Tetherd Cow Ahead

As we stumble flat-footed but indisputably well-endowed into 2008, China tries frantically to get Beijing ready for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is by now becoming apparent that it has a mighty long way to go before it can face up to the ongoing criticism of the West and make a dent in its massive pollution problem. A lot has been written already about the country’s choking air quality, eclipsing, perhaps, some less obvious concerns.

Here at Cow Central, we have it on good authority that the Chinese Government has taken cunning measures to deal with other kinds of contamination, and our TCA Special Correspondent, operating deep behind enemy lines, wandering around the shops at Christmas, has uncovered a fiendish Chinese scheme to offload solid toxic waste onto an unsuspecting West; worse than that, even: a Machiavellian plot to deliver their atramentous filth into the hands of innocent children!

Allow me to elaborate. Inevitably, at this time of year, a shopper finds him/herself dawdling into the precincts of the now-ubiquitous ‘Two Dollar Shop’.* All manner of zany gadgets and trinkets seem to find their way into these places, and a Christmas visit here is almost mandatory for the acquisition of that kooky little ‘something’ to give to the special someone in your life.

This year, TCA’s Man On The Street brought our attention to the Two Dollar Shop item (masquerading as a ‘toy’) pictured above: a small plastic drum with the word ‘Caution’ stencilled on it. Or, more accurately, a whole box full of the damn things! A check at ‘Price World’ in my own neck of the woods uncovers a similar trove. Given the pervasive nature of the Two Dollar Shop, we may conclude that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of these little black barrels arriving on our shores every week! There is no doubt at all where they originate:

The fiends are so brazen that they don’t make even the slightest attempt to cover their tracks! Now, as I cautiously open the lid and allow you to examine the contents, I will understand completely if you tremble with fear as the full understanding of this dastardly plot dawns upon you!

Yes, my friends, not only are they very effectively getting rid of their foul effluvium, but they’ve concocted a racket where we actually buy it from them! And then pass it on to our kids, in the guise of a carefree play item, so that they may absorb it through their skin, thereby creating a new generation of hideous yet feeble mutants addicted to glitzy flashing lights and the smell of rarified hydrocarbons…

Sure, China gives the appearance of a massively uncoordinated country bravely attempting to shake off the stigma of the Third World and march proudly into a Shiny Capitalist Future, but I say BEWARE! Remember these people invented the word inscrutable!†

Today the Olympic Games, tomorrow The World!

(If I mysteriously disappear anytime soon, I ask only that name be recorded on a monument on Manhattan Island in the future world capital New Shanghai, along with the words ‘I told you so’).

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*I am speculating that there is an equivalent to this phenomenon in other countries; pokey little shops packed densely with shelving that offers all manner of cheap, usually Chinese-made, junk. In Australia, the shops go by such monikers as ‘Buy Rite’, ‘Price World’, ‘Bargain Zone’ or ‘Reject Shop’ but are universally known here as ‘Two Dollar Shops’. I actually really love the Two Dollar Shops because they are a reminder of the kind of corner-store I grew up with as a kid. I am fully aware that their cheap flashy plastic gew-gaws probably represent the exploitation of poor Chinese peasants and the plundering of fragile ecosystems.

†Well, OK, it’s an English word so they probably didn’t invent it. But I bet they have a Chinese word that means pretty much the same thing. And I bet they use it often, followed by a sinister laugh.

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I hereby declare the Annual TCA Rasputin Poetry Competition open!

(Really, why fight it?)

My dear Acowlytes! Let me offer you all the best wishes for a happy, healthy and jape-filled 2008. Let the jousting commence!

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If you haven’t got the faintest idea what all this is about, maybe you’d like to click here!

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☆January 16th, 1307: Food alchemist Angelo Bembo’s chicken machine breaks down.

☆April 12, 1948: Maverick culinary scientist Leopold A. Moss finally perfects veal-style calamari.

Pitka cast a world-weary eye over the shabby hotel mezzanine. He was still half asleep. Someone put a coffee in his hand. Jesus H. Christ what a mess. No blood, but broken glass, ash, soot and tinsel everywhere.

The hotel had seen better days, but the mezzanine, with its comfortable-looking armchairs and fireplace, would have continued as a cosy and inviting little refuge from the New York freeze. A few embers remained in the grate.

A Christmas tree lay sprawled across the room, baubles scattered on the carpet, some smashed into glittering shards. A coarse hessian sack spilled brightly wrapped and beribboned packages down the mezzanine steps into the lobby proper.

The fat guy in the charred Santa suit lay smouldering in the middle of the floor, tangled in Christmas tree lights that were still flashing. Little wisps of smoke curled off his scorched flesh.

“Can someone turn those off for God’s sake?” Pitka rubbed his eyes. “What’s all the spilled liquid?”

Goldman was picking something out of the corpse’s white beard with tweezers.

“Milk,” she said.

Of course. He stooped to peer at little pellets of something spread across the hearth.

“These?”

She looked up, and then to where he was pointing.

“Some kind of animal droppings. Herbivore.”

“You’re not going to tell me that they’re reindeer.”

“Only if you want me to, sir.”

“Hmmm. So. Electrocution, then?”

“No. He was tied up with the lights after he died. And then they were switched on. I can’t be entirely certain until I see some lab results but I’m thinking he was poisoned. His skin is overly florid and there are crumbs of this in his beard.”

She handed him a transparent plastic evidence bag. It contained what looked like the remains of a small raspberry & cream tart.

“Smell it.”

Pitka unzipped the seal on the bag and immediately noted the unmistakeable and curiously appealing delicate scent of bitter almond. He nodded.

“Any ID?” he asked, of no-one in particular.

Morrison appeared at his elbow.

“None on the body, chief. No-one in the hotel knows who he is. There was only a desk clerk on duty and he was apparently…” he looked at his notebook “…’having a quiet drink with his girlfriend…’ in one of the unoccupied rooms.”

Pitka sighed. He looked at his watch. 5.15 am. Christmas Day.

An unidentified corpse in a hotel lobby. An unidentified perp. No immediately apparent motive. No witnesses. What were the chances that anyone was going to come forward to identify this guy over the holidays?

He stepped outside and lit a cigarette. It was still dark. A light snow swirled down through the streetlights.

Reindeer droppings?

Somewhere, in a house further off down the street, a kid started to cry.

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