“Did you wee in a jug last night, Dad?”
“Er, no – I forgot.”
“Mum’s gonna be cross with you! You better remember!” [adopts faux hypnotist voice] “Weeeeee iiiiiiin a juuuuuuug! Yooooooo wiiill remeeeeeeeember! Weeeeeeee iiiiiiin a jug!”
“Isn’t it time you brushed your teeth?”
It’s the foxes, see. They are bold as brass round our way. One night I was coming home late from a meeting, Killing Joke’s “Bloodsport” blaring out of my discman, when this huge behemouth, about waist height, just strolled past me. I half expected it to say “awright?” and give me a nod.
There was a TV programme about urban foxes where I live earlier this year. My neighbours (well not my neighbours, they lived over the other side of the area, in the posh bit) were suffering.
A posh lady had decided to keep chickens – “We’re trying to be GREEN! You understand? Trying to live with nature.” How more natural do you want to be? Human keeps chickens, fox kills chickens and eats them. It’s all part of the great cycle of life. “Nature” as Alan Watts once pointed out “is an eating competition”. She didn’t see it that way. To her it was an outrage that she would go to all the trouble of keeping chickens and then they might get snuffed out for someone else’s dinner.
[This photo is by my old friend Words, who runs a site called permuted.org which includes an amazing urban fox resource and gallery. I didn’t actually know that until I used google image search to find a nice photo for this entry. What a great find!]
Another couple featured in the programme took an insanely prurient interest in foxes fucking outside their house at night. I mean, yeah, it’s not a pleasant noise or anything (and can be a bit disorientating when they wake you up) but is there really a need to stay up and watch them at it – with night-vision goggles?
There was more huffing and puffing and outrage that animals might impinge on the peace and quiet of, uh, inner London. I swear I’m not making this next bit up. The bloke bought a gun to try and get rid of the foxes. Because if there is one thing Hackney needs more of, it’s sexually repressed blokes with guns, right? How safe would YOU feel with a neighbour like that, coming home late from the pub one night (Killing Joke on your headphones…)
So anyway, I digress. The foxes round our way have been digging up our plants. Apparently the solution to this is to surround said plants with the urine of a human male. I happen to be the only human male in our household, so the task falls to me.
At least that was my excuse last night when my neighbour bumped into me on the walkway whilst I was a carrying a warm jug of piss.
I saw two huge specimens of foxhood stood on a wall in early evening in the area recently, bold as brass they were, the ginger devils!
We hear them a lot at night too. N16 is infested! On the plus side, fox cubs are miiiiiiiiiighty cute.
I do fear for the saftey of our cat though. Lucklily the lazy oaf never bothers to stray outside. Anyway, cheers for the wee tip. Were you tempted to hurl it at your neighbour? I would have been, even if I liked them…
I’m glad I don’t live next to YOU in that case! er, no not tempted. After all they know where I live. Plus then my efforts would have been wasted.
You live near enough, John, near enough.
Waist high???? That’s not a fox, it’s a bloody dog
My waist is higher than yours 😉
Well yes, I’m not disputing that, but that makes it even sillier. What, was the fox standing on its hind legs? In high heels? On a skateboard? Are you sure you didn’t just pass by a bush or something? You should have gone to SpecSavers
Or was it standing on a wall? The local foxes love standing on walls…
Those bloody pigeons – I passed by one the size of a telephone pole the other day
It was surprisingly big, is my point 🙄
There appears to be a photograph of some kind of weird half-fox, half-house entity on this page, like some sort of centaur. Bloody terrifying!
Hey STN – that’s what we should call our Dogs D’Amour tribute band – Mortarfox
John – look, I know this world’s full of miraculous creatures, the colossal squid being one example, but I just don’t buy the ‘waist high’ fox. Knee high and I’d believe it, but waist high? You could have ridden it home. Are you sure you didn’t just bump into Dave Stelfox? (groan)
If you think this is being pedantic, wait til I start on the ‘red’ Killing Joke LP cover
I noticed that too, evidence of the mortarfox’s arcane power if you ask me.
I bloody love Dogs D’Amour, disgusting isn’t it?
I did see a fox with two heads once.
Well, seeing as we’ve indulged John’s demented fantasies about the magical kingdom of Stoke Newington, where giant foxes roam and the townsfolk pee on their doorsteps….tell us about the fox with two heads.
Oh I don’t know, let’s say it was strolling out of Morrison’s or something, whistling a little tune and wearing an alpine hat. Sorry, two alpine hats.
There’s a fox/badger run at the bottom of our garden, and one of the badgers smashed thru the fence from next door after our slightly thick neighbours blocked the run with garden rubble (they then complained when wild-life came up into their garden -duh!) Similar to you, I wee’d on the fence a couple times and the badger soon stopped digging up our garden and shitting in it….
bloodsport — great track. Their label has a number of dub mixes doing the rounds from circa 1978.
errr….the guitar riff that opens the tune, before the drum and bass rhythm takes over — is borrowed straight off an urrrm….ac/dc tune from the album “Powerage.” Some trivia there.
Hi Kek – yeah some good old country wisdom there, funny how easy people forget that stuff…
Greg – I have a half finished article on Killing Joke and dub sitting around somewhere – some their stuff is amazing and the story of the band is suitably bonkers also…
John, I love the first two KJ records, and the third has a few good tunes on it too, doesn’t it. Can’t say I like the rest of their records really. I went off them once Youth left.
Youth also started an early UK dub label, WAU MR MODO. Jah Warrior’s first release was on Youth’s label, and Bim Sherman and Mannaseh also released stuff via Youth’s label. I think KJ’s early records are amazing, and are on my HI FI non stop, all year round. Did you know that “Change” is a version of WAR’S “Me And Baby Brother?” Both are great tunes.
( A little more trivia here — Jaz is half Indian,I beleive Zoroastrian or Hindu, and Youth is South African. And did you spot the AC/DC riff???? )
John, here is an interesting Jaz Coleman link —
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RRxYLZ69X68
Yeah I think Youth is the key really – there are some later dubs which are actually pretty good, but this was a point where Youth had re-engaged with the band, so nuff said! Although his trance dub stuff isn’t all that, in my opinion.
////Although his trance dub stuff isn’t all that, in my opinion.///
Agreed — in fact, I haven’t liked much he has done since leaving KJ. His first band Brilliant, were rather bland IMHO, and though WAU MR MODO seemed to release truck loads of records ( they were always piling up in the 50p racks in Record and Tape in the late 80’s/early 90’s) I didn’t find many that impressive. I did enjoy the reggae releases on that label though, very much. Jah Warrior’s “Year 2000 Style” with Napthali ( released circa 1988/89 I think) was a monster of a record, and far ahead of its time. I left my copy in Hiroshima with a friend — never seen it since of course.The WAU release of Bim’s “Must be a Dream” had a nice vocal too, though a bit flat musically.
Yeah, it’s a shame that Wau stuff isn’t repressed, I’d like to hear the Sound Iration tunes they did. All goes for big bucks on ebay now (well, more than I want to pay anyway!) Greg – do you want to be sent a copy of Woofah #1? Send me your address if so!