Veni, vidi, vici, little twerps of the bottom persuasion! I know this is somewhat of a martial greeting, but marauding Mars it is that sets the tone for jittery January. Thus, will you be set for a jolly battle or two as you step up to defend the honour of your merkin. You will recall from last time you were rich and successful beyond your wildest dreams, due to your efforts in reviving that quintessential fashion accessory, the merkin. This task you had taken on because of a roadside encounter with a mysterious spiritual being that you have not seen since. No doubt a reckoning will come in due course.
In the meantime, despite the esteem in which you are held by your idiot friends, toadies and sycophants, the forces of darkness have yet again raised themselves against you. Even now, gangs of ruffians, sons of the artillery-men of long ago, prowl the streets, assaulting they who wear a merkin proudly. The caitiffs then insert, with vile roughness, the helpless merkin wearer into the gaping maw of a cannon-like tube, in honour of their ancient forefathers. Also do they hang merkin stylists from each lamppost in the streets of every town. I can almost hear the merry din from here!
All of this occurs as you are deep in converse with the iconic film director, Ingmar Iceberg. This enigmatic creature, for reasons known only to a mind matured (if such the process can be called) in the wild isolation of snow and lost horizons in the backwoods of Sweden, wishes to make a film involving you and a surfeit of merkins. 'Wither?' you cry. Sit back, my bottom types! Upon your bottoms! Arrange your merkins stylishly. And thus will the vile and bitter prognostications reveal all.
Mischievous Mercury and vamping Venus join with underworld Pluto and a ruckus arises in the streets. These two then shift their nuisance value to Capricorn as a New Moon comes in that miserable sign. Thus do you run home and hide under your bed, snivelling in fear as you pretend to make a plan of action to counter this grievous assault on the very grail of your spiritual mission. The great Sol Invicti clashes with lugubrious Saturn and associates urge you to come out and do something as your 'merkin empire' totters on the verge of collapse. You resist their imprecations, ignore their curses and take hold of the valance in a grip of steel as they try to drag you out.
Cranky Chiron then joins the great Sol Invicti in a wrestling match with the Lunar Nodes and all who once loved you (or so they said) now desert you in your hour of need. By all the gods alive and dead, is this the end for you, tiny nitwits? In any other place perhaps, but in a benighted universe ruled by insane gods, sadly, no!
The light of the great Sol Invicti now blazes in the idiot sign of Aquarius and courage returns to your fainting spirit. Marauding Mars cavorts in unseemly fashion with jolly Jupiter. You don your merkin proudly then surge into the street to face the foe. No retreat! No surrender! No quarter to the enemies of style! With these battle cries do you rouse brainless friends and the equally cretinous mass of your adoring public!
Come the Full Moon in loathsome Leo, from boulevard to city square, each town is alive with rival gangs of toughs, merkin-wearers, proud and strong who look the sons of artillery-men squarely in the eye with the dark and fierce menace of their challenge. And there are you, little bottom persons, with your Swedish film director at your side, capturing each and every golden moment on a tiny digital camera.
By my little brown bottle! This could be the greatest triumph in the entire history of the world, immortalized on film and you will be the star of it! Have you at last snatched victory from the jaws of defeat? Or will there still be time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the manner we have all come to expect, given your history of grand and tragic failure? Click here next month and see!