Funch and Blowtwiddle

11. Funch is an Android

2009-04-19T19:24:00.004+01:00

Funch had been asleep for a long time.

But she was happy with herself,
she knew something no one else did,
and she was proud.

She couldn't see very much, but that was normal.
She was short, she could rarely see over the counter at the sweet shop.
But this was different.

Something had changed.
and it was something that only Funch could detect.
A magical sensor in her head.

There was a rustling sound beside her,
and something that felt like a large otter.
Funch had spent very little time with otters,
but she knew a poem about them.

"Getting off with the Doctor?
You rotter, you otter!
Ray Liotta, he's an otter.
Or rather he's not a,
He's not an otter.

Sorry."

But it wasn't actually an otter, Funch could tell.
In fact, she never seriously believed it was.
But the otter poem was so good.

Sometimes you've just got to close your eyes and pretend.
Pretend that something is not what it is.
Pretend that the world just falls into natural rhyme.

Funch could do that.
She was a robot.

It was like she had her very own LDR embedded in her head.
She could tell when it was light, and when it was dark.

And right now it was dark.

10. Blowtwiddle is a reluctant hero

2008-08-24T01:24:00.004+01:00

That day Blowtwiddle cried.

He knew he had done something good.
He knew he had done something worthy.
He knew he had saved a little girl's life.

But he didn't know how to accept the accolade.

The news vans were camped outside the swimming pool,
but no one knew who the strange hero was.

Blowtwiddle had done a noble thing,
a brave thing,
but he hadn't stuck around.

Funch was alone,
Funch was orphaned,
Funch was deformed.

"The nobler the man, the larger his handspan" said a popular rhyme.

But Blowtwiddle's hands were tiny, and he definitely didn't feel noble.

"most ignoble people have relatively big hands" went another rhyme

It made Blowtwiddle feel better.

He was still young,
he facial hair was soft and smooth.

His freshly shaved face felt like velvet, not like sandpaper.
Young women stared enchanted by his beautiful chin.
Old children felt physically sick at the thought.

Funch felt sick.
Funch was sick.
Funch was sick on TV.
Funch was sick on TV while being interviewed about her parents' death.

"How did you feel watching your parents being eaten?"

Funch didn't respond, she was just sick.
The lens of the video camera covered in regurgitated chocolate chips.

That was all Funch would eat for a long time.
Chocolate biscuits and lemonade.
Lemonade biscuits and chocolate.

That was it!

9. Shark is a capable swimmer

2008-07-23T01:25:00.002+01:00

Shark was an orphan.

He didn't used to be.
There was definitely a time when he had both a mother and a father.
But that was at least a week ago.
Things had changed.
Fish had died.

Now he found himself trapped in a box.
A box or a tank.
One of the two.
What's the difference.
Wherever he was it was dark and wet.

Blowtwiddle giggled to himself as he took off his pants.

The changing rooms at the Pingu Pool were unisex.
A spattering of individual changing pods.

He was excited.
At any point some hot young woman could peer over the top of his pod and see him naked.

He pulled his Union Jack swimming shorts over his flabby thighs.

"You're too rotund.
You should wear a cummerbund"

said the man at the swimming short shop.

But Blowtwiddle chose not to.

At the end of the day, when you're going swimming, you don't need to be dressed for dinner.
It's just unnecessary.

Blowtwiddle was in his prime.
He was 18.
He'd just finished school.
And now he was going to swim 400m.
The fastest he ever had.

This was his last chance.
He'd seen enough TV shows to know that it was all downhill from here.

"10 minutes, 17 seconds. That's the time to beat!"

Was it possible? Had anyone ever swum faster than that?

I doubt it.
Blowtwiddle had shaved for the occasion.

"stubble = abrasion = water resistance = half a second off = DON'T DO IT!"

Once he was in the pool, he felt good.
He felt as one with the water.
A big fat lump of man splashing in a big fat pool of water.
Wearing the Union Jack while he did.

In the paddling pool, toddlers were paddling.
Wearing her orange armbands Funch looked happy.
Mummy and Daddy kept her afloat.
Mummy and Daddy kept her by the poolside.

She owed Mummy and Daddy so much.
Her bones were extra dense.
Even with the armbands she'd still sink if it wasn't for Mummy and Daddy.

Shark now knew where he was.
It wasn't a box, that was for sure.
He'd found a hole in roof, and looking out he could see legs.
Juicy, bloody legs splashing about.

He saw Funch.
Her legs were hardly meaty.

How he'd got there, he didn't know.
Probably just kids messing about.
But he was there now, he had to make the most of it.
He was hungry.

Blowtwiddle was well on his way toward the record.
Maintaining a strict 40 seconds per lap, he was going to push the last two, and beat it no problem.

Today the pool was at 1.4m deep.
Sometimes it was less, sometimes it was more.
Sometimes the paddling pool would magically transform into a diving pool.

Blowtwiddle wondered what happened to the excess water when the floor was raised.
Shark had found out.

Although he was just a baby he was strong.
A quick charge at the floor of the pool and he was through.

He'd bitten off Mr Billy's Willy.
He'd eaten up Mrs Gumm's Bum.

Blowtwiddle had hardly noticed the commotion on the poolside.
He was two laps away. 60 seconds to go.
He could do it.
He was engrossed.
He was focused.

Funch was less bothered about the swimming aspect.
She was more bothered about staying alive.

She turned to run out of the pool, cycling her legs as fast as she could.
Normally Mummy or Daddy would push her along as she did this. But not today.
Today she didn't move at all.

Mummy and Daddy weren't with her.
Mummy and Daddy stood still.
Mummy and Daddy watched as Shark turned to face them.

Funch turned to him too.

Shark wasn't a bad person.
He wasn't a person.
But he had just lost his own mummy and daddy.
He was angry.
He was vengeful.
He was hungry.

Mr Billy's willy was hardly nutrient rich.
Mrs Gumm's bum was nothing but flab.
But Mr and Mrs McLunch they were real food.
Buff, toned, educated meat they were.

It was hard to believe the little red-haired creature with them was their offspring.
They hardly believed it either.

Shark took pity on Funch.
She was hardly worth eating.
He looked into her eyes.

"Can I really eat this poor sweet little girl's parents? Can I really take away everything she had in this world? Can I really be this selfish?"

he asked himself.

Funch knew the answer.

Shark was an orphan.
He wasn't being selfish.
If such a marvellous creature had become an orphan, how could a lowly, deformed, ginger girl from England justify her own intact parentage?

She had to consent.
She had to join the club.

She just had joined the club.

It was a potent experience watching Mummy being bitten.
It was just as potent an experience watching Daddy being chewed apart.

"Out of the most traumatic experiences, the most beautiful relationships can blossom"

said some crap magazine.

But Funch believed it.
Funch had found this experience.
She'd found the catalyst to launch the relationship she'd waited her whole life for.

Shark and Funch embraced.
Funch let out a little yelp.
Funch would never forget this bond.

Blowtwiddle would never reach his target.

The yelp awoke him from his trance.
The yelp stopped him from finishing the distance.
Blowtwiddle was annoyed, but he soon realised he could use this to his advantage.

He could be the hero.
He could hunt the shark.
He could find the shark and kill it.
He could kill the shark just before its next victim, a little baby girl.

Funch and Shark peered into each others' eyes.
Funch's eyes were green.
Shark's eyes were black.
They loved the tenderness.
They loved each other.

They would be together forever.
They'd move in together.
They'd star in their own real-life version of Happy Days.
They'd be the perfect comedic married couple.
Like Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee.

But something was wrong.
Shark's eyes began to fade.
Funch could feel his cuddle subside.
She knew what had happened.

Her friend.
Her lover.
Her Shark.

He was dead.

Funch and Blowtwiddle would meet again.

8. Funch is a steroid ab-user

2008-07-07T23:22:00.007+01:00

Funch liked steroids.
On an average day a quick peek in her handbag and you'd be lucky to find anything else.
She'd been taking them since she was a baby.

Nappy envy isn't the most natural of things, but Funch was particularly good at it.
Walking and crawling around on all fours wearing nothing but pampers left her stomach exposed, and she felt very much lacking.

The only excercise she got was biting her nails and going to the toilet, and it showed.
Her stomach was poorly toned, her bum was big and flabby.
Her thighs wobbled, and her knee caps sagged.
It wasn't good enough.

Dancers didn't have saggy tummies.

Maggie Moo, Dancy-Pants Champion of September 2000, caused a sensation by being the first hip-hop dancer to take the overall trophy. She had a perfect six-pack, and underarm hair to die for.
When she danced babies took notice, and Funch was a baby.

Soon enough Argos were selling hypodermic syringes by the bucket load.

For a long time some of the other babies had been working out, doing sit-ups and bench-pressing. Funch didn't have the energy for it. But she wanted her nappy to stay up. She wanted a flat stomach.
Funch was determined to get her hands on a pack.

The only obstacle that remained was her parents.
But, luckily for Funch, they were both dead.

Soon enough, though, luck turned to horror when her doctor said;

"Without parental permission I can't prescribe you anabolic drugs,
not even Argos can do that!"

This was how she met Blowtwiddle!

7. Funch is a litter bug

2008-06-29T21:34:00.000+01:00

"So who would like to audition for the BillyMo part?" asked Mrs Egg.

But no one put their hand up.
This was the fourth time she'd asked for someone to step up from the audience, but each time no one had responded.

Funch sat at the back with her portable stool tucked under her bum.

Mrs Egg was distraught. She'd spent the past week preparing the audition scripts, and now it would never see the light of day. Worse than that, think of all the wasted paper.

"Here comes the Litter Bug,
coming to take you away in his mug.
His mug of tea, it tastes of wee.
So recycle or dispose of things carefully"

went the TV ad.

Funch was holding a mug.
She was very happy to be able to do so.
The steroid treatment was going well, soon enough she'd be picking up cars and throwing them around the place.

She felt bigger.
She felt stronger.
Looking at herself in the mirror she could see the results.
Her knees and nose had grown substantially, and this was only just the beginning.

The doctor had said it'd have a gradual effect.

"You'll get there bit by bit."

So it all made sense.
Probably next week she'd grow massive biceps,
and the week after her calves would double in size.
In just a few weeks she would have grown into the perfect little girl.

But Funch couldn't wait for that.
The auditions couldn't wait for that.
This was showbiz, and showbiz didn't wait for deformities to be fixed.

She had to act now, or else it would not be her playing BillyMo.

"Miss. Miss. I want to audition!" squeaked our little Funch.

But no one could hear her shrill cry.

"Miss, Miss. I want to be BillyMo!" she shouted once more.

But she could still not be heard.

On the stage Mrs Egg was in tears. In tears and tearing up her pile of scripts. The tears and the tears mixing together, perfect for tomorrow's papier-mache class.

Funch tried to get off her little stool, but it was very difficult.
In order to see the stage she had to be raised up so high that it was dangerous for her to jump down. But she could do it. She fell to the floor with a thud, landing in a pool of sticky stuff that someone had conveniently left beneath her seat.

With sticky stuff stuck in her hair and splashed on her clothes she ran to the stage as fast as her little legs could carry her.
She was in such a rush that'd she'd forgot to leave her mug behind.
She ran up the steps and stood next to her crying teacher.

"Let it be me miss, let me be BillyMo" she said.

But still she was not heard.
Mrs Egg was so distraught she just kept throwing scraps of paper over her head, straight onto Funch.

Sticky stuff, paper, tears.
It's not a good combination if you don't want to end up looking like a oddly shaped ball of unrecycled waste paper.

But it worked out in Funch's favour.

"Please Miss, turn round. Stop throwing stuff at me, and let me be BillyMo!"

Mrs Egg turned around.
The Litter Bug had caught her in the act.

And because of this Funch was going to be BillyMo!

6. Funch wants to be BillyMo

2008-06-22T23:33:00.001+01:00

Mrs Egg had been promising her pupils that she'd put on a play for at least a year.
It was something she'd been saying to her friends ever since she left theatre school, but it had never happened.

"Yeah, I know it's crap being a teacher, too much work to mark, blah blah blah!
But I'll have plenty of time to do the stuff I love.
I can probably even put on a play at the school.
Even better than working in the theatre, I'll get a proper wage for it!"

But they all knew it was a well-meaning lie. No one had ever got round to spend any time doing any of the things they love, ever. Once you gave up being a student, it was crap work every day from then until 60. That was it?

But Mrs Egg was different.
She was a determined young woman.
And, besides all that, she was going to get overtime for all the rehearsals she ran.

It took just a few nights reading around to work out what play to put on, and a few more hours to work out a schedule for the auditions.

This was going to be big;

"I'm going to bring Groundhog Day to the stage" she announced to the class.

She was going for a bit of the "crazy" factor, it's true. But what better work of storytelling exists than that phenomenal 90s partnership of BillyMo and HaroldRamis?

"BillyMo may be a ho, but Groundhog Day is not gay." went a popular playground rhyme of the time

Funch sat cross-legged on the carpet. She was wearing a yellow dress covered in pictures of an adorably pink little pig. She gazed enchantedly at Mrs Egg.
She was sweating a bit,
but she knew that would pass.

She knew she had to be BillyMo!

5. Funch is a natural

2008-06-15T15:15:00.001+01:00

The rehearsal was well underway.

There were girls twirling, girls hurling.
There were girls spinning, girls being spun.
There were girls jumping, girls humping.
There were girls turning, girls gurning.

Pretty much everything you'd imagine from a dance studio (if you can imagine one), fitness and finesse, eating disorders and underage drinking.

Georgie Gutter-Guts was there, showing off as always.
There was something about her that made you feel sick.
She looked so happy.
She looked so healthy.

A big ugly lizard dressed up to look hot.
But too hot!
She had such a perfect abdomen.
So perfect that Blowtwiddle had to cover himself just thinking of it.

Funch was dressed for the occasion.
Standing at the edge of the dancefloor she looked "different" in her leotard.
Her knobbly knees and increasingly aged face left her a bit off-key compared to her youthful competitors, but she knew what she was doing.

"I don't care that I don't know the routine. It's frellin' easy! I can work it out as I go along."

Blowtwiddle was less sure.

But Funch was a natural.
It didn't matter that she knew none of the steps, she could just wing it.
She'd jump onto the floor, spin around, and everyone would be enraptured.

It had happened before!

4. Funch is powerful

2008-06-08T00:02:00.000+01:00

Funch was happy.
It was a very rare occasion when she found herself feeling tall.
This was such an occasion, and she was going to make the most of it.

She was fed up of being sidelined.
She was fed up of being pushed around.
She was fed up of feeling like some sort of sex object, to be looked at, but not worth taking the time to be understood.

She wanted to show the world what a star she could be.
She wanted to show the world she could dance!

And now she could.
She was tall.
She was capable.
She was virile.

That last one took her a bit by surprise.
She was well aware of the definition of "virility", but it felt right.
Why should men get all the powerful words?

"Let's take them back!" she thought.

This was her time, not anyone else's.
She was going to march upstairs, pick up her dancing shoes and go show Georgie Gutter-Guts that she was not "an ugly little troll" and was in fact the "dainty little princess" her dad had always told her she was.

Blowtwiddle was crouched down, fiddling with some screws he'd dropped on the floor.
Next to him lay the packaging from the brass doorknob.

Funch stood there, looking into the space above his back. She could see over him, she could see the new doorknob in place, she could see through the crack in the door, all the way up the stairs toward her bedroom.

"I feel powerful!" she said.

"What?" grunted Blowtwiddle.

But Funch would not be disuaded by his apathy.
Blowtwiddle was not the boss of her. He may cook her food, but he was not her boss.

Her mum had always said;

"Bosses don't cook you your food, darling. Only mum's do that."

So Blowtwiddle was her mum. Nothing wrong with that. But Funch was one MoFo not to mess with. She was going to walk out that door, and head up the stairs.
And that's exactly what she did.

The climb was hard, but Funch managed it, step-by-step.

A few times she felt she'd not succeed.
She fell to the floor, ending up with a mouth full of carpet.

Always, in the back of her mind, she could see Georgie's face Stendhal-ed by her performance.
That's how good she was going to be. That was her goal.

One moment Georgie would be there, the snide cow she was, and the next she was going to witness the most beautiful ginger balletic performance there had ever been. And just for a second, her heart would stop. And if we were lucky, it would never start again.

She put on her shoes. Tied them ever so tightly and collapsed onto her pink elephant bed, exhausted. She would not be doing any dancing today.

3. Blowtwiddle has a Knob

2008-05-31T23:12:00.000+01:00

The cashier at the DIY shop looked at the man in front of her.
The dimple in his chin. The stubble spiraling outwards somewhat hypnotising her.

"Love him. He is the beautiful man, the beautiful beautiful man."

called the trance in her head.
She smiled at the "beautiful beautiful man".
She believed it, he was beautiful.

"Give him his shopping for free."

it said again.

At this point the cashier didn't know what to do. "Beautiful = Freebies" made sense in her head. Most weekends she'd go out to the pub (the Manky Munky), and wouldn't spend a penny, nor buy any drinks. And the only reason this worked was because she was beautiful, and old men love to buy beautiful women drinks.

But she wasn't an old man, and he wasn't a beautiful young woman, and they weren't at the Manky Munky, and he wasn't flashing his breasts.
Something didn't add up.

She decided to scan the item, and let the cash register decide. It had never let her down before.

"Hello sir, that'll be fifteen pounds."

she said aloud, reading the value off the display, hoping it had said "0.00".
This was a disaster, the potential love of her life right in front of her, and he was having to fork out £15 on DIY goods. How could he love her after this?

"Cool"

grunted Blowtwiddle, admiring the tightness of the curls in the cashier's hair.
She looked Persian, classically beautiful, with a superbly proportioned nose that you could only wish she'd try to peck your eyes out with.

He reached into his pocket, his hand diving past bits of snotty tissue, and a strip of used dental floss. Resurfacing with his wallet, he reached forward, ready to pay the lady.

But it was too late.
The cashier, enamoured by his hypnotic stubble, gave him a sexy wink and handed him his goods in a bag.

Blowtwiddle walked out of the shop examining his new "purchase", a shiny brass doorknob.

"Why is that man so ugly?"

a kid asked her mum.

Back in the shop the cashier was crying, mascara dripping onto the screen of her phone, obscuring the photo she'd just taken.

2. Funch wants to dance

2008-05-24T21:47:00.000+01:00

From birth Stevey Snake knew he wanted to be a contortionist.

While he was still in his mother's tummy he spent a week practicing sucking his own toes.
The day he was born he perfected the splits.
Two weeks later he could hop on one leg, with the other wrapped around his neck.
By the time most children were taking their first steps, he was imitating a flight of stairs (very useful for his mum at the supermarket)

He was going to be the most famous contortionist ever.

"The Amazing Stevey Snake
can shape his body like a snowflake"

That's what the posters were going to say (even if it is a rubbish rhyme).
But they never did.

Why? Because Stevey Snake didn't have the guts to finish off the job.

But Funch was different.
She had talent
She had fortitude
She had ginger hair

"I want to be a dancer, Daddy!
I can feel it in my heart!"

she kept saying.

Of course, she couldn't dance, but that didn't matter.

1. Funch is a fiddler

2008-05-17T17:44:00.000+01:00

Sitting in the basement everything was a bit dull.
Funch sat there twiddling her thumbs.

Left thumb. Right thumb. Left thumb. Right thumb.
They were both still working.

It was only last week she'd sat in the bath - carefully drawn by Mummikins, not too hot, not too deep - with a pumice in her hand. Rubbing her thumbs raw wasn't the cleverest thing she'd ever done, but it did solve the immediate problem.

Body hair on a lady is not so often appreciated, and Funch knew this. At the age of 2, when she started to grow her first whiskers, she'd immediately tried to get rid of them. So it was a great joy for her that all that rubbing had paid off.

Her thumbs wiggled beneath their plasticated wrappers. Pink butterflies obscuring the clotted, hairy mess of her thumbs. And for the short few weeks it'd take to heal she could forget about hair and hair related problems. She was free from that ever-present reminder of her rather strange medical condition.