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*****************************THE BACK ISSUES********************************
**************PARTS ONE HUNDRED AND SIX TO ONE HUNDRED AND TEN**************
     (Written by Daniel Bowen, Monash University, Melbourne Australia)
                 (Send e-mail to tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
_______________________________________________________________________________
Olympic Toxic Custard


**TCWF!**    TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES, Number 106, 27th July 1992
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MRS IRENE BUSYBODY SPEAKS OUT ON...                                           H
The Olympics. I've been watching the opening ceremony on the box. And         e
what a load of modern art crap it was. Talk about completely                  r
predictable - I don't know why the stupid commentators were raving on         e
in awe about it, it looked like every single Olympics opening ceremony
ever. Three boring hours of loads of Spaniards poncing around the             w
stadium, dancing in bloody silly costumes, accompanied by a bunch of          e
fat opera singers on a thankfully reinforced stage yelling their lungs
out. As usual, they got five thousand school kids from somewhere, and         a
had them running around in formation. Boring.                                 r
    See those blokes come out dressed as Sun Gods? I think that's what        e
they were meant to be. And all the spectators got to put on sun mask
things and look stupid in front of the tv cameras. But none of the            f
Spanish royal family got masks! I reckon they must have been really           o
pissed off at that. No doubt some Olympic official will be beheaded as        r
soon as the games are over. Or maybe they'll throw him into the bull
ring in a red boilersuit, without so much as a toreador for protection.       t
    Anyway, then thousands more people crowded in, dressed as the             h
Atlantic ocean or something... and a bunch of sailors dressed in              e
bondage gear and wearing fake tattoos went off to fight a bunch of sea
monsters on their way to discovering Barcelona. Do me a favour. Any           s
sensible sailor dressed in bondage gear and wearing fake tattoos with         i
half a brain would have said "Shit!!! I'm not fighting those fucking          d
big scary monsters! Let's bugger off to Portugal!"                            e
    And there were even more people, carrying big flags; and a stack of       w
schoolkid gymnasts, 5000 guys on stilts... I reckon those Olympic             a
stadiums must need the bloody biggest dressing rooms in the world.            y
    Finally, after about two hours, the athletes start to pour in. And        s
that took over an hour. The Greeks always go first. Well, you know what
the Greeks are like; maybe no-one wants to go in front of them. There         m
were a few teams that only sent one person, tiny little places like           e
Afghanistan. Makes you wonder why they bothered. Imagine the Afghan           s
bloke, when he gets a look at one of the big teams, like the US team.         s
He must think "Christ, I've got no chance against that lot!" And he           a
pisses off home. And who could blame him?                                     g
    Saudi Arabia turned up, with the whole team dressed in white robes        e
and stuff. Maybe it's religious. But I wonder if they have to compete
like that? And how did the Olympic girl carrying the Saudi Arabia sign        s
get away with being dressed like that? Surely she should have been            p
covered head to toe in a black robe!                                          r
    South Africa turned up for the first time in ages. The whites in          i
the team were trying to walk alongside the blacks in the team without         n
throwing up or asking for their passes or hitting them with horse-            t
whips. Did you notice the South African olympic symbol on their               .
uniforms - the five burning tyres?                                            .
    I missed the team from Lebanon coming out. Were they wearing battle
fatigues, like I figured? Like the Columbian team, I reckon they'll do        D
good at the target shooting events.                                           o
    The team from Swaziland came out in traditional costume. I like           n
that. But what the hell was the white guy in the middle doing? He must        '
have known he looked ridiculous in tribal costume, but did he care?           t
Nope. He was even doing the war dance thing.
    And of course our own Aussie boys and girls came out to wave at the       k
crowd. Christ knows what *they* were dressed in. Some kind of hideous         n
creation. I think the designer must have unwittingly thrown up over the       o
designs without anyone noticing. And naturally there's not a single           w
Aboriginal on the team. Well, not until they make boomerang throwing,
kangaroo skinning and being beaten up by policemen an Olympic event.          w
    After the teams, how about when all the blokes made human pyramids.       h
Spectacular, though bloody dangerous. Seriously, one banana skin on the       y
ground, and zip... fallen bodies all over the place. Then more of the
boring traditional stuff, like the big flag, the completely unrelated         I
Spanish fashion parade (?!?), and the big flame. Just as well that
archer bloke practised plenty. What if he aimed too low? Woosh, went          b
the flaming arrow, straight into the hair of some guy from Kansas.            o
"Oops mate, sorry about your hair!" But sure enough, he was on target,        t
and the bit where the Olympic flame lights up has now been repeated an        h
estimated 3,000,000 times on various tv stations throughout the world.        e
Great.                                                                        r
    All in all, what a load of bullshit. They could have saved time and       e
money by getting a load of Spanish bulls to crap in the middle of the         d
stadium, and looked at that for three hours. C'mon, let's face it, a          .
three hour extravaganza like that, with opera singing and modern art...
if it hadn't been associated with the Olympics, it would have gone
unnoticed one day on the Sunday afternoon arts programme, or since it
was in Spain, in the middle of the afternoon with subtitles on SBS.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TOXIC CUSTARD AUGUST DIARY CALENDAR PLANNER THING

  Saturday 1st- Absolutely nothing happens on this day, ever
    Sunday 2nd- Gwen Plumb B. 1922; Monash Open Day 1992, yeah, right ugh
    Monday 3rd- P.D.James B. 1920 in mysterious circumstances
   Tuesday 4th- Queen Mother B. 1900 with a silver spoon in her mouth
 Wednesday 5th- P.D.James D. 1997 in mysterious circumstances
  Thursday 6th- Atomic bomb B. 1945
    Friday 7th- Queen Mother D. 2072
  Saturday 8th- Great Train Robbery 1963. Say bye bye to 2.5 million pounds!
    Sunday 9th- Too depressing to think about, 1945
   Monday 10th- Pay protection money
  Tuesday 11th- Enid Blyton B. 1897 in a magic faraway tree
Wednesday 12th- French do something revolting every day of every year 1742-1991
 Thursday 13th- Toxic Custard B. 1990; Werewolf alert (Full moon)
   Friday 14th- VP Day 1945; Gary Larson B. 1950 to a horse and a dog
 Saturday 15th- Princess Anne B.1950; Berlin Wall gets building permission 1961
   Sunday 16th- Elvis dies in a mass of fat and blubber, 1977
   Monday 17th- Azaria Chamberlain taken by naughty doggy, 1980
  Tuesday 18th- Return library books from 1975
Wednesday 19th- Bart gives warning on Simpsons calendar, 1992
 Thursday 20th- Yet another Gandhi B. 1944
   Friday 21st- Two nobodies born, and the last 1/4 of the moon
 Saturday 22nd- Captain Cook claims eastern Australia 1770; Aborigines disagree
   Sunday 23rd- Just another boring August day
   Monday 24th- White House burns down, 1844
  Tuesday 25th- Nobody important born, nothing happened
Wednesday 26th- Dan Quayle goofs up again, 1992
 Thursday 27th- 38 minute war, 1896; Don Bradman B. 1908 (and another DB, 1970)
   Friday 28th- World's first radio advert, 1922. Out now on tape! Buy buy buy!
 Saturday 29th- Michael Jackson B. black 1958
   Sunday 30th- Don Bradman bats his first century, 1908
   Monday 31st- Princess Anne and hubby separate, 1989; Spring on the horizon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's all. Now go away. Back-issues from tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen
--
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,---/ PS. Apologies if you're Greek, Spanish,
Melbourne, Australia--------------/ French, Australian, Lebanese, Columbian,
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au-----/ Saudi, Gary Larson... It was all in the
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/ spirit of Olympic co-operation.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Recrudescent Toxic Custard

                     ___     ___  ____
__|__    ___        |__   | |   |    |     toxic custard workshop files
  |____ |____ |_|_| |     | |___|   /      number 107 - 3rd august 1992

I had a cold this week. Don't you just hate having colds? It's like one       W
of your nostrils has been filled up with cement.. and the other one has       h
turned into a country stream with running snot 24 hours a day. That           a
only lasts for a few hours of course. Then they swap. And no matter how       t
much you blow the running side of your nose, more snot just always
seems to come out. Who knows where in the body snot is produced, but          i
wherever it is, it's working overtime during your cold.                       s
    Which brings us to the problem of handkerchiefs. As you work
through your hanky you carefully fold it every time you use it so as          t
not to re-use a wet bit, and to avoid anyone else seeing any gruesome         h
bogies that may have appeared. And when it's all finished up, with more       i
germs in it than an Iraqi chemical weapons factory, you end up                s
searching the house looking for a hanky that isn't totally sodden with
bodily substances. Wringing them out doesn't do much good. Although it        p
alleviates the moisture content, a certain unpleasant stickiness              s
remains.                                                                      e
    God help you if there aren't any more clean hankies in the house -        u
it could be time to resort to the toilet paper, or even the dreaded           d
tissued sheets of sawdust and glue in a presentation box with flowery         o
patterns all over it. If you thought your nose was red before, just           -
look at it after using tissues for a day. But hopefully after ten             q
minutes of running through the house with delightful driplets of snot         u
hanging from your hooter like stalactites, you find the place where the       a
poor soul who does all the washing in the house leaves the clean              s
handkerchiefs.                                                                i
    Now, it is a fact that 84% of nose mops are bought by people who          -
know people who have colds. But the problem is that these people, along       r
with all those others who ever go out to buy handkerchiefs for other          e
people; these poor deluded fools, almost always have got the odd idea         a
into their heads that a handkerchief is meant to look nice. That it's         c
meant to have a nice pattern on it. And worse, people who buy                 t
handkerchiefs for ladies seem to think that it's somehow advantageous         i
that the hanky should be nice and small and ladylike. [Insert a mass of       v
exclamation and question marks here] Do women have any less snot in           i
their noses than men? No. When the ladies are about to sneeze, do they        s
pull out their hanky, unfold it and say "oh goodness me, that's a             t
lovely pattern; I couldn't possibly cover it with snot"? No. Here's
some advice for you, if you ever go out to buy hankies for anyone: buy        m
the biggest, thickest most absorbent hanky you can find. Stuff the            e
pattern, stuff the stitched initials or message in the corner, go for         n
high snot capacity. In fact, it's about time the snot rag manufacturers       i
of the world put reasonable slogans on their rags. Perhaps the                s
handkerchief equivalent of "Big Bag" could be a starter: "Big Snot            c
Rag".                                                                         u
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       s
                                                                              i
Good evening. Tonight on ABC TV is Depression Documentary night. So, if       s
you've got a happiness overdose, stay with us for an unforgettable            t
evening of misery and tragedy.
    The suffering and tragedy of the people of Somalia is the subject         l
of the feature on the 7:30 Report tonight. Michael Beurk, well-known          u
BBC master of depressing reports, spent 6 weeks in war-torn and               d
drought-ridden Somalia to bring distressing and worrying footage of the       l
suffering, direct to you while you're trying to finish your dinner.           i
    At 8:00 it's Holocaust Half Hour. Newly uncovered footage of              -
hundreds of people being gassed in the death camps.                           s
    Then at 8:30pm, a moving documentary about the brutal murder of 294       c
people in a Mafia retribution attack in 1985.                                 r
    That's followed at 9:30 by Michael Beurk again, this time from            i
South Africa, where another 300,000 have been killed in township              b
violence in the past 24 hours, as police march in protest at their jobs       i
being in danger of being unnecessary.                                         s
    Finally in our Depression Documentary night at 10:30, we have the         t
latest installment in "Another Black Bites The Dust", the disturbing
investigation of black deaths in police custody. New statistics               g
indicate that the speed of blacks dying in custody is almost as fast as       r
they are being arrested, and this programme seeks to find out why.            a
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       n
                                                                              u
Megabogue's latest release has been described as a subversive strike at       l
the band's greatest enemy. Others describe it as a shameless rip-off of       a
a Beatles song, whereas the band themselves prefer to remain detached         r
from the whole issue, preferring just to sit back and watch the cash, if      i
any, roll in. The sudden change in the lyrics at the end of the song to       f
a somewhat positive viewpoint have been revealed to be the effect of          i
explaining to the song's author, Slasher Rists, precisely which body of       c
government workers is responsible for the band's security. As well as
who covers up every time Vimmy "The Thorn" Halen goes crazy during            s
concerts and leaps into the audience with an axe.                             e
                                                                              m
MEGABOGUE - "Piggies"               by Slasher Rists   MoccaSIN Records       i
                                                                              -
Have you seen the little piggies                                              r
In their patrol cars?                                                         e
You will see the little piggies                                               c
With bandaids on their scars                                                  i
                                                                              d
Always having cars to drive around in                                         i
                                                                              v
Have you seen the bigger piggies                                              i
In their big checked caps?                                                    s
You will find the bigger piggies                                              t
Hitting lots of blacks
                                                                              c
Always have big sticks to play around with                                    r
                                                                              a
In their minds there's nothin' happenin'                                      p
They don't care what goes on around
In their minds there's something lacking                                      y
What they need's a damn quick sacking                                         o
                                                                              u
Everywhere there's lots of piggies, doing piggy work                          '
You can see them out in traffic, acting just like pork                        r
Clutching breathalysers, to catch drink drivers...                            e

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                             r
The previous is an actual actuality of the one                                e
hundred and seventh Toxic Custard. Only the names                             a
have been left the same, to condemn the guilty.                               d
If your eyeballs would thrill to reading some                                 i
previous Toxic Custards, then have we got great                               n
back-issues for you! Just reply to this message,                              g
or send mail to tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu for details.                              ?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen
--                                  "TCWF 106's olympic comment was a shameless
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,---/ and biased attack on Greece, and many of
Melbourne, Australia--------------/  the other countries at the Olympic Games.
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au-----/   This sort of thing must be stopped", said
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/    Justice Jim Papadapadopolous yesterday.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Runny Toxic Custard


<><><><><> <><<>><> <>      <> <><><><>   TOXIC CUSTARD WORKSHOP FILES
    <>     <>       <>      <> <>         NUMBER 108 - 10TH AUGUST 1992, 3:33pm
    <>     <>       <>  <>  <> <><><>     WRITTEN BY WHATSISNAME
    <>     <><><><> <><><><><> <>----------------------------------------------

    Good evening from the Melbourne Olympics, and welcome to Flinders
Street Railway Station where the athletes are just lining up for the          S
final of the men's 100 metres run for the 3:34 express train to               o
Frankston dash. Going left to right from beside the ticket booth, we          m
see Yankovich of the USA, Toreador of Spain, Whinger of Britain, the          e
local boy, Drunkenbastard of Australia, and four other no-hopers from         t
third-world countries who haven't got a chance.                               h
    On their marks.. tickets out.. there's the whistle, and they're           i
off! Yankovich gets away well, he glances up at the platform indicator        n
screen, and tears past the busker and down the ramp, followed by              g
Toreador and Drunkenbastard, with the others following. Oh.. wait!            '
They've all got stuck in a sea of old ladies from the Ringwood Rotary         s
Club, complete with shopping trolleys and Crimplene trousers. And
they're going to the wrong platform. Drunkenbastard and Yankovich are         i
making good use of the elbows there.                                          n
    Halfway down the ramp now, and the runners are skilfully battling
past legions of schoolkids.. oh no, Yankovich has slipped on a banana         y
peel one of the little bastards has dropped! Down he goes, skidding           o
down the ramp, straight into a litter bin. So now it's Drunkenbastard         u
and Whinger, with Toreador and the others close behind.. there goes the       r
guard's whistle and the departure announcement.. Whinger overtakes
Drunkenbastard as they dodge around the family with the pram, past the        h
guy filling up the vending machines... the train doors are beginning to       a
close and... Yes.. Drunkenbastard, then Whinger, and Toreador takes the       i
bronze as the train moves off and the others are left on the platform,        r
seething with rage. Oh well, just time for a Mars Bar; there should be        p
another train in five minutes.                                                i
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       e
                                                                              c
I'm sure that dogs have a certain logic that they use... but I do             e
wonder how in dog folklore it came to be that they have to piss against       .
trees and street signs? Did the dogs of early times, like the Jews,
form rules for these things? Codes of behaviour for their doggy lives?        I
Based, perhaps, on the realities of the day?                                  t
    "Now listen, I think the feeling of the meeting is that if we
continue to piss and crap in the streets, sooner or later a really            l
important person walking down the street, in bare feet because shoes          o
haven't been invented yet of course, will walk down the street and step       o
in some doggy doo-doos. Then it's curtains for us dogs. So I move that        k
we make a law saying that we confine our outgoings to vertical surfaces       s
out of way of human pedestrians. Columns and so on. No, pyramids don't
count; people climb them. Anyone care to second that? Okay; 4. Thou           l
shalt not pisseth on the ground."                                             i
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       k
                                                                              e
Once upon a time, in a valley far far away, there lived a handsome
prince. But unlike many of the cliched boring princes in these stories,       a
this one was mean and nasty. He was a real bastard. A total fuckwit.
    And one day the prince decided to go on a peasant-bashing tour of         t
his kingdom. For although he wasn't king, his father was, so the prince       u
could do what he bloody well wanted. So he packed his whips, bows and         b
arrows, his collection of torture devices, and a chauffeur into a cart,       u
and set off. Well, to be precise, he got the palace servants to pack          l
everything into the cart. Then he beat three of them to death before          a
leaving.                                                                      r
    The cart went down the road, with the prince sitting in the back,
loosing off the occasional arrow at the local children playing in the         m
street. Eventually the cart came to the edge of the big forest. The           e
road wound its way through the forest for several hours, without              t
passing a soul. So the prince had to be content with firing at little         a
woodland animals. Until finally, in a clearing, they came across a fork       l
in the road. And a sign at the fork:
          "GO LEFT IF THOUST DARE, AND RIGHT IF THOUST FEAR."                 b
    Well, the prince was pretty confused by all this, as no doubt was         a
the driver. But then, the driver wasn't paid to be confused, so he            n
stopped being confused, and let the prince do it. The prince flipped a        a
coin, which had his big conceited head on it, naturally, and shouted          n
"go left!"                                                                    a
    No sooner had he said this when there was a clap of thunder, and          .
thousands of amphibians and rodents began to fall from the treetops. It
was raining rats and frogs. Some of the rats and frogs weren't looking        (
where they were falling, and squelched as they hit the ground at speed.       W
The prince was undercover in the cart, but the driver got covered in          e
squelched green stuff from inside the frogs and a bunch of dead rats,         l
too. Nice.                                                                    c
    Anyway, to cut a long and useless bit of the story short, the cart        o
then set off down the left road. And stopped three minutes later when         m
it ran into a dragon's foot. No, dragons don't live in the forests            e
anymore, but this was the olden days, and they did then.
    "Ah..", thought the prince. "This would probably explain the sign."       t
    The dragon's foot twitched, and so did the dragon's leg attached to       o
it. In fact, although the prince couldn't see any more of it, it is
probably safe to say that the whole dragon twitched as it woke up. Its        S
foot and leg moved up, right a bit, and back down, thereby squashing          u
the cart driver and the two horses to a tiny, and very flat, puree.           r
    "Oi!" shouted the prince. "Where am I gonna get another driver?!"         r
    The dragon heard this, and naturally wasn't too amused at being           e
spoken to in that tone of voice. After all, he was a dragon. True, the        a
speaker *was* a prince, but that didn't make it any more acceptable. In       l
these stories, there was a clear pecking order, and as far as the             i
dragon was concerned, mean nasty princes were well towards the bottom.        s
    The dragon bent its head down, into the forest (it had been using a       t
nearby mountain as a pillow). Two huge dragon eyes came level with the
prince, as the dragon spoke.                                                  W
    "Pardon?", it said, in a voice as deep as the lowest bits of that         e
song about the policemen by Gilbert and Sullivan.                             e
    "I said", said the prince, who was not known for his subtlety,            k
"where am I gonna get another driver?"                                        ,
    "Well, I... I...", began the dragon, getting a twitch in his nose.
"I... ah.. ah.. ACHOO!" it sneezed loudly, a gigantic snot fireball           A
flying out of each nostril, frying the mean nasty bastard prince to a         u
cinder.                                                                       g
    The prince, now quite clearly dead, fell apart in a pile of ashes         u
where he was standing.                                                        s
    "Erm.. sorry", said the dragon.                                           t

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                  1
Well, that's the end of that firey tail, and                                  0
the end of another Toxic Custard, thank God.                                  -
And if your eyeballs would like to focus on                                   1
any of the old Toxic Custards, why not find                                   6
out about TCWF back-issues!                                                   )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~               |###    _o
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen                            |###     #\
--                                                         |       ||
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,---/\ T h e/\      /\      /\      /\      /\
Melbourne, Australia--------------/  \    /  \  am/az\ing /  \    /  \    /  \
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au-----/    \  /    \  /    \  /zig-\za/g   \  /    \
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/      \/      \/      \/      \/  sign\/ature!

_______________________________________________________________________________
The Great Unknown Toxic Custard


[[[[[[[[[[[  ]]]]]]       [[ ]] [[        ]]]]]]]
    ]]      [[            ]] [[ ]]        [[        Number 109
    [[      ]]            [[ ]] [[        ]]]]]     17th August 1992
    ]]      [[            ]] [[ ]]        [[        Written by Daniel Bowen
    [[oxic   ]]]]]]ustard [[[[[[[[orkshop ]]iles_______________________________

Somehow I never quite believed the cliche of Readers Digest sending out
a forestful of junkmail to people who don't exist. But I've changed my
mind. A big wad of paper wrapped in more paper with a gold ingot and a        A
bunch of competition stickers and more paper arrived in our already           n
over-strained mailbox. And either my wife or my mother have had               d
sex-changes, or the all-knowing RD people have got their facts about
the occupants of this house slightly, though not completely, wrong.           t
It's a simple matter of titles, and the gender one normally assumes           h
when taking on a title, such as, in this case "Mr".                           e
    Inside the envelope were a bunch of stickers, a car key (don't you
wish they told you where the car was parked!), and a scratch and win          w
game which just HAPPENED to be a chance for the non-existent Mr L Bowen       o
to win a bunch of money. Well, my little sister had a lot of fun              r
sticking the stickers where they were meant to go, sealing the YES and        s
NO envelopes and generally farting about with all the bits of paper.          t
Thank God I managed to stop her mailing any of it back.
    And of course there's the obligatory RD Sweepstakes Entry Book.           t
This marvellous work of fiction, containing no less than eight badly          h
stapelled pages has to be the worst laid out and badly written piece of       i
literary crap ever written by a member of the human race who could            n
write. If this is anything like the standard of their magazine, no            g
wonder they go to such desperate lengths to promote it. Do people
really fall for this garbage? Isn't it amazing how every line of text         a
in the thing that contains the allegedly existing contestant, or a            b
reference to where the aforementioned lives is in a different typeface,       o
and not properly formatted? I noted with interest the misplaced               u
apostrophe on the twelfth page.                                               t
    Enough of this.. I'll leave you with this thought from the Readers
Digest sweepstakes book:                                                      t
      "And while some may say the chance to win $145,000 in prizes is a       h
      little overwhelming, we feel it's like giving a lottery ticket to       i
      someone who has done you a good turn."                                  s
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                                                                              s
An exclusive extract from:                                                    i
"CHEAP EATS '92 - A REVIEW OF ALL THE FOOD THAT'S CHEAP AND NASTY"            d
                                                                              e
BAD FOOD AND POLKA CLUB, FITZROY                                              w
The post-modern decor facade outside gives way to a complete dump             a
within. It's apparently a representation of the aftermath of a nuclear        y
war, although our reviewer was of the opinion that it was just                s
incredibly dirty and untidy in there. When we arrived, the police were
just leaving with some government health inspectors and the chef. The         m
waiters assured us that a minion would prepare our meals, and they were       e
right, although the Department of Labour and Industry might be                s
interested to see if they can apply any of their laws concerning child        s
labour here. As for the food, well it turned out to be foresight rather       a
than slobbyness that had resulted in one of the waiters leaving several       g
buckets on the floor adjacent to our tables. When contacted, management       e
made no comment about the standards of food in the restaurant, but
agreed when faced with legal action to pay the ambulance bill.                i
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -       s

We've reached that time of the file once more where the author runs out       t
of thoughts and launches himself on a half-hour tour of the room              h
looking for inspiration, rummages through the bookshelf desperately           a
searching for something to ridicule, and fails utterly in his quest to        t
do so. He returns dejected to the keyboard and instead bashes out the
beginning of another Popsicle adventure.                                      y
                                                                              o
POPSICLE AND THE CASE OF THE SPECKLED BAND   Part One                         u

Mr Popsicle, the world's most inconspicuous secret agent, and his             b
faithful sidekick Inspector Unnecessary-Violence (who had mastered his        o
sidekick at a karate class), sat around lazily at the looming and             t
downright evil looking offices of the Australian Royal Security               h
Establishment. In these days of GlaSnot, Paratrooper and the downfall         e
of Communism, there just wasn't much call for secret agents. So most of       r
the ARSE agents just sat around all day watching telly and belching           e
loudly, an after effect of the subsidised Government hotdogs they were        d
wont to eat.
    The fact is, all the ARSE agents continued to get paid, even if           t
they didn't do anything, which they didn't. It was all the cause of the       o
fact that the government didn't know they were paying for ARSE. Which
shows just how secret the establishment was.                                  r
    But Popsicle was getting bored. There was little to do, apart from        e
going down to the lab to watch Doctor Wedge's unorthodox experiments on       a
little animals. Today, however, there was something different. Today,         d
the hotdogs seemed edible. The lights didn't flicker quite as much. And
the squealing from the lab didn't seem to deafen like usual. The              i
writing was on the wall. And it said "Exit". But that was always there.       t
It was something else. The story just wasn't going anywhere. So what          .
was new? Not much. Popsicle decided to get out of the office for a
while, to boldly go before where no man had entered the dining room           R
since lunchtime.                                                              e
    He made his way out through the ARSE secret entrance, which doubled       a
as an exit, and which was disguised as a telephone booth in a big empty       l
building with a single empty featureless corridor with a bunch of             l
horizontal and vertically opening automatic sliding doors. That was the       y
key to disguise - make it look just like any other government
department. Pushing his way past a huge mountain of Readers Digest            t
leaflets, Popsicle spied the sunlight, which hit him in the face at a         r
rate of watts. He moved behind his super-dooper mega-cool ARSE issue          a
sunglasses and stumbled blindly down the street in search of the plot.        g
But there was none to be found. He knew that. Everyone who read this          i
shit knew that. Why did he bother, he asked himself. Why didn't he have       c
quote marks when he thought, he asked himself. "Like this?" he                ,
pondered. Yes, he concluded. The rest of his brain decided it was all a
matter of mindpower, and he quickly and incorrectly calculated a few          i
formulae before strolling into the park to poison a few seagulls.             s
                                                                              n
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                             '
Help! I'm a paragraph of text! I'm trapped inside                             t
these two walls of ~, with the left hand side of
the screen at one end, and a hugely useless                                   i
margin at the other! I'm being forced against my                              t
script to tell you that you can get information                               .
about Toxic Custard back-issues if you reply to
this, or send mail to tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Please, can't you do anything to help me escape?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen
--
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,\ Isn't it amazing how so many gullible people,
Melbourne, Australia------------/ after shelling out to see "Wayne's World",
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au----\ get fooled into the thinking the film is
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/ over and rush out the doors as soon as the
                                \ credits begin to roll.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Vesuvian Toxic Custard


_______       \           /   /
       |__     \         /   /        /
       | oxic  /ustard  / / /orkshop  \/iles   Number 110 - 23rd August 1992
       |      /        /-/-/           \

POPSICLE AND THE CASE OF THE SPECKLED BANNED   Part Two                       I
                                                                              t
The music surrounded him. He moved back down the alleyway, but he was
cornered. He would have preferred to have been well-rounded, but he was       s
well cornered instead. There was no escape. Popsicle thought back to          e
the events of the day; events which had seemed so paradoxically               e
paradoxical, and yet had resulted in this most strange of situations.         m
Popsicle didn't really like what he had got himself into, but then he         s
had never liked these strange stories when the author seemed to be just
playing with words.                                                           t
    He continued to think back. Luckily, he completely failed to              h
regress to his childhood, which is not the ideal place to regress to          a
when you're cornered in a dark alleyway (oh, didn't I mention it was          t
dark? Well it's freezing cold, windy, and very very bloody dark, okay?)
by some sort of weird assailant which doesn't appear to be overly             F
friendly, in fact which could be said to be considered, on the face of        e
all the available information, to be trying to kill you.                      r
    Popsicle regressed back to a hastily written subplot earlier in the       g
day which had seen the head of the Australian Royal Security                  i
Establishment (work out the acronym yourself) come down from his office       e
on the top floor of the basement underground tubular subway secret
compartment department apartment building in which the Australian Royal       h
Security Establishment was housed. The head of the Australian Royal           a
Security Establishment, who was better known as the Chief, because it         s
fitted in with the cliche of most spy stories, had come down and
explained that Popsicle and his faithful dog, err companion, Inspector        a
Unnecessary-Violence, were to get out onto the streets and "kick butt".
Normally, due to his snobby English whinging-pom clenched buttocks            t
upbringing, the Chief would never have resorted to such a                     h
Unitedstatesofamericanism as "butt", but author had felt at the time of       i
authorship that to use the word "arse" might have been construed as an        n
attempt to get a cheap laugh with a bad pun. Or possibly not.                 g
    Anyway, Popsicle and the Inspector explained that the Police
Fascist Bullyboy Headkickers Union would demand that boot repair              f
allowances be increased lotsfold if the current trend of increased butt       o
kicking continued into the coming fiscal year. But they didn't mind           r
going out to kick the aforementioned butt, so they did. It was most
fortunate that the Inspector's favourite pastime was also a large             T
element in his career. But what had followed had not only surprised and       e
shocked them, but had caught the author off-guard, as he struggled to         x
fill in the plot which brought the story up to Popsicle's current             a
predicament in the alley.                                                     n
    What had happened had been interesting, though clearly not
interesting enough to warrant explaining it all in detail, which would        b
run the risk of TCWF#110 going over its word budget. Basically                u
speaking, in a non-specific type of mode, the Inspector had been busy         s
eating a doughnut at a nearby market stall, while Popsicle had a stroll       i
in a nearby park, only accompanied by a cigarette, which although             n
inherently dangerous and unhealthy to him and any passers-by, looked,         e
in his opinion, rather cool. In fact, he took steps to reduce the             s
danger of lung cancer to himself, and of passive lung cancer to others,       s
by not actually lighting the cigarette. Although this couldn't                m
obviously look as cool, he felt that the obvious health benefits gained       e
would greatly outweigh that.                                                  n
    Anyway, to cut what is supposedly a long story slightly shorter,          .
Popsicle was suddenly assaulted by a noise. A horrendous and cacophonic
noise that split his eardrums in two (well, four), and chopped them up        S
into little bits with sharp edges before stuffing them back into his          h
ears, right up the ear canal and into his brain. Which hurt quite a           e
bit.                                                                          '
    Popsicle ran which ever way he could to get away from the noise,          s
which compared favourably to any song by the infamous heavy-headbangers
Megabogue. He ran down an alleyway, which, by a staggering coincidence,       o
is where we now pick up the story from where a bunch of disgruntled           n
readers have thrown it after attempting to pick up the threads from the
result of the author's twisting and bending of the plot, subplot,             a
subsubplot, and surrounding margins. Which brings us back to the              t
present, which although is written in past-tense, is the present. Well,
almost the present. Back to where we started, anyway.                         l
    Popsicle suddenly remembered the new Australian Royal Security            e
Establishment secret-weapon he had been given earlier in the day, in a        a
subsubplot not so far mentioned by the author. A pair of ear-plugs.           s
Which although they could be bought from the chemist for just a few           t
cents, had been especially developed by the Australian Royal Security
Establishment laboratory by Doctor Wedge, who, gaining his first              h
mention in this episode, had squandered err invested over four million        e
dollars of public money in his research. But that's beauracracy for           r
you.
    So Popsicle managed to get his ear-plugs into his ears, one into          s
each, which effectively put the volume of the noise to below the danger       e
level, or about a quarter of the level of a rock concert. Popsicle's          c
ears and brain having temporarily recovered, he took the opportunity to       o
getthefuckoutofit, and vowed under his breath to find and catch whoever       n
had created the noise in the next episode. Because, well, it would make       d
a good story, wouldn't it.                                                    .
                                                                              .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                               .
If you've been reading this issue of Toxic
Custard as some form of medication, this notice
is here to tell you that this dose is complete.               ****************
If your doctor advises you to get hold of old                 *Florida- State*
doses, then reply to this, or send mail to                    * of emergency *
Toxic Custard MegaChemicals Pty Ltd at                        ****************
tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu  Read only as directed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen
--
Daniel Bowen, Monash University,\          *Australian Red Nose Day!*
Melbourne, Australia------------/          *  Friday, 28th August   *
daniel@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au----\ Wear a red nose for charity - all proceeds
TCWF stuff: tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu-/ go to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome research.


And the Friday after, September the fourth, will be Red Neck Day. Paint
your neck red, pretend to be illiterate and racist for charity, sing
traditional Afrikaaner songs - all proceeds will go to the Fascist
Fuckwits Federation.

September the eleventh will be red light day. All traffic lights will
say "Stop" all day, and people will be encouraged to open brothels the
day, with all proceeds going to AIDS research.

The eighteenth will be red spot day. Get those pretend plastic spots
from your nearest fast-food outlet and stick them all over your face.
Proceeds will go to acne research.

_______________________________________________________________________________
To subscribe to the Toxic Custard Workshop Files, mail tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu

--
Copyright (c) 1992 Daniel Bowen. All rights reserved.
May be copied or reproduced without permission
provided this notice remains intact.
--
         Daniel Francis Bowen            |    "Life is a bunch of
 Monash University, Melbourne, Australia |     things that lead into
----THE TOXIC-CUSTARD-WORKSHOP-FILES-----|     other things."
          tcwf@gnu.ai.mit.edu            |


