Skateboarding and harmonica playing, together at last. An added touch of subcultural kool is supplied by the "radical" offer of free membership to…the National Harmonica League.¹ Way to feeblegrind the funbox, Hohner dudes.

1. The pauper's NHL. [back]

You hipster musos might like to pretend that the first record you bought, with your own precious pocket money, was Music for the Masses. Or Purple Rain. Or Rain Dogs. But it wasn't. Like me, the first record you bought (with your own precious pocket money) was the 7″ single of Nikita by Elton John. I know. I can see the shame reflected in your eyes.

I had, I now realise, something of a cold war fetish as a young fella. In this, I'm sure I was not alone. It wasn't so much the spies and the intrigue and the defections that made me giddy. It was more the (supposedly) imminent threat of global annihilation. On the one hand it was (of course) a bit on the terrifying side. Melted faces and irradiated eyeballs and your family being dead and so on. People shuffling about wailing and dragging their skin behind them like hideous mutant freaks. All that was, I suppose, in the debit column.

On the other (mutated) hand, it was hard not to acknowledge that the world was hopelessly shit as it stood. Dropping the bombs and blowing everything to bits afforded us the chance to a) rebuild the world anew as a (clean and bland) Star Trek-y futuristic utopia, while, b) living out our childhoods like the resourceful, independent, and semi-feral young heroes of an Enid Blython-esque post-apocalyptic fantasy. Sadly, of course, the wall came down and the Hard Rock Cafe invaded Moscow and the world continued to build shittier layers upon shitty foundations. Boo.

But the pop-cultural flotsam and jetsam of the time retain their power to move and amuse. Step forward Elton & Bernie (Taupin).

We'll leave the whole "Dude! Nikita is a MAN'S name!!" discussion to the sophisticated troll armies of YouTube. All I'll say, in hindsight, is that Nikita (the video) marries the glamour of a Soviet passport control checkpoint with the endearing lovableness of a relentless stalker (telephoto lenses and secret slide shows in his apartment) in a way that seems, in a world stubbornly resisting nuclear wipe-out, delightfully cuddly and fuzzy.

Occasionally, however, context-setting pre-game screens were so memorable as to overwrite recall of the games themselves. Take Irem's Vigilante. I only dimly remember the in-game action (standard, Double Dragon-esque, side-scrolling, ass-whupping fare), but have vivid memories of this.

To teenage boys in 1988 this was pretty provocative stuff. Gangs could (as was their wont) kidnap daughters and girlfriends of digital heroes as much as they liked, but not Madonna. Not Madonna in her fun, vibrant and fleshy days. Not Madonna back when she seemed (to pre-pubescent lads & lasses) the custodian of all the universe's carnal knowledge. Not Madonna before she'd met William Orbit and started sounding like a bored robot.

Big Tom (one of Ireland's pioneering guerrilla music-video-makers) is a master of the form. He makes it look easy. He makes it look amateurish. He makes it look as lovingly home-made as a lovely slice of sponge cake. He knows that long, lingering shots of dials and computer monitors will give his followers a vicarious technological thrill. If Star Trek (original series) is your only Sci-Fi reference, then knobs & dials are the stuff of an impossibly exotic future.

The song itself is Memento Mori-tastic. A Country 'n' Irish mélange of fetishised Americana ("Coup de Ville", "Kinfolk", "Skid Row") and the grim inevitably and inescapablity of death. All delivered by one of the saddest faces in popular music…

Jesus. Poor old Big Tom. His craggy head looks like it was moulded from week-old soda bread dipped in infinite sorrow. His final downward glance, as we fade to black, is something that will haunt me for years. We're all going to die. And Big Tom knows it. Knows it better than any man (just about) alive.

Does rock no longer concern itself with bothering "The Man"? With frying The Man's tiny little square brain? I mean, it used to be a war. A war we thought would rage for ever. Rawwwk VS The Man. Good VS Evil. Daddy VS Chips.

The Man would generally be personified (in rawwwk videos) by, well, a man. A small petty man. A man with a bow-tie and glasses. A man whose perpetually pursed lips signified square society's disapproval of rawwk's liberating craziness. A man whose glasses would be routinely shattered by the awesome power of shredded guitar.

Example? Check out the fogyish bank manager type at 0:52 in the awesome video for Judas Priest's awesome Breaking the Law (aka Breaking yer Specs):

Ho ho. Take that 4 eyes!

The Man, of course, is the eternal foe of wild, Bacchanalian joy. Singing, dancing, 10 minute guitar solos – The Man has no need for such things. His only loves (the wizened miserable old bastard) are money, order, piety and Werther's Originals.

45 years before Judas Priest broke laws (and blew minds) another impish rebel was pushing against the bonds of square Patriarchal oppression. I refer, of course, to Shirley Temple in Curly Top.

Singing? Raucous good cheer? Children's laughter? In the orphanage? Madame! This is an outrage! Shirley and pal hold firm though and tell him to get stuffed. Theirs is the spirit of rawwwk. It's Rob Halford's favourite movie.

So where are the 21st century heirs to the Halford/Temple legacy? Where are the glasses smashers?

One misapprehension you might end up suffering from is that "culture" has become more saturated with in-your-face sex than ever before. If you're trapped under that delusion then allow me to drag you out and haul your ass back to the 1970s – a decade when even the most innocent of paperbacks/LPs came drenched and dripping in a gooey porno veneer.

Consider the below for example, recently rescued from a (James Last-dominated) charity shop vinyl graveyard. It may (technically) hail from 1968 – but then the late 60s were really the early 70s, in terms of a loosening of restrictions and a tightening of trousers.

Those of you suffering quickened pulses and drying mouths may well be wondering what sort of pulsatingly sexual music could warrant so lurid a cover. Why Edelweiss and My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean of course! All banged out on a flaccid Hammond Organ. Have a quick listen:

Bonnie to Me.mp3

And the Dutch sex-god behind these filthy arrangements? Step forward Stef Meeder – corrupter of the young, priapic defiler of the pure & innocent:

Though Stef was, no doubt, a lascivious & goatish old fornicator, others would soon take up his (sticky) baton and run faster, further and harder with it. Cut to 1977 and another recent purchase – Boney M's jaw-dropping Love for Sale.

It's Smell the Glove. Only real.

ENYA STALKER DISAPPEARS

Now while the real story behind said headline may well be a tragic, violent, sad & lonely one (I didn't actually read it), the first thoughts that popped into my noggin were fantastical/whimsical in nature.

Enya, dark sorceress of the Celtic twilight that she is, had (with a single nano-thought) "vanished" her stalker from our world. Transporting him across the vast reaches of time and space to the "Dimension of Endless Weeping".

Hot stuff. Can't blame the Herald for leading with it on their front page.

For Enya is, of course, not a flesh and guts person like you and I. The kind of miserable simian wretch who shits, shops, scratches his/her hole, watches Home & Away etc. Far from it. She's an ethereal demi-goddess of the ancient world – lifted straight from the bloated appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Her beauty radiant. Her awesome wrath terrible to behold. Like Galadriel, crossed with Irish mist, blessed with a lucrative record deal.

The long-suffering villagers who cower at the base of her castle know only too well the price of her fury. On those dark days when her weekly delivery of mithril biscuits runs even a little late, she floats majestically out the castle gates and onward through the town. Eyes black as deepest obsidian. Lightning shooting wildly from her fingertips.

As she glides by on a cloud of pixie dust (an expression of impossible inscrutableness on her face) windows and doors are hurriedly shut and bolted. Inside their homes families shiver in the half-light, muttering desperate Hosannas. Those unlucky (or foolish) enough to be left standing without have but milliseconds to gaze upon her & ask themselves, "I wonder what she's thinking?", before they're magicked away to the nightmare hell-kingdom of Krotox. There to spend an eternity trapped in cages of living flame. With their faces melted off.

The moral of the story? Be careful who you stalk (or fuck with).

Since Willow can't/won't sleep without some level of constant background noise, we've had to press the tinny bedroom wireless into 24/7 service. Inoffensive station of choice is currently Lyric FM – home to a reasonably eclectic mix of "World Music", some interesting avant-gardey twiddling, and (mainly) "Wasn't that simply lovely?!" classical standards. As musical wallpaper, it's hard to beat.

Every so often, however, the station's relentlessly cuddly signal gets interrupted by some nasty and unwanted noise. This can be rather upsetting. Like finding a lump of desiccated cat faeces in a lovely mug of steaming cocoa.

Chief architects of such unpleasatness are those boom-voiced tenors who rape, murder and disembowel popular songs. Big operatic fatsos who unfeelingly bulldoze their way through (say) "Some Enchanted Evening", or (say again) "Strangers in the Night" (etc).

The baleful nadir of this phenomenon was reached in 1994 – with the "Three Tenors (and a baby)" concert that marked the World Cup final in the US. As Pavarotti and his partners in crime shat all over songs made famous by the precise/perfectly-judged phrasings and deliveries of Tony Bennett, Sinatra, Dean Martin et al, the camera would cut to a teary-eyed Gene Kelly (or whoever) in the crowd.

"Uuuuhhhhrrrmmm Seeeennngginnn uuurrhhnn thuuuhhh rrrrrrrrraaaiinnnn"

No wonder he was fucking crying.

Not only did this larynx-wanking, operatic Blitzkrieg lay waste to every gem put before it, but it did so with a grotesquely patronising smirk on its face. Here were the tradtional guardians and practitioners of Old World culture giving their kingly blessings to the youthful populism of the New. High sanctioning Low. Princes smiling benevolently on paupers.

Another puke bucket for monsieur? Yes please. And one for everyone in the audience.

P.S: Yes, I know I'm supposed to be taking an extended break – but I've found myself getting good at (and fond of) these hit and run posts. For more of that type of thing, see here.

Just popping in briefly to wish one and all a Merry Post-solstice Wintermass X-festival.

Uncle Phil Spector (the world's Christmassiest murder suspect) has been hogging our turntable all week, so I'll let Darlene Love take it (and us) away.

Enjoy.

Though there will (as is customary at such human functions) be generous amounts of music and dancing on the night, I'll be secretly pining and longing for the pure pleasures that only "60 min [sic] of terrifying sound effects" can produce. Behold the 2 Euro wonder that is "Sound of Horror CD".²

I expected it to be harmless and charming. Full of cartoony creaky doors, cuddly booing ghosts, and rattling (zoinks!) Scooby Doo chains. The kind of thing they might sell to beaming, rosy-cheeked chiddlers at Disneyland.

I was terribly, terribly wrong…

Panting, Shrieking, Grunting, Moaning, Thumping hearts fit to burst, Brutal industrial rhythms – all these things and more are present (on one gruelling hour-long track). It's a festering, Satanic potpourri where slices of David Lynch (or Angelo Badalamenti) mix with bloody chunks of Guantanamo Bay style sonic torture. Have a listen to the first 3 minutes…

Now imagine an hour of that. On your headphones. With the volume turned up to 11. You'd be straight out the front door with the hedge-trimmers in hand, ready to shred the neighbours' kids into a fine gooey paste.

Is it all part of a giant, Silver Shamrock-esque mind-fuck designed to highlight the vacuousness of consumerist Halloween by generating mass carnage? The answer is – almost certainly yes.

You've been warned.

1. I'm a traditionalist. [back]
2. Bought in William St's latest cheapomarket "Your More Store". [back]

There's something vaguely touching and poignant about mysteries that have (due to the whims of fashion) passed out of mainstream popular consciousness. Where once they might have been given high billing on Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, or been deemed worthy of sizeable entries in Usbourne's books of the unexplained (etc), they're now consigned to prowl around the internet's outer perimeters – scrabbling at the main gate and (feebly) demanding re-entry.

Such thoughts are on my mind thanks to the memory-jogging effects of my newly purchased TV Cream Toys. There, on page 31, I recently stumbled across words that once (when I was but a wide-eyed youth) caused thrilling ripples of delicious fear to zip up and down my spine -

Bermuda Triangle.

If ever there was a mystery that had (from a position of some significance) seen its stock rapidly plummet and crash then it was this same triangle. Popularised by Charles Berlitz, and rendered instantly kitschy by Barry Manilow, the triangle was (during the 1970s) one of the most potent phenomena on the Fortean radar.

It didn't (like more conventional mysteries) just frighten, bewilder and discombobulate people – it actually made them disappear. The thought of thus disappearing, instantly and eternally, struck my childish sensibilities as one of those "fates worse than death" you occasionally heard mentioned. One minute you were there – reading an in-flight magazine & contemplating a week in the Caribbean sun – and the next minute you were (horribly and inexplicably) gone. Doomed, as I supposed, to an eternity of useless shrieking and floating in some swirling, trans-dimensional no-space.

Realising that children would respond to this gnawing dread by consuming products based on the very thing they feared, Milton Bradley hopped on the zeitgeisty gravy train and gave us Bermuda Triangle: The Board Game.

Until I saw the pictures in TV Cream Toys I'd forgotten that any such object ever existed – and with good reason. Unlike those board games of yore that managed to adapt to changing times and remain relevant (cf. Cluedo), Bermuda Triangle's time in the pop-cultural sun was but a brief one. Like the triangle itself it remains firmly (and fittingly) rooted (and trapped) in the 1970s.

As far as actual game mechanics are concerned, I remember little, having probably played it but twice or thrice. The description on BoardGameGeek doesn't immediately set pulses racing…

"In this game, you try to run a successful ship-transport operation…"

Yikes. Words that would make any observant child suspect that a dreary and dreadful "educational" board game was being foisted upon them by joyless parents. Happily the sentence ends with a bang that boots such suspicions into touch:

In this game, you try to run a successful ship-transport operation in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.

Hoorah! That's better.

On a side note, I'm disappointed to discover that Mr. Manilow's ditty is not the musical investigation of the paranormal I'd always imagined it to be. Instead of dealing with time vortexes, alien kidnapping etc., it turns out to be little more than a warning about the dangers of your woman "disappearing" into another fella's arms while on a sun holiday. As if the song's lame partner-swapping "humour" isn't tedious enough, the only version of it I could easily find online comes pre-packaged with a shit video based on shitty Lost. Apologies:

A final question then. Do chiddlers these days still have sleepless nights pondering the (contemporary) likes of the Bermuda Triangle, or have pedophilic/terrorist bogeymen moved in to dominate their nightmares instead? Answers to the usual address.

P.S: I'm getting so much fecking spam in my "moderated comments" queue that I can no longer be bothered sifting through it for the genuine articles. If anyone's comment gets accidentally nuked then please email me (fustar@fustar.info) and I'll sort it out.

What, I ask, does one do when home for a few days with "the sickness"?

Huddle sobbing in the corner munching packets of paracetamol? Maybe. Offer up one's soul to the dark lords for a magical cure? Perhaps. Watch all 5 Planet of the Apes movies back to back?¹ Undoubtedly!

Though the 1968 original remains one of my favourite "genre" films,² I hadn't watched any of the four sequels since I was a (fairly easy to please) schoolboy. The following posts (yes, there'll be more than one) are merely the results of some hastily scribbled and fevered observations made, while propped up on the couch, as the DVDs spun.

1) Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Though Leonard Rosenman's delicious soundtrack is a definite highlight (almost the equal of Jerry Goldsmith's classic score for the original PotA), this remains a thoroughly daft and demented slice of late 60s/early 70s Sci-Fi hokum.³

Square-jawed, oiled-up astrohunk Brent (James Fransiscus) not only follows Chuck Heston (R.I.P.) through time and space to Ape City, but does as shameless a Chuck impression as has ever been put on screen. You keep expecting him, in moments of heightened stress and physical torment, to yell out "It's a Madhouse!!". This doppelgänger-ness is even slyly (or perhaps accidentally) acknowledged by Zira's confused exclamation of "Taylor?" when she first sees our beardy hero.⁴

Though the opening, above-ground, sequences are merely fairly dull retreads of scenes from film one, the bonkers-o-meter really swings into overdrive once Brent and Nova go beneath – down into the remains of a shattered New York. There they find (and are captured by) a gang of human survivors ("Eloi" to the Apes' "Morlocks")⁵ who not only retain the power of speech, but have also developed the natty ability to communicate, create illusions, and inflict harm telepathically.⁶

"Fair play to them", you may be thinking, "I hope they righteously kick some monkey arse". A note of caution, however, should now be sounded. They may amount to all that's left of human civilization (in the year 3978) but they're also unhinged religious zealots…

…and (beneath their fleshy masks) – hideous radioactive mutants.

Like many religious communities, "worship through song" is an important element in their ceremonies. Unlike many religious communities, the object of this worship is a big, shiny (and phallic) "doomsday" bomb. It's a madhouse!!

In one of Beneath's most unforgettable sequences,⁷ humourless cult leader Mendez (Paul Richards) leads us in the the kind of prayer that would have had me desperately trying to stifle (wicked) laughter in my mass-going days.

"Glory be to the bomb and to the Holy Fallout,
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be.
World without end…Amen".

And so on…

The "mutant choir" then decide to inject a bit of oomph into proceedings (and kick it post-apocalyptic) with a blast of that olde-timey favourite, "Almighty bomb!":

Almighty bomb!
Who destroyed all devils!
And created angels!
Behold his glory!⁸

Have a listen -

At this point Brent was, no doubt, grinding his Heston-esque jaw & gazing anxiously about for the nearest exit – but wait – there's more techno-mystic lunacy to come. As distressing as it may be, the only contemporary tune that seems to have survived the apocalypse (and made it as far as the 40th century) is "All Things Bright and Beautiful" – albeit in a mangled, mutant version:

Aside from these musical excesses (and I should point out that the versions here are remixes) the soundtrack is, as previously suggested, terrific. The same, however, cannot really be said for the film as a whole – which is, on one level, probably the weakest of the four sequels. I say "on one level" because though it's "not good" in any conventional sense, its not-good-ness is never anything less than bizarre and interesting.⁹ In that it has the edge over most of the (many) "not good" films being made in the 21st century – which are invariably "not good" in wholly tedious and formulaic ways.

Anyway, any film that ends (as this one does) with a dying Chuck Heston spitting out the words "You bloody bastard!" (to Dr. Zaius) as his hand falls on the switch that activates the bomb and, thus, destroys the Planet of the Apes (a.k.a. Earth), is one well worth watching.

Kaboom!

[The "Ape Chronicles" continues shortly...]

1. I'm excluding Tim Burton's execrable remake. [back]
2. I've probably seen it about 30 times. [back]
3. Though, as we shall see, there's much that can be said in "hokum's" favour. [back]
4. I can barely tell 'em apart, so you can't blame a chimp for being a bit bewildered. [back]
5. But with a reverse. The apes dwell above; they live below. [back]
6. With an amusing (synth-noise-accompanied) nod of the head. [back]
7. Interpret "unforgettable" whatever way you want. [back]
8. Or possibly, "Behold this moment!", or even "Behold his coming!". [back]
9. The same can be said for all the PotA sequels – to a lesser or greater degree. [back]

Hewn from the molten plasticks of hell flame it has come. The dread mark that speaks of pain, of pestilence and of putridity. Long hath man (and woman) sought the avoidance of its vile company…its terrible curse! Those who bear it shall know no happiness. Comfort and joy – distant memories shall these things be! Abandon all hope thou who pinneth it to thy jacket, manbag or handbag.

*Cough* …by that I mean, of course, that the Dreadful Thoughts badges have arrived. Hoorah! There may be some slight spiritual/occult peril involved in their ownership but fuck it – they just look so damn cool.

Those of you who've contributed to the "DT Story Club" discussions thus far – one each of these shall you have. Just email me your addresses (sign a short legal document in your own blood) and this must-have fashion item will be winging its way to you before you can say, "Oh God! What have I done?!"

In other "Club" news – Niall Munnelly, Lord of the Mixtapes, has set up a little Dreadful Thoughts Muxtape page for us. There are slots to upload 12 songs in all, with Niall having started the ball rolling by choosing the first track (taken from Krzysztof Komeda's Rosemary's Baby soundtrack). What I'd like DT "members" to do is to upload a suitably spooky track of their choice to the page in question. When the 12 slots are filled we should have a delightful "tape" to listen to while we join in the discussions, read the tales, or (indeed) write our own.

I'll send out a few emails with the Muxtape log-in details. If I miss anyone (or if anyone who hasn't yet joined in the discussions would like to contribute) just drop me a line and let me know.

Fresh blood is always very, very welcome…I'm serious. Don't be shy.

It's far easier (not to mention more entertaining) to write on the subject of the musically mad, bad, demented and (even) disturbing. With that thought firmly in mind, another new fustar.info series begins (I'm getting addicted to starting these bloody things).¹ The aim (such as it is) of Songs for the Bewildered will be to celebrate, pick apart, and "unpack" popular songs that carry an almost indefinable, and possibly unintentional, air of oddness (I have, I hasten to add, no interest in the self-consciously "wacky").

For the first item on the menu we skip the savoury starters and go straight for the sickeningly sweet deserts. This mawkish dirge was suggested as suitable material for the blog by (adopts Daniel O'Donnell-esque drawl) "a special wee lady who's a big part of me life".

I give you, "Pal of my Cradle Days" – a perfect example of that evergreen musical form (beloved of Ireland's Own readers), the "Me & Me Mammy" balllad.

You know the score – she raised me; clothed me; bathed me; sat knitting in her rocking chair by the window waiting for me to come back from the war (while worrying about me buying a motorbike). That kind of thing.

Pal of my cradle days, I've needed you always.
Since I was a baby upon your knee,
You sacrificed everything for me.²

Here's the mighty Pip Collins giving it a go in Blackpool, circa 1980:

Pip tells it like it is and was. How does the ungrateful son repay the ceaseless maternal devotion? He stays out all night – most likely boozing and hooring – causing the loving mother to wither and shrivel up with the worry.³

Greatest friend, dearest pal,
It was me who caused you
Every sorrow and heartache you knew,
Your face so fair I have wrinkled with care
I placed every line that is there.

Though the audience remains unseen off-screen, it's not too difficult to guess at its composition: white-haired old dears dabbing tear-stained eyes while gazing at faded Polaroids of errant and estranged sons. And, perhaps, the odd errant and estranged son himself – sobbing quietly at the painful memory of that lost pal of his own cradle days (and the gold he cruelly whipped from her hair).

Lurking not too far behind all this maudlin sentimentality, however, there's an undeniable, skin-crawling creepiness. The most famous articulator of the sentiment, "A boy's best friend is his mother", was, after all, not Daniel O'Donnell…but Norman Bates. Having said that, I'm sure that themes of matricide and repressed Oedipal yearning aren't entirely absent from Daniel's live shows. That's probably part of the appeal.

Particularly if he includes (as I'm sure he must) that other "I REALLY love my mammy" classic, "A Mother's Love's a Blessing" in his set. Here be the chorus:

A mother's love is a blessing,
No matter where you roam.
Keep her while she's living,
You'll miss her when she's gone.
Love her as in childhood,
When feeble, old and grey,
For you'll never miss a mother's love
'til she's buried beneath the clay.

And here a lovely scratchy and warbly recording from de ould days:

In case you haven't guessed, the "special wee lady" who suggested I blog about the above was none other than my own darling mother. An extra pinch of icky weirdness has, I'm sure you'll agree, been added to the mix.

She's a sick twist all right.

1. To the point where I now find it hard to write a stand alone post. What's happening to me? [back]
2. Lyrics. [back]
3. Lovely golden hair turning, tragically, to silver. [back]

9.00 – Hup! Hup! Quiet down now.

Welcome dear friends, lads and lassies, boys and girls, mices and meeses, to the first ever fustar.info Manky Toy Show. We have a great live program (un)prepared for you tonight. Music, mirth, merriment and (most importantly) Manky Toys.

Unlike our Late Late cousin there'll be none of the chipper, "up-with-people-ness" of the Billy Barry Brats, and no selling out (like big corpo-whores) to "the man". Everything seen here cost 2 Euros or less and neither Mattel nor Hasbro has greased my palm with silver (even though the night is young and I remain open to offers).

Let us begin and get ourselves in the mood with some music. Two unlikely neighbours. One olde Englishe castle. An absent Sir Percival.

9.04 – Is it just me or does Bowie carry this air of coiled menace ("Sir Percival let's me use his piano when he's away")?! Bing looks quite vulnerable in that cardigan. Speaking of which, that's what I'm wearing for the occasion tonight. And I've got a dog, a log fire, a pipe, and another dog (actually 2 cats).

9.06 – On to the first toy. It's a delightful slice of poor-man's Lego, simply called "Navvy". Jess (my lovely assistant) is opening the box now.

9.09 – She's busily putting it together so we'll leave her to it for a few moments. Can I draw your attention to the following disclaimer on the back of the box?

Specifications, colours and contents may vary from illustrations.

And contents?! That's not exactly confidence-inspiring. First glance suggests it appears fairly close to the depiction on the box however. By that I mean the box doesn't contain jelly babies…or coal.

9.15 – She's struggling with the wheels, which nattily have the legend "Jun Long Toys" inscribed on them. One wonders what "Lego purist" Bob Byrne would make of "Navvy". He's about 5 times the size of a conventional Lego man and rather robust (Navvy that is…not Bob).

9.19 – Toy completed. It's huge and, in Jess's words, "Not manky, though slightly delicate". The steering wheel turns, the knob to lift the shovel yoke goes up and down, Navvy's pedestal/cabin spins around. "Jun Long Toys" have come up with a winner here. A toy so not-manky it would make a genuinely generous gift. How disappointing…

Only thing that marks it as a 2 Euro special is a non-detachable baseball cap (not pictured on the box, as warned) and that Navvy's "freckles" look distinctly unhealthy. More like the pox of the chicken.

9.25 – Hoorah! We have at least one audience member. The lovely Simon McGarr, loyally joining in "from far away through the magic of N800 and phone internet connection".

9.29 – Half an hour in and time for the first word from one of our sponsors. Check it out. Toys every hip, 2007 youngster will want in his/her stocking.

9.33 – From the days when toy advertising was…surprisingly pedestrian. The Neanderthal baddie just stood there waiting for the Action Copter to grab him. And what about the "Sea Wolf"?

The action team submarine that actually dives and surfaces.

By diving it seems to mean sinking slowly to the bottom in an uncontrolled manner. It nearly crushed an innocent (and alarmed) Goldfish for Christ's sake.

"Bullet Man" is, surely, one of the worst ever additions to the Action Man universe. A "hero" with but one ability – sliding down a piece of twine until he lands head first on the ground. Go Bullet Man!!

9.39 – We're back and moving on to toy number two. And what a "number two" it is.

This one will have the kiddies excirah and delirah I'm sure. It's the "Spider-Man Telephone". Actually a stiff plastic figure that looks (in Jess's words) like a small boy wearing an ill-fitting Spider-Man outfit. The box warrants a bit of close scrutiny. In the top right corner is, for no particular reason, the "Baby face in the sun" thing from Teletubbies. Half-way down we see a picture of a prone Spidey with a light shining from a cavity in his skull. The legend proclaims:

Nighttime a bankable actor Electric torch use.

Nice and clear. Next pic shows Spidey walking and promises, "Feet can sway". We've tried, and they can't.

9.49 – I've cheated a bit with this one. He needed 2 (non-included) batteries so I had to do a bit of "one I made earlier" stuff. This included a natty video, which showcases the weird (and very loud) things that happen when you try and call your mother for a chat.

9.53 – Unlike "Navvy" (who does what he says on the tin) this is a deeply confusing and upsetting toy. Some odd singing, a dog barking, a lingo I can't make head nor tail off. Plus, as Jess notes, by using Spidey to make a phone call you can't avoid speaking into his crotch. Whether that's a plus or a minus is, I suppose, down to your own tastes and predilections. The torch is pretty nifty though. Nighttime a bankable actor indeed.

9.58 – Simon may be on to something here:

As regards the packaging- “Nighttime a bankable actor Electric torch use�- this is the kind of secret code that would-be spidermen with buttons inset to their torsos should be able to crack in mere minutes.

That'll have me awake all night…

10.00 – One hour gone. Time to pour myself a soothing glass of Cote de Nuits-Villages (1999). If I were pushed to describe it I'd say it was robust, full-bodied, red, wet and…er…tasty. The blurb on the back of the bottle is somewhat more fanciful and flowery:

To taste our wines is like living through a dream, like listening to a poem, or perhaps a symphony.

Yup. Like I said. Red and wet.

10.10 – And now, methinks, another ad break. Prepare to enjoy the mendacity-tastic adventures of everyone's favourite recently-deceased daredevil:

10.16 – It's hard not to weep bitter tears when you see some of the impossible carry-on Evil was only ever able to achieve in ads. My Evil tended to rocket out of the blocks before veering wildly into a wall, or (simply) falling over. That said, the gruesome looking crash he suffers right at the end of the first advertisement adds an unexpectedly disturbing note to proceedings. Six months in traction at the very least I'd say.

The third segment is a bit more modest in its claims, given that one of Evil's "super abilities" is the ability to "drive straight". Wow!

10.23 – I think we could well be heading for overtime at this rate. Anyway, moving slowly on to our next offering. With a scarcity of Wiis doing the rounds this Christmas it might be time to consider the charms of "PolyBlock One" – "BSC Bloch System Controller With DFE Double Flash Effect" (as the box proudly, and unhelpfully, declares).

10.27 – Jess is ripping the box to shreds. It's out, and…there are no bloody batteries included. This despite it listing 2AA Batteries among its features. Bah! Hang on…we'll tear them out of the Spidey phone.

10.32 – Ok we're off. There are some bleeping sounds, some blocky shapes that look like antibodies, I'm trying to figure out which buttons to press. Shit! "Game Over"!

10.34 – Right. This is beginning to look like outright fraud! The "PolyBlock One" (no relation to a product from Sony) seems to be designed to bamboozle you with beeps, randomly shifting squares, and buttons that say things like "rotate" and "sound". I've been playing video games since I was a pale, short-trousered youth and I've no fucking idea what's going on! Listen to the instructions…

4. Rotate – Rotate the falling element/game select.
5. Down/Game – For each kinds of game select different number forward.
8. Move the Dragon Upward.

What element? What Dragon?? All I see are squares that fail to respond to my frantic button mashing. Then, 2 seconds later, "Game Over".

22.40 – Hold everything. Jess has just declared, "I think I'm getting the hang of this. You have to shoot things using the rotate button". My brain hurts.

10.44 – Folks, we could be looking at the mankiest toy this blog has ever come into contact with. It's reach so far exceeds its grasp that it's like a burst and leaking Stretch Armstrong. Every time I look at "Feature. 1″ on the back of the box I feel the red mist rising.

1. Lots of exciting game in it.

The disclaimer should read, "If you can find it". Jess says she "saw a Tetris-style game briefly" but that she "doesn't know what happened to it" or how she found it. "PolyBlock One", it seems, is all about the (deeply frustrating) quest.

10.52 – To lift our spirits we're dipping into the Cote de Nuits-Villages again (not much left) and giving us all a brief musical interlude. I love Judy Garland as much as any straight man ever did and Meet Me in St. Louis is a fave of mine. It has "lots of exciting song in it".

10.59 – Shortly after that song finishes Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) runs into the yard and violently destroys the snowmen in one of the best bits of wild child anger ever seen on screen. Gwan Tootie!

11.02 – Well, we're into time added on for wrist/finger typing injuries. No matter, there's still a drop or two of vino left. Plus, Jess has brought me up a luverly packet of Salt & Pepper Tuc to keep me going. Let's press on…

Time to whip out a gender-inscribed one for the girls. All pink 'n' flowery:

11.09 – Ah "Disco Diva" – a toy straight from the Bratz school of giant-eyed fashionista sassiness. A small (but important) warning on the bottom of the box reads:

Please note: CD Discs do not function or play different tunes.

Hmmm. Putting this to the test.

11.16 – The three plastic discs included read "Pop, "Rock & "Disco" but they all sound like brutal hard-core techno. Driving rhythms and hard, savage edges that call to mind moments from Lost Highway. Concerned parents should note that the "Mini CD Player" is pink and friendly with a handbag style strap – so there's a "little princess" air of softness to offset the manic doom noise of the CDs.

It should also be noted that the "buttons" (stop, play, repeat etc) are merely stickers that (like the "CDs") don't actually do anything. There is but one purple switch that makes things happen and allows nervous girls to cycle through the 3 disturbing tunes.

11.26 – Christ, look at the time. I need to empty my bladder. Cut to commercial.

11.32 – Last glass of booze. A wave of tiredness and (hic) tipsiness is beginning to wash over me. Can't neglect to mention the above though…

Simon Says come chase after me,
Repeat my lights seq-uent-iii-ally!

Time to take our hats off to what must surely be the only ever use of the word "sequentially" in a toy jingle. Actually, "Repeat my lights sequentially" sounds suspiciously like the kind of mangled English instructions one routinely finds on Manky Toy packets. It may even be on the "PolyBlock One" Box.

I was always rubbish at Simon Says. Once it really got cooking I'd start sweating and panicking and fall at the first hurdle. It was like something they'd sit around playing in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Games of the future are always bleepy, upsetting and confusing.

11.43 – And so we move on to the final toy of the evening. A truly disgusting blob of goo submitted by my darling wife. Behold "Puppy Squeezer":

11.47 – Keen eyes may notice that, in Alan Partridge's immortal words, there is "superficial damage to the box". That is to say, it's completely covered in Sellotape. As a result Jess, being mindful of her rights as a consumer, had the brazen cheek to ask for a discount. The o'erworked till operator looked at her with a mixture of weariness and disgust. No discount was forthcoming.

It's difficult to describe how horrible "Puppy Squeezer" is to the touch. It pulses, it oozes, it reminds one not only of canine putrescence but one's own inevitable descent into rot and deliquescence. It's like Stretch Armstrong's zombie dog companion.

12.00 – 3 hours in! Jays fluid! "Copernicus" has just posted a grim warning of the dangers posed by the hideous likes of "Puppy Squeezer":

I was in the two euro shop recently browsing the PS Onealike when I suddenly started back from the display at a sudden clammy, moist yet unwet sensation rapidly overwhelming my epiduris.

One of those packets of goo had come apart – or been deliberately booby-trapped by a passing child – and the hideous, ectoplasmic ooze was slathering over my flesh.

He thunked he was having "a visitation from Madame Blavatsky", she who always gifted jars of putrid ectoplasm to Yeats, Crowley et al for Christmas. Perhaps there is some occult conspiracy behind the gurning puppy. I've seen Halloween 3. I know what can happen!

12.06 – Fergal notes, "I always wondered what class of goo was used inside these things". I draw his attention to the rear of the box.

Caution! Contents may stain some fabrics.

Or…"Contents may dissolve flesh/Melt your soul".

12.10 – One final word from our insistent sponsors before we wrap up, put on our night caps, and sail for the shores of nod.

12.12 – 2 questions.

1) When did Ms. Pac Man become Bette Midler?

2) Does she actually sing (at the end) "Hey, don't ya know? I'm only Pac Man with a bow!!"

If (2) is true then it's an admirable bit of honesty from Atari. She had a beauty spot too though…so it was a markedly district sequel.

12.21 РI've squeezed my last puppy and blocked my final poly. There's an empty bottle beside me and "Navvy" looks like he's fit for the bed (after another back-breaking shift). Chatter and raim̩is can continue in the comment room, but for now it's good night from me and it's good night from them.

And remember…nighttime is a bankable actor.

finis

The Manky Toy Show – A Postscript – 28/12/2007

Last night, as Jess and I were working our way through Harold Lloyd and Sopranos box-sets, our whole road was suddenly plunged into darkness. After lighting a few candles I remembered that I had a wind-up torch (somewhere) among my possessions. Finding it would, however, require another torch to light my way (I have a similar problem when I misplace my glasses). As we sat in the gloom wondering what to do Jess exclaimed "The Spider-Man Phone!"

Off I trudged upstairs, thinking that even the mankiest toy has its day to (literally) shine. Down I bring Spidey, take 2 AAs out of the DVD remote, crank him up and…his arm snapped straight off…his head gave out no light.

Nighttime, I'm afraid to say, was no bankable actor.