SUPERCHARLIE

INTRO

Once upon a time, it is more than 180 years ago now, when Supercharlie was born in an old Roman town.
Since then he haunts Europe and the rest of the world, a tireless dustman on a globe that bitterly needs
cleaning up. He is helped by, when he isn´t spending his nights with Groovy Granny Jenny, his grey beard,
which bears secret superpowers; his pet, a racy rattlesnake, and, of course, his razor-sharp mind. His
brain can analyse everything within a flash historically-materialistically. "Stop, stop!", you may want
to shout. "How can a man, specially one who should really be long dead, possess such extraordinary
powers and roam around as a superhero?" Well, yes, i have to admit, it is quite weird. But superheros
are superheros because they are a cut above everything ordinary. And Supercharlie has a secret place
where he can return to again and again to refuel his superpowers. This is the British Museum Reading
Room, scretly located in a hidden place and enormously enriching whenever man needs superpowers. You can
recognize Supercharlie not only because of his beard, which looks like a mountain turned upside-down.
He also wears a black, wide Loden coat with deep pockets. Somehow he always manages to keep a handful of
tomatoes hidden in the depths of his right pocket and they miraculously get never squashed. In his left
pocket, a massive volume of traditional songs vanishes so well as if he is not carrying anything at all.

Supercharlie puts out the forest fires of Sumatra

It were, of course, the extra-mean planet exploiters of the major moneypowers which made Supercharlie
initially so very annoyed. Those which, through their mad hunger for timber guaranteed profits to the
small, slimy woodcutters. Since the corrupt regime of Indonesia sold so much of the land which it didn
not even rightfully owned for a pip and a kiss, that catastrophy was only predictable. Supercharlie, in
fact, had predictated what whas going to happen these days in one of the last years of the millenium
more than a hundred years ago. So now it has happened - and the population in an area of sevenhundred
miles into each direction got the rare chance to actually see , for the first times in their lives, the
air that surrounds them. That is quite funny when you imagine it. However, lungs are, when it comes to
air, humourless.
Late, much too late, the first warnings were given by the official bodies. Late, much too late, it was
started to do too little about it. Unfortunately, Supercharly at that stage was involved in a big
clean-up campaign in Peru and it is only now - deaths and many coughs later, that he can intervene.
The fires are much too big by now even for the superpowers of our hero to make much of a change. But
then there are the bosses of 143 companies who are the real villians and perpetrators behind all this.
Supercharlie makes his way into each of the 143 bosses´ plush headquarters´s offices and, withourt much
fuss and ado, let alone witho wasting time on explations which only serve to detract the plot tof the
reactionaries, he transports them with a neat uppercut into the sphere of nightmares. At the same time,
his rattlesnake is rounding up whole boardrooms and higher management mandarins with its long, elastic
body. With these in tow, it meets its master at the clearing by the raving fires.
"Well done, Engelschen", grins Charlie patting his snake. But now, most urgently, the guests, the gents
in grey suits, have to spit against the hot burning trees. Those who transfer all their riches into
Charlie´s bank account are allowed to leave in order to work as proper firefighters. Those who insist
on warming their bums on these hot fires of their own making , are chased by Engelschen into the hot
flames to perish.
Charlie, who left the rattlesnake in charge of the providing the funds, sets of to jet to Switzerland in
order to wring the money out off the hands of the witty gnomes. Where the bank manages attempt to
protest, Supercharlie threatens to scratch them with their scruffy beard and by spilling his beer on
their fluffy carpets.
With the billions of dollars gained in this manner, Supercharlie immediately sets out to buy
high-volume fire-fighting equipment and hires legions of Russian specialists who are able to shoot
rainclouds down.
On the other side of the Globe, however, Groovy Granny Jenny has not been lazy, either. She runs
through American timbermarkets and, her public-danger spearhead (camouflashed as an umbrella) aimed
at the forestfire-profiteers , she forces them to export fire-fighting equipment rather than importing
timber.
After all, it is only fair that those who brought mankind into this mess scupper the cup!

Supercharlie
gives the Liverpool Dockers their work back

Freezing cold wind blows down the waterfront. Grey mist hangs in the air, the water of the River Mersey
can barely be told apart from the grey of the sky. Darkly the silouhettes of derrik cranes rise up
against the grey mass, swinging to a preprogrammed, mysterious tact.
Outside, in front of the gates, in front of the prison-like, massive shape of the entrance to the

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docks , middle aged men stand in the icy breeze. The area, far out of town, looks cleared out, lying
defenceless and at the mercy of the gushes of wind blowing over the Irish Sea. Only a little hut
shelters the men - and, of course, the never ending supply of boiling hot tea.
These men want their work back.
Their hands are rough, the faces tanned and torn from working so many hours in the fresh, salty air.
They make a solid, industrious impression - but they look haggard. their faces are devoit of colour,
their shape lacks the extra bit of meatiness, the impression of selfd-assuredness. These are workmen,
it is obvious. Workmen without work but their eyes still show the burn of determination.
Liverpool dockers.
It is more than three years ago now the the MDHC took away their work because they walked out in
protest against the unjustified dismissal of colleagues from a different part of the docks. The bosses
rather welcomed this development. It gave them an excuse to lock out the troublemakers. With the help of
Drake International they put casual hands in all vacant jobs. Quite a few of theses were unemploed
dockworkers from down south which did not known that they were used as scaps to break the strike.
Well, if this is not a reason to cry "foul play", what is? So began the strike where determined
Liverpudlians want to defend their jobs and their traditions, the traditions of their fathers and
forefathers and, sometimes, the traditions taken over by their sons. Never to go back to those days of
misery which came with casual labour!
They only had very little support throughout the nation, so the only way out was the backing of the
townspeople and the international solidarity. The result is a 20% drop in company profits because the
comrades in Canada, USA Australia and so on refused to unload ships packed by scaps. And still: the same
old bosses in the same old government-supported seats.
It was frustrating. It was a case for Supercharlie!

When a car passes and honks its horn in support, the dockers lift their colourful mugs and shout. But
this happens less often while the police-van stands there, always at the same distance, the same
corner, the same mustachioed whit faces.
Then Supercharlie bombs in on his flying red flag. Engelschen empties a barrel full of water over the
group of cops who stand frozen in horror and Supercharlie ci9rcles around them with breathtaking speed
which deepfreezes Her Majesty´s police constables in an instant.
The superhero folds up his flag and puts the little parcel away into his coat-pocket. Then he apporaches
the astonished dockers. An old man with a grey face and white hair, whose bright blue eyes are the only
clue to his age of 48 years suddenly turns glowing red. "But this is - Supercharlie!" "Supercharlie,
hoorah! We are delivered! " The eight men shout and throw their teafilled mugs into the air.
Engelschen jumps up in the the same and catches the stoneware with the tip of its tail before even a
single mug explodes on the asphalt.
"The boss!", is suddenly shouted by someone, as a big, dark saloon steers towards the group without
lowering its speed. The men jump to the sides, swearing, while the rattlesnake is in great danger of
being run over by the huge wheels. But supersharlie knows that he can trust his friend to the extreme.
Indeed, the snake twitches with one nervous movement as if charged by a high-voltage current. Its tail
aims at the car and, with a deafening noise, the eight heavy mugs are shot against the shell of the
Mercedes. Glas splinters, rockhard, genuienly English stoneware crushes the fron an bonnet. the saloon,
now leaderless, veers, drifts and slides. What was still intact gets crushed by the concrete block of
the fort-like entrance.
"Phh", says Engelschen, "that was a close shave". Supercharly clapps his hands. "well done". The men
look gloomy. "What do you think? Do you think you are getting blamed for this? it is is only natural
justice if this guy has such an accident, the simple result of his reckless driving. Don´t worry. What
do you think, we clear this up and pack it away and deliver i t at Old Hall Street and the headline in
tommorrowss Liverpool Echo reads "Dockers´s boss thrown of his track by UFOs". The men have to smile and
the superhero continues: "Apart from him, everybody elkse is in there?" they all nod in unison. "Well
then allright. Tell your mates and comrades. It is time to go back to work again. this time for real."

An hour later, several hundred men stand at the gate. Supercharly leads them. "Each one of you will go
to his old job and take it up again as if he is just returning from lunch."
A murmur rises, probably from the new entrants who fear for their jobs. "Don´t worry", Charlie huge
beard froms into a wide, winning smile. "It only means that two men no longer have to work that hard
on one job as one man all by himself. The bosses still owe you holiday poay for the past three years. I
suppose it´ll be a loan which each single one of them has to pay off in instalments." "Theá neér gonna
do thaat", i t bursts out in many voices. "Oh yes, you bet they will", Charlie assures them. " we will
make sure they will want to do that and nothing else to make up for the insults and injuries of the past
years."

Shortly afterwards, a great mass of men bursts into the chief-executives´offices. Every boss and boss´s
underling is surrounded by a group of eight and taken outside. After that, the men make their way to

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their rightful workplaces. Each one of the oppressors is then chained to a dusty, dirty, oily container
and loaded into the ships. They might ne screaming like little pigs, crying because of the freezing cold
- but no one relaents. Once arricved on board, they are unchained and allowed back on land. However,
with the very next container they are lifted up again into the ice-cold air. Once again they hang there,
alon eand forlorn, bound to the cold, unfeeling wall of the steel container.
Meanwhile, the superhero has broken into the administration building. "Hey, you, young man"!, he booms
at a smooth looking stripling, throws him bluntly off his chair and sits himself in fron of the monitor.
"But, er, you can´t just ..." the same tries to protest, but Charlie cuts him short. "Exactly. Icannot
just do this by myself. This is why you are allowed to help me." And he gives the smoothy a little nudge
with his beard which makes the young man suddenly feel itchy all over. "Right now, I have to programme a
couple of payrolls, and, ahm, yes, I have to do a couple of transfers as well." "For whom?", asks the
impertinent youth, by now scratching himself incessantly. "For about five hundred workmen. Right now,
if you please, do take a seat and try to behave in a more orderly fashion. We have got loads to do and
these industrious fellows want to see some dosh in their hands by the end of this week."

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Episode 13
Supercharlie fights the
Forces of conservatism

Frentic, angry hissing fills the room. Supercharlie moans and his massive frame heavily turns around in
the bed. The hissing continues until, at last, it penetrates Charlies´ consciousness and wakes him up.
His eyes open and alert within a second, he stares with wonder into the green, slitty eyes of Engelschen,
his snake pet.
The snakes´ rattle bangs furiously on the floor where there lies a newspaper. However, before the hero
can even read the first word of the headline, the door opens with a massive crash and Groovy Granny
Jenny, flying skirts around her, mini-transistor radio pressed against her left ear, comes like a bolt
out of the blue through the door.
"What´s up?" asks Supercharlie, bolting his body up.
"They are picketing!", informs him Jenny, takes in another deep breath and continues while Charlie´s
eyes widen.
"They´ve blocked the oil depots. The country comes to a standstill and they have -pfff- the support of
the vast majority of the population. The government is helpless, at the hands of a ... Europewide ...
"What is this?" asks Supercharlie amazed, brimming with enthusiasm.
"The proletarian revolution? Are the masses rising at last against their oppressors and fight for their
rights with their lives?..."
There is a derisive hissing from Engelschen, while Groovy Granny turns dangerously purple in her face.
"The rising proletarian masses?!", she shouts, grapping the newspaper from the ground and thrusting it
into his face.
"It´s the bosses, the farmers, the hauliers who drove through pickets of real workers who are holding
the country to ransom. And what is it? A few pennies of petrol! Karl, this no proletarian revolution!
This is the forces of conservatism smelling blood and wanting to bring a democratically elected workers´
government down!"
"What,?" says Supercharlie, in disbelief.
"Another Spain, another Chile again? Where is my coat."
"Deckchairs, not bombs", says Jenny bitterly.
"Pardon me?"
"I said it is no Guernica. This time round, they just sit on deckchairs. A blockade, where no single
road is blocked. The peers in the caps just fear retaliation. That´s it, more or less."
"Anyway," grumbles Supercharlie, flops his braces and rinses his face and steely beard with cold water
in the sink. "We cannot let it happen."
He sinks his arms in his heavy, black Lodencoat. "A bosses´ picket! Who has ever heard of that! We have
to turn this unhealthy tide"

Supercharlie, who had never in is life driven a car, circles low over the Stanlow oil refinery. The air
is mysteriously silent. He sits, knitting his brows on his flying red flag.
A present from the Communist International in 1883 so that he can still get around even after his
official death.
The superhero had had to deal with many impossible tasks in the past and still solved them with a stoke
of his hands. This time, he just looks down, puzzled, trying to draw up policies.
Eventually he turns to his loyal leutenant:
"The refinery is not working at capacity. However, the lorries with the tankers are full and not moving.
Only empty ones coming in. But there is nothing to stop them. The tractors, the lorries - they are not
blocking .... Engelschen, you go down and scare them off."
He pushes the snake of the flag and shouts after it: "And scare the drivers back into the caps!"
Engelschen sincerely tries his best. He causes havoc as only an fast and furious rattlesnake can. Being
here, there, everywhere - and at the same time untouchable.
The crowds of overweight truckers are dispersed. The farmers run as if chased by their bulls. The
hangers-on do not know where to hide.
The task, half an hour later, seems completed: there is nothing like lethal scare to act as crowd
dispersal and getting disobedient truckers back into their vehicles.
Our hero looks from above, disbelieving. The roads are free, the tanker-drivers sit in their tankers.
The gates are wide open. Silence. Heavily silence. Nothing happens.
Supercharlie, with a frightening roar shoots down on his flag.
He touches the first tanker with his beard. The hero-tricks still work. Spluttering, the diesel springs
into work. Supercharlie, a dark-cloaked figure with a fiercy expression stands surfing on the roof of
the tanker and steers it through the gates. Colleagues of the driver, bewildert, thinking the protest
has been called off, follow suit. In the cap, the man tries to master his vehicle. The brakes do not
work, the engine cannot be switched off and, by now, the road freighter is rollercoasting at too high a
speed to jump tanker.

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Meanwhile, Engelschen keeps the uproaring crowds on the sidelines with his meancing rattle and piercing
hiss.
The first convoy of tankers has left a refinery in days. Not knowing any better, the forcefully led
drivers head for the empty petrol stations.

Supercharlie, meanwhile, reunited with Engelschen and Jenny, the three pace up and down Hampstead Heath.
"I love this", exclaims Charlie. The peace and quite was gone for bad, since roads strangle the piece of
green on all sides. But listen now...."
They stop. There is silence.
"Exactly. If it this "picket" were not so disgusting, we should have the pump dumped for ever. But we
should see to that straight after. Listen. This is my plan:
There is little we can do without help in this situation. Too many units have to be moved in too many
places and we have no one who collaborates with us.
I am sure, I can pass my friends and fighters of old easily as farmers and truckers. Many of them are
burly enough after all. Then, we just set them against the protesters. Have shouting matches, equisition
the tankers - their way."
"Meanwhile," Groovy Granny Jenny chips in " I will make the radical section of the Women´s Institute
battle-ready. If the staid wives tell their husbands to stop acting complete fools, they will. Girlpower!
"
"You Engelschen," says Charlie to the snake, squatting down, "open up our communication channel to the
government. Confirm that we are on their side and seek urgent talks."
The snake buzzes of.
Jenny shouts after it: "And mind the roads! Ah, well, no traffic anyway!"

So it comes to pass that in Scotland, on Deeside, in Portsmouth and everywhere where, up and down the
country has a massive refinery, part of a hugely centralised network of the oilflow in the country,
farmers clash with farmers, truckers with truckers and women with brollie-swinging housewives. Red
Armiests, used to tough battles and intricate plots turn up in their trucks. The dark camouflage is
camouflaged by bright adverts. The have shouting matches with the farmers and other deck-chair
protesters but carefully avoid any fights. Meanwhile, the ladies from the Women´s Institute, threaten to
cease baking bread for their husbands and sons. In the confusion of heated argument, the trained
specialists have entered the refineries´ grounds, found most tankers unmanned and start moving the
vehicles back on their routes.
At the same time, where is Supercharlie? Why is he not leading the attack on the barricades.
Our hero is tanking energy. First of all, he goes to the old building, sits on his old chair until a
polite but clearly unsettled looking attendant asks him quietly to remove himself from the seat of
history.
Then he moves on to the new building in St Pancras, is single minded and not too taken in by the
prostitutes, finds a new seat and begins to study.

Two days later and only far too few tankers have been moved. The atmosphere around the refineries is
turned clearly nasty. The two opposing sites of farms clash fiercely and this rioting moves public
opinion against protesters which are so clearly divided and anarchistic. There are enough reasons for
the police to take action to show the government in control.
The comrades have all been informed when Supercharlie at last puts up a platform out of milkcrates. He
has trimmed his beard and exchanged his famous coat for a woolly jumper. Bags under his eyes indicate
nights worked through. Nobody could not mistake him for a farmer leader.
"Friends!" he shouts. "We have wasted enough time on just sitting around and demand a few p off fuel
duty. We want action and we want it now!"
The lines of comrades cheer while the Women´s Institute (Radical Wives Section) usher their man over
to listen.
"Enough is enough my friends. What we need is positive action, a chance for all and, rather than passing
the buck from government who passes it to the oil bosses who passes it to Opec - rather than that we
need to move right forward my friends," Supercharlie orates.

Meanwhile, in the towns, Groovy Granny Jenny has finally mobilised the people from the Ecological
Movement.
"You are not even our natural allies!", she had thundered and banged her stiletto-heeled shoes on the
organic-sustainable-non-tropical-forest table.
"But my heart bleeds when I see the chance of a lifetime to make case for a cause and nothing happens
but dumb, mute, cowardly silence. We have to make a concerted effort here. I speak for the poorest and
most disadvantaged in society - those who have no car and this not out of choice because of their lack
of choice and voice. You have to make clear to the population that car-use and the current floodings in
the west are connected. That there is a greenhouse effect. Children suffering asthma. Loss of quality of

2
life and of local communities. Whatever. You know.
No one can take it lightly to have the riot-act read by Groovy Granny Jenny, the spiciest of all old
girls around.
Consequently, armies of cyclist clash with the snail-march protests of taxis and trucks.
Cyclists, people on push-scooters, rollerblades and on foot declare roads and squares car-free. Those
drivers which still drive have the same abuse hurled at their heads as those who stand at
level-crossings and still leave their engines running idle: "You have still too much petrol in your tank,
what?"
This shuts them up. Dogged volunteers go out and distribute leaflets where ever the great public gathers.
Green activists with sales- and marketing backgrounds go to bicycle dealers and persuade them to be
more aggressive in their selling techniques - this is the time for their boom.
While the old economy stutters, Supercharlie presses his case.

"Britain once again has to be the beacon once again. We have to show the world that this little island,
with its fiercely independent people will never be slaves to anything!"
Loud cheers from everywhere.
"No slaves to the black oil. It will run out - sooner than you think. The raise in tax are nothing when
you consider that now three times as much oil is used than only ten years ago."
He ignores the hecklers which are shouted down by burly protesters instead.
"It is just pure market-economy, isn´t it? What is used more, will go up in price - and it did. And,
whatever we do, the prices will rise. Oil will run out in 20 -30 years. "A long while to go", you say?
Can you remember how far away the year 2000 always was und suddenly we were there? No, if taxes are cut
now we will consume even more and -"
he raises the voice over the murmur " - the price of oil will go up. I know it sounds idiotic but
lowering the price of petrol will mean the price of crude oil will go up.
We, as we cannot fund our service through lower tax revenue, lose out. We, as prices will rise, lose out.
The only ones who will gain - in that period - is big oil."
Supercharlie pauses. There is a deep, thoughtful silence.
"Brothers," he continues, "lets join hands and make Britain a beacon for the world. Lets get away from
oil. We have to press the government to invest in a full conversion of all lorries away from derv to
clean, cheap LPG. We have to implore government not to fire away oil in inefficient power stations. We
have make a case to all work together and push not against what we cannot push - more oil out of the dry
rock earth - but the vested interests which have brought proper public transport to its knees. Cheap
petrol for all those who cannot do without - but better alternatives for everybody else. Let us be the
world leader. Let us create these new jobs first - here, not anywhere else!"
Supercharlie leaves the stage of his most populist speech yet and joins Engelschen on the red flag to
whiz to the corridors of political power.

"I think you have no choice", Charlie implores in a voice which makes this abundantly obvious, "it is
the best way to wrongfoot the opposition, to take your enemies by surprise. To show that you listen - as
the protesters have taken my demands wholeheartedly on board - and to lead from the front, putting your
colleagues around the world to shame. You can package it. Oil will run out and higher use means higher
prices. So you start to build the alternatives. Why do you think your predecessors in the Seventies have
invested millions in atomic energy? Why car makers suddenly though about fuel efficiency? Because oil
suddenly became a finite, expensive commodity..."

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Episode 14
Once upon a time, it is more than 180 years ago now, when Supercharlie was born in an old Roman town.
Since then he haunts Europe and the rest of the world, a tireless dustman on a globe that bitterly needs
cleaning up. He is helped by, when he isn´t spending his nights with Groovy Granny Jenny, his grey beard,
which bears secret superpowers; his pet, a racy rattlesnake, and, of course, his razor-sharp mind. His
brain can analyse everything within a flash historically-materialistically. "Stop, stop!", you may want
to shout. "How can a man, specially one who should really be long dead, possess such extraordinary
powers and roam around as a superhero?" Well, yes, i have to admit, it is quite weird. But superheros
are superheros because they are a cut above everything ordinary. And Supercharlie has a secret place
where he can return to again and again to refuel his superpowers. This is the British Museum Reading
Room, scretly located in a hidden place and enormously enriching whenever man needs superpowers. You can
recognize Supercharlie not only because of his beard, which looks like a mountain turned upside-down.
He also wears a black, wide Loden coat with deep pockets. Somehow he always manages to keep a handful of
tomatoes hidden in the depths of his right pocket and they miraculously get never squashed. In his left
pocket, a massive volume of traditional songs vanishes so well as if he is not carrying anything at all.

Supercharlie says:
No McDagoberts in leafy Aigburth

This goes too far! McDagobert is bad enough by its sheer existence. However, they usually concentrate on
out-of-town malls or city-centres which are already ravished by chain-stores. They have hardly, however,
moved into residential areas. Worse still, conservation areas, leafy, close to the city´s park. Worst of
all, on the doorstep of Supercharlie´s gardendoor. And that is where they made a crucial mistake. Not
the wishy-washy bourgeois petitions for him, not the ineffectual pleas of school heads or heritage
bosses. Charlie is a man of action, an inspiration to the disgruntled and, frankly, the most easily
disgruntled person for other people´s sake on the whole planet.
The license to build was granted and, soon enough, the earth-moving machinery and diggers moved in. Not
so Charlie. Glad to know that Groovy Granny Jenny was in Norway at a conference and the tree-hugging
rattlesnake Engelschen with her, he simply waited and stared with piercing eyes over the wall. It was no
point inter-vening now. He wanted to grab McDagoberts root and branch and give them a hammering where it
hit them worse: no due to demolished construction which just delayed a process and was, yet again, paid
by everyone through higher insurance premiums. No, Charlie had planned to hit them straight where
McDagoberts usually hits its customers: in the stomach.

The fast-"food" restaurant opened and what was to follow now was very much a "Charlie and friends Show".
The restaurant had just opened when Supercharlie announced to Groovy Granny Jenny and an equally
startled Engelschen that he wanted to invite the choir of the nearby private girls´ school and all
possible support they could get. The head of school had objected to the drive-through but it had counted
for nothing.
One a lovely Sunday afternoon, Charly assembled the girls in his garden. He had found some songs which
required extremely high notes.
And they sang: the sang it was pure joy. Supercharly fired them on, they reached higher and higher.
Finally, the hero threw his head back and his magic beard amplified the shrill tones. With a noisy "
knack" the McDagobert windows, many windscreens of cars in their yard, just cracked. Supercharly thanked
each and everyone of the girls as they left.
A couple of weeks later, the theme was expanded he invited a bunch of friends from Germany around.
Being an anarchistic band of hill farmers and tree-fellers, they were tall, muscular, bearded and
moustachioed. Charlie insisted that they dress up in traditional costumes: leather shorts and
knee-length woollen socks. Eventually, the ten of them left his house and went around the corner. It was
Saturday, just before lunch and the place began to fill up. The ordered indifferently whatever was on
the menu. The place was full, they only managed space for five on each site of the plasticky place. With
their wide bums, sitting in lines where both seats and tables are screwed to the ground, they found it
difficult to squat. People eyed them, avoided to have eye contact. The first group did not touch their
food. They just said and brooded. The second group unpacked their primary-coloured meals but did not eat
them. Instead, they started throwing them at each others´ faces! Of course, usually they missed rather
than it and the soggy, grey-and-red mass splashed and dripped down from the large windows. Then they
started singing:
If you want to be
As dumb as Bush-ee
Eat fast food!
If you want to
Poison your guts
McDagoberts got´s
The customers were startled and hurried down their meals. Family fathers, arriving with their kids,

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sensed trouble in the air and turned on the door step. Eventually a boy, pale as a sheet and just about
no longer a teenager went over. He tried to make himself heard. He tried to tell them he was the manager
and he wanted them out out out. He made a mistake. Because the men simply did not take notice of him,
were oblivious to his words. He then tried to grab one of them - - - The treefeller stood up. Towering
over the cowering youth like a mountain over a lamb he stared at him with unmoving eyes. Eventually, he
uttered, in broad Bavarian:
"Wossis?"
As if on cue, the other five on the opposite site of the restaurant unpacked their cold meals. Throwing
commenced and, as the manager hurried over to them, he suddenly hear the hymn in stereo:
If you want to be
As dumb as Bush-ee
Eat fast food!
If you want to
Poison your guts
McDagoberts got´s

More people started leaving the premises. No-one else wanted to enter.
Eventually, four staff, one at each table-end tried to plead with the obstinate foreigners. The police
had been called but took long in coming.
Why? Because Supercharlie had gone for a stroll. However, he strolled up and down the exit of the
drive-through and this caused traffic chaos for all those families who had taken their cars to drive
around the corner and into the drive-through. Coppers had to abandon their cars to reach the premises
but were beseeched by screaming mothers who wanted justice to be done and their cars on the move again.
Eventually, the place was empty but for tired-looking staff and ten red-faced soiled men. They got up
and left. They did not leave a tip.
Days past. The bulky man had made their way back by plane and were not spotted again. Their had been a
report in the paper and the restaurant had earned itself the credit, within its first month of operation,
of being a trouble spot.

Supercharlie had noticed that the spacious car park and generous front provided an ideal meeting point
for the kids of the neighbourhood. Whether they were truanting, out of their parents´ house and hanging
out with their friends, smoking and drinking cider and beer, they met outside McDagoberts. Supercharlie
approached them with little ampules with light-yellow liquid. He also gave them stacks of vouchers.
Nothing was as easy as producing vouchers and it was another nice way of getting something out off the
company without paying. The kids liked the idea.
The following week, health officials inspected the premises: though it was hardly believable, a number
of complaints had been received individually of each other: there have been sightings of a snake, scares
to little children and lone women as suddenly a menancing rattling was heard. Inside, people had
reported to feel sickended by the smell of rotting eggs which seem to penetrate the building on odd days.
Officials went in, were not able to find anything but recommended to use disinfectant which smells less
strongly. The buying public, however, remained sceptical.
Sceptical, too, was an elderly couple. It was Friday evening and the place was doing, given the
circumstances, quite good trade. The man kept going to the toilet, the lady kept changing her order and
held up the queue.
Supercharlie, while on the toilet, took out a bottle of aerospace superglue and placed it on the toilet
seats. Groovy Granny Jenny had finally decided that she wanted nothing more but a nice cup of tea and
insisted to have it served directly where she sat. Sitting opposite, Supercharlie, she smiled sweetly.
The tea arrived and, even before the harassed looking waitress could be a retreat she had Jenny
screaming. The granny had taken a sip of the boiling liquid and dropped the paper cup in horror. Her
face was a nasty red, where too hot a liquid had scalded her skin. Jenny continued screaming and another
member of stuff, obviously trained in first aid, hurried over.
The mothers that remained were terrified and took their kids, making for the exit.
Supercharlie reproached the waitress, threatened to sue, demanded the manager. Eventually, they left. It
was after half eight on a Friday night. Some desperate beings tried to lift their unfortunate behinds
from the toilet seats and failed. Supercharlie turned as they passed through the doors. A line of glue
was applied to it before it was closed. Seconds later, it was sealed. They then went to the back but not
to pick up their cars. To place a film of glue over the delivery entrance.
A Friday night. Lots of young people, out to have a good time. Just one meal beforehand, to have
something the alcohol can soak in. They could not reach their bars, pubs, clubs that night. The most
unfortunate still stuck to their toilets, the rest had to hang on until the fire-brigade was called and
windows smashed to let them out.

Weeks went by and nothing happened. The eating-place closed at eleven, staff left at midnight. One night,

2
 Charlie came back home much later than that. He took a short-cut across the McDagobert´s ground to
reach his garden more easily. The slight difference was that he took the word "short cut" quite
literally. A Sherman tank that had gone missing from army barracks not that long ago turned of the road
and passed through the edifice of glass, plastic and brick before coming to a hold at the end of the car
park. Where once there stood one new McDagobert´s now there were two jagged towers and a lot of rubble
in between.

McDagoberts took even that. Police investigations were running, and the running costs for this side
proved incredibly high. Still, they went ahead and rebuild the restaurant.
Their defiance took on a ridiculous shape: long before the work was finished they already announced a
grand re-opening. The chief of McDagobert UK would attend, the odd bought-in celebrity and, of course,
all those Pip-Damn councillors who had waved through the original project despite all the local
objection. However, this opening was also a very closed affair: the public was allowed to stand outside
and watch on while the dignitaries were inside, stuffing themselves with burgers and aromatic artificial
fries.
The early announcement, however, gave Supercharlie time enough to build his own revenge which would see
off the global giant that killed Costa Rica once and for all.
While workmen rebuild the rubble above ground, Supercharlie, Groovy Granny Jenny and a band of
volunteers started to dig a tunnel from his garden until they reached the area straight underneath the
restaurant. In the remaining weeks before the work was completed and the event was due, the carved out
diversions and dead ends until the whole of the structure above stood on ground that had more holes than
a Swiss cheese. At the same time, radicalised farmers, who saw their livelihood taken by the industrial
and cheapskate way of McDagoberts farming for fries, chickens and beef. The Mc took all the profits,
they had all the risk. Tankload by tankload, barrel by barrel of liquid manure arrived in the
superhero´s garden.
Eventually, the big day had come. The high and mighty had their feast of plastic food in the locked-in
glass cage. Supercharlie´s house was swarming with choristers, farmers, neighbours who never wanted
McPoisonFood at all. When the official ceremony was at its height, Jenny, who watched outside the outlet
let the phone ring twice. The whole party marched down the road and around the corner to watch what was
about to happen next. Charlie joined up with Jenny, holding a remote controlled trigger in front of his
chest. They embraced heartily and set off two simultaneous explosions. A little one in his garden which
meant that the manure flooded out of the tanks and into the tunnels and a bigger one underneath the
restaurant, blowing away all the support between the tunnels. The McDagobert people, the entertainment
dumping-downers, the Pip-Damn councillors: they all helplessly threw their arms into the air as the
floor gave away underneath their respective bums. The fell - not deep but right into a foul bath.
Supercharlies´ party, however, turned around to him and started applauding.
A week later McDagoberts offered the site, because of manure unsuitable for restaurants or housing, for
sale for one pound.

3
Supercharlie
Makes the right people sweat

Supercharlie angrily waves down the police car passing him. The window is wound down and he shouts at
the astonished officers: "Are you law enforcers or just out for a ride?" Before they can answer he
carries on, pointing at a car that had just passed them from the opposite direction. "There are laws
that state that a car that clearly pollutes the air, either because it uses inferior and probably
untaxed, fuel or because of an engine fault have to taken of the road. That is the law, you are out here,
paid by everyone to enforce it. Instead, you're having a ride and a laugh. Well, I will deal with the
car then."
Out of nowhere his flying red carpet appears (he really had it in his Lodencoat pocket and just flicked
it out with a quick hand) and, zooms off, leaving the dazed and speechless constables frozen in their
frame. He quickly catches up with the car which waits with a revving engine at red lights, fumeing the
whole affair. Charlie dismounts and with an angry thud his fist squeezes a potato into the exhaust of
the offensive car. As soon as the lights go amber and then change to green, the cars´ engine hiccups and
finally dies as the driver frenetically turns the starter and impatient fellow drivers honk horns as
they pile up when they should be moving. Supercharlie who had stood tower-of-Pisa like against the
traffic lights and polished his nails straightens and, having all the time of the world, walks over and
tears open the drivers´door.
"Inferior fuel ey? And not wearing seatbelts either, so no care for either the common nor the personal
health, hm? You´re nicked, matey, on grounds of tax evasion and a number of driving offences. Get out of
your bikki-box!"
Meanwhile, the constables have come to life, followed that strange character on that even stranger mode
of transport. They arrive on the scene just in time to hear the civil arrest. Supercharlie turns around
and grins. "Are, here is the law. Do I always have to do your work for you?" He then looks down and sees
that the offender´s smelly feet stick in trainers, swish ones by the famous Pokey brand with the
registered Schlosch sign. The hero´s grin turns into a stoney grimace as he pushes the man towards the
officers and hops on his hovering red runner. With a swoosh he is gone and out of sight.
Yes, our superhero has quite a temper when his one and only Jenny, the groovy Granny is on one of her
long stints in the States again.
Arriving back home, he storms straight into the bedroom and shouts at Engelschen, his faithful
rattlesnake: "Come we have to pack."
"Pack to go where?", asks the snake, flabbergasted.
"To Indonesia of course. Or Taiwan. Or China. Or where-ever else the capitalist dictatorship has set up
shop. Sweatshop that is, those nasty stinky socks. We fly via America and pick up Jenny on the way."
The huge frame of the main pours clothes into a hard-shell suitcase without much discrimination.
Engelschen says: "I cannot really see what I can pack for myself. But if you want, I get you some
teabags and biscuits for the flight."
"Good idea", mumbles Charlie, absentmindedly, squeezing the collected volumes of Feuerbach on top his
clothes.
Ö
It is not very easy to find one single Jenny-Granny in the vast lot that is the United States. The
heroic friends believed she was in San Francisco but they had to return on themselves and then dig deep.
The second delay on their shotgun-trip. (The first was missing the earlier plane as Supercharlie had
to tank energy in the British Museum first). They finally found the active aged lady in a tunnel under
the White House. "This bushtard Bars", she exclaims, her face heated and charcoaled from hacking her way
through to plant presidents´ favourite game right under his underbelly. "I would never have thought I
become a green activist ",she sighs, then coughs. "Dreaded dust. I think I can leave it to my fellow
sisters though, the main bit of the work being done."
"What is this for?" asks Charlie. "We are the proactive wing of Grannies,not Profit, part of the
worldwide network against exploitation and globalisation."
"Should it not be called "People not Profit", asks Engelschen tentatively.
She gives him a fiery, vicious glance that makes the snake shrink back. "No, of course not. PNP? Are you
mad? It must be GNP!
"Well, I reckon your GNP is just what we need to tear the sweat out of sweatshops that cloth Americans
feet but takes the dignity out of work," Supercharlie muses. - "Is that what you are here for? You
think it is more important than saving the planet?" Jenny demands to know with a raised voice. Her
sisters go "Shhh!" and Engelschen slips in to mediate: "First things first - we have to do things one
after the other."
Ö

As the giant Tupolev, generously but unknowingly paid for by a cheque from the Pokey CEO that a clever
photocopier spit out after some manipulation, takes off, loaded with the willing armies of
grannie-oriented non-profiteers, the deliverance of the president, that insult to human intelligence in

1
ruler-form, has to wait. This is a drainingly long sentence but I am the waiter who has to do the
longdrinks in this giant, flying skyscraper. I would have refused to serve if I would have known what
kind of animals came with it when it came over from Russia. Destination: Asia. These people look really
determined. I better pour.
Ö

"You got to watch them - be quick or be dead" happy-looking young females with smooth skins and
slit-like eyes sing as they leave the tailor-factory after their 14-hour shift. "What a stich-up",
Supercharlie growls. The American ladies divide into two groups. The smaller one to divert the
exploitees away to a Free Feminist Commune specially set up to show them what life should really be like.
The other, larger group will join the working masses to counteract the ensuing labour-shortages.
Whereas Supercharlie, Engelschen and the few male companions they brought over erdirect the large
pellets full of freshly sown trainers away from their ships and onto containers marked Oxfam Collection,
Shelter Collection, Hospice Collection, the women refuse to do more than eight hours at a stretch,
organise a radical union and give all the other women seeking work 10 times their usual wage learning
how to drive and loading the collection containers. And, as all these payments hardly depletes the
bank-account of the Pokey CEO, his house and the Gop CEOs house and the ... suddenly half subsides as
so-far not known of tunnels collapse underneath the structures. This, as if the poor top managers had
not enough on their cap already: Endless shipments, loaded and signed off in their country of origin
never produces anything but empty bubbles once it reaches the high-street stores. At the same time,
English charities, strangely enough, post record turnovers in all their shops.
There is no easy solution to this: they have get to the bottom of this and therefore decide to fly over
to the Asian factories. Of course, they all go by private jet and independently of each other. The
embarrassment of empty shelves has to remain a trade secret.
Charlie has them now exactly where he wants them. In the very place where thousands and thousands slave
to swell those guys´ bank-accounts and share-packets. Well educated, smiling, good looking Asian
beauties direct them in onto their ways. However, it is not the executive suit with their
manager-underlings they are going to but the noisy, hot, smelly and dangerous halls of sweat. As they
enter, well-aimed tomatoes fly out of Supercharlies´ pockets straight into their faces, making their
hair turn grey and their tan and youthful skin vanish. When neither this nor the hissing of the hundreds
of workers make any difference to them and they bluntly refuse to take the places of those ones they
exploit, a frightful growl can be heard. Four feet waddle in a hurry over the floor until, finally, a
wide-open mouth can be seen. The alligators hindlegs slip as the force of its speed makes it tail swing
violently to the right as it turns around the corner. The building shudders and Charlie turns pale. "
Stalin! Who the hell let him out?!"
However , it is a pleasure to see how quickly the suits run and dance in order to find a seat in front
of a sewing machine, while Stalin snaps and Engelschen rattles.

2
SUPERCHARLIE JOINS THE WAR ON TERROR

Supercharlie, hands dug deep in the pockets of his Lodencoat, is walking down Tottenham Court Road,
kicking a can.
It's raining. Hence, it's summer.
This is London, yet the streets are eerily quiet.
"I will not have it", the superhero mumbles.
"I will not have it", he repeats, kicking the can into the street.
It bounces with a little bang against the side of something. Charlie looks up and squirms as he sees
that the big red something was a double-decker bus. Some terrified faces look back out at him.
"Whatever next", he growls.
"The British Library Reading Room?"
His face lights up. "The Reading Room! Of course. If anything, there I can find how to beat terrorism."
And he rushes off.
"Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves, but by circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted
from the past."
"Wow", Engelschen rushes in. "An original quote."
The war council is complete.
"Well, Charlie continues, "if he thinks he's cruel, righteous, fanatical, two-faced, cleverer-than-thou
- well, then we have our right fair share of people from the past to teach him a lesson or two. Just
think about Lenin ..."
"Lenin? What about Stalin?" Engelschen throws in.
"Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot ..." lists Supergranny Jenny. She frowns. "What if it isn't just all coming
from the centre? Some people make it out as if there is this bunch of Muslim fanatics who have no
homeland. Instead, they only have some kind of spiritual home - with Montesuma Bin Loadin as the Pope."
"The Pope, eh? Fat chance!"
Supercharlie grins, but through his thick beard and his bushy eye-brows that cannot be seen.
"I think I will have to go, make a couple of contacts."

"I hate to do what everybody else does - and I hate visiting hot countries. But this has to be a
two-pronged attack. One - get Bin Loadin and turn him in - into Have Bin. Second - after the big message,
the hard work starts - give those young dynamite heads something better, proper to do."
"Only you could call getting Bin Loadin the less hard work," says Supergranny Jenny.
Engelschen, the rattlesnake, rears his head - and sees this rare thing: a glint of loving admiration in
her eyes.
"It only means I have hardly any idea how to do that -yet", grumbles the bearded hero, shifting in his
seat. "Bin Loadin - pah. We have the most battle-experienced and scary gang of them all - if we want."
He turns round to a pale, broad-shouldered, well-groomed, bespectacled man, who, so far, has sat
silently at his side.
"Right, Yuri. This is why I invited you to come. I know about Stalin, and, really, his character found a
much better place, now he is in a crocodile. What about the others? Lenin? Mao? Pol Pot? - no, don't
bring me Che. He's not scary enough. The world's teenagers' cuddly toy, him. Anyway -"
"Well", Yuri speaks with a flawless US accent. "Vladimir Illitsh Lenin is a futures and derivatives
trader in New York. After that incident, I'm sure he'll help.
Pol Pot - difficult but he's so vein! He's a mosquito in the Asian swamps ..."
"... no doubt feasting on the corpses of those he sent there", growls Charlie.
"Quite so. According to our info ..."
"He can't hide. I'll have him. He can be so useful. Anyway, he ows me one. Two in fact. Actually no - he
ows me a full life times' reputation - and that is just him!"
Engelschen chuckles
"He reads the Daily Ma- Fascist" Jenny says, by way of her kind of explanation.
"Ok. Mao. Well - he gets spoiled rotten as a cat in an English suburb ..."
"Hate him. Absolutely hate him. Better a crocodile in the bath than that cat on your roof!
He has to come! Maybe he can claw and therefore poison every single TaliBin."
"Right. I suggest ..." again, Yuri cannot finish what he is about to say.
"Excellent! Quite my idea. Pot the mosquito and Engelschen sniff out the Bin's hiding cave. Then we pull
his ears and give him a telling-off by the heavies. Engelschen - off you trot.
As regards - well, I have to have a meeting with Lenin's brain as soon as poss."

Yuri actually had suggested to give the two scouts some Russian war veterans for reconnaissance. Though
it was not Supercharlie's idea, he had agreed.
It helped. Yet, it also helped to make the enemy aware.

1
These days, Charlie kept away from the capital. He had a found a tiny market place in the South Downs.
He, to be precise to this point of time, sat outside a pub, the table plastered with books on the
Taliban and radical Muslim politics. He would have liked the usual table under the Linden tree - but
today he had been beaten by an elderly lady who tried to water her irritating dog.
Supercharlie had just gone inside (ogled at by the few patrons) and waited to be served.
When, drowning the hum of motorway & birds, with a massive explosion that shattered the inn's tiny
windows, the Linden tree was catapulted skywards.
Supercharlie, as the dust settled, immediately bellowed: "Don't just stand there. Dial 999. And, for
good measure, tell them the attack looks uncomfortably like the work of Al Qua Vida!"
While he climbs through the door opening to face the crater in front of him, he flips open his Nokia
(the only company name, Jenny keeps repeating, Supercharlie does not prefix with "bloody capitalist -")
.
"Hello. Hello, Jenny? Can you go on to the web-sites we are watching or search - Al Qua Vida and Linden
tree should do. What? I know I can do it on my phone. But you can do it faster. Prego. Pronto."

Supergranny Jenny turns to a pretty pale Yuri.

"I think they got onto him - with a bomb."
"Oh no. So sorry. Somebody down there must have remembered Russian faces from old times..."
"Oh, it is quite alright. It means Engelschen and that fly are bloody close."
"Mosquito...bloody... arrgh - could they have killed Super-Karl?"
"Him? No. The only one who could have been able to was my father. And he loved Charlie like his own son."
She pauses.
"I just wonder however - why does he suddenly speak Italian to me? And it's not even Dante."
Yuri does not get any paler (how anyway?). But his mouth shrinks.
"Lenin does not play ball. He must have asked Super-Charlie to consult Gramsci - still in Italy. In jail
again."
This was so. Asked about the displaced youths, Lenin had only said:" I will come for the final show-down
of course. But I have to keep my cover. I'll grow my beard and take the wig off of course once you get
that holy-damn bastard. But the kids - better consult Gramsci. He has the perfect cover. Who cares about
a jail-bird?"

A few days later, Charlie stands at the grave of the old bombed woman. He turns to Jenny and Yuri:
" All Qua Vida are not idiotic. They are snobbish. It is sheer class war by unexpected means. Sure,
some capitalist pigs lost their lives in The Towers. But what about the cleaners? The underpaid fireman?
What about Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, London -? Where do you find the masses? On urban mass transport. They
were the ordinary. The office workers. The kids on holidays of those who get by. You have to know where
you stand. You drink wine with your friends. With the rich, who are all into wine, insist on your pint
of beer.
Does it help? The ordinary man has no voice. Who is there to protect them?
The elite is small. They use taxis. And somebody else does their shopping. Their kids don't die in wars.
They don't have to worry about common sense. The poor and kind-hearted will make up for their mistakes.
The elites die old, never aware that all their lives they have taken other people's credit. The poor die
young because to live and survive is on their mind, not longevity and making their mark."

A couple of days later, Jenny tells the superhero about the dead woman:
"Charlie I think for once you were mistaken. That old woman was quite well-off - and, so much for common
sense, left every penny of it to a dog's charity."
The superhero replies gruffly: "Well, at least she'll be happy to have died at the same time as her dog
did - and, atomised as they are, probably got buried together with bits of him. How come she had so much
stashed away?"
"She's the widow of a property developer."
Charlie's face shows a hue of purple. "I'm saying - nothing! Don't you provoke me..."
"Anyway - any luck with your Italian job?" asks the granny, to distract him.
Supercharlie throws up his hands and his beard sparkles electric.
"I've got some great tomatoes...Gramsci and me - and Lenin too - totally agree on the analysis ..."
"That's something new" hisses Engelschen and chuckles a snake chuckle.
Supercharlie continues unperturbed: "But there is nothing new, we got no further really than the current
literature. What we still need is a - some - plan of action."
"But our Operation Ghost-Buster still goes ahead?"
"I thought it was called Operation Poltergeist-Buster?" asks Engelchen.
"Yup. We'll fly tomorrow. It's the spectre busting the ghost. We hope for no backlash anywhere. We want
to stun them."
"We'll all be there?"
"No - not Yuri. Too dangerous. Neither you, Jenny - we need somebody at the controls."

2
"But I ..."
"But Stalin out of retirement, Lenin with a beard and Pol Pot with a voice. Yes."

"The cave" turns out to be no cave at all but a pretty luxurious villa. If the Al Qua Vida chiefs would
believe their own preachings, they should have sensed that their come-uppance was neigh.
No, there was no invasion of locusts. Neither were there any laser-guided missiles. Yet, one by one, men
of their guards died - and all that was ever detected were mosquito bites.
They were prepared. Still. They had the gear. They had the means of escape.
But they did not expect, however, was a muddy, filthy crocodile crashing through a second floor window.
(They did not know their enemy - so they never looked out for a flying carpet, well the Red Flag really,
Supercharlie's usual means of transport).
Using the moment of surprise, Stalin, because it was he, thwacked the Taliban-leader, the official
Al-Qua Vida number two, with his tail. The man was felled and, as if breaking every single bone in his
body was not enough, Stalin proceeded by biting his head off.
Montesuma Bin Loadin, trying to be unmoved by this sight, takes his revolver and aims at the crocodile.
First, however, he tries to brush off the mosquito that has flown on and now landed on his nose.
The first shot got straight got straight into the woodwork of the ceiling.
The second never happened, as a big, fat, red, juicy tomato hits his eye.

"Please, Yuri, show me again how you put together a Kalashnikov in no time?"
Her face is wrinkled, old, pale but full of resolve.
It takes the Russian just over one minute.
"And it never fails?"
"Less often then most. Much better - and more reliable - than the German weapons were...."
"Right", she says. "Yuri, you man headquarters now. I can't stand it anymore. They just treat me like -
like - a woman! Sod this, give me the weapon!"

Supercharlie gets them from his Lodencoat. Almost lazily, he aims and chucks them towards Bin - who
cannot remove them.
He leaves his left eye free.
Finally, the turbaned leader of terrorists in strange places looks up. He bares his teeth. Maybe it is
meant to be a grin.
"Finally we meet", he says in perfect English.
Supercharlie, not to be outdone, answers in a very latin Italian:
"Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto. Ogni vilta convien che qui sia morta.
Yes, we meet. The very epitomes of mass terror to teach you a lesson and put a stop on this make-believe.
"
Bin tries to be cool. That his gun still aims at the ceiling indicates otherwise.
"Stalin!", bellows the bearded Superhero.
The croco turns.
"Lenin!"
Vladimir Illitsch, with beard and hair his very own spitting image, steps off the Red Flag and into the
room.
"Ehh - mosquito, stay where you are ... and where is that damn cat?"
"Here, master", the cat husks. Its whiskers, its mouth blood-smeared.
"I just finished numbers three, four and five. I left the rest to Engelschen - honest. I went straight
for their throats. Delicious."
"Cat", Charlie says sternly, "you are not a dog. Behaviour."
Mao seems to shrink.
"Behaviour. Cat! Or I let you play cat and dog with the croco."
Stalin crunches his teeth with satisfaction. Mao seems to lose colour.
"Oh, really. I have you both in a N.Y. flat with Lenin as your master!"
"Lenin...", Bin Loadin searches his mind. "Lenin!" he spits out.
Supercharlie, never short on reflexes, aims his bear at him which makes the terror-leader stricken in a
fit.
"Watch it, or I'll never ever honour you with addressing you by name again. This man has brains. You
have merely delusions." All you have do is propping up dying regimes. A pebble in the grand course of
history.
Montesuma Bin Loadin smirks.
"Who does he think he is?", the deep grovelly voice escapes the croco. "He does not know his place."
"He wants", the cat sits on its hindlegs and flashes its claws, "to be taught a lesson".
Bin still stands, smirk frozen. Still stands.
Lenin does not even step forward. All he does is fixing his eyes just above the eyes of the other.
The smirk vanishes. The turban, crooked at first, glides to the ground. A nod of the famous head and the

3
robes come undone, leaving the shrivelled body standing naked.
"Lenin! Really. Is that what you are up during your office parties?"
Supercharlie is clearly not in the mood. He steps forward and throws the robes loosely over the man's
body, leaving Bin goose-pimpled.
Finally able to speak, Bin Loadin sneers "Why, do you think you are God the Almighty to tell ME what to
DO?"
"No, of course not. There is one who is much higher than me."
"Who, God?" Stalin bursts out, astonished.
"No, of course not. Did Feuerbach no say - and that neurotic, Nietzsche, didn't he say God is dead?
No, the one higher than me - that is undoubtedly the onward march of progressive-dialectical history,
where matter decides over being, rationality over -" and here his eyes flash menacingly at the
turban-less Bin Loadin "-superstition."
It has nothing to do with religion. As usual. Mr Loadin just exploits the poor as far too many far too
rich men have done before him. He feeds "religion" into their mouths rather than bread and it's the
opium of these people who, hungry, hallucinating, march on to do his dirty deed.
While those of the true faith get ripped apart by his bombs."
Matsuma Bin Loadin seems to bath in the glory of these works. The smirk on his face had become even
smirkier. "And ..." he starts.
The animals start getting impatient.
"he does not know who he speaks to" howls the cat.
"Let me, let me" begs the mosquito.
"He's mine - by rights", coughs Stalin.
Lenin's smile is only around the thin, straight line of his lips.
Supercharlie, ever alert, suddenly shouts: "Pol Pot! Off his nose!"
Obligingly, the mosquito buzzes off.
Bin, however, with unexpected agility, catches him.
"Pol Pot? But how can that be? I admired that man. But he's - he's dead. How can this mosquito ..."
Pol Pot still found a way out to escape the closed fist, flies off and sits on Mao's head instead.
"Everybody thinks we are dead. Karl Marx here, for example, was born nearly 200 years ago. I died,
thinking he was long dead. Then I joined the club. The spectre still haunts", Lenin explains.
Supercharlie inclines his head.
"People like us", the Mao-cat purrs menacingly, "are not allowed to die. We are only unable to change
alliances."
Yet the cat's hair starts to bristle while the underbelly of the crocodile turns purple.
"This", Lenin points at him, "is Stalin. As many lost their lives because of him as people died in WWII.
The cat -" he points at Mao, "well, the Japanese could not have been crueller."
Mao is about to demure, but Charlie, the ultimate master, only raises his head slightly, than continues:
" You know about Pol Pot. Now a mosquito. I do not know what death holds for you..."
"Maybe a stone?", ventures the cat, "after all, he has not been really horrible at all. All intention ...
"
"Or maybe a poodle?" Lenin offers.
Charlie, after a pause, speaks
"We do not know. Maybe an US American. Fat. White. Male. Stupid. But maybe not. But ..."
He gets no further.
"No more bloody talk" a woman shouts.
Supercharlie turns around, recognises Groovy Granny Jenny in an instant and hisses:"Language please.
Ladies present."
It goes rat-tat-tat through the window.
Groovy Jenny steps into the room.
"Ladies present, Is said", Charlie reminds everyone. "Jenny, look at that mess. I'm sure he's dead now."
"Bugger", is all Lenin utters.
Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao, still scared by the bullets, remain cowering in one corner.
"What is to be done?"
"Lenin, stop repeating yourself", Charlie says briskly.
"Ok, ok. Not to plan. But WE cannot have done it. The US cannot have done it. Engelschen!", he shouts.
The rattle snake appears
"You and Lenin have to be in Tehran immediately. This is the work of the Iranian Socialist Party. They
have no elections to win just now. And they can do Dubya a service he does not want because he's not
getting the credit for it.
"Why can't we claim it?" Jenny asks.
"Jenny. Really. Socialists from Britain. I mean - Who is still a member of the Labour Party?" Everybody,
including Yuri who listens in, raises his hand.
"See what I mean. People associated with TB - that'll be bloodshed everywhere. The Iranian comrades -
they'll be nonplussed, but Dubya's court has to lay his hands off."

4
There were riots. But Supercharlie had managed to wrongfoot everyone. The Al Qua Vida network, if it
ever existed, was in turmoil. The Iranian socialists were surprised no end - particularly when Tehran's
conservative government seized on it and gloatingly presented it as a gestures of `peace and friendship
to the USA´.
The Bush-Rumsfeld axis did not know what happened to them when dead obedient troops nearly downed
weapons. What was going on when the supposed enemy did their work for them?

"We have to strike the iron while it's hot. Mosquito, Stalin - you go and find the rest of Bin Loadin's
clan. As far as we know, much of this ghastly work is a family affair."
The superhero sighs. Then:
"Now, Lenin, what is to be done? It is the same over and over gain. Young men with all the strong
energies of their age. No meaningful occupation, no voice, no prospects. Some spoilt rich brats and
their acolytes turning into their leaders.
Plus, then, the feeling of displacement. Neither here nor there, where the parents are not here, where
their contemporaries are not there. What can we do? We cannot create jobs for everyone out of nowhere.
We cannot give voice and representation where there are fiercely feudal structures. We can make history
but we cannot force the course of history."
A prolonged silence.
"Shopping malls everywhere. That'll create something meaningful." Jenny jokes.
Yet this is met by yet more silence.
"Bread and games", says Lenin. That's all I can think of. Keep distracting them."
"Bread and games. Is that all you can come up with? Roman recipes?"
Supercharlie pauses.
"Maybe we approach the whole issue from the wrong angle. Maybe we need to take all their excuses from
them. Only then can they see what really concerns them - and act accordingly."
"But that would be an entirely different story", says Jenny.
"Yes, that will be the next story", grins Supercharlie.

5
Supercharlie 17:
Charlie fights the grey molasses of bureaucracy

Supercharlie wakes up, yawns. He turns around and looks past the empty pillow next to him. Engelschen's
reptile face stared back at him.
"Where's Jenny" he asks.
"At work" the answer hisses back to him.
"At work?" But she was barely back home? Are you talking about our Jenny or their Jenny."
The forked tongue rapidly shoots backwards and forwards. "Your groovy granny Jenny." Though it seems, on
closer inspection, more like their slave drudge Jenny."
"My Jenny, our Jenny, their Jenny .... it seems as if my mobile phone book is stuck in J. Everybody is a
James or Jenny. Well, Jim, Jamey, Jen --- mental."
Only then the superhero seems to wake up properly.
"She's at work?" Again? Do I really eat that much that we need all this money? Am I fat?" he looks at
the bulging covers.
Resigned, Engelschen lays his head on the pillow.
"It is not that we need the extra money Charlie. It is simply no-one else is there any more to do the
job!"
"Blithering ... am I ever gonna see my wife-"
"Estranged-"
"Shut it! .... Again."
"I know she loves it there and all colleagues and all the people she meets there and that it is
worse-paid but still better than cleaning and all -"
"If you like fish."
"I do not mind fish! And the market is a city institution."
The superhero is quiet for one moment.
"Ok. Get up, shower, dress - smartly and then I shall be going shopping."
"And where do I go?
"You go into my deep pocket my rattlesnake."

Confident, head raised, Supercharlie strides through the slightly shabby corridors that make the city's
market. He always had a better mind for names than faces and, over the last couple of years, there has
been a clear deterioration. He has, however, kept his distaste for the self-important. The jumped-up.
The tie-wearers. So, when he nearly crashes into a man in an indifferently-coloured suit (purely
Charlie's fault, by the way), he stares the man wildly in the eyes and shouts "IDIOT!"
The man apologises profusely but Charlie just strides on.
Fact is, he did not even realise what he was doing, being so caught up by the idea that somebody would
enslave his Jenny like this. And, being in such a state, he sometimes shouts out words - without these
being at all related to his immediate environment.
This is something that the besuited man did not know of course.

The market was something the community had organised - it was part of the drive to safe an important
landmark building. The people who ran it, the people who did the admin, the people on the stalls - they
all sat in the same boat and, while everybody looked after their one particular part of the undertaking,
more and more people came to use it, as the haphazard and friendly nature of the market was a great part
of its pulling-power.
Yet, as so many grassroots undertakings that become popular and make serious money - the market got
taken over by a professional outfit.
Professional seem to mean - increase earnings and, increase even more steeply, the amount of rules and
regulations that could not be breached.
Things like never wearing yellow socks on Tuesdays. Standing behind the counter while it rains and there
are no customers in sight. Closing doors during load-ins.
The latter being particular difficult to adhere to.
Like all markets, it was seasonal work, shift work. Hourly work. The pay is only the minimum and a vast
majority of the staff is rather on the old side.
(Jenny, though no-one would guess it, is the oldest with her 170 years).
For this very reason, there is always staff leaving during the quiet summer and new staff starting in
autumn.
A fact the London office must have forgotten, because the recent expansion meant yet another change of
rules and a new boss.
Yet the new market supervisor, a podgy kid that used to run cinemas, fond of German jokes (not funny at
all!) managed to bring the lot of grannies and granddads into a state of near-revolution.
It makes good money for pub around the corner where most of the stall holders have their lunch. Jenny
has her lunch and Charlie joins the lot.

1
To his bemusement, quite a few have a pint with their kippers.
Yet, when Jack lights a cigarette on top of all that and Jenny keeping quiet (though she hates smoke),
Supercharlie senses it is time to act.
"I see you are smokiing again."
"Indeed. It took m thirty bloody years to give it up. Than this blighter comes and - look at me"
"What's up Jack?"
"Don' t know where to start. Everything."
"I hate him."
Everybody looks up. Not because of what was said. Not because anybody doubts who he is. But because who
said it. It was one of the other Jennys. Jenny, with her ill, diabetic husband at home. Her always
worried face. Jenny, who never opens her mouth."
"I would not be that nice!"
"He wants me to do the mornings and the evenings now. Yes I need the money. But how can I care for Paul?"
Everybody looks stunned. Jenny sounds more resigned than tearful, yet this is what everybody feels to
feel like.
Crying.
"Exactly." Jim breaks the silence. "And when am I supposed to pick up my Paul from school? He is only
eleven and, given the state this place is in, I am not risking letting him walk by himself. But no. Not
even split shifts are possible. And for doing what? Walking around like a Zombie, clicking with a little
machine how many people are on site. Grand! So they fill another couple of boxes in t' office."
"Orrifice" shuckles Jo. He was never subtle if it could be helped.
"As soon as I've got my finances sorted, mate, I'm outta here." Jim concludes.
"No place to be"
And many a face nods in agreement.
"Whoa whoa" intervenes Charlie. "But don't you love it here. Haven't you been here since the first day,
Jo and -"
"But what can we do? There is not enough staff. We have to do the extra hours. All those new regulations.
We have to fulfill them."
"And non of those have been discussed with us," says Granny Jenny bitterly, "there is just a
fait-accompli. Decisions have been made in some back office and we just have to do as we are told"
"I suppose", says Supercharly, stroking his beard and with his eyes flashing dangerously, "non of these
- measures have been discussed with you individually. It is like a form paper handed down to you."
"Yap"
"And you have no recourse to common humanity or that it was your hands that build this market. There is
just a grey machine."
"Yap"
"Then the machine needs to be attacked with - well things that are all too human.
If he is too sure of himself, we have to disturb this tranquility for a start. Nothing evil. But it will
wear him out ...."

Supercharlie had started this process already. Only, he never noticed it.
Yet, now it happened proper. Whereas before, if boxes needed shifting, if a hazard was found, one market
man or market lady asked a colleague to help shifting it, now every little item was refered to the boss.
After all, they could not possibly be burdened with this responsibility...
John Pork, the supervisor, parked his clean silver car in the same spot in the same car park every
morning.
On returning at night, he had to always look for it - it was in a different spot every night! It had not
been damaged or anything been taken. Suspicious John, of course, would even take readings of the milage
in the morning. It never clocked more, yet the car had moved! Or was he dreaming it?
Charlie, who's beard could steer a whole red flag like a flying carpet, was just chuckling.
Irate, Pork's John would be speaking in even sterner terms to his staff. However, the grave faces of old
were gone. They laughed openly in his face - and then did exactly what he told them.
He is really not sure what is going on.
Then there are reports, again delivered with a laugh, of rats on the premises. Rats! At a
fresh-foodstuffs vending place! Yet, when the ratters were brought in - nothing.
One morning, however, when he came in early to open up, he had the shock of his life.
In the corner where the rats had previously been sighted there was - a snake! It raised ist head
menancingly and hissed at him, while its tail started rattling.
Sweating, he brings the shutters down with a crash.
The hiss and rattle can still be heard. A minute later he checks again - bravely. Nothing.
He presses his thumbs on his closed eyelids. Is he dreaming?

Yet, there is no let-up. Too many too busy days. One Wednesday, his bosses were scheduled to come up
from London. The whole place looked spick and span. Yet, strangely, though John Pork was stressed to the

2
limit, everybody who worked that day was so nice too him. Even the customers, though how could they know,
seemed to be happy, particularly the men. One or two even patted him on the shoulder saying "It's
alright mate".
This helped greatly when the delegation from London finally arrived in the afternoon.
He took them around, making sure to stick in their crowd. Never walk paces ahead of your bosses, as the
school had taught him. Finally, he took them up to the cabin that was his office. Turned around to ring
for coffee. There was a sound like a gasp behind him. John Pork smiled. His bosses were clearly in need
of a coffee.
However, the jovial meeting afterwards, that he expected, never arrived.
His bosses drank their coffees, looked through reams and reams of statistics (Jim's efforts) and were,
all in all, rather icy to him.
Shortly after, they left.
John did not understand.
He never understood.
Because, when he returned home that night, his wife took his suit to the dry-cleaners. They just chucked
the big, non-sensical note that stuck to the back of the jacket: I am sorry that I made Chelsea lose
last night it read.

Still, over two weeks all the responsibility for everything, the continuing mystery about the moving car,
snakes, rats... and also his disappearing and re-appearing radio and keys wore him down.

The end came when it was the 12th anniversary of the market.
A massive cake was to made - mostly out of sponge cake and foamy cream - and left over night in one of
the warehouses.
In the morning, being the first one in, John Pork walked up the metal staircase and walked on the plank
above the cake before the doors opened to the expectant public. His last inspection. His very last.
Because, standing on the plank above, looking down on the red-brown-white mass below, a too familiar
hissing sound made him lose his balance.
And, like in a dream, he sank into the sponge-cream. Sucked up like in quicksand.
And with no way out.

The doors opened to everyone, the staff stands, hand in hand, around the cake and starts dancing.
"The wolf is dead, the wolf is dead ...."