Bozmag #5

Bozmag #1

The Pyramid Stage

Up on the pyramid stage The Kittens of Chaos, accompanied by Consuella Starcluster the tambourine virtuoso, were performing a selection of their favourite bits from ‘Prestupleniye i Nakazaniye the Musical’, in which the nihilist Raskolnikov is encouraged to get out more and is introduced to vodka and fornication by the 6^th Form students of Madame Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova’s Academy for Young Kittens. Following on from the conclusion of their act the bemused audience was subjected to a poetry reading by Ginsbergbear.

            “I have written a haiku,” he announced:

Haiku

Cake left in the rain.

Prince Albert teapot; it nev-

Er reigns, but it pours.

…and, oh so much later:

Your Mum and Dad

They muck you about

With a bottle of stout

And a pig in a poke

Like the funny old bloke

That Mummy said to call uncle

And Dad with his fags

After nocturnal shags

They’re wondering why

You’ve contracted a sty

Or forged on your bum a carbuncle

“The fault isn’t ours”

Your old pater glowers

“We had parents too

Addicted to glue

And fans of the songs of Garfuncle”

            After a long and embarrassing pause there came a dramatic fanfare from the recently bruised Massed Pit Bands of Federated Nottinghamshire joined by the Brick Lane Zapatista Mariachi Walking Wounded, and Larry stepped up to the mic.

            “Ehem…”

            Before he could speak he was surrounded, silently, by the serene men of the Himalayas, their yak skin coats dragging on the floor. The group moved to the front of the stage, parted and revealed, to everyone’s astonishment, Mad Jack Belvoir (Bart) with his ward, the fair, and now heavily pregnant, Pricilla. Gone was the up-tight uniform of the 3^rd (King’s Own) Hussars, his once magnificent handlebar drooped into a bushy Zapata mustachio and he wore a loose, grubby Kurta shirt over baggy candy striped trousers. He appeared unkempt, undernourished, and yet he was fire-forged steel, tempered in the acid bath of global perambulation.

              “Friends, we have all come a long way since you and I faced off against each other on the Cable Street barricade. Pricilla and I have travelled far, crossed desert and mountain, swum in turquoise seas, basked on crystal beaches, begged in shit-strewn shanties. We have studied at the feet of masters. I want to talk to you about the future. We are (most of us, I hope) groping towards an ill-defined anarchist utopia, an earnest utopia with co-ops and federations and communes and unions and autonomies and endless discussions at the Street Moot and the Factory Moot. It is a worthy utopia for born-again socialists, reformed capitalists and the recently oppressed. But remember, just a short stride across the green from the Moot Hall is the Mead Hall. The sailors and ships’ cats and corsairs and doxies, these Ranters and punks, won’t be content with such seriousness alone. There must be fun, and dancing and a little mayhem too. One day when we have our Anarchy, modified and reshaped from our earliest visions, when we have our justice and fairness, we will look out towards a new utopia, a utopia for anarchists, for men (and women and cats) who are already free, already fulfilled. With joy as of little children and unfettered imaginations we will lust for a glorious future without limits; what a vision that will be.”

              As Mad Jack paused for breath Larry stepped quickly back up to the mic. He was still somewhat put out and prickly.

            “Friends. It is possible that Citizen Belvoir has a point… or two. I was about to suggest that we representatives of diverse groups, many of whom have travelled far to hammer out our differences, adjourn to the Ranters’ Moot Hall and forge a concord that would guarantee peace and prosperity for all time. It is what we had planned, why we are here. But I, for one, am having too much fun. Who cares about differences? It is a glorious day; let us celebrate our commonality. Return to the beer tent and the dance floor; strike up the Mariachi. Sod tomorrow, we are surrounded by friends.”

The Kronstadt Fleet Air Arm

There was frantic activity at the naval airstrip on Hessle foreshore.   Within the suite of offices that occupied the upper floor of a concrete blockhouse, beneath the concrete control tower, an operator rushed from the radio shack to the desk of his Comrade-Commander.   Seconds later an adjutant ran along the corridor, down the stairs and out into a surprisingly sunny Indian Summer to ring urgently on a large brass bell whilst shouting, “Scramble!”

            Boiler suited engineers were already removing the protective quilted jackets from the engine cowlings of three Polikarpov I-16 fighters parked expectantly on the tarmac as the Comrade-Pilots pulled sheepskin flying-jackets over their telnyashkas and clasped their parachute harnesses into place.   Each clambered over the wing of his aircraft and into the cockpit.   There was an irregular chuck, chuck, chuck as the Shvetsov M-63 9-cylinder (900hp) supercharged air-cooled radial engines fired up and soon settled into an even drone.   Props twirled faster and faster.   The three planes sang in unison, Comrade-Pilots waved, “Chocks away, tovarisch.”   Gathering speed in single file down the runway, they lifted, banked and, forming up wing-tip-to-wing-tip, headed out to sea.

            The radioed call for assistance had also reached Consuella Starcluster at the Cirque des Absurdités in The Land of Green Ginger and she immediately headed for the docks, riding pillion behind Snowdrop on her unicycle and with two of the Kittens of Chaos crammed into the sidecar.   Now they were standing on the quayside looking at ninety metres of what could be taken for a gigantic flying boat were it not for the wholly inadequate stubby wings.   It was painted British Racing Green with a red star on the tail and had two formidable rows of missile launchers along its back.   A Kronstadt Starshina stood beside them holding a large cardboard box.

            “The finest ekranoplan ever to take to the air.   We bought her on e-bay from a scrap metal dealer in Kaspiysk.   He had her deconstructed and shipped flat-pack on an IKEA container vessel bound for Immingham Docks.   We’ve followed the instructions to the letter putting her back together, but we’ve got this box of bits left over and some of them look as if they might be important.”

            “¿No iba a estar listos para el combate de cualquier momento pronto, entonces?” (It will not to be combat-ready any time soon, then?) sighed Consuella.

            “Nyet.”

            “Oh, but…” from two very disappointed Kittens, “…we wanna go in the big planey thing!”

            “With the rockets!”

            The Petty Officer smiled down on the pair as if they were cherubs, in their battered straw boaters, micro skirts and laddered black stockings, “Not today, little ones.   For now, she goes nowhere.”

            Snowdrop had wandered over to another large cardboard box sitting on the quay close to a stocky cast-iron bollard.   From it she had selected three suitable yet random items of an aeronautical nature and was honing her juggling skills.

Consuella looked concerned, “Joost how many ‘beets’ do hyou haav left oveer, Comrade-Starsheenarrr?”

            “Er… quite a lot.”

            “Hand what exactly does work on thees wonderfool vessel of yoors?”

            “It floats.”

The Princess Aethelfleda was struggling to gain height.   The crew of the Belgian trawler observed the hot-airship preparing for action and disappeared off the deck.   Pouring smoke from its funnel the fishing vessel quickly made its best speed away from the area.   As the dirigible banked, a young rating, who must have lied about his age, manned the port waist gun and opened fire towards the Chats Souterrains’ Ducks.   They were not yet within range, but were closing fast.

            Ferdy turned to his comrades; his wide, pale eyes flashed cold resignation and a small muscle on his right temple twitched.   “She’s sluggish.   That flack must have done more damage than we thought.   It’s ruptured a gas cell.”

            “Dump the ballast, Phoebles.”   Boz spoke quietly but with dark determination, “Ferdy… just get us above those fighters.”

            The Gruman J2Fs came in, broke away left and right, and circled the wallowing dirigible like wolves around an abandoned biryani takeaway.  

With the aggressors closing in, Ginsbergbear puffed and wheezed his way up the spiral staircase that climbed through the belly of the airship, eventually reaching the open machine gun turret just aft of the funnel.   He clung to the sides for a while, gulping air, back bent and shoulders drooping while his breathing steadied and heartbeat returned to normal.   He cocked the four 0.303 Browning machine guns, tested the swivel mount and pressed the throat mic to his larynx.  

            “Dorsal gunner ready.   Nothing to see up here.   Wait…”   Something was diving out of the sun.

            He took aim at the lead aircraft, saw there were three of them, and then recognized the silhouettes.   He quickly panned the guns off the target.  

            “The Ratas have arrived.   We might be alright after all.”

            As the Polikarpovs roared overhead they opened fire towards the corsair fighters with 20mm ShKAS wing mounted cannons.   The silver fuselage of the lead aircraft flashed in the sunlight and as it banked Ginsbergbear could make out red, white and blue concentric rings encircling a blue star painted on the tail and a scarlet winged anchor below the cockpit.   All much more flamboyant than was usual for the chromatically conservative Kronstadt sailors who regarded a red star against a complementary green ground amply adventurous.   Through his gun-sights the Comrade-Pilot of the Rata could make out a rear gunner in one of the Ducks speaking urgently to his pilot and then standing up, gilded pickelhaube glinting, waving to the other seaplane and pointing into the sun.   Shells exploded around him.   The ensuing dogfight was short - the Polikarpov Ratas were faster and more manoeuvrable.   But once the J2Fs of Les Chats Souterrains broke off, their rear facing machine guns kept the pursuers at bay.

            Job done, the silver Polikarpov I-16 pealed away to fly over the Princess Aethelfleda, dipping its wings in salute, the pilot, cockpit hood pushed back, giving an OK sign with one raised hand.   The remaining Ratas, sea green with a red star on the tail, followed the Ducks at a respectful distance.   They only turned back when they reached the limit of their range, certain by then that the Ducks were heading for their base on the Tyne.

            The dirigible turned to limp for home, leaving the abandoned gunboat and corsairs in the orange life rafts to sort out their own problems.   A CPO, his sleeveless summer telnyashka exposing an impressive array of tattoos, appeared on the bridge.

            “We have stemmed the leak, tovarisch, but we’ve lost a lot of helium…”   The Aethelfleda was a composite airship, with gas bags fore and aft and a hot air chamber amidships.   “…We should make it back OK - just.”

            Phoebles slumped on the deck, his face blank and no hint of his customary inane smile.   Ginsbergbear arrived at the bottom of the spiral staircase.   Boz removed his eye patch and gripped the chart table with his one free paw.   “This is not an adventure any more, we just keep going ‘cos there is no alternative.   Where will it end?   When will it end?”   He nodded towards the pilot, still rigid at his post.   “Ferdy is strung so tight something has to snap.   He’s running on catnip and Red Bull.   We’re making such little headway in this war, it’s just endless attrition.”

            “I’m fine,” snapped the pilot.

            “No you’re not.”   Phoebles, wrinkling his brow, spoke almost in a whisper, “It was all so gentlemanly at the start.   There were rules, unwritten rules, but everyone understood them.   Somewhere it all changed and we barely noticed.   We do what we have to, because we have to win.

“I wonder if we have lost sight of something.   We try to prevent these pirate raids without considering what makes the Corsairs tick.   We outwit them when we can.   But have we stopped trying to understand them?   Has anyone thought of making sandwiches?   It’s been a long time since second breakfast.”

            “Chins up,” Said Ginsbergbear, “It’s not two months since we escaped the caverns in Castleton.   I’ve written a poem…”

I

Kt – Q3 ch

It is a petty triumph, black plays

The long game.

Black Death tossing pawns into

The fray, pinning, forking.

Mein fahrer hat vom blitz getroffen.

Blitz und Donner, fork

Lightning.

Black Death and Quixote, silent, still

On the pebble strand.

Sea creatures, Kraken chicks

Whisper, “QxKt.”

A high price to pay

For fish.

II

“Is that you, darling?”

“No, it’s someone else.”

Dog Days’ vindictive caresses, sweating

Over dead Odysseus, drowning

In Leviathan’s aquatic grotto, rotting

Pelagic cargoes.

Beleaguered White King scorns ransom.

III

The bowler hats and brollies, departed after…

High heeled, high hemmed, thrawen thighs (with thwongs attached) typing

Endlessly.   “The copier’s out of ink.”

Had to get a proper job,

Down the Co-Op.

While the brazen Geordie,

Embracing Superman,

“Careful Ducky!” holds:

He who fights monsters should beware

That in the process he does not

Become a monster too.

IV

Gaze long enough into an abyss and

 The abyss will gaze back into you.

Give me another mooncake and I’ll do this till the cows come home.

Boz wondered if he had ever been this depressed before.   However, everyone’s mood lightened considerably when the poem ended and the flags and wind socks of the Kronstadt Fleet Air Arm aerodrome at last came into view.   And the gang were bordering on cheerful once the Princess Aethelfleda was on her pylon and repair crews were swarming all over her.   Larry’s personal runabout was tethered to a neighbouring pylon. 

            On the tarmac they bumped into Barrymore.   She had been tinkering with one of the Porsche engines on Larry’s dirigible and was removing a tiny speck of oil from her bottle-green, crotch length chauffeur’s jacket.   “Hi boys,” she straightened the fur on the longest tortoise-shell legs this side of Paradise, “Larry’s waiting up stairs.   He wants to discuss developments.   I’ll just hang around down here, see if I can catch one of these delicious sailors.”

            Larry had made himself comfortable at the Comrade-Commander’s desk in the Comrade-Commander’s chair, the Comrade-Commander was trying not to look awkward perched on the edge of the adjutant’s desk, and the adjutant was fetching teas and coffees.   Larry started talking before tedious formalities could delay him.  He addressed Boz and waved a general indication towards any Kronstadt personnel within range.            

            “I’m putting these boys in charge of trawler protection for a bit.   We have another piccolo problema.   No-one has heard from the Lord Ancaster since they radioed that they had arrived at the Antarctic ice shelf.”

Flight

Suddenly the vast space was echoing to Klaxon alarms, the walls flashing in reflected crimson light.  

“Up There!” someone had shouted above the general row and, with the first bullets ripping and pinging about them, the boys abandoned their rucksacks and scurried after Ginsbergbear as he disappeared back down the ventilation duct.   They were scuttling awkwardly in the confined space, but the bumping and scraping behind them told of their pursuit by Chats Souterrains far more comfortable in the claustrophobic darkness.   After an eternity of blind shoving, shouting, scrabbling they fell, sweating and wheezing, into the main tunnel and continued their mad dash without any attempt at concealment.   As they ran there were distant shouts and explosions behind them.   Then they became aware of a throbbing whine rapidly growing in volume.

“Take cover!” shouted Boz, and they pressed against the dark walls as the saucer, the craft they had seen on its railway truck, whooshed past.   It veered towards the tunnel wall and directed a static discharge, ionising the air ahead, the electromagnetic crackling mingling with a booming sound beam howl, like an amateur brass band attempting a Charles Ives composition.   The wall dissolved into tatters akin to a moth eaten lace curtain and the gaping maw of the Devil’s Arse appeared ahead.    Boz and Slasher broke cover, the others following close on their heels, and rushed through the shimmering gap before the rock wall could reform and the overlapping universes part company once more.   The saucer, silhouetted against the sky, zoomed out and up, scattering jackdaws, its mission unknown and its crew’s attention far from the fleeing group that followed in its wake.   Slasher broke his step momentarily to fire his Mauser, once, into the blackness behind them.   The shot echoed around the cavern like a fusillade; the others flinched, but the relentless pounding of their commando-booted pursuers did not faulter.   They fled past the ropewalk and workers hovels out into the winding back alleys of Castleton – ducking, weaving, bouncing off walls in their wild flight.

Flight of the Sore Afraid

                                    Out of the Devil’s Arse we blundered

                                    Into the street where Emos chundered

                                    Scattering Goths

                                    And Punks who wondered

                                    “What the f..?”

                                    We did not make reply

                                    Theirs was not to wonder why

                                    Theirs was but to duck or die

                                    Les Chats’ Sten guns thundered

                                    Bullets to the left of us

                                    Bullets to the right of us

                                    Bullets from behind us

                                    Buzzed and whined

                                    Blasted with shot and shell

                                    Swiftly we ran… ah well

                                    Out of that mouth of Hell

                                    Nought could our terror quell

                                    I wish we could catch a bus

                                    We must be mad as bats

                                    Taking on the pallid Chats

                                    Rounds ripping through our hats

                                    Gasping teddy wheezing cats

                                    Tottering Dodo

                                    Legs all spent

                                    Relentlessly pursued by Paras

                                    Tough old vets of Mons and Arras

                                    Battle hardened bold as brass

                                    Armed to the teeth they’ll kick our ass

                                    Our future looks like diddly squats

                                    A miracle’s our only chance

                                    A cavalry with sword and lance

                                    On mighty steeds that rear and prance

                                    Slasher chucks t’ward me a glance

                                    “Is that Plan B?”

                                    “There’s no Plan B”

                                    Grovelling upon all fours

                                    Hammering on shuttered doors

                                    Mourning for our last lost cause

                                    Doomed Amigos of El Boz

                                    Is this really our last dance?

Ginsbergbear,

Convalescing

- A four pipe recovery.

Ginsbergbear's Poem - aboard the Do X

POEM

Our silver hull rends the sky

Propellers drilling tunnels through the atmosphere

Gautama floats cross-legged over cumulus fractus

Shiva rides the rainbow

Cthulhu calls down the waterspout

Yeshua walks on the waters

The elements are at war within this ethereal realm

Yet Blake’s angels buoy us up

and we luxuriate in Teutonic splendour

Phoebles don’t touch that it will break   …told you

Helios scorched Icarus falls

but the sons of Hermes sail on air

Pale felines of Duat quiver

For captain America comes

The brown dwarf Nemesis lurks beyond the Oort cloud

waiting on his rightful time

Dark Lords

the Merovingian Lizard Kings stir in the House of Snow

Furnaces roar and hammers clash

Titan’s chamber echoes to the clamour of industry

Fata Morgana fashioned in steel and rivets

Mass produced engines of doom

From the bowels of terra

And we…

A muscle-bound and fake-tanned Kronstadt sailor in neat air-stewardess uniform, pearl earrings, crew-cut and high heels enters at this moment, pushing a refreshment trolley.

“Coffee or tea?   Pork scratchings?”

“Tea, please, strong two sugars.”

“Have you got a latté?”

“Lapsang Souchong for the pilot?”

“Americana please, shaken not stirred.”

…few

we happy few

rush towards our weird

Do we wish to live forever?

In the name of all things felid, what are we getting ourselves into?

Pass the catnip

Enkidu formed of clay

saliva of Aruru

heed my words

Hold the Mayan Apocalypse – till another day

Ginsbergbear, beat poet

Mid air over Milton Keynes

2012

A Second Battle in Cable Street

The front ranks of the Nationalist marchers were staring into Hell.   Ahead smoke curled and flames crackled.   Shadowy wraith-like figures scurried across the crimson haze.   A roar of defiance filled the air and chilled the blood.
Boz was on the barricade waiting for the exact moment to signal to Phoebles.   He was proudly wearing his best telnyashka under a flamboyant Makhnovist Cossack, bum-freezer jacket and his little Kronstadt sailor hat was perched on his head.   He felt that he looked pretty good.
Michael Winner was at the head of the advancing column, waving  a large flag of St George,  when the first salvo of bombs hit.   He was floored by a wobbly, water-filled condom and stepped on by a Royal Marine Trombonist.   A wavy, jiggling line of riot police rushed forward, making chuff chuff train noises, and formed a defensive barrier between those who had fallen and the looming presence of the barricade, they banged their shields in time to each other and muttered a deep throated, tuneful 'Whoa-whoooooooo, whooooooooa-ha!   
And then pandemonium errupted.   There was yelling and screaming and clattering and clashing.   Everyone opened up with every weapon they had, at anything they could see.   Firing short accurate bursts with the X Ranger 1075 from the Town Hall roof Ginsbergbear was having a devastating effect on the Nationalists, but down below in the thick of the melée water was flying everywhere, there was the steady pop, pop, pop of Burp® guns and flour and water were combining into a dreadful paste.   Some tear gas had been deployed in the early stages of the conflict, but it had clung to the fog, refusing to spread and lingering in intense isolated pockets.   Hurling their bombs over the heads of the front line combatants the Kronstadt sailors could have no idea of the havoc they wrought, every so often Boz gave them a reassuring thumbs up from his vantage point on the defences. 
For the moment the Women's Institute Anarcha-Feminists were manning (a term that I am sure they would object to) the field hospitals. but they were armed to the teeth and eager to join the fray on the flimsiest of excuses .   The essential tea urns had been set up  on a conveniently located trestle table by two pacifist Quakers and a jewish transvestite named Manny who had not wanted to endanger her expensively manicured nails in battle.   They also serve who only serve the tea.
La Columna were engaging Metropolitan Snatch Squads and a detachment of Eton school boys in nearby side streets.   The boys' Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s and La Columna's STR80-AK47 Aquafires were pretty much equally matched, but experience was to win out and the toffs were soon routed.   One snatch squad was captured and, with no provision for restraining prisoners, was released on a promise that they would go straight home.   Elsewhere the conflict was confused and messy.

Locked in a stale mate at the barricade the Nationalists deployed their secret weapon, two mounted police vans.   The  vans were lashed howdah-like to the backs of elephants, blue lights flashing and sirens 'nee-nawing', but the elephants proved as ineffectual as they were ridiculous.   They quickly faltered under the Kronstadt sailors' artillery bombardment and were rendered skittish by tear gas stinging their eyes and trunks.   At this opportune moment Ferdy arrived on the scene in the Cierva C.19, screaming out of the sky, bonksie-like in a steep dive, to unleash a stick of flour bombs with devastating accuracy.   Jumbo ran amuck, charging back through scattering ranks of riot police.
Sadly, autogyros do not do dive bombing, or if they do, they do it but the once.   Trailing smoke and oil and popping rivets all the way, Ferdy just managed to hold it together long enough to ditch in the chill waters of Shadwell Basin.

Meanwhile, back in Cable Street, the cobbles were drenched and slippery, gutters running with those fluid residues that are the byproduct of armed conflict.   The Anarcho-Surrealists had regrouped and united with the Situationist and were holding their own.   Scary clowns were recklessly hurling pails of confetti.   Boz was just checking the last few magazines for his AK47 Aquafire, water was running low, when Phoebles pointed to a young lad with a severe limp approaching them urgently from the rear.   He was being held up by one of the Anarcha-Feminists.

"Talk to him.   He's gone to a lot of trouble getting here."   She left the lad with Phoebles, picked up an abandoned Burp® gun and clambered onto the barricade.
The youngster had come up from the sewers and was the son of one of the Yorkshire miners.   His Kier Hardie cap was awry and dried blood stained his left cheek.   
"T' Cats Sootrins 'as been guidin' t' Met Snatch Squads through 'tunnels.   We'n bin overrun int' sewers.   Thou's gonna be cut off an' surrounded.   Me da' says I gorra warn yer."
"Good lad." said Boz, "Phoebles, take him to the rear and get him a cupper... make it a mug, strong and sweet.   And tell everyone back there it's time to go; we'll hold on here for a bit longer."  
Phoebles returned just as the howling Snatch Squads and Chats Souterrains emerged from the sewers.   Once on the the surface they assumed a cuneum formation, several wedges in fact, so probably cuneii or something like that... and charged. 
Boz raised one eyebrow. "I meant you to go too."
"I know, but..."
Heavily out numbered now the defenders battled on, periodically releasing small groups from their number to escape through the surrounding, winding alleys and passages.   One catapult crew remained with a fast dwindling supply of bombs.   Whilst unsuccessfully urging others to follow, a ski-masked mob of Anarcho-Syndicalists rushed on to the barricade crying "No retreat - stand firm!"   They planted a Confederación Nacional del Trabajo banner securely into the rubble, "Rally to the flag!"
Ginsbergbear could see the circle of Nationalists tightening on his comrades.   Riot Police were hammering on the doors of the Town Hall.   It was time to go.   He picked up the X Ranger 1075 and headed for the stairs.
Phoebles and Boz were standing back to back, one magazine left in Bozzy's AK47 Aquafire and the last two ping pong balls in Phoebles' Burp® gun.
"Not exactly going to plan, eh, y'old bugger." muttered Phoebles.
"Ah, but you've not heard my Plan B yet, pal." 
Softly the distant, tinkling notes of Die Walküre drifted on the gentle breeze that was just beginning to clear the day long fog.
"That'll be the Plan B where we're unexpectedly rescued at the eleventh hour?"
Headlamps and ice-cream cones flashed as the Vicecream van, with a newly fitted Audi turbocharged V12 diesel engine grumbling under its bonnet, careered westwards along Cable Street and burst in on the scene.
"That's the one!" replied Boz.
With the Kittens of Chaos balanced precariously on the roof-rack lobbing a fusillade of smoking baked potatoes down onto their hapless victims Aunty Stella gunned the Vicecream van through the rear ranks of besiegers and slewed round to halt within inches of the lucky pair.

"More spuds, more spuds We're running low on ammo up here!"
"Get in... Now!"
They piled through the open serving hatch.
Nationalists were all round the van and advancing up the lower levels of the barricade.
"We'll never reach anyone else."


Consuella Starcluster dominated the highest point on the pile.   With bodice bursting to reveal her ample and heaving  breasts and waving a republican flag with a single red star centred on its golden stripe, she was totally surrounded by warring Anarcho-Syndicalists and Metropolitan Riot Police.   And she was screeching defiance...

 "¡Vare a la mierda!"  

"¡A hacer puñetas!"   

"¡A tomar por el culo!"   

"¡Descojonarse, mearse de risa!"   

Turning to look down at the euphonically wagnerian vehicle she produced a fully loaded Saturator STR100 Lightning Strike super hand cannon from under her full skirts and proceeded to carve a swathe thro her would be captors.   Springing gazelle-like down the rubble she reached the vicecream van, vaulted through the hatch and spun round to continue firing on anyone who had been stupid enough to pursue her.   Aunty Stella jabbed the accelerator pedal, wheelied the van through a tyre smoking handbrake turn and was gone.   
For a while the remaining defenders atop the barricade fought on, but they were quickly subdued and bundled into waiting black marias.   

Ferris Wheel

It was carnival night and most of the crowd were masked.   There were twenty Captain Jack Sparrows, three Marie Antoinettes with shepherdess' crooks, carrying their lambs, Captain Ahab stumping along on narwhale tusk peg leg and Ginsbergbear hurrying through the press of revellers.   And then... there was a figure standing at the foot of the big wheel, in shadow but for a slash of pulsing neon light cast across his lower face and breast.   He was wearing a red and black striped polo neck jumper beneath his drape jacket, a Lone Ranger mask and, of course, the grey homburg.   There were wide wooden steps up to a ticket office and then a turnstile, the ferris wheel looked considerably more impressive close too - in fact it was massive.   Slasher McGoogs paid for the two of them at the kiosk and ushered Ginsbergbear into one of the cars.   They  had the space to themselves.
The wheel began to turn slowly, but when their car reached its zenith it stopped abruptly.   The flimsy car swayed and Slasher McGoogs, his legs spread and a psycotic glint in his eyes, slid open the door.   The lonely, haunting, plunking tones of a distant zither drifted in.
"You should come over here and look down.   It's very spectacular."
Ginsbergbear was in the far corner, as far from the open door as possible, white knuckles gripping the rail.   He could see the lights of Park Lane and Oxford Street from where he was and had no intention of moving.
"What's going on?   Why have we stopped?"
"I bribed the operator.   I feel that an atmosphere of uncertainty and intimidation will enhance the conversation that we are about to have.
"Now... your friends.   Their activities are getting in my way and attracting undue attention.
"I want you to tell them to stop looking.   I need a little space... and time."
Ginsbergbear gabbled, "What the...?   Why me?   What ARE you up to?   Why aren't you dead?   What on earth gives you the idea they will listen to me?" 
"Make them!"
"...No, you make them.   Tell them yourself.   If we're causing you so much inconvenience then you're going to have to trust us with some answers.   No-one is fooled by this accident story.   Meet us somewhere safe-ish and explain yourself."
Slasher did not appear enthusiastic.   Eventually, "Limehousesailortown is an Establishment no go area.   The Den, tomorrow morning."
The wheel started to turn again, on a waved signal from McGoogs, and the instant their cab reached the ground Slasher sprang from the car, vaulted the barrier and disappeared into the crowd. Ginsbergbear spent a few minutes with his head between his knees and then pulled a large meerschaum bowled calabash from a pocket in his baggy corduroy trousers, packed it with a charge of Black-Alamout Catnip Shag and sucked in several deep breaths, holding them until the world around him started to appear less unfriendly.   He pulled out his i-phone and called Boz.

"...Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, Rien de rien
Non, Je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi~oi!!!"
Sam was practicing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien with The Kittens of Chaos before the evening's performance and like Piaf they intended to announce their dedication of the song to the Hunky French Foreign Legion.   Following the final rasping, gargled stanza the Kittens were all coughing and retching uncontrollably.
Our quartet were having a breakfast of buttered croissants and kipper fish cakes in the front bar of the den, sat at a round marble topped table in the gentle morning light of the bay window.   
"Aunty Stella's been in touch," reported Ferdy, "There's still no sign of Googleberry, but he's not turned up in any of the local vets' so everyone is optimistic."   They all jumped and spun round at the sound of a distant bump, as if a Chris-Craft Cadet had just come alongside the ladder out at the back.   Two shade-like white cats clambered over the balcony and entered through the French windows.   They were wearing steam punk brass and leather goggles with deep purple lenses and identical broad lapelled black leather, ankle length coats.   They were followed by Slasher McGoogs.
At this most unfortunate of moments a figure chose to emerge from the gents dressed in a dark trilby and a stiff trench coat with an ominous bulge under the left armpit.   Les deux Chats Souterrains instantly legged it back over the balcony rail and into their boat.   Nearby sirens could be heard and the throaty gunning of the triple Packard 12M engines that would power the River Police Fast Pursuit craft waiting in the next-door boatyard creek.

Slasher launched himself forward, barging through the customers, toppling tables and rushed out through the street door cat-flap.

"Don't lose him!" Shouted Boz - and the four of them dashed out into the morning chill of Narrow Street, just in time to see Slasher lift the cover off a man-hole and drop into its depths.