Well, Good day to you dearest Parishioners, it has been an interesting month in our humble village and for those of you who have not yet joined our splendid community, I suppose a little bit of background is in order.
Who the hell are you Porridge.?
In the beginning......Well, where to begin, my name is Adie and I'm a Steampunk, what's that i hear you cry, well it is many things to many people and for me it is best described as a satirisation of the Edwardian and Victorian empire building, combined with a retroistic style of contemporary technology powered by Steam. However Steampunk will be described in a different way by many others. As an individual , I have a background in Health and Safety and unemployment.
I dream of becoming a stand-up and as such, as a cynical chap, I created the now infamous character of Dr Porridge, part man, part Badger, complete idiot. Initially created to help newcomers join the community, the character has become an entity in his own right and has performed at various Events and independent venues as a stand-up and general ne'er doe well.
In the image above you can see Porridge masquerading as the Bishop of Squid de-facto leader of the Legion of Squid cult. The Legion have a habit of turning up in Squid hats and shouting 'ALL HAIL THE BISHOP OF SQUID' at variously inappropriate times. it's all good fun.
The image above shows me on stage at the Asylum festival 2017 performing to 700 people at the Engine Shed in Lincoln, UK.
So what's this Spiffing-cum-lightly all about then?
Spiffing-cum-lightly came about as a cynical take on the situation within current British politics, especially in regard to the main party political stances and Brexit both Leave and Remain, in essence I jokingly suggested that the best form of Government is a Benevolent Dictatorship, I decided to create a fictional Village where all decisions are made by the parishioners and then enforced by Dr Porridge in his role as Benevolent Dictator.
To make this work I created an online group on Facebook, whereby people could join and be part of an escapist world, this eventually became a sort of online Role-play group, whereby people could mock political systems and create their own take on the village. Dissent and foolishness is punished by being sent to the village tin mines (muted for 12 hours in the group), regular votes are carried out on such important issues as twinning and how to feed the ducks without losing an arm.
All enforced and over seen by the Division of Wold Police (D.W.P), an overtly bureaucratic system, solely set up to harass and interfere in parishioner life. A Village secret police if you will. Villager are encouraged to report each other, this rarely happens though as people are all being quite nice to each other, this has become a growing concern for many.
So where will this idea go?
Currently, a small but dedicated band of individuals numbering 300+ are happily getting involved but I would like to see this grow in number, we are a broad church, encouraging people from all political sides to get involved.
We now have Merch in the form of felt patches, available in the shop and work goes ahead on creating a board game to go with the Village ideals, this is in early development.
Podcasts and Green screen videos are also in Development to give the village some life.
All of this will eventually become a live show to be taken on tour and hopefully to Edinburgh Fringe in 2020/21
A gofundme was set up to get initial funds to push the show and idea. The laptop deposit for this very blog came about because of the generosity of a few people. Thank you to all of you who donated. A future blog post will discuss this further.
Why #beige then?
This all started on my personal Facebook page, I have a habit of commenting on political posts and publishing political posts , these are often controversial and hopefully satirical. So that people understood that it was mostly a tongue-in-cheek look at the various political stories of the day, I added the #Beige to denote that it is deliberately controversial and to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Politically, I identify as a centrist and as #beige is a neutral colour it stemmed from there, I imagine many people will disagree but as I have been called a Fascist, Communist, Snowflake and Gammon all in one week from various directions, often on the same post, I will take that as remaining reasonably me neutral in my opinion. After all what is life without subversion. #beige.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adie T is a jobbing idiot with a subversive nature, he enjoys Steampunk, Dystopian Literature. Metal/Punk music, Films and his annual bath, he is in no way to be taken seriously but perhaps on occasion listened to.
He has dreams to one day be a voice to the disenfranchised, if he hasn't alienated everyone by then anyway.
If you see him out, feel free to discuss politics with him and let everyone else roll their eyes.
DISCLAIMER : THE OPINIONS IN THIS BLOG ARE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT REFLECT ANY OTHER ORGANISATION THE AUTHOR MAY BE CONTRACTED TO OR BE BEHOLDENED. IF YOU THINK THAT THEY DO REPRESENT ANOTHER ORGANISATION THEN FEEL FREE TO GET IN TOUCH WHEREBY I CAN LAMBASTE YOUR FOOLISHNESS. #BEIGE.
Welcome to Spiffing, Dystopia has never been so much fun. #Spiffing #DrPorridge
