An evening at The Porcupine gentlemen's club with Lumpy Pete, Esq.

Ladies and gentlemen, I must recount to you the curious events that took place between the hours of nine pm and five am on Friday. As I have previously recounted, I had planned to meet with my favourite traveling companion, Sir Lumpy Pete esq.

I arranged to meet him at my favourite gentlemen's establishment, "The Porcupine", managed and owned by Lord Derby - an errant man with an eye for the ladies... and rather more, I wager! With my moustache firmly waxed, I glanced around me then gave the correct combination of knocks to the door on ----- Street, thus affording my entry.

I was awarded a knowing squint from the cloakroom attendent, who pointed me bar-wards with his porcelain beak.

It was, as always, a place of violent extremes. It is the noise that hits you first: a raucous din of feverish chattering beasts struggling to be heard over strange repetitive music, perhaps the work of some Krautrock band.

The visual side of the whole affair is equally hard to digest. The room, barely thirty feet square is covered on all surfaces with a thick woolen rug. It hangs down in vast rouge clumps from the ceiling, swirling in obscene masses around our feet and cascading over Regency tables and sideboards in manner that suggests the imbibement of psychedelic drugs.

One can only presume that Lord Derby picked up such peculiar ideas about interior decoration from his travels in the Orient.

"The Porcupine"'s members take many forms, but all have one thing in common - they have, as I have heard said, something of the night about them. Members of Parliament go there to spend their publicly-funded expenses on absinthe and large-breasted girls; chinese slave importers go to cut deals; slight-bodied uranians go to meet like-minded gentlemen within the denser outcrops of rug.

I have seen villains of all hues threaten each other with dismemberment, only minutes later to be cheering each other's health over a flagon of horse-cider.

Some people may question why a gentleman such as I would frequent such a place. Well, it beats Soho House.

I spotted the speckled features of Lumpy ensconsed in a corner, staring with avid intent at a loose-breasted bar girl, and broke his spell with a clap to the forehead. The startled oaf jumped skyward and spilled gin fizz down his plus fours. I scoffed and forced a packet of "wizard powder" into his claw, at which his eyes lit up.

After we had indulged, Lumpy explained to me his current situation.

"Augustus, old friend," he began in his familiar gruff tone. "What a year... my wife left me after catching me with the maid. I gambled away my house in a poker game in the Ukraine, and had to move in with my sister in her house in Stepney. But she kicked me out after I messed the bed one night."

"Well, I fell in with a rough lot after that, and have been running the streets of Bromley-by-Bow, fighting for scraps handed out by nurses and such. Oh, what a year indeed!" As he spoke, he dipped into his pocket and drew a few live worms to his mouth - a distasteful habit that he succumbed to while down in that pit.

"Lumpy, Lumpy," I muttered. "Think nothing of it - you shall move in with me at once! When you are my housemate, we shall plan together our next great journey into the unknown lands. Once more, Lumpy and Augustus shall sally forth!"

And with that my pal wept tears of gratitude, clutching his pustulous face so close to my neck that I had to demand he desist forthwith.

From there the evening descended into the usual bad craziness. We finished the "Wizard" and were taught some fascinating traditional dances by a pair of Greek boys. At one point there was a small explosion in the bar and the MPs ran around screaming. However, this settled down, and after playing bridge for an hour while drinking some form of vinegar, the log fire was lit and the wrestling began.

Got home at five, a tad scorched. Hope I'm not going have any trouble from my new house guest - he bites like a wounded wolverine.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Forever the accidental genius, I stumbled upon the blog of Augustus J Stigwood last September. It was a chance encounter which in many ways proved life-changing, first for myself and subsequently for his many fans around the world. For I have come to find in Augustus not only a soul-mate, but perhaps my only equal.

With novels such as ‘Farewell, Sweet Jupiter’, ‘The Sebum Machine’ and ‘Galaxies Like So Much Salt’, my work has pushed the genre of science fiction into new and uncompromising shapes. But the discovery I made in the attic of my house that fateful day was just as mind-blowing.

It was there that I discovered a casket, which I carefully prised open to reveal inside an ancient hard drive. Despite being more concerned with future worlds than past ones, I estimated it to be from around the 1870s. I was not far wrong.

On connecting it to my own computer I found on the drive the following: four photographs of a young lady in a bonnet posing in Kew Gardens (the final of which lent an unusual use to a bamboo stalk); an obscure computer game involving fish leaping from a stream which the player aims to catch in a moveable handbag; and Augustus’ blog.

I can still recall the moment I first feasted my eyes on his life – the visitations from his dead wife (her name, :;.^., I have learnt to pronounce with a series of clicks and whistles), the peculiar dishes on which he gorged, the drink-fuelled nights at his club, The Porcupine (now an outlet of Costa Coffee)… it was a world away from galactic battles and inter-dimensional travel.

And yet in there, somewhere I recognised a like-minded soul. For both I and Augustus have set out on a mission to discover new worlds. At that moment, I decided to serialise his blog on the Internet once more, over 100 years after it was originally written.

And so, I hope you enjoy following Augustus in his life’s journey. As he prepares for what is destined to become his final expedition into the unknown lands, be warned - there are some shocking discoveries to come.

As Voidon Merkx, the charismatic starlord in my 48th novel, ‘Death to all Droids!’ intones: ‘This life is not for the both of us, Excerzon X – heroes are born but once a lifetime!’ Amen to that.

JC Guthrey

A pecululiar encounter at "The Porcupine"

Lethergy has triumphed over my body today.

I planned to spend Thurs-day pushing ink through an oft-discussed treatise on the pansexual activities of the southern lowlands owlmen, but instead lay naked and dissolate upon the hearthrug, a thick corpus of drool collecting upon my "sunshine pallett". But for a wafer biscuit smeared with the merest smidgen of flyjam, not a jot has passed my lips.

The reason for such monumental inactivity was yesterday's lengthy drinking session, commencing late afternoon at the Roman Baths. I confess, two gentlemen there allowed me a little leeway. So invigorated, I headed to "The Colossus" for milk punch after which I was drawn with bitter inevitability to The Porcupine.

Therein, I took myself to the spinal bar where a Gary Numan tune was playing loudly. I was immediately enveloped by a fug, a thick pea-souper that concealed all but the extremities of the other guests. While leaning on the bar to order a light vinegar, I eased forward to a blonde-haired angel beside me, whispering into her perfect ear something about lost worlds, new textiles and cold, dead oceans. Before I could register her response, through the clouds I spotted three gents all a-smugger.

It was Skinny Bob with two others I didn't recognise. Cautiously I made my way over to greet them, but they were far too ensconced in debate to notice me.

"Never mind your patent sheep traps, I've got forty acres ruined by that vermin," spat one of the gentlemen I didn't know, tall and reedy with thick mutton chops. "Try and tell me you can elliminate that lot!"

"I tell you I can," retorted the other stranger, short and stout with a beard like muslin. "And more besides. I've disembarked an entire valley that was formerly wool-locked!"

And so it went on, with I and Skinny looking from one to the other and back and forth again as if at the first court at Wimbledon. It clear blew my mind that I was hearing this tepid prattle in The Porcupine - in London, indeed! And I, Stigwood the mighty explorer, reduced to such profound inanity! My head raced, and I raised my cane to beat these fools aside, thus allowing my easy retreat.

A hired car vomitted me to my door at three minutes past four, wherein I headed bedwards.

There I must go again now, I confess, with a shadow upon my soul. Oh weary London!