25 Jun 2016 · 6:16 pm

Oh dear, it’s not them. It IS me. #remain #leave

Well, this has been an interesting week. For better, or worse, Britain has voted to leave the EU. As a mum with an 8 year old in a local state school with a very wide range of nationalities attending, the majority of voters asked in my extensive Playground Polls came up Remain.

There is a reason. This:

Evilposter

A lizard with opposable thumbs in front of a racist poster.

In the absence of any real facts, and after right wring extremists murdered an MP for her pro-IN, pro-refugee, humanitarian beliefs, it was all about sticking it to the racists for us. So what I saw winning, when Leave won, was fascism and a sheep like mass of people voting the way they were told to by the Sun.

And we’re at the beginning of the century, the world economy went down the toilet a few years ago and is still only recovering. And despite that recovery it’s left a lot of people in deep, deep financial plop. Which is a worry. Because that’s the kind of climate in which fascism takes root as folks look for someone to blame and some of the rhetoric flying around about immigration and letting in refugees is … disturbingly familiar.

However, I have a handful of highly intelligent, sensible friends voting Leave. They’re good people, decent people, one is about where I am politically, one way to the right but the other two are further left. They are never going to vote for racism, no way, no how – even the right winger. So I asked a couple of them what the hell they were doing.

They put forward lot arguments which made sense – but all the arguments for both sides make sense when you uncover the facts that’s part of the trouble – but the salient point was one about how they believe the people of this country feel about politics.

Which is, that our politicians are condescending, aloof, self important and that they no longer listen to, nor have any respect for the people they are supposed to serve. My Leave friends felt that through the gradual change, over the years, from debate over the issues to personal attacks, most politicians have not so much lost our respect as earned our contempt. We believe what they say about one another. That’s why so many young people don’t or won’t vote, which is bats of them but that’s another story.

Furthermore, many leavers are every day people, but poor people, the folks who feel disenfranchised and without hope, because successive governments have stood by and let their places of work – in some cases, whole industries – die. Leavers are people who worked in our pottery industry, our coal industry, our manufacturing industry, dairy farming, fruit growing, the Cadbury factory, the steel industry. Most of our heavy industry was up north. And that’s why the folks up there are angry. The big agricultural areas in East Anglia voted Leave too. And a lot of the seasiders.

They feel that when their livelihoods and their whole communities were at risk, successive Governments, labour and Conservative stood by, didn’t step in, didn’t help. Failed them. And yes, there are probably more positve things to do than concentrate on your anger and bitterness about a past that is gone and a future that cannot be. But maybe they were just trying all that time to get someone, somewhere, to listen. And heaven knows, I graduated into a recession, I felt washed up, useless, dismissed as junk before my working life even began so I can actually really sympathise with that.

And so when the government asks for their help now their reply was a resounding fuck off, in this case, in the form of a Leave vote, to sock it to the Man. Whereas we in Remain, even if we’d thought of it, would probably have demurred from socking it to the Man when it’s just swapping one Man for another.

I suspect many people, both those voting IN and those voting Leave, may well share some very similar sentiments about our politics and politicians. We just reacted in different ways.

And in that one thing, lies our hope.

MPs have to learn from this, they have to start believing again, they have to relearn humility, that they are public servants, that it’s not about power for them but about working for us. And those who take such things seriously need to make sure that we, the electorate, realise that they, at least, are listening. They need to be Jo Cox, not Boris Johnson.

And as for tomorrow. What’s done is done. This is complicated, and it will be difficult. A lot depends on the negotiations surrounding exit. I hope Scotland and Northern Ireland give it some time to see what we come out with before they vote to leave and the UK is broken. Because it looks as if we, Britain, might actually have a chance at a new beginning, a new start. It’s up to us. It doesn’t have to be about racism, immigration and bigotry. It can be about unity, it can be like the 2012 Olympics.

Because for all my initial horror at the result, and for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth I’ve done on Facebook with my like minded friends, when we get to the bottom of things, it turns out that despite being on opposite sides of the debate, many of the folks who voted Leave are closer are closer to us than we think. And if they are we can work with that.

Here’s hoping.

Some good pro leave posts:

Roughseas – there are some good comments on this one and I had a long chat with her too: https://roughseasinthemed.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/brexit-its-real
Jim Webster, again more comment chat as well: https://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/the-road-from-the-bigoted-woman-stops-here/

A couple of good pro remain posts from writers, like myself, who hadn’t even thought of sticking it to the Man:

Chuck Wendig the thinking American’s view: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2016/06/24/you-want-trump-this-is-how-you-get-trump/
Charlie Stross sums up the initial feeling in Remain at the result: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/06/tomorrow-belongs-to-me.html
Lee Harris – just a nice cynical post about the Remain point of view. http://leeaharris.com/brexit/
I need to comment on these.

 

20 Comments

Filed under General Wittering

Tagged as , , , , ,

22 Jun 2016 · 10:05 am

Is it me that’s nuts or them?

WARNING!!!! There is swearing in this post. Actually, thinking about it, if you are offended by swearing what on earth are you doing here on my potty-mouthed blog? No but seriously, there is swearing, so please don’t read this if effing and blinding (and ranting) offends you.

Right, if all the non-swearers have left, on we go.

Rant mode activated.

Lately, I’ve been slightly worried that I might, perhaps, be going nuts. Perhaps it’s just the mean spirited horrid climate of the EU referendum that’s making me feel out of sorts. After all, while the folks voting leave are not all racist, you can bet all the racists will be voting leave. And then you get Farage with his smug bull frog grin and his ‘At Breaking’ Point’ poster aimed at brown people. I know I shouldn’t single him out but it’s so hard not to. Well, Mr Farage, Boris and co, if you look you’ll find most of us have been immigrants at some point including, very possibly, you own forebears. My uncle has been tracing my family tree and it turns out my family has a blood characteristic that is singular to North African blood. I look as white and middle class as they come and I can prove at least 1,000 years of residence in the UK but even so, it turns out I’m secretly brown. Which just goes to show what a load of shite it all is.

Farage allegedly has Huguenot antecedents, Boris German was it? but European for deffo (cf Who Do You Think You Are) and possibly this chap although I got that off Facebook so it’s probably lies since Facebook has wiped it from my timeline!

Boris JohnsonBut we have, Farage’s antecedents, clearly asylum seekers fleeing persecution if they were Huguenots, Boris’ German, as far as I recall, was an economic migrant. So both of them get to be here because our forefathers were a little more kindly disposed to their antecedents, when fleeing persecution, or moving to a place of better prospects, than he and his ilk are to others in the same position, now.

How ironic.

Looking at historic precedent, at what happened last time the economy went as far down the lav as this last recession, is quite a worry. Yeh, the crash of the 1920s… the world economy died on its arse what did we get? Facism, not to start with, but over a period of a few years, creeping in through people playing the race and hate card to get power. Playing the blame card to explain how things were, blaming brown people or ethnic minorities or people of a different faith rather than the handful of rich people who actually cocked it up. And what are we getting now? The exact same thing. Even though we’ve seen it all before and we know it’s bollocks and that fascism doesn’t work.

The whole racist thing does make me feel a bit … well … sick. Because the only difference is place of birth and melanin in the skin and because somewhere way back my umpteen times great grandfather was one these darker-skinned outcasts. Yes peps, I’m secretly coloured! If aliens exist, small wonder they won’t touch us with a barge pole. We’re poison; a bunch of complete and utter scum. The whole human race.

Someone shared a great post on Facebook the other day about how wonderful the 2012 London Olympics were, how great they made us feel our country was as we celebrated it in all it’s different diversity. How I wish we could somehow reset to that, before the hate-fest of the last election, the Scottish in/out referendum which was fought, as far as I could tell, entirely on an attempt to ignite a nationwide loathing of the English, and the EU referendum. Because we seem to have lost that. The climate in this country seems less than pleasant right now. And after some years without incident I seem to be encountering it on the streets of mild mannered Bury St Edmunds, where everyone is usually polite. This last week I feel as if I’ve run into arsey aggressive males every which way I turn. Worse, I seem to be as grumpy as the best of them.

Earlier this week, I was riding my bike down a street in town that is two way for bikes and one way for cars. Some knobend in a car coming the other way piled past me mouthing what was clearly obscenities, going by the hand gestures. Obviously the moron thought I was going the wrong way down a one way street because he was too much of a blind bastard to notice the signs telling him otherwise. What surprised me was my reaction. I mean, I gave him the bird, obviously because he had got it wrong and was behaving like a total fucktard but I also chased him, in his car, on my bike.

20160614_092206

To be fair, bikes tend to go faster than cars at that time of the morning and I just wanted to knock on his window and make some crushingly sarcastic remark themed around the concept of him borrowing my spectacles to read the big sign at the bottom of the street. I now have a picture of it on my phone to show to the next idiot – it does happen regularly but they are usually more polite.  I almost caught up with him but the traffic was moving more freely than usual so he escaped my withering scorn. Bad that.

Then yesterday, I was riding my bike along a quiet back street in Bury to collect McMini from school. There’s a part where the road narrows and as I reached it a car came up behind me. It was a blue mini – the new try hard version rather than the original 60s icon – and it was full of young men, except to call them ‘young men’ is inaccurate because, unfortunately they were more like a group of symbiotic molluscs with a single shared brain cell… only they were less brainy than that. And they were clearly drunk as well. They had the window open and the music on loud and they were shouting leerily. It wasn’t 100% intelligible but I got enough to understand what I’m pretty certain was, ‘Get out of the fucking way you fucking bag.’ Of course, the way the driver was leaning on the hooter was fairly indicative.

When I got through the thin bit they came piling past me. Oh how I wish I’d had the presence of mind to ride very slowly along the middle of the road up to the junction, but then, that would have made me a wanker. They roared past shouting at me – not sure what it just came out as noise but plenty of f word in it – and obviously, standard procedure, I gave them the bird. A few yards ahead was a friend walking along the pavement to collect her grandson from the school.

‘Did that just happen?’ I asked her as I passed.
‘We should report them,’ she said.
‘Yeh, I think they’re drunk,’ I replied and I rode on.

Richard Cheese (Dick to his mates) driving the mini sped up to the junction went over the crossroads without stopping and then got stuck behind another car which was parking. Again, numpty features lent on the hooter. Seriously, these guys were such a bunch of monumental dick splashes it was incredible. The other car carried on doing what it was doing because it was being driven by an old man, slowly. Knob features in his mini hooted more. Old man in car hooted back – good for him. I could hear them shouting at him as I approached.

And then I was alongside them. Waiting for the old fellah to move too. And their window was open and before I knew it I was giving them a piece of my mind except that, unfortunately, all that was in there was the one fingered salute and the word ‘wanker’. So there I am leaning down to the window shouting, ‘wankers, wankers you bunch of fucking wankers’ in a kind of sing song football chanty-tastic kind of way… with a bit of the aaaaaaargh from the ‘woooooooooah your shit aaaaaaaa’ thing that everyone does when the goalie for the opposing team takes a goal kick.

I mean what?

Where, exactly, has calm, mild-mannered MTM has gone? I’m still very level-headed in a crisis but time was, if someone was aggressive and unpleasant to me, I could stay cool and acerbic. Now, I seem to have lost my capacity for intelligent thought, the red mist descends straight away, hulk smash is the go-to setting, and I seem unable to think or act with any clarity or sense and behave … well … like them. I mean, the obvious thing to say was something along the lines of ‘blimey lads, which one of you is having the baby or is this not a mercy dash.’ Because they were the kind of guys who find any suggestion of womanhood way, way more insulting than being sworn at and it would have been a light hearted way of getting the point across that they were behaving like morons. At the very least I should have told them their car was really too rubbish for them to get away with driving like that or that they’d better stop shouting because the braincell they were sharing probably couldn’t do that, keep them all breathing and allow the bloke at the wheel to drive without accident. But no. Although I confess, shouting the simple wanker line in their faces was very cathartic.

They sped away and I could hear them hooting and shouting at every other car, pedestrian and bicycle that got in their way, or even vaguely near them, while they drove through the streets of the mediaeval town as if they were in a high speed police chase with the blummin’ Sweeny on their tail.

It was only when I got to school to collect McMini that I realised England were playing Wales that afternoon and kick off was at 3 o’clock. Clearly they’d been down the pub, got a bit slammed and decided they’d better drive home for the game – possibly, in their defence, because they didn’t want to drive home after watching it in the pub when they were even more rat-arsed.

I love football, but I found myself hoping England lost, just to really piss off all the people like that Mini full of plankton, not to mention the tossers who stood round at Calais throwing money at refugee children and mounted running battles with Russian fans – yeh, I don’t care who threw the first punch, it is possible to be a man and walk away. As for taunting little children about the same age as my lad? Really? They’re all on video. So, can we close the borders please and not let them back, because they don’t deserve to live here.

In defence of my own behaviour, I know my personal circumstances might contribute, I’m stressed, there’s no doubt about that. I am trying to be mother to a small child and dutiful daughter to elderly infirm parents both of whom suffer memory loss. My parents need my help running their lives – mainly the finances – but they are able to do just enough on their own bat to make it really hard for me to keep things on an even keel. I have so much to remember that my brains seems to have gone on strike and refuses to remember anything, which means every tiny task I try to do is frustratingly slow. Each time I try to organise my son’s birthday party, for example, I have to start at dot and read up what I’ve done and where I’ve got to. In short, I suspect my pissedoff-o-meter is very close to the red zone at all times. Times are hard, a lot of folks have money worries, maybe their pissedoff-o-meters are under the same stress as mine. Maybe.

But whatever’s causing it the mood in the nation, and the world, seems to be ugly.

To have two of the kind of events I would consider reasonably unusual within days of each other – well OK the one way thing isn’t, nobody sees that ruddy sign but they’re usually less rude – has shaken my confidence a little. It’s left me wondering if we’re all sick. If I’m sick.

The sooner this referendum is over the better. Doubtless there’ll be enough racist bigots voting leave for Murdoch to get his way and the leave vote to stick. But frankly, I like being in Europe. I like the idea of trading with the people around us rather than the ‘ally’ which happily buried this country – its government knowing full well what it was doing – with lend lease. If Europe seems dominated by France and Germany it’s because we didn’t effing join in at the start, when they did, even if it was Winston Churchill’s idea – and yes, I know; DeGaulle, tosspot, veto yada yada. It’s true that, for a while after that, we couldn’t. But we can now. If we choose to. Or we can turn our backs. Isolate ourselves and watch our economy go even further down the lavvy, like it has been the last couple of weeks as the world fears leave will win only oh so many times worse. Like sub prime was a pic-nic.

Personally, I like diversity, I like different peoples and cultures and sexualities and cuisines. Diverse societies are vibrant and thriving and full of ideas. I’d happily swap the arsehats in that mini for some economic migrants from the Calais camps any day of the week. I bet I know which group would contribute more to our society. Not all gay/muslim/brown people are bad. Not all hetro/’Christian’ (they’re not)/white people are good. It’s more complicated than that. Shitheads come in many different colours. Why would we turn our backs on some of the people geographically and culturally closest to us? It’s crazy.

Rant mode off.

Ah that’s better, and hey, whadda you know? I didn’t mention hell or hand carts once. 😉

21 Comments

Filed under General Wittering

Tagged as , , , ,

18 Jun 2016 · 10:50 am

Getting my act together – Guest Post from Jim Webster

This week, please give a warm welcome to my fellow author, Jim Webster who is here to tell you about his new book. Take it away Jim …

I had a cunning plan. I was going to get organised. Rather than just write one book, have one surge in publicity which hopefully brought with it a few sales, I’d write six novellas and release them at four monthly intervals, so I’d get six surges of publicity.

So I did. I took Benor, the hero of two of my fantasy novels and placed him in the city of Port Naain. (For those who like to know about such things I guarantee no elves, dwarves, hobbits and not much magic.) I then wrote six novellas about him, each is a self contained story, which has at its heart a mystery/crime that has to be solved. I tell people they’re a ‘collection’ rather than a ‘series’ as they can be read in any order, a little like the original Sherlock Holmes tales.

The stories were written, edited and set up for publication. Thus ‘the Port Naain Intelligencer’ was ready to bestow upon a world hungry for something worth reading.

But obviously, I’m a writer, I write. So I move onto the next project and get completely engrossed in that. To the extent that I totally forgot that ‘Woman in Love’, the fourth of these stories is about to be published and I’ve done nothing. No publicity, no blog posts, no subtle hints on Facebook, nothing!

Not only that but I am of course completely tied up with the book I’m writing so I have to disentangle myself from that.

But still, if it is to be done, ’twere well it were done quickly. So I’m now ready to give you the good news about Woman in Love.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Love-Port-Naain-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B01H04MHK4/

As the blurb says, “Asked to look for a missing husband, Benor finds that the female of the species is indeed more deadly than the male.”

Cover Woman in Love

And a little from the story:

Benor found the Insane Asylum a fascinating building. A steep-sided pyramid, all eight floors were colonnaded. There were corridors around the outside in the colonnades, from which one got access to the heart of the building. The colonnades themselves were festooned with flowers, which hung down in curtains whilst streams of water flowed down and round the walkways, meeting to form a ceremonial moat around the building.

Benor crossed the bridge to be met by an attendant in a scarlet uniform.

“Can I help you sir?”

Benor paused. “I don’t know. I am Mister Shanus Lissel’s clerk. He came in three days ago with an oath of mental incapacity.”

“Ah, visiting hours is by appointment sir, you’ll have to arrange a time at the desk and take it from there.”

“No, I don’t mean Mister Lissel is an inmate.”

The functionary sounded reproachful. “We prefer to use the term ‘guest’ sir, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry. What I meant was that Mister Lissel swore the oath; the sworn oath was sent in here, but he’s just realised that he hasn’t got a copy and wondered if I could come in and take a copy for his files.”

“Ah, glad you got that cleared up. You’ll have to ask at the custodian’s office. Across the bridge, through the outer door, turn left before the guests’ door and you’ll find yourself at the office. Just knock and introduce yourself.”

Benor did as he was instructed. The outer door was an elegant affair of wood and glass. The guests’ door was somewhat more substantial. He would have been tempted to call it a portcullis, except that he’d never seen a portcullis decorated with brass filigree and stained glass. The steel bars managed to look as if they were there solely to provide the structural strength necessary to support such a work of art.

So go on, treat yourself, for a mere 98p you not merely get a good story, you get a chance to flaunt your perspicacity in front of those lesser mortals who somehow never got round to buying it.

Thank you Jim! Readers, you can follow Jim on his blog here https://jandbvwebster.wordpress.com/

6 Comments

Filed under General Wittering

Tagged as , , ,

4 Jun 2016 · 11:12 am

Lots of books for no pence… including mine #freeebooks

Yes! It is on again this weekend. Over 100 FREE ebooks on ALL SITES (wahoo!), not just Amazon.

PattiPromoJune

Just go here and start loading up your e-reader http://pattyjansen.com/promo/

 

4 Comments

Filed under Blimey!

Tagged as , , , , ,

17 May 2016 · 2:42 pm

My Permafree Experience … #bookmarketing #nicholasrossis

This week, I have mostly been doing a guest appearance on Nicholas Rossis’ excellent blog. He invited me to write about why I made Few Are Chosen free and why, for me, that has been a good move. If you’re into that sort of thing and want to know more, you can find the post here:

http://nicholasrossis.me/2016/05/17/my-permafree-experience-guest-post-by-m-t-mcguire/

 

12 Comments

Filed under General Wittering

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

7 May 2016 · 6:03 am

Sci-fi and fantasy authors cut their own throats to bring readers a #99c book #bargain. Like Mr Dibbler.

Patty Jensen Promo May16I just wanted to give you the heads up about this because… if you’re thinking of downloading Escape From B-Movie Hell and waiting for me to run a promotion, well … now’s your time. It’s down to 99p or possibly 99c but a lot less than it was, anyway.

Ooo why now MT? I hear you ask. Well, actually because it’s part of a giveaway this month. The giveaway is featuring a whopping 150 other science fiction and fantasy books which are all down to $99c on Amazon over the weekend of 7/8 May. So here’s the link to the promo:

http://pattyjansen.com/promo

Should you prefer to buy your books from sites other than Amazon, I’m really sorry, I buy most of my stuff from Kobo, myself, so I appreciate the frustration you must feel. Therefore, to make up for this giveaway being a bit Amazoncentric I also include links to Escape From B-Movie Hell on the other sites, where it is discounted also. So at least if you want to, you can pick that up for 99c between 4th May – 8th May.

Apple UK
Apple US
Apple AU
Kobo
Nook/Barnes & Noble
Google Play

6 Comments

Filed under General Wittering, Interesting

Tagged as , , , , ,

14 Apr 2016 · 4:10 pm

Careful with that axe Eugine! Drama at the garage: how MTM learns there are two sides to every argument.

Yesterday, I went to see the Old Dears. As you know Mum has had a stroke and Dad has a kind of dementia. These last few weeks he has had very limited mobility and been close to incontinent. We have newly brought in 24 hour live in care.

It’s hard.

As you can imagine my parents’ situation takes a lot of my mental air time right now … it seems I’m a long way into innerspace. What is interesting is how that has changed my perception of the world around me or perhaps, my ability to read it.

Check this, this is my Fitbit readout from yesterday.

FitbitBollocks

As you can see, my Fitbit is ADAMANT that I went up 157 floors. What I actually did was walk the usual 5 miles or thereabouts, probably, go up the stairs maybe 10 or 12 times? And do a 280 mile round trip in my car. For some reason, the way the steering feeds back to my hands convinces my Fitbit that I am walking. On the way home I put it on the seat beside me, at least then it only thought I’d walked half a mile (rather than the 3 miles it thought I’d done on the way down).

While I think I was a bit lardy yesterday, sitting around in a bucket seat listening to music for most of the time. My Fitbit thinks I was a physical dynamo doing 107 minutes of elevated heart rate activity. That figure was more like er hem … zero.

So, it just goes to show that two separate views of the same series of events can throw up completely different results depending on the presence, or absence, of one or two vital pieces of knowledge. You know I wasn’t an exercise dynamo yesterday because I’ve told you my Fitbit measures the bumps in the road as steps. Someone else without this critical piece of information might look at those stats and wonder, from all the stairs, whether I climbed the Empire State Building, or if I’m a triathlete.

Yesterday, this lesson was highlighted to me through the familiar medium of my making a complete tit of myself: I failed to understand the differences between the way someone else was seeing my actions and the spirit in which I knew they were made. In all things, it seems, communication and sensible clarity of thought are key. Pity I’m so crap at them, as this massive, completely unnecessary row I’m about to relate will demonstrate …

It’s a bright sunny Wednesday morning and after dropping McMini at school I walk back home via the market, pick up the car and set out for Sussex. I have about a quarter of a tank of petrol so I need to fill up.

Because it’s on the way and one of the three cheapest, I go to Tesco’s.  Now, Sainsburys, you have to pay at the Kiosk, Asda, you can only pay at the pump and Tesco’s you have a choice of both. Tesco’s has 3 or four rows of two pumps just far enough apart for you to get through and park if the two first ones are in use but one of the far ones is free. Unsurprisingly, with petrol prices rising by approximately one pence every day, it’s rammed. I pick my side and wait. Next to me are two builders’ lorries with a white Honda civic at the first pump and very quickly there is nothing at the second. The other side of me was a big lorry, blocking the way through. No-one was queuing there and a woman parked at the pump in front of the lorry was filling her car.

As you know, my Mum has had a stroke, so I am kind of feeling that I want to get to her and Dad quickly. I am therefore delighted when the woman parked at the pump in front of the lorry holsters the petrol nozzle.

Brilliant. I’ll nip through and reverse into her spot when she’s gone.

Except, Unfortunately, like most Tesco’s customers, she clearly finds it more convenient to fill up her car and queue for 5 minutes to pay in the kiosk rather than using the very much swifter pay at the pump option. I, on the other hand, prefer to wait 10 seconds for my credit card to be authorised at the pump, spend two minutes filling up my tank and then go. So I watch her go in to pay, note the queue is 7 or 8 deep so she’ll be some time, and wait.

We all sit there and I listen to the song, ‘Help’ by the Beatles in its entirety. Neither builder’s lorry drives through to the empty pump at the front of their line. Neither of the cars in front of me move – they are still filling up – and the lady whose car is still parked in front of the lorry is still queuing in the kiosk. Some time during the next song on my stereo, Mr White Honda finishes filling his car and sticks the nozzle back in the holster.

I feel pity for the builders when, like the lady in front of the lorry, Mr White Honda turns out to be a true Tesco’s petrol customer who, like the lady, spurns the faster, easier pay at pump option. Into the kiosk he goes to queue.

As I sit looking at the empty pump, with nobody using it, it occurs to me that I could have filled my car to the brim and departed a couple of times over. Tine is ticking on and I’m getting twitchy. I wonder, if I go to the empty pump, swipe my credit card, fill up and go before the driver of the white Honda returns to his vehicle, would that be queue barging? Surely if I am not holding anyone up or inconveniencing anyone it isn’t? I’m not pushing in, or holding anyone up, I’m just using something no-one is using while it’s free. Even better the folks behind me don’t have to wait for me. Yes, win-win. My brain, filled with, 24 hour care requirements, sick parents, etc agrees. The builders are clearly waiting for the white car so if I’m quick it’ll be fine. So I drive through and park up. As I get out of my car a man runs up to me shouting,

‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’ he yells, managing to imbue words ‘excuse me’ with an aggression and menace I never knew they held (I doubt he did either) ‘Can’t you see there’s a queue?’
His shouty vehemence puts my back up at once.
‘Yes I can but it’s not moving.’
He gets up to me a bit and raises his voice louder.
‘You’re jumping the queue.’
‘No I’m not, nobody’s using this pump.’
Two can do shouty, my friend. I am surprised at the volume of my voice as I bellow my answer back at him.
‘That’s because he’s bigger than I am,’ he makes a sweeping gesture at one of the lorries, ‘and he can’t get through, we’re waiting until this car goes and then we can both drive up together.’
This, delivered as if I’m a complete idiot for not knowing the bleedin’ obvious.
Ah note to self, there’s a hidden builder’s lorry etiquette to the art of buying petrol which must not be interfered with by mere mortals at any cost. I didn’t know that.
‘So? I’ll be gone before that happens.’
He looks more annoyed, indeed, as he reiterates that I’m jumping the queue and … yada … the blue touch paper catches and off he goes into space. I’m fully expecting him to start poking me in the chest with one finger such are his levels of vehemence. I feel bullied and at that mere thought, something in me unravels, the red mist descends. I tell him my mother is ill and I am in a hurry. He tells me that he’s sorry about my mother but that’s not his problem.
Obviously the precious 90 seconds I will delay him are far more important than the well-being of a vulnerable, ill old lady
(yes, I actually think this madness as he rants at me)  and so it is, that I, too, completely blow my top, for only the fifth time in my entire life, and join him in orbit.

More arguing ensues. I would write it down if I could, but to be honest I haven’t a fucking clue what I said, although I’m pretty sure I managed not to swear, which was a minor personal victory and probably the only positive I have to take away from this experience.

All the while as we harangue one another I am aware of three things:

  1. He doesn’t seem to be understanding anything I’m telling him.
  2. But this is unsurprising because my arguments are getting less and less cogent.
  3. There is something important I have missed that would defuse this.

I know that this whole situation is based on false impressions and wrong information. I know that I can stop his aggression in its tracks, stop him shouting at me and make him leave me alone. His angry bullying is totally unreasonable and inexplicable and this simple thing will allow him to understand that, but I am too angry and hurt to remember what the thing I need to remember is. I can’t speak or think coherently, I can only shout back at him. I want to step away from him. I want to ignore him. I want to take the fuel cap off, stick my credit card into the slot in the pump and fill up. I want to prove that I’ll be gone well before Mr White Honda gets back, well beyond the point when either lorry can can move, anyway. But I am afraid he will snatch the fuel cap from me and throw it into the hedge or try to physically restrain me. And then the police will be called, and I will never get to my parents.

Then I see that the woman who was filling her car at the far pump, in the row the other side of me, the one which is blocked by the lorry, has gone. The driver of the lorry is still filling it up, still blocking her pump from anyone else. ‘Alright, I’ll go over there, and I’ll still be gone before you get to fill up.’ I shout storming into my car and making a massive hash of parking it over by said pump.

And I would have been, of course, had I not been so apoplectic with rage by that time that I had to go and have another go. First I accosted the wrong bloke by mistake,

‘Oh bless you, sorry love,’ I tell him with a pat on the arm and then go to deliver a bitterly sarcastic apology to Mr Shouty for his totally unreasonable anger at me for not understanding builder’s etiquette, which, obviously, was very criminal of a non-builder and obviously I should have understood. But it’s his friend filling up the tank – who is clearly a decent bloke and gives me a genuine smile. Except I am too angry at being subjected to such a stream of unreasonable ire that I am unable to say the word etiquette and we both laugh as I stutteringly explain the cause. Obviously Mr Shouty has to come back then and protect his friend from what he probably sees as Angry Entiled Woman and has another go at me. I am still fully lit and so, channelling my inner fishwife I give just as good as I get. Telling him that I hope he’ll be treated with equal sympathy one day if his mother gets ill and he is trying to get to her – which is true but totally pointless,not a reasoned or rational argument and therefore pretty much redundant.

And all the while, Sensible M T is standing beside me, in a slightly out-of-body-tastic kind of way, watching in horror as I Basil Fawlty my way around the forecourt saying,

‘What are you doing?’

At last I listen to it. I have to, because I am, literally, spluttering with rage. Can’t get any coherent words out. Not at all. I go back to my car. Angry with myself for giving in to what I interpret as bullying from an aggressive male playing dog in a manger.

It takes approximately 90 seconds to authorise my card and top up the tank with 24 litres of petrol – oooooh and another 4 or 5 seconds to get a receipt. One of the cars I’d been queuing behind slows down, opens his window and calls out to me,

‘He was wrong and you were in the right,’ he said. I thank him. Perhaps he’d paid at the pump too.

It was only about 10 hours later that I realised what went wrong. I never told Mr Shouty I was paying at the pump. He and the other builder in front of him were in commercials. They probably use fuel cards or cash or some other means which entails dooming them to pay at the Kiosk forever, whether they want to or not. Pay at the pump was probably as dead a concept to Mr Shouty as it is to nearly every other Tesco’s petrol customer. It would never have crossed his mind that I was going to pay at the pump, bypass the kiosk completely, and be gone in under three minutes any more than it crossed my mind that I was not. He must have thought I was going to cut in and then stand in the kiosk waiting to pay for ages after Mr White Honda had gone. So then he’d have to wait for the other builder bloke to fill up and stand in the kiosk for ages, too, before he could get near a pump. And a commercial takes a lot longer to fill – he was probably putting a hundred odd litres in, not 24. In addition, we judge things by the parameters we’re used to, so he may well be thinking of my fill up would take about the same amount of time: ie much longer than it does.

Yeh, Mr Shouty probably believed he was looking at a delay of at least 20 minutes. No wonder he got in a strop. I think I might have been just as shouty, myself, if I was in his position and and I was reading what I saw that way.

So what can I learn from this? Apart from the fact that I get even more like Basil Fawlty when I get angry than I thought and must, therefore, keep my cool at absolutely all costs.

If I wasn’t already aware that stress and worry switch some important parts of my brain off, then, after trying to have that argument, I am now. Presumably that’s also why I drove up to the school in a thunder stom just now to collect my boy, only to remember that a friend’s mum is picking him up from school tonight, taking him round theirs for tea and dropping him off here! Bonus points there M T.

Communication and calmness are essential. Perhaps, this is the most important lesson; that communication is the name of the game, that calmness, even calm rage, is a better bet if you need to have a reasoned discussion but most of all that two different people can read polar opposites from the same information.

If I’d managed to stay calm and explained what I was doing properly, I doubt the slanging match would have happened. But if he hadn’t come up to me all shouty aggression, I might have managed that.

Assumptions … in any situation we and the other people round us make snap judgements and assumptions based on what we see. Sometimes they’re shite.

Would Mr Shouty have listened to my explanation? I don’t know. I do know that if it happens again, I’ll bet the angry person a tenner that I can fill my tank and be gone – without the kiosk and without any inconvenience to them – in under 3 minutes. I won’t collect though, because the odds are stacked against them to the point where it’s almost a scam.

Sigh. I’m such a plank. Never mind. At least I can laugh at myself.

14 Comments

Filed under Blimey!, General Wittering

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

9 Apr 2016 · 5:00 am

Killing Zombies with household pets and other stories. It’s Bloghop time! Books 2 Brain Cyber Convention Sci-fi Blog hop! Stop 4 Excerpts!

It’s a bit of a new thing for me, today because as well as the usual lovely peps, I am welcoming many of you to my blog for the first time as part of a blog hop. Hello and welcome to the Books 2 Brain cyber convention blog hop.

You are now mostly at, stop 4: Excerpts.

What you will find in this post is a brief wee snippet from a selection of fabulous speculative fiction books. Also, just for interest, I have asked the authors to answer ‘The Zombie Question’ you know the one, it goes like this:

‘The zombie apocalypse has begun. A zombie crashes into the room. You pick up the first thing you can see on your left hand side, right now, to defend yourself. What is the object you pick up and how will you kill the zombie with it?’

So without more ado, I welcome our first guest, J D Brink.

invasion

Here is an excerpt from Invasion (Identity Crisis, Book 1):

The creature’s head split in half with a burst of steel wool brains and azure sparks.  Ballista’s big glaive proved sharp enough for cleaving the skulls of even robotic alien vermin.  She planted the weighted pommel of her staff in the thing’s back and easily vaulted over it in the low gravity, catapulting herself into the next target.  Her kick sent it sideways, and she twirled her weapon back for another slash, severing a segmented limb.  It had many, however, and another insect arm snapped around, firing a bolt of green bio-electric energy that barely missed burning a hole through her ribcage.  In these close quarters, that miss was as much luck as skill.  She couldn’t give the thing another shot.  With a flurry of blows, Ballista repelled the beast with the glaive’s pommel and slashed with its heavy blade, repeatedly trading one side of the staff for the other until the thing had but one leg and an exposed underbelly.  One more swing and the collection of wires and tubing that the bug called organs were leaking into the compartment.

Ballista breathed heavily.  She stretched a kink out of her neck and felt the dreadlocks of her spongy hair stick to her sweaty back.  These metallic monsters were a challenge, at least, and though she fought for her life, she found that she was enjoying it.  This was much more like what the gladiator was used to; being a “superhero” on Earth, especially in American society, was more delicate work.  You often had to pull your punches, and killing was largely frowned upon.  Though not killing, she had found to her own surprise, had been a relief to her conscience.  Mercy was not a bad thing.  Still, her combatant’s muscles had missed this kind of fight.

She strode to the next hatch and punched the button to open it.  The octagonal room beyond was dimly lit white with grey shadows.  It took a moment to recognize the crumpled shape of a man wearing a spacesuit and hiding among two empty suits hooked to the bulkhead.  (The big white clown costumes were too cumbersome and confining for her tastes.)  Ballista marched up to him and lifted him from the floor by the suit’s big round collar.  “Captain Marcus?” she asked sternly.  The panicky man’s mouth gaped and his blue eyes flashed around, not seeing anything but his impending death.  “I asked you a question,” she barked, shaking him.  “Are you Captain Marcus or not?”  She’d not paid enough attention to these astronauts to keep track of which was which.

The jarring got him to focus on her.  His mouth made a few attempts to speak, gasping for air like a fish thrown from water, before finally finding words.  “Ye—yes.  Marcus.  I’m Marcus.  Oh, thank God it’s you.”

She did recognize him now, between the eyes and the thinly-trimmed beard.  He was the one who’d said something stupid about never having seen a purple woman before.  It had been some pathetic attempt at flirtation, which she’d been nice enough to let go without physically injuring him.  “Make prayers to your deities later,” she said, turning and flinging him toward the open hatch.  In the low-g, he soared through perfectly.

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of Invasion:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From Fugitive Fiction

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

To my immediate left as I type this is my dog, Jack.  He’s a fluffy white Maltese with a fierce attitude, a cross between a mop and a shark leaping for a seal.  As the zombie crashes through the front door, I react with lightning reflexes, pick up Jack, and spiral-pass him like a football.  Jack soars teeth-first into the zombie and proves himself more vicious than any brain-starved walking corpse!

Three places to find out more about J D Brink.

J D Brink’s Blog: http://brinkschaostheory.blogspot.com
J D Brink on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jd.brink.3
J K Brink on twitter: https://twitter.com/J_D_Brink

And now, I welcome our second guest, Chess Desalls.

Lantern 5 StarsHere is an excerpt from here free novella Lantern:

Fireflies lit the sky, dancing and twirling beneath a curtain of stars. Weary eyes found it impossible to tell where the stars’ twinkling ended and the fireflies began.

One by one, rays of light flickered to life, stretching from torches held by a circle of party guests. No sooner would one’s eyes adjust to a new beam before the one next to it made itself known, appearing to the former’s right, and so on, until the circle of light was complete.

Tori found herself standing in the center of the circle. Funny, she thought, squinting. I don’t remember being invited to a party. She looked down at her dress and smiled. Fabric and lace in soft pastels blossomed from a belt of lollipops cinched around her waist. Her gaze followed the knee-length hem to her legs, covered with tights banded red and white like candy canes sticking out of clumps of mud. She frowned. Instead of dainty ballerina flats, she’d worn her hiking boots.

Confused as to why she’d forget such an important detail for her costume, Tori ran her fingers through her blue and pink wig. Feeling the weight of a handle pulling against her other hand, she looked down, expecting to see a trick-or-treat bag filled with candy.

She stared at her hand as a sick feeling washed over her. Instead of a bag, she held a lantern. All of the torches were aimed toward it, making it glow more brightly than she’d ever seen. Trembling, she lifted the lantern away from the converging beams of light. She sucked in a breath as she stared at an unlit globe, empty with darkness.

“What’s wrong, Tor?”

Tori’s mouth fell open. “Shawna, what are you doing here?”

“You invited me, silly. I wanted to check out that lantern you’ve been telling me about.” Shawna’s broad shoulders shrugged forward as she bent to look inside the lantern. “Hmm, not much going on in there tonight.” Silky black sleeves and leggings accentuated the slim outlines of her arms and legs as she straightened up. Brows lifted above gray eyes in a mock accusatory look, which Tori might have taken seriously had it not been for the mini witch hat perched on her head.

“Great costume,” said Tori. “How come you’re not dressed in your volleyball uniform this year?”

“I had time to come up with something different while you were away. I wanted to surprise you.”

Tori squeezed her friend. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m happy to see you.”

“I brought someone with me.” Shawna smirked. “He’s been waiting a long time to see you.”

Jared? Is he here? Is that why he’s not inside the lantern? Before Tori could repeat her questions aloud, Shawna playfully shoved someone in front of her, a male dressed in a plum-colored cloak; his regalia sparkled with candies made of silver and gold.

“Surprise! I hope you don’t mind that I hinted at your costume. You know, so you could match.”

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a free copy of Lantern:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From iBooks

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

I pick up a retractable pen and shake it back and forth. “Here, boy,” I say, whistling. “Tastes like brains.”

The zombie darts his half-rotten eyes back and forth, following the clicking sounds I make with the pen’s push mechanism.

“You want this, don’t ya? C’mon, you can get it.” I wind up my arm and let it spring forward.

A trickle of drool leaks from the zombie’s slackened lips. Groaning as his prize soars through the air, he turns to follow. He leaps after the pen—catches it. But not until it falls below the gutters lining the roof’s edge.

Three places to find out more about Chess Desalls:

And now, I welcome our third guest, Kate M Colby.

The Cogsmith's Daughter - Ebook SmallHere is an excerpt from The Cogsmith’s Daughter:

“Until we meet again,” King Archon said, staring only at Aya.

Lord Varick took Aya’s arm and led her away from the thrones. With every step, she tightened her grip around his elbow. Varick must have noticed, but he didn’t let on, keeping his face even and greeting the various nobles as they passed. The nerve of King Archon. Sitting up there on his throne, taking compliments on his new wife as though she was some sort of trophy. And the way he looked at Aya! If he kept up such piggish behavior, Aya would have no problem setting him up for execution.

Aya tried to temper her breathing by gazing around the room. She saw many noblemen she recognized from working at the Rudder, but she’d never served any of them. She doubted any of them would remember glimpsing her in the hallway or through a cracked door, but even if they did, they could not reveal her identity without exposing themselves as adulterers. She searched the crowd for Lord Collingwood or Lord Derringher to see if she could get a look at their wives to report back to Dellwyn. Unfortunately, she didn’t see either of them. Perhaps they had already paid their respects to the queen. She made a mental note to look for them again at the ball—assuming she really did attend.

When they were back in the corner of the room, Lord Varick released her arm. “For a woman, you have quite a strong grip.”

Aya shrugged. “I do a lot of clinging in my line of work.”

Lord Varick laughed.

“How did I do?”

Lord Varick grinned, his eyes crinkling. “You did quite well, my dear. I would say the king already seems intrigued by you.”

“I had forgotten his voice.” A shudder slipped down her spine. “I thought I could hear it clearly in my nightmares, but it is much sharper in person. And his eyes, they pierce you.”

Lord Varick nudged her. “Some women find piercing eyes appealing.”

“And some women find piercing eyes a reminder of the ax that pierces through a man’s neck.”

Lord Varick’s eyes widened, and his lips curved into a smirk. “The more you speak your mind, Miss Aya, the more delightful you become. You really should be more open with your thoughts.”

Aya rolled her eyes. “I was taught to be open with nothing but my legs.”

“Ha! That is it!” Lord Varick clapped. “That fire! Keep that blazing, and King Archon and every other man in this palace will come crawling to you.”

Aya blushed. She hadn’t meant to be so forward, but seeing King Archon again ignited something in her—something she hadn’t been allowed to express when she’d been thrown out of her home and selling off her dresses for bread and washing noblemen’s seed off of pillows. She had been good. Mouth shut and legs open. She had allowed Madam Huxley to command her every action and Dellwyn to speak for her. No more.

This was her chance to reclaim her life, to get back her father’s shop, and finally attain justice for his death. She was going to take it or die trying.

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of the Cogsmith’s Daughter:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From iBooks

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

As the zombie staggers toward me, I grab my aluminium water bottle off my desk. It’s rather useless–cylindrical, blunt–but it’s the only object within reach. I fling water at the zombie. The stream hits it in the eyes, but the zombie keeps coming, undeterred. It opens its mouth to groan at me, and I seize my opportunity.

With a war cry of my own, I run forward and ram the narrow end of my water bottle into its mouth. We fall to the ground, and I use my body weight to grind my water bottle further into the zombie’s head. A crack, a pop, a spurt of blood, and the zombie falls still.

I stand, my entire body shaking, and wipe the sweat from my brow. I notice a tear in my sleeve, and search my arm. No scratches. For once, I feel grateful for my apartment’s inefficient heating system and the thick, wool sweater my grandma knitted. With a sigh, I head to the kitchen. The water bottle proved its worth, but next time, I’d rather be attacked near a butcher knife.

Three places to find out more about Kate M Colby:

Website: http://www.KateMColby.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorKateMColby
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KateMColby

And now, I welcome our fourth guest, David Kelley.

Dead Reckoning And Other StoriesHere is an excerpt from Dead Reckoning and Other Stories:

Snap!

A white-hot pain burned through Hector’s chest and head; for one brief second he was overwhelmed by agony roiling up his spine and cauterizing every nerve.

No, wait. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. Can I think this over a little longer? His mind skittered in fear.

Snap!

A second stab of agony completed the transfer. The pain was gone. The ache in his limbs that had been there for at least twenty years was gone. The stabilization-induced torpor was gone too.

And so were his clothes.

While the first three items were blessings and made him want to jump around screaming like a madman, the idea of wandering naked around the virtual heaven of LifePlus Inc’s Select community bothered him. He’d have settled for just about anything, even a pair of pajamas. He had a beautiful pair of dark red silk ones Kaydianne had bought him. She said they made him look just like Bublé in all those classic movies, a little heavier perhaps but…

Hector’s confusion grew as he examined himself. He had the same body he’d died in. Where was the twenty-four year old hunk-body he’d never had, but ordered? And why didn’t he have any clothes? Dark red silk, gray woolen worsted, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt promoting General ToyoSan Motors would have been acceptable. Where was his luxury villa, complete with swimming pool and maid service?

Instead he gazed down on a flabby chest, gray-hair covered man-breasts, flaccid arms and thighs. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for. Glowing letters flared up inside his vision, but they were meaningless:

——————————————————-

Tren-Hump, Hector. TH15D3AD-1485-13A6-5661A946B3101857

Cycles: 1            CPU Credit: 1%           Ducks: 0.0

——————————————————-

Snap!

Hector jumped, his body arching reflexively. This wasn’t the same moment of disconnection he’d experienced during the transfer; this was a blistering pain that cut across his back as though his spine had been ripped out.

“Okay, Noob. Time to get all those gleaming new Hoxels dirty.”

The creature facing Hector was huge: a powerful humanoid at least three meters tall with four arms and a physique that would have made the Hulk turn white.

“I’m Marshal, but you call me Sir, and make sure you shout it loud so there’s no mistake.”

“What the hell’s going on here — yeow!” Hector squealed again as the whip snapped out and flayed across his shoulders. Virtual or not, the pain felt like his skin had been torn from his body.

“SIR!”

Hector cowered, the searing pain in his back throbbing mercilessly. “What the hell’s going on here, Sir?”

Again the whip lashed out and Hector screamed.

“And be respectful when you speak to me,” bellowed the Marshal. The whip flicked several times like a cat swishing its tail but didn’t land a blow. “Join the line and get ready to do some heavy duty Judgment.”

“Judgment? Ahhhh!” The whip lashed out again, wrapping around Hector’s flabby torso.

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of Dead Reckoning and Other Stories:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From Kobo

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

The object on my immediate left is my wife. I’d grab her. She’d be useless for killing the zombie with, but I’d throw her in anyway. This would buy me time to make a run for it and get to safety. 😉

Mwah hahahargh! And if his wife sees that one, look out for David Kelley in a shallow grave near you!

Three places to find out more about David Kelley:

Websit: http://www.davidmkelly.net
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/David.Kelly.SF
Twitter: http://twitter.com/David_Kelly_SF

And now, I welcome our fifth guest, Massimo Marino:

Daimones-663x1024Here is an excerpt from Diamones (the Daimones Trilogy: Book 1):

Excerpt. Characters: Dan, and his wife Mary. Location: their place, turned into a stronghold, in the Geneva countryside, at the border with France.
After the culling of the human race, and months spent surviving and in search of others, Mary lost all hopes.
“[…] this proves there could be others. With time, maybe, many others.”

Mary nodded.

She was somber and stared at the stove. Without raising her eyes from the dinner she was preparing, she asked: “How many, Dan? Can you tell me? Maybe it’s just that girl we saw…and we might not see her ever again.” She paused then, looking straight into my eyes. “I love you, Dan. And I love Annah. Sometimes I wonder whether all this makes sense. What will be our life next winter, or a year or more from now? Can you tell me?”

“Mary…” I started, but Mary raised her hand to silence me.

“I will carry on, for you and Annah. But I cannot promise you for how long, not this way. Why didn’t we die, too? Why, Dan?” Her body seemed to implode, as if something broke internally. Resting both stiff arms on the counter, her head collapsed between her shoulders. “It would have been so much easier now.”

“Now? What are you talking about? We’d be dead, now. You would be dead, Annah would be dead. Is that what you want? You’ve seen those rotting remains. Don’t do this…”

She kept her head down. “Just hold me. Please.”

I held her tightly in my arms. I cried without making any sound. Mary wasn’t, and that made me cry even more. Warm tears, heavy, and coming from the depths. I couldn’t lose her. I simply could not.

As if she was reading my mind, Mary whispered in my ear, “I don’t have any more tears…”

I stayed there, and hugged my wife hoping she would not crumble any further. That night, the whole night, I kept searching for her, continuously pressing my body against her, breathing her.

During the night, Mary complained a few times she was cold, and asked me to lay next to her even closer and to put my arms around her. I prayed to God that I could be the fire that kept her alive, that kept her away from that cold that grows from the inside. It rises like a shivering fever, and consumes you inexorably, eating up all your strengths and leaving you emptied, hopeless, and ready to give up.”

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of Diamones (The Diamones Trilogy: Book 1):

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From iBooks

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

Depends on the room, but the one I’m in here right now gives me nothing I can turn into a real weapon. 
 To my left, books, some boring to death but reading won’t do it. The soft cushions of the sofa might suffocate a living, but not a zombie. On the coffee table a silver tray catches my eyes and I grab it. It’s sturdy, the edge is blunt and the zombie can’t bite through it. I push him back with all my weight. His hands try to grab me and I slam the tray into its open mouth. He gurgles and his grin wides as I push the tray through. We fall and his jaw rips off. I keep slamming with the tray over and over at the root of his rotten nose. Something breaks, and it’s not the tray. A fetid fluid sprays my face. I keep hitting with all my strength and I stop only when two hands grab me by my shoulders.
“We have to run! More are coming!”
The zombie’s head is a pool of black and thick goo and I’m covered with it.
“Let’s go!” screams my girlfriend. I fail to recognize her for at first. 
Scratching sounds and raucous snarls comes from the porch. The front door slams open and three bodies stumble in.
We run.
I’ve never been back home since.

.

Three places to find out more about Massimo Marino.

Website: http://massimomarinoauthor.com
 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MassimoMarinoAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/J_D_Brink

And now, I welcome our sixth guest, Belinda Crawford.

hero-cover-smlHere is an excerpt from The Hero Rebellion, Book 1:

It was windy on the foredeck, and cold, but the air smelled like freedom and Fink was warm against Hero’s back.

The ruc-pard purred, a rumble that vibrated from his giant chest into hers, and all the way down to her toes. She snuggled deeper into the hollow between his fore- and mid-quarters, enjoying the feel of his thick winter coat. Golden-red and silky, she sank into it, the hairs brushing her bare arms with every giant breath he took, the longer, coarser hair on his ruff tickling her cheek. Fink’s black, hairless tail wrapped around them both, the heavy weight of it draped across her feet, warming her toes.

Lazy images swam through her mind, carried on the distinct pink and mawberry of Fink’s thoughts – the taste of them sweet, the touch of them a soft fizz winding through her brain. She might have stopped and played for a moment in his memories, if the huge skytowers of Cumulus City weren’t spread across the horizon.

She’d seen all the holotours, interrogated all of the guides, but she’d never thought the city would be so… there wasn’t a word big enough to describe it. Surrounded by its sprawling mass of satellite ‘burbs, Cumulus City rose thirty thousand feet through the atmosphere, an endless patchwork of grey and green connected by the silver threads of bridges and the restless movement of the skylanes.

Below, spires shot planetside and massive generators kept the city and its ‘burbs aloft, while giant tethers prevented it from drifting with the winds.

The city was her ticket, her chance, to see Jørn, to explore the planet’s surface without minders or gadgets or her mum looking over her shoulder. She rubbed the dull plasteel bracelet wrapped around her wrist. Or so she hoped.

She breathed deep and hugged her bare arms against the chill as freedom came closer and closer on the horizon.

‘Hero.’ The Lamb, the latest in her bevy of minders, stood in her peripheral vision clutching a heavy coat, the wind flattening her white-blonde curls against her head. Her mouth was pulled tight and her big green eyes were wide, almost swallowing her face. The way she eyed Fink looked to Hero as if she were waiting for him to flash his fangs and pounce, and she held herself like one of the old Terra creatures Hero had named her for, stiff and tense, leaning away from the ‘pard as if the extra millimetre would save her if he did. A brave lamb, wary but not scared.

Hero wondered at where Tybalt–butler, tutor, substitute parent–had found someone who didn’t quake before six-hundred kilograms of genetically engineered ruc-pard, bigger at the shoulder than Hero was tall, and twice as long. This woman wouldn’t be as easy to get rid of as the others.

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of The Hero Rebellion, Book 1:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Barnes & Noble
From Author’s Website – get a signed copy.

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

I immediately pick up my tea cup and, channeling Riddick, smash it against the arm of my chair before shoving the broken, jagged end into the zombie’s rotted eye. The eye will burst and the cup’s ceramic teeth will shred its flesh, spraying my hand with old blood and the zombie’s putrid stink, but I’ll keep digging, pinning the thing to the wall with my other hand, until the shards pierce its brain.

The zombie will shudder and twitch, and I’ll give the cup a nasty little twist–just to finish the job–before letting the body slump to the ground at my feet.

Three places to find out more about Belinda Crawford:

And now, I welcome our seventh guest, Me, M T McGuire.

9781907809262_LowResHere is an excerpt from Escape From B-Movie Hell:

I noticed Eric was beginning to go a bit blurry round the edges. If I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye, I would see something … else, but when I turned to look closely, he’d be Eric again. Whatever was going on, I decided it was best faced on a full stomach, so for now I’d cope with it the British way: ignore it and pretend nothing was happening. Eric kept drifting in and out of focus and the pain behind my eyes intensified each time his image sharpened. He was looking increasingly worried and uncomfortable, and judging by the expression on his face, he thought I was about to have a stroke. I was beginning to think the same thing.

“Andi,” he began haltingly but I interrupted him.

“Eric, have you got an aspirin on you?”

“Yes.”

“Can I have one?”

“What? Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a headache, you dolt.” Blimey, what was the problem? I wished he’d hurry up, if he didn’t give me one of those aspirins absolutely immediately the top of my head was going to blow off.

“OK, Andi, I can stop your headache but you have to promise me you won’t go all limp and fall over again.”

So Eric was Norwegian but surely he’d seen people faint before – I mean people faint all the time don’t they? His expression was panicky but also slightly shifty.

“It’s called fainting, imbecile and no, I won’t.”

He pressed me.

“You promise?”

“Yes I promise!” He eyed me sceptically. For heaven’s sake! How much reassurance could a person need? “I will not faint again,” I told him. As if I had some kind of control over it. “Satisfied?”

He nodded.

“Good! Now for God’s sake give me an aspirin or I’m going to die.”

“No. I’m not going to give you an aspirin. I’m going to stop your headache.”

My reply died on my lips as Eric went into soft focus at the edges again. As he did so, my head began to hurt less. I didn’t like this one bit, there was definitely a correlation between the amount of ache in my head and the amount of blur round Eric. I turned away from him and looked out onto the City of London through the plate glass windows which made up two-thirds of the Student Union canteen wall. I scanned the familiar skyline. The Post Office Tower and the Gherkin were where they should be. The Shard? Check. The Walkie Talkie? Check. All was right with the world and nothing, except Eric, was blurry. I faced him again and as I stared, something moved by his head. Was that a tentacle? No, no. My friend did not have tentacles.

“Andi?” Eric waved his hand in front of my face except …

Hang on. That definitely was a hint of a pincer there. Maybe it was a joke. Yeh that was it: a joke; a piss-poor one at that.

“Eric, what are you doing?”

“How’s your head?”

“It hurts a bit less.”

“OK,” he said slowly. “Andi, this is going to freak you out a bit.”

“Then don’t do it.”

“I don’t have any choice.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, I don’t. Your brain can’t take it.”

My breath caught.

“Can’t take what Eric? Tell me right now or I swear to God I’m going to—”

I stopped. My headache had gone and this time, I knew I wasn’t imagining it. Slowly Eric became a translucent wavy outline and behind him something else appeared. It looked a bit like a lobster, but without a tail and with fewer legs: two pairs to walk on and a pair of ‘arms’ with huge pincers on them. It was about seven feet tall with two long antennae. It had mouth parts like a praying mantis and on top of its head were seven stalks, each with a human-like eye on the end: the eyes were blue, like Eric’s. The creature’s exoskeleton was reddish-brown and glistening with translucent slime. I sat there for a few moments with my mouth open.

“It’s difficult to explain,” he said.

Yeh. I reckoned that was the officially certified understatement of all time.

Want to read more? Here are three places to grab a copy of Escape From B-Movie Hell:

From Amazon – links to your local store
From Kobo
From iBooks

The Answer (to the Zombie Question).

Ah, the thing on my left is my cat, Harrison. Harrison is a food obsessed moron. I can’t see him defeating a zombie.

‘Brainsssss,’ says the Zombie shuffling closer.

I pick Harrison up and contemplate how I can damage the zombie with him. He starts to purr.

The zombie shuffles closer still. I notice that it has a distinctly cheesy smell.

‘Have you been eating Doritos?’ I ask it.

Harrison’s ears go pointy at the mention of the C word.

‘Brainssss,’ the zombie says.

Well, I suppose it would.

‘Conversation’s not your strong point is it? Did you know you smell of cheese?’

 The zombie doesn’t answer. Cat in arms, I stand up and back away. What to do? Throw Harrison at it and leap through the window? Possibly but knowing my luck I will bounce off the glass and the zombie will feast on my unconscious form while the cat looks on with a confused expression. Even if I lob Harrison at the zombie, will he distract it long enough for me to pick up a chair and chuck it through the glass. And what if it eats him? It’s hardly responsible pet ownership is it? And the idea of owning a zombie cat lacks appeal.

Then I am distracted by Harrison. He is wriggling. I try to hold onto him but he escapes and leaps to the floor rushing towards the zombie. For a moment I stand petrified and then I realise he’s doing The Cheese Meow. Harrison is obsessed with cheese and the cheesy smell of this particular zombie is driving him wild. In seconds he leaps into the air. Then he is on the zombie. The battle is bloody and swift, and judging by Harrison’s eager and speedy snarfing, the zombie tastes as cheesy as it smells. Soon, the stripped skeleton is all that remains. Harrison drags his distended stomach a few feet away and flops contentedly onto his side. He will enjoy the mother of all sleeps after his feast of undead cheesy flesh. When he looks up at me and winks, I swear he burps.

Three places to find out more about M T McGuire (apart from here):

On my website: www.hamgee.co.uk
Thanks for reading everyone, the next post in this smashing tour is author interviews and you can find it and all the other posts on this Goodreads thread here or just head on to the next stage at Kylie Jude’s blog, here.

6 Comments

Filed under Blimey!, General Wittering, Interesting

Tagged as , , , , ,

4 Mar 2016 · 1:31 pm

A free box, an embarrassing parent and over 100 #free #scifi_books!

This week I have mostly been cheating and taken my blog post from my monthly round robin email, but when you get to the bit about free sci-fi books you’ll understand why, because it’s good.

Patty Jensen Promo 3-5

This week as McMini and I trundled home from school we noticed a large wooden box in someone’s front garden. It was big, big enough to accommodate a full grown adult well … a small one anyway, and it had a sign on it saying, ‘free please help yourself’. Shameless skip-shopper that I am, there was no way I was going to leave it there, but sensitive to my McMini’s sensibilities I asked him anyway.

After a brief discussion as to whether the box was the free item in question, or whether there’d originally been something else on top, which some other enterprising local had already removed, we decided we’d take the box, paint it and use it to store some of McMini’s gargantuan collection of lego. Even though we were 99% certain it was the box they were giving away we decided to make our exit a sharp one. The box and its garden were only a few hundred yards from our house so it wouldn’t take long to nip home.

Except that when it came to moving the box my arms were not long enough to carry it by both handles so the exit was not exactly sharp. It involved puffing, panting, pigeon steps and lengthy stops for protracted bouts of breathless wheezing and giggling. After ‘carrying’ it about five yards in 10 minutes, some kind local took pity on us and took the other handle. We got it the rest of the way in about 30 seconds flat!

McMini told me I was ‘awkward’ which is 7 year old speak for ‘a complete and utter embarrassment’. I told him about the time my Mum made me join her in our coat cupboard to hide from some on-spec visitors and he decided that, perhaps, I might be a bit less embarrassing than I could be. The box is now in our garage, awaiting filler, sanding and painting. You can see from the bike next to it that it’s quite large… yes, I’m posting a picture of a box for you to see because I find boring stuff so incredibly interesting! Mwah hahahahrgh! But then if I wasn’t obsessed with the minutiae of life, I probably wouldn’t write books

Continuing on the subject of getting something for nothing, I wanted to give you the heads up about some free sci-fi and fantasy books that will be up for grabs this weekend: over 100 of them!

Renowned Australian sci-fi author, Patti Jansen has got together with a bunch of over 100 other sci-fi and fantasy authors who, in a moment of March madness, will be giving away their books for free. The theme has two streams: books that are in Kindle Unlimited – although I believe many of those are going to be free to non Kindle Unlimited Amazon users for 5th and 6th March – and free first in series on Kobo; they’re free whatever.

Patti has kindly included a link to download the Kobo app, for any amazon only users who might want it. More details can be found on the giveaway page, which is on Patti’s site.

So, to sum up:

I got a free box, and you can get some free books.

To take a look at the books in Patti Jansen’s Insane March Promo, click on the picture at the top of this page – not the box, that’s in the middle, anyway, the super promotion thingummy – or, slightly easier, click this link here:

Patti Jansen’s Insane March Promo: http://pattyjansen.com/promo/

 

7 Comments

Filed under Blimey!, Free Stuff

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

22 Feb 2016 · 3:44 pm

Underground, Overground, Wombling Free…!

It’s a long time since I wrote anything on my blog. There is a reason. It’s because Real Life has been quite hectic. Worse, it’s been hectic in a way that has meant that I need to write to stay sane. That’s where I’ve been. Writing, and driving 130 miles to Sussex in the middle of the night to accompany one parent to hospital while a carer stays over and looks after the other, then doing the full care package for a day and dealing with all their heating and the cooker being turned off due to a gas leak on one and a half hours’ sleep… that kind of thing.

But now I’ve just finished half term week during which I was compelled to leave my characters to their own devices and interact with Real Life. So here I am, sorting some bits of real life out before I go back to my routine of not very much time, but a bit more than before, and a lot more of it spent writing. Also, my parents are on a more even keel now, so the desperation with which I escaped into my made up world is not quite so marked.

As you probably know, both my parents are in their 80s and they need a bit of help. To that end, I’ve been trying to get some disability aids out of Social Services for them. It’s not that social services won’t give them, just that it takes ages. There’s one particular thing called a ‘perching stool’ which Mum could really use in the kitchen, right now. But there’s a 20 working day waiting time before they can even call you back and start the process. I have been wondering if I should buy one – if Social came up trumps with a second I could always put the bought one in the greenhouse for her. But I was havering, because they cost a sod of a lot of money, these things.

So imagine how insanely chipper I was to discover this bizarrely obscure item in a skip this morning, just outside my gym! It was brand new and it wasn’t alone. It was in there with three other disability aids: a riser loo seat for people with dodgy hips which was still wrapped in its plastic and a really handy trolly-cum-walker with two shelves for trays. All had labels on with a number to call for collection after use, so at the least, I thought, if Mum and Dad have no use for them, I can ring the number and get them back to people who need them. Anyway, I had to take the trolley because it was the only way I was going to get the stuff, plus my bicycle, home. So, with the help of three of the ladies who also attend my gym, who praised me for my Womble* like tendences, I climbed into the skip and relieved it of its disability enhancing contents.

SkipScore

If anyone had ever told me I would get excited about finding items like these in a skip I’d have told them to piss off. Luckily, no-one did. Unlike the time I said I’d never marry a lawyer and then…

It will be even more of a challenge to get the things – which are square and firm and most non-folding – from Bury St Edmunds to Sussex in a Lotus. I might have to borrow McOther’s car.

Even so it’s a bit of a result. I am, naturally, hugely chuffed to have these difficult-to-get things fall into my lap, instantly, when I never expected them to, and for free.

Mwah hahahahrgh! Sometimes the stars just align.

 

*If you don’t know what a womble is, click here the song explains it. Obviously, they are a lot more interesting when you are 7.

10 Comments

Filed under Free Stuff, General Wittering

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,