Tag Archives: author blog

24 Sep 2022 · 12:12 pm

Compassion … so fucking underrated

A picture of the queenThis week I was going to write about The Queen, I may not have time to do it justice because I am going to have to write today’s blog post yesterday and speak to you from the past. That means I only have half an hour or so before I’m due to take McMini off to a club. Then, since he’s already eaten I have to come home and eat, then shower and then McOther will be picking him up. Tomorrow, or at least, today as you read this—Crikey! This is complicated isn’t it?—I’m off at 6.30 am to Norcon; and on Sunday too.

The Queen was a reluctant monarch. She prayed that she’d have a brother so she didn’t have to be queen—at that time, a boy took precedence over a girl even if he was younger. She also prayed that her father wouldn’t have to be king because she understood, correctly, that it would do for him in the end. Then she went on to do this thing she didn’t want to do for 70 years. That’s … seriously impressive.

Managing my parents’ finances and watching them gradually losing their sanity is probably a perfect storm of everything at which I am shit. Seriously, if God had set out to give me everything I find difficult he couldn’t have done a better job. It’s all maths and being organised and remembering to do staff, remembering to phone at certain times, sitting for hours on hold, patience, and numbers; a side of my personality which is seriously lacking and an aspect of my intelligence that is entirely absent. If my other brain was like my numbers brain, I’d be living in sheltered accomodation for people with learning difficulties. I’m great in a crisis and so naturally I am given a long-term millstone; a grinding expanse of interminable twilight grey that stretches as far as I can see. I’m one for the sprint, so I have been given the marathon. I can’t bear watching people suffer and so I must. For years.

Thanks for that, God. Thanks a fucking bunch.

Then, of course, I look at The Queen who stuck at it for 70 years, and I’m complaining about seven. Maybe I should rethink my weapons-grade whining levels then. Although not here, because, clearly that’s what this is for. I watched all of the State Funeral, and I enjoyed it too. Oh I know all the miserable republicans will be saying that the money shouldn’t have been spent on the funeral but frankly, I would consider a national event like that more valuable than the pathetic drop in the ocean of public funds the money it cost would entail. Clearly, I lack the miserable protestant fun-sapping outlook to think The Moral Way. President Johnson? In his dreams but thankfully, not our reality. It’s worth the expense for that, alone. I believe it’s actually quite important to have someone in power who doesn’t want to be there. King George VI was a reluctant monarch, Queen Elizabeth II was a reluctant monarch and I suspect Charles III is equally reluctant.

Good.

Sorry Chas but at the same time, I feel your pain.

I suppose it’s hard to see past the luxury but to me, guilded or not, a cage is still a cage. I wouldn’t fancy it myself. Oh yeh, money makes things easier, C.F. my present predicament dealing with the whole Mum Thing, and money can contribute to happiness, but it doesn’t make you happy on its own. Something inside you has to do that.

Having lived in a very small community where everyone knew who I was, even though I didn’t know them, and where everyone felt as if they knew me, and treated me like a long lost friend (lovely in many respects but sometimes difficult) I can imagine what being Royal is like. I lived in a place where everyone expected me to know them the way they felt they knew me, even if we hadn’t actually met before (still touching but also extremely scary) I can tell you that, even from direct experience in a very, very small arena, this kind of notoriety is significantly less fun than people think. If there was no escape? Ugh.

Royals have lots of stuff but only two weeks a year in which to enjoy it. As non royals, the rest of us Brits get four. It’s easy to forget that people with money, or kept by the state, are still human beings like us at the bottom of it all.

Personally, I feel that the debate about costs is disingenuous; a blind to cover the real issue, which is that some nod to a sense of social justice among those in Parliament would be very helpful right now and seems to be distinctly lacking.

Yes. In all walks of life it seems we are still raging at the most vulnerable in pissy, small-minded anger and egging our government on to even greater heights of petty vindictiveness towards the have nots, while it does the metaphorical equivalent of trying to chisel off a fifty pence that’s been superglued to the pavement as a joke while they ignore the huge suitcase of money behind them in the form of corporate tax dodging efficiency. You know, the stuff over and above the 1% companies like Google and Starbucks pay that they’re supposed to be paying.

Also, excuse me but why the fuck are they using my tax money to cap fuel payments? The fuel companies are posting record profits while the vulnerable and poor are choosing between eating or heating. Who should be paying for this crisis? I’d humbly suggest the fuel and energy companies whose corporate greed caused it.

Here’s another example; supermarket petrol. Supermarkets use your loyalty card and credit card transactions as anonymous data to track which products sell best where. They give people a rating based on income, A through to C and possibly D, I don’t recall (it’s a while since I’ve done this kind of marketing). Then they split each group into numbered bands, A1 the richest, A2 less rich, A3 still loaded but not as rich, B1 well-off professionals, etc through to C3 … possibly D3 I have neither the time nor the inclination to look it up for this, a very generalist passing point.

The supermarkets use this information to look at who buys what, where and then provide more of those products in the places where they sell withdrawing unsuitable products for the market demographic in that particular place. There’s no point having shelves groaning with caviar and truffles in a place where most people take home about £20k a year. They can’t afford it.

However, they also use this information to set prices. In areas where they perceive the population as less well off, they will sell the same staple, petrol for example, at a lower price than they will in another area where the population contains a higher number of B and A level purchasers who can afford to pay more.

This is how petrol costs more at Tesco’s in Bury St Edmunds—£1.69 a litre as I write this—than BP petrol does at my Mum’s in Sussex—£1.67 a litre. It’s also why Tesco’s charges £1.59 a litre for its petrol 15 minutes down the A14 in Newmarket. More C-level purchasers in Newmarket Tesco’s, clearly, or perhaps there’s a local garage round there that they’re trying to drive out of business.

Yes, I suppose it depends how you look at this. A Bury resident, might see them as pitiless, profiteering bastards hiking up prices in specific areas, where a Newmarket resident might seen them as kindly benevolent people cutting the prices in an area where people can afford less. They might see it as folks of my ilk, in Bury, who the database classes as better off subsidising those less fortunate than ourselves. If only that’s what it was but I’m afraid it’s a simple case of their being profiteering bastards. They’re not going to sell anything for less than the biggest margin possible and where they can, they’ll carve out an even bigger one … like the energy companies and every other company that gets so big it loses sight of it’s actual customers, the point of its existance, in its bid to grow even bigger, lock people’s spending in with it and no-one else, serve shareholders a nice fat dividend etc.

Frankly, the older I get, the more of a raving pinko leftie I become. I cannot believe we are going to have a recession caused by the corporate greed of our energy providers. There might be a fuel crisis, I dunno, but they don’t seem to have had much trouble providing power and fuel so far. Any shortages have been about logistics rather than scarecity; people panic buying and the stores running out.

How I wish we could re-nationalise the whole bloody lot. Properly. Sure, keep the government at arm’s length and run it as a business but as a not-for-profit or simply a company that is accountable to it’s customers first—the nation in this case—rather than its board or its shareholders.

Maybe it’s just the way I’m feeling at the moment but I’m angry and bitter and everything feels grey.

Indeed, I had a major melt down at the boys the other morning before leaving for Sussex to see Mum in hospital. This was partly because the vertigo was truly appalling. The worst thing was that I woke up feeling fine, but then, as I raised the glass to finish the rest of a pint of water, it suddenly kicked in. The boys laughed and I just lost it completely. I nearly cried as I ranted at them. Not about the vertigo, but just about how I just couldn’t keep a lid on my grief, and how awful I felt about having to hurt my lovely Mum and make her miserable because of the institutional prejudice the State, and the NHS, displays against people with dementia. Because we are going to run out of money. And we will have to sell the house for her care. And every time I think about it my stomach ties itself into a veritable Gordian knot which no amount of breathing exercises and sundry attempts to relax will undo. I think I got so melodramatic that I actually said I wanted to die, and right there, in the moment, I probably almost did. Jeez it’s a fucking hard row looking after dementia people and the NHS and government seem to go out of their way to make it as hard as possible.

Putting the vertigo on top of that was the last straw, I guess. It was a right royal pain in the arse on a Wednesday, too. I was so giddy that accelerating was giving me the spins. I have perked up a great deal since then. But seriously, why no compassion? Why no mercy. Why make it as hard as possible for people to endure one of the most horrific illnesses out there. Oh yeh, because it takes a long time and so it’s expensive. Seriously though, dementia care in the UK needs an overhaul. Fast. And something approaching compassion or empathy in our lords and masters would be a good place to start.

So what is compassion? Well I saw some in hospital the other day; the most gloriously surreal moment but also lovely. An example of someone with dementia being treated, not as a thing, but as a debilitated human, who was worth something. Treated with understanding, compassion and kindness.

While I was sitting with Mum she told me she needed a poo, which involves several staff and a bed pan so I went and got the nurse who told me I should make a sharp exit and sit in the waiting area. There was a little old dear there, who’d been there for some time. She was very thin, with straggly hair and she was cradling a handbag in her lap. I had clocked that she might have dementia because of the handbag and the fact there was often a nurse or carer with her. I sat down and all was quiet for a while until she spoke.

‘You’d better watch your bag round here,’ she warned me.

‘Oh. Thanks. Right. Yes, I will,’ I replied, lifting my bag from the floor and putting it on my lap the same way she had hers. We sat in silence for a moment or two and then she said.

‘Has my friend gone home?’

I guessed she might be making sense of her situation by connecting it with a comparable experience from her past, which is what people with dementia are doing when they have those back-in-time moments apparently. It’s important to say the right thing so they are guided towards a make-sense-of-this memory moment where they are reassured rather than agitated so I answered with a certain amount of caution,

‘I’m very sorry but I don’t know.’

‘Oh. Only she said to wait for her but I think she’s gone without me.’

‘Oh. That’s a shame if she has,’ I said still treading water a bit, ‘I haven’t been here before, though so I wouldn’t know for certain.’

‘She was making up to some bloke, I think she’s gone home with him and left me here on my own.’

‘Oh dear. Would you like me to ask one of the others?’ I asked, looking helplessly over towards the ward desk where the nurses and clerk were in discussion about something. ‘They might know,’ I told her.

‘She said to—’ she began, at which point a nurse walked past. ‘Big boobs and a fat arse, that one,’ she said and then reverted to topic without missing a beat. ‘She said to wait for me but I haven’t seen her for some time,’ then she smiled and said. ‘I’ve not seen you here before.’

‘No, this is my first visit,’ I squeaked, trying not to laugh at her previous comment. Lucky I was wearing a mask.

At this point one of the admin or at least a plain clothes staff, she might have been a consultant I guess, came over and with a smile at me and the lady I was talking to she sat down on a chair the other side of her from me.

‘Hello Edna,’ she said.

‘Hello,’ said the little old dear, or Edna, as I now knew she was called. The newly arrived lady smiled over at me and I tried to smile back in as crinkly an eyed manner as possible so she realised that, behind the mask, I was smiling back and grateful to her for being kind to a dementia sufferer. Edna continued, ‘Has my friend gone?’

‘Yes Edna, she has,’ said the staff lady gently.

‘Oh,’ Edna’s face crumpled a bit. ‘She said she’d wait for me. What will I do now? How will I get home?’

‘Well, maybe you could go back to your room for a little while?’ asked the staff lady. She was so gentle and so sweet with the old lady that I almost wanted to cry (and I definitely wanted to hug her) because … Dad. And Mum but especially Dad because Mum isn’t as far gone as Edna was yet.

‘Should I? What if she hasn’t gone, I don’t want to miss her.’

‘No, I understand. Aren’t you tired, though, Edna?’

‘Yes, I am, very but I think I should wait for my friend.’

‘Why don’t you go back to your bed and wait there, then? You can have a little sleep.’

Clearly the idea of a sleep was very tempting but Edna’s reply sounded hesitant. ‘I don’t know if I should …’

‘Aren’t you tired?’

‘Yes I am.’

‘Why don’t you go back to your bed and have a sleep then? You won’t get lost. I’ll go with you and then, if she comes back, I can come and find you.’

And so they set off, ward lady taking Edna’s arm, shuffling slowly up the corridor, then back, into one of the ward bays and out again … at which point Mum had had her poo, the curtains round her bed were opened again and I was ushered back. I never found out if they got Edna back to bed. When I left the two of them were still shuffling slowly up and down the corridor, looking for Edna’s friend. The staff on that ward were lovely. Nothing was too much trouble and so many of the patients had dementia. Bearing in mind this was a ward to treat infections, the added load wasn’t what any of the staff would have signed up for.

We need more of this. We need compassion, and love and kindness. And I don’t know where it’s gone but we need it back. Maybe if everyone reading this tries to go out of their way to do one kind thing this week. One random act of kindness, it would be a start. Feel free to give it a try if you like. No obligation though.

And now … I must fly because tomorrow I have a six am start. Eeek!

Yep, tomorrow is Norcon. If you are interested, I will be at the Norfolk Showground which is on the outskirts of the city of Norwich, Norfolk, UK, tomorrow and the next day. I will be there, flogging my books to the unsuspecting public and devaluing them by signing them. Except it will be today and tomorrow by the time you read this because … scheduling techology. 🙂

If you want to know more or would like to come along, you can find more information here:

https://www.nor-con.co.uk/

On a completely different note …

Here’s some good news if you like cheap audio books!

Once again, I’m cutting my own throat and having a sale. Kobo is doing a buy more save more deal on audiobooks this September and the K’Barthan Series, as well as Too Good To Be True, are in it. As a result, to make it more exciting, I’ve reduced the first book in the series to 99c on Apple, Kobo (of course) and my own website. For anyone in the States, it’s also 99c on Barnes & Noble and Chirp (which is USA and Canada). So if you want to grab it while it’s mega cheap you can find store links and a bit more info here

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18 Sep 2022 · 5:32 pm

Stuff happened … I even remembered some

Quite a lot to catch up on after the gap last week. Sorry about that, I was out digging, this time near Haverhill. Once again, it was a weekend event with two days’ on the fields.

However, on this one the fields had been ‘fertilised’ with something called ‘green waste’. Green waste is low grade industrial waste so it contains hundreds of tiny pieces of metal. Therefore, if you’re detecting on it, you will have to dig about 20 pieces of scrap; bits of circuit board, wire and—a favourite—the metal bottom bits of car light bulbs. The first day, I found a button, what I think was a Roman tile, a Roman floor tile and an amphora handle. Did I find anything metal among the pieces of twenty first century shite? Did I bollocks. The ground was heavy clay and wet so I had mud boats the size of snow shoes stuck to my boots and I might have been better with a cheese wire than a spade.

The fields were all on the same huge farm, so despite the fact they were releasing some new land to detect on the Sunday, I bugged out and went to a dig that a member of my club was having on his permission. It was the best decision ever, light sandy Norfolk soil and land that I knew. I found two long cross pennies, although one is almost blank, a Tudor button and a gorgeous cloth or bag seal … probably a cloth seal to be honest. I’d cautiously put that as Tudor, too, or possibly 17th century. I’ve had the little o-ring off the back and I’ve found the fronts of these seals but this is the first one I’ve found that was complete.

Interestingly, one of the other club members there had also bugged out of the big rally and both of us went home with interesting stuff, feeling fully vindicated in our respective decisions.

Maybe big rallies are not for me. You need to be fast because no matter how much research you do, you don’t know the land and it’s only by digging regularly somewhere that you begin to learn where the finds come up. That means the folks who are strong and fit enough to dig the highest number of targets in the shortest time are going to get the prize. On the up side, by the end of the first day, or the second day, you’ll probably have started to learn where the good stuff is coming up so you can go to those areas, on the down side, depending on how many people there are per square metre of land to detect, it may be that anything that’s at a depth a detector can reach will be gone when you get there or you find there is only stuff which is very deep and takes longer to dig meaning fewer items recovered and less chance of one of them being interesting. It is what it is but as someone with a dodgy knee who can’t always do a whole day, it’s only sensible to be a bit selective.

On the Mum front, things are looking up substantially. The Good news is that they released her from hospital a week after she was admitted, the bad is that we had to wait for the kit she needed to arrive at home. This being a broken ankle, she gets the stuff on the NHS who are kindly providing her with a hoist and a hospital bed. The bed was due to arrive on Wednesday but was the wrong type so had to be sent back. We were given a revised slot for Thursday; between 12.00 midday and 20.00 (eight pm). If if arrived in time, I had to ring the ward to let them know, which I did.

The following day, the Friday, Mum was put on the transport. It arrived home and the drivers, seeing that Mum’s drive was long, decided to leave the vehicle parked while one of them popped up to the house to see if they could turn round. The carers, waiting in the drawing room, saw her and rushed out. She explained what she was doing and said that yes, she could turn round so she’d go and get the vehicle. Naturally, having actually met the driver, the carers were expecting the vehicle to appear any minute.

It didn’t.

Not wanting to crowd the drivers, and thinking that they might have been going to go drop someone else off nearby first they gave it ten minutes and then walked down the drive. No sign of any ambulance anywhere. Next thing, 40 minutes later, Mum is wheeled back into the ward.

At this point the ward clerk is well annoyed but the transport is contracted out so she can’t find out much about what went on. The reason given for taking Mum back was that they couldn’t get the vehicle into the turning and since she is non-weight bearing, they needed a piece of equipment called a carry chair to get her to the house, which they didn’t have.

However, Mum has a wheelchair so, had they popped back to explain, both Mum’s carers were confident that the four of them could have easily got her into her wheelchair and off the transport, at which point they could have wheeled her up the drive, into the house and then, using the hoist, they could have got her into bed.

But no.

The transport staff didn’t bother to come and explain the situation to the carers. They just buggered off back to Worthing with Mum on board. And THIS, my friends, is why the NHS is running on a shoe string on the one hand, while it gaily spunks what little money it has up the wall on the other; because someone couldn’t be arsed to walk 100 yards up a drive and give an explanation that would have saved deploying another vehicle and two more staff to do the same journey. The Ward Clark told me this has been happening a lot recently. Urgh.

It’s also another way people with dementia are treated as things. My mother is not a flat pack wardrobe for fuck’s sake. It’s not sodding My Hermes dropping a card in. ‘I’m sorry your package could not be delivered, we will try again tomorrow.’ The carers who the driver had met and spoken to were effing there, waiting for the stupid bastard vehicle … or an explanation.

So we had another go and Mum finally reached her house, for the second time, at 5.30 but she was actually unloaded this time. Unsurprisingly she was knackered. Urgh. Head. Desk.

This last Wednesday, when she had arrived home she was on reasonable form but a bit distant. She just looked in pain and unwell bless her and seemed to be very muddled. Turns out she has a morphine patch though, so she might just have been tripping gently. When I spoke to her on Friday she was actually quite switched on. The words she uses don’t always make sense but I think that might be word finding difficulties making the confusion sound worse.

As you can imagine, I’ve done fuck all this past couple of weeks. Its’ been one of those ones when the small stuff mushrooms into a giant wobbly shite ball, like that canned foam stuff you spray into cracks in walls that balloons into enormous yellow bobbles that look almost edible (honeycomb anyone?).

On the up side, my Bruv had drawn my attention to a bin in the hospital which was labelled ‘offensive waste’. Obviously, we found this hilarious because we are both incredibly mature. I even took a vid so I can over-dub the bin saying something suitably offensive when I open it.

On the books front. No. Strangely there has been absolutely zero writing at all. On the other hand, I have boxed up one of each of my books with a covering letter ready to send to Suffolk libraries. Suffolk is in the Public Lending Right this year, which means that I will receive a royalty payment for any books people borrow. Since sending them, I have learned that they are now on their way to Bury St Edmunds Library so people can borrow them. I have used the online system to reserve a book from each of the authors I know and have also reserved one of my own, because I’m sad like that.

Also on the books front, the cosplay costume is done, I think. CF picture of incredibly sarcastic looking author in very messy bedroom. You might be wondering about the goggles. Yeh. Well the thing is, they just seem to raise the level of the costume from alright to Quite Good. So I’ll just have to write them into the next book, OK?

If you think it looks striking, have a squiffy at some of the photos of the event on Google and I think you’ll agree that it’s actually quite understated compared to most people’s and yet odd enough to fit right in. Or to put it another way, eccentric but not to the point where I’ll get mugged on the train … probably.

Norcon, as it’s called is running over the 24th and 25th September at the Norfolk Showground which is on the outskirts of the city of Norwich, Norfolk, UK. I will be there, flogging my books to the unsuspecting public and devaluing them by signing them.

If you want to know more or would like to come along, you can find more information here: https://www.nor-con.co.uk/

Most of the clothes featured there are things I couldn’t get into a couple of months ago so I’m quite pleased. The weight loss does seem to have started up again, at least some of it’s moved this week which is grand. I’m now wondering if the final target item of clothing—a pair of shorts—will fit by the time I go on holiday in three weeks. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility but I’m not going to sweat it if I fail to achieve that one. Even so we are entering the realms of being able to wear stuff that hasn’t fitted since just after McMini was born so it’s quite a thing.

The zip’s broken on the dark blue trousers but it’s a long shirt so I should be alright with some safety pins I think.

Briefly, I have to mention The Queen because she was ace. Both her and her father were reluctant monarchs. Maybe that’s why they were so good. But so far, Charles III is showing every sign of being a similarly excellent King. If I can get my shit together, I’ll do a longer post on this at some point. In the meantime, The Queen is Dead, Long live the King.

I’ve also been following events since her death including the lying in state. It’s been interesting, especially because of the amount of arcane ritual and tradition surrounding the accession of a new monarch and the death of the old one. It’s been an eye opener and I’m particularly peeved that I wasn’t switched on enough to saunter down to the bottom of my street and watch the king’s accession being announced by the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk from the balcony of the Atheneum. Definitely missed a trick there, not to mentionan opportunity to take part in actual history. Then again, it’s been a bit like that this week, I forgot to go to a PCC meeting on Wednesday and I forgot to take my son to Boys Brigade on Friday then again, he forgot too.

Another member of the PCC also forgot or at least, he got the date wrong and turned up the following day. As he’s a world expert in his field, I felt a bit better about being a dunderhead because I can convince myself that intelligent people do stupid things so I’m not a thickie after all. Mwahahahrgh. As we agreed, it’s hard work being a pillock! We have standards to keep to. Definitely attained on my part this week though!

But, returning to the topic in hand, as you know, I like a bit of arcane ritual (rights of Twonkot anyone?) so I’m thoroughly intrigued and taking notes …

On a completely different note …

Here’s some good news if you like cheap audio books!

Once again, I’m cutting my own throat and having a sale. Kobo is doing a buy more save more deal on audiobooks this September and the K’Barthan Series, as well as Too Good To Be True, are in it. As a result, to make it more exciting, I’ve reduced the first book in the series to 99c on Apple, Kobo (of course) and my own website. For anyone in the States, it’s also 99c on Barnes & Noble and Chirp (which is USA and Canada). So if you want to grab it while it’s mega cheap there are store links and a bit more info here

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3 Sep 2022 · 12:38 pm

All the things … so many things …

This week, by the wonders of technology, I’m speaking you from somewhere I’m not. Yes. I’ve scheduled this post in advance. A LOT has happened this week. Let’s start with an update on, Mum.

Mum is in hospital still but she is getting better with each passing day. She has something like a potts fracture, having broken both the tibia and fibula bones in her right ankle but I think bruv and I have managed to convince them not to operate because she has a bad heart and dementia. She’s had a brain scan and it shows clear signs of dementia but apparently they’re not allowed to give her a diagnosis so we have to go to her Doctor for that. On the up side, she won’t have to go for a CT scan because she’s just had one. I’m hoping I can sort that out as she does need one.

We are kind of holding off on the mortgage to see what happens and how with-it she is as she recovers. Ultimately, she probably will have to go into a home but ideally, not until she has forgotten about her actual house and is happy anywhere. Strangely, this did happen in hospital, at the beginning, when she was first admitted. She is perking up now though.

Things looked a bit grim there for a while so I’m glad she’s bounced back a bit. McMini is going back to school, so I took him down to see her on Wednesday. On the upside we did also get to see Bruv and the Missus as well two of McMini’s cousins. We had lunch together in Worthing and were ready for visiting hours around 2.00pm so that was grand. We also met a lovely consultant who’d been looking after Mum and had a word with the doctor about her. She’d been moved to a different ward; Durrington ward. With the best will in the world, because the staff there are lovely, it does slightly strike me that the D in ‘Durrington’ also stands for ‘death’ and it does slightly look as if waiting to die is what most of the occupants are doing.

That is unfair, but it’s kind of a waiting room ward. People tend to end up there recovering from strokes, broken hips and other ailments usually associated with the elderly. As a result it is, slightly, the twilight zone between home and a care home, but also where people wait while their families get care in place at home so they can leave, or wait for the results of tests, or wait for treatment to be decided. There are usually some with dementia, of which Mum is one.

Everything felt very final on Wednesday, but as I understand it from the carers, Mum was a great deal perkier yesterday so I’m less worried. We should have a hoist and a hospital bed for her sometime next week and once that’s all arranged we can take her home. The most important thing is that, though bored, she is actually alright in herself and seems quite relaxed. The carers are taking it in turns so someone visits her every day, too and they are actually pretty up beat about getting her home and looking after her there. However, this does feel like the beginning of the next stage but … not in a scary or bad way.

So that’s a weight off.

It was also lovely to see my bruv and wife plus niece and nephew who went and played on the slots on the pier with McMini. An excellent way to spend the time! We had a fabulous lunch in the restaurant at the end, which is really very good. Then I went right to the very end and took a photo looking out to sea.

Meanwhile, I’ve booked to go one a two day metal detecting dig this weekend and there’s another one next weekend too! Lovely McOther has bought me some scotch eggs to have for my lunches. Smokes but I love scotch eggs, and I’ve charged up the detector all ready. Fingers crossed I’ll have a good day and find some interesting stuff. It starts at 9 but apparently there’s often a big queue for registration at these things so I will need to get there earlier. I’m aiming to leave here at half seven, which should get me there for quarter to eight, or thereabouts, and I will be up at half six so I can finish the IBS before I leave. There’s another one next week but they let you register on the Friday for that one so you don’t have to queue on the Saturday morning. I might do that, I think.

We went to the beach yesterday, which was wonderful, and I managed to get an hour’s practise in with the detector. No finds to report, well, except for 20p, but it did bring back how the tones sound, which was useful, so I feel a little more confident that I can still remember how to use it. I haven’t been out in an eternity to be honest.

Things are a bit busy and I do have half an eye on Mum and the other on the fact that I have two two day digs over the next two weekends, McMini is back to school, McGrandpa will be having a cataract operation. McGranny doesn’t drive and McGrandpa won’t be able to drive so McOther will be going to Scotland for a week to keep his Mum company and drive his Dad to and from the hospital. We’re not sure when that’s going to be though but the hospital will tell us when his slot comes up.

Then there’s the last weekend of September, which is NorCon. I have ordered a craptonne more books because it’s over two days. Yikes. I’m hoping that people will buy the small ones on the first day, read them and then come back to buy more! Well … I can dream. Also, THE CLOAK has arrived and it’s really rather splendid. Yep. I think we can say that it is good. I took a quick pic this afternoon but I need the full costume on to do it justice.

Other news, while I have steadfastly not lost any weight since the start of August.

Bollocks!

On the up side, I do now fit into an awful lot of clothes which I haven’t been able to wear for years, or at all in some cases. Yes, I really am that dumb. I actually have clothes that I bought thinking, ‘this is small but it will fit soon because my fat bastardy is temporary,’ about eleven years ago and turned out to be wrong.

Mmm. Bonus points for optimism.

That said, it makes for a nice surprise now. It’s a bit of a gas suddenly discovering that shirts I’ve not been able to wear for years, and was going to throw away unless this last ditch attempt to slim down worked, now fit. I’m liking that. I still have a lot of pot belly to lose but oh so much less than before! I think some of the slow down might be due to the fact we keep having Important Events (like McOther’s birthday) at which we eat things that are the antithesis of compliance with my eating plan and then keep eating them repeatedly for days afterwards, as left overs. I’m looking at you, baked potatoes. I love baked potatoes but one is approximately one million calories. Seriously, I could do my whole allocation for the day with one tuna baked spud. It’s frightening.

picture of two paper bags on stripy fabric backgrounsAs well as the craptonne of books for Norcon, I decided I’d try getting bags done with a logo, too. That way, if I go bagging up my stuff when I sell it people carry paper bags round with the HUP logo on.

OK so the logo isn’t necessarily going to encourage them to read the books but it’s cool and people might ask what it is and the web address is on there so I thought it was worth a go. To that end, I have procured a rubber stamp and some green stamp ink as well as 100 recycled paper bags. God help me, I now have to stamp them all with a green logo.

Mmm I’ve done six so far. Watch me go! Mwhahahrgh.

That said, I have to confess to being pleased with the results.

Talking about green … last week something went gross in our kitchen bin. We removed the liner, washed it and dried it and put it back. Needless to say, neither of us noticed that there had been maggots. Boake! Or that the liner had holes through which the maggots had retreated into the bin proper and then each one had become little crysalis. Oh god.

I’ve no idea how long that takes but in my defence, both McOther and I checked both bins and noticed nothing. I’m not sure if it’s myopia or abject skankiness I’m pleading here but anyway, we saw nothing. But there were a lot of them. Which we didn’t see. And then they hatched into blue arsed, or at least green arsed, flies. For some reason they decided that the conservatory was the place to go, so on Wednesday afternoon, McOther went in there and discovered a whole swarm of them. I kid you not. It was like the fucking Amyteville Horror.

After killing 20, McOther closed the door and left the rest in there. We searched anew for the source and finally I discovered the remaining pupae under the bin and then, he discovered the pupae inside. Ugh. The weird thing was that, though there was something very stinky, at no point were there maggots. Well, no, there must have been but clearly they must have been whistle stop maggots because our bin is emptied about every other day and when we emptied the reeking yuk bag the other day, no maggots were in evidence.

Luckily they are mostly dead now. We have chalked it up to experience.

So … have I written anything this week? Er … no. But I have last week’s post to use as a handy guide when I get back to it again.

Fancy something a bit more fun?

NorCon! Yes, the Norfolk film, TV and comicon is coming up on 24th and 25th September at the Norfolk Showground Arena and guess what? Yes. I’m going to be there with some of my other author friends! Woot. If you want to come along and say hello. I will be dressed as The Pan of Hamgee complete with the New Cloak and devaluing my books by signing them for people.

Or treat yourself and stay at home …

Yes, Ambassador! Spoil yourself with your good taste and a wonderful free book. Mmm hmm. If you are looking for a fun novella, to take your mind off that whole thing I said back there about the green arsed flies, for example … or if you’d like to listen to an audio book in the car, or at work or on the commute and you are just fresh out of ideas fabulous newness … well, you can fix all those things by grabbing a free book.

This book.

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Extras, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1.

It’s free to download in ebook format from all the major retailers (except when Amazon is dicking with me) and two and a half hours of glorious K’Barthan audiobook deliciousness is a mere £1.99/$2.99 on retailers and free to download from my web store.

If you think that sounds interesting and would like to take a look, just go here.

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28 Aug 2022 · 3:29 pm

Self Care, Hospital Care, Dementia Care

After last week’s rant, two things occurred to me; first that I probably needed to post this week as well, just so you know I’m alright and second; reading it back, I got the impression I might be sensible to do a little self care.

Self care is underrated.

The friend I go walking with one day a week was not around this week and as a result, I decided that, with nothing much else on, socially, this was the perfect time for a bit of self care. For this week only, I decided, Real Life could just do one. Obviously, I still went to Mum’s but the traffic was kind to me and she was in good form. I was also going to go to my metal detecting club meet on the Thursday but had a reprise of the lovely vertigo I’ve been enjoying on and off for a while. The rest of the week, I holed up at home and relaxed.

Self care measures included: writing, reading, going for walks alone, putting aside every single bit of admin and listening to music. We are also all building the same model ME 109 although we’re at different stages. I’ve made half the cockpit, McOther is painting his and McMini has pretty much finished his because he’s so patient … not. Mwahahahrgh. It’s been great fun though.

On the music front, taking McMini’s lead, I’ve recently signed up for Spotify since this seems to be the most straightforward way to listen to my vinyl records in the car. It’s what he uses it for too. Yes there are three people in our house and each one has a separate record player of their own. Jeepers we are such massive spuds. I also use it to listen to stuff that’s too obscure to source anywhere else – although Discogs is pretty good for getting hold of pretty much anything in that respect. So it was that I set about getting my library organised by searching out all those obscure things I don’t have, have lost or couldn’t track down.

About a million years ago I was sitting in a curry house and the background music was a Rolling Stones cover played on the Sitar. I thought it was brilliant and asked the waiter what it was. He was so excited that I’d shown an interest that he went and got the record sleeve, plus two more staff, from out back. They then explained, enthusiastically, that it was a guy called Anander Shanker (it turns out he’s Ravi’s nephew). A lot of his stuff is on Spotify.

What’s it like? Well, if the French electronica group Air added sitar to their stuff … something along those lines. There are also cover-versions; Shanker’s version of Jumping Jack Flash is genius and Come On Baby, Light My Fire is certainly a lot different from the Doors’ version. Next stop the original that Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony is based on by the Gary Oldham Orchestra. I had forgotten the name and I had to ask McMini for that one. He spoke about how he loved the bell at the beginning and it was lovely to see him discovering music with the same joyous enthusiasm that I had at his age. He is totally open to anything so as well as punk and thrash metal, he listens to military bands, bag pipes, Anander Shanker (of course) classical music, ancient ska, Finnish folk songs, electronica … all sorts.

After I’d added the original Gary Oldham song, or Snurds, in flight as I like to call it because if I play it, that’s what I see if I shut my eyes (The Pan of Hamgee whisking Ruth off from her palatial prison the night before the installation, for example). Spotify suggested all sorts of other similar things, and I liked the ones I … well … liked so I could find them again. This is where Spotify is good. I have about 9gb of my own music on my phone. It’s also on my iPad somewhere but Apple refuses to believe I’m not a pirate and has hidden it, only allowing me to play the handful of things I’ve purchased from iTunes over the years. The 9gb of music just sits there, invisibly, taking up space.

Now this is no longer a problem and Apple can ‘do one’ along with Real Life. I can listen on Spotify and the artist gets a tiny royalty for each listen in a way that they wouldn’t if I was listening to stuff I’ve bought on vinyl and transferred to my phone. Also, since most of the vinyl I have is no longer available new the artists get something, albeit a risibly tiny something for listens to the stuff I’ve purchased second-hand. I don’t like Spotify, but I do like that I can use it to fund my favourite artists simply by listening to them.

It strikes me that ‘responsible’ use of Spotify is all good, because it’s giving artists an income, however pissy that income may be, for listens they would not normally be paid for. It’s a pity Spotify don’t pay up front for a ‘new copy’ after every X number of listens, the way  some libraries do for ebooks. Either that or pay more per listen, the way libraries do.

I also discovered a craptonne of early Ska and some of the songs by the Petshop Boys which I haven’t listened to for ages because I don’t have them. Indeed I spent the entire journey to Mum’s this week listening to Paninero on repeat conjuring up an image of The Pan of Hamgee being chased which played on loop in my head. He’s wearing a 1920s flapper dress, beads and the most ridiculous blonde wig and he keeps appearing and then disappearing as he runs over a row of peaked roofs with what looks like the entire world chasing after him.

Yes, the sausagewright mentioned in Too Good To Be True has been found. Kidnapped, locked up and forced to make Goojan sausage she is pining for the fjords! She has agreed to make four sausages and then Marcella, the pirate has sworn she’ll let her go but now her captors are demanding more. She has been on a go slow, so they kidnap her brother — Burton Coggles — a quiet, dapper, retired gentleman who volunteers at the local library.

A suitable K’Barthan street scene … it’s really Arras Grand Place.

Unfortunately, no-one in Marcella’s gang, least of all her, realises that the thoroughly anonymous Mr Coggles has a secret alter ego as half of K’Barth’s most famous comedy duo, drag queens Phlange and Knutt. Bitingly satirical and very quick witted, they are not exactly popular with the authorities but are loved by K’Barthans and the authorities recognise that they serve a purpose, in poking fun at those in power in a way that let’s the locals let of steam without them doing anything to clutter up the place or disturb the economy like having strikes, riots, revolutions etc.

Phlange and Knutt being an act, and imaginary aliases rather than real beings, the Grongles don’t know who the people behind the act really are, and the artists, themselves, ensure it stays that way. And yes, they are based extremely heavily on two of my favourite comedy artists Hinge and Bracket. I can’t quite work out if Burton Coggles’ alter ego is Dame Evangeline Phlange, or Doctor Ariadne Knutt. Or indeed, whether it’s Dame Ariadne Phlange and Doctor Evangeline Knutt. Only time will tell.

The mystery to solve then will be a) where is Marcella getting the sausage/keeping the sausagewright? b) What’s happened to Phlange (or is it Knutt?) of Phlange and Knutt? and c) how will The Pan spring Phlange/Knutt and his sister from their prison, on the top floor of a warehouse. d) Why is he springing them? Because Marcella is working with a Grongle Captain and Colonel to become a pliant, malleable (for the Grongles) Boss of Ning Dang Po. Clearly, neither Big Merv nor The Pan (who is one of the first people she’d kill) wants that. But neither do any of the other ganglords it turns out.

More scenes from Ning Dang Po … 😉

Obvs at some point, The Pan is going to be pretending he’s Phlange — to act as a diversion and draw off the pursuit? That must be the bit I keep seeing with the roofs. Yes, the fight among the helium canisters will still take place. Obviously the Grongles will disapprove of Phlange but be even more pissed off with Marcella for disappearing her because the average K’Barthan in the street is convinced the Grongles have mislaid Phlange and there are riots and all sorts of other untidy shenanigans which interfere with the Grongolian owned parts of the K’Barthan economy.

The Grongles don’t like Phlange and Knutt but they dislike rioting and disorder even more. Hence the Grongle Captain will attempt to whack Marcella the Pirate and I think she will whack him and get a laser pistol as a result. At which point, she will meet his superior, oh no, not the Colonel Kay but General Vernon, who will evaluate her, decide she falls short and throw her off a roof in front of a petrified (but hidden) Pan of Hamgee. Lord Vernon, newly ‘elected’ party leader will be lauded for fixing all the trouble so quickly and be elected leader of the house in the K’Barthan parliament … although he might possibly get elected because his predecessor has presided over this and he uses it to his advantage, I’m not sure.

So, writing? Yes. I have made a lot of time for that. As you can see, I do now have some idea of where this one’s going and more to the point, where it’s come from. There’s a fair bit of primping and squishing about on things I’ve already done so they fit in the right places, which I’m still doing. Then I have to work out what scenes are missing up to the point in the narrative I’ve reached and then I can get going on the nitty-gritty. Will it come out the way I’ve just described? Of course not but those are the basic threads, how they are eventually plaited together is up to the characters involved, I’m as in the dark as you until it’s written.

Other self care activities. It was McOther’s birthday and he does a lot of wine tasting. Everyone turns up with a nice bottle, covers it up and then they all try it and try to work out what wine it is. It’s fiendishly difficult but fun and the trick is more about knowing what’s in another person’s cellar than actually tasting the wine. I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and that I have been knitting some bottle covers to replace the dodgy socks McOther and friends tend to use to cover up the labels. Anyway, I managed to complete five; one for a friend who was attending and four for his nibs for his birthday.

To my delight, both recipients appeared to be genuinely pleased with them. Alongside, I gave McOther the usual lame presents; peanut butter cups and wine gums because he’s a little bit addicted to both but he was clearly chuffed with the bottle sleeves, as was the interested friend, who was one of a group who came to dinner to celebrate with us, so I’m chalking that one up as a win. I suspect I will need to knit more of them.

On Saturday morning, in a nod to the admin, I sorted out my car insurance for the next year but then … a slight disaster struck. Mum.

Bruv has been staying over the weekend. At the moment the mortgage is on hold because he wanted to evaluate whether or not we should be moving Mum earlier. I genuinely think she’ll be ready to move in the next year or so (as in we’ll be able to move her without her really realising what’s going on) and so do the carers but I’m not sure it’s time yet. Obviously because Bruv has a bigger family and stays longer she presents a very much worse picture for him than she does for me, but she’s definitely getting there.

Long and short, she fell on Friday night — her bad knee gave way and the next morning, when she tried to stand, it was so painful she nearly threw up. She ended up going to hospital, where she is currently staying. They couldn’t see if there was a break or not from the X-ray because she’s so arthritic but the orthopaedic surgeon wanted to have an MRI or CT scan or whatever it is they do in order to try and find out for sure one way or the other.

Serendipitously, a geriatric specialist was there too asking her all the dementia questions, none of which she could answer except her name and that of the monarch apparently. If she got an official dementia diagnosis in passing, that would be the icing on the cake. It’s nice leaving this to bruv and wife although I’m not sure how long before I have to go down there. I’ll visit on Wednesday, anyway.

As I write we are waiting to see if she’s seen by a physiotherapist this morning—if she isn’t it’ll be Wednesday before she is—and also whether she gets the scans etc and they are able to find out more. Then it’ll be a cast or a boot and she’ll need to start trying to walk on it. They’re also looking at her knees. Not that they can do anything about any of it now because she’s far too demented to undergo an anaesthetic.

We’ve hummed and haad about finding her a place in a home short-term for rehabilitation but her care team can do that, themselves, and I suspect she would do better at home. Also unless we can get her into a forever nursing home and hope that she likes it so much she wants to stay, it’s probably not worth doing that. What tends to happen is they send patients to the nearest place with spaces and that might be fifty miles from her village and her friends so it wouldn’t be any use.

So we wait …

It seems like a decent ward, and Mum is in good hands. Meanwhile, I learn that a week of self care is probably essential from time-to-time because I’m OK and without it, I think I’d be doing a lot more pointless worrying.

On a completely different note …

If you are looking to administer some self care yourself by reading for example … or listening, here’s something that might help; a free book.

Yes, Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Extras, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1 is free to download in ebook format from all the major retailers and you can also get the audiobook for free from my web store.

If you think that sounds interesting and would like to take a look, just go here.

 

 

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2 Jul 2022 · 9:15 pm

Siberian hamsters and other alarums and excursions …

Well that was an interesting day. Or perhaps more accurately, morning. But it explains why there has been no blog post until now … that said, ‘now’ will probably be tomorrow (Sunday) in light of what time it is already, and the gargantuan amount of time that the activities of ‘this morning’ involved.

Originally, McOther and I were heading off to a car boot and from there to the garage to get his car fixed. However, when push came to shove we realised he wouldn’t have time to do the boot and the garage so he went to the garage and I eschewed the boot and went to the market instead. I also have some secret knitting that I wanted to do in his absence. More on that story … later.

McCat came running in and to my complete and utter horror, I realised he had something hanging out of his mouth. Something grey, with a tail.

Remember a few years ago when that McCat brought that vole in? I can’t find the original post but it ran under the fridge in the utility room and then to the units where it disappeared and I never saw it again. I always hoped it had found its way outside again but then the room began to smell and it wasn’t McCat’s earth box or McMini’s socks. Yes, it died and I did find a post I did later about discovering its lifeless body in the washing machine while I was on the phone to my mum, six months after its disappearance. If you need to jog your memory, it’s here.

So there’s McCat running about and there’s another chuffing vole with it’s tale and arse hanging out of his mouth one side and it’s head and front paws the other side. It’s squeaking,

‘You absolute cockwomble! Put me down immediately! Ow! That fucking smarts you smecking furry gobshite!’ etc. Actually I have no clue what it was saying but I think we could safely assume that it’d be something along those lines so that seems about right.

Come here you little bastard! I shout (because I’m classy like that) and rushed after him. I’m speaking to the cat at this pint, obvs. not the rodent in distress.

Luckily, I cornered McCat in the hall and because it was his vole and not mine and he was not dropping it at any cost. I was therefore able to pick him up and carry him to the door, deposit both of them on the mat outside, shut the door and lock the cat flap before he could bring it back in.

There was no rescuing the poor little critter now, so it was best to leave them to it so he killed it quickly. I grabbed my kit and ensuring that I didn’t let him in, I went to the market to do my shopping.

Upon my return, McCat was lying on his back on the door mat chirruping and burbling in his most loving manner. He showed me his tummy and it was clear that the dead vole on the mat beside him was a gift. Yes. This was an effort at reconciliation.

‘I know you are head of the house mummy,’ he was saying, ‘but I just couldn’t give up the vole. My natural instincts wouldn’t let me but you can have it now.’

Likewise, I cannot guarantee that was what he was saying but I know the mentalist tabby git so well now that I suspect that was a pretty good approximation.

Naturally, I thanked him for his gift, because it was only polite. Then I explained that it was a lovely thought, but if he didn’t mind, I’d just pick it up with this trowel here and pop it in the dustbin. I thought of burying it but he’d only dig it up again.

I went inside, put away my purchases and I was just bumbling about the house when I heard McCat scampering about. Uh-oh, that was the kind of scampering he does when he’s playing with Mr Squishy (his favourite toy) or when he’s playing with something else …

‘Squeak!’ said somebody, who was very definitely not McCat!

‘Fucking fuck!’ I yelled and leapt into action. McMini had a second vole cornered behind a box in a corner and of course I arrived, grabbed said box and the vole disappeared underneath the book case. But wait, not quite underneath. He was under the large books on the bottom shelf that stick out, leaving a tiny half inch gap between their bottoms and the floor.

I started removing the books but by this stage McCat had lost interest, the absolute bastard, or maybe he’d decided that I’d claimed the vole. Whatever the cause, he’d wandered off. The room we were in was full of places where a small vole could hide, die and then smell impressively. I was determined to ensure that when I poked it out from its hiding place, there were no other crannies for it to run to. In short, despite trying to rescue it from McCat I could have done with a tabby backstop and I’d definitely have preferred to let him kill it quickly it was that or a second round of let-me-die-under-your-furniture.

I surrounded the vole with a wall of heavy hardback books. Got a piece of cloth and grabbed it. I picked it up and took it outside. It looked as if it had had a nasty bump on the head but I left it to recover near the place where I thought McCat had caught it.

McCat locked in, I went out and had a look.

The vole was not well. It appeared unable to move its hands. It was clearly injured, it was squeaking and it was in distress. I rang the vet and explained that I had this rodent that was probably a vole only now … looking at it … I wasn’t 100% sure and could they help.

Clearly if my furry friend was, as I was beginning to suspect, a young rat, I wasn’t too bothered if McCat murdered its family. If it was a vole, I should probably take it somewhere for treatment and leave McCat locked in. McCat’s vet informed me that they had a pigeon and chicken specialist but nobody who was too good on small feral critters. They recommended I phone a different vet surgery, which I did.

I explained that I thought I might have an injured rat but that I didn’t know and though it seemed a bit nasty of me, I felt that, if it was a rat, I was OK about letting McCat out to murder the rest of its family, because there are millions of rats but that, if it was a vole, I’d keep him in. I also explained that I thought it might be dying, that the kind thing to do would be to kill it but that I wasn’t a farm kid and I doubted I could dispatch it cleanly without subjecting it to more physical and emotional trauma. Our cat used to catch mice when I was a kid and Dad used to have to kill the ones she hadn’t quite killed. He was really good at delivering a swift blow to the head but it always used to upset him … not to mention us.

Bring it in, the vet told me and they would take a look at it.

Going back to the ‘vole’ which very much might not be a vole, I decided I’d wear gloves to handle it. Good thing that, because it was a great deal livelier than it had been when I put it out and it bit me as I tried to catch it. Although the bites didn’t break the skin they did pierce the gloves. McOther was home by this time and helped me put it in a cardboard box. I walked up to the vet’s with it and they took it in to have a look.

Turns out I was right to doubt and it wasn’t a vole after all. Just call me Manuel but it was a bona fide Siberian hamster although it escaped the ratatouille so that’s nice. I do know we have rats in our garden, but … yeh. Probably a good thing if the cat eats them then. The rat did, indeed, have some kind of head injury which was making him unable to move properly and they put him to sleep so he didn’t suffer any more.

And the vole last time? Er hem. Yeh. That was a rat and all. Even with a light bite, the vet warned me about Weil’s disease and said that if I start to develop cold symptoms I must go to the doctor’s and explain what’s happened. Me, I’m just wondering what my half-rat-half-human superpower might be.

Other things

It looks alright on the claret one (right).

What I should have been doing this morning was working on my latest and top secret knitting project while McOther was out, which is his fabulous birthday present. OK, this is me, so you know, by now, that it’s not a fabulous present especially if it involves my knitting prowess, which is more knitting prowless to be honest. On the upside, it is something he’ll use and enjoy … he’ll use and at least there’s thought in it. It’s a wine sock. Yeh. Don’t all fall over with excitement.

People who like wine do blind tastings, which basically means you put the bottle in a sock, except socks are a bit shit because they make the bottom of the bottle uneven and more likely to fall over. Enter the um … wine sleeve? Wine sleeves leave the bottom of the bottle clear so it will stand up, no matter how drunk you are when you place it on the table.

I’ve made the bit for the neck of the bottle too short. The bit of metal over the cork can give tasters in the know a bit clue, so I need to unpick five rows of ribbing, add six rows of plain knitting and then do the ribbing bits again. It looks shit flaccid but when you put it on the bottle … yeh, OK, it still looks a bit shit until you get to a claret bottle … then … Oh yeh. Ish.

Oh alright. It’s a disaster really. I decided to use some wool I had left over from making a pair of socks for McMini and a pair for me. But there wasn’t quite enough to get it to the shoulders of the bottle. I didn’t want to buy another ball of wool to do three stripes of fancy knitting so I bastardised another ball of similar wool and to be honest, it almost looks deliberate. I will have to knit him another less bodged one as well, clearly, but this is a nice start.

Other news …

It’s a long time since I’ve mentioned McMini here. But rest assured he is no less eccentric. He is older, and even more sarcastic, but still a delight (to his parents anyway). He did once tell me that he wanted to do the teen thing and rebel against us but he liked us too much. I’m not sure that’s anything we did, it’s just luck of the draw. Luckily there are some people at his school that he prefers to rebel against more.

Anyway, last week we were we’ve been watching the tennis as a family and supporting one player, the underdog, naturally, because we’re British. The audience on the telly were mostly supporting the other more famous player. Between each point there were shouts from the audience,

‘Come on Oojah!’ or ‘You’ve got this Thingy!’ etc.

Then as it all died away after the ‘quiet please’ one bloke right up in the gods at the back shouted something that sounded like, ‘bollocks!’ into the silence.

‘That sounded like, “bollocks!”’ said McMini. ‘Did he just shout, “bollocks!”?’

Next point, same male voice did it again and again, McMini said,

‘I’m sure he said, “Bollocks!”.’

McOther and I admitted, giggling, that it did sound like it and he might be right.

Next up to serve was the player we were not supporting. She threw the ball up and as she swung to hit it, McMini shouted, ‘Bollocks!’ and she served a fault.

She served again and in spite of McMin’s rousing cry of, ‘Bollocks!’ it was in. The lady we were supporting returned it and as the other swung her racket to hit the ball back, I shouted, ‘Arse!’ and it went into the net.

‘Woah! She can hear us!’ shouted McMini.

It opened the floodgates. They played a tie-breaker with McMini and I continuing to shout bollocks, arse and for some reason, follicles. Our lady won. I made a cheer which reminded McMini of an impression I do of Dad doing an impression of one of his teachers dropping dead in the middle of assembly (he yelled ‘eeeeeruuuuuw!’ and keeled over apparently). So McMini adds the part of the story following that which is the boing, boing diddly boing this teacher’s wooden leg made after he’d measured his length.

Despite this coming out of nowhere, I knew exactly what McMini was referring to and started to guffaw at which point McOther who was actually watching the tennis turned to us briefly, smiled indulgently in an oh-here-they-go-again sort of manner and reverted his attention to the TV.

McMini and I sat there crying with laughter and all was right with the world.

It’s competition time …

OK. Have you ever seen extreme ironing? If you haven’t it’s worth looking it up because it’s mad.  Here’s a potted summary.

Let’s do our own variant Blog peps! Extreme Reading. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Here’s how it works.

1. Get one of my books. It has to be an actual M T McGuire book. No other authors’ books are admissible. You can use a paperback or your e-thing with your e/audio book open and showing really obviously.

2. Go the area you have selected in which to read in an extreme manner, be it upside down, hanging from the ceiling. Tobogganing down the Cresta run, *sitting in the fountains at Trafalgar Square in your swimming cozzie or whatever.

3. Get photographed in your extreme reading position and then submit your photos to me. I think I will probably put them to the public vote.

* don’t do actual this though. You’ll get arrested.

How do I submit my photo MT? I hear you ask.

Well, I don’t to hear you ask but let’s not complicate this. Let’s pretend, for the sake of making this section that tiny bit more interesting, that I did. Here’s what you do.

Attach your photo photo to an email. You’ll need to give me your name and me some brief details saying where and when the photo was taken (date, place/town and country) and any witty commentary you wish to make about it. Then send it to me by email with the header, EXTREME READING TOURNAMENT, like that to list at hamgee.co.uk. You can send a maximum of two entries and it will cost you nothing to enter.

If you want to, you will be able to share the entries you submit on the Hamgee University Press Facebook page. I’ll make a specific post and pin it to the top so you can comment and add a photo but that’s not obligatory because I totally get that not everyone does Facebook. I wouldn’t do much social media if I didn’t have to.

Small Print: Nothing above 3mb please or Google won’t deliver them to me and a maximum of two entries per person. You may have to resize mobile/iThing photos to get them to me.

Obviously, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t do anything dangerous or stupid. This is an extreme reading tournament, it’s not the Darwin Awards or a game of who dares wins. Happy snapping.

And finally …

The Last Word is available in Audio.

If you enjoyed the short story, The Last Word, the audio of that is also available or at least, still available. If you need it, here’s a quick reminder of the blurb.

When Mrs Ormaloo brings the terrible news to the Turnadot Street Businesswomen’s Association that the Grongles are going to burn some more banned books on the night of Arnold, The Prophet’s birthday, Gladys and Ada decide to Take Steps. They even enrol some of the punters from their pub to help out. The books are in a warehouse being kept under guard. Gladys, Ada, Their Trev and the rest of the group embark on a plan of devilish cunning to rescue as many banned books from the flames as they can. But the key player in their plan is Humbert and there is no guarantee that he’ll cooperate.

Corporal Crundy is determined not to mess up his first assignment since his promotion. It should be easy. All he has to do is guard some books. Yeh. It should be a piece of cake but somehow that’s not the way it turns out.

To find it, go here.

 

 

 

 

 

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19 Jun 2022 · 6:46 pm

Spigotry …

Yes, I am still alive, although you could be forgiven for wondering if I’ve quietly shuffled off this mortal coil the amount of time it’s been since I wrote a blog post. I suppose the main reason for this is that the mood to waffle about my life tends to hit at the weekends, therefore, if I happen to be Doing Stuff several weekends in a row, the blog grinds to a halt. Case in point, when I came to write this post I found two others that I’d already begun before going out. On the upside, all this Doing Things does come under the heading of Putting Stuff In which is probably what other people call ‘refilling the well’.

So what’s been happening. Well, Mum stuff although less of it, Mc(Not So)Mini stuff and too much stuff of my own. I suppose you could say I’ve over-peopled but it isn’t really the social that’s hampering my efforts to achieve anything. I just keep on having to do things because I make trouble for myself. Yes, the reason for my absence is that I have been, mostly, trying to put out the fires I’ve inadvertently started in the dry grass of life. Or trying to unfuckup the fuckups, of which there are legion.

This week I went to see my writer friends where I used to live. For years they’ve been coming to me but now that I don’t have to collect McMini from school until 5 on the day we meet – or because, a lot of the time McOther picks him up – we have started going to the house of our eldest member and having lunch in the village pub. On the way I pick up the other lady in our group. She has a great deal of difficulty getting in and out of my car and this week, I discovered that taking the roof off merely made it worse. It was hot and I was wearing my prescription shades so while I was getting ready I took my actual spectacles out of my pocket and put them, in the little bag in which they come, on the back of the car because I didn’t want to bend them. The last thing I remember thinking is, ‘I must remember to put those back in the care before I drive off.’

Can you guess what happened next?

Of course you can! Yes. That’s right, I drove off with the glasses on the back of the car. Obviously, the fates didn’t do anything kind to me, like arrange for them to slide off on the side roads leading from the estate on which my friend lives. Oh no. They fell off as I turned onto the main road. When I reached my destination and went into the house I found I no longer had my specs. It being a social event and there being a table booked for lunch, I couldn’t just say, ‘Guys, I have to nip back and check.’ It would have been rude. The lady I had just picked up rang her husband and he went and looked but found nothing.

Resigned to their fate – I didn’t hold out much hope for my glasses surviving, unsquashed, until I dropped her back – we read each other our work, had lunched and talked writing things. When I dropped the lady back, it turned out her husband had popped out for a bike ride and found the glasses on the main road. They had sustained a small amount of damage, as you can see from this picture.

picture of smashed spectacles

When I break something, I like to do it properly.

Strangely, I had to visit the optician the next day to pick up some contact lenses for a friend’s daughter who’s a border at McMini’s school so I took my glasses with me along with another pair of frames that I’d picked up for a song at TK Maxx about twenty years previously (when I’d bought the smashed pair). I asked if they could fix my specs.

Yes well … at least I gave them all a good laugh.

Naturally, it turned out that they’d have to send the new frames I had away because it involved drilling the actual lense. In addition, it turned out that I was due for an eye test so they recommended I do that first, in case my prescription has changed. On the up side, they did have a slot sooner rather than later, on the downside, ‘sooner’ was next Friday. I found a similar pair on ebay for £24 and sent off for them so I do have those, although when I put them on they exaggerate the fact that I have asymmetrical ears and one is a lot higher than the other. On the up side, they don’t involve drilling the lenses so I can get them sooner and, if I have to go varifocal, maybe I can get the send always done as varifocals and the other as bog-standard prescription.

So now I’m wearing my sunglasses most of the time, Roy Orbison style, although he went on tour and left his prescription specs at home whereas I … yeh. If I ever can find another set of the others I’ll buy them and replace my old ones as they suited me better than any specs I’ve ever had before. In the meantime, I’m wearing a pair from 2008 which are more-or-less OK, although slightly weaker than the originals.

Add taking the cat to the vet, me to the gym and all sorts of other stuff and somehow, I achieve very little. That said the writing is still going. I’ve been going through Misfit 5 editing it and picking out where I’ve added tracers for plot development. I usually know where it’s going at the time and I put the tracers in but if I’m not writing for a long time, I then forget what they are and end up writing off in the wrong direction. This is a Bad Thing.

Other news, McOther has been a bit busy at work recently and McMini has had a gig with his band again. Their singer left, which looked as if it was going to be a bit of a disaster, but they’ve found a new one who is less experienced but I think could be very good so that’s a win.

Picture of a hitler european tour t-shirt

Height of bad punk taste.

We went to a re-enacters’ event today which was excellent and McMini spotted a Hitler European Tour T-shirt to wear on stage (it’s a punk band, after all). I bought it for him.

Lord but this is not Setting A Good Example, but since I had one when I was about his age, I’d be a special kind of hypocrite to point that out. Also it’s actually slightly less offensive than the T-shirt McMini was wearing, which advertises a band called Deicide.

On the up side, it’s black and white, and a lot more understated than the enormous red and black, front and back printed white one I had when I was the same age which also featured a huge swastika.

It’s also a bit easier to wear these days, I think. There were many instances when I simply couldn’t wear mine because it might be taken the wrong way. McMini’s is a great deal more understated than mine was, which is no bad thing, even though, as a whole, it’s still a bad thing and I am still a Bad Person for caving in.

It is difficult with gallows humour. I strongly believe that actually jokes do occasionally need to be offensive. I also believe that comedy is often far harder-hitting than the heaviest of moral-lesson type stories. I also think that one of the reasons Britain is such a horrible place right now is because we have lost our ability to laugh at ourselves in ways that are a bit sick, and we’ve lost the ability to trivialise the things that scare us to a manageable level by making jokes about it. Nonetheless, McMini has promised me this one is on stage only.

On a different note

My audiobooks are on sale again, so you can grab Few Are Chosen for 99c and Small Beginnings for 99c or free.

I’ve also reduced the other books in the K’Barthan series though some stores (a.k.a. where I can). Help yourself while you they’re cheap. They’re on sale until the end of June.

If you’re interested and would like more information about that, just click here.

AAAAAAND! There’s more!

The Last Word, available in Audio.

If you enjoyed the short story, The Last Word, the audio of that is also available, to find that, go here.

 

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2 Apr 2022 · 6:44 pm

Weird things …

It’s been an interesting week this week. I did a lot of writing and discovered that I’ve spent the last three weeks going in the wrong direction. After that I went back to what I thought was square one and off in another direction, only to discover that was wrong, too. So now it’s back to another point where it went wrong. It feels right this time, though so I think it probably is and of the binned scenes, it’s probably the outcome of second one that’s right with a kind of mash up of the two beforehand.

So now I’ve managed about 800 words in what looks like it’s the right direction. I might have to sit down and do a time line or just work out how many plot threads I have before I go on though because it seems to be getting a bit hectic. And I so want the gunfight in the balloon factory where the helium canisters start leaking. I suspect I’m losing my grip on it because of the Mum thing, in which case, I need to make some kind of timeline/table of what happens when so I can lean on that and write it by numbers. Right now though, I’m just really enjoying writing it. Also, I’ve found a tracer I put in The Last Word that I’d forgotten about. I think I can use that to make it into something a bit longer, just another 12k or so to get it novella length.

I have also made a start on cataloguing my massive collection of sci-fi tat! That’s five items done so far. More on that story … next week … probably.

Other news, I’m going to be putting my author hat on (more on that story, in a moment) and going to two events this year to flog books. The first is St Albans comic-con in July, the second; Norcon (Norwich) in September. Several of us in my local authors’ group have booked a table so we can share the work, cover loo breaks and that kind of stuff. Also it’s much easier waxing lyrical about someone else’s books other than one’s own.

While we were discussing it a few weeks back the topic of cosplay came up.

Cosplay anyone? Er … no.

When people go to conventions, quite a lot of them dress up as their favourite sci-fi character. We discussed who we could be and whether going as characters from our books would be fun. The first question to me was, ‘Are you going as full Lord Vernon?’ Mwahahahargh!

Sadly, though I’m sorely tempted, I felt that the green face paint involved was probably a step too far. And suede gloves in July. A Big Merv-style suit with a light blue pinstripe was an option but it might make me look more like The Doctor.

The face is wrong but the hat’s right. Big Merv isn’t big enough either Mwahahahrg!

That left The Pan of Hamgee. He is my favourite character, except when I prefer one of the others, because they’re like kids. It’s hard to pick one. He also wears a hat, which is nice and distinctive; a cross between a Mel and Kim hat and a Zorro hat. Like Zorro he also wears a cloak, but it’s ankle length—unlike 1960s Zorro … although, did the Antonio Banderas version have a long cloak? Maybe he did. I can’t remember, anyway, onwards. The Pan wears a velvet jacket—I’m thinking the kind of gothic brass buttoned number you might have seen on members of Pink Floyd in the 1960s—and obviously the canvas jeans and elastic-sided boots. How much of this shizz do I have? Oh look! Everything except the hat!

Woot.

Hang on though.Does it fit?

… No. Not even the cloak.

Now what?

Go shopping of course.

First the shirt. Since my enormous, post baby, H-Cup boobs are too big to jemmy into any of my old shirts, I started with that. There are three vintage clothing shops in town, I found it at the second. It’s not quite as virulent as I’d hoped and it’s not silk, because silk paisley shirts are about 200 quid, but it’s dark blue cotton and perfectly good for this. If I find another one somewhere, I’ll buy that. In the meantime, job done I’d say. Next, I have the jeans and I also have some suede, elstic-sided boots. The most comfortable pair for a warm day is pink, which is the best that I can do.

Next … the hat.

Until I was about 40 I used to wear a hat every day. Usually a fedora, a wide brimmed trilby or a straw boater in the summer. I especially liked the hats worn by two stars called Mel and Kim in the 1980s but never bought one when they were ‘in’ and kicked myself for ever after.

However, a few years later at the Spanish/French border, I saw something very similar in the gift shop. I was on a coach trip and it was just a bathroom break so there wasn’t time to buy one—and they were too expensive anyway—but I did now know that Mel and Kim wore Spanish Flamenco Hats. Clearly then, since there is more than a hint that the original Zorro was hispanic, the Spanish Flamenco Hat would be the place to start.

A rigorous search on t’interweb revealed that yes there are such things and you can actually have one made for you for 120 Euros! Or you can buy one for 50 Euros. They were pretty much right but I couldn’t find a company that would ship to the UK … because bloody Brexit. Ugh. On the up side, there is a type of riding display where the horsemen and women wear these hats and there are sites selling them to horse people.

So then I thought what about Portugal … I mean, Britain’s oldest ally at 600 years and there’s the port logo right? The police officers mention that in The Wrong Stuff. So I googled, Portuguese traditional hat, and one of the things that came up was this. Oh my lord! Perfect. Even better it was a shade over 30 Euros from a Portuguese riding shop.

Yep. This, my friends, is a Bolero, one of the traditional hats of Portugal. It is also the hat worn by the geezer on the Sandyman port logo and the hat of choice if you want to look like Lee Van Cleef, or even Clint Eastwood, in The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Those are traditional Portuguese cowboy hats … totally different to the Texan thing, y’all but very much what you see them wear in the films.

Yeh. Well … the hat helps a lot. That’s the shirt.

Interestingly, while I was researching all of this, I discovered why the Sandyman port geezer has a cloak as well as a hat. This is not because he’s a cowboy—though a cloak would be practical to keep you and the horse warm and dry, Drizabone style. Nope. The Sandyman geezer is just a student. Mwahahahrgh! That hat and cloak is what Portuguese students wore when the logo was designed. They still do at some universities. I suspect the public image of port has altered somewhat since then, either that or students weren’t perennially brassic the way they are now.

Plastic loo-seat-shaped hat preserver.

It arrived in a huge box and since I was buying the hat I also bought a thing that looks like a clear plastic loo seat which keeps it flat and in shape … see below.

The correct way to wear it if you’re Portuguese is tilted to the left, if you are a British lady you’re supposed to tilt it to the right. I think I’ll wear mine going left the Portuguese way from now on.

I love that by pure happenstance The Pan’s father, the original owner of his cloak and hat—and lecturer at the University of Hamgee—turns out to have dressed as a Portuguese student. It kind of works too becuase in my mind’s eye, The Pan was always olive skinned until his blood went blue.

Other interesting factoid. Blood in its natural state actually IS blue at some stages in its journey round the body. It’s only when it hits the air and oxygenates that it goes red.

So there we are. Funny what you find out isn’t it?

On a different note …

If you’ve stumbled on this page looking for information about hats and are now wondering who on earth all these imaginary people are well … there are some books about that and they don’t even all cost money. Feel free to read one of the free ones if you’d like to give them a try. You can find a list of them, with links to buy them from the major stores, and mine, at the end of this smashing link here:

MTM’s Books

Or you can sign up to my mailing list and grab Night Swimming for free here:

Night Swimming

 

 

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27 Feb 2022 · 6:05 pm

Oh shit … warning: venting ahead.

Gardening tips from Vladimir Putin

Holy fucking fuck.

Well, this has been an bit of a grim week hasn’t it? If you’d asked me the kind of future I envisaged for my son a few years ago, I’d have said, ‘whatever he wants to make of it.’ I confess that the idea that, in a couple of year’s time, he might be called up to fight in a third world war wasn’t exactly uppermost in my mind. I suppose it depends on a lot of factors but there are uncanny parallels between current events and some of the darker parts of 20th century history.

What worries me, specifically, is that, putting my Lord Vernon hat on for a moment, if I was the average dictator-in-the-street, with one of the largest conventional armies at my disposal, I’d be thinking like this:

Nobody wants to use nuclear weapons. Why? Because a nuclear war would poison the entire planet. We’d all die except for about 0.0001% of the population; the social or political elite who have access to/own a nuclear bunker. Everyone else would either be vaporised in the succession of blasts, or would die of radiation poising in the aftermath.

Obviously as a dictator, I don’t give a shit about killing people but a nuclear conflict does raise problems:

1. If I want to bestride the earth like a colossus with every creature doing my bidding, I need … well … an actual earth to bestride. If I’ve nuked it so that no-one can ever go outside again then, frankly, my chances of doing any seriously satisfying bestriding are a bit shit aren’t they?

2. There’ll be a staff problem. I mean, I’m a dictator. I have an ego. I believe in my own indomitability. There have to be enough people in the underclass to lord it over. There won’t be enough little people to crush under my mighty feet as I do the colossus thing if they’re all dead and there won’t be enough of them to see it. Unfortunately, today’s underclass- no scratch that, pretty much the entire population of the world, today, lacks access to a nuclear shelter. If I nuke my enemies and they nuke back then all the little people will die in the attack. I will be left with a very small group of similarly mighty egos to my own, and the kind of people who’ve never got their hands dirty.

3. If I’m a proper dictator and worth my salt, I like money and a broken and shattered world economy isn’t going to earn me shit. Unless I just want all the stuff. Maybe I just want a palace full of looted art and jewellery all stacked up. The art. All of it from every single museum in the countries I’ve destroyed. I dunno, but I suspect if I’m properly dictator-level greedy I’m going to want an economy to subjugate that’s a bit more than dead on the table.

No sireee! I’m pretty sure that if I was a dictator, a world comprising me and my special few, plus a couple of thousand people from every other country that could afford a shelter system—with a sprinkling of the kind of insanely rich and paranoid bell-ends who have their own nuclear bunkers, Auric Goldfinger, come on down—would not float my boat world-dominance-wise.

Yes, lording it over the survivors of a nuclear war will be child’s play, but as I mentioned, there’ll be only a handful of them. It might be alright, but I’m guessing the average Dictator-in-the-street will consider this to be small-time shite and not the big cock-waving fest they’re after.

Unless Putin’s decided he’ll rise from the ruins with a few thousand privileged survivors and start a master race. I do hope not. I wonder how that would work though. Especially if, for months, no-one can go outside for more than half an hour without getting radiation sickness, and when they do, nothing will work because the EMP in the blast has done for the infrastructure. I’m hoping he’ll decide that poisoning the entire planet is a really bad idea because it will make it much harder to subjugate.

OK so that sounds good so far, but it’s not, because if I’m a properly power crazed nutjob, the inability to nuke isn’t going to stop me wanting a massive fuck off war. If I was the average Dictator-in-the-street and I knew that I had a bigger army than most of my enemies put together, and being a dictator, I didn’t give a rat’s arse about the people I govern because they are there to serve me and add to my wealth, nothing more. I might be tempted to sacrifice a few million of them in a conventional war.

After all, if I start a conflict that wipes out 60 million people like the second world war did, I still have way, way more individuals to screw for cash and lord it over afterwards, if I win, and there’s still the remnants of an infrastructure for me to milk for my own ends. If I’m just another of the rich white men who wants to run the world but am being a bit more obvious about it (by din’t of being a meat-packing dictator) war without nukes will suit me.

Let’s face it, half the western world believes Putin’s the good guy anyway. Yes. Russian sources are painting the Ukraine as the aggressor and because Putin and his ex KGB mates have so successfully undermined our faith in mainstream media there are normal people in the west who actually believe it. There are, educated, sensible people who genuinely think that Biden and Trudeau are part of a communist conspiracy to seize power.

Well, I guess they kind of are, because Putin would probably call himself a ‘communist’ I suppose. If it happens, though, I can’t help thinking that the power seizing is going to go very differently to the way our conspiracy theorist friends expect. The fact is, as I understand it, a lot of the folks who are in charge in Russia are also very rich. I can’t help wondering if a lot of the very rich and very right wing people in the west have looked on and thought, ‘hmm, we want a piece of that.’

Do we think our Dictator-in-the-street has sown enough internal discord in the West’s main players to ensure they stand divided, crumble under pressure or even stay home? Possibly.

All I can hope is that financial necessity and greed will save us. That the parties controlling the propaganda in this will appreciate that any war will destabilise economies and detract from their ability to line their own pockets long-term, and they will put away their guns and lure Mr P back to the negotiating table.

The only thing we can guarantee is that average dictator in the street doesn’t give a shit about, is his people and the death toll. Yep, we know that he won’t be having any thoughts about that.

So rock on greed, I guess. Unless it’s about ideology. In which case, I suspect we’re screwed. Nobody believes their ideology as hard as a your average extremist nutbar.

I sincerely hope we are not standing on the brink of world war three, but looking at our apparent inability to learn from the mistakes of history, I can’t help wondering if we are. I keep seeing the parallels; the undermined press, the persecuted minorities the whole thing, right down to everyone sticking their heads in the sand and going, ‘La, la, la, it’s not happening!’

But what do I know? I’m just a mother with a young son who may end up being the wrong age at the wrong time. One of millions who stands to lose someone they hold very dear over the antics of some vainglorous dickhead with an over-inflated ego.

Just like last time then.

That’s a bit of a pisser.

It’s not often I agree with Sting, but here he is articulating my fervent hope. Yeh. Maybe I should have just ditched the rant and posted this …

On a happier note …

If you want to forget about this shit, you can always download my free ‘winter’ story.

The Last Word, A Christmas K’Barthan Extra

Shows the cover of The Last Word

The Last Word

Yes! It’s dark, it’s mid winter and in K’Barth that means only one thing. It’s Arnold The Prophet’s Birthday! The biggest holiday in the Nimmist year. As usual, the Grongles have banned any celebrations and worse, this year, to add insult to injury, they’re going to have a book burning on the Sacred Day but that’s not going to stop Gladys and Ada. Oh no. Here’s the blurb:

When Mrs Ormaloo brings the terrible news to the Turnadot Street Businesswomen’s Association that the Grongles are going to burn some more banned books on the night of Arnold, The Prophet’s Birthday Gladys and Ada decide to take steps. They even enrol some of the punters from their pub to help out.

The books are in a warehouse being kept under guard. Gladys, Ada, Their Trev and the rest of the group embark on a plan of devilish cunning to rescue as many banned books from the flames as they can.

Corporal Crundy is determined not to mess up his first assignment since his promotion. It should be easy. All he has to do is guard some books. Yeh. It should be a piece of cake but somehow that’s not the way it turns out.

This story is about the same length as Night Swimming and available in PDF, Mobi and Epub from Bookfunnel. Which reminds me, I must pester Gareth about doing the audio version.

Later on I will probably add a second half to it and release it as a short story with a proper cover and t’ing rather than this slightly dodgy one what I done! Phnark. Aaaaanyhoo …

To download your copy, click here

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7 Feb 2022 · 12:08 am

Deserted landmarks and empty milestones …

Recently, I’ve been feeling slightly muted. Tomorrow would have been my father’s birthday and a few days ago, my phone’s calendar flashed up a reminder warning me that I might want to get prepared.

It hurt.

I still miss Dad, which is illogical, because it’s not as if he died a bad death or his departure was even a bad thing. It was a mercy. He had suffered enough and there was nowhere else for him to go. Death was the next stage for him and I am certain that he was more than ready. Although it hurt to receive it, I couldn’t bring myself to remove that notification from my phone. Maybe next year eh?

Strangely, I find that these empty milestones that were once land mark days often come accompanied by a stream of coincidental, memory-triggering events. I don’t mean the phone notification it’s more stuff like the fact that today, in church, we had a couple of hymns that Dad loved. Immortal Invisible is one where the memory of how he sounded, singing it, was so strong that I could almost hear him beside me. Likewise, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, which we have had at most family funerals on both sides of the house, weddings too — to the point where I feel guilty not having it at Dad’s.

There is a bit in Dear Lord and Father of Mankind which can be construed as rude … if you work at it very hard. Today, I found myself smiling as I remembered Dad leaning over to me after the service, in a conspiratorial manner, and telling me which bit it was and why.

This from the man who was endlessly telling me the latin or greek roots for things … which is not as erudite as it sounds because Dad was a natural rebel and liked to be a little subversive from time-to-time. That’s probably why the only instance I can remember of his efforts to educate me is constipeo (constipere, constipatatum, constipatus sum) — which means ‘I bring pressure upon’ and from which we get the modern word, constipation.

How proud he’d be!

Or not.

Dad

Then again … I do remember him gleefully sharing this information with my brother and I, and Mum’s gentle, ‘No! Darling!’ which was more for show than anything because she was trying not to laugh. Indeed, as a nipper growing up, I remember all four of us as being terrible potty humourists, you only had to shout, ‘bum!’ at my family in the right way and we’d fall about laughing.

Mum was probably the best at pretending to be normal, Dad could do it as well, but he did tend to be a bit forgetful which blew it all apart at the seams sometimes. On the up side, as I told him when he started to get dementia, since he could never find his keys anyway, he’d be quite far gone before anyone noticed. Which turned out to be the case.

In my last year at Lancing, Dad retired as housemaster. Since he and Mum had left the accommodation on site I was boarding. Dad was Head of The Common Room which basically meant he was now housemaster to the teachers. One evening, I was on my way back from supper, or possibly a rehearsal or something at the music school and I encountered Mum and Dad, in their best black tie glad rags, with the parents of one of the lads in Dad’s house.

‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘We’re here for the Common Room Dinner,’ Dad explained.

I glanced over at the door of the Master’s Dining Room. It was looking a bit closed and I couldn’t hear much in the way of chat going on. Should I say anything I wondered? No.

‘It seems to be a bit late starting,’ said Mum.

‘Right,’ I said. I think I wished them well and skipped off without a thought.

The next day I asked one of the other staff if they’d enjoyed the dinner the previous night. ‘That’s not until next week,’ I was told.

Oh dear … poor Dad, I remember thinking. Poor Mum, too as she had to produce dinner back at home and she had precisely zilch with which to do so. I think she rustled up a quick risotto with tinned ham and frozen mixed veg.

Life was never boring at home indeed, it was years before I reached the point where my parents were remotely shockable. They were more open and accepting than most of my friends … perhaps I should just leave that as, ‘most people’. Mum still is.

I miss Dad a lot. I suppose that’s partly because, as time passes and my memories of the shouty bit that plagued his last few months at home have begun to fade, I’ve begun to remember who he was — which is a bonus. The only slight drawback is that when you’re stressed your brain dumps an enormous amount of intel and unfortunately, I’d say as much as half my childhood memories, and my memories of Dad, have melted away post the stress of dealing with his Alzheimer’s. So it’s kind of wiped my memory, as well as his.

That’s a point of order though, because on the whole yes, I remember who he was more. Who he really was, and that’s a Good Thing. I have a video of him talking on my phone, in his proper, non demented voice. He had Alzheimer’s at the time, advanced Alzheimer’s, but it wasn’t manifesting itself so strongly and it’s so much him, that vid, that I treasure it. I realise that I need to make a video of Mum. I might get her to record one for McMini next week, saying she’s looking forward to seeing him. That will be one for both of us to treasure then. Because that’s the first thing I find, when someone dies, you subtly start to forget their voice. Not totally, but when you hear it properly you realise how much is missing from your remembered version.

Then there’s the fact that, on top of the better memory of who Dad was, I’m finding that, as Mum follows her own dementia journey, I am keenly aware that this time round there’s no ‘sane one’. Through most of Dad’s illness, I could ask Mum for guidance if I wasn’t sure I was getting something right. She would know exactly what Dad would have done or said. It’s probable that, because of that, I know what Mum wants. But there’s no Dad to check with. Because he’s dead. And even if he wasn’t dead, he’d have been nuts.

Shortly after he died, I was out with Mum in the garden walking very slowly beside her as she crept along with her walky frame-on-wheels thing. At that time, we always made a beeline for the bottom of the garden because it was beyond the range of her panic button and she wasn’t allowed, or at least was strictly encouraged not to go there unaccompanied. She did, of course, but we all pretended she didn’t. As we walked I suddenly heard Dad’s voice in my head saying,

‘Oh darling! Just look at the state of your mother, I can’t bear it.’

Pyrimid Orchids at Mum’s

It was so vivid I turned to look but he wasn’t there. I remember thinking ‘back’ that I’d do my utmost to look after her and that while I couldn’t make her better, I would try to keep her happy.

Most of the time, I know those things are my imagination, but every now and then, one pops up from such depths that it feels as if it wasn’t me. Weird.

As well as it being the eve of what would be Dad’s 91st Birthday, had he survived, today was also the 70th anniversary of The Queen’s accession to the throne (in English, since the death of her father).

As a result, the last hymn was I Vow To Thee, My Country — a hymn I would like a lot better if the tune didn’t concentrate itself quite so comprehensively in the crackly twilight zone between my upper and lower range. Then we finished with the National Anthem which goes to a tune I rather like — apologies to Billy Connolley, who, I know, believes we’d be much better off using the theme tune to BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Archers’.

Run with me, there is a spot of relevance to this one. I remember reading somewhere, a while back, that The Queen was very upset when her uncle abdicated. To the point where she took herself off somewhere quiet and cried for a long time. Legend has it that the reasons for her grief were twofold; firstly, because her father lacked his brother’s strong constitution and she shared the view of himself and most other members of the Royal Family which was that being King would do for him. Secondly, because she had to face the godawful truth that she would have to be monarch, which is a job that nobody sane with the smallest understanding of what it entails would want.

Few people seem to see beyond the wealth but I’m sure fame, or being monarch, could be pretty grim. I can’t imagine how I’d feel having people like Robert Mugabe round to tea. Sure his name backwards sounds like Yorkshire swearing (eee by gum) but that doesn’t make any of his actions funny. Supping with murderers and meat-packing tyrants might be quite grim but since you’re part of the state machinery, it’s what you do. There’s a point where being monarch might actually be quite dehumanising, I suspect.

Years ago, growing up in the school, everyone knew who I was because they all knew who my dad was. That meant everyone felt they knew me well, even people I’d never met in my life. Every now and again someone would pop up and say hello and I’d have no clue who they were. So I’d ask after their work, and various other things until I could pin down which of the people Mum and Dad had described — but whom I’d never met — I was talking to. I was always aware that my behaviour towards other people reflected on Dad so despite being an absolute menace in many respects I was always as polite as possible to everyone, especially the people at the pointy end, the cleaners and domestic staff.

Sometimes, I felt the pressure. Especially when I hit my teenage years and boys started wolf whistling at me out of windows etc. But I could always go off site where nobody knew who I was. There’s no ‘off site’ if you’re queen. Most people want a piece of you. Anyone else hates you. Everyone thinks you like it. Everyone thinks you can say no, the way they think my brother and I could say no to looking after our parents. But actually I doubt she can say no any more than we can. Being Queen? I think it’d be a bit shit to be honest.

The point is, she’s spent 70 years of her life doing a job that she categorically did NOT want to do. OK, so she might have come to enjoy it by now, who knows. The point is, it was the antithesis of what she wanted at the start. The perfect storm of NO. You can see where this is going now, can’t you?

Yep.

There are times when I do give the Almighty a piece of my mind about putting my Dad, and by proxy the rest of us, through so much. The fact that pretty much everything about the whole care thing requires a portfolio of skills that is the absolute antithesis of any of my fucking skills. Which is, indeed, a perfect storm of all the things in life at which I am spectacularly shite. Yes. Every. Last. Fucking. One. Oh and some extra things that I didn’t even know I was shite at until this kicked off, but now I do. Bonus!

The fact that pretty much all my duties of care are about playing to my failings. OK so I can sort of cope with that, because yes, I am able to understand that many parts of my life — most of them, to be honest — are fucking brilliant. Also I am able to understand that if this is the price of growing up with parents as lovely, open, amusing and out-and-out fun as mine I’m happy to pay up. But … the mental energy required to do stuff you’re absolutely bollocks at day after day is quite substantial.

The endless requirement to enhance my sorry performance from fucking awful to godawful-but-it’ll-scrape-by … probably (that’s a technical term by the way) is not only draining but it cascades down onto the pathetic embers of my creativity like a gushing torrent of rusty bog water, further hampering my efforts to write anything or … I dunno … for my existence to have a point.

Sitting in church today, thinking about how long The Queen has been monarch I actually felt a bit of a lightweight for whinging about 5 years running my parents’ finances. I will try to shut up about it and be less of a whinging twat from now on. Seriously though.

Seventy years.

Seventy fucking years people.

God in heaven! That’s a bastard truckload of CBT. Well done Ma’am. You’re a stronger woman than I.

On the lighter side …

Another quick heads up about freebies and cheapies available from my fabulous portfolio of literature. Er hem.

The Christmas story is still up for grabs, also, the audiobook versions of Few Are Chosen and Small Beginnings are down to 99c from my own store still. To find links to buy, or to download The Christmas One, just click on one of these links:

Few Are Chosen (remember it’s My Store only at the moment. It’s back to £7.99)

Small Beginnings (The ebook of this one is free at all participating retailers and on my store. The audio version is also free on my store, but £1.99/$2.99 everywhere else).

The Christmas One This one’s an ebook, obviously. Gareth has finished performing in Worms, presumably he is now bathed and scrubbed up and ready to do … audio things. Soon. There is an audiobook scheduled for late February/Early March.

Shows the cover of The Last Word

The Last Word

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15 Jan 2022 · 7:44 pm

The Chaos Fairies are back … the little bastards.

This week, as promised, how I was banned from Facebook. Many years ago Amazon had product discussion forums and I used to hang out on the one in the UK, for books mostly. It was typical Amazon, moderated only by AI. If your name was Richard, or William, you couldn’t be Dick or Willy even if you … you know … were. It would tell you you’d typed a profanity and refuse to let you post. Meanwhile on the dot com site, there was a really unpleasant bunch of people who used to descend on threads en masse and bully people they didn’t like. Even Anne Rice. Yes. Anne fucking Rice used to post on there. She was lovely. But they used to hunt down each thread she started and filibuster or ‘call her out’ as they called it, until they killed the conversation stone dead. 

Weird.

If ever there was comprehensive proof that AI is not going to take over the world any time soon, the AI Amazon used—and still uses on other parts of its site—is it.

Facebook appears to use the same lame AI, except it doesn’t say there’s a problem. It just lets you post and then the AI bans you.

Unfortunately much of what is banned appears to be harmless banter. I’m on one particular group there which is fans of a fellow comedy author. There are folks from all over the world and we take the piss out of one another about our nationalities, among other things.

In case you can’t read it, I said something along the lines of, ‘I love you all and everything but you Americans are crazy!’ on a post with some crazy guy doing mad stuff. I actually messaged one of the mods in that group, because I do post there quite a lot, and she posted a screen shot of what I said, at which point about 50 people commented variants of ‘but we ARE crazy!’ etc.  I was banned for seven days. I was also banned for three days for a humorous reply to someone commenting on a post about my son’s lost socks, saying ‘Yep, boys are gross!’

Since then I’ve read up and discovered that Facebook is particularly hot on taking down posts that diss Americans or males. Now I know. But because most of this stuff is just British humour, it means I am going to lose my account soon, for just … you know … being myself. Which is a bit of a worry. The last ban was five days in the end, I think and four days banned from groups which went up to seven on my profile but I was allowed to post in groups after 4 days as per the original smack down.

This afternoon, I notice that once again, my account has a red flag. I have no idea why but I’m guessing it’s a comment I liked somewhere. I think I dimly remember commenting on a post that someone had said might not be right but was still funny. Ho hum.

‘I’m sorry Madam, we at the CIA Facebook do not have a sense of humour of which we are aware.’

So that’s a joy. I admit that this one thing is hardly a proper Chaos Fairies attack but no, it’s not the only thing on its own. There was more.

What else happened then, Mary?

There was a death in the family. In this case, an electronic death rather than a human or pet one and an absolutely royal pain in the arse.

So. Why is it that if you save up for something really expensive, in this case, an electric enhancement for my bicycle, you will immediately incur a huge bill, out of the blue, the day after you’ve bought it?

Yes, last Monday night, I finally ordered a swytchbike kit for my trusty fluorescent orange bicycle. I haven’t used my bike much recently, mainly because it is always windy. Not me, obviously, although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t emit the odd tone poem but I actually mean the weather. Hence, thinking that if I got some electronic assist I would a) ride at a pace that is faster than walking and b) passers by would not be treated to my tourette’s like swearing at the fucking annoying wind blowing in my face making it like riding up a mountain in the stiffest gear. You know, one of the ones I’d use to pedal it faster while going down a hill at 20mph.

Yes. I get pissed off and then I mutter, ‘Fuck off! Wind! Fuck off! Wind.’ as I pedal.

I never pretended I was a model human did I? Although even I understand that’s probably not a good look.

The following day, I went for a walk with a friend for our weekly grumble in the jungle, whinge in the woods, etc and I dropped my phone. When I picked it up a strange line of light had appeared at one side of the screen. Not a big line but it was there. As you know, my phone had survived being dropped out of a car window at 35mph so I did realise that it might be quite … sensitive … to any future drops. I think the killer for this one was that it landed at the edge of a puddle, perhaps the water got in and … I dunno.

While we had a cup of coffee I got out a USB a-c stick I always carry with me and I downloaded all my photos. Suffice to say, by the time I got home, not only did the phone have the strange light bit but it also had a little blue smudge. It was 4.30pm. I looked at the blue smudge and wondered if it was going to get bigger.

If it was the fluid leaking out of the display I knew the thing was, essentially, haemorrhaging its life blood. The only question. How long did I have? Hours? Days? I didn’t know.

Naturally, it was Tuesday and the following day was drive-to-Mum’s-day so there’d be no getting near a shop. If it wasn’t going to last until the end of the next day or Thursday morning, I had to get a phone. NOW. On the other hand, while the blue splodge was getting bigger, it wasn’t growing that fast and so long as I made sure I’d backed up my pictures, music and audio books, which were the most important things, I might be able to limp on for a day or two. I didn’t want to buy a new phone if I could avoid it, having just stumped up six hundred and something quid for the electric bicycle kit thing. But if I had to then, even if I could string it out a few days, just to give myself time to identify some phones, track down a bargain and move some of my savings into my account, it would help.

The next problem would be backing up the settings, apps and stuff. My phone’s hard drive was double the size of my computer’s and over three quarters full so I didn’t think I should use my computer for this.  I therefore downloaded the important stuff I mentioned earlier onto two SD memory things. I had to keep recharging the phone because it only had one port and if I had the SD memory thing plugged into the USBc port, I couldn’t charge the ruddy thing. By the time I’d done that, the blue splurge was big enough for me to know that I’d be lucky if the phone lasted the night. It was also six p.m.

There were two things on my phone which couldn’t be transferred to a new one unless the old one was still working. The first was the card reader I use selling books at events and the second was my mother’s banking app.

Shit. The banking app. Fuckity-fuck! Yes. That put a rocket up my arse.

I was going to have to get a new phone.

With phones, I tend to go for as close to the top of the range as I can, and then I hang onto it for about five years. Unless I break it after three. That means I usually have to get one on contract and pay monthly because it works out cheaper than paying for a sim free. This was not a luxury I open to me right now though.

A quick google and we discovered Curries was upon until 8. I arrived at ten to seven and they were locking up. They actually close at 7.00. I tend to prioritise camera quality as ‘The Thing’ choosing a phone and with a sim-free now costing stupid money, I’d decided to go for the latest model but one, so it was a bit less expensive. I’d a list of three I’d been looking at (since I originally dropped the current one, you know, just in case this happened). The first choice, a Samsung S21 was out of stock. They might be able to get it the next day though.

Having showed him my phone, the screen of which was getting steadily bluer, he agreed that it might be risky to wait until then.

They didn’t stock the modern version of the phone that was dying, which was the second phone on my list. Indeed they had few high end phones to speak of because … COVID, Brexit and chip shortages …

I looked at the cheaper ones but none was so cheap I could justify buying it to tide myself over the next few months until I could afford something ritzy for long term use. I was also concerned that any new phone at the low end would be less backwards compatible with my 4G sim card, as well, which I could replace but not that night when I NEEDED the phone to work to move Mum’s banking app over. There were none by any brands I knew much about and none I’d researched, and as we were still looking at £300 or so I wasn’t keen.

As I turned to go, I noticed they had some Google phones. Their cameras are supposed to be great but I didn’t know much else about them. There were two, for £500 and something and £700 and something. I asked about the difference. Not much, it seemed and the £500 one was the same level as the Samsung I’d asked about. Ooo.

‘Do you have any of those?’ I asked him pointing at it the top of the range one.

‘No. But we have one of these left,’ he pointed to the £500 one.

‘Is that an older one then?’

‘No, it’s their flagship phone. It just has a slightly older chip and the camera doesn’t zoom as well. We have one left in this colour.’ He pointed to one with an orange stripe across the top and a doll’s-flesh-coloured body.

‘Right …’ I said slowly. Crikey!

‘You might get the Samsung you wanted from a supermarket,’ he said.

‘Hmm … but if I take ten minutes to nip down the road to Sainsbury’s and they don’t have it, will you still be open when I come back?’

‘No.’

And the Samsung one they had for £700 and something was nearer £900 in the supermarkets. I’d looked it up. OK, I’d found one I was happy to use for three years. I could get it NOW and I needed it NOW. There was nothing for it. I told him to hit me up with the grimly-coloured Pixel. It would be OK. I’d have to get a wallet case for it anyway.

When I got it home, I was able to connect it to my old phone to copy everything over. That done, it started downloading updates. Except the old phone had been charging off it and without my knowing, it had gone below 50% charged so although it showed apps updating they just hung like that. Nothing actually updated.

Luckily, I realised.

Even more luckily, I’d bought a wireless charger so I stuck it on that, although it still hadn’t finished updating until midnight. It had copied the files and google apps from the new phone but none of the others apps like WhatsApp, Signal, etc … or Mum’s banking app, for example.

I started with that. It needed either a second password—which I didn’t have—or a QR code, but by that time, the screen was too blue for the new phone to read the QR code off the old phone and it wasn’t doing auto rotate so I couldn’t rotate it so the QR code was in the white bit rather than the blue bit.

At last, I managed to get into the banking app on my laptop and use the (by now totally blue) screen to get a number to change the password.

It was now 2.30 am and I was doing a 300 mile round trip to Sussex and back the following day. Mmm. Probably time to go to bed. I’d started sending myself emails of the notes on my phone because I had assumed that when the new one said it was ‘copying over my files’ that it would have copied them and discovered it didn’t. I managed to get four or five really important ones but I lost the how-to for Mum’s call blocking on her phone and two or three others I could really have done with keeping. On the other hand, I did manage to save all my music and audio files and my photos … all six thousand of them. Gulp. For that, I am very grateful.

Even better, we are now sorted for Mum’s op. She’s going to have a bog-standard surgical procedure. It’ll last 30 minutes and her carer can go in with her. The surgeon wanted to do something called Mohs but you have to wait for results for a couple of hours, and with a chance that she’d be there all day, the carer was COVID barred from that one.

On a final note, a brief bit of politics. Last year, The Queen buried her husband. There as a poignant picture of her masked, in black, sitting alone in the stalls of Windsor Castle chapel. The day before, the Prime Minister attended a bring a bottle ‘business meeting’ in his garden. The contrast is striking. The Queen, leading by example as a leader should. The Prime Minister apparently assuming that he was too important for his own fucking rules to apply to him. Then he lies like an 8 year old caught with their hand in the biscuit tin. Idiot.

On a more cheerful note …

Just a quick reminder, the Christmas story is still up for grabs, also, the audiobook versions of Few Are Chosen and Small Beginnings are down to 99c on Apple, Chirp, Kobo and my own Store. To find an information page, with links to buy, or to download The Christmas One, just click on one of these links:

Few Are Chosen (remember it’s Kobo, My Store, Chirp and Apple the other stores still have it at£7.99)

Small Beginnings (this one is free on my store but 99c/99p on Kobo, Chirp and Apple.

The Christmas One This one’s an ebook, obviously. Gareth is currently performing in Worms (shortle) but there is an audiobook scheduled for late February.

Shows the cover of The Last Word

The Last Word

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