QUEEN BITCH (in Brighton)
"Mind Your Qs and Bs" - November 2007

Good evening my lovelies; tis your very own QB here, back to pen another delight for your delectation. Oh, my darlings, you are lucky little sapiens to have moi to scatter select words in sentence shaped patterns and thus paint such a pretty literary picture for you to enjoy. Whether you think that I am a pedantic witch, worthy of a nice stake burning which should, at least, make the sub zero dark matter that constitutes my 'heart' reach body temperature; or whether you perceive me as a high priestess of wit and wisdom, channelling the ancient gods with a thoroughly modern, cutting-edge, comedic charm... whatever you think and whatever you feel, at least you are guaranteed quality verbosity and you know I will never offend your sensitive educations with phonetic faux pas, double negatives, or worse.

Flyering in the face of good grammar...

Ok, so I may be an infuriating and impossible old moo, but you know I am right; even if you don't agree with me. My poor, sweet saps! I cannot even begin to imagine how annoying that must be, but fret not, for you are in safe hands (or should that be in safe words?) when you are here with me and your mistress vows to always protect you from the unspeakable plague of grammatical horrors which, like a venomous virus of ignorance, has infected and contaminated our beautiful and gracefully gymnastic language. This disease, like a brain cell eating unter-bug, has chomped away the consonants and crippled the vowels, thus weakening the communication immune system in stage one of its attack on the epicentre of individual expression. After all, heaven forbid that anyone ever fancied themselves as being a bit of a smarty pants and, shock and horror, superior to the unwashed and unaware masses. Who on earth do you think you are?

Ha. I know who I am. Do you? Anyway, enough of my posturing and missive muscle flexing; maybe I think I am Charles Atlas' twin sister, Charlotte Alphabet today. Regardless of which personality I am wearing, it is now time for me to unveil a particularly unsettling piece of evidence and one which would hold up in court to prove that my English-language-eating unter-bug theory is born of quantifiable fact. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A.

Let the record show that Queen Bitch is holding up a postcard-sized piece of coloured card, printed on both sides with pictures and text. Let the record show that Queen Bitch presents the front of the card to the assembled members of the courtroom.

"Esteemed guardians of good taste and grammar ... members of the jury ... boys and girls ..." I declare, "I hold in my hand a flyer, designed to publicise an event. As you would imagine, ladies and gentleman, such an article does not have to contain a large amount of text in order to impart its message. It should, then, be fair to assume that the quantity of text is minimal enough to escape from being the victim of mutilation and violation ... should it not?

"My friends, my fiends and my foes, I give it to you that this small mercy was not, in fact, extended to the innocent lettering upon this card! I give it to you that this defenceless copy has fallen foul to a frenzied attack. Yes, a frenzied attack, which can only be described as the work of a madman ... a madman! Those with faint hearts should turn their valves to the off position now, because this crime was so gratuitous in its cruelty, it even shocked me into a state of stunned silence and disbelief."

The courtroom dwellers all hold their breath, in anticipation and in dread; their faces like those of children watching the Doctor Whos of yore, from behind the Darlek-proof safety of their spanned fingers. If only it were that simple. The Darleks in this case were already out there, rampaging through society like a venereal disease at an orgy (or a dose of herpes through Kemp Town). Ex-ter-mi-nate.

"This," I accuse, waving exhibit A in the air with a theatrical flourish, "is no less than the calling card left by the perpetrating Darlek!"

My darlings, oh my darlings ... how it offends me! I can hardly bear to cast my eyes upon it again, so blatant is it in its defiance. How it taunts me and double dares me to read it all, to suck up every last drop, right down to the Times point 8 dregs at the bottom. How it taunts me with the wanton display of its own blasphemous name, like the carved signature of a serial killer, who is no enamoured with his own art that he cannot help but put his name to the work, in a fate-signing flourish of perversely proud, carnal copyright.

I cannot possibly fly in the face of good old-fashioned decency by feeding you the offal stew of details we shall refer to as the autopsy results, but I will go so far as to reveal the one wanton word-bite, a word-bite which announces both arrival and nature with a 'fuck you and your fancy spelling; who do you think you are?' two-fingered salute. (Terribly punk, what-ho.)

So, without further ado ... it gives me great indigestion to introduce the new kids on the proverbial block ... the one and only ... 'fetishpartys.com' (sic). Say it loud and say it proud ... P ... A ... R ... T ... Y ... S! 'Your love it' (sic). Oh dear. Proofreading, darlings, is a person’s best friend and don’t you go trusting those Americanised spell checking malarkeys either; they are remedial trip wires, designed to send your carefully crafted copy sprawling tits over arse.

Bernard Sniff Saint and his unholy toilet entourage...

Now, as a special reward ... erm, I mean as a special treat for all you readers who have actually stayed with me thus far, we are going to play a game. I and my co-cackling-witch believe we have spotted a new breed of fetish character, namely, the Bernard Sniff Saint. These characters are jowly of face, bristled of jaw and brow, aged in years and yet, by the force of a strange magic (fairy dust?), they somehow manage to end up spending the evening playing Pied Piper to a line of (way too) young dancing girls who all appear to be bursting for a wee at exactly the same time and thus form an odd kind of conga line in the process of their stampede. Tis a most peculiar phenomenon and quite revolting to behold, but I must admit it does have a generous dollop of snigger-and-scoff appeal; part Bukowski, part Polanski and part Benny Hill. With triplet genres like that, methinks tis fair to say the Bernard is a right old three-headed hound. Boom boom.

As for my little game, well I want you to keep your eyes peeled for the Bernards (so called because of their hang dog, crumpled, St. Bernard-esque facial expressions, of course) and I want you to email us if and/or when you spot one. Think of it as being an undercover agent, gathering data for a scientific study of such magnitude that if you tried to comprehend it, the effort would make your head fall off.

Renal failure?

On that note, my deluded loonies, I shall take my leave and leave you in either peace, or possibly pieces. Next time, I shall be ranting about another recently identified species - the Renals (because you’re worth it). Insert hollow and/or ironic and knowing laugh here. Mind you, nervous hysterical giggling would probably be a more appropriate welcome for a Renal. I'll tell you this folks, neither the Darleks from Doctor Who, in the 1970s when it used to be scary, nor Harry Potter's Dementors (most sinister and somewhat akin to Brighton's wastrels, don’t you think) have anything on the Renals. Don’t believe me? Then let me tell you this, the Renals, like all the best monsters found in mythology and mankind, are possessed with some secret and unholy power. For the Renal, this includes the previously unheard of and disturbingly impressive feat of holding a natural and effortless control over the likes of, for example, cackling witches. It is suspected that our undercover agents may have identified one of the species' secret weapons, code name 'bumtail'...

So there you go folks, a nice juicy cliff hanger to whet your appetites. Roll up, roll up and place your bets ... because next time we take you, live and uncensored, right to where the action is. Hurrah. Don't say I give you nothing.

QB

Disclaimer:

I am sure that the 'fetishpartys' people are perfectly lovely and I would never cast my precious slander pearls amongst mammals I have never met and therefore cannot judge. I prefer to reserve that privilege for the unfortunate souls who have crossed, angered, insulted and/or disrespected me and thus must pay the standard fee. This fee is a pound of flesh, or an internal organ, which best represents its donor’s core failing and/or character flaw, i.e. that which displeased me, or that which was the root cause of that which displeased me. I then use the emotional entrails to bake sarcasm-flavoured sweetmeats and offer them up here, to you. They are not, however, recommended for vegetarians, as they always contain some form of animal product; such as man heart (tough as old boots), man ego (more tender than fatted calf), man mystery meat (my secret recipe), or a combination of the above. Yum yum. It never ceases to amaze me, though, when they all fall so easily for the old disguise-oven-as-sauna trick and just crawl right on in, looking all pleased with themselves as they do so. Oh, you silly boys ... when will you ever learn ... Anyway, I have given the 'partys' free advertising by proxy.

I now hereby declare myself disclaimed.