The small and woeful story of the little-known, (and some would say quite rightfully obscure) British "Victorian" explorer,
Major Fotheringhay Bleaksausage is indeed a most cautionary tale.
Upon his return from, as he put it, "The Darkest Unexplored Regions Where Civilisation is but an Ethereal Whisper."
He proclaimed he'd collected innumerable samples of the indigenous flora and fauna which, along with the memoirs of his travels, he had hoped to publish into a best-selling book. (Or at the very least wished it to be serialised in a leading scientific journal or gazette.)
Discovered only recently, Bleaksausage was "found" and rescued, (in his own words...)
"by a highly trained specialist search party that had been exclusively funded by Her Majesty The Queen when she became personally concerned for my safety and well-being, while I was deep inside the bowels of a subterranean labyrinthine structure, obviously indicative of an ancient and intelligent mystical civilisation."
Unfortunately, as it turned out, Bleaksausage was more than a little deluded. It was 2012 and he had actually spent the past seven months living in a small shelter built from twigs just off Tibbet's corner roundabout near Wimbledon Common.
The roundabout's pedestrian underpass had served as his "subterranean labyrinth."
The search party were two rather stupefied community support officers who had received a complaint from local nearby residents about, (amongst other things,) his guttural hooting, verbal clicks, and piercing whistles made at passers-by in an effort to communicate, his fearful stench from months without bathing, and lastly the frequent proffering of bits of lint, dried gobbets of discarded found hair-covered chewing gum produced from his pockets as items for trade; and they were there to move him on.
The samples of flora and fauna he had collected, in actuality, amounted to three white asparagus tips, a butternut squash plus a solitary brussel sprout. All of which were abandoned as they fell from a startled woman's shopping bag earlier that year! That only accounted for the flora.
The fauna consisted of the dried flattened carcass of a wood pigeon and half a hedgehog peeled from the road that had been run over by a passing number 93 bus.
His journal, at present, remains un-published.
The major publishing houses, as yet, remain... unperturbed.
Major Fotheringhay Bleaksausage's present whereabouts remain unknown.
Amongst his near incomprehensible rantings when ejected from the underpass, he did let slip his wish to explore "The enchanted rounds of Swendaloon."
(Local authorities in the vicinity of Swindon's magic roundabout have been placed on high alert.)
Another weird, in a good way, drawing & story. Have you done anything about writing and publishing your stories (albeit THIS is real life!)?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Frances. In reply to your question, as far as publishing my scribblings, (be they illustrative or literal) I suffer from a quite debilitating lack of self-confidence. In fact, it was only when I started posting regularly on Illustration Friday and started to get such positive feedback from yourself and others that I thought I might have any chance of seeing what I do in print. I am however clueless about the business side of illustration and indeed, authorship. Any advice you could offer would be most gratefully received. Thanks once again for your all your comments this year they have been a huge boost.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas to you and yours.