Listing to Port

Thnorbs, teleporter kidney, style tuberculosis, space breath, brain flinders, clone-donor mismatch, London virus, Jebediah’s buttock, miniraptor bite, shrinking word syndrome, virtual herpes, mimetic fixation, VR rattle syndrome, cybersex knee, juve boils, the jurragees, duplicate spleen.

1. There was once a fishwife’s daughter who ran away to sea to lean metalsmithing (why it needed to be at sea is anyone’s guess). In her seafaring days, she sailed over at least three of the lost enchanted oceans and made a number of magical swords to use in exploring the sort of shipwrecks one finds there. On her forty-fifth birthday she was forced to return to land by the sudden eruption of a salt allergy. She determined to enter the third magical sword (which was the least rusty of the bunch) into the royal sword contest. But, on arriving at the contest, she found that entrants were required by law to be members of the King’s Brotherhood of Swordsmiths; an organisation which she was ineligible for election to in several ways. In a fit of temper, she threw the third sword into a thicket and stomped off home to start a carpentry business (which, alas, she was terrible at).

2. There was a youngest son who was just passing by on his way to find his fortune. Since he was still rather lacking in fortune he had been thrown out of the stables at the back of the nearest inn and ended up spending the night in a very uncomfortable thicket. In the morning, he found that many of his troubles had been caused by lying on the flat of a rather unusual-looking sword. He took up the weapon and was fortunate enough to blunder into a pack of dragons on a working brunch. Arriving at the city with seven dragon tails and a red and buzzing sword, he was soon adopted as the King’s champion. He spent a number of fruitful years amassing lost hoards, making babies, and trying to persuade the sword not to eat his friends (it had, alas, got a taste for blood after all those dragons). Stories of his fame spread far and wide.  

3. There was a thin blue dragon who had survived the massacre; he did so by hiding in a tree. In fact, he was so terrified that he stayed in the tree for fifteen years, living on squirrels and sunlight and rain and occasionally drenching the rabbit warren below with lukewarm dragon piss. After fifteen years, the tree had grown round the dragon and he could no longer leave. He found this somewhat bothersome, as did the rabbits. Now, blue dragons can sometimes worm their way between worlds, if given enough time to find the weak spots in the space-time continuum; and this dragon set to chipping out a window into a world that did not have a tree in that place. If took him another fifteen years, but finally the window was large enough for him to slither through. However, by this time the rabbits had banded together and found a champion of their own, who had set up camp on a tree branch and had been nibbling at the dragon’s neck scales for a few weeks. On the evening the dragon was due to wriggle free, the rabbit champion at last prised a scale loose and put a sharpened stick thorough the dragon’s jugular.

4. There was a teenage girl who lived nearby, and who was shunned by many of the villagers for her mildly eccentric views. One day, whilst out walking, she found a tree that was surrounded by the most amazing blue flowers. And then to look up, and see the tree crowned with fantastical bones! There was nothing to do but climb it. And if she came down from the tree into a different world from the one she went up from, well: there was nothing very much to miss in the first world anyway. And how well it had equipped her to live in the second world! For all their myriad fantastical quantities, the inhabitants of the second world were a little silly, and curiously easily won over with a small amount of basic science and occasional acts of compassion. Soon she found herself saving the king of the second world, who was in disguise following a republican coup led by some cranky goblins.

5. The goblins were most put out to realise that the king was not dead after all, and did not put up much of a fight. When it became clear that the forces of light were about to triumph, they called together all their elven servants and set them free with directions for the safest way to leave the kingdom and individual bags of golden fixtures and fittings from the palace bathrooms. Furthermore, they requested, if the elves could see their way to calling in on some of the republican movement’s chief donors and asking them for some aid, it would be very much appreciated. As it ended up, only one of the elves got that far, and the donor was of very little help; but, being schooled in magic, she was able to suggest a location a few worlds away where a hero or two might be found to stir things up in the kingdom a little.

6. The elf came finally to the house of a young boy who had been living a rather dull life with unremarkable parents. Since elves are terrible navigators, he did not realise that he was at the wrong address and informed the boy that he was the Chosen One who was needed to save a distant and magical land. Fortunately, the directions he gave the boy were typically terrible and the boy ended up in the wrong distant and magical land. Although this land also needed saving, the task of saving it could be done by just about anyone; in fact, it was more like a road trip than an adventure. So the boy did as well as any other child might have done, and he was certainly very good at believing he was Chosen. As a reward, he was given three castles in the fairy hinterlands and a host of humorous magical servants.

7. Later on, the elf (who had decided he liked the mortal world and was reluctant to go home) was arrested for driving the wrong way down the M1 and developed an alarming beard whilst in police custody. After a series of increasingly frustrating interviews, he was charged with storytelling and sentenced to shut up.

0089 Stones
 -0089.1 Extremely large
    –0089.12 Planets that are rocks
    –0089.15 Asteroids
 -0089.2 Around the size of a librarian
    –0089.21 Statues
       —0089.211 Extremely serious statues
       —0089.212 Statues having one or more legs in the air
       —0089.215 Angels
       —0089.216 Ancient statues so enclosed in guano that they have been mistaken for mounds
    –0089.22 Funerary monuments
       —0089.222 Resembling a tooth or claw
       —0089.225 Rigged by enterprising funeral directors so as to topple when the liklihood of causing another funeral is highest
 -0089.3 The size of a fist or slightly larger
    –0089.31 Stone apples, stone pears and other fruit of petrified trees
    –0089.33 Stones found in cairns
    –0089.34 Can be used to stun a burglar
       —0089.343 Have been used to stun a burglar
 -0089.3 Pebbles
    –0089.33 Pebbles balanced in towers
    –0089.34 Pebbles having words on, the words together making up a story now long lost to entropy
    –0089.39 Forgotten pebbles of myth and legend
       —0089.383 The pebble needle of Dogger Bank
       —0089.387 The seven stone hearts of the deathless dogs
       —0089.398 The stone giant’s lost clitoris
 -0089.4 Gravel and scree
    –0089.41 Stones found in the shoe
       —0089.414 Stones which, once removed from the shoe, find their way back in again
       —0089.415 Stones which are part of the shoe and should not be removed
 -0089.5 Resembling dust
    –0089.55 Space dust
 -0089.6 Stones of which the size is unknown
 -0089.7 Stones of which the size is unknowable

A Midnight Lunch of Antarctic Light for Hope In the Cold Winter Months
~Starter~
The murky light of eternal dusk that follows the last sunset of the Antarctic Winter, seen though a gathering snowstorm. To be served with the smell of fresh metal and lubricant, and the long slow creaking of things settling into ice.
~Main~
A selection of dim electric lights against the dark; reflected screen-light with the brightness turned down; flickering fluorescent tubes; CFL-light in the first few moments of warming up. To be served with the smell of hot dust and a low buzzing. Drinkers may request an ice core segment to suck on.
~Dessert~
The first silver, red or gold of the sun creeping over the horizon after the Antarctic Winter.  To be served with ice-cold, fishy air from the penguin colonies at Halley, and silence.

A Light Lunch for Those Who Have Made It
~Starter~
A selection of finely synchronised paparazzi camera-flashes, served with the sound of torrential rain and the smell of charred grass.
~Main~
Brittle beauty with a harshness behind it; an expertly blended mix of warm red-toned footlights taken from a gentle play starring a well-known comedian and searchlights seen through barbed wire. To be served with the smell of unusually greasy greasepaint and an uneasy silence.
~Dessert~
Midday Los Angeles sunlight, filtered through exhaust-laden air and a pair of closed red curtains. To be served with the smell of spilled gin and bleach, snoring, and the sound of a distant hoover.

A Light Feast
~Starters~
Rose-gold dawn light captured from the flank of K2 after a night spent unexpectedly at altitude. To be served with the song of larks and a blast of icy air that freezes the nostril hairs.
To be followed by:
Two minutes of the dull brownish light that precedes an enormous hailstorm. To be served with the sound of a dripping tap.
~To cleanse the palate~
Five minutes of dappled sunlight from the floor of a Norwegian pine forest. To be served with the smell of warm pine needles, peppercorns and green mango, and the gentle soughing of a light wind through thousands of trees.
~Main~
The syrupy light of an American afternoon over a huge cornfield. To be served with the smell of bruised cherries and warm leather, and the sound of drowsy bees.
~To cleanse the palate~
Five minutes of moonlight, filtered through the air of a cold, clear winter’s night; to be served with the smell of oncoming snow showers.
~Dessert~
Fifteen minutes of neon light, freshly harvested from the streets of Tokyo after dark. To be served with the smell of sugar doughnuts.

1. Horse Well, New Mexico. Always good to begin a trip out in the wild a little. Do look after that horse, by the way. I’m rather fond of her. When you’re done sightseeing (I hear there are some interesting caves neaby?), get on I-25 N in San Miguel County from NM-137 N, US-285 N and US-84 W. Continue to Lockwood, then take exit 452 from I-90 W. You did feed the horse, didn’t you? I forgot to say - this is a trip of just over three days by car if you don’t stop, so it may be a while on horseback. Get onto I-15 N/US-89 N in Cascade County from MT-3 N, US-191 N and US-87 N and carry on until MT-44 W/Valier Hwy in Pondera County. Take exit 348 from I-15 N. Carry on along MT-44 to US-2 W, in…

2. Hungry Horse, Montana. Very scenic around here, isn’t it? Also, you should be able to get some food for that horse. Now take US-2, State Hwy 464 and AB-2 N to AB-20 N in Red Deer County, Canada, continuing to AB-22. There take AB-43 N and Alaska Ave until you reach…

3. Whitehorse, Yukon. Taken a turn for the chilly, I think you’ll find. You do know that horse wasn’t that colour when you got it, right? That’s snow. I don’t think the horse likes it. You should maybe brush it off. When you’re ready to go, get back on Alaska Hwy/YT-2 N/Yukon 1 W, taking AK-2 W to AK-11 N/N Slope Haul Rd in Livengood, United States. Follow AK-11 N/N Slope Haul Rd until you run out of land, at which point you will be in:

4. Deadhorse, Alaska. What did I tell you about looking after that horse? I hope you have some alternative method of getting home.

1. One Sunday, an old woman discovered a hole in a book. The hole was about the size of a fist and of unknown depth; it was accessible only from page 265, and there was no sign of it at all on page 266. The sides were rough with something like dirt or rust. The woman, who had no particular remaining responsibilities, determined to set off on an expedition to explore the hole; the only problem being that it was too small. So she set off to the print shop to photocopy the page and get the hole enlarged to a size she could crawl into.

2. On the way to the print shop, she dropped a packet of pins which she had been intending to take into the book (for she knew that there was often an unmet need for pins on adventures). The pins fell into the road, and were run over by the number three bus. The bus continued for three miles with a packet of pins spinning round on one of its tyres; and then it suffered a loud and spectacular puncture. The bus driver stepped off the bus, tripped on a pin and broke his jaw in three places on a passing brick.

3. The bus driver spent three months with his jaw wired up, drinking chicken soup and watching the most peculiar daytime soap operas. But when he came to open his mouth again, the bus driver found that he could say nothing but “Well.” With the help of a large PPI settlement which he had been encouraged to apply for through subliminal messaging hidden in ‘The Lonely and Desperate’, he hired the finest speech therapist in twelve countries to help him.

4. After seven weeks of intense therapy, the speech therapist managed to draw forth six other words, including 'January’, 'and’ and 'banana’. He decided to write a paper on the case, which he intended to present some months later at a conference in Cairo. However, he was in the end unable to speak at the conference as he had accidentally stuck himself to the bed in the conference hotel room with marmalade.

5. With the help of three phone calls, the speech therapist managed to detach himself in time to take the boat home. However, he found that he had left his foot behind, which was a surprise, as it had not previously been detachable. Fortunately, he had given the hotel his home address. When they found the foot, they were able to post it to him. In fact, because they sent it by airmail, it arrived home somewhat before he did. By this time, he had obtained a fine prosthetic in the port of Rotterdam and was only interested in the foot for sentimental value.

6. Later in life, when short on money, he took the foot to an alien pawnbroker. The pawnbroker paid him fifteen perfect spheres for it. He found, however, that the spheres bothered him; and nobody seemed willing to convert them into cash. So he took them to the Department of Things at the local university, where an archivist offered to assess them for admission into the Permanent Collection.

7. The archivist determined that the spheres were of no interest, as they could not be put into any of the current categorisations. She put them in the bin at the back of the department, where a dumpster-diving chemist took them home and used them to play something a bit like giant snooker-chess-tiddlywinks with the children in her back garden. Interestingly, the archivist later invented the number nine, for which she was awarded a small medal.

8. Seventy years later, the chemist died of a misremembered appendix. The children took the spheres out of the attic, but could not remember the rules of the game; instead, they brought them to family reunions and placed them on the table, where they sat, dully gleaming, amongst pints of stout at the eldest’s wake, and amongst glasses of champagne on the occasion of the youngest refusing a knighthood.

9. The middle child, who had never had occasion to summon her siblings to drinks and spheres, had a habit of stretching in the garden after breakfast. One day she stretched a little too far to the right and accidentally slapped a passing time traveller in the face. The time traveller was irate but, not wishing to interfere with human timelines, contented herself with transporting the middle child’s shed two hundred years into the past. Thereafter, no shed built in that garden would remain temporally stable, and the middle child had to keep her lawnmower in the garage.

10. There were once three second-hand booksellers who found some sheds in the woods near their home, where they lived with an irascible cat. It so happened that, the evening before, the cat had shredded a first edition of Shakespeare’s Laundry Poetry. As a consequence the booksellers were feeling particularly angry. They took it in turns to punch the sheds. which helped a little. Then (seeking a cat-proof storage solution) they took the sheds home and filled them with books. But for ever after, the books they sold were a little peculiar. This did not go down well with the punters and eventually the booksellers were forced to liquidate their remaining stock and go into haberdashery instead. One of the books was sold to an old woman…

We, the undersigned, having experienced the ebb and flow of life, believe that the architectural disciplines have for too long set store in a notion of permanence that is at best optimistic, and at worst harmful. We therefore humbly therefore present six proposals for a more transient architecture.

1. We propose a tower whose structure is partially supported by a colonnade around the perimeter; the columns themselves being discontinuous, with a gap of perhaps a metre and a half between the base and a suitably-cushioned upper portion. As built, the tower is unstable; to continue to exist without developing the most alarming cracks, each pillar must be supported by willing human volunteers, rather like live caryatids. The inhabitants of the building take it in turns to hold their home up; they are as a consequence always aware of their existence depending on the hard work of others.
As a variation, the inhabitants of the building do not provide the support themselves, but rather donate into a pot of money which anyone may win by participating in a kind of complicated tombola. The queue for the tombola winds round and supports the colonnade, holding up the building. Should the queue become short enough that part of the building is unsupported, the residents must donate more money in the hope of increasing demand. Residence in the building is a kind of status symbol, being representative of unlimited wealth.

2. A city that is made of a regular grid structure of open cubes, three metres on a side and ten cubes high, the struts of the grid being composed of some anonymous metal with plenty of attachment points. Residents may rent any given set of cubes for a period of a month only, and bring their own walls and furniture. The existence of continuous roads is a matter of common agreement and their straightness a measure of the amount of social cohesion in the city at any given time.    

3. We consider buildings these days to be maintained by a perpetual input of energy, though that energy is invisible; heating and electricity and somesuch. Therefore we propose to make the implicit explicit in the form of a perpetual motion tower, rather like an inhabited fairground ride. The tower resembles a spinning mushroom. The rate of spin we choose after careful experiments in what can be tolerated by its inhabitants, who are astronauts, athletes and the like who may benefit somehow from the constant centrifugal forces. They live rent-free and suffer the constant admiration of those who live underneath. The centrifugal forces are also necessary to keep the building together. If it were to stop, it would disintegrate. There is a substantial generator facility to guard against power cuts.

4. Observing ancient cities whose new buildings are built with the thousand-year remnants of the old, we propose a more dynamic variant. A city is built on a vast silty plain, criss-crossed with slow rivers. Initially, its honey-coloured stone is quarried from a great cliff at the edge of the plain. Once the city is well-established, a line is drawn at the base of the cliff. Every year, the line is moved ten metres further out from the cliff edge. All buildings that fall behind the line must be demolished. The stone is passed to masons, who may use it for building anew on the other side of the city - unless the city, in its slow march across the plain, has encountered a river, in which case the stone is used for building bridges. The city thus spends its years in constant metamorphosis. How changed it must be when, thousands of years hence, it reaches the sea! And will it be willing then to drown?

5. We conceive of an apartment building in the form of a great wheel or machine. Every few days, we approach the iron gears at the building’s core and give them some number of cranks. The apartments move on well-oiled tracks; here, there and everywhere. And the doors are unmarked! What chaos, then, when the residents come home from work and have to find their home once again. Who has left their door open, which key fits which lock, and whose couch to sleep on or bed to share if the correct apartment cannot be found before nightfall? And who has ended up as the penthouse, and who as the damp basement? Let us not dwell on those who were in the corridors and stairwells when the gears turned. No good will come of that.

6. Having come to terms with death, we choose to view time as a dimension in which we happen to be occupying a given location, rather than a march to an inevitable end. Our dispassionate wish then is that when we happen to occupy the furthest-along point in our time domain it have a good view and the makings of an interesting tale. And we are fortunate in that Nature is generous with spectacle! Thus we court transience in geography. We build only on the most exciting fault lines, the most piquantly tottering volcanic stacks. Nothing infuriates us like a solid foundation. Our apses span chasms, our arcades are founded on quicksand and timid masons gape at our tottering cloisters. Our fondest wish is that future generations find nothing of us in dry bones and pottery shards, nothing in tablets, no anklets, no urns and no stale mercantile notes, nothing, nothing, nothing but a raging torrent of myth and story and spectacle.

(there are no signatures)

1. Hopkin’s Worm (note: this is a misclassification as Hopkin’s Worm is now thought to be an unusual crustacean). A rare example of a bellybutton-based parasite. The young of this creature resemble short, dark threads and often infest cotton-based clothing. Once it has made its way to the bellybutton, Hopkin’s Worm loses the ability to crawl and becomes entirely reliant on its host, living off the lint it gleans from the host’s clothing. Hopkin’s Worm’s hosts therefore often seem to have unusually clean bellybuttons. Interestingly, Hopkin’s Worm has no excretory facilities, instead becoming significantly larger throughout its lifespan; however, this growth is usually mistaken for middle-aged spread by the host.

2. Annifaners. These barely-visible mites live in the human ear, where they live on, in and protected by earwax. Their presence is almost undetectable by the host; however, annifaner mating is known to make a quiet rustling noise, a little like the sound of the sea far off. Since they primarily mate at night, annifaner hosts are more likely than most humans to dream of the ocean.

3. The Hammerian Hat. There is in fact only one known Hammerian Hat in existence, and it seems likely that it is the last of its kind. The Hammerian Hat in its dormant form resembles a simple cotton skullcap. If worn for any length of time (particularly if slept in) it will attempt to fuse to its host, consuming their hair and in turn growing its own pseudo-hair, as well as a set of roots with which it connects to the host’s circulatory system. The host merely notices that the hat has disappeared and that they are having a very bad hair day. The only known specimen disappeared from a research lab in the early 1920s, so it may be that the Hammerian Hat is now entirely extinct.

4. Gorlocks. These small parasitic shadows do not eat, excrete or reproduce; it is thought, in fact, that the Gorlock population on Earth has remained stable since at least the time of the dinosaurs. Their original origin is not known. They attach themselves to host entities purely to get protection from direct sunlight, which they dislike. As they overlap the host’s original shadow, Gorlocks are almost undetectable unless the host is in bright non-directional light, at which point they will attempt to hide. Gorlocks usually attach to trees but can occasionally be found on humans.

5. The Worcestershire Farter. This creature typically masquerades as someone known to the host, appearing at the door as if for a social visit with a sign requesting food and drink (typically offered with the excuse that the Farter has a very sore throat and cannot speak). Unbeknownst to the host, the Worcestershire Farter is in fact a highly-developed colony of single-celled organisms which is has taken on, chameleon-like, the appearance of a previous host. After it has been fed, the organisms produce prodigious amounts of gas through all available orifices; typically, by this point, the bodily facsimile is deteriorating and it may develop a few new orifices as well. During this phase, the Farter begins to take on the characteristics of the current host. By the time it has ejected itself from the host’s home (usually before the arrival of any ambulances) it has fully adopted the appearance of the host and typically stolen their phone or address book, ready to move on to the next host. The Worcestershire Farter can be deterred on initial presentation by asking it to remove its hat, since its clothes are part of it rather than separate garments.

6. Scumble-oybles. Small parasitic words which, once heard, stick in the back of the brain such that the host is never quite sure if they are a real word with a dictionary definition or merely a random collection of letters. Central to the Scumble-oyble survival strategy is the impression that, were they a real word, they would be such an usual and commonplace word that the host could feel justifiable embarrassment about looking them up.

Beazley Wazzock, Liz-of-the-lantern, Mr. Polite, Licketty Lurb, the Knight of the Purple Rose’s Thorn, Thousand year Alice, Fennelfur the Unclaimable, Teeth Jenkins, the Fellowship of Perpetual Energy, John Cutaneous, Thurnorpaldreddel, Jennifer Flycatcher, the Underfamiliars, McClintock’s Millions, the Snail-shell Haunts, Normal John, Suri No-Sleep, the Sisters of the Lightless Garden, Hedge Bugger.

1. So hot right now! Washemoops - that shade of greyish pink that white things go when washed with black and red things that are not quite colourfast. Pair a washemoops shirt with tracksuit bottoms and bed head for the authentic early 2016 look. 

2. We’re loving pilling on cardigans and sweaters right now.

3. Try rocking black socks with red soles for that ‘just walked on a bleachy floor’ look.

4. For the truly daring, try trousers with split seams at the groin. Guaranteed to make you friends on the underground!

5. Spilled tomato sauce on yourself and it didn’t quite wash out? Congratulations, you’ve stumbled on 2016′s hottest trend: splat chic.

1. The hats of your mortal enemies, turned inside-out and used as flowerpots.

2. A soft woolly hat that itches at the back of the head, to be put on after a night of no sleep, so that your head can feel the same on the inside and the outside. It has a bobble on top that is unsettlingly large.

3. A hat made of thoughts, woven together by master bullshitters, and containing only the finest notions; thoughts thought by Einstein and Newton; the thoughts of Beethoven prior to writing his ninth symphony; Austen’s thoughts as she put pen to paper for the first line of Pride and Prejudice. The hat is invisible. As thoughts cannot be absorbed through the skull, it has no effect whatsoever on the mental capacity of the wearer.

4. The hat that some aunt or uncle or someone threw up in, years ago, and from which the smell can never be quite erased; but you keep it anyway because it was expensive.

5. A shabby top hat, said to be from the Victorian era, which occasionally disgorges a set of silk scarves, a rabbit, an old watch, or a glove. Occasionally, in the dead of night, it has been known to spit out despairing messages written on old playbills; but these days the hat’s owner burns them without reading the contents.

6. Slightly-too-big hats that have never been worn, but that make great cat beds.

7. A hat consisting of a black headband with a number of telescopic stilts attached, on which can be mounted a large, off-colour lens through which the sun casts an unpleasant light. To be worn to the wedding of people one dislikes.

8. Sorry about the eighth hat. I won’t say anything if you don’t.