An awful falling out
Let me be frank: the mystery team reunion is the main reason for this issue. It is a little treat for the long-time reader. I can’t answer every question in a few pages. But I needed you to know they were all still intact.
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Linton – you heartbreaker!
Linssom. Bloss seems so sweet with that bionic peg leg.
BLOSS. BLOSS AND THE LINT. DESTINY FOR SURE.
I think that’s a moon boot rather than a prosthetic lower leg
A falling out? With Blossom? UNPOSSIBLE.
Blossom has never had falling outs with anyone. Surely not. They’re primarily known for their good social skills etc etc
Very happy to see the team back together 😁
Very nervous to see Fishman
DES!
Is that Tom at the bar with Des?
Looks rather stouter than our favourite magus.
I think some of that’s just a loose jacket. And he may have been stress eating after the events of “Extreme Freaks”.
Ooh that look from Linton in the Third to last panel! What was going on between him and Blossom?
https://scarygoround.com/badmachinery/index.html?pg=1108#showComic
And then https://scarygoround.com/badmachinery/index.html?pg=1113#showComic
More recently, he was resistant to Lottie’s efforts to pry into his romantic life.
Ah yes, I remember that during her emergency Glasgow session.
Wow, I forgot all about that short lived romance! Thanks!
I guess not much has been happening in Blossom’s love life since, if they’re still hung up on Linton?
I think, connecting this page to Linton’s resistance to letting Lottie pry into his romantic life in “Wobbly Head”, that this may be current events, not just Blossom being hung up on that one time they made out with Linton at a wedding because they’d both been rejected by their crushes.
I’d forgotten how great this whole plotline was. Romesh is the best!
I really want to see at least a flashback image of Claire and Blossom’s band.
Wasn’t that Go-Kart Conspiracy?
Yeah. Their first (and, as far as I know, only) gig was at Peggy’s baby shower at the end of “Hard Yards”. Shauna as lead singer, Lottie on guitar, Claire as backup singer and bass, Blossom on drums.
Mildew’s review in “Wen-Tack”: “I’ll deny it if challenged… but I think their music is inferior to silence.”
John Cage did have an all-silence composition, for those who prefer this sort of music.
By odd coincidence, I was telling people about 4’33” just this last Saturday.
To be pedantic 4′ 33″ is not a silent composition. It’s just one where the musicians on stage don’t play their instruments.
Top notch pedantry, but to be fair to Dan the composition is three movements with the instruction “tacet” [be silent] and it’s the performances that themselves are an exploration of what this ostensible silence entails…
If we’re going to be pedantic, the proper glyphs for minutes and seconds are neither straight nor curly quotation marks. They are the prime and double prime symbols: ′ ″. There also exist triple and quadruple primes for other (mathematical & scientific) uses: ‴ & ⁗.
Since the composition is a short work, it would be set in roman (not italic) type and enclosed in quotation marks, ideally with a hair-space separating the double prime and the closing mark: “4′ 33″ ”
Many thanx. The world makes so much more sense now. :^)
Before Unicode, people had to make do with whatever limited repertoire of characters were in their computer’s set, and even now it can be hard to figure out how to type anything outside old-fashioned ASCII.
For the sake of layering pedantry upon pedantry, the name “prime” comes from the Latin for “first”, so “double prime” (double first) is a bit of a misnomer for the second thing. Mutatis mutandis, “triple prime” and “quadruple prime”.
I see Blossom now uses they/them pronouns, but still retains the same cheery disposition.
Surprising. Blossom always gave me the impression that, despite HER misanthropic veneer, SHE was at heart a no-nonsense type of person.
I wonder how SHE came down with pronoun trouble.
Oh, changing pronouns isn’t trouble! If anything it makes more sense for a no-nonsense type of person to not spend too much time with the nonsense of using labels that don’t suit them, and just get on with being their authentic self.
What is trouble, however, is bigotry. Watch out for that.
I just realised that I can’t see a way to report comments on this, I feel that there should be, since there is some obvious bigotry going on.
There’s no need for this. Shutting the comments for this one.
Love Mildred’s grin on the fourth panel. She really thrives in chaos.
Mildred’s a tosser of overripe tomatoes from way back.
How nice of Jack to hold the door for Blossom.
It wouldn’t be a real John Allison Christmas special without Desmond.
“Skipper”?
Short for “pram-face council estate skipper”. It’s been Blossom’s pet name for Shauna since “Lonely One”. I think it has something to do with skips, as in British for dumpsters.
As a non-native speaker, I never understood that insult. Not then, not now.
I don’t really speak Gen Z, but I think “pram-face” implies a young woman who’s destined to be pushing a pram with a baby in it by 20 rather than doing anything with her life, while a council estate is an area of social housing, and I guess that a “skipper” is doneone who salvages furniture and such from skips.
In other words, it’s a compound class-based insult, and hence the nuclear option in British terms. Though I think that Blossom just heard it somewhere and is using it slightly wrong.
I rescued some of my favourite pieces of furniture from skips, and I did not grow up on a council estate. I was just very poor at a certain stage in my life. The very table I’m using for my PC as I type this came from a skip; I found a working harmonium once; I have chairs and tables, which all just needed a bit of tarting up. We called ourselves “skip divers” though, not “skippers.” Proud of my furniture-rescuing skills, I am.
John’s covered “pram-face” and “skipper” below. “Council estate” is just a statement of fact, which Shauna acknowledged when she Kobayahi Maru‘d Blossom in “Missing Piece”. Shauna did grow up on a council estate (public housing project, for American-speakers), AND SO WHAT.
(The time Blossom took a boy off Shauna in the 2nd year was the incident I linked in my above post.)
Which she also mentions very early on in the series alongside some biting early music criticism
PRAM-FACE
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pram_face
Skipper was a reference to Barbie’s little sister, a comment by Blossom on Shauna’s big wall of dirty blonde hair and quite bandy legs, like a dishevelled dolly.
Nickname for a ship’s captain, presumably a reference to Shuana proficiency in aquatic sport.
I think it’s a reference to Barbie’s little sister, “Skipper.”
Not the guy in charge of Gilligan?
You hoped she forgot, Linton
“hoped they forgot”, as that seems to be Blossom’s pronoun now.
I’m sure Glorm was expecting to be intimidated by the Mystery Boys, but I’m sure now compared to the surprise visit from Blossom, they probably don’t seem all that bad to him right now.
Thank you for the treat, then!
A treat indeed 🥰
I will repeat my prediction that Fizz is the cause of her injury during roller derby. Knowing John I’m probably wrong, but it works in my head canon.
It’s way more surprising that Blossom at one point fell in with someone
Mystery crew 4ever
Angry Tongue Hockey is a marvelous name for a band.
Or maybe Furious Tongue Hockey.
Feel free to partake.
I like “Angry Tongue Hockey” but would also like to suggest “Electric Tongue Hockey,” which I don’t say is better but it did occur to me.
And us long-time readers truly appreciate this little morsel.
As a fellow long-time reader, can confirm.
The important thing is that Blossom and Shauna still seem to be friends. I’m really curious about what happened between Lottie and Blossom. They never really liked each other, but this looks like the scene that lead to a duel in a cowboy movie.
There has been mention of some fatal break-up of the OG mystery team – “police nepo baby” and “water-borne traitor” being among the j’accusations flung by prime suspect Grote, C., and probably something to do with Lottie and Claire being separated from the rest after Wen-Tack.
(No, I don’t get out that much. Why do you ask?)
Maybe Blossom has a problem?
A problem that needs solving, you mean?
Oh we KNOW Blossom has a problem.
And that seems to be Lottie.
A treat so much appreciated!
I hope we get to see if Sonny has a boyfriend yet ? As that would too too adorable ☺️
Man, what is up with Mildred’s evil grin? Something nefarious, or is it just a way of expressing discomfort?
I think she’s just enjoying the drama unfolding all around her.