by Bret

Our Daily Beard – 15/02/13

Well, we woke up to startling news from Russia today.

Just as we’re due to have a near miss with asteroid 2012 DA14 (terrible name, I prefer to call it ‘Steve’), a meteor strikes in the Ural mountains! They are thought to be unrelated- but it does give one the willies.

Over 950 are said to be injured (it varies, that’s the BBC’s figure). The exact spread of these injuries is unclear, but apparently sonic booms from the meteor shattered glass windows in cities under its trajectory.

The footage is amazing. It’s exactly the kind of thing that gets seen on the TV in the background, at the start of a disaster/alien invasion movie, disregarded by the protagonists until it’s too late. I would have been terrified to see it, wondering if it were a missile shaped pressie from North Korea.

Adele tried to warn us!

So: here’s a poem inspired by the meteor.

 

Sorry Russia- please accept my apology!

I’m not too familiar with Earth’s geography.

I was on a bit of a mission, as it happens,

But I didn’t mean to hit the Ural mountains.

Sorry about that big sonic boom,

I was trying to tell him: here comes your doom!

You know who I mean, I bet you don’t like him either,

The talentless, all-American, floppy haired geezer.

A broadcast from your planet just reached my system,

I believe it was a movie called ‘Armageddon’.

I was outraged by this man Michael Bay,

And the anti-asteroid propaganda he chose to portray!

He paints us as villains, out only to destroy,

Not as peaceful wanderers, rolling stones of the void.

Well I came to smash his smug face into jam,

But I got mixed up and flew over Kazakhstan.

So sorry again about the mess and dismay,

Don’t suppose you could roll me to L.A.?

 

 
[sociable]

The Saga of Sweetangel – Part 4

More! Behold:

 

The thing they didn’t tell Turtle,

Was that they rarely found missing people,

And most detectives won’t even try.

No point in searching or hoping,

When Sweetangel took what he or she pleased,

And Dirtlings could but turn a blind eye.

 

Poulter and Longthorn were careful,

It was unwise to ask of Sweetangel,

For Saltpetre was superstitious.

They spoke to their best informants,

They found a drunk who had seen Frog that night,

And his tale was quite suspicious.

 

Tatty Jack was the drunkard’s name,

Poulter plied his tongue with malt-barley brew,

Until he said that he’d seen the girl.

“She had a bounty of lodeshells,”

“She took them to the electrum quarter,”

“To the workshop of Everys Pearl.”

 

So Longthorn, Poulter and Turtle,

Made good haste through the pale fog and black night,

To the electrum engineer’s shop.

A pale Findlishwoman answered,

Mrs Pearl, decked in forge mask and apron,

Harvesting her electrical crop.

 
[sociable]

The Saga of Sweetangel – Part 3

Hiya!

More Sweetangel! (There’s loads).

Have a good Woden’s Day!

 

Poulter and Longthorn shared glances,

The girl spoke of things best left unspoken,

Sweetangel was a creature of myth.

An urban legend, a fay-tale,

Dark Sweetangel comes to catch and kidnap,

None know why, or see its face and live.

 

“Turtle, you ask us for too much,”

“A case we just cannot take,” said Longthorn,

“You can’t go looking for Sweetangel.”

“Bollock and fie!” shouted Poulter,

“We will take the case, and take it for free,”

“I’ll find that foul thing if I’m able.”

 

“Not like you to give charity,”

“Or to pursue a case this ill-fated,”

“Have you misplaced your wits?” asked Longthorn.

“You know me quite well,” said Poulter,

“But you do not know why I turned gumshoe,”

“Sweetangel took my heart and left scorn.”

 

So Longthorn asked no more of him,

And the private eyes went forth with Turtle,

Searching high and low for little Frog.

They asked questions in shady pubs,

They asked the Ubus if they had heard aught,

And they wandered through streets swathed in fog.

 

 
[sociable]