Poetry Hallway - Unexpected Item In Bagging Area

Pile 'em low, sell 'em short, ignore iambic pentameter. That's our three-pointed strategy at Poetry Hallway, and by God if it's not working. You could try to argue otherwise, but you'd be wrong. We don't so much thumb our noses at tradition as yank the things off and thrust the bloody masses right up its timid traditional normal-nosed face. The joys of cartilage.

Look sharp now! We are banister-grippingly proud to showcase a guest poet in our slim auditorium today; Leicester's very own Andrew Walton. Shuffle along now.

Unexpected item in bagging area

Do you have a Nectar card?
System can be frustrating to some shoppers.
Are you using your own bags?
Growth is projected to steadily rise.
Keep customers happy.
Approval required.

Your call is currently number six in the queue. Please continue to hold.
Reduce the length of checkout lines and wait times.
Your call is very important to us, please hold.
Minimizing the stress on employees.
We are currently experiencing high call volumes.
Please call back later or continue to hold.

Please insert cash, or select payment type.
The salaries of multiple cashiers can quickly add up.
Notes are dispensed below the scanner.
Lower overhead costs.
Providing customers with the service they need.

Many customers don’t feel comfortable with the process:
Dealing with a faceless machine.
Customers enjoy a brief conversation,
Prefer to have a one-on-one interaction with cashiers.
Thank you for using Sainsbury’s self-checkout.

[Found poetry – automated voice commands from self-service checkouts; telephone answering services and http://www.businessbee.com/resources/profitability/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-self-checkouts/]

If you'd like to support Andrew Walton's poetry, a sensible way would be to buy his latest collection, 'Little Green Poetry', available here. http://www.lulu.com/shop/andrew-walton/little-green-poetry/paperback/product-21708160.html

Baking Bonanza With The Two Bobs - Chess Cake

Nobby "Bob" Lyons (bespectacled scourge of the NHS) and Bobby Robert (cynic of the kebab house) have wangled themselves a slot on Cookstyle UK's low-rotation low-audience afternoon schedule. You can imagine the deficient title music.


Nobby: Oo. Ah.
Bobby: ...Crapped yesself already?
Nobby: (Stroking the workspace) This is very nice.
Bobby: Today it's salmonella pudding. You like that?
Nobby: What with the country, ah, taking to the baking... getting rude for the food... spurting for the dessertings...
Bobby: Dirty bugger.
Nobby: We decided there could be nothing better than to, ah -
Bobby: Join the bandwagon.
Nobby: It's nice to watch. But this is better because it's interactive. Yes, you too can make the recipes in this series. Now, have you ever heard that before?
Bobby: All a game to you, innit.

CHESS CAKE
Nobby: ...which leads us - oo - tactically well into our first edible. This is the chess men cake.
Bobby: I'll peel some spuds.

Chess cake not made by Nobby; Chess men not carved by Bobby (Andy Brain)

Nobby: Chess pie, a sweet, indulgent dessert, of course - I could eat it all year! Featured in "Saving Private Ryan" where a battle was planned using the innards of this very cake, the remnants of one were, ah, presented... to me by a patient, and before I'd even started dating her, this lovely treat was elected the nation's favourite. You may have many favourite sweets, but this is the only one that's also a game - apart from hide the pussy pop! So, ah, after you've had fun pressing your bits into all the tiles, a slice of this will fit in your tummy like a runny hug, and this can be, with the help of the Two Bobs, a very simple recipe to make and make again. You'll need just this yellow cake mix (available from Pound Plus), melted egg and butter in a griddle, with a leather box, to start the preparation. These four ingredients together, then get squished into a pan. What gives the amazing texture of this cake is eggshell - a tool that's easy to use but only with your right hand, because we know what the left hand gets used for...!

NOBBY'S CHESS CAKE RECIPE:
1. Turn your oven around to 300 degrees.  
2. Put non-stick spray on your hands.
3. Pour and mix the yellow cake mix (available from Pound Plus), with butter and eggshell in a large bowl, about 6 x 10-inch baking dish to eat. No, you don't eat the dish!
4. Put milk on the bottom of the pot. Use your fingertips to feel where the bottom is.
5. Disorder your cream cheese (oo-er) until smooth and soft. Add stevia, fat bubbles, a hint of rohypnol, and turn your egg timer over now! Shell and pour the mixture into a soft line, like a dog sausage. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The exact structure will be best serviced in whirly circles.
6.Taking spray paints, spray on the characteristic white and black shapes of a chess board.
7. Place a chocolate bar on top. Leave this under a hairdryer for a few minutes until the chocolate has dribbled down the sides. Repeat until you've done this with four or five bars, but don't use Green & Black's as it doesn't heat well, or KitKat because it's not all chocolate. Swizz! 
8. Serve in congealed lumps to a credulous lady in a darkened consulting room. The local GP has an easily-bribed janitor, he lets me go in after lights out and do a whole STD clinic by myself.

And now Bobby, how about the chess men?

BOBBY'S CHESS MEN RECIPE:
1. Take some wood from Nobby's bed.
2. Sneak into a neighbour's shed.
3. Carve it up into chess men.
4. Tell the cops you were asleep.

Next time: How to gut a ferret.

Nase And Abel - The Digital Stain Of The Hopeful

Nase stumbles across the digital embodiment of the hopes of the Left...

naseandabel-shortformat#3-page01 (written and illustrated by Gareth Monger)

Poetry Hallway - Poverty Knocker

Five pounds please! Tonight's Poetry Hallway is falling apart and we can't get it fixed unless you pay. I said we can't get it fixed unless you pay.

Well?

I'm waiting...

LIMPIT: Ahem.

Oh have it your own way. Keep your coat on. It's fair to say that poetic stalwart, Limpit Smike, has been stockpiling his ideas recently -

LIMPIT: Is it time for one of mine now?

Yes, in a moment, we'll be -

LIMPIT: Because I notice you print all of... Croyland's poems, and none of mine.

Well that's not quite true, we had one of yours just a few -

LIMPIT: I'd like to say something now.

OK that's fine. Here's one about the poor.

LIMPIT: No, not the poor - poverty. Which is spelt almost the same as poetry. As a poet I can spot these things.

Poverty Knocker by Limpit Smike

It clambers round the house

Scratches up the door

Smears up all the walls

Throws things on the floor

It's called poverty

And it wants its way

It's called poverty

I must shoo it away

It ruins all the food

Cuts off all the gas

Farts in every room

Cancels all the plans

It's called poverty

Makes monkeys out of men

Sick and thick with fleas

I must not be like them

It wears out all the threads

Sells the lovely stuff

Leaving only bread

Makes you just a scruff

Back off poverty!
 Stick your long nose right out
Lavish becomes me
I will not be a lout

I protect all my pounds

I work hard on my wealth

Money has the power

Of and by itself

I will not succumb

To cheap and dirty ways

My King Yacht will come

And I shall sail away

Poetry Hallway - Croyland Otter's Relationship With The Land

Before Beware! The Zine went live at the end of 2014, we conducted a good deal of research to determine how we should best approach our more-artistic features. Our poll showed that our audience was less interested in 'good poetry' from celebrity poets, and wanted more people drawn from the local population. Some populations have yielded a better-quality poet than others, as frequently demonstrated by our dismal Fenland rhymist, Croyland Otter.

After our roundup of his 'Ode To Richard III', Croyland felt that Beware! failed to convey the level of respect for his poetic abilities that he had perhaps come to expect from the expert panel at The International Society Of Poets. Indeed, the Richard III Society's Canadian office were more impressed than we were and, encouraged by this, we were compelled to bring to your attention this wordy wonder, which is a touching and heartfelt overview of Croyland's relationship with the land, and his frustration with wildlife protection laws.

Canada's Richard III Society: in love with Croyland. It must be true - they said as much on Twitter.

According to his accompanying telegram, Croyland entered this particular poem into a contest run at the WWT Welney Centre, achieving the level of 'commended'. As usual, Beware!'s Poetry Hallway staff ran a brief check and it seems the Croyland was actually disqualified from the contest and banned from any further involvement in Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust events. Oh well. We suspect another complaint from Croyland will soon land on Poetry Hallway's doormat.

The Sublime Setting Sun Which Licks My Fields

When ball of gold so round and hot,

Escapes the daytime like a shot;

It makes me think of things I have,

Things I'm lucky that I've got.

Like ditches, dykes and slimy holes,

And frogs and toads and beastly moles,

Or all those birds which fly above,

Which I cook to death and eat in rolls.

And then the people from the police,

Say I must obey, desist and cease,

From clobbering all those yummy birds,

Like swans and wrens and hawks and geese.

Croyland Otter

October 2014

The Beware! Encyclopaedia of International Celebrity - Scarlett Johansson

When researching a celebrity, it is vital to look beyond the established history 'they' want you to believe. Who are the famous people, really? And who are you? Do you damn well think you're God or something? Stick with Beware!'s impeccably-dredged profiles, and we'll answer both those questions.
 

Sarcastic Johansson. (Andy Brain)

Scarlett Johansson (World Picture Talk Queen)

Are you in New York for the first time? Perhaps you too will seek out Scarlett Johansson. This talented discipline of multiple truths is right across our media. Our media? Perhaps one day it will be her media.

Born in Poland and Denmark, October 22 1984 was a long day for future historians. As a child, this clear-eyed mystic befriended gusts of wind and was sensible for at least three minutes. "I'm sorry, she wants to be an actress" was the standard third-person brush-off from teachers.

New York's Silent Wood was an important food source for Scarlett's mother, who yet saw potential, repeating "I have to train your mind". Enough to send anyone potty. Scarlett went through many quality changes in seven years, implementing personal regulations on music and movement to prepare mentally for the challenges of superstardom. Crowned Metro Fire Mini VIP 1995, she auditioned at a cinema lobby and enrolled early in a law course which afforded more than 11 years of acting experience in a month. First came the north, and defective agents. Only images, emotions, and the actor Bruce Willis could steer young Johansson to a gliding future. Sean Connery and Kerry Ellis were her heroes; Willis less so. To add new players and paper cases, she gave acting lessons to urchins and gained influence points by proxy. Well, it's a means of entertainment.

Scarlett Johansson in the Movies

Wang Vs The World (1996) was the landmark legal case on which Scarlett first demonstrated power, free spirit and grace, selling an escape to the jury, and lead training 12 witnesses. The judicial community were astounded. "Change this menyeronokk woman!" But the high powers in Hollywood were listening. Scarlett was invited to audition for "Secret Debts", a process she dismissed as "just a 1998 horse race". It was a terrible tragedy. Meanwhile, rogue Christian film producers tried a rename gambit with "Scarlett 13:30", which only disappointed honest Bible scholars.

Obviously it would take more time to understand the nature and persistent grain of this future polymath. In 2001, her self-penned underdog-fantasy "Adventures of a Ghost" led to comic book stardom, and interest from the entire Greek community which persists in restraining orders and annulled marriages to this day.

Steely Johansson. (Andy Brain)

"The Fellowship of Rebecca Sun" followed, an art-house movie consisting of only two static repeated frames. Problems? Audiences thought so. Scarlett turned American; assuming three stage names to assist the vulnerable. The Manhattan University School of Manhattan bent over backwards to get Scarlett's sign-off for their atypical acting highway in 2003. She refused. There is no highway.

Scarlett changed career to develop a series of personalised translation products - launched in Laos, Vancouver, Tokyo, Luxembourg and girls, that sold without prejudice. While some of her earlier pictures were quietly changing hands for black-market release, "The Story of Translation" was an inspirational 2002 documentary on Esperanto in a changing world, involving an iconic sequence set at the Venice Film Festival featuring an aging and hesitant Bill Murray engaging strangers in this so-called universal language: "Saluton, kiel vi fartas? ...Under normal circumstances, especially with these hands, I knew I had to marry into Scarlett's games. Dio estas granda - sed li kovris min per ŝlimo". Marry he did, but once more it was annulled.

Only 27 days later, "Little Bagels" divided critics, fans and movie fondlers. Sofia Coppola had edited a whole film together from carefully-stalked CCTV footage, in stores and city centres, without actors' permission, in an attempt to quickly capitalise on the promo storm around "Translation". Scarlett's retaliation: "I fear the QEII now. I fear Walmart now. Where is the next camera? For inspiration, 1/5".

With offers of series, movies and gynaecological centrefolds, Scarlett Fever was created in many ways. Of course, all is fresh with the power of the magical story. Scarlett's new light, however, was a Toronto woman-film based on the concept of "happiness as an excellent weapon". "Bobby Robert", a sci-fi jazz fable starring John Travolta and composer Scarlett under the clever alias of "Scarlette", avoided taints of Scientology and viewers' eyes.

Relocated in New Orleans, Scarlett and her occasional glove Basil Brush saw out 2003/04 holed up with Italian fruit, Helen Hunt and Tom Wilkinson. A reconciled Sofia Coppola had joints to share, but Scarlett only desired to wake up, and abandoned her placement to teach a film course in Las Palmas.

Seductive Johansson. (Andy Brain)

Meanwhile, in 2004, for the first time, the film world realised that young women could provide recognizable characters. Scarlett is not the real price, but worth more in truth. She used her new gold Oscar lemon-stampers as part of a popular series of Tarot. "Man Of A Thousand Platinum Discs" was an excellent skewering of the media scene, co-prodded by Aaron Neville and Jack Harkness. A false run for the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate opposite Howard Dean (aka Howrad Dean) was the first sign of future stretch goals. George W. Bush: "American actressing was originally just a game. Now real men can play. Ms Johansson is a real man".

And, of course, in 2004, the concept of evolution was hotly debated. Scarlett lost a fair portion of glory embroiled in the academic literature and science goals of Oskari (creator of Jeskola's Buzz). Invited to take part in the quaint games of British society, Scarlett shunned the red carpet and went where even Marilyn Monroe had not been admitted. The dumb Calvin Klein proclaimed Scarlett "all scent"; Louis Vuitton countered with: "She is instability". With glowing testimonials like this, the call had to be coming. And it was! Legendary neurotic Woody Allen slashed his calendar with a letter-opener to accommodate Ms Johansson for the gonzo comedy "Hero Sword". It flopped! Still, "Songs and Bobby" made the opening morning of the Venice Film Festival, around which Scarlett flew slowly 61 times making onlookers vomit-inducingly dizzy. When the Hollywood Film Festival was cancelled due to flooding, Scarlett accepted a flurry of advertising: Island Records, Michael Laudrup Soccer Coaching and Calvin Klein's October promotion. Scent indeed. Reuters images showed a round hill with thousands of children and Scarlett as Jesus! Unbelievably the public swallowed it. Sales of rosary beads quadrupled overnight.

Scarlett Johansson in the Charities

A total of 20,000 girls applied to be Johansson for the day in a perception experiment. "We must be prepared for a mission in life," she said, opening yet another more-than-school. Families received skin rejuvenation, health and education direct from Scarlett (although music by the incontinent Justin Bieber) and she developed programs to understand Oxfam India and Sri Lanka (who have legibility issues) in 2007. Scarlett developed a new film, "Louis Vuitton", a skewering of the non-entity with deliberately unstable camera work and actors placed on tilting tables, with poor youth and recovery support. Families in India and Sri Lanka applied for roles in "Tsunami Malignancy" (2010) and home life women were arrested shooting this feminist opus which was quietly canned by the studio (legal knottage ongoing). Scarlett was dating gravel-seller Tom Waits by this point; the marriage was, yes, annulled.

Scottish Johansson. (Andy Brain)

An unexpected hit was 2013's controversial "Skin Storm" in which Scarlett played a face-eating racist recruiting Scottish men to work on her pubic forestry before gutting them, with accompanying wailing soundtrack by Morrissey (Grammy nominated). As a result of this slasher she was invited to head Oxfam and banned from Israel.

Her public appearances as head of Oxfam have included the Scarlett Diamonds campaign in Liberia, and a re-coupling with rubber shark and former Fonz, John Travolta, developing an expectation-reinforcing act based around appalling physical slapstick.

Scarlett Johansson in the Music

You may wonder where is the music now. Well the answer is in singlets. Specifically, the new band of Scarlett Johansson with Li'l Kim, Nana V, DLT, ABC, FYC, and Lee 'Kix' Thompson on sex. Playtex brought a lawsuit alleging the name infringed their rights to sell wispy crispy crackers. Legal advisers on the comments section of Yahoo pointed out that at least 20 other places have previously used the word singlets, and also that it was a stupid name. The band name was immediately changed to Keshco.

Scarlett Johansson is a real love story. She wants to know if "he" wants to go back. I would like to know as I want to go back, especially after accepting all the facts in the script of her life. They are necessary for the company, but it is important to show some respect. We do not have many good things and faces, and so for good work, we have to see Scarlett!

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

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

Poetry Hallway - An Ode To Richard III - Croyland Otter

Hot on the literary heels of our new resident poet’s introductory verse, ‘A Love Affair With Brown’, arrives this poetic epic, ‘An Ode To Richard III’. Shortly after the shocking discovery of the former King Of England in a popular Leicester dogging spot, The House Of York decided upon commissioning the then Poet Laureate to produce a fitting poem, the intention being that the late King would be immortalised in verse-like fashion. However, the House Of York is not what it once was, and its entitlements do not include making demands of the Poet Laureate as if he or she were some subordinate pup. As such, they have had to cast their net slightly wider, thus capturing the attention of England’s wealth of local poets.

Croyland’s second poem to feature at the nicely-carpeted Poetry Hallway is his tribute to the fallen king, to whom he refers as "a true Majesty”. In the accompanying letter, he went on to say, "… King Richard 111 [sic] could teach [the current Monarchy] a thing or two about how to run things.” We can only presume that Croyland is either thinking of another king or has scant regard for human life.

Alas, Croyland’s entry was rejected, firstly on the grounds that he broke part 5c of the competition rules, that “no one should make reference to Richard III’s alleged involvement in the disappearance of his nephews”, and secondly because the competition moderators didn’t think it was any good. Moderator Langley Ibsen summed up the House of York’s feelings: “We’re sorry to disqualify your entry so close to the finals, but we’re really confused as to how your poem, An Ode To Richard III, made it through the initial selection. It’s really not what we’re looking for.”

An Ode To Richard III

Richard the Third, how I wish you were here,

To see all the fuss being made of your up-dig,

It’s very well known that Leicester is short,

Of int’resting stuff; nothing there has been so big.

True, you may receive stick for killing your family,

Tho’ I’m sure they were brattish and spoilt and rotten.

And if they were also here, living the royal life,

You’d rather they were dead, decayed and forgotten.

So I’ll lift up my pint glass and drink to your death,

‘Cos to drink to your health would be oddly misleading.

But I promise if cloning returns you to breathing,

I’ll be the first to give you a kingly good feeding.

Croyland Otter

2014

Johnny Cocktail - PI Masterclass - Trust

You too can learn the ways of a Private Dick, like the bods in that Volkswagen across the road who've been there since breakfast. Let Johnny be your expert guide, he'll see you right. But don't take my word for it, I might be lying. He might be rubbish. (He isn't.)

Johnny Cocktail - PI Masterclass #7 (written/illustrated by Andy Brain)

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.

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.