Strange Encounter

Girding their loins, well, Josie girded what he hoped might be his loins, he and Potkin passed through the gateway and headed off into the wilderness.   They dropped down steeply into a small, wooded vale, eventually coming to a rustic spruce bridge across a splashing waterfall and clear, midge-speckled pool.
Potkin suddenly shot down a rough path that skirted the pool and tracked the sun-dappled stream that flowed from it.   Josie followed whilst formulating some very important questions to ask just as soon as he caught up.   Where were they going and was it really a good idea?
Tiny helicopters danced above the waters of the pool.   Josie was familiar with the Chinooks that flew over his cottage, bound for RAF Odiham, but these miniature craft shone with iridescent blues, sporting dark roundels on their transparent wings.   Meanwhile Potkin had come nose to nose with a very large dragonfly.   Josie was still absorbed with the flying jewels.
“Do you think they’re fairies?” he enquired.
“I don’t think so,” replied Potkin, “And this one looks bloody annoyed.”
Josie looked beyond Potkin and saw the large, winged creature with a billiard ball head and an angry, compound-eyed stare.   He sat down.   Then, rather unsteadily, he stood up again.
“Could we skirt round it and try not to look threatening?”
“I’m guessing that to him we don’t look at all threatening.”
They backed up gingerly and made a wide detour through the underbrush before rejoining their path. The dusty track was less used now and the trees grew closer together.   Blackberry bush and nettle tangles, tumbled onto the path.   Little sunlight penetrated the leaf cover, Josie and Potkin drew closer together as the shadows darkened and the boscage thickened.   There were some very strange noises coming from the undergrowth.
After a nerve wracking few minutes they rounded a gnarled and twisted old oak and found the river to be snaking in a lazy curve about a shingle beach.   Golden light dappled through the thinning foliage, leaves rustled and the water splashed in a friendly sort of way. The two cats became much more confident.
“This looks a nice spot,” said Josie, “Fancy a sandwich?”

- ~ -

Splot.   A dollop of water arrived on the tablecloth.   Potkin was peering upwards for signs of rain when the splot happened again.   Josie looked round and there in the river was a something.   Potkin could see it too, well almost.   It looked roughly humanoid, probably female and was possibly naked, but he could not properly focus on her.   It was as if she was not really where he was looking or he was not looking where she really was; and some of her bits were transforming.   She had been idly flicking water at them with a large fishy tail, but now she seemed to have developed legs, much too long and ending in slender feet, her peroxide sheep-shag of hair was morphing, to fall, blue-black and straight beyond her shoulders, and her skin was shimmering with milky, rainbow colours.
“What are you?” asked Potkin.
“Where are you?” asked Josie.
“I’m a water nymph,” she explained, “and I’m - er - between dimensions.”
Josie was getting his worried look. One more phrase he didn’t understand and he would have a panic attack.
“What’s dimensions?” from Potkin.
“Hmm…. you know what happens when cats walks through walls?”
“I do know it’s quite difficult,” said Potkin, “you have to concentrate very hard as you approach the wall and then at the last minute think of nothing; and whoosh, you’re on the other side.”
“Last time I tried that,” Josie joined in, “I bumped my nose”
“As you pass through the wall you are momentarily interdimensional; well, that’s where I am.   My friends and I are looking in on your world, sort of visiting.”
“Why?" asked Josie, "And what do you get up to while you’re here?”
“We observe, meditate, read poetry, indulge in frequent, uninhibited sex, grant wishes and splash passers by.”
“Would you like to expand on the, er, sex bit?” asked Potkin.
”And the wish granting,” chipped in Josie, optimistically, “Can you do anything about these? I’ve been saving them since I was very young.”   He took two small and very shrivelled objects from a threadbare velvet pouch and placed them in her outstretched, delicately elongated hand.
“I do tricks, not work miracles,” she said, casually tossing them over her shoulder into the water.   A snail, floating by on its upturned shell, slurped up one of the diminutive nuggets with a gulp and continued down stream.
Josie looked a little disappointed and sighed.
Potkin quickly changed the subject, “We’re on an adventure but at the moment it's all a bit random.   We don’t have a purpose.”
"Serendipity governs all." she replied with authority, "Embrace the chaos.   Your journey already is the purpose, follow your noses and your quest will be revealed.”
Apparently content with her reply, she rotated slowly in a non-dimensional sort of way and slid out of this reality.   A pair of dark, purple-blue beautiful demoiselles dog-fought above the spot where she had disappeared.   Just for a moment the recently vacated stream seemed to hold to her shape and then seeped back into place.
“Can we have our sandwiches now?” asked Josie.
“And the pop too,” added Potkin, “That was all a bit exhausting.”
They ate quickly, packed away the tablecloth and leftovers and resumed their journey down stream.
“I suppose she was quite nice really,” Josie mused.
“But what was she on about?   Was she being helpful?” said Potkin.
Josie was still being thoughtful, “She never claimed to be helpful.”

A Very English Odyssey

...Best we move quickly on to a proper story.   This is a tale of Potkin, who you have met before, and Posie (or Josie) who was as old as Catmethuselah when I knew him, but is much younger in this adventure.   It's a sort of coming of age road story kind of thing. 

Josephine was a sandy, longhaired tabby; not long haired like an over designed pedigree, but practically, tastefully and elegantly longhaired.   There had been a misunderstanding in his early youth and in fact he preferred to be called Jo when he was out with his pals.   Most people called him Josie, which was alright he supposed.   He lived in an Edwardian cottage in a very civilised part of England; and life was good.
Today though, he was bored.   He had eaten all his food, cleaned thoroughly between his toes, sculpted his litter into fanciful landscapes and explored behind the sofa.   He decided to wake Potkin.
Potkin, a solid, black and white London longhair had come to their new home with Richard on the same day that he and Joy had moved in.   He and Potkin were still a bit wary of each other, but when it came to mischief Potkin was definitely the expert.
“I’m bored,” said Josie.   Potkin pricked an ear and opened one amber eye.
“It just so happens I’ve been planning an adventure.
“Pack for a long journey,” advised Potkin.
Josie carefully buttered sixteen slices of bread and then layered them generously with shrimp paste.   He doubled them over, stacked them neatly corner to corner and placed them in an airtight box.   Next he looked out several tins of tuna, but they seemed inconveniently heavy and were discarded.   This left space in his box so he made more sandwiches filled with the smoked mackerel remnants left over from Richard's breakfast.   He shared out some biscuit snacks and after a little thought spread the last of the paste on them.   From the fridge he took two small bottles of pop, he folded a tablecloth and looked out their boonie sun hats and wellingtons.   The load was divided equally between two small but capacious rucksacks.
“What now?” he asked.
Through the cat flap, left down the close, across the lane and down a gentle slope to the corner, here at the busy main road they were at the limit of their territory.   They waited patiently for a gap in the traffic, crossed carefully and headed down Nutshell Lane.   It was a pretty lane, winding lazily between flint and brick cottages and lined with wild flowers and trees.    The sun was shining, a light breeze rustled the leaves, the air was fresh with country smells and they were both feeling pretty good about their adventure.   Ahead of them the lane dipped down, then climbed, twisted to left, then right.   Insects buzzed around their heads and bird twitter filled the air.   Josie chatted excitedly at Potkin until a gaudy tan bird with a crested head and black and white striped wings barred their way.   It was ramming acorns into the gaps between the cobblestones.
“Are you watching my nuts?” demanded the bird.
“We rarely concern ourselves with items so small..." (There was a short pause.) "...and vegetarian,” replied Potkin as he stalked past.   Josie scampered to catch up.   The bird watched them pass with obvious annoyance; then disinterred his stash and moved it to somewhere less public.
Further down the lane they came to a chocolate box, flint built cottage, its frontage festooned with pink dog roses.   'Rose Cottage' proclaimed a carved sign hanging in the porch where a kindly and rotund old lady in a wrap round pinny was standing before the door.
“Would you two little kitties like some milk?” she asked, popping briefly indoors and emerging with a bowl and jug.   Josie was about to decline on account of milk making him excessively regular, but Potkin plunged head first into the bowl the instant it was put down.   Fearful of being left out, or appearing rude, Josie joined in.   As they drank they were petted and cooed over.
“Very nice,” Potkin thanked her as a last drip of milk ran to the end of a whisker and fell off.   “We’ll be sure to call again on our way back.”
They departed, tails high, the lane ascending yet again.   On rounding a bend they came to a weathered and rickety wooden gate.   The duo stopped to take in the view.   Ahead, unkempt fields and blue-green woods fell away from them, stretching across a wide, sun drenched valley to a hilly horizon way in the misty distance.
“Where have the houses gone?” asked Josie
“There aren’t any.”
“I’ve never been anywhere were there weren’t houses.   What is it for?”
“It’s country,” explained Potkin.

Dark Fluff in the Vacuum

"Richard!   There's something wrong with the vacuum, it won't suck up."   Joy's cry from the dining room was agitated and strident.
Boz was curled on the living room sofa with a ginger and cream, banded tail draped across his nose.   He raised one eyebrow and half opened one eye.   "Good, perhaps, now, we can get some peace around here."
Richard was surprised, he had not considered that fawning subservience was required of a hoover.   However, armed with a Phillips screwdriver, a wire coat hanger and eternal hope he readied himself for an attempt at a repair.   The yellow Hoover télios class 1500 lay in the middle of the dining room floor whining pathetically.   Richard unplugged it from the wall socket, spread out a used copy of the Fernton Bugle to receive the contents of the distressed appliance and then removed an access cover from the machine.   The stout brown paper bag within was bulging and stretched close to the point of losing structural integrity.   He detached the bag and emptied it over the newspaper.   There was a puther of normal dust which spread out to hang in cloudy layers across the room and then a dark mass flopped out over a full colour photograph of the town crier, in full regalia, and a short article about inappropriate dealings in respect of a lucrative but unpopular proposal for a town centre shopping mall.   The heap settled gently, its lumps and folds resembling black mashed potato and wire-wool, tar black rivulets and pools seeping into crannies, its boundaries blurred as if it was not quite in this world, its hyper-black core sucking in colour from its surroundings.   The dust cloud, slowly at first, gravitated back into the primal entity.
"What on earth is that?"   Joy was standing in the doorway holding a wrought iron toasting fork out defensively in front of her body.   Boz peeped from behind her skirts.
Richard could not take his eyes off the hypnotic murk.   The intense blackness seemed to draw in everything around it, filled his field of vision, tugged at his mind, his soul.
As Joy watched in horror, writhing black fingers of fluff reached out towards her husband.
"Get away from him, you bitch!"   She thrust her toasting fork into the mass.   The iron chilled in an instant and was tugged from her grasp.   She jerked back screaming as the weapon was drawn into the slowly pulsing form.

Richard watched as the blackness clouded over, blackly.   He was tumbling towards the blacker than black core.   Faint pin pricks of light began to appear and multiply, pastel clouds hung in the void, vast clouds of fluff; fluff within the universe and a universe within the fluff.   The clouds towered above him, the points of fuzzy light grew into swirling galaxies.   An immense tilted catherine wheel spiral rushed towards him, around him.   Ahead was a single, boiling honey-gold star.   Orbiting gas giants spun past, billowing elemental clouds and storms thousands of miles deep, magnetic fields crackling from pole to pole - and now he was falling towards a sphere of vapour cloaked rock.   He was through the cloud in a heart beat and into drizzle, giant rime-heavy wings slowing his descent.   Below, the bleak junction between pallid grey land and a heaving black sea; a web of gunmetal highways and charcoal grey rooftops; a canyon-like street, a bustling sidewalk.

He is inside the saloon bar of a dockside ale house.   The grey-brown linoleum is cracked and sticky, the anaglypta wallpaper shades of tobacco, upholstery faded and threadbare.   Faded and threadbare locals at black iron, marble topped tables, too heavy to throw, stare into their flat pints, thin light from shabby wall lamps struggles to penetrate the pall of cigarette smoke; fall-down-drunk sailors grope their tattooed escorts, slop beer, leer and cheer at the pole dancer.   Her death-white body writhes around the chrome shaft - bored, unsexy, mechanically caricaturing the procreative act on a low stage.
Richard, out of body Richard, is at the step-high dais, drinking in the body odours, her blue-white flesh containing his view, every purple thumb and tooth imprint, each livid indented bra and knicker-elastic scar sharply detailed.   The blanched belly envelopes him.   He is dissolving into the bland, self absorbed, all absorbing eternal feminine...

There is a clatter at the cat flap as Phoebles bounds in from the yard.   Tail high he prances and somersaults into the dining room, certain as ever of the overwhelming joy his presence will provoke.   And then he stops, puzzled.   No one has looked up, no one has moved.   The little group before him stares, motionless at a lumpy black mass of...
"So that's where you've been all this time."   Peering into the fluff mound he has seen something treasured.   He leaps into the middle of the outspread newspaper, dust and fluff flying in all directions.   There is a collective gasp.   Boz sneezes.
Phoebles emerges clutching the limp, grey, filthy form of his favourite one eared catnip mouse, more furless, featureless and tailless than ever.   The company, fast recovering its equilibrium, regards him and sighs.
"...What?"

At a quantum level Dark Fluff is constantly and spontaneously flicking in and out of existence.    These transients are known scientifically as Quirks.  To the observer of one small area of space such events are barely detectable, but at any one moment in time, across the entire vastness of our universe the net mass of all the fleeting and tiny flufflets is significant.   Very occasionally a number of coincident creation events will occur in close proximity and sufficient mass will accrue for gravity to come into play.   As the conglomerate grows fluff enters our Newtonian World and that is when the true mystery of Dark Fluff becomes apparent.

Me and Phoebles' Hols in Dorset

At the weekend me an' Phoebles went on a trip to Dorset an' we met a mermaid!   Honest!
She'd got feet and clothes and things 'cos they do when they are ashore.   Well a bloomin' great tail would'na be very practical on land, would it.   Anyway she an' her mermaid mates is running a B&B an' a mermaid shop full of mermaid pictures an' stuff.   That's a snap of us outside the shop, but there's no mermaid 'cos she's inside.   An' the shop is very old and haunted by dead smugglers an' things - it's real exciting!
Anyway I got this idea they could turn a bit of it into yet another catnip franchise an' sell me dad's Old Tar Catnip Plug an' cut it with seaweed.   But we've not suggested it yet 'cos mermaids can turn a bit funny.

All Hands to the Pumps

Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité

A postwar cabinet was planned to be held at the site where the first sparks of Armageddon had been struck, Angel Alley.   An upstairs room above the Freedom Press was procured and all interested parties were invited.
All the -ists were there, the various anarchist and communist sub sects and every shade of socialist, they all wore different hats and button-hole badges shaped like flags and all the flags were different and it did not matter, and no-one got upset.   They were also all noticeably subdued after what they perceived as their poor performance during the incident in Cable Street.   There were ships' cats and dock cats and ratters and The Kittens of Chaos and sailors and stevedores and tagareen men and thespians and jugglers and a man who pretended to be a statue and an ex- Lord Mayor of London called Dick.   Billy Bragg came along to provided the musical entertainment.
Larry spoke, "Around us today we have a traumatised, demoralised nation and it is up to us to step up and restore its spiritual health.   Limehousesailortown, the Land of Green Ginger, all the sailortowns in all the ports in all the world will be a beacon of hope.   Spreading their concepts of freedom, equality and co-operation to all.   The people will see that whenever they are not giving orders or taking orders they are like the sailors and cats and entertainers and crimps of sailortown.   You do not have to be told what to do or have rules about doing what you want when you want.   You work together tirelessly and unconsciously for a society where everyone in sailortown, resident or visitor, consumer or supplier can have the time of their lives.   And we outsiders can have it too, by embracing co-operation and liberty, minimizing constraints, nurturing the vulnerable, setting  happiness and fun on the highest of pedestals and nailing the wizened hearts and brains of the bullies to the doors of their banks and institutions.   Now, let's go out and spread the word.   A new day has dawned."
For the hydrophobic townspeople Sailortown had always been dangerous and scary and perhaps it still was, a little bit.   But winkles were spreading into the suburbs and no-one had the will to stop them.   Limehousesailortown did not change, of course, but the world about did - and people were constantly surprised and pleased and sometimes amazed.   People cooked or hammered or painted or brewed because that was what they enjoyed and were good at and there was always someone who needed a cook or a hammerer.   And if someone did not pull his weight no one minded, much; though they were often much too busy when he wanted something and he had to get used to being introduced as, "This is Tom/Dick/Harry, he's neither use nor ornament."
Larry kept on the policeman at the door of Number 10; the tourists liked him and he could live at Number 11 with his wife and children, which was handy for work.
Phoebles was made editor in chief of the independent, Limehousesailortown based broadsheet 'International Catnip Times' which, drifting away only minimally  from it's 1960's underground roots, promoted the etiquette and socio-political efficacy of catnip consumption -  and, less popularly, the music of the sitar.
Bozzy's catnip franchise spread out of dockland and into a grateful and receptive world at large.
Ginsbergbear won the Man Booker Prize for his writing, because all the other nominees let him.
Ferdy took the Dragon Rapide home to Surrey and gave aerobatic displays at country fairs.
Googleberry got his ice-cream.
And everyone could have lived happily ever after.   Except that the Merovingian Lizard Kings were still in their mountain stronghold, Les Chats Souterrains still occupied the tunnel system that honeycombs the earth's crust and Mr Fluffy still harboured a plan.

Revelations

Conquest 

Next morning the papers trumpeted the government's successes.   Hundreds, nay thousands, of arrests had been made and the courts put on special alert to take the vast number of arrestees.   The Loyalist marchers had liberated the docks, though the media did not dwell on the fact that they found the gates to the various docks lying open with the pickets gone and braziers cold - and the ships cats curled up asleep aboard their respective vessels.   

The PM arrived at Lime Grove Studios to deliver his victory speech live to the nation.   He had elected to sit at a heavy oak desk, solid and reliable.   What he got was cobbled together from chipboard and lengths of 4x2, but it looked impressive on camera.   Behind him union flags, quite a lot of union flags, flanked a gilt framed portrait of the sainted Lady Thatcher in sky blue twinset, displaying a winning smile and clutching the legendary handbag.   He had on the dress uniform of a Major-General in the Grenadier Guards with slightly too many medal ribbons - to signify the conquest of the rebellious East End, victory over subversive socialism.   Mr Fluffy sat on his lap, purring and receiving an occasional limp wristed stroke to the head.  

He had read through his speech on the Autocue and supervised the correction of a couple of typographical errors, but would never be comfortable with the mechanics of seeing the words scrolling upwards in front of him.   Make-up had given him a last primp and powdered Mr Fluffy's nose, the cat had sneezed a smallish glob of nasal fluid onto the PM's trousers.   The floor manager was standing next to the camera, counting down with his fingers... 3 - 2 - 1.   

A  red light comes on above the Autocue and the Prime Minister begins to read.

"Yesterday saw a...

Total victory for strong governance;

Triumph for patriotic zeal;

Vindication of righteous indignation,

Forged in the white heat of battle;

Glorious manifestation of the Big Society at work..."

TV crews waited outside the courts for the arrival of the van loads of criminal anarchists... all morning.   No-one came.

It was lunchtime when the first information appeared on Twitter and the first images of arrested anarchists in ski masks flashing their warrant cards and being released were aired on Youtube.   It transpired that all those arrested had been working undercover as agents provocateurs for one agency or another - with the exception of the three Kronstadt sailors, all of whom claimed diplomatic immunity and were escorted to an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-114 flying out of RAF Northolt for a free trip home and a hero's welcome.  

War 

Ferdy was a long time in the tiny yellow inflatable life raft, paddling furiously for the shore.   Not that it was far, but a breeze was blowing his little boat all over the dock, his plastic paddle was swivelly and badly designed and mostly he was downhearted about his best present ever just sinking like that.   He'd watched the bubbles where it went down, rising and popping, for quite a while.   Then he got cold and decided to be philosophical about the whole day.   Once ashore he managed to catch an omnibus that was not only going onto the Isle of Dogs, but all the way down to Island Gardens.   In fact he alighted at the North Pole... Really.   It is a common alehouse on the corner of Manilla Street.   From here he crossed Millwall Dock at Pepper Street and then struck out cross country.   There was little indication of the fog that was bedevilling the East End and as he approached Mud Chute Farm Ferdy could see the Dragon Rapide, a magnificent scarlet Dragon Rapide, sitting at the end of a rough, grass airstrip. 

The pilot was tinkering with one of the two Gypsy Queen inline engines, but as soon as she spotted Ferdy's flying helmet and goggles she waved and rushed towards him.   She wiped some of the oil off her palm and onto her boiler suit and shook his right wing stub, vigourously.

"Beryl, Beryl Clutterbuck.   And you, I am sure, are Mr Ferdinand Desai."   Beryl was a tall and imposing presence, but Ferdy could not take his eyes of the little red Dragon Rapide.

"Come and have a good look over her.   She's an ex-millitary DH89A Dominie.   Those Gypsy engines produce 200 horse power each and she can fly at 157 miles an hour, on a good day.   I've got a thermos flask of lapsang souchong and a packet of Duchy Originals ginger biscuits in the cockpit.   Do you like ginger biscuits?"

Ferdy wondered if he had died in the crash and gone to dodo heaven. 

Near to the aircraft was a canvas ridge tent with a pair of Lloyd Loom chairs ourside, one pink and the other painted blue.   There was also an ambitious Dutch dove cote on a pole, with a brass bell hanging beneath it.

"It's the communications centre," explained Beryl, "The pigeons are for long range messaging and the bell is to scramble the air crew - that's you and me.   We'll wizz up to The Gun for supper," she was ushering him into a shiny black Morgan V-Twin Super Sport as she chattered.   The little three wheeler shot off towards the inn, situated close by the Poplar dock and West India lock gates, famed as a venue for one or two of Nelson's trysts with young Emma.   Ferdy found the journey to be exhilarating, a bit like flying, but with your bum only twelve inches off the deck.  

Much later they returned to the tent and settled down for the night.   Soon after dawn Ferdy was woken by the brass alarm bell and the smell of cooking.   The breakfast fry-ups were magnificent, rustled up on a primus and washed down by billy-can tea.   But soon it was time for their mission.   Ms Clutterbuck settled herself in the pilot's seat.   In the back with Ferdy were bundles of pamphlets tied up with binding twine.   With a roar and a whirr the Dominie bumped and bounded along the makeshift runway, lifted lightly into the air and headed for West London.   Once in the air Beryl started to laugh, a light hearted tinkling laugh that persisted almost all the time she was airborne.   She had the side windows open and her long blonde hair writhed in the draught.   Once off the ground she was a goddess. 

"We'll start over Hyde Park and the festival and then spiral outwards, make sure we cover as much territory as possible.   Ferdy, you open up the bundles and begin shoving the pamphlets out as soon as were in place."   The young  bird unhinged the cabin door and placed it carefully to one side, then he cut through the twine on the first bundle with the larger of the two blades on his Victorinox Explorer.   As soon as he saw the big wheel and the Steam Fair below he started scattering the flyers.   "Haha, fliers eh?" he shouted to the pilot.

These were not Slasher McGoogs' usual rants.   These were factual and detailed.   The first few bundles revealed the contents of Mr Fluffy's archive, information on the misdeads and indiscretions of the rich, the famous, politicians, law enforcement chiefs and judges.   Anyone who might one day be persuaded to do him a favour, or be suseptible to blackmail or intimmidation.   Next came the photographs - telephoto images of peccadilloes and parties, liaisons, meetings and luxury holidays at exotic resorts, politicians, policemen, spies, media oligarchs, bikini clad Chattes Souterraines, flaumige kätzchen.   Then there were bank statements, payments made and received, false and exaggerated claims, frauds and embezzlements.   Finally the e-mails, so many e-mails - threats and cajolings, cover-ups and conspiracies, self seeking fawnings, advancements, promises and threats.     

Nor were civil servants exempt, nor bank managers, local councillors, traffic wardens, nor swimming pool attendants, anyone who's lust for power had compromised his integrity, smothered any vestige of compassion; all were named and shamed.   There was Mr Fluffy himself - the fantasies and lies, the threats and bribes, and his dealings with Les Chats Souterrains, so tied in with their machinations that he was no more in control of his destiny than any of his victims.   And... evidence against Slasher McGoogs, the catnip scam and so much more; was this his final joke?

At the bottom of each page was the web address where every revelation could be reread, cross referenced, provenances were detailed, sources revealed; all available on line with a link on Facebook.

As the last leaves fluttered down Ferdy fell back, physically exhausted, but also stunned by what he had read.   Was there not one honest man, good and true, anywhere in this blighted world?

Famine 

Whilst gestating the culmination of his machinations the Grey Pimpernel had absorbed William Morris' more radical tracts avidly and with careful attention - When preplanning the revolution, he had read, look first to the needs of the people.   There will be no support if your actions result in famine and deprivation.   Well before contemplating the inauguration of strife, plan for the peace.

In the blackest streets  of Bethnal Green, Poplar, Whitechapel, Canning Town, soup kitchens sprang up - veggie soup, vegan soup, carnivore soup - every conceivable flavour for those who love soup.   And there was crusty bread.   The fish fags and tagareen wives and pleasure kittens had been baking all night and day, every variety of bread that multicultural, multinational sailortown could devise.   It fell biblically from the heavens.   Their aerial propaganda mission done, Ferdy and Beryl took it in turns to pilot the scarlet Dominie over London's East End, laden with bakery produce, tied to little parachutes with string.

For those who craved more than soup and cobs, Brick Lane became a street market of curry stalls and the rival baigel shops threw open their doors.   In Salmon Lane  trestles down the length of the street were laden with decorative bowls of sweet and sour pork, skewered chicken satay, sticky rice, Singapore noodles.   Kelly's Eel and Pie shop in Bow had extra tables, borrowed from neighbouring households, out on the pavement.   M. Bloom (Kosher) and Son Ltd set up a take away stall next to Aldgate station giving out salt beef sandwiches with kosher mustard.   And all over town humble British chippies were frying flat out to keep up with demand.

Absolutely not prearranged was the arrival of a Frisbee shaped aircraft in Victoria Park, the occupants of which set up a marquee advertising Vegan food.   The resulting riot led to the visitors' hasty departure.   It would appear that they eat some very strange things on the planet Vega.

In time Co-operative stores sprang up, general stores, clothing stores, chandlers, butchers and grocers, owned and run by the people, for the people.   Local neighbourhood Co-operative banks became established to oversee a system of IOU chits received for labour and favours which slowly evolved as cash became worthless and mutual aid and support grew to be the norm.   The lending libraries were reopened.

Death

Thus began the slow death of the establishment.   As the only person left in No10 not compromised, hiding, or attempting to flee the country disguised as a washer woman, Larry took charge.

The City, refusing all attempts at reassurance or consolation, collapsed, imploded and disappeared from the socio-political scene.   The pallid, grey streets of the square mile were deserted and silent, traffic lights cycling through their colours without an audience, the regular stomp of the City of London bobby, the only sound.   The only activity, the fluttering of pigeons evading the stooping kestrel.
An Extended Royal family departed from St James' Park in two customised X Class Super-Zeppelins, almost 700 feet of raw airpower bound for Canada and accompanied by a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III laden with a Roles-Royce Silver Ghost 40/50, two 4887cc Silver Wraiths, a Toyota Land Cruiser, an Austin Mini Moke and an extensive collection of hat boxes and suit cases filled to bursting with fine jewellery and state regalia.   They were closely followed by the entire Cabinet and Mr Fluffy in a commandeered Douglas DC3 Dakota.

Les Chats Souterrains melted back into their tunnels after first pillaging 430 Kings Road for its punk and leather gear.

A 40W bare bulb hangs above the oilcloth-covered table.

Phoebles is rolling catnip spliffs, deftly, with one paw and depositing them in an old bacci tin.

Ferdy waits for a kettle to boil, a  pot of Russian Caravan tea ready to receive the water.   He has piled a large number of ginger biscuits precariously onto a plate

Ginsbergbear is composing an epic poem about their latest adventure and desperately trying to rhyme 'Tory Prime Minister' with a synonym for 'Capitalist Running Cur'.

Boz is slobbing in a worn and scuffed leather armchair, tufts of horse-hair poking through tears in the cushion.   He has been reading Fields and Factories, flicking through the tedious sections and seeing if it will fall open at the racier bits.

The end credits for Apocalypse Now run through on the old black and white telly, forests burn, music clangs.

Consuella Starcluster comes to the door

“There’s a phone call.   Who’s gonna take it?”

Boz clambers out from the belly of his armchair and goes down to the pay-phone on the lower landing.

“Hello.   It’s Strawberry.   Googleberry’s back.   Says he got locked in someone’s shed.  He has a bit of a limp, but otherwise he’s fine.   Working his way through his third portion of smoked salmon and some funny fish egg things he had in a tin.” 

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.