Sunday, January the 22nd, 2006

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Stunned Starlings

Pockmarked, moustachioed, and bonkers, evil tyrant “Uncle Joe” Starling stepped out on to the balcony of his dacha. He sat down in his dacha deckchair and peered in his bonkers and evil way at a flock of stalins soaring through the blue sky above him. Uncle Joe liked curlews more than he liked stalins, and he had once ordered the firing squad for a bird-hating apparatchik who served him curlew soup at a ceremonial picnic lunch one summer's afternoon. But he liked stalins well enough, and his lips curled into a smile as the birds vanished behind some trees over by the black lake. There were bones at the bottom of the black lake. Not only the bones of small animals which had inadvertently fallen into the lake and been eaten by the carnivorous fish that swam there, but the bones of the soup maker, whose bullet-riddled corpse Uncle Joe had had tossed into the churning black water by his minions.

The chief dacha minion was Halob, father of Old Halob who became famous as the irascible trainer of fictional athlete Bobnit Tivol. Halob the minion was a wheezy, crumpled man, whose tunic was often stained with egg and beetroot, for these were his favourite foods, though he had few teeth left in his head. Halob was a perfect minion, for within his soul burned an indestructible love for Uncle Joe Starling, a love so pure that it had been celebrated in verse by national poet Igor Zoogoo, a verse that was proclaimed now at the marriage ceremonies of even the most feckless young peasant couples.

There was a wedding taking place in a village near the dacha later today, and Uncle Joe had decided to attend. As he watched the flock of stalins crossing the sky again, flying back from whence they came, he twisted the little red pneumatic knob on the arm of his dacha deckchair to summon his minion. Halob arrived on the balcony within seconds, creaking a little.

“Your bones creak, Halob,” observed Starling, and then he cackled, “Unlike the bones of the soup maker which lie rotting at the bottom of the black lake!”

Halob cackled too. He always cackled when Starling cackled. They cackled together often, at least four or five times a day, whenever they recalled the numberless victims of Uncle Joe's firing squads. For they were cruel men, both of them, despite the purity of Halob's love.

“I have decided to perform a song at the wedding this afternoon,” said Uncle Joe, “So get me the sheet music, Halob.”

Nodding in acknowledgement, Halob headed back inside the dacha to do as he was bid. He did not need to ask which sheet music to fetch for his beloved, for Starling only had one song in his repertoire. The song he liked to sing was “The Windmills Of Your Mind”, made famous by Noel Harrison, son of the actor Rex Harrison. Rex had many wives, both real and fictional*, and though it would not be difficult to ascertain which of the wives was Noel's mother, I cannot be bothered to find out. I can, however, tell you that Rex and Noel were watching a storm one evening when a bolt of lightning utterly obliterated a tree directly in front of them. What sort of tree it was, and whether this Act of God was related in any way to the Lord's displeasure at Rex's performance as the Pope in The Agony And The Ecstasy, are both important matters which require further investigation. The Hooting Yard Rex Harrison Research Institute is, however, understaffed at present, so unless a volunteer sidles up to the entrance flap of the Institute's somewhat bedraggled tent in the near future, we are going to have to put this on hold.

Now, listen carefully. On the afternoon of that country wedding when Uncle Joe Starling startled the feckless young peasants by striding into their reception, and then delighted them by singing “The Windmills Of Your Mind”, his minion made a tape recording. Years later, on his deathbed, Halob entrusted the precious piece of magnetic tape to his son Old Halob, who in turn passed it on to fictional athlete Bobnit Tivol as a gift for coming second in a particularly close-fought five hundred metre sprint final. When fictional athlete Bobnit Tivol's non-fictional belongings were put up for auction in an old barn in a field somewhere near where many sinister cows were grazing, the tape fell into the hands of the Korean dance band leader Park No Lip. He gave it to his daughter, who was at the time emerging as a key figure in the boop-boop-boohoocha scene. Her beat combo, the Stunned Starlings, sampled Uncle Joe's vocals on their cover version of Rex Harrison's son's worldwide smash hit. Sadly, however, their record failed to interest anyone except their close-knit pals, and you will search iTunes and other online music download resources in vain. Let that be a lesson to you.

* NOTE : For further information about the fictional wives of Rex Harrison, see The Lactose-Intolerant Jezebel Of Botnia, Her Impending Flu Jab, And The Howling Of Wolves At Dusk (12 September 2004)