"Robert Rankin - Snuff Fiction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

with our heightened nasal sensi-tivities, we had no difficulty in identifying any of the thirty or so leading
brands of cigarettes, simply by taking a sniff or two of the smoke. Things could get tricky on long train
journeys, as there were more than three hundred regional brands, not to mention imports and personal
blends. But Capstan, Woodbine, Players and the other well-known names were easy.
Up north, where they were evidently more enlightened, junior-school children were allowed, indeed
encouraged, to smoke in class. This was no doubt to prepare them for life down the pit, as in those days
all men who lived north of the Wash worked in the coal mines. But in London, where I grew up, and in
Brentford, where I went to school, you were not allowed to smoke in the classroom until after youтАЩd
passed your eleven plus and gone on to the Grammar.
So we did as all children did, and smoked in the toilets at playtime. The toilets were all equipped
with fitted ashtrays next to the bog-roll holders and once a day the ashtray monitor would go around and
empty them. Ashtray monitor was one of the better monitoring jobs, as you could often collect up a good
number of half-smoked ciga-rettes, crushed out hastily when the bell rang to end playtime, but still with a
few fine puffs left in them.
There were monitors for everything back then. A milk monitor; a chalk monitor; an ink monitor; a
window monitor, who got to use the big pole with the hook on the end; a monitor to give out the school
books and another to collect them up again. There was the car monitor who cleaned the headmistressтАЩs
Morris Minor; the shoe monitor who attended to the polishing of the teachersтАЩ footwear; and of course
the special monitor who catered to the needs of the male teachers who favoured underage sex.
I was a window monitor myself, and if I had a pound now for every pane of glass I accidentally
knocked out then and every caning I received in consequence, I would have enough money to employ a
special monitor of my own to lessen the misery of my declining years.
But sadly I do not.
However, what I do have is a photographic memory whose film remains unfogged and it is with the
aid of this that I shall endeavour to set down an accurate record of the way things were then. Of the folk
that I knew, who would later play their parts in the misshaping of history. Good folk and bad, famous and
not so. And of one in particular, whose unique talents, remarkable achievements and flamboyant lifestyle
are now the stuff of legend. A man who has brought joy into the lives of millions with his nonpareil nose
powder.
He is known today by many appellations. The tender blender with the blinder grinder. The master
blaster with the louder powder. And the geezer with the sneezer thatтАЩs a real crowd pleaser. And so on
and so forth and suchlike.
Most will know him simply as the Sultan of Snuff
I speak, of course, of Mr Doveston.
Those readers old enough to remember daily newspapers will recall with fondness the тАШgutter pressтАЩ.
Tabloids, as were. These journals specialized in documenting the lives of the rich and famous. And during
the final years of the twentieth century the name of Mr Doveston was often to be found writ in letters big
and bold across their front pages.
He was both praised and demonized. His exploits were marvelled at, then damned to Hell. Saint,
they said, then sinner. Guru, then Godless git. Many of the tales told about him were indeed true. He did
have a passion for dynamite тАФ the тАШBig Aaah-choo!тАЩ as he called it. I can personally vouch for the
authenticity of the infamous episode of the detonating dog. I witnessed it with my own two eyes. And I
got a lot ofit on me!
But that it was he who talked the late Pope into the canonization of Diana, Princess of Wales, is
incorrect. The worship of Diana, Di-anity as it is now known, did not become a major world religion until
after the Great Computer Crash. By which time Mr Doveston had fallen out with the ailing pontiff after an
argument over which of them possessed the larger collection of erotically decorated Chinese snuff
bottles.
The task I have set myself here is to tell the real story. Give the facts and hold not back upon the
guts and gore. There is love and joy and there is sorrow. There is madness, there is mayhem, there is