Lord Shuteye Bleats
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Shuteye bleats 2
Chapter Two.
Dullards to a man jack, their surly countenances and shambling January gaits remind one of nothing so much as a troop of deluded apes, metaphorically clubbed insensible by the hollow pledge of a mendacious zoo keeper, who promised ripe passion fruit and delivered uncooked swede.
Bloated from their Saturnalian gorgings; sickly from unaccustomed crème de menthes, and nauseated by the extended proximity of loathed relatives, the shuffling proles and prissy bourgeois alike whinge and mutter their way into the cleansing blast of January like so many despondent brats on the first day of school.
One cannot help chuckling to see them all, once more duped by Time's remorseless machinations.
Well, not us, dear reader – not at the 18th Century Club. For us, I tell you, January is grand.
The Northern hemisphere, clamped in the vice of night? The short days, pale as shrouds, with a wan sun dribbling feebly, behind winds that could scythe through the flanks of a walrus?
Why, that's exactly the sort of thing you need going on outside, in order to better appreciate the sumptuous luxury of your surroundings inside. Cosily situated in the turreted magnificence of one's country residence, or indeed within the elegantly appointed chambers of the town house, one is afforded countless opportunities for loafing and loitering at leisure as, beyond the leaded windows, the sleet cascades into the faces of the unenlightened.
Might I recommend that as you recline in your armchair, rolling a fine cigar between fore-finger and thumb, that you picture them out there on some soulless high street, queuing for the January sales, their glazed eyes fixed on billboards with the unquestioning acceptance of veal, staring at the sides of their crates.
I guarantee, it won't spoil your enjoyment one jot!
Still, in order to fully appreciate a fireside and a cognac, it's always a good idea to give oneself a bit of a chill first off, do you see? In order to have something to eradicate.
Indeed, it was for that very reason that I recently determined to take a trip along the local canal to one of the humble waterside taverns, sink a few ales amongst the rustics and be back in time for tiffin.
Well, to fillet a long story to it's kidneys, I'd just berthed me yacht, The Demeter, to the quay that runs alongside the Hog and Spear, when I noticed a second vessel, as sleek and sea-worthy as my own, tied up alongside. Unlikely enough, you'll concur, yet what was even more striking was that this most marvellous sloop was flying not just the gonfalon of a vice admiral of the red, but also a peculiar standard I recognised at once as the city arms of Barcelona! My interest piqued, I naturally strode up to take a closer look, and was rewarded immediately when I perceived the name inscribed upon the bow -The Pequod. Ah! Then there could be no question! I advanced to the poop and flung the hatch asunder.
"Shuteye, you scurvy cut-throat dog, welcome aboard!" Cries Earl Foulmouth, for it was indeed he," I wondered when you'd drag your land lubbing carcass to the docks, you Goddamnable son of a bosun's trollop!"
"Blast me for a keel-hauled powder monkey" I rejoined most heartily "what in the name of Trafalgar are you doing here? I thought you was in the Iberians?"
"Sink me, but I were, and now I ain't, do you see? And what's more, I ain't alone - Hola!" yells the noble fellow, and smartly whipping aside a curtain of fine Spanish lace, he revealed to my delighted and astonished eyes, his companions: the majestic figure of Baron Iron Face himself, decked in full regimentals as bandsman captain of marines, and beside him none other than my very own Lady the Imp, in the most fetching cabin boy's outfit that ever graced a quarter deck.
"Strike up!" cries Foulmouth, and Iron Face produces his trombone from atop a nearby chest, and blasts out a hornpipe fit to turn the tide, whilst The Imp danced a merry jig and sang a swaggering shanty of the seven savage seas.
Then we broke out the grog and got horribly, horribly drunk.
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Chapter One.
What Ho, dear and most fortunate reader, and welcome to Lord Shuteye Bleats, an occasional column immaculately penned by yours truly, affording one the opportunity to rail ineffectually against the iniquities of modern life.
Allow me to elucidate.
In recent weeks, against my better judgement whilst bed-bound with the dropsy, I have on occasion been tempted to peruse the spewings of Grub Street in the form of that most bourgeois set of pamphlets, collectively referred to as "the Sunday papers".
Allegedly one of the delights of incapacitation, I initially rather relished the prospect of casting my peepers over the week's events in digest form, dipping in at my leisure over the kedgeree and morning brandy. Yet, time and again, whilst sifting through reams of tedious smugdom in the giblet-slick leaves of the glossy sections, I found my blood on the point of simmering over.
Who are these buffoons? Chelping away about organic parsnips and crème fresh, and "this season's must have", and the fluctuating values of their vulgar little properties, and which schools are "just right" for their snivelling progeny? I can see them now in the eye of my most splendidly cultivated brain, dropping little Oscar off at nursery with his lunch box crammed with vine-ripened tomatoes and a broccoli comfit (which the whining wretch will doubtless trade in at the tuck shop for a sticky bun and a sausage butty, if he's got half the nous they credit him with) before speeding off at 50 through a residential area in an improbably vast automobile, poisoning the very air their little darling breathes ("Oh yes, he's only three, but he's got a reading age of 26" ) feeling frightfully inclusive and multi-cultural because they don't own slaves, before pulling up behind the rest of their vile ilk in a service station forecourt, where morose teams of economic migrants working for a pittance will despondently soap down their monstrous vehicles. In short, the 21st Century equivalent of the shoe-shine stand.
Well, you get the general idea.
Naturally I deduced at once that I could do a better job myself - no, not of washing cars, you impertinent pup, but of fingering the fragile pulse of the times and committing my findings to paper.
This then, is Lord Shuteye Bleats, and bleat I bally well shall, ‘till me face is as blue as the snout on a mandrill.
Onward!
(Lord Shuteye will be delighted to respond to any enquiries - providing he is sufficiently sober- in particular those of a sensitive or intimate nature from, or appertaining to, the ladies.
Kindly direct all correspondence to the usual address: dispatches@damnyoureyes.co.uk, and jolly good luck to you all)