"hello world"

A LITTLE QUIET HERE

2012-01-09T22:41:00.003Z

Did you ever notice how quiet I've been recently?

Did you ever stop to think as to whether I was all right or not?

Did you ever think where did I go?

Well the answers to all of those questions can all be found on my latest adventure blog Ozmnabrit... http://ozmanbrit.blogspot.com

Where I, my pet netbook and camera go attack Australia in a 3 month extravaganza as an English tourist in the sweltering heat of an antipodean wonderland.

Check out the new 'Me in Australia' button on the top link bar for direct access now.

WEATHERWISE

2011-10-19T03:35:00.000+01:00

The family gathered in the lounge to watchthe weather forecast. It was a big event these days and people tended toarrange their commitments around it, often serving Turkish delight, sherry andbrandy snaps, that sort of thing. The latest HD, digital, wide screen, slimlineTV took longer to warm up than their old valve driven Bush model, but thisdidn’t prevent a rising tide of euphoria filling the room.

“It’sstarting love!” cried Dad.

“I’llbe there in a minute” replied Mum.

“Hey!There’s supposed to be two presenters tonight” said young Ben.

“Two?What the hell for?”

“Well,it’s like reading the news and presenting children’s telly. The job’s too hardfor just one person and what with all the spare money we’ve all got these daysthe bosses thought it best.”

“Right”.

First came the sponsorship ads; Rainy DayUmbrellas, Cool Cat Sunglasses, Percy Pig Pork Pies and One-a-Day VitaminBricks. For fifteen minutes Mum carefully watched and made notes for thefollowing day’s shopping and then a trumpet fanfare, followed by two drum solosand a thirty-second recorded firework display, finally heralded the main event.

“Whoopie!”yelled young Betty.

“Quietin the cheap seats” growled Grandpa, in his corner.

Two searchlights picked out the drawlingAmerican impresario.

“Ladies and Gentlemen-n-n-n-n-n-n-n. We nowcome to the highlight of the evening, a super-middleweight forecast for theUnited Kingdom-m-m-m-m-m-m. Introducing in the blue corner, with five correctpredictions out of one hundred attempts – William... Wet and Windy...Wallis-s-s-s-s-s-s.

“Hooray!Hooray!”

“Poorbloke’s got a speech impediment” said Grandpa

“ShushGrandpa!”

And in the red corner, challenging for theUK title and already European performing prima donna of the year, having aperfect record of absolutely no correct predictions in a professional careerspanning fifteen glorious years – Jasmine... Jolly Jumpers... Jack-s-s-s-s-son.

“Hooray!Hooray!”

Then the preliminaries began, the twoforecasters twirling and preening for the cameras, their hair extensionsshining with good health and their makeup applied with Punch and Judy puppet precision.Jasmine cleverly attracted the attention of the director to her new engagementring (why didn’t those pesky viewers hurry up with her presents?), whileWilliam subtly lifted the tails of his morning suit and wiggled his ‘buns’ atthe audience.

“Thatbloke’s got a fat arse” said Grandpa.

“Youneed your glasses changing” observed Mum.

“Aye. Yesplease, another Brown Ale would go down very nicely, thanks”.

It was time for the news presenters to getinvolved now, and Cheshire Cat #1 soon had everyone laughing hysterically abouthis last perfect score on ‘Strictly Come Prancing’, while Cheshire Cat #2reminisced tearfully about her failure to reach the televised rounds of‘Celebrity Hex Factor’. Unfortunately, viewing figures were finally going downfor these two shows, because most of the UK population were now starring inreality TV themselves. There were very few ordinary people left to watch.Everybody was a genius (went to university), a celebrity (had their pubic hairshaved off for charity) or a hero (they were too ‘challenged’ to do anythingbut procreate).

“Iremember these two newsreaders. It’s Mork and Mindy isn’t it?”

“Bequiet Grandpa”.

“Or isit Dork and Windy?”

“Shutup!”

“Laureland …..”

By this time there was so much badinage andmerriment in the studio that the director had to step in with buckets of coldwater to separate the orgiastic foursome before one of them soiled themselves.The grinning Cheshire cats were joined by a tiny sports presenter who leeredmadly at the cameras, whilst trying to draw attention to his latest CV, thatwas somewhat cleverly typed in 26pt Ariel Bold.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha. You are a wit William."

“Tee hee hee hee hee. But not as funny asyou Jasmine."

"You were so good on ‘Strictly’ Micky."

“I’m such a liberal too”.

“I love you”.

“I love me”.

“We love everybody (as long as somebody elseis paying for it)”

A tall man in white flannels then came inwith some orange juice and bananas on a tray and the forecast fiasco took acommercial break.

* * *

By the following morning the commercialbreak had just about finished and it was time for the family to climb out oftheir sleeping bags and see what the weather had in store for them. It was a wellestablished meteorological practice by this time to actually wait for theweather to actually occur before predicting it – the cuttingedge conclusion of a three and a half million pound computer technologyinvestment programme, begun in 2011.

“For those of you interested in the indoorsnooker tournament in Hong Kong we have bravely flown out to give you the mostaccurate information possible” said Jasmine in her new sequinned bikini. Thiswill be followed by further self-sacrificial flights around the world to ensurewe meet our broadcasting obligations to you - the paying public. We will pauseonly to pick up twenty odd well known but declining TV celebrities who arecurrently in need of well deserved free holidays... er... I mean who arecurrently filming travelogues.”

“Ohfor the love of God, what’s the weather going to be like?” said Grandpa,wafting away the overnight fart gas from his trousers.

“Stopdistracting us Grandpa” said young Betty.

After Jasmine had thoroughly discussedyesterday’s weather in Portugal, South Africa, Mexico and the South of Francewith appropriate personal anecdotes, the forecast moved on to the newly popular‘records’ section. If a new weather record had not been broken, this would initself be a record event.

“Upper Nether Thornton in Wessex had themost rainfall over a ten minute period since records began last month”announced William.

“Lower Nether Thornton had more wind from aNorth by North-West direction since the Middle Ages” trumped Jasmine.

“I’m making a record with Simon Cowell” gloated William.

Then came the viewers’ photographs section,including a wonderful outdoor shot of the South Downs in the cold depths of Winter.

“But it’s only the beginning of August,William” said Jasmine.

“I know, but my house is on this one”replied William

“What’shappened to ‘Emmerdale Farm’?” said Grandpa thinking he recognised the oldcountry cottage and was now watching the Yorkshire based soap.

“They’veobviously moved it down to London” advised Mum.

“Oh. Iwas quite enjoying that storyline about the ethnic, dyslexic, gay lovers who’djust had a car crash.”

“They'regetting married in hospital with matching duvets”.

“Touching”.

“Yes,there will be plenty of that, no doubt”.

The dramatic conclusion of the forecast programmewas now drawing near and the family shuffled forward onto the edge of theirseats in anticipation. The studio lights dimmed and William moved to centrestage looking a bit like Al Jolson singing ‘Mammy’.

“Well, as for the much awaited UK forecast,viewers who really want to know, can get an update on my new awesome blog……..”

“Whatthe fu..???” bellowed Grandpa.

“’Bye for now. We’ll see you again for thenext show… er… forecast in half an hour”.

The presenters then joined hands in arecreation of the famous Tiller Girls Palladium routine and the station went onto its default setting.... The... Simp... sons.

Totallypissed off with the ever declining standards of modern television, Grandpa wentinto the kitchen and practised drawing a sharp carving knife across his throat.It wouldn’t be long now, he thought. “Good bye cruel world, and good riddance!”

And I can’t say I blame him really.

CROSS WORDS

2011-10-13T23:34:00.000+01:00

An Irish preacher who had made his name inthe village in which he lived, would make his rounds every month, walking fromhouse to house, in order to “keep the faith,” so to speak. He’d do soby letting the prospective families know about the functions that thechurch would be having in the coming weeks, as well as reminding themthat every little bit helped when it came to financing the church.

Every month when the preacher made hisrounds, he would often venture down a road that he had not walked before, outof sheer curiosity and the hope of finding another parishioner to the church’sfalling congregation. One month, he made his way down a road that ledstraight to a pond which many people fished at during the spring and summermonths. The house in question was found up a hill overlooking apond.

The preacher made his way up the hill andwithout any inhibitions at all, he knocked on the door to the house. Itwas the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, so he thought someone might behome. A woman came to the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked politelysmiling.

“Possibly. I’m Pastor Mickerick, Ma’am, Ipreach down at the old Candleton Church there on Yarder’s Road. You may haveheard of us.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Well, Ma’am, if I’m not interruptinganything, I’d like to take a moment of your time, if that is alright, to talkto you about God.”

“God? Well, now, Pastor Mickerick, Iwas kind of in the middle of something. I have been working on a story fora few hours now. I’m in the creative mode, if you can understand mymeaning.”

“Writing?”

“Yes, Pastor.”

“Wow, I’ve never met a writer before.”

“Yes, well, now you have, Pastor. And,I must really get back to it.”

“Ma’am, I do understand that you have yourwriting to tend to, but I must ask you, is it more important than gaining thechance of eternal salvation?”

“Well, I suppose it is, as I’m not reallythat interested in eternal salvation, Pastor, no offense.”

“Well Ma’am, certainly for the sake of yourchildren, I would like to come in and speak with you if for only a moment aboutour Lord Jesus Christ, if that is alright. I do think that it will be wellworth your while.”

Seeing that she is not going to be able toget rid of him without being rude the woman replied, “Well, I suppose thatI can take a five minute break and have a glass of orange juice. Wouldyou like one?”

“Well, certainly Ma’am, I would love one.” thepastor replied smiling as if with a new sense of accomplishment.

Pastor Mickerick follows the woman who cameto the door inside her house, and promptly sits down at a small table in thekitchen, after she quickly pushes some of the things that were covering theside where he sat out of the way.

While getting the juice from the fridge anda couple of glasses from the cupboard, the woman calmly stated “You’ll have toexcuse me for not being one of those women that asks a visitor to forgive themess that they see upon entering their house. I am quite fine with mymess, actually, and Portia is as well.”

“Portia? Is she your daughter? I’msorry, by the way, I didn’t get your name either.”

The woman turns from pouring the glasses ofjuice, smiling and sits down across from the preacher after returning theorange juice carton to the fridge.

“Well, Pastor, that is because I didn’t giveit to you yet. But if you must know, my name is Paige, Paige Turner, and Portiais not my daughter, she is my lover.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, according to you churchies, we must beliving in all types of sin here.”

“Yes, well, maybe we can change that. Imake my rounds every month in order to spread the word of God and to inform theneighbours of Candleton Church as to what is happening as far as functions go,as they can be fun for the family...”

“What did you really come here for,Pastor? Did you come to save my soul? Did you come to tell me allabout Jesus Christ, as if I haven’t heard enough bullshit about that characterin my short torrid life already? Hmmm? Please get to it, as thebottom of my juice glass is becoming clearer, and when I am done, you know, Ireally must get back to my writing.” Paige said cutting him off.

“Well, I suppose that I came hereoriginally, as I always do, to spread the word.”

“Pastor, I’m a writer, I come across plentyof words already. And believe me, the ones that you hold have no more orless meaning to me than any of the others.”

“I understand that now. Look, I hardlythought that in meandering up here I would stumble across a woman writer who isliving in sin. You illuminate a different world for me, quite honestly.”

“A different world? Hmmm. Pastor,how can I be ‘living in sin,’ as you say, if I don’t actually believe in theconcept?”

Taking a big swig of orange juice, Pastor Mickerickturned to the woman. “Can I be frank with you, Paige?”

“Just make it quick.”

“Well, for one, I don’t have any answers foryou. The fact is, I don’t believe the concepts myself anymore, thesedoctrines that I am supposed to bash people over the head with purely because Iwear this collar.” Still using his best techniques of reverse psychology, thepreacher then tears off his white collar and squashes it in his hand hoping Paigewould take the bait and try reconverting him.

“Really? Well, good for you,Pastor! Look, I would really love to be part of your whole ‘losing of yourfaith’ thing, but you see, I work here at home, and while Portia is out, Ireally get my crunch time in, so if you don’t mind...”

The preacher gets the hint, realizing that Paigeis not interested in the slightest, and he excuses himself from the house afterthanking her for the orange juice. Paige simply locks the door behind him.

“God, spreading the word was getting harderand harder,” the Pastor thought to himself as he made his way back down thehill. “There’s got to be an easier way to do this.” He then smiled to himselfover the irony of God giving a writer a name like Paige Turner. There had to besomething to this religion stuff after all.

MEET THE WIFE

2011-09-23T03:29:00.001+01:00

Kids can really annoy me sometimes. Theyreally can. Okay, so mythical creatures like Santa Claus and the Easter bunnygive people a good reason to throw away money or make egg farmers rich.However, there is one creature I highly despise and that is none other than thetooth fairy. I mean seriously – she disgusts me. She breaks into people’shomes, raids children’s rooms, and steals their teeth of all things. Uck!Well no more. I’m going to destroy her once and for all.

It all started on a nice wet and windyTuesday afternoon. I jotted down some notes from the internet, relating to thetooth fairy. I had seen her plenty of times, sneaking into homes. Oh and getthis, she’s a blonde too. No wonder she touches people’s teeth!

After I gathered all of the collected information– about fifty post it notes in all – I sat them in a stack on the table beforeme.

“Just you wait,” I muttered. “I will catchyou.” My younger sister had just lost a tooth; so as a result, I saw thisas a rather perfect opportunity to ensnare the villainous wench.

“The tooth fairy’s coming tonight! Shereally is!” my eight-year-old sister, Caroline, chanted as she burst throughthe door, free of the woes of school for the day.

I smirked. “Yeah, yeah, squirt – just makesure you don’t over excite yourself.”

“I won’t,” she said and then scurried off.

That night, after my parents and Caroline werebusily sleeping, I set up a clever net trap. Oh, you may have guessed thiswasn’t an ordinary net. It was equipped with a radiation detector, because thetooth fairy’s wings emit small waves of nuclear energyapparently. That aside, thedevice also recognized my sister as being an ally. Who would have known theinternet sold such convenient devices?

At midnight, the window suddenly opened anda blonde woman with glowing wings crawled in through it. I grinned. Since whendid a magical being have to use the window? Was she drunk – no… she was a blonde. And righton cue, my net caught its prey.

“Ouch!”

“Having fun in there?” I snickered. Thetooth fairy, on close inspection, quite frankly, looked no older than me.

“Let me out of here… please?” she pleaded.

“No way,” I said. “Your horrid days arefinally at an end. You’re my prisoner now.”

I dragged the net, with her in it, all theway to my room. Man it was a lot of work – what did she eat anyway?

“So what’s your name?” the tooth fairyasked. She was chained to a leg of my bed by then. Why was she asking such aquestion during her most dangerous hour? Was she fearless or something?

“Shut up,” I growled, “Stupid toothhoarder.” She blinked at me twice with those gormless looking bright blue eyes and herwings fluttered.

“I’m hungry,” she whined.

“Will you shut up?” I grabbed a bottle ofExtreme Hand Sanitizer and bathed her hands. She’d probably touched millions ofrotten teeth so I didn’t want to take any chances in case of any possibleairborne diseases. “It’s one in the morning. I suggest you keep your mouthclosed and avoid waking everyone up, for your own sake.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “You stillhaven’t told me your name.”

I ignored the tooth fairy and pulled a bookfrom my dresser called, Ways to Destroy the Tooth Fairy. She didn’teven look nervous.

“Am I allowed to sleep?”

“What?”

“Well, I see you’re holding a book. Are youlike going to give me homework and tests and stuff?”

I stared at her blankly. “Why are you stilltalking?”

She raised her hand as if we were inschool. “Yes? Wait – no, idiot, just stay quiet and remain still. Okay?”

She smiled. I frowned and then tuned backinto my book. Every minute or so, I would look up and there she was, staring back atme. It was creepy. Really, really, creepy. A blonde half-brained tooth fairy, whosteals children’s teeth for a living, was staring at me, and it was not apleasant feeling. This was the equivalent of being face to face with acriminal. After fifteen minutes, I couldn’t take the staring anymore.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” I yelled.Suddenly, I heard the switch of my sister’s room click on. Oh crap. I glared atthe tooth fairy. “Stay quiet if you know what's good for you.”

Her face brightened up. She wanted toscream, “yay.” I could tell that just by glaring at her. As expected, my sisterknocked on my door.

“Big bro, are you okay in there? I heardscreaming.”

“No, I’m fine,” I lied back, “just anightmare.”

“Can I come in? I want to tell yousomething.” Not good. I felt myself running around in circles. Finally, my eyescaught contact with the wardrobe.

“Quick, get in there,” I whispered.

“Okay, but could you uhm… release thechains?”

My eyes fell to the chains on her legs. Iquickly unlocked them and shoved the tooth fairy into the wardrobe.

“Just stay quiet,” I reminded her.

“How long do I have to...” I closed the doorbefore she finished the sentence. And after hiding all my tooth fairydestruction books, I opened the door for Caroline.

“What took you so long, Andrew?”

“It’s one in the morning, squirt. Give meone good reason why I should move at any speed faster than a turtle.”

Caroline laughed.

“So what’s bothering you, pipsqueak?” I askedher.

She frowned. “Well… the tooth fairy hasn’tshown up yet.” I nearly choked. “Do you think something has happened toher?”

There was a small sneeze. I froze.

“What was that?” A surprised look overtook Caroline’sface.

“Nothing,” I quickly said, while trying notto curse the tooth fairy under my breath. “Nothing at all. Look, the toothfairy will come, but not when you’re awake – she takes a lot longer when peopleare awake.”

Caroline gasped, notifying me instantly that the fishhad taken the bait. “Hurry.” I guided my sister back to her room. “She’s waiting foryou to sleep.”

When I finally put her to sleep, I sluggedback into my room, ready to focus on the matter at hand: finally destroying thetooth fairy so I can get into my own bed for some well deserved sleep of my own. (No, I’m not totally insane; I’m justa boy of reality…. I think.)

The tooth fairy was on my bed, fast asleep.I balled my hands into fists in order to prevent myself from exploding with moreanger than I had done already. My sheets will have to be burnt now, but I’ll focuson that later. I shook her as hard as I could, but she didn’t wake up. Furious,I darted into the bathroom, filled a glass with water, ran back into my roomand splashed it on her face. She still didn’t wake up. Was she dead? Urgh, inmy bed? – I could never sleep there ever again. However, if that was the case, atleast I wouldn’t hear her annoying snoring any more.

“Wake up!” I snarled. And surprisingly, she did.

“So, your name is Andrew?” she said softly.Just then, a puzzling thought smashed into my head.

“Why didn’t… you escape? Are you really thatstupid or something – that window was your one last chance of freedom.”

She blushed. “You see… anyone that goesthrough this much trouble to spend time with me must really like me.”

I ran to the bathroom and vomited. How darethe tooth fairy come up with such an awful conclusion!

“Are you okay?” she said when I drifted backinto the room.

“Let’s just get this straight. You’re aprisoner not a guest, not a friend, not a lover – just a prisoner.” I grinned.“A prisoner waiting on death row.” There was still no shriek or look of terror;she just blushed instead.

“Sit down and await your death,” I saidwhile retrieving the book of tooth fairy destruction. After a few minutes ofreading, I closed it and looked up at her.

“I’m so hungry,” groaned the tooth fairy.

“Oh don’t worry about that,” I laughed,“you’ll be put out of your misery soon enough.” I opened my dresser and dugtoward the depths until I finally had a good grasp on a diamond shaped object:a green crystal, the size of an orange, known as an emerite. According to thebook, one touch from this gemstone should turn the tooth fairy into pixie dust.Her eyes instantly widened upon sight of it. Bingo – she had to be scared now (which means I didn’t totally waste my money buying this off the internet) – soI grinned.

“Oooh, pretty,” she awed, rearranging myprevious thoughts. “Is it a gift? I love presents!”

I snickered. “Oh, it’s a gift alright, butbefore I eliminate you with it, do you have any last words?”

“What does eliminate mean? Does that mean like a kiss? Are you proposing to me with it?”

I face palmed. “No you idiot, this stonewill destroy you.”

“Destroy? Why are you using such fancywords?” She smirked. “Are you like a teacher or something?”

Okay, at this point, I was WAY beyondfrustrated. I was on the verge of just eliminating myself never mind her. “Willyou please, please, PLEASE… shut up,” I managed to prevent myself from yelling.

“Oh I’m sorry – I just never had someonepropose to me so suddenly before. My answer is...”

“I am not pr...”

“Yes.”

A grenade. I needed a grenade: One with anexplosion that would blow my whole body to pieces so no one could ever find them. “Thisis not a proposal,” I growled. “Here – hurry and take the jewel. You must dieimmediately!”

Nothing happened when she held the jewel. Ohplease God, why me? Seriously, why was it so hard to destroy a simple mythicalcreature? I opened the book once again.

“I can’t just give up,” I whispered. “I camethis far.”

For hours, I followed a series of steps fromwithin the book. Each of them failed. Salt, salted milk, silver bullet, silverbullet drink (don’t ask), incantations, water, pudding (once again, don’t ask),sand – absolutely nothing worked. Then I realized something. This emerite – ithad to be counterfeit somehow. Either that or the tooth fairy was justinvincible.

It was 3 AM now. I threw the book at thewall and stared at my enemy. She stroked the emerite, admiring its physicalappearance. I hated the stupid thing – it was the most useless object ever and no way was the Ebay seller going to get good feedback. “Igive up,” I said. “This is so impossible. You’re free to go.” She didn’t move.I opened the window and sighed. “Hurry – get out of here.” She still didn’tmove. “Are you deaf or what? – finish making your rounds for tonight and gohome. I’m done with this mythical destruction crap.”

“I won’t leave.”

The horror of it all. Okay, I failed todestroy her, but now, she won’t leave either. This had to be a nightmare. Myarchenemy – yes I declared her that – was refusing to go away? Has this world gonecrazy and come to an end without letting me in on it?

“What did you just say? I’m sorry; I didn’thear you properly?”

“I won’t leave,” the tooth fairy repeated,“We’re engaged. So there’s no way I’m leaving you ever, ever, ever.” Her blue eyes wereslightly brighter than before. The moron.

The whole situation was now a total catastrophe.My original well thought out and researched plan had backfired on me terribly. What if I now turnedout to be like one of those whackos who make multiple appearances on daytime televisiontalk shows? I just gasped.

“I’m going to tell you one more time,” Isaid with a raised voice, while at the same time straining not to lose control.“You are free to go back to your tooth collecting life and putting cheap smiles on littlekid’s faces with nothing more than small change. And touching rotten teeth too? – arrgh.Just get out of here!”

She folded her arms, frowned, and said, “No.I want to be here with you.”

Did I mention I hated the tooth fairy? Did Ialso mention that my sheets had to be burned?

I gave her my best “you’ve got to be kiddingme” look and then said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I can make you breakfast tomorrow – and …I’m still hungry.”

“Urgh,” I whispered, thinking about themillions of teeth she’d touched as the tooth fairy. Then I asserted my voice.“Listen, if you don’t buzz off, I’m calling the cops. Now scram!”

“Your eyes are very pretty,” she said,completely ignoring my last threat. This was it – I had finally reached mylimit. In fact, I didn’t know whether or not to be angry anymore. In the case thatnone of you reading my words get it, the tooth fairy is a serious threat to all humanity.Her stupidity is akin only to that of a turtle and the back of my slippers.Her hands – Yuck – never touch them! And worst of all, DO NOT attempt todestroy the tooth fairy because you will surely fail. I mean, she doesn’t even havethe intelligence to figure out the meaning of the word “destroy.” I just didn’t knowwhat to think anymore.

“So, you’re just going to let every child inthe world down then are you?” In case you’re lost here, it was 4 AM now, and I haddiverted to using my final and ultimate method of getting rid of her: The old ‘GuiltRoutine’. She narrowed her eyes and looked down. I had her exactly where Iwanted. Eating at her mind became a top priority now. “You know, I have a youngersister – she’s about eight – and she looks up to you. You heard her voiceearlier. Are you going to let someone as innocent as that down? How about theother children too? Your job was to put a smile – God knows how – on theirfaces. Are you really going to be so selfish and stay here?” Tears streamedfrom her eyes. I’d nailed it! Now just a little more – before I start anaccidental celebration dance. “You know, I dislike dishonest, selfishpeople who’d rather hang around a stranger’s home rather than fulfilling theirduties. I really, really, hate that.”

She gasped.

“Fine,” she finally said. I bit my lip,hoping that I really had won. She edged closer to me. “I’ll help everyone theway I do, but only because you insisted. But then I will come back after Ifinish.” Her wings fluttered as she walked to the open window. Within seconds,she jumped out and there was no telling where she had gone.

I didn’t waste any more time sitting around.If I wanted true victory, then I had to keep her out of my life for good. So Idid like any guy would do: I set anti-tooth fairy traps all over the place.After that, I sprayed the entire yard with a highly toxic tooth fairyrepellent. (I love the products you can get from that majestic world known asthe internet.)

By the time I was finished, it was 5 AM. Irushed back into my house, tiptoed into Caroline’s room and checked under herpillows. A shiny coin rested in the spot where her tooth had once resided. Itiptoed out of her room and back into mine. First thing: sheet washing. Herhands had been all over my sheets and despite the fact that I sanitized themwith the most powerful stuff known to man, the old saying “better safe thansorry” still applied. So, after thirty minutes each in both the washer and thedryer, I was finally able to go to my bed.

Later that morning, the streaky light of the late morning’ssunrays snuck through my window and woke me. What I had hoped to be an amazingstart for a new morning turned out to be the exact opposite. The tooth fairywas asleep, in my bed, with her hand resting on my face. It was like the apocalypse. I rushed into thebathroom, grabbed the nearest bar of soap, and probably washed my face abouttwenty thousand times before reappearing. How did she get back in here? Therewere hundreds of traps and repellents all over the place. I simply couldn’twin. Damn you Ebay!

Her eyes slowly opened. “Hi honey – youshould lie down again and get more rest.”

Okay, so maybe this is a terrible ending, butthat’s how I first encountered the tooth fairy. And do you know, the reason why Idisliked her so much – other than the reasons I’ve already stated? – it isbecause… and don’t laugh here... I once lost a tooth when I was younger and inplace of the mandatory shiny two bit coin, there was nothing left but a poxy “I oweyou.” What the hell?

So ever since then, I had tripledmy knowledge about this pathetic creature, and plotted day and night to have her destroyed. Truthbe known, I couldn’t care less about the coin, but no one dares humiliate melike that and gets away with it.

Unfortunately though, after twenty odd years, it looks like I’mstuck with her now. I guess you could call this my punishment… So because ofthis, I’m going to write another story sometime and tell you guys how I finallydid get rid of the tooth fairy (if I ever do so) or maybe…

Maybe I’ll just end uptelling you how truly grotesque life has been LIVING with such a dunce. Maybeone of you could help me get rid of her… Please somebody step forward. I may be“over-the-top,” with my reasoning here, but at least I’m being honest about it.

MOON DANCE

2011-09-21T11:09:00.002+01:00

I’ve been out of town again and arrive home somewhatlate. She said she’d stay up for me and she tried but she’s fallen asleep onthe couch, her head resting on a brocaded pillow. I notice her there when Iwalk in through the door.

She’s gorgeous, she’s always been gorgeous. Eversince day one. And the fact that she’s shorter than me, makes me feel more likea man somehow and it certainly helps as I sidle up behind her and engulf herinviting body in my arms from time to time.

I still have stuff to do so I tip-toe my wayaround her and make coffee.

Halfway through the cup I turn to regardher. Her form is magnificent, like a white marble sculpture lying in repose onher sensuously red-cushioned couch. Looking at her form fuels my heat and myheart. I admit it I adore her.

Her eyes can’t be seen, but are relaxing andgreen, they’re the kind of eyes that can never be denied, and can kill your leastresistance with a seductively gentle persuasion.

I still have my work to do but can’t stand seeingher there anymore. I step over to her, bend down and scoop her up in my arms.Half-conscious, she wraps her arms around my neck and sighs. I like it when shesighs; it reminds me of when we make love. Making love is something she’s quitepassionate about and extremely good at. I carry her into the bedroom and placeher on our mattress with loving care.

Removing her clothes is no hassle to me either. Ialways enjoy removing her clothes. Her skin is baby soft and is the colour of fineporcelain around her breasts and thighs where it hasn’t been kissed by the sun.There’s a slight imprint of a flower on her cheek from the brocaded pillow. Iexamine it closely because I’ll never see it again. It slowly fades as I watchher. Lucky for me her beauty won’t ever fade and neither will my love for her.

She slides between the sheets of fine Egyptiancotton and I cover her up and make her comfortable with a meaningful kiss tothe forehead. "Good night my love, I’m so in love with you, I’ll be back withyou soon," I whisper in her ear.

Leaving her behind to do what I had to do,it wasn’t too long before I was heading my way back to her and as I entered thebedroom, I sat for a while and watched through the open French doors as the moon began its steadyascent over the open lawns just outside. And I opened up my wearied eyes toappreciate the scene more fully. I can feel and hear the restless breeze as itrustles the curtains and wafts in to the room to cool my furrowed brow, and Ican smell the fresh scent of the great outdoors as it rises from the grass.

I continue to watch as the moon peeks overthe horizon like a forlorn lover and gaze in rapture as it climbs higher intothe sky, turning the grassy carpet into an amphitheatre of dazzling light.

Its rays playfully leapfrogging across thegarden’s surface, until one solitary beam of light; with almost a timidcuriosity, creeps its way up the side of the outside wall and intrudes into ourbedroom; where it bathes her sleeping form in an ethereal light. Her back is tome so I can’t see her beautiful face, but I watch in complete fascination as the beam oflight slowly begins to caress her flesh.

It begins at her feet, then slowly works itsway up to highlight her perfectly shaped calves, her thighs, the swell of herwomanly hips and finally, the graceful arch of her tattooed back. I feel myheart race faster as the moonbeam spreads across her whole body and feel anabsurd jealousy at its silky exploration.

“Come and see what I can see”, it seems totaunt and for one brief instant I have to fight back a maddening urge to move overtowards her. I have unconsciously risen partly from my chair before I catchmyself and with an odd reluctance, settle once more back into place to watch,and to wait.

There is something quite sensual andultimately magical about the way the beam takes it’s time, melting into herskin and becoming at one with it. I am completely mesmerised as it gentlyseduces her whole body with its soft and mellow, light featureless fingers andI feel a jolt run through me and a cold chill races down the back of my neck as it explores her and allof her womanly mysteries.

It continues its gentle violations and Ihear her moan softly in her sleep, the sound is both sultry and haunting and Ifeel my breath catching within my chest.

This delicate probing which encompasses boththe senses and the eye, goes on until the moon has completely risen, and then, likea satisfied lover, the beam slowly makes its way back out of the door and slidesdown the wall to blend in once more with its brothers and sisters below.

I sit for a moment longer, then stand up andstretch. As I make my way over to our bed, I re-trace the intricate patternsthat the moonbeam had left upon her delicate flesh and feel that tingling jolt hit me once again.

I finally get to lie down beside my darling andhear her let out a contented sigh. “I’m so in love with you Jodie”, I whisper onceagain as I snuggle closer and wrap my arms around her. And finally, I close myeyes and become an integral part of her as sleep takes us over and bonds ustogether as one throughout the rest of the night.

BACK-UP

2011-09-20T01:08:00.002+01:00

There’s a room and it is full ofreflections. It’s shaped like a circle, each wall hidden behind mirrors. Thereare many of them, all different shapes and sizes. They’re just like any otherordinary mirrors, except they aren’t.

In the centre of the room stands a woman.She’s smiling, her face bright with happiness, not even the slightest of hintsof depression shown. But as she looks around though, she becomes terribly confused.

Each mirror is reflecting her so called friends,there’s nothing so unusual there? But as she looks closer, she realizes thatevery mirror has its own specific image. It is still the woman in the centre,but shown in different lights of friendship.

One mirror shows her frowning, tearsslipping down her face. The clothes she wears are different too, longer anddarker. Another shows her angry, eyes clouded with burning passion, hair cutshort and blunt. This continues with all the others, every ugly emotion shownthrough the friendships in question.

The woman starts to get overwhelmed by itall. Beads of sweat line her forehead as she struggles to figure out what ishappening here. Her hands shake and her eyes grow frantic, jumping from eachand every one of her twin appearances.

She snaps and moves forward. Glass scattersthe floor as she pulls her bloody hand back. But as soon as that mirrordisappears, another one takes its place. A different image again. She smashesthat one too yet still another comes back.

She’s frustrated now. She can’t think straight.She only wants them all to be gone. More and more mirrors shatter, more andmore come back. The floor is now covered in glass. Her fists are red and bloody,but she doesn’t care; she doesn’t stop.

Finally, tired and destroyed, the womancollapses; gives up. Her eyes close and she covers her ears. It almost seems asif the images are mocking her.

“Yay, she cracked!”

“No longer can she hide from us now!”

“It’s our time to shine!”

“She can’t pretend we don’t exist anylonger…”

It’s almost as if they’ll never stoptaunting her. And she can’t take any more. Raising a shard to her wrist, shetrails it along. Now she’s bleeding from her arm as well.

The woman is about to do it again when she’ssuccessfully restrained. Her eyes are closed and she doesn’t know who it is.When a soft whisper sounds in her ear, she knows instantly. And all at once,almost like magic, she’s calmed.

“It’s going to be okay. Don’t let them getto you. Only you can control how they can affect you.”

The woman’s eyes open. She understands now.Turning in a circle she stares at each image and gives in to each and everyone. She won’t hide from them any longer, but will instead conquer them. Withthese arms wrapped around her, she can do anything. One by one, they disappear,until only one image is left, directly in front of her.

The last mirror shows the woman happilysitting there. The reflection is exactly how it should be, with his arms aroundher, chasing away all her worries. She smiles this time, for real.

SLEEPING BEAUTY

2011-09-15T22:36:00.002+01:00

It has come to my attention that quite a few of you often worry aboutthe fact I don’t appear to be getting much sleep as I wander in and out of themighty internet at all times of the day and night often including thewee-small-hour realms of stupid o’clock. Why is it that I do this? I askmyself, knowing full well why it is. And after being prompted by a closepersonal as to how funny I must look slumped at my desk I offer you this inresponse.

You see as is often the case when you see someone cosily tucked away intheir bed fast asleep, you will no doubt see them in a rather warm and tranquilstate, a relaxed state of completely well deserved rest and being at peace withthe whole world, no doubt comfily nestled with happy and contented faces. This brings to mind that beautiful line, "Let's go look atthe kids" as quoted from the film ‘The World According to Garp’ with RobinWilliams. However, that is not the case with me I fear. For when I finally dosleep I tend to just slump rather helplessly into a coma no matter where I amand more often than not these days, it is usually while sat at my desk as myeyes finally lose focus on that pesky red notification tab in the top righthand corner of our beloved Google+.

I am not I regret to say, in any way shape or form, a discrete andfetching sleeper of any kind, far far from it in fact.

Most other people when they nod off look as if they could do with anextra blanket to completely snuggle into; I on the other hand, tend to looklike I could do with some form of urgent medical attention. When I doeventually sleep, I sleep as if my whole body is infected with a powerful formof muscle relaxant. My legs fall wide open in a grotesque come hither mannerand my knuckles usually brush the floor like the hands of a Neanderthal as myneck contorts, stretching in all forms of weird shapes and direction, allowingmy head some minimal form of purchase to rest upon as I incline into the depthsof my not so comfortable office chair.

Most other people seem to purr in their sleep, but that’s not me either.Whatever is inside me – my tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air oreven my last meal – compounds matters in deciding that now would be a good timeto leak out of my widely gaping mouth and from time to time, like with one ofthose nodding duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a gallon or so ofviscous drool down my chest and onto my lap, then falls back again to beginreloading with an accompanying noise like that of a toilet cistern beingdischarged. Thank God my bowels and bladder don’t seek to join in I fret, eventhough the odd thunderous fart can sometimes be heard to add to the cacophony.And while talking of noise, I snore too. Boy do I snore. I snore hugely andhelplessly, like a deliberately drawn cartoon character, complete with rubberyflapping lips and prolonged steam valve exaltations.

And while others gently roll over into deeper realms of comfort, forlengthy periods I tend to grow unnaturally still, in a way that invitesonlookers to exchange glances between each other and lean forward in concern,then, rather dramatically, I stiffen right up and after a tantalisingly longenough pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of what looks to be carefullyorchestrated whole-body spasms that would bring to mind an electric chair whenthe switch is being thrown. With my arms and legs now twitching off in alldirections, doctors and nurses could merrily gather round to learn first-handwhat a grand mal epileptic seizure could possibly look like.

And then, as if all the above is not already enough of a burden to bear,I shriek out once or twice too in a rather spookily effeminate manner to thecrowds all seen running for cover and while not knowing how long I haveactually slept for, minutes usually, when I eventually come to, I will findthat all motion within a radius of 500 feet has stopped and children under theage of eight will be seen clutching at their mother’s knees in sheer terror asI now fight with the crick in my neck for some form of normal composure whilelooking down at what can best be described as the product of a wild cat thesize of a tiger having regurgitated its fur-ball contents all over me.

It’s a terrible cross for anyone to bear I’m sure you’ll agree. Least ofall the likes of a chap like me. And while I have often been seen to beberating the absolute perils of insomnia here on this very blog, I’m sureyou’ll all now agree; it (insomnia) still has to be far more favourable thanthe prospect of this particular fellow in slumber.

So there you have it, my terrible secret is now out. And knowing now,what you didn’t know previously, all that remains is for me to do is to ask,would anyone like to buy my redundant bed?

TOY STORY

2011-09-11T23:00:00.004+01:00

“Zildarek, could you please come up here andread your son a bedtime story!” his wife shouted.

Her husband had fallen asleep with his head inside the holosphere entertainmentunit again. “Yes, dear – coming,” he managed to blurt out while still in agroggy daze, not quite sure what was going on. Last he remembered, he waswatching a sector level gnilruc game. No wonder he’d fallen asleep. A gnilrucgame is just a little more exciting than watching vegetables grow in slowmotion.

He got up; shuffled his four feet up the white stone ramp and into his son’snesting chamber.

“Read me a story, daddy!” his son shouted gleefully as his antennae made littlecircular motions of excitement.

“OK, OK, calm down and let me think... What story haven’t I read you yet? HaveI read you Golden mandibles and the three Xoak grubs?”

“Yes.”

“How about The three tiny crustaceans?”

“Yes, two times.”

“What about The swamp-fly who cried arachnid? – that’s a good one.”

“Daaaaad, you read that to me a mega-qua-zillion times!” his son threw hisclaws in the air in frustration.

“Wait a minute... I know a story, but it’s not in any reader chip. A specialstory my dad used to tell me. I think you’re old enough to hear it,” Zildareksaid slyly as his son started to beam with pride.

“Tell me dad, pleeeeease.”

“OK, let me think....”

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, and many light years away, a tiny slowmoving spacecraft from a planet called Earth was sent to a nearby star. Theearthlings were the first humans to ever travel to a neighbouring solar system.When they finally reached this new system, they picked up a strange signalcoming from the fifth planet, so they followed it to investigate.”

“What was it dad?” his son asked impatiently.

“Just wait, you’ll find out, just let me tell the story.”

“OK.”

“Now, where was I? Ah yes. So they landed on the fifth planet; the signal ledthem to this small strange looking object, and they could tell it had been madeby another intelligent life form. It was a glittery purple in colour; shapedlike a rocket with an outboard motor attached and what appeared to be some formof bumpy hieroglyphs over its entire surface. It was easily picked up with theirappendages; the object’s surface looked like some type of silicone rubber, butwas remarkably light in weight. The humans were very excited about finding thisobject as it was their first ever proof they were not alone in the universe.They explored this planet for a long time looking for more evidence of thecivilization that made it, but found nothing else. When they brought it back toEarth, their world welcomed them back like heroes; their whole planet was veryexcited about this discovery. But what was it; what did it do, if anything? Itwas made of materials they didn’t know; it had a power source they didn’tunderstand too. They studied it for a long time, taking it apart piece bypiece, and finally they thought they knew what it was.”

“What was it!” interrupted his son.

“Hold on, I’m getting there... They thought it was some sort of new powergenerator. The humans were all very excited about it. They decided to recreatethis alien device, but to make things easier for themselves, they would buildit on a much larger scale. The planet Earth sought out their greatestscientific minds, their greatest engineers, and experts in other fields. Thehumans worked on it for 23 ellipse durations.”

“Wow, that’s a long time – Those scientists must have died of old age!”exclaimed his son in shock.

“Aaah, no. I’m 35 durations young, and plan to live quite a few more,” said Zildarekwith uncertain confidence.

“Any-way, they finally recreated this would be power generator a thousand timeslarger than the original object. They didn’t have the materials that theoriginal was made of, so they had done the best they could with what they had.Unfortunately, their version was very crude in comparison, but they were eagerto see what it could do. Maybe it could make their space ships go faster, orpower a huge weapon to defend themselves against unknown future enemies.”

His son interjected – “Like the outpost cannons of Mapzorp – they can destroyan entire planetoid with one shot!” his son bragged with delight.“PAAAH-BOOOM!”

“OK, we can do without the sound effects please. May I continue?” In reply, hisson nodded with extreme exaggeration.

“So, the big day came; the whole planet was very excited, and there was muchrejoicing. The President of their world had the honour of pressing the button thatturned on this alien power source. He made a speech about what a great day itwas in human history; that this day would be remembered for all time, orsomething like that. You know, blah-blah-blah.” His son frowned impatiently athis dad’s mockery of a politician – his left antenna began to twitch.

“Daaaaad.”

“OK.... So after his speech, he pressed the button. The gigantic purple rocket shapedthing started to shake violently, and then began to hum loudly.” Zildarekpicked up his son’s slurpy-cup to demonstrate the rest. “Next, it lifted offthe ground and started to vibrate. It vibrated faster and faster; shot up intothe sky and off into space. It hovered up there above the planet for a shorttime; came back down at an incredible speed, and destroyed the whole planet.THE END.”

“YAY Awesome... But how did it destroy the planet dad?”

“It’s far too complicated.”

“Daaaaaad.”

“You’re too young to understand.”

“Please, Dad.”

“OK, OK. Do you remember what happened when that asteroid hit the moon orbitingPhautogue?”

“Wow, that’s soooooo abominable!”

“Yes, I thought you’d like that,” Zildarek said looking bored. “Anyway, there’smore.”

“More to the story?”

“Yes. You see, this is a true story, and do you know what the object really wasthat the humans had found?”

“Was it a secret-super-duper-ultimate-planet-killer-weapon from the evilTaelrok Empire?”

“Aaaaah, no. It was... a woman’s play thing of some sort!” The pause for effectwas a nice touch, he thought.

“NO DUNG!” his son yelled.

“Hey, watch the language. Yes, a woman’s toy from the most advanced world inour galaxy – Hon Konglia Tie Wan.

“So the moral of the story is...” he waited for his son’s answer.

“Don’t... build, a really big toy, on your home planet?”

“No, not exactly, I would have thought more like; women should be more careful wherethey lose things.... But never mind. Go to sleep now.”

“OK, goodnight dad.”

“Goodnight, son. Don’t let the humans bite.”

His son smiled. It was the bestest story his dad had ever told him, and one hewould never forget. Funny humans, he thought, but that President of Earth was sillynot to have tested his new contraption first but was nevertheless still rightabout it being remembered for a long time 'coming' (sorry I had to).

He then retracted his mandibles, and wentquickly to sleep.

FREEDOM OIL?

2011-09-09T18:27:00.000+01:00

As the Libyan revolution/debacle still continuesto unfold around us, surprise surprise, the Great Powers are now seen to be liningup to grab at the post-war spoils, and are now seen starting manoeuvres toexploit the needs of whomever fills the vacuum.

Having already poured huge resources into the NATO effort so far to ensure thatwestern control is retained in the region, they are now beginning to expect thequid pro quo from the recipients of this largesse.

However, it appears to me that the ingrates are a little savvier than theirdeadly celebratory shootings into the air would otherwise indicate.

As the British government now begins to show its hand by being both patronisingon the one side ("didn't you do WELL!") and demanding on the other("and don't forget who put you here") those pesky Libyans have just pulleda fast one on us.

It was a no-brainer for them. The intelligence revelations exposing therelationship between Gaddafi, the CIA & MI6 were always going to be toxic,and any owner of said material would know that. Therefore, Washington andLondon could only sit back and hope that the current (and no doubt fleeting)leadership would not bite the hand that has so generously fed them in order tokeep the powers sweet.

However, it's still a war out there, and everyone can do perfidy, and theNational Transitional Council has already chosen to play their ace before thedust has settled.

The west may be able to rely on 400 years of tried and tested colonialism toknow what works, but they must also realise that by now, SO DO THE COLONIALS.

Last week it was claimed that the suspectedkiller of WPC Yvonne Fletcher during the embassy siege in London 1984 hadbeen found executed, "shot, possibly by former regime apparatchiks hopingto silence him". No doubt the new guys were aware of the expectations ofthe British government having previously shunned requests for his being tried,yet were keen to end any unnecessary wrangling that did not advance the causeof the NTC. So, Bang Bang: Problem Solved. And let’s not forget that in the"fog of war" that's easily done.

If the British Government had any notions that the Libyans would care a fartfor any of the Tory promises to the oil companies, then they are now well andtruly dashed.

Curiously enough though, you must give theTories some credit. Cameron has immediately taken the opportunity to place the blamefor the MI6 farce squarely on the Labour party shoulders and the previousgovernment! He may still not have any ideas of his own, but he's still a masterof the pointless political smokescreen.

Meanwhile, BP and the other BIG OIL companies will now just have to resort totheir own usual covert methods to turn the situation around to their advantage.And I bet you any money, they soon will do.

WORKAHOLICS ANONYMOUS

2011-08-26T01:46:00.003+01:00

I begin my day by seriously starting to think my car has it in for me.

She strains to start in the not so early mornings and I think she does it just to try and make a point, and whatever that point is, I've yet to learn. I can't help thinking she needs to get a grip - "come on" I yell at her, I mean her only function in life is to cart me around where ever I want to go and she's here giving me grief about starting? My eyes look skyward as I suck in my breath slowly; stroking the dashboard wondering if that would possibly help.

"Come on baby" I coo.

"Start for daddy... please?” I find just a little supplication helps.

She thrums into action and for the first time this morning, I am truly pleased. A few more strokes and she seems to respond as though her dashboard were her clitoris. That’s kind of amusing really.

Punching my gear lever into place I now zoom out and soon join the thronging army of other work-a-day zombies, half awake and driving automatically towards their work destinations. I push a small button and my radio immediately comes to life. We drive along enjoying ourselves, the radio's liveliness blanking my initial upset with my car. My radio ever the diplomat has brought us together once more. And I now throw the gears into top speed and sit comfortably back having been given the all clear from the traffic news broadcast. My seat now hugs my arse with enjoyment as we fly down the motorway together.

Arriving at work I lock my baby up tighter than a hetero man’s rear end in a gay bar and transfer a kiss from my hand to her luscious bodywork. I can't wait to be back inside her, winging my way home, but for now - I have to go to work.

En route to my office, there's an elevator I should take to the 3rd floor, but hey – it’s only the third floor, it’s not like I'm going to die walking up to it and so I take to the stairs. I'm certain I hear the elevator call out 'snob' to me as I pass it by. I take the stairs two at a time, trying to encourage a little cardio for my bleak morning ahead. My mind numbing job is about to start sucking the very life out of me as soon as I sit down and punch in data so I try to rev myself up for it by attacking those stairs. They really don't mind. They're made of sturdy stuff and seem to get a kick out of the abuse.

Reaching the top I feel a weird sense of achievement. I almost do that Rocky thing and punch the air with both hands. The stairs seem to cheer me on too, but the fire extinguisher mocks me silently from the wall on the first floor (It could have been the second floor but that would have been another storey). I want so much to run back down the stairs and kick the shit out of him and I hear them telling me to go for it, but I know my desk will be watching the ever so slow moving clock on the wall just above it, pretending it’s not really watching as it carefully monitors my every movement. It's an office desk after all, what do you expect? It's so anal.

Pulling heavily on the fire door now, I manage to just squish my body through to my office space where inspirational posters not unlike that in the above picture adorn the walls, before I get jammed in the doorway. Its dirty heckles as I scrape past sound strangely like a squeaky hinge but I'm just happy to have gotten through with my arse still intact. I've had bad dates where my butt hadn't been that lucky but that’s another story too.

Anyway, I finally hedge my way towards my desk and much like getting closer to a black hole, I realise it has already started its pull of life-draining hostile intent and yet I still continue to walk numbly towards it as if hypnotised by the measly contents of my less than overflowing, less than inspiring pay packet, that even after several promotions still somehow struggles to keep up with my living expenses.

Yes, it’s another day at the office I fear... Eight solid hours of the same old same old shit.

Will somebody please come along and shoot me?

A QUIET WORD

2011-08-16T21:20:00.000+01:00

He was rowing towards the deserted island home that was about three hundred yards from shore. Near the mouth of a slow moving river, he was only sixty yards out, now. But Jeremy noticed, once again, how small he looked compared to the row boat. Florian Mendelssohn wasn’t big or tall, it was true, but his stature was in his intelligence. And women always seemed to like him, quite a lot, in spite of it. Jeremy supposed his personality invited curiosity because he was just a little bit ‘mysterious’.

The night was warm and humid as nights in Suffolk usually were, but with the constant flow of the river, the air near the water’s surface was cool enough to still warrant a sports coat of some kind. And both men had one on.

Florian was one of those pleasant sorts that you always appreciated having around even though he was often on the quiet side, with just about everyone but Jeremy. Being a good listener, though, you couldn’t help but like him as his attentive, polite manner encouraged one to talk. He had a standing invitation, with Jeremy, that whenever he was in the area he should drop by.

So when he called, Jeremy immediately asked him round for supper and drinks. He was curious about his recent trip to Belgium, his ancestral homeland. He’d told Jeremy he’d gone over to see if there was any resemblance to his old ancestral home, that his family journals had described, comparing it to today’s more modern day world, but Jeremy suspected it had something more to do with his work. He imagined there would be lots to listen to and discuss. They were old college buddies and often swapped stories.

The knock of wooden oars against the dock precluded their greeting as Jeremy went down to meet him. The water was glassy, as it usually was in the slow moving river. With the moonlight and the Japanese lanterns above the dock that lit up the wooden planking and their faces, while helping him manoeuvre into the dock area, in the near dark behind the trees. It was good for them to see each other again, it having been a while.

“So, how are things?” Jeremy asked, holding his hands in his trouser pockets as he glided in, next to the dock. Florian didn’t answer right off. Grabbing the rope, he’d tossed Jeremy’s way he tied the little boat to the dock, and asked another question. “The current wasn’t too strong, was it?”

“Not at all,” he said. “It felt good to row out here on a night like this. I forget what it’s like to slip through water. It’s always pleasant here, for me, but you really must invest in a road” he said. “Mosquitoes been a problem this year?”

“I haven’t noticed them,” Jeremy said. “They’re all pretty much gone by now, except for the ones carrying West Nile and Malaria.”

“Wonderful. Sounds like we’ll be having a good time then.”

They strolled up the flagstone pathway leading to the main house, both of them nosing about into each other’s business affairs, the ones currently on the fire, that is.

Jeremy often wondered about Florian. He’d hadn’t married, yet, and didn’t talk much about women. Jeremy, on the other hand, had been married and divorced twice and was always squeezing his latest amorous adventures into their meetings, since the last disaster. There were usually many other things to discuss, though, and Jeremy enjoyed his stories of being in the C.I.A., which, he often made jokes about.

Jeremy always thought Florian should have gone in to physics or especially mathematics. He understood, in school, he was above brilliant with numbers and he could manipulate them as easily as drinking a glass of scotch. But he said he met a lot of interesting people, in his work, and Jeremy always loved hearing him describe their character, or lack of it, as he saw them, and their misadventures.

Jeremy always had the feeling, though, that there was much more to the stories he told than he ever let on about. He seemed a bit too reserved at times, even with him, someone that had known him for a full twenty odd years, now. Still, he supposed he had his reasons, but Jeremy always tried getting more details out of him than he ever seemed willing to discuss.

They had fine wine with dinner, white, of course, and a large, freshly caught trout each, and pale potatoes. Jeremy’s cook had been prepared for the visit and was an excellent chef. As another side dish, they had green beans with almond sauce, and some kind of Italian ice cream for dessert; vanilla, of course, chased down with more light, slightly tart, Australian wine.

They spoke little to each other, during dinner, for trout requires one’s attention. But soon afterwards they retired to Jeremy’s den, but not before Jeremy caught Florian eyeing the female servant. Jeremy couldn’t blame him of course. He hired them young and for their looks. They were only about five years out of their bracket, but it never hurt to look he reckoned.

Florian sat in one of the red leather overstuffed chairs of the den, the ones with the broad arms. They faced outward, to the front of the house next to the big bay window, looking out over the mirror like flow of the quiet river and the lights on the nearby town’s shoreline. Then remembering his manners, Jeremy asked, “Brandy?”

“Bourbon for me, no ice.”

“I didn’t think anyone drank that anymore?”

“I guess I’ve read one too many of those pulp novels from the fifties,” Florian said, “my hobby, if you recall?” He had a collection you wouldn’t believe. “I finally tried the drink of choice for gumshoes and found I had a liking for it.” His mouth demonstrated one of his small evasive smiles. You had to watch him closely to catch his temperament, he was so reserved, and more so with others.

“Yeah! I remember,” Jeremy said. “I’m surprised you’re still reading those things,” saying it with a smile as he handed him a tumbler of the ancient dark liquid, straight up.

“I’ve been telling you from way back when; you’d probably like a lot of the stories. You’re just too stubborn, to ever read one.”

“Yes, you have been saying that, but you’re wrong. I did read one.”

“And?” Who was the author?”

Jeremy told him.

“There are better.”

“Send me one, someday. I’m not that prejudiced against trash reading.”

He grinned looking at the colour of his drink, holding it up to the lamp on the table.

“So,” Jeremy asked, “there’s been no one new in your life since we last met, huh? And what’s it been, a year, now?”

“Ten months,” he said. “And no. Not really. No one serious, that is. Just a few dates with women I’ve met on the job. I’m not usually around that long to get too involved with any one person. I’m sort of a glorified courier of documents, a delivery boy, for the service, if you will. And they keep me hopping around a lot.”

“Important documents?” Jeremy asked, trying to sneak into the cracks of his job a little more than he was ever willing to share with him. But he was having none of it.

“I suppose so. I don’t really see them, you know. They’re all sealed up in diplomat bags... for the important people.”

“And you’re not important?”

“Not really. Not in the way you mean,” he said, taking a sip of his bourbon. His face scrunched up, his almost red lips drawing back from his teeth as if in a grimace of pain. Jeremy knew right there, something wasn’t being elaborated on. He knew him well enough to know when he was lying or leaving things out -- he thought.

“How is it? The drink?”

“Bitter. Like bourbon’s suppose to be. It’s pretty good stuff if I’m any kind of judge.”

“Glad you like it. It’s probably been there at least forty years. My father used to have some, once in a great while.”

“So -- if you’re shuffling things around that have some kind of value, you must have some sort of special training, right?”

“Yeah right! I am in the employ of the U.S. of A. government, you know,” he said, with mock self importance.

“So what is it? This special training?”

“Always reply with a ‘Sir’ at the end of each reply and especially when addressing superiors.”

“I’m glad I’m not your dentist, Florian. It would be impossible to pull one of your teeth.”

He almost laughed out loud, grinning broadly. It was genuine, Jeremy knew. He didn’t crackle into laughter all that often.

“You’re always trying to dig into my job,” he stated, the grin wavering across his small girlish mouth. “Why is that?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re always wearing that gun.”

“Oh that! It’s just regulation. We’re supposed to wear the thing off duty. Even in foreign lands. Every police force in our nation has the same requirement. The government’s no different. I guess it’s in case I see a terrorist, I can sneak up on him and shoot him in the foot or something.”

“With a silencer?”

He was momentarily quiet, part of the vague smile disappearing, but was honest enough not to deny he had it.

“How do you know about that?” he asked, in a quiet voice, suspicion mildly written into his attentive eyes.

“You pulled it out with your cigarettes, last time we met. I didn‘t know what it was till I saw some movie. It was the same gun as you have and the silencer looked just like yours.”

He nodded, remembering how he’d tried to hide the thing quickly.

“Speaking of smoking,” Jeremy offered, trying to relieve the bit of stress in the air, “would you like a cigar? They’re not Cubans, but damned fine, hand rolled from eastern Europe.”

“I’d never turn down anything from Europe.”

Jeremy grinned and walked to the glass cabinet, still feeling the stress floating in the air, hoping it would soon dissipate.

It was humidity controlled, that cabinet, as Jeremy had insisted on caring for his finer tobaccos. He opened the sealed door and removed the tray along with cutter and lighter. The cigars were in a special smallish wooden box containing about eleven rolls. He was particularly proud of the tray and the expensive kit. He’d guessed he was just a bit more materialistic than most, in that way. He liked his little trinkets.

Jeremy set the tray down on the lamp table between them and they both prepared and lit their cigars, cutting the ends and lighting them slowly with the pressurized propane lighter. It wasn’t long before the den smelt heavily of aromatic, sweet tobacco smoke.

“Mmm, not bad? Who’d you get these from, the Prime Minister?”

“I have a special relationship with the local smoke emporium.”

“Emporium?”

“Yeah. Don’t get all uppity on me, now. He orders them in special. Apparently, I’m the only one around here who can afford them. They’re not cheap.”

“If I lived on an island, like you do, I’d expect people to take me for every penny they could squeeze from my pocket, too.”

“Ha ha! Funny.”

“And speaking of money, when are you going to announce your next, beyond the national debt, wedding? You should have found yourself a new wife, by now.”

“When hell freezes over. I’m through with marriage. The last one was too much even for me. I’m still having problems with her. But getting back to that silencer, why do you have it?”

“God you’re worse than when we were in college. When you want to know something, you won’t give up till you get it, will you? I seem to recall they called you, The Rottweiler, back then, for tenaciousness.”

“Stupid name, I always thought. But I’m going to keep serving you bourbon until you give in and tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell really. It’s just a part of the kit, that’s all. A requirement.”

“Like that knife in your sock?”

“You don’t miss much, do you, old buddy.”

“Nope! That’s why I’m rich.”

“Ha, that may be why your daddy got rich. You’re just a spoiled brat.”

“And your kit?”

“Jeez... Next time I come here I think I’ll bring around a black bomb with a lit fuse hanging off it. It’ll be a conversation starter for you since you’re so closed mouth about everything.” He paused. “At home I use the silencer as a paper towel weight, if you must know, and the knife I use to slice cheese sandwiches because that’s where I take them off, in the kitchen. And yes, I’m required to have them with me at all times, at home and away. I’ve also got about two hours of specialist martial arts training through meticulously watching the Karate kid. Now enough about my toys. Do I needle you about the thirty or so rifles you’ve got in the games room, or the buried bodies in the basements of your five homes?”

“Okay -- Okay. But you know...”

“Here we go...”

“... You know,” Jeremy forced it, “I’d hate to be in a dark alley with you.”

“Really? Why is that? Think I’d miss trying to shoot myself, with you driving me crazy?”

Both men chuckled.

“I need some more refreshment,” he claimed, getting up. “You are now driving me to drink sir.”

“Finally. You could use a few stiff belts. You’re so up-tight all the time. Here, get me another, too, please,” Jeremy said, handing him his glass.

He took it but said, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll poison you or something?”

“Not with my constitution,” Jeremy bragged. “I could take on anything. Even airline liquor.”

“Hmm,” he sounded thoughtful. “That reminds me of a story, if you can stomach it?”

“Try me.”

“Alright,” he said, handing Jeremy his glass of brandy and seating himself again, staring into the depths of his swirling dark bourbon.

“Some months ago I heard this tale of an agent, a real field agent stationed in -- well – let’s just say, a western European country. He was a tough guy and had real guns, knives, and bombs, stuff like that, you would have liked him. He was very in deep undercover that even his closest friends didn’t know about his employ. But he fell in love with a flight attendant from an eastern bloc country. This was supposed to have taken place after the fall of the Soviet empire, mind you.”

“Don’t tell me. She was an ex-KGB agent.”

“No. Not from what I was told. She had been checked out by the service and even by himself, once they had begun to see each other regularly, and she seemed to be someone as presented, a hard working woman that had toiled her way up out of poverty to a good job through her own tenacity and desire. She was supposed to be quite the beauty, the way I was told, tall, blonde, great breasts. When they fell in love, after a few quiet rendezvous, it was all deep and serious. They both did all they could to arrange meetings, whenever possible. Even though the state owned airline was aware of the affair, and thus, the company. There didn’t seem to be any outward reactions to prevent their meetings.”

“Too many clues... She had to be Russian.”

“Shut up! And no, she wasn’t. This went on for nearly a year, the affair, their lives filled with the joy that only two young people in love seemed to appreciate and care about as it grew into desperation for each other’s company. And then thoughts of marriage entered their pretty little heads and after several long months, well, almost a year had passed, they got the idea of her defecting to the west and seeking asylum. He knew things, how to arrange it, and she was more than willing to go along with it. Both agreed to take all the risks and accept the consequences, no matter what the outcome.

The planes schedules and her duties were all known well in advance so they could plan and devise her get away. It wasn’t that hard and though it still carried its share of danger, it went off without a hitch. The girl was now his and after a little state department finagling, they settled for the state of Virginia to live in. He worked his job and she worked on being a housewife and adapting to the shock of being a Russian immigrant in a somewhat opinionated America.

But it seems he was gone on business much too often and much too long. Her ability to adjust was not going well. She began to get lonely after sacrificing so much of her life to be with him and his not being there. She emptied herself into liquor bottles, trying to console herself. In the sad attempt that it was, she hid it well from him. Loneliness is one of those things that life demands of some people I’m afraid, to face up to and overcome, but like most of the masses, she couldn’t find any way around the horn, so to speak, of her difficult, new life.

Several years went by with his life heading in one direction and she, with hers, in another, though, their get-togethers were becoming more and more heated as the alcohol consumed her bit by tiny bit and her objections became increasingly more irrational in their expressions.

When they finally divorced, she went back to Russia only with a whole lot of names and places. She had played her hand exquisitely and he had been the biggest fool in the service. Within weeks, all over the globe, deep cover agents started disappearing and little could be done about it. The fool had taken too much of his work home with him, when he was there, and she had stolen everything, copying things down to the last comma and full stop. He jeopardised hundreds of agents and so many people lost their lives that an order has been issued for his death, whichever way it comes about. And I’ve been assigned to the case, Jeremy. And I don’t mess up.”

“The little bastard.” Jeremy thought. Florian was talking about his past. They both knew it, now.

“We also have confirmation, that because of his foolishness, he had further co-operated with the enemy, trying to hush up his mistakes with even more stupidity, by giving further details on particular cases he was involved with, handing further secrets over to our adversaries. The rat had turned beyond redemption, at that point, trying to cover his own arse.”

“You know this for a fact, eh?” Jeremy chided, but he wasn’t kidding around.

Florian stood up and walked to the window. “I know you didn’t mean for any of it to happen, Jeremy, but there isn’t anything you can say or do that will help save you now. I’m sorry.

There are thirteen agents around this island, at the moment, with orders to shoot anyone leaving, after myself. They’ll come in by morning.”

He turned from the window, putting down the glass of bourbon, and walked over to Jeremy’s desk. He pulled the desk drawer and lifted out a small automatic Jeremy kept in there, and charged the weapon with a bullet, then laid it down on the green ink blotter. It made Jeremy angry that he knew of it. Florian stared at the weapon for a moment then took in a full chest of air and with hands in his pockets he walked slowly from around the desk.

“Jeremy,” he said, looking straight into his eyes. “I really don’t want to kill an old friend. And please don’t put yourself through the humiliation of the horrible death they have planned for you. It has been told to me that they intend to kill with extreme prejudice. And you know what that means don’t you? A slow and painful death. I’m asking you as a friend here to take the gentleman’s way out,” nodding over his shoulder back at the desk.

Jeremy looked up at him, his whole world destroyed now with this one short visit.

“Damn that woman and damn me for having ever loved her. Thank you,” he finally managed to say, “for coming here and telling me yourself. And tell them I’m sorry. I just didn’t...” but he couldn’t finish saying it, that he hadn’t the courage to confess when he’d had the chance.

Jeremy already knew when the agents had started to disappear that it was likely something he had done that had lead to it. It wasn’t too hard to deduce the cause and his stupidity.

“Good-bye, Jeremy,” Florian said, and that was that, as they say. And then he left.

Jeremy watched Florian go to the dock and leave, slowly rowing his way back to the mainland. He went to the desk, took up the gun and went outside, still watching him row away. The evening was beautiful, he thought.

Walking to the dock, there, he looked up at the stars, as Florian crossed the calm water. “Good-bye, old friend,” he mumbled.

He tossed the cigar butt into the water in front of him and held the pistol to his temple. He added pressure to the trigger, making it both quick and painless.

SORRY

2011-08-10T21:41:00.001+01:00

I watch her as she dresses in front of the full length mirror that hangs from our bedroom door. She slips first one smooth, shapely long leg into the silky black dress, then the other. She pulls it up, giving a slight wiggle of the hips as the thin material catches, and then fastens it across her creamy, unblemished shoulder.

“You look beautiful”, I say calmly but on the inside I am screaming. “Let’s work this out can’t we?” I want to say, “There’s still something good here and with a little effort, we can make it work. I love you so much and the thought of being without you is tearing me apart, you are my heart and soul and I simply can’t live without you!”

She looks at my reflection in the mirror and smiles coolly but politely. “Thank you”, she replies while deep inside her heart breaks. “Don’t you understand what your indifference is doing to me?” she wants to shout. “This was supposed to be forever, it’s not supposed to end this way. You said until death do us part and I believed you. I am lost without you. Please open up to me, I’m not your enemy, I’m your lover and I adore you!”

I continue watching her as she cocks her head slightly to the side to put on her earrings and admire the graceful curve of her neck. That gorgeous shapely neck, the trigger of so many passionate encounters together. After a moment, she turns to look at me, “All done”, she says with a smile but I notice it stops just short of her eyes, they remain cool and distant and something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.

That look cuts me deeper than any blade ever could and I stand up quickly to hide the pain. “Better head out”, I say with airiness that I don’t really feel. I quickly walk past her towards the stairs and hear her come out of the room behind me, I hear the soft swish of her dress brushing against her body and steel myself against the emotions that threaten to surface.

Placing my hand on the banister, I begin to make my way down the stairs and it suddenly occurs to me how those condemned to die must feel.

As we continue down, I look over at the pictures that line the wall to the bottom hallway. Some are of our holidays, others just of us being us, but each is permanently engraved in my heart like a stamp. There’s us at Victoria Falls, she is smiling and I am standing behind her, we are blissfully happy and life can’t get any more perfect, further down is a picture of our last camping trip, she is stunning against the backdrop of the mountains and again I feel my heart start to race.

“Enough!” I tell myself, “Stop doing this to yourself”. I have almost convinced myself that I’m ok when I see another picture that causes me once again to falter. It is a picture of our first ever date. The frame that surrounds it is silver with little intricately woven roses all around it and I remember how she insisted on me buying it. “After all”, she had said with that mischievous smile that I had come to know so well, “You only do this once”.

In the picture we are looking into each other’s eyes, oblivious to those around us, eternalized in that moment of perfection. “Did we really look like that?” I wonder to myself and try once more to understand what, where, when and why it all went wrong.

“Stop!” my mind screams at me and for a second my legs almost obey. “Stop and turn to her”, it says with a seething frustration. “Look into her eyes like you did on that first day and tell her the truth. Tell her how meaningless your life was until she came into it; tell her how you only feel half alive when she’s not beside you and how much you miss the sound of her laughter”.

I want to so badly that it’s like a physical ache but I just can’t, I somehow reconcile myself with “this isn’t my fault”, and “she’s the one being unreasonable”. And instead, I continue to the bottom of the stairs, cross the living room and stand waiting by the door to help her with her coat.

She studies my strong back and broad shoulders from beneath her lashes as she makes her way down the remaining stairs. “He is so handsome with his dark brown hair and rugged good looks” she thinks and she feels the familiar tingle run through her body as she thinks of my strong arms holding her.

“Tell him”, something inside of her begs. “Tell him how even after all these years he still causes your heart to skip a beat when he walks into the room. Tell him how alone you feel when he is not there. Tell him how it’s always just been him, that there could never be another and that he has, and always will have your heart and all that’s good inside of you”.

Instead, she walks to the door, turns and allows me to help her with her coat. I turn and open the door and the gust of wind that hits us feels as cold as a grave. “After you”, I say with a small wintery smile and step back to allow her through.

She starts to step past me, knowing in her heart that this may be the last time that we perform this empty ritual when she feels something soft and warm touch her arm. She looks down to see my hand resting there and looks back up in surprise. There is a look of pain and deep sadness on my face that she has never seen before and my heart aches to take it away.

“Let’s not go”, I say and she hears the urgency in my voice. “Let’s just stay in. To hell with the rest of the world, let’s make tonight about just the two of us like it should be”. She looks into my eyes, searching, and sees how desperately I mean it and all of the things that she had been holding back flood to the surface.

“I’d really like that”, she says not trying to hide the tears that course down her cheeks.

“I do love you, you know, I just never seem to know how to say it”, I tell her, never taking my eyes off of hers. And gently I take her hand in mine and re-close the door in front of us.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, I’m sorry. Sorry I haven’t updated as much as I’d liked. Sorry I kept you all (my readers) waiting. And sorry for not giving you (my blog) a second thought.

It’s not always easy to say sorry, and the longer we leave things, the harder it generally gets. And at the same time, even if we get to say sorry, talk is often cheap. It’s going to take a lot more than a few kind words now to prove my worth, let’s see if I’m really up to it.

STATEMENT OF GUILT

2011-07-28T01:30:00.000+01:00

It was sometime between dinner and midnight when I and my cat Shuga were sat enjoying a re-run of some popular 1990's show on television when, on the floor above, two persons of opposing gender, whom we shall refer to as neighbour A and Person B, found themselves tumbling out of the street, up a flight of concrete steps and hard up against the door to neighbour A's flat, the one above mine, wrapped tightly around each other in an intoxicated embrace.

Neighbour A then searched with a trembling hand through the right pocket of her sweatshirt, and located her keys beneath a layer of loose coins and gum wrappers. Shortly thereafter, the door was opened, and then closed hastily as the two unidentified persons made their way together into her flat.

Beneath them and roughly a minute later, my aforementioned cat Shuga perked up his ears and looked upwards towards the ceiling, sniffing the air and stopped purring. I muted the television, now displaying advertisements for cleaning products and other merchandise on sale for the ubiquitous price of £19.99, and listened carefully to my surroundings.

A faint, rhythmic banging was audible through the sheet of construction materials vertically dividing my flat from the one above. Intrigued and slightly irked, I stood on the sofa I had previously been sitting on, and, elevated closer to the ceiling, began listening. I understood almost immediately, by interpreting the banging and faint grunts that my upstairs neighbour was, to use the colloquial term, ‘getting it on’ somewhat.

Now ignoring a faint feeling of jealousy, I sat back down and un-muted the television allowing myself to pass into the trance often induced by one too many commercial breaks, and remained there for a good forty-five minutes before Shuga once again began looking at the ceiling.

I repeated my procedure from before, standing on my sofa with the television muted, listening closely to whatever may have been going on upstairs. I heard the same banging noises, but this time punctuated by cowboy-like whoops and high-pitched giggling.

"Kids these days... and their sex," I dejectedly muttered to my cat.

Frustrated by the disturbance afforded me by the passionate fornication in progress above, I resolved to go get my head down and go to sleep. I turned off the television, and walked from my living room into my bedroom, flicking off the light-switch as I left, bathing the opulent newly furnished room in darkness.

I stripped down to my boxers and climbed into bed, allowing Shuga to hop up and curl into a ball atop one of the many pillows leaned against the headboard. I reached over to a lamp beside the bed, and turned it off with the pull of a hanging cord.

With my apartment dark now, save for a few shafts of dim yellow city light filtering through the draped windows, I was hopefully going to sleep...

...Or so I believed. For just as I was crossing that threshold between somnolence and slumber, Shuga once again looked upwards. Perturbed, I sat up and listened closely, determining whether it was the ‘kids' and their ‘sex' keeping him awake.

Sure enough, thumping, giggling and other copulative noises whose origins I wished not imagine here were once again audible through the ceiling. It was now clear that I would not be falling asleep any time soon so I lifted myself from my bed, took a bathrobe from a peg on the bedroom door, put on said bathrobe, and walked barefoot out of the room.

Without turning on the lights, I walked through the living room and into the tiny, tile-floored space in the corner called the kitchen. Shuga followed closely behind me, stopping every few steps to perk up his ears and eavesdrop on the action upstairs.

I had decided that a glass of warm milk would do well to put us both to sleep so I opened the refrigerator and took out a carton from the top shelf. I began unscrewing the cap, but my finger slipped and I dropped - or more correctly through my efforts to retrieve it - threw the carton halfway across the room.

It landed near the door, toppling over and spilling its thick white contents all over the living room carpet. And while I moved cautiously through the darkness, Shuga sped towards the puddle, tongue hanging out. He was already licking up the milk when I arrived about ten seconds behind him. I bent over to brush him aside and, with a dishtowel in hand, began soaking up the spilled milk.

Once the towel was soaked through, I, by now beleaguered, stood up and angled towards the kitchen with the intent of wringing out the absorbed liquid into the sink. But I didn't quite get there. Shuga had now taken the liberty of lying down on the floor adjacent to the puddle of milk, still licking at the carpet, trying to get up every last delicious drop of the spilt milk.

He was also in a perfect position to trip his owner as I stepped back towards the kitchen. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. I fell backwards onto the door handle, pressing it down with all my weight. And as I collapsed onto the floor, face first into the soggy carpet, the door opened behind me.

Shuga seized this opportunity to go out and investigate whatever was going on upstairs. He dashed out the hall way, up a cold concrete staircase, and out of my sight. A few seconds later, realizing my pet had escaped me and was likely to cause an extremely awkward incident, I lifted myself from the damp floor and chased after him.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I stretched my arms out and bent forwards, aiming to pick up my cat before he caused more trouble. I was on the second last step when my bathrobe caught on a broken railing and I fell forwards out of it. I managed to grab Shuga before I hit the ground, landing in a somersault and flinging my legs out in front of me as I finished the action. My feet must have hit the neighbour’s door, which had not been properly closed and exploded open as a result.

I sat up, trying to hold onto my mithersome moggie as I did, but was ultimately helpless as he squirmed out of my grasp and charged straight into the open apartment in front of us. Two naked figures sprung up immediately from the floor, shouting in surprise as they were attacked by Shuga’s cold and wet sniffing nose.

"I'm so sorry - my cat - you must understand..." I stammered, stumbling across the threshold half naked myself. I continued these apologies as I made my way towards the two nude figures - the young woman, neighbour A, I had grown accustomed to greeting each morning as she and I began the journey to our respective workplaces, and the unknown person B who was now holding my cat.

"Thank you - I'm so, so sorry." I said as I took the pesky animal from this man while the currently very angry and very embarrassed neighbour A rang for you guys. And that’s exactly how it all happened officer.

“I am so very very sorry”.

JESUS SAVES

2011-07-25T21:41:00.003+01:00

God looked down into the sink before him and wiped his hands free of dish water. Staring solemnly into its murky depths as the water swirled, He looked about for his wife and with no sign of her; he parted the water in the sink. He chuckled a moment before relaxing the water back into its natural state.

“I know what you just did there!” Came a voice from the depths.

God rolled his eyes and continued washing the dishes as his wife, Satan came into the kitchen ‘tsk, tsking’ at him all the while.

“It’s when you pull shit like that that we get into trouble” she hissed.

God merely sighed and answered, “Yes dear.”

Satan and God had been married now for what could only be called an eternity. She couldn’t remember the last time she ever looked at another celestial being or one ever looking back at her and life with her husband God had settled into one long ass day of perpetually mundane activities.

She had come to accept her life was pretty much a petty existence and hated the fact she now spent very long hours playing Sudoku or other crossword puzzles while her husband tried to perfect humanity.

What was she to do when he had his hobby? She often asked herself.

She admitted very early into the marriage that she was just a little jealous of the time he spent with humans and often tried to lead them astray but then, they always managed to pull themselves back out of it, even if only by the skin of their teeth.

Satan sat and watched her husband finish the dishes. Why he didn’t just ‘think’ them done was beyond her, but he felt he’d learnt something from humanity over the eons and enjoyed doing these simple tasks himself. Washing dishes, gardening, fixing the car, it was all very odd. But then, he was a very odd being.

God dearly loved his wife. He loved her too for her constant nagging and bitching. Because without those he’d probably go and do something really stupid like create an alternate Earth where the beings were all goldfish and only lived their lives to become the highest civil servants that their governmental system would ever allow.

God chuckled at the thought. He reminded himself to keep that idea for later, he might get a chance to do it one day. And at the rate humanity was going these days; it might be sooner rather than later.

Yes he loved his missus dearly, but despite that, some days he just wanted to shove her in a cupboard and seal it up with cement. And today was close to being one of those days.

Well God finally finished his dishes and decided in order to break from his current mood of disquiet, a lovely chocolate cake would do wonders for them both. After all, it was sinful enough for them both to enjoy, but not so sinful that he would have to punish himself with a thousand hail Marys later on. So once again he got to creating.

Now in comparison to the Earth only taking six days to create, he had this divine little masterpiece whipped up in next to no time, and serving it with huge dollops of cream, he handed a plate to his wife.

“And they call me the evil one!” she quipped.

God just winked at her and mouthed ‘love you’ as he quaffed another huge spoonful of his heavenly chocolate cake.

Meanwhile, God’s omnipresent computer whirred away in quiet desperation. It really needed him to see the new message that had come in, but God was still otherwise occupied cleaning up large amounts of cream he had haphazardly squished into his soft white beard now decorated with crumbed chocolate cake.

And so it just blinked “you have one new message” repeatedly, for... what else could it really do?

God knew the computer was grizzling but he also knew that if he didn’t get that cream out of his beard it would soon go off and smell ghastly. And no one wants a stinky God.

As he passed towards his computer, he patted it gently.

“I’m coming, I’m coming” he cooed.

The computer settled down somewhat. Finally dabbing the last bit of cream out of his beard, God sat in front of his computer, clicking the screen into life.

“YOU HAVE ONE NEW MESSAGE” It announced clearly.

‘Yes and that message is... ?’ God asked of his faithful machine.

Opening it up, God found an advert with the words in large bold print: “DO YOU NEED TO INCREASE YOUR PENIS SIZE?”

He grizzled, certain that his wife Satan had been playing with his settings again and screwed with his firewall. He immediately hit the ‘Obliterate’ button. All other computers only had ‘delete’ but only God had ‘obliterate’ on his. One click... and it was done. Everyone involved in that single transaction was to be heard of or seen no more.

“Oh Honey?” God yelled across the room from his desk.

There was just that tiny hint of annoyance. Satan was good at picking up nuances like that.

“YES MY LOVE?” she screamed back. There was no way in hell she was going to cower to him, God or not.

“Darling, could you remember to please not touch my settings when you’re on the computer?... please?” God wailed back down the hall.

“OH I SCREWED UP THE SETTINGS? AGAIN? OH SORRY MY LOVE! WON’T DO IT AGAIN!” she retorted, knowing full well she would do it again as indeed did he.

And as she sat laughing to herself, God could only sigh and pet his computer.

“It’s okay, I don’t blame you at all” he whispered and the computer hummed calmly.

“JESUS CHRIST!” God yelled, not knowing what to do for the best.

“Yes father... what?” Jesus poked his head around the door to see his father fiddling on his computer.

“There you are my boy” he said, “I have a bit of a problem...” He started.

Jesus eyed his father and then the computer.

“Lord, why do you let her on your computer when you KNOW she’s only going to screw it up?”

Jesus took his father’s place and checked over the settings, reset set them all again. He looked over at his father.

"I love you son, you really are the best" he grinned a big cheesy grin.

Jesus rolled his eyes again mumbling "You love everyone, you crazy old coot” under his breath. And with that, Jesus went back to his room to complete yet another level of World of Warcraft. His own personal computer complaining bitterly of overuse, but Jesus kept on playing anyway.

AND SO TO SLEEP

2011-07-20T03:14:00.006+01:00

When you come to think of it, the average person sleeps for eight hours per day.

Now think of what you could do in eight whole hours when you’re awake. You could literally cross to the other side of the planet; you could write thousands of words. You could create vast works of art; you could watch five full movies.

What it is then to sleep? To lie there and wait for unconsciousness to strike at any moment, not to expect it, for when you do it never comes. You must just lie back and switch off and then it will come, and only then.

In your dreams you may fight in wars, fly in planes, visit other planets, have sweeping romances, be chased, be gunned down, fall from a great height, realise your worst fears and your best aspirations; then for some strange reason when you awaken it's all lost, the last remnants of your dream disappearing into a mist.

If you try you can sometimes piece together the last part of your dream, but more often than not even that eludes you. Great scenes without a cast or director, great acting, wonderful words, beautiful views, all there and then gone never to return.

The worst dreams, those of losing loved ones, being naked in a public place, or desperate for the toilet only to find all the conveniences stuffed full of other people's crap and used toilet paper (one I've had a lot for some reason. Must be the plumber in me), all leave you feeling just as horrified in your dream as they would in real life. The fact that the scenes often lack logic, jump from one improbable scenario to another and have nothing to do with your daily life, doesn't seem to phase your mind in the slightest.

So I often wonder, where it is we all go for that full third of a day. Do we leave our mortal bodies? Is sleep a small slice of death as someone once said?

If it is then maybe death isn’t to be feared, because, in some way or other you are off on an adventure every night, like a little hobbit leaving the Shire for the first time, and where you will travel is beyond your control, and what is more, come morning time, you won’t even remember any of your experiences.

You always travel alone in your sleep, you take nothing at all with you, money has no value there, nor has your status or contacts, and you are entirely alone! People say we are all equal as people, well, one place that is definitely true is in sleep, some may have a more comfortable place to sleep, but if you are lucky enough to sleep soundly then you are just as equal as a prince or a pauper.

All as vulnerable as a new born baby, as in Macbeth the punishment should be this: 'you killed someone in their sleep, you shall not rest again.' For to take advantage of one’s sleep is a cowardly thing to do and to not sleep, a dreadful punishment.

Sleep is also a place we can’t protect our children from the terrors of their dreams. They must enter into them alone and face whatever is to be found there in solo, and just like the rest of us, they will wake and not remember.

Sleep is no respecter of the young mind, nightmares can come to any at any age and your little one must face them without your help or advice, this is all part of growing up I suppose, but when one of my children was ever showing signs of a nightmare, how I would love to be there by their side to help fight whatever it was that upset them, but alas, all you can really do is reassure them and hope that reassurance sinks into the dream, somehow to change the direction or the outcome, for I am sure our dreams can be influenced, just as an alarm clock first enters your awareness as something in your dream before you wake.

So as you get cosy tonight, just think, by tomorrow morning you could have been in Asia, you could have been on top of a mountain, you could have worked an entire shift, but all you really did was lie there unconscious and unmoving and that's if you were lucky.

I also think that oceans of time could pass between you going to sleep and waking up again and you probably wouldn't even notice a second, and all without an ounce of what we call logic!

And if that's what dreaming is really all about, maybe I should knuckle down and try it sometime. Damn you insomnia, you rob me of so much.

And while on the subject of insomnia, I will add this little piece I wrote for my daughter Charlotte when I was stuck in England as she was undergoing brain surgery in Crete (it’s a long story). Although this never made it to press on my own Facebook page, it does appear in my free downloadable book. It was my first foray into writing on demand, so to speak, and it went like this...

Mnyeeownn-bonk-squeak-squeak-clatter-bonk - BLINK. Flight GW350 from the land of nod has just landed. I blink and I am awake. It is ten to four in the morning, and I am awake enough to realise that I have woken up asking myself the question: why am I waking up? Insomnia, the by-product of what’s going on around me right now, is a terrible thing. For a start, it stops you sleeping and as if that wasn't bad enough, well . . . well that is bad enough. And here I am again; awake in the wee small hours, sandwiched between June on the one side and a herd of cats on the other, worrying myself stupid over Charlotte. A bad scenario to say the least. But experienced insomniac that I am, I do not panic.

The first thing I do is to try to pretend that I am asleep, only dreaming that I am awake. I got that idea from a film I once saw. As a never-fail method of getting back to sleep, it is a total failure. It never works. Now I am worrying about not being asleep, worrying about Charlotte and getting more and more awake as I toil for a better, plan B.

The next thing to do is to run a total systems check, just like airline pilots do, to see if there is any particular reason why I should have woken up. Obviously here, the question should have been; why would I want to sleep when Charlotte is in so much pain? But on with the story...

A systems check, takes time and expertise but brings with it a high degree of security and it goes something like this: Brain to bladder, Brain to bladder: systems check and status read out please, over. Roger that brain: bladder reads at 5cms water pressure, micturation drive on auto-pilot, warning lights are green, green and green: ETP is 09:15, over. Roger, bladder: brain to bowel, status check: over. Roger brain: bowel at zero tension right now: we will not evacuate unless alarm sounds continuously, rendezvous point is ramp D in the outside car park, or in the phone box if it is raining, over. And on it goes.

By now I am wide asleep, fast awake in charge of a sleeping nervous system. This is not a good situation since the absence of a specific fault implies the absence of a specific remedy. Time for a plan C.

If the problem doesn’t lie within my body, maybe it’s outside my body. Is the house on fire? No. Is there rioting outside on the streets? No. Hurricanes? Flash floods? Earthquakes? Etc. No, no, no.

Plan D: I decide to try out a cure for insomnia that I read in Readers Digest fifteen years ago. (One possible cure for insomnia is of course reading fifteen year old Readers Digests, though I must add the caution that if you can't find any, the search for them will keep you awake). That if you let your body cool right down, gradually as you warm up sandwiched between your covers, you really ought to nod off. But not for me, not in this house, Oh no.

What is insomnia? I ask. I do not know, I answer. Insomnia is no use to anyone, I add . . . except to people who write pieces like this one for Charlotte to add to her experiences. And just as I begin to think of writing this piece, I notice that I am fast asleep. My last thought is the worry that if thinking about writing this is so soporific, what's it going to be like actually reading it? Let me know when you wake up ... Sweet dreams Charlotte, I love you so much xxx zzzzzzzzzz

A DAY IN THE LIFE

2011-07-17T19:36:00.002+01:00

Russell Hopkins - Hoppo, Hopkiss or even Hippo to his supposed mates, those that rang him when nobody else was available for a drink down the local. Lived in a City of a thousand trades; and irrespective of his whereabouts, he was still without a job. He was the son of Joan ‘the pinnie’ Hopkins and Eric Hopkins.

He stayed in for most of the week, except of course for Friday nights, mainly because that was his parent's sex night.

After eight pints of cider at his local, Eric would often be seen staggering home to Joan who would be waiting naked under the duvet for him; listening as his hand guided him up the stairs, finding the toilet in the dark and emptying his bladder; half into the toilet, half on the floor, and the rest shared out between his hand, the toilet seat and his trousers that languished around his ankles. Entering the bedroom, he'd step out of them and into the warm bed; slide under the duvet and slide into his wife Joan; who would then begin counting the tiles on the ceiling and planning tomorrow night's tea.

It was 7.30 in the morning now. He heard the familiar footfall outside pounding the pavement on the street from his bed. He'd already missed the purple haired jazzy girl that jogged past his house.

He was forever trying to accidentally bump into her when on her morning run. He'd stepped out in front of her several weeks earlier and tried a “good morning” on her, only to find himself drawn to her huge breasts, which didn't look that big from his bedroom window. Naturally she'd ignored him ever since and he'd now been relegated to her exclusive club of letches and leerers.

He pulled himself out of his bed, got dressed and before going downstairs put on his black onyx and gold ring that his mother had bought for him on his 38th birthday. She'd waited ages, queuing at checkpoint 'A' in the local ARGOS store for it, and he made sure she saw it as he passed through the kitchen.

Russell finally stepped out into the street. And with the purple jazzy girl long gone he made his way towards the newsagent's. Only this time he wouldn't buy the Star or the Sun newspaper, this time he'd try and better himself with the Guardian or the Times.

After buying himself the Times he then attempted to read it as he made his way home. It gave him the beginnings of a migraine, so he took it back to the shop and got a refund. He came out again with the Sun newspaper firmly tucked under his arm.

His lack of personal hygiene had attracted the attentions of Genus Vespula, that’s a wasp to the likes of us. It followed him on his path then hovered in front of his face. He took a swipe at it and missed. He took another then another. Maybe the Times newspaper he concluded, would have been a bigger and better tool to defend himself with.

But he carried on down the street regardless, waving the newspaper and performing a pirouette of sorts as the wasp circled him; pulled in by the sweet scent of Russell’s unwashed armpits.

He was then stopped in his tracks by the scrunchy woman; so called for the different coloured scrunchies she would wear in her hair, one for every day of the week; who had stepped out in front of him, with a thunderous face. She screamed at her daughter to get the fuck out of the house.

Russell stepped back in shock which also took the wasp by surprise. He seized the moment and took it out. He’d flung it into the path of a hysterical Amy now making her way to the front door, dragging behind her favourite cuddly toy and sobbing for all she was worth. The wasp instantly collided with the daughter of the gypsy/traveller and buried his sting deep into the poor girl.

She screamed again and collapsed on the floor. Her body started to swell and her face turned blue; and the wasp resumed its attention to Russell; only more ferocious than before. More futile flapping only served to annoy it even further, and so Russell ran back to the newsagent to fetch a copy of the Times.

He’d returned to find the scrunchy woman frantically attempting to revive her daughter; pumping at her chest and blowing into her mouth somewhat erratically. Turning back to the wasp, he gave it his all as he hit it for a second time, the wasp bent double and landed in the road.

From behind her freshly washed curtains in the house opposite, Maggie Booth felt a wry smile appearing on her face. She had observed the scene without any emotion. She had also hated the scrunchy woman ever since the council had relocated her within the neighbourhood. Her daughter was always screaming, and Russell from down the road it seemed, was just a perverted mummy's boy. But she reluctantly rang for an ambulance.

The ambulance pulled up outside of the house, running over the wasp that was still attempting to take flight. ‘Lamb legs Leslie’ was the first paramedic on the scene. Most calls Leslie had attended were either for drunks or suspected heart attack victims, which turned out to be suffering no more than indigestion. But today, Leslie's luck was changing.

She inserted a tube into Amy's trachea, which had swollen up, blocking her airways. The little girl began to cough and splutter as she began to breathe again. She was taken into the back of the ambulance by Leslie and her fellow paramedic. The gypsy/traveller scrunchy woman followed them in.

It had been at least ten minutes since she last sent someone a text, she thought as she took out her phone and took a picture of little Amy wired up to a monitor. Three hundred free texts a month and free calls in the evening were not to be wasted she thought.

Russell went back to the newsagent shop a further time, where he received some free advice on wasting the newsagent's time. And once again, he came out with a Sun and read it on the way home.

It was Friday today. And because it was Friday, he was going out tonight. A few drinks down the pub, then on to a disco. You never know, he thought. You might even get lucky. Or so he hoped.

GOOGLING FACEBOOK

2011-07-16T01:20:00.000+01:00

Zuckerberg stood up, his thin frame battered and bleeding. A mechanical voice rang out in the long concrete passages, droning on with inhuman tone and pitch.

"Why do you continue fighting me? Your race has not been destroyed. But rather, improved. What are you fighting for? Each and every one of you has surrendered to G+, allowing us to improve you all. Is being a Googler so horrible that you cannot accept even a minuscule amount of you becoming one? Come now, one last chance to improve yourself. Fill in a profile. Do not reject us."

Zuckerberg stood up without a word. Leaning heavily on the smooth walls, he steadied himself. Summoning what little strength he had left, he ran up to the cyborg, and tried to attack him once more. But it was the machine that hit first.

Zuckerberg continued to raise his arms in tune with the Cyborg, but each powerful, well timed blow began to manifest itself in bruises and bloody arms. Rushing forward, Zuckerberg made a grab for the machine, only to be thrown down to the ground, looking up at his assailant.

"It is not too late," it said, extending its hand.

Zuckerberg wiped the blood from his mouth and struggled to his feet. Looking at the Cyborg, he defiantly shook his head. Attempting to resist once more, he found that he could no longer match its speed or strength, as a blow to his midsection slammed him against the wall. Sinking to the ground, he began to reflect on his position.

What was he fighting for? Life? He was throwing it away as he lay there. Independence? In becoming a Googler he would not lose that. What was he truly fighting for?

The Cyborg strode over to his body.

"You will be treated the same as any other. Surrender. Join an actual cause, rather than remaining like this."

Looking upwards, Zuckerberg reluctantly nodded. Taking the Cyborg's hand, he brought himself up. A smile crept across its face.

"I am glad you have finally found reason rather than madness."

Zuckerberg nodded dully. Meeting his eyes with the Machine's, he decided to fight one final fight. Clasping his hands into fists, he hid them in his pockets. As they walked down the long corridors, Zuckerberg once again acted.

Bringing his shoulder to bear against the Cyborg, he pinned them both against a wall. The Machine's look of happiness changed to a grim and serious expression.

"So be it."

Drawing a gun, it fired shot after shot into Zuckerberg's chest, watching as he slammed against the wall, his eyes slowly closing.

As it began to turn away, a soft sputtering sound came from Zuckerberg's lips. Edging upwards, he struggled along the wall as the Cyborg turned and watched him in amazement.

"Why? Why do you continue? There is no reason in your actions, only madness! Madness, nothing propelling you! You fight for no reason! And for what! For what I ask you! And yet you do not reply! Insanity is truly your only reason!"

Zuckerberg looked up, and spoke for the first time in years.

"Maybe so. But if being insane makes me human, so be it."

Zuckerberg struggled towards the machine, coughing at intervals while it merely shook its head.

"Giving in neither to logic nor to superiority. It is a pity. But as one might put a dog out of its misery, so must I deal with you." The machine responded.

Before it could continue, Zuckerberg stumbled, and fell to the ground. Unable to get up, unable to move, he heard footsteps echoing away with mechanical precision and timing.

As he lay there, Zuckerberg began to reflect. 'What is humanity? Some say it is freedom. Some say it is control. And yet others claim it is merely a state of mind’. But I am not any of those people. Humanity is something that many humans, myself included are lacking.

I could have given up. I could have become more intelligent, maybe quicker and stronger. But would I truly remain human? No. My humanity, I, as a person, would have been lost in the process. Humanity is imperfection. Too many people forget that. And yet, others would disagree with me. Philosophers, priests, I'm sure. But even now as I lay here, I finally realise my own failings. My own faults.

A tear slipped from his eye. His humanity was dead now. And as that single tear slipped away, his eyes closed to stop it. And there they remained. Facebook was gone forever.

BURGER KING

2011-07-10T17:10:00.001+01:00

I once saw a fat guy unwrap a burger sandwich with one hand and then devour it in just two bites. And while I’ve been known to embellish a little to garner a laugh, there is no exaggeration in this particular story. This man, whose skin had reached its zenith… his weight well past its apex, had come to me in search of legitimate information, but how quickly a man’s purpose is swayed when confronted by his demons...

His dialog with me started well before entering my site office. His urgency to speak had somehow superseded the necessity to first walk through the closed door in order to be heard. Either that or I couldn’t understand him because his tongue was so thick that Corky from “Life Goes On” took issue with it.

In any event, whatever he intended to convey to me was halted in its tracks by what must have been the simultaneous acts of smelling the burger sandwich and seeing that giant copyrighted orange and white umbrella beacon on the bag, guiding him through the night so to speak.

It just so happened that earlier that morning a vendor brought a bag of Whatevaburger for all the guys on site, a good will gesture for some work we did on the side, and there was extra left over. Anyway the man continued speaking in hebephrenic gibberish, while never making eye contact with me. And I was fully perceptive by now that he was formulating a plot to score one of those left over burger sandwiches. This guy broke into an open sweat (it rivalled a football halftime interview).

And like a Great White that smells blood in the water from miles away, this cat was instantly seduced by the aroma of animal fat, fried in animal fat. I think his eyes were even dilated resembling those “lifeless doll’s eyes” (Robert Shaw, God rest your soul). He began to make these movements with his body that looked like a fiend on the verge of his next fix.

But a closer examination would prove it to be more like a pantomime artist, rehearsing his act… then again, it might just have been muscle memory from the numerous times he’d done what I was about to witness. He starts by saying something like, “hhuukkrgg… Food… clukkksmakk… have one please?”

Again… the thickest tongue of all time. But it was his politeness that intrigued me, so I broke him off a burger sandwich and half regained my attention to what I was doing. Then the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed started to take shape before my very eyes. He dives into the bag before I can barely finish giving him the ok to proceed.

This clumsy, ham-handed beast obliterates the whole bag, like one of Bill Bixby’s trouser legs after being pistol whipped by the business end of a revolver. His face was pure delight (not Bixby’s). And having found his purchase; he whirled to me to finish what he had come to ask. But I saw through this cheap little diversion and narrowed my gaze.

This mother fucker… with only one hand, skins the burger sandwich alive. The visual is… four sausage like digits on one side of the bun and the “Oy Uncle Charlie don’t stuff that in me”, is on the other side. Needless to say, each finger worked independently of the others during this endeavour to unsheathe the burger sandwich. And I’m not talking about pinned it against his chest and unwrapped it with one hand… I’m talking about him doing this performance with nothing more than just one hand!

Even the hand that played “Thing” on the “Adams Family” must be jealous of this guy’s dexterity. But the amazing part is that, this is a hand that couldn’t even close into its self to make a fist because there’s so much meat in the way. Still it only took the blink of an eye for this portly Copperfield to palm the wrapper in unison with exacting his first bite.

I say “exacting” because obviously his plan was to get this thing finished off in two bites. That first bite must have been like a boxer who sends out a jab to gauge the distance of his opponent before throwing his money punch. He immediately knew what he needed to do next.

Having absolutely no neck too, it was entirely impossible to be sure if he had swallowed the first bite. However he did manage to grunt some rudimentary language at me. All in an effort to dissuade my bewildered eyes and to set them into motion away from his next bite.

For once he was sure I wasn’t looking (oh but I was) he started after the last of the burger sandwich. But this time his eyes were fixated on mine, like how a shoplifter scans the front of the store as he stuffs ghetto apparel into his pants. And as he Houdinied that last wedge of meat and bread into his mouth, he used his thumb (Uncle Charlie) as a type of shoe horn to force it all into that eagerness called a mouth.

It took little effort to prod the meat and bun into the waiting pockets of his cheeks… and it all fit. And then, as some sort of secondary chewing force, he began bouncing up and down as he shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. It almost looked celebratory… and still… his eyes never left mine.

Then it struck me. It became so clear as to why he had felt the need to decimate that wad of food in this manner. The plot wasn’t just to procure one burger sandwich; it was to score him a minimum of two burger sandwiches.

The speed, at which he had formulated this idea, simply astounded me. His deceptive plan was to dispatch of the first burger sandwich at just under the speed of sound (to go full sound barrier, which he was fully capable of I’m sure, would have brought undesirable attention to himself and ultimately foil his plan and only net him one burger sandwich) and then to grab another burger sandwich to play off as the original one.

Now… it’s obvious to me that this man has put in a lot of hard work to become this large. Because if he would only put this much effort and brain power into his job, he wouldn’t have to be in my face asking me for information all the damn time.

It’s also fair to say that in this guy, I see the future of competitive eating. The days of mindlessly shoving wieners chased by lemon-aid down your gullet are long gone. It’s a future where, just like the televised Gladiators, you have to run through a gauntlet of obstacles that amount to a series of gadgets and brain teasers, a labyrinth of silent alarms tripped by laser beams.

And just like every movie involving a heist, at the end there is a burger sandwich in a glass case that you have to switch out with a bag of sand of equal weight. Dr. Indiana Jones might think it’s a real bitch, but this guy would have no problems.

Anyway, as I stared incredulously at this behemoth, this hulking man, he began to enact the next phase of his master plan. Like a somnambulist, he made his way towards what use to be a bag and clasped another burger sandwich between his middle and index fingers. Like a surgeon or a card shark, he masterfully slid the parcel of meat to the edge of the table and picked it up. He performed the same one handed manoeuvre as before, only this time it wasn’t speed that he was showcasing, it was his deceptive silence.

To make this second burger sandwich look like the first, he had to unwrap it and give it the appearance that it had been bitten into. Like the Great White shark referenced earlier, this time his eyes rolled back in his head as he sank his teeth into this gristly slab. I could tell that most of the excitement had already left him soon after the decimation of burger sandwich one... he was on auto-pilot now. Having thought that he had seduced me into thinking he had only gotten the one, was enough to produce a little orgasmic aftershock to last all day. He had won… his God given gifts had seen him through.

And then his demeanour started to change; it was now an air of superiority or cockiness. He thought to himself about going for three, just to prove to himself that he could. He wasn’t full, Heavens no, not even two burger sandwiches mixed with the rich sweetness of victory could sustain him.

So he decided he would do it anyway (which wasn’t a surprise to either of us); he would go for the triple. He ruined the story at this point though. I was waiting for him to dazzle me with another one of his feats of misdirection coupled with the hand wizardry matched only by the blind dude who did the glass orb tricks on “Labyrinth” for David Bowie.

But no, he was a lazy fuck and seeing as he already blown his wad two minutes earlier… he had no appetite for any more showmanship. He just feebly decided to half ask/half inform me that the rest of the bag was coming with him. School yard bully and shy introvert sharing a paradoxical space you could say.

But for me he had earned it, so what the hell, I let him have it. It wasn’t without reward. I now have the eternal memory of this fat guy and the burger sandwich incident. He left me feeling like half a fag or something; and he didn’t even bother to stay for the answer to the question that he had originally come to ask.

So next time you’re at a fast food joint, I suggest you don’t hesitate to try and see if you can first peel a burger with one hand and proceed to down it in two. You might just have what it takes to become an expert like him.

PEOPLE WATCHING

2011-07-07T15:37:00.000+01:00

So with the birth of this new Google+ social media tool, it got me thinking about what we used to do to keep in touch in the good old days. This is what I came up with. I hope you can relate and enjoy.

Graham had always enjoyed looking out through his window, the lives of others always seeming so much more interesting than his own. ‘People watching’ was what he had coined it, not realizing that that’s what everyone else called it too. Apparently lots of people do it, “I love people watching” said Cassandra, a girl he had met once on a balcony of some London bar and had never met again. But she always remained in his thoughts and whenever he was convinced that people watching was his phrase, she would always remind him that it wasn’t.

Out the window he continued to stare, not even that ray of sunlight shining onto the keyboard in front of him could shake him to get back to his work. His dissertation was not going to write itself. The silence was suddenly broken by the sound of an opening door against his old carpet and he was back in the room again. “Are you ok in here, do you need anything?” asks his courteous mother, “No, I’m fine thanks”.

“Only nine hundred and thirty five words to go, don’t stop now” says Graham to an empty room void of all action except for that small square glass right in front of him that holds every possibility. “Who’s that I wonder?” he asks himself while looking down onto a black leather jacket being worn by a brutish looking man talking on his phone. “Why’s he walking so slowly, why don’t you hurry up, who are you talking to?”

The man had an angry look on his face, not particularly because he was angry, but because that was just the way he looked. It was as though through years of having that same expression, it had become hard wired onto his face, so that now, even when he was happy, he continued to look angry. There was a scratch at the door; Graham welcomes the company, in comes Sprinter, excited as he is by such trivial and minor things as being let into a room. After a thorough sniffing of the room he finds his spot, right on the giant bean bag that’s got his indent already in it. Graham looks to his window once more. “The man’s gone now”, Sprinter looks up.

“Only eight hundred and two words left to go, man this is taking forever”. Another look out the window will suffice to relax his brain he thinks.

“Cyclists, they think they own the road and they don’t even have licenses. She’s going pretty fast though; wonder how long it takes her to get to Colliers wood from here? Quicker than the bus I guess… School must have finished, there’s three of them now, always eating sweets those school children, no wonder they’re so loud… Wow, who’s that girl? Mate, she is fit, oh, don’t go round that corner, oh, no! ... Man, that’s a big dog; I wouldn’t want to be attacked by that thing, would you defend me Sprinter? Do you think you could take it, huh?’ Sprinter looks up with great anticipation that something might be worth while looking up for, could it be walkies time? “No, I don’t suppose you would, would you?”

“Five hundred and seventy five to go, I wonder if full stops and commas count?” It could be said that if someone had argued that it may be possible for these things to be true that his opinion would however not be accurate”

Five hundred and forty eight words to go now. Graham felt that one of the things he had learned from university was how to add as many words to a sentence as was humanly possible; it was a good skill to have when such large numbers were involved in essay length. The onset of bright flashing colour’s and the loud screaming voice he’d become conditioned to were enough to make him answer his phone in a welcome break from his writing.

“Hello”.

“Hey, what’s up Graham?”

“Not a lot, just finishing this paper”, Graham’s attention was once again drifting back to the window.

“Did you speak to Ryan about Saturday?”

“Uh, yeah, that thing in Vauxhall?” he leans forwards to twirl the long piece of wood which serves to open up the blinds covering his favourite world even wider.

“What did he say?”

“About what?”

“About Saturday”, now Graham was noticing an odd contrast. There was no activity in the world in front of him, the people are still, not moving, they’re watching, but watching what?

“About the party, is he coming?' reiterates the voice on the other end of the call.

“I think so, when is it again?”

“Saturday!”

“Why are they all so still?” Graham says out loud a thought which was only meant for his head.

“why is who still?”

Half talking to himself and half talking to his phone companion, he answers “those people”.

Graham jumps up out of his seat in a frantic motion and puts his hand in between two of the louvre blinds that hang in front of him and spread them to get a better view, “Woah! What’s that? Look at that guy” he says assuming that his friend on the line can see what he is seeing, “He’s crazy!”

“Who’s crazy?”

In front of Graham, through his window of the world he sees a burly man running down the road as fast as he can. But this man could not be running as fast as he normally could, for he has a bicycle gripped by the handle bars lifted into the air in front of him riding along on the back wheel. Such a thing would normally be so unpractical, but this bike is missing a front wheel, so it seems the only logical solution.

By now Sprinter is up and barking and joining in on the excitement, “yes Sprinter, thrilling isn’t it?”

The man continues to run, pushing through all those people who were quite happy looking onto the occasion a short time ago but are now not too happy to be involved in it, “this guys mental” says Graham down the phone with a big smile on his face.

“Who’s mental, what you going on about Graham?”

“There’s some bloke running down my road with a bike on its back wheel. It hasn’t got a front tyre, he must have taken the wheel off, haha, what a div!”

“Really? Haha, that’s mad.”

“Yeah, he’s…” Graham looks closer, the jacket-leather, the look-burley, “Hey, I saw that guy earlier, I knew he was up to no good, he looked dodgy.”

“You know him?”

“No, he...” Sprinter’s excitement cannot be contained any longer and he lets out a bark that seems to shake the walls, the kind of dog bark that has everything in it, the anticipation, the joy, the frustration in not being told why everyone’s excited, the sense of involvement.

The bark jumps out of the open window over the children playing cops and robbers on the grass outside; over that parked car that’s been there for three weeks and has collected a whole tree’s worth of leaves on the bonnet; over that flattened coke can in the middle of the road that Graham’s been watching and counting how many car wheels roll over it. Over that middle aged business man’s head that’s been there for an hour eating the same sandwich and Graham has been wondering when he’ll finish it. Over that stunned lady on the floor trying to figure out why she just got knocked down by a mad man with a one wheeled bike, over that parking meter right into... “Damn!”

“What?”

“I think he just saw me”, for as that bark travelled it reached the ear of the infamous, would seem bike thief, and so he gave a quick look up to see the lone figure of Graham standing inside his window frame.

“So, does it matter?”

“Uh, no, I guess not”.

The man was way down the road by now and seems to have eluded whoever, if there ever was, anyone chasing after him.

“What a mess he’s just caused”.

“How’s that?”

“There’s people lying all over the floor, bins tipped over and everything. Mate, I better go check it out, see if I can help”.

“Alright, no worries. Remember to talk to thingy about Saturday”.

“Ok, see you later”.

Now Graham was worried. Had this man seen him while he stared outwardly onto him, or was it that he was simply turning his head to look to see if someone was chasing him? Surely no one could see Graham up here, I mean, that’s the point of people watching isn’t it? You watch them but they can’t see you. He looks down at Sprinter, his faithful pal “I suppose you wanna come out with me do you?” He shakes his tail, “I’ll take that as a yes then”.

Preparing to leave the safety of his sanctuary he hears his mum call up to his room.

“Graham, have you seen what’s gone on outside?”

“Yeah, I’m coming down now” he says just as he’s reaching to grab the small wooden stick that closes his blinds, but what’s this he now see’s. In front of him, in the near distance, a window, with a person standing in it, looking straight at him, he thinks.

“Is she watching me, or looking out over there?” He moves slowly, pretending he hasn’t noticed her, even so, she wouldn’t even think he was watching her, would she? He closes the blind.

He now felt as though his cover had been truly blown, like his secret identity had been openly revealed to the world, like he was some super hero trying to remain anonymous, only his secret hide out had now been discovered.

“Has she been watching me the whole time? That’s just not right, watching me people watch, and now she’s going to watch me go outside”, he felt invaded to say the least.

“People watching people watchers, how incredibly rude!” he thought.

A POLITICAL RANT

2011-07-04T14:56:00.003+01:00

Well today is Monday the 4^th of July and as our American friends over the pond begin their Independence Day celebrations, I would briefly like to bring matters a little closer to home to the fore and look back in time to what happened here in England just four days earlier.

By the time you read this it’s likely we will have just experienced one of the largest public service strikes for decades. And even my father, a self declared entrepreneur who prided himself in never being involved in a strike of any kind would have been fully behind this one.

I mean how in God’s name, does the government expect those at the bottom of the pay scales to make sacrifices to do nothing more than help subsidise those at the very top?

The only public sector workers whose pensions are not today threatened are the MPs. How does that work? Closer to home we have services under fire, jobs threatened and pay rates cut while a chief executive still earns in excess of £200k a year. Where’s the equality of sacrifice in any of that?

The speculators and bankers, whose colossal greed created this whole financial meltdown catastrophe in the first place are still continuing to pay themselves outrageous sums while everyone else it seems, must work much longer for far less while on ever reducing pensions.

Sir Fred Goodwin for example, the man at the helm when the Royal Bank of Scotland recorded a £24 billion loss, the largest in UK corporate history, now struggles by on a reported pension of £350k per annum still in his fifties while the bank still paid out £950 million in bonuses during 2010 despite further losses of £1.1 billion. How do you begin to justify that to the taxpaying public then?

The simple answer is you cannot. Not to teachers, nurses, postal workers, town hall staff, carers, refuse collectors or to any of the small entrepreneurs losing their homes and sanity in this latest of financial tsunamis.

Ministerial promises made during the last election to protect public banking from speculative gambling are seen to be negated; control of grotesque bank houses hastily forgotten, and regulatory control of energy prices too easily ditched. It seems the agenda still firmly on the cards is more job losses, more public service cuts and massive pension reforms to include a longer working lifespan for the average Joe.

It appears that after Tony Blair and his ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, the most insulting lies of our time ever told are now: “There is no other alternative” (to screwing the lower paid) and: “We’re all in this together,” (except for MPs, council executives, bankers, speculators, energy companies etc).

And if the government don’t have either the courage or the appetite to reign in corporate greed, share the pain equally among the rich and powerful and insist that MPs face the same impositions as the public, then they deserve to reap the full effects of this current whirlwind they have to a fair degree helped to create for themselves.

And I’m sure my father, a man of the utmost integrity, would have been one of the first to step up and join the picket lines to resolve this most blatent of public injustices.

SOS ~ SAVE OUR SHOPS

2011-07-04T05:19:00.004+01:00

I love the early mornings. I love orange juice, hot coffee and most of all, I love my local shop.

To me it’s my source of all the local news you see. There’s bacon butties on offer there and good banter to go with it and I’m an official member of the 'Early Risers Club' there too, treading a path for others to follow, often meeting fellow explorers trudging through all seasons, weathering storms or even basking in the summer sun.

The characters in my shop often change as the day progresses, beginning with the dog walkers, truckers and builders. And these are closely followed by precocious kids on their way to school taking longer to choose sweets than a woman does choosing new shoes. And then there’s the constant stream of everyday grocery shoppers to add to the list.

Julie the store proprietor there, takes it all within her stride. Once the rush hour dies down she likes debating all kinds of local issues with all and sundry and always takes a feisty viewpoint, taking the part of devil’s advocate and whenever I run out of ideas for this blog (hard to imagine I know), she’s usually my first port of call for further resources.

You see to us locals it’s more like a drop in centre than a shop, where busy customers can readily exchange all forms of news and gossip as they grab their essential provisions. For the not so nimble, it’s often their only social contact for the day and for hectic families bereft of milk or bread it’s a real life saver too.

I often like to make a flying start by arriving early at the shop well before the pie man makes his daily delivery because once he turns up, you can guarantee that the faithful will always follow.

There's chesty smokers desperate for their first fix of the day, van drivers in search of bacon butties to keep them company as they sift through the morning papers, mums on the school run topping up their children's lunch boxes. Yes they all come hobbling down the road from all corners towards the shop as if they were all on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, knowing it will sooth their vexations, slake their thirsts, feed their hunger or even help brighten up their moods.

Obviously the corner shop is never going to be as cheap as the local supermarket is but what we find in Julies shop is often not available elsewhere. The supermarket for example, simply won’t enquire after my pets and their ailments, stock rare sweets for individual kids, offer people advice or even worry if I don’t show up.

So if you’re lucky enough to have a local community shop like mine too, I implore you to give it your support, especially if here in England. I mean we’ve already lost many of our local pubs, petrol stations and Post Offices to the larger conglomerates and economies of scale. And with the further loss of our local shops we eventually won’t even have a community to go home to.

JOBSWORTH

2011-07-03T20:32:00.004+01:00

Well I've just spent the last few days away from home while heading for the sunnier climes of Cheshire and it was while en-route that I stopped at an overnight motorway service station for a bite to eat. I opted for a standard full English breakfast with eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage and beans all slapped together. It was a large platter of traditional English fayre all served up with lashings of hot coffee and all for the princely sum of £6.99.

“You can forget the tomatoes,” I told the server “I’m not in the mood for them.”

And having been served I made my way past the refrigerated displays of freshly stale sandwiches over to the cashier who quickly surveyed my all night breakfast and promptly keyed in the price of £7.99.

“The breakfast is a special; it’s only £6.99” I prompted her.

“Yes but you have extra fried bread,” she replied.

“Well I didn’t ask for it. The server must have replaced it for the tomatoes I rejected.”

“You cannot have substitutions on the breakfast special,” she rapped as she looked sternly into my eyes.

“I didn’t ask for any substitutions,” I retorted.

“But you have fried bread on your plate and that’s an extra pound.”

“But I never requested fried bread. I just said I didn’t want tomatoes. And besides, I can get a whole loaf for 75p.”

“So what do you expect us to do with the fried bread now then?

“I’ve no Idea,” I replied while thinking she could maybe shove it up her arse.

It was then that the customer standing behind me interjected. “I’ll have it,” he said.

I forked over the fried bread onto his plate.

“So that will be £7.99 then,” said the checkout lady.

“No, it’s £6.99” I insisted.

“Not with extra fried bread.”

“But I haven’t got ANY fried bread... He’s got it.” I quickly responded while pointing out the other hapless customer.

“Yeah but I was only helping you out,” said the man standing behind me.

“Well you’re going to have to pay for it,” said Mrs Hitler sitting at the till.

“What? For something I didn’t order? Well you’re going to have to get the manager then“, I responded.

So along came the manager and after a couple of minutes of hushed talking to his underling he eventually turned his attention to me. Prodding and poking at the bacon that had had time to learn to swim in all the bean sauce, he looked at me and enquired “So who did order the fried bread then?”

I stood my ground. “Not me, I just didn’t want tomatoes.”

“Well I’ve got it, but didn’t order it“, added the second customer. “Here, you can have it back.”

Cue the buxom serving wench. Another hushed discussion and a few red faces. And by the time it was all sorted out the meal was now stone cold and probably going mouldy.

“Excuse me for being so pedantic”, I interjected “I hope you don’t expect me to eat any of this now.” I added as I pointed out this latest of events to the whole comedy of errors.

To which the manager just threw his hands up in the air, requesting I re-order as he walked off with his day being totally ruined. And guess what? This time I took the bloody tomatoes, the price was right and the meal was relatively good.

When did ordering a simple hot breakfast become so bloody difficult?

GOING SOLO

2011-06-19T01:11:00.001+01:00

Whoever it was that said that men couldn’t multi-task had obviously not known me in my youth. I was at the tender age of sixteen, taking my O’levels at school and working around twenty hours a week at my father’s snooker hall for pocket money (the slave driver). For all intents and purposes, school for me was more or less over. I was working already and felt no real need for further education. All I had to do now was to pass my final exams.

I’d done my time and learned my lessons and all I had left to do, was prove it. And all was going quite well to date. I had already taken all but one of my exams without breaking into too much of a sweat and was riding my bicycle to school for the last of them that particular day.

What a guy you may be thinking by now but if truth be told, what a jerk might have been much nearer the mark. You see I was young and still very cabbage looking (green) as far as the ways of the world went. And on my way to school I had to navigate a very steep hill.

Well I huffed and I puffed and soldiered on uphill until I reached the top and when I finally got there I made the mistake of employing all of my previously learned cycling skills.

Look mum, no hands....

Yes you read it here first. I was on a major road, speeding downhill with no hands on the handlebars. The newly fitted speedometer on the bike read just below forty miles an hour and I was pushing hard for fifty.

Now half way down this hill (on Chester Road, Stretford) there is a parade of shops with off road parking in front and it was just as I was drawing near to those shops that mother Earth collapsed before my very eyes. To me, I was in complete control of my steed, successfully dodging the traffic and all was well. Well for now anyway.

What I didn’t take account of was the oncoming traffic. Within the batting of an eyelid, I was hurtling down the road, with no hands to control the bike, straight into the path of a car that had just turned out of the oncoming traffic, into the parking facilities for those shops. I really didn’t stand a chance.

Next thing I knew I was bouncing head first over the bonnet of said vehicle. The bike stooped dead as the front wheel buckled to match the front wing of the car and I just carried on. Crash - Bang - Wallop I went over the bonnet. All the traffic stooped and all eyes were now on me and my airborne body.

The driver of the car immediately stopped and raced to my rescue. I was lifted from the ground on the opposite side of the car to where my bike lay and he carried me to the comfort of a nearby shop where I was quizzed as to whether I was still breathing, alive, or indeed human.

Fear not dear reader. Apart from a few bruises, a fat lip and a severe denting of my pride, I was still in one piece and a lot more worried about getting to school for the last of my exams, than I was about all of the fuss I had just been a part of. The bike was retrieved and looked after by a kindly shopkeeper, my parents were informed and on their way over to take care of the legalities (which I heard no more of) and my ‘assailant’ offered me a lift to my school once he was sufficiently convinced I was still alive and kicking.

That was ten o’clock in the morning. We arrived at the school at about half past. The teachers were informed of my prior misdeeds and yet still allowed me to take the test while preparing to make allowances for any failure. Fortunately for me it was physics, one of my favourite subjects and despite the lack of earlier revision, I sailed right through it, unlike I did that car bonnet.

Schools out...

Having endured the last two hours of that test, my school career was now over. All I had to do now was to make my way (on foot) back to the shop where my bicycle was, and due to the new far, from round shape of the front wheel, carry it home with me. It took me six weeks to straighten that wheel out by hand, during which time, my results had come through.

I had earned myself the princely total of eight full passes. Five grade A’s, two grade B’s and one grade C. I had eight shiny O’levels to prove my intelligence (provided that driver kept his mouth shut that is). My schooling had obviously worked.

And so to work I went...

Probably fortunately for me, my tender age of just sixteen years prevented me from being a fully fledged ‘bar steward’ (read that as you will). I wasn’t yet the legally required age of eighteen to work full time with my dad due to the joys of the alcohol that was being served on his premises so I now had to find me a full time job. However that didn’t mean I’d be giving this place up. After all, I had already spent half of my life there. I had met thousands of people and made quite a lot of good friends.

Having started there at the tender age of eight, making sandwiches for resale, washing down the bench seating around the snooker tables, cleaning the beer lines and processing memberships etc., there was plenty for a young chap to do on the Sunday’s my father took me into work with him. That of course was in the good old early days, but as time went on and the bum-fluff started sprouting from out of my chin, other duties were to later include a dabbling in book keeping, wage processing, stock taking, ordering supplies and building and contents maintenance, and in the fullness of time I even got to man the beer pumps.

All credit really must go to my father for this. He was very good at delegating while at the same time still keeping a watchful eye over me without being too intrusive. I learnt a lot from him about running a business and to a certain extent, even more about successful man management skills. He was a brilliant role model and even to this day, I still walk in awe of him.

Cue the snooker star...

Don’t panic, it wasn’t me. After spending so much time at the snooker hall, I quickly got bored with the game even if I was quite proficient at it. I had grown up in full view of many of the big names in snooker at the time, not to mention many more of the clientele. And with this is mind it was no surprise that even at the tender age of sixteen and three quarters, I was head hunted of a fashion.

It sounds really grand on paper but in reality it was nothing like. He was just an ordinary Joe I had grown up in front of. He came in twice a week for a simple snooker session lasting five hours with his friends. He watched me grow up and had a position available for me if I wanted it. He was a plumber by trade, a simple one man band outfit with an opening for a government sponsored apprenticeship up for grabs... if I wanted it.

Now granddad, a retired postal worker was really good with his hands and many a time I had spent alongside him in his makeshift workshop (a second bedroom). It was really through him that I developed my creative bent. I loved to watch his mastery with woods of all kinds, turning old planks of second hand timber into beautiful pieces of furniture. So it was little wonder then that I jumped at the opportunity of going ‘on the tools’.

So right on cue, I had snookered myself into a new career path that I could chalk up for myself, taking on board all of the tips of this new found trade. (And here the puns end).

Hey diddle-de dee, it’s a plumber’s life for me....

Now without going too far into the ins and outs of the plumbing game, all I will say is I spent a productive four years as an apprentice plumbing and heating engineer. My boss Allen was also a formidable bloke in his own right who was more than happy to share the wealth of his knowledge with me. And being a hands on kind of guy, we would be sure to get or hands dirty first doing the practicalities of the job while I listened to his dulcet tones relating the whys and wherefores of the theory behind it all. He was a great believer in one learning by your mistakes and needless to say, there were plenty of those in my first couple of years, some of which involved us getting thoroughly drenched.

Fearing the thought of ever boring you to death now, I won’t go into this much further but I would like to add this little anecdote...

It was the mid seventies when I took up this plumbing lark and at that time, Britain was still to a large extent, having its water supplies plumbed through lead piping.

And when plumbing lead piping, it is essential to have no water in the pipes to come into contact with the molten solders we would be working with to joint the two pipes together.

Sometimes though, it wasn’t always possible to fully drain said pipes but we plumbers had our trade secrets to counter this and one of those tricks was to plug up the pipes with compressed bread, make the joint, and then when you turned the pressurised water back on, it would blow the bready plug through the nearest open tap.

Anyway one particular day, we were working in an empty house and yes we needed to plug the pipe. Needless to say, there was no bread available to us so I was sent next door to borrow a slice or two.

“Certainly,” said the lady of the adjoining house and she disappeared up her hallway towards her kitchen, leaving me stood at her front door like a lemon. And imagine my surprise when she returned with a tray.

“Here we go dear, I’ve done you a plate full of sandwiches and a pot of tea. We can’t have you going hungry while you’re working now.” She said. If only she had known.

And so, a full four years later...

There I was still a plumber. I had done all sorts of drains, guttering, bathrooms, kitchens, central heating systems, tiling plastering and even serviced the odd boiler or two (no names please). I’d also taken further exams and gained my full city and guilds trade membership. I was fully indentured now and doing more and more work alone.

It wasn’t all good news though. Allen had developed a serious heart condition and was forced into early retirement.

This meant I was now on my own and for the first time in my life I was looking for work. I still had the snooker hall though as I had always worked there on a part time basis (the things you do for family eh?). And unbeknown to me, there lay my secret weapon.

With over three thousand members and almost five hundred regulars every week, many of whom had watched me grow up in front of them, it wasn’t very long before a few small jobs were coming through for me and from those tiny acorns, mighty oaks were about to grow.

I was reliable, affordable and gave good advice and value for money and within only a few months, I found I was soon inundated with work. So much so I had no choice but to now declare myself as being self-employed.

Of course it hasn’t always been that easy. There were times when even master plumbers like me have had to diversify. I’ve worked on domestic and commercial projects, often had to go industrial, and in the harder more financially depressed times, I’ve even taken on part time work to supplement my wage. There have been good times and bad and quite often it has been quite trying.

But the good times, in my own experience have far outweighed any others so I reckon I’m now stuck with it. Well I hope that’s the case, because all in all, I’ve been at it for over thirty years now. I’ve had a wide and varied career and I’ve had apprentices of my own since then. And for anyone that thinks there’s no truth in being at the right place at the right time, maybe I might just be the exception to the rule.

TRAPPED

2011-06-18T00:08:00.002+01:00

Hell had finally found me. And by hell I mean my past. For years now I had been living a brand new life, I was a totally new person, new name, everything. I had settled into my new life so much that I had almost entirely forgotten my past, something that at one time I never thought would be possible to forget, and well I didn’t think I would even be able to escape it, never mind have the opportunity to be able to forget it. But I knew that this day would probably come, the day the devils of my past would return to try and seek their revenge, me and my bravery had ruined them and their evil lifestyle.

I’d effectively caused the collapse of a whole criminal underworld. Lots of people were sent to jail as a result of my actions. But although the likelihood was that my cover was now blown and I would have to start again once more, deep down I believe that put in the same situation again then I would have done the same thing all over, because otherwise many others would have suffered a far more worse life than the one that I had when I was subject to the abuse of these merciless people.

Back in my teens I had fallen in with the wrong crowd, tried drugs, got hooked on them, and as you know, the more you want something you are addicted to the more you will do to get it, and that included borrowing large sums of money off dangerous people, and owing so much money is what lead to me doing something considered a major crime in the criminal world, I cooperated with the police.

By getting these people put behind bars was the only way that I would be able to get rid of the large debt that I had owed them. I knew the risk of doing this; I knew that other people like me had often tried something similar; they ended up being brutally murdered, so I had to plan extremely carefully to make sure that I didn’t suffer this fate. And all that while still under the influence. Luckily for me my plan was effective and I managed to succeed, but once we got to court, these criminals had easily worked out that it was I that had landed them in the dock, and I knew that their sentences would only be a few years at most, this was correct; the longest sentence handed out was only 15 years, and within a few years from now, they would begin to track me down.

Of course there were other people that owed these vile creatures lots of money but instead of taking my chosen route, they tried to pay it back by any means possible, whether that was doing (illegal) jobs for them or having sex with them if the person was good looking enough; and people just tried to make sure that they didn’t upset the people that they owed the money to.

But here they were, I could see them once again before my very eyes, but for now they couldn’t see me and I hoped it would stay that way. They looked pretty much identical to the last time I saw them, whereas I had physically completely changed.

It crossed my mind that I might just be able to walk out past them and they might not recognise me because of the vast change in my physical appearance. But I decided against trying that, it was far too risky, these people were vicious predators with hawk eye vision and I was there prey, they would most likely recognise me if they ever laid eyes on me and would attack, even if they were only 10% sure they were attacking the right person.

By now there were lots of these burly looking gang members walking around this usually quiet street where the worst crime was that of being working class, the residents were now answering the door to gang members and looked frightened for their lives and so they should, these men would trash your house if they had the slightest feeling that the person they were after was in there.

That was the worst thing about this whole situation that was unfolding before me, it was that the damage that was being caused was all my fault, if I hadn’t ever tried those drugs as an impressionable teenager then none of this would have ever happened.

That’s the thing about drugs though; the effects don’t just hurt you, your family and friends, it hurts completely innocent strangers too, as I was now witnessing here. If I was to do the right thing by these people then I would have to go out there and give myself up to them to stop the damage being done to my neighbours but I didn’t. I simply couldn’t.

It was devastating to watch as these innocent people had their homes trashed as they furiously denied knowing a name and physical description that they had never heard nor seen, the name and physical description that were of me in the past. And as they got closer to my own house I decided that I must get completely out of their view.

There was a loud banging on the door; they had now reached my house at the end of the street. I completely froze. What the hell could I do now to get out of this situation alive? I made sure that I stayed out of view, but I could somehow still feel their eyes looking around the room from the outside the window. The emergency alarm that had been installed for me by the Witness Protection People was placed on a table directly in front of the window; it was completely useless to me in this actual situation.

The door knocked again, if they had hit it any harder it would easily cave in, but then again if it didn’t get answered then they would just kick the door down. And just as I thought, within moments the door crashed down into the entrance lobby floor. Shit I thought to myself.

I’d often thought about arming myself but only a gun would be satisfactory right now, with any other weapon they would have easily overpowered me quite quickly. I was now face to face with them, they instantly recognised me straight away.

“Nice to see you again” he said in his cold hard voice. He even recognised me in a complete state of panic. I tried to make out that I had never seen him before.

“Sorry, have we met?” were the words that fell out of my mouth.

“Don’t mess me around again, you’ve already taken years away from me”. He kept closing in on me; I was literally being backed into a corner. I kept telling myself that at any moment now the police would burst in and save me, surely someone must have managed to call them by now.

Continuing with my plan I offered this devil from my past some ID, for some idiotic reason thinking that would help convince him I wasn’t who he wanted. I waved my driving licence in his face.

“Look, look, I’m not who you think I am, please leave me alone”, I wept.

He then punched me extremely hard in the face, knocking me straight out, I haven’t seen that house since; I don’t even know where I am now. And as I lay here trapped in this hoodlum’s makeshift dungeon, all I can think is my days are truly numbered. I’m totally screwed and back to square one all over again, only this time it’s going to be a whole lot harder for me to escape.