The first of 52 weekly posts/ pamphlets for 2024. These are longer pieces than the daily blog posts for the second book GANTOB’s 2023: A trilogy (which were 400 words long).

Authors have 800/1200/1600 words to explore a topic in more depth.

There are more details on how to make your contribution after Gillian’s introductory pamphlet: “ON PAPER”.

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I am writing this in response to recent controversies and disappointments about books and other physical copies of paper documents.

First, in December 2023, there was the Ministry of Justice’s plan to destroy historical wills. They would be digitised, but archivists noted the loss of details that are not captured by digitisation – for example the type of ink and paper, indents of the pen – and the risks of losing information as formats change or systems are hacked.

Then on 2 January 2024 came the bombshell that Bill Drummond’s planned books – including his “memoir” The Life Model, with contributions lovingly crafted by 140+ volunteers for his 70^th birthday – would be released only in web and audiobook formats.

This took me back to something that Evelyn Glennie, percussionist, mentioned in a repeat broadcast of Tom Service’s Music Matters recently. She noted that “Bill Gates encourages you to go into a bookshop and pick a book that you have absolutely zero interest in – something that you think is just not at all related to any of the interests that you have, or the job that you do – and see what happens.” Looking back at an article on the same theme I read: “Gates discussed how he takes notes while reading, sometimes writing in the margins of his books, to help him better remember and engage with what he’s reading. ‘For a lot of books that is key to my learning’”. There’s a lot that books remember, without even being asked.

I worked in a bookshop for almost 6 years – a huge Frankenstein’s monster of a shop, over multiple floors and connecting sections, that had been strung together by knocking together different buildings along the front of an entire block in a university town; a site that could trace its history back much further. It’s not the bookshop pictured below. In the late 1980s I started in the schools department and antiquarian section on the top floor, but I must have visited every inch of that shop, including accounts, the multiple staff tea rooms, store cupboards, collections, each of the many departments (including children’s, remainders, the in house publishing company, front desk, local interest, stationery, music, gifts, modern languages, technical, law), and the basements and stairways through which books, exam papers, and supplies arrived, depending on the size of the delivery. I loved that shop – the staff, the customers, the books, the introduction to a world beyond my previously cloistered existence, working a range of shifts from 09:00 to 22:00, meeting people from all walks of life, from teenagers like me, to the tea lady in the management corridor who was said to be in her eighties, and authors including Iain Banks, and quite possibly Muriel Spark, if I had known who she was at that age. Politicians popped in (for example John Smith), and the evening security guard introduced us to a whole different clientele who skirted the boundary between the chaos of a street teaming with night life, and the warm, civilised interior. The joy of bricks and mortar.

So it will probably come as no surprise that I love books. Hardbacks, paperbacks, signed, annotated, pristine, tattered, fact, fiction, gift, donation, translation, whatever. I always carry a book with me, usually a small paperback, in case I have a spare moment. The book is a miracle of technology. It doesn’t need WiFi connection or require charging. And there are no algorithms to guide your selection and narrow your world view. Technical knowledge is not necessary – it’s not in a special folder or app, and can be transferred from bag to bedside cabinet, or handed on to somebody else regardless of their background or experience. Finding your place is incredibly easy. At the moment I am using a crocheted cat that my daughter gave me for my birthday as a bookmark. If I find myself reading something else at the same time I might use a train ticket or flier – which in itself may well tell a story, and could even take you back to a point in time that you had completely forgotten. Perhaps not a miracle then – more like magic.

I have tried other technologies of course, and they have their merits. My crocheting daughter loves e-books – the E-reader is compact, you can look up words in the device’s dictionary, and search and track your reading behaviours; but I don’t really want another expensive gizmo when I already have enough books to last a lifetime. Sometimes in the past I have listened to audiobooks on long commutes (usually on foot – unlike The Foundation Doktor on her bike), but I frequently found myself distracted and losing the plot, or frustrated in attempts to find my way back to a key passage, or willing the author to read just a bit faster, or without whining. Now I prefer to listen to the wind in the trees, waves on the breakwater, birds calling, people talking. I would rather not wear headphones at all – with all their associations with work since the pandemic, and feeling curiously vulnerable and disconnected when using them on a bus or park bench. At home I rarely have a quiet half hour to sit back and listen to a book without interruption. There’s the clatter of dishes, conversation, deliveries, crises. But I know plenty of people who love them, and podcasts. And it will be quite an honour to hear Bill Drummond read out my words and ideas.

I should also say that I love libraries – whether run by the council or Little Free Libraries. And charity shops, particularly Oxfam Bookshops. I have to confess, however, that I usually find antiquarian bookshops a bit intimidating – charting successive generations of largely forgotten writers. Most authors will be discarded all too quickly as tastes change. Martin Amis? So last year. My brother enjoys older works, including – moving backwards – Walter Scott, Laurence Sterne and Miguel de Cervantes. The survivors. I have mainly gravitated to mid to late 20th century, but have enjoyed books from the 19th century Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola recently, after a lucky dip, care of the Highland Council mobile library.

But let’s zoom forward to the 1980s and 1990s again. I have books that I bought in that bookshop that I still haven’t read. I don’t know if I ever will. They stand as challenges – The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing is one. I cracked another much shorter book recently from the same shelf – William Golding’s The Spire. On three previous occasions I had given up on that in the same long section of dialogue, where I lost track of who was speaking. Ironically, an audiobook might have helped with that – a creaking voice for a dusty cleric, a looser, rougher brogue for the mason. It would take a talented narrator to pull that off convincingly – switching between voices in quick fire delivery.

And I wonder about electronic communication – websites, and blogs – which Bill Drummond proposes as a worthy substitute. Assuming he doesn’t pull the plug (again) before somebody captures it on the Wayback Machine internet archive. Sitting at the desk in that bookshop, before email or internet, I remember being shown a way in the command line to communicate between the computer tills. I cannot remember the operating system – perhaps CP/M, or Unix. We would while away the time sending short messages between floors in green text on black screens. Great fun at the time (before we realised that electronic mail would become a blight on most of our lives). Until one of us sent a message to the central computer in the shop – the one that only the manager could access when he arrived early each morning to complete the backup of the previous day. Woops. No control-Z or delete function. Apologies made and accepted after a sleepless night, we vowed never to use the system again. These messages, now long forgotten, stand as a reminder of the transient nature – and potential dangers – of electronic communication.

And with that, I declare my preference for a physical book. Each to their own. I can see the drawbacks of books. The remainders section of the bookshop was clear evidence of that. The place where books went to die, to get pulped, but from there to be turned into new books. It’s not all doom and gloom.

GANTOB, the imagined person, the “karakter”, may have ceased to exist at 11.59 on 1 January 2024, but GANTOB, the project, does continue. The Pamphlet Committee requests your submission of pamphlets for consideration towards “The 52”: a set number of weekly pamphlets by up to 52 authors, to be issued as:

• a bespoke printed version for that week’s author (with some GANTOB-type art), sent via snail mail each Saturday
• an online version here on gantob.blog each Saturday, for all to read
• a plain printed copy of the first 34 pamphlets from 2024, to be given away in book and vinyl drops to local charity shops and other carefully selected locations at the next Battle of Perth (Stirling, Scotland, 27 August 2024)
• a book, with the full text of all 52 pamphlets, bound into a GANTOB-branded A5 book to be published early 2025

There could be an audiobook version if contributors provide a spoken word recording of their piece. Indeed, perhaps that would be a good idea, as it builds in a form of proof reading and checking scansion.

In effect we will be constructing a memoir of 2024. Write it in the first person, or which ever person you want, and make it relevant to now, but building on what you’ve learnt so far in life. Or make it entirely fictional. Or philosophical. Relate it to the GANTOBverse in some way, however subtle, for bonus points.

As a guide, pamphlets should be between 800 and 1600 words, ideally an exact multiple of 400. Submissions to 100percentvinyl2@gmail.com should be made as soon as possible (first come, first served, unless something more suitable comes along), and no later than 27 December 2024. Suggestions for developing ideas or other modifications to the submitted pamphlet may be made by the GANTOB Pamphlet Committee.

Spread the word. Subscribe(*) to gantob.blog, and follow progress via @gantob2023 on X and Instagram. Good luck!

Gillian, 6 January 2024

PAMPHLET 01 (2024)

(*) I’ve added this link as an experiment – please let me know if it doesn’t work (you’ll need a WordPress account I think)

It is approaching midnight on Hogmanay 2023, and GANTOB is well past her stated deadline for submitting her final blog (23:23).

So I am initiating the agreed kontingency plan.

I suspect that there will be complaints – introducing a new person for the final blog of 2023. Exceeding 400 words. Too much jargon. Too many pictures.

From tomorrow GANTOB (the projekt) will no longer exist, apart from the small matter of the difficult second book. Don’t ask me what comes next, though you may want to check social media (X or Instagram) to get a head start. I’m just the dogsbody. GANTOB and the forces unleashed by Demokratisation are the “kreatives”. The Benefaktor is the funder.

GANTOB (the person) had very much wanted to post today’s blog, but she, Ali and family seem to have dropped off the radar. I have made some urgent enquiries with her hotel in Newtonmore. They found discarded materials in one of the rooms the “Finks” family checked out of this morning. The best guess is that they are currently stuck somewhere up near Drummin. If they’re lucky they’ll have found the bothy nearby. Perhaps they’re snowed in. There’ll certainly not be any mobile reception. If they’re desperate, perhaps they’ll be eating the black buns that GANTOB had reportedly bought for first footing tomorrow morning. Let’s hope that, to keep warm, they don’t have to burn the Curt Finks papers that they had so carefully packaged up and placed in the boot of the car.

The Kreative Tyrant in her had wanted to “feel” the final piece, rather than have it scheduled days ahead. That’s the risk you take. Blame Storm Gerrit, or whatever it was that came next.

The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor are currently “in transit”, on the way to Vienna for the Neujahrskonzert by the Wiener Philharmoniker, at Musikvereinsplatz, near Karlsplatz. All the Ks, as GANTOB might say.

Little Grapefruit might well be back in Vienna (apparently hunting “The Third Man”), after teleporting from her gaff in Wigan to “Ernie Toffee’s” art passage at Karlsplatz subway station (a location proposed by JR in a comment on a piece by Ariadne). And I am told that two rather minor characters from the blog – The Philatelist and Paula – are also making their way to the Austrian capital (good luck if you’re planning to piece together their involvement – though if you want to submit a theory of your own, and have a spare 800, 1200 or 1600 words, I am sure you know what to do, or can find out).

I am reliably informed that GANTOB and The Benefaktor are at loggerheads about their forthcoming volume GANTOB’s 2023: A trilogy. The Benefaktor is keen to spend his money within the financial year, for tax purposes, so wants a basic “book of the blog” – a simple cut and paste job. GANTOB is striving for “artistik purity”, so wants it to read like a book rather than a blog, however long that takes – replacing the early audience participation bits (snip, stuck, skateboarded etc) that were there to entertain/ build audience. I’m worried that she is promising too much. You may remember that the last book almost broke her. I have offered my services as editor, if they have the materials to hand.

Here’s what I do know: There is major restructuring underway. If all goes according to plan, some of GANTOB’s previously unreleased spying from October will feature in part 1 of the forthcoming book. This will apparently help pull together some of the loose ends in parts 2 and 3. But real life is messy, so don’t expect everything to be concluded neatly just because the year is coming to an end. In fact, 2023 has been particularly chaotic – arguably more disjointed, unfair and unpleasant than even The JAMs predicted.

And here’s what I hope: That this post will be replaced in the book, once the snow melts and GANTOB reaches her “black sheep kroft” and settles into her new life.

And should we be reading anything into the fact that the map of Drummin is on a website called ARIADNE, which shares its name with a double GANTOB contributor from Australia? Or do we just need to accept that ARIADNE is short for ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AIDED D-BAND NETWORK FOR 5G LONG TERM EVOLUTION?

Eventually everything connects.

If you want to read what happens in the final version of this 99-day-tale (which will be GANTOB’s second book – unless a more definitive account of Curt Finks’ or Little Grapefruit’s adventures emerges), and have not yet submitted a blog (the payment for which is a copy of that as yet unpublished book), then you have until 11:59 (GMT/UTC) on 1 January 2024. That is a minute before the bells in Samoa. If I am able to upload it to this website before 12:00 (GMT/UTC) then you will receive a copy of the book. 400 words are all that is required, on a topic related to GANTOB, ideally with a picture. Read more here on how to do this. But beware: if you or I fail in the task of uploading your planned piece on time, then you may not be eligible for a copy of the book. GANTOB will be the final arbitrator. Please note, however, that she (and perhaps The Benefaktor) has the right to delete posts that I have approved. Her decisions are final. Good luck!

Oh, and Happy New Year when it comes, wherever you are, and many thanks for all your interest in GANTOB (the projekt) during 2023. I don’t think that anyone had any idea in July that this would end up in quite as elaborate a project as this – two books, with contributions by dozens of GANTOBers, and counting (books and people). Long may it continue. It’s keeping a bunch of us occupied, albeit unpaid.

But for now: “Shut up! It’s that time again, kick out the old, welcome the new”, as Dirty Den once shouted, and The JAMs of course sampled in 1987.

DEPUTY GENERAL Manager OF GANTOB (THE PROJEKT)

23:59 on 31 December 2023 (UTC/GMT)

I had an extremely busy day yesterday (day 98 of this blog). Preparing to move back up to Badenoch, but not The Manse. Posting three pieces by three GANTOBers. Messing up the numbering of these posts.

This is the third post. It’s definitely still 30 December 2023, in Honolulu. And will still be 30 December for a couple more hours in Samoa.

The post below is by Liam, concluding his earlier piece about Susan and The Krossing. You can watch a video that I (GANTOB) made in tribute (with help from my family) at the B&B where we’re staying before our move.

I am posting it at 23:23, Honolulu time. We are then stocking up at the local Coop and finally moving in to our new place before readying ourselves for Hogmanay. Work is a distant thought (3 January). WiFi (beamed to a dish via local beacon or something) and a perch for me to use in my telesales persona are already tested.

I will post my final blog for 2023 by 23:23, Inverness time (i.e. GMT/ UTC). Then I will prepare the book of the blog.

Thank you for making the last 99 days of 2023 such fun.

Yours,

GANTOB

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The caffeine was beginning to kick in, and Susan decided it was time to put on her big girl pants and get involved in the madness. 

All around her were people who all seemed so different, yet all seemed to share a zest for life, a willingness to immerse themselves in a common cause, and were not afraid of what anyone might think. For once in her life, Susan wished SHE could be like that. What was stopping her she asked herself. The answer to that was, of course, nothing. nothing except her inane fear of not being in Kontrol! 

But in order to find out What The FUUK was really going on, she had to leave her inhibitions aside. It was now or never. 

She has a wander around the room, taking in all the Skools that were happening. A coffin made of cardboard was in front of her. It was diligently being put together by a friendly looking chap. Let’s call him Andy, for that was his name. “What are you doing and how can I help?” Susan found herself asking. The answer was that this coffin was going to be filled with 23K shredded words from the Eulogies of people who had died in 2023. And once full, it was to form part of the procession along with The Peoples Pyramid. You can help by doing some shredding said Andy.

So Susan found herself reading through the eulogies of people she didn’t know, had no connection to, or any links whatsoever. But on reading these words, she realised that this wasn’t actually true. She read the celebration of each person’s life in the words of those that knew and loved them, and it suddenly clicked. Everyone and everything is connected. Every living soul, every person who has passed, every action and every reaction. 

The Epiphany was real! It was happening to Susan and she embraced it. It all became clear to her. The reason GANTOB had done what she did. She realised that the things she herself held as being important were nothing of the sort. The things people put emphasis and importance on were nothing more than a charade.

Susan was now questioning her whole life, but rather than being deflated, angry or Konfused, she felt alive. She had found her tribe. She couldn’t wait to find GANTOB.

LIAM

30 December 2023

Gaynor’s daughter LittleLegs has provided an excellent rendition of this Little Grapefruit tale:

Gaynor contacted me yesterday (in a short Instagram post), with a glowing reaction to Ariadne’s blog on The Museum of The KLF. You will recall Gaynor’s two parter Grey is the colour of hope from earlier this month.

Well here is Gaynor’s fuller response. A beautifully imagined dreamscape, riffing on Ariadne’s post, inspired by Little Grapefruit and Vienna, but very much Gaynor’s own.

Over to you Gaynor…

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How had I stumbled into Little Grapefruit’s opulent abode?

I had been traipsing alone around Vienna, feeling a little melancholy. It was a Wednesday afternoon, a bit drizzly.

I was walking almost on autopilot. No direction, no purpose…

I stumbled on the Hundertwasserhaus which was a building of sheer beauty, glowing with colour like a patchwork on this otherwise gloomy day. I marvelled at the blue, orange, yellow and pink paint and tiles.

I felt the sensation of not being alone, stood in front of this building. I looked slyly to each side of me so as not to draw attention to myself – but no one was there. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling. I looked up, wondering if someone was looking out of the window above. Tree tenants perhaps? Then, without thinking, I looked down towards my feet (more to admire my trabs really).

And I saw her: the tiniest perfectly round little grapefruit you ever did see. She had a smooth shiny rind. Grapefruit blinked up at me for a while (I knew she was a friendly Grapefruit – don’t ask me how). She rolled along waiting for me to follow – she trundled, and I trotted.

We passed a beach populated by iron men and a necropolis full of memorials, finally stopping outside Wigan Casino.

Little Grapefruit’s house was on the other side of the road. There was no mistaking it.

It was beautiful, with a gigantic almost spiritual golden dome perched between two huge concrete blocks and a vast front door overlooked by three medusa heads guarding the door. There were two planters with the number 23 painted on. To the right of the door were nearly identical walls forming the front of the building. On both were huge black letters: MU MU (not in a typeface I recognised).

She led me in. I looked around admiring the sensuous artwork of Gustav Klimt.

Grapefruit’s carpets were lavish – probably best for rolling about on I thought.

I knew I had to leave. I felt it was time, so I tipped my hat and waved farewell. I turned to exit via the front door, expecting to see Wigan Casino. Instead, I walked out of a blue metal graffitied shipping container full of smoke and the deafening racket of Chinooks and sirens were blaring and the sound of Amber Rudd trying to reclaim chaos battered my ears. I legged it.

GAYNOR

30 December 2023

This is Stuart’s third blog in this process of #Demokratisation for December 2023. Read his previous posts about The Foundation Doktor (and indeed The Doctor) and the connection between The Benefaktor and his granddaughter.

Today he is focusing on Little Grapefruit and family, and a kurious twist in The JAMs history (awakening unpleasant memories of that period when I thought that I had killed The Benefaktor). Note too the unexpected Edinburgh connection.

I’m glad that The Benefaktor recovered from his tumble – I still have unfinished business with “Douglas” (as he might or might not be called) and his apparent interference in my father-in-law Curt Finks’ life and legacy for a period spanning 50+ years. I just need a bit of time to piece together the evidence that I have collected over the past few months. It’s all packed up in a box in the boot of our car, outside the Newtonmore hotel where we’re staying before making the final stage of our journey to our new home. Winter tyres already fitted.

Over to you Stuart, with grateful appreciation of the distractions you have provided in this blog. We will hear more about the adventures of Little Grapefruit in post 98b, from another regular GANTOBer. Then we really need to get on the road.

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Little Grapefruit has been touring the continent for weeks but she still keeps in touch with news from back home in Greater Bowlingham. She has particularly enjoyed seeing her travel diaries uploaded onto GANTOB’s blog, recognising many of the places in the old photographs selected to accompany her adventures.

All she has to do is roll herself into an internet café and nestle quietly near a router to tune her mind into the pathways of the World Wide Web. This should not come as a huge surprise to human beings. We accept that birds, bats, dogs and cats all perceive the world differently to us, picking up on audio frequencies and elements of the light spectrum inaccessible to humankind, and Little Grapefruit is the same.

By the time she reaches the next town, it is late and the only internet café has closed for the night. Anxious to catch up on family news and feeling the need for warmth, she rolls along suburban streets until she finds a quiet house with an open catflap and hops inside. Locating the household’s hub in the corner of the dining room, she settles down and starts surfing.

Emails checked and socials perused, she clicks onto GANTOB’s blog and is amused to find it is referencing The Fall again. Little Grapefruit knows all about the group as she takes particular pride in artists that acknowledge her citric cousins. Lemon Kittens, Lime Cordiale and Tangerine NiteMare are all favourites, as is The Fall’s 1988 album and ballet ‘I Am Kurious, Oranj’.

Little Grapefruit begins composing a blog for GANTOB, all about how, that same year, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu decided to actually become The Fall, attempting to rename themselves The Forever Ancients Liberation Loophole, and how Mark E Smith was having none of it.

She writes about the idea rebounding on Drummond and Cauty when the bootlegging jokers who ran Swansea’s Fierce Recordings turned themselves into a fake Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu in return, releasing a fraudulent JAMs 12” and advertising a New York showcase with The Pooh Sticks together.

A few paragraphs in, though, Little Grapefruit thinks better of it. There just isn’t enough fruit in the story to hold her interest, let alone that of her friends and family back home in Bowlingham, she reasons.

She deletes her email. The KLF Re-enactment Society can deal with that one, she’s sure.

STUART HUGGETT

30 December 2023

Cover image is from a scan of the Pooh Sticks/ fake JAMs gig poster

Curt Finks has finally arrived at the hide, with his friend Bronwyn and visiting academic Prof Grayling Muir. Finks is still reeling from the interview with the Fringe of the Fringe journalist. The concluding part of the reconstructed tales of Finks and friends from the late 80s and early 90s.

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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Eventually Curt Finks calmed down. Bronwyn had learnt to shut out her friend’s witterings when he was having such a rant. However, Grayling Muir sat listening with studied attentiveness as the Reverend’s story unfolded – a joker distributing a different programme in his name for each of his Edinburgh Fringe performances. Who could possibly have set up such an elaborate scheme, with such convoluted rules? In contrast, Finks’ performance had not changed since his 1972 debut.

Thankfully, conversation moved on. Grayling was detailing his research so far. The Brent Geese had arrived on their scheduled day, flashing their green, yellow and pink tags as a challenge for the local bird watchers to document and track their route, mourn the missing, and tag the newest additions to their flock. But a few geese in one corner of their patch had, for a second year, started to show a stumbling state of stupor.

Recounting the natural history of this strange condition, Grayling painted a gloomy picture. Some of the birds had been found circling incessantly. Others slept through the day as if scared of the sun, surfacing only at night to start their shuffle all over again. Yet more showed even more worrying signs, a distant look in their eye before disappearing, their tags found discarded in a trough that cattle and sheep shared in an adjacent field.

According to Professor Muir there had been reports of similar episodes in letters responding to his various publications on this phenomenon. Similar behaviour had been observed in Canada and Siberia. After recruiting volunteers from an advert in the same journal, Muir carefully tabulated the details of the plants growing where the geese had been found. On one occasion he noted the little yellow flowers found in a puddle of vomit close to an affected goose

Intensive statistical analysis, using mainframe computers in the veterinary department of his Canadian university threw up an unexpected pattern. A strong correlation between number of Brent Geese affected and proximity to patches of ragworts. Finks and Bronwyn Gosling knew this part of the story: the eradication of the culprit flora.

Now that the area was clear of the cause of their illness, the Brent Geese numbers had boomed, without a return to their toxin-induced catatonia. “And that”, said Grayling, flourishing his most recently published paper, “ends my Muir Trance Series”. A coot in the distance peeped out a rhythmic call.

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Reconstructed by GANTOB and Ali from discussions with Bronwyn Gosling and details from Curt Finks diaries, 1988-1992

Skellbert’s Pickles had to be ejekted from his home to submit this post. Otherwise, this would have been his household’s 4^th submission, which is against the rules of #Demokratisation. He writes:

“I fully expekt kreative tryranny to overrule this submission, partikularly as my missive today, is a reaktion to a dark day, which has resulted in Skellbert becoming rather pickled and ranty.  I do not wish to spoil the vibe of your GANTOB projekt, but I was pleased with this piece of writing which flew into my laptop, I would like to think, faster than Kerouac’s soft, strong and very long bit of typewriter paper.  I’ll not be at all miffed if this doesn’t make the cut, but would be glad of your reading it.”

Thanks for your dedication Skellbert’s Pickles. Over to you…

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Pickling has been going on here since 1680, but the current corrugated pickling house was erected in the 1960s, whilst Elvis was wriggling his deeply corrupting pelvis.

I must admit to a kollection of liberated K2 tat in said barn, but now that I am resident in this tin tabernacle of Mu, it serves as a constant reminder that I am not dead yet. 

We are considering a future Furthur re-enaktment of Chill Out with live sheep and pure Llandewi-Brefi elektrik kool-aid punch.  Local legend has it that there might be psykhedelik treasure buried in the swamp behind my pickling shed.  There’s lots of smiles to the mile out here.

The swallows and the geese have been ruling our skies, ‘til a dirty piece of military hardware came over low this morning, a dark omen for sure, as they were followed by those cuntry folk, who so objected to our occasional forays into their environs to dance. They came through with bloodlust, a depleted gene pool, and malevolence.

We had to get out. It was just too much.  Our neighbours way out west are far less disturbed than those denizens of Ballardian Ingerland, entranced by the city in the South East, that even Gimpo’s Spin has failed to knock off kilter, or perhaps more to the point, put on an even keel.  Koming of age in the stockbroker belt, was freaked out early on by Threads and later tripping at the Deptford Free Festival with the evil pyramid atop 1 Canary Wharf projecting its bad juju on the happy crowd.  Then more evil geometries were raised to their Abrahamic heaven, culminating in the Shard that must burn. Down with that sort of thing.  Missiformation had a good go at toppling their markers on the perimeter of the square mile one night, but that was all a blur even in the moment, ended with her licking a Victoria line tube outta Brixton like a cane toad (this explains much).

To paraphrase the infamous words of Spiral Tribe (your investments may go up or down…)  recently cited during the Krossing “make some fucking noise there’s a genocide going on”.

Anyway, I’m still out here freezing my numb nuts off with my sacred jars of Immanentized Eschatons.

I now find myself 23 words short.  I’ll apologize for spoiling the party with a bit of political reality, but 2023 WTF is going on?

SKELLBERT’S PICKLES

27 December 2023

This kontribution arrived on 18 December, with an elaborate excuse. This included the words:

‘I was not planning on sending in a contribution owing to several factors.

• I have not read 2023: A trilogy by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, aside from a brief glimpse of a few pages in the Manchester City Centre branch of Fopp.
• I have already submitted a number of words to Bill Drummond’s forthcoming memoir A Life Model, and that putting more words in to a linked project could be seen as being “greedy” in some way.
• While I had been reading the blog, and following along, I had not done any of the audience participation elements.

So, I was to just leave it be, and read (and listen).
But The Wolves In My Head had other plans (as usual). They defeated my procrastination attempts fairly easily, and (got me to) write what is attached. For my chapter in A Life Model, they have a mere cameo. This time, they wanted star billing. But when looking through the list of characters, one jumped out as a good opportunity to try to work something out.
All credits/kredits goes to “The Wolves”. I just typed it up.
They also insist that they are not related to the internet meme of “There are two wolves inside you…”, nor do they appear on the cover of “Chill Out”, the compilation on Sabotage Recordings. If that’s not in the KLFRS arkives, I’ll pop a message over to them about it.'(*)

PS One last thing I forgot to mention was the final nudge to submit something was seeing the cover for the Christmas RadioTimes [which featured a picture of Mog].

Over to you wolves and Brechtian…

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They must be wrapping up by now. Points kept being raised, discussed, emphasised. Even though no longer weighed down, the outdoors still made for a tiring place to hear this.

“..and, I think that covers it all.” the wolf on the left said. “Anything to add?” he asked the wolf on the right.

Please say no, please say no…

“Well, I don’t think so.”

A pause. I knew they were waiting for me to make some statement about it all, but I was going to enjoy this silence for a moment.

“OK, I heard what you were both saying, and I can agree with a lot, no the majority, no most.”

“Mmmm?” prompted the one on the right.

“But I still don’t understand why ask someone like myself”.

“Well…it’s. OK, it’s your experience as a former human. I don’t want to offend, but that puts you in a unique position among the people we have met over the years.”

I shifted pose slightly. I glanced over at the back of a carpark nearby a soon to be demolished cinema. Close to civilization, but away from cameras or passers-by. Just what should I be offended over…

“You are the first to be able to offer us a different perspective of it all. If we asked someone who was still alive, our response would be clouded by the fact that we might see you as a threat, or visa versa. Whereas now….”

“OK, I see. I can’t kill you, and you can’t eat me.”

“Exactly. Possibly getting kulled or predated can cloud anyone’s thought process, no matter what tea and biscuits you hand out at the start.”

The wind picked up a notch, blowing an empty can along the carpark. I gathered some thoughts on the matter, dropped half and started my response.

“True balance between the two could have only happened if both had been able to communicate equally from the beginning. That alone, though would not have solved the conflict, just would have made finding a joint purpose more probable. So, ‘least worst’ option is what there is now. You have a possible contribution to the process, but absolutely no obligation to do so for the very reason you’ve just given for asking my opinion.”

“Huh. Well, thanks very much Curt”

“I’ll be on my way”.

CREDIT: THE WOLVES, transcribed by Brechtian

26 December 2023

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(*) I will ask Brechtian for further details about The Chill Out compilation on Sabotage Recordings on your behalf and update in due course.