"Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."

(Oh and The Muppets.)

This PAGE is an add on from the BLOG post: I'M A KNOB, BUT I AM HER KNOB.

It is in high amusement and irony that I write this piece. Having not long finished watching The Dogs of War staring a young Christopher, I decided to put pen to paper.

A long day yesterday in close humid Manchester heat, including a therapy session revolving around resentments. Writing is a release for me, and also a way of making the hurtful become banal.

I’d snarled at Facebook in the evening and nothing unusual there. Quite commonplace for me and mostly a result of the complete tripe that appears on there, and its theft of our time. But like all I need to consume and use it and life could be worse, for example being made to read The Daily Mail every morning.

I also recalled Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of English playwright William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

"Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."

And I also cry havoc myself and let loose the Dogs of War with my trusty pen; well laptop. I think it a ripe time after a counselling session earlier today on resentments to be a bit ripe, to the point, and tongue in cheek.

It is hot, in fact very hot and I think my sleep tonight will be tricky, especially at the top of a house. Met Office says it is 20 degrees C, and feels like 21 degrees. I’ll vouch for that, and on second reading certainly agree with the 78% humidity. Well, a good Radio 4 programme, tapping away on the laptop all is good.

The System - Step 1: Wilderness Survival for Beginners by Ben Lewis. Interesting output from BBC Scotland. Only caught the last 10 or so minutes of it. And now following this, listening to the story of the band Dr Feelgood, who still tour sans any original members.

The thought of letting slip, or in modern terms, letting rip ties in neatly with an image of the film and the Shakespearean quote. I think we all deserve this. Looking like a deranged Christopher Walken in the film does have a something about it. As does the soliloquy of Mark Anthony in the scene.

In the scene, Mark Antony is alone with Julius Caesar's body, shortly after Caesar's assassination. In a soliloquy, he reveals his intention to incite the crowd at Caesar's funeral to rise up against the assassins. Foreseeing violence throughout Rome, Antony even imagines Caesar's spirit joining in the exhortations: "raging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a Monarch's voice cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."[1] - Wikipedia

But I do think parody of the film and play can and should be welcomed. After all it is me. I’ll be a bit timid though, letting slip with some dark, dark humour. Ahem.

People and Muppets - American Gothic

LEFT: Colin Bishop, Jennifer Ulwin-Bishop. RIGHT: American Gothic

Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as Gertrude Stein and Christopher Morley, similarly assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life - Wikipedia.

I can also interpret a satire of small town life (Mossley and the Saddleworth Runners Club), and be amused at the Muppet version especially the lifeless vacant expression of Jennifer Ulwin Bishop, whilst a depressed and brow beaten Colin the Kermit looks on, not even at her. I painfully remember the small town mentality of people, their gossip and spite, with a false veneer of happiness whilst mind numbing boredom sits beneath the vacant two dimensional existence where intelligence, empathy, and honesty could maybe dwell. I shiver at the sadness and horror of a brow beaten reptile of a man whose life is spent driving about, on his own, in his thoughts, shackled to a vacuous self and other.

View of a Pig - Ted Hughes

LEFT: Miss Piggy RIGHT: Jennifer Ulwin Bishop

Piggy, truly a diva in a class of her own, is convinced she is destined for stardom, and nothing will stand in her way. She has a capricious nature, at times determined to (and often succeeding in) conveying an image of feminine charm, but suddenly flying into a violent rage - Wikipedia

The pig lay on a barrow dead.
It weighed, they said, as much as three men.
Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes.
Its trotters stuck straight out.

Such weight and thick pink bulk
Set in death seemed not just dead.
It was less than lifeless, further off.
It was like a sack of wheat.

I thumped it without feeling remorse.
One feels guilty insulting the dead,
Walking on graves. But this pig
Did not seem able to accuse.

It was too dead. Just so much
A poundage of lard and pork.
Its last dignity had entirely gone.
It was not a figure of fun.

Too dead now to pity.
To remember its life, din, stronghold
Of earthly pleasure as it had been,
Seemed a false effort, and off the point.

Too deadly factual. Its weight
Oppressed me—how could it be moved?
And the trouble of cutting it up!
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.

Ted Hughes 1959

LEFT: Sam the Muppet RIGHT: Colin Bishop

Also known as Sammy or Samuel, Sam's overtly patriotic spirit distinguishes him from the rest of the Muppet cast, as does his general stuffiness and pomposity - Wikipedia

He often gives self-important lectures in which he espouses some conservative idea only to find himself forced to stop in embarrassment at risk of sounding like a hypocrite - Wikipedia

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition[17] - Wikipedia

Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker - Ruth and Stuart Hutchison of Manchester Road, Mossley

Here we have a parody of Bunsen and Beaker. One is with rounded glasses indicating opinion nay expertise, for example of “changing dynamics” in the Universe, delivered with a rounded soft personality. Mole like in appearance and persona this is certainly the attributes of a Muppet that is always the expert, knowing what they are doing; yet all ends up with a meddling in the Universe, the output a monumental screw up, collateral damage to people; subsequently “doing one” and leaving the experiment behind. But in fact Bunsen never really escapes the looking glass through this expert front.

Meanwhile behind the scenes is the long suffering and miserable Beaker. My, one would think he is Scottish. Quiet, rushing about, doing as told, coming across as the ever so self-sacrificial sidekick to Bunsen and Humanity, with no ounce of butter melting in the mouth; but more than capable of displaying the attributes of being in his own world, irrespective of others, and of uniquely being capable of starting fires and throwing all under a bus.

(Note the visual typo in comparison, since Beaker has his hair.)

Janice, and working her way “around”

These two Muppets make me laugh, though specifically “J” for Janice. Someone who moves about in order to satisfy [… delete as applicable…] Like any band, she breaks up and moves ever onward to another Gang Band. The irony being that her carousel does not and probably won’t stop.

Monday 24th June, and into Tuesday 25th June 2024. Dukinfield, Tameside, Planet Cheeky.

(Morning of Tuesday 25th. I slept badly in the heat.)