A Beginner's Guide To Old School Hip Hop (part 1)

A Beginner’s Guide to Old School Hip Hop (Part 1)

1. In 1873 Bumptious Jamaican ex-pat Kool DJ Herc landed on Planet Rock in his propane propelled Tobago Toboggan. He took up a job as a lab assistant at Playahood ‘dropping’ Science Industries, where he began mixing samples in a Petri dish, ‘just for the craic’. One night he was working overtime – saving up enough money to Pimp up his Toboggan – when he accidentally mixed up the juice of a Kangol with some toast crumbs (Croutons), with essence of South Bronx Pork Scratchings and Hey Presto! Hip Hop was born.
Herc’s part time job as a boating lake janitor also afforded him the opportunity of shouting at people in a rather melodic yet melancholic officious type way.
‘Come in number six, your time’s up’, ‘Stop twatting that duck with your oar you Mother F*&*£$%^!’, ‘Oh it’s not number six, number nine’s in trouble’ and ‘ Yo! Mother^%%$ **%£ %”£%* *”Y%%* $&^ in my boating lake!’ were some of his favorites.
One spring day he took his little Hip Hop Petri dish to the boating lake for a special treat, affixed a small sail and floated it off over the lake. He began shouting at it just for old time’s sake, and Hey Presto! MCing was invented as well.

2. Afrika Bambaataa, another lab assistant at Playahood ‘dropping’ Science Industries sneaked into Herc’s lab one night and found the Petri dish. He smoked its essence in a Lucozade Bong Bottle and experienced several visions. One such vision told him he should dress like Michael Caine in the film Zulu, but he soon realized that that vision was taking the Pith. Another vision suggested he should amass a vast ‘eclectic’ record collection which he immediately did by purchasing copies of ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool’ and ‘Hot As A Dockers Armpit’ by Budgie.
The eccentricity of his break choices within his eclectic sets brought nothing but derision from purists everywhere, but he remained unperturbed. Mixing Cliff’s ‘Summer Holiday into ‘Tonight Long Stick Goes Boom’ by Krokus he irked the purists everywhere and unwittingly invented ‘Big Beat’, for which he is still very sorry and all that.

3. The Littlest Grand Wizard Theodore used to catch bats in caves tunneled for Japanese landing barges during the Second World War. The ‘scritchy scratchy’ noises they used to make once firmly ensconced within his Wizard Bat Satchel would, on occasion, move him to tears. So much so that he decided to emulate their sounds on record by moving the vinyl back and forth under the stylus just before his mother called him down for dinner. A dinner consisting of Batty de Foi Gras, Bat Aloo, and Arctic Bat with sprinkles.

4. Sylvia Robinson, a vagabond proselytizer, who by day wrote gloriously pithy depression-era poverty skits for cruise ships and at night ran a record label called ‘Sugar Hillock’ was another important cog in the development of Hip Hop. Cashing in all her cruise ship tokens she released, ‘Rapper’s Angel Delight’, which although not the first Hip Hop tune, definitely put Old School Pudding Hop firmly on the map. So much so that MC Spotted Dick and DJ Rhubarb Crumble started a beef with Sugar Hillock and a drive-by shouting ensued. Grand Master Flash, a gold painted midget fire eater from Kansas became the first gold painted midget fire eater from Kansas to rap on John Craven’s Newsround.

5. A group from Jamaica Queens, consisting of Jamaica Queens (Rastafarian Elton John fans) attempted to capture the Hip Hop sound as it was played at the original parties on vinyl but failed miserably. Their 12”, ‘Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Afghan Leb’ sank without a trace. It was down to Warehouse Shoelace clearance men Run DMC to finally capture the sound successfully with their tune, ‘Walk Like An Egyptian In Shell Toes’.

6. Spooky bearded hermit type man, Ben Rubin Gunn left his Kosher Labyrinthine cave on Long Treasure Island and joined forces with Jazzy Jpeg Leg. Together they formed Jolly Def Roger Jam Records and took over the pirate airwaves everywhere. LL Blue Cool Beard’s, ‘I Need a Doubloon Exchange’, was their first release, putting both Hip Hop and Pirate Finance firmly on the ‘treasure’ map. Jazzy Jpeg Leg, appeared on Rolf Harris’ Cartoon time where he showed off little digital pictures on his wooden stump.

7. One day Ben Rubin Gunn was passing a pet shop when he saw three squawking whining beasts in the window. He purchased them as a job lot and offered them a recording contract on the spot. The Beastie Parrots were born. ‘No Sleep ‘til Millet’, ‘My Perch (She’s On It)’ and ‘You Gotta Fight for Your Rights to Have Kelp In Your Cage’. were just three of their huge hits. They toured England and gained notoriety for laughing at budgies, stealing mirrors from purses and having an inflatable Cockatoo on stage.

8. Marley Marl’s Cold Chillin’ Ice Cream Factory incorporated such artists as, Kool Lolly G Rap, Masta Choc Ice, Roxanne Mint Cornetto, Biz Lolly, and Mark the 99 King. Eric B and Rakim, two ice cream van drivers for Mr Whippy were also touched by the Cold Chillin’ Ice Cream magic, when they released, ‘The Coconut Magnum Fiend’.

9. KRS-One (aka the Krispy Ruffled Solicitor) met Scott La Pebble at a soup kitchen where Pebble worked as chief soup maker upper. They both began making soup together as Boogie Down Broth Promotions. Classics included, ‘South Bronx Gazpacho’ and ‘The Crouton Is Over’ – an assertion that little fried bread cubes were the spiritual symbol of Hip Hop dating back to Kool Herc’s Petri Dish. Ironic that the croutons were crumbling and Hip Hop was dispersing all over the country by now.

10. Dim but lovable dentist’s nightmare Flavor Flavanoid, was discovered in a watchmakers shop trapped within the confines of a Cuckoo Clock by kindly Campanologist Chuck D. Released on parole by Chuck, they formed a group. Flav suffered recurring nightmares from the cuckoo clock experience and would ask for the time almost every minute of every hour. The original name of the group was ‘Amphibian Sedation Watchmaker’ but this was later changed to PE in honor of Chuck’s PE teacher a Miss Spindle ‘chips’ Triticale.

Flyer Archive #3

Fantastic review of the Prague gig by Picko-d on Brownswood here - http://www.brownswood.co.uk/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/566/picko_ds-guest-monday-post/p1

The Calls Of Twigs And Bog Moss

Field recording seems a dark magus art to many sound designers and composers, yet it is one way to create rich libraries of original material. Put simply, field recording is the process of capturing sounds from the real world, for future use in analysis, archiving, sound design, folly, or composition work. The process of recording these sounds can range from simple to covert to extremely complex. ‘Sounds from the Forest- The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss’ is perhaps the holy grail of field recordings eluding record collectors for over 40 years. Now Zygote Records make the impossible possible with this strictly limited repress of 500.

The wonderfully captured sounds of twigs and bog moss are clearly a spontaneous response to the landscape and habitats they dwell in.

Bryophytes in bogs and mountain forests form a thick carpet, reducing erosion. In forest ecosystems they act like a sponge retaining and slowly releasing water. They provide habitat for other plants as well as microorganisms like N2-fixing blue-green bacteria. 

These evocative recordings range richly from Bog Moss with a dominant Gametophyte to twigs with or without a midrib Thallose liverwort to Liverwort leaf cells with numerous chloroplasts. In some sound passages containing Bryophytes , male and female are borne on separate gametophytes and in other parts of the recordings we get zygotes developing within the archegonium.

A wonderful curio which thanks to Zygote Records is well worth picking up.

Tracklisting –

Side A

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part One: VegetiveTwigs, Fruiting Spurs, Abscission.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Two: Peristone Spores, Male Gametophyte, Calyptra.

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Three: Bud Scale Scars, Fruiting Spurs, Young Sporophyte

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Four: Sporangium, Female Gametophyte, Sporgenous Tissue

Side B


The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Five: Archegonium, Operculum, Vegetive Twigs

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Six: Sporopollenin Spores, Filamentous Rhizoids

The Calls of Twigs and Bog Moss – Part Seven: Mass Antherozoid, Biodisc Photomicrograph, Prostrate Xylemphloem Spor

Open Decks

‘My Aunt will be down presently, Mr Krunk,’ said a very self-possessed 16 year old B-Boy, ‘in the meantime you can chill here with me baby boy.’

Frampton Krunk endeavoured to offer the correct slang term in reply, thus flattering the B-Boy’s colloquialisms but only managed, ‘Ok’ and ‘Yo’. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits to the Bronx Ghetto, or Planet Rock on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure he was undergoing for his fear of Hip-hop.

‘I know how it will be,’ his sister had said, ‘you will bury yourself beneath the Strokes engine rock and your nerves will be worse than ever from mopeds. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know from my Avon round and hopefully you’ll gradually overcome your fear.’
‘Do you know many people in the hood?’ asked the B-Boy.
‘Hardly a soul’, said Krunk, my sister used to deliver Avon Wu Wear to the good folks round here and she gave me the letters of introduction.’
‘Then you know practically nothing about my aunt then?’ pursued the self-possessed B-boy.
‘Only that she lives here in the Bronx.’ An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation not least from the two empty Technics decks in the corner, wide open and glowing red from the lights.

‘Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,’ said the B- boy; ‘that would be since your sister’s time.’
‘Her tragedy?’ asked Frampton, already fearing a hip-hop related ‘beef’ which had turned out for the worst.

‘You may wonder why we keep those decks open, with the lights on, all day what with no one around using them,’ said the boy, indicating the two Technics 1210s and a mixer in the corner.
‘It does seem strange,’ said Frampton; but have the decks got anything to do with the tragedy?’
‘Off from those decks, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the basketball court to their favourite vantage point they were all three engulfed in a treacherous ‘beef’. It had been that dreadful hot summer, you know, and places that had been safe in other years gave way. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.’ Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. ‘Poor Aunt always thinks they will come back some day, and walk up to those open decks and cut up good in a hip hop stylee just as they used to. Poor dear aunt she has often told me how they went out, her husband forgetting his bulletproof coat, and MC Ron, her youngest brother rapping ‘Straight Outta Compton’. As he always did to tease her because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know sometimes on still quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that door.

He broke off with a little shuder. It was a relief to Frampton when the aunt bustled in with a whirl of apologies for being late.
‘I hope Vincent has been amusing you?’ she said.
‘He has been very interesting,’ said Frampton.
I hope you don’t mind the open decks,’ said Mrs Sappleton briskly; my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting; and they always go for a mix-up fix up before dinner. They’ve been out for a ‘beef’ in the Ghetto today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?’ She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of peace in the ghetto. To Frampton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate effort to turn the talk onto a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open decks. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid a visit on this tragic anniversary.

‘The critics agree that the new Strokes record is a masterpiece, a sonic cathedral of fuzzy guitar heaven and it has caused me much mental excitement each time I have listened to it. Have you heard it?’ asked Frampton.
‘No!’ said Mrs Sappleton in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention – but not to what Frampton was saying.
‘Here they are at last!’ she cried. ‘Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were bloody up to the eyes!’

Frampton shivered slightly and turned towards the B-Boy with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring at the open decks with dazed horror in his eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Frampton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures walked through the door and assembled next to the open decks, they all carried Glocks under their arms and one of them was rapping, ‘Straight outta Compton, ******, ****** named Ice Cube, ******* ******* Attitude ******’

Frampton Krunk grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the door, the tenement staircase, the basketball court were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat.

‘Yo, yo, me and my crew is back ho. Like, who was that ridiculous homie who left like a dirty dog?’
‘A most extraordinary man, a Mr Krunk,’ said Mrs Sappleton, ‘could only talk about The Strokes and dashed off, without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.’

‘Probably your baseball cap!’ said the B-Boy calmly; he told me he had a horror of baseball caps. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs all wearing baseball caps, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve’.

Romance at short notice was his speciality!

(With apologies to Saki)

Jack In The Green

“Peck? PECK!?! Peck, is a lightweight sir! He is balsa wood!” shrieks the Morris Dancer to one of his companions who'd all just gathered by the medieval sandal repair stall. Each swaying like Hogwoort in the breeze, clearly copious amounts of old Beltchfungus had been consumed throughout the morning and the conversation was becoming heated.

“Enough, Leopold, you old curmudgeon, it’s your round anyway, so quell your linseed boots and get to the bar. Four pints of Beltchfungus Ale and a Lager top for Wortley.”
“Lager Top? LAGER TOP?!! Lager top is the liquor for boys! A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk sir! Ale! Ale! ALE sir, in my tankard discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage and bashfulness for confidence. Ale sir!”

“But what of the bar Leopold and our ales? What of them?”
“The bar? The bar? Worth seeing, but not worth going to see sir! In fact, feast your eyes over yonder and hark The Kent Mad Peeps Morris Men with their gimlety eyes and their MDF cudgels. Let’s go and teach them a thing or two about bell maintenance. I’ve heard tales that those knaves now dance to Kaiser Chiefs! Damn them and their intricate XTC inspired floorshow. Damn them to Colchester!”
Welcome to Jack In The Green. A reverential celebration of the coming of summer and an observation of the traditional fertility rites of pre-Christian Britain or just an excuse for a load of pagans to get battered? Hmmm?

A man with a green metal tree bolted into his nostril – not too dissimilar to those air fresheners that hang in cars – staggers around swabbing innocent bystanders with a mixture of green paint and ale (ALE Sir!) soaked in a sponge. People run in terror from the sponge and the wasps. Pallid Goth children with pentagram satchels hobble about on comedy Dave Hill platforms whilst trying to carry off the air of a borough surveyor. Failing miserably. Or should that be failing cheerfully?
A Wagnarian Geoff-Capes-a-like with a dead stag complete with antlers on his head bellows at a pack of timid Japanese tourists perched up on the castle battlements,
“OI GET OFF THE WALL!! GET OFF THE ‘FIRCONE’ WAAAAALLL!!!”
They politely wave back, assuming it to be a greeting of, “Hello and welcome to our quaint little festival, please do try one of the Quail vol-a-vents before you go. Most delicious”

A day when Jesters, harlequins, medieval lepers, the lowliest of cow herders, and hell, even Marillion fans can feel special and wanted. All crawl out of their haemorrhagic bedsits and join in the dance. Nice middle-class families picnic in amongst the marauding Mongol warlords, the dead seamen, the mummers and the pappers, the drummers, frightful bearded Mad Jacks, pixies, wikkas, goblins, orcs, welks, flagellants and stilted doomlords. There are more beards per square meter than at a Greek Easy Fisherman convention in Stellios and yes, that includes the women as well.

Down below the castle battlements it’s a completely different story. It’s the Isle Of Man TT meets Monsters Of Rock, with thousands upon thousands of motor bikes descending on the town in a plume of acrid black ozone bashing carbon. The old Mod and Rocker days are clearly over because I see not a single Lambretta, only row upon row of parked up Suzukis, Nortons, Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, Ducatis and Gileras. They thunder through the town preventing any possibility of pedestrian road crossing at all.

This total domination of the greasy biker over the sharp dressed Mod depressed me so much so that I decided to act. I photocopy a life size photograph of Quadrophenia era Phil Daniel’s face and sellotape it underneath my pork pie hat. I purchase a pair of grey shoes from Hush Puppies in honor of the ace face Sting (???). I ‘borrow’ a child’s pushbike and weld two hairdryers to either side of the chassis. I smash up a mirror ball and superglue the pieces to a bit of chicken wire before welding the whole structure to the handlebars. Finally I purchase a green souwester from Millets and spray a stick of candyfloss brown and attach it to my Ariel.

I’m ready! I spin into town and park up outside The Carlisle, the renown and notorious greasy biker’s pub on the sea front. I sit for a moment collecting my thoughts and then at the top of my lungs I shout, “Oi you bunch of unwashed Neanderthals, Margate was only just the beginning! We Are The Mods! We Are The Mods!”

A huge Biker orc walks over to me and grabs my souwester.
“Oi, don’t touch the cloth, moth” I say defiantly.

He looks at me and then beckons his mates over with a claw (He was eating crabs: probably the night before as well!?) In a split second I’m on my Lambretta-wish-it-was and off down the sea front. It doesn’t take long before the bunch of inbreds have saddled up and are after me at speed. I make out at least thirty of them in my rear view mirror disco ball. I peddle even faster. A jazz fan waves at me, “Go on son! Just like in the old days!”

They are almost approaching me so I take a detour. ‘Welcome to Eastbourne’ the sign reads. We continue for a few more miles until I’m exhausted and they’ve nearly caught me. I’m thinking it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Then I see it.

I peddle for all my life my squirrel-tail-candy-floss-type-thing swaying maniacally on the end of my Ariel. “Welcome To Beachy Head. For Samaritans See Yellow Pages (Super Samaritans - X Directory)” reads the sign. We are neck and neck. One of the biker orcs reaches out. He grabs at me. Just at the last minute I swerve to the left. The bikers thunder past me and into oblivion. Like unwashed lemmings they tip over the edge of the vast cliff one by one. Thankfully the tide is high and I’m moving on, I want to be your ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You. They angrily shake their fists at me from the water.

“We Are The Mods” I reply and eat my pork pie hat.

The Collosal Ziggurats

Monster tune alert!  12’’ of the month


The Collosal Ziggurats are a twisted triumvirate of situationist-inspired Acid House heads. A kind of Two Plone Swordsmen meets 3 in a Room, with 808 Heptaphlebium flourishes. Their super-limited first 12’’   ‘Shotgun Frog Fuzz’ is out now on Madrid’s Über cool ‘Los Treaclos’ record label.


The Collosal Ziggurats are at the forefront of that new genre, ‘Mutant Balearic’, which has been creating a buzz in all the right Korova milk bars. Certainly traces within this new Shotgun Frog Fuzz 12’’ features vocalist and guitarist Rodriguez Butterworth, who previously played in the Ibiza post-rave band ‘Courvoisier Punch’ a band that stretches atmospheric elevator compositions beyond the 10-minute mark with the help of Theremin and zither. You don’t get that here but what you do get is a swaggering conchae groove of overwhelming beauty.


The last days of Disco’s gorgeously terrifying snarls and the sexy lupine howl of boogie blended together in Smokey Robinson’s love Jacuzzi with a peppering of post-reunification German plink-plonk. Slinky, but never slick, a paean to raving and an infectious enthusiasm to stone washed jeans and the tanning salons of Cala Bona, The Collosal Ziggurats have surely ‘mutated Balearic’ as far as it can go and back again to see how far it is.

Finding Emo

I found a wounded Emo on my way home from the pub last week. It was lying on the pavement just outside a Kohl bunker, motionless and looked to be in a very bad way. Kneeling down I checked under its Romulan fringe and discovered to my shock that its eyes were filled with blood, like globules of beetroot juice, and upon further investigation at least two of its kindling thin limbs were fractured.  I couldn’t take it to the vets because they were all closed so I decided to take it home instead.

 Picking up the spindly little creature in my arms I was surprised how light it actually was; as light as a feather cut in fact. Who could have inflicted such starvation on this poor defenceless Emo I wondered. I carried it all the way home to my house and just as we crossed the threshold into the hallway the delicate little soul began to stir. The whole of its body trembled and shivered as it let out an introverted whine which reminded me of a Cabaret Voltaire synth line.

 After bathing its eyes in a sink full of Dettol and Sild and scrubbing its oily coat with Pears, I took the Emo to a special bijou-goth nest which I’d prepared earlier and laid it down on a bed of shredded poetry and Kerrang magazines. The Emo said nothing preferring instead to blink at me in a confused lonely fashion. ‘Poor little Emo, which cruel and evil master has restrained you in such tight fitting garb?’ I said, gesturing at the skin tight trousers, studded belt and cardy combo. Still there was no reply, only a melodramatic sigh. Within five minutes the poor defenceless little creature was snoring soundly so I decided to leave it to its introverted dreams.

 The next morning I drew a bath with charcoal and then had a shower. I took a breakfast of kippers and millet to the bijou-goth nest along with a dog bowl full of Moss Icon in order to cheer it up. It ate feverishly and without any word.

‘Poor little Emo, you clearly are in a bad way’ I said. ‘Here, let me cheer you up with some sounds’ and I placed some emotionally-charged punk rock music onto my Bermuda Dansette.

 As the intricate, arpeggiated guitar melodies and top-of-the-lungs screaming began something rather worrying happened. The Emo took the cutlery that I’d given it to butter its kipper and it began to cut itself. Making savage slashing marks to its wrists and forearms. Luckily it was plastic cutlery, and as further luck would have it, the Emo was using the teaspoon at the time but it was still a rather disconcerting sight. I explained to the Emo that self-harm was not really such a strong look, especially with a plastic teaspoon but it seemed unperturbed. This was clearly the dark side of the spoon.

 The Emo looked at me with a derogatory self-pitying stare. Its vacant, wordless face said it all really, something like, ‘You’ll never understand me and my ways’.

I rushed to the Dansette and ripped the needle off.

The music stopped abruptly.

‘We may not understand each other Emo, but mutual as well as self-respect is paramount if you are to make a full recovery.’ I admonished rather robustly.

 The Emo finished off the rest of its breakfast head down and without a sound. All that is apart from a low hum which sounded a bit like Carve Your Hat Out Yourself by Washboard Confessional but I may have been mistaken.

 Later that day I took the Emo to my local park. It just sat perched at the top of a children’s climbing frame dangling its asymmetrical fringe through the bars and glumly humming the words to ‘My Parents Hate Me ‘Cos I Don’t Wash Up’ by My Chemical Brother’s Romance.
 ‘Sweet Moses!’ I exclaimed, ‘I’ve really got my work cut out with you, haven’t I?’

 However as the week progressed, things began to improve. The Emo seemed to get stronger, its eyes cleared of the blood and the Kohl-like oily substance on its coat had almost completely disappeared. Even its spirits seemed to improve; I noticed one day it was writing a poem of unrequited love to a dead teddy bear called Cubic Zircona and scrawling the lyrics to a song about cruising the suburbs looking for a parentless party called, ‘Together In Electric My Space Dreams’.

 As we sat down one evening to a light meal of Husker Du Nachos and Salsa Minor Threat sauce, I decided to break the good news to the Emo.

‘Emo, I think that you’re now strong enough to return to your natural habitat, and therefore I’ve decided I’m going to release you back into the wild tomorrow.’

The Emo looked at me with resignation, clearly we had grown to respect each other though we were completely different and although the Emo seemed to be enjoying the company it knew without a doubt that it had to return to its own kind.

 The next morning after a hearty breakfast of Walkers Crisps and fags I carried the Emo to the local town shopping centre in a cardboard box. I’d cut holes so it could see and more importantly breathe. Along the way it made a weirdly irritating whining noise always rising at the end. Clearly it was ready to assimilate with its own again. Eventually I set the box down several meters from the shopping centre fountain. There was a huge Emo flock congregated around the fountain, squawking, preening and generally emulating broken-heartedness. I opened the box and shooed the Emo out. At first it just stayed timidly put in the box. Clearly some ‘hard love’ was required.

‘Go on damn you!’ I cried ‘get out of the box…go and be with your own! This is hard for me as well you know.’ The Emo slowly climbed out of the box and loped over to the flock. Almost as soon as it had sat down at the fountain three others had surrounded it remarking on its stripes, fringe, polka dots and coat. I took this as a good sign and slowly crept away.