BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

((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