Blyton the Face of the Earth

5 February 2001
Dan takes his duties seriously....

Look at you. You're tiny. And you're my son. I only wish I could stay a little longer. But, you know how it is. Well, you don't yet. But I've got places to go. All right for you to lie there in your cot like you haven't got a care in the world. As if you don't depend for your entire existence on the kindness of others. Complacent little shit. You think you could take me?

Of course you couldn't. But don't worry. As long as you don't start crying, I very much doubt it will come to that. I'm a reasonable man, and I'd get no pleasure from beating my own flesh and blood into a pulpy mess.

Anyway, we're straying off the point, and the bitch will be back soon - we can't have her wandering in on our little téte à téte, now can we? That would be regrettable on so many levels. So let's begin.

First up, children's literature. Don't let her feed you the Famous Five. The Famous Five are cunt. Reading them is like injecting cancer into your brain.

First up, there aren't five of them. There are four. Four and a dog. I don't give a damn how much the English love their pets, a dog does not have the same legislative rights as a human. It isn't a human and it certainly doesn't deserve to be allowed membership of a group which would exclude the Jews and the Irish like a flash. Timmy was there to keep George happy on the nights when Anne was praying for forgiveness to the God who never wanted her to be thus unworthy. That's it.

So, four happy-go-lucky proto-Nazis wandering the beaches of Cromer or somewhere like that, accompanied by Timmy the fuckdog. And, just in case that isn't setting the alarm bells ringing in that tiny little neoplasmid mind of yours, let's pause briefly on the fact of their dubious relatives. These have only one function. If you ever meet somebody who attempts to make comedy capital out of the fact that one of them was called Aunt Fanny, you'll know to hit them in the face with a shovel. Over and over and over again, until they don't even look human anymore. If they ever did.

Now, about now some brickdicker will point out that, for all their faults, the Five's exciting tales of derring-do have charmed generation after generation. Keep the shovel handy. Suggest sweetly that the Famous Four (and Timmy the Fuckdog) were in fact, on top of their personal loathsomeness, utterly useless crimesolvers.

Heads up. Try to focus your eyes. Look as if you're interested, at least. I'm trying to save your soul.

Thieves, diamond smugglers, foreign agents. In every one of these professions, the true high-fliers either go for an early IPO or at the very least base themselves in London, the better to maximise their profits, make connections and, perhaps most of all, have something to spend your ill-gotten gains on apart from fresh milk from a local farm.

Lashings of ginger beer are a damn sight more fun in the back streets of Soho, believe us. So, the ones left scraping a living on Kirrin Island are inevitably going to be a pile of fish shit.

A case in point. Gang of swarthy foreigners apprehend Uncle Quentin, who is busy making a new and exciting version of Ebola which only works on poor people, and lock him up. In the old lighthouse. From which he cunningly manages to attract the attention of the Famous Four and Timmy the fuckdog. Using the huge great fucking light.

This is truly pathetic evil-doing.

So, filthy ebola-loving Britischer scientist, at last we have you in our grasp, an abduction met with almost total indifference by the local police and your nympho wife. That only leaves those four jungvolken you sniff around, and that disturbingly priapic dog! And they'll never find you locked in this room, with its small window accessible only perhaps by a well-greased Dick, or other slender adolescent. And where would you get one of those around here? Kirrin Island has an ageing population. Hahahaha!

Sorry, could you not knock over the Addis lamp? Cheers. Oh, and it's 9 for an outside line. We'll be around with coffee in a bit.

Terrific. You can just about see the reception that will get in the evil foreigners' bar after they've served their time:

Hello there, Hans. Been a while.

Yeah, been in prison. Foul-smelling foreign muck please, on the rocks.

Coming right up. Prison, eh?

Yep. The whole "kidnap the Britischer scientist" plan went a bit sour. Bit of a sickener, really.

Oh yeah? INTERPOL?

Ummm...nooooo.

Scotland Yard?

Not as such. The Famous Five, actually.

The Famous Four and a fuckdog, you mean.

Whatever. They're quite celebrated. Given their lack of resources and their early-to-mid-adolescence, they've uncovered surprisingly many nefarious plots.

Right. Get the fuck out of my bar.

But....lighthouse.

You're only making it worse. Go away.

So, really, they were picking on the soft targets. Don't even admire them. They suck.

Still, they beat the shit out of the Secret Seven. Probably literally.

Ho, Julian!

You the ho, Dick, you bitch.

No, I mean, look. Seven children on the beach!

Hmm. Are they swarthy and foreign.

No, but they look a bit common.

Good enough. You get the tar and feathers, I'll load up the charabanc.

Shit! That was the door. Your mother must be home. I've got to run, baby. But remember. Gurgle and point and remember. Daddy's lesson for the week is only children's stories with massive lesbian subtexts are worth the candle, and the only thing more cunt than the famous five are parodies trading on its antiquarian presentation of theirBritish National Utopia. I'll come back as soon as I can. Be good.