Author: Ian “Wolfwood” McIver

Avatar Smokin’ Jo Cool

I have recently been tidying up and I found some of my old writing pads. I had kept them because I was convinced they contained so much gold, so many beautiful ideas that the thought of throwing them away was absolutely idiotic and so I put them somewhere safe all these years. What the sensible part of me should have done is actually opened them up and read what was inside because, damn, they were chocked full of rubbish. Utter bollocks. There were half-finished poems not good enough for a GCSE English class, lists of songs and budgets for months long since gone. Do I need to remember how much I set aside for my phone bill in 2009? No sir, I do not.

I did, however, come across a series of cartoons and sketches that I had done. They started off with Mr Cloudy Misdemeanour, a particularly miserable misanthropic so and so, and ended with an un-printed and mostly incomprehensible comic strip called ‘Nigel Doesn’t Want to Kill Any Vampires’. The real “gem” if you can call it that is a one-off about a pig who… is fighting a war against some ice cream cones?

Don’t look at me like that; 2008 Ian was clearly working on another level, one which I have long since left or possibly ascended from into something just as depraved but slightly more serene. Nonetheless, here is the priceless ‘Smokin’ Jo Cool’:

SMOKIN’ JO COOLDownload

Avatar Yes sir, we have no porno-no today

I feel like a bitter disappointment.

BITTER.

At the end of 2018 I was bragging about how we were going to jump on-board that sweet, sweet dusty bandwagon trail and start throwing about porn like it was going out of fashion. Since then despite a few notable graphic and rather explicit efforts it has mostly been a big nen for the last month or so.

I tried to look for some horrible images with which to draw the crowds in. I checked all over the internet and there’s nothing there. All the porn has run away. Unless it is hiding in the shadows I can only presume that there’s none left. Clearly the world was done with the sight of naked flesh on flesh on possibly animal on flesh.

All I can do is offer up this very small picture as compensation. All you filth hounds out there watching, I hope it is enough.

Avatar Once upon a Time

Once there was a man who lived in his house with his wife and two kids.

It was a happy home, mainly because of the love shared between everyone but also because it had about five thousand rooms and was kept constantly up-to-date because of the man’s obsession with DIY. It had more bathrooms than your average B & Q megastore.

One day the man went to work and when he came home there were some unwanted visitors. It was a flock of bees, wanting to come and stay in the mansion because there were no rooms left in the Travelodge up the road. The man considered their proposal but ultimately had to turn it down as he had heard that bees have a bad reputation and sometimes leave wet towels on the floor rather than putting them over the side of the bath or on a radiator.

The next day the bees were still there, refusing to leave from the garden. Everyone stayed inside the house to keep away from the bees. They built their own bee house in a tree and laughed at anyone who dared come near their keep. The man ran to his car so he could still go to work, putting together dib-dabs in a computer. When he came back in the evening he discovered that the bees had bought a crowbar and forced their way into the house. As he dialled 999 he heard them upstairs, possibly nibbling crackers and spraying the crumbs all over the carpet. He called a bee man, Mr Bee as he is known to his fans, who drilled a hole in the wall and threw BBQ sauce in to drive the bees out. Everyone knows that bees hate barbecues due to their jealously over not being able to use metal prongs.

Prongs.

The bees left the house yet decided to hang around so they formed the shape of a strawberry and hung on the corner of the house. It did look pretty, from a distance. Mr Bee also dropped some crates in the garden with the intention of scooping all the bees up and putting them in ice cream to sell to pensioners down on the South coast of England. One by one, the bees formed an orderly queue and went into the box as the film ‘Cocoon’ was being shown. Popcorn was passed around. A jolly time was had by all. When all the bees were sleeping off their sugar bender the bee man snuck up, took the box and disappeared into the night, and was never seen again. Some believe that he knew so much about bees as he was actually a flock of bees taped together, using some sort of pulley system and intense paper mache skills.

The End.

(Picture supplied by the very generous Emily McIver)

Avatar The Anatomy of the Pig

How many legs does a pig have?

If you answered ‘four’ you are wrong.

How many arms does a pig have?

If you answered ‘none’ you are wrong.

After a recent night of board game fun with my fake adopted family, Reuben took some time out between rounds to draw another of his award-winning designs. The fact that he can crank these out for fun whenever he wants emits equal levels of pride and jealously from my insides. He originally drew the pig with no legs. After a discussion with the rest of the table, it was decided that pigs do not have four legs in total. They have two upper legs and two bottom arms. That is how it is now and will forever continue to be, and anyone who says otherwise does not have the same high level of anatomical knowledge that we do.

Avatar My Chair Story

So here is a story I have been meaning to tell for a while. It is a story about my chair, a chair story if you will. The entire story is about a chair so if you’re looking for a tale about something else then I would advise you to jog on, like a couple of sea lions, because it ain’t happening sunshine.

Once I was a person without a chair and without some level of warning I became a one people with a chair. How chairs come into your life I cannot say. Sometimes you get given them, sometimes you find them in shops and they’re the right kind of sitting device, that perfectly compliment your own particular exterior, that you have to buy them or regret it for the rest of your life. So there I was, a young man with a chair, sitting like a sitting person should. It dawned on me though that despite the right level of comfort and chair-intensity that there was something missing.

Typical, right? “Oh the problem with your generation is that you are never satisfied. Look at everything you have and it is still not enough.” Whilst that is true, no matter what I did there was something gnawing at the back of my ears that I could not put my finger on. What was it that I needed? A god damn foot stool, that is what I needed. This chair needed the perfect companion though, I could not settle for any old Johnny two foot-putter.

Fast forward eight hundred years later. After developing the ability to not only halt my ageing process but also travel to the far reaches of space in my custom-built Grimmy 101 Space Hulk Meat Vestibule, I stopped getting older and flew to the end of the galaxy. It took a while, hence the 800 years. When I got there though I was vastly disappointed. Despite plenty of signs boasting about this and that there were absolutely no furniture shops, not even a charity shop with thirty copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ stacked up in the corner. My chair looked even more glum that my poor viso/volto did. I was about to flip the spinsh retractor into reverse when I noticed a rubbish tip at the end of the street. I had nothing to lose so I walked over, fearing the worst yet secretly hoping for the best.

There it was. It was staring me in the eyes (which pair of eyes I cannot recall), a footstool I could not recall every seeing in my extended life. Sure, it had taken 834 years to find it and it was worth waiting for. This the story of me and my chair, my chair story, and it’s also a little bit about a footstool. It’s my chair footstool science-fiction search story. I hope you enjoyed it.

Avatar Quiet Beans

It’s all gone a little bit quiet, hasn’t it?

Since the smash at the end of May there’s been nothing (nothing) to start clogging up the arteries of June. In fact, it is as if everyone has forgotten about June. Why is it so quiet? What is everybody doing that is preventing them from “living it up” right here?

Luckily I am still here to be VERY LOUD and QUITE CLOSE TO YOUR FACE to carry on the tradition of nonsense posts that help to pass the time. I am currently exhausted after my recent jaunt as trendsetter. Trying to keep up with everything that’s cool is an overwhelming and mostly unfulfilling way to live your life. I have therefore decided to return to my sheltered, nerdy existence because that’s how things are. It also means that I can focus my attention on my (recent) life goal of writing a thing. We have all written things in the past (see ‘The Magic Star’ for physical proof of that) although this time it will be a solo flight.

I am going to write a book, using my psychic powers, about the marvels of Middlesex. Yes, you read that right; I am going to channel all of my energy into digging up the real story about the county that apparently does not exist anymore yet that I still know about. Is it only talking to me? Have I somehow managed to create a psychokinetic link to the past? Only time, and around £19.99 when it is eventually pusblished, will tell.

I WILL KEEP ALL OF YOU LOVELY PEOPLE posted on my progress.

Avatar Pay the Toll

You have to pay the toll. That’s the way it works.

In order to get past you have to stump up the money or whatever is needed. You have to satisfy the teller to avoid salmonella. You must grease the wheels to sort out your shady deals.

I am about to venture down South towards the magical, Icelandic borough of Royskopp in order to meet Sheriff Rockingham himself. I have heard terrible, terrible rumours of the gentleman who he currently lives with though. Hushed tones have informed me that Steve Steveingtons is a violent wretch. I once sent him a Superman t-shirt which he loved with all his heart. One day he wore it to the pub, somebody accidentally spilled some lager on it and the authorities are still finding bits of people weeks later, scattered around the neighbourhood. A man with a temper like this needs to be appeased.

So what do you do? I understand that Steve Steveingtons is a big fan of the Trek through the Stars, something from television. Biggles maybe? I have been daydreaming about weird things mashed together and this keeps popping into my head at work. I don’t think my pedestrian drawing skills have done it much justice, and it doesn’t look anything at all like the one in my mind, but I hope that it is enough to stop him knocking me literally into next week.

If this should be my last post let it be known that I regret nothing, not even all the Beans comics I wrote.

Avatar More of You and Your Orb

Now that the shock of having an orb instead of a child has disappeared, you can settle into a routine that fits the both of you. Remember that you have to get used to your orb as much as he or she has to get used to you. You are not an easy person to live with and people do talk about you behind your back.

In order for your orb to understand how to behave around children and other orbs you may to take them out to a soft play facility. Here, kids and orbs of all ages run or hover around in well-crafted industrial buildings that nobody knew what to do with, panicked and then threw some padding on the floors. You can watch from the safety of the coffee shop, with your half-fat vanilla latte, whilst your little one floats in and out of tubes, ball pools and slides. You will also get to listen as other, more smug parents (more smugger or smuggents as they’re referred to) chunter on about how their child managed to get into Cambridge University based on the contents of their last nappy.

Maintain your distance whilst also keeping a close eye on them. This is one of those contradictions that you often see in parenting guides because really, deep down, nobody knows what they’re doing. You want your orb to make friends without you, ironically, hovering about behind them. And you certainly don’t want to one of those dads that follows their orb into the soft play facility and proceeds to comment on every single thing they do, and then convince them not to go down the big slide because it may be “a little too scary” for them. You’ll get a slap round the man nuggets for conduct like that.

Sometimes a float through the park is enough to keep them occupied. With the sun on your back and the fresh air coursing around your orb’s complex series of gas, emissions and chutney, they will appreciate the time you have spent together. Make sure to take plenty of photographs and decorate your orb’s room with memories you have made together.

If they burn a likeness of you into a piece of paper, put it up on the fridge for everyone to see. If they build a statue of you using pasta and PVA glue don’t go with your initial reaction and throw it in the bin; be sure to make a lot of noise about how great it is, put a picture on Facebook and then put it in the garage in the box with the rest of the tripe, or throw it out of the window of a moving car on the way to work the next morning. It’s much funnier that way.