we are remiss - the words spun from gold that fall from the Dr and Assistant's beautiful mouth parts have dried up. What tragedy befell us. None. We are lazy bastards that is all.

catch us soon with tales from the Americas.

Hutch

The Hutchback is not normally an angry man. Yes, he performs hideous acts of barbarism on a daily basis, but these are not done out of anger, merely boredom.

(off topic: yes that was a reference to the Golden Dawn on tonight's Eastenders, what next Aleister Crowley turns up and sacrifices Minty to the god Horus).

These Bankers (or as we should refer to them Banksters) are set fair for a good few billion in bonuses. This is surely the equivalent of giving a mugger a tip after he has kneed you in the testicles and stolen your watch, wallet, and mobile phone.

So my prediction is that by the end of the year the world community will have set up prison islands in the South Atlantic, and we will ship the whole festering lot of them off to these desolate windblown frozen hellholes.

Then they can sub-prime each other until they are raw.

The Hutchback's Tale part 8

You may wonder where your loyal humpback has been these past weeks. Let’s put it this way, you know what an admirer of Joseph Fritzl’s work the Dr is, well he calls it a re-enactment, I call it unfair working conditions. But we are expecting our first child in 13 months time (the Hutchback biology is somewhat unique) so some good has come of it.

Now when we last spoke I mentioned the fact that I had met a French jolie dame and was in love. I feel now is the time to expand on this. As you know I spent a hectic few days in a rather odd French town, I believe the locals referred to it as Seule. And the dialect of French they spoke was incomprehensible to these cauliflower ears. My last night was rather incident packed and now I can recount the tale.
Having spent the day with a gurgling bowel from my strange breakfast of gristly soup (with added dog collar) – I was in need of some kind of assistance. I wandered the frantic streets and alleyways, the whole town seemed to be out and I had to dodge many a careening Frenchman. I at last found some peace in a side street that looked empty except for one small café.

I include the picture here for elucidation.



It was a jolly enough place and I thought that a coffee would calm my intestinal torment. The French make a good coffee and as you can see from the photograph the two Frenchmen (or is one a ventriloquist and the other a dummy, can’t quite make out) appear to be enjoying a cup of their national drink.

So I entered and sat down. The café was empty except for a very old and frail lady who stooped at the counter with a damp cloth. Eventually she noticed me and came over. Now as you know my attempts to converse in French had so far been quite futile. I must have really forgotten so much as to be incomprehensible. Mr Wilson the erudite owner of the travelling freak show where I spent my formative years would have been so disappointed with my decline in linguistic skills he would have loudly tutted, then he would have lashed me to within an inch of my life and thrown me into a pit.

I tried to ask her for something calming for my poor gut, but she didn’t understand. So sign language would have to do. I mimed drinking a cup and grimacing and rubbing my stomach. She looked at me sadly through rheumy eyes and said nothing, I then stood up and mimed (convincingly) a man in desperate need of a shit. Something seemed to click and the ancient barrista uttered a few garbled words of English. “You wan spesho bowl coffee?”. Bowl coffee, Bowel coffee, hmm sounded just what I needed.

The kindly old lady moved away towards the back of the shop and then for some reason beckoned me over to the shabby curtain that barred entry to the back room. I assumed this was the room where the Bowel Coffee was served.
I followed her inside and saw a bed covered in a plastic sheet in the middle of the room. Most odd. Then the oddness increased by a factor. The wizened crone said something remarkable: “Drop your tlousa, prease” Incredible, what was this – a come on – how marvelous.

Now you may wonder about Mrs H, and where my heart lay. Well I refer to Mrs H as my wife but she is not really my wife, in fact she hardly knows me. You would more accurately describe her as being vaguely aware of me as an unspecified sense of dread that accompanies her when she walks home. We have never actually met, but this is purely circumstantial for she will at some point come within grabbing distance of the laurel bush where I lie in wait for her every evening.

Anyway though I love Mrs H the offer of a night of torrid (though rather dry) passion with the old coffee lady seemed a wonderful prospect. I dropped my pants and unwrapped the old newspapers that I use as underwear. The lady then made me lie face down on the plastic wrapped bed. What delights lay ahead. I close my eyes and waited for the hand of pleasure to be applied to by crumpled body.

Aargh, my poor piles. She had shoved some kind of pipe right up my arsehole. She liked it rough clearly. I opened my eyes to see what was happening back there just in time to see her pour the entire contents of the coffee urn into a funnel which was attached to the tube which had been mainlined straight into my rectum. Now I’ve heard of this type of things before, but I believe it is more normal to use cold coffee in this process. As I passed out from the pain I caught a glimpse of my new love as she went back in the front room no doubt to fetch a freshly boiled refill.

HUTCHBACK

So, we’ve cracked one prediction. That must have been the most ludicrous prediction that anyone has made in this end of year predictions farrago.

DR. NOSTRUM

I don’t know, I haven’t been looking.

HUTCHBACK

No, but I’ve been looking at them and none of them are as insane as that. They’re all things like ‘People will stop going out and spending money.’

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, one thing about this is that there’s not enough time to write 10 predictions if this is how we’re going to do it, but I could summarise them.

HUTCHBACK

Well, we’re not going to come up with 10 today.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, that’s cos no-one’s paying us.

HUTCHBACK

No.

DR. NOSTRUM

If someone was paying me, believe me, I’d come up with 10.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah, well, I’m now doing my job in my spare time for no money..

DR. NOSTRUM

No you’re not.

HUTCHBACK

I am!

DR. NOSTRUM

Oh well. I’m doing my life in my.. um, my life has become..

HUTCHBACK

“I’m doing my entire life in my spare time.” Now that.. Let’s work that out. Now that’s a prediction; people start living their entire lives in their spare time...

DR. NOSTRUM

As their hobby.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah. No, because there won’t be any jobs, so you now have to live your whole life in your spare time.

DR. NOSTRUM

What do you mean there won’t be any jobs?

HUTCHBACK

Well, no, cos everyone’s going to lose there jobs.

(Edit Point)

DR. NOSTRUM

So, I’m living my life in my spare time.

HUTCHBACK

Yes, living your life in your spare time. You are a pioneer. You’re a pioneer.

DR. NOSTRUM

There must have been others before me?

HUTCHBACK

Well, they were called the terminally unemployed...

DR. NOSTRUM

Or, the mentally ill.

HUTCHBACK

...the mentally ill, or the clinically insane. However, you are actually doing it intentionally, as a career.

DR. NOSTRUM

As a career.

HUTCHBACK

You are doing everything in your spare time.

DR. NOSTRUM

Yeah. I’m not making a success of my career. It’s true, if your career becomes successful you no longer have time...

HUTCHBACK

Yes, that’s it.

DR. NOSTRUM

...to live your life.

HUTCHBACK

That’s exactly it.

DR. NOSTRUM

But that’s a truism, not a prediction.

HUTCHBACK

No, but what will happen is that people will start doing all their work in their spare time.

DR. NOSTRUM

And what will they do in their work time.

HUTCHBACK

They won’t have any work time.

DR. NOSTRUM

So it’ll swap?

HUTCHBACK

Yeah.

DR. NOSTRUM

It’ll swap, so your work time..

HUTCHBACK

So everyone will be doing work, but not as their job, but just to keep themselves busy. So if you’re a bin man, you’ll carry on being a bin man, but you just won’t get paid for it. You’ll go around just taking people’s rubbish away...

DR. NOSTRUM

Yeah

HUTCHBACK

...and emptying it onto the street just cos it makes you feel better.

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, you gotta keep yourself busy.

HUTCHBACK

You’ve got to keep yourself busy.

DR. NOSTRUM

I fear what most people will do is just roam the streets looking for food, in which case it’ll have been an advantage being a bin man cos you’d know where to look.

HUTCHBACK

So bin men will become the...

DR. NOSTRUM

The hunter gatherers.

HUTCHBACK

...guru’s for the new age.

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, no.

HUTCHBACK

They’ll be the wise..

DR. NOSTRUM

They’ll be just underneath Ray Mears.

HUTCHBACK

Alright, but they’ll be consulted, they’ll be able to charge..

DR. NOSTRUM

Now That..! No, wait a minute! That is one of the predictions that is reasonably obvious, is that people who forage will become leaders of the new age.

HUTCHBACK

Yes, absolutely.

HUTCHBACK

Ah, no, but then it gets a bit more complicated, because some practical jokes would not lead to a conviction.

(pause the DR. is bemused)

Ok. Say for instance, Practical Joke; I left a sword on the staircase and someone fell over and died on it. No court in the land would send you to jail for that.

DR. NOSTRUM

What, as opposed to pushing someone off a cliff?

HUTCHBACK

Yeah, because pushing someone off a cliff is much more.. No, because if you left.. you know, and then sometime later someone came down the stairs, tripped over and fell on the sword and it killed them.

DR. NOSTRUM

Maybe Negligence?

HUTCHBACK

Negligence. You wouldn’t go to prison for that.

DR. NOSTRUM

(not getting it) So that would be ‘Negligent Practical Joke’?

HUTCHBACK

Ok, that’s a nonsense.. that’s a silly example. Say you leave a knife..

DR. NOSTRUM

(sarcasm) Yeah, that’s a silly one, forget that one.

HUTCHBACK

No, okay, you leave your washing machine open with a big knife pointing up out of the tray (pause) as a practical joke, hoping someone might trip over and fall on it. For a joke.

DR. NOSTRUM

The dishwasher?

HUTCHBACK

The washing machine, er, the dishwasher.

DR. NOSTRUM

What, hoping that someone might fall over?

HUTCHBACK

Trip over, fall on it. (the DR. is shaking his head) Why not, that’s happened

DR. NOSTRUM

No, no, that’s not a practical joke.

HUTCHBACK

Why is that not a practical joke?

DR. NOSTRUM

Because the likelihood of someone tripping over as they reach the dishwasher is nothing you can rely on. The practical joke is something where you know someone’s going to do something, so you’d have to...

HUTCHBACK

Ok, so you to set up..

DR. NOSTRUM

...you’d have to, No. You’d have to lift the.. you’d loosen the floorboards.

HUTCHBACK

Well, there you go.

DR. NOSTRUM

You loosen the floorb..

HUTCHBACK

No, no, you just squirt some washing up liquid on the floor.

DR. NOSTRUM

Ok, washing up liquid on the floor and knives sticking up out of..

HUTCHBACK

There’s no court in the land would convict you of that. I’d stake my legal reputation on it.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, I think that’s too much, I think they would convict you.

HUTCHBACK

No, why would they convict you?

DR. NOSTRUM

Because the intention is to harm.

HUTCHBACK

They could never prove that you..

DR. NOSTRUM

No, the intent is to harm.

HUTCHBACK

They could never prove you intended it.

DR. NOSTRUM

To do what?

HUTCHBACK

You would say, “I never planned that as a practical joke, it was just an unfortunate accident.”

DR. NOSTRUM

What are you talking about?

HUTCHBACK

That would be your defense.

DR. NOSTRUM

But how can that be your defense?!

HUTCHBACK

That would be your defense!

DR. NOSTRUM

But it’s a circular argument. “I did this thing, but I never intended to do it.” What’s that?

HUTCHBACK

No, because the prosecution investigation, that would be their case; that it was a planned practical joke and your defense would be that it was just an accident. (pause) I can see you’re struggling with that.

DR. NOSTRUM

I am struggling with that.

HUTCHBACK

Why? Why are you struggling with it?

DR. NOSTRUM

So you’re saying the charge. The charge is Practical Joke...

HUTCHBACK

Yes, the charge...

DR. NOSTRUM

...not the defense?

HUTCHBACK

...yes, of course!! What?

DR. NOSTRUM

That’s what I was struggling with...

HUTCHBACK

You go in..

DR. NOSTRUM

...you do something that’s a practical joke and you say that “I didn’t do it.”

HUTCHBACK

Well yeah, but no, because.. Well, people could accuse you. You could be accused of Murder by Practical Joke. You wouldn’t go in and say..

DR. NOSTRUM

But you would be wholly innocent! Cause if they accused you of doing it by Practical Joke, isn’t it too obscure? What’s the point of charging you with ‘Practical Joke’, why can’t they just charge you with murder?

HUTCHBACK

Because they’d never get murder. They’d never get a murder conviction for that, but they might get death by practical joke, if ty can prove that you put the.. It’s easier to convict someone of ‘Death By Practical Joke’.

DR. NOSTRUM

Sound like a lot of the Inspector Morse, um, mysteries, you know. Where there’s a very convoluted way of killing someone. In fact, there was that Columbo one where he was murdered by the dogs. The defense could have been a practical joke that went wrong.

HUTCHBACK

It was a practical joke to set the dogs on him?

DR. NOSTRUM

Yeah, you didn’t know the dogs would kill him, but you thought it was funny.

HUTCHBACK

You thought it was funny.

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, there we go, so it’s not manslaughter cause, no, but it would be man.. no.. why..

HUTCHBACK

No, you can be accu.. you can go to prison for dog attacks. You can definitely go to prison for dog attacks.

DR. NOSTRUM

Mm. To me now I can only see it as a defense rather than an accusation. I don’t think it’s worth making the accusation, but I can see it as a defense.

HUTCHBACK

Alright, so the accusation would be murder and then your defense is practical joke.

DR. NOSTRUM

And it’s a.. no, it’s a plea, it’s a plea. The plea is, it was a Practical Joke that went wrong, which is not as serious as manslaughter.

HUTCHBACK

Yes. So then they’d have to come up with a...

DR. NOSTRUM

Sentence tariff.

HUTCHBACK

...crime and a sentence called Practical Joke. Yep, I think that’s perfectly reasonable.

DR. NOSTRUM

Yep. Ok, so that’s one.

HUTCHBACK

That’s one, we’ve cracked one prediction.

HUTCHBACK

Maybe there isn’t that much of a distance between a really bad practical joke and murder. There isn’t you know, a really bad practical joke often could end in death. So, at what point do you stop being a practical joker and become a murderer?

DR. NOSTRUM

What, like the second world war?

HUTCHBACK

No, but, you know, like accidentally pushing someone off the edge of a cliff, sort of thing, as a practical joke. I mean, that’s an extreme version of pushing someone off something.

DR. NOSTRUM

So is it called a practical joke because you’ve done something?

HUTCHBACK

Yes.

DR. NOSTRUM

You’ve actually practically done something?

HUTCHBACK

No, no, no, no, no.

DR. NOSTRUM

You’ve pushed someone over.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah. It’s physical humour.

DR. NOSTRUM

Physical humour, so as opposed to a, um...

HUTCHBACK

As opposed to a verbal joke, that’s why it’s called a practical joke.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, no, I wasn’t thinking verbal joke, no, cos then the difference would be a physical joke and a verbal joke. No, I was thinking, as opposed to a, um, metaphorical joke.

HUTCHBACK

(more mocking) A metaphorical physical joke, where you do an action that is a metaphor for something funny. No, I don’t think so.

DR. NOSTRUM

I don’t think there is a metaphorical joke is there? Oh, no! A literal joke, that’s what I meant, the difference between literal and metaphorical as opposed to between practical.. so there’s a practical..

HUTCHBACK

There’s a practical and an impractical joke.

DR. NOSTRUM

Impractical joke, that’s it.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah, an impractical joke, one that’s just slightly too burdensome to undertake.

DR. NOSTRUM

Hmm. Why are they called practical jokes?

HUTCHBACK

Cause they’re physical!

DR. NOSTRUM

So why aren’t they called physical jokes?

HUTCHBACK

I don’t know! I’m not a linguist.

DR. NOSTRUM

Practical Jokes. They always seemed a bit of a leap. I never, I mean, as far as I know, I never played one.

HUTCHBACK

You’ve never played a practical joke?

DR. NOSTRUM

No, I don’t think so.

HUTCHBACK

You’ve never put a bucket of water.. a bucket full of nails...

DR. NOSTRUM

...over...

HUTCHBACK

See, that’s it: bucket full of water; practical joke, bucket full of razor blades; murder.

DR. NOSTRUM

Hmm.

HUTCHBACK

So, it would be quite good to find out at what point it becomes murder, in the eyes of the law. See.

DR. NOSTRUM

Ah, as opposed to manslaughter?

HUTCHBACK

Yes.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, but they’re doing that now, they’re putting a category between murder and manslaughter – practical...

HUTCHBACK

Practical joke. Practical Joke Murder.

DR. NOSTRUM

...because murder was too far away from manslaughter.

HUTCHBACK

Right. But that’s not bad, working out the exact point at which a practical joke..

DR. NOSTRUM

No, but they’re doing that, they’re doing that.

HUTCHBACK

What do you mean they’re doing that?!

DR. NOSTRUM

It’s part of the Law Commission Review at the moment..

HUTCHBACK

For Practical Jokes?

DR. NOSTRUM

No! Not practical jokes, but the idea that there’s a big gap between murder and manslaughter.

HUTCHBACK

Oh, yeah, that, but it’s nothing to do with practical jokes.

DR. NOSTRUM

But that must come into it.

HUTCHBACK

That probably does come into it.

DR. NOSTRUM

If your defense is that it was a practical joke that went wrong..

HUTCHBACK

No, no, no, cause manslaughter, you can be done for manslaughter for stabbing someone, that’s clearly not a joke.

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, but you didn’t mean to kill them. Manslaughter is anything where you didn’t mean to kill them, right?

HUTCHBACK

Yes...

DR. NOSTRUM

I don’t know, we need our advisor.

HUTCHBACK

...but what I’m saying is that if you can be done for manslaughter for stabbing someone there is no practical joke you can ever think of that would end up with a murder conviction because the intention of stabbing someone is much greater than the intention of leaving a sword poking up out of a staircase...

DR. NOSTRUM

I don’t think...

HUTCHBACK

There’s no way anybody would get done for murder for that.

DR. NOSTRUM

...not that our legal advisor...

HUTCHBACK

They wouldn’t get done for anything.

DR. NOSTRUM

...not that our legal advisor is here, but I have a feeling that stabbing someone and not meaning to kill them isn’t manslaughter..

HUTCHBACK

It is manslaughter.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, no, it’s attempted murder.

HUTCHBACK

No, it’s manslaughter. Because if they die, the often get done for manslaughter.

DR. NOSTRUM

Really?

HUTCHBACK

Yeah.

DR. NOSTRUM

Oh.

HUTCHBACK

Like that guy..

DR. NOSTRUM

So there’s no point in trying to figure out where practical jokes become murder cause they never will.

HUTCHBACK

That’s true. (thinks) No, no, pushing someone off a cliff is murder.

DR. NOSTRUM

But what’s the difference between that and stabbing them?

HUTCHBACK

No, because...

DR. NOSTRUM

(gets it) Oh! Because you know it’s going to kill them

HUTCHBACK

...because you know that if you push someone off a cliff it’ll kill them.

DR. NOSTRUM

But only at some deep level, so, maybe there is a point, there is somewhere between the cliff and the bucket of nails?

HUTCHBACK

It’s how high.

DR. NOSTRUM

How high the cliff is.

HUTCHBACK

You can actually measure it on how high the cliff is; at what point you know the drop will be enough to probably kill them. See, that’s it. That’s exactly how you work out the difference between a practical joke and..

DR. NOSTRUM

That would be some court case.

HUTCHBACK

It’s the height of a cliff.

DR. NOSTRUM

Ok.

HUTCHBACK

It’ll be the height of the cliff. I’m pleased with that.

DR. NOSTRUM

That’s one. What else is there?

HUTCHBACK

One what?

DR. NOSTRUM

That’s one..

HUTCHBACK

..Prediction for 2009!

DR. NOSTRUM

Practical Jokes will appear as a new category of Homicide under the Law commission review.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah

DR. NOSTRUM

There you go.

HUTCHBACK

And murders will be rated in cliff height.

DR. NOSTRUM

No, no, it’s not that. It’s the height of the cliff defense.

HUTCHBACK

Ok, so also, the other one will be the, er, the weight of the big black weight thing that you balance on the door. Up to 5 kilos and over 5 kilos it’s murder.

DR. NOSTRUM

So then it becomes ‘The Practical Joke Defense’?

HUTCHBACK

Yeah.

DR. NOSTRUM

“My client didn’t know...

HUTCHBACK

...that the weight would kill him.” Yeah. It was just done as a joke...

DR. NOSTRUM

“...he’d seen on television a one ton weight falling..

HUTCHBACK

That’s it, “He’d been watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon earlier in the week...”

DR. NOSTRUM

Yeah, “...where Tom survived several..

HUTCHBACK

“...and seen Tom survived several one ton weights being dropped on him.”

DR. NOSTRUM

“And didn’t realise the one ton weight was hollow.”

HUTCHBACK

Huh?

DR. NOSTRUM

Didn’t realise the one ton weight was hollow.

HUTCHBACK

Yeah, “didn’t realise it was a drawing.”

DR. NOSTRUM

Well, yeah, but even the real life ones.

HUTCHBACK

They did a real life Tom and Jerry?

DR. NOSTRUM

No! You know those sketch shows where they drop a huge one ton.. you know, the old Monty Python’s.

HUTCHBACK

Oh, Yeah. “He was watching Monty Python and didn’t realise the giant foot...

DR. NOSTRUM

No, not the cartoon, the real one!

HUTCHBACK

Yeah alright. No, they must’ve had one where they had a real giant foot falling on them, didn’t they?

DR. NOSTRUM

No, I don’t think so, feet were too difficult.

HUTCHBACK

The feet were too difficult back then, back in those days.

DR. NOSTRUM

Yeah. Well, there’s one prediction.

HUTCHBACK

One prediction for 2009.

DR. NOSTRUM

So what that is, is an analysis into the Law Commission Murder, Manslaughter and Infanticide consultation paper.

HUTCHBACK

But what would they call it? Manslurder?

DR. NOSTRUM

No, no, it’s just degrees of murder.

HUTCHBACK

But they have to call it something. Man-slurder.

DR. NOSTRUM

No. it’s Murder one, where you mean to kill someone and you kill ‘em, that’s premeditated; Murder two, where you kill someone and you didn’t premeditate it...

HUTCHBACK

Yeah.

DR. NOSTRUM

...Practical Joke, where you didn’t know.. you didn’t know what you were doing, er.. hang on, no, it comes under man.. it’s not as serious as manslaughter..

HUTCHBACK

Yeah, it’s under manslaughter.

DR. NOSTRUM

So it’s actually manslaughter...

TOGETHER

...and then Practical Jokes.