so now we inflict it on you!
It was just another day in Sam Spade's detective agency. Except it wasn't. It was Lord Cavendish and Burke's comfortable abode in West London. And there they were, listening to 'Wickerman', on Pulp's new and well respected phonograph, 'We Love Life'. The smell of toasted crumpets, Jarvis Cocker's yearning vocals and a general air of melancholia drifted across the room. Lord Cavendish, in dressing gown and top hat sank back into his comfortable leather chair and drew on his pipe. 'It is a fine album, Burke. But yet I feel that a title such as 'We Love Empire' would be more conductive towards a happier Britain.'
'I cannot disagree, Cavendish,' replied Burke, the Lord's favoured companion. Burke was Cavendish's best friend, and despite their insurmountable difference in the class structure, Cavendish was such a progressive and so warm hearted as to almost regard him as an equal. Burke tamped on his pipe in further acknowledgement.
Suddenly there came a sharp rapping at the door. A high pitch voice cried out, 'Tis a message for 'is Lord!', the voice of a former colonial urchin. 'He better get out 'ere', for the Empire is in fear, the 'ho's and de...'
Cavendish sprang from his chair. 'Why! I do believe that it is young master Mather's with a telegram!' and with that he ran to the door and swung it open upon the young lad's skinny anaemic face.
'Wotcha guv!' cried the former colonial, rubbing his nose.
'Master Marshal Mathers, though your cockney accent is coming on admirably, I would rather you did not communicate the contents of my telegrams in such whiny tones to all and sundry,' and with that Cavendish tossed a penny into the young scamp's hand and punched him playfully in the face, before dismissing him with good cheer and a well placed kick in the backside.
'What pray, is the news?' enquired Burke as Cavendish sat down, reading the telegram with wrinkled brow.
'I fear,' said Cavendish, 'that there is evil afoot. This seems like a job for the Cavendish & Burke detective agency.'
'But we're not a detective agency. We're unemployed. And you're not even a Lord, you're a gas showroom fitter from Hull...'
Cavendish fixed Burke with an imperiously violent stare. Burke hastily reconsidered his quibbling over semantics.
'Someone is kidnapping alternative writers and music-makers,' scowled Cavendish, darkly.
'Really?' said Burke. Punctuating with an emphatic lack of interest.
'Yes. First a man named Steven Morrissey, then a Jarvis Cocker and now a Mr Neil Gaiman. I can only fear that the logical next step of such a thief of popular heroes would be...'
'You cannot mean, Cavendish!'
'Yes. The good Queen herself.'
'My God!' ejaculated Burke, before sobering suddenly. 'Hang on, you're not referring to the glam rock combo of slovenly hair?"
'No no, my good Burke, just our most noble and trusted spiritual leader.'
'My God!' repeated Burke.
Meanwhile in a house of curious angles and nice carpets, deep in the heart of the former colonies, sat two young girls of dubious upbringing and deplorable deportment. Their names were Laura and Linz, and though Linz asserted that she was indeed the more prominent of the two it was agreed in the circles that they occupied that it would sound stupid the other way round. Anyway, the girls were rightly regarded by the vile former colonial colloquialism as being "cute," if having the troublesome and frightening ability of shooting laser beam out of their eyes when they became angry. They were the pair behind the sinister kidnappings and they feared no one except Hamble and cans of spam. The two girls were sitting at an oak table with stacks and stacks of fanzines, Oscar Wilde plays, Neil Gaiman literature, Julian Cope autobiographies and classical English detective stories. Underneath the table between their shamefully exposed ankles lay a large wooden crate. It was inside this crate that Neil Gaiman, Steven Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker and the latest addition of Brett Anderson squirmed.
'I'll give you two packs of Silk Cut if you let us out,' whimpered Cocker, clearly distressed at the crumpling of his velvet cuffs.
'Have you finished writing that B-side dedicated to me?' demanded Laura, kicking the box viciously with her pointed boot.
'Um... yes...' replied Cocker nervously.
'For Christ's sake, Cocker! It better be good!' cried Neil with venom, 'I've got a huge Encyclopaedia Britannica to look through, these references don't write themselves, you know!'
'I thought you were supposed to be nice,' snapped Cocker.
'At home he has rows of pumpkins... endless pumpkins... and in each pumpkin is a puppy, locked away inside... the runt of the litter his shame, the fruit of his soil his pride,' sang Morrissey dreamily, before weeping over the state of his compressed quiff.
'Hey! I only have four of them!' retorted Neil.
Brett itched and scratched at his budget satin, 'Just give her the damn song, Cocker. Throw in the words gasoline and magazine and you'll be fine.'
'We're waiting', growled Linz menacingly.
'Um... here I go...' coughed Cocker.
Cocker's song:
'I met you outside Safeways...
The way you tilted your head
It said 'I am strange'
I always pictured you as a ... a... fox...
You pictured me... in a box
You don't trust me to remain true
That's why I'm stuck down here with you
The tip of my fag glows orange
And I... erm... I... oh no...
'Rubbish!' screamed Laura, kicking the box and sending laser beams shooting out of her eyes, which ricocheted and melted her Young Ones Video collection.
'You idiot!' whispered Brett, 'You should have finished it by going, 'Oh yeah... oh yeah...' and so on... it always works...'
'I'm sorely disappointed Cocker. You know the punishment...' hissed Linz.
Coker yelped involuntarily. 'No... please... not that...'
'Two hours... in the lime green shell suit...'
'No! No! No!' and with that the box was thrown open and Cocker was dragged off by the two girls to be forced to wear a lime green shell suit, the darkest hour in the history of Britain's fashion. For a tweed and cardy man like Cocker the pain was unbearable and would be until he fainted an hour later from synthetic shock.
How can our heroes be saved? Will Cavendish & Burke arrive in time before Anderson starts mouthing off about Bernard Butler again? Just how will the real Laura and Linz react to this astonishingly pointless story that I have written solely because I am heartily amused by their site and feel that they have good taste? Will they put it up on their board? Eh? EH? EH?
(Etc)
take me back to
the beginning!!
