Beware the Mesh

Spoonfuls of legal med, skewers of bad cholesterol, brain-damaging unreal TV and measurable schooling are working their alchemy already.  It has spread slowly and imperceptibly like oil rainbowing in a gutter.  It looks pretty but it poisons the water.  It's the most insidious example of life impersonating sci-fi art.  So beware the Mesh.

The Mesh is the invisible plastic-wrapping, spidery filigree through which only bankrollers, inflated pigmen, and nightmare-makers can move.  They are safe inside there, with their hand-shakes, winknods and glad-hand smiles.  It is beyond the Mesh that they can compare and exchange their ill-gotten gains, swap their yachts, hoover up taxes and travel freely without contamination from the outside.

What is it like inside the Mesh?  That is for us to find out.  And it is an urgent cause, because soul-sucking is not against their law.

Glass-shatter World, I've Writing to do.

I can do without all this.  Ok, I think The Badgers of Beechen Cliff is worth reading.  If I hadn't written it myself, I might even buy a copy.  It has a treebender and rattlebang wagontraps aplenty.  But I don't have a body-double or a stunt-writer who can be getting on with the other stuff while I get to the bottom of this furry, alien, underdog thing.  Mysteries and riddles are fine for the train.  I've got stuff to write.

At least, the ursine squatter upstairs seems to have gone.  Probably out hunting for Owen Paterson - one of our members of parliament.

I have a trigger-happy writing finger lusting after a few black marks and punctuation squiggles that can turn a dry eye into a tear, a creaseless face into a titter.  So let me get on with it.

Metaphor, Portents or Magic Tricks

I can hear the screeching of tyres - or is it the terror of fleeing animals - further down the road.  I feel torn, paralysed and yet desperate to go and see what has happened.  I leave the comfort and security of the old, limestone wall, drag my feet before breaking into a run.  The vehicle has gone.  There is an escape route into Lyncombe field down here, with a bolted gate, impassable to off-roaders and pick-ups.  It's an ancient pathway for travellers, herders, dog-walkers, ramblers and other wilder creatures.  The badgers must have gone to ground.

But not all of them.  I find two at the roadside, though they haven't been knocked down.  They've been shot.

All the while, I'm thinking: what's going on here?  Is this a metaphor or is my story of The Badgers of Beechen Cliff the metaphor?  The events aren't exactly the same, but is this truly a case of life imitating art? The story isn't a portent either, because it came to me as a result of the news that the government wanted badgers shot and here I was, every Thursday, trailing through badger country.  All I did was put the two ideas together.

When I get home, the house is empty.  The strange visitor has gone.  There is no sign of anything strange or magical ever having taken place.  Was it something in my head?  An obsession with what is going on around us here in Somerset, UK?

This is not a Waking Dream

Nor is it the result of too much beer.  I've seen badgers most Thursday nights.  It's how I came to write The Badgers of Beechen Cliff.  They were always there on Greenway Lane: one or two slipping under a garden hedge, scurrying under the gate to the school playing fields, or, sadly, dead on the road, like a contorted rag toy in the rain.  But I've never seen this many.

There must by almost twenty of them, shaggy coats shaking as they trundle along.  They never move very quickly, even at top speed, and some are nosing their way under parked cars, behind dustbins and open garage doors.  I'm pressed against an old stone wall as they brush past regarding me with curiosity more than fear; as if they don't understand why I'm not joining in their great escape.  Because that's what it must be.  In these kind of numbers, they must be trying to get away from something or someone.

But what?

Then I hear the thunder or is it quarry-blasting.  Surely not.  Not at 11:25pm.  No, it's a massive off-roader and it's heading this way, stampeding the wildlife in front of it, because there is no escape down the corridor of Greenway Lane until you reach the end.

Escape to Mist-ridden Streets

It's Thursday evening.  I escape my unwanted guest to meet friends at the pub - a weekly commitment or is it something I commit to weakly?  Good evening discussing Scottish independence, proof readers obsessions, the latest films and how they should be given the 'old git review' treatment, as well as who's turn is it to buy a round of beers and a bizarre range of unnaturally-flavoured peanuts.

On the way home, skirting Beechen Cliff, the street - Greenway Lane - is a autumnally damp and misty.  There is a 'jyk, jyk' sound, although the street, apart from a few parked cars covered in condensation, is deserted.  Every time I turn I feel there is something there just at the cranny of my eye, but it's gone.  The sound gets louder, so much so that I feel I need to break into a run.

Then, before the road turns right and heads down toward Lyncombe Hill, I can feel the road surface being pounded by hundreds of animals.  There are so many badgers heading towards me.  I don't know why.  If I stop, will they run by?  Are they heading for me?  Why would they?

Jackdaws are Flapping Round my Head

Black jackdaws with their sooty heads are flapping round my head; magpies line my outstretched arms.  The colour is draining from the middle distance.  The world is black and white.  My intruder is badgering me, spreading its lack of colour throughout the house.  I daren't go upstairs.  Something awaits behind the half-open door.

There's more to this.

Read my own Book Three Times Today

The title of this post lies.  I've read the badgers book four times and I'm still no closer to solving the riddle.  I've been focusing on this word 'crasp.'  What does it mean?  There's an obvious anagram, but that's too simplistic.  Could it be an abbreviation?  Here in the UK, it's getting perilously close to hot chocolate time and Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, but this puzzle is driving me crazy.  I haven't checked the stats on the number of visitors today.  It was a big number yesterday, but no comments or ideas have followed.

What is...?

What is...?

Aargh!

Badger Intruder Says it's all there in Black and White

Isn't this just an obvious and weak joke?  The conundrum my visitor set a few days ago may be written down in black and white, and we all know badgers are black and white, but what about the answers  My story about badgers living in Bath, in a place called Beechen Cliff, is also in black and white.  But since I'm the one who wrote it, I ought to know what he is alluding to.

There's no one with a name beginning with D - unless it's Death?  What is High?  The cliff, possibly.  But there are definitely no swans.  Or maybe I'm being too literal.

This Badger Puzzle Needs Answers

No takers.  Somebody out there must have the answers.  Please check the questions again.  At least, have a guest.  You have nothing to lose.  I might have something to gain, even if it is only to be released from the demands of mu unwanted, black-and-white guest upstairs in the sitting room.

Please try again.  Share it with your friends.  They might have an idea; might spark something off.  Two of you together could easily come up with something; bounce ideas off each other.  If you have any thoughts, leave a comment.  It may spark an idea in my head - a small lightbulb moment.

D must be someone's name: first name rather than surname.  Male or female?  Darren? Donna?
What follows Swan?  Cygnets?  There used to be matches in the UK called Swan Vesta.  Or Swan song?
What is High?  Lots of things are high; but High is given an upper case H.
'Crasp' as far as I can see is a made-up word, or perhaps an abbreviation, or an unusual name.
NAAFI is the UK name for the military store, but what has that got to do with anything?

Updating this post to say that no one in the daylight world has any answers so far.  Someone must leave a message.

I should go to bed.

Badger is Bringer of Conundra

As the last Merc-master shimmies off, I hear a roar from my sitting room.  Can't be tea-time already, I think. The big, bad badger has already eaten me out of quiches and earthworms.

'Harbinger of news,' he grunts.  'Conundra aplenty.'  When I begin to suggest it's time for him to skedaddle, he face-tapes me with a look.  These plucky alien-types: they may not have sleeves, but they have a few tricks up them.

'These must be solved,' he says.  All I can do is shrug and moan.

'Who is D?
What follows Swan?
What is High?
What precedes crasp?
Where is NAAFI?'

I'm stumped.

Big Bad Badger gets Restless

I've had to cancel all engagements.  Producers and publishers are ushered into my small but fine-boned china kitchen.  They ask awkward questions about the football noises upstairs.  I laugh and explain there's a giant badger up there practising keepie-uppie with an old, leather football.  They laugh, thinking they know my off-the-wallpaper sense of humour.  But the grunts and whoops of the big, bad badger are unnerving especially when he moves the goalposts to make scoring easier.  As a result, contracts are pocketed and must wait for a more salubrious day.

I show one suit, eager to squeeze out the front door, my Badgers of Beechen Cliff book and show my list of downloads and its reviews.  He's interested but when the walls begin to shake and the welcome mat leaves home, he decides to come back another day.  Or so he says.

What can I do about this unwanted guest.  I daren't tell the authorities.  They'll send a sniper in the middle of the night and my jim-jams are black and white!

The Government Blames Football-playing Badgers

The badger in my living room relaxes on the sofa, feet crashing through the window, his head resting on my Howard Hodgkin print: After Visiting David Hockney 1991-92.  He by-passes the TV remote and switches on BBC1 telepathically.  I say 'telepathically' but maybe he has some other digital mechanism I don't fully understand.  No sooner has he munched his way through my large fries than he's convulsing in laughter on the floor.  The news linkman in his best BBC accent has just said that the government has had to extend the cull of badgers in Somerset because the shooters didn't blast enough of the little blighters.  In fact, the minister has said that 'the badgers moved the goalposts.'  Shall I repeat that for the benefit of those who imagine that the first qualification involved in becoming a government minister is sanity.

'The badgers moved the goalposts.'

Badger, you may remember, are black and white creatures of the night and are not known for their footballing skills.  Otherwise, Barcelona would have an entire squad of them by now.

(I have to say, all of this and the game of badger football was foretold in The Badgers of Beechen Cliff, which describes a game of badger football, and which, if you haven't already bought it, will provide hours of harmless fun for all the generations in your family.)

Big badger picks himself up from my Rajhastani rug and pops some more cheese straws and pecan nuts into his canernous mouth. Now he's channel-hopping for more news of badgers.  But all the time I'm thinking, this isn't real.  This creature is not the real thing.

Alien Shapeshifts into Dodecahedron of Ice

At the end of its exoplanetary message, the alien visitor changes shape and physical composition, like grunge metallixa transforming into Gymnopedie.  Although it is standing four metres away I can feel my skin beginning to freeze.  Then wham, bang, no-thank-you, ma'am!  He is Mr. Badger - only he has to stoop to avoid crashing through the high ceiling of my Georgian sitting room.

I spread out my arms to reassure him I'm not packing a kalashnikov or have any intentions or desire to start a cull, despite government, bovine health warnings.  While I'm wondering how he's going to manage to leave this room and how to cope with any of his lavatorial requirements, I can see he's struggling with the language.  The process of transmogrification has obviously not gone so well, the transferral of linguistic facilities and telephone contact list having been delayed by a poor satellite signal.

He talks nonsense:

spout radioactive burlesque
triplicate plague-rat franchise
acrylic wallbanging ghost train
hand-me-down macrame burger-knitter

HOLD ON A GODDAM MINUTE THERE, BOY!  This isn't randomese.  He's reading my mind.

It's a Bad, Bad, Badger Future.

My alien intruder, disturbed by the poor UK soap scripts on TV, zaps the screen and frisbees the badger from one side of the room to the other.  I catch it in my teeth - a lifetime's training in the park and at Ravenscraig Beach has been invaluable many times in my worthless life.  I try to explain I'm a struggling writer.  He , she or it is not impressed.  In fact, his fixed eyeballs never blink, never roll, and never look up at the ceiling.  The optical nerves at the end of his seventeen fingertips show more emotion, occasionally getting twitchy, scratching the sofa and rubbing themselves together with deep joy.

They caress the flattened badger still between my teeth.  Again, I hear the alternating falsetto and bass tones of his communications.  'Future is bad... bad... badger.  Things no longer black and white.  Human race will shift.  Must absorb whole pantone range of different views.  Humans will embrace rational thought.'

Can it be true?  Surely not.  Not in a million years.  And yet...

Badger Astrology

The alien takes his feet off my coffee table rather reluctantly, I thought.  I mean - who does he think he is?  Travels several thousand light years through space using hypertechnological molecular-phasing parallelisms just to stick his muddy feet all over my wickerwork!  Come on.  There must be a greater purpose here.  But, with the kind of breakdown in communication we're used to seeing in agony advice columns, what can you expect?   Anyway, chatty he or she (or they - because this entity might actually embody a community of beings) is not.  I get a perfunctory glare now and again, but I notice he, she, it or they has not touched the Lavazza.

Then, without warning, the badger reappears.  Unfortunately, transmuted.  It is badger-like, but in a two-dimensional sense.  It's more of a black and white frisbee or a drinks mat: what we call a 'coaster' in the UK.  What could I do?  What is the polite, alien, hands-across-the-galaxies thing to do?  Well, naturally, I put my empty coffee cup down on Mr. Badger.  I'm not happy, but this is a tricky situation.  And, given it's current transformation, it's probably better than the UK government's current policy of shooting anything black-and-white and not called a zebra.

I'm not an unfeeling person.  So I do it with a heavy heart.  Now, my visitor picks up the two-tone drinks mat and scrutinises it sideways.  'Future,' he, she or it says.  'Future.'

Aliens Ate My Badger!

I know what you're all thinking: he must be nuttier than a nutburger covered in nuts and wrapped in recyclable nut paper.  Ok.  Get this.  Last night, gigging with mates, start off well, which is unusual because we normally begin at rock bottom, stagger towards worse than pretty good, then plateau around not bad and wonder if we should take up knitting reindeer sweaters instead.  No, last night we started well with an easy blues in A and gradually plummeted to mediocre, which just goes to show how versatile we can be.

Departing after only one beer - this is important - I left the amp to be fetched another day and, carrying my guitar case, shortcutted down through Beechen Cliff.  At that time of night, it's usual to see or, at least, hear a badger or two snuffling around searching for worms.  (Because they don't eat cows, you know.)  Anyway, right in front of me, on the path sprinkled with orange, leaf-dappled light was a badger.  He stopped in his tracks, as did I.  Could he smell the beer on my breath, or the drops I spilt on my jeans?  It didn't matter. The question wasn't about to be answered.

There was a woosh.  Not the kind of woosh you get when the bus driver ignores you and goes flying past the stop.  This was more of a whistling woosh, followed by a grinding sound, which hurt the eardrums more than any of our numbers earlier in the evening.  This became a pulsating silence.  Something tall and shiny appeared between the badger and me.  I could see the 'oh, shit!' look on its face before some panel in the front of Mr. Shiny opened up and hoovered up the badger.  Nothing was said.  No unearthly communication.  The shiny guy turned to me, but luckily, as you see from my pathetic keyboard skills, I'm still here.

Now I'm a rational person.  No belief systems worth mentioning.  You might have a load of questions you want to ask.  Fair enough.  I'll make a list.  After all, Mr. Shiny is sitting with what might be his feet up on the coffee table in my living room.

Or, is this all rot and I'm still tangled up in the middle of some nightmarish lead section in B flat minor?