement, he remains unaware that he must shortly die at my hands.

As he was boorish enough not to respond to my invitation to duel like a gentleman, I have spent the last few days tracking him down and following him around Dundee. He is an Economics student which to my mind is crime enough. Despite being no great looker, he has somehow succeeded in seducing Doocot. Surely, Svengali-like, he has utilized the mesmeric arts to hoodwink Doocot into becoming his lover. Luckily, I am here to save her.

He goes to leave. I am now typing ths with my left hand as I use my right hand to remoive my fenciong sword from the trouser leg in which I concealed it. TH ebounder is going.

Readers, I have just shouted across the library to him. He is looking over. I am typing this just now, though, so when I get to the end of this sentence I will taunt him again.

The taunt successful, he is making his way over here. I am now using my right hand tio type this as I remove a secoind fencing sword from my left trouser leg. As I am a gentleman, I will provide Doocot's beau with a sword so that the fight will be fair.

I have just challenged him to a duel and handed him a fencing sword (actually a straightened-out wire coathanger affixed to a sieve: although I believe in being sporting, there is no call in being too sporting). He laughs in my face, the swine. I have struck him on the arm with my sword, drawing blood.

I have explained to him that I must remain seated during our fight to the death as I have an anxious readership to keep informed but he seems distracted. He is wailing and clutching his arm. He refuses to fight back, so I am forced to strike him a second time. This time, I stab him in the knee ,8ddedfbnhgdrsghL

Readers, Doocot's beau just struck me in the ear with his sword. No gentleman he! It stings like buggery but he has not managed to lop it off. As I am typing this, I am jabbing him repeatedly in the leg and groin with my sword. He is pulling me away from thhe coopomuter terminal but I hav managgerd ti kjeep hold of the keyboasrd and keep typingh. He is stomping on my legs wehich is pasinful beyond the telling of it. A security guard is aspprtoaching - - I must finish this quickly. I stab doocot's beau in the chest.


THe securityy guard haas
he;s wrestlin me off and


i will click ;publi'sh post''' the brute has a grip ojn me
doocots beau is llying derad i hav triumphed



mnb yfghjb45 /

Taking Control of my Future

Rather than descend into a period of doldrums over my recent bad luck, I have vowed instead to tackle my listlessness head on. I will be an agent of my own change. Not for me the route of despair and denial: I will face my foes and fears with force.

The facts in this case are as follows:

1) I have somehow impregnated an Art tutor.
2) She is unaware of her gravidity.
3) I must tell her of her condition.
4) I must wed her so that the child, when born, is not a bastard (if male) or bitch (if female).
5) She has a suitor who will not be happy at my attempts to woo her.
6) I must remove the suitor from the picture.
7) Permanently.

To deal with points 5 through 7, I have written a letter to her suitor to invite him to join me in a duel to the death. Here is the letter which is blunt and to the point:

Dear chump [by using this demeaning title, I hope to rouse his fury from the off],

You have been observed making unseemly and unwelcome advances towards my gal [I use the slang term 'gal' to make me seem more like a New York tough, and hence to worry him]. You are hereby challenged to a duel. Be prepared to fight to the death. The winner takes all.

Yours angrily [here I have replaced the more traditional 'Yours sincerely' to emphasize the extent of my ire],

Horton Carew

This letter has made its way to my Art tutor's pigeonhole in Duncan of Jordanstone Art College. On the envelope, I wrote "Please pass on to the suitor of Ms Carol Doocot, nymphean Art tutor". By now it should have reached the swine. I must go and practise my fencing skills.

The Engagement does not go as Planned

Yesterday's encounter with the Art tutor Carol Doocot was, emotionally speaking, a tumultuous one. With some compound of horror and hope, I approached her in the studio before the class began and stated my case. A combination of excessive nervous energy and a surfeit of fortified wine resulted in a dangerous lapse in restraint on my part: regrettably, I misjudged the situation and was far too forward, too blunt, and this discourteousy may ultimately have cost me dear.

What I intended as a fervent and passionate sweeping off of feet became a clumsy and awkward embrace. And when I say 'embrace', I mean 'an unwelcome and unreciprocated fumble', and when I say that, I mean 'a headbutt'. You see, I accidentally tripped over an easel in my enthusiasm as I rushed towards her, and consequently fell in such a way that my forehead struck her nose. Naturally I apologised profusely and, in an effort to placate her as she daubed uselessly at the rivulets of blood gushing from her broken face, I proposed marriage. Obviously she was too shaken to fully comprehend what I had said, for her only response was copious weeping.

Conscious that the situation was not proceeding as intended, I panicked and began blurting out as much of my planned speech as possible, with no thought towards decorum.

"You have my child! You will be mine! You will wed me! I will get a job! Your child is mine!"

I had no opportunity to hear her reply for at that moment into the studio rushed an alarmed looking man who pushed me away from my ladylove.

"Get away from my girlfriend pal!" the goon bellowed, allowing saliva to spray freely from his mouth in his fury. He snatched her up in his arms and cradled her head in his palm.

In terror I absconded.

I do not know what to think. Clearly, I have a rival for Doocot's affection. One who does not know of her secret - that she has permitted herself to become impregnated by another man, i.e. me (Horton Carew). I will doubtless have to arrange a duel with this cove in order to win Doocot back.

For the moment, however, I must allow myself time to weep and to claw at my scalp in anguish.

Rehearsing my Engagement Speech

Tomorrow is Wednesday, the day of my Art class and the day that I must finally confront my Art tutor Carol Coocot about her impregnation. She will likely be unaware that she is with child so I will have to handle this situation sensitively.

I must make my intentions plain so that there is no room for misunderstandings. I will march into the studio, grab her firmly by the wrist as though I was a smouldering and impassioned Rock Hudson, and state boldly and decisively the following:

"Carol Doocot, as far as can be ascertained you are pregnant with my child. Thus, I will wed you whenever is convenient with you. You will have ample time to finish off any paintings you might be working on and so on and so forth. It is my intention to begin gainful employment as soon as possible so that I can support you and your child financially in the coming years. I have settled upon the name 'Gordo' or 'Aubrey' if the child is male and 'Meemsy' or 'Debs' if the child is female, but I am prepared to hear your suggestions. Assuming this satisfactorily squares with your expectations, I will begin preparations directly."

Once she agrees to be my spouse, I will reward her with an engagement ring which I have modelled from clay. As she is an earthy artistic type, she will appreciate this personal touch.

Wish me luck readers for I have limited experience in engagements and begin to suffer from nerves.

Contemplating my Future as a Husband

Now that I am to be a father of a baby child, I must take my place in this world more seriously. My carefree batchelor days will soon be over for I must now wed the art tutor Carol Doocot whom I impregnated. If I am to offer stability and a healthy upbringing to a baby child, it will be essential to have some form of wife who can feed it milk and help it learn quadratic equations and such.

Although a mere quirk of fate has cast myself and the Art tutor Carol Doocot together forever, I must confess that I rather like the idea of owning a wife, baby or not. I will be able to visit public houses and talk about my wife to other men. I have decided that although I will doubtless dote on my wife in private, when I discuss my wife with other men I will adopt a tone of comical downtroddeness and refer to her as "She Who Must Be Obeyed" and "The Old Ball and Chain" and similar epithets because that will make me appear to other men as though I am unemotional and that I would not necessarily have chosen to get married but was somewhat coerced into it by circumstance. This routine will engender a sense of camaraderie with other married men, who might buy me a pint of bitter and eventually invite me to join them in a game of golf and ask me to their family barbecues, etc.

Although Carol Doocot is obliged by her pregnancy to accept my offer of marriage whether she likes it or not, it is not my intention to be a boorish husband. I am keen to show her that I am thoughtful and caring by giving her an engagement ring and kneeling, which I understand is considered romantic. Once she has agreed to be my wife, she can move into my Dundee home at once and prepare the house for my baby's arrival by cleaning my rooms and redecorating the bedroom upstairs, which has needed a lick of paint for some years now.

A comical metaphor for married life that I will employ to appear worldly in front of other men

The Truth is Revealed at Last

Tonight's art class provided the perfect opportunity to ascertain whether or not the art tutor Carol Doocot had indeed been impregnated by me. Sufficient doubt remains in my mind as to the precise mechanics behind how a woman becomes heavy with child, but as I have seen Carol Doocot naked once and consequently experienced a spasm, I felt that a pregnancy was probable enough that I could not afford to ignore the likelihood.

But how to ask her? How was I to frame such a question, the answer to which might very well bind the woman to me in perpetuity and change the course of my life forever? Just thinking of it caused me to bite my lower lip and fret. I eventually decided that there was no need for me to ask Carol Doocot directly and that I could establish the truth covertly. I have seen enough soap operas to know that there are ways of discovering pregnancy using small white plastic sticks that change colour when urinated upon. It was such a method that I chose to employ this evening.

Having no Home Pregnancy Testing Kit available in my Dundee home, I was forced to improvise by affixing a strip of litmus paper to a toothbrush: as the final product visually approximates a Home Pregnancy Testing Kit, I assume it is also functionally identical.

When I arrived at Duncan of Jordanstone Art College, I was greeted by Carol, who welcomed me into her classroom and asked if I had made a full recovery from my spasm. I used this opportunity to quickly check her over for any signs of pregnancy, such as having a swollen abdomen or emitting a womanly glow, but she was found wanting in both departments. Further measures were needed.

It was then that I realised my Home (-made Home) Pregnancy Testing Kit was of limited value for its success depended entirely upon the Art tutor Carol Doocot introducing the Kit to a stream of her urine and I could see no way of persuading her of this course of action without arousing suspicion. I would have to be wily.

Thus it was that I snuck into the women's toilet immediately after she had used it and daubed my Home (-made Home) Pregnancy Testing Kit around the toilet bowl. The litmus paper changed colour. Readers, I tremble as I write this... the paper turned red.

I am to be a father. Carol Doocot is pregnant with my child.

I celebrated by buying a fish supper on the way home.

What Did I Do in the Great War?

I find that the above poster by Savile Lumley still works its propagandist magic, for its message has played heavily on my mind today. If my own child, full of wonder and pride, asks me what I did in the Great War of 1914-1918, I will be obliged to answer that I did nothing, which will humble me and make me adopt an expression of consternation just as the troubled father in the poster is doing.

Through consulting the newspapers and the internet cobweb, I was delighted to be reminded that Britain is technically at war just now. Although it is no 'Great War', I will surely be able to do something to help the war effort and hence avoid an awkward, shamefaced silence when my baby becomes a child and asks me what I did to help the nation.

I am not entirely sure who the enemy is - what I have been able to pick up is that Britain and the US (America) have been bombing some countries and shooting some people to help save them from tyrants. Some of the people are not grateful for being saved in this way and have been shooting back. I think they are the enemy. The tyrants are the following: Saddam Hussein, who lived in a hole in the ground, then was hung, Osama Bin Laden who has a big beard and who lives in a cave, and a man called George Galloway who lives in a house with Rula Lenska and Pete Burns, but I remain unsure of his involvement. None of this fighting in hot and sandy countries is of any use to me, however, as it is all happening at the other side of the world and you cannot get cheap return flights to Iraq from Dundee airport.

Thankfully, there is an enemy closer to home that I might help to fight: Terror. On our fair island are agents of Terror who live in Britain and who assiduously help Osama Bin Laden's Terror-Cause by inciting Terror. I only have the popular media to go by, but these Terror-Enemies seem to be some species of Mohammedan gremlin which ruins public transport for everyone by self-destructing during rush hour.

They seem to be the main Terror-Culprits, but they are certainly not the only ones. I have noticed that many other people cause needless Terror-Terror in Britain today: last night, even the BBC proved themselves guilty of helping the Terror-Enemy by showing Tales From the Crypt. What chance have the government got if the country's main broadcasting station is working for the War on Terror by further Terror-fying the populace? The bit with the murderous Father Christmas and the Joan Collins engendered nothing but Terror in me. Congratulations BBC! What a disaster for the war effort - Osama Bin Laden will doubtless be laughing when he hears of this.

Readers, my solution to the War Against Terror is the liberal application of Courage. I have spend much of today bolstering my stock of Dutch Courage by drinking endless mugs of Kentucky Bourbon, and I suggest you soon do likewise. Not only does is boost your Courage and hence reduce your Terror, but it also benefits the American economy, which I have gathered is also somehow related to helping the war effort.

I would like to see Osama show me Tales From the Crypt in my newly fortified state - he would soon realise that us Britons are made of sterner stuff! Now, when my child asks me, "Daddy, what did YOU do in the War?", I will be able to look him squarely in the eye and say, "I beat Terror, son." Then I will offer him a slug of Wild Turkey to help him beat Terror too.

Further Measures to Protect My Future Child

Readers, I must tell you that despite my initial misgivings about fathering the child of an Art tutor, I have warmed to the idea considerably. There are one or two things I fear about being a father, such as having to involve myself in the Father and Son Sack Race at school sports day. I am not proficient in athletics and worry that I will show my son up and embarrass him in front of his friends. Even if I just have a daughter, I will still be expected to give her a lift to the Brownies every week and I cannot drive. Above all, I live in terror that my offspring, whatever its gender, will develop a terrible wasting disease and die young, or that some awful calamity should end its existence, a tragedy that would break my heart. I would be unable to cope with the grief and would likely force a screwdriver into my ear to puncture my brain and expediate my own demise.


Such are the perils of parenthood. To protect my future offspring from disasterous death, I have taken further measures to ensure its wellbeing within my Dundee home. I have wedged Gluetack (a mixture of Blu-Tack and Glue of my own devising) into all the electric sockets in my home so that my baby does not electrocute itself by insering a metallic strip into one of the zapholes.

All poultry has been exorcised from my kitchen to avoid the risk of botulism. I have heard that babies cannot tolerate salt in their diet, so I have dutifully expunged my sellars and saltlicks. A grave risk to our nation's young is scalding: to remove this hazard, I have committed my kettle to the flames, and have cast away my plugholes - if a bath or sink cannot be filled at all, then there is less chance of it being filled with boiling water, and therefore less chance that I submerge my baby in it in a fit of pique.

Potential Fatherhood

Readers, I have decided that if Carol Doocot, the Art tutor, has been impregnated and if I prove to be the father of the child, then I will do the honorable thing and help her to raise our baby. As I have already intimated, I am unsure exactly how a woman becomes a pregnant woman, but I am certain that female nudity is involved at some stage in the proceedings. As I witnessed Carol Doocot in a state of undress at Wednesday's Art class, it will be safest to assume that I have indeed impregnated her until I learn anything to the contrary.

I have already sellotaped bubblewrap to all the sharp corners in my home, removed the bleach from under the kitchen sink, and hidden my revolver in a shoebox to protect my offspring from injuring itself when it arrives in this world, young children being notoriously stupid and foolhardy in such respects.

Tomorrow I will clear out my tools from the garden shed and begin preparations to convert it into a Wendy House for the child to play in. I will attach plywood turrets to the roof of my shed so that the child can pretend the Wendy House is its magical castle. If the child is a boy child, it can pretend to be a prince or king: if the child is a girl child, it can pretend to be a princess or queen. I will also plant some saplings in the garden so that a tree might eventually grow and I can build my child a tree house. I believe I will make a good father to my child.

An Art Class and a Spasm

Yesterday I promised to tell you about a recent stressful incident at an Art class. Because I am a man of my word, I will today tell you about a recent stressful incident at an Art class. My four regular readers will remember that on 22nd June I was offered a place at an evening Art class run by a graduand/graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone Art College. She had been singularly unimpressed by my efforts at portraiture, all of which she claimed looked like characters from The Munsters, and so proposed that she tutor me in the ways of Art. I made the rash decision to accept her tutelage but now regret it bitterly.

On Wednesday night at 7:00pm I arrived at the appointed room in the Duncan of Jordanstone building to be met by Carol Doocot, the tutor. Curiously she was wearing a white dressing gown, but I put this down to Artistic eccentricity. She bade me sit by the group of shabbily attired, rough looking young sorts (some of the females sported tattoos and some of males unashamedly wore earrings) who were to be my classmates. Several of the roughs attempted to engage me in conversation on a variety of topics, but I steadfastly ignored them.

"Well class, we have a new member joining the group today," announced Carol. "Horton Carew - he's the street artist I was telling you about. I'm sure you'll all do your best to make him feel welcome. Sorry to put you on the spot Horton, but perhaps you could tell the class a bit about yourself."

Happy that my reputation evidently preceded me, I grew confident and agreed to share a few tidbits of biographical information to keep the baying mob satiated, as well as offering a little advice to the scruffier elements of the group on how to present themselves more respectably.

"Thank you Horton. To fill you in, last time the class met, we'd just started some life drawing which we'll be continuing with today. Okay, if everyone could get their materials out, we'll make a start."

I took out my habitual Artistic tools - a biro and a pad of A4 lined paper from Woolworth's - but Carol informed me that if I wanted to do proper Art, I had to use more expensive paper and draw with sticks of charcoal to make my work a little more smudgy. Furthermore, it was essential to attach the paper to a wooden board with two metal clips and stand whilst drawing. Only through this method would my Art be considered acceptable.

These measures taken, I watched as Carol flitted around the room giving tips to my peers, such as to avoid using the pink pastel for skin tone, but to instead use blue and yellow. That way, it would look more Arty. The phrase 'skin tone' gave me a clue as to what our subject would be: something with skin. As it transpired, that was only the half of it. Readers, what I am about to impart is doubtless the raciest episode yet recorded in my electronic diary. If you are offended by filth and indecency, I strongly recommend that you do not read further lest you faint and crack the side of your head on a radiator as you collapse to the floor in your swoon.

Carol casually announced that she would be today's subject then promptly disrobed. With no sign of a blush, and no concession made whatsoever to cover her shame, she stood in the centre of the room completely naked. To compound this felony, none of my classmates appeared at all phazed by this unannounced nudity, and at once went to work sketching her.

"Remember to pay particular attention to the negative space; the space around the subject," suggested Carol, as though she were clothed instead of standing unadorned in a room full of people clutching charcoal sticks.

Appalled as I was, I made to leave at once. But readers, I must admit that I persuaded myself to reconsider, telling myself that all Artists must go through terrible ordeals and suffering in order to improve and inform their Art. No readers, to my everlasting mortification and regret, I elected to stay in that room among the nakedness. I had the opportunity to leave but did not, and I have paid for that decision since.

I did my best to draw the denuded Carol, starting with her head and working down. I kept my eyes focussed above her neck at all times so as not to corrupt myself more than was necessary. But readers, my anxiety continued to rise as my gaze was obliged to sink lower. Through deftly averting my eyes, I did manage to draw one of her naked arms, but when I came to draw her private chest area I am afraid I was corrupted. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses left me, and I became unconscious.

I awoke to find a now-robed Carol hovering over me, asking if I was all right. She apologised, saying that the room can get very warm and that she should have opened a window. In terror, I grabbed my Artistic apparatus and fled that den of iniquity at once.

Readers, I confess that I have no experience whatsoever in matters such as these and am largely ignorant in the ways of love and the mechanics of human procreation. I am not entirely certain what happened to me on Wednesday night, but if I am correct in my suspicions, I fear that Carol may now be pregnant with my child. If that is the case I will either have to marry her soon in order to save face, or flee the country and disavow all knowledge of her.

Eight Facts About Me

Readers, soon I will tell you about my traumatic experience at an art class, but in today's entry I must indulge a brief digression. I was recently 'tagged' by an internet entity who told me that I must share with my readership eight facts about my miserable life. Though I cannot be sure, I believe it to be a legal requirement that I share these facts or else risk the gaol. At any rate, I have researched the internet cobweb and discovered that this practice of writing eight facts about one's life is something of a fad on electronic diaries at present, so I think that if I go along with this, it will make me more popular.

Eight Interesting Facts about the Life of Horton Carew.

1. I am a male person.
2. As a youth, I once caught a crab at Lunan Bay, which I christened Mortimer.
3. I have never committed a murder of a man.
4. I have two permanent diseases.
5. In the past, I have feigned an allergy to brine in order to impress a bully.
6. I once appeared in an episode of To the Manor Born.
7. My favourite food is lovely.
8. A childhood accident involving a calliper has left me unable to correctly pronounce 'Cincinnati', 'plinth', and similar words.

Rebuilding Dundee

You will note that I have of late been providing you with detailed descriptions and pictorial representations of several Dundee landmarks. Because of this recent diversion, one reader has written to me (for some of my readers can also write) to ask me if I am trying to do for Dundee what James Joyce did for Dublin. By that I assumed that my correspondent meant that I might eventually have several walking tours around the city named after me, but this was not the case. Of his populist trash Ulysses, James Joyce apparently boasted, "I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book". My correspondent wondered if I intended something similar for Dundee with my electronic diary.

Of course, I sent that reader a vicious and abusive reply telling her to mind her own business and not to be so damned nosy in future. After a while, however, I began to worry about what might happen if Dundee did suddenly disappear from the earth, and all that the architects and planners had to go on was the information contained in my electronic diary. Clearly, they would be unable to make much headway on the project.

Thus, to help those builders, and to best Mr Joyce and his lowbrow penny dreadful, I will begin to use this electronic diary to furnish the reader with detailed topographical information about the streets of Dundee.

Today for example, I walked from East Whale Lane to Euclid Crescent. First, I departed from East Whale Lane by turning left into the Seagate where I walked for approximately 0.01 miles (0.02km) before bearing left for a further 0.05 miles (0.08km), then I crossed at the Marketgait roundabout and bore left for 0.05 additional miles (0.08km). At this point, I turned right into Sugarhouse Wynd which I strolled along for 0.06miles (0.1km) before turning left into the Cowgate. There I ambled for 0.09miles (0.14km) until the street became Panmure Street. I walked along Panmure Street for 0.13miles (0.21km) then bore left for 0.03 miles (0.05km), where I successfully turned right into Euclid Crescent.

Here is a map for further information:

That should be enough for the builders to make a start if Dundee should disappear tonight.

The Great McGonagall

Despite today's atrocious weather, I have managed to produce yet another Artistic gem, albeit one soggier than usual. It would perhaps be immodest to say 'masterpiece' at this stage, but as you have pressed me, readers, I admit I can find no other suitable word to describe it.

As local readers will note from my masterpiece below, I have been to Dundee's Magdalen Green today to add the statue of William McGonagall to my folio of masterpieces. Local readers, I know the following will be painfully familiar to you already, but I would ask you to be patient while I describe to ignorant non-local readers the tradition associated with this statue.

Statue of William Topaz McGonagall, Magdalen Green. Ignore the smudges - it was raining heavily when I drew it.

Non-locals are often curious as to why the statue, erected in 1912, has two right hands and outlandish headgear. Well my foolish non-local readers, I will explain why this is. During World War: Part 2, people all over Britain tore out metal railings and sacrificed milk pans to help the war effort. This metal was made into tanks to destroy Germans or something. Many Dundonians felt that McGonagall's statue, being made of valuable metal, should be melted down and turned into bayonets to help the brave tommies doing their bit for King (and country). The council forbade this course of action but this did not prevent one Lochee man from sawing off McGonagall's left hand and donating it to a scrap metal collector. For its own safety, the statue was removed from public display and kept in Barrack Street museum for the remainder of the war.

When McGonagall came to be displayed again, the statue's missing left hand proved problematic: metal shortages thanks to the war made sculpting a new one unfeasible. As it happened, at the foot of the Wellgate steps there used to stand a statue of Janet Keillor, the Dundonian who invented marmalade, almost all of which had been commandeered by gung ho citizens and eventually melted down to make several Goshawk engines. The council had only been able to salvage a knee cap, a portion of inner thigh, and a right hand. As a temporary measure, McGonagall's statue was fitted with Keillor's right hand. Over time, Dundonians grew to love this eccentricity and have resisted any attempts to give McGonagall a new left hand.

The outlandish headgear is easier to explain: from the 1970s onwards, Dundee's student population began decking McGonagall out in various hats as part of a drunken prank. This sort of thing passes for humour among students. Initially, traffic cones and bobble hats would find their way onto McGonagall's pate, but over time the hats became more elaborate. On Hallowe'en for example, he would be seen sporting a witch's hat, whilst on Christmas Day, a Father Christmas hat would be his headgear of choice. And so on.

Today, students still take responsiblity for his hats, and the position of Group Organiser for the Dundee University McGonagall's Hat Society is now highly sought after. McGonagall now has enough hats to enable him to wear a new one every day of the year, and some of the more extravagant hats designed by Art students can take several hours to set up. As you can see from my drawing, he was still to be found wearing a faux-crown in honour of the Queen's visit to Dundee on Monday. Her Majesty was said to be "slightly amused" at the spectacle.

The Dundee Dragon

The most recent piece of sculpture I have turned my Artistic eye to is the Dundee Dragon, just outside Waterstone's (formally Ottakars, and formally Pottakar's during a recent Harry Potter promotion).

The story goes that in times of old, a Dundee farmer sent his daughter down to a well to fetch water. She never returned so he sent another daughter who also failed to return. Thus he sent another daughter who did not return either. Rather than go down to the well to investigate his daughters' disappearance himself, he sent all nine of them down to the well one after the other until all were lost.

Well, as the title of this tale is 'The Dundee Dragon', some readers may have guessed that the cause of the daughters' vanishment was that a dragon had devoured them all with no small amount of greed. A hero was called for who, after some difficulty, killed the beast, as heroes typically do.

To commemorate this dragon, the city of Dundee commissioned sculptor Prentice Oliphant to create a statue in its memory. Oliphant's Dundee Dragon is designed to be interactive: children are welcome to clamber over it, pensioners are encouraged to sit on its snout and enjoy a rest, city workers typically grab a quick lunch leaning against its wings. A particularly ingenious aspect of The Dundee Dragon's interactivity is that when a button under its chin is depressed, a brief flame eminates from a tiny tube concealed in the tip of its mouth. Dundonians can frequently be seen using the sculpture's intriguing mechanism to light cigarettes, cigarellos, cigars, and pipes.

I have ensured that my drawing of the statue shows it being used as the Artist intended. I am very happy with this drawing and do not think that there are any contemporary Artists operating today who could do better than me. I hope people viewing the drawing at my street artist stall will agree with this assessment, for I mean to charge £20.00 for this one.

The Dundee Dragon

My drawing of the Dundee Dragon, featuring a young Dundonian lighting a cigarette

Penguins

New visitors to Dundee will perhaps be surprised to note the preponderance of penguin statuary in the city. However, if they have the foresight to read the explanation contained in this electronic diary entry, they will not be surprised and will instead be well-informed. At the time of writing, over thirty sculptures of penguins can be found around Dundee and environs. Here are some photographs showing just a few of them:

St. Mary's Tower, Nethergate

Riverside Drive

Dock Street (sculpture donated by Roy Castle)

Dundee Law, next to War Memorial

I will now tell you a little about Dundee's connection to penguins. I have decided to do so in the manner of a tourist guide book so that you all pay attention. Dundee's famous association with penguins stems from 1905 and Dundee's ultimately doomed attempt to establish a zoo. Plans for an internationally-renowned attraction in Dundee, featuring hundreds of exotic species and an area selling candyfloss, had been in place for several years. Suitable animal habitats had been constructed in Camperdown, but insufficient funding meant there was a great paucity of animals to delight the people of Dundee. The biggest draws were a tawny owl and a shrew, but both died after only a few months in captivity.

Salvation seemed at hand, however, when Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the RRS Discovery, who had recently returned from his expedition to the Antarctic, donated two valuable penguins to Dundee Zoo as a thank you to the city for building the ship that valiantly remained intact for the two years it was irretrievably trapped in ice. Thousands of Dundonians flocked to see the birds, but sadly their patronage did not save the zoo from closure. Dundee Zoo was downscaled to Camperdown Wildlife Park, which still remains today and displays only dull animals such as foxes, rabbits, and otters, and all the then-useless zoo animals were butchered and served to the homeless.

All that is, except for Gideon and Elnora, the two Dundee penguins. The public had grown so fond of them that there was outcry at the suggestion that their flesh be used to sustain the poor. Thus, to a cheering crowd, the pair were released into the Tay on 21st December 1905. Evidently, the penguins preferred Bonnie Dundee to the chill winds of the bleak Antarctic for they refused to leave Dundee's shores. There they remained for many years, rearing several penguin chicks, which similarly flourished.

Land reclamation work at Dundee's waterfront in the late 20th century displaced the small colony of penguins, but thankfully only as far as Broughty Ferry beach (still technically Dundee), where a modest penguin population still thrives to this day, each of them descendants of the original Gideon and Elnora. As the UK's only wild penguins, they are constantly monitored and highly protected. They are one of Dundee's biggest claims to fame, hence the abundance of penguin statues in the city. Here is a photograph of the birds today:

Penguin colony at Broughty Ferry Beach

And so my dearest and eagerest of readers, my latest Artistic work that I plan to hawk to tourists is one that I have entitled "Penguins". It is my intent to have this image printed onto t-shirts and sell those to people. As you will note, I have embraced all the tenets of modern design to produce a classy yet funky graphic to adorn a range of different sized tees. If you wish to buy one, it will cost you £12.99. Kindly ignore the smudges - my pen leaked.