The DANDY - An INQUEST...

Image copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

Every parent thinks their offspring are cherubic little darlings; gifted, talented, infant prodigies from whose @rse cheeks emanate the golden, illuminating, life-enhancing rays of the sun.  All mothers and fathers look upon each and every uttered syllable of incoherent babbling as some soul-enriching words of wisdom and enlightenment from the mouths of babes.  "Aren't they cute?", "Aren't they adorable?", "Aren't they funny?", "Aren't they marvellous?", scream mater and pater in ecstacies of delight - quite oblivious to the fact that everyone else recognizes these howling, screeching, wailing banshees of devastation and destruction for the fractious, obnoxious little brats that they are.

Which brings me neatly to The DANDY.  Let's face the truth that is obvious to most people not actively involved in siring the 2010 stillborn incarnation of the once-gloriously entertaining weekly comic from the stable of D.C. THOMSON - which is simply this: with a few honourable exceptions, most of the content was utter crap.  Inadequately written, inadequately drawn, inadequately lettered crap, created by those whose talent was far outstripped by their enthusiasm, and who still desperately required a few more years honing and polishing their craft on some self-published fanzines for the less-discriminating tastes of their friends and families.

I am amazed by the self-congratulatory nonsense currently being bandied about on the blogs of some of those who were responsible for the murder (for such it is - the fact that it was already in poor health should not blind us to the truth) of a once-great national institution.  The Dandy was poisoned from within, by a small group of well-meaning but clumsy, inexperienced novices with no grasp of the treatment required by the ailing patient, but who nevertheless persevered with any and all last-gasp, desperate, untried and untested theories whose only effect was to hasten the dying 'septuagenarian' to its doom.

"It wasn't our fault," they claim.  "We tried."  "We did our best."  "We should all be hailed as heroes for our attempt, which was brave, bold and glorious."  The fact that placing your hands around the throat of a gasping patient and squeezing even harder is hardly likely to produce positive results, never mind being anything to be congratulated for, seems to elude their comprehension.  But they're 'parents', you see.  They regard each and every 'infant' which sprang from the depths of their would-be 'creative' loins in not quite the same way as those of us anchored in a more objective and impartial reality.

'Tis they who killed the patient.  And while they may have to go without the financial benefits that the deceased's survival would've ensured, 'tis the rest of us who must mourn the loss of a childhood friend.

It was Clint Eastwood who said "A man's gotta know his limitations."  That was the problem here.  Not only did those involved not know their limitations, but in their vanity and their ignorance, it never even occurred to them that they might have any.  It still hasn't - despite the evidence (the corpse) clearly, blindly, staring them in the face.

God save us all from well-meaning quacks when qualified specialists are obviously and urgently required. 

A TRUE ACCOUNT Of TIME TRAVEL...

When I, as an adult (allegedly) almost in my thirties, set foot over the threshold of one of my childhood homes for the first time since moving out 16 years before, the first thing that struck me was how much at home I still felt.  It was almost as if I'd just popped out to the shops across the road about ten minutes earlier and then come straight back again.

Perhaps this was in part due to how much of the 'familiar' yet remained.  The same paper on the living-room ceiling that we'd had put up; the same lowered hall ceiling that my father had fitted; the same bathroom tiles that we'd been responsible for; the same kitchen tiles (now painted) above the sink.  Some things had changed of course.  For a start, the sink was now stainless steel, and, in the living-room, the old-fashioned tiled fireplace and mantlepiece, like something out of The BROONS, had been replaced (or covered) by a relatively more modern-looking one - but the overwhelming 'sense' of the place as I had known it still hung heavy in the air.  Truly, it really was as if I'd gone back in time and the intervening years seemed almost like a dream.

Even the back garden was untouched - the same wood and wire fence, the same gate, the same rockery at the foot of the lawn - all just as it had always been.  To once again touch (and hear the sound of) the latch on the gate as I'd regularly done as a child on my way to school in the mornings was almost a spiritual experience for me.  The sensation of reconnecting with one's past in such a tangible way that it seems like the present is not an easy one to convey, but that's the only way I can describe it.  I had stepped back into the past, with the events of what had come after almost wiped from my memory as if they had simply never happened.

That feeling couldn't be sustained of course.  For the simple reason that, in the space of a month or so, the field across from the back of the house was dug up in preparation for amenity houses for the elderly being built.  Two years later, the old garden fence and gate had been 'sent off' and brash, young 'substitutes' had taken their place.  Another two years after that, the church across from the front of the house had been demolished and replaced by a new one.  At around the same time, the house's original windows and front door were removed and PVC ones installed.  Over the last 20 years, other changes have transpired; new street lamps, new pavement surfaces, new school built, and various other alterations - all of them resented by me.  Alas, time and tide wait for no man, as the old saying goes.

However, for a period of almost two decades, the old house and neighbourhood had stayed pretty much the same, allowing me the indulgence of believing, for however (relatively) brief a period, that time had stood still.  I'm glad I reconnected with that aspect of my past in its last dying moments, before it was too late and everything changed forever.  I suppose such experiences can never be anything other than bittersweet, in that they tease you with the glory of what once was - but, alas, cannot always be.

Other than in the mystic band of memory.