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The Classical, and indeed the pre-Classical, Greeks were a fascinating lot: all those delicious snacks made out of octopus giblets; and all those complexes; and all that philosophy and art; and all those Gods and Heroes; and of course all those wonderful, lovable monsters without whom none of the above would be anything but a pretty boring load of old cobblers. I'm sure you know them all (or at least the famous ones, the ones you find in every edition of Who's Who, What's What and What the Hel Is That?!)...
...the Sphinx, the Nemean Lion, the Hydra and all their buddies and of course who could forget the monocular if polysemous Polyphemos who has basked down the ages in the reflected glory of inventing the expression "better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick" (though I must admit in passing that he seems to have been a lot less pleased with the whole thing than one might have hoped), and all of these are justly famous and frequently grace the pages of legend and myth and many of the more desperate and old-fashioned PhD theses.
Of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't have a soft spot for the less famous, or indeed the downright obscure, members of this rather inclusive club, you know all those ones that miss the fame that came so easily (though one must admit, so often terminally) to their brethren in monstrosity, either by bad luck or because they so richly deserved to be ignored. So let's take a look at:
The Lost World of Forgotten Greek Bad Guys (and Things) In fact , although it was some time ago, I've already mentioned in these essays , one of my favourites amongst these enfants terribles perdus and that is the late lamented Procrastes1. Procrastes as you know was the twin brother of the guy with the one-size-fits-all bed, Procrustes,2 with whom he should never be confused. And I should here interject that I wonder just what their parents were thinking when they named them---I mean, I mean Procrustes and Procrastes?? How could they do that to the poor little mites (as mites I believe they were when they were so named) and I strongly suspect that we see there in those debilitatingly similar names the origin of all the troubles that followed. Anyway to stop you becoming as confused as everyone was at school, not to mention later in their lives, all you need to remember is that Procrustes-with-a-"U" was the evil chap who was guilty of inviting poor innocent and unsuspecting travelers for a nice meal and a good night's rest, and then would sneak up and hammer or hack them into shape to fill his very badly designed bed (and so, incidentally, anticipated by several thousand years the highly successful attitude of the Microsoft Windows Division towards their users), or at least he did until he tried his little trick on Theseus when it fatally rebounded on him as is famed in the legends and myths; and then keeping that in mind, also remember that Procrastes-with-an-"A" was the evil chap who was guilty of being late for every single bit of villainy he tried, and so in the end did not in fact do much, or indeed any, harm at all and, to be honest, was the one Greek bad guy who couldn't even get his act together in time to actually meet Theseus, or his well-deserved gory end at Theseus' hand, and so doesn't appear in any of the myths or legends.
Then there was Perseus, not of course that you should think of him as a monster (unless you happen to be a member of PETAG---People for the Ethical Treatment of All Gorgons). Amongst his other exploits Perseus rescued Harry Adney (who was a Media Consultant for some royal cretin3 ---though I don't THINK it was Prince Charles) from the Gordon McDoozey who, like the more well-known and obviously related Gorgon Medusa had a snake problem, and I'm not saying exactly where he had his or what effect they had, but if the wind ever got up his kilt you definitely didn't want to be looking in that direction!
Finally, and I'm sure to the relief of us all, we get to this essay's partial eponym the Minicar or (as it's referred to in poor old P. Ovidius Naso's Metamorphoses) the Minicooper; a truly terrifying beast, half machine half roller skate, which, loaded with gold, would rush horribly about a labyrinth of sewers and roofs and narrow streets in a chaos originally created by Benny Hill playing the part (gods help us) of a computer hacker; but finally meeting its comeuppance not (as is usual in these cases) at the hands of Theseus or Herakles4 or Perseus but, in a really tragic twist and a re-make to boot, by some crooks lead by Wahlberg and Theron
Cheerio for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton
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Notes:
1 
"... late lamented Procrastes" Procrastes gave us the word 'procrastinate' meaning to delay, preferably to that tomorrow that never comes; just as Prokroustes gives us the word procrustinate, meaning to force to conform by bloodily ramming a square peg into a round hole, hence to use the Windoze operating system.
Note: this should never be confused with the following. 2 
"... Procrustes, with whom he should never be confused" Procrustes gave us the word 'procrustean' for forced conformity, just as Prokrastes gave us the word 'procrastean' meaning "given to using of Amtrak", hence always a day late. Note: this is sometimes confused with the above. 3 Royal Cretin
"... some royal cretin---though I don't THINK it was Prince Charles" OK! Yeah! Cheap and unwarranted (and never likely to get the Royal Warrant either) shot at Prince Charles--probably would have been better with Prince William there.
I just wanted someone royal for the joke which was that Ariadne was rescued in Crete: Not that the word cretin has anything to do with the Island. Cretin (French Swiss--Christian) is very unusual if not unique in that it rather than being a racial or other slur actually implies that what ever else may be different about its subject he (or she) still has a soul and is, presumably, therefore fully human.
BTW Prince Charles is commonly referred to as 'Big-Ears' a reference to a possibly gay couple he makes in the Enid Blyton books with the eponymous 'Noddy' 4 Herakles or Perseus
"... hands of Theseus or Herakles or Perseus" We should, of course, ignore the petty rivalry between Perseus and Herakles which after the latter's cleaning of the Augean Stables lead to the former starting his rather pathetic 'Perseus Washes Whiter... And That Means Cleaner' advertising campaign as you can see if you look at the accompanying illustration ...
Oh!
...having just looked at it myself, I suggest that we forget the whole thing and that you don't even bother to read this note.
Sorry.
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