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Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Monday, 14 October 2019

Merchandise Roundworm - Iceni double-crescent T-shirt

It's true, folks, we are spirits in the material world, and quite right too with modern living such a rum business and regularly rather whisky to life and limb. Tequila few idle moments, vodka look at this rather brandy rundown and maybe schnapps up a few items. Cheers!

Change can be a wonderful thing. Especially when you donate it to the makers of the following wonderful products. With Halloween, Guy Fawkes' Night and Christmas just around the corner, it's a perfect time to stock up on treats. There's room for a hundred of them, if you chuck out all your existing clothes and music (Check this. Ed).


Iceni double-crescent T-shirt

Iceni double-crescent T-shirt, by Gaffamondo
(Redbubble).
Become a fearsome and phwooar-some Iceni warrior with this striking historically-accurate design from the fevered fingers of noted palaeo-gusher, Gaffamondo. Wear this on your human flesh and feel the centuries fall away. Soon you'll be ready to sack the Romans! Buy this design on a sexy T-shirt, soothing duvet, or even a set of sturdy coasters, here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/gaffamondo/works/20408590-iceni-double-crescent?p=t-shirt
He doesn't stop there, either: the talented boy has a whole heap of designs pertaining to the Ancient Britons. Get stuck in - perfect gifts for your archaeology and LARPing friends.

Meanwhile, in the sickening shallow money trench of indie music...

Star Test

We entrusted noted 80s throwback and anorak, B. Pillock, with a sparkling copy of the latest EP by socialist poet Andrew Walton, The Art of Splitting, on compact disc. Mr Pillock had this to mumble:

"It's a good length: 4.7 inches. There are six tracks, which makes each track 1.27". No - hang on - 0.78". Great economy, like haiku, but these poems are longer, and most are songs, not poems. I tried eating my dinner off it but just got sticky sweet chilli sauce in the stereo. Is that enough?" (No. Ed)

Well, quite. Why not try Mr Walton's wry leftist lyrics and super-brief tunes for yourself?

Back of the Rack

Stuck for a stocking filler? Try these beautiful selections. That Gaffamondo pulls together two months of dinosaur drawings in A Disarray of Palaeoart ... Keshco's 2018 Cassette Store Day release was Never Eject ... See you shortly, folks!

Monday, 6 August 2018

Divine Dines - The Cock and Coxcomb, Consett

How many times have you heard some silly arse saying "this is the best restaurant" or even "this is the greatest meal"? Fools of the mouth, fools of the head. Beware! holds that before one can comment on whether this or that restaurant is the best, one has to have experienced all competitors. As William Hartnell opined, "in order to conquer the Earth, you must first consume all living matter!" Welcome to our new comprehensive consumables column, starting in the auspicious surroundings of ex-steel town and notorious shell company hub, Consett, with the ever agreeable tones of garrulous, gorse-chinned one-time politician Barclay Minster.

Barclay Minster. He can talk.
The little woman and I arrived at the Cock and Coxcomb, poorly signposted just past the prole purgatory of B&M, on the south side of town towards dreary Delves, in quite a fug due to the worst traffic. Fools of the road. One wonders what attracts them. That's a rhetorical device; don't write in! (Though if you must, at least address it to Annick and baffle the silly girl.)

Craving some culinary comfort, first our weary eyes were assaulted with the sluttishly attention-seeking faux-Jacobean decor, saturated dripping wallpaper and bulbous accentuated stuck-on synthetic "wood". Although we could perhaps have expected traditional 17th Century meals and a madrigal in the ear, here the menu (early broadsheet-style; bonus points) showcased instead a regrettably modern take on peasant food, a protein-heavy, planet-light entomophagy approach of which tree-huggers would no doubt heartily approve. The link between these disparate eras? Insects, which have evidently graduated from mere passengers, uncomfortable side-effects of sloppy storage and poor hygiene to becoming, unconscionably, the star attraction.


WEEKDAY MENU [abridged]:
Soupcon of soup served in a snail shell
~ * ~
Roast crickets nestling in woodlouse granola
~ * ~
Termite mound crumble

DRINKS:
Canal Kombucha

Now, you know me, especially if you've paid attention to my wireless communications on LBC. I'm a rigorous traditionalist and firm believer in the upholding of solid British values. Like my ancestors in the proud Minster lineage, I should be happy if you gave me a 12-bore and pointed me in the direction of the nearest lion. Out of the strong came forth sweetness, et cetera. Grazing antelopes, rampaging wildebeest? Cannon fodder, dinnertime for Barclay. Insects? You get the servants to shoo them away. Insects, I ask you?! Why don't you just serve up socialists and have done with it?

I am nothing if not a man of my word, though, so insects it would be. We chose identical meals at my behest to ensure that neither of us wimped out for the easy option of recognisable food; and so garcon duly brought us the starters, tiny pools of unspecified consommé ladled into snail shells of the most inconvenient dimensions. Imported from the French perhaps? With no cutlery provided, I found this impossible to sip without making a dreadful mess - some went up my nose, some found its way through the dense slalom of my beard and down onto my tie where it remains despite furtive licking. (The little woman suggested this is the most tongue action they've witnessed from my part in a decade. Rank impertinence.)

Before our mains arrived, we knocked back a little of the house special, Canal Kombucha. This had apparently been fermenting for a fortnight and tasted akin to apple cider vinegar, if you're being charitable, with sweaty undertones. This mixture of sharp and sour blew any snail remnant clean away, which perhaps is the kindest compliment to pay it. I imagine it would work wonders on the local drains.

Onto the main course then. The late lamented myopic colonist Buddy Holly famously named his rock and roll band The Crickets after hearing the persistent chirruping noises the insects made around his garage. I am given to understand that our friends in the East Asian fringes regularly chomp heartily on roast crickets that sizzle rather than chirrup, served up by street vendors. This is what we ate, and you can fold your smug expression away and tuck it back into your breast pocket. Needless to say, these vaguely bacon-tasting insects did not roll my rocks, but the legs and antennae did provide a persistent presence around my molars. Remember to pack a toothpick. These crispy creepy-crawlies came on a toasted granola base which would be familiar to any health-freak hippie, but with the minor addition of pre-boiled oniscus asellus, or your common British woodlouse. These, I found, added a shrimp-like frisson that almost rescued the course. I daresay the next time I have escaped for an idle hour in the shed, I will regard my woodlice companions in quite a new light; and they'd do well to return the compliment.

Finally, garcon having brought us the house water (which apparently was just that, and not cat drool or badger bile), we moved wearily to the "dessert"; a traditional summer fruit crumble. What could go wrong? Only its utter defilement not only by the addition of bulbous boiled termites, but also by an architectural monstrosity, the crumble topping having been stacked up supposedly to resemble a miniature of a typical mound as found in North Africa, except of course that crumble mix doesn't stack up as well; and on tucking in it went everywhere, liberally dusting the knees of my slacks.

Gentlemen, I need not regale you at this juncture with the tortured process this meal made through my shuddering system as I got back behind the wheel of my Jaguar. God knows what the little woman thought of it. I leave you with this warning. At last I can say I have experienced true decadence. A restaurant - an English restaurant! - with the ability to serve up the finest venison and foie gras, yet it chooses to offer insects, in the 21st Century. I have visions of the morally-crumbling Roman Empire, too addled to save itself from the gathering savages. Surely we are tumbling gut-first into the end times and Consett is on the front line. Luckily I have a stoutly-provisioned shed. Woodlice and all.

Barclay Minster is on 'Question Time' every week.

Sunday, 30 August 2015

Readers' Letters

Beware! Gets Mail!


Nine-year-old Istead Hunwicks writes in with a question about guest reviewer Dex Diabolo's recent review of Peter Davison's shitty trash manifesto, The Hunt For The Ptero-Dactyle Apostates.


Beware! says...


Well, Istead, one can only hope. It's worth noting that Mr. Hasselhoff had legal bills to pay, so was simply chancing it. On the other hand, Mr. Davison has his work cut out on the convention circuit, so we're pretty sure he'll be busy answering questions about whether or not he's still in touch with Adric. - B!

Monday, 24 August 2015

Station of Critical Review by Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay with Dex Diabolo: The Hunt for the Ptero-dactyle Apostates by Former Doctor Peter Davison

A Note From Beware!


Long-time subscribers to Beware! The Zine will note a different tone in today's article. Unfortunately our full-time reviewer, Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay, is currently receiving treatment for the effects of marsh fever and opium abuse. Whilst we are pleased to report that he is responding well to treatment, it will be some time before he is able to pen reviews again. Until then, we'd like to introduce our guest reviewer, Dex Diabolo, who is on loan to us from crappy ufology conspiracy blog, The Silver Disc - which we're not going to link to. You know the kind of head-case who sits next to you on the bus and insists on telling you how and why 9/11 was an inside job? They almost certainly subscribe to The Silver Disc. And as much as we didn't want to hand over the reviewer reins to Dex, he's all we could get. And, unlike Kennedy, he can string a sentence together.

From Timelord To Fringe Scientist


Up until the mid '80s, Peter Davison was best known as the fifth incarnation of The Doctor, titular character of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who. However, since surrendering his position as 'gorgeous, young thing' to Colin Baker, Davison has cultivated an unhealthy interest in alternative-scenario palaeontology, penning several books on the subject and maintaining several blogs dedicated to the rapid publication of his unusual ideas. He has attracted much criticism, with dinosaur and pterosaur workers claiming that he is simply bi-passing the peer review process, though he has, on occasion, achieved in this area. Davison has also capitalised on his popularity with his legions of Doctor Who fans in order to force his unusual ideas out into the mainstream; after all, if they'll buy it...

Trash Fiction


The Hunt For The Ptero-dactyle Apostates is Davison's first foray into fiction and, if we're honest, it's mind-blowingly odd. We at Beware! HQ wouldn't have been too surprised if Davison had penned a story about oddly-proportioned aerial reptiles, zipping around the skies of an alternative-timeline Great Britain during the 1940s, but what we got was something entirely different. Davison offers up what can only be described as a semi-autobiographical medieval thriller, where he occupies the role of 'Witch-Finder General', tasked with rounding up those pterosaur workers who fail to adopt his take on palaeo research, putting them on trial and torturing and executing people as he sees fit. It's something of a bloodbath: his constantly-updated findings - and his certainty that each update is correct - mean that it's difficult for other workers to keep up with what is palaeontologically 'legal'. Many of them fall foul, and are subsequently put to death. Adorning the pikes of 'The Tower Of Lagerstatt', we find the heads of notorious traitors and heretics Marcus Wittleton, Bishop Darryl Gnash, Sir Michael Harb-Beeb and the mad monk, David Aherne. It's very much like Game Of Thrones, but with more violence and the flying reptiles are less convincing.

Thinly-Veiled Recruitment Literature


The pace falters about halfway into the first chapter as the tone shifts from trashy novel to political manifesto. One anonymous reviewer remarked that The Hunt For The Ptero-dactyle Apostates was "reminiscent of Cornwall's Camelot Castle Hotel. People book into the hotel for a bed for the night, are subsequently forced to endure terrible, terrible artwork by one of the hoteliers, and are then bombarded with Scientology recruitment literature. Castle Camelot Hotel and Davison are two baby legumes from the same troubled pod."

The Hunt deviates so violently from B-movie-esque storyline to paranoid rant that it's as if two different books have been spliced together, almost mid-sentence. Unfortunately, it remains stuck in this pseudoscientific rut for the remainder of the book, painstakingly dissecting every remark, email, blog article and manuscript ever released by conventional scientists, naming and shaming throughout. It's a long and tedious effort; Peter Davison clearly suffers from some serious science envy. Maybe it was his years as a sci-fi poster boy which led to his inability to distinguish fact from lunatic fiction, or that he had spent every waking moment surrounded by legions of fanboys and yes-men. Whatever the reason, the former-Timelord-turned-internet-pest has been the scourge of conventional science for the last decade, and The Hunt appears to be one last ditch attempt to discredit professional rivals and win over those who hadn't already declared their unconditional love during his stint in Doctor Who.

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

Station Of Critical Review By Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: The TetZoo Podcast

The pleasure of being assigned this particular review should not be overstated, and sits at my feet like a cross between a hot water bottle and a happy dog, minus the smell of new rubber. It is not often that the staff at Beware! The Zine is sent requests to appraise anything specific, but when a typed letter arrives in an unmarked envelope at 3am, well, we'd write a review about the structural integrity of quilted toilet paper if that's how its request was delivered.

Where to start? Well, we're not even sure what we're meant to call the subject of our review. It has been called, variously, TetZoo Podcast, TetZoo Podcats, Tetzoo Podcart, Petting Zoo Food Mart and Non-Christians Against Fish - though under this name, many people assumed it to be a clever hoax - it wasn't. For the sake of simplicity, we shall refer to it as 'Tezpo'. Tezpo backwards is 'Opzet', which is, coincidentally, the name of one of its presenters' pet tapir.

The short-lived TetZoo Top Trumps. 
 Tezpo is the brain-baby of zoological co-conspirators Darren 'Dawn Tyrant' Naish (apparently named for his morning temperament) and John 'Crusher' Conway, who crushed time dedicated to any given Tezpo topic to two minutes, much like a Republican Governor handles educational spending. Twitter users may recognise Naish's name from its association with the #chickensaurus event, whereby he called upon tetrapod lovers to resist a conspiracy by John R. Horner to create an army of giant 'Maximum Chickens'. Seemingly it worked, because chickens are still rather small. Those of an art-appreciating disposition may know Conway through his works of art. He depicts old things. And new things. And some unsettling things. But always beautiful things. Except for this. And this.

Being of a different time, it was of importance-absolute that I did make an effort to acquire a person familiar with the concept of internet. That person is the local postmaster's daughter, Hepzibah. She is of the Age of Digital, and owns an MP3-to-Wax-Cylinder converter, facilitating my scrutiny of these scientific lectures. The Digital Age is not so different to the Wax Age, with the exception that the Wax Age usually falters in Summer.

Collector's favourite, John Conway.
Armed with five-hundred-and-forty wax cylinders and enough navy rum to pickle a Harry Secombe, I locked myself away from the harassment of modernity, and began my foray into the world of Naish and Conway. And what a world it is. The first thing which struck me about the ears like an irate spinster was the music. It is very sensible. It lulled me into a false sense of security, for I imagined that the rest of the programme would be similarly sensible. How horrified I was to discover that this show is a blend of dry science, popular science, film reviews and humour. Yes. Humour. I wondered about what else the weary listener should brace themselves for. Interpretative dance? A lecture on why the Empire might not be a good thing, perhaps? Preservation of the Fen dialect?

With the progression of the series, each episode quickly turned into a long list of corrections of mistakes from the previous episode. O! How awful a time the receptionist at Tezpo Headquarters must have when the mail boy brings in those sacks of letters from disillusioned listeners - though, it must be said, it doesn't appear to dissuade people from listening. It is almost as if they listen for the steady stream of errors - perhaps as many as three or four each episode - in the same manner that a social outcast might sit at a bus station recording the busses which pass through like sweetcorn passes unchanged through a child. Common errors include misremembering plot elements from films of the Planet Of The Apes franchise, announcing the discovery of only one new tapir EVERY episode, and mispronouncing the names of everybody referenced in the episode. On several occasions, I believe, Naish even pronounces his own name incorrectly, uttering "nich", and commenting on how it will upset listeners in Jamestown. And maybe Boston. Cohn Jonway never mispronounces his own name, for he is the thinking-organ of this outfit, as demonstrated by the discussions which sway in his favour.

It was not long until Tezpo disciples, or 'podkittens', concocted a method by which the backlash to these errors could be softened.* A drinking game was devised as a call-to-action for weak-willed listeners to ply themselves with thee deville's fluids, numbing the brain and resulting in a fog in which they were hopelessly lost. Drink must be consumed for such incidents as Naish forgets the show is about tetrapods and deviates into a monologue about a film he doesn't like. More drink must be drunk if Conway has not seen that film, and still more drink must be swallowed if Conway then offers forth an opinion about that film which he has not seen. ALL of the drink must then be had should Conway eventually realise that he has seen the film. And this happens for every episode. In addition, there are numerous other drink-worthy elements which recur with such frequency that it is hard to be believe that any Tezpo's listeners survive to hear the wind-down lounge music which terminates each performance. The result is that no one can remember any of Naish's vicious slurs against fish or invertebrates, and no fish-lovers or arachnoculturist harbour any resentment towards him, nor his Conway. The rules for this debauchery may be found here, along with many details such organisations would usually keep to themselves. It is clear from the titles held by its members that this 'Empire' has ideas above its station, with Naish and Conway seemingly keen on elevating their band of infamy to the status of a cult. Beware.

*This is usually attributed to The Shadow Man, Mike Keesey, though, as seems fitting for such an irregular set of individuals, a 'Yodelling Cyclist' has also had considerable input. Irresponsible alcohol consumption, cycling, yodelling. Where will it all end?

The Tetzoo Podcast, hosted by Darren and John, may be enjoyed sensibly here. John Conway's art may be enjoyed and, preferably, purchased here. Darren Naish blogs at Scientific American's site, here

You can also support John and Darren at their respective Patreon profiles.

Friday, 16 January 2015

Station Of Critical Review By Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: The Fenland Soil Association Soil Grade Card

Given that this here estate on which the Hiscox-Wormegay family has lived, since times of ancient, is built upon fen muds, it makes sense of plenty to review, for your intellectual pleasure, the Fenland Soil Association Soil Grader. This item of equipment was devised by the invading Norman army, the engineers of which being so prodigiously unable to cope with more than type of soil that they had to produce a useful guide. Without this guide, it is entirely possible that Hereward the Wake might have been able to maintain his stranglehold on the fens and made mighty massacre of the French interlopers. That would have been good.
 

The Fenland Soil Association Soil Grader card.  A local person doesn't need this. They can taste the difference.
(Graphic by Gareth Monger)
The trained fen eye will immediately make mental note of fact that only two types of soil are on display upon this Old French document. As Canadians are about snow, we are about mud. Summer a single mud does not make. There are a hundred muds. Clay mud, sand mud, wet mud, wetter mud, watery mud, water with mud in.

I once saw a horse drown in mud, for which we erected the type 'horsey mud'. Horsey mud is hard to plough as the conditions are usually sufficient to produce plough-equipmenty mud.
The Fens: an artist's impression.
(Illustration by Gareth Monger)
 
And so it falls upon me to give reviewer grade to this device of soil grade. If this grader was of fen mind enough to include five hundred soils, I might consider more than one star. But it is failing in the highest possible magnitude. Therefore, no stars. No stars a night sky does not make. Good night.

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Station of Critical Review by Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: Replacement Carbon Brushes For Hoover Performa 1100

So, dearest of blog-follower, it's early AD2015 and you are still a desperate-enough individual to act upon your requirement of the emotional assistance of both Messrs Cocktail and Hiscox-Wormegay. Ordinarily I'd make urgent-but-vague recommendations that you find yourself either a person of ill repute and spend a couple of days getting the New Year Blues out of your system, but as I am only writing here as a guest, I must remember some basic webiquette.

Advanced plumbing.
Shortly before the New Year insanities began, my servant girl Bertha was pumping water in the yard and my ears made hear of a commotion in one of the outhouses. I shouted at her to do her damned job and make herself aware of the situation with a view to rectifying it, but the smithy at Marten's Forge is dragging his heels over my new pump - and the squeaking is unbearable! To cut a yarn into shorter bits of yarn, Bertha was not able to hear the racket from the outhouse, ergo she didn't attend the issue.  So I had to.

The lickspittle, Bertha.
 Being a gentleman of reasonable standing, I tended to my first responsibility - beating the servant girl. But she is a girl of fortune and, at 73 years, is a good twenty years my junior - and escaped! Lickspittle slodger tramp.

So, without assistance, I ventured into the outhouse. I have yet to install electric lighting in the outhouses as I don't often have the need to go in, and there is a good provision of part-burned candles for the estate staff. But on this occasion, an Edison filament bulb would have been most welcome for, at the end of the room, there was the Hoover laundry box. It was making a terrible din!  It was lurching from side to side like the gin-soaked women queued at the almshouses in the towns, and a great many glowing sparks accompanied a loud and constant crackle.

Eventually, I resolved to send a telegram to the local repairman. He is a man of limited intelligence, owing, in the main, to his coming from The Midlands. Regardless of his geographic shortcomings, I sent the telegram, demanding he attend the estate and either repair the laundry machine or shoot it. When he arrived, it was immediately apparent that he had not brought his shotgun, nor his veterinary trappings. Instead, he produced two small, L-shaped contraptions, which he termed 'brushes'. Being a man of the world, I pride myself on having amassed a good mental inventory of equipment associated with the arts, and these were emphatically not brushes. However, it must be said that whatever devilry this man brought onto the estate, it silenced the Hoover laundry box and enabled me to hunt down the wretched Bertha, wearing clean breeches.

Given that I don't fully comprehend the workings of these so-called 'brushes', I am disinclined to offer them a rating, irrespective of how well they do their job.

----------------

Je suis Charlie

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Station of Critical Review by Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: Fred Dibnah greetings card

Happy Year of the New, bloggophiles! After the unprecedented success of the critical review of 'Christmas Is Really Fantastic' by that smooth crooner, Frank Sidebottom, it is of extreme necessity that a return is made by the one writer, me, Hiscox-Wormegay. Sidebottom's Christmas offering shot back into the charts following my review, peaking at no. 1 in the Halifax Woolworth vinyl charts, allowing Sidebottom Industries to hire an aggressive legal team which now spends every waking hour trawling the netspace for sound pirates and image tealeaves to send to the e-gallows.

Up to be roasted on this fine evening is something I hoped never to roll eyes across. Imagine the scenario. It's 7.30am and it's your birthday. You've gone to bed late, excited at the prospect of no one reminding you how old and decrepit you've become. Yet some youth-saturated privy stain claiming to be your niece or nephew has dispatched to you a card, in which they have scribed some wit intended to enrage you.  And splashed across the front of the card, like a herring gull struck against the canopy of a BAe Typhoon, is that hideous of northerly, coal-encrusted dumplings, Fred Dibnah.  Now, this is not intended as a slur against the short, lumpy steeple pervert. Indeed, I dare not utter a single nastiness against the good name of the rotund steam imp. But nothing reminds one of the decay of nature quite so much as the laughing, sooty face of Dibnah.

Flat cap pie: Fred Dibnah. (©2014 Robert M. Follen. Used with permission.)
You've pictured the scene, and you've wept lumpy tears at the thought of it. However, it may become a reality. Bob Art Models, a relatively new outfit from Fenlander-Falklander-Fenlander-Suffolk-Londerner-Northerner Robert Follen, is producing micro-batches of these hideous caricatures, available as 140x140mm cards. That's not all Bob Art Models produces; I shall be reviewing other monstrosities over the coming months. But Dibnah is a good place to start for one very excellent reason: it sells. Now, I've seen a lot of the world. In the early years of last century, I led an expedition of forty men to Northern Africa and managed to make it back with almost three of them - for which I was knighted. (I gave the knighthood back when my 2003 single "How To Kill Pygmies" failed to chart.) But in all my travels, I've never met someone who could put Dibnah on a card and get people to part with cash for it - even if it is a very reasonable £2.50 (carriage is free!). Follen is clearly some kind of a genius; he could sell moral destitution to the Taliban and E numbers to Disneyland.

So, as is traditional in reviews, it's time to put stars all over Fred - or not, as may be the case.


There you go, five stars. That means that despite internal protestations, you should go to Bob Art Models's celebrity card repository here and buy up all Robert's stock.

Thursday, 25 December 2014

Station of Critical Review by Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay: Christmas is Really Fantastic - Frank Sidebottom


Being of Solstice Season, I, Kennedy Hiscox-Wormegay of the nearly-Republic of Scotland am in the happy position of being well-placed to offer up a critical response to the Christmas cash-in novelty song "Christmas Is Really Fantastic" by the rock monolith and Timperley tour guide, Frank Sidebottom. His behemothic porportions, entertainally-speaking, are such that any effort by which I might attempt to make avoidance with regards offering up said critical response would be professional suicide.


Owing to my detestation of wordy and letter-spattered ramblings, it is probably of maximised benefit to you, the reader, that I say nothing about this fun-but-irritating E.P. except that it exactly what one should be in the position of expecting from the cephalically-spheroid Sidebottom: song-like (but not excessively so), lyrically competent (yet somehow deceptively incompetent), nasal (yet throaty) and circular - except when purchased on audio cassette, in which case it's to be found crushed and distorted into a rectangular shape.

Nineteen eighty-six was the year in which this here 7" single was ejected upon an unsuspecting public horde. Many people died. Some people didn't. None of that had anything to do with the single's release. But that is the nature of life. Frank might have testified to that, lyrically, in one of the E.P.'s songs. But he didn't. Instead, he chose to squeeze song juice from the oranges of such issues as Christmas, a town called Mull, which is where autograph hunters attack Paul McCartney, and Demon Axe Warriors.

This wouldn't be a review unless this song was in receipt of some hot, gaseous, celestial bodies, so I shall oblige, as is the tradition of my opinionated heritage, with four of them.