EDITORIAL  

SELLING OUT? 

Alert readers, if there are any, may notice the new number on the main title page. Yes, the Oik is now legit and stored in the British Library at Boston Spa (if ever you’re passing) But does this mean the Oik is now part of the govt and that Amber Rudd (or whoever else is Home Sec as we got to press) can get on the dog an bone and yell: “Ken! What the fuck!! That piece by Tanner is outrageous and a vile libel of the good, hard-working, job-seeking people of Liverpool. Also Ron Horsefield’s trashing of a well-known Beaujolais producer is a very damaging intervention as we strive to create a profound and mutually beneficial relationship with our French neighbours. Bob Wild’s account of his senile brother is another cruel travesty of the condition of the aged in our society in which many senior citizens happily enjoy a sing-song and a knees-up in our fine care homes (and those who’s knees can no longer get up can doze contentedly over re-runs of X factor and Strictly). John Lee’s racist musings on Muslims in the Dordogne is probably illegal and I’ve instructed the Home Office to put him on a register as an undesirable alien should he plan to return. Emperor Macron has also been alerted and has promised to apply the full force of the French bureaucracy to restrain this nasty bigot.  

Then there’s the graphics. At first sight these seem quite attractive, nostalgic evocations of wartime Britain – our finest hour etc - so magnificently evoked by our foreign secretary in his book on Churchill – but reading further one begins to suspect some editorial intervention as they degenerate into a depraved slur on the LBTGQ community which includes many of our finest MPs like Keith Vaz  et al. I must, therefore, insist that the whole edition of Crazy Oik 35 Autumn 2017 be destroyed and will instruct the British Library to do the same. Your ISSN number will be withdrawn and re-allocated to the next applicant. We have several worthier candidates –eg Michael Gove plans to launch Pig for Victory – Throw granny out of the back bedroom and install a prize porker; it might smell slightly worse but you can turn it into sausages.. The first edition will also tell oiks how to grow turnips in their window boxes and farm cod in that aquarium currently wasted on guppies. The Brexit Bulldog, David Davis will edit Grin and Bare It (Your arse that is) on honing your negotiating skills. While Teresa, who will soon have more leisure time, will edit Satnav Speech for Beginners.” 

Of course the govt doesn’t give a monkey’s about the Oik and one struggles to imagine why they want to register every scrap of printed material that pops up. After registering I was accosted to send in all 33 previous issues so I conclude it’s just the completist urge of the bureaucrat. I doubt anyone there actually reads what comes in as I learned many years ago on borrowing Guthrie’s History of Greek Philosophy Vol 3 to open it and find about 50 pages missing. Obviously the publisher, Cambridge University Press no less, also took the cynical view that no human eye would ever appraise that particular example and unloaded a defective copy to comply with their legal obligation. However Alexis Lykiard informs me that proper writers can get some kind of royalty from the govt(?) by appearing in an ISSNed magazine. So there you go, fill yer boots. If we last another 1000 issues and you’re in every one you might well accumulate enough to buy a back issue of Penguin Parade from eBay.

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KEITH HOWDEN

Requiem for the Skinback Fusiliers 

Birdy tells me this morning's post
brought a free gift. Came from Park Drive.
When is a gift not free? Or are
they ever? he says. Everyone pays.
It's Natural Fascism.  And when
we join the Skinback Fusiliers, does that
come free? Skinback Birdy was once
Colonel of Ballocks' Barracks, dreaming
of girls fragile as ice but heaving
under their lace as randy as goats.
Was that a gift? Does that come free?
Birdy remember's Alice Naylor's
sixteen year tits and squelching them,
soft as tomatoes. And underwater,
once swam the canal's lagoon, his burst
breath rising like silver tomatoes
into the light. That was a gift.
That fat brother-in-law's collecting
his Green Shield Stamps, stuck in a book
for a free coffin. Birdy's chest
squeezeboxes threnodies. His Park Drive's
hardly a gift.  Skinback Birdy thinks
our minds are conscripts and we march
to an ignorant Sergeant's bark. All for
a Passing-Out Parade where there can be
no General on the rostrum. No-one's
bothered about our daft salute.
Gifts don't come free.  Once, Alice Naylor
stood blindfold over a mirror while
he shone a torch to light her secrets,
thighs white as celery, forced
in the dark. For that, he's gasping
at his Park Drive. Skinback Birdy
says we're all lost in a mad battle
of living.  No messages splutter
our walkie-talkies. Everybody's
called up for nothing and demobbed
to buggerall. Time, Gentlemen.
His Park Drive's semaphoring time
for Skinback Fusiliers.  Uparse,
Birdy. It's time.  Another lover
groped Alice Naylor. Birdy says
his name was cancer. Do I call that
a free gift? More than the loony bus
throbs waiting for us. His last Park Drive's
gone out. Birdy's squeezebox chest
is practising again, trying to play
the Dead March in Saul .....

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Exotic Brothel -  Otto Dix 1926