Tuesday, February 12, 2013

A Call To Adventure


Entry The First: 

In 2013, the year of our noble leader King George The Something Or Other, it has been decreed that I, Archibald Darlington, and my prestigious and intrepid partner, Barnaby Wolverhampton, shall embark on a strenuous yet equally imperative adventure in order to gain insights into the activities of foreign courts. Ignoring any likely and impending calamities that shall surely befall us during various stages of our taxing journey and tortuous trail, the day will soon come when we shall affectionately kiss our wives goodbye and smother our sons with tender love so that we may leave our abodes and explore new lands and uncover the secrets of the ne’er-before-seen French interior, which is said to be as dark as Iceland’s mid-winter skies, and populated by wretched, crestfallen beasts who wear pink pants and eat the various innards of diseased livestock. Our nobility will be tested and strained, as the possibility of finding refined refreshments such as wine and beer is improbable at best in such an abject and calamitous land, and our elevated English speech, which serves as a daily and national eulogy for our deceased royal members, will surely be met with confusion, consternation, and possibly even cruelty. Brace yourself, dear tongue of mine, for your mellifluous and clever creations will carry little power. Instead prepare to be remonstrated! May Queen Victoria’s soul bestow upon us eloquence in the face of disgrace.

Bringing supplies to sustain our physical vigor and mental acuteness will be as imperative as bringing blunderbusses for self-defense against man and monstrosity and penicillin for self-defense against pestilence and plague; and as such our survival is contingent on our clever packing and preparation skills, something that a proper man should take great pride in doing well. Much like our distant cousins, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis, we are indeed proud and honoured to commence this noblest of adventures that will enlighten our compatriots and change the future trajectory of man’s destiny. O Paris! Tormented soul! What secrets are hidden in your nefarious heart? What treasures are buried in your desiccated soil? What diseases linger in your women’s vaginal causeways? Albeit unnecessary to say, being an obvious truth that is self-evident and self-aware, let it be known here and now that we shall spearhead into those causeways and discover what may lie beneath. Whether we return wretched or wistful is for God to decide.

Deep in my bosom is a raging flame – dancing and prancing and casting its incandescent light around the cavernous interior of my core – which serves as a spark for the parched tinder of my inquisitiveness and excitement, those very ingredients necessary to drive a man to leave the comforting embrace of his patria for unknown and dangerous lands that stretch beyond his own boundary. What more could a man desire, I ask, than the fruitful offerings of the British Isles? Rain in perpetuity, morbid skies, melancholy eyes, tepid beers, equine and ochre teeth – anything that the body needs and soul desires can be found in our docile nation, England. But it is the call of the wild that intrigues me more. Cities of gold and savages and demons and monsters; these are the viruses that consume a man with the incurable disease known as Wanderlust. The human body has not developed antibodies with which to defend itself from such a pervasive disease, and once stricken, there is little hope for recovery, as has been noted by Dr. Charles Barrington of Jersey in the year of 1756.

In regards to my partner and friend Barnaby, he is neither feminine nor androgynous; he is instead the wholesome incarnation of everything representative of manliness and masculinity. No other man – ha! If you may call yourselves men! – would I want by my side more than Barnaby, especially in times of great distress. He is gentle and fair and benevolent, and I recall a terrible time when we, together like chirping nightingales aloft in a birch tree, were happily sailing the northern seas, on our way to plunder vaginal treasures from the assholes found in Norway, until we very suddenly found ourselves adrift in tempestuous and unforgiving storm – a storm that bore swells of terrifying and impossible heights and blew winds of horrific and unconscionable power. When all hope was lost, when our schooner was awash with Poseidon’s tears, when we were destitute and without cause to further struggle for our lives, Barnaby, the gentle angel that he is, was the one who had the courage and fortitude to grab my stiff, throbbing oar and steer us to a most pleasurable salvation. On Scotland’s despicable shores, we embraced like one would expect of the dearest of friends, and we wept in each other’s shoulders and thanked God – that raging son of a bitch – for sparing our youthful lives. And then we made due with the vaginal treasures of the Highland people, having been unable to arrive safely in Norway. We knew then, with conviction and elation, like alchemists who discovered the base elements necessary to forge gold from iron, that we had found the recipe for our everlasting companionship, merriment, and intimacy: adventure. I would recompense his bravery in the form of undying loyalty, incapable of being broken, whether by Arthur’s mighty broadsword or Beowulf’s thundering axe; God rest their souls.

And so it has chanced upon us: another adventure, one that will surely test our mettle and spirits and strength, and undoubtedly our friendship. Let us march headlong into the wild fangs of the world’s great yonder and return as men with improved fortitude and perspicacity. Onward, for King George and his cuntish Queen!

Signed with heartfelt sincerity and undying enthusiasm,

Archibald  Darlington, Duke of Windsor

Archibald and Barnaby

Dear Gentle Sirs and Ladies,

This is the travel journal of Archibald Darlington and Barnaby Wolverhampton (mock their names at your own peril), two gentlemen of renown repute. All entries shall be read - either internally or aloud - in a proper English accent. This is a standard for all British citizens, be you Scottish, Welsh, or an Irishman of the north. If you're an Irishman of the south, you may henceforth piss off. Failure to read any and all entries in a proper English accent will result in a swift and severe condemnation by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, or whichever pompous cunt is sitting at our throne's peek, and all of your land ownership, political rights, tawny port, slave persons, ascots, and English citizenship shall be revoked or repossessed, effective immediately. You will then be cast off to Wales as a national embarrassment, where you will rot for the rest of your days amongst sloven Welsh women, insufferable accents, nuclear power plants, and poorly prepared fish and chips. An ignoble demise, to be sure.

If you are American or Australian or South African or a Kiwi (whatever the fuck-all that is supposed to mean) or Canadian or, worse yet, French Canadian, you are also required to absorb this text into the crevices of your mind whilst reading - either internally or aloud - in a proper English accent. If you cannot emulate an English accent, I am not surprised; your Philistine behavior, starting with your speech,  is shameful, to say the least. Nonetheless, you will be required to try, even if you stumble into that perplexing Mid-Atlantic accent made famous by your ridiculous American films from the 1940s. If you're American, provide yourself with a dictionary. You shall need it, and I have little doubt that it will become a necessary tool to utilize as often you must, which I'm sure is frequently. It does not need to be said that your intellect is equivalent to that of a Slovenian donkey; but, as an Englishman with a naturally caustic and Machiavellian disposition, I was obligated to say it anyway, despite noting that it was unnecessary to say it.

This journal shall be told in oscillating first-person accounts between Archibald and Barnaby. There will be, on occasion, as our heroes deem fit, guest contributors in the form of travelers from around the world. The purpose of this adventure is to discover truths, enlighten the ignorant, and elucidate enigmas. Much like Darwin examined lizards and snakes and fish on the Isles of Galapogos, Archibald and Barnaby will surely treat non-English members of our world in the same manner: like vermin and pests to be dissected and watched, with equal parts curiosity and disgust. Your knowledge shall indirectly profit from their painstaking efforts to expand their own minds

God speed,

Your narrator