hey! exercising me old thumbs on the feedleash. been a while, ain't it? anyway i got some letters in the post today. the first was from bryan and it has news of a distressing kind in it. basically he says i've got a... well, look, i'll just scan it in:

Dear Vince my child,
Life in the jungle is as always, peaceful and wet. Thank you for the socks in your last package. As you remember, in the jungle mould clings to socks like mould, and it is better to simply don new socks than to struggle with bleach and the nearest river rock. I would also like to thank you for the tin of butter biscuits and the packet of haribo. Colto does love those jellied sweets, even if they do get jammed in his horse teeth.

I must ask you, though, if you partake of all these sweets yourself? If so, I should tell you now that your birth mother, who, as you know, sold you off the streets of South London in exchange for a first pressing of Stranded, came from a family in which diabetes was rampant. As such, I must suggest for your own health that you consume less sugary foods. Here is a packet of dried locusts to get you started.

Love,
Bryan

see what i mean? i knew my mum was a model and a band groupie and prone to making impulsive choices, which all sounds good to me, but now i find out she comes from a family with the sugar blues. what am i supposed to do with that? sugar's about ninety-five percent of my diet and i ain't even figured out with the other five percent is. caffeine, maybe. dried locusts arent worth bothering with unless their the choc-dipped kind. and now this has got me wondered what other sort of rotten fruits are waiting to drop from the family tree. going on looks i'd always guessed my genetics were top-shelf, but guess what? funky old rick james had diabetes, so anyone can.

anywayhow, the second post was from howard. he writes:

VINCE! You gotta help me Vince! Hamilton Cork came at the editors of Global Explorer and convinced them I'm a phony! He says it was he and Dixon Bainbridge who, back in 1981, brought peace to the warring peoples of the Saphardian Slopes through a forced programme of ethnic cleansing and random pillaging. Global Explorer's next cover is gonna feature a photograph of Hamilton and the Saphardians burning me in effigy. And a few of the ah, rougher, Saphardians have followed me to Scotland and are stalking me over the countryside. I can't see them, but I can feel their red, beady little eyes following
OH TheRe theY arE
runNNNing now

so it looks like howard's probably heading back to london to take cover. hey naboo, know anything about how to throw off angry saphardians? maybe we ought to ask count dyxon. oh, and there is room for howard, ain't there? i can't keep track of who's living here these days. i been trying to call claire, see if and when she's coming back, and this time instead of just getting her voice mail i got a message that said her numbers been disconnected. she didn't die along with her brother, did she?

i been having a think about them clingons and how they were giving us our greatest desires, and some of them were pretty obvious, right? like howard being on the cover of global explorer, and naboo being doctor who and trying to have the sex with claire, and mister yeah experiencing the miracle of life and ultra ditching hers and saboo and his big feather being promoted to head of the board of shamen and jones and his wicked decks and claire being barleys's house frau and all the others. but i can't figure out which of my greatest desires were granted during all that time. some pretty good stuff happened to me then, no doubt, but i can't even think of what my greatest desire might be. silver cowboy boots, maybe?

oh wait, i already got those.

went out this morning to pick up my green cowboy boots from the cobbler shop and i stopped by a newsagent along the way. though i'd see if the latest issue of cheekbone was out since the delivery service isn't as timely as times past. i heard on bbc news that there's a ninja strike, which would go a long way in explaining the slow delivery, wouldn't it? the newsagent didn't have cheekbone but there was the newest issue of global explorer out on display. it's this pretty dreadful magazine about mountain men and sailors and other crusty old types, banging about with walking sticks and canteens. i was on the cover once in years back, mostly by an accident involving a yeti in heat, but i don't put it on my c.v. or nothing.

but guess who's on the cover of this month's issue? howard! it actually says "howard moon: explorer" right below his picture, which is just how he always imagined it except he'd always say "howard moon, colon explorer" which made me laugh til i thought i'd be sick. and i've read through the issue and there's a big article about howard and how he's brought peace to two unknown, warring tribes of people up in greenland or nebraska or some secluded place and the tribes are thought to be descendants of vikings. i don't know, but if your an explorer it sounds like a pretty big racket?

howards big dream was to be on the cover of that magazine, and now its gone and happened. is that something weird for your list, naboo?

all right! never guess where I been! i was on the road with me limbered thumb all stuck out, hitching a ride up to cardiff to meet up with torchwood (or see where its filmed, leastways) when this white van with no windows pulled over to offer me a lift. inside were three lovely ladies: precious jewels, faleasha savage, and dominique divamore. they took one look at me and says 'come on then, you fluffy-headed chicklet, join up with us and we'll take you round the great wide world.' and that's what they done. we went to paris, berlin, bangkok...performin the ladies queerberet routine on stage. i was a big hit! every night people coming 'round my dressin room to ask who does my hair, who designs my clothes, who did me operation. and then there were those blokes who were so star-struck they just leaped up on me for a kiss and a cuddle. that's how they do it in europe, yeah? friendly folks. no one tried a bumming, either, cos dear ol' faleasha would threaten them with a leather whip and a pair of handcuffs if they did. she's savage, faleasha savage.

it's been a whirlwind of decadence and stardom for me, but the ladies have dropped me back off in london now. they're on their way to bring their queerberet tour to the jungle clubs of india. i told 'em my face was already known down there, and like to be snapped off by monkeys if i weren't careful, so they're leaving me here while they move on to leafier pastures. got a load of great stuff, too, feather boas, high heels, lip gloss, padded bras...claire, you want those? and maybe the feathers could do for naboo's turbans. i thought howard might like the high heels, but he ain't back yet, is he? and the lipgloss, i'm having that.

what's everyone else been doin'?

allright! i've cleaned nathan's flat, got claire out of bed to mind the shop, made sure the kettle's off, sat on my suitcase to make sure it would latch (was a lot easier when bollo was around, the mad monkey), got a sack of travel sweets, got me travel suit, my glitter wellies, some bongo brothers mp3s from spider, and got me thumb warmed up and ready to go.

see everyone later!

you know what's weird? when you ain't seen someone for a long time, but you catch a powerful whiff of them when you least expect it. i got so many brothers and sisters out in the jungles of india that it used to happen to me all the time at the zoo. i'd pass the equine garage, where old tony ice had set up that travellin kebab stand, and the scent of greasy sizzlin meat and garlic yoghurt made my mind kick back to old colto the horse. he loved a good kebab, colto, would eat a dozen in a row and be off his hooves for the rest of the night, brilliant. and then some days i'd be assigned cat nip distribution with joey moose in the feline palace and while passing out the nip i'd conjure up an image of jahooly the leopard because old jahooly, right?, he wore dana aftershave and so did joey moose.

when i went round to mrs gideons to check out her rotten blue veg and do some detectiving i caught a powerful scent on the breeze, and it wasn't just the aubergine. it was the scent of lonely nights with only a trumpet for company. of old moustache wax and back issues of global explorer. of crows feet and string. of despair and dolphins' tears. but mostly, it was the scent of a man who's had it off with a llama, and likely more than once. no, really, there ain't no washin that smell off, ha.

if howard's around what's he doing? got a feeling it's something pretty twisted. he's got a dark side sometimes. i mean, nothing on mine. cut me open and i bleed poisonous nightshade.

speakin of, i was talking with mr rogers about our mixing days back at the zoo, it was genius. it'd be good to have someone to make music with again. now that howard's gone and not coming back we'll never finish our epic piece about the battle of biscuit tins. me and mr rogers, though, we used to make some pretty fierce, ear-tripping mixes. he's like me, you know, looks all toothless and tame, then WAHAH! your struck in the jugular with acidic jelly pythons. maybe i ain't remembering right, but didn't you used to make music too, mrs gideon? you oughta think about picking it up again. you'd look genius with a tambourine in hand!

naboo says he'd know if howard was pushin up daisies somewhere and i reckon he's right, but i'm not really sure he's looked into it lately. he's got a lot on these days, getting claire up to date on his dvd collection and taking care of bollo's runny-eye problem.

so i figure i'll step up and out, yeah? full-on columbo drag. i've brushed off my white suit and my bubblegum cigar and i'm all cocked to snoop. i'm gonna find out where that long-limbed blast of hot air took a powder to if its the first thing i do. should be easy, too, like eggs in the coffee.

it was pissing rain the last night i saw howard. i had just hitch-hiked my way back from india and he was waiting to hear how i'd made a muck of it. i reckon he thought i didnt have the chops for flagging down autos and riding the roads but when he saw the travel stamps on my thumb he knew i'd made it all the way to the jungles, all right. the heady smell of petrol, freedom, and breadfruit, all sweating off me like ginsberg's howl, mustve been too much for howard. he said he was off for a bit of real-man's adventure. i asked him real compared to what? who do i look like, pinnochio? he said no, that i looked like a girl who put on her makeup with flippers, like always. and then he left, taking his clarinet, his dispair, and the last of the minty mountains with him. i figured he was just off to leroy's to watch quigley down under again.

he said a couple other things to me that night. wish i could remember them. something about a dame and then calling naboo a double crosser. or was it double cross-dresser? i dunno what that means, maybe that part's about rudi and his dress, or gregg and his tutu, or naboo and his robes. maybe howard felt left out because he was the only one round our gaff who's still stuck in the age of trousers and felt.

so now that i'm gum-shoein about, i've got to line up everyone and ask them where and when they last saw howard. so open your yaps, you cross-eyed cats, or i'll stuff a heater down your mush and squirt metal, yeah?

hey howard!

i wrote a postcard to you but i ran out of room because its hard to write small with watercolour. so then i wrote a letter but i spilled chocolate milk on it. so naboo said i should just use the feedleash and i am. im at the flat and i've got my room back to myself now that you're gone. mostly. claire sleeps in here when she sleeps but that's mostly during the day and i'm off with boots to pavement, sharing myself with the people. so did you re-read that with your squinty lenses, howard? there's a girl staying with us! claire, claire ashcroft you remember her, she was married to dan ashcroft but no more. i painted all my favourite fruits on her toenails, starting with bananas and ending with apples, because she lets me varnish her toenails even though you never liked it when i did that.

naboos off, though. gone to prague on some stag weekend razzer, to which gregg was invited but i werent! mental. i've got a job cleaning the trashbat man's flat every other week, and on tuesdays and thursdays i put on me rollerskates and coast on down to the COM.plex for naboo. nabootique wheelin' dealin', sometimes tony harrison comes along for that. we work well together, i dust him in glitter and hang him from my neck like mighty shaman bling. people flock over like magpies.

howard where are you at? what you doing? its not like you to not send us long letters full of flowery verse about how alone you are, and how noble and brave and how bound to be forgotten. but i've not forgotten. and me, i've got the memory of a gnat.

naboo says you're probably alive and alright because if you werent we'd read about it in every paper across the world, and see it on the news programmes, besides. he's got a point there, the swotty shaman. but if you're not off running fools errands and raping windmills then maybe you could write? you can even put a poem in it, and i'll try not to skip over it and i'll even read it or try to. or i'll get bollo to read it for me, and he'll rap it for me while playing some lethal beats and it'll resonate loads better.

good-bye,
vince

howard i didn't just say 'your beard's disgusting,' i also said 'let's shave it off, yeah?' so don't be subtracting words from my mouth! and quit pushing back the notes that i'm pushing under your door. also we know you came out in the middle of the night to tuck into what was left of bollo's gigantic feast cos you left crumbs in the butter and beard-hairs the egg nog.

this place is doing me head in. i'm thinking of doing a bit of walkabout myself, maybe travel down to the jungles to visit bryan and see what old colto and the rest of my family are up to. i was thinking of hitch-hiking since i can't drive and i haven't much money. i reckon not all hitchers have giant green thumbs and polo-eyes and a way with dolphins. some are probably pretty fashionable, with genius hair.

some kind of trumpet valve oil been dumped in my red boots! and someone threw my laundry into the bathtub with 3-g's water and its sopping all over the shower curtain rod. rudi's trying to prove he didn't feel me up by ignoring me completely and howard keeps coughing and sneezing and complainin that it's all MY fault. then there's tony who keeps poppin himself out of the crockery cabinet when I open it to get ready for my morning cuppa, nearly scaring the pyjamas clean off me. having the pyjamas scared off me could be a bit dangerous with randy rudi around, don't he know that?! everytime i try to talk to naboo about it he tells me he'll listen when i have some rent money, but the rent money i was savin up's gone missing! it's gone missing in the tangled mess of me an howard's belongings, which are currently festering and breeding together in some kind of gone-wrong stew beneath the bed and howard QUIT COUGHING I CAN HEAR YOU COUGHING UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS AND AT NIGHT IN MY DREAMS YOUR COUGHIN AND SNEEZING AND ITS GETTING IN MY HAIR

That's it I'm leaving this place! I'm taking to the streets and I'm wearing all black so that none of you will find me and also because it's the only thing clean. GOOD BY. YOU WANKERS.

there's some fierce and foul-mouthed pooches on the streets of hackney, i'll tell you what. most won't even have words with me if i don't offer them a nibblet of some kind first, and even after that i wouldn't go describin them as polite. they've got street smarts, these mutts, and most have been fending for themselves for so long they've got no interest in having a master. i've been trying to play up rich's wealth and decadent lifestyle, tellin 'em they could live it up a treat if they wanted, but they reckon i'm given em a line and have plans to manufacture their fuzzy hides into fashionable winter coats. maybe i'd better try my luck in a different neighbourhood, where the strays aren't so supicious.

hey howard, did you find that note i left you before i swanned off this morn? i figure there might be room for your records and things in the attic behind naboo's submarine, and i cleared out my scarf drawer for you to stash your jazzy duds in. i don't know where we're gonna put that single bed, though. think there's room for it under my bed, enough so you can crawl under without scalpin yourself?