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 ...

Something for the Weekend – Free Kindle Humour: Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Free for the next five days here(UK) or here(US)

Here we are back, once again, in Little Frigging in the Wold: England’s most perverse, erotic and excitingly-moist village, for some more tales of rural life, with more adventures and tales featuring Grand Uncle Stagnant, Old Feebletrousers, Strom Thighhammer, the cake shop manageress and many more of Little Frigging’s residents. 

This book includes over one hundred stories involving inter-village competitive orgies, the erotic use of foodstuffs, how to extract as much money from tourists as possible, the naked pogo-stick steeplechase, mid-air and deep-sea perversions, the use of the fetish unicycle, medieval woodland perversions, the erotic use of cardigans, achieving match fitness in an inter-village orgy squad, accountancy fetish night in the village hall, and – of course – the best way of sellotaping a Cornish pasty to an assistant librarian for erotic purposes and much, much more.

Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Free for the next five days here(UK) or here(US)

Some comments on David Hadley’s writing:

“Wonderfully weird.”

“brilliantly funny story. I love it.”

“good god, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. “

“very funny, I had a good laugh at this story”

“Clever, and very funny.”

“really funny, had a right good old laugh at this

story.”

“This made me laugh so much, tears came into my eyes….”

“I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard”

“highly creative and hilarious as always”

“lol this is so funny.”

“another one of yours I truly enjoyed, “Old Feebletrousers” love it!”

“This is a very funny story, it made me laugh.”

“Absolutely brilliant. Thank you”

“This piece produced a lot of giggles!”

“Yep! This was a real funny piece, it had me laughing….”

Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Free for the next five days here(UK) or here(US)

Sign up to the David Hadley – Author Mailing list to receive news about new releases, special offers, forthcoming titles and much more.

[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 Humour: The Theory of Car Parks

The Theory of Car Parks

Available FREE for the next 5 days for the Kindle:

Here (UK) or Here (US)

The title piece of this great new collection features an historical appreciation of the great car park theorist; Heinrich Von Rectangle, his life, work and tragic untimely end.

In over a hundred other essays, a wide variety of subjects of interest and fascination to the modern reader are also discussed:

Such as:

The latest the latest European Union Working Time Directives .and how they relate to the employment circumstances of the undead.

In science, the ramifications of the Biscuit Tin Event Horizon are explored in an attempt to aid our understanding of the physical forces that make biscuits, pies and other such foodstuffs irresistible.

There is also some very exciting research with throws new light on the development and history of the spoon.

This book also features a report on the new TV phenomenon taking the world by storm that is Live Celebrity Woodworking.

Along with:

An appreciation and celebration of the cult film: 2030: A Lingerie Odyssey which featured the world’s first lingerie-wearing supercomputer.

An essay celebrating the Victorian inventor who famously developed Spadgecock’s Wildfowl Distractor.

A look forward to what will undoubtedly be this year’s film of the year: The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes.

An appreciation of on of the forgotten classics of Romantic poetry in: Ode to a Stickleback and Romanticism.

A study of the role played by the British army’s use of camouflage pastry to bring about the end of the First World War.

Along with articles and pieces on other similar fascinating subjects, such as: Full-Frontal Cookery, The Great Cheese Conspiracies, International Celebrity Underwater Cheese Grating, The Sensual Arts of the Secret Accountancy Sect, The Unauthorised Use of a Banjo, Post-War Extreme Sports and much, much more.

Available FREE for the next 5 days for the Kindle:

Here (UK) or Here (US)

Some Reader Comments:

I think I just broke all my vital organs laughing”

“oh my god….I just about died laughing reading this…it’s genius! Pure genius! Especially the bit about the fluffy particle…too funny.”

“This made me laugh so much, tears came into my eyes….”

“this really made me laugh. I shall never look at a cup of tea in the same way again.”

“Brilliant! Made me howl…”

“highly creative and hilarious as always”

“lol this is so funny.”

“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”

“good god, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. “

“very funny, I had a good laugh at this story”

“Clever, and very funny.”

Available FREE for the next 5 days for the Kindle:

Here (UK) or Here (US)

Something for the Weekend - Free Kindle Humour: Choosing Headgear for Penguins

Choosing Headgear for Penguins

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

No doubt you have been wondering over the years about what is the most suitable hat for the various breeds of penguin: such as a deerstalker for the King penguins, or whether emperor penguins should wear a top hat.

Perhaps you have also wondered if Napoleon wore a basque under his uniform at the battle of Waterloo and the role that lingerie played in history.
Maybe you have long puzzled over the role of the Stilton cavalry in the English Cheese war.

Possibly you may have pondered who was The Greatest Prime Minister Great Britain Never Had, or who was The Fastest Jelly Baby Diversity Co-Ordinator In The West.

You could have even puzzled over The Fabled Lost Source of the Pork Scratching.
Choosing Headgear for Penguins is the book that answers all of these and many other questions you’ve never thought of asking as well as much, much more about such diverse topics as: Celebrity Extreme Gardening, Eroticism and the Intellectuals, People Staring At Walls, Raiders Of The Lost Car Park, The Latest Celebrity Sex Scandal, The UK’s Leading Adult Film Male Superstar and Weasel Defusing.

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

Some comments on David Hadley's humour pieces:

"Bloody Hilarious!"
"The hamsters of doom. Dammit, that's poetry. Well done"
"oh my god....I just about died laughing reading this...it's genius! Pure genius! Especially the bit about the fluffy particle...too funny."
"This made me laugh so much, tears came into my eyes...."
"I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard"
"this really made me laugh. I shall never look at a cup of tea in the same way again."
"Brilliant! made me howl..."
"I think I just broke all my vital organs laughing"

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

The UK’s Most Pointless Politician

Now regularly televised by BBC3.142, these days the title of The UK’s Most Pointless Politician is a hotly contested field. In fact, such is the competition for the title that the award has – over the last few contests become divided into several categories. This enables the judges have some chance of picking winners – or more accurately in the spirit of the competition – losers.

Obviously, the UK has a long and distinguished history of championing the useless and pointless. Hence the undercurrents of national suspicion and unease whenever a British person is good at something, especially sport.

For, as every British school-age potential worker drone is well aware winning is for losers.

Consequently, there are categories for both local and national politicians. There are also several categories for the political camp followers, groupies and other ‘professions’ of questionable value and limited virtue, such as political journalist, think-tank wonk and political researcher. There is, of course, as traditional, a category all of its own for civil servants.

The contest has several rounds, based on the old beauty contest model. In the first round, politicians are judged on their general incompetence, including an interview with the celebrity compere where they can detail their failures. This includes such things as failed business or academic career, their failed marriages and destroyed personal relationships and other such signs of general failure that left them with no alternative but to become politicians. Then there is the venality round where politicians must display just how corruptible they are. They are offered everything from a plain brown envelope stuffed with fivers up to executive board membership of companies guilty of supplying illegal chemical weaponry to despotic regimes. In the final round they are offered a seat at the cabinet table in return for their compliant acquiescence to the party machine.

Then, of course, there is the swimsuit round….

Moving on….

The winner of The UK’s Most Pointless Politician, of course, gets to become Prime Minister of the UK for anything up to three parliamentary terms. If incompetent enough at this the ex-PM goes through to the World Championship and the chance of winning a coveted UN Special envoy to the Middle East position.

Wait and See

It was not, although we felt it. It had shape, form. Or rather there was an absence – sensed in the air – where it would be if it was here. Many thought it was some presence from some other world. The more mystical thought it was from some world to come that had slipped through the barrier between those separate worlds; some devil or demon from the nether regions making itself manifest. Those that longed for the end of the world to bring some terminal certainty to their uncertain lives saw it as presaging the end of days. Even though it was not the benevolent creator god they’d longed and hoped for, they still welcomed it and hoped the promise of it smiting the ungodly, who sneered and laughed at them, would be kept.

Others, more rational, thought it could be some seepage from a parallel universe. Maybe one with malevolent intent to be sure, but perhaps something that lived in a universe unlike our own where our concepts of right and wrong, light and dark did not hold sway.

More thought it was some mass delusion, some spiritual yearning for something beyond the wonders of this universe they found too hard to understand, a yearning for the simplicities of good and evil right and wrong, goodies and baddies.

Many more, though, thought it was best just to wait and see what happened next.

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)

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)

Monday Poem: Not Suitable for Children

Not Suitable for Children

Not suitable for children, due to small parts,
Our conversation pauses, as quick steps
Dash about in the hallway beyond.

Only to begin again as the door
Stays closed, shutting out the sound
Of life and play and yet another song.

We used to know the words of so many songs.
We sang them together, driving on
Down all those long roads of living,

Until that day we parked here;
Ready to learn a new song of home.

A place for all we left unsaid to sit
And brood and wait. Ready to fill
All the pauses in our stilted conversations.

Free Kindle Novella: Have a Go

Have a Go

Free for the next five days – here (UK) or here (US)

[Novella – 17, 500 words approx]

The day John Russell became a Have a Go Hero, for accidentally foiling an armed bank robbery, was the day his life changed forever, and all he’d wanted was a nice cup of tea.

Extract:

[…]

An hour or so after John had fallen asleep, the door opened slowly and quietly. Two figures, a woman and a man, crept into John’s room. Both were dressed in white coats with stethoscopes around their necks and both glanced back over their shoulders to check the corridor behind them as they crept into John’s room.

Once they were safely in the room, with the door shut, they both let out the breath they’d been holding, stood up straight and brushed down their white coats. They checked each other out and nodded their approval to one another as they tried to give the impression of professional confidence.

The woman tuned to the man, leaning close as she whispered. ‘If we do this right, it might just be my ticket back to the front page. Instead of wasting my time on this inside page filler stuff, I’ll be back where I belong – with all the celebrity scoops – real journalism.’ Still watching his face, she reached out towards the photographer’s crotch, watching carefully as his eyes widened in increasing pain and alarm as she squeezed. ‘So, don’t bugger this up for me - all right?’

The photographer shook his head frantically.

The reporter tilted her head and squeezed again, even harder. The photographer whimpered in pain again. Then – when he could open his eyes once more – he saw that the reporter regarded his head shaking as the wrong response.

He nodded frantically instead.

The reporter smiled at him. The photographer attempted a weak smile in return, shifting uncomfortably as he tried to rearrange his trousers.

The reporter let him go. ‘I’m so glad we understand each other,’ she said. ‘I think we might make a great team…. Come on, let’s get on with it.’

The reporter sidled up to John’s bed and coughed.

Nothing happened.

She coughed again. John began to stir. He opened one eye and looked up at her.

‘Hello… er… Mister… er….’ The journalist hastily grabbed John’s chart from the bottom of his bed. ‘Er… yes. Mr Russell. I’m doctor… doctor… Harumph and this is my associate, doctor… A-hem hem.’

John opened both eyes, turned on his light and made a feeble attempt to sit up. ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your… er…?’

‘Yes, well. I see from your chart that the… your… er….’

‘Temperature?’ The photographer offered.

‘Yes, thank you, Doctor a-hem hem…. It says here…’ She tapped the chart ‘that your FA over blood index pressure is verging on the acute. I’d better just….’

She began to mess about with John’s wrist, looking for - but failing to find - his pulse. ‘So… tell me Mr Russell, can I call you John? Tell me, John, how long have you been married?’

‘Eight years, but we were living together since we left university. Acute blood index pressure? Is that serious? It sounds serious.’

‘No, it’s just… er… routine. Tell me, was that woman, you were in the bank with, your wife?’

‘Debbie? No, she’s a friend. From school days, as it happens….’ John turned to look at her. ‘Anyway, what’s that got to do with my blood whatsit index thing?’

‘There are sound medical….’

‘Clinical!’ The photographer said, nudging the reporter.

The reporter glared at the photographer. ‘There are sound medi… clinical reasons for every question we ask you, Mr Russell. So, if you could just co-operate? It is in your own interest.’

‘Oh, yes. Right…. Sorry. But I was warned about some tabloid reporters prowling around.’

‘Really? How strange. Anyway, it… er… my colleague here would like to take a few photographs… of your… your injuries… for….’

‘For our records,’ the photographer interjected.

‘….For insurance company purposes.’ the journalist said, glaring at the photographer for interrupting her and making a squeezing motion with her hand. The photographer gulped and took a step away from her and began preparing his camera.

‘So… this… Debbie. Just how good friends are you?’ the reporter asked.

John stared at her. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your busin….’ He glanced from reporter to cameraman and back again. ‘Hang on, are you really doctors?’ John struggled to sit up and take a close look at the female doctor. ‘Hey, I thought you looked familiar. You were that reporter in that court case a few months ago – you broke into someone’s hospital room… some soap star! I saw you on the news!’ He fumbled for his alarm button and pressed it, while putting his other hand between him and the photographer, blocking the camera.

‘Come on, Suzy. Let’s go! We’ve been rumbled!’ the photographer said, turning to go.

The reporter and the photographer ran for the door.

Just before she left the room the journalist looked back at John, pointing her voice recorder towards him. ‘So, John… Mr Russell. How long have you been shagging this Debbie woman? Does your wife know?’

From the corridor outside, the photographer grabbed for the journalist’s arm, trying to pull her from the room. ‘Come on Suzy! Scarper! That nurse is coming and she’s armed!’

The journalist turned back and peered around the door. ‘Armed?’

‘Yes! She has a bedpan… and it looks like she’s going to use it!’

The journalist shrugged her arm free from the panicking journalist and turned towards John once more, shouting from the doorway. ‘So, John, how doe sit feel to be a Have a Go Hero?’

‘A what?’ John said wincing as his head throbbed in pain.

The reporter stared at John, about to ask the question again when a loud metallic clang came from outside the room.

‘Ow! Shit,’ the photographer yelled from the corridor. ‘Leave me alone! I’m going… I’m going.’

The reporter glanced around the room in panic. She ran to the window and forced it open, then jumped out.

There was a soft thud from outside and a long, low moan.

Nurse Lloyd strode into the room carrying a dented bedpan. She noticed the open window and smiled broadly. Laughing, she walked over to close it.

‘What’s so funny?’ John said. ‘I was having my privacy invaded.’

The nurse hung the clipboard back on the foot of John’s bed. ‘Just below this window is where they leave the bins full of stuff for the incinerator. She just landed in a bin full of used nappies from the children’s ward.’

John smiled in satisfaction as Nurse Lloyd straightened his pillow and sheets and helped him lie back down. ‘Somehow, that seems like an apt fate for a tabloid journalist,’ he said.

Nurse Lloyd nodded. ‘Anyway, settle down now. I’ve alerted security, so there should be no more interruptions or intrusions.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No trouble at all. Good night.’

‘Good night, and thank you, again.’

Nurse Lloyd picked up the battered bedpan and then turned down the light before leaving and closing the door behind her as John tried to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep.

[….]

Have a Go: A novella - by David Hadley:

Available here (UK) and here (US) for the Kindle FREE now, for the next five days.

New Kindle Book Out Now: The River is an Endless Rope - Poems

This book is a new collection of over 180 poems by David Hadley.

David Hadley's poems have been published in several magazines in the UK and US.

Several of his poems have been cherry-picked by the editors at ABCtales.com.

 

The River is an Endless Rope

Available here (UK) or here (US).

*

The River is an Endless Rope

All through this slipping of time
The river flows sedately onward,
An endless rope pulled by the sea.
Sometimes, though, the river swells,
Swells in anger, as it tries to twist
Break free from the grip of the sea.
But the sea’s grip is too strong,
Holding tight onto this river’s tongue
For millions of long winding years.

In all that time, the churning sea
Has not let the river drop once,
Not yet, and - perhaps – not ever.
Days flow on, pouring into the past
Like water back into deeper seas.
The river ties the rain back home
To the deeper distant seas,
Connecting now to then to now
Like rain to water and sea.

I spend a great deal of time
Walking along by this river,
Watching its steps, marking its moods,
Taking every day it brings
And trying to hold on, like the sea
Holds tight to its own rivers
Pulling them back towards it
Fearing that too much freedom means
They will one day break free.

*

The River is an Endless Rope

Available here (UK) or here (US).

Another collection of poems by David Hadley:

This Brief Life of Sparks is available for the Kindle here (UK) or here (US).

Some comments about David Hadley's poems:

“your lovely poem awoke my own memories”
“An elegant poem”
“wow well done”
“That was beautiful.”
“That captures my ambivalent feelings about morning! Love those last five lines.”
“This is simply gorgeous, poignant and bittersweet. Thank you for this”
“Lovely and delicate, like your dancer.”
“This is a beautiful poem, hadley! I love the two-stansa structure and whole reflective, traquil feel. Well done ;)”
“I like the way you write - sounds a bit strange, lol, but true.”
“very Keats like … much enjoyed.”
“another scorcher!”
“Lovely rhymes and rhythm, quite a warming feeling, good stuff!”
“What a beautiful picture you paint with your words.”
“Wow, this is pure perfection. I absolutely love this poem. You use a whole different dimension here- a unique story told in familiar ways. Each stanza, each line and each word is in perfect harmony. This is what I call craftsmanship. Well done.”
“Absolutely beautiful. I'm awe struck, well done :)”
“I really like the way this evolves… The line: 'Silence speaks like a sullen child.' is great,”
“really enjoyed, beautiful :) Especially the last lines.”
“I found this strangely haunting.”
“absolutely spell-bounding stuff.”
“I liked this, especially the last few lines”
“This is a nice piece of work - well done.”
“Thoughtful and thought provoking.”
“I like this. Can identify with the little things forgotten when waking and lost.”
“an interesting - and thought-provoking -piece.”
“fantastic! Love this line: 'where all the rules are torn / to scatter like coloured confetti '”
“An excellent evocation of the dreamworld.”
“'it's harder than you think to close / the doors of all those memories.' So true...”
“I think this is a beautiful poem…”
“Good one.”
“beautifully poetic, I really like this.”
“"Running the sands of my life / through my opening fingers" lovely lines”
“Brilliant stuff. Loved it.”
“I liked this. There is a good truth in this”
“Eloquent, beautiful.”
“Lovely words.”
“This is stunning, I've read it over and over again and will do many times today.”
“Great. Love the opening lines, turning a cliched image into a new, fresh one. This so mirrors my own reflections on where I am. Fabulous write”
“I love the first two lines. Gripped my attention straight away. A lovely poem. Well done.”

 

 

The River is an Endless Rope

Available here (UK) or here (US).

Needing a Good Home

Well, it happens… I suppose….

But I don’t know, really, how it happened.

It wasn’t anything I really expected, not even in some of my more… er… imaginative dreams, and I do tend to have some odd dreams. My dreams are so odd I’ve stopped telling other people about them. There were too many times when, if they didn’t quite back away suddenly remembering an urgent appointment elsewhere, I have seen that look come into people’s eyes as I tell them just what the penguin was doing with the pogo-stick and why the vicar was fleeing in panic, his vestments on fire.

Anyway, as I said… not even in my wildest of dreams….

Although, it is a national symbol and all that. There is a red one on the national flag, after all.

But, I’m not even Welsh though.

The old man, white beard, wild wind-swept hair, who came over the brow of the hill as I sat cradling the cold, trembling, mite in my arms, did tell me though that when one of them adopts a human, you are theirs, and it is yours, for as long as you both live.

‘It is…’ he said, staring off towards where the horizon would be if it wasn’t in Wales and therefore shrouded in mist and rain. ‘… a pact that cannot be broken.’

Just then the baby dragon I was holding looked up at me, with its eyes the amber of deep flame, coughed up a tar ball and set fire to my sleeve.

The white-bearded old man looked down at the tiny dragon in my arms and smiled. ‘You’ll get used to that,’ he said. ‘I’d recommend getting some burn cream.’ With that, he strode off into the mists, leaving me with my new charge slowly furling and unfurling its delicate wings as it lay contented in my arms.

Thursday Poem: This Delicate World

This Delicate World

We go, just you and I, to look upon
this delicate bright world, bend close and peer
into all that is not so easily
described. We think it would be wrong to give
a name to what we see when it remains

as something like a mystery, not taken
so easily into the hand and held
but left to fly so far away and free
up to the topmost branches of the high
and furthest tree. A place where it can have

the world beneath it, waiting there for it
to take it all, then hold it safe, away
from reaching hands that stretch towards it all
each wanting to devour, destroy, to take
these precious moments all away from us.

New Kindle Novella Out Now: Have a Go

Have a Go

[Novella – 17, 500 words approx]

The day John Russell became a Have a Go Hero, for accidentally foiling an armed bank robbery, was the day his life changed forever, and all he’d wanted was a nice cup of tea.

Extract:

[…]

‘Can I have some money too, Daddy?’ Beth said.

John smiled down at her. ‘I suppose so. How much do you want?’

‘A million pounds.’

John was too stunned to reply for a moment. He looked down at Beth who seemed to be waiting patiently for her more than reasonable request to be granted. ‘What do you want with a millio.... What the f…!’

Suddenly, the doors burst open and two armed men rushed into the bank, both wearing ski masks, ex-army style clothing and leather gloves.

One - armed with a sawn-off shotgun - herded the stunned customers, including Debbie and Stan, up against the wall.

The other, armed with an automatic pistol, forced a large bag under the counter screen. ‘Fill it! Quick! My mate - Mr Blue - over there has a very nervous trigger finger. If you don't want to spend the rest of the day wiping your customers off the walls of this nice little bank of yours, you'll hurry up. And keep well away from that alarm button under the counter.’ He looked across at the other three members of staff cowering behind the counter. ‘The rest of you come out here and join your customers over by the wall where Mr Blue can look after you properly.’

The man with the shotgun turned to face the one at the counter. ‘Hang on! I'm Mr Green this time. We agreed - remember?’

‘What? Oh, right… whatever you say Chri… Mr Bl… Mr Green.’

Once the three members of staff had hurried to join the customers standing against the wall, Mr Green turned back and stood where all the staff and customers could see him clearly. ‘Hey, everyone! Just to make it clear, so that no-one is confused. I'm Mr Gree… Mr Blue, and To… he is Mr Green. Everyone understand?’ He looked around carefully, his finger stroking the trigger of his shotgun. ‘Well, do you?’

The assembled customers and staff stared back at him.

‘What? Oh, hang on…. No. I'm Mr Green.’ He pointed across towards his accomplice with his shotgun. ‘He is Mr….’

‘Hey Chris! Er… Mr Green, careful where you are pointing that!’

‘Sorry To… Mr Blue.’ He turned back to face the bewildered group. ‘Right, for the last time… I'm Mr Green and Tom…. He is Mr Blue. Right?’

There was a general muttering of assent from the assembled customers and staff.

‘Right, that's that sorted. Let's get on with it, Mr Bl… Green… Blue,’ said the bank robber at the counter.

‘Green!’ Mr Green yelled without turning to look at him.

‘Mr Green, right.’

‘Right! All of you - back against the wall and keep still. Put your hands on your heads!’ Mr Green pointed the shotgun at each of the adults in the queue until they complied.

Beth was too bewildered to move; looking from the bank robber to John and back again as tears formed in her eyes and her lips trembled.

‘Move little girl. Move!’ Mr Green yelled, pointing his shotgun at Beth, then trying to push her back with its barrel.

Beth stood still and burst into tears.

There was sudden anger on John's face. He stepped forward. Debbie tried to pull him back, but John shrugged her off.

He stood a few inches from the gunman. ‘Don't point that thing at my daughter you pathetic bastard!’ He grabbed the gun barrel and twisted it away from Beth and up towards the ceiling.

Mr Green was too stunned to react at first. But the sudden jerk of his gun made him pull the trigger. The gun fired up at the ceiling.

John and Mr Green were showered with shredded ceiling tiles, falling around them like feathers. Mr Green stood with his mouth as wide-open as the ski-mask would allow, staring up at the massive hole his gun had blown in the ceiling while snow flakes of former ceiling slowly fell down over and around him.

John stepped forward, forcing the gun butt back into Mr Green's stomach with some force. The villain doubled over in pain as John struggled with him. John tightened his grip on the gun, trying to twist it out of the hands of the villain. He jerked it upwards, making the gun butt hit Mr Green in the face.

The bank robber groaned and crumpled to the floor. He let go of the gun, letting it fall to the floor. The shotgun slid across the polished tiles and underneath a table.

Over by the counter, Mr Blue saw his accomplice was down. He glanced at the teller, who dropped the half-filled bag on the floor on her side of the counter and pressed the alarm. He tried to point his pistol at the teller, but his panic made the gun wave around so he couldn't aim it properly. The teller pressed a button and a steel shutter slammed down over the front of the counter.

Mr Blue turned and pointed his gun at John, in his nervousness he fumbled with his gun. The pistol was waving around erratically as he tried to pull the trigger, but the safety catch was still on. Mr Blue frantically tried to release the safety catch, but pressed the wrong switch, accidentally ejecting the magazine instead.

The magazine fell out of the gun and dropped onto his foot, causing the bullets to eject and scatter all over the floor.

Mr Blue looked around in panic before dropping to his knees and scrabbling around - trying to put the bullets back into the magazine - but his gloved hands made it impossible to pick up the bullets from the highly-polished floor. He looked up as he heard distant sirens and decided to run.

John turned - still stunned and covered in shredded roof tiles - to see Mr Blue bearing down on him. The bank robber swung his pistol at John's head as he tried to get past, catching John on the temple. Mr Blue glanced back as he got to the door and saw John slowly sinking to the floor, unconscious.

The customers and staff in the bank stood against the wall with their hands half in the air, not knowing what to do as they stared at the slowly-closing bank door. Debbie was on her knees comforting Beth and Stan. The old woman was feebly dragging her unwilling son towards the stunned Mr Green, still lying on the floor and moaning softly, less than a foot from the unconscious John.

Mr Green was slowly recovering. He blinked twice then shook his head, but all he could see was the face of old woman gradually coming into focus as she leant over him.

‘Mother?’ he said with a tentative smile behind the ski mask.

The old woman's face screwed up in anger. ‘You b… bas…! You basta….you… you…!’ She was still supported on one side by her son and the walking stick on the other, as she drew her leg back and delivered a powerful kick to the ribs of the prostrate Mr Green.

Mr Green writhed across the floor, trying to escape the old woman's kicking. ‘Ow! Stop. Get her off me!’

The customers and staff, still against the wall with their hands up, began to smile and relax, slowly lowering their hands, as they watched the old woman.

Mr Green was scampering around the floor on all fours, trying to hide behind tables, chairs, plants and anything else he could find. The old woman, still supported on her son's arm, tottered after him, trying to hit him with her walking stick.

‘Keep still!’ she yelled at him. ‘I'm going to give you the damn good thrashing you so obviously deserve… you… you… you…!’

‘Help! Get her off me! Stoppit. Ow, Christ! No. Help! Help!’ Mr Green yelled back.

[….]

Have a Go: A novella - by David Hadley:

Available here (UK) and here (US) for the Kindle now.

Thursday Poem: A Summer Beach

A Summer Beach

If all of this were no more than the grains
of sand you trickled through your fingers that
particular long summer afternoon,

while staring out at that distant far tanker
on the horizon, seeing gulls go turning
on scraps of breeze, before you turn to me

while smiling that one smile of yours that says
it will all be all right, I think it would
be quite enough for me to turn to face

the rest of my day knowing you are there
beside me, waiting for whatever the day
will bring. Not letting either fall or stumble

while making our way back, away from here
returning from the shore to that small cottage
which now encloses all our lives around

each other every morning as we lie
together in its far too narrow bed.

New Book Out Now: The Theory of Car Parks

The Theory of Car Parks

The title piece of this great new collection features an historical appreciation of the great car park theorist; Heinrich Von Rectangle, his life, work and tragic untimely end.

In over a hundred other essays, a wide variety of subjects of interest and fascination to the modern reader are also discussed:

Such as:

The latest the latest European Union Working Time Directives .and how they relate to the employment circumstances of the undead.

In science, the ramifications of the Biscuit Tin Event Horizon are explored in an attempt to aid our understanding of the physical forces that make biscuits, pies and other such foodstuffs irresistible.

There is also some very exciting research with throws new light on the development and history of the spoon.

This book also features a report on the new TV phenomenon taking the world by storm that is Live Celebrity Woodworking.

Along with:

An appreciation and celebration of the cult film: 2030: A Lingerie Odyssey which featured the world’s first lingerie-wearing supercomputer.

An essay celebrating the Victorian inventor who famously developed Spadgecock’s Wildfowl Distractor.

A look forward to what will undoubtedly be this year’s film of the year: The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes.

An appreciation of on of the forgotten classics of Romantic poetry in: Ode to a Stickleback and Romanticism.

A study of the role played by the British army’s use of camouflage pastry to bring about the end of the First World War.

Along with articles and pieces on other similar fascinating subjects, such as: Full-Frontal Cookery, The Great Cheese Conspiracies, International Celebrity Underwater Cheese Grating, The Sensual Arts of the Secret Accountancy Sect, The Unauthorised Use of a Banjo, Post-War Extreme Sports and much, much more.

Available here (UK) or here (US) for the Kindle.

Something for the Weekend: Free Kindle Novel – Hanging Around Until

Hanging Around Until

'Education is hanging around until you've caught on' - Robert Frost.

Set during the mid-1980s, Hanging Around Until is the story of Paul Carr, who, at the age of 28, decides to become a mature student at a North-Eastern university in the hope that an education will help give a direction to his life. On arriving at the university Paul discovers he is to share a house with five other students. Two of those housemates – Alison and Julia, each in their own way – turn Paul’s simple quest for an education into a tangle of confusion and uncertainty amid the turmoil of university life during the height of anti-Thatcherite campus activism and the birth of the new Left.

Available here (UK) or here (US)

[Extract]

[….]

‘I frightened myself yesterday,’ she said. ‘I was shaking so much I couldn't get dressed. I was expecting you to come back to my room, hoping you would but scared in case you did. I've been sitting up there for over an hour tonight trying to make sense of it all.’

I sat up and turned towards her. As we kissed, my hand moved up to her breast under the T-shirt. She broke off the kiss and looked down at the place where my hand disappeared under her clothes. I started to move my hand away. She took my other hand in hers as I let it drop. She stood up, still holding my left hand and led me from the room.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs while Alison was three steps above me, still holding my hand. I took a step forward, then another, and then we walked up the stairs together, hand in hand.

Alison moved over to her bed, still holding my hand. We sat down side by side. I kissed her lightly on the lips, lifting the jumper and T-shirt together. She lifted her arms to help me. I dropped the bundled clothes on the floor and she glanced down at them for a second. We kissed again as I reached out to touch a breast with each hand.

‘You are gentle,’ Alison said softly as she began to unbutton my shirt.

‘No, not really. I'm clumsy most of the time.’

‘One of the first things I noticed, and liked, about you was the way you rolled your cigarettes, so graceful, delicate. I could feel those fingers touching me.’

‘These fingers?’ I held up my hand. The fingers looked too thin, too long and too hesitant to be of any real use.

Alison helped me pull off my shirt and then pushed me back onto the bed. She undid and pulled down my trousers. She let her jeans, and then her pale green knickers fall to the floor. She sat down on my thighs, looking into my face as her hand held me. She lowered her face towards me. I felt the tips of her nipples brush my chest and the tickle of her hair. Alison kissed me on the lips; the chin, neck and chest, moving lower until her lips met her hand.

A few moments later, I whispered: ‘Come here. No, all the way up here.’ She crouched as I kissed her deeply. She stroked my hair and smiled down at me as I looked into her eyes from between her thighs.

Alison rose slowly, unwillingly, but in some other, greater, need and moved backwards, lowering herself again. She moved languidly, as slow as a lazy summer afternoon.

A few minutes later she began to speed up, then her back arched, stiffened. She sighed deeply and fell onto my chest. I rolled us onto our sides. Alison opened her eyes and looked at me as I resumed the slow rhythm.

‘Do you like it slow as well?’ she whispered.

‘I prefer to play the slow Blues rather than a twelve-bar boogie.’ I demonstrated both rhythms.

Alison laughed deeply in her throat and hugged me close, ‘I want adagio rather than allegro,’ she said before nibbling at my nose.

‘Yes,’ I whispered as I began to kiss my way slowly down her body, pausing at each breast in turn before moving lower. My tongue entered her navel and trailed lower. I could taste echoes of myself as my tongue moved deeply before returning to trace and caress along the mystery of folds and creases.

My tongue moved deeper again. Alison stiffened and relaxed as it eased her open and crept inside. As my tongue curled and turned and my lips kissed, my fingers traced the journey where my tongue had travelled moments before. Alison moved with the rhythm of my fingers and tongue. Her rhythm changed and mine changed to match hers. My fingers and mouth changed places and the rhythm continued, grew and changed.

As her body relaxed from the sudden stiffness again, I retraced my kisses back up her body and ended with two kisses, one on each closed eyelid. I eased back inside her and felt the warmth enclose me. The slow, gentle rhythm began again.

We lay on our sides facing each other. Alison lay with her head resting on my arm and my body between her thighs. She reached up to stroke my face. I kissed her fingertips and sucked them into my mouth. She held me tightly with her legs breathing hard against my ear. Moments later, I stiffened and then finally relaxed.

Alison trailed her fingers down my sweat-damp chest and rolled onto her back. I lay for a moment between her spread thighs, tracing around a nipple with my finger then I too rolled and lay on my back.

Alison turned and laid her head on my chest, wrapping her legs around me. I could feel a warm dampness on my thigh where she held herself against me. She sighed softly and rolled onto her back.

She looked across the pillow at me. ‘I've been thinking about that since the moment I first saw you.’ She reached out to touch my cheek. ‘For a time I was hoping you'd turn out to be a bastard, but you're not. The more I got to know you the more I wanted you. But that's the problem.’

‘What do you mean?’

She sighed. ‘I just wanted to get through this year and get out of here. I didn't want to get involved with anything… or anyone.’ She lay on her back with her hand over her face.

I reached out a hand towards her, but I couldn't seem to make it touch her. My hand fell back uselessly. ‘I'm sorry. But I wasn't expecting anything like this to happen either.’

‘Pathetique is about right.’ Alison turned to face me. ‘You looked so pathetic lying on your bed earlier. If I'd had any sense, I would have walked away. Would we be here like this if I'd waited for you to make a move?’ She stared across the pillow at me, ignoring the single tear that ran slowly down her cheek, daring me to contradict her. ‘Well?’

‘I never feel really sure,’ I said, hesitating. ‘I'm always afraid to act in case I'm wrong.’

Alison sat up slightly, leaning her head on her hand. The sheet slipped down over her breasts. The small pale nipples stared back at me. I wanted to take one into my mouth and be held. ‘Well, you'll just have to learn how to take a chance, won't you?’ She smiled. ‘Do you know how long it took for me to arrange my dressing gown yesterday morning, so it fell open like that?’

Disorientated by Alison's sudden change of mood, it took me a few seconds to realise what she had said. ‘Did you really arrange it?’

Alison laughed, but did not answer. She smiled at me for a moment and then kissed me on the lips. ‘Why can't I stay angry with you?’ she murmured, more to herself than to me. ‘I suppose you ought to go now, before the others come back.’

‘No, I want to stay.’

‘That's nice to hear,’ she said. ‘Even though I'm not sure I want you to stay.’ She took my hand in hers and turned it over, tracing the lines on my palm. She turned it back over and touched the small scar - diamond-shaped, pale and almost white - in the centre of the back of my hand. ‘After all, I know almost nothing about you, and you don't know much about me.’

‘Does any of that matter?’

She shook her head. ‘Maybe... maybe not.... I don't know.’ She lay back, staring at the ceiling.

[….]

Available here (UK) or here (US)

Something for the Weekend: Free Kindle Novel – Dance on Fire

Free for the next five days:

Dance on Fire

What do you do when sex and drugs and rock and roll are no longer enough? At one time, Transmission were probably the most famous rock band on the planet. Now, even as they approach their twenty-fifth anniversary they are still up there, one of the top ten bands of all time. However, each of the surviving members of the band feels something, somewhere, has gone wrong, and the rock and roll dream they used to believe in so much has become an empty and hollow routine. Dance On Fire is an exploration of the relationships between the remaining original members of Transmission, and their manager, as the band enters their 25th year together. The novel charts their growing realisation that rock music no longer has any meaning for them, and they are - at best - still going through force of habit - 'We've become our own tribute band.' Dance On Fire is a novel about the shallowness of everlasting adolescence and the vacuity at the heart of the rock and roll mythology.

Extract:

The throbbing beating brain-numbing noise was almost solid enough to touch. The noise used as music in clubs like this was too loud to be music, too primal to be music, too crude to be music; a noise stripped of almost all its possibilities of becoming music. It was music beaten up, raped, buggered, pissed on and left for dead with its lifeblood oozing out of it and running down the drain with each pulsebeat.

Pete loved it now.

He was dancing, with a half-full bottle of Champagne in each hand. Dancing – or so he thought – like a shaman, like a witch doctor. He was the mystical priest of the beat. He was primal too. He was savage. He was base. He was Dionysus.

The lights throbbed and pulsed showing then concealing the smiling, laughing, grinning coterie he - or rather, his recently discovered valid credit card – had gathered. He had disciples. He was the pied piper, the pied pissed-up prankster that would lead his gang of grinning cavorting lovelies to a new, higher paradise.

‘Wsdsd…FGGFvmm…? HGTffvbb!’

‘What?’ Pete jammed his ear up against the mouth of… whatever her name was.

‘XXXXZXzzzzzz! Quuallll! Tits?’

In the briefest of silences in the noise, Pete was sure that he had heard the word ‘tits’. He nodded his head enthusiastically. ‘Tits, yes!’ he yelled grinning down at the items in question. He was almost sure she had only the normal complement, but there seemed to be far more than just two in there. However, she proved his notion of the conventional correct when she whipped her top off and shook both of them in Pete’s face.

‘Yum! Yum!’ Pete shouted, watching mesmerised, as they performed a slow-motion gravity-defining dance all of their own.

The rest of his entourage had now noticed that one of their number had managed to monopolise the attention of their platinum-credit-card wielding sugar daddy. So, in the spirit of good old free enterprise they too decided that a revealing of their own not-inconsiderable assets would be a way of restoring some balance to the proceedings.

By this time, Pete was already seeing double – if not triple – the sudden avalanche of naked mammaries bouncing and undulating for his delectation was almost too much for him to cope with. He stopped his cavorting and took a step back.

Unfortunately, his backwards motion brought him into contact with the almost full pint held by one of a group of young men. The men were already feeling more than a touch aggrieved that this bloke – at least old enough to be their father – was monopolising so much female attention seemingly through the mere fact of being significantly wealthier than all of them put together.

‘Oi! Cunt. Watch it.’

Pete heard and turned. He grinned. ‘Sorry, mate. It’s getting a bit crowded in here isn’t it?’ He gestured behind him towards the undulating mammorial tide that was threatening to engulf them all.

‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘What? No.’

‘Hey Jimmy, this old cunt is taking the piss, as well as all the birds.’

Jimmy and the rest of the gang began to circle around Pete. Even in his befuddled state, Pete could recognise that things were beginning to get ugly. As the circle closed around him, he could see the girls edged out one by one. But still the first punch to the side of his head took him by surprise.

Pete staggered back into the men who had moved around behind him. They pushed him forward once more. It was over twenty years since Pete and Johnny had to fight their way out of an Austin bar. Since then Pete had not had to raise a fist in anger. Despite this, he knew he was easily able to handle half a dozen or so blokes who were probably over twenty years his junior. He raised his fists, noticing that he still held the two – now empty – champagne bottles.

‘Hmm… useful,’ Pete Muttered. He could feel that his mouth was already starting to swell up. He raised the bottles and took up a martial arts pose.

There was a whirling blur and the man directly in front of Pete collapsed. One of the topless girls took his place. The way she was swinging her lethal looking handbag around her head caused all the young men to turn in her direction. They gazed, mesmerised by her breasts and the slow, almost, leisurely way they developed independent orbits around her upper body.

Two more of the men fell, handbagged from behind be Pete’s tribe of vengeful amazons. Pete lowered his bottles and just stared as the gang fell one by one. Out of the corner of his eye, Pete just noticed the handbag bouncing off the shaven head of one of his attackers and heading towards him.

‘Wat…!’

There was pain. He fell. It went dark.

*

Available here: UK or here: US