FIREPLACES: Some information on and a warning of sorts (by Dolly Dolly)

From its vantage point beneath the mantle-piece the fireplace observed the strange man, Jerome Flickwhiff entering the room. Fireplaces are very astute animals and from the moment he had walked in the fireplace felt an unnerving chill run up its ironwork. This particular fireplace was called Bessie. She was a good fireplace. She had never once in her whole lifetime split coal on the carpet. She was proud of the fact that she had served every family that had occupied the house to the very best of her abilities. She was loyal, trustworthy and very hard working. A nicer fireplace you could not hope to meet. But there was something about the old man that frightened Bessie. She couldn't quite put her mantle on what it was exactly, but if there was one thing she did know, it was that the old man spelt: tee, are, oh, bee, ee, el, el.

Fireplace's though excellent judges of character are notoriously dyslexic.

One of the little known facts about fireplaces is that they are fiercely vengeful creatures. There is one recorded case in the late eighteen hundreds where a wealthy landowner in Buckinghamshire had tried to demolish one of his stately homes. Unfortunately for him, a Mr George van Diskdrive there were seven fireplaces in the building. All of which were crushed during the demolition. Their dying screams were heard within a six-mile radius. The symbiotic relationship they have with their chimneys has over the course of hundreds of years evolved into a primitive type of telepathy. As direct result of this horrible sextet of murders not only did within five minutes every fireplace in Buckinghamshire know the name, George van Diskdrive they also had vowed bloody revenge upon him and his family.

Their revenge did at first take on a fairly incongruous nature. One Sunday afternoon Mrs Jane ‘Lefty’ van Diskdrive was horrified upon reading in the Buckinghamshire Illustrated Weekly News’s poetry section, a rather unpleasant and badly spelt poem that cast aspersions on their sixteen year old son Jonathan’s sexuality. Much to Lefty’s chagrin.

Revenge over the following year gradually took on a more sinister tone. The family dog, a Pug called Dug was found dead with a poker so far up his rectum that only the handle could be seen. One summer morning George and Lefty, upon returning from a stroll around the grounds were horrified to see thick black clouds of soot hovering above the house in the shape of the words ‘Murdering Twats’. This was all too much for the Diskdrive family, who in a fit of desperation attempted to move to the South of France.

They were approaching Dover the morning of the move when their carriage was rammed by two wrought iron mantelpieces, which sent them careering of the cliffs. All were killed save young Jonathan.

Who prophetically enough went on to form the company ‘Pink Plumbers’ the worlds first transvestite central heating specialists.

Had Jerome Flickwhiff, Attraction Monitor Installer known of any of the above, perhaps he would have had second thoughts about being so frugal with his aerosols. There is also no doubt what so ever that he would now be afraid.

Very afraid.

Newsletter #6

Last night we learnt to think twice before going round to see our posh mates for dinner. Tonight, something different again...

Dolly Dolly (David Yates to his tailor) occupies a very curious world where Robin Askwith conducts musique concrete whist Stockhausen works in the local greasy spoon.

Death, Taxes and The Fireplace (being a story concerning love above all) takes the fondly remembered format of Play for Today and mixes it up with a little Albert Hoffman, young love, a rather strange man named Flickwhiff (see opposite) and that other veritable British institution, the cup of tea.

David is based in Reading in the UK where he curates and promotes original and innovative ways for folk to spend their evenings. You can scoot over to his current home on myspace to sample some of his musical wares and wait excitedly for the Dolly Dolly virtual world to launch soon (and this does promise to be very spectacular).

Dolly Dolly has co-hosted a couple of Exotic Pylon shows with Time Attendant (who wrote the Weird Tales theme) which can listened to here (also with Moon Wiring Club) and here.