2004
December 2004
Now Look At Yourself In The Mirror
According to a recent article in The Guardian, “500 leading art world figures were asked to choose the most influential modern work of art” and Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ came top of the list. Nowt wrong with that of course but I did wonder what else the 500 had chosen. The Top Ten ran as follows:
1. Fountain - Marcel Duchamp
2. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso
3. Marilyn Diptych - Andy Warhol
4. Guernica - Pablo Picasso
5. The Red Studio - Henri Matisse
6. Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me
7. Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column
8. Jackson Pollock, One: No 31
9. Donald Judd, 100 untitled works in mill aluminium
10. Henry Moore, Reclining Figure 1929
So, nothing transformationalistic there then. Personally I would have plumped for the first ten minutes of the 1939 film, ‘Bulldog Drummond’s Bride’. I only came across this masterpiece of transformationalistic art recently, acquiring it on DVD from my local branch of Poundland (‘Communism in action!’), so I have not researched its background thoroughly but its transformationalistic credentials are there for all to see, from the prominent use of a stepladder to the appearance of two behatted figures bringing the episode to a close. I have no idea who was responsible for this transformationalistic interlude in an otherwise straightforward Hollywood detective B-movie. One suspects the scriptwriters, Stuart Palmer or Garnett Weston, but maybe it was the director, James Hogan. Maybe even Eduardo Ciannelli himself suggested the sequence since he gives a bravura performance as the ‘mad painter’.
For those who do not know the work in question, here is a brief synopsis. A bank robber (Ciannelli) climbs through the window of Bulldog Drummond’s flat which is in the process of being redecorated. The robber changes places with his stooge, who is disguised as a painter. As various characters enter the room the robber/painter gets more and more agitated until he is taken away in an ambulance, thus evading the police road blocks. Nothing unusual there you might think. However there are clues in the action and the dialogue. The robber climbs in through the window to become a painter, leaving the real world behind, but not his real nature. He stashes his money in a gramophone, a curious device, a ready-made in fact just like Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’, with similar erotic undertones. The room which is being painted is referred to as “the drawing room”. Other snatches of dialogue point to the eternal questions of the art critic: “Do you see what I see?”, “What’s the meaning of this?” And there are the sideswipes at commercialism in art - “You’ll pay for this my man” - and the vagaries of reputation - “I don’t remember you”, “Ah but you will”. In one fantastic sequence Ciannelli runs through the history of modern art from Picasso to Warhol, declaiming from a stepladder the following verse:
“I express the human form divine
Not in the vulgar terms of flesh and skin and hair
But as kitchenware.”
And the point is pressed home as follows: “Modern art is dead. This is the art of tomorrow. Kitchenware that’s the secret.”
And then there’s the abstract expressionist sequence complete with Pollock-style action painting and the strange Gilbert and George routine with the mirror. This is perhaps the standout of the whole piece. Ciannelli paints Bulldog Drummond’s mate, Algy, shows him the mirror and then repeats the following phrase three times: “Now look at yourself in the mirror.” The scene ends with the arrival of the ambulance men and two policemen (the behatted transformationalists). One of the policeman asks, “What happened here?” and the ambulance man replies, “One of the painters went barmy sir.” And then we return to the plot.
The complete history of twentieth century art in a ten minute sequence in a 1939 film. Quite amazing and wonderfully transformationalistic. Maybe Duchamp’s toilet should be tops, but ‘Bulldog Drummond’s Bride’ would have made a worthy runner-up.
*
Merry Christmas and Happy Transformationalistic New Year!
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
November 2004
Watching ‘Branford Marsalis: It’s a Jazz Thing’ on Channel 4 last night (13/11/04) I was not surprised to hear no mention of Albert Ayler. The recently issued box set from Revenant Records, ‘Holy Ghost’ (containing 9 CDs of Ayler rarities) has caused a flurry of publicity about the man and his music and I came across the following quote from Alan Silva in the Chicago Tribune review:
‘Silva, who played on the first two Impulse recordings, credits Ayler’s creative restlessness with keeping him relevant.
“Albert said it in all of his works,” he recalls. “The idea of transformation is inevitable in American art. It’s what makes art American.”’
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
October 2004
I had a disquietingly transformationalistic moment last week. For a couple of years now I have been trying to resurrect the reputation of the Staffordshire-born, Victorian writer, Robert Williams Buchanan. I have a website devoted to his work where I have recently embarked upon the, admittedly rather tedious, business of transferring all of his poetical works to the internet. For some reason the man has been expunged from the history of English Literature and his name only crops up as a critic of the Pre-Raphaelites. His poetry is forgotten, even his greatest lines:
If I were a God like you, and you were a man like me,
And in the dark you prayed and wept and I could hear and see,
The sorrow of your broken heart would darken all my day,
And never peace or pride were mine, till it was smiled away,—
I’d clear my Heaven above your head till all was bright and blue,
If you were a man like me, and I were a God like you!
And so, while researching the works of another poet, I had recourse to the Bartleby site and the following volume: A Victorian Anthology edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908). Before moving on, I decided to check which of Buchanan’s works had been included in the anthology and was horrified to discover that not only was the name of Robert Buchanan not included in the list of poets, but that eleven of his poems were assigned to the poet, Cosmo Monkhouse. And thus I suffered, what can only be termed, ‘a transformationalistic moment’. For a brief instant I forgot the fact that I had visited Buchanan’s grave in Southend-on-Sea, I ignored the pile of Buchanan’s books which rests next to my computer, and I entertained the possibility that I was the victim of some huge scam, that all the work I had done on my Buchanan website was merely continuing the massive confidence trick of the fiendish Cosmo Monkhouse. Are there such people about who would purposely spread lies and falsehoods about poets and artists, inventing them on a whim, in some foul attempt to undermine all the good work which has been done down the centuries by the toilers in the groves of academe? I shuddered at the thought. Then the moment passed and I realised that there were less diabolical agents at work. Presumably it is a glitch in Mr. Bartleby’s system which has led to Cosmo Monkhouse’s misappropriation of the work of Robert Buchanan. Although it is a glitch which has already spread to two other poetry websites. Maybe it was a printer’s error in the original edition of Mr. Stedman’s A Victorian Anthology, who knows? But, for a moment there I did stand in the shoes of Frederick Hammersley when he stood at the top of Smallthorne Bank and looked down upon the town of Burslem and declared, “Summat’s not rate.”
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
September 2004
Although one does not wish to impinge on private grief I came across the following story in The Sentinel (30/8/04) and it struck me as strange; bordering on the transformationalistic. Under the headline “Inquest on woman who has never been found” the story begins: “An inquest is to be held into the mystery disappearance of a 62-year-old woman who went missing along with two kitchen chairs — despite her never being traced.” The point of the story is the family’s need for ‘closure’ and the official request for an inquest on a missing person who may still be alive. But I was intrigued by the chairs. According to the report the woman had ‘suffered from chronic depression for four years’ and had ‘left behind her medication, purse and bank cards’, but she took two kitchen chairs. There is only one suggestion as to her motive for taking the chairs, according to her daughter, “I think that she wanted to throw herself into one of the lakes on Doxey Marshes and took the chairs to weigh herself down.” A doubtful premise but we are dealing with a confused mind. However the area was searched and nothing was found. The woman and the chairs remain missing. The story contains two pictures, a slightly blurred photograph of the woman and a much clearer photo of one of the chairs. I reproduce it below. It appears faintly sinister.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
August 2004
I receive many messages in my capacity as Secretary of the Association of Transformationalist Revivalists (Stoke branch) and I must say there does seem to be a problem among the many nations which make up the vast continent of Africa, a problem which unfortunately I am unable to offer any financial aid to solve, let that be an end to it scions of various ministers in corrupt regimes, the funds of the A.T.R. are currently at an embarrassingly low ebb. I digress. Among the many missives I deal with on a day to day basis, recently my email provider has embarked on a new service sending me details of emails I have never sent which they have been unable to deliver, a rather pointless exercise this, but there must be a point to it otherwise why do it? I digress. What I do object to, and this most strongly, is receiving emails from puppets. There is something about the puppet. A feeling of mock. One imagines the cavemen sitting round the campfire and the feelings of shock and disbelief which greeted the first appearance of the puppet as the card in the pack picks up the discarded head of the sabre-tooth tiger, inserts his hand and makes the beast speak in comic fashion. The horror. The horror. And so when I receive the following, with the subject line “Creativity comes in many faces. Puppets.” from someone named ‘Puppets’, containing the picture reproduced (I apologise) below, I can only shudder.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
July 2004
And one must never forget Yma Sumac.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
June 2004
The Great Fire of London 2004
Funnily enough I came across the following photograph of Damien Hirst in The Observer and I did intend to use it this month with a suitably flip caption such as “Damien gets it wrong”:
And then there’s the big fire and everybody has a good laugh and poor old Tracey Emin’s in tears and it all goes a bit strange. Granted it’s all about money and nothing whatsoever to do with art, but even so, over a hundred year since Malcolm Bingham produced his white painting and it seems everybody still wants singing butlers and Chinese ladies and haywains and Hoppers and ‘Modern Art’ will always be the butt of jokes for the good peasant folk and a means of turning base metal to gold for the alchemists of old London town. Nothing has changed since 1900. Transformationalism has not succeeded in changing the world. The whole thing has been an abject failure. Frederick Hammersley and all his compadres got it wrong. I apologise on their behalf.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
May 2004
So, Dean Hammersley rings me up in a right tiz and asks did I see Newsnight Review and Kirsty Wark calling the new Jim Carrey film, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” a “Groundhog Day” for the 21st century and what am I going to do about it. Me explaining it’s a scientific experiment and as such I cannot interfere with the data gathering process and my results will be published in due time. Dean saying it won’t interfere with anything, it’s simply a matter of putting the record straight. Not my job but I take his point. Transformationalist science is a tricky area full of variabells and who knows how the business works, them bits nudging tothers to make an ‘event’. Perhaps the cool, calm collection of data cannot be done in a vacuous state. Maybe I should have mentioned that in the Radio Times the connection was finally made between “12:01 PM” and “Groundog Day” - albeit hidden away in the programme pages as the blurb for “12:01 PM”’s showing in the wee smalls on Channel 5. Maybe one is supposed to mark these events when they occur to keep the ball rolling as it were. To aid the ripple effect. To that end I acceded to Mr. Hammersley's wish and here publish his short story which he assures me he wrote in September 1999. Presciently enough he called it 'Niggle'.
NIGGLE
by
Dean Hammersley
It was a product of the research into Alzheimer`s disease; the memory map. It gave doctors the ability to pinpoint the position of any memory in a person`s brain and, with the use of a laser, expunge it forever. Just burn it away.
For a while the procedure was in limbo while its ethical implications were subjected to the most intense scrutiny. The possible religious, moral and social effects of the memory map were all discussed in turn by the sharpest minds in the country. For a man is the sum of his memories, remove them at will and is he not somehow diminished? Is it not tampering with the soul? And then it became obvious from the signs of growing impatience among the people that they had already made up their minds. And that was a clue as to how much money could be made. So the great panjandrums bowed and left the stage and the doctors began their work.
The operation itself was so simple that the doctors soon handed it over to technicians. A computer determined all the calculations and controlled the laser beam; which operated at a micro-cellular level, causing no pain and leaving no scars. An initial medical examination was always required, for any individual`s memory map was so intricate that mistakes could easily be made by those unqualified to justify such high fees, but as time went by and market forces intervened, memogo shops began to open on every high street in the land. A new profession was invented, a new title coined, “memologist”, and those medical students unable to gain the necessary qualifications to specialise in teeth or feet became brain surgeons instead.
As prices fell, more and more people took advantage of the operation. No longer was it the province of movie stars wishing to forget a bad review or the duchess deleting the duke`s minor indiscretion. Now it was available to everyone and with a sliding scale of charges you could remove a minor niggle, through a major bugbear, to an ultimate total cleansing of all the bad things that had ever happened to you. Short-changed in the supermarket, too late to return and sort it out, having it hang around your mind like a bad smell, thinking of what you should have done, what you could have bought with the lost pennies - forget it! The embarrassments of schooldays, even more the agonies of adolescence - forget them! The job opportunities you`ve missed, the perfect partners you`ve rejected and regretted ever since - forget them all! Bullies disappeared along with embarrassing stains and drunken mistakes and it was as though a grey cloud had drifted from the land and the sun shone once more in a pure blue sky. The discovery of the memory map was deemed to be a very good thing indeed.
There were accidents of course. Any medical procedure, no matter how safe, is inherently dangerous. Someone went into a memogo shop to have a particularly nasty encounter with a football hooligan removed and walked out with no knowledge of traffic, with the inevitable consequence. Others used this to their own advantage. A man forgetting his wife`s birthday would blame it on a previous visit to a memogo shop. And he would get away with it. An important part of the procedure was to remove any memory of the process of removing a memory. Otherwise, what good would it do to clear your brain of one niggle and have it replaced by another niggle? Wondering what it was you`d paid good money to forget. Thus all procedures were carried out under a mild anaesthetic and every memogo shop employed a team of chauffeurs to drive patients back to their homes so that when they woke up they would be none the wiser.
George Tomkins was in a quandary. His life had been blighted by the deaths of his wife and daughter. He would wake in the night in a cold sweat, haunted by dreams of a small, white coffin descending into the grave. The wooden knock as it hit the large, oak coffin beneath was a sound that refused to recede from his mind. No matter how he tried to fill his brain with other things, with work, with hobbies, with mind-numbing amusements, he still saw little Melissa being lowered to rest with her mummy and he still heard the noise of the coffins knocking.
It was over a year now since the accident that took them both. It was late at night, it was raining, Maggie was driving too fast. He remembered watching her pull away from the kerb and he wondered why the rush. Then the visit from the police and the agony that followed. The road was wet and slippy, the car skidded and went into a wall. No other vehicle was involved. Maggie wasn`t to blame. She hadn`t been drinking. She never drank much anyway. An occasional glass of wine. A bit more at Christmas. No it wasn`t her fault, even though the report said she was doing over seventy. Couldn`t blame Maggie, certainly couldn`t blame Melissa, so blame the rain and the road and the wall, and let it go.
“Forget it,” said just about everyone, though not right away. They waited a few weeks, until they reckoned a decent period for mourning had elapsed. Then they offered their advice. Family, friends, acquaintances, milkmen, postmen, shopkeepers, they all suggested he forget it. They meant well, they were just thinking of his pain. If the remedy was readily available then why not take it? George had thought long and hard and had finally decided not to do it. There was no way he could obliterate the death of Maggie and Melissa without taking away the memory of their life together, and the hole that would leave in his mind was too vertiginous to contemplate. So he soldiered on with his memories intact.
When people realised that he didn`t intend to take the easy way out, they reached back in their minds for other words of comfort and dusted them off. “Time heals all wounds.” “Just give it time.” “All will be well.” They worked no spell, their magic drained by science. Knowledge of the memory map conferred power on one phrase alone: “Forget it”. And George tried, tried to keep the good memories alive and drown the bad. Day and night he struggled with those final visions of the little white coffin being lowered into the dark abyss. For twelve long months George resisted temptation and tried to come to terms with the loss of his family. Then one day another woman entered his life.
George had barely noticed that the house next door was up for sale. They`d never been that friendly with the Montgomerys when Maggie and Melissa were alive and since their deaths George had withdrawn even further into his own routine. He would nod at Mr. Montgomery when he came back from work and he occasionally chatted to Mrs. Montgomery if their paths crossed at the supermarket or in the town, but it was just weather talk. So one day George was surprised by the sight of a different set of clothes on the washing line next door.
He began by nodding to his new neighbour over the garden fence. Then they discussed the weather. Then they became quite chatty. Her name was Jane Culshaw, she was divorced and she had a daughter named Julie. George found himself thinking up excuses to call round next door. He offered to cut Jane`s lawn. It was no problem, he`d got his mower out. Neighbourly gestures, small kindnesses which were reciprocated. He gave her some apples from the tree Maggie had planted in the back garden. Jane baked him an apple pie. So it went on for a few months and George began to imagine another life. A life devoid of nightmares. A new life with a new family. Julie was about the same age as Melissa was when she`d died.
Still haunted by the past, George felt it would not be fair to Jane to bring that much tragic baggage to a new relationship. True, she had an ex-husband; George had met him, he seemed like a nice chap. But Jane had made the decision to leave him, whereas George had had Maggie wrenched away from him. Finally he decided there was nothing else for it, for the sake of Jane and Julie he had to forget Maggie and Melissa. Once the decision was made it was just a matter of where he chose to go to have the operation. There were several memogo shops in the town, as far as he knew there was not much to choose between them. He compared prices. None were having sales. Then while he was clearing out the house, removing every trace of Maggie and Melissa, all the photographs, Maggie`s books, Melissa`s dolls, he came across a business card from a memogo shop. It was in amongst the sympathy cards that friends had sent before the funeral. George had gathered them all together and put them in a box up the loft. He presumed someone had slipped it to him sometime, probably with a whispered, “Forget it.” Even though the shop was in the City, thirty miles away, George felt that it had been recommended by a friend, and so that was where he decided to go.
It was not an establishment that George would have chosen on sight. It was hidden in an anonymous street in one of the less salubrious sections of the City. Flanked on both sides by boarded-up shops, their fly-posted skins peeling in the sun, the window of the memogo shop offered no flashy neon promises of eternal peace like the others he`d seen, there was just a faded photograph of a spotty youth with a ridiculous haircut, dressed in a tanktop and flared trousers, under the motto, “FORGET IT”. George pushed the door and went inside.
He gave his name and address, his credit card and his keys to the receptionist and waited. When his name was called, he went into the memologist`s office and explained his predicament. The memologist advised complete removal of all memories relating to Maggie and Melissa and George reluctantly agreed. He expected the consultation process to last longer, he felt he needed to talk through every doubt he had about taking such a major step, but this was not one of the high-class establishments which employed counsellors to put one`s mind at rest. As George was hooked up to the machine he consoled himself with the thought that he was not going to be ripped off.
As the valium began to kick in George overheard the memologist talking to his assistant about some other case.
“They`re always doing it. Never take the advice. I spent six months doing the course. I`m a trained professional. You`d think that would carry some weight.”
“No respect.”
“Damn right. I knew he`d be back. Told him so but he wouldn`t listen. You can`t fiddle around with something like that, you`ve got to cut the whole thing out.”
“What was it?”
“It`s a while ago now, I don`t remember the details. Neither does he.”
They laughed and just before George drifted off he heard the memologist say, “His wife caught him with his daughter or something...”
Three months after his visit to the memogo shop George married Jane. The operation had been a complete success and he was no longer troubled by nightmares. He was blissfully happy with his new wife and positively besotted with his new daughter.
__________
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
April 2004
Judas the Ninja
After celebrating Spy Wednesday in the usual fashion, the exchange of cards and silver gifts, it struck me that two of the greatest works of literature concerning the Iscariot had a strong connection to Stoke-on-Trent, the home of the Transformationalists. Jorge Luis Borges (whose grandmother came from Hanley) wrote the story, Three Versions of Judas, which proposed the theory that Judas, not Jesus, was the true son of God, for he continues to suffer for our sins, and Robert Buchanan (who was born in Caverswall) wrote The Ballad of Judas Iscariot. I wondered if there were more connections between Judas and Stoke beyond the literary. There was the potter's field, of course - Judas the good socialist betrayed by his act of rebellion, tricked by the boss class into funding a dying industry - but I wanted more. I wanted to find out if Judas Iscariot came from Stoke. A ridiculous thought and I put the project aside and went to watch a ninja film.
For some months now I have been trying to write a piece about Transformationalist Cinema, particularly the work of the master, Godfrey Ho. This has meant the acquisition of many films of the ninja, mostly from Poundland, although the last came from Bargain Madness. Watching 'Lethal Ninja' (starring Ross Kettle and including roller-skating ninjas and the immortally chilling line, "Take them to the seesaw") my mind wandered back to the Iscariot and I wondered if Judas was a ninja.
Putting Judas Iscariot and Stoke into google calls up a number of sites, some relevant - the Catholic Encyclopedia gives a brief history of Judas as well as offering adverts for bejewelled rosary beads and a Catholic dating site (Ave Maria Singles) - some not (an episode guide to Angel). Of transformationalistic interest were the following:
From Wake Up Australia, the following extract from David Icke's 'The Biggest Secret':
"Even according to the Gospel stories, Jesus was surrounded by terrorists. Simon Magus was known as Simon Zelotes (the Zealot) to acknowledge his role as commander of the Zealots, the ‘freedom fighters’ who advocated a war against the Romans. Another description is Simon ‘Kananites’, a Greek word meaning fanatic. This was translated into the English as Simon the Canaanite! Judas ‘Iscariot’ derives from the word Sicarius, which meant assassin. There was a terrorist group called the Sicarii or Sons of the dagger, and this name comes from the word, Sica, meaning curved dagger. Sicarius became the Greek, Sikariotes, and this was later mistranslated into English as Iscariot. The Zealots-Sicarii would raid Roman supply caravans and ambush their soldiers very much along the lines of the terrorist groups like the IRA in Northern Ireland."
So Judas was a ninja.
Perhaps more worrying was the final site offered up by google, which despite being of Argentinian origin included an address in Bennett's rejected town of Fenton. Searching the site itself I could find no mention of Fenton, so I presume the gods of google were moving in their mysterious ways and the following gives the true origins of Judas Iscariot. He did come from Stoke and this is where he lives:
NOTICIAS ... Para obtenerlo,envia un SAE/IMO a:'Utter' 13 Hulse street, Fenton, Stoke on Trent ... unpar de joyas, las discografias de FLOODGATE y de JUDAS ISCARIOT...y tambien ... uhpdistro.webcindario.com/noticias.htm
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
March 2004
And then there is GLOW:
‘The editors of the first Newsletters defined the goals of GLOW in the following way: "We aim at creating a platform for the intellectual and social wellbeing of transformationalists in and around Europe, as well as all other transformationalists eager to participate." Opinions seem to vary whether or not the 'intellectual and social wellbeing of transformationalists' has indeed improved in Europe over the past 25 years. The editors of this booklet, at least, tend to be on the optimistic side. In any case, it seems clear that the position of generative grammar in Europe would have been much weaker without GLOW the association or GLOW the conference.’
So let’s have three hearty cheers for GLOW and the horse it rode in on.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
February 2004
Strange are the ways of serendip. Reading the Sentinel the other day what should fall out but a front page from 1965 (Monday, January 25th to be precise) - a free gift to commemorate the paper's centenary. The news of the death of Winston Churchill did not detain me long and turning over I was struck by another story; one with definite Transformationalist overtones:
Beat Disc puts
Keele service
off the air
Staff and students at Keele University were angry to-day over the incident which ruined a broadcast service from the university yesterday—the first religious broadcast following the death of Sir Winston Churchill.
The inter-denominational mission service from the Walter Moberly Hall at Keele was interrupted by a banned beat record blaring out from a record player hidden in a cupboard behind the stage.
The B.B.C. were transmitting the service "live" to millions of Home Service listeners. It was the beginning of the university's mission week and was the first inter-denominational mission at the university to provide a common platform for worship.
As the 200-strong congregation started to sing the hymn "Christ is our Corner Stone," the song "Leader of the Pack"—which is about ton-up kids and has been placed by the B.B.C. on their restricted list—burst forth from loudspeakers.
The service continued but was faded out by B.B.C. engineers until one of them located the record player. The service was off the air for six minutes.
"Deplorable"
The university's Registrar, Mr. John Hodgkinson, said to-day: "This interruption was very deplorable. We are considering what action to take against those responsible for it."
The Archdeacon of Stoke, the Ven. George Youell, who was conducting the service and had been asked by the B.B.C. to include a commemoration to Sir Winston, said: "It was, I think, a squalid act by extremely irresponsible people at a time when we were all sensitive not only of Mr. Churchill's death which we had to announce but also of the bereavement of the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Dr. Harold Taylor, whose wife died only a few days ago.
"We do not regard it as an attack by non-Christians on Christians. It is difficult for some of us to understand how any feeling of loyalty to the university could be in the minds of people who do these things. I doubt whether more than two or three persons were involved."
The Provost of Bradford Cathedral, the Very Rev. W.H. Alan Cooper, who was the guest preacher, said: "I don't regard the incident as a piece of opposition to the university's mission week. I look upon it as a piece of exhibitionism by some irresponsible person.
A student at the university said: "The type of mentality of anyone who could do such an appalling thing is beyond me. It ruined the service."
Look all you like through the back issues of the Sentinel and you will be hard-pressed to find the merest mention of the Transformationalists - but by their actions shall ye know them. Reminiscent of the famous celebratory incident following the death of Queen Victoria, this has all the hallmarks of transformationalism - the use of a cupboard, the cocking of snooks and the shadow of morton overhangs all - Christ is our Corner Stone or Leader of the Pack - a simple transposition - how neatly transformationalistic.
“Groundhog Day 1993 12:01 PM 1990”
***
January 2004
Another Doctor Shock book has hit the news-stands! Doctor Shock and the Dark Brethren continues the adventures of the good doctor in the fabled city of Stump, which nestles somewhere betwixt Manchester and Birmingham, or myth and reality.
Meanwhile, for your surfing pleasure, here are a few other incarnations of the masked avenger (who wears no mask):
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