Messages

Jeuzius!  Awful indeed, and such a distressing frustration for you on top, I'm sure.  Such a damnable thing to experience or discover precisely when you should have been able to concentrate on the prospective good news of an MRI result for your pains. 
Still, I am relieved to hear they responded to your pressing of the emergency button in what I hope was (but am pretty sure can't have felt like) short order.
You should certainly be proud of yourself for not falling back on the fags, I know I would have and I don't even have the strength (or wit) to give up anyway.  Good to hear, that part of it, so I hope from that you're now feeling the flashbacks to earlier receding into a far less uncomfortable distance. 

Very best of luck arranging that open MRI (superb insider intel from Dandontdare there!) to get those sodding pains and aches sorted out with the least delay, discomfort or fussery.

Fantastic news to hear, however much I do sympathise regarding the slower-than-deserved sales of City of Dredd 2134.  It's also reminded me about something...  Have PM'd you.

Nicely won, guys.  (Lucky gits...)

No, no, no, no, no, NO, No, no, no, no, no, No-no-no-no-no, No.... No.  No.  No.  No, no. No. No.  NO!  NO!  NO!  No.

Happily true, although the covers for 2000AD do tend to 'pop' a whole lot more often.

[Lord Goaty]

Careful.  That's Lord Goaty and Senior Street Judge Burdis now.

Thanks, Mr Wells.  Always tip-top with the top pics. 
Honestly, perhaps a little like yourself, BPP, the Dark Judge posters didn't excite me quite so much as poster ideas as the initial teaser icons they had.  Those as posters, now that I might've thrown money at, but this image?  As a t-shirt or poster, that'd be plush.  I feel a new click on 'Set As Desktop' coming on.

What on Earth are you saying, man?  Increased sales of the Meg, itself feeding into the Prog's sales and supporting the continued inclusion of the free floppies for me?  Good Lord, no!

[HIM AGAIN]

You said prison and I couldn't resist using this git from way back in Dredd.  Hands up, I went a little bit over on but after spending about five times longer whittling it down from about twice this amount than writing it I decided to beg for word count mercy.  That 500 word limit is a great challenge in itself.  ("Yeah?  Well, you failed!")  Still, I hope it suits some tastes.

    HIM AGAIN

    "I'm with Attica State.  You're free!"
    "I don't care if you're with Conrad Conn."  Stepping into freedom, the former masseur scowled, stared, took it all in.  "It's good to be out."
    "Attica State's an activist group, Brother.  Name's Ruperto Glibb.  Here to free you and your encubed brethren.  Too long have the Judg--"
    "Yeah.  Gotcha.  I understand," the prisoner insisted.  His thoughts continued as he winked drily, you're a complete spugging idiot.

    Political Allocations Subdivision.  The greying prisoner saw nobody but Ruperto among the cells and abandoned devices of the subdivision's specialised role.  They stood in The Hole that lives dropped into courtesy of the Security of the City Act.  Psychosurgery, citizen, or life in solitary?  Embarrassments, mistakes, each cell a wronged, screaming epiphany of injustice. 
    The prisoner's eyes swallowed details, deciding whether Citizen Meathead was worth hypnotising.  He had a gun.  Probably creds.  He also had the excited manner of Loser McNobody after winning a BizziFlakes trip to Euro-Cit.  The complete spugging idiot rattled on while the prisoner cricked his ageing back and rubbed surviving muscles.  Some heavy days lay ahead.

    "Do you understand, Brother?"  Attica State's founder did enthuse so.  "The Meg's aflame!  Judges hanged from watchbays!  Citizens in  rightful, bloody rebellion!  Demanding freedoms and truths hidden for decades!"
    "Like me?  And you're freeing everyone here?"
    "You're the priority but we'll reaclimatise the rest together."
    "Too slow.  Helmets are coming."
    "Hardly!  It's total screaming chaos out there but I have arrangements with the hardcore.  They hit this isoblock, getting more recruits, but I got this wing.  Years planning, snippets here, rumours there.  Your suffering in particular, these 28 years.  Now they're falling.  Their Academy, their Statue of Judgement, destroyed."
    "Like the March on Cal gone futsie?" the prisoner showed his teeth, though hardly smiling.  The Statue, down?  Again?
    "Better."
    "Perfect," the prisoner decided, eyeing Ruperto's weapon.  "Gimme the gun."
    "You're a symbol, a figurehead, not a footsold...  Oh."
    Oh was right.  The blaster was gone, from Ruperto's grip at least.  It rapidly (with surprisingly professional repetition) returned to crash into his disintegrating face.  Dribbling enamel shards, he collapsed amidst a splay of limbs.  As he whimpered the prisoner checked the weapon over, brisk and smooth, a full magazine.  Not many check a firearm like that.
    "So," sneered the prisoner.  "Got a clue yet?"

    And so it came from Ruperto, in full, the truth.  His poster boy recruit, Huckleberry Pym, prisoner P369/JDCF7/AD1984 - that bastard Dana must have swapped with him again!  Came back down with Grice and the Meat Virus.  He guessed at organ leggers during those lawless days, Dana refining the first switch that he had inflicted upon Pym, and then Ruperto realised...  Dana's attempt to bail on Grice must have fallen short, been realised.  The prisoner nodded.

    "It amused Grice to keep Pym alive, hypnotised to be me.  Gotta thank the Department, though.  Putting Pym here first time, Dredd's own shuttle bombs destroying evidence and witnesses the second.  And now you."
    "You deserved that cube, scuzzbag."
    "Still beats Titan," Dana crowed, firing twice to shake the cobwebs off.

Does anybody else keep rereading Alex's answers over and over and over again?

No?


Come on, it can't just be me.

You diamond!  Sounds just the ticket, Dandontdare.  I'd forgotten that TPS thing.  Thanks.  Oh, and best of swift luck with sorting your own handset hardships.  I know a little of how the "Listen, please, for the last time: I've never wanted a loan, that's why I've never taken one or should be claiming PPI, so now it's loud swearing time, right in that poncy little headset of yours!" routine plays out.  Stupid me, I guess the TPS for this new line just hadn't occurred.  Must be the lack of sleep.  (Well, that's my excuse...)

Just got myself feeling really settled in the new WhitCave, got everything either how I like it or how I can put up with it until I can be bothered to change it, say, after the Olympics... yes, the next Olympics, knowing me... even finally treated myself to a very pleasing vintage ring-dial wall-hanging telephone with the most beautiful old black GPO sheen... the WhitPhone, if you will... private number, just for close friends and family, nobody else, certainly not work, ever... oh, and Commissioner Gordon when I become a billionaire vigilante... and now the damn thing's going off every sodding night at times like 2.30, 4.30, 5.45 thanks to a series of different-each-night robo-numbers seemingly way up in bastard Leicester.  (Actually, I've got nothing against Leicester per se; great bookshop, genial tramps as I recall, but been some years and they might be closed and dead.)
I 1471 the buggers and all I get is some ringing and beeping.  Wrong numbers I can handle.  Prank callers can at least be immediately called inventively vicious names.  This isn't even cold calling crap.  This is something else.  Nobody I don't love had this number.  It's a faceless auto-telephonic night-siege and you wouldn't believe how irritable it's leaving me as a res... 

...shit...

Just realised... on top of realising it's left me more irritable than capable of the simplest waking thought...  I'm taking it off the hook when I go to bed and trusting the mobile for whatever the next legitimate emergency is.  And solution or not, that's irritating, too.  And so will the undoubtedly bureaucrapic process of finding some way of stopping all this.

[bleurgh!]

Adventurer, you just...  oh, I feel giddy.  I need to sit down for a...  Why is everything spinning like that?  It's like the world just got...  ooh...  pulled... inside...  bleurgh!

"I'm with Robert Capa Block, who you fighting with?"

(Yeah, both of them.)

Too right.  Dredd's release won't hurt Dandy's sales one bit.