These Mirages

These Mirages

We always begin in such places
as this, with all the possibilities
of the day heaped up before us.

There is little here that can be turned
into precious stones that sparkle and glow.
We live amongst dull sands in heaping dunes
in the empty heart of this desert.

We wait for some glimpse of the wonders
we were promised, but nothing grows
from these mirages except disappointment.

You take my hand and hold it,
hoping for some strength to journey on
until we find those promises waiting

lying in green at the end of this barren land
where trees shade us from this shadowless place
and let us start living once again.

A Crack in Space

It had been quite a while since I’d made any Yorkshire puddings, so I was checking the amount of flour I needed as I took the second egg from the box and cracked it on the side of the bowl.

When I looked down….

I’m not sure, but I think there is a creation myth of one of the many hundreds – if not thousands – of religions humankind has invented throughout its history, that says something about the universe emerging from an egg.

Whichever religion it was – if it was one – was right.

There, floating a few inches above my bowl containing the other – normal – egg was a dark cloud, already twinkling with stars forming as it expanded. The dark cloud spreading and growing, not so much a big bang as a slow splurge, spreading out over the kitchen as I stood watching it.

Maybe it was slow because it had merged from a cracked open egg, maybe it was slow because I’d just taken it from the fridge, but universes are supposedly cold places, so maybe that was not it.

Of course, it is not every day that a new universe appears in someone’s kitchen, so at the time I was gob-smacked, dumfounded, paralysed by wonder and – quite possibly – a bit of fear too, as I wondered whether I would be subsumed into this new universe that was now spreading dangerously beyond the mug tree towards the microwave.

I remembered something about microwave radiation and the big bang from some science programme I’d half-watched and decided that something this big, something on the scale of a universe appearing in the kitchen was too big for me to handle on my own.

So I did the only wise thing I could in the situation.…

I called for my wife to come and help.

New Kindle Book Out Now: Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Yet more outpourings and ejaculations from Norbert Trouser-Quandary's notably upstanding organ, featuring more tales of the doings and goings-on in that most delightfully perverted of England’s rural villages: Little Frigging in the Wold.
This volume of tales from Little Frigging features the adventures of Grand Uncle Stagnant back in the summer of love where he hears about the concept of free love and – almost immediately – stops issuing invoices.
Other tales in this volume detail the history of the Hot Strumpets on Wheels service, the uses of high visibility fetish gear, Little Frigging in the Wold – the computer game, the appendage of a hands-free pole-vaulter, pancakes and perversions and the Great Fire of Little Frigging. Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love also contains many other intriguing events and happenings from the village and its environs, including the erotic use of the toolshed as well as pointers on the tactical subtleties of the Inter-Village Orgy match and much, much more.

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Further collections of tales from Little Frigging in the Wold can be found in: Little Frigging in the Wold and Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape.

Some comments on David Hadley's writing:
“I think I just broke all my vital organs laughing”
“another one of yours I truly enjoyed, “Old Feebletrousers” love it!”
“Loved this piece. Very funny and energetic….”
“funny stuff!”
“that was brilliant!”
“on the one hand I’m so glad I decided to read the rest of this collection (funniest thing I’ve read in a LONG time) but on the other hand I wish I hadn’t done it during dinner as I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard”

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

The Trousers of the Moment

Just why Rumple Grungewelly became such a world-famous celebrity, is - of course – a matter for a more popular culture-compatible pair of trousers than the pair I am currently on the inside of. However, I can safely say without fear of comprehension, that he would not have become as world-famous as he now undoubtedly is without a fine and discerning talent for spotting the trousers of the moment.

We have all – no doubt – had our own share of trouser-related misfortunes, but it seems that Grungewelly himself is not only the only celebrity on this planet, but possibly the only trouser-wearer who has managed to avoid any such tragic trouser-related mishaps. No matter where he is seen by the ever-present paparazzi, he – uncannily as it seems – never seems to be residing inside the wrong sort of trouser for the situation. This is a feat that will leave most of us who habitually have to make many fraught trouser-related decisions as an almost supernatural talent.

Thus is Grungewelly's fame assured... at least as long as there are trousers, or -come to that – legs to put inside them.

The Heyday of Dangerous Sports

Even so, none of us at the time thought it was possible – even though she was prepared to give it a go. Back in those days, of course, Health and Safety was not the great over-riding concern it has now become. So her attempt to open a corned beef tin without gauntlets, safety goggles and an air-sea rescue helicopter on stand-by, was regarded – at the time - as brave rather than foolish. Consequently, there was no attempt made by the local authorities to attempt to ban the proposed opening of the corned beef tin, or even to insist on a fenced-off security zone erected around the vicinity of the tin.

However, come the morning of the attempted opening, it was a fine English spring morning, with the howling gale throwing pouring rain into the determined, but expectant crowd that had gathered there, ready to witness the spectacle. Although, most people in the crowd confidently expected some bloodshed, if not the loss of one or more digits. There was even some speculation that an out-of-town betting syndicate with links to organised crime back in The Smoke, were taking good money on the loss of one or more limbs, once the initial tricky first corner of the tin had been broached.

She, of course, despite the storm, had come dressed for the occasion, which – as this was the 1970s, necessitated her wearing a bikini while some superannuated sheepskin-enrobed TV gobshite mouthed dreary double-entendres into his microphone.

It was tense, tight, right up to the moment when she inserted the key, feeding the little metal tab into the key slot, then waited while the local mayor, and a couple of local MPs bored the shit out of everyone with some pointless and – luckily for most – almost totally-inaudible and irrelevant speeches.

There was some concern that the bikini-clad contestant was turning blue under the downpour, so a couple of the sharply-suited gentlemen from the betting syndicate suggested that the local dignitaries cut it short before they had an accident.

Then, with only a brief fanfare from the sodden brass band it got under way.

She had been practising, of course, but only with a normal tin opener, and the then nascent ring pull on beer cans, but this was her first attempt at the dreaded and highly dangerous corned beef tin.

It was tense as the key began to turn and the TV commentator screaming inanities into his microphone, while the watching crowd pressed closer, all eager for their first sight of blood – or failing that – corned beef.

The contestant herself, her fingers numb with cold and sodden from the rain, couldn't get an adequate-enough grip on the metal key and the rain-sodden tin label was coming off in her other hand.

There were calls by the more safety-conscious to abandon the whole spectacle before disaster struck, but their voices of sanity were drowned out by the rest of the crowd, pressing every-closer as the first sightings of the corned beef were confirmed by the judges and the TV presenter nearly had a heart-attack trying to peer down the contestant's rain-sodden bikini top.

Then – suddenly – it was al over. The contestant stepped forward, beaming, the two parts of the tin separated, one in each hand.

Quickly, her assistant rushed forward with a plate and the contestant and her assistant began the tricky procedure of getting the corned beef out of the tin without either of them losing a limb in the process.

Then, with a suspiciously-orgasmic sigh from the TV presenter, the disgorged corned beef and the two parts of the tin were displayed to the wildly-cheering and applauding crowd as the judge and the adjudicator confirmed that the contestant did – indeed – still have al her appendages and that she had - in fact – completed the tin opening in what they could now confirm was a world-record time.

That night there was jubilation and impromptu street parties throughout the length and breadth of the UK, in scenes not seen since England had won the World Cup over a decade before.

It was a time when so many - once again – found themselves proud to be British.

Not One of Those Days

It was not one of those days after all, which was odd because I had it down in my diary as being one of my ten official, government-allocated, one of those days. This was going to be a problem as the government had decided to end the chaos, doubt and worry of all us workers having one of those days when we were not ready to cope with it. Thus, they hoped, by having pre-planned days where nothing would go right for us we would be ready and prepared for that day where it all went wrong and not suffer so much from it and lose productive time through it.

After all, how many times have we stayed in bed, hiding under the duvet, refusing to come out because we know that out there, there is one of those days just waiting for us…?

Exactly….

Allocating our one of those days for us was just another way the government tried to make us believe it was on our side, with its pollsters, focus groups and political strategists all saying that taking the uncertainty out of people’s lives was exactly the sort of thing governments ought to be doing.

But, if this, today… was not one of my one of those days, why was I standing in an alley with my hands up as an armed mugger relieved me of all my valuables just after I’d been soaked by a lorry splashing through a massive rain puddle at the side of the road as I walked along looking for a newsagent that had not sold out of my favourite newspaper, all when I was already late for work after my usual commuter train broke down just a few hundred yards from my station?

Erosion

Erosion

The words we once used are forever
Written on all these monuments.
The wind and rain will not erode them.
The sun will not scorch a faded
Forgetfulness across their rough surfaces.

The undergrowth will not grow up
Around them and hide them
Lost within a deeper tangle of green
Fading into a darkness
Too deep for any eye to resolve

Into something lurking deep within
With a man-made shape revealing
Some long-forgotten secret place
Hiding within, and tells us all

Some long-forgotten history
Of what once was before time
Taught us how to be forgetful
And not remember all these words.

Alarms and Diversions

Now as the very delphiniums of our curiosity burst into bloom at the prospect of someone we find more than a little personable revealing to us what they keep within the deeper recesses of their underwear, we adopt the stance of a semi-beguiled stock control assistant in readiness for the delights that will soon be snuggling up against our eager palms.

Then – of course – the bloody alarm goes off and you have to struggle up through entangled dreams and duvets to turn the sodding thing off, whilst staring in incomprehension at the clock face. After all, it can’t possibly be that time already, can it?

What happened to the night?

What was that vague memory of a dream that is already fading away as the realisation that you must – indeed – get out of this nice warm, cosy, snugly… just a few more…?

No hurry….

Shit…!

Look at what that bloody clock has done now, several minutes stolen while you just closed your heavy eyelids for what could have been no more than a few seconds.

Now you do have to get up or you will be late.

But….

Warm….

Cosy….

No!

Up and out before you have time to think about….

Bloody hell, it’s cold and dark... and the bed is….

If you just slipped back for only a moment, because the outline of your body is still there in the memory of the sheet, you could go back, find your way back to that dream where you know that one you dream of will be waiting just for you….

New Technology

It was not quite as expected, but then we only had the advertisement to go on, which – of course – bore about as much resemblance to reality as a politician does to a human being.

Still, though, the instructions, while not exactly illuminating as to the functions, capabilities or even purpose of the new item were quite extensive, at least in pointing out the various circumstances in which using the item would invalidate its warranty, such as using it in anything more inclement than a stiff breeze to – if we interpreted the cartoonish illustrations correctly – attempting to use it in Wales whilst not wearing a hat.

Still, though, it came with a plug which is more than what used to be the case. I am of an age now where I can still remember the frantic search when something new arrived for some rarely-used item you could steal the plug from to use for the new device. And it had batteries included too.

Still, though, the hand-grips were not in Imperial as stated on the website and the lubrication socket was not in the position illustrated (nearly) in the instructions.

However, I could see she was more than a little eager – and considering the weather conditions – had already stripped down to the inner layer of cardigans in readiness to test the device.

So, I handed it over and left the room, intending to make a cup of tea, when she pointed out that if I filled the container on the optional attachment, it would make a cup of tea for her once she was finished and – not only that – it would also open jam jars for her, thereby making much of my existence superfluous, which she seemed to regard as somewhat of a feature, not as a bug.

Fatuous Zygote

Fatuous Zygote is the chat show host famous for once asking a member of the royal family if he had a penis and other such infantile impertinencies towards the celebrity circuit. Yesterday, Zygote announced that, at the age of 55 years old, he is now seriously considering growing up, despite the disastrous effect it may have on his career.

‘Quite simply I’m bored shitless with asking film stars about the size of their tits, arses or their genitalia,’ Zygote said in his trademark direct manner. ‘I mean, who really gives a damn anyway. I woke up the other morning realising I don’t really give a damn about Pumpkin Dropincentre’s latest film, or whether some superannuated rock star has been wibbling on about the state of the planet to some star-struck loons at the UN, or even – god help us – if they have released yet another bloody album several decades after they wrote their last decent tune.'

The BBC has confirmed that it has no use for a mature, sensible chat show host and will – when Zygote hangs up his plastic imitation tits for the last time – replace him with a dog that can – almost – bark the Norwegian national anthem whilst bouncing on a trampoline.

Small Woodland Creatures and the Media

There are not all that many people prepared to hold aloft the small woodland mammal of their choice in mixed company these days, especially when the recent tabloid hysteria questioning the practice of taking a weasel to the supermarket during a Bank Holiday weekend. This is especially disconcerting to those of a nervous disposition for whom, the presence of a badger or pine marten, during their weekly shopping trips is such a comfort, especially during the busy periods such as a typical pre-Bank Holiday weekend.

Of course, there have been a few incidents alleged where an over-stressed badger - or a squirrel in fear for the integrity of its nuts – may have bitten other shoppers. Allegedly, in one case made notorious by the aforementioned tabloids, a shop assistant at the checkout was savagely attacked by a distraught water vole when the store's computer rejected its loyalty card for the third time that week. However, further investigation has failed to come up with any evidence whatsoever for the water vole attack on the checkout staff of any British supermarket, let alone any small woodland creature assaulting another shopper.

Furthermore, most supermarkets - perhaps fearful of their market share and reputation – have all issued statements saying how they regard the use of small woodland mammals as companion shoppers as a great British tradition which they all wholeheartedly support.

Consequently, this whole issue could be one of those occasional tabloid storms that disappears almost as quickly as it became front page news, especially if some minor celebrity happens to go out for an evening in paparazzi-rich environment after forgetting to don any underwear.

Apart From the Camel

However, it is probably for the best if we pack it all away now and pretend that it didn't happen. Then, once we have removed the tell-tale lemon meringue stains from the eiderdown we can go about our business as normal... apart from the camel, of course.

It is always difficult trying to spice up what has become a routine love-life, especially when the watermelons are out of season and the Assistant Retail-Manageress uniform is still at the cleaners as they try to remove the raspberry yoghurt stains from the elbows.... yet again.

It is even more awkward trying to get a somewhat reluctant camel up the stairs, especially in a typical modern three-bedroom semi-detached - where the walls are not quite as soundproof as one would wish - especially while wearing fetish wellies that make the camel somewhat more nervous than would be the case with... say... a sheep, but I digress.

Still, though, once the camel was upstairs and we’d found some flippers that fitted it, it did lend proceedings that certain... erotic charge that has been missing from our intimate encounters of late, especially when the wife reached up, wearing only her leather Yeoman of the Guard outfit, to reach down the Monopoly board from off the top of the wardrobe and I began to shake the dice in readiness.

It did, though, turn out all right in the end, Although – and I have since Googled it for confirmation – as far as I'm, aware it was the first time in recorded history that a camel has, so convincingly, won a game of Strip Monopoly.

The Goat Herder Incident

Apparently, none of the goats herders implicated in the famous case of internet censorship which later became known as The Goat Herder Incident had ever in the past had reason to consort with any Parmesan cheese, shocking as it may seem.

Of course, for several years now there has been an increasing number of busybodies convinced that they know what is best for everyone else intent on forcing their – somewhat dubious – notions of taste and decency upon the rest of us.

As it happens most people go about their own business without feeling the need to get carried away on other people’s behalf, interfering with things that have seemingly rubbed along all right, at least until these self-appointment interferers decided they should become involved.

It has been – especially in some of the more wild and untamed regions of this country outside the ring roads that encircle all we hold most dear - that there are some – only some – goat herders who take a dismissive attitude to certain forms of cheeses. Normally, this should be a matter for themselves alone. However, sine that last Laborg government ratified and introduced the EU-wide legislation outlawing disparagement of and discrimination against the various cheeses of other EU nations, the goat herder’s stance now contravened the law.

Consequently, at the recent goat-herders convention in exotic down-town Bilston, when several photographs of the - admittedly well-refreshed - goat herders were published on ArseAboutFaceBook openly disparaging several cheeses of other EU member countries, especially some Parmesan they regarded as 'like cardboard' there was – of course – outrage that such attitudes still persist in this country in this day and age, despite the fact that cheese-disparagement has along and noble history in this country dating back to the time King Alfred the Great sniggered at some Gouda.

After receiving upwards of nearly two complaints the administrators of the ArseAboutFaceBook site claimed they had no choice but to remove the offending photographs before the rest of the media got hold of the story and bored everyone shitless by banging on about it for several days, or at least until some celebrity fell out of her dress and diverted everyone's attention away from ArseAboutFaceBook once again.

However, the rest of the media – annoyed they'd missed their chance to have a go at ArseAboutFaceBook and thus win back some much-needed advertising revenue, decided instead to attack ArseAboutFaceBook for this act of 'cowardly censorship.' Thus was the story set to run and run, however, some politician said something mildly disparaging about her own party leader and instead the media rushed off to pretend we all cared about that instead.

Blizzards and Blood

The snow fell all around us and – of course – all over us. Trudging onwards became harder and harder as the snow grew deeper. The world beyond was lost to us as the snowfall increased and the winds grew and turned the whole world white.

It became impossible to see any distance ahead and impossible to see the road we were meant to travel on, as the whole world became nothing but white. We knew that we would have to find shelter soon. There was no way we could carry on as the snow grew too deep to walk through, up beyond my knees and halfway up Maja’s thighs.

I could see little of her when I stopped, turning my back against the wind and letting her shelter in front of me. She was a mass of furs of all kinds with only her eyes, with those long eyelashes of hers frosted with snow, appearing from under her hood.

I lowered the scarf that covered my face and spoke to her, my words whipped away by the wind and the snow numbing my lips. She shook her head, leaning closer to me, looking up with eyes that still trusted me, despite all this I’d made her trudge through.

‘We need to find shelter,’ I repeated. This time she heard, at least, I assumed so. I looked around. What was not white was grey. I could see no further than a few strides around us.

Then the wind paused and the blizzard cleared for a moment and I saw what looked like a building of some form, just off what I assumed was the road.

I pointed and took Maja’s hand, dragging her – almost – through the snow until my gloved hand could reach out and touch the stone wall in front of me. We stumbled around the structure, my hand never leaving its surface whilst my other held tight to Maja, as I searched for a way in.

Eventually, I came to a broken down door and pushed it open… then wished I hadn’t.

The smell of death was strong, the bodies left where they’d fallen. I felt through my furs, for my own sword when I saw the cut, slashed and sliced bodies lying on the blood-stained straw in the barn. The fire they’d made was cold, but the bodies themselves were recent. Maja stumbled from one to the next, but even her powers cannot bring the dead back to life… not always.

Then, she looked at me and I looked at her. We knew we had to stay here amongst the death, for outside in the storm our deaths were all that awaited us. But we knew whoever had killed these people must still be nearby and would perhaps be coming back in need of some shelter themselves.

MP Caught In Scandal

Backhander Gimpmask was – to the general public – not one of this country’s most recognisable MPs. That is, until the expense scandal broke a few years ago and it was discovered that he had been claiming for some rather exotic specialist services from one of London’s most exclusive houses of pleasure on his parliamentary expenses.

Even to a country used to the rather sordid details of what our elected representatives like to do with – or have done to - their genitalia, and seemingly immured to anything once it was discovered John Major had been letting Edwina Curry feel the size of his majority and that even John Prescott could get a shag, still the country was shocked by not only the perversity of Gimpmask’s activities, but also by his bare-faced (for once) audacity in claiming for such practices on his recent expense claims, despite the trouble he was in last time.

In recent decades, the British have lost their former reticence about sexual activity, although they still do like to have a good healthy giggle about the sheer absurdity of human sexuality and what other people do to get their rocks off. So, when it was discovered that Gimpmask liked to do something no-one else in Britain would even consider doing in these days of erotic enlightenment and uninhibited sexual experimentation, there was a nationwide outbreak of the giggles.

When it was revealed that Gimpmask liked nothing better than to dress up in garish flannelette pyjamas while paying a woman of negotiable affections to don a winceyette ankle-length nightdress and put curlers in her hair before both getting into bed and read a few pages of a mass-market best-seller each, it seemed the whole of the UK was outraged that there were still such unabashed sexual deviants in our midst.

The French of course, eager to get one over on the ancient ally enemy were quick to jump on the scandal and claim that this all sounded like a typical suburban UK Saturday night, then there were questions asked not only in the EU, but also of the French ambassador.

However, much to the chagrin of the UK tabloids, the French Ambassador refused to admit what he got up top with his mistress and the baguette, despite the tell-tale Camembert stains on the duvet and the empty wine bottles discovered in the bidet.

Gimpmask – of course – had the full support of his party leader, right up until he was summarily sacked from his front bench position yesterday for making his party leader look like even more of a twat than usual.

In deep disgrace, it looks like Gimpmask will return to the backbench for at least several weeks, or until the general public finds some other leading politician to laugh at.

Certain Seasonal Rituals

So, what if you are standing to attention and clutching your ceremonial dibber in readiness? No matter how eager you are, there are still certain formalities necessary before you are allowed into the garden shed to perform that annual ritual that we of the Noble Order long for and yearn for all through the drear dark days of the winter.

Still, at least the massed ranks of the ukulele orchestra have now finished admiring each others instruments and have formed up just to the left of the water feature that has – at long last – thawed out and resumed its desultory trickle, while the weeds once more provide ample shelter for the garden's quite considerable – for its size – crop of slugs.

However, some of the neighbours once again are looking on askance with fear and dread, each haunted by the prospect of the forthcoming ceremonial unveiling of the woman from number 32's rather inadequate bikini when the first rays of the sun are deemed warm enough for her to remove the dressing gown that seems to have been the only item of formal day wear she has been seen in since the clocks were put back last year.

Anyway, you know that somewhere deep in the dark heart of the shed lies what was once – so optimistically – called the lawnmower, a collection of mechanical disasters held together now mostly by garden twine, and tangled up in what seems like a breeding nest of superfluous electrical leads that may – one day – come in handy and a collection of gardening tools no-one has any idea how to use – apart from using them to massacre slugs.

Still, at least the rain has held off, long enough for the orchestra to begin the overture, and so, as they begin to play, you stand tall and proud, ready to march into the deep unknown that is the garden shed.

England's Greatest Detective

The inter-war years saw the rise of the great detective. When a mysterious death took place at some country house, it was often one of these detectives who would be called upon, often by a baffled police force, to come to everyone's aid and solve the murder.

The greatest of these detectives was, of course, Benjy the Duck, quite possibly the greatest crime-detecting waterfowl in the history of the world. It has always been well-known that ducks are amongst the best crime fighters in the world. Many sheriffs in the American Old West were – for instance – ducks, geese and in Dodge City, of course, a swan: the legendary Six-Gun Half-cock, known as the fastest draw in the west, able to put a bullet in the dead centre of a playing card at a hundred paces and able to outdraw some of the meanest gunfighters of the West.

However, Benjy was a completely different type of waterfowl, from one of the oldest Mallard families in the UK with their own river, he had graduated with a quadruple First at Oxford, as well as being captain of both the rowing and the punting teams, known for his first class mind and a very gentlemanly quack.

These days, of course, Benjy's most famous case remains The Mystery of Tosser Manor.

In those days, the aristocratic Tosser family was well-known throughout England. Often, the cry of 'Oh, look there goes another one of those rich Tossers' could be heard whenever they ventured outside the grounds of their Manor. However, when the body of the heir to the Tosser title, Wrist Tosser, was found in the drawing room of the Manor, Benjy the duck was called in by a baffled local police force.

The body of Wrist had been found by his father, Absolute Tosser, riddled with shotgun pellets, next to the family's faithful old retainer, the butler, Smegma, who was at the time, according to Absolute, holding a smoking shotgun.

Through the use of brilliant detective work, Benjy was able to prove – to the satisfaction of a jury at the Old Bailey – that Wrist had, in fact been killed by his own sister, Coin, who had been having a long-running affair with the family's under-housemaid. It was – of course – a great scandal in those days for a woman to have a lesbian relationship with anyone who was not an ex-school-chum, let alone someone from the servant class. Consequently Coin was desperate to keep the affair secret and was distraught when Wrist caught Coin and the under housemaid naked and dancing the Charleston, in a horizontal position, together.

At the trial, Benjy proved that Coin was outside the room's open window at the time, allegedly shooting peasants, and it was her, not Smegma, that fired the fatal shot, promising the butler certain undisclosed sexual favours if he would hold her gun for a moment whilst she changed for dinner.

Smegma, of course, later confessed that he'd always dreamed of the Lady Coin helping him to polish his decanters and so was more than willing to aid her.

Case solved, Benjy the duck went on to solve even greater and more mysterious crimes as his career progressed, some of which may be revealed here at some later date*.

 

*But probably not.

A Foolish Thing

It was a foolish thing to do. A mistake, we realise that now, now that it is too late. We should have realised that this small world we inhabit has no room for gods. It in a human world, we build it to human scales and concerns, we should not have invent those gods. We should have left it alone.

However, there are - it seems – people who want gods, people who need gods. They are, somehow, unsatisfied with the human, with our explanations for how the world began and why it turns, why the sun rises and the moons chase each other across our nights.

There are those who want stories and tales of supreme beings who use us mere mortals as their toys and playthings. They want creators at war with devils and demons.

That is the trouble with stories, with tales, especially tales and stories about gods. People will end up believing them. First they believe the stories, then they start believing in gods and then the gods grow out of those wants and need, becoming bigger and bigger as more and more believe, until there are gods in our skies fighting over who will rule over us.

And then....

Then it is too late, when we who create the gods are destroyed by those selfsame gods we thought we needed so much.

The Failures of Democracy

Of course, democracy does have a lot of problems, but by far its biggest drawback is that it does tend to cause politicians. In the past, this was not so much of a problem as it has since become as the proliferation of the media does seem to have enabled politicians to escape their natural habitats of government legislative assemblies and local council chambers to spread out amongst the population in general, infecting almost everyone without natural immunity with the belief that something must be done and politicians should be the ones to do that thing – whatever it is.

There was a time during the post 1960s global naivety outbreak when some of the more hopelessly naïve claimed that everything is politics. However, we now know that almost nothing is politics and that that is politics should be eradicated before the infection spreads to otherwise normal people.

In the past, this was achieved by keeping politicians away from normal people, who could be left to get on with things while the politicians bickered amongst themselves and – occasionally – with the opposing parties in order to find out the most expensive way of making things worse. Now, though, through the media, and other such carriers of the political infection it seems that politicians are everywhere and multiplying at an alarming rate.

But, what makes it worse is that as the number of politicians increases so does the number of things that they believe are any of their business. There hardly, these days, exists any sphere of activity that has not got some politicians or others sniffing around it trying to find some way of infecting it with legislation that will create the ideal habitat for the breeding of yet more politicians.

Of course, we all take the usual precautions of hygienically disposing of election leaflets as soon as they come through the door, and of turning the TV off when party political broadcasts appear. Unfortunately, however, this is no longer enough as politics worms itself into more and more of our daily lives.

Some did hope, in the past, that the sheer incompetence of politicians would – ultimately – bring about their own downfall through some form of natural selection. But, such is the widespread nature of the political infection now, it has caused some evolutionary scientists to question the whole idea of survival of the fittest, developing a new theory of the survival of the incompetent, claiming that once a certain level of politics infects a society it becomes self-sustaining and almost impossible to eradicate.

However, we must never give up the fight, or one day – horror of horrors – we may see our own children or grandchildren themselves infected with this deadly and debilitating disease, thus bringing about the end of humanity as we know it.

Rule Britannia

Still, it was lucky we happen to live in a country where – it seems – there are so many people who think they know what’s best for us, so we could – quite easily – have all those troublesome decisions about how to live our lives taken for us whilst we sat down to see if there was – for once – anything good on the telly.

Perhaps, I mused later, as the remote control surfed its increasingly weary way up through all those mysterious shopping channels that sell everything no-one has ever wanted to buy, that this is why the country is in the state it is in. After all, during my formative years it was generally agreed that Britain had the finest TV in the world. So, we as a country got used to sitting around and leaving the rest of it all to those who liked to interfere.

Now, though, well….

Perhaps it is too late; perhaps we left them all alone too long; let them have it all their own way for too long. Perhaps we will never be able to grab control back, especially as the TV watching habit has now become far too ingrained, despite the quality of the programmes declining to such a pitifully low standard that, these days, even some American TV is better than the home-grown stuff.

Still, though, all is not lost. We can still do a decent computer game every now and then. Not up to the standard of Manic Miner, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer and Elite, but still far better than going outside and discovering what is really going on out there.

From the Shadows

Sometimes it seemed as though there was a way through, that the cold distances that separated the stars were no more than a convenient fiction, which made the idea of distance appeal to us as a way of keeping apart.

She lived her life and I lived mine, not that what we have can be called life, as such. We are beyond life as we are beyond time and distance. She is the Lady of the Light and I am Lord of the Dark. Together, we create the shadows and from the shadows all possibility emerges.

It was from one of the shadows of our last union that this universe that you - and all the creatures of your, and other, planets - call life sprung from. We create these shadows of time and matter and possibility and from this the universes come into being.

It is a kind of love and from it there is a kind of birth; although neither she nor I wish to be parents. We certainly do not want to be Gods, and certainly not adored or worshipped. For us, you are less than the dust that coalesces into planets; we do not consider you and we are far beyond what you would call gods anyway.

We could create gods if we wished, but we do not see the point as species like yours would only worship them, or blame them, for all that happens as your lives begin and end in less than a blink of our eyes.

Technological Innovation

It was not quite what we were expecting, even so, some of the more recondite attachments hint at a world of possibility yet unexplored through this medium of the humble domestic appliance.

Still, having said that it does seem to need recharging every ten minutes or so, or five minutes if the GPS function is enabled, which does seem to somewhat mitigate its claims to be portable, especially as you are advised to employ the optional three Sherpas needed to carry it, at - what seems to the casual user - a somewhat rather high annual fee, as well as the cost of the yak's milk needed to keep the Sherpas in tip-top form.

This does tend to make the GPS function rather surplus to requirements as you can never get far enough away from familiar ground - without it running out of power - to get lost, for even the most geographically-challenged do tend to know where the other end of their own street is... more or less.

As for the attachment for getting the stones out of horse's hooves – the manufacturer's claim this is mostly to maintain backwards compatibility with the Swiss army knife, is these days little more than a conversation piece – that is if you are ever unfortunate enough to be trapped into a conversation with someone who takes an interest in such obscure attachments.

Still, though, the integrated hand whisk/TV remote does turn out to be of more use than we first expected, even though it does have rather an annoying habit of changing channels to QVC whenever the user attempts to whisk up a Yorkshire pudding mix.

However, the manufacturers have said they will be bringing out a hotfix for this in the next firmware update which should resolve the problem, as well as the device's tendency to emit an ultrasonic beep that annoys all dogs within a twelve-mile radius which can be somewhat dangerous, especially if you are halfway home from the butchers with a pound of sausages at the time. Although, it did give me a chance to test both the pedometer function and the stopwatch to prove I broke my personal best for the 200 metres, although we did – tragically – lose one of the Sherpas to the slavering pack of hounds.

Fortunately, though, the device was still under guarantee and so the Sherpa was replaced at no extra cost.

The Great British Tradition

Then there were several of them, all spread out against the sky like... well, lots of things all spread out. Now, perhaps the place where your regular hat-hanging ceremony take place is not so well-blessed as this, but it is a sight almost guaranteed to be noticed... sometimes.

Still, back in the day, or at least getting on for early afternoon on that day, there would come a time when they all began together and, on finding the bit in the greyness of a typical British day they would find which bit of that grey was the sky and then spread out against it.

It was a sight to stir the very cockles of the heart, to make every free-born Englishman stand proud - and his wife to look down and remember when she could stir him to such excitement – if ever – and wish for the days of yore to return to these benighted islands.

For, if there is one thing that made this country great, if there was one thing that separated the true Briton from the rest of humanity and from foreign parts, it was the British person's – seemingly-innate – ability to see some other British person standing somewhere and with that great British instinct go and stand behind them.

For there is no greater sight than the British people – no matter what their ancestry - getting together to stand behind one-another in that great British tradition of the queue. For it goes without saying that when ever there are two or more British people gathered together they will – by nature – line up behind each other, no matter whether or not there is actually anything there to queue for, they will still form one.

Some may mock, but many of us believe it is the queue that made Britain great and – we hope – that one day this great British institution will once-more form an orderly line that spans the globe.

Jet Packs… or Not

This is the future… now. There were – we were told – meant to be jet packs.

Where are they?

How could a world, once so in love with the future, get it al so wrong?

Where are the robots?

There was a sense, back then, back when the future as a concept was invented that it would be a place of wonder, or progress, of marvels… and jet packs.

Instead, we have this… this so ordinary world.

Still it could have been worse. We could be eating pills off plates, or be at war with the robots.

Think though… we could be lucky.

Think this: drunks… with jet packs, so, every night at closing time, pissed-up blokes wanting a fight because you spilt their bird or stared at their pint… all fighting while wearing jet packs.

Coming home with the shopping with a jet pack and the shopping bags doing what they do and spontaneously biodegrading whist still full of shopping… at a hundred feet up in the air.

Think of this… jet packs and the bureaucratic mind. The health and safety would be a nightmare. It would probably be illegal to go any higher than six inches off the ground without encasing yourself in ludicrous amounts of safety gear.

Then – of course – jet packs and sex… in flight.

It may be an idea to invest in umbrella shares, and to buy a hat… just in case.

Something for the Weekend - Free Kindle Humour: The Sexiest Elbows I'd Ever Seen

 

The Sexiest Elbows I'd Ever Seen

Available FREE this weekend here (UK) or here (US)

Extract:

[….]

Twelve hours later, just as the TV station covering the event live went to an advertising break, there was an unearthly scream from the AntenDec beast as it stood on the tapioca-ignoring table, stripped off its clothing and dived heads-first into the now stone-cold tapioca dish on its left before smearing the contents of its other tapioca dish over its genitalia as it got up and strode towards the female celebrity judge, licking its lips and demanding perverse sexual favours, there and then, live on the auditorium stage.

Fortunately, the AntenDec’s keepers were able to throw one of their restraining nets over the rampaging creature before it got too close to the judge. They sedated it and took it away in a wheelbarrow back to its cage ready for the long journey back to the Geordie wilderness where it made its home.

This meant that Plenitude and I were through to the final.

That night we celebrated alone together in my hotel room, with Plenitude dipping those sexy elbows of hers in the champagne, they had presented to us for winning the semi-final, for me to lick off as she did that special thing she did with the castanets and the Shrewsbury & Telford A-Z Street Atlas.

[….]

Product Description

When we first met she was Emeritus Professor of Post-Colonial Marmalade at the University of Ffestiniog, and she had the sexiest elbows I had ever seen. We met at the Annual Ffestiniog Tapioca-Ignoring Convention, back in the late summer of ’83. At the time neither of us had a Tapioca-Ignoring partner, so naturally – once we found our handicaps were compatible – we teamed up for that autumn’s preliminary Tapioca-Ignoring Cup rounds. Of course, with both of us being amateurs we never expected to get to the finals.

Her name was Plenitude Cleavage and she came from the Welsh valleys, in fact she had quite a Welsh valley herself, never in my experience had I ever seen such a splendid example of nominative determinism in a woman’s body before
[....]

So, begins one of the greatest love stories of our age told here for the first time in ebook form for the Kindle.

This collection also contains several other stories of equal import, such as:
'Shropshire Smith and the Temple of Vegetables'. A tale of adventure and excitement within a forgotten temple of one of the world's oldest forgotten civilisations.

'The Famed Vegetable Killer of Grimsby'. Murder most foul.

'The Dancing Sex Nuns of the Tenth Quadrant'. A story of one of the great mysteries of the far future.

'The man with the Golden Cheese Baguette'. The tale of Britain's greatest spy and his attempt to thwart an evil genius with plans for world domination.

'The Thing Falling Out of the Sky Incident'. Some claim there are aliens out there, waiting to invade Earth. Some say this has already happened.

Plus other stories, such as: 'Feeling Betrayed', 'The Aftermath', 'The Perfect Woman' and others the like of which you will never have read before.

The Sexiest Elbows I'd Ever Seen

Available FREE this weekend here (UK) or here (US)

Giving

Giving

Watch how the slow rhythmic
movement of my hand
can make your body move
as your desire grows slowly,

spreading out from my fingers
like the strings from the puppeteer.
I feel no power, no control, no victory
although I could leave you suspended

between desire and its satiation,
between wanting and coming,
journeying, but never arriving.
But that is not what I want.

I only want what you want
and my need is only your need
and my satisfaction lies
in this gift given and received.

When Time Turned

Then time turned. We were not expecting it. People expect one thing to follow another as they always have done. When they don’t, we are thrown into confusion and uncertainty.

She should have walked away, left me there, and gone back to the old life that was waiting for her.

She had family: husband and children and all the entangled relationships that entails; a web of responsibility that flowed from her, but also entangled her in its sticky bonds. It was that web she’d untangled herself from when she fell into my arms at that party.

I left the hall, the disco playing songs that I’d never heard of, feeling really drunk for the first time in my young life. ‘Sixteen is old enough for your first pint,’ my father had said, not knowing – or, at least, not admitting he knew – I’d been drinking in pubs for several months before that. Back in those days, it was up to the landlord to decide if he liked the look of you, not some law made by distant politicians, which decided these things. Consequently, there was hardly any of the binge drinking mayhem that my kids have to wade through these days if they want to go anywhere for an evening out.

Anyway, that first pint was not the last one that night.

She was outside, having a secret smoke – everyone thought she’d quit – not that it was a big deal in those days, everyone – more or less – smoked, even us kids. Deidre and her husband, Sam, had been friends with my parents for as long as I could remember, and going back long before I was born. She had been ‘Auntie Deidre’ up until I decided in a typically childish manner that as she was not a real auntie, not any relation at all, I was too old for such affectations.

Lately, though, I’d noticed a change in her manner towards me. She stood close, insisted on kissing me when ever we met and – on a couple of occasions at parties and so forth - she’d made a point of sitting on my lap… and she knew exactly where to sit, turning to smile at me in a rather knowing way as she ‘just making myself comfortable’ squirmed into my already keenly-stiffening erection.

She saw me coming and glanced down at the cigarette in her hand, its end bright with her lipstick. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ she said when she saw the look on my face.

I shrugged and she handed me the cigarette. I took a drag.

‘You look so much like your dad did when he was your age. I fancied him so much.’ She tottered forward and stumbled against me, obviously drunker than I was. I made to hand her the cigarette back, and then – somehow – we were kissing… and that was how it began.

It didn’t end until much later, but that and all that lay between that first kiss and that much later was another story.

Social Media and Conformity

Well, we all knew. Even though most of us pretended not to notice the way she would always appear with the smoked mackerel fillets on, or about, her person at just the right time.

Of course, even in these days of upfront attitudes where even the slightest digression from the mores of what is regarded as politically correct is to call down the wrath of all forms of social media upon ourselves, she was not one to ever consider hiding her predilection for smoked mackerel behind some more socially-acceptable and fashionable attitude such as having no truck with bigots who would deny people the right to choose their own footwear, or support some football team that has no international stars on its books and a complete lack of merchandising deals with top brand names.

Of course, back in earlier times having some mackerel fillets to call your own was regarded as the sign of a gentleman and/or woman of good breeding. For example, it was regarded as the height of bad manners to be seen out strolling down the promenade of a Victorian seaside resort without having one's valet nearby ceremoniously disporting a brace of mackerel fillets on a silver platter. Nor would any gentleman ever consider attempting to engage a lady of the night in a pecuniary transaction in return for her negotiable virtue without first offering her a bowler hat full of herring before attempting to complete the transaction.

No person of good breeding would even venture into the vicinity of royalty – especially Queen Victoria herself – without a hat-box filled to the very brim with kippers, unless he wished to be dispatched without further ado to the far-flung corners of the Empire to sever out the remaining years of his life in shame at falling into such disrepute.

But, today, even the finest establishments will look upon you askance should you venture through their portals with so much as a plaice or Dover sole. Such is how times have changed and – some would say – not for the better.

War of the Worlds

This was the problem. This was the reason why we were all huddled together, hiding as the rampaging hordes ravaged our once so fine... quite good... actually rather mediocre land. Once we would have stood and fought, once we were mighty warriors prepared to fight and die to keep this land ours, now though there was the promise of something quite good on the telly later and the weather forecast had predicted rain.

On the whole, then, we thought it much better to stay indoors for a while.

After all, what is a mere invasion?

The Romans, the Vikings, the Normans, after a while they all settled down for a nice quiet night in, rather than all that rapine and pillage that tends to put people's backs up and create a fair few unpleasant looks in the Post Office queue.

Beyond that too, the aliens did seem rather nice – once you got use to the tentacles – and - when you think about it – how much actual difference is there between a firm handshake and an in-depth anal probing?

Mere cultural differences, that's all.

After all, if the Royal family can marry off a spare prince to... well, what we are told is an alien princess - albeit with a rather more scaly spine-ridge than some of his previous girlfriends - if the tabloids are to be believed - then why should we be too concerned?

Of course, there are some who say the Royal Family are already intergalactic all-conquering space-lizards, which – if true – just means that there will be less chance of a punch-up at the wedding reception than is usually the case at weddings in this country. This means, all in all and on the whole, that maybe this alien invasion will not turn out so bad after all.

Not only that, if the rumour that the aliens feed on intelligent humanoid brains does turn out to be true, they'll all be dying of malnutrition in a couple of months anyway.

The Art Collector

Of all the worlds I slip through to find new art works for my collection, this one: the one they call Earth, has produced some of the more interesting pieces.

Often, when I walk through my halls, alone or with guests there to admire my collection, I am struck by how these primitive cultures seem to be able to capture so much… vitality, seem far more alive, then we who like to believe we are civilised.

Still, as the centuries slip by, and I get older, Earth too has changed, even started to move towards some sense, some idea, of what it would be like to leave the primitive behind.

This… maturing… of the Earth planet has meant a change in the kind of pieces I now gather for my collection. As the planet Earth stumbles – often blindly – away from the primitive, there has come a certain new quality in the pieces I collect.

My latest piece, who was called Jacqueline Bennett when she lived on the Earth, seems to have some extra quality about her, compared to, say, a piece I collected about a millennium before, back when the art works hardly had names at all, just sounds the tribe gave to tell one another apart.

The newer pieces have something about them, though, that means they are not without charm or even beauty. They are more self-conscious, more aware of themselves as works of art; I think that could be the difference. They take much more care of their bodies these days. The groom and clean and exercise themselves, so for those of us with the fine aesthetic sense to appreciate them as the works of art they – so obviously – aspire to be, they have become quite impressive works. Consequently, so many people come to examine and appreciate my collection that I feel the hunting down and capture of these pieces is more than worthwhile, and - even at my advanced age – I still think there are more out there left to collect.

Tennis Made Interesting

Well, it was not that she’d ever doubted her prowess with the tennis racquet at all… ever. It was more of a matter of taking her to one side and explaining to her – with the aid of a brace of hastily-drawn diagrams – that she was not using the aforementioned item of sporting equipment as originally intended by the manufacturer and certainly not abiding by the rules of the Lawn Tennis Association, even though her opponents, in the matches they took part in, never seemed to complain - even after she’d untied them and removed the gag. If anything, they all seemed rather refreshed and re-invigorated by the whole experience.

This does – to what remains of my mind – go someway towards proving what I’ve always held to be true – that there are more ways of buttering a marsupial than are dreamed of in your philosophy Horatio, and therefore I would humbly suggest that you do not – in future – attempt to instruct me in the correct uses for a banjo and a well-greased wallaby.

After all, no-one else in the Post Office queue had the temerity to complain, or to question why the wallaby was dressed in clerical vestments so early on a weekend morning.

As for asking why I hid her tennis racquet in the alley behind the hardware shop… well, I have my reasons.

Getting your Goat

Well, there you go… or maybe you don’t….

After all, I am not privy to your travel arrangements… and I – for one – firmly believe that what you do when you get there is entirely your own business and providing the goat doesn’t complain, what business is it of anyone else’s… apart from the various goat welfare charities, of course?

Still, I suppose – in this day and age – it is always nice to have a hobby to take one away from the stresses and strains of our ordinary tedious daily grind.

Although, I’m not sure the goat would agree….

However, and I feel this is a rather salient point, if it wasn’t for your… er… shall we say ‘romantic attachment’ then the goat would not be where she is today and would, no doubt, be stuck outside in some isolated field somewhere in all weathers, rather than residing in comfort and luxury in a penthouse suite at one of the capital’s most exclusive hotels. But then, as the official ruminant consort of one of the richest, most influential and litigious of this country’s cadre of super-wealthy oligarchs, it is the only truly fitting place of residence for her.

And – as I said – even before your team of top lawyers arrived, bearing writs – it is all entirely your own business and no concern of anyone else’s what you and your special goat do with and to each other.