1967 Night Medway Eyes

"1967 Night" at the Barge, in Gillingham, was the first Medway Eyes tribute event for Oxjam, after grasping the baton from Bob Collins who had organised previous Oxjam events. It was a packed-to-the-rafters affair featuring songs of The Beatles, The Who, The Monkees, Joni Mitchell and a whole host of others who were prowling the pop charts in that grand Summer of Love. Phil and Lisa's choice of theme threw up some wonderful and colourful performances from a herd of Medway musicians and bands.....and a magnificent summery night's entertainment was had by all....even though it was on January 20th. The charming Barge environment...the bowery den of Layfield Road...was the perfect setting for an evening of retrospect and music. Over 30 songs from 1967....over £150 raised for Oxjam....over 25 strummed guitars. If the players of the night had tried to smash their instruments up as The Who were doing 31 years earlier...it would have taken them all night.
Thankfully we live in an age of fine technology which means there are many photographs and videos of this terrific evening on the net.

Unlucky Fried Kitten Do The Maths

When I went to school we were taught properly. It's interesting to note how questions in exams have changed over the years...to reflect the times. I have dragged the exam papers from my ever-increasing litter of sprogs, from the attic. I noticed an interesting pattern of change in the MATHEMATICS question.

1. Teaching maths in 1970

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.

His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.

What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.

His cost of production is 80% of the price.

What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.

His cost of production is £80.

How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.

His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20.

Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2005

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.

Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.

6. Teaching Maths In 2009

A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target. When he is released he returns to find Gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100.

While he is in jail the Gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving BBQ of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Maths In 2010

A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub- prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.

The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.

Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return

to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1,500

registration fees as a gang master.

The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonus’s are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.

You do the maths.

8. Teaching Maths 2017

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(Please excuse the squiggly – I don’t know what it means and my translator couldn’t cope either. It is intended for pictorial use only – and not to offend…)

The Tovil Treacle Mines

Photgraph 1..."TreacleTart"...one of the boats used to transport the treacle from the bridge at Tovil Boatyard to Trebor Sharpe sweet factory.
Photograph 2...The stile over which many a sweet treacle-steeped worker clambered over on their way to the Tovil Treacle Mines.

The Tovil Treacle Mines were the inspiration behind the Unlucky Fried Kitten song, "Shooting Star" which was the top-selling by-product of the treacle mines. The Shooting Star was made using the treacle exclusively mined at Tovil...giving it it's delicious syrupy taste.
"Unlucky Fried Kitten At Tovil Treacle Mines" can be seen on YouTube...with the "Shooting Star" song as accompaniment.
There is a Facebook Group for the Tovil Treacle Mines....from which the following information is gathered. Please enjoy reading about the history of this fascinating industry once set in the heart of rural Kent:

A historical reference to the days of the fully operational Tovil Treacle Mines set in the Loose Valley and Tovil region of Maidstone, Kent. The pinpoint location is actually Bockingford...a tiny settlement in the aforesaid region.
Tovil Treacle Mine once supplied treacle and liqorice to most of Kent's sweet manufacturers....and almost exclusively to Trebor Sharp's in the town. (now taken over by Cadburys)
I realise that this will be a seldom visited group because the Tovil Treacle Mine closed in the 1950's so it's not like there are hoardes of ex-employees raggling around on Facebook. However...if anyone has any memories of the old place please feel free to contribute. I do have some pictures..taken by my Grandfather, who sadly left us in the 70's. (he didn't die..he just left us) I shall put them on here when I locate them. I'll make some more posts in a short while...to tell you what I recall of the legendary Tovil Treacle Mines (stories passed on by my Grandfather and his cronies.

Wow...I just done some research and found that it didn't close in the 50's...it was, in fact, still going in the 70's...but only on a small scale. I remember it being operational...but I thought it had been taken over by a German firm. I'm pleased to say that I can remember it now. Incidentally...I also found...that the mines were closed throughout World War 2 for security reasons after the Luftwaffe were found to be using the vast "treacle fires" as navigational aid....very interesting.


I have uploaded a video shot in the beautiful Bockingford region.
The Tovil Treacle mines were here.
Bockingford is also known for it's water mills and for the production of very expensive artist paper.
In the video you can see the majestic Treacle Tower which still stands today. Hopefully it will remain there for a long while...but these things are never certain. The top of the tower was sealed off in the 1950's after 2 local youths fell to their death whilst trying to get some "treacle scrapings" from inside the rim of the tower. Some say the tower is haunted and that you can hear the lads' deathly wail if you press your ear firmly to the tower.

The Ice-Cold Oggie soft-drinks factory was situated fifty metres up the road on Teasaucer Hill. (metres were called yards in those days) Ice-Cold Oggies came in a variety of flavours including raspberry and lemon-lime and, of course, treacle

Although the Treacle Oggie was the most densely produced soft-drink at the Ice-Cold Oggie factory it was not considered to be the most delicious flavour. That mantle is bestowed upon the Barming Cherry flavour...made from cherries picked at arguably the UK's finest cherry-growing region of Barming, on the outskirts of Maidstone.
The factory founder-owner, Mr Harold "Slash" Wildly would make a twice-weekly trip to Barming on the trolley-bus which ended at the Barming Terminus and he would meet the local cherry-farmers in the Cherry Tree public house across the road....where they would thrash out their best prices for the world-famous Barming Cherries.
Back at Bockingford the valley was a favourite location of landscape artists....often seen capturing the idyllic rural scene of the streams and the mills...munching on a Shooting Star or a Treacle Tartello and guzzling on a Blackberry and Damson Ice-Cold Oggie.

An original Barming Cherry Ice-Cold Oggie sold on e-bay recently for £16,500...to a Japanese soft-drinks bottle collector


In the video you can see a row of cottages on the left-hand side. These were occupied by the managers and foremen of the Tovil Treacl Mines. Each dwelling had it's own Treacle Well in the back garden.


The Picnic Table was put in place to replace the Freddie Tubbs Oak Memorial Bench stolen in 1985. The bench was put in place as a tribute to Freddie who perished in the Tovil Treacle Mine Disaster of 1964. He saved the lives of many treacle workers and although he wasn't the sole casulty (twelve men died in the collapse of the Lower Bockingford Mine) he is certainly the most remembered.

QUOTES

Jeremy Rowling- my mum used to live in Larkfield and she told me she could remember the smell of the treacle mines when she was a little girl, I'm surprised that Maidstone does not encourage tourism by telling everyone about the mines. well done andy for bringing this tiny corner of confectionery heritage to facebook

Stephen Piper- I live right on Bockingford, you can still hear the Ghost Miners shuffling their pots at night on a still night, some say they still mine for the old liquid gold to this day, led by old "Sticky Widget" treacle foreman from hell.

Rio Fraser- I know of people who have seen those ghosts....sticky hair, bulbous noses, glazed skin and molasses-fever. Not a pretty sight.

Ollie Supercat- I'm happy that you desire to pay homage to one of our lost traditional industries. They actually grow treacle in laboratories now....which I think is disgusting.

Gypsy by The Martini Slutz with Unlucky Fried Kitten

Mildred Littlefair...who was gypsy girl Marnie Allbright in a previous life.

Marnie Allbright was a gypsy girl known around the Weald of Kent as a ferocious camp-site dancer. She made dance her medium in a time before television and radio were the norm...and people flocked from yards around to see her frenetic fire-side gyrations...incorporating a cast of woodland animals...mostly rabbits and wildcats.
Fire was discovered a long time before the rabbit...most historians concur...and Marnie fused the two together with remarkable style. Old eye-witness accounts say that "when she danced her feet never touched the floor" (perhaps she was wearing shoes)
Marnies is documented in the anthology "15 Short Stories For Squirrels" written by a young Andy Export..and buried in a box at The Hilly Fields in the valley between Brenchley and Castle Hill. The manuscript was buried in 1971...by Andy himself and he claims it was never recovered....though there have been rumours that it has exchanged hands for £14 (plus £1.99 post and packaging)...yet to be substantiated.
The song itself..."Gypsy" was recorded in an aircraft hanger at West Malling Airfield...now a housing estate called Kingshill. Astute observers will recognise that West Malling Airfield has played it's own part in rock history as the location for The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" film of 1967. The airfield furthered it's link to the pop landscape when punk band 'V2086'...named after the Catalogue number to the Sex pistols "Never mind The Bollocks" album...signed their ill-fated record deal in the Spitfire pub...next to Asda...on the estate. 'V2086' vanished mid-way through a gig at the Royal Albion boozy biker pub in Havock Lane, Maidstone..in the late 80's. They have not surfaced since. Their much-rejoiced debut single "Pop Group" can still be heard in The UFK Dollshouse...with an accompanying slideshow on YouTube.
Marnie Allbright came back in a later life as Mildred Littlefair...the psychic who has worked so closely with Unlucky Fried Kitten in the UFK Dollshouse. She likes cats.
The Beatles went on to have a successful recording career...only eclipsed by the emergence of global genius Chad Kroeger and his astonishingly innovative rock band, Nickelback.

The Life and Times of an Old Penny

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A PENNY

IN 1940
I STARTED MY LIFE
A LONDON DOCKER
BOUGHT FLOWERS FOR HIS WIFE
THEY LIVED IN PLAISTOW
JEFFERSON ROAD
NUMBER 60
THEIR HUMBLE ABODE

I AM A PENNY X 4

I WENT TO LEYSDOWN
TARNISHED BUT CLEAN
I SPENT SIX MONTHS THERE
IN SLOT MACHINES
ACROSS TO MAIDSTONE
IN A WIDOWER’S PURSE
HE SPENT ME WISELY
ON A BOOK OF SAD VERSE

I AM A PENNY X 4

I PAID FOR TOFFEE-APPLES AND CUBAN CIGARS
THE BEANO AND THE DANDY AND MILK CHOCOLATE BARS
PAINTED LEAD SOLDIERS AND LACES FOR SHOES
MY LITTLE BABY COUSIN ENDED UP IN TOULOUSE

THE 1950′S
THEY WERE A BORE
8 YEARS IN BOURNEMOUTH
IN THE BACK OF A DRAWER
I MIXED WITH MOTH-BALLS
CANDLES AND SNUFF
GREASEPROOF PAPER
BUT MOSTLY JUST FLUFF

I AM A PENNY X 4

FORGET THE 50′S
THE DECADE WAS DRAB
BRING ON THE 60′S
GROOVY AND FAB
I WENT TO NIGHTCLUBS
IT WAS INSANE
MEMORIES ROLLING
DOWN PENNY LANE

A LITTLE KID’S COLLECTION IN ”79
THEY COVERED ME IN BRASSO TO GIVE ME A SHINE
WITH THE COINS FROM THE MERSEY AND THE THAMES AND THE TYNE
CHEERS TO ELVIS COSTELLO FOR THE USE OF THAT RHYME

I AM A PENNY X 4

Jeremy Rowling and Andy Export of Unlucky Fried Kitten were chatting about the way things move along in life…well…they were talking about the life of Unlucky Fried Kitten at first…how it had changed and evolved since 1995 when it first leapt out of a box….a metaphorical box, that is. Well…all things change, don’t they? It lead on to them thinking about how certain twists of fate move certain things to certain parts of the world. So…Andy very quickly penned this ditty…as an example. Unlucky Fried Kitten…The Life and Times of an Old Penny.
So....how did Andy know where this penny had been since 1940? Easy. He enlisted the help of New Wave Psychic, Mildred Littlefair. This is a great time to introduce the sterling work of Mildred..who has become almost an ancilliary member of UFK....assisting in various songs and experiments from within the UFK Dollshouse. Mildred, a gypsy dancer in a previous life*, has proved to be a valuable help in such projects as "The Unlucky Fried Kitten Copy and Paste Conspiracy Theory", the "Pub-Table Through The Ages" saga, the "Isle of Sheppey Refurbishment Disaster" and other works. She's a strange girl (since someone told her she had a nice profile she always tries to walk sideways) but she has been a wonderful help to the cause of UFK.
For this song she retraced the steps of the 1940 penny...for a payment of a box of fading photographs of sheds of Old England. It was a difficult task for Mildred...she lost a lot of weight and had to sleep on a bed of pre-decimalisation goatskin eiderdowns...to get the connection.
*it was discovered, through regression, that Mildred was once a gypsy dancer girl called Marnie Allbright...from the pre-Victorian Woodlands of Sittingbourne.

The Museum

The Museum of Old Sparks was a private mansion house before World War II…in the ownnership of the Sparks’ family of Wittersham. It was turned into a makeshift school for evacuated children in 1936 when most of the outer rooms were boarded up…with the artefacts still inside. Legend goes that some of the local prisoners were sedated and boarded up in the outlying rooms..to perish. Many lost souls were trapped in the atmosphere and are said to be still there today. After the war the house was returned to the Sparks’ family but they didn’t return to live there. They opened it up as a museum…The Museum of Old Sparks. Ronald Sparks was killed in The Blackheath Bacon Riots of 1949* and the squabbling Sparks’ family accepted an offer from The National Trust..who now own The Museum..at time of going to press…January 2007.
I hope you enjoy my song about this magnificent specimen of the macabre.
*He was condemned to be hanged but he saved his life by dying in prison.

THE MUSEUM

THE MUSEUM IS OPEN UP FOR BUSINESS NOW
WITH ECHOES AND BANGS
AND THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR EYES GO “WOW”
WE’VE GOT PORTRAITS
WITH EYES THAT MOVE AND TONGUES THAT TALK
SEE THAT GREAT BIG STUFFED BIRD
IT USED TO BE A SPARROWHAWK

DID YOU SEE THE MUMMY IN THE COFFIN BY THE DOOR
SOMETIMES IN THE NIGHT THE MUMMY
WALKS ACROSS THE FLOOR
DANCES WITH THE SKELETONS AND BITS OF DINOSAUR
LEAVING TRAILS OF BANDAGES ALONG THE CORRIDOR

THE MUSEUM IS ALWAYS VERY COLD AT NIGHT
THE GHOSTLY STATUES ARE LIT UP BY THE CANDLELIGHT
THE CURATOR..SEEN SO MANY GHOSTS HIS HAIR IS WHITE
SEE YOU LATER..WE HEARD YOU’RE STAYING HERE TONIGHT

TELL ME WHEN YOU HEAR THE CLATTER
OF THE BALL AND CHAIN
SEE THE STATUE CRYING COS HIS MIND HAS GONE INSANE
TEARS CASCADE ON FLOORS WELL-LAID
LIKE SYMPATHETIC RAIN
ALL STOOD STILL AND TEARS THAT SPILL
ARE SPLASHING DOWN THE DRAIN

THE MUSEUM IS NOT THE PLACE TO GO ALONE
SO STAY WITH A FRIEND
AND ALWAYS TAKE A MOBILE PHONE
DON’T GO TO SLEEP
YOU MIGHT JUST NOT WAKE UP AGAIN
PREPARE TO BE SCARED
BY THE RATTLING OF THE WINDOW-PANE

DID YA SEE THE GLASS JAR WITH THE PICKLED CHIMPANZEE
DID YOU HEAR THE WAILING OF THE JILTED BRIDE-TO-BE
SHE’S BEEN WAITING FOR HER MAN SINCE 1933
WITH FOSSILED FROGS ON ANCIENT LOGS
AND ALL ON DVD

THE MUSEUM..CAREFUL AS YOU’RE PASSING THROUGH
YOU’LL BE JUMPY AS A KANGAROO
THANK YOU FOR YOUR REVENUE
NOW YOU’VE HAD A BIRDS-EYE VIEW
A SPOOKY LITTLE PEEK-A-BOO
YOU’LL BE TRYING TO CALL UP SCOOBY-DOO
SO HE CAN COME AND RESCUE YOU
BUT SCOOBY-DOO AIN’T GOT A CLUE
COS HE’S NOT REAL LIKE ME AND YOU
RELY UPON YOUR OWN I QHIS GET THROUGH THIS REVOLTING STEW
YOU CAN TRY KUNG-FU OR JU-JITSU
IF NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK FOR YOU

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VISIT
THE MUSEUM NOW IS SHUT
TIME TO DRAW THE CURTAINS
AND TO SHUT THE SHUTTERS SHUT

THE NIGHTWATCHMAN’S IN HIS GARDEN
DRINKING COCOA IN HIS HUT
THE FILM IS MADE
THE CAMERAS’ FADE
LET’S MAKE THE FINAL CUT

THE DVD IS AVAILABLE IN THE FOYER

CUT

DO COME AND VISIT US AGAIN

CUT!!

Unlucky Fried Kitten Copy and Paste Conspiracy

Andy Export of the Maidstone pop band Unlucky Fried Kitten has today released the following statement:

It is an unfortunate truth that I have had to close the doors of the UFK Dollshouse…as from today…and for the foreseeable future. I’ll try to explain in simple terms…but some of the following information will seem astonishing. I ask you not to judge the following disclosures until you have ingested the data and accepted the situation with a broad mind. I’ll try to be concise but please remember two things. ONE…I am a musician and artist…my writing skills are limited to jolly little pop-songs with Unlucky Fried Kitten. TWO: The opinions expressed are entirely my own….but the facts are set in stone.

When I set up the UFK Dollshouse in 1997…..2 years after forming Unlucky Fried Kitten…my idea was to use it as an umbrella for like-minded pop bands…a holding house, if you wish, from which the venues and record companies of this world could pluck the lucky bands in the system. It didn’t go according to plan…though I did eventually gather a nice little group of pop acts eventually. Some of the acts are still with me. (The Bolans, I Am A Spider, The Cemetry Gaes, Mickey Apples, V2086, Death In Venice, The Cinzano Slagz, Rocker Billy, Faye McAdemy)

With the turn of the Millenium I could see a big change coming in music and I realised it was time to embrace the internet and multi-media side of music. No great shakes there…I’m sure that most people in the biz had sussed that out. However…I always wanted to be one step ahead…and that’s why I turned the UFK Dollshouse into a multi-functioning workshop and editing suite. I enlisted Rio…a programmer from Los Angeles…and we set about our colossal task…..based on the copy and paste principle. This is where it gets crazy. I accept that most of the people reading this will be disbelieving…and I understand that some will laugh behind their hands….but I’ll carry on…and try to explain. Rio and I brainstormed all the ideas for our project. We touched upon all the things that have now come to be normal in this biz….online gigs, internet tours from static sites, downloads,musician-agency networking etc. One thing that hasn’t been done is the “copy and pasting” of audiences. We studied hard and worked tirelessly to achieve results with this. It will never be as simple as it sounds…or as beautiful as it sounds….the copying and pasting of individuals to form an audience over the ethernet…but we know it can be done…and I’d bet my last dollar on the belief that it will be done by the year 2030…..that’s 22 years from now. It may not be done by Unlucky Fried Kitten (though we hope it will) and it might not come busting out of the doors of the UFK Dollshouse…but it will happen. We have made certain advancements….but we have suddenly found opposition from a whole host of big companies. This is starting to seriously hamper our progress. This is why we have had to close the doors of the UFK Dollshouse. The next post explains how we at Unlucky Fried Kitten…as a pop band….are being diverted from our task.
Unlucky Fried Kitten have a vision. By the year 2030 they want to see instant audience assembly using the copy and paste principle. Here’s the current scenario: You finish work…and you want to go and see a band. You trawl through the gig-guides to see what’s on offer…and you have to restrict yourself to venues within reasonable travelling distance. Not a great choice. Here’s our UFK Dollshouse scenario: If you could “copy and paste” yourself to any venue…near or far…there are no limits. The Kaiser Chiefs in Glasgow…no problem. The Godfathers at Islington Academy…easy. Unlucky Fried Kitten at The Beirkeller Bristol…dig it. The Only Ones in Belgium….bring it on. One click and you’re there.

I’ve missed gigs before now…I’m sure we all have…where I’ve had the ticket for weeks…but on the night I was so exhausted that I couldn’t be arsed to make the journey. I’ve regretted it. The Buzzcocks at The Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford springs to mind. If the UFK copy and paste facility had been available I would have gone. When you consider the notion you soon realise that the principle extends to everyday life beyond our wildest dreams. You would copy and paste yourself to get to work. Copy and paste to Barbados for your lunch break. You wouldn’t even need to walk up the stairs when you go to bed. Click….you’re there. But where does this all take us? Is it too far? Is it a progress of gluttony?

Whilst Unlucky Fried Kitten (andy export and rio fraser) were considering all this..and working our little red fluffy socks off…we gradually became aware of certain rumblings in the motor car industry. We have knowledge of those concerns now. I’ll try to explain.

The automobile industry are…as we read…pumping millions of pounds into research for the development of an underground transport structure. The big motor car manufacturers are working in unison. They know that the car, as an individual mode of transport, will be a thing of the past in coming years. That will lead to a monopoly of sorts and it will change the industry. The new underground networks (and there will be many) will be pretty much the same as our current underground train system…so the actual conveyance machine will be owned by the network company. The big motor car manufacturers know that they have to jump onto this bandwagon…or go bust. By the time our copy and paste principle is really kicking in…at around 2030…the first underground travel networks….across the whole of the land…will be materialising. Also…by that time…the motor industry old guard will have pumped billions into research and development. It would be a travesty beyond comprehension for their plans and fortunes to be thwarted in one fell swoop by a snotty little punk pop band called Unlucky Fried Kitten….from Maidstone. Perhaps, now, our readers will understand why we (unlucky fried kitten) are very highly disregarded by the heirachy of the motor car industry. They know that if our copy and pasting of people works….their plans will be valueless and unusable…and their money will be gone. Unlucky Fried Kitten…as a pop band…will keep working with this…and they will do so from the Ufk Dollshouse. Unlucky Fried Kitten want to be the first band to have a copy and paste audience.

Experts have said that we have made just a 5% cut into the advancement of the technical age. If this is true then we can only imagine what advancements will be made over the next decade….and then over the decade after that. Sit yourself back with a cup of Earl Grey and consider how things were before we had some of our everyday items that we take for granted. Cameras, televisions, computers. radios, fax machines, mobile phones, cars, microwave ovens, cd players….so on and so forth. Those items and inventions all have one very strong thing in common. They would have been ridiculed had someone expressed their concept 3 decades before their inception. You’d be hard pushed to find anyone of decent mind who would disagree with that. Some of the things to come over the next 2 or 3 decades are quite easy to predict…they can be seen….metaphorically…coming over the hill as we read this. We will all be micro-chipped, that’s for sure. People are fussing about the introduction of i.d. cards right now….but in a decade or so the i.d. card will be as old-hat as the Betamax VCR you see at Big Berties Bouncy Boot Bonanza on a Sunday. Tagged at birth…without a question or doubt.(I don’t believe we’ll see detachable human heads in my lifetime…that’ll take a little longer…but it will come. You’ll take your head off at night and put it on charge. By this time, though, sleep will probably be a thing of the past…so you’ll need a spare head for use while the other one is being charged.) I predict that within 15 years…that’ll be around about 2023…we will have Complete Memory Restoration. With CMR you will be able to revisit any event from your past. You will be able to download your memories after you’ve revived them in your mind. Let’s take my case…of playing for the school football team. I played for Brenchley and Matfield Primary School in Brenchley, Kent in 1972….when I was 11 years old. I was the leading goal-scorer and it was one of the proudest times of my life. I was a bit of a goal-hanger…the manager constantly told me that…but I scored some memorable goals. With CMR I’ll be able to see those goals again….revisit the day and see it exactly as I saw it then. I won’t be able to watch the game from a spectator perspective…of course…unless I find someone who was there watching…and I can snag his download. CMR draws from an immense well which is your memory…and everything you have seen can be seen again and put into a viewing bank….much like YouTube. Within 25 years…at around 2033…we’ll be able to retrieve the recall of the dead. Not the long dead….the recently expired. The time factor will echo the time factor for the use of liver, kidney etc which happens now. So…we can see the last things a murdered person saw…..which will help solve more murders. As a footnote to that…it is a fact that we use eyes in transplants now. If you had said to someone 50 years ago “I reckon they’ll be taking eyes out of one person and putting them into someone else” they would have kicked you up the arse and rushed you off to the Looney Bin. Brain Transplants are common now…..not just unbelievable plot-lines for Dr Frankenstein. We have limb transplants now, of course, but it won’t be very long before we have interchangeable limbs. Another dead cert is that you will be able to choose the sex of your baby. I would bet my last dollar….this last dollar is doing me well….that it can easily be done right now. They just gotta be seen to be getting through the ethics of it.
When we talk about the copy and paste of a person in the context of our UFK development it is easy to see why people will scoff. We don’t just click a mouse and instantly transport a human to another place. If only it were that easy. The UFK Dollshouse is not the Starship Enterprise…and I’m sure as Hell not Captain James T Kirk. Our success in this field involves something similar to Remote Viewing. I am sure that most of you know roughly what Remote Viewing is…so I won’t insult your intelligence by Googling it and copy/pasting a load of info about it. If you want to know more yourself (and it is a fascinating subject) just Google it and see for yourself. (Wikipaedia have a section on it)

So…with some of the fundamentals of the Remote Viewing principle…and with a combination of cognitive consciousness and esp…we found success with our experimental adventure. Please be aware that no drugs are involved…the use of hallucinogenics or pain-killers would render the experiment pointless and devoid of any confirming evidence. I was laid on a trolley-bed with my eyes closed and with a blindfold for extra darkness. It took me a good 5 minutes to get into the correct mode. I can’t fully divulge our tactics…we are in a race to be the first to copy/paste an audience….but I can say that it takes a lot of effort and concentration to get into what some might say is a trance-like state. My way of describing it would be to say that you have to sink back into yourself from the front of your head as you replace layer of darkness with a new layer of darkness over and over until you are no longer “in the building” so to speak. You have to feel a kind of power surge…usually 8 or 9 times….then your mind is open. Here is the account of this particular experiment.

“First of all I am flying around in the sky….in complete darkness. Then the sky lights up….I see a chimney stack on the corner of a house in a London street. The brickwork is so defined. I’m seeing a figure on the pavement and it seems to be Victorian times. The light is fading….the London street is disappearing…and I am back to darkness. There are so many flashing images…I don’t have the time to identify all of them.

At the moment…as I am recounting this…I am falling asleep.

For this reason………I have to go….but I will come back and give you the experiment details later….in the next post

Free The MySpace 3

The world of on-line social networking was rocked from it’s foundations when the story of a 3-prong ban on “the crucial three” burst into the media arena a few days ago. The 3 banished from the MySpace Alternative Music Forums were Pizt, Reavsey and Andy Export.

It was reported that extreme fans of industrialist journeyman, Pizt, were hurling themselves into the jaws of saltwater crocodiles in his Australian homeland. These reports have yet to be substantiated fully…but early news suggests that at least 2 men have suffered the self-inflicted atrocity. Police in Victoria, Australia, are appealing for calm and have issued the following statement “We cannot confirm or deny the crocodile rumours at this stage of our investigation…but we are obliged to announce that we have set up a hotline for missing relatives. We are in negotiations with a local counselling service and will keep the public updated as and when we get some news.

On the other side of the world in sleepy Medway…in the Garden of England, Kent…a battle of minds is taking place within the corridors of control in the Medway Delta. Reavsey has long been a favourite son of the Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham Scene and his devotees are understandably shocked at the news of his ban. One notary suggested that the veto of Reavsey, the Urban Punk Folkist, masks “an agenda closer to the evil machinations of an Orwellian State” Reavsey is currently in hiding in a 20ft trailer in an unspecified trailer park on the Isle of Sheppey. Rumours that he is under Trailer-Arrest and that he has been parted from his beloved pen and paper have yet to be confirmed. As this goes to press, a lone woman weeps outside the Gala Bingo Hall in Chatham….a spiritual home to Reavsey’s followers.

Ten miles away in Maidstone, Kent, Andy Export has been admitted to a Home for the Bewildered. On hearing the news of his banishment he took to the streets of the County Town and smashed some of his paintings with a crude garden implement. In a swift operation by The Kent police Andy was spirited away to the un-named Home for Confused Non-Entities. Tributes are pouring onto YouTube for his pop band Unlucky Fried Kitten, who’s future now has to be in serious doubt. Social speculators are asking the question….how can anyone come back from this? In fact…in a hastily arranged press conference at The Cherry Tree PH in Barming….local inn-keeper and entrepreuner, Paul “Rats” Wratten said “How can anyone come back from this?”

Please join the Facebook group

Free The MySpace 3

The Ghost Train

THE GHOST TRAIN

THIS IS THE GHOST TRAIN MATEY
SO GET ON BOARD
YOU SAVED HARD FOR THE TICKET
AND THIS IS YOUR REWARD
YOU'RE FEELING GOOD TODAY
THE WHISTLE BLOWS YOU'RE ON YOUR WAY
THUNDERING ALONG THE HAUNTED TRACK

THIS IS THE GHOST TRAIN SO FAST AND LOUD
YOU SEE THE SKELETONS AND SPIDERS AS YOU RACE BY
YOU'RE ON THE GHOST TRAIN WITH THE GHOSTLY CROWD
AND NOW WE 'RE STORMING THROUGH THE TREES
LET'S HAVE YOUR TICKETS PLEASE

LIKE A KALEIDOSCOPE
IT'S HARD TO UNDERSTAND
GO AROUND A CORNER
YOU'RE IN ANOTHER LAND
YOU'RE IN A FOREST NOW
RINKY-DINK AND HOLY COW
THUNDERING ALONG THE HAUNTED TRACK

THIS IS THE GHOST TRAIN WITH BELLS AND LIGHTS
THERE ARE A THOUSAND MILLION COBWEBS
DRAGGING THROUGH YOUR HAIR
YOU'RE ON A GHOST TRAIN SO SCREAM TONIGHT
AND WHEN YOU MAKE IT TO THE END
YOU'LL THINK YOU'RE ROUND THE BEND

(This Song Can Be Seen On YouTube)

In 1972 Andy built a ghost train in his back garden at The New Bungalow in Brenchley, Kent, with the assistance of his three pals...Ashley, Greg and Russell. They all lived in Palmer's Green Lane...between Brenchley and Castle Hill. (Brothers Ash, Greg and Russ Bournes resided at Town Farm) David Rhys-Jones...and his sister Sophie lived opposite Town Farm in Homestead Cottage. Twenty-Seven years later Sophie married Prince Edward...but not before she'd seen the fabled local landmark that was the "Palmer's Green Lane Ghost Train" Andy and his friends made the carriages from orange boxes painted in dark twisted black and red colours to represent the gloominess of the night and the redness of the Manchester United shirt worn so stylishly at the time by George Best. The tracks on which the ghost train ran were made from sticks and tarpaulin.(tarpaulin supplied by Andy's lorry-driver Uncle) The sticks were cut from the branches of a local tree nick-named Big Oak.....which was made of oak. The tree was rather big. Andy and his gang made dummies of ghosts and bogey-men..and monsters...and they positioned the grotesque figures in the carriages. The ghost train soon became well-known locally and people took their kids to see it. Unlucky Fried Kitten-to-be...Andy Export...knew nothing of capitalism back in 1972...and didn't think of charging a fee to see the only domestic home-made amateur ghost train in the UK. (and possibly in the world) A trick missed indeed.
The Palmer's Green Lane Ghost Train was featured on the national current affairs programme "Panorama" on October 12th 1972 but this was in the days before home videos and home recording...so Andy sadly has no record of it. Unlucky Fried Kitten have announced that they will pay a mouth-watering sum of Ten Thousand Pounds for a copy of the Panorama Programme featuring the home-made ghost-train....so they can instal it to the UFK Dollshouse....where everything Unlucky Fried Kitten goes....or will go eventually. Andy has gone on record saying that he wants the film to show to his own children...who...at time of writing...are constructing a rollercoaster in their garden. Enjoy the ghost train song...and spare a thought for the wild-eyed and youthful kids of the Glam-Rock era who thought they could take on the might of Disneyland.

Skeletons and Vampires

VAMPIRES AND SKELETONS

HELLO..'ERE..LOOK AT ALL THESE VAMPIRES.

WE'RE LIVING WITH THE VAMPIRES AND SKELETONS (X4)

IT'S REALLY TRUE...WHAT CAN WE DO
THEY'RE AFTER YOU...AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU

WE'RE LIVING...ETC

VAMPIRES ARE VICIOUS AND THEY GO FOR YOUR NECK
THEY HASSLE YOU AND BITE YOU UNTIL YOU ARE A WRECK
SKELETONS ARE LUMPY LIKE AN OLD BAG OF BONES
ALL JOINED TOGETHER AT APPROPRIATE ZONES

WE'RE LIVING...ETC

IT.S REALLY TRUE...WHAT CAN WE DO
WE'RE IN A STEW...THAT'S ME AND YOU AND YOU

WE'RE LIVING...ETC

WEREWOLVES ARE WICKED AND THEY HOWL AT THE MOON
YOU'D BETTER STAY AT HOME OR THEY WILL CATCH YOU REAL SOON
MONSTERS ARE SCARY AND THEY BITE OFF YOUR HEAD
TEETH ARE LIKE GRAVESTONES AND THEIR EYES ARE RED

WE'RE LIVING...ETC

IT'S REALLY TRUE...I'M REALLY BLUE
HOW DO YOU DO...WE'RE IN A TERRIBLE STEW

MONSTERS ARE CLUMSY ALWAYS KNOCKING YOU DOWN
BOGEY-MEN COME FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN
ALIENS ARE WICKED AND THEY COME FROM THE STARS
GREMLINS ARE A NUISANCE AND THEY DAMAGE YOUR CARS

VAMPIRES AND ALIENS........LAAAAA!

(This Song Can Be Seen On YouTube)

Vampires and Skeletons...was written for the Burial Ground Lane pop-horror-opera...known to many dozens of South-East music fans as another one of those damn UFK musicals. Oh...and that's a compliment. It is also a tribute to Andy Export's father...who was actually a vampire. No...not a real vampire...that would be silly. He played second-accordion in the 50's shuffle-band, Maidstone & District Vampires...one of the first ensembles to experiment with feedback...on a squeezebox.
The remarkable thing about this tale is that whilst Andy's father was clearly not a vampire..his Uncle Jack was definitely a skeleton...as he'd died years before. (He died a natural death...he was hit by a car) Andy's accordion-pumping dad lives in the USA now. The young song-writer...we're talking about Andy here...fondly recalls the day he found out his parents were leaving...at the breakfast table on a dark October morning.
"Wonderful News" said his Mum "Daddy has had a breakdown and we have to move to Florida"
Andy sulked...played sloppily with his eggy-soldiers and dripped snot into his drinking chocolate...before realising that he was late for work at the Tovil Treacle Mines.
In the Burial Ground Lane musical...this is the part when the Sleletons and Vampires appear...dancing together...in the Old Rectory at Municipal Dump Road. Everybody jumps out of their skin and then the Demon Woodlice sing the song. Unlucky Fried Kitten cut the last verse about the Cockney Vampire meeting the Demure Russian Flower-Seller in the Old Kent Road...after local protest from the local Russian Flower Shop...and from one of it's pretty female street vendors. The last line had been "She May Be Russian But The look In Her Eye Is International" I guess that doesn't matter now.
Have a nice cup of tea and listen to this song. When people hear this song in the musical...in the theatre...they usually clap...but they clap their hands over their ears.

loserville.com

loserville.com

HE LIVES LIKE ALBERT STEPTOE
IN SOME DUMP IN MILTON KEYNES
HE SHARES HIS FLAT WITH A MANKY CAT
AND SOME DIRTY MAGAZINES
HE'S DONE HIS HAIR LIKE BECKHAM
HE'S ADDICTED TO CUSTARD CREAMS
HE BUYS HIS GRUB IN NETTO
HE'S ONLY SEVENTEEN

CLICK A MOUSE TO FIND A SPOUSE IN LONELY HEARTS AND ROMANCE
WW.LOSERVILLE.COM
CLICK A MOUSE TO FIND A SPOUSE IN LONELY HEARTS AND ROMANCE
WW.WEIRDO-VILLE.COM

SHE LIVES IN DIGS IN CHATHAM
SURVIVES ON K.F.C.
SHE WORKS IN MARKS AND SPENCER'S
SECOND FLOOR LINGERIE
EVENINGS ON THE INTERNET
SEARCHING FOR THE ONE
SHE FRIGS HERSELF OFF TO KILROY
SHE'S ONLY TWENTY-ONE

CLICK A MOUSE ETC

NOW THIS ONE HE PLAYS FOOTBALL
HE LIVES ALONG THE COAST
WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME ROUND SUNDAY
FOR THE SUNDAY ROAST
HIS APARTMENT IS NEAT AND TIDY
WITH POSTERS OF PELE IN IT
HE AIN'T GOT MUCH CONVERSATION BUT
AT LEAST YOU KNOW HE'S FIT

CLICK A MOUSE

(This Song Can Be Seen On YouTube)

This song was inspired by the defunct dating agency set up in Kent by the gnarly old woman they they called Twisted Peggy. Arguably the first dating agency of it's kind it was started in a time when personal computers were the stuff of schoolboy fiction. Loserville...the dating agency...briefly went dot-com later on..in the early days of the internet...but it floundered in the sea of info-techno when the big boys of the web rode into town. The story behind Loserville goes like this. In the darkened corridors of an Edwardian property in South-East England lived a woman called Twisted Peggy...and I've already told you that. That wasn't her real name, of course. It was what the locals called her. She hated apples...but that has nothing to do with this saga. She was a bitter old hag because, like Miss Haversham in Great Expectations, she had been jilted at the aisle. At first she turned to drink...though she managed to stick to her rule of drinking only when she was alone...or with somebody. Peggy obsessed about the Dickens character and even bought her mansion in Faversham, Kent, because it rhymed with Haversham. (seriously...I would tell you no lie). She brooded for years...eating only stale bread in a symbolic nod to aged wedding cake. TP (can you see what I've done there? Shortened Twisted Peggy to TP...amazing) set Loserville up with an aim to join unlikely people together to ruin their lives...to set the record straight for her ruined life. Unlikely pairings were the norm (some say the idea for Wife-Swap came from TP's enterprise) Along came the internet and TP saw this as another tool for exacting her sweet revenge. Loserville.com brought men and women of all shapes and sizes together. Well...maybe not of ALL shapes and sizes...that would be frankly bizarre. Picture a 90ft man formed like a windmill with a broken sail romancing a snowflake-shaped woman of 2ft and a half and you'll see how ridiculous was my last statement. Sorry. So...if you are patrolling the internet in search of that "special person" please remember to carry a big stick and some kind of evil-repellant lucky amulet..for when you stumble upon "loserville.com"
Having said that...the agency was shut down in 2004 when Twisted Peggy was found to be living with a Dutch fisherman called Stefan.....so they say.

The Beginning (introduction)

Unlucky Fried Kitten (a pop band) are from Maidstone...in Kent... in the South-Eastern pocket of Sunny England....where the trees bow under the weight of the big red juicy apples.
Unlucky Fried Kitten (a pop band) were formed in 1995 by Andy Export (aka Andy Export) in a bee-stained garden in Barming...on the outskirts of the County Town.
Unlucky Fried Kitten (a pop band) are not very good. They have a singer who can't sing, a song-writer who can't write songs and a manager who can't manage.
Unlucky Fried Kitten (a pop band) may be decidedly average...but some of the origins and influences behind the songs of the band known as UFK transcend the story of the band itself.
In buying this book of tales you have purchased a key to unlock the door (probably a heavy walnut one)which leads into the mind of the UFK song-writer.
And it is a jumbled mess.
Read this from cover to cover or dip into it as one might dip into a buffet on a cold miserable night at some daft couple's wedding reception in a draughty Village Hall in Norfolk-In-Goode. In the words of Kylie Minogue...Enjoy Yourself.