Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I tort I tor a witch's hat

Awooga booga!

Boogaboogabooga!

Awooo!


Feeling better?
Well you should, because I've just been using my new integrated holistic detoxifying chant transcript on you which, through the medium of this very display unit what you are currently perusing, will rebalance upset chakras, dilute your humours and nutritionalize your bile, resulting in you being in harmony with your cerebrospinal fluid.


And before any of you detractors and naysayers get all argumentative on my arse, spouting vitriolic mumbo-jumbo like "evidence" and "efficacy" and "potentially harmful side-effects", this is all scientifically backed up by objective research I did on Wikipedia not twenty minutes ago.

That'll be eighty quid please.

I'm thinking about setting up a clinic, where I can practice as The Jules, PHD (Paid Holistic Diagnostician) and embezzle help people by seeing how they react to blue crystals in comparison to red ones. If they pay me enough, I'll look at their poo and tell them it shouldn't be that shade of brown (or black, or green, or red), and that they should take my thrice-whacked water, which was once carried through a field of nettles at sunrise to absorb the memory of stings so you get the nerve-tingling goodness without the pain and rash. Stat. It's only £8.99 a bottle, but you do get a certificate saying you bought it. It comes out of the till at the top here.

Nettles are natural, so they're good for you actually, because Mother Earth is a benificent spirit. And curare doesn't count.


Of course, if I'm going to set up a clinic, it's all about location location location location, and the analysis of ley lines on my OS map suggest that there is one place where the barely detectable energies of Gaia intersect with the radon-infused goodness of underground magma.

Of course, this is a bit far away, so I'm considering the second best location in England; Glastonbury.

Initially famous because King Arthur allegedly did some fictional stuff there, it's more usually associated with the Glastonbury festival, where you go to get stoned and incidentally listen to some bands for £150, although the audience are often so wasted they wouldn't know any difference if they were in their parents' basement listening to the tumble dryer.

Glastonbury is also well-known for its alternative scene, from alternative music to alternative healing to alternative policing using a uniformed ferret called Wonder-Nigel.

Actually, no-one else saw Wonder-Nigel, so I may be mistaken.

I did inhale.

Anyhoo - Glastonbury is rather lovely, in a historic sort of way, and it's worth going to climb up the Tor to St Michael's Tower and look at the plains dissapearing into the distance yonder.
If you're there to set up a thriving business of esoteric therapy though, you're in for a surprise, because the kaftan-wearing flower-tonguers that profess to live for the beauty of the soul and the ethereal benefits of altruistic love and peace have got the competition sewn up tighter than a gnat's chuff.
I took a few snaps as we walked down the main shopping street, and it wasn't long before I came across this:
The oldest healing centre in Glastonbury apparently. Does the local GP surgery know about this? It was a very professional sign, and I took note. They do astrology as well, so it's good they've branched out into astrophysics. Some of the signs are obviously playing on the stereotypical ideas that alternative folk generate, like this 'un:


A proper witch shop, that was. I popped in and the 'witch' had cunningly diguised herself as a hippy, selling things like flowery dresses, plastic pens shaped like twigs (although with the advantage over real twigs in that they will last forever because they won't biodegrade) and ceramic mushrooms. By a locked display cabinet trying to make glass fairies seem more valuable than they actually were there was an earnest discussion going on between the proprieter and a big-hatted customer about the "vibrating properties" of a crystal.


Hmm.


Also a lot of self-help books, although if you're using a book to help you, it's not exactly "self" help is it? It's "ill-informed author" help.
I was particualrly impressed with this chap's sign:

Why use a stereotypical drawing of a typical moustachioed, long haired, leather-hat-wearing-indoors pasty bohemian if you actually are a typical moustachioed, long haired, leather-hat-wearing-indoors pasty bohemian. Kudos to Brian then.

It looks like a sign is important. If someone asks, "Give me a sign", as they hobble down the street, hindered by a deformed yang, they want a board with words on it, not a burning bush or a voice in their head. Let's face it, they've probably got a voice in their head already.


It's not all tat and flappery, though. Some of it is rather tasteful. Glastonbury might be a handle short of a broomstick, but they do a good line in talented buskers, ones you actually
want to listen to. They also have a decent flair for decoration, like this ivy and butterfly motif on the outside of a shop which has yet to be despoiled by a paint-can scrawler who thinks he's Banksy:

Unfortunately, it looks like opportunities for setting up succesful alternative healing franchises in Glastonbury are available in homeopathic amounts only, meaning I might have to think of an alternative fleecing empowering organisation. How hard can it be to start a religion do you think? If a second rate science fiction wrter can do it, then surely a second rate blogger can.

Right, I'm going to start interviewing for High Priestesses. Not sure how high yet.

Five eleven maybe?


And off their tits on disco cigarettes.

23 comments:

  1. It's nice to know that the hippies haven't left us... just managed to make an industry of it all. I'm sure our own San Francisco still has a number of shops like the ones you saw though I haven't been there in years. The folks you see running these things are likely the grandchildren of the ones of my era. The grandparents are more likely to be basking in their retirement in the loony bin sleeping off the effects of the things they ingested as youths.
    Ah, sweet nostalgia...

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  2. I cannae believe it! Seconds after reading your opening ..erm.. chants, I discovered that I could feel the cheesey smaell of my feet vanishing into thin air as I read more and more.

    I believe I am now cured sir... the £80 is on its way telepathically.

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  3. st. elmo's fire

    i'll say no more, all will be revealed at the next solstice or concert whichever comes first.
    xoxox

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  4. Douglas - There were a few white dreadlocks around, so I think some of the die-hard hippies are still there.

    Jimmy - And people have the bare-arsed cheek to be skeptical. Can I take that payment as a direct debit form your mind?

    Savannah - Didn't Jim Henson invent that?

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  5. You should have asked the witch when her next naked forest dance was. These witchy ladies are party animals.

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  6. We have franchises of those new age healers in Dallas, but I've never gone. The called themselves something like choripactors, chriopcacters?

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  7. i bet you could sell tons of that thrice whacked water. i was almost convinced.

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  8. GB - Damn. I always forget to ask that!

    Eric - Chiropractors sneak under the alternative/conventional health profession separating fence by virtue that they do actually deal with real parts of the body.

    Miss.chief - I'm whacking away as I type!

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  9. I will only drink your thrice whacked water if it has been filtered through a Shark fin.

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  10. SkylersDad - Now your just being silly.

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  11. I feel so much better already. I can feel the power coursing through my veins. You're dead good you are. Could I have a big crystal please?

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  12. Brian the Medicine Card Reader looks a little like a cowboy. I'm not sure I would trust him, unless I was wondering about the best time to move the herd to higher pastures. Do cows get high?

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  13. location location location location!

    Class LOL

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  14. Mdme DeF - Feel the ambiguous power! I only do big, you know.

    CatLadyLarew - Depends what sort of grass they've been grazing on.

    Alex - Got to know your market you know.

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  15. Hey, don't knock looking at poo! Scatology can be fun ... especially when you've been partying all night and drinking "Blue Lagoon" cocktails

    BTW: That particular shade of blue makes for a lovely bedroom wall colour. Very restful.

    Ps: Brian was wizard! (no booing!)

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  16. I am sorry to say that I must reveal your quackery.

    I am afraid that your new integrated holistic detoxifying chant will not rebalance chakras, as you claim. It is well known that this chant only works on past-life re-birthing trauma.

    Sincerely yours,

    Sondra Stinglash

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  17. Girl I - What sort of parties do you go to? And can I come?

    Nanodance - I must be working from old research!

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  18. That sign is pretty accurate, actually. Witches are notoriously disregardful of fire safety rules, as evidenced by their enormously baggy sleeves hanging over and whipping around open flame.

    So. Careless.

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  19. Jules, what a lot of drivel, I loved it. I've never partaken of "thrice" whacked water before, nettles or not.

    Poo sample on the way by e-mail, please advise.

    btw, I'm back, pc is better, new motherboard. I can actually stay connected.

    Girl certainly leads and interesting life, it would seem.

    AV

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  20. Steamy - I know wizards sleeves can be hazardous, so I suppose the same must go for witches.

    AV - Welcome back! I shall get my poo chart out and do a comparison, if I can see through the flies.

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  21. Oh the riches! Wonder Nigel, thrice-wacked water and Brian (just Brian)- I think I'm in love with you.

    Just so you know.

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  22. Vic - Aw shucks. I'm currently going pink, giggling and toeing the carpet.

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  23. I've just come across your blog from a site called outdooridiots...

    Anyway, I live in Glastonbury and although the high street is full of 'breadheads', as we call them, cashing in on some esoteric whatever, please don't think the whole town is like this. It takes at least a year to get under the surface here, and when you do, you'll find a thriving community. It sometimes takes me an hour to walk the 150 yards of the high street: it's the kind of town where lots of people know each other and have time to chat.

    Unfortunately it does attract some strange types, which is why it takes a while to get to know people. We've seen 'em come and we've seen 'em go. Some people are all talk but the doers are usually accepted, unless they're dodgy or out-and-out breadheads.

    I love the place and wouldn't live anywhere else.

    Oh yeah: how do you know if you've had a hippy staying at your place? He's still there :)

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