Tetherd Cow Ahead

To Make an Homunculus (similar to that praised by Paracelsus)*:

Find the root of the plant called bryony. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man’s grave. For thirty days water it with cow’s milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the thirty-first day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with the branches of verbena; the result will be a tiny monster resembling a human being. Wrap it up in a piece of a dead man’s winding sheet and carry it with you when you go about your business.

OK, some points to consider:

•Have a really good excuse prepared for when someone catches you digging around in somebody’s grave in the middle of the night. I’m thinking that “It’s OK officer, I’m just making an homunculus” is not going to get you off with just a warning.

•Lotsa luck with the drowning of the bats in a bucket of milk. That could be a real laff riot.

•I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to find a dead man’s winding sheet nowadays. Try substituting a deaf man’s whining sheep.

•An homunculus isn’t just for Christmas! When you get your homunculus, you’ll have to look after it. My book suggests: “Keep it hidden in some secret place and feed it with lavender seeds and earthworms. You will have success with everything as long as it lives.” (My feeling is that if you go into business with a well-mulched lavender farm, you’ll be set forever).
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*This may possibly be the first ever hyperlinked homunculus conjuration to appear on the web.

Luke Jerram is one of my favourite living artists. His works are clever and amusing and have a delightful ‘cool’ factor that always finds me saying ‘I wish I’d thought of that!’

His Miracle Toaster is no exception. Made as a gift for ‘a friend who believes in miracles’, Jerram says that an image of the Virgin is guaranteed every time the toaster is used.

Considering my interest in toasters and simulacra, I feel that I should add one of Jerram’s toasters to my Christmas List right away.

I urge you all to go visit Luke’s site. Amongst other things you will see the ring he made for his fiancé (etched with a spiral engraving of a message of love that can be played on a small reproducing device in the manner of an old cylinder recording), his awesome Sky Orchestra, and a net for catching meteorites.

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Don’t forget the ‘Insincerity‘ launch – October 31st!

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For reasons with which none of you should really concern yourselves just now*, I had cause last evening to be looking through one of my books on Black Magic†. I discovered these two gems which I thought it was only fair I should share:

To find out if a girl is still a virgin:

Pulverise some lily pollen, and find an opportunity of making her swallow it without knowing, for example at a table in some dish. If she is no longer a virgin she will be seized with an irresistible urge to urinate.

Now this sounds like a pretty good party trick, right fellas? I don’t find myself at tables full of virgins very often these days, so I think the lily pollen method is likely to result in a sudden rush for the lady’s room. This can only be a source of mirth.

If you don’t get caught.

An outcome which is much more likely while attempting the next piece of hocus pocus:

To know a woman’s most intimate secrets:

Take a live toad, pull its tongue out and throw the toad back into the water. Put this tongue on the woman’s heart while she is still asleep and she will talk and answer all your questions.

(Second method: take a pigeon’s heart and a toad’s head, dry them and reduce them to a powder which you must sprinkle lightly over the stomach of the sleeping woman. The effect will be the same).

OK. So, aside from the possible animal cruelty issues, there are a number of hurdles that I can see:

•Finding a toad ~ Toads are not plentiful in my neighbourhood, although I guess if you’re in Queensland it’s not such a biggie.

•Tearing its tongue out ~ Now, I really haven’t had reason to try this, but it doesn’t sound too easy to me. You know, “Yeah, just pull its tongue out” like when someone says “Yeah, just make sure you keep all three chainsaws in the air as the kitten exits your left hand…”

•Taking out a pigeon’s heart ~ It doesn’t say whether you’re supposed to rip out the heart and throw the pigeon back into the air, but going on the toad instructions, one must assume something like this would be required. That’s likely to be fairly messy.

•Finding a sleeping woman ~ Chance would be a fine thing.

•Putting sundry animal bits on sleeping woman without waking her up ~ Also, taking them off afterwards. Otherwise, in the morning she wonders where the hell all the rancid-smelling dust came from and… eeeww, blecch… is that a slug…??? (Ooh, er, no dear, that looks like a toad’s tongue to me…) Oh, that’s alright then.

This book has much, much more. I just know you’re all itching to find out how to make an homunculus. And then what to do with one once you have.

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*All I’m going to say at this stage is ‘Spammers Beware!’

†Yes, I have more than one. And I own a black cat. ph33r m3!

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Don’t forget the ‘Insincerity‘ launch – October 31st!

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Today in the suburb of Cromer in Sydney’s northern beaches, in terrible hot, windy and dry conditions, a bushfire is burning out of control. It is almost certain that the fire was deliberately lit. Every year in Australia, a significant percentage of our devastating bushfires are purposely started, for inexplicable reasons, by idiots.

On tonight’s news this exchange took place between the ABC newsreader and the New South Wales Rural Fire Chief, Commissioner Phil Koperberg:

Newsreader: Commissioner Koperberg, do you find it surprising that someone was lighting a fire under these conditions?

Commissioner Koperberg: Yes, I do. These conditions provide an exceptionally bad fire risk and fires start easily and spread quickly.

This is how it should properly have gone:

Newsreader: Commissioner Koperberg, do you find it surprising that someone was lighting a fire under these conditions?

Commissioner Koperberg: No I don’t. People are moronic and thoughtless and don’t possess even an ounce of common sense. It’s happened every year for decades and I predict that these cretins are likely to be doing it for decades to come.

It never surprises me these days, and I know that Commissioner Koperberg has a lot more experience in this field than I do.

One of the reasons that I know Nurse Myra likes to hang out with me is that she gets to hear me expound my revolutionary schemes for World Political Reform, particularly my vision for Pete Worldâ„¢.

So, we’re off on a jaunt to the seaside, and whilst speculating on the directions for the US in the upcoming election for a new POTUS* my laser-beam gaze turns upon the possible candidates and the way in which a change of regime might be called on to provide effective modern leadership.

We agree that the field is pretty weak.

“Condoleeza Rice?” she suggests.

“They’ll never go for it,” I say. “She’s black, and a woman. She’d always lose to a man. They wouldn’t take the risk unless she was up against another woman”.

“What about if it was a contest between her and Hilary Clinton?”

“I suppose,” I say. “But there’d have to be a good media angle to it. I guess they could promote it as the World’s Most Significant Bitch Fight”.

And then I have one of those lightning flashes of genius that will come to be known as the defining signature of Pete Worldâ„¢.

“Either that, or they could replace the Presidential Debate with Nude Jelly Wrestling”†.

“That could be ugly,” she says.

“Not as ugly as what George Bush and his lackeys are doing to the world. And anyway, it would be at least entertaining and no-one would get hurt. In fact, thinking about it, in Pete Worldâ„¢ only women would be allowed to run countries, and the outcomes of all important world conflicts would be decided in the Televised Jelly Wrestling Arena. It just couldn’t be a worse state of affairs than we have at the moment”.

You all really want to come and live in Pete Worldâ„¢, don’t you? There’s one thing I can promise for certain: it would never be boring.

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*President of the United States. I learnt that from ‘The West Wing’. Up until then I’d been dropping the diminutives as custom allows, and (obviously foolishly) acronymizing it PUS.

†I don’t mean to suggest that Condy and Hils couldn’t have a meaningful intellectual tête-à-tête, but c’mon, truthfully, what are you more likely to watch on television…?

Spam Observations #32

David Ellis wrote to me this morning with his sad story:

My name is DAVID ELLIS of United Kingdom,I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

It has defiled all forms of medical treatment? That’s some disgusting cancer.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone(not even myself)but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

Well, now see, that’s an old story Dave. You’re not the first to have that particular light bulb come on way too late. You obviously weren’t paying attention in Bible Class.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it.

Gee, and it’s gonna be a real bummer if you don’t get a second chance because, for instance, there is no God.

Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends.

Uh huh.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations,

Ever heard the expression ‘Closing the gate after the horse has bolted’? Oh, I forget – Christianity, quite mind-bogglingly, allows that particular about-face.

as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, Somalia and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them. The last of my money which no one knows of is the cash deposit of Four Million,Five Hundred thousand Great British Pounds Sterling Only that I have with a finance institution in UK. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and despatch it to charity organizations. I have set aside 20% for you and for your time.

OK, let’s just recap there Dave. Your family has pinched the piles of cash that you set aside to help charities, so understandably you don’t trust them. However, your solution to this is to offer the money for safekeeping to me, a complete stranger picked at random on the internet. Now, exactly how is it that you got to be wealthy? Evidently not through cunning investment strategies.

A few things: 20% of £4.5 million by my calculation is £900,000. Dave, I hate to break it to you, but in the world of online money-shuffling schemes this is kinda peanuts. Prince Mike Okoye from Nigeria offered me $27 million last week to mind money for him, and Mr. Maraa Massaquoe from Sierra Leone suggested I might like to have $35 million of his generous fortune for my trouble. I know you’ve got a repulsive cancer and all, but really, it hardly seems worth my time.

Even the GRAPHICS FORTUNE LOTTERY for which I didn’t have to do a thing, gave me a larger swag of cash (yeah, OK, so I’m still waiting for the cheque, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re not going to pay up that fast either).

Please send your reply to God be with you. DAVID ELLIS

Er. I don’t quite understand. Am I sending my reply to God or you? I guess God is probably a better option, since you don’t sound like you’re in for the long haul.

Now excuse me Dave, I’d like to stay and chat all day, but there’s work to be done. Chief Oyinbolowo Eko from Zimbabwe has promised me $21 million if I can get his camel through the eye of a needle.

It seems like a safer bet than trying to help you get into the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Don’t forget the ‘Insincerity‘ launch – October 31st!

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