the sniffer - issue no. sixteen

8/8/2019 The Sniffer - Issue No. Sixteen

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The

niffer A P ERIODICAL F OXY COMPENDIUM

ISSUE N O. SIXTEEN — 4 J ANUARY 2011

FRO M THE SNOUT

Intestines are blocked, livers are shrivelled,

girths are ample. Christmas is a foggy

memory of mince pies, brandy butter and

fa-la-la. It’s almost the Epiphany. Which

means it’s the epiphany of ennui. To

celebrate the perennial doldrums of this

grimmest month, you are invited to cast an

eye over a multiple amputee of a Sniffer .

There is music, vocabulary and prosody. Butthat’s your lot. Visit the newsstand again

next week for something more spirited,

optimistic and celebratory of a new decade.

HIS MASTER ’S CHOICE

Each installment of His Master’s Choice

considers a single album that has graced the

gramophone of Cocky’s creator and master,

James Parker. On this occasion, we let a

little bit of frightened wee dribble out of our

bell-ends because of the words and noises in

Eagle Twin’s The Unkindness of Crows .

In the Beginning was the Weird Mongolian

Throat Growling and Down-tuned Bass

Fuzz and Bombastic Drum Thrash . That’s

the name I’m going to give the opening track

of The Unkindness of Crows . Its official

title, In the Beginning was the Scream , is a

flaccid and misleading summary of the

multi-faceted, screamless, sledgehammer

sludge that awaits the interested ear.

The entire album is a grim and murky

miscellany of gurgles and riffs based on the

animal poetry of Ted Hughes. It is slow,

dense, blurred, angry, scary and unhinged. It

takes the crow, that bastard of bird-dom, as

its subject. You hear the titular unkindnessin the drums and the guitar (for there are no

other instruments). And you hear brooding

violence in the voice.



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As I wade through the metallic molasses of

this wonderful concept album, I envisage

just a single crow. He stares at me

insolently. He wants to gouge my eyes out

with his shiny scythe of a beak. He then

wants to cackle about it. But Parker, notcontent with the pant-shitting literary power

of one ordinary crow, hears two ravens. They

are bastards. They are brothers. They are the

Du Noirs.

“And all of a sudden I feel it, and know that

I’ve been feeling it for days: an eye, up in the

dark blue midnight terraces, a dark eye that

opens and closes, wingbeat by slow wingbeat,

watching us.”

THE COCKY COMPANION

Each edition of The Sniffer features an

extract from The Cocky Companion , a

Rosetta Stone for decoding the less obvious

elements of Cocky's London vernacular. This

time round, you will be held captive as the

editor reminisces ambivalently about his

British childhood.

JACKANORY For a child of 70s or 80s

Britain, remembering Jackanory

amounts to opening a Pandora’s box of

assonance and alliteration: boring and

snoring; yawning and ignoring; lacklustre

cack. Flip up that lid and the tedium of

the Jackanory formula materializes

instantly: somebody is sitting in a chair

in front of the camera; they are reading a

story; it goes on for days. Back then, this

laughably simple and optimistic approach

to pre-teen mind control would elicit

groans of protest and a ripple of

channel-hopping up and down the

country. If broadcast at today’s

population, ravaged by Attention-Deficit

Disorder and ravenous for everythingloud, fast and gaudy, Jackanory would

spark a violent revolution.

WHITE VAN White vans aren’t just

commercial transportation vehicles; they

are a collective motif of moral ugliness.

England’s roads have been infested with

them for several decades. And like a

colony of termites scoffing down the

floorboards of a Craftsman house, white

vans have gnawed hungrily away at the

foundations of English civility and

decorum. Drive for just a few minutes in

any urban area and you will encounter

one. The lower back and sides will be

filthy (probably with the legend “Clean

Me” or “I wish my wife was this dirty”

fingered into the grime). There will be a

St. George’s Cross or a Union Jack

fluttering from the radio antenna. There

will be another Cross or Jack stuck in the

rear window. In the cab at the front,there will be a driver and his two

workmates. All of them will have shaved

heads, England tattoos and cuntish

sneers. God help you if you catch their

attention. You will be barked and cackled

at in a babble of invective. “Wotchoo

lookin’ at you cunt ha ha ha ha ha.” If



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you are female, you will be verbally

abused for your beauty, your ugliness or

both. As the van pulls away, one of the

passengers might throw an empty Coke

can at your car and ram two fingers up at

you, as if trying to poke your eyes out viayour nostrils. This is England.

SUSS “Suss” is one of those contractions that

allow grumpy Brits to communicate in a

variety of different situations with

minimal facial movement and energy

expenditure. I can step inside a new pub

to suss it out and see if it’s worth staying

for a pint. I can glance at the bloke who

has a big scar on his cheek and a thick wad of fivers in his sovereign-bedecked

hand, and I can conclude that he looks a

bit suss. Later, after a few Stellas, I can

make a mouthy and rowdy sportsman’s

bet with the barman that Chelsea will

equalize before the final whistle. If they

do, I will be able to lean over the bar and

shout an obnoxious “Sussed!” at him

while, optionally, slapping first and

second fingers of one hand together

rapidly in his face. (This happened

regularly to Phil Collins in his days as a

pub landlord and inspired him to write

the hit song “Sussudio”.)

CLOCK In the Anglo-American vernacular,

“clock” means to spot or to see. But in the

strictly Anglo vernacular, “clock” can also

mean to hit. This usage derives from the

Victorian drinking game in which

boozed-up aristocrats would smash each

other in the face with clocks. That’s the

kind of lie I would have told a gullible

visitor to London when I lived there. Andit’s the kind of lie I will now try to sneak

into a glossary of British slang.

RUMPY ’S LAMENT

(AS WRITTEN BY POPJOY)

Slow moves the hour, and thick is my heart¹s

blood

with grumpiness, and sad rememberings,

because they took my Holiday away

and left me here, at the back end of things.

Life is nowhere, nothing now has fire,

but only flickers in a mocking show -

because they quenched my flaming Holiday

in waters that are black, and never flow.

At his command I let my rage expand:

I hammered all our foes into a haze.

And now I live alone in these cold woods

‘til some avenging slag should end my days.

All those great battles, all the beastiesbashed

when Holiday and I were stepping strong!

The gruntings and the glory! They have left

me

powerless to move this hour along.

—James Parker



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THE SNIFFER EDITOR & WRITER

Patrick Cates

PUBLISHERS Matthew Battles & Joshua Glenn

of HiLobrow.com

ILLUSTRATION Kristin Parker

WITH THANKS TO Generous backers of Cocky the Fox

& Kickstarter.com

please direct all enquiries [email protected]

the sniffer - issue no. sixteen

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