Across Difficult Country

Sexy Bernie Sanders. The girl with the long dreads . Person wearing invisible hat. Loose military blimp. Felonious tortoise . Menger sponge. Actor-explorer Albert de Winton . Tiddy Mun. Sexy Border Fence. Sexy Sandsend Blob .

Varanus bitatawa Giant lizards were discovered living in the "heavily populated and highly deforested" Philippines island of Luzon. The shy reptiles, a new species, are vegetarians and didongular. Scientists say the six and a half foot long lizards escaped detection by spending “all their time high up in trees”. Obviously scientists are so lazy hiding from them is easy, something to remember the next time a scientist denies the existence of the Sandsend Blob . I recently discovered one of my entries quoted in a book .

Scientists have discovered a way to increase muscle mass and strength in monkeys . “Remember when you made fun of us in high school?” said one researcher, “Well who’s laughing now?” Dr. J. Allan Hobson, A sleep researcher at at Harvard, thinks “ Dreaming is a parallel state of consciousness that is continually running but normally suppressed during waking .” What if, at certain times, the suppression is disrupted? The parallel dream state leaking into waking consciousness might be behind many accounts of Yetis, UFO’s, aliens , bull-beggars, spirits, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes , sylens, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, nymphes, Incubus, Robin good fellow, the spoom , the man in the oke, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe, Tom tumbler boneless, and other nonsense. One thing it does not explain is the Sandsend Blob , because it was seen by a person and a dog . STANISLAV SZUKALSKI. Deluge . “Among [ Szukalski’s ] most strongly held (and e...

Larison’s blog has absorbed the American Conservative . Breathing in the dust of dried cow shits prevents lung cancer . Did the Sandsend Blob attack a Chatsworth, California woman in 1971 ?

Since its unnerving appearance in November of 2006 there have been no further reports of the mysterious Sandsend blob , but I have learned of an earlier blob visitation at the scene of a world famous car crash : "In the recent Channel 4 documentary The Witnesses in the Tunnel, she [Princess Diana] disappeared behind a grey blob, which obscured the body the doctors were trying to resuscitate." We know from subsequent events the Sandsend blob was a harbinger of doom for Whitby. The presence of a blob at a gruesome accident suggests the blobs might be both an ill omen and a cause of terrible events, perhaps even feeding off human suffering in some manner. Elsewhere: The $1,000,000 Remote Viewing Challenge .

First the appearance of the Sandsend blob , followed by a plague of rampaging rats , and prancing Goths . Next the arrival of a huge, inexplicable vulture , coinciding with an outbreak of religious icons being desecrated and children running amok as if possessed, then animals were being brutally killed by an unknown assailant. Now a mysterious black panther known as the Beast of the Bay has returned and is prowling again in and around the town of Whitby. O flabby and sad men of Whitby, what terrible secrets, what crimes, what dark rituals must you be hiding for Whitby to be so damned?

Initial hopes the discovery of a “reclusive” sea creature resembling a "translucent doughnut" would lead to a revolution in snacking (imagine something like a fresh lobster tank, only filled with living donuts) were dashed after scientists determined the animal, Diazona angulata , was filled with deadly toxins. Speaking of creatures, I frequently scan the pages of Whitby Today hoping to find there’s been another sighting of the mysterious Sandsend Blob . None has been reported, though the appearance of a different kind of animal recently drew quite a crowd to Whitby Harbour - a seal pup , which looked to be trapped on the rocks "next to the bandstand". It turns out the juvenile pinniped was only resting, and after being annoyed by the local authorities scampered down the beach to the water’s edge, then "headed out to sea after its short stay in the town maybe to return one day soon in the future." Maybe someday the Blob will return, too.

From Jamaica comes word of a strange beast on the loose. Scott Town banana farmer Maas Helton describes his terrifying encounter : "It was around 3 o'clock inna di morning. Mi decide fi get up early and go inna mi field. Mi and mi dog go round a di back and mi only see when the dog walk off. So mi stand up one side fi see where him a go. Den mi hear one digging noise and mi look and see something a dig up di banana tree. Mi frighten now and bend down behind one bush and a watch. Mi see di dog walk up to di creature and den mi just hear whoo, whoo! When mi hear dat mi gallop weh left all di dog! Dem bwoy out a road say mi too fraid, but mi nuh care!" Helton is convinced the creature hypnotized his dogs: “Mi have four big dog and none a dem ever make noise when di creature come around. Is like him hypnotise dem wid him eye dem." Many in Scott Town believe the creature is of supernatural origin, even a demon of some sort. A few think it’s an out of place kangaroo. Othe...

We have entered a new era of insecurity. I’m referring, of course, to the menace posed by brick throwing monkeys: “ New Delhi, October 8 A 30-year-old woman who had come to AIIMS to see her nephew a dengue patient in the hospital, died after a monkey threw a brick at her inside the hospital complex ” The North Korean nuclear test is unsettling as well, but imagine a future (or don’t imagine, if you’re the nervous type) where brick throwing monkeys have managed to spread out from India to infest hospital complexes throughout the globe. Not all today’s news is bad, as there have been no new reports of the Sandsend blob bothering people.

Le Quizzo is back. Le Quizzo is from the swamps and it’s contagious. Try not to catch Le Quizzo. Bird friend: Woodpecker Bird enemy: Crow Drum solo that changed your life: Echo , track 2 from Tony Williams' Spring . This 5 minute drum solo did more than change my life, it changed me on a sub-atomic level. And I have the scans to prove it. Blob that changed your life: Sandsend Blob Book that made you cry: Totally Unauthorized Secrets to Donkey Kong Country 2 Book that made you keen, caterwaul, and bewail: Roget’s Thesaurus How do you like your Ines? Smoking and nipply Paper of record: Daily Racing Form Desert island donut: Glazed Aren’t you sorry/glad you met Le Quizzo? Don’t pass it on.

A creature eyewitnesses describe as a 4ft tall black blob resembling a bean bag chair has been frightening the innocent people of Sandsend: "The dog spotted it and went racing up to see it off so it was obvious by her natural chasing instinct that this was some wild animal. "As she approached it the odd thing was that there was no scuffle or running involved. The black thing seemed to glide sidewards very gracefully and quietly like a ghost into the grass. "The dog then ran up through the hedge and she gave a yelp." I suspect the “creature” was actually one of those morbidly obese pre-teens  so ubiquitous these days, but I will continue to keep an eye on this story as there’s a remote possibility it might lead to some sort of cryptozoological breakthrough. In other news, Indonesian Islamofascists have opened a new front in the ongoing Jihad by launching a series of attacks against a banyan tree . Apparently the 100 year old tree possesses mystical powers, som...