This Blog Has Moved

This blog has moved to:  http://www.davidhadleyauthor.co.uk/

Sorry, but this version of the blog has now closed. 

However, I have not given up blogging - you don't get rid of me that easily.

From Monday (16/06/2014) my blog will continue at my David Hadley- Author website more or less as it has done here. 

New site RSS feed.

I hope you will join me at the new place, but if you find a better way of wasting your time, thanks for stopping by.

Bye (for now).

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

Britain's Greatest Living Olympian

Splurge Debunker is probably the UK’s most famous contemporary athlete. Especially since her stunning victory and gold medal in the Freestyle Ladies Radiator-Bleeding final in London 2012. A contest where she won gold against some very strong opposition, especially from the Norwegian Sopwith Fjordbasker.

It was, of course the controversial decision by the Spanish judge to award Debunker 17 (out of a possible 9) points for artistic interpretation, which enabled Debunker to get through the semi-final against the Russian Expectyouto Diebondski. After the match, the Russian team complained against the ruling. However, later analysis of the slow-motion replay of the Norwegian judge’s calculations, carefully examined by the Olympic Federation’s own mathematicians, showed there had been no foul play and there was nothing illegal in his use of the calculator.

Debunker survived a doping scandal early in her career, when it was discovered her ability to bleed up to seven radiators a session was fuelled by excessive amounts of strong black coffee and digestive biscuits. However, the use of coffee as well as her aerodynamically-designed ergonomic radiator-bleeding key was ruled not in contravention of the strict Olympic standards for competitive radiator-bleeding.

Debunker’s radiator key itself was designed by the Olympic team also responsible for designing the ears of Britain’s gold-medal wining cyclists and high divers. There, the problem of wind-resistance against such protuberances can seriously diminish the scores of such athletes by an astonishing 0.000001%. Enough – at this level of competition - to have an almost discernible effect on both the athlete’s performance and their results. Or at least to make a suitably-adjusted graph look impressive in Olympic funding-allocation meetings.

So, Debunker herself is bound to go down in British sporting history as one of the all-time greats of competitive radiator-bleeding. There are rumours that their will be some recognition of her great achievement in the next New-Year’s Honour list. A recognition that is both timely and more than well-deserved.

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

Ignite Books: David Hadley

Ignite Books: David Hadley: This is the first longer work I've read from David Hadley and it gave me a lot of chuckles! Juggling Balls Amazon .com  Juggling ...

Ignite Books: David Hadley

Ignite Books: David Hadley: This is the first longer work I've read from David Hadley and it gave me a lot of chuckles! Juggling Balls Amazon .com  Juggling ...

The Coming Apocalypse

When it began, we – of course – were ready.

Nearly.

As is the way of these things, popular culture had prepared us well for the threat. Everyone who’d watched a film or some TV, played a computer game or read any genre fiction was well-prepared for the immanent zombie apocalypse.

So, when word of the apocalypse spread, building rumour upon rumour, everyone was ready. We all expected the streets to be thronged with legions of the undead, thirsting for the fresh brains of the living.

Ah… if only it had been that easy.

Everyone had been wondering, well, quite a few people anyway, just why the world need quite so many celebrities. Of course, if is a well-known tenet of media theory that the world’s tabloids need a constant fresh supply of young ladies falling out of their dresses at various high-profile celebrity events. But that alone could not explain just why there were now so many so-called reality TV programmes churning out a constant stream of these new celebrities, most with the media half-life of a fatally-irradiated gnat.

But, as some conspiracy theorists pointed out, every army needs its infantry, its cannon-fodder.

Then everyone laughed at the paranoid imaginings of the conspiracy loonies.

Until it was too late.

No-one is laughing now.

Not now the brain-destroying celebrity hordes are on the rampage down all our High Streets. There they surround innocent people going about their own business. The celebrities then force the ordinary people to engage in mass inane conversations about trivia and banal minutia until their brains explode. Then the ravening celebrity zombie hordes can feed and gorge until it is time to seek out the next victim.

And people used to laugh when some warned of the dangers of celebrity culture for our precarious civilisation.

Who is laughing now?

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

Hollywood's Current Leading Star

Slingback Chaingun is probably still Hollywood's most famous leading slab of acting muscle, despite rapidly approaching his 85th birthday, or as his publicist insists, nearing 45. Still with a full head of jet black hair, the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime crossed with a mountain gorilla. He is also – allegedly – well-endowed enough to make a stallion feel inadequate, Chaingun is rapidly approaching his 65th year in the movie industry.

Some say he is typecast as the misunderstood rebel on the side of truth and justice with a massive gun. Other critics, however, see this more as an in-depth study of the modern world. An examination of the crisis of masculinity that forces men to take on overwhelming odds armed only with a miscellany of high-powered weaponry.

Many feminist critics, though, dismiss Chaingun and his whole oeuvre as conforming to outdated stereotypes of masculinity. In particular the role of the male in society as warrior with the innate male understanding of which end of the gun the bullets come out of.

However, in the real world, away from academia, Chaingun remains a star in the only way that matters. His last twenty-seven films have all been massive box-office successes, especially the last 14 films in the phenomenon that is Shooty Kill-Death Mayhem (parts V-IXX). 

Here Chaingun plays the rogue Green Beret Steve Massacre in his seemingly never-ending quest to take on every failed state, dictatorship, terrorist organisation and jungle location. All in a solo attempt to rescue brave American captives from torture, abuse, un-American involvements and certain death. Each in a multitude of cinematically-gruesome ways as the scriptwriters can imagine. All while the US government does all it can to disown, discredit and abandon Steve Massacre to his fate. 

At least right up to the last act, where they discover he is winning. They then send a helicopter to take the captives back home to a hero's welcome and a massive boost in the polls for the incumbent president. Meanwhile Massacre is left behind in the jungle to await the discovery of yet more innocent Americans in peril.

All of which goes to show why even at the great old age of 85… 45, Slingback Chaingun is still at the top of his game, and long may that continue.

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

The Joker

Well. It is a funny way to make a living, especially when it turns from a lark to a job, then a living and then a career.

The first time I was a little bit drunk. I did it for a bet. It was an open-mic night at a local club.

The girl… Helen was her name… maybe. She said ‘I dare you.’

I wanted to impress her, get into her knickers… or, more accurately get her out of them. So I dared.

I was a hit.

They invited me back… several times.

Somewhere along the way, I lost Helen. But there were others, some who didn’t even wear knickers, at least by the time they’d come back to my hotel room as I toured up and down the country.

I won contests. I played bigger clubs. Got on TV panel shows and made a dick of myself. I got into the theatres and, over time, became the headline act.

Then, as mysteriously as it happened, it started to unhappen.

I was no longer on TV, no longer in the theatres.

So, here I was, with Suzie, my manger, crawling around the back streets of some northern town, looking for their local comedy club.

‘Is that it?’ Suzie peered through the rain-smeared windscreen. The windscreen wipers in my knackered old Rover only worked on intermittent, so I had to wait for them to crawl across the screen.

‘Looks like it,’ I said.

A few minutes later, we’ found somewhere to park the car, and ran through the rain, getting soaked to the skin.

Suzie pulled the door open.

Inside, music played, the lights were on and my name was on a poster on the wall, but we were the only ones in there.

‘Bloody hell, it’s the Marie Celeste,’ I said.

Then I turned to see Suzie, mouth open in a wordless silent scream, pointing at the bloodstain that spread across the dance floor.

I wanted to turn and run, but I didn’t because I could hear something breathing, breathing heavily, behind me.

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

Supermarket Eroticism

Only then could we see just why she needed the tin of pilchards. Notwithstanding – of course – all the usual reasons a lady of her... inclinations engages in such a blatant – and full-frontal – display of full-on shopping.

Of course, in a society that doesn't like sex, but loves porn, such a display of uninhibited purchasing of domestic staples is bound to bring on a certain sexually-charged frisson. Especially if the young lady in question is more than averagely attractive and has a massive pair of shopping lists.

Of course, there are many who will take only one list on their shop. But such - known as 'vanilla' or 'ordinary' shoppers - to full-on supermarket fetishists, know little of the illicit sexual thrill having an extra shopping list can add to the experience. After all, at the top of most people's shopping sex wish-list is a desire to experiment with threesomes. For many people, that means the standard, 'buy two get one free' offers. For others, though, it can be more inventive. Right up to and including setting off down the aisles with two shopping trolleys. Of course, the dexterity, let alone the desire, needed to control two wayward and independently-minded shopping trolleys is of course not all that usual in our repressed society. We cannot deny it exists, at least, judging by the number of specialist websites displaying shopping women – and sometimes even men – in erotic poses with two – or even sometimes more – shopping trolleys.

Of course, the usual self-appointed moral guardians and religious leaders have condemned erotic shopping and all it entails. But we have to ask ourselves how many of them have ever felt the sudden overwhelming need to go out and buy a can of pilchards?

I know I have.

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

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)]

New Kindle Novel Out Now: Juggling Balls

Juggling Balls available here(UK) or here(US)

Special Low Launch Price: £0.77/$0.99

Martin Laws hates mysteries. 

So why has someone sent him a bag of juggling balls? 

Why has he no memory of buying a new computer?

Why has that new computer decided Martin needs to go shopping?

Why does a hairstylist he's never met before keep saluting him?

Most of all, why are so many Elvis impersonators trying to kill him?

Juggling Balls - a science fiction comedy featuring time travel, mind control implants and a future religion that claims an Elvis Presley clone as its saviour. 

Oh, and an interplanetary terraced house.

Juggling Balls available here(UK) or here(US)

Special Low Launch Price: £0.77/$0.99

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

Something for the Weekend: Free Kindle Short Story: An Undulation of a Shadow’s Edge

FREE Short Story

An Undulation of a Shadow’s Edge

Available FREEfor the Kindle here(UK) or here(US) for the next 5 days.

Short story: 7,500 words (approx)

Dark creatures writhe in the city’s shadows, Claire has seen them and seen their hungry eyes watching her… and waiting.

Claire avoids the darkness and the shadows of the city’s nights because she knows what lurks there.

That was until the night she saw Henry, standing in the darkest shadows watching her, wanting her as much as she wants him. But he is as unwilling to leave the dark as Claire is to enter it.

Will Claire save Henry before the shadows and darkness consume him and he is lost to the darkness forever?

Available FREEfor the Kindle here(UK) or here(US) for the next 5 days.

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).]

When the Empress Danced

It is said, still after all these years, by those who knew her, that she was the most beautiful woman they'd ever met. Even allowing for the way time alters perceptions so we only remember the golden times, it is still something remarkable.

Of course, history has a way of choosing who it wants to remember and who it wants to forget. History has decided to keep Empress Shilah as one of its own, while her husband is left for the dust of time to cover over.

This suits me.

Even back then, I merged into the background, becoming the forgotten Emperor, while Shilah became the symbol and the beloved of the empire.

Of course, that was not the whole story. As my wise old teacher, the philosopher Hedden, said to me once, 'while everyone is watching the dancer, no-one sees what goes on in the shadows.'

I liked to live, and – yes – rule, in those shadows, letting Shilah dance for everyone. She liked the attention, she liked the gold, the rich fabrics, the obsequious attendants, servants and slaves. She loved the fawning ambassadors and the politicians all eager to lick the dust from her feet, if her whim so commanded it.

They all thought that winning her favour would aid them in whatever way they thought would further their desires. Little did they know that while they plotted and schemed behind their smiles, while they manoeuvred and plotted to gain her favour or merely lusted after her, I was there in the shadows behind them listening and learning.

Of course, the stories and tales tell of all her lovers and her desires. But Shilah was not like that. Like all beautiful women who spurn men's – and women's – advances the stories grew more lewd and lurid the more of them she turned down and turned away from. She always, every night, came to my bed to listen to the stories I told her of what I'd learnt from the shadows while the court danced its attention on her.

She had no other lovers.

Except for that lover that crept out of the darkness of the East, out of the shadows where even I feared to tread. The lover that came from the plague- scarred lands and stole her from me with his fatal kiss.

[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).]

Watching Paint Dry

After an initially uncertain start in the ratings, it looks as though the UK's latest celebrity-based reality show is now going from strength to strength.

Celebrity Watching Paint Dry (CWPD) has already come to dominate the early Saturday evening viewing schedules with an almost five-to-one lead over its nearest celebrity reality show rival, AntnDec's Celebrity Lawn Watching. A programmedeliberately placed against CWPD in the vital early evening weekend viewing schedules.

The host of CWPD, the irrepressibly smug centenarian all-round entertainer Undercoat Slapdash is credited with making the show such a success. Of course, allied with the almost unbearable tension of watching celebrities, usually with the attention span of a bewildered gnat (unless looking in a mirror), stare at a wall of drying paint for as long as they are able.

Most of the show's viewers put its overwhelming success down to the fact that watching paint dry is far more riveting than watching anything else currently on our TV screens. So they find the entire spectacle of glamorous people watching paint drying in exotic foreign locations really exciting. This is despite the viewers seeing very title of those locations behind the freshly-emulsioned walls. All while Slapdash's voice-over allows the celebrities to tell – in their own monosyllables – of the amazing emotional roller-coaster journey standing in front of that still-tacky paint job takes them on.

Although, now there are rumours that the show's great rival, AntnDec's Celebrity Lawn Watching, is – in its new series – about to unveil a re-jigged format. One where its celebrity's watching the growing laws of some of their closet celebrity friends and greatest rivals. All of which, the channel promises, will make their show the must-see programme every weekend. Particularly as viewers are bound to be fascinated by the lawns of the rich and famous.

However, only time will tell which of these great examples of the TV programme-makers art will survive and prosper in the cut-throat world of TV entertainment.

[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).]

Ah, Those Sexy Castanets

It happens, albeit not as often as back in the days of yore, or even mine. But, occasionally, there is still a sign of life in the old thing. Especially when she does that thing with the castanets and the current Argos catalogue.

Still, having said – or, at least, typed - that, I must admit that age does come to us all. With it, the ageing process brings many deprecations of the physical and the mental. Often, it gets to be the case that what is desired – even yearned for (as in the case of the Argos catalogue and the castanets) cannot be physically achieved. There is also the case that the physical is possible but you can't remember why you came in here, and why you are holding the spoon.

However, as I was saying, there are not all that many of then in Spain, especially in the more coastal regio....

Hang on, that wasn't it....

Anyway, there she was posed intimately with the Rear Admiral (as it were) and the commander of the Fleet Air Arm, both immersed in the bath full of lukewarm custa....

No, it wasn't that, either.

Hang on, I'll remember what it was I was going to say - and/or type - in a minute... as soon as I remember what I was going to do with this spoon....

Hang on, is that the sound of castanets I hear? Is that also the tell-tale rustling of the pages of a current Argos catalogue too?

Now I remember why she wanted the spoon.... and the handcuffs....

Duty calls....

Goodbye

[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 Issue of the Gazelle

And this?

Well, obviously, that is involved with other matters entirely. So if we could just put it to one side... carefully. Ideally, not next to either the gazelle or the tennis racquet, then we can move on to more tasteful and refined matters.

Of course, if we are serious about becoming more tasteful and refined here at this... er... whatever this is, then I'm afraid that you - especially you over there - will have to forgo, or at least limit, anointing yourself all over will baby oil. Especially before you leap in and peruse whatever that day's particular missive sets forth.

Oh, and make sure that device of yours is switched off too, you know how much the buzzing perturbs the gazelle. Which, then, makes the tennis racquet somewhat superfluous. Especially when it then has baby oil all over the grip.

As you are no doubt aware, being a person of refined discernment, several animal welfare organisations, at a worldwide level, are growing increasingly concerned about possible animal abuses. Especially about the number of gazelles becoming unnecessarily perturbed by various untoward goings-on in the domestic environment. It is at such a stage that some of these charities are calling for a ban on tennis racquets and the strict licensing and control of baby oil. As well as making those devices illegal to posses within a two-hundred metre radius of any gazelle of a nervous disposition – which, let's face it – is most of them.

Now, while most right-thinking people think that a ban on the possession or use of a tennis racquet for use in the sordid world of international tennis is at least a step in the right direction. Going, as it does, towards removing the abomination that is tennis from this world it has blighted for so long. However, some believe the erotic use of the tennis racquet is too important, despite its sometimes detrimental effect on any nearby gazelles, for an outright ban to be considered... yet.

So, please bear this in mind and - to be on the safe side - be careful with that baby oil too.

 

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

From East of Walsall

She came out of the wild unknown lands east of Walsall. It was sad that she knew too many secrets from the wild lands. That she knew how to conjure and make the politicians do her bidding with only a handful of video files and a single USB memory stick.

It was said too that she knew the secrets arts of the accordion and just what to do with a high court judge and a bath filled with lukewarm custard. Some even suggested she understood every taxation exception rule ever made into law.

Such is the stuff of legend.

Those of us who met her, knew she had a way with words. She also understood several other far more interesting ways with several lengths of rope, a cast iron bed frame and an ostrich feather. But those of us who knew that, also knew not to mention it to anyone. Especially not to the journalists that hung around her, sniffing for exclusives and tales of bedroom romps with the great and the good, and some politicians as well.

Of course, it could not last. These things never do, despite what the pharmaceutical companies promise. Soon, her looks began to fade and her dexterity with the accordion was not what it was during her heyday. Other, younger, women came along. Some arrived even from the legendary lands of Tewkesbury. A place where the women are women and the men are left in whimpering heaps by the side of the road.

Soon she was gone and never heard of ever again.

Although, there are some who say there is a retirement bungalow down on the south coast somewhere, where late at night if you listen carefully you can hear the strains of an accordion on the sea breeze. If the wind is right, they say, you can just make out the tell-tale scent of a bath slowly filling with lukewarm custard.

 

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