The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag Read Online Free Page B

anywhere. It could blend in with its surroundings to a degree that made
it virtually invisible. It was there all right, if you took the trouble to look
hard enough for it (after all everything has to be somewhere and nothing can
ever be anywhere other than where it is), but escaping notice was what the
stealth fox did best.
    That
and escaping from secret government research establishments. Naturally.
    Using
the cunning for which it is famed, this new order of fox sought out its old
adversary — the foxhound. It began to blend in with the packs, and in fact so
convincingly did it do this that the pack took it for one of its own. In no
time the stealth fox was cross-breeding with the foxhounds, producing a stealth
fox/dog hybrid indistinguishable from the ordinary foxhound. Within a couple of
years many packs of foxhounds consisted of nothing but stealth fox/dog hybrids.
    This
cross-breeding produced a larger, more powerful strain of stealth fox, roughly
the size of a Great Dane (or small horse). The next step was inevitable.
    The
large stealth fox/dog hybrids began to blend in with the horses in the hunt,
and soon the first stealth fox/dog/horse hybrid appeared.
    Now the
next step up the evolutionary ladder taken by the stealth fox may well be considered
by those of a prudish disposition to be too distasteful to chronicle. But in
the noble quest for truth, it must be told.
    Those
of you who have ever viewed the now legendary porno vid Down on the Farm will
recall the episode of the lusty stable lass and the frisky stallion.
    Enough
said.
    The
stealth fox/dog/horse/human hybrid was born.
     
    And it was one of these
very stealth fox/dog/horse/ human hybrids who, several years later in the guise
of a bloke in a bar, did my uncle out of thirty-five quid, which in turn led my
uncle to bring down the British book publishing industry.
     
    And how this came about,
and what it all has to do with a voodoo handbag, a Holy Guardian Sprout and a
threat to mankind from the denizens of cyberspace, will soon become blindingly
obvious.
     
    Although not, perhaps, in
the most obvious way.

 
     
    The Laird of Dunoon
     
    The Laird of Dunoon
    Leans back in his chair,
    Trousers rolled up to the knee.
    Easing his braces
    With courteous graces
    He sips at his Newcastle B.
     
    The Laird of Dunoon
    In the newspaper bonnet
    Smiles as he looks out to sea.
    Taking a drag
    From a finely rolled fag,
    He sips at his Newcastle B.
     
    The Laird of Dunoon
    In the Fair Isle pullover
    Whistles ‘The Rose of Tralee’.
    He swivels his hips
    As he purses his lips,
    And sips at his Newcastle B.
     
    The Laird of Dunoon
    Glances down at his Rolex
    And sees that it’s time for his tea.
     
    He slips on his socks,
    Puts his specs in a box
    And finishes his Newcastle B.
     
    Ah, if only all of life could be as this.
    But regretfully, it cannot!

 
     
     
    3
     
    Smart from books ain’t so smart.
    CAROL
BAKER
     
     
    The ambition of every
tall-story-teller is to create an urban myth. One of those ‘it happened to a
friend of a friend of mine’ stories that enters the collective consciousness
and takes on a life of its own.
    You hear
them all the time: at work, in the pub, at a party. Told to you by folk who’ll
swear they’re true. And the thing about a really good one is it can make you
feel that even if it isn’t true somehow it ought to be.
    For
instance, does anyone remember Johnny Quinn? Yes, no, maybe. Well, about a year
ago I was in the Jolly Gardeners drinking Death by Cider and chatting with my
good friend Sean O’Reilly. William Burroughs had just died and Sean was saying
that Old Bill had been one of his favourites. I said that he had been one of my
favourites too, and although I never really understood what he was on about
most of the time, it didn’t seem to matter, because I just loved the way he
was on about it.
    And
then Sean asked me whether I’d ever read anything by Johnny Quinn, who had
apparently been a mate of Burroughs and was