Vive la France

Je suis encore Charlie.

Odour Issues - A Progress Update

Since completing my play The Senseless Counterfeit, at the end of October, I have turned my attention back to my Odyssey/Ulysses parody Odour Issues, of which I had written 3,000 words back in May, when  I left it off in order to write the SC.

OI has progressed admirably over the last couple of weeks. Today, I passed 11,000 words, and am already well into the middle of Chapter 4. If I keep going at this rate, which admittedly is rather unlikely, I should finish it inside six months.

I'm quite happy for it to take up to two years, though. I want to get this thing right. I'm much more interested in quality than quantity.

The Senseless Counterfeit - Draft 1

I'm pleased to announce the completion of my play The Senseless Counterfeit - or at any rate the first draft thereof. I'll come back to it again in six weeks or so, once it's had a chance to ferment a bit. Meanwhile, I've started work again on my next novel, Odour Issues.

The Senseless Counterfeit is available on Kindle, here:-
http://www.amazon.com/Senseless-Counterfeit-Richard-Craven-ebook/dp/B0173TUL6I/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

My other completed works, Amoeba Dick and Pretty Poli also continue to be available on Kindle, respectively here:-
http://www.amazon.com/Amoeba-Dick-New-Tale-Tub-ebook/dp/B00QLDNLHO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
and here:-
http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Poli-Monsieur-Perroquets-Ascent-ebook/dp/B00VPA3SHQ/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Live performance by my son Joe's band Body Clocks

Joe is the bearded chap on the left playing the guitar. His double-bass playing colleague is Jo Kaspar.

Anti-Austerity Activists Spitting at Journalists

The spectacle of anti-austerity activists spitting at journalists Owen Bennett, Kate McCann, and Michael Crick reinforces my inclination to vote Tory whenever I have the opportunity.

The Senseless Counterfeit Act 3 Sc. iii

Act 3. Scene iii.

(Slime’s home in Stapleton. Enter SLEAZE & MR LUVVERTORY, the former still disguised as the Vicar of Stiffkey, with a gun)

SLEAZE.

Luvvertory, I’ll put off this garb.

The Snail can know me in my own true form,

and that way I’ll most cunningly erase the trail

that lies between his armourer and me.

(Dispenses with his disguise, which he hands to MR LUVVERTORY)

On second thoughts, you might sport it yourself. 5

(MR LUVVERTORY donning the disguise)

That way, the Snail remarks a man of cloth,

and apprehends a fellow hierophant

in Nabokov’s most sacred mysteries,

and not his Luvvertorial nemesis.

I’ll say you are the armourer, a Monsignor 10

who carries on a supplementary trade.

MR LUVVERTORY.

I thank you for my smooth investiture.

You marked, I think, my most refinéd taste,

for ministering to fallen girls.

SLEAZE.

I did!

(Aside)

Ministering to fallen girls indeed! 15

Fadya’s an apple most unripely plucked

ere she could fall from Suli’s drooping bough.

No older than fourteen is my surmise.

On which account, I count this hypocrite

as of my tribe. And this doth please me well, 20

for I can always use a hypocrite.

(Knocks at Slime’s gate)

Good Snail! Let your antennae now extrude.

I dance attendance with a pistolet,

and also with my friend the Monsignor,

the armourer, who’s also of our tribe. 25

(Enter SLIME)

SLIME.

Father, forgive me for your peccadills.

MR LUVVERTORY.

It doth behove me thus, for this swart cloth

doth garb me hypocritical, and thus

dear Nabokovian, you are absolved.

SLEAZE.

Never a truer word was spoke between 30

three lodge masonicals.

SLIME.

I’m satisfied.

About the gun … ?

SLEAZE.

(flourishing the gun)

This is the article.

I’ll let you have it presently, but first

a word of explanation in your lug.

Incline to me. It’s been preloaded, this 35

for your benefit, being as the armourer

feared lest by your callowness with guns,

contagions vile would compass you about:

the bite of mamba, rabies, radiation’s burn,

buboes, lesions, anthrax flay your hide 40

should you like Marsyas with this deadly flute

o’er reach your expertise.

SLIME.

I study well.

I am to point the rod, the trigger press,

and fire will issue forth and bathe my enemies,

who then do suffer final agonies, 45

and deaths over-determinate ensue.

This is the nub of it.

MR LUVVERTORY.

A righteous thing!

Fit to defend this house of Nabokov.

I’ll sanctify it now. Lord! Bless this gun!

SLEAZE.

A more becoming hypocrite than you, 50

dear Monsignor, there never was.

MR LUVVERTORY.

True dat!

No scruples do I entertain to sup

with diverse sinners, fornicating girls

my speciality. Speaking of whom,

there’s one, squatting in stews in Picton Street, 55

who now preoccupies my ministry.

SLIME.

In Picton Street? I squatted there myself

betimes, downloading juvenilia,

until that bearded ogre Mr L

exposed me to the notice of the mob, 60

and I, being driven from that Eden, Picton Street,

skulk in the desert wastes of Stapleton.

MR LUVVERTORY.

A veritable Hinnom, ’tis, no doubt.

SLEAZE.

The Monsignor grows weary of your plaint.

Betake yourself within and tend your buds, 65

and guard your hydroponics with your gun.

SLIME.

Although it is an irksome life, marry I will.

I’ll lie in ambuscade for enemies,

who’ll prove diverting when they face my fire.

(Exit SLIME into his home)

SLEAZE.

See how a paedophile is easily guiled. 70

Beware the Greeks when bearing BB guns.

Therefore seek out Fukboi and Little Shit.

Bring them back here, exhibit them to Slime,

who with his cozened boldness will emerge.

MR LUVVERTORY.

If he should shoot them, what of that? 75

SLEAZE.

’Twill be

nought but a pin-prick, goading Fukboi’s rage.

He’ll introduce the Snail to worlds of pain,

transfix him writhing on his instruments,

affix tight clamps to his extremities,

squeeze diverse juices from his jelly eyes, 80

insert hot chilis up his fundament.

And finally, when Slime doth plead for death,

he’ll ransom us his rich inheritance.

Therefore, go now, strike while the iron’s hot.

(Exit MR LUVVERTORY)

SLEAZE.

(soliloquy)

The blue touchpaper punctiliously lit 85

I will betake myself away from here,

and watch from a cozy and sequestered spot

the fireworks which presently ensue.

(Exit SLEAZE, as MR LUVVERTORY enters, no longer disguised, and leading LITTLE SHIT & FUKBOI.)

MR. LUVVERTORY

He’s been provided with a gun.

LITTLE SHIT.

What then?

He fills us full of snake-bit rabid lead. 90

FUKBOI.

It was explained to me before. In brief,

the gun will function as our Trojan Horse.

MR LUVVERTORY.

Knock on his door.

(LITTLE SHIT knocks on SLIME’s door.)

SLIME.

(Within)

Good morrow, hypocrites.

Prepare yourselves to meet the turning worm!

MR LUVVERTORY.

The Snail turns fighting vermicello now! 95

Good Slime! My son and his convivial pal

did wonder if they might tease you, gastropod,

out of that close sequestered shell of yours.

Wherefore, we seek out your society.

Do show yourself in all your oozing glory, Slime! 100

SLIME.

Know what? I think I will.

(Enters, brandishing the gun)

Behold this gun.

It is your nemesis. Now, my old cellmate,

Welcome to overdetermined death.

.(Shoots FUKBOI)

FUKBOI.

Well, that stings like fuck.

SLIME.

So does the mamba’s bite.

Pain before death, to which, drawn out and lingering, 105

I do commend you now with all my heart.

FUKBOI.

You will find your reporting of my death

over-precipitate. I am not dying,

so much as by your pellet sorely vexed.

SLIME.

Not dead, but vexed? I foully am betrayed! 110

MR LUVVERTORY.

A snail outwith his shell’s nought but a slug.

Therefore rush forth and bind this bogie smear.

(FUKBOI & LITTLE SHIT seize & pinion SLIME)

FUKBOI.

There now begins your first apprenticeship,

dear Shit, in that fell art of torturing.

Wherefore, be in your studies diligent. 115

LITTLE SHIT.

He shares with that Suliman we metely burnt

a documented taste for childish stuff.

Therefore I’ll study well. Where do we start?

FUKBOI.

(Flourishes a knife)

Ear levels are to be our Lesson One.

Attend the skill with which I wield my blade. 120

(Saws off SLIME’s ear)

LITTLE SHIT.

This master butcher’s much to be admired.

No silk purse needs to make this piggy’s ear

SLIME.

I bear the imprint of your lunacy,

the cruelty of psychopaths.

LITTLE SHIT.

What’s next?

FUKBOI.

Our second lesson concerns drawing out. 125

When steps are taken to protract the pain,

and agony is timed at intervals,

its fond anticipation makes it keen.

Therefore, we’ll leave him now to ruminate

upon the torments we’ll inflict on him 130

next time we drop by for a social call.

MR LUVVERTORY.

I’ll rummage in his pockets first, and take his key,

and we’ll have access to his citadel. 

(MR LUVVERTORY finds & takes SLIME’s key)

We’ll bid you for the nonce, good nonce, adieu.

You may like, while we’re gone, to consider

how best to mitigate our worst severity. 135

(Exeunt MR LUVVERTORY, FUKBOI, & LITTLE SHIT. Enter, while SLIME mopes, SLEAZE)

SLEAZE.

Your shell-like seems to have become detached.

SLIME.

It’s all your fault. The gun was impotent.

SLEAZE.

The Monsignor did say it was a prototype -

didn’t I mention that? I wonder why

it failed. Perhaps Fukboi’s immunity’s 140

to blame. He’ll certainly have been exposed

to every manner of disgustingness.

SLIME.

Who cares? The point is that they’re coming back.

And then they will slice off my other ear.

SLEAZE.

One is bad luck. Both would be carelessness. 145

Go in, and I will cut another key.

(Exit SLIME into his home)

SLEAZE.

(Soliloquy)

Of course, this may take time. Who is to say

that keys get cut before remaining ears?

(Exit)

The Senseless Counterfeit - a Progress Update

The composition of The Senseless Counterfeit has now reached Act 4 Sc iii, which comprises the  stock Jacobean conceit of the play-within-the-play, in which the malefactor's wrongdoing is exposed. The play in question rejoices in the name of The Dogger's Dinner, and is loosely based on Daniel Auber's opera The Masked Ball.

In the next minutes, I'm going to publish another extract from the SC on this blog.