Is Tom Cruise An All American Blood Sucking Vampire?

Tom Cruise once portrayed a flesh feeding fiend in the adaptation of an "Interview with a Vampire", but is the fresh-faced star with the pearly white teeth actually guilty of drinking the blood of mere mortals to retain his youth?

The Peter Pan of the silver screen has made a recent return to form, and while out and about in New York to promote his new movie Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol; it was evident that the star who's rapidly approaching his 50th birthday looks like a man many years his junior.

Hollywood has a long history of devouring the clear complexions, athletic physiques and starry-eyed innocence of youth, and spitting it out the other end of the star making machine as a plastic surgery ravaged, neurotic, egotistical, sexually perverted, and drug and drink addicted mess. In short, it makes corpses of potential and promise, and still manages to convince itself that it creates only the stuff dreams are made of.

Yet industry workhorses such as Tom Cruise seem oblivious to the one thing that Hollywood despises above all else - old age.

Pictured above is young Tom! Are those blood stains on your teeth sir?

Pictures in the Daily Mail compare the Tom of today with the Tom of ten years ago, and there is no visible difference between the two.

Why is that? Is he a vampire, who sucks the blood of lesser talents to fight off the aging process. Does Tom howl at the moon as he rips into the neck of his next poor victim. Is the Mission: Impossible star guilty of slaughtering others just to keep the laughter lines and crow's feet at bay. Is it all part of a terrible murderous conspiracy shared by other members of the Hollywood vampire élite such as Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.

Does this rarefied sect of A-list monsters butcher members of the cinema going public all in the name of eternal youth and the perpetual creation of films with an ever diminishing level of quality?

Don't be so foolish! Even if this was the case, your tongue would be savagely ripped clean from your mouth before you could reveal the dark and terrible truth behind Hollywood's leading men.

The secret behind Tom Cruise's youthful appearance is rather more predictable and more mundane. Apparently the movie icon is an obsessive user off his wife Katie Holmes' range of very expensive skin-care products, and not, as some warped fantasists might suggest, a blood-sucking, flesh-eating monstrosity who can turn into a bat at the drop of a hat.

Star Struck!

PUTTING the ‘horror’ into your ‘scope’, the noble by birth, rouge by nature, and absolute bounder by choice that is EARL ELDERFLOWER, has kindly bribed us with the rights to his ancestral family estate to put his skills as a semi-professional astrologer to work for the benefit of our readers.

Join this half-witted dandy as he gently caresses his ancient crystal ball in the hope of foretelling what the alignment of the heavens portend for you in a mystical movement in 12 parts. 

Aries 

Where do rainbows come from dear? And where can I find the elusive pot of gold to keep the wolves from my door. I’m only asking because everything is a happy ending for you this month! But be warned, life is no fairy-tale my dear and as my old farmyard buddy Goldilocks once said to me inbetween ruthlessly snapping the necks of countless turkeys, “Elderflower you handsome bastard, I lost the taste for happy-ever-afters at the same time I lost my taste for porridge. Those bears were brutal and gave me the sort of reality check I won’t ever forget.”

Do you understand what Goldilocks was saying my friend? Life can be a bowl of cherries but all fruit turns sour and when it does it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth that’s hard to shake. Enjoy the good times while they last dear, because hell and all its hounds are always waiting just around the corner to pounce and tear you apart slowly, little by little and piece by piece. 

Taurus  

As sure as night follows day, beauty must always walk before the beast Taurus, so if you wouldn’t mind holding that door open for me my fruity little bull, I’d me much obliged.

“Where am I going dear?”  Well, as far away from you as possible lovey! Isn’t that blindingly obvious? “But I haven’t cast your horoscope for the month?” Well boo hoo dear! Life’s a bitch hey? Well in the spirit of pity, let me leave you with a few choice words of advice.

You see that thing slowly revolving around you? No! It’s not the world, it’s a dung fly dear.

That’s what happens when you wallow in your own muck for too long. Honestly Taurus, of late you really have started to reek of the gutter. Addiction may be a glamorous accessory for the grotesque pantomime parade of the rich and famous, but for the likes of everyday folk lovey, it’s like wearing a t-shirt with the slogan, ‘Don’t come near me I’m toxic filth’ written on it. Or even worse, it’s like being a Justin Bieber fan - unexplainable, upsetting, unnecessary and best avoided. It’s time to clean up your act my torrid bull. I for one have had enough of this charade and suggest you make like my good friend Bo Beep and get the ‘flock’ out of here!  

Gemini 

It is always advisable my dear god forsaken Gemini, that when you are over the hill that you put precautions in place to ensure you do not go crashing down the other side. 

Weathered and worn mutton dressed up as spring lamb never sits well in anyone’s stomach.

However, you are only as young as what you feel, but this does not give you a license to touch up young waiters in the local italian restaurant my aging strumpet. 

The last of the Summer wine has been drained to its last drop and the cracks are starting to show of late aren’t they dear? Never fear, this month you will win a free course of Botox in that raffle you entered way back in February at that collage party you gatecrashed in pursuit of some tender young flesh.

As a result you perverted old crab, all your worries and wrinkles will be frozen in time for a brief period - That is until gravity holds sway once more and reclaims your face. Now drop and give me twenty. 

Cancer 

We’re walking in the air aren’t we Cancer?  We're floating in a moonlit sky. We're dancing in the midnight sky and everyone who sees us greets us as we fly.

But pray tell what happens next my little dreamer. Well we wake up and smell the coffee don’t we sweetheart. 

Inhale that musky aroma my dear it’s called reality and you’ve been running away from it for far too long. I like to spend a little time away with the fairies as much as the next man, but you’ve been over egging it slightly. 

Imaginary friends are all well and fine my dear, but I feel it’s time to finally wave a fond farewell to Bilbo Braveheart, Mr Pickle and Captain Cuddles as they walk into the sunset and blessed oblivion.

Those guys have been real good to you haven’t they my dear. True mates you might say, but the bottom line Cancer is you are proper barking, away over the rainbow, half-baked, not playing with a full deck so to speak. Bearing this in mind, my advice to you this month is to stay away from green telephones and eat as if you were an elephant. God bless. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Leo 

The writing really has been on the wall for a long time now hasn’t it Leo and it said in large angry capitals, “YOU WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THIS COUNTRY!”

Now run with it Leo. No mountain is too high not to fall of and no river is too deep not to drown in. Ambition can make you look pretty ugly, but you really have nothing to worry about in that respect my dear. Why waste your time playing mind games, exploiting lesser souls, and telling outrageous lies to everyone in your immediate orbit, when the whole of the country could be your plaything?

And why worry about having no principles, pride, beliefs or honour, when you can use it to your advantage. Come now Leo, don’t be coy, you’d sell the world with your craven desire to further yourself.

It’s lonely at the top Leo, but it’s lonely at the bottom too, and at least when you’re riding high on the peak of the pyramid, you’ll have money to throw around and wars to declare. Just heed my advice dear - the devil always collects! Now burn baby burn. 

Virgo 

As a young man-child running free with the rest of my adopted wolf-pack, I once came across an old man in the woods who was rumoured to have walked the earth for nigh on 999 years. Wild-eyed from the thrill of the hunt, with the blood of a fresh kill sitting pretty on my snout, I snarled at the decrepit buggar, “Tell me your secret old fool of the woods!”  

The ancient one looked at me fiercely - as I sat haughty and proud, dressed to the eyes in the arrogance of youth - before speaking thus, “Listen well young Elderflower, when I was but a lad I ate the heart of Peter Pan and every day since have bathed in the blood of slaughtered lambs, now be on your way before this chance encounter turns sour.”

Growling in contempt and with my tail held high, I walked away on all fours and left that depraved pensioner where he stood - in a puddle of his own urine. 

Now I ask you Virgo, can you decipher the moral in this little fable of mine, because this month your very sanity may depend on it. Stay strong my friend. 

Libra

You really must stop poking people Libra. I realise Facebook is the place where all sorts of sad, lonely and wretched strays seek sanctuary from the horror of actual social interaction, but even these poor misguided cyber fruits have certain standards. 

How many friends have you got? Over a thousand you say! Well done you! Except that’s not really the case is it dear? How long can you live in the bubble of a social network before the fabricated persona you have created for yourself explodes and leaves you with egg on your face?

What did Dr Jekyll say to Mr Hyde Libra? He said, “Who the hell are you.” Do you get my drift you jumped up little tart! 

Once whilst trying to raise the dead with the she-beast that is Gordan Ramsay, I foolishly questioned my supernatural and psychic abilities, but Ramsay, the gentle and simple soul that he is said, “Elderflower! You were born to know the secrets of Mount Olympus and the wisdom of the seventh torment.”

The Jock half-wit spoke wise words Libra and my advice to you this month is to forsake what you want to be and become what you are. Now go forth you plum.  

Scorpio 

Mr Sandman will be bringing you a dream this month Scorpio, and someone close to you will come bearing the gift of a nightmare.  

Sugar and salt my dear, both can be poisonous if you live off nothing else. As many health nuts do, I like to drink at least a litre of cooking oil a day to keep my body in tip top condition. I also find drinking petrol of an evening and eating flowers is conducive to a splendid night’s rest. 

However I insist on drawing the line at your passion for roast mole Scorpio. For God’s sake dear, think about the wind in the willows. There’s laughter on the breeze and it’s directed at your questionable antics you two-bob mug. 

Tread carefully through the tulips next Tuesday love, because the Easter Bunny is waiting to pounce and do you in proper! All joking aside, think carefully about what you have learnt today Scorpio, because it may just save your skin when the mountains sink into the sea and all the birds fall from the sky. One last thing, have you ever ate a horse Scorpio? No! Well this month you may bloody well have to. 

Sagittarius

It seems you swallowed a problem and are living a nightmare this month doesn’t it Sagittarius? Well sticking you fingers down your throat won’t help either you great big pudding.

Honestly dear, if I had a penny for every life I’ve ruined, I’d be a millionaire, but you don’t catch me bragging about it. 

You’re a mean son of a bitch my love, a proper grizzled veteran of a thousand gnarly dog-fights, but like my old beer drinking buddy Shania Twain said to me whilst she was busy gutting a bear, “That don’t impress me much!” 

The mean streak which runs through you a mile wide has jumped up and bitten you on the butt this month and now you want a little sympathy. 

Well tough titty darling, the milk of human kindness has turned sour on you, because you’ve been tainting it for far too long with your own unique brand of malice. I suggest a little voluntary work at the nearest charity shop is in order dear. Oh and be warned, Elderflower has beady little eyes everywhere, so keep your hands out of the till you wicked wretch.

Capricorn 

Hello old bean it’s time to get out the wrinkle cream. The party season has left you looking somewhat haggard hasn’t it dear. 

In fact you look like a corpse that’s just been dragged out from six feet under to face the music on Judgement Day. Not to worry though hey, a little bit of rest and relaxation will have you back on your feet in no time and ready to face  the doom and gloom ahead.

 I don’t wish to be negative my old goat, but this month is not going to be a bed of roses for you dear. As my old hairdresser Jon Bonjovi once said to me as he gave me a blue rinse, “Elderflower you talented swine! Tonight I sleep on a bed of nails!” Sighing with the wise understanding that most hairdressers are perverts and deviants, I simply replied, “Jon Bon, just as long as you do it behind closed doors and with other consenting adults it’s not a problem.” He then muttered something about “Living on a Prayer”, but I digress, the point is Capricorn you must bear your burden with dignity and stop your perpetual bellyaching. Now digest that! 

Aquarius 

Do you know Aquarius you inquisitive prat, when I used to collect trolleys for a giant supermarket conglomerate, my old co-worker Jean Paul Sartre once said to me, “Elderflower! Hell is other people.” Working my way through a super-size can of special brew whilst fiercely eyeing up every single customer with unreserved hatred, I considered the philosophical ramblings of this homosexual French man for a nano second before growling, “On yer bike Sartre you work shy toss-pot, these trolleys aint gonna collect themselves!”

So you see, my dear, what I am trying to tell you is this month you will have to be cruel, not to be kind, but for the sheer empowering joy of unbridled malice.

I’m afraid Aquarius that this month will bring many a battle your way, so you better make like a gladiator and get in the ring. “There will be blood!” as my old mate from the chip shop Daniel Day Lewis once said to me, but the trick is to ensure it’s not yours. Now put up your dukes and get dancing, punk. 

Pisces 

Heed these words well Pisces. Take those sour grapes of yours and use them to make some of the finest wines know to humanity. This month fiery Mars is in Uranus, Mercury is rising and Saturn looks promising for Saturday. All in all it looks likely to be a very fortuitous few weeks for those born under the sign of the fish. 

Anything you turn your hand to will pretty much have the King Midas touch this month my dear, but use it wisely. Don’t go making any silk purses out of pig’s ear, because the swine in question might not like it. Not everyone appreciates a helping hand, so I would advise you to work behind the scenes, carefully pulling the strings and manipulating the muppets. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and as my old drinking buddy Freddy Nietzche once said to me when deep into his cups of Absinthe and existential despair, “Elderflower my old fruit. God is dead!”

Bottoms up and chin chin my dear. 

Star Struck!

With Earl Elderflower

Putting the ‘horror’ into your ‘scope’, the noble by birth, rouge by nature, and absolute bounder by choice that is Earl Elderflower, has kindly bribed us with the rights to his ancestral family estate to put his skills as a 

semi-professional astrologer to work for the benefit of our readers.

Join this half-witted dandy as he gently caresses his ancient crystal ball in the hope of foretelling what the alignment of the heavens portend for you this August in a mystical movement in 12 parts.

Aries 

This month my dear diseased darling a stranger in the night will try to woo you with poetry from a distant time and place. And as divine as the poetry is, you will not be able to escape from the fact that when the poet’s lips move they will remind you of two slugs enjoying a frantic bout of sexual intercourse. 

It’s not a pretty picture is it my little ram, but then to my mind neither is the Mona Lisa and look at the fuss they make about that. 

It’s all about horses for courses this month lovey. It wouldn’t do for us all to march to the beat of the same drum. Different strokes for different folks and all that jazz hey? Tolerance should be your watchword this month Aries and failing that love, if someone does really rub you up the wrong way, then instead of turning the other cheek, why not expose two of them and tell the big old world to kiss it!

Taurus 

If you stand too close to some people you can hear the ocean can’t you my poor buggared and bewildered bull? 

You feel a bit like an empty shell yourself this month don’t you my dear. Well tough titty my friend, because other people sure have had their fill of you and your pedantic ways. 

You may like to consider yourself a walking encyclopedia of interesting and obscure knowledge, but quite frankly you old tart, your unwelcome, know-it-all attitude has started to bore the hell, the hounds and the happiness out of everyone in your immediate orbit. 

My bar-room philosopher compadre Socrates, once said to me when I was giving him a sound kicking at Trivial Pursuit, “Honestly Elderflower, all I know is that I don’t know nothing.”

Ever-ready with a witty riposte I snarled as quick as a flash, “Shut your fat gob you vile Greek pudding.” Needless to say, Socrates got the hint and the rest of the evening passed in blessed silence, broken only by the satisfying clink clink of the ice cubes dropping to the bottom of our Bacardi Breezers as we downed them by the pint.

Silence is golden Virgo. So keep it shut you old brass. 

Gemini

Take a look at that big old sun as it lazily makes it way across the blue skies Gemini. 

Does its gentle amble and carefree manner remind you of anyone? No! Well I suggest you take your big fat face out of the trough and pay attention sloth, because it’s boot camp time and your lardy ass has just been busted punk! Idleness is a bad habit to break Gemini but this month circumstances will conspire to smash your own personal addiction to laziness to smithereens. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all play and no work makes Jack a pain in the butt. This is the lesson you will have to learn the hard way this month Gemini if you are to ever escape the diabolical rut your are currently wallowing in like a beached whale, alone and afraid as the natives approach with the sharpest of spears. 

My advice for the coming month would be to rise with the sun and follow it to bed whilst drinking nothing but strong sewerage. Good luck lovey.  

Cancer 

On the third Tuesday of this month Cancer you will be overcome with a fit of laughter that will last for precisely 29 minutes and three seconds.

I know not why, but take it from me I just know these things, so don’t you dare question my psychic abilities you plebeian tart. That’s pretty much been your trouble of late hasn’t it lovey - that inquisitive, probing mind of yours which prides itself on leaving no stone unturned is beginning to turn people’s stomachs. 

Let me tell your their are a lot of stones in this world that are best unturned and be careful what you seek because you might just find it.

Curiosity killed the cat my dear and satisfaction didn’t bring him back, a big burly meathead did, after giving him the hiding of his life. My old fencing partner ‘Macca’ once said to me in his annoying scouse chirp while I was busy ritually humiliating him with playful thrusts of my rapier, “For God’s sake Elderflower, Let It Be.” Words to the wise Cancer, words to the wise. 

Leo 

Where will it all lead my leisurely lion? This life of fickle frivolity and gushing gaiety. Well to the gutter of course and possibly to rehab and a 12-step-recovery plan. 

But in the meantime, the birds are singing, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the word ‘hangover’ is not in your vocabulary. So it’s party time in the house of the Leo.

But remember, after every Summer of wild abandon, comes the long, cold winter of discontent. The body is a temple dear, and it will only be ransacked and defiled by the priests of hedonism for so long. Moderation is a word you can’t understand Leo, but perhaps you know the meaning of the words  ‘stomach’ and ‘pump.’ I’m afraid for the likes of you Leo, one drink is too many and any more is never enough. But never-mind all that, take your hands out of your pockets and get a round in misery guts. As my old arm-wresting buddy Kylie Minogue used to say to me in between her frequent bouts of rum induced projectile vomiting, “C’est La Vie.” 

Virgo 

 Ever been to Nirvana my virginal Virgo? No, thought not. It’s not for the likes of you is it my dear. This month, frustration, anger, and other afflicting states seem to be your lot in life. I’m afraid perfect peace and serenity of mind are not on the agenda right now. 

Not to worry old bean, as my old fishing pal Johnny Rotten once said to me in between obsessively consuming tubs of margarine, “Anger is an energy!” 

So my advice to you this month dear is to burn the fuse slowly, let the tension simmer and the hostility escalate, and when everyone thinks that some sort of fragile peace has been reached, seize the initiative and the element of surprise by blowing up in everyone’s face like an apocalyptic Catherine Wheel. No quarter can be asked and no quarter can be given in the conflict to come my little archer. You must show no mercy and take no prisoners. After all, how would those back-stabbing workmates who plot so treacherously against you feel if it was one of them so cruelly excluded from last week’s cake run. 

Libra 

When was the last time you saw the dawn Libra? In fact, come to that, when was the last time you saw midday? Your sleeping habits need to be addressed this month dear. You’re no creature of the night lovey, even if you do possess a rather unsettling mouth full of unkept and lipstick stained teeth.

Sleep is often a little like death, but without the long-term investment, and while you’re slumbering your way through the land of nod I’m here to tell you that those sheep you’re counting jumping over the fence, are in fact the days, weeks, months, and years of your life as it runs away from you. 

You’re no vampire my love, that slight limp, subtle hunch of the shoulders, and faint stench of raw meat on your breath doesn’t count. You’re a sucker alright my dear, but blood doesn’t come into it. My advice to you this month is to eat only the flesh of gods and drink only the urine of polar bears. 

Scorpio 

Sitting in your ivory tower and tossing bones to the savages whilst you play chess against yourself and the strains of Wagner echo around your room, can be quiet a pleasant way to pass the time can’t it Scorpio?

Yet I ask you, “In the name of god where in all this deep, dark heart of darkness is the humanity you unforgivable bounder?” This month you really should stop and consider the feelings of others before you ruthlessly trample all over them my dear. Sometimes the hunter can become the hunted and the prey in turn will have to pray they are not devoured whole by the gaping, uncaring, and all consuming jaws of a merciless predator crazed with blood lust and the thrill of the hunt. A little less sympathy for the devil and a little more empathy for other people would not go amiss over the next few weeks Scorpio. That is if you are to keep the cretins who admire you so fooled into thinking you actually give a dam.

Sagittarius

It’s lonely at the top Sagittarius, but then you wouldn’t know would you? Scrambling around for crumbs from the master’s table is the best you can manage right now I’m afraid. But take heart you lowly fool of a thousand bastards, every dog has its day, just pray yours hasn’t already been and gone in an overwhelming wave of anti-climax.

Your problem is two-fold this month love, and it revolves around the terrible twins of envy and spite. You haven’t really felt comfortable in your own skin for a while have you dear?

But paying some brutal psychopath of an eskimo to bash out a poor innocent seal’s brains,  just so you can get your greedy mitts on that fur coat you’ve coveted for such a long time is a pretty obscene way of trying to fit in with the lifestyles of the rich and the vulgar who you so admire. I fear you’ll end up less like Paris Hilton and more like Past-it Stilton if you continue on this road to nowhere my little archer.

Capricorn 

You would do well this month my little goat to remember that when a dog chases it’s tail it ends up doing little else but collapsing to the ground in an over-excited and breathless state of near hysteria. Dogs also eat there own vomit, sniff each other’s bottoms and bark at strangers, and although I’m not insinuating you do any of these things lovey, people are starting to talk about your strange ways. 

The incessant howling at the moon every night for the last week is not particularly endearing to your neigbours my friend, and although we all like to deviate now and then from the straight and narrow, turning up at work in a Superman costume and refusing to use a computer because it contains elements of kryptonite is not the best way to impress the boss. 

I suggest you calm down a little this month and use your excess nocturnal energy in more productive  and practical ways - such as making crop circles and ghost hunting.

Aquarius 

What can we say about you this month Aquarius? Not a lot I’m afraid. It really is as simple as the pimple that sits ugly and festering on your forehead. You desperately need to take the spade you apply your make-up with and dig you way through the layers of pretense and artifice that you hide behind, until the real ‘you’ is laid bare.

While you’re at it, why not empty your overflowing wardrobe and give all your designer clothes and shoes to charity. You’ll look awful, but you’ll feel great. 

Less is more Aquarius and only by destroying your overblown, inflated, and some might say, grotesque image, can you confront your issues dear, of which I am sad to say, there are many. 

When mutton dresses like lamb for too long dear, it becomes a prize turkey which not even the coarsest hand would want to pluck. 

“YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!” Christina Aguilera once said to me. I’m not sure what she would say to you dear, but my advice is that if you have a genie in a bottle, it’s time to get busy rubbing.

Pisces 

The slave starts by demanding justice and ends wanting to wear the crown. Sound familiar Pisces? Well it certainly should do my tyrannical fish. 

Building empires and conquering civilizations is all very well dear, but it fails to leave much room for a personal life now does it? 

My old chess playing compadre Attila the Hun once said to me over a refreshing chamomile tea served up in the skull of one of his slaughtered enemies, “You know Elderflower you bloodthirsty bastard, I would give up all this power, prestige, and mindless pillaging and bloodshed for a simple life raising pigs on a farm somewhere in Kansas with my beloved Bertha - the hog of my heart.” 

I told Attila then as I am telling you now Pisces, our paths are written in the stars and we would do well to follow them, no matter whence they lead. Now push off dear, I have destinies to fulfill.

Be sure to swing this way again next month chumps, and find out what September has in store for you. 

It's Dire To Conspire, But These Theories Add Fuel To The Fire, And Will Never Expire.

THE idea that the royal family are a loosely affiliated gathering of shape-shifting, blood-drinking reptilian humanoids that are part of a global elite hell-bent on enslaving humanity for their own diabolical ends - is just one of my favourite conspiracy theories in an age saturated with them.

Not that I passionately adhere with wild-eyed fanaticism to the above or any of the more popular conspiracy theories forever hopping on and off the cyberspace merry-go-around such as, the Apollo 11 moon landings were faked by NASA, bar-codes are really intended to control people, September 11 was orchestrated by the US government, the Nazis had a moon-base, and Kentucky Fried Chicken makes black men impotent. 

It’s just that the devil is always in the details, and the delirious creativity, downright ingenuity, and zealous belief that is poured forth like a witches brew into so many of the more complex, or should that be ludicrous? conspiracy theories is nothing short of an riddle wrapped inside a mystery locked inside an enigma. 

The Sage in a Shell-Suit 

In 1991 I remember watching former professional footballer and BBC sports presenter David Icke make his infamous appearance on the Terry Wogan show. 

Alongside many others I was held transfixed by the earnest Icke, who sat quite regally in a resplendently shiny pink and blue shell suit, whilst casually declaring to a sniggering British public that he was the ‘son of God’.

Not a million miles removed from an old testament prophet, Icke then went on to predict a wave of tidal waves and earthquakes that would devastate Britain in years to come, as the big black hole of notoriety he had successfully dug for himself was complete.

Incidentally, for months later I was haunted by hellish visions of creatures in horrifically bright shell suits, sporting strange haircuts, and speaking in tongues not meant for human years. It was then I decided to stop watching Brookside. 

The 'Son of God' Speaks Up

However, I digress. Since his infamous appearance on Wogan, Icke has resurfaced and gone on to become one of Britain’s leading conspiracy theorists.

Icke now writes books and gives talks that explain how human beings are actually holograms, and that humanity is actually under the control of dinosauroid-like alien reptiles who must consume human blood in order to maintain their human appearance.

According to Icke, the reptilian group includes many prominent people, and practically every world leader from the late Queen Mother to George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair. 

Heady stuff hey? But it’s all there, nestled like counterfeit gold nuggets, alongside the even more bizarre theories on Icke’s website, that flies under the banner of - ‘exposing the dreamworld we believe to be real.’

It was Kennedy Who Started it! 

Not all conspiracy theories sound as far fetched as some. The mother of the modern day ‘conspiracy theory’ movement were the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

This was the first event of its kind where the ‘official’ government explanation of the crime was openly ridiculed by a large number of ‘normal citizens’. 

Years on from that fateful day in Dallas, and conspiracy theories are the subject of blockbusting films and best-selling books. 

There is even now a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories, which reads something along the lines of “Let’s send all those who threaten us off on some wild crazy wild goose chase which is going to involve them in extremely detailed analysis and microanalysis and discussion of things that don’t matter.”

The Unwitting Chumps of Humanity's Herd

Ironically though, one thing I’ve noticed about a of hardcore conspiracy theorists is their shared ‘elitism’ with the so-called conspirators.

A syndrome whereby the theorist believes himself to have risen above the common rank and file of ‘humanity’s herd’, because there awareness of the conspiritator’s foul play, makes them, if not their better, than at least a nobel equal, that will no longer be duped like the rest of us poor, unwitting chumps.

Hitler the Half-Wit

The most famous case in hand being Adolph Hitler, who was responsible for making Nazi Germany the first country in the world to be essentially governed by a conspiracy theory. 

In their miserably misguided way, the Nazi leadership and many Germans believed that the Jews were Germany's special misfortune, and that they had conspired to bring about the country's defeat in World War One. 

Nazi Germany was pervaded by conspiratorial ideas about Jews that culminated in the widespread belief that they needed to be eliminated altogether if the German people were to survive. 

The Nazi dictatorship is a classic instance of the dangers of taking megaconspiracy theories seriously. Such theories may be fun to concoct or speculate about, but they certainly cannot be allowed to form the basis of government policy! 

Fortunately, Nazi Germany is a more or less isolated example of a state wedded to a megaconspiracy theory. 

Although similar ideas about the Jews circulated in inter-war Poland, the Soviet Union, and are still popular in the Middle East today, nowhere have they furnished the very rationale for the existence of the state as they did in the Third Reich.

The Innocence of Chance

Once upon a time you were ridiculed out of hand for believing in conspiracy theories, now you are often ridiculed if you criticise them.

The simply fact is that human-beings love a good yarn, and that the application of Occam’s Razor, which states that in any event the simplest explanation is often the most likely, does not appeal to our sense of mystery.

People have always been obsessed with sinister groups controlling things from the shadows.

From the Masons to the Illimunati, conspiracy theories abound about their elusive master-of-puppet’s hand in every historical event from the French Revolution to September 11.

It is far easier to believe in the existence of some dark, diabolical organisation responsible for all the injustice in the world, than to simply admit it could all be down to the innocence of chance, and the chaos and unpredictability inherent in human nature. 

Unfortunately, on that note, I have to call it a day. Some imposing gentlemen in black suits and sunglasses have just arrived in the office, wishing to talk about ‘an issue of some sensitivity.’

The Cretin Crunch

Hog Heaven

PICTURE the scene if you will. A quiet afternoon in an office. The soft murmur of industry is everywhere. Fingertips are gently tapping their muted rhythm against computer keyboards.   Sheets of white paper sing their content as an army of pens massage them with letters, figures, and lines. Mouses click subtly instead of squeaking, and perhaps even the distant song of a feathered friend can be heard through an open window.

All is calm, all is quiet.  And then for thousands of office workers across Britain the horror of the office hog rears its gluttonous head in an orgy of crunching, rustling, and munching.

To what nightmarish ordeal do I refer. Why to the opening of a packet of crisps.

The Sloths who Savour Saturated Fat

Have you ever felt that when some indulgent sloth is frolicking about in a care-free manner through their packet-sized feast, that the hosts of Hell themselves are traveling forth to assault your aural ambience?

Do you not simmer with incandescent rage as mouthful after mouthful of saturated fat is consumed at great length and relish by some inconsiderate swine, lacking in the common courtesy to take their addiction to potatoes and grease elsewhere?

The Crisp Crunching Army 

If so my friend, then you are not alone. In a recent online poll of the most annoying sounds in the office, crisp crunching colleagues were found to be the scourge of the British workplace.

Well clap, clap, clap for that then. A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly concur.

Thousands of us have for far too long sat hidden in cloaks of purple rage as some colleague or other, casually opens a packet of torment, and begins to chow down.

The point is that when teeth meet potato chip it creates a symphony of excruciating noise that rips right through the nerve-endings like no other. 

Monkey See, Monkey Do 

What I particularly loathe, is the dreaded domino effect. This happens when the initial culprit has broken the ceasefire by ripping open the modern-day Pandora’s box of artificial flavourings and excessive salt, and by doing so gives the rest of the office carte blanche to do the same.

It’s like feeding time at the trough as the greedy bleeders opt for safety in numbers and all stuff their faces simultaneously, secure in the knowledge that you, by trying to maintain a civilised code of culinary conduct have now become the elitist minority.

Now I enjoy a decent packet of crisps as much as the next man. However, it is not something I wish to impose on others as a communal ‘all-together’ experience. Crisp eating should be  done on a strict ‘behind closed doors’ basis. 

Much as smoking has been banned in public indoor places for a reason, why can’t we have the same respect for our ears as we do for our lungs?

I’m sure that simmering with rage and frustration as some porker spends an eternity savouring their salty snack, is not good for your blood pressure either.

Hungry Hogs and Their Savory Sins

The people who compiled the poll that isolates office crisp eating as evil incarnate said, “People are easily offended by sounds in the office but very few do anything about. Most people are suffering in silence as their colleagues create a cacophony of din around them.”

I now have a theory on why the cartoon character Elmer Fudd was always so hell-bent on blowing that ‘pwesky wabbit’ Bugs bunny to kingdom come. 

It was because when that floppy-eared fool started munching contentedly on a carrot, it was not a million miles away from the actions of a crisp hog and their savoury sins.

Close Encounters!

STRANGE pulsating orbs of orange light floating high in the sky, Technicolor triangles that appear out of thin air leading to brave new dimensions of space and time, and great balls of fiery wonder charting their course across the cosmos. 

Yes, it’ll soon be magic mushroom season again, as throughout Britain the hallucination-inducing shrooms bloom in abundance on mountain and meadow.

However, it is not about the funky fungi of which I speak, but the unexplained series of UFO sightings that have recently been reported in and around this green and pleasant land. 

Aliens in Egypt! 

The great UFO debate has raged for some time now, and nearly all of us know someone or other who has claimed at one time to have seen unexplained lights high in the Heavens.

I recall that as a child I was one memorised and put into a strange trance by a particularly colourful frisbee, but in the wider debate about extraterrestrials and their silver flashing machines I don’t think this counts. 

Evidence for the UFO phenomenon according to some, stretches as far back as to ancient Egypt, when extraterrestrials first enjoyed a holiday on planet earth, only instead of building sand-castles they constructed pyramids.  

Foo-Fighters in World War Two

The modern cult of the UFO is said to have began after a number of aircraft pilots during World War II spotted unexplained phenomena in the skies that were later termed ‘foo-fighters’.

Since the time of the ‘foo-fighters’ (thought by many to be the products of experiments by Nazi scientists), the UFO phenomenon has literally exploded into space, with sightings numbering well into the hundreds of thousands. 

While most have been identified as natural phenomena-stars, meteors, etc-or man-made devices such as airplanes and balloons, 5% to 10% of all reports are not so easily discounted, even after proper investigation by qualified individuals. 

These are the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) said to be the heart and soul of the mystery.

Little Green Men Who Kidnap Innocents!

And this is presumably what keeps people fascinated in for want of a better term, ‘little green men from outer space.’ In much the same way people were fascinated with tales of the ‘fair-folk’ and ‘little people’ in a less scientific age - who funnily enough were also accused of kidnapping humans and taking them to a faraway kingdom where all sense of time was rendered redundant. 

The mass interest in UFO’s and aliens has always puzzled me. Alongside the general tendency towards self-delusion that will make a normally rational and sane person believe a chinese lantern is an otherworldly piece of technology from the outer limits. 

E.T Go Home 

Now although I enjoyed Steven Spielberg’s E.T as much as the next man, a lovable little altruistic space creature that looks worringly like Coronation Street’s Gayle Platt without any hair, does not really ring true with the accounts of aliens that are documented elsewhere.

Here is the crunch, why would anyone be interested in contacting a race of shady and underhand beings, that apparently put people into a paralyzed state, before stealing them from their beds in the dead of nights, and whisking them off into the nether regions of the universe to conduct a series of sinister experiments and tests on them.

Experiments which are said to include a form of genetic engineering, which is thought to be a dastardly Martian bid to help create a new race of human/alien hybrids.

Worse still, the poor stolen people are then told they will forget everything that has occurred, before being implanted with thought-controlling devices that continue to monitor their every movement until the time of their next abduction. 

And in most abductees’ cases, there is usually a history of abductions dating right back to childhood.  

Incidentally, if your wondering how abductees remember their experiences, they usually get flashes or glimpses of a nightmarish experience, where beings of about three and a half to five feet tall with very slender bodies and proportionally large heads that contain striking and piercing black eyes, with a somewhat watery or glassy look, stand over them and conduct their inhuman experiments, whilst the abductees lie helpless and completely bewildered. 

The Ghastly Greys 

These alien beings - nicknamed the greys - are said to be totally hairless and range in colour from an off-white to a bluish-gray. They are apparently non-verbal and communicate on a purely telepathic basis.

The greys are often said to be emotionless, and cases abound where the abductees were left feeling totally traumatized and violated to every degree.

To make matters worse there are even rumours of cooperation efforts between our governments and the greys, where technology is exchanged for the allowing of human abductions and certain underground alien bases on earth. 

“ET go home?” Too damned right! If, of course, there is any truth in these diabolical accounts. 

On the other hand, it may be an idea to flip reverse it and put yourself in the shoes of an otherworldly visitor to the ‘Blue planet ’for a moment.

Imagine cruising around in a pollutant-free flying disc, feeling at one with with the universe and fostering nothing but a loving vibration of goodwill and peace to all living creatures.

An Intergalactic Perspective 

Imagine possessing wisdom beyond words and knowledge beyond understanding, and utilising it all only in the service of what is positive and right.

Then imagine coming across a planet of breathtaking wonder and natural beauty, that contains an abundance and variety of life beyond compare. 

Then contemplate the dominant species of this planet, and how they kill, maim, and torture not only one another, but also just about every living thing on the face of this strange spinning rock.

Imagine studying their history and learning how each successive generation fails to learn nothing from a bloody and brutal past, but instead chooses to add it’s own mistakes to the unholy mix, in decade after decade of greed, ignorance, lies, hypocrisy, stupidity, destruction, waste, fear, loathing, and all kinds of sick and twisted behavior.

Wouldn’t you just want to turn around and get the hell out of Dodge, whilst asking yourself the simple question that if human-beings can’t even get along with each other, how will they ever accept beings from another world?

Finally, ask yourselves, if you were a little green alien, would you really want to reach out across the universe and offer the intergalactic hand of friendship to a civilization that not only created, but honours the likes of Cliff Richard and Ant and Dec? 

I rest my case. 

Summer's Almost Gone ........

AS another great British summer staggers in slow decline off the stage of seasons to let autumn try it’s hand at resurrecting the ghost of former glories, you can’t help but be left wondering if the nostalgic and lazy sun-soaked days and evenings of yore will ever return to this ‘green and pleasant land’ again.

Even though it’s only August, already the nights are drawing in, the temperatures are dropping, and any remaining hope of a ‘proper summer’ has been washed down the drains along with the constant and dispiriting downpours.


A National Addiction 

We’re obsessed with the weather in this country and rightly so. The fact that this little island of ours has, or used to have, four distinctive and uniquely beautiful seasons in the space of a year is an inspiration in itself.

The annual cycle that starts with the elusive promise of spring, before heading into the rude health and unbounded joy of of summer, is complemented perfectly by the reflective mists and ‘mellow fruitfulness’ of Autumn, that lead into the bleak, unforgiving clarity of winter.

The British seasons and weather have served as a rich muse for generations of artists, but can the same be said anymore?


The Fifth Season 

For a while now the characteristics that have defined each season have become blurred around the edges as spring, summer, autumn, and winter all seep into one another in the space of a single day, to create something that is not quite either season, but a new kind of mongrel hybrid that acts as an all-inclusive fifth season, lacking in any identity of its own. 

How many days have passed this summer in a limbo-like haze, where the continual low pressure turns the country into a stagnating cauldron of oppressive heat and dismal drizzle, lorded over by unrelenting grey skies that keep any redemptive patches of bright blue sky safely under lock and key.

What happened to all the winter snow? And as for Jack Frost I think he must be on the missing person’s list.


Anyway the Wind Blows

Do we get our allotted share of crisp autumn days anymore, where the sun lies just pale enough in the sky to allow the exhilarating chill and bite of autumn to prosper, but bright enough to bathe the land in hues of the richest red.

And is spring still a time of resurrected hopes and the reawakening of the earth, or is it just another season that has forsaken it’s identity in a melting plot of meteorological misfortune and madness.

Now I know I may be guilty of waxing lyrical about the seasons, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it seems like such a long time since spring, summer, autumn, and winter have behaved accordingly and acted in a traditional sense.

Cynics will say I’m just being nostalgic, environmentalists will say blame the polluters, and realists will suggest the weather is changing simply because the earth has being getting warmer since the time of the last ice age.


Something of a Bad Spell 

However, I like to indulge in my own fanciful theory, about what only the other day some buffoon of a weatherman called ‘the gorgeous unpredictability of British weather’.

Does the current stormy climate of life in general on the British Isle effect the weather, or is the weather partly responsible for the prevalent mood of negativity, miserabilism and self-defeatism that seems to hold Britain in it’s sway in the year of our lord 2011?

Myself, I think it’s a bit of both, with the two feeding of one another like a vicious circle. 

For example, we moan just about everything in this country, and a bad spell in the weather is just more ammunition for us to throw our hands in the air and despair. Hence the formation of more bad weather in a mutual exchange of negativity between us mere mortals and the elements. 

I now it’s a bizarre theory, but maybe in a parallel universe couldn’t the harsh unpredictability and strain of unease and dread that runs right through our society like a dark and diseased undercurrent, lead to the thought-formation of weather which simply acts as a reflecting mirror of our own collective modern-day lack of identity and meaning? Something akin to a fifth season?

Anyhow, Just a thought! But like Dylan once said, “You don’t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows.”