A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Times

All of you living on the planet, listen to what I’m going to say: When the year 2000 is completed, the year that will follow will not be year 2001. The year that will follow shall be called Year One in a generation that will follow the present generation; the generation that will follow will have few or many people depending on who will repent.

The Lord told me that hurricanes of fire would rain forth from heaven and spread over all those who would not have repented. They would burn them but would not die immediately… This fire will also reach inside the buildings; there is no way one can escape. Those who had repented were told to go in hiding to the houses they had built for this purpose. These houses are called ‘Ark’ or ‘Ship.’

We are definitely taking you to Jesus through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who have (sic) commissioned us, and through the Pope. Since the Ten Commandments of God have been abandoned and are being broken, those who go to hell are very many…Those going to heaven are few. Ours is not a religion but a movement that endeavors to make the people aware of the fact that the Commandments of God have been abandoned, and it gives what should be done for their observance.

A great number of youths now move about more or less naked. They move about putting on slit-skirts, see-through dresses without any under-clothing. Some move about half-naked putting on back-show dresses. Girls prefer wearing men’s trousers to wearing their own dresses…All these are symptoms of an urge to violate the Sixth Commandment. Our Blessed Mother Mary says that we, the youths, are like simpletons or fools because of having allowed Satan to dwell in us and make us do all sorts of shameful actions

AIDS … is a disaster that has befallen the world. AIDS is a punishment that has been released to the world due to its disobedience. The sole cure is repenting our disobedience, and the restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.

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“Body no. 47, infant, gender unidentified, with rope round neck”. The naked, decomposed body of a baby is dumped on a growing pile of month-old corpses. After a cursory examination by a doctor, an entry is added in his colleague’s notebook. Moments later the tiny corpse, one of many discovered in the garden of Father Dominic Kataribabo, a leader of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, is thrown into a fresh grave, another victim of the biggest cult-related disaster since Jonestown.

Even in recent times, Uganda’s history of grinding poverty, rampant AIDS and regional conflicts make fertile soil for fanatical or extreme religious sects. Perhaps the most famous was Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement which sprung up in northern Uganda in 1987. While her own bodyguards preferred AK-47s, hundreds of her followers marched to their deaths believing magic cooking oil would protect them from bullets. While eventually suppressed by cutting off supplies of weapons – and cooking oil – her cousin Joseph Kony still fights on as the Lord’s Resistance Army, saying he wants to run the country on the basis of eleven Commandments: Moses’s ten plus “Thou shalt not ride a bicycle” (on the grounds that cyclists might speed into town and warn Ugandan forces that Kony’s men are around). More recently, the government raided an illegal camp in the Sambabule district run by a prophetess said to eat nothing but honey, while leaders of another doomsday sect, the 1,000-member World Message Last Warning, were charged with rape, kidnapping and illegal confinement when police broke it up in September 1999.

Joseph Kibwetere, the 68-year old self-styled bishop of the “Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God”, had been a prominent member of the Catholic-based Democratic Party in the 1960s and 70s. When his political career ended abruptly after a controversial general election in 1980, Kibwetere took refuge with an Anglican bishop in Kabale; seven years later, at a time when many people reported seeing visions in the area, he claimed to have overheard a conversation between Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, and recorded it on tape. “There is a lady’s voice on the tape which says the world is suffering because the people are not following the Ten Commandments,” said Sister Stella Maris, a Catholic nun living near Kanungu. “She says the commandments must be enforced or the world will end.”

Was the “lady” ex-barmaid and prostitute Gredonia Mwerinda? She teamed up with Kibwetere in 1987 after allegedly also receiving a calling from the Virgin Mary. Along with excommunicated Catholic priest Dominic Kataribabo, they moved to Kanungu, in Uganda’s south-western hills. Father Paul Ikazire, who claimed he was among the sect’s leaders before leaving in 1994, said Mwerinda was the power behind the throne. “She used to bring in messages from the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael…things like, the Virgin Mary wants you to bring more money.” Cult members were required to sell their possessions and hand the proceeds to the church. “They gave all their money to the leaders who filled sacks with banana fibres in imitation of currency notes and burned them,” claimed local government official Paul Kwesigabo. It’s not clear where the money went, but her uncle, Marsiali Baryeihahwenki, said Mwerinda travelled frequently around Africa, as well as owning a huge farm, vehicles and several shops.

“Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”
       – sign over the altar at Jonestown

• November 18, 1978 – U.S. pastor Reverend Jim Jones, leads 914 followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit drink. Cult members who refuse to swallow the liquid are shot.
• December 1991 – Mexican police blame a minister’s fervent belief in God for his death and that of 29 followers who suffocate when he tells them to keep praying and ignore toxic fumes filling their church.
• April 19, 1993 – At least 70 Branch Davidian cult members die after fire and a shoot-out with police and federal agents end a 51-day siege of the compound near Waco, Texas.
• October 1993 – 53 hill tribe villagers in a remote Vietnamese hamlet commit mass suicide with flintlock guns and other primitive weapons in the belief they would go straight to heaven. Officials say they were victims of a scam devised by a blind local man Ca Van Liem, who received big cash donations in return for promising a speedy road to paradise.
• October 1994 – Police find the burned bodies of 48 members of the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes death by ritualized suicide leads to rebirth near Sirius, in a farmhouse and three chalets in Switzerland. At the same time in Quebec, five bodies, including that of an infant, are discovered in a chalet in Morin Heights, north of Montreal. In December the following year, 16 members are found dead in a burned house outside Grenoble, in the French Alps. Two French police officers were among the dead. In March 1997, police in Saint Casimir, Quebec, find the bodies of three women and two men inside a house owned by a sect member. Death toll (for now): 74.
• March 20, 1995 – The Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth) doomsday cult disperse nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, leaving 12 dead and injuring thousands.
• March 26, 1997 – Police find the bodies of 39 men and women in a mansion outside San Diego. The victims, who belonged to the Heaven’s Gate cult, committed suicide in the belief that a UFO, shielded behind comet Halle-Bopp, would take them to heaven.

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This lifestyle was in marked contrast to the austerity and depressingly-familiar brainwashing techniques enforced on followers, who were told to live strictly by the commandments; disobedience was punished with canings or food deprivation. Dressed in robes which designated rank (white for leaders, green for those who gave generously on recruitment, black for the rest), they toiled in fields and workshops without payment, communicating with each other only by gestures. Men and women, including married couples, slept in separate dormitories, and no children were ever born to any members of the 13-year-old cult. According to Baryeihahwenki, families were split up when they joined the cult and members were shifted frequently between several different sites in the impoverished region to stop them forming attachments. “They would come with a pick-up and tell people to get in with no warning,” he said. “They were moved around all the time.” Any children that new recruits brought in were also put to work, fetching water and firewood. A primary school run by cult leaders was closed down in 1998 by local authorities, who said in a report that children were malnourished and made to sleep on the floor without mattresses or blankets.

Grace Kibanja of Makerere University’s Institute of Psychology said, “These people were poor with no hope and saw salvation. Attaching themselves to a man who promised a better life has to be understood in this context.” Murindwa Rutanga, political science lecturer at Kampala’s Makerere University and an authority on cults in this region, agrees: “these were desperate people – landless, unemployed and probably sick. The community provided a home and some basic services like medicine that the state and church had failed to provide.”

Some blame reputable religions. “Anglican and Catholic churches have to admit their past mistakes”, Pastor Alex Mitala, Ugandan representative for the Christian Men’s Network stated. “When ordinary Ugandans question religious doctrines taught by foreign pastors they often turn to the question: Which way to God? In such situations they fall prey to charlatans and other such misguided individuals.” Driving his point home, Mitala pointed out that until recently, mainstream churches taught rural Ugandans that if you touch a woman’s breasts outside of wedlock, they will fall off. “Once this is patently not so, Ugandans begin to doubt the sincerity of all religious teachings,” he adds, rather unnecessarily.

Cult members were told the world would end at the beginning of the new Millennium, and they would be delivered to heaven only if they gave up all their earthly goods and followed the cult. One theory suggests that when Kibwetere’s prediction of December for the end of the world proved wrong, he and his associates came under increasing pressure from a now destitute congregation to repay their money. “All along they had said that this (church) is the boat of Noah,” alleged a local villager. “This is the ark and they were told that at the time of calamity they would come here. They were told that at a certain time this year, the world would end and so the leaders made it happen and perhaps the people there believed it had happened,” she said.

For several days before the carnage on March 17th, members made their way to the compound, in buses, pick-ups and lorries. Only those in the church would be saved, they were told; the rest of the world would face God’s wrath. Local officials said the cultists slaughtered a cow and ordered 70 crates of soda the night before – in a nearby dormitory, chicken bones and millet bread bore witness to the last supper. Meanwhile, police believe Kataribabo purchased 40 litres of sulphuric acid days before the tragedy, telling a local storekeeper he wanted to use it in car batteries. While these were not found in the church compound, the acid would be highly inflammable and explosive if mixed with petrol, as well as forming a poisonous vapour when burnt.

With the doors and windows nailed shut, they sang and chanted for hours, wearing their finest robes, before the fire was lit. By dawn, hundreds of charred corpses lay in the burned-out shell of the church as rain fell through the collapsed iron roof of the building. Some of the bodies, with hair and clothes burnt away and features obliterated, stretched out their arms in what looked like an appeal for help while others lay face down or balanced on their elbows with their heads back. Still more seemed to be huddling together against the flames. One baby was curled up like a foetus on the ground.

Yet the horror was only beginning. Investigators found several pit latrines covered in fresh cement and, when they opened the first one, discovered new corpses. “We found five bodies on the surface and when we shone a torch there were more underneath,” said public health officer Richard Opira on March 20th. “They haven’t been wounded so we think they were strangled or maybe poisoned,” he said. In the end, 153 cadavers were found buried under a house used by the cult in the village of Buhunga, a further 155 corpses in the house and garden of Dominic Kataribabo in Rugazi, 81 more in Rushojwa and 55 in the capital, Kampala. The final death toll, announced on July 20th, was 780. It was apparent that the fire was merely the climax to an orgy of slaughter; most of the dead appeared to have been murdered less than a month ago, and some still had ropes around their necks, indicating they had been strangled.

Setting new records for monumental ignorance, neighbours said they knew Kataribabo had been digging in his back garden, but never suspected the purpose of his exertions. “He was a good man, good to his followers, good to his family and good to people in general,” Kataribabo’s nephew Bagambe Apex said. “There is no way we ever expected something like this could happen.” According to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the group’s religious nature explained why authorities in the heavily populated area did not notice the disappearance of hundreds of their followers, which also falls into the category of dubious explanations. Completing the turning-a-blind-eye trilogy is local police official James Byaruhanga. “These people were very good taxpayers. They had permission to operate from the authorities, so we had no reason to stop them.”

On the other hand, some people claim to have had suspicions, although this could be mere hindsight. “As time went on we started getting more and more scared of them,” said Kisembo Didas, a farmer in Rugazi. “We thought they were dangerous, a cult of Satan. They used to behave abnormally, suddenly becoming paralysed in the street and then talking nonsense.” Those of a conspiratorial bent may also wish to note that an assistant district commissioner in south-west Uganda was arrested for allegedly suppressing an intelligence report that suggested the cult posed a threat.

Alternatively, ex-President Milton Obote of the banned Uganda Peoples Congress claims that the bodies are not cult members at all, but government political enemies, killed in large-scale, extra-judicial massacres by the Ugandan security services. “How can five people kill over 900 persons without some escaping?” he questions, while pointing out that many government critics have mysteriously disappeared in recent months. In a strident e-mail message sent from Kampala to various reporters, opposition supporter Yoswa Nkalubo (claiming to be on the run from government security agents) states that more bodies are buried in latrines all over the Ankole and Kigezi districts and that these are opposition members eliminated under the guise of having been killed by the cult leaders Whatever the truth in such theories, few families have come forward to report missing relatives.

Nor is anyone sure what happened to the leaders. Uganda’s New Vision newspaper said Kibwetere sent a letter – his first in three years – and several books to his wife, Theresa, so that she should go on “with what we have been doing because we are going to perish.” But a young member of the cult, a 17-year-old named Ahimbisibwe, told the paper he had seen two of the leaders leave the compound before dawn on the day of the fire carrying small bags. “Kibwetere and Gredonia prayed for us on Thursday night and they left the camp,” said the boy, whose mother and sister were among the victims. The area’s member of parliament, Amama Mbabazi, said he believed the leaders had survived. “My gut feeling is that Kibwetere and his colleagues are on the run,” he told New Vision. While Kataribabo’s and Mwerinda’s bodies were at first officially identified by police at the site, they later admitted they had not been able to recognise them. and issued arrest warrants for six leaders, including Kataribabo. With the remaining corpses bulldozed into a mass grave, destroying any remaining evidence, it seems the truth will never be known…

This kind of thing is disturbingly common. Across in Kenya, a different brand of religious fanaticism is on the rise. Tens of thousands are joining a new wave of born-again Christians, whose leaders claim to speak in tongues and deliver miracle cures to cancer, AIDS or deafness. Some may be run by genuine believers, yet others are shaped by opportunists who seek power and financial reward by manipulating the hopes and fears of the region’s poor. In Uganga, the results were more lethal than usual, yet it’s scarcely unique, or even rare. For example, on July 2nd, seven Peruvian family members were found dead with Bibles by their sides after poisoning themselves in a religiously motivated suicide at their shantytown home. What happened in Kanungu may have been larger in scale, but it’s sadly common: just another case of the lives of ordinary people getting screwed up in the name of organised religion.

References:

• African Business, May 2000
• http://atheism.about.com
• http://www.cesnur.org/testi/uganda_updates.htm
• The Cult That Couldn’t Stop Killing, C4 documentary, 11/6/2000
• Daily Mail And Guardian, Johannesburg, 10/1/1997
• Fortean Times: #100 (p41), #135 (p34)
• Reuters agency news reports, 19/3-20/7/2000.
• Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Times. 3rd ed. Karuhinda, Rukungiri and Rubiziri, Bushenyi (Uganda,) 1996.

“We got two more squished bodies and a one-legged girl over there; she’s still kinda good-looking”.

The early careers of famous actors and actresses are usually the most fertile ground for Incredibly Bad movies, because once they’re stars, their agents would rather they churn out banally mainstream work – straightforward “bad”, rather than “incredibly bad”. Thus, we have Kevin Costner in Sizzle Beach, Demi Moore in Parasite and Nastassja Kinski in the sublime Passion Flower Hotel. But to find two future stars in one of the most ill-conceived movies ever is a rare find indeed…

I have to admit that, for the moment, we are really talking only one star, and a proto-star. The former is Denise Richards; opinion on her aesthetic appeal is radically divided in the TC camp, some regard her as cute, while others refer disparagingly to her as “The One-Eyebrowed Wonder”. But after Starship Troopers, Wild Things and The World is Not Enough, there’s no denying her position. Co-starring – for the first quarter at least – is Paul Walker, who has come up through Pleasantville, She’s All That, and most recently, The Skulls. A great future beckons. Or at least, something better than Tammy and the T.Rex, certainly.

There is probably no connection to the “Tammy and the…” series of films starring the likes of Carrie Fisher’s mom, Debbie Reynolds, that ran in the late 50’s and 60’s. Instead, imagine a triple-tag match between Robocop, Jurassic Park and King Kong, and you’ll be a good way towards knowing the plot. Specifically, though: Tammy (Richards) wants to go out with Michael (Walker), but her current jealous boyfriend arranges for an “accident” in a safari park. In hospital, Michael is kidnapped by a mad scientist, who implants his brain in an animatronic tyrannosaur (of wildly varying size, depending on which prop they are using). Inevitably, he escapes, goes on the rampage against his killers, then seeks out Tammy, who turns out not to be averse to some lizard lovin’, even if DinoMike is by this stage a mass murderer. The police and mad scientist, however, are less happy…

Good news: it starts off on the right foot, with Denise as a cheerleader. Bad news: she’s stuck behind the titles. This schizophrenia is characteristic of the movie overall, with ideas which you could see working, spoiled by quite hideous execution. It’s both so juvenile you feel it ought to be a Disney film, yet clearly wants to be a Troma pic too. Even its rating occupies that uncomfortable PG-13 middleground. Had it gone either way, it would have been better.

The dinosaur effects, too, range from the numbly pathetic, to the quite decent. Cleverly, it’s allowed to look animatronic, since it is and, when not moving, is by no means unconvincing. However, any attempt to show the whole thing in motion will provoke hysterical laughter as its legs move up-and-down like pistons. Worse still, the front legs are clearly played by arms in socks; half the time, they stick out from completely the wrong angle. This is important for scenes in which the T.Rex is, for example, required to make phone calls, the sheer pointlessness of which convinces me Tammy must have been sponsored by AT&T. There’s another moment where Tammy’s father phones her bedroom to find out what all the noise is.  It’s good to talk, but…

With Michael out of the picture (Walker gets off lightly, only having to appear in the first twenty minutes or so), Tammy is assisted by unthreatening best friend Byron. He is a) black, b) the son of the local police chief, and c) bent as a nine-bob note. This is about as good as it gets with regard to comedy in the film. Well, actually, that’s a bit cruel: there are two decent jokes:  the squashed T.Rex victims can be rolled up like wrapping-paper, and as Tammy and Byron prepare to surrender to the cops; Byron says, “We need something white – besides you.”

Well, I laughed. OK, only a bit…

Other tricky issues appear to relate to Michael’s “accident”. The bad guys go to a safari park to dump him off, driving open-top convertibles: this is amazingly brave, or dumb, given it takes predatory animals about five seconds to notice Michael. And the only visible effect of the lion attack is to give Michael a black eye, yet this gets him into intensive care. Mind you, medical care in the city is a bit relaxed anyway; the morgue is in a building of its own, iunlocked, unguarded and with a convenient Morgue sign outside. That’s significant, as the very resourceful Tammy needs a new body into which DinoMike’s brain can be placed, his old one having gone a bit off by now. She has great adaptive skills too. After she finds out her beau’s brain has been borrowed by a bad boffin, and is now inside a pneumatic dinosaur, virtually her first comment is, “I missed you so much”. She discovers the plot basics via DinoMike charades: watch for some deeply pathetic hand-in-sock gesturing.

The local cops finally notice a truck sitting outside the morgue with a dinosaur in it; Tammy + Byron are forced to flee in the truck, until a low branch clothes-lines DinoMike. We then get to see Denise Richards riding off into the sunset on the back of an artificial Tyrannosaurus Rex, which has to go down as a canonical image in bad cinema. But it’s to no avail, as the police find them again, and take DinoMike down in a hail of bullets. While I’m usually reluctant to give spoilers, in this case I’ll make an exception, for reasons which will become apparent. There’s a happy ending: Tammy saves Mike’s brain, and keeps it in a jar in her room, video camera and so forth attached for sensory input. She pours alcohol into his jar, and does little strip-teases in front of him to keep him amused, though the editing is so bad, one is left yearning for an R-rated version. The sight is sufficient for Mike’s brain to start frying gently – after 82 minutes of the film, this is something with which it’s easy to feel sympathy.

As a movie, it’s hard to find any facet which is not completely inadequate, and one can only assume it was done as some kind of amusing tax write-off. No matter what they may do in their careers from here on, if Richards or Walker ever merit career retrospectives from the British Film Institute, it’s probably safe to say that Tammy and the T.Rex will not be heavily featured.

And what do we have here? It’s a blank bit of space at the end of the page. Wonder if I can find anything appropriate to fill it. Oh, look – what are these…?

ANOTHER TALE OF THE PERILS OF PYROTECHNICS …..

A thousand people surged against me, some trying to snatch my flaming torch, some trying to push around me, over me or through me. Tribal drumbeats sounded across the cold night air, rhythmic, sensuous, mysterious. Strangely dressed apparitions whooped and cavorted nearby, some crawling, as if deranged, upon the dew laden grass, slithering along, hauling themselves towards two figures sat under a decorated tree on some kind of wicker seat. Some of these bedeviled red men were being whipped with branches, whilst others belched flames up into the sky which scorched the retinae for several seconds. Bonfires roared in the distance, seemingly alive, beacons amidst this frenzied maelstrom of barely contained activity. Several girls removed their tops, and danced as if possessed.

Beer and wine flowed freely, and the rising dawn sun did little to quell the frenetic nature of this gathering. I looked across at the other torch bearers, and they seemed, like me, transfixed by this bewitching spectacle, oddly uniform, slightly sinister with their blackened faces adorned with gold and silver runic symbols. Suddenly, our cordon broke, and the hundreds of people behind us poured into the area we were protecting.  Cries and screams of ecstasy and partial oblivion added to the heady cacophony, fueled by fresh drumbeats and powerful sensations. I put down my dwindling torch, not needed now, and joined the writhing throng.

This was my first appearance and attendance at the now legendary  Beltane festival in Edinburgh. Once a medieval traditional gathering to  celebrate the transition of Winter into Spring, on May eve, the practice  was stopped as the Industrial age swept in, and grim rationale  replaced any spiritual or ritualistic necessities. However, in 1988, Angus Farquhar, from the band Test Department, decided to resurrect the festival for the city and the people. Collaborating with dancer/choreographer Liz Ranken and performance artist Lindsay John, they created a contemporary annual event, strictly rooted in, and faithful to, the ancient Beltane ritual. They set about making authentic costumes, and planning the route the procession should take.

It was decided that the entire event should take place on Calton Hill, which overlooks the whole city. This was believed to be an ancient site of power (it does seem to have peculiar qualities). The May Queen (played by Liz) and her attendant White Women would process along a specific path. On the way, she would have to ‘overcome’ the four ‘elements’ – separate performance pieces indicative of the struggle with the four natural earth elements. The mischievous ‘Red Men’ would threaten the procession at strategic areas – barely clad, red painted fiends, who tumbled, leapt and spew fire in all directions. Finally, she would overcome the figure of Winter, and transform him into Spring. Rejoicings and much festivity would then ensue.

The occasion has grown in popularity and scale each year, and now commands audiences of up to twelve thousand people. I was invited to take part, and provide a dawn pyrotechnical display. Richard Stanley, the enigmatic director of Hardware and Dust Devil, had met Liz’s boyfriend Mark at Glastonbury, and learnt of the antics of the Beltane Fire Society. Intrigued, he stayed in touch with the organisers, and went up to see for himself, detonating a pyro laden wooden goat ‘sacrifice’ at dawn for the crowds. I had constructed this four legged ‘creature’ for him, and wired in all the charges, but could not attend the particular day, so sadly missed the chaos.

When the next festival came around, I did not hesitate. Richard and I decided to up the ante – so asked the Beltane Society in Edinburgh to build a large Stag. I constructed two dedicated firing boxes for the pyros – one for sequential detonation and one for fast sequence firing. I planned the order of explosions, fireworks and effects perfectly (is this sounding familiar?!). It would be spectacular. By dawn, I was told, survivors would be in, how shall I say, an advanced state of merriment. How to announce the expected dawn sacrifice? Luckily, I managed to get my hands on a military flare – went up a thousand feet up, gave a half-million candle light, then descended on a wee parachute. Platoon in Scotland, I fondly imagined! It might well attract the attention of any light aircraft/shipping in the area, but this would just add to the fan base. With the equipment stowed, Harvey Fenton (editor, Flesh and Blood) drove us up. It was my first time in Scotland, and besides getting to blow the shit out of something fairly large, in front of a captive audience of five thousand remaining revelers, I would also get to paint my face black, daub strange runic symbols on it, and carry a large iron flaming torch around. What more can a man want?

We stayed with the costume designer of Sleepy Hollow, who, amongst other things, had an outstanding collection of aviator/film prop goggles. I went Mad Max with these for a while before we left to rig up the wooden stag. The Beltane crew had constructed an impressive beast. (see picture) To remain worthy contributors, we had bought along an impressive amount of explosive material – this was  definitely to be a non smoking afternoon! I wired them into the structure according to my design, whilst everyone busied themselves for the coming festival. Wiring charges takes a surprisingly long time, as each one must have two wires leading to the firing box, and be properly placed and fixed. 

Once again, we gave the creature a formidable appendage – a three stage flaming dong consisting of various firework effects – much to the amusement of bystanders. The stag was to belch fire, spray fiery streamers, flash, pop, fizz and bang, then burst into flame before violently exploding and tearing itself to a thousand pieces. Even then, the fun wouldn’t end, as Richard and I had cunningly concealed fearsome secondary charges, which would only explode when the remains of the stag were on the floor, burning – low down dirty shock tactics, I know, but it was May Day after all. I was beginning to get profound sexual excitement from the thought of setting it all off …… (er, I mean the excitement from the anticipation of the display grew within me…). Finally, hours later, it was ready. It stood there crazily, a mare’s tail of wires leading away, each labeled for its effect. I whispered in its paper ear that everything was going to be OK, and not to worry. It’s all in a good cause, so don’t get any ideas about running away, I sternly warned it. Primed for action, it was safely stowed away. Then, it was off to make-up.

There were some twelve of us torch bearers, from all over Europe it seemed. We blacked up our faces, then applied generic runes to each other. As I was tracing out ye old Celtic shite onto one guy’s face, I was filled with the urge to do him up all Steve Strange – but instead settled for some kind of Middle Ages ‘Adam Ant’ look, which he seemed to approve of. (some Eighties fans just won’t move on …..) When all were done, we stared in bewilderment and amusement at each other. The effect was not comical, but pretty unnerving – like the German Black Peters. Our job, we assured each other, was to protect the White Women from harm – we were the goddam pagan secret service! Thus imbued with righteous fire in our belly, we climbed the hill to prepare for the festivities.

Around us were the jubilant masses, and we lined up in our fenced off enclosure with the other performers, ready to start the procession. A bloated, sensuous full moon burnt overhead, casting a strange hue on Calton Hill. To quell our nerves, a bottle of whisky was passed around. For many of us, it was a completely new experience. The drumming started and our stomachs leapt. We trooped off into the thousands of spectators, to wild cheers, sporadic camera flash bursts and pockets of wild partying. We ascended the huge steps of the ‘temple’ – five looming Greek style pillars and ledges. The torch bearers fanned out on each side, standing some ten feet above the crowds. It seemed unreal, a bizarre dream – truly a rush of excitement, trepidation and an odd sense of belonging. A burning torch was passed down the line so we could ignite our own torches – I had one of the heavy iron poles.

Then the hypnotic, pagan drumming started, reached a crescendo, and we were off. Barely knowing what I was doing, I followed the procession, fending off drunkards, some trying to steal the torch, some trying to join in the march. On several occasions I had to physically haul people from our processing trail. But I was too swept up in the energy of it all – as the May Queen did ritual performance art at each of the four ‘elemental’ areas, as the ‘Fire Spirits’ leapt and cavorted, taunting us and the White Women, in mock threat, spewing sheets of fire into the night sky, tumbling over the hill, swinging flaming metal balls – dervish like, mystifying, alluring and potent. Finally, it was over. The lead players took up their ‘Throne’, drink flowed, drummers belted out new, primal rhythms. Beltane is primarily a fertility festival, and the year previous, four of the White Women had fallen pregnant! It was not a night for Christians. I have never experienced something so authentic, dedicated and passionate – Mark and Liz, the organisers, were rightfully proud.

As numbers dwindled, and the cold seeped in, Richard, Harvey and myself whiled away the early hours, taking in the deranged spectacle, gearing ourselves up for our dawn display. We had secreted the Stag behind a large wall, part of the enclosure for the Royal Astronomical Society grounds, also situated on the hill. My bag containing the all important firing boxes, tools and military signal flare was hidden under bushes within this enclosure. As the first light touched our still blackened and wearied faces, we went to ready the ‘sacrifice’ – our own particularly noisy dawn chorus. I found it first. The Stag had been thrown to the ground. The paper skin had been mostly torn away. The main wooden supporting structure was wrecked. One leg was hanging limply off the main body. My carefully placed charges were shifted violently out of position. Some wires hung loose, and most painfully off all, its pyrotechnic dick was ruptured. It had been killed. And, to make matters much, much worse, my bag was missing. Who would do such a thing? Only ourselves and the organisers knew where the Stag was.

Then I remembered. Earlier, when I returned to make the final adjustments to the display beast, an old guy from the Astronomical Society bellowed at me for trespassing, even though we had been told that permission had been given. “You! Get the hell outta here, pal! And tek yer stinking Stag with ye!” The bastard star gazers had wantonly wrecked our precious creation! Hours of work ruined – and some filthy thieving scumbag had walked off with my fantastic blast boxes – the jewel in the Shadow Theatre arsenal, one of them already a veteran of Beltane! All those hours into the early morning spent struggling to remember basic electronics, solder flying, drill whirring, voltage flowing! Swearing as circuits wouldn’t work, even testing a charge in my room at risk of personal injury! I cursed the person responsible a thousand times! And his mother, and his mother’s mother! All three of us fell into a deep depression. “This always happens!” lamented Richard, before rambling off on some paranoid conspiracy theory. “We’ve been sabotaged!” he cried. “Motherfuckers!” I added, needlessly. Harvey hung his head in spiritual pain.

We went over to the remains of our creation. It sagged painfully, pyros protruding like eviscerated organs, wiring exposed like veins. As the dawn light grew stronger, and the sun threatened to appear, thousands waiting in anticipation of the expected display, all seemed doomed. Mark joined us, and was as shocked as we were. The Astronomical Society? A jealous pyrotechnician? Earlier, we had had a spat with one of the effects guys from the Edinburgh contingent. Christian rebels? The Scottish Firework Police? Or, more worryingly, perhaps God himself? I remembered my Bible for an instant – Fawkes 8, Verse II – “Thou shalt not indulge in gratuitous explosions.” I trembled in fear.

Then, something in me screamed. We would not be beaten by the evil forces we imagined were against us. “Fuck it!” I cried. “Fuck ‘em! We’ll still blow it up! Whatever’s left, we’ll blow the shit out of it!” The others just stared at me, part sympathy, part concern. But Mark rushed off to get a car battery. I would just have to connect whatever wires came to hand, and see what happened. The four of us lugged the sorry looking Stag over the wall, and through the remaining crowd. It was a little embarrassing, as of course they would be thinking that the Stag was meant to be in this state! Ha! Any derision would soon be quashed as the gunpowder went to work. We managed to get it to stand on its own on the path below the festivities. I fed out the tail of wires, and plonked the battery down, some distance away.

All eyes were on me now. I could feel the rising sun on my back, and the soft dew between my fingers as I crouched down. I would not fail them! Swallowing hard, I touched the first pair of wires to the terminals. Nothing! The collective disappointment of the crowd smashed into me like the charge of a fierce animal. I had thoughts of just setting fire to the thing’s arse and running away. Quickly. But then – a hiss! A piffle of smoke! BOOM! The flamer in its mouth erupted and sent a blast some feet in front of it! Cheers! Applause! Joy! Spurred on, I grabbed another bunch of wires ….. KABOOM! Five charges detonated with some ferocity, and I had to duck as pieces of wooden Stag flew towards me. Then more! Its dangerous dick ignited, spewing flaming particles into the ground. Its ‘antlers’ shot fire and brimstone into the sky. The watching people loved it! Secreted devices triggered deep within the thing, blasting more pieces all over, coloured fire, spectacular, mesmerising effects.

Then, the finale – a ‘gerb’ situated within the Stag set fire to the whole thing. I joined the others to watch the final demise. As we all stood looking, entranced like children, I saw some fool walk towards the exploding carnage. “Get back! Back I say! There’s still charges left in it!”

“Fuck you!” the mad man cried. I turned to the others, and shrugged. Well mate, it’s your life! Just as that thought percolated through my hazy mind, a awesome explosion occurred, sending the man scampering backwards, frantically trying to brush flaming pieces from his person. How we laughed! It was done. We walked down to the remaining embers – burning copper wires giving a mysterious green hue to the fire. “Hey! You!” a fearsome voice said. We all turned to see two battle scared geezers walk towards us. I noticed, as they got closer, each sported serious scars to their faces, with noses that veered off at odd angles. Ears that looked like uncooked pastry. Several teeth missing. Oh shite, I thought.

“You!” he pointed at me. I have a black face which is covered with silver runes, I thought. That possibly makes me a target….
“Ur, me?”
“Yeah, you!” His thick Glaswegian accent struck fear into my soul.
“Are you the violent cunt that did this?” Richard and Harvey backed off slightly.
“Ur, well, I might have been involved. Slightly.”
“Did you fucking do it or not?”
I looked furtively around. Everyone looked bewildered. And a little scared. “Well, ur, well, yes. Yes, I did.” There was an uncomfortable silence. “Did you enjoy it? Or…not?”
He said nothing, but walked towards me purposefully. His friend tried to grin, with what was left of his face. I suspected imminent violence.
“You violent cunt!” he cried, before grabbing me, then hugging me. “It was fucking great!”
His friend’s grin echoed his sentiments. I just smiled knowingly.

Andy Collins

Nobody gets enough holidays. After ten years in the same company, I have a mere 25 days off a year, nowhere near sufficient for the relaxed lifestyle to which I aspire. There are two ways to supplement this: ask for unpaid leave, which you probably won’t get and which costs you money, or phone in sick and be not at work, yet still get paid. No prizes for guessing which is preferable. However, to make the most use of this supplementary time off requires the use of psychology, as well as acting skills that would put Keanu Reeves to shame, in order to convince your employers that there is indeed a minor outbreak of Ebola in Tulse Hill, but that you should be over it by Thursday.

Preparation

Firstly, choose your day. Everyone goes for Fridays and Mondays, so these are to be avoided for general sickies; this is doubly true for days around Bank Holiday weekends, when even the most gullible of bosses will begin to smell a healthy-but-faking-it rat. The advantages of, say, a Wednesday, is it chops the week right down the middle, leaving you no more than two days from legitimate leisure time. But remember to vary things a bit, as the aforementioned credulous manager is bound to notice you missing six straight Wednesdays.

Secondly, pick your cause. The ideal sickie:

• comes on swiftly, avoiding the need to foreshadow your illness over the previous couple of days,
• matches your lifestyle; foreign trips provide an opportunity for exotic infections on your return,
• doesn’t mock co-workers; if someone’s genuinely asthmatic, using it as an excuse is impolite,
• leaves no trace, since questions about what happened to the chickenpox marks can be awkward.
• at the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, it should probably also be curable.

A Note On Hangovers

Never underestimate the humble hangover: absenteeism and poor job performance induced by it is estimated to cost the American economy $148 billion a year. [1] Yet despite this, it is viewed with great disfavour by bosses, as a self-inflicted wound. This is inconsistent – would they use the same grounds to deny sick leave if you got AIDS? – but here at TC, we don’t bitch about how unfair life is, we deal with it. Treat your hangover like a genuinely-ill sickie, and simply convert it into something less provocative. The exception is when those Kodo drummers in your brain are the result of a works outing: if everyone knows exactly what you were doing, you might as well bite the bullet and go in. It’ll hurt, but establishes your credibility as someone who won’t let “a mere hangover” stop them from coming in. Best not do it too often though, or “Jim is a conscientious employee” will become “Jim is an alcoholic”, though this would open up whole new areas of opportunity, such as cirrhosis of the liver, detox sessions, etc.

[1] Dr.Jeffrey Wiese, medical professor at the University of California, writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, June 6th 2000.

Top 10 excuses for absence

1. “Food poisoning”. Your diet – curry, kebabs and other junk – sucks anyway, so this will come as no surprise to anyone. Discussion of bowel movements will block suspicious questioning.
2. “Women’s problems”. Obviously limited to women, but if you are, you have a huge advantage: any male will blanch, and not pursue things further. Also a reason to act the complete bitch.
3. “Migraine”. Excellent for emergency use, when you need to get out of the office quickly, although best to previously establish a pattern in less critical moments. A naturally recurring infirmity too, so can be used often.
4. “Flu”. No-one gets a cold any more, let alone claims one a reason to stay home. Thie perennial favourite can easily be stretched across several days, especially if used during a genuine outbreak.
5. “Back problems”. The ideal chronic illness, because it’s almost totally unprovable either way. Helps if you generally look miserable at work, which should be easy, since if you’re happy there, why are you pulling a sickie?
6. “Dentist’s appointment”. Usually requires advance notification, and generally only good for half a day, but has the benefit that you’re not expected to be in the house.
7. “Allergies”. I know someone who sniffed the family pet to enhance her sicky with streaming eyes and wheezing. Find your allergy and be ill at will; just avoid peanut-style anaphylactic shock.
8. “Stress”. Implies you’re working too hard, which may or may not be credible, but the symptoms e.g. high blood pressure tend to be nicely internal. Develop a facial tic to bump up people’s pity. More advanced pupils may also care to test the theory that the more severe the complaint, the less likely anyone is to risk of contesting it, in case you actually are…well:
9. “Cancer”. Only if you want a lot of time off. Everyone has dodgy moles, and even a lame melanoma is near-sacrosanct. Shave your head badly before you return, and blame chemotherapy.
10. “A funeral”. While not strictly your affliction, Oscar-caliber practitioners can find out at work, and break down sobbing. Who’d dare probe such histrionics? Don’t claim dead parents too often…

Signing Off 

Opinion is divided as to whether it is better to have someone call in for you, or do it yourself. My view is that it depends on the precise nature of the illness you are claiming: the more serious ones are more likely to benefit from this approach. If you opt to use it, someone of the opposite sex is best, to prevent potentially awkward rumours circulating while you’re away…

You do not want any contact with your boss, who is liable to ask awkward questions. So speak to a sympathetic co-worker i.e. someone who won’t give a toss, or leave a message on voice-mail. Phoning early in the morning is helpful, because it looks much more conscientious than leaving it until lunchtime, and your voice is also likely to sound nicely raspy and weak. It’s worth setting an alarm-clock in order to do so, even if you crash out again immediately after.

If you are unlucky enough to encounter your boss, the question of when you’ll be back is likely to arise. Technically, the correct (but none too diplomatic) answer is “ask the bacterial infection currently rampaging its way through my body”. Therefore, vagueness is best: say you “hope” to be in tomorrow. For a short sickie, it’s best to leave on an optimistic note, by saying you think you’re over the worst and are feeling a little better this morning. This not only shows a keenness to return to your beloved job, it also primes an excuse, should you be heading out of the house.

Covering your tracks

Once you’ve convinced your boss, you want to enjoy your bonus holiday; this is fine if you work behind the counter at Millie’s Cookies, and are certain no-one is going to phone you at home about anything. However, odds are that you work with a bunch of incompetent baboons incapable of wiping their own bottoms, and who will think nothing of disturbing your recovery with an endless series of inane questions. Which is a bit awkward, if the truth is that you’re sitting in a beer garden somewhere.

Warn any unemployed/student/similarly sicky housemates who might get to the phone first: “I think he’s sleeping and I’d rather not disturb him,” is the answer they should give out if you aren’t around, or perhaps the more dramatic, “he’s in the bog puking up right now,” which should forestall all but the most persistent. Either of these can be primed during the phone-in, when you say you hardly slept and how badly your stomach was upset. It need hardly be said that if you answer the phone, a weak and quavering voice is essential, until you’re sure who’s on the other end.

If no-one at all is around when work comes a-calling, you need to have a good reason why you didn’t get to the phone. As well as the ones listed above, you can add things like “went to the chemists”, though this is not much use if you’re not around for the whole day. “At the doctor” gives a little more scope, since the NHS being what it is, getting seen the same day is a major triumph. An answering machine is almost essential: as well as allowing for call-screening, a phone that rings and rings is infinitely more suspicious than one which only trills twice before the message cuts in.

Do exercise care in your choice of destination: too many people have been nailed due to being spotted on the highlights at Lords’ after claiming a sickie in order to head for the cricket. Avoid TV cameras like the plague, even if you are a witness to UFOs landing outside 10 Downing Street: you are supposed to be at death’s door, not the Prime Minister’s. It goes without saying that you should also keep some way from your job, or any places associated with it. It may be tempting to attend that leaving do in the evening of your sicky, but it will only cause trouble as claims of “miraculous recovery” are likely to be met with scepticism.

The Return

It may be painful to realise it, but you will have to go back eventually. Ideally, you should continue to play the invalid for at least the first morning back. The impression you want to give is of someone who has bravely struggled into work, despite not quite being 100%. There is a secret technique here, which I now reveal: start acting ill only when you are sure no-one is looking at you. If you see anyone noticing, smile bravely, and make a limp attempt at perking up. This is such a contrast to what people expect from skivers, that the very idea that you’re pulling a double switch on them will never come to mind. You can now begin to plan your next scheduled malady…

Oh, come on, Jim!”, I hear you say. “You’re not really trying to tell us there is a connection between animated mice and the Third Reich, are you?” Perhaps, perhaps not. But let me take you on a strange journey…

This started one Saturday afternoon in front of the Cartoon Network, when it was pointed out that, as well as being the most Oscar-winning duo in history, Tom and Jerry were also more-or-less the opposing sides in World War II: Tommies, the British soldiers, and Jerries, the Germans. I laughed. I thought about it a bit more. I did some research. I’m not laughing quite so loud now.

First, some history. We need to begin back before cartoons, before sound, before even cinema itself, in the Georgian era, which is where the term “Tommy” first arose. It’s noted as far back as 1815, and comes from the name used to show Army privates how to fill in official forms: Tommy Atkins. This name became a general term for any British ‘grunt’ and is significant, because it strongly suggests that the term had been around for a long term, and likely was familiar to the creators of T&J. Though there’s no such precise origin for ‘Jerry’, it’s rather more obvious, and so probably dates to the first time an English-speaking nation clashed with the Germans in anything more menacing than a penalty shoot-out.

I think it’s safe to assume, especially in the context of a series which began right around the time of the Battle of Britain, that the choice of these names was no accident, especially since it precedes the American entry into World War II. They are also markedly different to the meaningless names selected for other MGM cartoon characters around that time e.g. Sniffles, Droopy, etc.

In this context, it’s particularly interesting to note that, while Tom might seem an obvious name for a cat (as in “tom-cat”), he was not called that originally – in the very first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, he is clearly referred to as Jasper. It wasn’t until the second, The Midnight Snack, that the names Tom and Jerry appear. According to Patrick Brion’s seminal book [1], they came from a contest among studio employees, but strangely, there is no mention of precisely who won it.

There had previously been another animated couple of the same name, from the Van Beuren studio, but neither a cat nor a mouse were involved, and they are names whose pairing originally goes back a great deal further. Again, we must return to the Georgian era – 1821, to be precise – when Pierce Egan published the spectacularly-titled Life in London; or, the Day & Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq., and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom. Clearly Mr. Egan was paid by the word, but this was Tom and Jerry’s first appearance in popular culture [2]. And by no means their last: while it’s of limited relevance here (okay – absolutely no relevance at all), Simon and Garfunkel were known by that name, early in their careers.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this theory is that Jerry is the good guy, the peace-loving victim of Tom’s evil schemes, but who usually wins due to his superior intelligence. Read in a wartime context, the suggestion that violence isn’t a solution goes beyond the subversive and borders on outright sedition. An alternative explanation that Jerry = GI is no more loyal, since it suggests the two Allied sides were fighting each other. In either case, it’s certainly worth noting that MGM were conspicuous by their absence in the field of animated Allied propaganda: even at the height of the war, Tom and Jerry was a series almost entirely free of political commentary. The closest approach was 1943’s Yankee Doodle Mouse, but this treats hostilities as just another setting for their usual slapstick, not significantly different from the Wild West or Three Musketeers milieus used in other instalments. The only other acknowledgement of ongoing global conflict which I could find was the same year’s The Lonesome Mouse, with Jerry drawing a Hitler-style moustache on a picture of Tom. This seems mere tokenism, especially when contrasted with Warner Bros, whose output included hugely jingoistic slices of xenophobic bigotry such as the amazing Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.

But then, we can also discriminate between the background of the studio heads [3]: Jack Warner was born in the British Commonwealth (London, Ontario) while Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer were both Eastern Europeans, from Warsaw and Minsk respectively. Mayer didn’t bother to become an American citizen until his late 20’s, while ‘Goldwyn’ was not Sam’s real surname. [Taking the latter as evidence of radical tendencies is, I admit, a bit much – I wouldn’t want to go through life called Sam Goldfish either…] At the risk of drifting into anti-Semitic territory, perhaps this ties in with the ‘Jewish Mafia’ who ran – and to a lesser extent, still run – Hollywood, though the question of why they would have any interest in supporting Adolf Hitler is a bit of a problem, to say the least. However, revolution makes strange bedfellows, and both men definitely have the potential to fall into the two areas most often suspected of attempting to undermine American values: Jews and Bolsheviks.

There’s a postscript to this subversive tale – or perhaps, tail. When MGM moved to revive the series in the early 1960’s, they used a Czech animation studio. Supporting Communist enterprise at the height of the Cold War, right through the Cuban missile crisis, seems remarkably unpatriotic, to say the least, and adds a cherry to the top of this insubstantial, yet somehow intriguing, illusion. In answer to the question posed at the start of this article, the answer is: “not really”. In many ways, it’s merely an exercise in how easy it is to find evidence to back up any theory, no matter how ludicrous. However…pay attention the next time you watch a cartoon cat and mouse hit each other over the head with household items – you may be seeing more than you think.

References:
[1] Brion, Patrick: Tom & Jerry, Harmony Books, 1990
[2] Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 15th ed.
[3] Microsoft Encarta: entries on Sam Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer and Warner Bros.