IkoStar

When I was a kid, the witch off this was the scariest person I knew.

And I still think she’s a little bit scary now as it happens.

The Pogles don’t seem to be too scared though. They have a magic hat and they wind up turning her into a teaspoon or a fairy or something. I’ve still got a Pippin the Pogle glove puppet from when I was 4 somewhere. (goes Off to find it)

see. There it is.

My mum made him for me.

Anyway - I was thinking about scary people the other day… I compiled a bit of a list:

The Browns

Not really that scary… a bit scary maybe. They seem like nice people I think, they just don’t have any way of expressing themselves other than going completely insane.

Steve Balmers

Steve Balmers is a nutjob. He goes bananas etc. A banana nutjob. He’s not really that scary either though - unless you get stuck in a lift with him, and then you’re fucked. It would be like going over Niagra Falls in a barrel. With a bull in a china shop. On steroids and whatnot. A sweaty one. That fancies you.

Scientologists

“What are your crimes?” they go. Marvellous. “Your crimes? What are they?”

They’re a bit more scary I think, especially as today is the 30th anniversary of 918 people killing themselves in the Jonestown Massacre - and they’re basically the same thing aren’t they?… No. Probably not, but there is a genuine snow-blind disconnect with reality that’s morphed into something quite aggressive and paranoid and judgemental.

But anyway, if you put all the ones above lot into a blender with a load of jello, mixed it all up, then divided it by the number of them that there are (to get the average etc)… then added quite a lot more more Jello and some breadcrumbs, you get this:

which is actually very scary indeed.

.

So back to the beginning again. Witches.

(Sven Geruschkat. Genius)

Why are witches so scary? I mean I can understand spiders and the aliens off Aliens… they would actually eat you etc. But witches? What do they do? Turn you into a frog? I don’t think that’s very realistic do you? They’re like clowns. You don’t know what they’re going to do, they’re just scary.

My Mum’s a school teacher and she can’t tell stories with witches in them any more because there are Christians at the school and if the kids go home and tell their parents that they’ve listened to a story about witches, the parents perform exorcism rituals on them (I shit you not)… which is kindof scarier than the witch story was in the first place I imagine.

I mean really, on balance, Christians are a lot scarier than witches… if you look at the history of it all etc - the number of people who have been burned or drowned or tortured to death vs the number of people turned into frogs or newts or whatever. A lot scarier - they’re like scientologists all dressed up like Baldrik, with pitchforks and flaming torches etc hanging around outside your house… but still, there’s something about witches… not the wiccan ones (who are actually a bit glam) but the archetype of the old woman… The Fates etc. Hecate and co. Shakespeare had them didn’t he. “Heh heh heh” they went. Brrrr. There’s another one here:

That’s that Kiefer Sullivan’s dad - in case you’re worried he was also (later on) that Mr. Bennet in Pride and Predjudice which even though it looked as though it was older, was actually quite a bit later than the one here, so he definately survived.

Witches are all tied up with asphyxiation and immobility. Maybe it’s a derivation of a spider-cult… from back in the days when there were 13 seasons - A year and a day and so on. 13*28+1… not being able to run or breathe. It’s like a dream thing. A spry, mad, wiry little monster from inner space - a white-eyed angler of knots and wind and dirty knuckle-bones.

You can’t run cos she’s already in you.