Jack Rat Goes Live!

Great News! Shanty's highest man, 63 year old professional bird-grabber Jack Rat Hegarty has finally been connected to the internet. The landmark moment (above) was captured on camera by falling paraglider and black and white photographer Len Tubb. If you would like to speak to Jack he will be hosting a live grabbing tonight at http://www.grabbingbirds.com/

Why not drop him a line I'm sure he'd like to hear from you!

An Evening with the Bard

Inhabitants of Fiddler Isle are in for a treat tonight when the famous Bard of Stink Isle Dougg Muckspredda (left) brings his one man show to the Sprat Trap Theatre in Puffins Clout

Dougg is reknowned for his poems and traditional songs, handed down through generations of Muckspredda men, inparticular old favourites such The Owls Are After Me , My Love Lies Mangled on the Road , The Old Wooden Teeth and of course the unofficial anthem of the Shanty Isles Buckets of Muck

Doug will be joined on stage by his wife Birdd and his twin sons Coww and Pigg on turnip gourd banjos.

Interesting Factoid!!

The moniker Muck is a traditional forename applied only to the oldest families indigenous to Stink Isle. The most famous of course are the Muckspreddas (see above). Other noteworthy Stink clans include the Muckdiggas , the Muckscrapas and the Muckkickas

Today in Politics

The 25th incumbent Mayor of Puffins Clout, Aldo Whump(right)debates agrarian policy with one of his constituents.

Pro wrestler and parliamentary secretary Teg Crabb(background) looks on with interest.

Several important comprises were achieved during today's negotiations, particularily in the field of seagull farming and seaweed skimming.

Geographical Points of Interest

The Shanty Isles are comprised of four main islands, each with it's own character, flavour and distinctive odour -

Fiddler Isle

The Mayors Office, Puffins Clout

The biggest island. In the lively, bustling town of Puffins Clout the Shantys' have their provincial capital, their only working seaport (although there are several non-working seaports scattered across the Isles) and their seat of government, commerce and organised crime (all in the same building). The town also boasts Europes largest puffin colony with 20,000 nesting seabirds conveniently centred on the turf roof of the Parliament Building. Fiddler Isle is so named for the medieval tradition of Fiddlin' In the Dawn and is still a mecca for one-armed fiddle players who hold a festival each spring known simply as the Big F Off . The Island is also called The Big Ill or The Green Isle (on account of the mould that grows everywhere in summer)

Stink Isle

Sightseers on Stink Isle

Stink Isle is home of world's largest and oldest guano pile. Also known as Dung Isle or Crappee Rock (Old Shanto). Shanty's holiday isle

Retch Isle

Friendly farm animals abound on Retch Isle

Smallest of the main islands, Retch Isle was the landing place of the famous Fegg Wulf - and was named in honour of his first vomit on dry land. Famed for it's savage sheep and goats.

St Barrys

The most westerly of Shanty's big islands, or easterly depending on which way the compass is drifting on any given day. First settled in 1856 by convicts transported from Van Deimens Land. Now home to Shanty's Amish Witness Protection Scheme. Originally named Squealers and Grasses Isle but recently renamed St Barrys after St Barry of Guildford (1966- 1998) - Shanty's most recently beatified saint. A tourist from the mainland Barry was tragically killed by Amish horse and trap drivers on May 15th, or Ice Cream Cone on the Nose Day as it has always been known in Guildford.

Above - St Barry of Guildford

A little about the place

The S.F.S Millstone ferry arrives on Fiddler Isle on a calm day.

The lush, life-enhancing warm currents of the Gulf Stream, with their resultant balmy winters and wonderful sub-tropical summers that encourage all manner of exotic plantlife to the flourish in the gardens of Britain's west-coast island communities, are totally non-existent on the Shanty Isles.

Instead, for 10 months of the year the Shantys are subject to the terrifying, life threatening cold currents of the Wulf Stream, with their resultant polar winters and woeful sub-arctic summers which encourage all manner of non-exotic plantlife to die in the gardens of the Shanty Isles' few remaining horticulturists (or madmun as they are known in Old Shanto)

Interesting Factoid!

It is a long held view that the Wulf Stream is named after the famous Lancashire-Norwegian navigator Fegg Wulf (1567AD - 1597AD), first ever man to both land a ship and vomit on the shores of the Shanty Isles. This is a common mistake however as the Wulf Stream is in in fact named after it's alarming tendency for blowing Greenland ice floes full of enraged and hungry arctic wolves across the Atlantic and onto the shores of the Shanty Isles - where they are often adopted by locals farmers to protect them from their livestock and also to serve as part of Stink Isle's radical new guide dogs for the blind programme.

Above - Explorer Fegg Wulf relaxes between voyages

On a geographical oddity note Shanty Isles are reknowned among oceanographers for having the smallest tidal range of any islands on earth. In fact, at low tide the sea level actually rises by twenty feet, thus flooding large parts of the islands including almost half the official capital Puffins Clout. Whole streets are rendered completely sub-aquatic, public toilets are picked clean by scavenging pilchards and the inhabitants are forced to travel from place to place on old boats fashioned from light rocks using cormorants as paddles. In recent years this delightful area has earned itself the title of Little Venice and is fast becoming Fiddler Isle's number one tourist attraction after the Museum of Death

One of Little Venice's many seafood restaurants

So where are the Shanty Isles?

Above - the latest state-of-the-art interactive map of the Shanty Isles

Below - It's author, the famous St Osric the Inebriate, Patron Saint of the Shanty Isles

Interesting Factoid!

As patron saint of the Shanty Isles, Osric is revered across the Isles and his claims to fame are many and legendary.

He was the first(and only) person to translate the Bible into Old Shanto and also the first person to translate it immediately back into English,.

He also famously cast out all the mongooses from the Shanty Isles and then infamously welcomed in all the snakes that St Patrick had cast out of Ireland.

However, his most celebrated feat was the Miracle of Turning Wine into Water

Followers would bring him huge barrels of wine, ale, mead, or paint thinner and then marvel at the way he would disappear into his hermit cave for hours, sometimes days, on end and then finally emerge triumphant with the barrels filled to the brim with salty water.

He was martryed in the true Shanty way, stabbed with gannets and buried under the same medieval pit latrine that today serves as the official bathroom of the Shanty Parliament or Grunt

It all began with a postcard...

As many of you may know, the previous incumbent to the post of Professor of Applied Folkology at St Desmonds, Oxford was none other than the famous Lord Alfred Storm-Petrel. After his sad demise at the hands of an enraged bull-fighter in the college precint last summer (see Oxford Intruder issue 55, dated 26th July 2008) it fell upon me as his replacement to undertake the difficult job of cataloguing his affects and bank accounts. It was whilst alphabetizing his vast collection of victorian seaside images that I came upon this postcard lanuguishing at the back of a volume entitled Bathing Machines Close Up

The greeting on the front reads, charmingly I think, "Wish You Were Here - A warm welcome awaits you on the Shanty Isles"

Upon the back there is simply the monogram (sic)- "Ruddy faced Shanty Island women await a new arrival"

I ask you, how could one resist such a temptation? The Shanty Isles! The name is synonymous with romance and folklore. And so it was that I set about my research, my one aim to discover all I could about this mysterious land, it's inhabitants, and whether or not they needed a blog(they did).