Month: December 2017

Horse-Flies – Satan’s Airforce

Horse-Flies. Irritation? Or winged demons hellbent on the elimination of all life on the planet? I’d always assumed the former, but it would seem that i’ve underestimated these flying fiends.

Until recently, i’ve relied solely on information gleaned during my 33 years on the planet, my own experience of having been bitten by a horse-fly and a smattering of common sense. With this, I figured out the following:

1) Horse-fly bites are a wee bit sore and you get a bump. The bump itches.

2) A cream from Boots sorts it out

3) If you’re allergic, it can be pretty nasty. Mind you, so can peanuts or seagulls or words ending in “ism”. Allergies are a dick.

What a fool i’ve been! Thank god for Somerset Live and every other local rag and tabloid up and down the country for pointing out the true horror of horse-flies.

“This image was recovered from the camera of one Michael Gambonberry who was almost wholly devoured shortly after taking the shot. Only his feet were left intact as horse-flies loathe the taste of leather.”

The problem is, they’ve not gone far enough. I read the article about these murderous, winged bastard-demons and decided that we need to dig deeper. So, I stayed up until 3am convincing myself that every buzz I heard was a sign of imminent death, pumped by system full of so much caffeine that I can now overtake The Flash at a jog and then I jotted down my horse-fly research. Here’s what I found:

1) The average horse-fly is around 22 pounds in weight and has a wingspan of around eleven feet.

2) Only the female horse-fly bites, as it requires blood in order to lay eggs. The male horse-fly will guard the perimeter and is generally armed with an automatic weapon and backup sidearm as well as a variety of knives.

3) Horse-flies can not be killed by conventional weapons. One was reportedly shot down over the Mojave desert in 1998 using an experimental gauss cannon but no remains were ever found.

4) Asides from the need to consume blood in order to lay eggs, a standard diet for the horse-fly consists of raw meat, the brain matter of infant swallows and those little packets of barbecue sauce from Rustlers burgers

5) The UN have been attempting to broker a peace treaty between mankind and the horse-fly nation since 1968 but as of the most recent summit in 2016, no diplomatic resolution has been made.

6) Horse-flies are equipped with a sophisticated anti-air “chaff” system, air to ground missiles and twin 30mm cannon.

7) In days of old, the horse-flies were kept at bay through the ritualistic sacrifice of the elderly and infirm. Worshipped as gods, they ruled over the land with an iron wing. We were perhaps unwise to stop worship…

8) Horse-flies have no natural predators and sit comfortably at the top of the food chain. They have been known to take down prey up to ten times their size by working in packs and will often kill for sport.

9) Horse-flies have mastered the dark arts and command great shadow beasts to do their bidding. In league with Those Below, the horse-fly will eventually rise up to lead Hell’s army in a war against God and bring about the end of days

10) Horse-flies are all Trump supporters

THE SKIES ARE ABUZZ WITH THE WINGED BRINGERS OF DEATH! NO GOD CAN SAVE YOU! THE END IS FLY!

Disclaimer: Aye, horse-fly bites can be a bit crap. If you get bitten and react, see a doctor. Generally speaking, you’ll be fine. 

All I Want For Christmas…

I was helping the Child Units with their letters to Santa today and an interesting question popped up.

“Can we ask for anything we want?”

Well, of course. It’s Santa. You might not get everything you ask for, but you’re allowed to put anything you like in a letter.

Child Unit 2 asked for everyone in the world to have a Merry Christmas and Child Unit 1 asked for her brother to not be poorly (last year he was a snot, sick and shite machine) and for Santa to get some rest on Boxing Day. This is one hundred percent, gospel truth. They’re sweethearts, bless them.

Of course, they also eached asked for a Nintendo 2DS XL and as they’re my offspring, there’s every possibility that these lofty sentiments were a bid to curry favour, but even so I was touched. Touched and inspired.

This year, i’m writing my own letter to Santa, the first for several years. I thought i’d let you all see a copy:

Dear Santa

Let’s not fuck about, Kris. You and I both know that i’m no saint but I always try to direct my boundless reserves of rage and loathing toward those who do the world ill and I think  I deserve a few bonus points, so perhaps you could nudge me over to the nice list? 

You may take umbrage, but I know there’s precedent for this. Last year the Child Units destroyed a wide range of toys and household items and i’m pretty sure one of them is leaking government secrets to a Chinese spy but you gave them a pass and dropped off a whole bunch of nonsense, so I reckon I ought to be able to pop in a request or three?

Of course, you’re welcome to bypass me entirely but you should be warned that an empty stocking for me means a full inbox for every tabloid reporter come December 26th. The whole world knows you were caught kissing Mummy underneath the mistletoe but they’ve not seen where the mistletoe was hanging, have they? Yes, I have pictures.

So, let’s put all that crap aside and just assume that i’m waking up to a whole bunch of pressies, yeah? Yeah. On to my list.

Come Christmas morning, this is what I want:

1) I want a huge vault of gold coins into which I can dive headfirst and swim about. Obviously, like toys and batteries, I need this to come with a free “suspension of physics” pack so said diving won’t result in a broken everything.

2) I would like Donald Trump to be cursed by whatever demons you can summon so that everytime he writes a Tweet, he shits himself. If we have to deal with regular torrents of his crap, so does he.

3) Talkboy. You know, from Home Alone 2? They’re awesome.

4) I only want to hear the word “lush” being used by someone who is either describing luxuriant vegetation, pointing out a gin soaked old rummy or asking where to find a shop that sells bath salts strong enough to melt steel beams.

5) Obscene amounts of cake

6) Halo 6. Make it happen.

7) I want the power to render people unconscious using just the power of my mind, should I hear them whining about Christmas coming too early. Also, if they moan about the Coca-Cola truck. OH! Also to be used on anyone who says Die Hard isn’t a Christmas film. Best just make it a broad spectrum psychic chloroform deal

8) Would be nice if you could do something about all the bastards? 

9) Get Eureka renewed. 

10) And Warehouse 13

11) And Numb3rs

12) Cancel Game of Thrones.

13) Mostly, you could leave of all the other stuff above if you could do one thing for me? Make people a bit nicer to each other? I feel like the world could use a lot more smiling and laughing and talking and a lot less sexual harassment and abuse and bullying, don’t you? 

I’d happily give up all the stuff above and anything else that anyone else wanted to get me, if you could do something about the sadness.

If you could encourage people with mental health issues to open up more and get the help they need and make sure that said help is there WHEN they need it.

If you could force people to debate instead of argue and maybe stick a muzzle on the idiots who don’t want to debate because it’s a waste of good shouting time.

If you could perhaps lay off the visions of sugar plums for a night and inject a little dream serum into the world leaders, filling their heads with visions of peace and co-operation and the realisation that whatever one’s race, sexual orientation, gender, fucking shoe size or whatever, we’re all just people. Just people, whirling about on a ball of dirt and water which will eventually blow up or freeze or whatever and all of this crap will have been futile, so why not get along in the meantime?

If you could do something about all that then maybe we could all have a merry Christmas or a happy Hanukkah or a joyous Kwanzaa or whatever else you celebrate or don’t celebrate or what-have-you. The important part really is the merry, the happy and the joyous, isn’t it?

That’d be nice.

14) Or cancel the lot and get me an Xbox One X and a massive telly.

Looking forward to Christmas morning. I’ll leave out a bottle of malt and a couple rounds of toast.

Kisses or amen or whatever,
Al.

Fingers crossed, folks!