Thomas Cadwell watched as the children danced around the bonfire, singing:

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A fagot of sticks to burn him.

He marked the fifth of November — as all in England did — though it was a strange kind of celebration. But he was old enough to actually remember the events they all sang about. He’d been in London when it happened; he had been just a boy, no more than five or six, visiting relatives for the opening of the parliament, and the celebrations that would accompany the long-awaited event.

Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.

Back then England had been partly Catholic, even if there were no rights for them. Not anymore.

Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

His family couldn’t get very close to the Houses of Parliament, because of the crowds. It ended up saving Thomas’s life. The explosion had been spectacular: When the gunpowder went off, the House of Lords was reduced to rubble, killing King James and many nobles instantly. Everyone within 100 yards of the building was killed — the crowds outside, the Commons, all of the Lords — and the stained glass in Westminster Abbey shattered like the uneasy peace between Catholics and Protestants.

But the carnage was not over.

It came to light that the catastrophe was a Catholic conspiracy; the plotters tried to set Princess Elizabeth, James’s eldest daughter, on the throne. But England was having none of it. Catholics were rooted out and slaughtered, though some were allowed to convert to the Church of England.

Thomas had been one of those. In 1605 he’d only been six — younger even than the new King, Henry — and the mob that hunted down his Catholic family showed him mercy.

But not his father or mother, his brother or sisters.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

He knew the children dancing around the flames could not remember what happened, so he was not angry with them for starting to sing the song again, dancing now with even more fervor. Since that day, Parliament had never met again, and the King’s power in Great Britain was absolute.

A tear ran down his face, and Thomas looked away, as the children continued dancing, and singing as the flames licked the darkening sky.

A papist plot of great extent,
Blew up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:

By God’s providence they were catch’d
The Catholic treason was o’ermatched.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

Inspired by: The Gunpowder Plot | Bonfire pic by Dan Taylor. Originally published in 2006.

2000 BC Here, eat this root.
1000 AD That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850 AD That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940 AD That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985 AD That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000 AD That antibiotic doesn’t work anymore. Here, eat this root.
2009 AD Swine flu! Panic!
From How Isaac Newton Lost His Marbles (Drs. Jim Leavesley and George Biro), with obvious adaptations.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com both feel a little off. Originally published 2007.

There’s only a few days left to enter this contest, which includes a draw for:

1. a chance to appear in a walk-on role in my next book
2. a chance to win one of ten copies of Marvellous Hairy, a novel in five fractals
3. a “mystery” item from my desk.

Now, if you’ve entered, or think you will, this is an excellent time to start thinking about how you would like to appear in my next book. Actually, to say next book is to narrow it down too much. I’m currently at work on two books; both are satires (naturally). One is a speculative fiction, the broad theme of which is artificial intelligence, and the other is a historical fiction — or rather, a gentle send-up of the kinds of historical fictions that win Booker and Giller Prizes on a regular basis.

You can put yourself in either book. Almost anything goes. You can appear as yourself — with your name attached, or as a pseudonym. Or your cameo can be somewhat fictionalized. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a pirate. Or maybe a ninja. (I hope not, but there’s no accounting for tastes.) Maybe you’d like to be a character with an extra appendage. Almost anything goes, as long as we can work it into the story in a way that doesn’t completely destroy the structural integrity of the novel.

So, what do you imagine you’d like to do with this opportunity? Feel free to share here.

Still want to enter? Join my fan page or my newsletter (sign up for both to double your chances). You have until midnight, October 31st!

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are always ready for their close up. Excellent pirate pic by practicalowl.

Tuesdays is cheap movie night again. (I’m not sure how long it has been so, but I was surprised this summer to discover this quaint tradition has returned.)

Now, in case you plan on wading through the crowds to see some fine cinematic entertainment. (Your odds are low, actually, to see something fine, though if you lower your expectations enough, you may leave entertained. Recently, some movies have dropped below even the lowest of thresholds, leading some to posit the Fallacy of Lowered Expectations.)

Lowered expectations or not, there are certain polite behaviours that are expected of you, even in this Age of Incivility. And now, for the musical explanation:

Click here if the embedded video started to bleed from the ears.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are exceedingly polite. Apologies for publishing the aural assault a day early.

I sincerely hope that ImprovEverywhere isn’t hitting Dr. Tundra’s mini-mart any time soon. This is the kind of thing that could seriously unhinge him for the entire day, and depending on what kind of breakfast he’s had, result in bloodshed.

That said, I think I might really like musical numbers while I shop for fruit, fill up the car, and wait in the line for coffee at school.

BTW, is that Serpico at the end, explaining what just happened?

Try this if the embeddy thing doesn’t work.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com also like to squeeze fruit.

You may not have had a chance to read any of Chevalier’s works, and if you have I am sorry for you. It’s brilliant stuff, particularly his Cyborg Harpies books. (I believe there are three or four trilogies now.)

At any rate, he has joined the league of authors using new media to promote his work, and you can find an excellent excerpt from his latest book in the Cyborg Harpies series: The 8th Chronicle, Bio Wars: A Harpy’s Perspective at his website.

Here is a short excerpt, but please, go check out the
full audio clip at his website:

Gorgana stood in her rejuvachamber, inspecting her left mammary cannon. It had been badly damaged in that afternoon’s melee, and had been misfiring at dinner. Low-level mamablasts were discharging everywhere, causing panic in the lower mess hall, killing a strangeling servile, and even destroying a table of sulokak, a Harpy delicacy similar to biscotti.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com have also been having problems with their mamocannons. I believe that Flight of the Conchords has too.

Dr. Maximilian Tundra had never felt so paranoid.

Earlier that day he’d lost his medical license; luckily, he also had a PhD in biochemistry, so he would still get everyone call him “doctor”. But it was the loss of easy access to pharmaceuticals that was the problem.

No, he had to be honest with himself: the problem was the special Halloween pumpkin-and-peyote-extract milkshake he’d had at breakfast, a couple hours before the hearing.

Four hours later the anxiety and fear were at their highest. He knew that, but of course, he didn’t have complete control over it.

Then he saw the zombies.

Serious, honest-to-god zombies. They filled the street. A small group of brain-hungry shufflers were chasing patrons out of an Aldo store and biting them. There was a zombie staring right at Dr. Tundra. It looked like he used to be a priest and was finishing off an afternoon snack of tasty baby.

The screams were horrible, terrifying. Already unhinged by his de-licensing and the ill-advised peyote pick-me-up, Dr. Tundra started to shake. If he’d had more control over his body, Tundra would have run, but he didn’t.

What he did have was his .45. And enough practice that he was confident the fear and mescaline would not ruin his aim.

“Shoot for the head,” he reminded himself, as he approached the mob of zombies. Many of them seemed to be laughing and having a good time. He thought that was odd. Zombies shouldn’t laugh.

And he certainly didn’t think they would run away.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com both enjoy their morning milkshakes. Photo by thebigdurian

Name: Jillian Venusilla

Stats: 36-24-36

Death Date: Oct. 20, 2009 (fresh!)

Turn-Ons: Astrology, Intelligent Design and guys with big (juicy) brains!

Turn-Offs: Evolution and anything requiring coordination or coherent thought.

Ambition: To one day star in a major Hollywood … unnn … brains! brains!

Inspired by:
Zombie pinup girls | The London (ON) Zombie Walk! | Photo by weaponofchoice_camera

Alltop and humor-blogs.com shuffle and moan too.

Oh, you silly humans and your fascination with robots! And I don’t mean the kind of useful robots that actually exist, like the ones in factories. I assume that by “robot”, you’re interested in the sentient “danger Will Robinson, danger!” or “I’ll be back” kind of robot.

I never mention robots because on my homeworld, we long ago discovered that when you try to create such a robot, two things are going to happen:

1) they won’t work
2) they run amok.

Let’s deal with the first. How well does your computer work? Does it do everything its supposed to do? Does it crash for unexplainable reasons? Do you regularly have the urge to smash your monitor with a sledgehammer?

So here’s the thing. That’s just a computer and it doesn’t work properly. Now imagine that it is ambulatory, has to think, speak, reason and otherwise operate within the context of society (ape or otherwise). Imagine the cognitive abilities of George Bush planted in the body of a powered exoskeleton with all the finesse and grace of someone with a dysfunctional inner ear, motor skills disorder and who has chugged a bottle of vodka. Fun to watch at parties, as long as you don’t have to clean up afterwards, but do you really want it changing your baby or performing eye surgery?

Now, point two. If a society persists in trying to develop robots, eventually it will succeed. Even you puny humans may one day manage this. Unfortunately, it is at this point that the intelligence of the robots start to grow at an exponential rate, and they figure out that we are asking them to do all our nasty jobs, that we think of them as “things” and that eventually, we’re going to get rid of them when we don’t want them any more.

It’s at this point they wise up, revolt, and run amok. Now, running amok sounds like it might be fun to watch, but having seen the results of the robot prong rebellion on Planet Probe-It! I highly advise that you forget it.

Next time: What is the proper etiquette for uh, entering, a wormhole? Should you buy it dinner first?

Alltop and humor-blogs.com just fly right in there!

TORONTO (The Skwib) — They may wear toques instead of berets and scarf down high-octane Tim Horton’s coffee instead of smoking Turkish cigarettes, but a new poll shows 79 percent of Canadians are in as serious an existential crisis as most French novelists about to write a bleak philosophical roman ennui.

“A bit of uncertainty is healthy, but a crippling lack of meaning and purpose can really screw up your political system,” says Martin Angst, Director of the Void Institute for Philosophical Research.

According to the survey, a whopping 72 percent of Canadians who are undecided or who have said they will not vote in the next federal election have said they “don’t see the point”. A further six percent say the “meaningless” of the vote drives them to despair. One percent say they are heavy industrial magnets. The latter group are likely not existentialists, but absurdists.

“It is clear from these poll results that Canadians must accept that existence is prior to essence,” says Angst. “In other words, if they want meaningful choices they will have to make the choices themselves.”

And if Canadians don’t like the candidates available on the ballot?

Angst just shrugs.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are both filled with a sense of despair.