After a weekend of ennui, tooth-chattering cold and bad portents in the Tarot, I received an interesting invitation this morning. The hand-pressed creamy paper of the envelope gave away the source of the correspondence immediately. And upon opening (I trusted Una with the letter-opener, perhaps foolishly given the glint in her eye), letters pressed in gold leaf on luxuriously thick card invited me to the Christmas party of the Societas Rosicruciana in Welwyn (S.R.I.W.).
This secret society had been based in the Angel, Islington, but the infirmity of most of its members, rising rents and their failing ability to turn base metals into gold had prompted its relocation to the leafy and less poetic environs of Welwyn Garden City. In darkest Hertfordshire an elderly master of theurgy could safely decode the Hermetic Qabalah whilst speeding around on a mobility cart.
Normally I try to avoid the barely living dark priests of S.R.I.W., if only because their dogma seems to defeat the point of magic (their infirm condition, admittedly, also merely reminds me of my even more decrepit state). But this year I have had to contend with the death of most of my show business chums and that unfortunate business with Dirk Bogarde’s pinkie ring.
When one’s diary is empty, even Welwyn Garden City can become tolerable…
Monday 8 December 2008
Friday 5 December 2008
The Bear-Trap
Upon awakening this morning on the cracked leather chair in my gloomy study, with only flickering red embers in the fireplace to warm my old bones, I was alarmed by a mighty crash and a stream of Creole curses.
For a brief moment, I feared that my home’s carefully contrived supernatural defences had been breached. Was Muskanvaar dropping by as promised? However, upon hearing wounded muttering from the hall, I realised that it was Mange Tout and, naturally, I immediately suspected that he was the victim of one of Una’s pranks.
I called him through and he staggered in, his immense frame silhouetted against the grey morning light half-heartedly leaking from the hall windows.
“That woman, she vex me,” he grumbled as he shook a rusty bear-trap from his left leg, “it sting.”
I couldn’t help but be amused by Una’s cheek, although I couldn’t for the life of me work out where she’d unearthed the source of Mange-Tout’s discomfort. No doubt she was snuggled under a duvet in her attic room (she was a late riser, the lazy girl), sniggering at her revenge for the light flogging she had received earlier in the week.
The irony was that my poor chauffeur was merely doing my bidding, so I could slake my perverse desires vicariously. Ever my strong right arm, he is now locked in a proxy war with the cunning and svelte Una.
It is a war I fear he can never win. Especially as my housekeeper is now a firm ally of the au pair. Possibly the most terrifying woman I have met, the housekeeper is not to be trifled with.
Of course I let them get with it, stirring up a little conflict when particularly bored. It’s difficult to cope with having all of a man’s natural desires and none of a man’s actual body. The only way I stay sane is through these silly games…
For a brief moment, I feared that my home’s carefully contrived supernatural defences had been breached. Was Muskanvaar dropping by as promised? However, upon hearing wounded muttering from the hall, I realised that it was Mange Tout and, naturally, I immediately suspected that he was the victim of one of Una’s pranks.
I called him through and he staggered in, his immense frame silhouetted against the grey morning light half-heartedly leaking from the hall windows.
“That woman, she vex me,” he grumbled as he shook a rusty bear-trap from his left leg, “it sting.”
I couldn’t help but be amused by Una’s cheek, although I couldn’t for the life of me work out where she’d unearthed the source of Mange-Tout’s discomfort. No doubt she was snuggled under a duvet in her attic room (she was a late riser, the lazy girl), sniggering at her revenge for the light flogging she had received earlier in the week.
The irony was that my poor chauffeur was merely doing my bidding, so I could slake my perverse desires vicariously. Ever my strong right arm, he is now locked in a proxy war with the cunning and svelte Una.
It is a war I fear he can never win. Especially as my housekeeper is now a firm ally of the au pair. Possibly the most terrifying woman I have met, the housekeeper is not to be trifled with.
Of course I let them get with it, stirring up a little conflict when particularly bored. It’s difficult to cope with having all of a man’s natural desires and none of a man’s actual body. The only way I stay sane is through these silly games…
Monday 1 December 2008
Victorian pornography and Woolworth
Having met an immortal cold warrior on Saturday, I now find myself dealing with the dreary realities that crowd my undead life. The Jaguar Mk2 failed its MOT today and I have to cough up a ludicrous amount of money to get it back on the road. Until then Mange Tout will pace restlessly over creaking floorboards, deprived of his raison-d’être. The prospect of asking him to take me aboard a bendy bus will keep me confined to the environs of Holland Park until the car is returned.
I also found that Una has scrawled huge cocks all over the prints in my Aubrey Beardsley pornographic portfolio. This vandalism (for which, I can assure you, she has been soundly punished) was somewhat superfluous, as the illustrations themselves were populated with any number of huge cocks anyway.
Even worse than this wanton cultural desecration was the depressing sight of my housekeeper returning from Woolworth with a thoroughly indecent haul of discounted pick-and-mix. I notice the coconut and mallow mushrooms are favoured…
Ever one with an eye for a bargain, she has robbed the grave of the venerable high street retailer and even now she’s overdosing on e-numbers and sugars, showing Una exactly how she won Gold in the Munich Olympics. This is not a sight with which I feel I should scar the minds of my readers. However, I will go as far as to tell you that the occasional table and sofa will never quite the same…
I also found that Una has scrawled huge cocks all over the prints in my Aubrey Beardsley pornographic portfolio. This vandalism (for which, I can assure you, she has been soundly punished) was somewhat superfluous, as the illustrations themselves were populated with any number of huge cocks anyway.
Even worse than this wanton cultural desecration was the depressing sight of my housekeeper returning from Woolworth with a thoroughly indecent haul of discounted pick-and-mix. I notice the coconut and mallow mushrooms are favoured…
Ever one with an eye for a bargain, she has robbed the grave of the venerable high street retailer and even now she’s overdosing on e-numbers and sugars, showing Una exactly how she won Gold in the Munich Olympics. This is not a sight with which I feel I should scar the minds of my readers. However, I will go as far as to tell you that the occasional table and sofa will never quite the same…
Saturday 29 November 2008
Ivan Muskanvaar, The Russian Assassin
It is strange how we summon demons of the past through reminiscence. Having remembered the absurd figure of one old enemy, Lord Lobster, I met another this morning in Fortnum & Mason.
Mange Tout carried me through the aisles of the venerable purveyor of luxury comestibles, looking for Gentleman’s Relish for my housekeeper (she adores a salty treat with her breakfast). Suddenly I espied a shadowy figure I hadn’t encountered since 1964. He was wearing the face of a soldier who had died during the Siege of Stalingrad and a Savile Row suit, but I recognised his puissance instantly.
“Well well well, if it isn’t Ivan Muskanvaar,” I said as he examined a pot of marmalade in his gloved hand. “It’s been an age since we last had the pleasure of your presence on these shores.”
Unlike most people unaccustomed to my present state, he didn’t look at Mange Tout before noticing that the skull in my chauffeur’s palm was the one who had spoken. He looked straight down at me and replied wistfully:
“Tristan Fawkes MBE. The years have not been kind.”
This immediately gave me the hump, as was intended. I clacked my teeth and laughed.
“Fame went to my head, I’m afraid. What brings the Russian Assassin to London?”
This particular soubriquet was, strictly speaking, inaccurate, as Muskanvaar had originally hailed from Belorussia, now an independent state. However, that was what everyone had called him at the time, when the Soviet Bloc was just one big hostile mass. It annoyed him as much as his observation about my maundering state had irked me.
“Oh, I’m just a tourist these days, Tristan. The decadence of this ancient city has its charms. Do you still perform in the West End? Perhaps I will come and see your act…” he purred.
“No, I retired some time ago. I merely host séances for those in need and,” I gave the assassin a significant look, “the occasional exorcism.”
Behind the disguise, I caught a glimpse of Muskanvaar’s true self. Those red eyes like dying suns.
“I see. I too have retired. The world, ultimately, does not want to be made better.”
This would have produced a wry smile if I had been capable of facial expression. Muskanvaar had always claimed to be motivated by a utopian vision. The last time I saw him, he had attempted to kill Harold Wilson and reduce the UK to anarchy. I had only foiled his schemes with the help of The Beatles. The memory haunts me still…
“Quite. Well, if you ever want to spend a few idle hours in the company of another old relic, please do drop by. I believe you know my home in Holland Park?”
“I may well do so. After all, when most of one’s old friends are dead, old enemies become infinitely better company. ”
I could only agree, but having politely bid adieu to the Cold War’s most deadly hitman, my mind was abuzz with suspicion. After all, it can hardly have been coincidence that we met today, the man is just too Machiavellian for that.
Back at home, after appeasing my housekeeper with her Gentlemen’s Relish and having Una lightly beaten with a paddle by Mange Tout, I now brood over the ominous significance of my encounter with Ivan Muskanvaar. It feels like the end of the quiet demi-life for me…
Mange Tout carried me through the aisles of the venerable purveyor of luxury comestibles, looking for Gentleman’s Relish for my housekeeper (she adores a salty treat with her breakfast). Suddenly I espied a shadowy figure I hadn’t encountered since 1964. He was wearing the face of a soldier who had died during the Siege of Stalingrad and a Savile Row suit, but I recognised his puissance instantly.
“Well well well, if it isn’t Ivan Muskanvaar,” I said as he examined a pot of marmalade in his gloved hand. “It’s been an age since we last had the pleasure of your presence on these shores.”
Unlike most people unaccustomed to my present state, he didn’t look at Mange Tout before noticing that the skull in my chauffeur’s palm was the one who had spoken. He looked straight down at me and replied wistfully:
“Tristan Fawkes MBE. The years have not been kind.”
This immediately gave me the hump, as was intended. I clacked my teeth and laughed.
“Fame went to my head, I’m afraid. What brings the Russian Assassin to London?”
This particular soubriquet was, strictly speaking, inaccurate, as Muskanvaar had originally hailed from Belorussia, now an independent state. However, that was what everyone had called him at the time, when the Soviet Bloc was just one big hostile mass. It annoyed him as much as his observation about my maundering state had irked me.
“Oh, I’m just a tourist these days, Tristan. The decadence of this ancient city has its charms. Do you still perform in the West End? Perhaps I will come and see your act…” he purred.
“No, I retired some time ago. I merely host séances for those in need and,” I gave the assassin a significant look, “the occasional exorcism.”
Behind the disguise, I caught a glimpse of Muskanvaar’s true self. Those red eyes like dying suns.
“I see. I too have retired. The world, ultimately, does not want to be made better.”
This would have produced a wry smile if I had been capable of facial expression. Muskanvaar had always claimed to be motivated by a utopian vision. The last time I saw him, he had attempted to kill Harold Wilson and reduce the UK to anarchy. I had only foiled his schemes with the help of The Beatles. The memory haunts me still…
“Quite. Well, if you ever want to spend a few idle hours in the company of another old relic, please do drop by. I believe you know my home in Holland Park?”
“I may well do so. After all, when most of one’s old friends are dead, old enemies become infinitely better company. ”
I could only agree, but having politely bid adieu to the Cold War’s most deadly hitman, my mind was abuzz with suspicion. After all, it can hardly have been coincidence that we met today, the man is just too Machiavellian for that.
Back at home, after appeasing my housekeeper with her Gentlemen’s Relish and having Una lightly beaten with a paddle by Mange Tout, I now brood over the ominous significance of my encounter with Ivan Muskanvaar. It feels like the end of the quiet demi-life for me…
Thursday 27 November 2008
The Voice of a Gentleman. The Soul of a Pauper.
I was born in 1898, to Archibald and Maeve, in a less than salubrious backstreet in Bermondsey, a short stroll from the Thames. My father, despite his lack of education (or indeed anti-Semitism) was a rampant Wagnerian. He insisted that I be called Tristan and my younger sister Isolde. Clearly, the incestuous implications of this escaped him. My mother, being a meek woman, tiny, pale and tired as a spent matchstick, accepted his eccentricities without fully comprehending them.
We were only intermittently shod and often went hungry on his stevedore’s wages. Yet he would occasionally swagger through the door bearing tickets to Das Rheingold or Parsifal at the Royal Opera House in his vast calloused paws. Whisked off into a realm of limelight and glamour in my Sunday best, I would marvel to gigantic men and women with even bigger voices. I was humbled by the ‘quality’ around us and they were contemptuous of the threadbare poor, yet I would dream of bestriding the stage in armour, belting out German to an enthralled public.
It’s obvious that these operatic fancies led to my life threading the warped, scuffed boards of the English stage. I wonder whether those nights in the thrall of the rich, all dazzling elegance and champagne-fuelled arrogance, also led to my adoption of an aristocratic air and a weakness for mixing in royal circles. In a sense, I often ponder my assimilation into a class of people I should heartily loathe.
I remember thinking that very thing even as I was thoroughly captivated by Princess Margaret. I have the voice of a gentleman, but the soul of a pauper. This tortured me for many years. Naturally, now I’m reduced to my present cadaverous state, I really couldn’t give a fiddler’s fuck…
We were only intermittently shod and often went hungry on his stevedore’s wages. Yet he would occasionally swagger through the door bearing tickets to Das Rheingold or Parsifal at the Royal Opera House in his vast calloused paws. Whisked off into a realm of limelight and glamour in my Sunday best, I would marvel to gigantic men and women with even bigger voices. I was humbled by the ‘quality’ around us and they were contemptuous of the threadbare poor, yet I would dream of bestriding the stage in armour, belting out German to an enthralled public.
It’s obvious that these operatic fancies led to my life threading the warped, scuffed boards of the English stage. I wonder whether those nights in the thrall of the rich, all dazzling elegance and champagne-fuelled arrogance, also led to my adoption of an aristocratic air and a weakness for mixing in royal circles. In a sense, I often ponder my assimilation into a class of people I should heartily loathe.
I remember thinking that very thing even as I was thoroughly captivated by Princess Margaret. I have the voice of a gentleman, but the soul of a pauper. This tortured me for many years. Naturally, now I’m reduced to my present cadaverous state, I really couldn’t give a fiddler’s fuck…
Monday 24 November 2008
The Return of Lord Lobster?
I was going to begin my story today, casting what remains of my mind back to the blackened lanes of Bermondsey. Sadly, I was interrupted by a telephone call. My ancient bakerlite phone rang in its half-hearted fashion until Mange-Tout answered, for although blind he knows exactly where the phone is situated in my dreer wood-panelled study (except for when Una, the mischieveous Swedish minx, deliberately moves it to a remote corner of the room after dusting. She swears she merely forgets to put it back, but I know she loves to tease my chauffeur for he is the one who delivers her thrashings on my behalf).
When he held the earpiece to my empty aural socket, I rattled with shock. As the voice greeted me, I thought ‘could it be? Has my crustacean nemesis, the demented Lord Lobster returned from the clutches of the Grim Reaper once more?’
Lord Lobster, that oceanic aristocrat with a penchant for perversity. Once the ladies of London were bedevilled by his blue pincers and beady eye-stalks. He had the voice of James Mason, but the mind of the Marquis de Sade (though with less literary merit). Once my rival in mysterious theatrical marvels, he was afflicted by his bizarre deformity after a pact with Artigaal, the Demon Duke of Caina.
Of course, this cast him from the theatres of London into the freakshows of the provinces. The blue mottled skin, the claws, the fear of boiling water. From there, he turned to crime. We fought many a battle in the stygian depths of the Big Smoke’s underworld.
Could Lord Lobster have survived our last encounter? Did I, after years of fruitless retirement, have a worthy adversary?
The answer was no. It was Carphone Warehouse, asking whether I wanted a mobile deal to complement my Talk Talk landline.
I knew I should never have left BT…
When he held the earpiece to my empty aural socket, I rattled with shock. As the voice greeted me, I thought ‘could it be? Has my crustacean nemesis, the demented Lord Lobster returned from the clutches of the Grim Reaper once more?’
Lord Lobster, that oceanic aristocrat with a penchant for perversity. Once the ladies of London were bedevilled by his blue pincers and beady eye-stalks. He had the voice of James Mason, but the mind of the Marquis de Sade (though with less literary merit). Once my rival in mysterious theatrical marvels, he was afflicted by his bizarre deformity after a pact with Artigaal, the Demon Duke of Caina.
Of course, this cast him from the theatres of London into the freakshows of the provinces. The blue mottled skin, the claws, the fear of boiling water. From there, he turned to crime. We fought many a battle in the stygian depths of the Big Smoke’s underworld.
Could Lord Lobster have survived our last encounter? Did I, after years of fruitless retirement, have a worthy adversary?
The answer was no. It was Carphone Warehouse, asking whether I wanted a mobile deal to complement my Talk Talk landline.
I knew I should never have left BT…
Friday 21 November 2008
And so we begin...
Having recently been introduced to the realm of the ecto-web by my au pair, Una, (just before I had her locked in the cellar for willfully doodling a phallus one of my original Khnopff), I have decided to record the events of my exceptional life in this digital journal.
Of course, one would be perfectly entitled to ask how a disembodied skull could possibly write a blog. Am I laboriously tapping the keys with my cigarette-holder? Have I perhaps summoned an imp from the faery kingdom to act as my PA? Certainly not. What are servants for if not being dictated to?
My trusty chauffeur and batman Mange-Tout is typing these words with his over-sized mitts as I speak. He is somewhat impaired by the fact that his eyes were removed and eyelids sewn up by the Lost Priests of Hurrrk (yes, that does have 3 rs, Mange-Tout. Do carry on, dear love), but that is another story, what?
So who am I? Who is this mystical fellow, reduced to a shadowy undead existence, tethered to his last mortal remnant, this bony brain-ball that is both my prison and refuge?
Well, I was once Tarot-reader to the court of Edward VIII after a long career as a stage psychic in the music halls of this Sceptred Isle. Regularly consulted by the aristocracy and stars alike as a medium, I was the one who first sneaked a fag to a very young Princess Margaret.
And now here I am in this mouldering pile in Holland Park, being attended to by a sadistic Housekeeper, a blind polynesian manservant and an au pair with biro Tourettes.
How did demi-life end up like this? Well, I may just begin to paint that particularly melancholy picture very soon…
Of course, one would be perfectly entitled to ask how a disembodied skull could possibly write a blog. Am I laboriously tapping the keys with my cigarette-holder? Have I perhaps summoned an imp from the faery kingdom to act as my PA? Certainly not. What are servants for if not being dictated to?
My trusty chauffeur and batman Mange-Tout is typing these words with his over-sized mitts as I speak. He is somewhat impaired by the fact that his eyes were removed and eyelids sewn up by the Lost Priests of Hurrrk (yes, that does have 3 rs, Mange-Tout. Do carry on, dear love), but that is another story, what?
So who am I? Who is this mystical fellow, reduced to a shadowy undead existence, tethered to his last mortal remnant, this bony brain-ball that is both my prison and refuge?
Well, I was once Tarot-reader to the court of Edward VIII after a long career as a stage psychic in the music halls of this Sceptred Isle. Regularly consulted by the aristocracy and stars alike as a medium, I was the one who first sneaked a fag to a very young Princess Margaret.
And now here I am in this mouldering pile in Holland Park, being attended to by a sadistic Housekeeper, a blind polynesian manservant and an au pair with biro Tourettes.
How did demi-life end up like this? Well, I may just begin to paint that particularly melancholy picture very soon…
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