Formative experience recollection time.

It's a summer evening in, oh, 1979 (or thenabouts), and I'm standing – gob-smacked and wonder-filled – in the lobby of the (no-longer-existent) prom-side cinema in Lahinch, Co. Clare. I've just seen Disney's Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs for the first time, and its 83 minutes of Technicolor gorgeousness have rocked my little world.

I'm not the only one thus affected. A (presumably awed & dazed) teenage boy emerges from the theatre, ambles across the lobby, and walks up to, into, and straight through the cinema's floor-to-ceiling glass window/door. Miraculously he is (in my memory at least) unhurt. Such is the power of animation. It not only fires and fuels your imagination – it throws a protective aura of invincibility around you as well.

For the majority of the rest of my childhood all I wanted to be was a "cartoonist" (the proper term, I assumed, for someone who produces animated cartoons). I sketched. I doodled (a lot). I drew cariacatures of teachers on classmates' copy-books. I was utterly dedicated to my craft.

Then – as happens with about 99.99999% of humankind – I hit my teens, thought "Ah, fuck it", and went off drinking cider and listening to The Doors. Such (as the platitudinous fella no doubt says) is life.

Skip forward 30 years and I'm buying a Nintendo DSi for my birthday. Skip forward another day or two and I'm downloading Flipnote Studio. Skip forward ten minutes more and I'm giving life to crude stick figures. Here's an early effort – combining the simple joys of (falling flat on one's arse) slapstick with the grim tragedy of (Sisyphean) eternal recurrence.

Bwaa ha ha! Look at him fall! Right in the hole. Over and Over! There he goes again. And again! Ah ha ha ha! The poor doomed bastard…*sniff*

More tomorrow.

Anyway, you know all that already – given that your consciousness is (undoubtedly) plugged straight into the scrolling-bar, 24/7, hyperbollix news shite-fest. It's already old. It was old before it happened. If it happened at all. Which it didn't…and did at the same time.

Reason I bring it up is that my immediate reaction, on hearing of it, was: "Viral ad Campaign". Given the apparently genuine panic caused – and the genuine rescue efforts of (hyper)real people – that reaction might seem deeply cynical and paranoid. But that's what living in a world of Total Spectrum Viral Advertising Dominance does to the human mind (or mine at least). The war in Iraq? Viral ad campaign that has yet to reveal its punchline. The mass extinction of the dinosaurs and the mammalian ascent that eventually produced mankind, civilization, and viral advertising itself? Ditto.

Things were rather different back in the damp, gullible, muck-covered, permanent twilight of 1980s Ireland. Back then 98% of all ads were for Triple "A" Golden Maverick. So when the teasing and mysterious words "Big Ed Loves Mona" (and nothing else) popped onto the screens of a pre-viral-ad, pre-internet, pre-most-things nation, the result was hysteria of War of the Worlds proportions. Except not really…though everyone was quite excited and reasonably curious about what it all meant.

I seem to recall it dragging on for some time, with cryptic clues carefully dropped here and there to whet appetites and keep us nattering about it over our nonexistent water-coolers. By the time all was due to be revealed tension had cranked the mystery up to Third Secret of Fatima levels. Whatever it meant, it meant something big. Something huge. Something earth-shattering and apocalyptic.

It was about yogurt. Yogurt. Yogurt called Mona. Disgusting and scarcely edible yogurt called Mona. And Big Ed was someone who liked it. Who liked this yogurt. Yogurt! Something snapped and broke that day. We were dragged from a just-about-modern slumber into the dizzying vortex of postmodernity. By yogurt.

And what of "balloon boy"? Ad for Häagen-Dazs. Or Ben & Jerry's. Truth to be revealed shortly. Keep watching the skies (and CNN).

In a memorable exchange with his Jesus-lovin' father-in-law, Larry David (the "fictional" Curb Your Enthusiasm version) speculated on what it might take for him to get enthusiastic about the Christian God(s):

"Y'see, I could see worshipping Jesus if he were a girl. Like if God had a daughter. Jane. I'll worship a Jane. But. y'know, to worship a guy…it's like a little, kinda, gay, isn't it?"

In reality, of course, "Jane" (sort of) exists. In fact, she's probably one of the most popular sort-of-existing entities in Ireland. Except here she's better (and more formally) known as "Our Lady". Or (if you're feeling acronymous) the BVM.¹

The BVM may not be God's daughter exactly (well, simultaneously daughter, mother and…er…"partner"), but she otherwise fulfils a pretty "Jane"-like role. Whether haunting rural glades and copses, or materialising on slices of Battenberg cake – the BVM is the "Christian" face that even wretched heathens like myself can warm to. She's a nurturing mother, an archetypal link with a pre-Christian (goddess-dominated) past, a fairy queen, and (let's not forget) a radiant & natural looker to boot. It's easy to hail Jane.

The good people of Rathkeale and its surrounds obviously agree – for they've taken to hailing a tree stump manifestation of Jane with some gusto.

Responses have been predictable, and predictably tedious. Orthodox (by the book) priests frown darkly and mutter the words "graven image". Meeja "humourists" lick their lips and spew forth facile gack about credulous boggers. Sober (Dawkins-esque) atheists shake their wise heads sadly and despair of a world so stuffed with superstitious rot. A motley crew is united in condemnation. Tsk, tsk. Oh dear, oh dear. Ha, ha.

Meanwhile, the stump continues to pull the crowds. Hawkers of holy medals, rosary beads and plastic screw-top Mary bottles count the Euros. Cute tongue-in-cheek locals serve up tasty/folksy quotes for the benefit of big city media types. A pop/folk-Catholicism celebrates itself as the storms of blasphemous libel and institutional abuse rage about it.

Says (a presumably beleaguered) parish priest Fr Willie Russell:

"There's nothing there…it's just a tree…you can't worship a tree".

Sorry Willie, but you clearly can. Or if not a tree exactly, then some sort of potent Mary/Dryad/tree hybrid. What he really means, of course, is "you shouldn't worship a tree". Stupid, stupid people. They believe the wrong things. They vote the wrong way. They simply can't be trusted. I mean to say, they're worshipping Jane the tree for God's sake! What is to be done with them?

Never fear. Intelligent, rational people of influence will always (in such situations) step in to patronise the shit out of them and make them feel thick. We'll all have a good laugh, and they'll all learn a humbling (educational) lesson. Or so we must hope.

1. Blessed Virgin Mary. [back]

With the Ryan Report's revelations continuing to dynamite the (already shaky) moral foundations of pious ould Catholic Ireland, local hawkers & mongers of nostalgia would seem to be faced with a quandary. How do you sell & package a past that now looks (even to the mistiest eyes) more inky black than sun-dappled?

Well if the current proliferation of "Weren't the 70s/80s gas?!" radio ads are anything to go by, then you simply ignore the negative while accentuating the whimsical. Barefoot trips across the fields to Hazelbrook Farm? Delightful! The Holy Trinity of Kimberley, Mikado & Coconut Cream? Yummy! John putting the cat out? He will be soon.

Times of recession and uncertainty tend, of course, to have adpeople and product peddlers rushing to press reset/reinvent buttons, and 2009 is no exception. Out goes Celtic Tiger ostentation and swagger. In comes the homemade, the hand-me-down, and the humble. All a load of disingenuous bollocks naturally, but someone's getting paid relatively handsomely to push the narrative.

There are, however, those who by never changing saved themselves the bother of changing back. Near the top of this imagined list would, undoubtedly, be Oatfield – purveyors of old-timee sweets boiled¹ to within an inch of their…er…lives.

When I was a short-trousered (figroll-loving) youth, Oatfield products epitomised all that was bland, glamour-free, regressive and suffocating about Irish life. They were sucked furiously by pinch-faced nuns and given as gifts by well-meaning (but hopelessly uncool) aged relatives. In their boiled, shiny surfaces you could almost see your reflection. And the reflection you could almost see was struggling not to look disappointed and underwhelmed ("Thanks, Aunty Margaret…").

The worst thing that a sweet can ever be is "sensible" – and sensibleness was a quality that Oatfield sweets had in abundance. I say "had" but really "have" might be more accurate. For Oatfield are still soldiering on – eschewing all that's faddy & new-fangled. Embracing all that's sucky and ancient (their website is actually analogue, not digital – with offline web pages printed on wafer-thin, Ireland's Own style paper).

But enough. Time to get to the sugary goodness at the heart of this post. After a 25 year gap – a gap in which I've eaten little but foreign, "Fancy Dan" confectionery – I'm doing what the adpeople tell me and getting back to basics. Five packs of Oatfield's finest sit on the desk before me. I shall now (in the interests of, y'know, science or something) suck, lick and eat them, recording my vital findings below. Let us begin.

Sweet shape = Tiny hockey puck meets toy UFO. Sweet taste/texture = Fairy Liquid & crushed up dishwasher tablets. The sherbety "tickle" feels like someone dragging tinsel dipped in "oil of orange" (yes, that's one of the yummy ingredients) across your tonsils. Or to quote Jess's summing up of the experience – "Lemsip…and someone jizzing acid into my mouth". Delicious.

Same shape, but a stark white mediciney hue. For "soothes sore throats" (as the blurb promises) read "violent mentho-lyptus attack that makes every intake of breath an agonising ordeal".

A classic "dissolve and release" sweet. A hard outer casing gradually gives way to the corrosive effects of sucking and saliva before spurting brown goo onto your waiting tongue. The packet promises "Cocoa Solids" (*snigger*), and though the oozing centre is anything but solid the scatological qualities are hard to deny.

Hmmm. Initially appears a slight variation on a theme (with a choccy outer and an orangey inner) but testing proves otherwise. It's the same damn sweet! Same hydrogenated vegetable oil. Same ammonium phosphatides. Same poo-like core. It's an outrage. Heads will roll.

Ah…the Emerald. Oatfield's flagship. Individually wrapped and proudly unboiled. Back in the early 80s there wasn't a house in Ireland that didn't have a half-finished packet of Emeralds in the press. Nobody bought them. They just appeared there. Teleporting in from Oatfield HQ in Donegal.

If a cheapo chocolate casing containing an interior of sand was your idea of fun, then Emerald's would leave you laughing delightedly. Or at least that's how I remembered the experience. The contemporary reality is (I'm disappointed to report) somewhat less disgusting. Perhaps Oatfield heeded customer demands and eased off on the dessicated coconut (the "sand" of which I speak), or perhaps my palate has been radically altered by age. Whatever the case may be, I'm staggered to find 21st century Emerald's very moreish.

Still look like turd/mini soda bread hybrids though.

1. Pronounced: buy-ild. [back]

Of all the many wild 'n' wacky notions entertained and promoted by orgainsed religions, few can be as amusingly bonkos as the idea that (human) earthly adherents of a deity have a responsibility to protect their God from "offensive" criticism, satire, or name-calling. God may be infinitely wise, loving, and compassionate but He¹ gets a right hump when the ingrates he created in his image start taking the piss out of him. If I were omnipotent and omniscient I'd like to think I'd be a bit more thick-skinned.²

Luckily for him, many of his earthbound flunkies dedicate their wretched lives (in this vale of tears) to stopping any of this nasty criticism from floating into his ethereal earholes. Sometimes, alas, portions of the slagging do make it across the void separating the earthly and the divine and God goes totally mental. He gives us AIDS. He causes hurricanes. He makes our lives miserable – opening giant cans of whupass until we learn our lessons and re-meek & un-deprave ourselves.

Lesson to be learned? Here's a guy you don't want to offend. He's like a drunken Godzilla with nappy rash and a mouth full of bombs. He's mad, bad and dangerous to upset (and there's no escaping his gaze). He makes Galactus look like a total pussy.

Let's be grateful then that the previously dormant & slumbering prohibition on blasphemy in our constitution is currently being reignited and made "operable" by Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern. As it stands, blasphemy (as an offence) is impossible to define. This lack of definition has rendered it fuzzy and amorphous – extending an open invitation to demented God-haters to "blaspheme" with impunity. You think the recent May downpours are evidence of climate change and global warming? Think again, unbelievers! The showers are actually Our Lord simultaneously weeping wounded tears and slashing enraged jets of holy piss down on our constantly blaspheming heads.

Once the legal fuzziness has been removed (by the giant Fuzz-Buster of state) we'll see the shape and outline of blasphemy clearly once more. Even more impressively, we should soon (DPP willing) be able to fling cough-softening fines around and licence the Guards to boot in doors and seize inflammatory material – hopefully before God has a chance to flick through it and go ballistic.

The benefits of a less tetchy and irritable God are obvious. The weather would improve (we might finally get a summer). "Natural" disasters would all but disappear. Outbreaks of frog & locust plagues would be significantly reduced. Anti-social teens loitering on street corners would be replaced by caroling angels and chortling nekkid cherubs. It would be a fine world. A better world.

Why would anyone, other than creepy avant-gardey weirdo artists, want to scupper such a future?

1. Surely a "He" in this case. [back]
2. I speak throughout of Christian things, as that's what I know (and all I know well). [back]

A NEW crime of blasphemous libel is to be proposed by the Minister for Justice in an amendment to the Defamation Bill.

After heaving your jaw off the floor, restoring your popped-out eyes to their parent sockets, and unscrambling your brain matrix, you proceed (with growing horror and dread) to read more.

Sound familiar? I hope so. "Picturegate" now appears to have been merely a censorious aperitif for the four-course, slap up meal of governmental cuntitude to come. The throbbing in my temples either indicates the early stages of swine flu, or I'm choking on my own rage. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Here's more:

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000."

“Blasphemous matter" is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

So many questions.

a) What's the difference (legally speaking) between regular (common or garden) abuse and gross abuse? Does the latter involve mickies? Or poo?

b) Aren't the people most likely to be outraged by such "matter" of a type that wander about in an almost perpetual state of outrage anyway? In other words, is a small bit more outrage likely to make any appreciable difference in their lives? And, doesn't semi-permanent outrage actually shore up their sense of self-righteousness (in the face of a world of godless scum)? Blasphemy might actually be doing them good.

c) Isn't one of the (important & legitimate) functions of art & satire to poke "matters held sacred" with a barbed stick? Precisely because such matters are sacred?

d) Isn't it a typically Irish "out" that you're invited to try and duck the charge by saying any offence caused was unintentional? "Eh…sorry 'bout that lads. I didn't mean to upset anyone with my Blu-Tak sculpture of the Virgin Mary puking into a urinal. I'd meant to depict her saving some lovely babies from a fire. I'd drink on me when I made it and…eh…it went a bit wrong".

In the UK you can (as far as I know) argue that yes, the offence caused was intentional, but that the existence/creation of the "matter" constitutes a "public good" (it serves some interest of science, art, learning etc). No such option here – where many of our influential dullards can't even begin to imagine what possible benefit "aberrant", subversive, fringe, obscene, or absurd thoughts could have for a society where a middle-of-the-road (“Ah now!") consensus on almost everything is assumed (or yearned for).

The rage (or swine flu) is growing stronger by the minute, but so is my tiredness (I wrote this “last night" if you see what I mean). Off to bed with me. Send Suzy some of your most blasphemous, durtiest poems (the secret ones you hide in that box under the bed). I smell another postcard project in all this.

Related Post: Pissing on Bishops: 21st Century Obscenity & the State of the Nation.

News has reached me of a tremendously groovy conference being organised by the good people from The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (a publication that fills a significant gap in Irish academic life).

Entitled "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties" (and being held in Trinity College, Dublin on the 15th and 16th of May) it offers plenty to stir the blood of Horror/Sci-Fi enthusiasts.

Highlights include talks by David J. Skal¹ & Kim Newman,² discussions of "The Fifties Hammer Invasion" & "The Image of the Female Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s", and (tying in with an early Dreadful Thoughts offering) a paper on "Night of the Demon and British Occultism in the 1950s".

Best of all, it costs not a penny. All you have to do (to ensure your spot) is send an email here confirming your attendance.

If that offer of free fun and stimulation doesn't move you, then I despair. You're probably a pod-person.

I'll be attending on both days – so 'twould be splendid to see any regular readers, Dreadful Thinkers, or pint-buying stalkers there. Let me know.

What: "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties".

Where: Trinity College, Dublin (Botany Building).

When: Thursday 15th & Friday 16th of May (full schedule here).

1. He of the indispensable The Monster Show. If you haven't read it, do so this instant. [back]
2. Of…a million and one things, though I'll always be most grateful to him for his editing of my much-loved (and much-thumbed) BFI Companion to Horror. [back]

I’m currently working my way through Paul Gravett’s¹ recently-published (and much-needed) Great British Comics, and enjoying the numerous memories it has been stirring up.

For instance…as I lay in bed the other night, lost in that half-asleep/half-awake reverie in which 'odd' thoughts often form, what should pop unexpectedly (and vividly) into my head but a vision of "The Numskulls".

For those who don't remember them (or don't remember that they remember them) "The Numskulls" were large-headed, thin-limbed homunculi who lived in the head of a central human character known (to them, and us) as "Our Man". Each 'section' of the head – Ears, Nose, Mouth, Eyes, Brain – was controlled/maintained by an individual numskull,with the various 'departments' communicating through (I kid you not) an intercom system.

The story first appeared in The Beezer, where "Our Man" was depicted as a balding, moustachioed, single worker living in a terraced house (or some such). It was here that my encounters with the strip began and ended though apparently – following the folding of The Beezer (1990) and its merger with The Beano – "Our Man" became "Our Boy", and thus it remains to this day.

Since The Beezer generally concerned itself – like most of its competitors – with stories detailing mischief-making, the eating of "slap up feeds", and the beating of children with tartan slippers – "The Numskulls" stood out (even to this child's eyes) as something of an oddity. The curious appeal of the story is hinted at by its Wikipedia entry, which details a typical "Numskulls" story.²

"Our Man" is pictured asleep in the first panel and in the second we see Luggy in the Ear Dept. awoken by the sound of the alarm clock next to "our Man's" bed. Using an intercom system Luggy sends a message to Brainy that the alarm clock is ringing. Brainy, in turn uses his intercom system to wake up all the other numskulls and feeds the written message "SWITCH OFF ALARM!" into the suggestion box. We then see "our Man" thinking "Noisy alarm! I'll switch it off. Where is it?" In the following panel we see Luggy informing Brainy that the alarm is still ringing whilst Brainy reads a print-out from the computer "WHERE IS IT?".

It transpires that Blinky, who is in charge of the man's eyes, has neglected his duty by staying in bed. The other two numskulls burst into his department and force him out of bed. Grumbling, Blinky opens the man's eyes with a hand-crank whilst Brainy and Luggy stow his bedding in cabinets under the eyes. In the last panel we see "Our Man" reflecting that he couldn't open his eyes this morning and now he has bags under them (caused by the bedding).

The philosophical mileage which could readily be…er…extracted³ from a strip in which tiny creatures control a character's every thought and deed by inserting messages into a "Suggestion Box" (a sort of fax machine-cum-tissue box⁴) remains curiously untapped. Nowhere in the course of my three undergraduate years studying philosophy in Galway (under the tutelage of Markus Worner, Joe Mahon, Paschal O'Gorman et al) was any mention made of "The Numskulls" and their importance in regard to debates about free will, mind/body dualism etc., etc. Something of an oversight on UCG/NUIG's part I’m sure you’ll agree.

Let us return to Wikipedia once more:

The above description is typical of the Numskull's formula. The Man (who represents 'us') is totally determined by the decisions and actions of the numskulls. He has the freedom only to reflect on what has occurred, all his decisions are made by Brainy [The numskull in charge of the "brain department"]. As all the thoughts sent from Brainy's 'suggestion box' appear to "our Man" as his own he little suspects the existence of the numskulls. Much of what he reflects on is actually a consequence of the Numskulls' free will, rather than his own.

All of this seemed to suggest that the numskulls were the true instigators of human action and desire, but an obvious question raises itself…as noted on daily chump.org:

The thing that used to really bug me was whether the numskulls were operated by their own, smaller, numskulls, and so ad infinitum.

The mind boggles. If, like Russian dolls, there is always a smaller numskull within a numskull then where does the trail end? If Aristotle had read "The Numskulls" (and 'tis a pity for him that he didn't) then I'm sure he'd have suggested his "Prime Mover" (the universal numskull) as an answer.

Finally, for you comic nerds out there, I should add that it was Malcolm Judge who (memorably) illustrated the story in its heyday. His other most notable creation was "Billy Whizz" – a super-fast poster child for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. In Grant Morrison's splendid "Zenith" (2000 AD) a nod is given to Billy in the shape of "Jimmy Quick", a character brutally slain (like so many of his 'classic comic' colleagues) by the trans-dimensional, demonic 'Lloigor'.

Nice.

P.S: Many thanks to Peter Gray for sending me the 'head cross-section' image seen above. Peter also mentioned a Numskulls-esque story that appeared in The Sparky: "The Wonderful World Inside Ma Kelly's Telly". Had never heard of it before but it's a bizarre concept. Check out one of Peter's scans here for further details.

1. Director of the recent Comica in London’s ICA [back]
2. In this case "An Alarm clock gives them a shock" which appeared in The Beezer Book 1980. [back]
3. Can one extract mileage? [back]
4. I do realise I've just said the words "cum tissue box" by the way… [back]