A Slight Return..

Week Five, Day Four : Revolting Restaurant

What's to say? It revolted, nuff said. I am too pissed to report the horror, the horror so I won't. Diners like me shouldn't be allowed out. Sorry about that, doesn't make great reading but I'll worry about it tomorrow. For now get the flava. Yes, flava. I said it....

Week Five, Day Three : Off Games

Been sick. As pig. Raw nose, cooked liver & sweating like a fat girl at disco. But they wanted their thruppence-worth so I delivered it in installments. Back tomorrow, God willing : We're booked in for 8.15pm at the UK's only revolting restaurant (sic) & I ain't missing it for the world. It's Madden's bidet treat..

Week Five, Day One : Tomorrow Belongs To Me

I'll not beat about the bush : It's been over a month now & my patience is beginning to wear a little thin. I made a trip to the library over the weekend to borrow Pat Reid's excellent wartime manual 'Escape For The Over Forties' which had been out on loan from the day we arrived & was peeving me somewhat. Our free time here is at best limited & consequently I was not in the mood for the kind of shoddy service traditionally received in Turf Accountants & supermarkets but not exactly being in a position of power I steeled myself for the worst. Clutching my prized book I waited in line behind a brace of Poles attempting to release about 42 volumes of Carpentry Abroad & a very tall Russian who didn't want any books but just enjoyed queueing. It's only a small library but this was to be a long wait. We were filtered off down a set of stairs into a snaking anger management system where, to my horror, I noticed that the surly monosyllabic guard had been replaced by an actual Dalek & check-out was being manned by a cat with a broken leg. This is the kind of false economy responsible for grinding our great country down to it's basics & making us the laughing stock of the Free Market. I said something to this effect to the Russian who just shrugged & fiddled around inside his bag. Pathetic. And as for the Poles, they simply don't try, do they? Let's just say that things didn't quite go without incident & from now on I shall buy my furniture pre-fab.

On a more positive note I am working on something that may well bear fruit which obviously I cannot go into at any length here. I have made up great strides with Perry over the last couple of days so perhaps his idea of tea at the Criterion is not as ludicrous as it seemed last week. Madden I'm still not sure about : There is something unnatural about being healthy & she is positively glowing at present. If Churchill had eaten that much salad tomorrow would almost certainly have belonged to them...

Week Four, Day Four : Death & the Maiden

We spent the morning in chapel. I am not a religious man but the passing away of clergy is taken seriously in these parts. The very reverend Buttrey, née Alice, Uttrey to those who knew her well, was taken from this life late last night when I was whingeing about those God-awful chefs. A brief service celebrating her troubled life was held at 10am & was attended by most of the camp with the notable exception of Müller who was out culling ducks. As we assembled in the nave we were asked to make a small contribution to her Kneeler Fund, a tax-deductible charity she had founded in 1974 in order to raise cash for a couple of protective pads to ease the pressure on her elephantitis. Sadly, the £29.99 required was never realised in her lifetime but most of us chipped in a quid or two so I reckon she'll be sitting pretty now. All's well that ends well as they say. Somehow I felt it fitting that the difference was met in an empty catering tub of margarine. Call me old fashioned but I believe that God is in the detail. May she rest in peace..

Week Four, Day Three : Egg's Victorious Feat

I'm sorry. There's no excuse for last night's travesty & I'm not going to try & make one. It's just, well, those fucking chefs. They make my blood BOIL & when I see them in action I lose all faith in the afterlife & deities thereof. In case you're wondering, yes, we are allowed the Idiot's Lantern but we only have specific channels pumped in & in order to access them we must sit through a 20 minute CenterParcs propaganda movie that suggests there is an element of choice. Fun, even. All conversation routes with Madden & Perry have dried up : We sit together, stony-faced & silent with our respective plates of unmentionables balanced uncomfortably on our laps. Last night I cracked & signed up for the movie, unheard of in my lifetime but preferable to the smalltalk. I managed a strategic visit to the small room for the moment in Sherwood Forest when smiling families queue for the Waterslide, willingly handing over their dole money to criminals but was hoiked out before I'd even got me Daks down. Then, without being consulted, we were whisked over to one of the terrestrials on which a grotesque bald Fritz Klein-stylee cook was punishing some journalist/author types with obscene concoctions from the lab as the recipients gushed forth eulogies, hideously aware of camera angles & the forthcoming fee. Oh, and guess what? It's a 'theme' meal, bit like what they do at Little Chef'n'all. And the mans' restaurant is currently under investigation : No shit, Sherlock. So, I'm sitting there, wondering where I can hide the second half of my Beanfeast when suddenly it comes to me : Here I am, hostage in a pretend Scandanavian wonderland surrounded by trusting woodland creatures. Why not catch my own dinner & serve it up as a gesture of goodwill? It's cost effective & a darn sight nicer than the shit we've been eating this far in. I wait for the obligatory quiz show to begin, Madden & Perry pitting their wits against Jimmy Carr, hmm.. Just enough time to catch the beast, smuggle it through the sliding doors & pop it into the microwave. Job done.



I begin with the bunny. He's very sweet but despite having seen Watership Down this one's for the pot. I coax him over, all smiles & Mother's Pride but the fucker has me down. He eyeballs me & makes off for the undergrowth with his booty. Arses! But no matter, here comes a pheasant, traditionally one of the most stupid creatures on God's earth. No match for me then, what with my educated hunting instinct & speed'o'light reaction timing. I opt for a different approach, making comforting clucking sounds with my epiglottis that will surely lure the idiot bird to it's untimely demise. He strolls to within strangling distance but as I lunge forward he trots off towards the horizon, momentarily distracted by the sound of the bottle bank truck. Tits on toast! Ah, but what's this? Holy Maloney, you don't get to see one of them too often! It's a Mountebank, one of those travelling musical mini-deers that got accidentally let loose into the countryside by some posh Indian chap with more money than sense. At least I think that's what he called them, what the fuck do I know? Anyway, the Mountebank is curious, more fool he. Cautiously he makes his way towards me, eager to claim my cargo of budget breakfast material. I'll not be caught out this time though, no siree. I pull a friendly face & winch back the bear trap. 'Look', I appear to go, 'if you step this way you will be full for eternity. Be my friend & be forever grateful.' He twists his head. I twist mine. The shit. Inside I can hear the end credits rolling & the clatter of dishes. Time's almost up. The Mountebank does something weird with his teeth. I do something weird with mine. Come to me, bubba, c'mon.. And then nothing. For at least a minute. More clattering indoors. And then the catastrophic grind of the sliding door, revealing Perry in an apron & Madden close behind in a microscopic shell suit & trainers. This is too much for the Mountebank : It's off like shit off a shovel, leaving me with egg on my face & an ankle in the trap. Good manners prevents me from relaying here the exact words I used to express my disappointment at the outcome of events, but suffice it to say that tomorrow I shall take coffee alone. With fags. Shitloads of fags...

Week Four, Day Two : Butchers Block

Those sleb chefs have totally got my goat. Again. There is little I can write now of value until I calm down. Watch this space..

Week Four, Day One : News

Received some welcome news today : My dear wife sent me this from London with information that Harry's stools are beginning to stiffen at last. I have become so pre-occupied with my own dilemmas that I forget she has many of her own & I cannot tell you how my heart leapt with gladness at the thought. So much so, in fact, that I made an unneeded trip to the latrines to ponder on our courtship years & that man from her Alexander Technique class. She tells me it's all behind us now & that we must focus on the future but when he moved in next door & gave us all free bacon on Sundays I must say I had my doubts. But enough of my self-indulgence : More insidious events have ensued & I must report them here. Upon my return, Perry & Madden were enjoying a game of 'Kan-U-Go' which they rather insistently asked me to join. At first I declined, but on second thoughts I decided to play along. The fools! Do they think they can catch me out with kindness? I think not.. Anyway, my rather brilliant 'Bums' was totally outscored by Madden with her 19 letter clincher "Hesunderthelatrines", although it doesn't feature in the Oxford English Dictionary at all & we only had a five card hand.

Also, I am still awaiting news from the elusive Mr 'Star'. He claims that Kendal Mint Cake was sent in via the undergirth of Simon, the enormous spider that had us all going for a moment last week. Now, I have personally had a butchers at Simon's said regions & found bugger all there. Diddly squit. And it's not like it was that difficult to check, either : The so-called 'Suffolk Terror Arachnid' just lies around on his back most of the time eating crisps & watching 'The Wizard of Oz' as far as I can tell. Might have to re-think this whole collaboration deal although it could be true what Perry says : I'm getting a bit tetchy of late. Probably something to do with sugar levels. Must cut down on the morning smoothies, apparently they're worse for you that a family bag of Swizzlers. Arses...

Week Three, Day Four : Bad/Worse

I know this is going to sound far-fetched. I know, I KNOW, but it is my duty to report the truth in whichever fantastic guise it happens to come in & it doesn't get much better this : An enormous spider, possibly 10ft+ in diameter & known to our neighbouring Americans as Simon has reportedly been unleashed into the woodlands surrounding MDF. He's supposedly a cost cutting exercise, cruelly invented to simultaneously cut down on personnel & boost sexual cannibalism , but according to Brad from RAF Mildenhall (Hut 618) he spends most of the day outside The Village shop gazing at a life-sized Lego sculpture of Brian Blessed quoting lines from Henry V. I'm not making this up. This was obviously the gift I had been waiting for but I was buggered if I was going to let on to Madden & Perry. In fact, I bigged up the inconvenience of having a giant spider called Simon blocking the way to their dinner to the max, & when they began arguing I took a short walk. Now was the time to get creative but there was no rush. I strolled past Border Patrol where some poor unfortunate was being repeatedly mown down by a Photoshopped articulated lorry & then onto the Time Out Clubhouse outside which vast crayons were being sharpened for the Climbing Wall.

And then something struck me : It was so obvious I nearly shat (although obviously I didn't. Not then, at any rate). A young man calling himself 'Fourstar' had recently contacted me about Kendal Mint Cake & the possibilities of getting some into the camp. If he could manage this, I thought, why not something else? See? I figured the proof of the pudding was in the eating so to speak, so I asked if he could get me some of those pink prawns as well. You know, the ones with the tail that swirls round that you got in sweet shops when you were a kid. Anyway, this was to be a test of his metal. I'd build up my requests, subtle like, until we got onto something of consequence like a metal bar or whatever. Madden & Perry would be oblivious & within a fortnight or so I'd be gone. Scooby fucking Doo. And then they can stick their Simon right up. I'll give it a try : I'm a desperate man but I know a good thing when it's there in me porridge.. 

Week Three, Day Three : Barred From The Madden In-Crowd

Call me paranoid but the signs ain't good. A bit of ferreting about in Shower Block & I discovered a gas valve in soft focus & later in the afternoon this seemingly innocuous addendum to Activities appeared beneath a Pony Trekking listing. It's not the threat of physical abuse that bothers me all that much, God knows I've done my time in the billiard rooms of some of Englands' finest schools, it's just I feel more strongly than ever that we have a euphamism in the woodpile. A turncoat in your parlance, a Spam-sucking traitor from the deepest portals of Hades in mine. There's not much that I miss : The cheese, the 'separate' washroom, the runs (not them, they're to come), the TOTAL lack of pasta at night & the endless glamour, through thick & through thin. See what I'm driving at here? So how come they knew where I was last week under the theatre? So how come they nailed Perry in fucking Gloucestershire? Not like it's just round the corner, is it? And how about this : We were woken at 4am by geese today & taken to Watersports Lake where I witnessed what was, quite frankly, unspeakable. Not even my Uncle Michael could perform such acts of depravity. On waterskis. I let it slip to Madden that I would make a run for the Boathouse where I would hide until darkness descended, at which point I would slip into Hanks American Bar & Grill, join Wednesday's 'All the Hits' Line Dancing Cabaret until the aftershow, then strap myself to the chassis of their touring Volkswagen & roll out at the first fuel stop. The plan was flawless & she knew it. I also feared she may have enjoyed those sordid scenes upon the water just a little too much. From my nautical vantage point I watched in horror as she whispered something into the ear of a man. But not just any man : It was Müller! And they were laughing together as if they were old friends. The bitch..! The only chance left to me was to reappear at 616 after the line-dancing as if nothing had ever happened. Where I was met by Madden & Perry, the latter on quiche, the former on salad. I trust neither, & unless it's an absurdly complex triple bluff which he will bring me up to speed on tomorrow I will have to look out for myself alone from this point on. All that bollocks about drinks in Trafalgar Square, utter stuff and nonsense..

Week Three, Day One : Back in the Jug Agane

Balls. He stitched us up like a kipper, make no mistake. Minutes after Lithgow had gone troppo they were round us like flies on a fish supper. Müller was flapping his arms about & barking orders in Dutch for some reason & before you knew it I was bundled into the back of a milkfloat & driven at low speed back to 'Parcs' & the infernal gates of MDF Block, Hut 616. Madden fared slightly better : The endless Keep Fit regime she has imposed on herself allowed her a good five minute start on our oppressors, although they finally caught up with her at The Village stroking a cat. You can take the girl out of Oxford...

Few have left MDF alive. It is a barren, bitter place populated by the unloved & some deluded Australians who believe they are on holiday. Lost souls wander about unsupervised clutching recycling & begging directions to Aquatique or the Dog Exercise Area, their spindly bodies ravaged by exercise, all hopes dashed, life now only a vehicle that will take them on to their maker. It is also located directly in front of the Watersports Lake: I rest my case. 

We spent the weekend spreadeagled in Interrogation. I kept my head & said nothing but I'm not sure about Madden. She disappears for up to half an hour at a time throughout the day & I note with some alarm that she gets extra cheese at lunch. Perry reappeared this morning a broken man. They have thrown him in with us once more but I doubt he'll have the appetite for another attempt. The dogs caught up with him in Gloucestershire before he could reach his family & as of yet he has not uttered a single word. And now I must sleep. Tomorrow we're making lampshades apparently : Must be breaking us in gently..

Week Two, Day Four : Disgrace

I'd forgotten this bit :  The nerves, the vomiting & hyperventilating, the shitting (God, the shitting), the petty behind-the-scenes one-upmanship & catastrophic elimination of personal courage. In short I bailed. Twenty minutes before curtain up I slipped through the throng in full regalia & into the theatre vaults. Lithgow had kindly provided me with a litre of Rescue Remedy which I necked instantly, along with four hits of Valium & half a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream. I became unstoppable & it was a beautiful thing to behold. But the crash came early : The vaults were unlit & my Zippo was out of juice. Feeling my way along the damp stone I came across what felt like a pane of glass embedded into the walls. Perhaps a way out, I thought. But surely too small to be a window? Further down I found a rope dangling from the ceiling which I tugged for narrative purposes. Instantly the room was bathed in a vicious glare & I heard the casters of a heavy door rumbling to a close. Müller, it had to be Müller. But he was nowhere to be seen. Slowly my eyes acclimatised to my surroundings :

Above me, six nooses were tied back from their inhuman purpose, congealed & bloody at the arc, & behind what I had thought to be a window was a photograph in sinister sepiatone of women & children from a bygone era practising their demonic craft. IN THE VERY SAME ROOM! I staggered back from the spot, reeling & nauseous. Inadvertently I must have stumbled on Müllers' inner sanctum & I shuddered to think of the horrors it must have witnessed. There was only one thing for it : Still high on low-budget liqueur & sleeping pills I attempted to dismantle the ghastly apparatus, blindly, wildly, inadequately. And then footsteps : Faint & distant at first, but then deafening & omnipresent. Frantically I searched for an escape & in no time at all found a map with the exit points clearly marked :

What a stroke of luck! It even knew where I was. Before long I was enjoying a refreshing glass of Tizer at reception but my troubles were far from over. Madden came bursting in from the lounge dripping with sweat, bug-eyed & shaking. I asked her if she had enjoyed her run. After slapping me twice in the face she blurted out that Lithgow had gone missing from the British Legion. Turns out he gave them the slip after the Hustler slide went up, nice touch. I knew he was up to something, just didn't figure he'd go before I'd done Marjorie Daw. Not that I did but he wasn't to know that. And now we're all in the soup. Without croutons. The bastard...

Week Two, Day Three : Humiliate Me

I found this at dawn, slid underneath my door along with a pile of knitting patterns & a 1972 Fodor tourist guide to Blackpool with it's innards ripped out & replaced with a post-it note saying 'Onions/Cheese/Bacofoil/Gripe Water/Sausages'. This is the kind of level at which Müller works & there is nothing at all we can do to stop him. As it is I'm struggling with my lines & whoever played Johnny last year must have been the size of a warthog. Frankly I look ludicrous but there is no time to hire a seamstress & as they say, the show must go on. I pray that my sheer ability alone will override such inexcusable production flaws & save the night. No such hope for Madden & Lithgow however : Between them they have only found three photographs to discuss (two cut out of the Bury Free Press, one cut out of Hustler) & the talk lasts for an hour and a half. By my reckoning that's half an hour for each photo unless they string out the tea break & there's only five cups & one third of a packet of Boosters in the Legion cupboards last time I looked. I pity them so but there is little I can do to help. I am slightly more fortunate : Although my father was weak in his paternal role, at least he was an actor & still is. Consequently there is a little of the Thespian in me which I must thrust into the limelight tomorrow. My fear is that Lithgow will use my brilliance as cover to make his move (I am not worried about Madden : She seems content to run about on any flat surface she lands on & we are in the Fens). 

It's wrong & he knows it is. I hoped to wring some information from him this evening by luring him to a Filipino restaurant to 'discuss' camp strategy but he obviously knew I was fishing & successfully diverted me with talk of prostitutes, marriage & Australia, the combination of which I know little about. I've a gut feeling he's going to bail any day now but just how is anyone's guess. Müller has infilled the ferret hole with back copies of the Angling Times so Perry's route out is now scuppered. He'll have to be smart to pull something off this soon. He's no patsy however & I put nothing past him. I'll be keeping a close eye tomorrow (except when I'm taking the Morning No.2's but I expect he'll be in the Chapel for that. God knows, I would be..)

Week Two, Day Two : Barbed Greasepaint

Müller's good. Very, very good. Working on a reverse theory that violence & intimidation are water off a ducks back to your plucky Brit, he has enrolled us on a recreational programme of activities specifically tailored to break the spirit from within. Firstly & most significantly, I have been selected to play the role of Johnny in the local production of Horry Parsons' epic, "Marjorie Daws Magic Adventure". Madden & Lithgow have also been drafted to give a lecture on photography at the British Legion hosted by the enigmatic Mr.            The pill is made all the more bitter by the fact we are to perform to our brave boys from RAF Lakenheath, high on subsidised hamburgers & low-alcohol lager. It's a cruel blow & the outcome is as of yet uncertain but we've coped with worse than this before. My costume is particularly gruelling however, all saturated autumnals & last seasons' pastels. We shall see...

A quick word about the Lodge : We're in the Rorschach Rooms, hidden deep behind the facade of a boarded up hotel. It's on the main drag through the village but as of yet no-one has dared venture inside. The violent tricolor scheme, Artex shell repeats & mahogany-effect resin stairwell have already taken their toll. Lithgow demanded relocation on humanitarian grounds, his hands shaking & eyes welled with tears. Perhaps the Horses Prayer sent him over the edge but more likely he is up to something. I'll find out tomorrow : If he's doing a runner I want in...

Week Two, Day One : Location, Location, Location

Much to report : Perry has made a dash & is no longer with us. Crafty bugger, he must have known about the ferret hole next to the latrines (above) & not said a word. He left a copy of Grazia by his bedside & a box of cat wormers : I shall get onto the boys at Bletchley about this forthwith. Consequently, we have been moved from 'Balsa' Block into an external lodge under the supervision of Herr Müller, Dairy Division. According to Madden, no-one fucks with Müller & he does not take litely to insubordination. Also we are joined by Lithgow : They spotted him buying sodium bicarbonate in Mothercare & alerted the Rozzers, poor sod. We are doing solitary together along with Babs Beverley out of the Beverley Sisters who claims she was engaged to my father in 1959. Of course I do not believe her, no doubt a plant & besides my mother often told me he was sexually lethargic & even hinted that I was the unhappy product of Peter Myers, the Ocado delivery boy. But anyway, on to more pressing matters : Not only have I discovered the master electrics switch for the Lodge but also, curiously, a poster of a baby seal cooked in its own fear. Surely these are not unrelated? I must keep schtum..

Earlier this evening we experienced beer & loathing on an unprecedented scale : A microwave curry served by a skinhead in a pub which had more bar staff than punters (2) to the sounds of Dirty Dancing. I know what they are trying to do & I will not cave in. I will not...

Day Four : Enigma

Day Three : Arbeit Macht Frei

Wireless broken. Have made it to the 'Village' under the cover of darkness, the French have a set behind Café Rouge. We're okay but smoke was rising from the refectory chimney again this am & there are less cars. Madden is unhappy with her workwear, just like a woman, but I fear this will be the least of her worries. We are in Hut 683, closest to the perimeter fence with a tantalising glimpse of freedom beyond. A swift recce early yesterday revealed that it is electric & patrolled by dogs on the hour but the ground is frozen hard & tunnelling not an option: We will have to reconsider...

Our location code sent under the guise of 'Toulouse Sausage' was intercepted yesterday & scrambled to a Little Chef somewhere outside Cambridge. No good to anyone now. I also face three hours solitary tomorrow for spelling CenterParcs incorrectly on the header, darn. The work is gruelling: Bitter, cold & Perry has already succumbed to illness & despair. Words of consolation fall on deaf ears. I must get him to Foresters Inn before he turns to self harm. 'Mad Dog' Madden finds solace by running in the darkness. Clearly delirium is setting in early. And as for myself, cigarettes, wine & self-abuse keep me single-minded & strong, God willing. Now I must make the walk back to 683 before they turn on the searchers : Curfew is imminent & I need to see something with Jordan in it...

Day Two : The Toulouse Sausage

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Day One : The Beginning

Attempting an explanation would be folly. There are but three of us now, Madden, Perry & myself, with a fourth to arrive monday week. Hopefully there will be news of loved ones as we have heard that Lithgow gave 'em a good run for their money on the outside, but for now as we prepare for the rumble of the trucks, the bitter cold that seeps into everything we own & the terrifying unknown that awaits us at the Elveden Forest Village, it is enough to be grateful that we still have our health & pray that He will see us through whatever is to come. For Madden & myself these are virgin territories although Perry has served time before & the picture he paints is not pretty. I know him well enough to understand that he is softening the blow but to what extent I cannot possibly imagine. The very mention of Aqua Sana Spa reduces him to bitter tears & he will not go on. We must be strong, however. Tomorrow morning they shall take us to the Suffolk borders against our will & together we must do battle with the paralysing fear that threatens to suffocate us. I can say no more. God help us all...