The Barefoot And Baffled Blog

In the mythology of the Scandinavian countries, and more specifically that associated with the ever-popular Viking era, people commonly believed that, provided they died on the battlefield, preferably with sword in hand, and, potentially, with an adversary’s ear between their teeth, they would receive a hero’s welcome into the afterlife. Valhalla, where, for ever after, they would sit at a banquet and feast, quaff, wench, fight, and, at a stretch, barf their brains out. Only, presumably, to wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands and start all over again. What a life. Or, rather, what a death. It is obvious that, in the great scheme of things, where the development of religion and philosophy was concerned, wishful thinking played absolutely no role at all.    In order to make it to that afterlife, the fallen fighters would be picked up from the battlefield by Valkyries, great big strapping voluptuous women riding flying horses, who would then whisk them away, while s...

I went to high school at the age of eleven. I had long hair, past my shoulders, because I was Feral. I enjoyed being feral.    The school had a problem with that. I found out on Day One that Being Feral was strongly disapproved of and severely frowned upon. To my everlasting surprise this was not only the case with The Management, of whom these things could potentially be expected, because it was virtually in their job description (“thou must hate kids”), but, almost even more so, with what can only be called, for want of a better word , my “fellow students”. If Frodo had had a fellowship like that he never would have gotten out of The Shire, and Sauron would be ruling the entire world from Mordor as we speak.    Everywhere I went the other kids were hissing at me, spitting and slurring insults and abuse: “feral”. That was a strange one, because I thought that was a compliment. “hippy” and “scum” were two other ones. Sometimes, in accidental fits of soaring insp...

   ‘Right,’ I said, ‘let me just get my mask and fins, and I’ll be there in a sec ...’    ‘No worries,‘ said Blue Flame, Champion Fart Lighter and Terror Of Elevators And Small Confined Spaces. ‘I’ll start getting along, the others have gone already.’    She waddled off in the direction where the others had gone. I grabbed my gear, shut the car and with my gear in my hands I hurried after her down the boat ramp at the beach where we were going snorkeling. When we got to the sand though I found to my surprise that, instead of wading into the water from the boat ramp, as we had agreed and planned, more or less, the whole group had chucked a hard 90 degree right turn and had started down the beach towards the lagoon. This lagoon lay protected behind a reef of rocks holding the strong currents at bay, and, we had surmised, would be prime snorkeling territory.    I stared down the beach.    What had been intended to be a five metre s...