Station Of Critical Review By Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: The 13 O'Clock Podcast

The 13 O'Clock Podcast

Kennedy's Laborious Introduction

Sentiment of greeting, at you, from me! 'Twas too long a period of silence and no-speak, and it was high time for rectification. And here I am, ready to rectify. Rectii. Rectus, Rectum. That's probably Latin for something clever. I shall have my offspring check it on an internet for verification.

The last time I did dare venture out to offer my critical reviews, I was prevented by the cad, Dex Diabolo. And a cad he is. I would have had plenty to say about the wonders of Peter Davison's The Hunt For The Ptero-dactyle Apostates, amazing and full of wonder as it is. But shunned were I, and quiet I stayed.

But not no more. I am back, returned from the hospital ward where I was stowed, to bring to you my most achieviest achievement to date. Upon my headstone will be chiseled the words, "Here lay the greatest critic, Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay, whose words toppled libraries."

(Kennedy won't be writing the headers, 'cos he's sh*t at them. - Ed.)

Jenny's and Tom's Guilty Pleasures: Real-Word Criminality and Bat-Shit Crazy People's Bat-Shit Crazy Paranormal Experiences

As my legion of four regular readers will attest, I am decidedly unfamiliar with the trappings of the Wide World Web. That said, I have been known to venture into its wiry and electronical depths, to drag facts out into the light for the consumption of my legion, which includes my psychiatrist, his psychiatrist, the editor of Beware! The Zine, and the guy who delivers my meals-on-wheels and who also proof-reads my work.

This week's wondrous digital offerings are made in the old British colony of the United States of America, which is an island off Cuba. It is a podcast, which is like a worm cast which you find on a beach, but instead of containing worm guts and sand, it contains information.

The 13 O'Clock Podcast is still relatively young, but has swept forward with its foul-mouthed, common-sense attitudes toward famous paranormal events and real-life crime stuff. The routine is of a weekly arrangement, alternating between spooky things, such as ghostly intrusions and cryptozoological weirdies, and evil murder killy moments of life-ending ferocity. 'Tis clear that the podcast boss and goth-fringe-wearer, Jenny Ashford, is dedicated to the study of these two disparate subjects, and she is accompanied by goth companion and romantic property, Tom Ross, who provides exposition and vape sound effects. The vaping is very audible. Is there a hidden message in the puff pattern of Tom Ross? Perhaps he is crying out for help? Or perhaps he is crying out for more vape? Or perhaps I am overthinking this.

But it is true that Tom vapes A LOT.  He sounds like a train puffing steam. He is Tom The Vape Engine.

(Enough with the vape talk! We don't need a lawsuit!- Ed)

Jenny Ashford and Tom Ross, of the 13 O'Clock Podcast.

One should make mention of the fruity linguistic palette with which Ashford and Ross paint their wordy deliberations. They like to use what colonists call curse-words, but which Britons call potty-mouth. Never in a million minutes did I think I would hear so exotic a word as f-f-f... Ack! I cannot bring myself to repeat it, lest I explosively blush all the blood out of my face and onto the floor! I shall leave such naughty-word-talk to Messrs Ashford and Ross! They are good at it.

"POLTERGEIST!"

This is what Tom shouts when Jenny describes a ghostly anything. It seems that once in Tom's young life, he lived upon a mountain where spectral mammoths did wander, and his home was invaded by them. I may have an incorrect end of the stick, but that is the gist. And every time Jenny does suggest a ghost, Tom doth utter, "Poltergiest!" and "That'll be poltergeist activity!" and "Are there kids there? That's poltergeist!" I think he really likes poltergeists. Or maybe just the word. Jenny Ashford wrote a book with Tom about his mammoth poltergeist problem.

Tom does not ever sound like a mad person in the podcast, and this lends weight to any strange things he might make utterance of. The Mammoth Mountain Poltergiest can be purchased here. Read it and know of Tom Ross's unusual life before he was an army man.

The Unseen Hand

Jenny Ashford likes to write. If it were not for her fondness for talking, one might make a speculation that it is all she does. Write and write. She is of a prolific disposition and has written about subjects other than Tom Ross's poltergeist-ridden childhood. She has written about an unseen hand. Now, one might wonder how much there is to say about a hand which cannot be seen, but I am ensured that this is a metaphor, and that I probably also misunderstood the mammoths in the previous paragraph. This book deals in exclusivity with poltergeist phenomena, which must make Tom Ross very extra happy. It is a lengthy and example-saturated collection of historical and newish cases, and each one is given just enough typed attention to be interesting, but not so much that it should be a different book – such is Jenny Ashford's skilled treatment of The Unseen Hand. The audio book is of welcoming nature, but regular listeners of the podcast might be perturbed by the lack of swearing and also the lack of Tom Ross.

Those who wish to roll their eyes upon the text of this may do so via Amazon, here.

That is all from me. If you missed me, the blame must fall firmly at the feet of Beware!'s editors. If you didn't miss me, you will learn to.

Faithfully yours,

Kennedy H-W

(If you want to hear/see more from Jenny and Tom, and you want to support them, consider purchasing one of their physical or audio books, or go to their Patreon page, here. And don't forget to listen to the podcast! - Ed)

Late Edition! Jenny added that she writes true crime literature, too. Check out 'The Faceless Villain' here.

Beware! Micro-Tales: Sherlock Holmes and the Grim Old Chair

Beware! the Zine cares about your literary consumption. Accept this micro-tale into your lives and know true ecstasy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Grim Old Chair

Freelance sleuth and social disaster, Sherlock Holmes, upsets Dr John Watson.

It was late afternoon and the winter sun was giving up on London. London, and Londoners, were used to this, and both city and folk continued to live to death as greyness swept through the capital like a river of unadulterated misery. It washed over Baker Street. Baker Street was immovable.

At 221b, Sherlock sat with his back to the window. He was naked, except for his deerstalker, and every few seconds he pushed back hard with his legs, causing his chair to creak. The chair was unusual, like one of those wicker frame chairs, but this one had a thin, beige material stretched over it. Umbrella-like, but with a broader, skeletal quality to it.

The door swung open noisily, its handle hitting the wall and continuing its excavation into the battered plasterwork.

“What the bloody hell is that thing still doing here? I thought I told you to get rid of it!”

Sherlock looked up and, having failed to notice the bang from the door careering into the wall, was now surprised to see Watson stood in front of him.

“Ah, Watson.”

“Yes? Is that it? I asked you a damned question!”

“You know very well why it’s still here. The case remains open.”


“What more can be gleaned from a chair made from human skin? You should have given it to the Yard when you discovered it.”

“The killer is at large and I need to make my deductions before the police are made aware. You know the pattern, Watson: the police learn of events and then the press gives the murderer a stage name. I detest stage names… They cloud everything.”

“You mean to tell me that you’ve kept this from the police? Lestrade will gut you… like a damned cat!”

Watson’s inelegant threat riled Sherlock enough to break the remainder of his concentration.

“Now, listen here, Watson. You know full-well that - wait, what did you say?”

“I said that he’ll gut you.” Watson wasn’t about to repeat the embarrassing ending.

“No, no, no. Human skin. How do you know it’s made from human skin? I’ve not told you that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock. I’m not a complete idiot. That bloody chair’s got more tattoos than a merchant seaman.”

Nase & Abel - The Shakespeare-Only Speakers' Forum

The Shakespeare-only Speakers' Forum is a lexi-quagmire for poor Nase to navigate. As ever, Abel, the post-with-the-most, is on hand to lend guidance...

naseandabel-shortformat#7-page01 (written and illustrated by Gareth Monger)

Notes

This eight-frame strip is actually eight postcards which were dispatched to a Nase & Abel reader over the course of a two-week tonsilectomy-recovery period.

Poetry Hallway - Introducing Celebrated Fenland Poet, Croyland Otter

Poetry Hallway - Introducing Celebrated Fenland Poet, Croyland Otter

Some time ago, we at Poetry Hallway held a competition aimed squarely at expanding the online population of 'Super Poet'. Finding people of a suitable calibre is a near-impossible task when one considers the lengths to which evil will go just to prevent artistry from engaging with its target audience. In much the same way that a Premiership football team hoovers up talent, the International Society Of Poets has spent the last two decades rounding up the nation's poetic geniuses, for whom they publish an initial offering before forcing them into a forever-exile. Indeed, but for a handful, they are never heard from again.

Creativity in the Internet is hard to come by. Indeed, it crops up occasionally, like an attractive slime mold growing in a college accommodation shower, but for the most part the web is a creative desert. The fault must lie firmly at the fetid feet of the International Society Of Poets. Elevated to the ranks of Hallway Poet is local celebrity Croyland Otter.

Copyright © 1997 Fenland Citizen

Born in an ordinary fashion to two parents, Whittlesey resident Croyland has spent the last forty-five years building a collection of Fen-inspired poetry, which began when he was forced to eat a pint of silt as a punishment by his headmaster. Of this incident, Croyland writes:

"...and the silt was a little gritty to start with. I tried chewing it and it simply made a terrible squeaking sound, which made the headmaster even angrier. Sensing that he might think of a less-squeaky punishment - like gravel - I simply swallowed it whole. And ever since then, I've been a poetry genius, and I've recited my god-like verse at every local Summer fete since."

Croyland was at the centre of controversy when he physically attacked local author Polly Howat during a live tweeting event at Wisbech Library in 2010. Howat was reciting her latest book Malevolent Ghost Prostitutes Of Crab Marsh in tweet form when Croyland accused her of plagiarising sections of his own book, Grumpy Spectral Seducers Of The Smeeth, which he'd self-published several months earlier. He alleged that the two had met at a speed-dating evening earlier on in the year, and that he had divulged details of some of his projects in return for a follow-up date which never took place.

In the aftermath, Croyland's popularity waned and Howat took him to court. In an effort to raise the funds needed to pay his legal fees, Croyland opened up his home to the public, charging £40 a head to show people around his 2-bedroom bungalow. Howat allegedly dropped the charges after disguising herself as a Canadian tourist and stumping up the entry fee to snoop around Croyland's home. Howat cites her visit as the inspiration for her local history book, 'Fen Slums' and, although Croyland is never directly referenced, it generated enough interest in his previous works for him to once again concentrate on his literary endeavours.

An introduction would be incomplete without an exclusive poem with which to launch Croyland's tenure with Poetry Hallway. After an intensive writing weekend, Otter submitted several dozen rhymes for consideration, and this was, by a parsec, the best.

A Love Affair With Brown
Croyland Otter 

Fenland silt, I love your grain,
The way its colour is just the same
As all the browns which are, in name,
Reminiscent of back-door shame.

Next up: Johnny C on trust.

Poetry Hallway - Filthy Muck / Interview

Beware! recently caught up with acclaimed poet, wit and raccoon, Limpit Smike. He had a writing pad and a big stack of Parker pens.

Filthy Muck by Limpit Smike

I try but cannot understand

why dirty men have sweaty hands

and filthy pants on cheesy nobs

and rotten feet in mouldy socks

and fatty blobs and saucy globs

down jeans they can't be arsed to wash

They squish their scent on doors and floors

I have to disinfect, of course

It makes me retch and then explode

when filthy beasts come up my road.

Mucky man. (Andy Brain)

B: Hello Limpit.
L: Wargh! Oh! What on Earth are you doing there?
B: There was no answer at the door so we thought we'd try the window.
L: Withdraw your head, I'm composing.
B: Busy, eh?
L: Yes I am as a matter of fact, and so should you be. I've got three poems to finish by lunchtime.
B: A triptych?
L: Bless you.
B: No - are they related thematically?
L: Of course not - that'd be far too hard.
B: A sentiment many of our readers could sympathise with. So would you like to describe -
L: (Writing whilst talking) Look you may have time for poking your bits about, but I don't, okay. I have some bloody fantastic verse to lay down onto this paper -
B: With a rather nice pen.
L: Yes, it's one of my new ones from Sun Life, I applied for a thousand insurance quotes and they sent me a thousand pens. Anyway this is a special book of poems that's going to Uri Geller.

B: A commission?
L: No - a composition. You fool.

Empty bogroll. (Andy Brain)

B: I mean, Uri commissioned you to -
L: You might think that. I might think that. Uri as yet does not know he thinks that. Maybe in some crevice of his magical mindset -
B: So not a commission then.
L: Let's just say, when he receives my meisterwerk sheathed in an exquisite lavender envelope, he'll know he's dealing with a quality artist. Quality will out. Uri screams quality.
B: Can we have a taster?
L: No. Of course you can't. Now bugger off. How many times?
B: Okay. (Leans back out) We'll have to go through your bins then.

The Beware! Encyclopaedia of International Celebrity - Germaine Greer

Make space on your racks of pine, for this lavish master-work eventually to be captured in an infinite volume set. All of human life is here, all of famous human life. And possibly animal life. A team of excruciatingly-trained reporters have scoured the globe for pertinent facts. We entrust you, dear reader, with the safe digestion of the same.



Germaine Greer (Professorial Chromosome Brain Mouth)

Pondering Greer. (Andy Brain)

Terror be upon all since the arrival of Melbourne, Australia, and within it one Germaine Greer, a dramatic day-anarchist whose philosophy will be forever challenged to capture the expanding knowledge. I think it grew. She knows it grew! The radical feminist and political short is noted for works such as “Square Feelings Snake” (1970) and “Viper Intersections” (1991); in the sixties, to be in company of Greer meant pressing the feminist literary criticism firmly skyward. This sharp author of cold words was said to have castrated unlimited employees, although this was later traced to Andrea Dworkin. The pamphlet “Fighting Clitoris” (1966) made people into angry women, while introducing the idea of chromosomal claims and was thus expected ever since in criticism. 

Peer pressure is going to play freely. Angela Carter? "Wassup fool". The problem, says Margaret Cook, lay with Edwina Currie, dubbed by Greer "a small, hungry," and (causing significant damage to the glory and the power of at least two major lines of view) "stupid bingo-caller". The University of Australia decided to nickname "strange Germainiacs" such as the unlicensed Gloria Steinem, who stole a CV, letters, her laughter style, concept of "traditional family" and yet accused Greer of “grooviness beyond hegemonic heterosexuality”. But what of gender?

Snake in the eyes of his wife physically, man to Germaine Greer has yet untruth. "Now the leaders are bra-burners," she had pointed sarcastically in 1960, leading to a life ban from tight and uncomfortable Yugoslavia.

Richard Nixon: I, ah, said to make an appropriate bra.

Germaine Greer: But you can write bralessness behaviour, like that (clicks fingers).

Smoking Greer. (Andy Brain)

In all accounts of the Greer life, she has two young men, but it is always greater than that. She found liberationism a public sex, but a cruel frisson. Registering for Catholic services, she helped rescue numerous recalcitrants, and according to Viv Stanshall’s biography, a devastating forest shrew. Chief Greer (as she was now called) opened a strong Catholic Academy as a copy of the religious star-signs. "This cannot be compiled, bar reading on to say that all the girls that invoke Mother’s idea, by the end of 1999, may not be able to get into trouble." Greer, of course, had mastered the ability to go beyond stubborn. Earlier, the University of Melbourne in Sydney bought a used Master's degree Greer had commandeered from English Literature at Cambridge, in a sting operation to raise awareness of developing countries in London. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band celebrated Greer in "About Bloody Time". She was sure to become a celebrity.

Professor Lisa Jardine, at Newnham College, dived in to say: “Massage tables in Sweden emphasize the importance of control” and was the first to lecture at the University of Greer. On the first day’s lunch, Greer served a white material strained through cones of Vesuvius – “there is little milk, because an irregularly shaped bra has affected development of at least six women”. Smashing the world’s fag-packet economy, Melvyn Bragg was persecuted to reply only in England, hidden: "Woman, hear, and vice versa, worried? I am that". Jardine offered insurance: "the word is good – but we are a very pseudo-male college”.

Four years later, Greer (probably not the right word in this context) was the second wave of feminism in an effected waterfall of all male history. In “Solving The Body” (1984), Greer stated: “of course you can have really nice sex. It is blessedly important to provide two channels. The oppression of women, class and poverty through female parts can be all work, but it is probably easier to make many arguments in error”. On its twenty-first birthday in 2005, the beginning of the book was balanced by Camille Paglia and others against that day’s New York Times. It was heavier.

Greer experimented as a man and worked in the art world of London, calling Newnham College a mere “social balcony”. Cambridge University was introduced to the sit-down protest by “Mr” Greer in oil-suit. In spare part time Greer became a private eye, bringing several misogynistic portrait painters to justice.

Stern Greer. (Andy Brain)

The ruling May Wilde Party feigned resistance to Greer Wales PLC’s waste-beetle and predatory bacteria. Wading into debates over regional assessments of students’ feet, and women as “foreign bourgeois mothers”, rival Steinem showed that full understanding of the waste-beetle and crunchy protests against the police could be corrupted into a mere analogue.

Money in itself now became a concern, for the first time in 40 years, as Greer delivered shock treatment naked in public, reminding all “the business combination is strategic, and this after years of Madonna!”. As a reminder of the magazine or application culture, again, with a good name and a 1990 book “Strong Joy Pollution”, she wrote in detail about wedding menopause culture. For three weeks, she married a building. Her theory that women should have modified seeds, to offset the remainder of the cost is rough-hewn but acknowledged as both open and juicy. Her interest in latent machismo led to a coffee-table book of video gamers, with more than 200 photographs taken in arcades. “The Passion For Pixels” is available from The Works.

Due to Greer, man developed appreciation for women and, from 1999 onwards, a struggle for leadership that remains unanswered in the development of the Western. Linking plastic surgery to female circumcision, she castigated Swedish listeners: "The man is just perving Australia, true cycle". Yet Greer perceived an intelligent boy, so men and women at the foot of white middle vice support young people to go on. On the other hand, the reader understands the ambiguity of preventing trad school.

Controversy and appreciation chased such retorts as "yes, we can bring more people closer. But which people? And are we to run out of whitewash?".

Card by Bob Art Models (used with permission). eBay link.

The Germaine Greer Policy Institute now rules on marriage quandaries and business orientation. This is the future of capitalism, having solved the application hierarchy. However, underneath is a mixture of anarchism and Marxism. It is not surprising that Greer leaves the ideology tag everywhere.

Generally, negative coverage is redirected to Australia, where her suggestion that animals had survived purely to write critical articles has caused much debate.

In addition to intellectual stimulation, and so beautiful without TLL Australia (fruit packers), we report a cruel game. On Melvyn Bragg: “He has a great altitude on Aboriginal complaint”. On John Howard: “He suffers with statement-blindness”.

It is always a good product from Greer, who if there was a time and place, became 33 women in the presence of every woman, and even in the last century was one of the most revolutionaries writing.
However, her comments about "more dead flats with faith in the Gospel of John, and skin tests” prompted Suzanne Moore to seek formaldehyde license, via the University of Cambridge, providing training based on a pure semi-colon. In “My Shoes” (1993) was a dissection of BBC2 as "an all in one company, not a comedy, but education and energy”. Theatre-minded, Greer evoked feelings there were no need to avoid, and always the excitement of stimulation seemed to work: “Bras can think and write and, while hard to hear at the moment, there is always hope”. Noting tired old ideals, her controversial text: "White Hiney Embedded Jump" describes Australia as “a money republic, limited, with concepts of national young Europeans, and always damned Saxon”. But her cost and impact analysis ended in shelter. Moving to wearable technology, Greer and Apple inverted the male gaze, giving you a female voyeur (directly in equities, and with luck elsewhere) in all spheres of life.

Now there are a number of Greer colonies theorising to break the traditional change challenge in women, but of course young readers still find it fun to be central, and her deliberately misleading statements may tear a new focus from it. Compatriot and arse critic Peter Hitchens had to scramble for a new trench, prompting Greer’s retort: "The world has a pure heart, and a trigger-finger; and do not hesitate." All bodes well for future days. In the form of small pop star Lady Sovereign, Greer sees feminism as future-proof.

Entry text: Adrian Darvell
Editor-in-Chief: Winston Obogu

Corrections, omissions, queries? Please leave any COQs in the comments.