Welcome back, Romany! I had noticed your absence. Now that you've finished organising the Olympics, can we expect to see more of you?

<< BD finally flipped his wig. Thinks he's some guy called Polycarp these days. Lost his memory too. Keeps posting the same things he used to post as BD. Gotta humour the poor ole sod, though."
Romany looks dismayed "You mean we have to recycle all that stuff about Muslim Chapels in Universities and polygamy and 9 year old girls?" >>

Not sure about "we", but apparently the born-again old nutter feels the need to revisit all his old hateful obsessions under his new identity. Apparently he's now openly modelling himself on Oswald Mosely, Enoch Powell and Pauline Hanson - but about the only person he's fooling is himself.

At least we're not getting quite so much rabid bible-bashing these days, which is certainly a blessing.

Bronwyn

Your guess is as good as mine regarding Gumpp, but he does seem very happy, best not to disturb.

Romany

Consider yourself swept up in big hug; your clarity and cogent form has been missing from these pages. Yes you have analyzed the OLO soap opera with your unmatched perception.

Nothing has really changed - even BD/PC. You know, the more things change, the more they remain the same...

Much love.

"Mektoub" said Forrest softly, then fired his remaining bullet into the ground.

The seconds rushed to where Fractelle lay, folded, on the grass: Romany, to do what she could for Fractelle; Ludwig, to retrieve the Smith & Wesson.

Forrest's bullet had struck Fractelle's shoulder, severing the left subclavian artery in its transit. She was going downhill about as fast as old Oetzi, 'the Iceman', had about 5,000 years ago, high up in the Italian Alps in that corrie where he had been ambushed.

Forrest hadn't intended exactly this. Walking up to where Fractelle was being worked on by the two seconds, Forrest didn't know what to say, but he said it anyway: "Well, Fractelle, you really shot yourself in my foot there, didn't you?" Fractelle briefly smiled weakly. Romany asked sharply "Is that your, ah, sole contribution here Forrest? If so, please stay out of my way!"

Forrest stood back.

Deep down, Forrest knew he had helped save the world. ChristinaMac would be sure to appreciate it before anyone else. Others would come around in due course. Forrest knew a secret boast when he saw one! And Fractelle had made one here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2044#42571 ! "qantum physics" indeed! This was no accidental spelling error. Forrest understood it for what it really was right off: "Queensland and Northern Territory Uranium Mining physics"! Fractelle had been a traitor, a secret sell-out to global corporatisation!

Idly, Forrest wondered what Fractelle's weapons of choice would have been, had he been so unwise as to lay down the challenge. He knew she did't like guns. Suddenly, he felt just the slightest regret.

Footnotes for Bronwyn et al: the missing links

Re "not contributing much" http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2066#43131 and http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2066#43202

Fractelle's background reading? http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2040#42525 and http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1800#35722

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2070#43029

Romany turned from Fractelle's prone and bleeding body to gaze after Forrest's retreating back with narrowed eyes - which immediately began to water. (Dammit! She'd have to stop plaiting her hair so tightly.) Conspiracy theories? Plots? All those obfuscatory references? Every hair on her chest stood up. She, and she alone, it appeared, knew what his real agenda was.

"Ah...just a minute there, Mr. Gump." She said quietly, the spiked collar she wore momentarily compressing her larynx.

Gump stopped but did not turn round.

"So. You thought no-one had noticed, hmmm?" She eased herself upright on thighs that had been magnificently toned by a thousand foreign squatty potties."Well, Mr. Gump. - Or whatever you call yourself." Her mouth twisted in an unpleasant grin -which always happened when her corns were playing up:
" J'accuse!!" (Oh hell. Had she spelt that right? Bloody foreign quotes. Why couldn't those French devils learn to speak English like everyone else?)
"Thought you could leave just like that, did you? The Alpha male stalking away from the crumpled body of repressed femininity? Thought you'd get away with giving Ludwig the role of gun-snatcher while I was to represent The Nurturing Woman? Yet another instance of the chauvinist, patriachal Master leaving the running-dog, capitalist lackey..." (ah damn! she'd mixed her conspiracy theories with her gender wars. Ah well, yet another sign that she was back in the fraught and dangerous OLO battleground).
She recovered with a flick of her blood red cape (which matched beautifully with the cheeky little pair of lace knickers she wore on the outside of her Army pants)
"Well, Mr Gump, " she cried......."Take this!!"

(To be Continued....)

(Continued......)

And, throwing her head back she began to sing in a powerful bass voice that Helen Reddy would have envied "I am woman, hear me roar.."

A number of things happened at once.

Ludwig ceased crooning over his Smith and Wesson and began to look at her with new eyes (well, they were new contacts, actually, but until that minute they'd been irritating the hell out of him); Fractelle rose shakily to her feet and began to join in; Bronwyn -temporarily tone-deaf from the gun shot- added her voice; and CJ embarked upon an obscene drinking song from his undergraduate past.

And Gump? The mighty, victorious Gump?

He dropped to the ground as one pole-axed, and lay writhing in the dust, hands clapped to ears. Finally, as the three women embarked upon the second verse and Cj warbled a piece of advice for the Mayor of Bayswater which related to the length of that worthy person's daughter's pubic hair, Gump shrieked in agony:

"Stop it! You're right. You have unmasked me. Stop it! I give in"

A silence fell. Romany clasped Fractelle and Bronwyns hands and raised them to the sky.

"Thus die all traitors" they cried.

Fortunately CJ was more on the ball and shook his head. Thus signalled they cried once more:

"Na-na-nana-na. We Win!"

And so, indeed, they did.

........The End.......
Hi guys, goodaseeya. And yeah, back in China. After many adventures.

Romany, welcome back. Sorry about my welcome back embrace going so badly astray, must have had more to drink than I thought. It was intended to be a polite hug of a respected friend, not a wild slap on the shoulder.

The 9 year olds are last years news, the most recent thread opened on that general topic featured 8 year old girls. As he gets older the girls get younger. Pretty much everything else is the same although one of the recent threads is a touch confusing. The whole in the argument when applied to his own faith is even more obvious than usual.

Cheers
R0bert