A curious meeting... and an antique-related relapse

Having this morning packed a sprightly lunch of pickled starfish, I prepared to take a train to Beachy Head, to spend a peaceful day walking in the glades and brooks and copses of the South Downs, perusing my thoughts on the many untethered horrors of this sickening world.

But as I ventured out onto ------- Lane to hail a hansom, a chill drizzle started to scatter over Marylebone village market, settling upon my frock coat like leper’s piss. I scowled at the heavens and cursed any deity that could make a fruitless exercise of the preparation of brined asteroidea.

I was then that I caught a glimpse of tousled red hair, all a-flutter in the bespattered breeze. My maid Rebekah was easing her way through the afternoon crowds, a basket upon her arm… and contained within it? I did not know, for placed over it was a smart chequered coverlet. But I was sure that this was not one of the days when she would make her way up to the west end to sell pirated DVDs.

Something seemed amiss to old Augustus’ wily brain, and I endeavoured to follow her.

The flame-haired scrubber passed into a passage and I followed her at a distance, until she led me to a dank urine-stinking corner somewhere north of Baker Street. As I peered around a corner, I watched her meet a gentleman of perhaps eight feet in height. His eyes – which were situated on opposing sides of his face - swivelled and rotated in a menacing manner that reminded me of a genus of chameleon I once dissected then ate in Grimpy-Grimpy Land.

Upon greeting Rebekah, he cast his cloak across her shoulder and focused his stereoscopic vision upon her basket. She pulled aside the basket’s coverlet and removed a number of items including a woollen mitten and a gastric plug, which he took up in his huge claw. A single silken hair followed, then a copy of Metal Machine Music (by Lou Reed).

It was at this point that Augustus' investigative mind became a little bored, to tell truth, and as they continued their secretive handover of bric-a-brac (some pigeon fat… a crude pornographic sketch…blah blah) I turned around and walked up to Baker Street.

After wandering around aimlessly for a while, I climbed a drainpipe and peered into a room where a man was having his armpit inspected by a nurse.

My boredom became overwhelming and I must admit that I had a slight relapse, starting a small fire in an antiques shop near Regents Park. It built into a fine blaze within moments and I retreated to the other side of the park where I watched it go up in fine style, all burnished orange and bilberry blue. How I chortled, dear friends!

I scarpered home to find Rebekah polishing my Octon’s Aromaron as if it were no more than a speckled egg. I will get to the bottom of this moral turpitude under my own roof! Bark!

A chill awakening... and some food for thought

It was in the darkness of night that I once more felt the chill hand of my dead wife upon my brow... looking up at her many wandering eyes, I realised she wished to lead me away from my bed. She drew away, calling me to follow in her native tongue of clicks and whistles.

She led me in my stockinged feet into young Rebekah’s chamber as she slumbered. Was this something to do with the queer behaviour of young Rebekah? Was :;.^. leading me to information which could solve this mystery? At first I thought Rebekah had been affected by the same sickness of the mind that has lately come across all of the lower orders of London - not to mention Birmingham and Manchester - causing them to enact violent outbursts in outlets of JD Sports.

(As an aside, the bizarre “riots” of these menial workers is perfectly explained by Dr. Augustus J. Stigwood’s Theory of the Sotadic Zones, in which I have postulated that around the major conurbation of London are areas where one can predict increased proclivity towards immodest behaviour. I am currently developing a further theory that explains the cause: the positioning of a number of huge electro-magnetic “engines” which have been installed by Government forces within major London landmarks such as the Monument to the Great Fire. Such magnetic radiation would easily explain these “rioters”’ behaviour.)

And so it was that my partner in detection :;.^. pointed down upon a pocket book beside Rebekah’s bed, inches from her auburn curls that scattered so becomingly across her pillow. Taking it up, I found an entry:

“7 AUGUST: PAYMENT OF 2S 3D FROM MR RUPERT MURDOCH ESQ”

My eyes darkened as I read these words. What fresh dirt is this? Still in the pay of her former employer is she? I suspect treachery is afoot…

A new maid... and a curious development

In the week since Rebekah first pounded upon my knocker, much has happened Chez Stiggers. After hearing her heart-rending story, I decided to take her in and allow her to serve as my own personal maid. O, the lucky whore!

Since removing my curmudgeonly old retainer Brown from my ranks following his increasingly bizarre outbursts, I've been looking for someone to take over the important role of managing my personal affairs and this flame-haired waistrel, once brushed up and fitted with a fine suit of pig hair, fitted the bill.

(I have, however, had some concerns about my pal Lumpy Pete who continues to lodge with me as we plan our trip to the Upper Lowlands - a journey which appears to be increasingly elusive - who I have noticed watching Rebekah with an almightily firey glimmer in his eye. I shall have to watch his advances - I do NOT want another incident like that of the time my sister Georgina came to visit.)

All was going well, until I spied something curious occuring this morning. As I broke my fast with my usual dish of ocelot veins and considered a tincture of cannabis sativa, Rebekah glanced at her watch then excused herself and walked towards the front door. Removing myself from my seat, I watched her from the vantage point of my front parlour.

There I saw her upon my doorstep receiving a strange boy, all covered in soot and mucus. Upon greeting him, Rebekah did look to her left and right, then take a small package from the boy. She then handed him a sixpence and shoed away the urchin.

I quickly returned to my seat and continued to chomp on veins. She returned and made no comment about the preceding exchange, having presumably hidden the package amongst her decolletage.

What caper is this!? Augustus's nose will sniff out this mystery!

A surprise visitor tells of a strange conspiracy

It was as I made my toilet this morning that I heard a knocking upon my door. Looking out on the street, I saw a desperate-looking moocher with an overgrown shock of red hair pounding upon my knocker.

I cursed down on the muck snipe and then hawked a fine green one to seal it. It was not until her eyes flashed up at me in anger that I noticed that my visitor was a woman, some lowly dollymop.

‘Hello Augustus, we could have some fun with this,’ I said to myself slyly.

Taking her in, I seated her upon the hearthrug and had some warming broth brought it to her. As I poured myself a stiff brandy, I called on her to tell me her story, of how she found herself to be in such a position.

‘Rebekah is my name zurr,’ she said in a broad Lancashire accent. ‘Rebekah Brooks.’

‘I used to work at old man Murdoch’s match factory. Proud of me, was the old cur. And proud was I to work there making them matches 12 hours a day, even if he did lay his fingers upon me a little too often.

‘But cames the day when all the trouble started – a day when the matches were found to be going off in gentlemen’s pockets without them even being struck! There was lawsuits coming in left, right and centre from coves complaining of singed ballbags.

‘Everyone started blaming me, but old man Murdoch said he’d protect me. And I trusted him, I did. He took me into his mansion on the hill and said he’d make me a lady. Lady of the manor, little I!

‘Of course, he had to close down the factory, and all the workers went out on the streets, but I was safe, thank the Lord!

‘At least that was what I thought, zurr. It came to a week later when I got my marching orders – old man Murdoch had tired of me, found some new floozy. And I was out on the street with nothing but a farthing in my pocket.’ At this, a single tear trickled down Rebekah’s cheek.

‘I got my own back on the old buzzard though, heh heh,’ she muttered. ‘He had a surprise when he faced the dock that morning. No one will ever connect it to me though…’

To be continued…

Blessed relief

Sirs. I must confess I have been pleasuring myself all morning over the sight of these two mischievious nymphettes. O their wanton eyes! It is too much for my loins to bear. I shall be sightless by tiffin.

A loathsome malady...

Mes amis...

Ah no... my friends.... please excuse my insuffisances... deficiencies... in the maintenance of this journal... again, sorry - journal.

It has been a wearying year since I fell hard with a dark and distressing sickness that wrought its poison upon my harrowed limbs and reduced me to the very darkest pit of humanity.

For last year I was struck down with a most severe case of gallic illness... Yes, the French Disease. Please do not turn away from these pages in fear of feeling the palsy's tendrils at your throat! Regardless of the bunkum postulated by Dr John Snow, There is no proof that the mallady can be transfered via the International Network.

It was my beloved Mandy (o! those glutinous folds, those tufted curlicues!) that poisoned me with this vile sickness. It was during her celebrated tour of Europe that she was brutally sired by a swarthy député in a darkened corner of the Palais Bourbon. Yes - she was infected by his stinking 'gallus'.

Soon after meeting her I was lost in the fever, with but few moments of horrifying clarity. I recall waking at one point to find myself performing La Marseillaise through an ocarina protruding from my anus, as King Leopold II looked on admiringly. The mists enveloped me again, only for me to revive to find myself lurking around the backstreets of St Mary le Bow clutching a sketchpad full of crude renderings of the local streetwalkers.

Thankfully, I am now over the worst, but still this damned disease sticks faster than syphilis and the - how you say? - retour en arrières... flashbacks are debilitating.

I was at Claridges taking high tea with Viscount Melbourne yesterday, when I demanded a mousse au chocolat then sneered at the mention of Queen Victoria. I was rightly taken out back for a swift kicking.

How much longer must this this shame continue?

BllllluuuuuurghhH?!!!

Auhhhhhh.... non n n n nnnnnnon non... nous arivons?