Death by Achilles

Brad Pitt bringing a commendable orangeness to his performance as Achilles in 'Troy'

Me, I’m not terribly particular when it comes to picking up women. That’s not to say I condone any sort of funny business. No sir, in that respect I am literally squeaky clean (indeed, the grating rubbery squeak that emits from my person may be one of the reasons for my lack of success in the fields of Eros). So, when the goddess Aphrodite hypnotised the princess and heir apparent of some Hellenic backwater, compelling her to love me feverishly and furiously, I didn’t ask questions.

It was really nice at first. We went for long walks on Skegness beach. I bought her chips and a can of diet Lilt. Truly, I treated her like a princess. Often she would applaud and coo as I showed off my strong greaves from a number of flattering angles. Love blossomed like a hairy dandelion. But it couldn’t last…

A few days into our tender courtship,  all of her old Greek pals turned up and started hassling me. They mocked my greaves and said they weren’t strong, but were in fact weak. They invented a nickname for me. ‘The Weak-Greaved John Le Baptiste’. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones,’ I retorted, ‘but double epithets will never hurt me’. Actually, on the inside, I was weeping hard buckets of gravel. I have always been very sensitive about the weakness of my greaves and their literal taunts did nothing for my self-esteem.

When they got bored of the taunting, they chose from amongst themselves a champion to pummel my mug in. Achilles was his name, and he was built from stones of fear and steel, like unto the brick shithouse of Hades. Although he couldn’t be killed by conventional means, he did have an Achilles’ heel. I forget the details now, but it involved his mother dangling him in magic slime when he was a baby: pretty unsettling stuff.

The bout commenced, and after a few hot thrusts and a weaselly parry on my part, Achilles drove his legendary blade through my flimsy greaves. I died like an ignominous turd. He then proceeded to tie my embarrassed cadaver to the back of his Skoda and drag it up and down Skegness high street, preening and vaunting at the heavens with all of the hubris of a young Michael Barrymore. Still. I had the last laugh: the Skegness Telegraph ran an indignant column about the whole incident on page 5, and Achilles was forced to flee the eastern seaboard under a cloud of dishonour. That telt him.

Death by Flea Bag

Those of you who have read the comments following my Paddington post will already be familiar with Flea Bag, the perennially constipated dog I first encountered when on holiday aged 12.

In the very womb of midnight, whence grotesque prodigies of the mind are spawned and terrorise the pyjamaed, I arose like the fabled Russ Abbott for a covert glass of lemonade. Scarcely had I sat up when I sensed two tiny jaundiced eyes squinting at me and through me in the darkness. A growling, grunting sound, such as might be emitted by Anna Kournikova if she were to give birth to a full grown bear, accosted my ears. It was Flea Bag. Somehow, he had made his away across the Mediterranean and located my humble northern home. Perhaps he had arrived stowed inside a businessman’s egg salad sandwich. Perhaps he had hitched a lift atop a narwhal’s tusk. Whatever the explanation, he had arrived and he was constipated. 

Or so I thought. It seems that Flea Bag had a very special reason for visiting me in the dead of midnight: he was about to do his first shit in fifteen years and, naturally perhaps, wanted to share it with the bony, wistful English youth who had taken pity on him all of those years ago. When the long-anticipated movement arrived, the very earth shook as if in the grip of a seismological cataclysm. Megatons of dogshit spilt out into the suburban night, covering half a county and blocking out the sun. I was smothered to death.

Flea Bag cried for his old friend, the one human who had taken pity on him. He buried his frayed mongrel snout beneath two melancholy paws and mourned, low and deep. He had expected to feel relief but instead learned an immutable fact about the universe: from the cradle to the grave there can be no release from the cycle of pain and suffering; from the woeful merry-go-round of constipation and guilt there can be no escape.

Death by Crispy Pancakes

Here’s a warning in poem form of the dangers of eating crispy pancakes.

Hot curd! Hot curd everywhere

And not a beaker of ribena in sight

Wherewith to slake my broiled beak.

Perhaps you would like a nice cool salad

My old mother asked

Nay mother, says I,

Today I shall feast like a King

Like a very Sun-King resplendent

In all his glossy Gallic finery

Make it Crispy Pancakes, Mam,

And make ‘em hotter than that there fiery orb

That illuminates the heavens and giveth life

To all creatures, no matter how small and flimsy.

Are you sure son, she replied, remember what happened

Last time when you had that toastie and you cried 

Because a hot bit of mushroom fell down your shirt

And hurt your belly button?

Nay mother, says I, I have sprakethed

And crispy pancakes it shall be.

Crispy pancakes it was,

Followed, upon infernal steeds,

By mouth burns, brain-besizzlement,

Much weeping and gnashing of teeth

And, ultimately,

Death.

Death by Paddington Bear

Here’s a poem about being killed by Paddington:

Talons and tendrils in the palpitating forest

And I, half a Hansel with nary a Gretel to

Oven-bake the beast. Or was that the witch?

Why didn’t I listen at school?

How do you repel a bear attack, sir?

It was Biles what done it, sir.

Sir?

A picnic hampered my ill-thought out engagement plan

And my sweet honey was bitten by the beast

Just as I fished a ring out of a bucket of pikes.

Fortunately I managed to hide inside a Tupperware box

Alongside some old sugarpuffs and a herring’s half-eaten arse-fin.

On the downside I smell like honey and herring’s bum.

And now Paddington’s sniffing my lid and fanging at the aperture.

He’s squeaking in his Wellingtons like an ursine pervert.

He’s flashing a hirsute paunch beneath his duffel coat

"with mighty maul / The monster merciless him made to fall" Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Like a right wrong ’un. He’s eating me.

I wouldn’t have got this sort of treatment from Rupert.

Death by Whedon

“Do it”, my Comic-Con buddies urged, “do it and verily your name shall be spoken with awe at science-fiction and comic conventions for years to come”.

But I wavered. If only then and there I had trusted my more sensible instincts.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think he’d like it.” I replied.

“He will” they said, “I’ll bet no-one has ever done it to him before. He’ll think it’s great. He might even write it into one of his shows.”

I marked my quarry. Joss Whedon sat upon a throne and drank Mountain Dew from a dainty goblet. On either side he was flanked by an ensemble of the actresses from his shows. Eliza Dushku was there, so was Morena Baccarin, Summer Glau and Charisma Carpenter, plus the other ones whom Joss kept around as ballast. Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn’t there, and everyone had been instructed not to mention her name. Why, no-one could say, though many speculated that it was because Gellar had once scissor-kicked Whedon through a garden gate for a bet, and Whedon, writhing sorely amidst a veritable killing field of broken garden gnomes, had failed to see the funny side.

As I stood and watched Whedon chortling light-heartedly and issuing forth epigrams in the Whedonese argot for which his programs are so rightly celebrated, I couldn’t see how he wouldn’t appreciate the stunt I was about to pull. “Hey man-friend, this Con is the peachiest in the ’verse” he exclaimed, and his complement of lady friends agreed.

Well, it’s now or never I thought. I ran over to where he was sat, lifted him from his throne as if he were a baby monkey and shouted, “Hey, throw this frakking toaster out of the airlock”. At that very moment it dawned on me that this was a catchphrase from Battlestar Galactica, which is famous chiefly for being a show that Whedon did not write. “How dare you mention that show in my presence, thou lowly nerd” he boomed. “Get him girls!”

Dushku wrestled me to the floor and Carpenter whipped out a West-Side-Story-style razor. “Stake him” shouted Glau. Simultaneously, Baccarin rescued Whedon and nestled him protectively midst her curls, in the manner of a maternal goose. There is little else to tell, other than to say I was stabbed and stamped upon to death by a host of buxom sci-fi women. It wasn’t the worst death I ever died.

Death by Old Rope

Under siege for 3 days, drinking a cocktail of out-of-date cordial, boiler-tank water and my own urine (I call it Me-Ora), I began to wonder if I would ever escape. How long would my tormentor persecute me? Was there no way to assuage his insane vendetta?

It had all begun a week earlier when I had, innocently enough, posted a comment on a blog entry by Old Rope. The entry in question attempted to give a measured assessment of the legacy of the Beatles on the popular music of the last half century. In it, Old Rope had cited their complicated chord structures, their innovative harmonies and their ability to evolve, stylistically, as evidence that their music had ushered in a new, more sophisticated interpretation of the pop mode. I felt that Old Rope had made some convincing arguments and that his scholarship was impeccable, but that his conclusions perhaps overstated the case. So I wrote “LENNON PIG-FUCKER BEATLES SHIT LOL” in the comments section of the blog. I was soon given reason to regret having done this.

Two hours after posting the comment I heard an insane screeching through my letterbox. Peeking tentatively into the hall I was accosted by a bulging yellow eye poking through the letterbox. “BAPTISTE” the eye shouted. “BAPTISTE YOU FRENCH SCOUNDREL. GET OUT HERE NOW”. There was no mistaking the terrifying Merseyside burr. It was Old Rope. And he was irked.

He then proceeded to prod a soiled lollipop stick under the door and wail like a wolf drowning in hydrochloric acid. “AIEEE. GET OUT YOU SAGGY BEAST. OUT. I’LL HAVE AT YOU. I’LL MINCE YOU UP GOOD. DOUBLEGOOD.” Readers will not think any the less of me when I tell them that I feared for my safety. I fled upstairs and, cowering under a paisley quilt, subsisted for the next few days on the tankards of Me-Ora that I keep in storage for emergencies.

Then, three days into the siege, an upstairs window exploded, and Old Rope was catapulted into the bedroom dressed like a cyborg Phil Spector – a page-boy bob for hair, a velvet sports-jerkin straggling about his upper torso, and a futuristic laser cannon grafted to his pointy scouse chin. I ineffectually attempted to defend myself by throwing buttons at him. Old Rope roared and fired the chin-laser directly into my eyes, which melted into horrible blubberous lumps of plasma. He then opened his rucksack, from whence a terrifying feline beast leaped out and attacked me with its claws and its horrid jagged teeth. “Get him Yoko Ono” he shouted. I was lacerated into revolting chunks of catfood

As I lay dying in pieces, Old Rope strode over to the barrel of Me-Ora and poured himself a cup. After swigging the brew greedily, he smacked his evil murderous lips gluttonously and murmured “Mmmm. Delicious real ale.”

Death by Ruffians

Flee, Graham! Don't suffer my fate!

It was dusk and the hunting hour was upon the city. I pulled the woollen ruff of my duffel coat up around my plump nervous cheeks and tried to ignore the small shadows prowling on the horizon. Experience had taught me that I was not adept at fighting children, even the weedy ones. I really didn’t want a confrontation. Perhaps they will leave me alone, I thought, though I knew they wouldn’t.

The leader presented himself first: a spry pre-pubescent in a tailcoat and tricorne hat. He spoke in a local variety of nadsat that, as far as I could tell, was a kind of Harry Potter and Beano-based creole.

“Well huffle my pufflewart, if it isn’t a scrunge-ing muggle-nonce creeping along to the penny opera like a right wet Walter” he exclaimed, in the manner of a circus ringleader.

“Pardon” I said

“Well Cor and Chortle. This one squirts muggle-spells out of his nosh-hole” he cried.

“Listen you”, I said, unadvisedly, “I’m a big lad, and I’ll thump you all rotten if you don’t expilatum out of here”

The evil boys laughed at my crude attempt to master their youthful argot.

“Come on lads, let’s groo him in the griffin door till he thinks it’s bangers and mash time”

At last, the inevitable beating took place. They tweaked my nose horribly. They rubbed rotten sprouts into my ears. They fired pea shooters into my hands and inflicted terrible stigmata-esque wounds upon my palms. They poked my beautiful plump cheeks, my beautiful plump cheeks that wouldn’t hurt a fly, with their Quidditch broomsticks. Finally, they pulled out their uzis and shot me into little pieces.

Needless to say, I died.

Parents: think long and hard about the appropriateness of the reading material you give your children.

Death by Dragon

With my faithful sword Wyrmslayer poking valiantly out of my gauntlet and my habergeon opened to the cool enchanted breezes, I set off in quest of a dragon. My plan was to steal one of its eggs, fry it and then eat it in a gigantic sandwich to win the favours of my beloved Princess Swine-Master. Gratuitous culinary extravagance was always the way to my sweetheart’s sweet heart.

After countless days and night wandering through vernal valleys and gnarled forests, I finally arrived at the dragon’s lair. The beast who resided herein was an especially formidable species of dragon, with a snout as long as a diving board and gas pouches as capacious as the testicles of a mammoth with mumps. This particular individual went by the name of Grorr-beard.

“Grorr-beard” I shouted into the dark recesses of her abode “I am come to take your egg. But first I shall destroy you with my blade which was forged for eons in the smithies of Berkshire.”

Grorr-beard was not happy. She swooped out of her cave, did a somersault in the air and incinerated me with her fiery breath. I died instantly.

Subsequently, Princess Swine-Master ended up marrying an eccentric inventor of sweets called Mr Muff. Gutted.

Let my woeful tale serve as an admonition to all of the over-reachers among you: Don’t take on a dragon (unless you know a spell that can protect you from its fiery breath).

Death by Lenny

Since I was a child my luxurious hair has always been a source of admiration and envy. It is mousey and cascades, like a thousand adorable mice swimming over a waterfall of molten gold, from the crown of my head to the shrug of my shoulders. When I was thirteen, the disgraced pop singer Gary Glitter tried to procure some of it so that he might weave a splendid toupe with which to screen his odious pate. I refused, reasoning that he would use the wig for evil, and he went away crestfallen and weeping.

One day I took a wrong turning on my way to the newsagents and found myself in Depression-era rural America. “Oh shit” I exclaimed as I spotted George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men walking towards me in dungarees and arguing about beans. “Hide, hide before Lenny sees your wondrous mane” my brain shouted at my body. But it was too late. Like a swine catching his first sniff of a nearby truffle, Lenny immediately sensed the presence of me and my prized ringlets lurking in the hedges. His heavy, unwieldy legs bounded over to where I stood.

“George. I never seen anything like it” he said

“Leave him alone Lenny” said George, who grew increasingly concerned.

“You got real purdy hair mister. Purdier than them rabbits who had to go away”

“Please, I must get going now” I said “I really must insist on it”

“I gots to pet it” he howled, gazing, it must be conceded, like somewhat of a rapist at my hair as it stood fluffing uncontrollably and flirting wantonly with the visible spectrum.

“Nooooo” I shouted as Lenny’s hairy hydraulic paws blocked out the sun and grasped at my tragic bouffant. His petting was as thorough and invasive as Steinbeck had suggested. And yet, and yet… I was still alive. “I might make it” I thought.

This proved to be premature. As I wriggled uncomfortably and ruminated on the possibility of surviving the ordeal I failed to note the descending death-stroke, the mortal pet as it swept from my widow’s peak towards my light, sparkling hind-curtains.

I fell, as limp as a stringy puppet, to the forest floor. George and Lenny scuttled away,  once again, to a whole new town and a whole new petting-related nightmare. I lay lifelessly: a lonely corpse with exquisite hair.

Death by Salinger

I pass by all of the creeps and chumps besieging the wooden façade of J. D. Salinger’s house. They grip their notepads and frown at me as I saunter past in a pair of free-flowing canvas slacks. The hem of my left trouser leg whips up and stings a fat doughy youth in horn-rimmed spectacles right in the eye, via the small aperture between the rim and his plump white face. “Creep” he shouts. “Creep” I reply. We reach a conversational deadlock. I continue past the garden gate and make my way to the front door. “Hey, we’re not supposed to go in there” he yells. “I got clearance, creep” I say without turning round. “Salinger’s granted me an interview”.

The front door opens and a bowed figure retreats into the darkness of the house before I can make out his face. I enter, and as I wipe my beaten brogues on the doormat the figure shouts from the kitchen. “You wanna chicken sandwich?” “No thank you” I answer.

All of a sudden the bony but uncannily strong figure has thrown himself piggy-back style onto my shoulders. “Eat a damn sandwich when a fella offers you a damn sandwich” he screams, while trying to prise my mouth open and force the condensed ball of meat and soggy bread into my mouth. “It’s chicken. Good chicken. It ain’t dirt”. The situation requires that I relent. “Sure” I say, “I’ll have a chicken sandwich”. “Thassa good boy” he says, and presses the food-ball into my palm. I eat it. It doesn’t taste like any chicken I have ever eaten before.

Attempting to put the compromising situation that has just occurred behind me, I begin my questions immediately. “Mr Salinger” I say, “you have…”. “Hold it right there son” he replies, and shows me a faded black and white photograph of a duck. “Whaddya think of that son?” he asks. “I like it” I reply. “Now where do you think that duck goes when the pond freezes?”. Having read a summary of Catcher in the Rye on Wikipedia, I realise he is making reference to a passage from his novel. I struggle to think of the answer. “Hmmm. Same place as all the other phoney creeps” I venture. But by this stage Salinger has lost interest in the question and is looking at me with a fierce intensity. I start to feel queasy and tired. Salinger laughs. Blood pours out of my nose and all down my slacks and my brogues. Salinger’s laugh becomes a wicked screeching howl. “Hee hee hee” he squeals. “Why?” I say, “why?”, as my imminent demise becomes apparent to me. “Because you’re a phoney son. A big phoney. And because when a fella offers you a chicken sandwich you play tease with him an’ say no when you mean yes”. “What was in it?” I croak. “1 part J. Edgar Hoover’s blood and 2 parts uranium” he replies. “I call it “Phoney Soup, I give it to all of the assholes who come round trying to interview me”.

Dying, on the dirty floor of J. D. Salinger’s house, with a fatal gutful of Phoney Soup, I realise all too well the wisdom in the old adage that you should never meet your heroes.