BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

27/10

"'Ere mate," the taxi driver was spouting, "This Muslim bird knocked on me door. I spoke to her through the letterbox and said 'SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!'"

"Keep your eyes on the road, you buffoon!" I screamed, as we nearly veered into a block of flats on the New North Road. Fuck the veil debate. I used to wear a brown paper bag over my head, with eyeholes clawed out, when I was 13, and it infuriated me when I was ordered by teachers to remove this DIY mask. I thought I looked quite debonairre, in a sort of "King of the Rocketmen" way. Jesus - do you remember that programme? I note that KOTR's conveniently evaded the 'hauntology' radar. All this talk about futures that never were, well, that nob-headed ponce with his strap-on hoover / jetpack is one future I'm bloody glad never materialised. Fancy shooting a nuclear missile out of the sky with a handgun! But back to veils. If I was a secular Muslim, I'd start wearing one just to piss everyone off. And what's all this muck about living in times of unprecedented terrorism? Er, no disrespect to the people who got maimed and killed on July 7 last year, but can you actually recall the 1980s? There were IRA bombs and embassy sieges kicking off left right and centre. Oh, the kids today are so violent - feral tykes running riot through the night! How I yearn for the halcyon days when young people in Burnt Oak entertained themselves by surrounding some bloke in a wheelchair, doing Joey Deacon impersonations and threatening to set him on fire, and when a more innocent generation, untainted by sick grime lyrics, would lob bricks and darts at each others' heads during the pageants of aggro that were Barnet vs Enfield matches...

21/10 - TOP CAT / TIPPA IRIE / TENOR FLY / SISTER AUDREY / LORNA G / PAPA LEVI / LESLIE LYRICS - Albany Empire, Deptford

Anyway, we live in such violent times that I needed a bit of UK fast chat dancehall to sort me out. Basically, if you live in London and missed this, I pity you. The Albany Empire was pretty much rammed though this is probably the only dancehall event I've been to where I was sitting in the wings, overlooking the stage! I got a bit sentimental, I have to admit - being back in South East London for the first time in years, hearing Culture's Two Sevens Clash get a rewind, being at a gig where it takes 20 minutes to get served at the bar, etc. LORNA G was introduced as "having appeared on Eastenders", and did a couple of lovers-style anthems, though I think most people were too busy trying to figure out which character she'd been. Maybe she played the social worker when Arthur Fowler went mad. I'm not a big fan of Eastenders. It annoys me that the show features an idiotic, barely articulate Spurs fan called Martin. And as for Dirty Den getting shot and falling into the canal, and then coming back to life, what a load of rubbish, a dog could have knocked up a better script on a ZX Spectrum.

PAPA LEVI coughed up fire on the obligatory airing of Mi God Mi King, causing John Eden to have a dizzy spell, before knocking out a fuss-free ragga rant. It was also great to see TOP CAT, looking dapper in an electric blue suit, though sadly I missed Push Up Your Lighter as I was in the toilet - typical! No offence to any of the MCs, but TIPPA IRIE probably came out pon top. Sure, he played the schmaltzy 1986 hit Hello Darling, causing myself, Eden, Magz Hall and Xylitol star Jim Bunnyhausen to wince, but sod it - he's been around for years, hasn't remotely slowed down and the tune made him a pile of cash, so you can allow him the odd indulgence. And then it was on to a dancehall frenzy, including a song I presume's called No Talent, where Tippa disses manufactured pop troupes like the Spice Girls, Ricky Martin and Hear Say (so he's only a few years out with his cultural references...). The hyped up crowd lapped it up.

The evening concluded with LESLIE LYRICS announcing that reggae's the music of peace and that everyone's always welcome, which might sound like sentimental tosh in the cold light of a Friday morning - but I honestly don't think anyone that Saturday night would have wanted to be anywhere else.

Best laugh - "PUT UP YUH HAND!" (black and white crowd raises hands) "PUT UP YUH HAND!" (everyone really getting into it) "PUT UP YUH HAND IF YOU'RE AN AFRICAN!" (white hands suddenly fall)

26/10 - XYLITOL AND A BUNCH OF OTHER BANDS, CATCH 22, SHOREDITCH

I know, I know - you're now racking your brains trying to remember who Lorna G played in Eastenders. Incidentally, have you ever seen the film Scrubbers? It's basically a female version of Scum, though with less blood. Anyway, Pat Butcher's in that, playing a screw. So is ex-punk star Honey Bane - the one who once recorded an anti-porn song with Crass, went on to pose in porn mags and did that Selecter rip-off chart hit Turn Me On, Turn Me Off. Anyway, stop thinking about all that, shut up and listen to this!

Catch 22 bar's just a stone's throw from BASH, which was also on last night. However, Jim Backhaus put me on the guest list - and Kevin Martin didn't. No contest! I'm a freeloading bastard and proud of it.

XYLITOL was first on stage, with Jim announcing that the set would be thematically based on towerblocks and alienation. As well as playing Marike, the beautiful but short Lull, Ye Ye Electronique and the killer Joe Hawkins from the FUNCTIONARY CD, there was also a number dedicated to Andy Martin's Hackney-based anarcho-outfit Unit, featuring samples of what sounded like Chinese martial music.

The next band up were OK, the drummer was making a load of gutteral noises down his mic in Nihilist Spasm Band fashion, while someone else pissed around with a synth. The third and fourth bands were sort of 'skewed' rock bands, but I didn't fancy the cut of their jib much -sorry. I'm not sure if I imagined the 5th band , but it seemed like a posse of Mexican bandits were sitting cross-legged on the floor playing free-form synth noise, while the singer dragged people up from the audience and made them read out libellous prose about Billy Bragg. The 6th band were half-naked, but I can't remember them playing much, I think their guitar was up the spout. And then I made a prize tit of myself by tripping on the stairs and dousing someone's arm with Grolsch. I dunno, can't take me anywhere, not even back to apologise....

27.10

So anyway, veils. I mean, they're reckoning that if Muslim teachers wear them, schoolkids will feel alienated and distracted. Too right - I'm sure one of the reasons I never did well at Science was the fact that the facially-visible brute who taught us used to start every lesson with the rant, "OK, same old names...stand up! Benson...C*****...Gilmartin...Kemal....what's this rubbish? (waving around our homework) Well, you jokers are in the hot seat!" Well, you old cunt, you're probably dead now, and it wasn't my fault I thought that water 'combusted'. Maybe we should have been taught by someone who actually knew her stuff but only chose to show us her eyes. Science class was the most dismal period in my life, to be honest. You'd think it's a subject that deserves to be brought alive, turned into a fascinating blaze of colour, mystery and creativity. All I can remember is someone squirting another kid with a pipette filled with pee, nearly killing myself with a bunsen burner, one kid putting pencil lead in the fishtank to see if the fish came down with lead poisoning (I suppose it's a valid enough experiment), being sent out a lot, and a gruesome What Is Pregnancy? video, where a grim close-up of some fallopian tubes (accompanied by some awful sub-Jean Michel Jarre ambient) was interrupted by a kid called Steve, who blurted out "That's where I stick my cock!"

XYLITOL- "FUNCTIONARY" MINI-ALBUM

This 3" CD hails the beginning of a new era of hardcore cross-genre fertilisation. It's not so much the fact that tracks like "Ye Ye Electronique", the moving "Atomised" and "Marike" come across like a tighter, more disciplined DER PLAN, if they'd come from Sheffield and been asked to score the theme tunes to scientific programmes (that's a good thing, by the way). It's not even the sleazy "Ritual King Slaughter", which evokes images of terminator budgies swooping around a flat on search and destroy missions for cats, before dissolving into a breakdown that sounds like a dalek using its plunger to push a music box around in a tin can. It's in the cover version of the Oppressed's "Joe Hawkins" - Oi! crashes into Flexipop, with spectacular results. Perhaps if this track had been released in 1981, it would have saved many an electro fan a bashing. This CD is highly recommended, and you can get it from Jim Backhouse - contact him via his Bunnywelt site or google "myspace xylitol" - for it's him behind it all! Thanks are also due to Jim for introducing me to the Italo Disco classic that's "Checkout Five" by Naif Orchestra.

VERDICT - This is too good for the same world as those bedwetters The Feeling, that Co-Op advert with the irritating animated Northern Irish bastard with the leaf-blower and his fucking apple pie treat, and reality shows about ill-behaved dogs

V/A - "INTERNATIONAL DEEJAY GIGOLOS 9" 2XCD

IDGs hasn't released anything good for years now, in comparison to Viewlexx, whose Freak Electrique, Rude 66 and Nancy Fortune records piss all over DJ Hell's vacuous, coke-bloated roster. The Parallax Corporation summed it up on that Electro-Cash tune on their brilliant "Cocadisco" album, a slag-off of the fashion whores who'd probably pay 20 quid for a 12" of Grace Jones making cigarette-puffing noises over a Casio pre-set rhythm. By the Disco Pope- am I getting self-righteous or what? The only thing that stands out on "IDGs 9", to me anyway, is XLOVER's "Suckbox", which at least has some sense of urgency and intent. I just ended up flicking through the rest of the tracks, getting incredibly bored.

VERDICT - Download Rude 66's "Overkill" instead

PULP - "DIFFERENT CLASS" DELUXE EDITION 2XCD

You know you've become some pathetic middle-aged SELLOUT when you start re-buying things you had on cassette years ago. And so, here we have the ambiguous "Mis-Shapes", which always had me thinking: if a group of physically disabled people went to a Pulp gig, would they be welcomed or cold-shouldered by the hordes of art students who'd been dolling themselves up at the Retro Clothing Exchange?

There also used to be a great scam going if you were working class and male; most female students from privileged backgrounds used to experiment with 'a bit of rough' at least once during their educations. As long as you a) didn't fall in love with the rich bitch b) didn't expect this relationship to last beyond the end of her degree, at the very longest c) certainly didn't expect to get any real dosh or social status out of it - maybe a couple of T-shirts and some free drinks in a members' club full of arseholes, but little else d) never felt the need to actually let on that you found her fucking dumb and boring and played up your 'working classness' to full effect, you were sorted. Of course, though, Jarvis Cocker was driven by the same insistence on truth, honesty and justice that powers this blog, and so he gave away the secret with the chart smash hit "Common People". Well done, mate. No, you take a pat on the back, me old Cocker. Fucked that scam for good, you lousy little bleeder. Not that I'd know anyway, I never indulged in this trickery. I used to be open about wanting to spank the pert arses of the daughters of Lords and Ladies, while playing Whitehouse's ErectorLP at full blast.

And then there's "Disco 2000", and memories of **** come flooding back, even down to that line "Martin said that you were the best", which she used to go on about, as if the thing had some massive significance to....right, fuck this -

And "Sorted for Es and Whizz", a sonic buffer to Faithless' 'revolution through E' fantasies and all this Temporary Autonomous Zone shctick. I used to know this bloke who took loads of Es with his girlfriend, and they both ended up developing 'E jealousy' when either of them took it with someone else! Mad or what? He tried to write a book about E which was so unbearably bad I couldn't bring myself to beg him to stop sending me bits. Then things all went tits-up when his girlfriend discovered we'd been passing sheets around down the pub and laughing at the bit where he has an MDMA-induced religious experience on a train between Derby and Crewe. And she cried, and made me feel like a backstabbing cunt. Later, he dumped her for some girl he'd taken an E with for the first time.

"I Spy" - self-explanatory, "there's more than one way to fight a class war"

There's loads more stuff, but it's fucking brilliant, no matter what anyone says to the contrary.

VERDICT - Is it true the Pussycat Dolls are men, or is this just another urban myth? I heard about 3 separate people claiming this fact as gospel earlier in the year, but now nobody seems to mention it. Don't take speed, it gives you blackheads

One thing that was great about being a teenager back in the 90s was the po-faced attitude 'the man' took towards drug abuse. These days, you get some patronising advert stating Need help with drugs? Talk to Frank. Back then, school libraries used to dole out proper hardcore anti-drug books and pamphlets. My favourite one was SOLVENTS, which was a sort of subcultural fashion bible - I got loads of ideas for haircuts while flicking through the endless pics of Crass fans sitting round in bedrooms or down the park, sticking gluebags to their snouts. The front cover also had a wicked pic of a teenage skinhead with a load of Maori-style tattoos down one side of his face, defiantly taking a hit of Evostik from a crumpled plastic bag. It would have made an ideal Oi! LP cover. Sadly, I never stole it from Luton Library, so I can't reproduce it here.

Another 'pulp factual' classic that I'd heartily recommend is Satan's Snare by Peter Anderson, a ranting preacher's incredible warning to early 80s youth about the proliferation of evil in popular culture. Look it up on Amazon if you don't believe me (it's currently being sold for 1p on the UK site). Just as well, as you won't believe any of this ; Anderson's expose' reveals that Michael Jackson is in fact a Satanist (his habit of wearing one glove denoting an interest in the occult), the Eagles' Hotel California is actually about the Church of Satan, and playing Dungeons & Dragons leads to mental disorder and demonic possession (in Anderson's defence, this part's probably true). Black Oak Arkansas, the appalling 'no really, how can anyone listen to this wank while Thin Lizzy LPs are still in stock' Led Zep and some group called Nazareth also get a critical pasting for leading young Christians astray through their deviant backwards lyrics and sneaky subliminal sleeve symbols! - the imps....you also get an eye witness account of a 'black mass', which is about as dreary as JK Huysmans' take on the subject. But for me, the jewel in Satan's Snare's fez is the bit about ouija boards, which manages to drag Kenny Everett into proceedings ((again, I know you think I'm making this up, but it's only 1p and postage to find out...)) (((by the way, I'm not the guy on there selling it)))

My mum, being a loopy Catholic fruitcake, used to think it was well 'cool' to play with ouija boards. You used to be able to buy them in Woolworths back in the late 70s. Whereas, in the ouija-related case studies described in Satan's Snare anyone who dabbles with them comes to some sticky end or goes insane ((cue Kenny Everett mopping the sweat from his brow and urging readers to stay well clear)), the biggest misdemeanour that befell my mum was that she actually believed she'd contacted the ghosts of two foul-mouthed airmen from the Second World War, and she even had a mass said for their wandering souls. She still tells this story as if it was irrefutable proof of the Otherworld, even years after my brother revealed he was pushing the board around and had made it all up.

If Anderson's choice of musical targets seem a bit lame, we should bear in mind that Satan's Snare was written before the unholy dawn of the 1983 EUROPEAN BLACK METAL REFORMATION. We can only wonder what he would have made of records like Sodom's In The Sign of Evil and Bathory's Under The Sign of the Black Mark. I used to have a friend at school who liked heavy metal, and I became quite fond of the Sodom LP, if only because it sounded like an inept pub-punk Motorhead rip-off, with some of the funniest lyrics ever snarled, particularly on the track Blasphemer, which contains the line I come to life at midnight twelve / Masturbate to kill myself!.

Admittedly, that's not as funny as my all-time favourite badly translated 80s European thrash metal tune, Stagedive to Hell, which can be found on Kazjurol's Messengers of Death EP from 1987 ; I broke my fucking, fucking neck / I broken all my bones / When I dive, dive to Hell / To the metal clones...it's a stagedive....stagedive to Hell! (KA-BOOM). Pure brilliance, and very clever for 7 inches of unlistenable shit. There was an explosion each time the singer shouted the title in the chorus (which sounded exactly like the verses).

Bathory, meanwhile, I was never that keen on, but some parts of the Hammer-Horror-Meets-Throat-Cancer gravyfest that's Under the Sign of the Black Mark are suitably pleasing, especially the bits with the church bells and the wind. I just wish they'd laid off the guitar solos every once in a while.

There's a school of thought that Black Metal represented the first truly rebellious youth cult. Anarcho-punk was, in essence, a Roman Catholic movement. Its adherents sought disarmament and peace, an end to animal exploitation and crass (sorry) commercialism, and redistribution of wealth - while maintaining an unswerving belief in 'anarchy' as a sacred and mystical force that would bind mankind together and transform the world, without recourse to violent revolutionary tactics. Oi!, meanwhile, represented the Protestant backlash, with its emphases on THE WORK ETHIC and stoney-faced, down-to-earth realism. Black Metal sought to invoke the Devil from the pits of Hades, in order to do away with both of these pseudo-subcultural religious strands and to hasten the coming of the Mayhemic Storms of TOTAL APOCALYPSE! Unfortunately for the Goat of Mendes, however, when my mate got to 16 he realised it was easier to get laid by liking Nirvana and House of Pain (I mean, really!), and so his love affair with this darkest of genres came to a grinding halt.

Remember those old pictures of Jesus holding a lamb and extending outstretched arm to a golden-haired Aryan infant? Well, they should have knocked one up of Jesus shaking his head, bleeding palms pushed outwards in a GET BACK gesture to a queue of baby-eyed Bathory fans. Nowadays, of course, Black Metal is perfectly acceptable and has gone through the whole post-ironic wringer, and your average suburban dad's into Carniverous Erection and Bathtub Shitter, and...ZZZZ....

Another book worth tracking down is How To Be A Disc Jockey by the mighty David See. I've mentioned this manual before, but I doubt that idiots like Seb Fontaine and DJ Hell took any notice. It's the best thing ever written on the subject of launching a career as a mobile DJ and becoming a W-List celebrity in your own shitty one-horse provincial town. Excellent front cover as well - the yang to SOLVENTS' ultra-hard yin. Personally, I don't trust DJs if they don't have beards and silk shirts. As for laptop sets, get out of here! - David See would have rather slit his wrists than attempt to mix Carniverous Erection and Napalm Death on Ableton Live. Last time I looked this book was on Amazon.com, the US site, priced at five bucks. Americans might get a lot out of it, and that's no word of a lie.

((NOTE- I came across this fillet of pulp fiction while shopping in a second hand bookstore which doubled as a charity for hairless dogs. I'd stumbled across a copy of Pat Califia's classic dirty story collection "Macho Sluts", marked up at a modest quid. I was first introduced to this book in 1995 by an older lesbian who I used to share a flat with and who, if I'm being honest, I used to have a slight crush on. Although S&M doesn't float my boat these days, it was a better read than "Prozac Nation", so I decided to buy it for a trip down memory lane. However, I was a bit embarrassed about taking it up to the old biddy behind the counter, so I randomly picked up another two paperbacks to 'sandwich' Califia's cult smut anthology. Unfortunately, the demented OAP began waving the book around, screeching, "I think this is £1.20, sonny! It's me eyes, they ain't what they were!". "I'm not one of them!" I howled back, and left the store in such a state I ended up tripping over a fruit packing crate stuffed with Penguin first editions and falling through the window, severely damaging my hair.

When I got back home, I examined the two books I'd bought to conceal "Macho Sluts". One was by Joseph Conrad, called "Nostromo", but it looked a bit juvenile, so I threw it in the bin. The other was called "BLOGGER! A NIGHTMARE SOAKED IN BLOOD", credited to the author 'Lord Grab and Flee'. I was quite impressed with it - and so I have spared no effort in typing it out here, so the world may share in this literary masterpiece - MC))

BILL CAMDEN SMILED at his screen and scratched his crotch. "Eat this, Frank Psy-borg," he smirked, as he clicked on the orange "PUBLISH POST" button, and launched his 2,000-word review of the Kode9 album through the wormholes of cyberspace - to be immortalised forever on the hallowed portal BASSAPE.BLOGSPOT.COM!

Bill quickly closed his blog window as the boss walked past. "Ah, Camden," the flatulent old fuck rasped. "Could you please have those account slips ready for me by 2pm? I'm just popping off down the knocking shop for a spot of bondage with a girl half my daughter's age, and I want to give the shareholders the impression that I'm running a tight ship here!"

"OK," muttered Bill, as he watched Mr Crapson waddle towards the exit, collecting high fives from an assortment of Accounts Department sycophants. "Fucking prick!" Bill whispered to himself. Still, he wouldn't be holed up in this office forever. It was only a matter of time before FACT magazine picked up on his wicked, in-depth dubstep reviews, and offered him a full-time job! Then Mr Crapson and all the other creeps in this strip-lit hell could kiss his arse!

"Oi! What was that on your screen! It was a blog, wunn'it!?" demanded Den Bow - office bully! He tried to snatch the keyboard from under Bill's fingers. "What yew writing about - your pafetic love life - or lack of it, rather?"

"Fuck off!" Bill retorted, lashing out at his nemesis. Den simply pushed Camden out of his swivel chair and onto the floor. "Oh, look at me!" Den mocked in a camp voice. "I'm a big fat ponce, blogging about dubstep! Ooh!"

Tina Leyton marched up to Bill's workstation, threw her head back and laughed. Bill felt mortified - he'd fancied the pants off her for months! "Ha!" she taunted. "I can't believe you'd be so SAD as to write for pleasure in your spare time! Wait til I tell all the girls in the Legal Department - they'll make the work Xmas party a living hell for you!"

"Go on!" Den jeered. "Show us your posts! Show us your posts!"

"Christ!" Tina blasphemed. "What did I ever see in a Net nerd like you?"

"Aha," Mr Crapson boomed, returning to the office. "I see that young Camden fancies himself as a music hack and would rather scribble nonsense about the hit parade than work in accounts and finance! Well, I suggest you send your CV to 'Record Mirror', boy - maybe they'll accept your worthless soul! Clear your desk immediately!"

"Looo-zzerrr!!" Tina giggled as Bill began to cry.

"NO!!" Bill screamed, jerking upright in bed. His duvet was soaked in sweat, it was 4.30am. It had been a nightmare! He lit a Marlboro with trembling hands and tried to steady his nerves. As the tension flowed out of his body, he meticulously planned his Kode9 post - an epic epistle that would elevate his blog to the top of all Google searches for "dubstep" - even overtaking the legendary blog PSY-BORG!

********************

MAY TANG AND Terry Limehouse were feasting on spaghetti and meatballs at Franco's cafe, near Charlotte Street. The two Dissonance FM producers were enjoying an afternoon around the Old Street area, planning a documentary about bloggers for their "Hear Me Now" slot.

"I've got most of the big names nailed down," May said through a gobful of pasta. "Simon Reynolds, Matt Ingram, Marcello Carlin, Geeta Dayal - that guy from the West Country who used to do Physicsbloke blog - you know, the usual. The one person I don't think we'll get, though, is Suzie the Jew!"

"That'd be a damn shame," Limehouse said mournfully, as he unsuccessfully tried to loop 15 centimetres of spaghetti around his fork. "She's a genius - listeners would flock to our show if they knew they'd get to hear her voice on air."

"She's a total mystery," May nodded. "All we know about her is that she's a poet who lives somewhere in Golders Green and occasionally does completely mad posts where she links paradigm shifts in 20th century philosophy to old episodes of 'The A Team'. I sent her an email asking if she'd like to participate - this is her reply".

May slid Terry a print-off. The email message read

oh if i were a little sperm
and crushed modernity's bollocks
could've i blamed it on PAPE
the hippodrome or the hierophant
and the bus that leads to RAPE

"Wow, that's incredible," marvelled Terry. "But you're right - we should probably take it as a 'no'. Can I keep this print-off?"

"Sure," said May, rolling a meatball around with her tongue suggestively. "Look Tel, I've got a plan. There's a London Blogger Meet-Up tonight at The Foundry, and I understand Suzie the Jew is turning up. Why don't we meet there at 8pm and lurk in the background? We'll get to finally say hello to her and we can record an interview for the documentary."

"Great idea!" Terry grinned. "OK, finished? 1 2 3 - GO!" The two avant garde DJs fled the caff without paying, pursued by a gang of furious Italians, wielding meat cleavers and baseball bats.

******************************

SABRINA DISCO LOOKED drop dead gorgeous. She'd spent the day sprucing herself up for her boyfriend, including a quick boob job down the NHS Walk-In and a £300 shopping spree at Agent Provocateur. Posing in her get-up, any red-blooded dyke or straight male would have been desperate to get her in the sack. She pouted as she sauntered towards the living room, where Stu Archway sat hunched over his iMac - banging out a post!

After 2 years of blogging, Stu had finally cracked it and come up with the mother of all posts. His theory was that the golden phase of rock and roll spanned 1977 to 1999, and could be traced to two records from those years - the Desperate Bicycles' The Medium Was Tedium and Atari Teenage Riot's Revolution Action respectively. The ATR track was the DBs track revamped, the Bicycles' revolutionary blueprint made flesh. He was stunned that no other blogger had ever come up with this flash of inspiration - not even Frank Psy-borg!

"Come to bed, baby," Sabrina purred, running her nails down Stu's back.

"Get away!" Stu complained. He was fishing around for a Desperate Bicyles JPEG, and was desperate to get the post finished.

"I'll do anything you want...come on, honey," Sabrina growled, writhing around in his lap and flicking her tongue over his neck.

"Look- just - ju...for God's sake, woman, control yourself...now...I'm trying to...your hair's in the way! I'm..." her boyfriend stuttered.

Sabrina hadn't had sex in 3 weeks and was well pissed off. She'd read some load of depressing shite by Michel Houellebecq recently, and the French author seemed to have an obsession with women fondling blokes' knackers. Reasoning that it must be a universal major turn-on for men, she tried to grab Stu's bollocks through his jeans.

"Wha- the...fuck! FUCK!" Stu screamed, as he accidentally clicked on a dark blue tab - marked DELETE BLOG!!

"You fucking stupid whore!" he raged, pushing her to the floor. "I spent years working on that! Now it's gone. My legacy, GONE! I hate you! Y'hear me? I HATE YOU!"

Stu raced across the room and flung himself at the window. His body smashed through the glass and hurtled down 8 floors to the street below. Sabrina heard a skid of brakes, a loud crash and a taxi driver shouting "Oh bloody hell, not again!"

***********************************

IT WAS 8PM. The cream of London's blogging elite sat around drinking and chatting in The Foundry. Frank Psy-borg was signing autographs and smiling politely at younger bloggers' kind words of praise and awe. A token female blogger sat in the corner, drinking a pernod and hanging on the mens' words of wisdom. Roger from BLACKWALL TUNNEL DIVE blog was getting a round in.

"Has anyone read my blog today?" yelled Dave Dove - author of SEPTIC GREASE blog! "There's a brilliant post I did about Mark Knopfler, but you'd better not rip it off".

Two burkha-clad figures entered the pub and sidled up to the bar - May Tang and Terry Limehouse, in disguise! Terry ordered two lemonades, and the duo sat in the corner by the window. "We'll easily be able to spot Suzie the Jew from here," May croaked. "I'm so excited, we're going to meet the Queen of Bloggery!"

"So, Frank," Canadian blogger Port Vale enquired. "What do you think about the Kode9 album?"

"That's an interesting one, " Frank started, "I was..."

"I covered the Kode9 album yesterday," Dave snorted. "I'm probably the first blogger to have written about it. Nobody was into dubstep til I came along. I slagged it all off, of course. What blog do you write for?" he snapped at the girl.

"Oh, ESSENTIAL LOGIC," the girl replied. "It's about philosophy, and..."

"Oh, boring, no wonder I've never heard of it," Dave burped. "Still, you should link me, I'm one of the best bloggers out there. I've been blogging since 2001. You should check out the post I did where I rightly accused Funkadelic of ripping off Eric Clapton, it's a bloody classic!"

"Could...could that be Suzie the Jew?" Terry Limehouse whispered hoarsely, pointing at the girl.

"No...that's Chantelle Fiddy, I think," May hissed back. "Christ, these burkhas are hot! I told you we should have come disguised as sea cadets!"

"All these wankers who don't link me don't deserve to be in blogging!" Dave Dove was hollering. "As for those cunts Tang and Limehouse, the fact they've failed to interview me for this tawdry Dissonance documentary just proves that blogging is dead."

"I don't know," offered Frank Psy-borg, "I quite enjoy Pubversion..."

"What?" Dove coughed and spat. "Some idiot writing about his exploits in various London boozers, and slagging off trendy bars? Juvenile shit! A child could write that! You can't compare Pubversion to the in-depth research that framed my 20,000-word rehabilitation of Chris de Burgh".

"I think I might go, now" said the girl, yawning.

"It's a shame Suzie the Jew hasn't turned up," said Frank Psy-borg. "I found her post comparing Sartre's prison interview with Andreas Baader to the 'A-Team' episode featuring Boy George absolutely riveting!"

"Suzie the Jew?" Dave roared. "Load of poetry shit! She's taking the PISS! And she's a racist! You lot know nothing. Nick Kilroy was my best mate, I taught him all he knew!"

"Wanker!" Psy-borg yelled. "You never met him once, you lying cunt, you were too busy posting tosh like Why Is All Dancehall Insufferable Trash?

"Right, you're deleted from my Links Bar," Dave snarled, attempting to kick the table over.

Suddenly - Frank Psy-borg fell to the floor, rolling about in agony! Two Wyatters had snuck into The Foundry and stuck the Wolfe Tones' Rifles Of The IRA on the Internet jukebox - 89 times! Unused to this sudden rush of Irish rebel folk, Psy-borg fell into a deep coma. Dave Dove attempted to attack the other bloggers with a candle stuffed inside a whiskey bottle, before the barman threatened to call the Old Bill, forcing the rockist bullshitter to flee.

"Cripes, we'd best scarper," Terry said, grabbing May's arm. The two DJs legged it, obviously Suzie the Jew wasn't going to show tonight. They made their way towards the Old Blue Last for a wind-down pint.

"INFIDEL WHORES!" a voice screamed behind them. A crowd of Muslim fundamentalists were returning from a demonstration in Central London. "Those sisters came out of a pub, have they no shame!"

"Behead those who drag Mohammed through the beer barrel!" the youths chanted.

May and Terry ran up Great Eastern Street. A taxi pulled over to the kerb, and the driver ejected a drunk and ranting Dave Dove. The two Dissonance celebrities dived into the back, narrowly escaping the blows of the hysterical Islamic mob.


*************************

PUBVERSION WAS BASHING out a venomous slag-off of the trendy bar "Meet", situated just down the road from superclub Fabric. He laughed as he chugged on a Stella and verbally slaughtered the brainless cunts and slags who paid 4 quid for a bottle of beer in this miserable, soulless abortion of an establishment.

Suddenly - his front door flew inwards as two SO19 officers burst in.

"FREEZE!" the cops yelled, raising their guns.

"Eat lead, rozzer!" the blogger snapped back, reaching for his Luger and blasting one of the pigs' heads off. However, as he savoured this small victory, the other cop riddled his body with bullets.

**************************

Martin sat in his Hampstead 5-bed maisonette, drinking champagne and laughing like a hyena. Little did the unsuspecting readers of Beyond the Implode realise that its creator was actually a 44-year old Eton-educated investment banker with major shares in Halliburton - as well as the recipient of a generous trust fund, resulting from his grandfather's past involvement in arranging rat lines for the Nazis!

"Oh, the FOOLS!" he cackled. He was so convulsed in stitches that he failed to hear the armed police unit kicking down his patio doors, before spraying him with plastic bullets. "Oh well, third time lucky," one cop said as he logged into Beyond the Implode and clicked DELETE BLOG.

******************************

"AND SO," DETECTIVE Inspector Yap said, closing the book, "You can now see the chaos that results from blogging, and why it is imperative we quash it with the utmost brutality!"

Mr Lee, the headmaster, stood up and faced the high school students seated in the Shanghai classroom. "Well, thank you Detective Inspector, for pointing out the inherent horrors of blogging. I trust you have all learned from this cautionary tale, and will desist from attempting to set up blogs in future!"

"Indeed," said Yap. "And remember, if any of you do try it on, we'll be waiting!"

The classroom applauded and vocally assured the cop that they'd never visit Blogger.com again. As the claps died down, one girl raised her hand. "Excuse me, sir," she asked, "but I have one question. What actually happened to Suzie the Jew?"

"BUGGERFUCK!" Yap screamed, hurling the book across the classroom. "If you little bastards devoted as much attention to your studies, we'd be the world's fourth largest economy, overtaking Germany and Japan, by 2012!"

THE END

Gilles de Rais - legendary sadist and mass slayer. According to his unspeakable confessions, he used to disembowel kids and sit inside their stomachs, bathing in their still warm entrails.

I don't want to come across all Tom of Finland, but has anyone actually considered the fucking physical dimensions before accepting this Frenchman's brags? Sitting in a child's stomach indeed! Go on, you work it out - take a child and imagine crawling into his or her guts. Impossible! You'll be telling me a rich man's camel went to Heaven through the eye of a needle next.

I can promise you one thing - if Gilles de Rais had come to Burnt Oak in 1983 and tried to abduct any of us, he'd have hit the pavement in a flurry of Dunlop Green Flash, rueing the day he ever borrowed a time machine off that other literary bore HG Wells.

(Originally commissioned by the LRB, still to be published)