Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Television, Volume I

Bewilder Bird Really Really Loves Format Television (He Really Really Does!)

Here is another thrilling extract from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird vs Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. In this section we learn a little bit more about the kind of television programme that a superhero like Bewilder Bird likes to watch when he is not trying to save the world from complete and utter destruction. If you want to find out more about superhero viewing habits and a whole lot more besides then why not follow the link here. Here. Here. Here. And here.

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Now in its twelfth season, the premise of Paint Tales is a simple one: a single tin of paint is followed from the factory where it is made to the place where it is used, via the shop where it is sold.
For enthusiasts of the programme, the joy of the journey is immense and somehow almost immeasurable. As a result, Paint Tales has now become a global, if somewhat esoteric, phenomenon. Discovering that the tin of paint you thought was going to be used as a humble undercoat turns out instead to be the final flourish of a ceiling in a converted bathroom can be close to life-changing for aficionados of the programme.
For anyone else, the premise of the programme is almost as disturbing as actually watching an episode and both the existence and continuance of Paint Tales has become a major topic of cultural debate. For some it is the ultimate guilty pleasure, for others it is the producers who should be feeling guilty.
Falcon Boy laughed quietly.
‘The season finale of Paint Tales was about a tin of red paint, Bewilder Bird’s favourite colour, and he had been looking forward to watching it all day. He had even left a note on the fridge to remind himself that it was on that evening.’
For future reference, interest, or indeed, warning, depending on what it is that you like to watch or not watch on television or any other screen, Paint Tales is from the same production company that created Concrete Superstar.
Many media experts believed that Concrete Superstar was going to be the next big thing in format television but the programme only ran for a single season. As a result, the five episodes that do exist have achieved cult status.
Each week, Concrete Superstar challenged three celebrities to lay the perfect concrete patio. Aided by experts, a whole range of stars of stage, screen (both big and small), music and anywhere else mixed, shovelled, poured, levelled, screed, bull-floated, hand-floated, rounded (if required), cut-in, and broomed their concrete in a race against both the clock and the other contestants.
The locations chosen were both indoor and outdoor and for the second season, it had been proposed that the programme go to different locations around the world so that factors like local building customs, union regulations and temperature extremes could be brought into play. Sadly, however, this was never to be.
Like many other people (but sadly, as it turns out, ultimately not enough other people), Bewilder Bird found Concrete Superstar really exciting because you could never really tell which one of the chosen celebrities would be the best at pouring concrete just by looking.
For example, who could have known that Dame Circular Rosetwine, opera singer and biscuit entrepreneur, would beat upper body muscle model and self-confessed DIY enthusiast Flint Roland in the first episode?
‘I thought I had it in the bag,’ said Flint afterwards, ‘until one of the production crew told me that I had poured the concrete upside down. It wasn’t until I had ripped everything out and started again that I realised they had been pulling my leg.’
In the second episode, renowned aristocratic bad-boy ventriloquist Sheridan Shaw and his foul-breathed puffer fish puppet, Puff the Puffer Fish, lost out to one-time pop sensation Dorothy Sister, lead singer of the reasonably-famous (and reasonably-named) Dorothy Sisters.
Puff the Puffer Fish refused to cooperate during the aggregate mixing phase and allowed Dorothy Sister to win by a technical default, even though she had managed to bury one of her high heels beneath a crazy-paving slab.

 

Remember: here. Here. Here. Here. And here.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Dr Don't Know, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Panic Town, Volume I

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Infamous Moon Rope

Here is the latest exciting installment from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. As you know, Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and is holding them hostage somewhere secret. In the absence of any real information the forces of law and order have gathered to speculate on Dr Don’t Know’s next step. As always happens in these situations, imaginations run wild and any available intelligence is usually anything but intelligent.

This is just a taster of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets and if your appetite has been whetted sufficiently then please feel free to download the full e-book.

You never know; you might even feel moved enough to want to review it. I’m just saying.

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Captain Lori Lorimer of the Panic Town Police Force briefed a panel of Panic Town’s finest notables including, most notably, Councillor Denver Footswerve, the current Mayor. As she nervously scrolled through the slides of her presentation, Captain Lorimer told the noted notables that she had her best minds working on the case.
‘I have my best people working on this one,’ she tried to reassure those gathered. ‘A crack unit, comprised of the finest minds mined from the department.’ She paused, hoping that the pause sounded reassuring.
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ Captain Lorimer continued, ‘that to my mind these minds are some of the finest minds that anyone has ever been minded to assemble.’
She changed the slide of her presentation and aimed her laser pointer at the screen.
‘Our early intelligence is very sketchy but from what we can gather it is only a matter of days before Dr Don’t Know is ready to launch his Moon Rope.’ Captain Lorimer paused again.
On the screen was an artist’s impression of what the mythical Moon Rope might look like. The audience saw two circles representing the Earth and the Moon with a line joining them. Captain Lorimer traced the line with her laser pointer.
‘From what my best minds can so far deduce, the Moon Rope will allow Dr Don’t Know to create an elaborate pulley system connecting the Earth to the Moon.’
‘Why would anyone do anything like this?’ asked Mayor Footswerve anxiously.
Captain Lorimer shuffled her notes nervously.
‘We are not sure why, your Honour,’ she told the Mayor, ‘but all our agents are telling us that their best intelligence is telling them that this is not going to be a good thing.’
Gasps echoed around the room as Captain Lorimer concluded her presentation by predicting that the Moon Rope would likely cause untold electrical disruption. It would also prevent anyone on the entire planet from ever knowing the right time ever again.
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t look good at the moment,’ she told her gasping audience. ‘This Moon Rope could well mean the end of the world for all of us.’
Mayor Denver Footswerve cleared his throat before he spoke. He thought this made him sound more mayoral.
‘I think I speak for all of us here when I say how pleased we are to have your best minds working on our behalf, Captain Lorimer.’ The Mayor paused and I am beginning to wonder whether pausing is as contagious a social habit as yawning.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am aware that we are all aware of just precarious the situation sounds but I can’t help wondering, from a Public Relations perspective, whether it will in any way be possible to temper bad news of this magnitude with some good news, no matter how small that good news might be?’
The Mayor looked at Captain Lorimer and she could see panic in his eyes. Being mayor was the only thing he had ever wanted and now it looked like someone was going to go and spoil it before he had the chance to enjoy it.
There was no good news.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Pearly Stockwell, The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests, The Interesting Twins, Volume II

Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be

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By way of further news on progress so far with The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests (Volume II of the Falcon Boy series) I thought I would give you an update on Pearly Stockwell.

As many of you will know Pearly Stockwell is a child detective who makes her debut appearance in Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets (Volume I). Together with the Interesting Twins, Pearly manages to solve every case she applies her big city ways to. If you want to catch up with her (e-book) adventures then please feel free to follow the link HERE (US) and HERE (UK).

In any case, as the following excerpt indicates, the world of Pearly Stockwell is as prone to whirls and eddies of public taste as any other contemporary publishing venture.

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The Brothers Revoltable Travelling Circus and Other Crazy Fun with Special Guests excerpt:

 

IT Publishing, the company behind the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series which begat the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series ceased trading a while ago and everything related to the series is now little more than the occasional question at a very dull public quiz for people who are very dull.

The final ever episode in the series, Pearly Stockwell Finally Realizes How Cruel the World of Contemporary Publishing Really Can Be opens with our eponymous heroine bemoaning the state of contemporary publishing, a subject which, and even despite her big city ways, Pearly had never shown any interest in up until this final episode.

‘Our time has come, boys,’ says Pearly to the Interesting Twins. ‘Even before our time has really come.’

Pearly plants her feet and stares defiantly into space reads the caption.

‘I should think that the people making these short-sighted decisions really don’t know us at all!’ she snorts. ‘In fact, what do they know about anything anyway?’

Wes is really angry.

‘I’m gonna grab them and box them and fight them until they beg me to stop,’ he exclaims forcefully. ‘And even when they do beg me to stop I ain’t gonna stop for nothing or no-one not never!’

Pearly smiles at her loyal friend.

‘You’ve been a loyal friend for all of these adventures,’ she says kindly, ‘and we are all really going to miss your overly aggressive, small-minded and yet sometimes effective ways.’

‘Say the word, Pearly,’ says little Windy with a big tear in his small eye. ‘Say the word and I will run for you like I always do.’

‘But where will you run?’ replies Pearly. ‘The people making these decisions have made it very plain that there is nowhere left for you to run to and no-one would be there even if you ever arrived.’

‘But there must be something we can do,’ says the eviction notice Pearly had thrown angrily onto the desk. ‘We can’t just let them shut us down.’

‘You are right, as always, my fine, wise Wanderley,’ says Pearly sadly, ‘but not even your alarmingly outrageous propensity for disguising yourself in the most unlikely but nevertheless convenient disguises is going to make any difference here.’

Pearly looks directly out the frame.

‘The only thing that can save us all is if someone decided to continue our adventures as a small, independent online venture, perhaps using a free online publishing platform.’

Pearly shakes her head ruefully.

‘But that will take an awful lot of effort to keep writing our adventures, publishing our adventures, promoting our adventures and trying to get people to read our adventures knowing full well that a thankless venture like this will only ever be a tiny digital drop in the vast and thankless virtual ocean.’

Again, Pearly looks straight out of the frame of the comic.

‘Does anyone know how hard it is nowadays to even get someone to visit your site let alone stay long enough to read something?’

THE END FOREVER MORE? reads the final caption.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, HeroVerse™, Volume I, World Savers Wanted™

World Savers Wanted™

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Here is the next in the series of brief excerpts from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. If you would like to read the full adventure then please follow the link.

World Savers Wanted™ can be found at http://www.worldsaverswanted.hero and is a listed company created by a twelve-year-old boy called Mulvey Cavell, who saw a gap in the market for matching superheroes looking for things to do with things that needed doing by superheroes.

Mulvey realised that for every superhero being summoned by an enormous searchlight whenever they were needed, there would be many other equally deserving superheroes that didn’t have such a high-profile and therefore probably needed a helping hand when it came to finding suitable things to do.

Mulvey also understood that not all superheroes wanted to try and save the world. Some were just happy doing things like opening supermarkets, posing for photographs or putting on action displays at garden fetes.

Working from his bedroom, Mulvey built the website and devised the marketing campaign. Things were slow to begin with but once the mass exodus from HeroVerse™ started, World Savers Wanted™ began to get very busy – so busy, in fact, that Mulvey Cavell became a multi-millionaire at thirteen and retired from public life.

World Savers Wanted™ works on the same principles as any other online agency. You complete an online questionnaire, upload a current image of yourself and pay an annual membership fee.

Once your application is processed, World Savers Wanted™ will seek to match your profile with the most appropriate tasks contained in its vast and ever-increasing database.

A similar principle applies if you have some work for a superhero to do. Once the registration process is complete, you are free to upload your superhero task request. Your task request is offered to the most appropriate superheroes and they then choose to accept the task or not.

Feedback is given on the completion of each task, whether successful or otherwise, and as you gain more and more positive feedback, so you become eligible to receive more and more difficult task requests. In this way the system always hopes to match the right hero to the right task.

World Savers Wanted™ allows you to define your choice of tasks by selecting from a drop-down menu. Falcon Boy had ambitiously registered himself and Bewilder Bird in the ‘Heroic Duo Seeking to Save the World’ section but as you can imagine, they hadn’t yet accumulated enough positive feedback to be eligible for that category. Not that Falcon Boy was in any way perturbed.

‘Ambition is one of the many things that I wish to be known for,’ said Falcon Boy ambitiously to his friend. ‘Without ambition, you have no real desire to do things,’ he concluded grandly.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Dr Don't Know, Falcon Boy, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets, Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero, Volume I

Is It Really Talent Time Again?

Here is the next in the series of brief excerpts from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets. If you would like to read more then please follow the link.

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The winner of this year’s Is It Really Talent Time Again? was decided by the toss of a rather large novelty coin and following three fumbles, two miscalls and a power cut, Little Bernie Tiger pipped The Tumbling Tortoise Trio to the award.

Derk and Joddy Pepper are the brains behind The Tumbling Tortoise Trio, an act which sees Derk repeatedly tumbling three large tortoises down a children’s garden slide to land in a gold-painted bucket while Joddy wears a glittery dress, points at the bucket and looks on admiringly.

If you log onto The Tumbling Tortoise Trio Official Homepage™, http://www.tumblingtortoisetrio.org, you will see that the husband and wife team describe themselves as ‘Small Animal Holders, Intricate Spectacle Deliverers and Light Entertainment Exceptionalists’.

Sadly, appearing on television didn’t boost the appeal of The Tumbling Tortoise Trio in any way at all, but if you are organizing a social event and the entertainment lets you down at the last minute then I’m sure The Tumbling Tortoise Trio would be available to fill in at the shortest of really short notices. And I mean short.

For Little Bernie on the other hand, his winning song, Everybody Look at Me, has catapulted him to the very edge of the celebrity troposphere. As the song begins:

Everybody Look at Me

I’m a Real Celebrity

I Know I’m only Eight but I’m really Great

So Everybody Look at Me

At lunchtime in every playground across the land, you can barely move for small children forming a line and clapping in time as they sing the chorus to Everybody Look at Me. It goes like this… (but you knew that already!!)

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

I’m Great, I’m Great, I’m Really, Really Great

I’m Eight, I’m Eight, I’m Really Only Eight

Then, if you have any energy left, you need to do a floor drop followed by a high five with yourself before launching into the now infamous Tiger Rap.

I said I’m only Eight but I’m really Great

You think I’m Crooked but I’m Really Straight

I Jump Up High and I Dance All Night

And Me and My Friends We Never Fight

We Go to Every Party and We Have a Great Time

But the Way You all Dance is a Proper Crime

You Need to Take a Good Look and Copy Me

Make my Shapes and I Will Set You Free

See Me Go, Just Watch Me Move

I’m the Easy Slider, I’m the Super-Groove

On Every Dance Floor Across the State

I’m a Real Celebrity and I’m only Eight

Everyone agrees that this isn’t the last we have seen of Little Bernie Tiger.

Barnaby Taylor Bewilder Bird, Falcon Boy, HeroVerse™, Universal Drain Righter©, Volume I

Introducing Bacharach McCarthy

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Bacharach McCarthy also lived a lonely life. He was tall and athletic-looking, capable of lifting heavy things, and took a keen interest in how the world worked but none of these attributes ever made a real difference to his adult life.

Bacharach left school and went to work for a small manufacturing company that produced the world-famous Universal Drain Righter©. This handy-sounding device is a small twist of metal that you attach to any antipodean plughole to re-right the direction that the water swirls as you empty a bath.

For eight hours a day and six hours of overtime on Saturday, Bacharach McCarthy placed a piece of metal into a groove, pressed a large red button and then laid the now twisted metal onto a conveyor belt for packing.

In all this time, he spoke to no one. And no one spoke to him. But when the shifts were over, Bacharach raced home, wolfed down a pot of noodles, logged onto HeroVerse™ and turned once more into Bewilder Bird.

Online, Bacharach felt completely free and was able to express himself in ways that he couldn’t in reality. He could behave in any way that he wanted to, but still he chose to be as silent in HeroVerse™ as he was in real life. He just preferred it this way.

If you want to find out more Bacharach McCarthy then please feel free to click here.