One Angry Monkey

For those of you who may have noticed a certain amount of quietness (I’m looking at you, Young Boobs), you need a hobby. No, I’m kidding. Mostly.

But I have been quiet, and here’s why. I’m moving on, with a shiny new look and a shiny new address to go with it. From now until whenever I decide to let the domain name expire, angry monkeys dot net will be an archive, shelves lined with my gabble but slowly gathering dust.

Feel free to pop by and have a look at the new home. Promise I won’t bite.

There’s one key issue which dungeon-masters everywhere seem unable to agree on — the use of profanity in fantasy novels. For some reason people like to think of medieval society as this pristine environment where the innocent inhabitants are unsullied by the concept of swearing, let alone the reality of it.

Uh. WTF?

This has to be influenced, at least in part, by Lord of the Rings. Tolkein created this world where people just didn’t seem to swear. Hell, some of them randomly burst out into cheerful, life-affirming song whether you wanted them to or not. And to some extent that was a valid approach. I mean, come on. Gandalf stands defiant before the balrog. He raises his staff above his head then then slams it down, screaming, “Get fucked!” It would detract a little from the mood.

There were places where it may have been more fitting. If I, like Frodo, had some little freak bite my finger off, I’d be swearing at it even as it fell to its death in a pit of lava. Later on, as I lay dying on the side of Mount Doom, I’d probably turn to my faithful companion and say, “Jeez, we’re kind of fucked now aren’t we?” Yeah, I’d make a bad hobbit.

I am human though, so I might be a bit more qualified to comment on the siege of Minas Tirith. Huge orc army coming. Elephants (oliphaunts, whatever) with big spiky things attached to their already spiky tusks stomping along, decimating all the little horse riders who keep coming for whatever reason. “Fuck that,” I’d say, and find myself a softer target. I’m in the city. Chunks of stone the size of the elephants’ heads are raining down on me. “Oh, shit.” Apparently I’m not a good human either. What can you do?

People seem to have developed this unrealistic idea of what people spoke like in the past. The reality is, our current profanities are some of the oldest words in our language. Society has developed this pathological fear of swearing and the political-correctness revolution has only made matters worse. There are so many words we just can’t use these days. It’s now the f-word (or f-bomb if you’re American and have a yearning to make yourself sound like a complete and utter dipshit to the rest of the world), the other f-word, the n-word, the s-word, the b-word and the c-word. There are more than that of course but I’m getting tired of typing *-word.

Funnier still are the people who just kind of jumble up the letters. I saw a sentence including the word cnut. At first I assumed it was a typo. Apparently not. Apparently swapping 2 letters makes a word acceptable to the puritanical censors out there. Fair enough. But I’m calling people who p-word me off sea-nuts from now on.

The whole idea is ridiculous. Singling out fantasy as the one genre where swearing should never happen? Why not censor everyone, I say. Someone should go and tell Stephen King not to use swear words in his books. Sell tickets — I think that’d be a conversation worth watching.

Making a blanket rule that swearing shouldn’t be used at all in a particular genre is just not realistic. I’ll take my swearing out if artists who focus on fantasy images stop drawing female elf-warriors in revealing armour with their tits half popping out, how’s that?

What a fucking lot of bullshit.

Two posts in one day! Lucky Internet! Don’t get too used to it, I figure this means I can go a couple of weeks without updating now.

When I walked in the front door after picking up my new glasses I realised something. My house is a bomb site! So I barricaded myself in my computer room, where it’s much neater, so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Eventually my neuroses got the better of me though so I emerged and started straightening things up.

I picked up a pile of papers from the floor in front of the sofa and very nearly shrieked at the brown thing on the rug underneath them. Fortunately for me (and it) I retained some sense of decorum and the only sound was a muffled “mmmph”, which is the noise I make when really I want to shriek but for whatever reason my pride gets the better of me. I thought it was that spider the Man of the House vanquished a couple of weeks back returned to extract its freakishly oversized vengeance on me and my house.

A closer look and I wasn’t wanting to scream any more. I was saying “awwwwwwwwwww”. With exactly that number of “w”s I might add. It was a tiny gecko, no larger than my little finger which, I might also add, would be terrifyingly large if it had been a spider. He was in a dangerous spot there, my little lizard friend. If I let him stay there it would only be a matter of time before either I or the Man of the House stomped on him on our way to the sofa. But he was so little. I didn’t want to pick him up because I was afraid I’d hurt him.

Internet, you proved to be no help. One suggestion was to feed him iron filings and use a magnet. That might work, I’ll grant you, but how was I supposed to let him go again, hmm? Another was a tale of grass lassos. Also probably effective but there’s not all that much grass in my front yard and I didn’t feel like traipsing around the neighbourhood looking for some. That left only the good, old-fashioned upturned glass.

When I saw him up close against the stark background of white from the paper I used to cover the glass I wanted to keep him. Have you ever seen a tiny gecko up close, Internet? I have now. They’re just so precious. Unfortunately the aquarium has fish in it. Short of flushing them and earning the wrath of the Man of the House I had nowhere to keep my little friend. I took him outside and put him in the leaf litter under the tree in our front yard.

My little dragon now guards my front door.

I was minding my own business, messing about on my computer, trying not to squint too hard at the screen lest it become frightened and attempt to flee, when the phone rang. I shrugged and went to answer it, something I don’t usually do during the day thanks to telemarketers. I was so glad I did.

“Hello! This is your optometrist calling! We have your vision!”

I was so excited I thanked the lady a little bit too profusely. We hung up after an awkward set of goodbyes and I flew off on wingèd feet to make myself at least a little bit presentable. I emailed the Man of the House to see if he’d like to meet up for lunch but was fobbed off with a flimsy “I’m very busy at work.” Pshaw! I learned the truth when I arrived in town only to discover it was hosing down. Bastard.

I picked up the glasses and mentally dismissed the receptionist’s warning that the new ones might be a little much to handle at first. It wasn’t long before I learned how right she was.

My right eye was much worse than my left eye. That’s fixed now. Have you ever been conscious of the sensation of sight? It’s a little uncomfortable, to tell the truth. Then I put my sunnies on. You know, just to test them out. I was delighted to realise that the brown tint renders everything in sepia tones like an old movie.

It’s like living in an arthouse theatre.

Oh, and one quick clarification for YoungBoobs. My old frames for my regular glasses are about 5 years old. I got them when we first moved over because the arm of the ones before them broke. The sunnies, however, had frames closer to 8 or 9 years old. Mikey was still in a pushchair when I got them, I remember that much.

Smartarse.