Carmody

A 4 year old!  Sweet!  Does he take after his real father? 

We still only have the one and she is now, as of this very day (I kid you not), 15 years old! And she has a boyfriend!! She’s into manga (both reading, painting and drawing), watching anime and listening to some auto-tuned drivel called k-pop that’s  churned out by pouting, pastel-coiffed, synchronised teenyboppers with heavy foundation and lip gloss.  Sigh ...  I miss the days when male artists had xy chromosomes, functioning sweat glands and pubic hair. 

Now, onto far more important matters ...

1) Where can I buy some silly billy bobo pants and 

2) Where the fook* is everybody and

3) When is some wonderful editorial spark going to bring back Hellblazer?

x C

* Did you see what I did there? I’m conscious that there may be some 4 year olds who are learning to read from these forums. 
 

2 hours ago, Lou K said:

Well well well, look what the cat dragged in

<Looks around including under her feet>
I have no idea who you are talking about. 

Maybe that person should have entered using the same ninja stealth mode as myself, 

<Waves at Lou> Hello Lou! Have you managed to grow some half-decent facial hair yet?

Damnit! Missed the “missing you” thread by seven years! Bloody time machine ... I knew I should have rented that sleek Tesla model instead of this shitty TM-Hauptsplut from Ikea. 

Des, Har & Rap, yes, but Sim ?

OK ... scrub sym. How about Captain Magenta and Doctor Fawn?

When is Melody's future sister Marina coming along? ;-)

With hindsight, the names: Destiny, Harmony, Symphony and Rhapsody are kind of what you'd expect girls to be nicknamed at the Chicken Ranch.

A good name "Melody" although my partner suspected that I wanted to call her that because I was a fan of Captain Scarlet. I had to promise him that if we had another girl, we wouldn't call her Rhapsody, Destiny or Harmony. When I was very young I DID have a weird crush on (wooden puppet) Captain Scarlett, but I simply liked the name Melody and hoped it would reflect on her singing abilities when she was older*.

Nice to see that you're still around Avaunt! Have kids of your own! They are fun, challenging and genetically important.

* Ha!

He looked calm and collected to be sure. But I still wouldn't want to do his laundry after what he went through.

Hey Bilirubin!

How'ya doing?

Do you still do that party trick where you turn people's poo and blood a bright shade of yellow?

I hope that you are making a good recovery from your recent trauma.

xx

I jest (of course). She loved the elephant, but she would simply have nothing to do with the horsey thing. In fact she crudely dissected the latter with a plastic spoon a few years later.

She's lovely, Pooka!

But then I think that all babies are lovely after they have filled out from that newborn "Winston Churchill's shrunken head sucking a lemon" phase.

This was Melody at roughly 4 months. She's playing with a new toy:

And this was Melody after I explained that the toy turns into a zombie demon at night in order to eat anyone who touched it during the day:

Kids are such fun!

Isn't that woman (wife, daughter, both?) who looks like him even worse?

Hi Red the Red and Slinky Toy!

Constanteeeeeen TV? Hang on ... wont they make him American? And refer to his stint in "Danvers State" instead of "Ravenscar"? And wont they make Chas black and witty - but still not "Chas"? And wont the program be canned after one season because viewing figures dropped by 23 when an episode clashed with a news article about Miley Cyrus actually having some talent?

Update: I just googled and the series is getting a Welsh actor to play Constanteeen and he looks a bit like comic Constantine too. I hope that he can act.

You know that face that Gollum pulls in the movies whenever anyone offered him cooked food?

Well that's the face I just pulled when I read "prawn cocktail Quavers" and "beef & mustard Hula Hoops".

Hi JT!

Congratulations, Pooka! Daughters are fun! None of that peeing in the air and (obvious) playing with one's doodah in public.

I've gone through a few career right turns. Now focussing on editing while I do a bit of teaching on the side. My ultimate plan is to work from home ... to wear penguin slippers and no underwear as I conduct high brow video conference meetings with authors and publishers.

How's you?

And, lo, the Fairy of the Forum appeared to Carmody, and light shone from his keyboard, and he smote Carmody's words, and raised them up, saying, Arise quickly, and take thy triteness to the chatty thread. And the shame fell from Carmody's eyes, and she was content.

Forum moderators rock!

Hi Lou! How are you doing? How's Charlie? And what are "regular" crisp flavours over there? Bison? Alligator? Maple syrup pancake? Evangelical? Banjo?

Hello Mark the Viking! Melody is dandy. She's now ... let me see ... almost 92 years old. Okay ... I lie ...she'll be 10 this October. And she plays guitar like a rock goddess! Which is really odd because her dad and I are like placid Vivaldi and mandolin revival folk.

Hi Slinker! I like digging too! And lurking! I used to come here wearing my Cloak of Anonymity to stare at profiles and previous posts. Then I'd run away, panting and worrying whether I'd been seen.

How is that new Constanteeeeen comic? I haven't read it. Is it worthy? Or too heaving with lycra underpants? I'm wondering if I should download the TP ...

OK ... how do I move this to "Should we Talk About ... ?"

I mis-posted. And I now feel like a cleaner who has taken a wrong turn and ended up on the X-Factor stage.

I know! I'll sing each word as I type it!

Badly

... there I was at my desk, sedately munching on a packet of crisps that I had earlier confiscated from a pupil, when I suddenly realised why I was feeling so strangely sentimental.

He'd said to me: "Miss, you will go straight to hell for that!", when I had snatched his pathetically concealed Ready Salted out from behind his Computer Science text book and gleefully announced that I was now looking forward to my break time...

"Straight to hell", he'd said ...

"Straight to hell", I replayed ...

"Straight ... to ...fucking Hell!"

"Shit on a stick! Constanteeeeeeen!"

And so: that is why I'm here, a few hours later, admiring the snazzy decor, wondering if any of the old farts I used to kick around with are still breathing.

Well ... are you?

Short answer: Generous neighbour(s)

***

Long answer:

As a very young child, I used to race to the door on certain days of the week to grab "The Beezer" before my brother and "Misty" before my sister. Some years later, we had a new neighbour whose husband and sons had amassed too many comics for their loft to hold and so she would give us piles of their older comics (including Spiderman nos. 1+, Hulk nos 1+, Doc Strange, Rampage, Mad and Frantic) in order to clear space for more meaningful loft clutter. I loved these comics - they made the Beezer and Misty seem so tame and childish.

My brother started to buy DC comics with his Saturday job money and, of course, I would sneak a read of these. However, I preferred the Marvel cast-offs as I found the DC superheroes to be far too squeaky clean and shiny. Then our kindly neighbour from heaven handed me (because I always said "thank you") a great pile of 2000ADs: issue 1 through to about 100. All in pristine condition. My brother, by that time, had discovered girls and had only a passing interest in this strange comic with its green host: Tharg. I, on the other hand, became hooked. I even got myself a weekend waitressing job (for which I lied about my age) so I could buy the current issues.

I remember developing a fantasy crush on the tusked chappie in the Halo Jones series (I was already weird: Captain Scarlett used to rock my young boat too!) I also remember the day that 2000AD went full colour as I hated the change and stopped buying it for a while. To fill the void, I started to read and collect a new comic called Hellblazer. And in later years at uni, because I didn't know better - having no role model other than the kindly neighbour from heaven - I gave all of my early Hellblazers to a guy I used to hang out with. (Doh! Doh! Doh!)

Oh...and the pristine set of 2000AD's and early Marvel issues? As soon as I had left home to attend college, Mum redecorated my bedroom and placed all of my comics in boxes in the garden shed. Mice, damp and mould killed off any possibility of early retirement from the sale of first editions. I didn't appreciate the enormity of these losses until shopping for replacement back issues in my early thirties.

Five years ago, I would have given a big shit. Now, I'd give a few rabbit pellets. The kind they release after being fed too much corn.

It's definitely the character teachers who stick in your mind. I remember Mr. Bosworth, English teacher, who was a thin, bearded hippy type. He had a limp and used a walking stick. Surprisingly for one so inquisitive, I never found out why his leg was damaged. He lent 10 year old me the King Solomon's Mines novel and then quizzed me on it when I handed it back, fully read, two days later. I cringe as I recall my smug look as the disbelief was wiped from his face. There was also Mr. Alsop - another English teacher and my favourite - big, round and with a great sense of humour. He sacrificed his lunchtimes to introduce several of us to RPGs, comics and Roger McGough poetry. He taught literature and admitted he enjoyed working through "Lord of the Flies" and "The Wasp Factory" with us rather than analysing Shakespeare's works. Miss Henderson - who accidentally dyed her hair green. Miss Mirairour, who set fire to her long ponytail during a science class about laboratory safety(!!!). I wasn't in her class, but we could see everything that happened through the shared gas cabinet partition. And, Mr Harvey, my music teacher who I think was at least 80 when he taught me to play the cello. He always wore a tweed suit with a dickie bow. I never understood a word he said as he would mumble incoherently through his dense, woolly, crumb-encrusted, beard. He ended up communicating with me by simply using his own cello bow to point at what he wanted me to play on the music sheet. I could tell how agitated he was depending on whether he tapped the music lightly or stabbed at it. Our lessons would end with him suddenly standing up and then shuffling away. The first time he did that, I sat there for 15 minutes before I realised he wasn't coming back.

I think I'll be remembered as the teacher who wore shapeless dresses with boots all the time and who would play a popular, but (uneducational) end-of-year game with my older students in which teams would have to identify popular computer game titles based on cosplay images I would display.

My fav...