The Prince of Darkness, Exposed

‘We are born of Darkness, and to Darkness we return; our time in the Light is but an interlude” – Joseph Lucas.

Thus spake an incarnation of Beelzebub who lived in England at the turn of the 19^th Century, a man of great industry and wealth who nonetheless by his insidious devilish nature perverted the course of the mighty river Commerce in the United Kingdom, diverting those once-powerful waters to be sullied and wasted over the sandy plains of Poor Reputation.  By his trickery, an entire industry, once a world leader in technology, performance, and quality, was reduced to a worldwide butt of jokes and financial catastrophe, bringing the economy of an entire nation to its knees, and reducing that nation’s principal exports from the noble metals of Transport and Manufacture to the lowly pressing of musical discs, recording the harmonized mating calls of long-haired, drug addled dandies who wiggled their skinny asses to the gleeful delight of teenage girls, who wept at the sight.

I’m not suggesting Joseph Lucas destroyed the British economy; I’m stating it as a fact, because its high time the man is exposed as the devil he was. To begin at the start; in the 1850s, Joseph Lucas was the unemployed father of six children – oh unhappy number – selling kerosene from a wheelbarrow on the filthy streets of Hockley, in Essex of all places; a Victorian Chav.  And yet, within just a few years he founded Joseph Lucas Industries, which would shortly move to Birmingham and explode into profitability.  What Wikipedia fails to divulge in its brief whitewash of Mr. Lucas is the scandalous tale of that remarkable transition.

How does a man overburdened with children, smelling of petroleum and sloshing a wheelbarrow through the muddy, feces-strewn roads of rural Hockley, for God’s sake, come within a short time to sit atop a golden throne as titular head of a great manufacturing concern?  As Balzac observed, ‘Behind every great fortune lies a great crime’, and Lucas’ empire was founded on a pentagram drawn in goat’s blood. There can be no better explanation for the lightning success of this muddy and impecunious dandy (and supposed teetotaler – perfect cover for his dark enterprise) than the sale of his mortal soul to the Devil.

Joe Lucas and his son Harry (henceforth known as ‘Damien’) aggressively forged strategic alliances and strong-arm monopolies in order to dominate vehicle manufacture in Britain.  Near every car, bus, lorry, lawnmower, and motorbike built in Birmingham had bolt-on endarkenment.  Their ‘lighting’ equipment worked well enough for long enough and were cheap enough that no automaker could avoid the taint of Satanic products, and like a virus, their timed-death equipment spread to every corner of Industry in Britain.  Their maddening tendency to self-destruct, when a generator or magneto were most needed, was discovered too late, thus the entire industry was thus corrupted and crippled, and made a laughing stock the world over.

And what, good sirs, was Mr Lucas’ retort when complaints were made against his defective ‘illumination’ devices?  “A gentleman does not motor about after dark.”  Which is certainly true, if one transforms nightly into a flying rodent! Gentleman, indeed. Had the cloven hooves beneath Joe Lucas’ spit-polished brogues been properly exposed, rampaging torch-and-pitchfork brigades would have rushed the great iron doors of his manse, only to find their grasping hands filled with the same damnable smoke as emerges regularly from the malfunctioning electrical devices of his black manufacture.  It has been suggested in fact that the products of the Lucas family have at their dark heart a function of pure devilment, the transmission of electricity by SMOKE rather than electrons, proof of which is evident in every malfunctioning object of electrickery which bears the ‘torch and lion’ logo. What emerges when said device expires?  Yes; smoke.

Mind you, other Devils were surely at work in Great Britain (an acronym of ‘eat brain grit’ if you hadn’t noticed – what zombie coined THAT?) on the loathsome project to destroy a once-great Empire.   I have it on good account the Board of Directors of BSA met in secret cabals at Slumberglade Hall, black-robed and hooded, to blood-sacrifice nubile virgins on basement frame-jigging tables.  And if that sounds like fun to you, then you too are damned to hell! The stain of Satan possesses your thoughts.

The whole world understands that Lucas Industries is responsible for everything from no-lights British motorbikes to the fact that the English drink warm beer (‘Lucas refrigerators’ goes the old joke – too near the truth!).  Lucas alone brought down the British Empire.

And yes, the goddamn Lucas magneto on my Velocette took a crap, again.

(Note: any similarities to actual titans of British industry producing devilishly maddening, smoke-exhaling electrickery, is purely coincidental, and intended as satire)