Some keen eyed viewers are beginning to notice the odd anomaly or two in the world of S.O.B.:



The explanation for these peculiarities is as follows:
Since his transformation, first Jim senior and later his nuclear family, have come to radiate a steady stream of rogue biomutagenic particles. The effect of this is that objects in the immediate vicinity can themselves begin to mutate in alarming ways.

As you rightly pointed out Ozone, St.George is fighting the dragon beneath their suburban semi. This is because the surrounding vegetation gradually mutates into characters from history/mythology which, if left unchecked, go on to reinact iconic struggles amid the geraniums, such as the mythical conflict you spotted.

Life in the Gentry family's fridge freezer is equally perilous as you noticed Skool: Any item of vegetable or animal origin can grow, mutate and otherwise transform itself into a myriad of unlikely shapes. If that bird had gone past it's use by date, there's no telling what carnage it could have unleashed on the unsuspecting community. Thankfully these oddities go largely unnoticed by Jim, his family and friends.

I hope that gives you some small insight into Swindon life; it's gratifying to know that all this painstaking research hasn't gone to waste.

Oh, it does indeed!

...I had a dream the other day where me and a band (including a dark sexy woman with long black hair and a great arse, a punk with a pink mohawk, and the drummer and bassist who I don't remember) were chaperoning 3 boys who had been tasked by their father to go and investigate a property in Swindon (your version of it), with hopes of purchasing it.
We all arrived on that hill in your picture, except it was night, it was cold, it was rainy and windswept. We sheltered under that house. The boys said that their dad would need an example of the local cuisine before he would consider moving there...

I couldn't think of what the local cuisine could possibly be and I couldn't really think of anything there to cook except the locals or the local rats. I didn't fancy encouraging cannibalism so I decided on rats instead. I told them that rat burgers were the local dish and they'd have to catch two rats, skin them, strip all the stringy meat from the little bones, mix it up in a bowl with some egg or something and make patties. Then we'd BBQ it over an open flame.
That got us all ravenous (seriously), so then we all went searching for rats in the bushes there...

Woke up hungry.

Ha ha! An hilariously typical tale of Swindon suberbia! I love the look of that band and - hang about...
I haven't had anything new from the writer this month so in about five weeks this comic will already be on hiatus, unless...
Does this band have a name by the way?!

Funnily enough, your description of the rat cooking there ties in exactly with a programme I partially saw last night, in which two presenters immerse themselves in the cuisine of one particular culture/historic period for a week, to see how good or bad it was (called The Supersizers Eat). This particular cuisine featured a cooked rat dish that demonstrated just how stringy those critters are - it hardly seemed worth the effort of cooking them.
Unfortunately, as there were two episodes of the show on last night, I can't recall whether it was a Roman rat dish or a pre-revolutionary French rat dish.

Hahaha! Well I was thinking that it might actually be an old traditional American dish... Known as a Quarter Pounder.

---Not really, but that joke was to good to pass up

Aww, damn, I can't remember the band's name... Maybe something cool like Aqua Vulva?

It can't be rat - surely they'd have more flavour?! Unless they were from Ronald's secret Argentinian battery rat farm or similar. But if I remember rightly, Ronald grows the burgers on bushes.o_O

That's it! You didn't say you were actually in the band, but I already have it laid out in my mind, with backstory:

Ozzy Ocean has a vision - the concept album to end all concept albums - and single mindedly sets out to achieve that vision. To that end he perfects the line up of his band, Aquavulva, and installs them in a rented property where, in between rehearsing his magnum opus, they indulge in zany adventures, much like fictional TV band The Munkees. In order to keep up the rent on said property, Ozzy undertakes a series of the most unlikely jobs and bizarre cash raising schemes ever conceived and in which his band members grudgingly participate.
It's one such plan that draws them to the Swindon Hills on a windswept and rainy night and... well, you know the rest!

Awesome!
I love it. As long as the schemes result in suitably amusing disaster, of course

Ozone, are you familiar with Trout Mask Replica?

What is that red thing? A dog baby?

Heh, it's a record that sounds like this:



They rehearsed it in the scenario described above, but it was more opressive and psychotic than zany and hilarious.