Trousers!

All is quiet at The Grymoire Observatory. A thick blanket of snow covers the house and grounds and, as the first flinty winter starlight catches the dark and glossy laurel groves along the smothered gravel drive; night drapes its somnolent shroud peacefully over cherub and chimney pot alike. Mr Chives shivers in his threadbare cardigan deep in the servants' quarters and with an arthritic hand clutches a rusty poker and worries a solitary, surly coal in the leaky pot bellied stove that smokes ineffectually next to his mouldering bed. Throughout the silent pile, frigid draughts stir greasy dust and forgotten holly wreaths from Yuletides past, mice huddle timorously behind dark wainscotting and Mrs O'Flaherty mutters a silent prayer of thanks for bed socks.
Then at the stroke of midnight a ghostly shriek suddenly rends the stillness. A series of dull thuds and alarming creaks follows and Mr Scott's collection of disturbing nicknacks flies from its shelf in the vestibule, scattering who knows what across the long suffering parquet floor. Moments later a terrified, wide eyed Mr Scott himself appears, nightshirt flapping as he runs the length of the great landing - arms waving and beard streaming - in pursuit: no less an apparition than…a disembodied pair of stout corduroy trousers! Following them both, Mr Shillaker emerges from the shadows and lets fly at the errant hosiery with an antique blunderbuss full of rusty tin tacks and pebbles. Clocks fall from the walls, Mrs O'Flaherty tumbles swearing from her bed, stuffed animals shed their fur, Mr Chives' false teeth fall out and plaster falls from sagging ceilings! For, dear readers, these are no ordinary kecks but none other than the mythical Haunted Trousers of Cronkleton! What unquiet spirits lurk within these otherwise unremarkable strides? What are the dark forces that propel them without visible means of support and cause them to gyre and ululate to the terror of anyone unfortunate enough to happen upon them? Why were they in Mr Scott's bed chamber anyway? Nobody knows. Suffice it to say that these dire pantaloons are sure to make their presence felt at the Headgate Theatre on the evening of Saturday the 29th of January 2011 when The Grymoire present an evening of whimsicality, music, light refreshments, mild peril and mirth between 8pm and 11pm!

Tickets a mere trifle at £7 or £6 concs - be there and all will be revealed.

Crumbs! Grymoire lads discover elusive Higgs fruitcake

Not to be outdone by Geneva based eggheads at the CERN LHC facility, Messrs Shillaker and Scott have for some time been trying to detect a theoretical form of fruitcake, thought to have existed as an exotic by-product of the big bang or something. Mr Leslie Grymme-Harbinger reports

The Grymoire Observatory, with it's majestic chimneys, leaky gutters and whimsical eaves, presents an unlikely looking venue for experiments at the cutting edge of physics and bakery but it is here that the search unfolds for the so called Higgs fruitcake; something of a holy grail for light refreshments experts, and until recently undetected outside of a few obscure scientific papers, and field equations. The outlandish experiments have thus far involved different kinds of cake and pastry being hurled together at impossible speeds to produce the so called 'building blocks' of cake. 'The quest of all cake lovers for decades now, has been to discover what actually constitutes these apparently familiar, commonplace and delicious objects' says Mark Shillaker, technical director for the project 'it was thought for generations that they were made by really nice ladies out of eggs, flour and sugar etc - but we now know there's way more to it than that'. Adam Scott, the project's propulsion specialist agrees: 'In our early experiments we fired Swiss rolls towards each other out of antique blunderbusses - to our great surprise a number of much smaller exotic cakes such as mini rolls and French fancies were produced - this has led us to a quest for higher and higher velocities to see just how far we can go'. How do the team answer growing concerns that their experiments constitute a real threat to the planet? 'There has been talk of us accidentally producing a bread pudding so dense that it may collapse under its own gravity and cause catastrophic indigestion and ultimately the destruction of parts of Berkshire - this is nonsense' insists Mr Shillaker, 'peddled by loons on the interweb and blogs'. So what of the elusive Higgs fruitcake - the mysterious cake type thing that underpins all sweet baked goods? The theoretical tea time delicacy had eluded the Grymoire Observatory team until last week when unprecedented levels of energy and complexity were deployed to finally crack the problem. 'Basically, we sort of rigged up a crazy machine using several hoovers, a massive cardboard tube from when we had the upstairs landing re-carpeted, some left over fireworks and a couple of very nice lemon drizzle cakes that Mrs O'Flaherty made' Mr Scott continued 'these were launched towards each other at colosal speeds - almost 12 miles per hour in fact - at the end we found a lovely fruitcake with brown sugar on, in a nearby cupboard - the evidence is irrefutable.'

Not all sceptics are convinced, however. Morris Cringe, the owner of Cronkleton's busy family bakery recently told reporters 'I send a lot of different cakes up there - they're mad on the stuff - I think they just fill whole rooms with them and play silly buggers all day - anyway I don't think my bread pudding could destroy Berkshire - Norfolk possibly but then only if it was put near a bread pudding of equal mass thus causing an unstoppable chain reaction'.

For anyone interested in exploring the question of cake further; visit the Headgate Theatre, Colchester on 29/01/11 at 8pm for A (Slightly Odd) Evening with The Grymoire - Tickets £7 & £6 concs

A Slightly Odd Evening With the Grymoire

Greetings Friends of The Grymoire!

Well, Autumn has well and truly swept his russet cape over the cracked tiles and weed choked gutters of the Grymoire Observatory. Stark red stalks of cornus glow in the chilly, lambent, late afternoon sunshine as Mr Chives grumbles and coughs his damp, tubercular way around the decaying herbaceous borders with rusty secatuers, wincing at his arthritic knuckles and whistling tunelessly. Fat, patient spiders dangle like predatory fruit from their sparkling, pendulous webs and scuttle gleefully after hapless midges and dead drunk wasps; all is mouldy, drooping, sodden and bent amid a riot of reds, browns, yellows and wreaths of bonfire smoke.

Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the Grymoire Observatory, the ancient rhythms of that crumbling pile continue uninterrupted by the turning of the year. The Tea Trolley of Occult Significance continues to trundle on its inscrutable hajj along the dark, oak wainscotted passages - Philip the Homunculus lovingly blows the last of the wood shavings from his home made pipe rack and Messrs Shillaker and Scott put the finishing touches to their latest wax cylinder of popular beat classics.

And in the cool cellar, surrounded by dusty rows of pointless bottled quince and yellowing back-copies of Amateur Satanism, the housekeeper Mrs O'Flaherty distractedly cranks with a beefy Irish forearm and inky fingers, the handle of an ancient clattering Gestetner duplicator. She pauses, glancing upwards through narrowed eyes as the unmistakable sounds of sorcery, organ grinding and Osiris worship disturb her ill tempered reverie for the hundredth time that morning and then looks down at the freshly minted stack of parchment flyers that is the fruit of her morning's labour. Taking one from the top she reads aloud:

A (SLIGHTLY ODD) EVENING WITH THE GRYMOIRE

at the Headgate Theatre, Colchester

Saturday 29/01/11 - 8pm

Tickets: £7 or £6 concs

Messrs Shillaker and Scott invite you to join them at Colchester prestigious Headgate Theatre for their yearly jamboree and an evening of splendid jiggery-pokery!

attractions include:

Grymoire Bingo, The Pants of Doom, the Tea Trolley of Occult Significance and The Mademe-cum-Nearly Horn Dance!

GASP! At the terrible tale of Meredith Hardy and the Alderman! LEARN about the nesting habits of the delightful ptarmigan! SEE what happens when Adam forgets to have a proper tea before getting to the performance! GROAN at the infuriating self justification of alcoholic car salesman Terry Shears!

Warning: Light refreshments may be fired into the audience at low to medium velocities.

In Short - A Capital Evening is Assured!

……daft buggers, mutters Mrs O.

Grymoire at Hollesley 2010

Hollesley Ukulele Festival 2010

Well, what a splendid adventure awaited the lads yesterday at the Hollesley Ukulele Festival 2010! Picture the scene dear reader: Mrs O'Flaherty, having tearfully packed an enormous hamper with enough cold chicken, plum duff and game pie to feed a small army, stood waving by the porch while Mr Chives, grumbling and lumpy from summer midge bites and lumbago lent a greasy elbow to the task of securing it firmly astern the venerable but spirited Observatory charabanc. Thus, back-firing, clattering and wheezing through the Suffolk fields, scattering squire and peasant alike amidst clouds of acrid fumes and chicken feathers, our erstwhile companions arrived finally at the sleepy hamlet of Hollesley where they encountered a veritable ukulele utopia! Delightful Chinese lanterns, gaily decorated pavilions, swaying willows and curious, wry folk from the four corners of the Empire and beyond, combined to produce a most edifying and entertaining evening enjoyed by all. Particular mention must therefore go to: the incomparable Vonck and Vlam (pictured) whose eccentric and spirited performance brought forth no small amount of mirth from the assembled throng; The Toots (firm friends of The Grymoire) who gave of their very considerable all, often with the most heartfelt singing; the suave and talented Frenchman, Yan Yalego who astonished the rapturous crowd with his 'human trumpet' and last but not least the Re-Entrants who polished off the night with verve and irreverence! Various other highly creditable performers conspired to entertain and amaze throughout the night and it would be not be too large an exaggeration to say that the most capital evening was experienced by everyone!

New Single - Terry Shears - Free Download

Dear Friends of the Grymoire - apologies for the lack of posting of late - After a busy New Year and Spring, Mr Scott and Mr Shillaker have been tucked away in the bowels of the Grymoire Observatory tinkering about with whatever it is they tinker about with down there, drinking copious amounts of tea and plotting the next installment of their jiggery-pokerous chronicle . The upshot of this occasionally noisy and spider-dislodging industry, which last week involved the vicar having to be summoned at very short notice, is the production of this latest ditty by the chaps; 'Terry Shears'. It charts the sorry rise and fall of Cronkleton's unlucky, bibulous car dealer and late night chip-eater of the same name. How he embarked as a young man full of hope and stinking of Brut 33 in the 1970s, bright eyed and at the cutting edge, and how he ground to a greasy, maudlin halt twenty years later; out of work, palsied, whiskey stinking and rheumy eyed. Anyroad - enough rambling from yours truly right-click here to download your very own copy gratis! Right - off to chivvy the chaps now to prepare for their forthcoming appearance at the prestigious Hollesley Ukulele Festival!

The Grymoire - Lucky Seven

Here we are...in a field...with a camera...and some hats!