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Uhh... Hi. This is Branwen. Vodbog and Bruce are both unavailable for this post, so they uh, requested that I do it. In a very persistant manner. Luckily, I was prepared, and had the time to ask them their views on a random topic:

Particle Physics


V:
"Scientists say that you can't see the quantum particles, such as muons and pions, but I see them all around me: Branwen's mother has raveons and rantons pop in regularly, while fartons seem to be passing through her father on a regular basis, and her brothers contain high quantities of pissons so far as the toilet seats are concerned, and pissoffs whenever she is around. Little Dan even has a few wantons and whineons, but they're not rare in her family...Like most families, there are never shortages of cryons, laughons, funons, and borons. There are plenty of crayons lying around from when they were really young, when there never seemed to be any sleepons. Even now, theshowmustgoons keep her parents up all night. Bruce is full of carryons that nerver leave his side, while Branwen is brimming with dreamons.
It's not just them, though: Whenever I meet new people, I find Tallons, shortons, fatons, thinons as well as oldons, youngons, and even some wearagreencoatdoesthisons. I don't think the scientists know what they're talking about, because I'm pretty sure anyone can see those-ons..."

B:
"Pfft, are humans still going on about those things? I've surpassed that level of thinking entirely."

Thanks for reading, and sorry about the long absence. You'd think we had a lot to talk about, but nothing really happens when you live away from everything that exists...

Housework and Poetry

Now, no one can say that the kind Sir ever asks for much. The odd thing here and there to keep him entertained, out of people's hair and off their backs, but there is only one thing that he might be a little fussy about, and that is housework. He doesn't do it himself, of course. He is Sir Bruce, Lord of Black Holes [ltd.] and destroyer of all things marginally okay. He couldn't possibly do housework. He spend his time doing much more important things, such as stealing candy from babies [which, may he add, is very easy to do when he has thousands of black holes at his disposal. Side-effects include also stealing the baby and half of the playpark], keeping away from french old women, and destroying all things marginally okay. However, he does know the importance of hiegene and a clean workspace, so he took the liberty of making sure that Vodbog keeps everything nice and tidy. Well, Vodbog tries to keep everything nice and tidy, but is, unfortunatley, not very good at it...

So bad, in fact, that they inspired the Sir to write a poem about their attempt to do the dishes. Would you like to hear it? Of course you would.



It was a bad move to make you the cleaner:
You can't even do your bit.
The mugs all smell of playdough,
and the plates are covered in manure.



It is the best poem he has ever written, and he thinks it is because it was inspired by a true story, based on the truth. But then again, he doubts that some of the most famous and well known poets ever wrote the truth about feelings they felt and things they saw. Blake, Brooks, Byron, Poe... No, wait. Edgar's were mostly true, if a little exhaggerated. The Sir was never that good with an axe...

The Sir is so preoccupied with cleanliness in the house that whenever he reads about cool breezes of spring whispering over a glittering lake of blue, he thinks of fabreeze on his curtains, and whenever he reads of dainty little creatures with butterfly wings dancing through a magical if little overgrown forest, he is reminded of that time he accidentally sprayed fairy power spray on his armpits.

What are opposites?

Like every other year for the past year, Sir Bruce went to Fishguard to celebrate the coming of 2009. Of all the places he could have gone, it was this small, almost pitiful place he was forced to spend the precious second that took one year to the next very conspicuously in. One of the most noticed and well used seconds of all time, it seems, except for the one where you wake up from a dream and realise with relief that you didn't really go to work with no trousers or underwear on and dance on your desk in the staff meeting. Or the one almost straight after it when you see the pictures posted through your mailbox that prove that you did go to work with no trousers or pants and dance on your desk in the staff meeting, after all.

But the second doesn't really want to be heeded. He means, if the second wanted all that much to be noticed, people would actually feel something as the second passes the time from one year to the next like the baton of a never-ending relay race. [Excepting the protests of their stomachs as they attempt the impossible by processing the less-than-third-rate curry and home-brew alcohol mix.] And so the Sir has worked out, with his tremendous intelligence [and imagination] that the second only got the responsibility of New Year through winning the lottery of time, and it doesn't want anyone to notice that it has none of the necessary skills or qualifications to undertake such a task, so it tries to pass by inconspicuously. Unfortunately for it, it is very bad at this, so it's getting more attention than any other second with it's job ever before. It only continues with the job because the pay is high, and his mother, the first hour of June 12th, is very proud of him.

Due to the second being so terribly bad at going by without anyone knowing, the fireworks are much more extravagant than they used to be. The people flock to the big-city displays like mosquitoes to a MoziTrap Lantern. They hover in droves and hordes, waiting in the freezing cold outside for the sky to burst into life with coloured fire. For every hour they spend queueing and generally standing around with nothing to do but blow the cold from their stiff hands, they are given two minutes of wondering at the spectacle above them. So if they spend five hours waiting, they get to watch ten minutes of a wonderful winter skyfire extravaganza, then later in the morning, when they have gone to bed and woken again, all they have to show for it is a hang over and a neck ache.

Which is one of the reasons Vodbog dragged Sir Bruce to a smaller show, where they could be there for five minutes to watch the fireworks, then go home and be warm. It can't be said that it was amazing, or brilliant, or beautiful, but it was alright. It wasn't as exciting as ones he had been to before had been - no houses were blown apart by a misguided rocket, and none of the audience had hot, yet to explode gunpowder inserted into their eyes as they gazed up at twelve o' clock.

What got the old cogs going in the mind of a brilliant genius like the Sir himself was something so simple, it would have been overlooked by anyone else thinking of writing of the New Year. [Proof of them having inferior minds, of course] In fact, it had very little to do with the event at all. The Sir had happened to see a program on the television that showed many clips of celebrations of the New Year. Showing random displays one after another, they flicked straight from the blinding marvel of Sydney in Australia to what was flat lifeless show in comparison, set off in Cardiff - as if to scrutinize the very best effort the lazy south of Wales could summon up for the yearly event. It was said by the over-voice that the two shows were as different as light and dark, but they were both simply composed of lights in the sky after someone famous pressing a big red button.

This got Sir Bruce thinking. Light and dark are opposites, like wool and polyester, or chalk and cheese, and the meaning of the word 'Opposite' is 'Altogether Different'. But he doesn't see all that much difference between these things. Light and Dark, for example, are both shades of the same thing. Wool and Polyester are both used to make clothes, and chalk and cheese both begin with 'ch'. Dark and cheese would be more accurate, because cheese is made of matter, and dark is not. Cheese can be consumed, and dark cannot. They are true opposites. Ah, but wait - dark can be consumed by light, so they're not completely different. Light and chalk, then... No, they both have five letters! Wool and cheese. They aren't either, because if you covered someones eyes in either cheese or wool, they wouldn't be able to see. Finding true opposites is harder than he'd first thought. It's hard, even for a genius like him.
Since he, the most knowledgeable and wise being in [or out] of existence, could not find any, he has come to the conclusion that there are no opposites. Everything has some sort of likeness to everything else.

Vodbog: Pens

I walk into the room, a smug look glued onto my face. I have just come from 'looking after' Sir Bruce, who is still recovering from the... incident. I turn on the computer, and start typing.

"I went into an art shop the other day, to buy a new fountain pen and some ink cartridges. The shop itself was a little shabby, I thought, but that's just me because I normally shop at that place just down the road from Death's place, next to the postbox of decaying tissue. Unfortunately, there was an incident to do with some tentacles, an inflatable chair, and a pair of Gucci shoes, which left the shop owner a little reluctant to let me in... But no matter, I thought to myself at the time, surely these normal people have no use for pens, so they will be quite cheap. This was half true, because I knew that the Sir had bought a pack of 50 biros from a convenience store for a pound only the week before. Well, tried to buy. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite grasped the whole thing about 'currency', and he'd just finished reading Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice'. The manager fainted when he dumped a pound of human flesh onto the counter with a knowing smile. I got him out of there so fast, the wheels on his chair left burning trails on the concrete floor.

I'm sure I'd still be allowed in, but no matter how cheap the pens are there, I prefer to buy my supplies from proper places, where they have proper stock. Anyway, I walked in to this shop, saw the discount price tag, and walked right back out. £200?! For a pen? I mean, what's the big difference between those and the ones Sir attempted to get?"

I lean back in the hot pink leopard print swivel chair I bought earlier - As long as he can't argue, I'm going to take advantage of Sir Bruce's condition as much as possible. And his wallet. She thinks for a while, then starts typing once more.

"Colour. The pens in the shop which cost so much were all coloured [or silver]. Not like the little grey ones at the convenience store. There were pink and green stripy ones, blue ones with red circles on them, and purple ones with rings of black. All patterned and coloured.... This has given me an idea, so I will have to take my leave to go to a... different convenience store to get some pens and coloured markers. *pause* Make that felt pens. They're cheaper."

Vodbog: Old Ladies

I sneak into the computer room, hiding under the invisibility cloak I ‘borrowed’ from Harry Potter. The computer is already on, so I brush the pins off the cushioned seat, and sit down. I quickly switch the keyboard with one of my own, and start typing.

“Currently being on my holiday in Brittany, I have come to see that old ladies in Britain are very, very different from old ladies in France. For one thing, I’m not at all scared of the little pensioners who fall about in the care homes in Britain, sucking their dentures back into place every five minutes or so. I’ve always joked about them having bricks in their handbags, along with their sticky toffees, but over here they carry anvils!

Everyone thinks that old people in general are annoying to have on your roads, if not dangerous. We all complain about how they trundle along the outer lanes of the M4, shitting their pants at 12mph, causing several crashes a year because everyone wants to kill them for blocking up the road when they really need the loo - but seriously, you don’t know how safe you are around them until you’ve driven along some dark country lanes in France, being very much aware that a ninety seven year old woman with a sour face and a Ford Focus is trying her best to make sure you pay for keeping her down to 180km/h, by ramming the bumper of her car right up your arse. And she’s cackling. There is no French phrase for Personal Space.

I’ve always thought it nice that they say to everyone not native to France to have a ‘Bonne Voyage’. I used to enjoy the knowledge that the old women aren’t that bad, even if they drive like cows on steroids - although I’ve always wondered why they say it even to the people who have moved in permanently for their retirement.
No more. I’ve worked it out, and I don’t like the answer. They’re telling us to have a good journey, because where we’re going, there will be no more good times. All foreigners, whether they know it or not, whether they have been good Christians or have been going to scouts since the day they were three, are on their way to hell.

I’ve been scared half way there already. I spent most of yesterday hiding in the boot of a car, terrified beyond the common use of the word. I was just wondering innocently down the street, when I saw in the distance, a small shape that looked to me like fury in human form. I gave a panicked look around, trying to find a place to hide. Had it seen me? It was just me and the kind Sir. At first, I hid behind him, but as the old woman neared, he stopped laughing at me, and we both searched desperately for the nearest object that could withstand her hot stare. There wasn’t one, so we had to make do with the boot of a Citroën AX. It was tiny, but we managed to get in when Sir sucked all of the groceries into the black hole he’d taken to carrying around in his pocket since that incident with the horse and the ten foot pole.

What happened next was one of the most petrifying things I’ve ever had to go through - and that’s saying something, because I’ve been sat on by a pig with rabies. The woman stopped right outside the back of the car, and had a little chat with another from her coven, while Bruce and I quietly wetted ourselves. Finally, the talk came to an end, and the second old lady stalked off to find some new prey. Meanwhile, the first one walked up to the driver’s door of the AX and got inside! I cried. She drove all the way to Cannes before stopping. Over the two hours it took to get there from Pontivy, the piss got company many times as she slammed on the breaks whenever she was stopped by a police man. Strangely, she never had to show the men her licence, let alone get fined. They’d come up to the car, see who it was in the driving seat, then run away screaming that they were going to have a nice holiday somewhere very far away. Like Barbados. Or the North Pole. Or maybe even the afterlife.

Eventually, we got there and she stopped the car. I almost laughed with relief, but then she began to walk, excruciatingly slowly towards the boot. Oh god, I thought, she’s come to get the groceries! As soon as she opened the boot, Bruce and I were away almost as quickly as she had driven to get there! The policemen might like some companions, we reasoned. We half expected a click of her fingers to crush every bone in our bodies while turning us inside out and simultaneously burning our eyeballs to crisps inside our heads. But that didn’t happen, thank Bruce Almighty. She gave us a look that could have melted a six by six metre block of tank armour in less than five seconds as we sped away, then a loud pop brought her shopping back from beyond and she took it inside, mumbling about black candles and cinnamon sticks.

There is no doubt in my mind that Granny Weatherwax was French. None at all.”

I hear an echo of the squealing breaks in my mind, and quickly pack up my things and leave the room. It didn’t have enough exits to be safe, and the walls were only fourteen inches thick. After what happened to the Sir [Hit and run incident. No one knows who it was, but he swears it was a Citroën] , I’d rather not be in a place where the walls will hurt so much when they melt.

Vodbog Replaces...

Vodbog walks steadily and coolly into the room, trips, corrects herself, then continues towards the computer. With a grin that could shave off an iron skin, she starts typing.

"Sorry to be the one to continue, but Sir Bruce has been called to an important meeting with the four riders of the apocalypse. Due to unfortunate circumstances that, I stress, have absolutely nothing to do with the kind Sir, the four apocalyptic horses have been cruelly slain. The only clues left behind are the deep gashes along their bodies, and some traces of compressed carbon. The police are still investigating cause of death.
It is indeed a terrible and foul time in which we live, when Death, Famine, War, and Pestilence must ride out to the stars on three cows and a wheel-chair with fire extinguishers attached."

She glances over her shoulder at the giant clock Sir Bruce was 'borrowing' from his old class-mate, Big Ben. She guesses she might have about ten or fifteen minutes left. Shame Sir forgot to go back for the hands... She turns back to the computer, and her hands dance over the keyboard like trolls on a bouncy castle.

"Ah yes. Exams. It is extremely important to revise for exams, for you will not do well if you fail to memorize everything on the answer sheet given to you.
As the teachers stride between the rows of innocent children, like cats in a meat-pie factory, glaring and hissing, the call out things like "Could Histories please stop trying trying to copy one another", and "Could the English put in the effort to refrain from talking - the Welsh are trying to work." Well, they do say 'You are what you take', which can sometimes get quite complicated - I take Welsh, English, French, and sometimes Latin, when I'm in the mood."

Blogging

Sir Bruce leans into the camera lens, sqinting in an effort to see who is watching him on the other side. No use. He breathes on the glass, then licks it, before looking back inside. Still nothing but a little red dot. They were watching him, and he couldn't watch them back. Tch - cameras. They were all the same, unless he was the one taking the pictures. Oh yes, he likes taking pictures. Of people, of nature, urban nightscenes... You name it, and he likes taking pictures of it. For those who are sick of the mind, that serves a deeper meaning, but he doesn't like to go into too much detail about it... In public.

And talking of pictures, it has come to his attention that Rhys of Festering Times has stolen some pictures from his gallery, without his knowledge or permission. Punishment has duly been served, but such a crime deserves more than just a noogie. Sir Bruce shall take revenge.

It has also dawned on Sir, after much reading of other people's blogs, that people talk about things that have happenned to them during their day. However, since Sir lives outside time and space, nothing really goes on around him, let alone to him. He has decided to actually listen to Vodbog complain about her day, and write about that, since he has nothing better to do. Besides cause nuclear wars and stop new medicines from being made and tested. Oh, and eat toffee waffles...

Today, Vodbog had exams. And that's when Sir, after a gruelling 3 seconds of listening, gave up.