The Selling of Tales

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a story.’ The artisan stood back, admiring his own work.

‘What does it do?’

The artisan glanced up, thinking it was maybe the inbreeding, but – still – as his old dad always said, the customer is always right. ‘It is a series of events, written down.’

‘Oh.’ The (potential) customer leant closer, looking at the squiggles on the parchment. He’d had several expensive tutors, some of whom had strongly suggested he learn what these black squiggles represented. But he, (now, Duke) Farantzy, didn’t see the point. ‘Oh,’ he repeated. ‘What events?’

‘Well, this one is about a heroic knight,’ the artisan glanced at the (potential) customer’s dress and regalia. ‘A Duke....’

‘A Duke?’

‘Yes, a Duke.’ The artisan took a breath, he could always rewrite it before delivery, shove in a couple of references to dukes. ‘He journeys to save a princess from a dragon.’

‘Ooh, a princess, eh?’

‘Yes, a beautiful princess.’

‘How beautiful?’ The Duke made a gesture suggesting he was weighing a pair of grapefruit in his hands.

‘Oh, very beautiful.’ The artisan made a similar gesture suggesting he was weighing a pair of melons… watermelons. How he suffered for his art.

‘But… a dragon?’

‘Yes, a very brave… fearless Duke.’

‘And I… er… he kills the dragon?’

‘Well…. I wouldn’t want to give the end away.’

‘Oh?’ The Duke scratched his beard. ‘Then why have you written it all down?’

‘I… er…. To entertain… in the reading of it.’

It was the first time the Duke had ever heard the words ‘entertain’ and ‘read’ in the same sentence, at least one without any negative connotations.

‘The joy is in the reading, the unfolding of the tale.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, how strange. Couldn’t you just tell me if he gets off with the princess?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ Nowas not a word the Duke was used to hearing. His hand reached towards the pommel of his sword.

‘No,’ the artisan repeated hastily. ‘The joy of the tale is in the telling.’

‘What?’

The artisan sighed. This was turning into a long sale. ‘You share the tale with the characters in it, as it goes along; share their adventures, their trials, their mista… their misfortunes and triumphs. So by the time he gets to fight the dragon to rescue the princess you feel as though you are there with him. You share his every stroke of the sword, every thrust of the lance is yours as though you yourself are fighting the dragon.’

‘Eeek!’ The Duke blushed. ‘I mean, poor bloody dragon….’ He gripped the pommel tight. ‘Wouldn’t stand a chance, know what I mean?’

The artisan nodded. ‘Of course, sire.’

‘So why don’t you just tell me what happens in the end, save me the bother of having it read to… of me reading it?’

‘Like I said, sire, the joy is being in the tale yourself.’

‘Right.’

‘So, sire,’ shall I wrap it, have it delivered to your house?’

The Duke thought for a moment. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’ll just wait for the DVD.’ He turned and left the shop.

The artisan watching the Duke stride away as he used several words, under his breath, he’d never used in any of his stories... yet.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

One-Hit Wonders

Stylophone Trabant is – these days – probably the world's leading Rock Star. As lead gobshite with the UK's current (for this week at least) all-time greatest rock band Toad Entrails, he first came to attention on their number 32 hit single – Serving Suggestion.

With its intensely profound lyrics detailing just how to cook some instant noodles, this song seemed revolutionary in the staid and conservative rock music world. Set to a heavy metal version of a traditional Norwegian fishing song, the music was played on an accordion and bagpipes and featured a foghorn solo. So Serving Suggestionwas different enough to the run of the mill chart dross to get the attention of some of the country's most self-important music critics.

Although, these days music critics are no longer as significant as they like to think they once were, back in the heyday of the NME, Melody Maker and the Walsall Daily Advertiser. Even so, these days some people still do occasionally notice there are people who are paid to write about music. It was these music critics and their championing of Toad Entrails as the next big thing which brought Stylophone Trabant and his suspiciously well-filled trousers to the attention of the public. A Public growing increasingly disinterested in the music business and the posturing fools who think it owes them a living, as well as a drug habit equal to the GDP of several combined undeveloped economies.

However, it will be (almost) interesting to see if Toad Entrails and Stylophone Trabant himself can live up to the hype built up around them. They do claim they have nearly three notes of the next single already recorded. However, many are now beginning to feel they will be yet another band to add to the ever-growing list of one-hit wonders in pop history.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Dark Twisty Corridors

As so many times before the TV programme makers have – despite the odds – come up with another great example of the programme-makers art. Each episode of Dark Twisty Corridorsappears to be better than the last. 

Each week our heroes, sexy Doctor Improbable Chestbumps and her nervous sidekick Steve Questionable end up chased down several, seemingly never-ending dark twisty corridors. Chased either by a monster or an explosion, sometimes even both.

Although, the programme makers defied everyone's expectations for the three-hour long Christmas special. In that episode our brave adventurer and her nervous sidekick were chased down several extra-long dark and twisty corridors by an explosion right into the path of that episode's extra nasty (as befitting the season of peace and goodwill) monster. A monster with three heads and a deadly-poisonous elbow.

However, some critics have dared express even slightest reservations about the programme. Those that survived the multitudinous social media death squads hunting them down, revealed several plot flaws in the programme. Pointing out that it seems slightly improbable that, week after week, a person of Chestbumps intelligence would find herself stuck in dark twisty corridors, invariably with a faulty torch. Especially so, when it is known - usually – before they set off there is a monster down there and/or a chance of an enormous explosion. 

 It appears that each week there is an explosion at the end of the programme. Usually where they do that diving for safety hand-in-hand thing just as they reach the exit. Just as the billowing explosion of flame and smoke passes over, inches from their heads, just in time for Questionable's pithy, but apt, one-liner to end the episode.

However, the rest of us know the programme is sheer genius and thus look forward to the blinkered short-sighted TV network cancelling it too soon. Then we can take our justifiable outrage on-line until they reverse the decision as we knew all along they would.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Britain's Leading Illusionist

Spellcheck Ratlicker is – without a doubt – Modern Britain's leading illusionist. For years he has left audiences spellbound at the incredible illusions he performs in his live stage shows. Where, each night, capacity audiences are made to believe in the illusion of his talents.

Five years ago, Ratlicker amazed sell-out audiences up and down the land when he made thousands of paying audience members believe they were getting value for their money at his shows. Up to and including the 'special' souvenir show programmes. These cost £15 each for three pages of adverts, a two-paragraph biography cut-and-pasted from his website and an out of focus photograph of Ratlicker himself deluding a pair of homing pigeons into thinking he was a top-flight entertainer.

Ratlicker began on the club circuit where he would perform the traditional sawing a woman in half illusion. Often leaving a hastily restitched together lady, feeling somewhat bewildered and light-headed from blood-loss, a trail of blood and several other clues as he fled the scene only moments before the police arrived. Soon, however, he was running low on women that desperate to appear in show business. He then had to resort to sawing politicians in half, which while not quite so spectacular did mean the police no longer wished him to help with their enquiries. Especially as none of the halves of the women ever made claims of inappropriate sexual impropriety against him, even after Ratlicker sawed them in half.

After that, with the limited number of replacement glamorous assistants, or even politicians, available to him in such a situation, Ratlicker had to change his act. Particularly when he was booked to perform on cruise ships. There, he performed a daredevil stunt by diving naked into a tank of ravenous sharks and surviving there unmolested.

However, it was discovered that he was cheating by smearing his body with the cruise ship chef's special sauce. A substance that even ravenous sharks would not contemplate, no matter how desperately hungry they became.

These days, his act is mainly him sitting in a clear perspex box for as long as the audiences can tolerate, or until he gets a TV contract. Which, considering the state of current TV cannot be that long.

So we can look forward to seeing much more of Spellcheck Ratlicker on our TVs, unless we are lucky enough to have made other arrangements for those particular evenings.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Time of the Lesser Gods

Now as at all timesI can see in the minds eye, in their stiff, painted clothes,the pale unsatisfied onesoutside the fish and chip shop. But those days are over now and those in need of the holy benediction of hot chips go elsewhere and follow other – lesser - gods.

There was a time, when this was fish and chip shops as far as the eye could see. Well, as far as the eye could see at closing time when we fell out of the pub. But for some reason, back then there was something in the atmosphere – possibly some kind of industrial pollution – which affected the sight after only a few hours in the pub. Making even the avoidance of a collision with a street light sometimes very problematical indeed.

Of course, some blamed the beer, but that was mere foolishness. Except, possibly, in the case of the Bull's Head. A pub where there was a strong suspicion the landlord served industrial effluent instead of beer. But, usually by the time we got to the Bull's Head such acts of connoisseurship were often – at best – mere philosophical speculation.

Still, the day came when the first kebabappeared upon the face of the land. Of course, there were some who regarded it with suspicion, with Sceptical Stan wanting to kill it with a stick. But for others of a more questioning nature it was the kind of challenge they liked to rise to – or at least stumble towards – once the pubs were closed.

Soon the kebab shops were everywhere. They became just as much of a tradition as the tradition they replaced. Then those wise – or brave - enough to pontificate to the general bewilderment of those alongside them in the queue about such things are told, in the wise words of the prophet Nhigelto 'shut the fuck up'.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Cheese of the Baskervilles

It began – as these things so often do – with the cheese. However, at the time the West Midlands Serious Cheese Crime Squad was busy with an undercover investigation into an illegal chive smuggling ring down in Gloucester. They believed this criminal gang were responsible for a Double Gloucester protection racket that controlled all the chives and onions in the region.

However, there were rumours that the revolutionary Red Leicester workers collective had been infiltrated by Wensleydale anarchists from over the border intent on creating anarchy.

However, there was a large amount of corruption in the Serious Cheese squad. There were rumours of some offices amassing double their own weight in illicit Brie. So no-one ever thought the case of the missing crackers would ever be solved, at least not in our lifetime.

Eventually, just to see if we could get justice, if not for us, then for all the other victims of the great cracker heist, we would have to hire a private investigator. Never once did we think that the legendary Stilton Holmes himself, along with his faithful companion Doctor Water-Biscuit would involve themselves in this investigation. It turned into a complex case, resulting in that fateful – and fatal - encounter between Stilton Holmes and Doctor Mycella on the sheer edge of the Reichenbach Tesco delicatessen counter. This resulted in them both falling to their deaths - locked in each other’s arms - into a huge vat of cottage cheese. Neither ever emerged again.

Thus, the case was never solved. As Doctor Water-Biscuit mourned the loss of his great companion, it was he who remarked upon the curious incident of the Gouda in the night time.

But that is a case for another time.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Headline Acts

Potemkin Fuzzpedal was once the UK's most famous nightclub and workingmen's club act during the heyday of those institutions. At least, before TV and social changes brought about the decline of those establishments. Until then, Potemkin Fuzzpedal and his Performing Accountants; a song, a dance and an internal audit were the biggest draw on that particular circuit.

For the audiences, it was the sheer thrill of live accountancy performed on stage – usually without the aid of a safety net - that was so exciting. Especially so in the workingmen's clubs. Places where accountancy was regarded as something beyond the pale and even a mere invoice was regarded with suspicion and dread.

Back in those days most people, the working class especially, lived in an almost total cash economy. Therefore, the use of accountants was virtually unknown. So to see a real one, especially performing on stage, possibly – and daringly – with one of the new electronic calculators, was a dazzling and riveting spectacle. It conveyed the full glamour of accountancy to a mass audience for the first time.

In fact, most of today's top-flight glamorous celebrity accountants say they were inspired to tread the accounting boards through an early teenage exposure to Fuzzpedal and his dancing auditors. Some even talking of their own first fumbling attempts at cash-book reconciliation under the bedcovers late at night. Often before falling into a restless sleep filled with dreams of VAT returns and tax schedules.

All in all then, today's glamorous world of performance accountancy, where some of the big name partnerships regularly sell out the world's biggest arenas has a great deal to thank Potemkin Fuzzpedal for. Otherwise – who knows – accountancy could still be – unbelievable as it sounds now – a mere profession practised in cramped offices by unglamorous people who know little of the fame, fortune and celebrity status now enjoyed by today's headlining accountancy stage acts.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Britain's Leading TV Actress

Podcast Bellydance is probably the UK's current most in-demand TV actress. From last year's surprise hit, the 1960s-set, police procedural Get us a Cup of Tea, Luv, to the turn of the Twentieth Century great house drama, set in Poshgits Hall, Time for Afternoon Tea. She has served tea to some of Britain's best-loved character actors and actresses.

Of course, serving tea, either on stage or the TV set or location, is one of the most demanding roles an actor can undertake. Especially if they have to take a cup of tea across the set or stage and hand it to another actor or actress, sometimes when saying some lines at the same time.

As Bellydance herself says: 'acting is of course just dressing up and playing pretend like we all used to do as children. However, it is of course much harder than that. We do have to remember the lines given to us by the writer and try to same them at the right time and in the right order. Sometimes we have to do this whilst doing something else as well, like walking – or even carrying a cup of tea.'

Several critics have claimed it is especially brave of Bellydance to perform her own tea-carrying stunts. Mostly without calling for a stuntman and or a body double to take over these arduous and exacting tasks, while she does the hard work of both remembering her lines and remembering to say them at the appropriate points.

'I also have to remember to blink occasionally,' Bellydance said in a recent interview where she spent most of her time learning her lines for her next scene. All while reminding herself where to breathe and – most importantly - blink. 'Luckily, I've always been cast in these demanding roles,' Bellydance added. 'Sometimes my characters have to blink several times a scene. Having to remember to breathe, blink and say the right words is demanding enough, of course. But I also think it adds depth to my portrayals of these characters if I actually carry a cup of tea in the way these characters would in real life.

Bellydance is very excited about her forthcoming role in a new film. The title of which is yet to be released. However, rumour has it she will be seen on the screen performing a full-frontal biscuit-dunking scene. We can only admire the courage she has, when saying she'll perform such a demanding scene herself without the aid of a stunt stand-in.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Queue Theory

There was a time, but then there would be. For if there was no time there would have been nowhere for the was to happen and we'd all be standing around feeling foolish, wishing we were waiting for something, but without the time element waiting does become somewhat problematical.

As Professor Eigenvector Electronvolt, emeritus professor of Queueing and Waiting theory of the Tipton Institute of Technology (TIT) recently stated, 'a queue needs both time and space to be a queue, without it everyone there is just dicking around.'

This ground-breaking theoretical breakthrough has galvanised the entire field* of queueing, both at a theoretical and practical level. Recent experiments at the Large Queue Collider on the Tipton-Wednesbury border have concentrated mainly on what happens at two points. First, where the ends of the queue meet the target – such as a Post Office Counter or airline check-in desk, where the queue particles meet and unmoveable object. Secondly, at the other end where the queue interacts with the normal day-to-day world. The rear of the queue, where it meets the ordinary world, has been well-understood since Newtonian times and Newton's Laws of the Queue still hold strong, especially his Third Law which – of course – deals with the mathematical consequences of queue-podging.

However, recent work has mainly concentrated on the other end of the queue, mostly at a theoretical level as busy physicists don't have time to spend in queues, except when signing in to top-flight conference venues in exotic locations. Consequently, a lot of work in this area has been undertaken by postgraduate researchers, who – of course – have little else to do other than stand around waiting for someone to notice them.

Therefore, researchers in this area hope that in the next few years they will be able to confirm the existence of the so-far, only theoretical 'Next Please,' particle. Theory suggests such a particle should exist but has been so rarely encountered down at the front of the queue, leading some queue physicists to doubt it exists.

 

*Obviously queuing in a filed has its own specialised theoretical and practical sub-divisions, mainly concerned with the toileting arrangements at music festivals (wellies advised).

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Wildlife Documentaries of the Future

Well, as you know if you are a devotee of nature and wildlife programmes on the TV, these days it is rare to see the Attenborough in the wild. At least in his native habitat downwind from any rutting wild animals. Some even claim the TV naturalist is becoming an endangered species, especially with the possibilities of miniaturisation and remote operation of today's camera technology.

There are some, indeed, who believe the whole business of going out into the back of beyond, just to film various animals either having it off or eating one-another, and sometimes both, is no longer a viable business model. Especially in these days of reduced budgets, receding hairlines and the relative paucity of camera-ready totty in the field. Let alone the expense of getting some out of work former top-flight actor to do the voice-over when all else fails.

Critics point to the increasing success of CGI films featuring cartoon animals with far more endearing personalities than their natural wild analogues. As well as the merchandising prospects of some of the more engaging artificial creatures.

So, in future, it looks as though computer-generated virtual animals will replace today's wildlife documentaries. Programmes where the animals can go beyond the mere rutting and devouring with, and of, one-another and go on to do more adventurous activities, up to and including saving the world from mankind in cute and endearing ways. This will leave both the possibilities of numerous sequels to each programme and the very real possibility of significant merchandising sales as the creatures grow into popular characters.

All in all then, a much more rewarding televisual experience. Much better than watching, yet again, some old bloke crouching behind a bush, muttering on about how exciting it is to be this close to a pair of wild creatures either copulating with, or eating, one-another.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Archaeology

Archaeology

And here is something newly found.
It sits here, waiting on the palm,
in one cupped hand, and makes its shape
from limits it can then transcend.

It's more beyond itself enclosed,
contains the distances of time
and history within itself.

Its turning form can speak to us
of ages long ago and gone,
to times before the modern now,
when other lost unknowable
wise hands then grew and shaped its form.

But still it will remain right here,
becoming this new meaning taken
by every hand that holds it tight.

Each making new connections back
along that trodden path of time.
We listen now to sounds, echoes
of times, ages long past and gone.

Always we have long history
behind us, somehow reassuring
when walking down these twisting paths
in these now fading footsteps taken here
by earlier, forgotten, generations.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Purl

Kretz looked up at me from where she’d been sleeping, head on my chest. She blinked slowly. Her pink tongue darted out and licked the side of her hand; she brushed the hand over the side of her face a few times, purring as she did it.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it can be more than a little disconcerting, but in a universe the size of this one, it is – almost - bound to happen.

For such a long time, we humans had wondered if we were alone in the universe. We’d wondered whether there was life out there, somewhere amongst all those stars. Then we discovered those stars had planets, that ours was not the only one. Then, a little later we’d discovered that some of those planets were in the goldilocks zone like ours.

Then, we found we were not alone.

The Purl were one of the first races from beyond our solar system to contact us. Then when we discovered what the Purl were, then it was inevitable we’d find so much in common, considering humanity’s long association with cats. Discovered by the Purl, and brought into the association of intelligent species by them had a certain rightness about it. A race of intelligent cats – well, it was a love affair waiting to happen.

Kretz wrapped her tail around us as we lay there. She was purring again. I took a deep breath. I was going to have to tell her it was over, that I had to go back to Earth.

I looked down at those hands… paws, with their razor-sharp claws retracted. I thought about her sharp pointed teeth and about what a cat could do to a mouse. Then I thought about my pink helpless body and I decided, instead, to put off telling her… at least, for a while.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

On Appropriate Trouserings

Don’t think this is easy, especially not in such inappropriate trouserings as those you are sporting at this moment. Certain trouserings are – as a matter of course – more appropriate than others at certain times and in certain situations. For example, remember that time you went on stage in Stockholm to receive your Nobel Prize for services to the Exceptionally Ordinary. You may have been dressed in a pair of football shorts, but normally such legwear is not considered appropriate for such formal occasions. This is especially so when paired with fishnet stockings and Doc Martens. But you like to see yourself as an artist, so I suppose certain allowances must be made for your increasingly desperate attempts at ‘individuality’.

On the other hand a wetsuit is not normally considered the ideal leg covering for our continued adventures in high-energy physics experiments. No matter who claims it helps keep the neutrinos out on a chilly day, as we all know subatomic particles can play havoc with the circulation in the legs, especially when accelerated to near light speed.

In Scotland, of course, the kilt has been traditionally worn when giving chase to the wild haggis. Even if only to give the lasses something to laugh at when the men take a tumble up on the crags and their sporrans take something of a battering. However, caution must be exercised if entering an area of the Highlands where feral bagpipes have been allowed to go native as an attack up the kilt by enraged bagpipes is no laughing matter, especially in the mating season.

So, in the interests of safety, both your own and that of other people in the vicinity always make sure your putative trouserings will be suitable for whatever you have planned for the day. Unless, of course, she has strongly intimated that such attire will be unnecessary, at least for a while.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The End of Days

Unbuttoned Sex Cardigan askew, the High Priestess of the Quite Rude strode into the Fornicatrium with her handmaidens rushing to keep up with her.

The floor of the Fornicatrium was awash with lime juice, discarded orange peel stuck to the soles of their feet as the High Priestess led the way through to the High Altar. She stood for a moment in front of the altar, making the signs of obsequience. Then to the gasps of her handmaidens, she turned off the most holy TV set.

‘Don’t look so shocked,’ the High Priestess said. ‘It was only the local news.’

‘But the holy TV is never turned off….’ The Handmaiden’s Union Rep said. ‘Unless…. Unless it is the End of Days™!’ The handmaidens turned to one another, clutching their sex cardigans tight around themselves, their faces in shock.

The High Priestess shook her head, making calming gestures. ‘No, it is not the End of Days™… as you know none of the twelve true religions could get planning permission for any form of Armageddon.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘Could you imagine the parking problems alone?’ She shuddered, fastening a few of the lower buttons of her sex cardigan. ‘No, my holy sisters, the news is worse than that….’

‘Worse than Armageddon! Worse than the End of Days™, worse than the total destruction of the universe?’ The Union Rep glanced at her sisters. ‘Tell us.’

‘Tell us…. Tell us.’ The Handmaidens cried towards the High Priestess.

One handmaiden near the rear of the group tentatively raised her hand. ‘The national team hasn’t been knocked out of the World Cup again has it?’ She looked at her terrified sisters. ‘You remember what happened last time that happened, none of the men could perform the Holy Act of Fornication for several weeks afterwards. Remember…? We had to even put aside out knitting for a while to get them back to normal.’

The rest of the Handmaidens nodded, each remembering how many episodes of the holy soap operas they’d each missed as they tried to return the nation’s manhood to their former glory… well, state of almost adequacy.

‘No, it is far worse than that.’ The High Priestess wrapped her ceremonial cardigan around herself, wishing she could hold her knitting needles of office for comfort. ‘We… we have run out of chocolate.’

The screams of the handmaidens could be heard for miles around the temple and the people of that nation knew that their world would never be the same again.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

A Time Long Before Now

It was a time long before now. It was a time long before I brought this world into being. Back then, I was no god. I am not much of one now, but now I have this universe I created and this world. It has these creatures who look to the skies for someone to thank and blame for their lives and the awareness of themselves they have.

They blame me for all that is wrong with their world and their short, hard lives and they praise me for creating them and the world they live in. I did not ask them to worship me and I don't particularly like it, or the way they keep talking to me in their prayers and at their times of sacrifice, begging me to intercede on their behalf.

Although, why they think I will do anything for them, or to them, I do not know. I just made the world and they came into being on it. I did not want followers, worshippers.

They fight amongst themselves all the time too, each side claiming they are the ones that know me best and know what I want of the world and the people on it. I don't even know that myself, and they certainly don't. Anyway, they just like to fight one another and I'm one of the best excuses they've found.

Not that it matters much to me, like I said I never wanted to them to worship me. All I wanted to do was make something and see what happened. Sometimes, now I wish I hadn't bothered.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Marmalades of Yesteryear

But then, what is this time?

What is this place?

Should we sit here around our campfires and talk of the marmalades of yesteryear, or should we, those of us still with the sturdy knees of youth, take arms against these outrages and bring about a revolution?

Or should we just have another cup of tea and see what happens?

That is the problem with popular revolutions, finding out just how popular they are. It is hard to tell exactly how many people of this once great nation are disquietened about the state of marmalade in these days of multi-diverse breakfastings.

There was a time when toast and marmalade was de rigueur (pardon my Fr*nch) on the hard-working breakfast tables of this nation. It is no coincidence the heyday of the British Empire was also the heyday of the proper English breakfast. There is nothing quite like a full breakfast to get you into the mood for some overseas conquests.

Try trudging your way through an unexplored jungle with hostile natives on just a croissant and see how far you get, as for ruling the waves on a bowl of muesli… well, that is just asking for trouble. More than likely followed by hunger pangs around mid-morning, just as the enemy fleet is sighted off the starboard bow.

It is a fact often overlooked by historians too concerned with mere historical accuracy that this country was made great by its breakfasts. Especially the central role that marmalade – for so long – played in those selfsame breakfasts. Therefore, we strongly urge the urgent reformation of the school history curriculum to rectify this matter before this country loses even more sense of its own history.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

No Paradise

The stories we told were all the old stories that spoke of the world before this one. The stories of the paradise we'd lost. The Story Priests tell us tales of that old life we died and left behind, that place of paradise where life was long, easy and free. Stories of a time long before this one.

The Story Priests say that we are born into this life when we die in that paradise. Some ask: why – if it is a paradise – then why do we die? The priests respond that we must have done something wrong there, and so we are reborn here in this dark, grey, land as a punishment for all we did wrong in that old life.

The Story Priests then point to the ruins, now almost lost under the growing grass and heaping earth that almost buries them. They tell us the story of the Great Devil that arose in the Distant East. How it sundered this land from the paradise we once lived in and that now all those of us who failed in that paradise are reborn here.

Some, if not most of us, do not believe these stories, even though we learn of them from when we are young enough to listen. I look around the fires at night-time, watching the faces of the people as the Story Priests go through the rituals of the Telling. Each time I see eyes that do not believe, eyes that see this world and those ruins and wonder what kind of paradise this used to be. We sit, shivering in the rain and the cold, hoping the fire will last the night. We know – deep down – this, or any life before this, was never any paradise.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

When the Revolution Came

When the revolution came – in the end – more than a few of us were ready for it. For years, almost beyond recall, so many of us had suffered under the brutal tyranny of the regime. We had longed for the day when we would break free and out into a bright new dawn of freedom.

Still, when the day came it was a surprise. None of us had ever dared hope that it would happen, not within our lifetime. Perhaps, some of us dared hope; our children would have children born free of the dread heavy hand holding us down. Little did we think, though, that we would be the ones that would be thee first to taste the sweet air of freedom and liberty from the oppressors.

It began as just another ordinary day, a day much like any other. There was little feeling, little awareness, no taste of revolution in the air. Even then we knew that all revolutions end in failure and the aftermath of a revolution is almost invariably worse than all the revolution meant to overthrow. We were ready, though, willing to suffer all manner of hardships if only we could be free.

Then it came, the longed-for announcement we waited so long for. It was the sign that not all our suffering had been in vain and the time had come for us to reclaim our humanity, our dignity, our freedom.

The thing was, though, that none of us really had any real idea what to do with it when we – at long last – got it.

The Fruits of History

As she said at the time, ‘You don’t get many of those to the pound.’ This is – I suppose - true enough, even in these days of metrication.

But, then, as Hemingway himself so rightly said ‘That’s the way it is with watermelons.’

Of course, – in the original edition - Shakespeare’s Macbeth so famously said ‘Is this a pomegranate I see before me?’ And – scandalously even for the Elizabethan period – the Bard had Richard III at Bosworth crying ‘My kingdom for a Cox’s.’ Although, recent scholarship has laid to rest the claim that he actually wanted a Golden Delicious, or even as some anti-Plantagenet propaganda had it – a Granny Smith.

Still we all know about Henry VIII and his plums, so any over-familiarity of royalty with fruit has become the stuff of myth and legend. The most obvious of course being Charles II and his attempt to squeeze Nell Gwyn’s oranges.

After all, would Julius Caesar have not crossed the Rubicon without the promise of a nice juicy Satsuma on the other side?

It is now well-understood the so-called Norman invasion of 1066 would have been little more than a day-trip across the channel. That is if it were not that Edward the Confessor had promised William the Bastard all the pears he could get his hands on.

As for the discovery of America, most historians now agree it would not have happened had Spain enough dates and figs of their own. Without Europeans wanting to find an alternative route to the Middle East, America would have lain undiscovered until at least the next afternoon. Thus those seeking quick access to some of the largest fruit and vegetable retailers in the then known world were responsible for finding a completely new continent and the eventual discovery of the pineapple.

A Significant Modern Artist

It is not all that often we get to see the full glory of Pointillist Etching’s full oeuvre in a major UK exhibition. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to encounter his most famous work Sardines – an opened tin of sardines placed at a precise 32 degrees from true north on a plain white dinner plate. As one critic said at its first public display, ‘this work is so profound in its unashamed exploration and condemnation of the lies of the Western military-industrial complex and their shabby moral vacuity’. This piece has not been on public view since its sale to a private collector for $456 million, three years ago.

However, the work displays the obvious technical skill of an artist of Etching’s calibre, whose 12 assistants worked tirelessly through the night to create this work. His team used a protractor and a laser – to make sure the sardine tin was at precisely the right angle to make his political point. The power of the political argument expressed through the work becomes so obvious to the discerning viewer, making the tickets to the exhibition a real bargain at only £1500 each.