We, the two jolly co-eds of "The Weekly Hat"m
believe that it is our mission to
Welcome to 2The Weekly Hat", run by your two jolly
co-eds, The Excellent Kid, typ(st, and Druid Woodlice, the useless man.
This is the first issue of "The Weekly Hat"
We, the two jolly co-eds of this august journal, welcome you
to the very first edition of "The Weekly Hat". It is our purpose to inform and entertain
It is our purpose to ramjwaputty yum
It is our purpose to
We, the two jolly co-eds of "The Weekly Hat2
andergrat spoon
"Here, you have a go." The Excellent Kid threw the typewriter across the room at his chum Druid Woodlice. After all, it had been a co-operative idea to produce a periodical for their own amusement and other people's annoyance. The proposed title seemed a little optimistic at present, as a publication has to run to at least two editions to earn the epithet "weekly", and as matters currently stood it didn't seem likely to manage a run of one, although if it did, perhaps they could redefine "weekly" as "it came out one week". So far, they had neglected to plan far enough ahead to answer the question "What's it going to be about?" In fact, they had already wasted three sheets of typing paper thusly:
What8s it going to be about?
Er i don’t know.
fat lot of good you are.
xxx x x xxx
xxx x x xxx xxx x x xxx x
x xxx x x x xx
x x x x
x x x x x
x x x xx x x
x x x x x
x xxx xx
xx x x xx x
x xx xxxx x xx
x x x
x x x x
x x x x x
x x x x xx x
x x x x x
x x x xxx
xxx x x xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx x
x x x x x xx
which hadn't really answered the question as much as it had raised more, eg wot on earth made them think they had a chance of writing even a pamphlet? Kid, the more literary of the two (he knew where all the keys were on the typewriter - they were just in front of the metal bits that jumped up and nutted the paper), had had the first shot, and having exhausted his repertoire considered it was time for Woody to show his mettle.
"Hey, waddya mean, 'the useless man'!"
"How come that bothers you when I've just bounced a typewriter off your head?"
"Is that what it was? I thought it was one of your records."
Ex had quite a collection of records, and inevitably some of them ended up in the cardboard box that once contained cartons of eggs for the family shop and now lived in the wardrobe. Unevitably, some ended up lodged in the polystyrene ceiling tiles where the Kid had lobbed them after ascertaining that they contained no unusual or humorous bits to record between tracks on his compilation tapes, and where they constantly threatened to drop and slice one's head in twain. The Kid had a penchant, an astrological symbol which hung around his neck on a chain and flew up to bop him on the nose if he jumped up and down; he had a habit, which he had stolen from a nun's washing line but only wore to parties; he had a yen, but couldn't spend it in the local shops; he had an inclination, due to the numerous bangles he wore on his left wrist; he had a proclivity, which didn't sound like a different word, for buying records of grot and whimsy from market stalls, mainly to play to the Druid to make him laugh or scream with his hands to his head in comical horror. In such a fashion were the influences of the musical duo Vermilion Skink collected; an album of monotonous sitar ragas was a clear inspiration for the Skink's Nineteen Floz, that 15 minutes of two roughly amplified cheap electric guitars going "tinky noodle", while the comedy narrations of Bernie "Bowler Hat" Bernardson obviously had nothing to do with the droning harmonium and tin can drums of Penny Times Nothing. These and other trinkets could be found on the album Find a Bin to Put It In, a limited edition of one, recorded directly onto cassette.
During all this exposition Woodlice, having worked solidly for five minutes, had located the correct key and finished his contribution.
wE teh to jokky codes
"It's not going to work is it?"
"Neither is this. I can't even remember what it's meant to do."
Bordello was trying Tricks with Matches which he had seen on local TV the night before (it was the mainstay of their regular Pub Sports feature) with his peripheral vision whilst scribbling a lyric in his notebook[1]. The only trick he had managed so far was setting a match on fire, but now he thought of a way to top this; shoving the match back into the nearly-full box whilst still aflame, he accomplished Setting the Matchbox on Fire. Quite an easy one, although with the drawback that it began to scorch the chair he was performing it on. Thinking quickly, he knocked the box into the bin, which was metal. He was sure metal was virtually non-combustible, and he was right. However, this was not true of the wastepaper it was full of (mainly first drafts of The Weekly Hat).
"Agh! Quick! Emergency procedures!"
Kid darted across the room to the stereo and flung the guitar racket of the Lead Ingot Kids, popular guttersnipe noiseniks, off the deck, replacing it with the intergalactic drone-metal of StormBird, famed for their effects-heavy stage show. The probable sound of solar winds faded in as smoke swirled out of the bin and began to fill the room.
"Just like being at one of their shows!" cried Kid, while the crashing riffs of space guitar burst in to swirl the smog about, flames performing a light show substitute upon his visage, which thus shone through the fug like a lighthouse beckoning sailors to their rocky doom.
"No it isn't," challenged Dru, "We went to one of their shows last year and there was absolutely no point where we were in danger of smoke asphyxiation!"
"Conceded," allowed Ex, thoughtfully opening the window, "but we did nearly pass out from the smell of the hippies. Still… good this, innit?"
Moven n grooven, doing the Hairy Dance, Ex skimmed the edge of the underground. Too alternative for the disco-trendy straight scene, not quite mystical or herbochemically enhanced enough for the hippy crowd, Hairies moved in the open space between the two extremes. The Hairy Dance differed from the Straight Dance in that it involved more than waving one's arms back and forth with maybe a small step to the side, and from the Hippy Dance in entailing motion at all, as hippies were usually too stoned to move much. There were no rules, you just flung your extremities wherever they wanted to go, preferably with your hair flapping in your face, until you heard somebody laugh at you whereupon you left the floor and spent the rest of the night sulking.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" haed Woody, pointing at the murky shadow in the miasma.
"I suppose you think I'm going to sulk all night now. Well I'm not. I'm going to sulk for the rest of my life, so there."
The fire was burning low. As the smoke cleared Ex examined the bin; the picture was peeling off, the little terrier puppy looking more like a werewolf, and there was a scorched circle on the carpet.
"Could have been worse." He looked up at the Woody slowly appearing from the clouds. "Have you done something to your hair?"
"I combed it yesterday." Then he caught sight of himself in the mirror. "Good grief!"
One or more of the ceiling records had melted in the heat, and landed on the conveniently-placed Lice. Now it had cooled, it had settled into the shape of the quiffiest quiff you ever did see, with the black vinyl look all quiffsters strove for but could never quite manage even with liberal applications of engine oil, margarine, Greaseoline and tar.
"I look like Flakie Snood!"
"You know who likes Flakie Snood, don't you?"
"About fifty zillion Flakie Snood fans."
"Well, yes… I was thinking of Hester Wanden."
Hester Wanden! Queen of the In Crowd! Lady Cool! To Ex'n'Dru, the pinnacle of the unattainable, therefore the ultimate object of desire. In an amusingly shallow way, of course.
"Hester Wanden! You really think she'd like me in a plastic Flakie Snood wig, despite her knowledge that I'm really just a nerk, as detailed in our little-liked but unpopular song Ballad of a Nerk? Could such a simple disguise really overcome my innate naffness and turn her head from trendy smart boys with cars and money to an impoverished scruff with a taste for juvenile humour which, incidentally, we both share? Is it possible with a simple alteration to my surface appearance to instigate far-reaching personality changes deep in her heart of hearts?"
"No, you'd better borrow my gold lamé jacket as well. Fortuitously! I happen to know that she will be at tonight's Arxenblatt concert!"
"How do you know this thing, of her intentions and movements? Have you spies, bugs or fotterniks planted in secret places?"
"No, the In Crowd go to every concert; this is Pilmo, we only get a band once a month. What's a fotternik?"
"Don't know."
"Enough merry banter, let us away to the Arxenblatt concert!"
"How much is it?"
"10p on the door."
"10p! That's outrageous! I've never paid more than 5p on the windowsill for any band!"
"It's at the Glidhall. They've put the booking fees up again."
"Sanguine heck! All right then, it's got to be better than sitting here listening to your Wunderkopf Percolator records."
"Philip Stein."
"I thought he was in Snap-on Tool I said SNAP-on Tool!"
And so they went, walking down the road singing Woody's little-known but popular song Walking Down the Road.
"Walking down the road / walking down the road / walking down the
road / walking down the road / Well I was walking down the road just-a walking
down the road"
it went. Then they sang the Kid's little-popular but known song Walking Down the Road Song, which went::
"Well I was walking down the road as I was walking down the road /
Walking down the road as I was walking down the road / Walking down the road
with my friend the Natterjack Toad / Walking down the road as I was walking
down the road."
from which it can be seen that Kid was the more sophisticated songwriter, and knew two or three more chords. As he often said of the Druid, "little does he know".
Oh what a sight they made, these two young lads of musical bent and journalistic aspirations who had no girlfriends, the Druid in his custom Flakie Snood wig and tattered gold lamé, and the Kid in his voluminous baggies and hippy hat, which had started life as a cowboy hat but been transformed by the liberal application of a party can of cider in a glass substitution contest, and the subsequent ornamentation of a paisley scarf. Who would have thought that such splendid specimens of youth would have been sneered at by those arbiters of taste the In Crowd as sad and risible personae non gratae? And who would have thought also that they could sneer at their detractors as benders to trends and fad fanatics while at the same time being possessed of a burning desire for the approval of their First Lady? Could it be that the tale to be told is the classic one of boy from wrong side of tramlines winning the love of one oh so high above him against all the odds? Let us see.
As they reached the front steps of the Glidhall where the assembled concert-goers waited for the opening of the doors, Woody spotted Hester Wanden and approached her fearlessly, confidence heightened by his vinyl hairdo and threadbare tuxedo.
"Hi Hester!"
No further words would be needed surely, for as she turned to face him she would be immediately struck by his resemblance to her idol and her heart would be lost. Her eyes met his, and her lips parted enticingly as she spoke;
"Are you supposed to look like Flakie Snood?"
"Er… don't I?"
"I'm sure the great Flakie Snood would never wear a wig made of melted records, and his gold lamé jackets are never less than immaculate. He has a magnificent natural quiff and certainly there are never loose lamé threads sticking out all over his jacket likes the quills of a porcupine."
"Ah…. ah! Indeed, for I am today masquerading as a parody of Flakie Snood!"
"Really? Well… if you'll excuse me, I have to… move a little way away from you."
She rejoined a small group of people who were far too good-looking, sliding her arm through that of the most infuriatingly handsome of them. The opposite reaction equal to this action was Woody's return to his friend, who had been hiding around the corner, with a suitably morose shuffle.
"Not quite the planned reaction," he post mortemed.
"No, and it wasn't even particularly entertaining," concurred Ex. "Actually very poor, I thought. It didn't really bring out the hipness of the In Crowd, and made an especially poor showing in demonstrating the shallow queenliness of Ms Wanden. It wasn't quite her style, which is generally less overtly rude, more obliquely condescending, imbuing one with feelings of inadequacy without being able to say exactly why."
"You knew I looked stupid, didn't you?"
"Egad! That you should accuse me thus! You wound me, my friend! Is it my fault I have poor judgement and equally poor fashion sense?"
Woody perused the headwear and leggings of his companion.
"I am forced to concede this point," he conceded, pointing. "But you did set me up, didn't you?"
"Ah, mea culpa, mon brave, mea maxima culpa."
"I know you passed your eye-levels in languages living and dead, but as you know I barely scraped through colloquial English, so you what?"
"Yes, I did set you up."
The Druid's eyes narrowed, his brow creased, his complexion turned scarlet; he clenched his fists and glowered at Ex's beaming face.
"Good one! I really fell for that eh?"
And they rocked in mock laughter, holding their stomachs and pumping their shoulders up and down. What a couple of prunes.
"Might as well get this plastic off my head now."
Woody gripped his topping with both hands and tugged. And tugged. And tugged some more.
"It won't come off! I am doomed to go through life looking like an also-ran in a Flakie Snood Look-a-like Contest!"
"Panic not!" encouraged the Kid, and appended his own grasp to the offending infra dig.
"Ow ow ooh ow! Aaarrgghhh! Gerroff! It's fused to my hair!"
As their grips relaxed, so did he.
"Oooohh nooooo! Everyone will call me Mr Vinylhead!"
"Never mind, I'm sure you'll go bald one day, then it'll just drop off."
"Hey! You're Flakie Snood, aren't you?" The voice of a roadie, who had popped out of a side door for a herbal cigarette[2], interrupted the discussion. "I was in your crew on the Flaking Heck tour! Herbie O'Durrh, remember? You couldn't help us out mate, could you?"
"I'm not…"
But the Kid was quicker in wit and chutzpah, not to mention a bit of a chancer. "I'm his manager, young man. You'll have to talk to me."
"You're Piranha Skellingtonmacher? You've changed a bit. You look much younger."
"New management. Allow me to introduce myself…" The Kid dragged up a couple of words from his memory banks at random…"Zombie Ramshackle, Eggbox Records Entertainments, at your service. How can I help you?"
"Our support band's van broke down on the motorway. Someone stole the engine, apparently[3]. They're towing it down now, but it doesn't look like they'll get here in time. The drummer threw a shoe."
"Why would that stop them being towed?"
"No, listen to the words, try to understand their meaning." Herbie was still a bit miffed at being addressed as "young man" by somebody who looked as if they'd just left school that day. "I said, THEY are towing it down. They can't afford a rescue service on what we're paying them so they tied a rope to it and they're pulling it. So I was wondering, would Mr Snood be so kind as to honour us with a performance? The fans can get pretty disgruntled if they don't get a support act, they like value for money."
"Yes, that's why a band plays at least a two-hour set. I remember when Snorkfester left the stage after an hour and 45 minutes, there was a riot."
"Nobody dared try to short-change the fans after that." The roadie nodded in agreement. "So will he do it?"
"Of course he will! But it'll cost you. No less than a tenner, two rounds of piccalilli sandwiches and plenty of cola, mark you."
"Well… you drive a hard bargain, Mr Ramshackle."
"Oh, and Flakie will be debuting his new band, of which I am a part. We're called Vermilion Skink."
"The world debut of Flakie Snood's new band! Agreed then! We'll throw in a jar of pickled onions too!"
"OK, we'll just go and pick up our gear. Come on, Flakie."
"Catch you later! Hey, Flakie!"
Faux Flakie looked back.
"You look a lot better now! Love the dangling lamé threads look!"
"Zombie Ramshackle?" queried Woody as soon as they were out of earshot.
"The random name generator of my mental lexicon could probably use a little fine tuning," admitted the Kid. "So could the prioritising organizer of your query selector."
" I know you passed your eye-levels in languages…"
"It's English!"
"Oh… what does it mean?"
"I mean," explained the English-speaker, in English, "that your first question should have been, 'What have you got us into now?' or something of that ilk. Note the use of the word 'now' which implies that I have a habit of getting us into such scrapes and escapades. Another good choice of opening salvo might have been, 'What are we going to play? We don't know any songs!'"
"Why can't we just noodle on a theme like we usually do?"
Ex was relieved. "Yes… that was exactly what I was going to propose."
"Good thinking! I'm glad you're my manager. A big star like Flakie Snood should have a good manager."
"Yes, and he probably does. I can't see Flakie Snood playing support to Arxenblatt in a provincial backwater."
"Oh, right. I'm not Flakie Snood am I?"
"You are tonight, Flakie. You are tonight."
[1] "Oh I'm watching TV in the corner of
my eye / I can't think why and neither can I"
[2] Really, a herbal cigarette. He had been banned from smoking them inside the venue because the hardened nicotine addicts who comprised the rest of the road crew objected to the smell.
[3] But that's another story. If you're good, maybe later.