tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34938446976054285252024-03-06T02:54:19.517+00:00james brogdenurban fantasy and horror
(and Lego. Lots of Lego)
If you like what you read here, you can buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/jamesbrogden
If you don't, slip me a fiver to make me stop.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-18246718397039543892023-10-17T07:07:00.002+01:002023-10-17T07:07:29.966+01:00Bat Globe<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">I bought myself a bat globe<br /></span><span style="font-size: 11px;">A long long time ago<br /></span><span style="font-size: 11px;">It's full of tiny plastic bats<br /></span><span style="font-size: 11px;">Instead of flakes of snow</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-size: 11px;">A haunted house sits in the centre </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">Waiting for the storm</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">I shake the globe. The bats rise up, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">A small and happy swarm. </span>
<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 11px;">But when the morning comes</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">Instead of roosting in the eaves</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">They lie upon the plastic ground</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">Like fallen autumn leaves</span>
<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 11px;">I'd love to crack it open</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">And set them free to fly</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">To swirl like bonfire ashes</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11px;">Up into the evening sky.</span><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_231017_065859_900.sdocx--><div><span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDOBveZT-iVTEauEqqLvS75ufR7UF4SvWYulCR8oOn3EfjlSRHYJV9iBGulemAGN0qgTu_WMwGC6KBtqOSdGE1Rwc4zLObBhq54dKtM-5_A1JMLlxf-yOUsUbJtvu7g78vT64HrbEDcLAguPPRLEbcz5hijhK_2RQ3SKD6gAXP5Cr01l7iuf2vVLOmxIY/s640/batglobe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDOBveZT-iVTEauEqqLvS75ufR7UF4SvWYulCR8oOn3EfjlSRHYJV9iBGulemAGN0qgTu_WMwGC6KBtqOSdGE1Rwc4zLObBhq54dKtM-5_A1JMLlxf-yOUsUbJtvu7g78vT64HrbEDcLAguPPRLEbcz5hijhK_2RQ3SKD6gAXP5Cr01l7iuf2vVLOmxIY/w200-h200/batglobe.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-68194006707982805862023-10-08T09:21:00.000+01:002023-10-08T09:21:00.432+01:00Trick or Treat <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Trick or treat!" the creature shrieked<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">At the old woman who had opened the door<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Its costume was very convincing:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">A smart suit and shiny shoes<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">To show how professional it was<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And a human mask tugged into a frown of concern<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Though its eyes glittered behind. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br />"Treat, please," she begged.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">"You don't know how hard it's been.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">The bills keep getting higher</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And I can't afford to heat my home. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">My grandchildren eat from food banks</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And I've been waiting a year for a doctor</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">To investigate this ache in my belly. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">The plague took my husband</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">While you played your party games</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">While the sky filled with poison</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And the rivers filled with shit</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And the roads filled with potholes</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And your pockets filled with money</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And the things you said you'd build to make it better </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Never got built</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And the things you did build</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Fell down </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And to add insult to injury</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Someone cut down my favourite tree."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">She waited for it to answer, </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">With tears welling in her eyes</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">For some sign of empathy</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Or just a human-sounding reply. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br />"Aw, poor you," it said</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And with a nearly human claw</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">It patted her on the head.</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">"Tell us one thing we can do." </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">For a single glowing moment </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">She thought maybe this time</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">would be different</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And she whispered "I need..." </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">"HA! TRICK!" it screamed</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">And spat in her face</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">While its gang of little suited friends </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Emptied her bins into the road. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-54359560303970475912023-10-05T07:47:00.000+01:002023-10-05T07:47:06.932+01:00We're The Folk in Horror <div><span style="font-size: x-small;">We're the folk in horror but you'll find no cultists here.<br />We worship the same gods as you: Love Island, sports and beer.<br /><span>The parish church hides no satanic rituals or rites<br /></span><span>Just jumble sales and bingo drives alternate Thursday nights. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><span>We're glad you've bought that run down cottage high up on the moor. </span><br />
<span>Ignore the silly stories of what happened there before </span><br />
<span>There's no reason at all to think that you will go berserk </span><br />
<span>And anyway, the local builders really need the work.</span>
<br /><br /><span>Don't worry if you hear a strange and far-off rumbling sound </span><br />
<span>Like something huge and hungry stirring deep beneath the ground</span><br />
<span>No buried monsters, grabazoids or troglodytes a-snacking</span><br />
<span>It's tunnelling for HS2, or else more bloody fracking. </span>
<br /><br /><span>No, we're the folk in horror working hard to keep our farm</span><br />
<span>We're too clapped out with milking cows to do you any harm.</span><br />
<span>There's nothing in t'woodshed, nothing summoning the crows</span><br />
<span>No clowns hide in the cornfield, no-one walks between the rows.</span>
<br /><br /><span>And as for wicker statues, do you honestly believe </span><br />
<span>We've got the time, the labour or the resources to weave</span><br />
<span>A fifty foot high cage to sacrifice a virgin cop</span><br />
<span>When we haven't enough volunteers to staff the village shop?</span>
<br /><br /><span>It's hard to fraternise with squamous horrors in the ocean </span><br />
<span>When home is falling off a cliff thanks to coastal erosion.</span><br />
<span>And though our kids aren't frog-eyed hybrids, shambling and squat</span><br />
<span>With teenage boys the differences are sometimes hard to spot.</span><br />
<br /><br /><span>So we're the folk in horror, sick to death of your anxiety</span><br />
<span>The butt of all your pent up fears of urbanised society</span><br />
<span>It's easy to portray us all as sullen, inbred yokels</span><br />
<span>But please come and spend your cash; this shop's not just for locals. </span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_231005_073206_705.sdocx-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-72307465647031186222023-09-30T22:08:00.002+01:002023-09-30T22:08:55.126+01:00The Thing Under the Bed<p>Well this is starting to become something of a pattern isn't it? Putting sod all on this blog for months (or in this case, YEARS) on end only to pop up again in time for Hallowe'en with some random weirdness. Ah well, who am I to fly in the face of tradition.</p><p>EXCEPT.</p><p>For some reason known only to my brain, this year it's come up with poetry. Well, doggerel for the most part. I'm not laying claim to any kind of artistic merit here. Little fragments of strangeness that get lodged in my brain, too small for a story, too itchy to ignore. If you like them, cool. If you don't - meh, go buy some of my books so that I get another novel contract (because it has been a GRIM three years, let me tell you), and I'm forced to do something more productive with my time.</p><p>I've got, like, ten or so of these things, and I'll post them throughout the month until Hallowe'en. Collect the set!</p><p>Here's the first.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><u><br /></u></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><u>The Thing Under the Bed</u></span></p><pre class="a-b-r-La" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-wrap: wrap; user-select: text;"><br /></pre><pre class="a-b-r-La" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-wrap: wrap; user-select: text;">I can hear it breathing:
Long, slow, snuffling in-breaths
And the occasional giggle
I can smell it
Stale, cabbagey farts
Sewer breath
And something sugary
Like old sweets found in a coat pocket
Sticky and furry with lint.
It's scratching lightly on the underside of my bed
Not because it's trying to get through
Just to let me know it could if it wanted to
It plucks at the springs:
<i>spunng!
spunng!
spunng!</i>
I can't move
I feel something pulling the edge of my mattress down
And I know that it's reaching up
From underneath
And its hand or claw or whatever
Is crawling like a spider towards me
And any second now
It will touch my face
And I open my mouth and I scream
<i>MUUUUUM!</i>
So hard my throat hurts.
There's running footsteps up the stairs
And the bedroom door opens
And light streams in from the hallway,
Making me blink
And my mum says
"For God's sake, James, stop terrorising your brother!"
And my big brother in the bunk bed below me says
"But I wasn't doing anything!"
He always says that.</pre>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-37860178231928648432020-10-31T15:02:00.004+00:002020-10-31T15:04:29.952+00:00Happy Hallowe'en 2020<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJac9ZrKDm0WfPqTGEEoQAdk-tVJSSFthb6j8o-VPE7uyjuNMr8vAz7TCZTIXzGoMlapKv8fg90BzgmvLtLEdEHkXXojRyNB9gtR0sGaw-CrWk0d7tfWW1N6iJExsW1cvm3ve3YScuGQ/s2048/MasterPainter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJac9ZrKDm0WfPqTGEEoQAdk-tVJSSFthb6j8o-VPE7uyjuNMr8vAz7TCZTIXzGoMlapKv8fg90BzgmvLtLEdEHkXXojRyNB9gtR0sGaw-CrWk0d7tfWW1N6iJExsW1cvm3ve3YScuGQ/w300-h400/MasterPainter.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />This, as I'm sure you can see, is my Master Painter t-shirt from the inaugural 1987 Golden Demon Awards. Strangely, there exists no photographic evidence of me wearing this prestigious garment, which is probably just as well. I was 17. The word 'gawky' may have been coined especially for the occasion. Nor is there evidence of the miniature with which I won the regional heat that earned me this, but I can picture it clearly: it was a dark-elf archer armed with a crossbow, and I spent bloody HOURS shading those knife-edge cheekbones. Presumably it was fairly decent for the time but compared to what I've seen in the cabinets of Games Workshops today it wouldn't even merit a glance, and that's as it should be. Standards improve. Each new generation raises the bar for the ones that come after.<p></p><p>Look, I know we're only talking about painting gaming miniatures, okay, but like I say, I was 17. It was a big deal. My family had moved to the windswept wastes of the Cumbrian Borders from Australia barely two years earlier and like a lot of nerdy and socially maladjusted teenage males who weren't into sport (or in the case of the Borders, chasing tractors and wrestling highland cattle) gaming was a both an escape and a lifeline.</p><p>Which is kind of why getting a story published by the Black Library is also a big deal now that I've blossomed into a nerdy and socially maladjusted middle-aged man. The gawky 17-year old is still inside (believe me, there's room for him, and a few of his mates), and he's currently bug-eyed with happiness.</p><p>Have a great Hallowe'en season, everyone.</p><p>Skip.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9zVkcSUHB0qTLrWWKkDbavjC0PyRGD-_bMcfSI8hSmEAZ0XojKmQTuA5NWB1iGR9ntfNN-5olBc992ZPxotC6EDjZJNR03C7T9w0uByKWu9EW14M5M7KcAn7DatFDjpkYwVJKqg1Obk/s822/BLPROCESSED-The-Cache-Cover.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="650" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9zVkcSUHB0qTLrWWKkDbavjC0PyRGD-_bMcfSI8hSmEAZ0XojKmQTuA5NWB1iGR9ntfNN-5olBc992ZPxotC6EDjZJNR03C7T9w0uByKWu9EW14M5M7KcAn7DatFDjpkYwVJKqg1Obk/w316-h400/BLPROCESSED-The-Cache-Cover.webp" width="316" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/the-cache-eshort-2020.html" target="_blank">Buy it HERE.</a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-74876036286691480662020-10-18T13:26:00.010+01:002020-10-18T13:52:39.788+01:00His First Change<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i> Okay, we're past the dead of the moon. I think it's safe to post this now.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;">*</p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Youngest was of age and the time of his change had come upon him, and he was excited but also afraid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Will it hurt? he asked his mother, and Mother said yes it, will hurt, but you will learn to bear the pain. Eat well and make yourself strong. So he ate well to strengthen his flesh and bones. Will I hurt others? he asked his father, and Father said yes, you will hurt others, but only if you are careless. We have a place, far away from the others, where they know not to go and from which we cannot escape while the change is upon us. His father showed him the place, far beyond the forest on an island in the middle of a fast flowing river. When will it happen? he asked his brothers and sister, for he was Youngest and they had all been through their first change. They said Watch the moon. So he watched the moon as it dipped from the bright glory of its fullness, becoming a little darker each night. When it was three nights away from full dark and nothing more than a claw’s edge slicing the night sky, Father gathered them together and said It is time now for us to hide away from the others that they may be protected from the curse of our affliction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">So for the first time Youngest went with his family far beyond the forest to the island in the middle of the fast flowing river, where they waited as the moon died.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">When his change began he thought Oh this isn’t so bad. There was an itching in his limbs that was easily cured by some vigorous scratching, but he found that the scratching took not just the itch but most of his fur with it. Soon it was falling out in clumps on its own until it was entirely gone and he was naked and pale as a worm from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. I am cold! he howled to his brother Eldest, who just barked a laugh in reply, as naked as himself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Then his flesh filled with fire and the spasms began, and he screamed. His limbs convulsed as they twisted, sinews snapping, bones elongating with his muscles stretched and spasming along them. His tail retreated and the pads of his paws became long, squirming, grub-like things. His muzzle shrank back into his skull with a horrific grinding of bone and his entire head swelled until he was certain that his brain was about to explode. Through his torment he watched Mother and Father and Sister and his brothers all change, and totter up onto their hind legs to laugh and jabber at each other with their blunt round faces. He tried to stand on his hind legs too, but could not get his balance and fell like a newborn deer, clumsy and wet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Mother smiled and placed something large and flat and soft and warm over him. He thought it might have been a bear’s hide but he couldn’t smell it to be sure. He could smell virtually nothing! His hearing was muffled too, and he could see little more than shadows in the dark. Blind, deaf, and bereft of the glorious rainbow scents of the world, he whimpered ‘What has happened to me?’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">‘It is your change,’ said Mother, using the jabber of her mouth.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">‘Let him lie and find his strength,’ said Father. ‘There is work to be done and not much time.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Youngest lay and and watched them crack stones together and fire flowered. He had only ever seen it in the dry summer storms, and it had terrified him and he had run from it, but here he found its warmth comforting. He watched as his family took long sticks and went into the woods of the island’s interior, and come back later with a deer that they threw down by the fire – but instead of falling upon it with teeth and claws they took it apart with sharp rocks, and he found himself marvelling at their skill. He flexed the long grubs that grew out of his paws – hands, he must remember to call them hands – and wondered if he would be that skilful.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Then Sister passed him a large, flat stone, a smaller and rounder and harder stone that fit comfortably in his hand, and one of the deer’s long bones. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘As long as you’re lying there you might as well make yourself useful. Get the marrow out of that.’</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Ordinarily he would have seized it in his powerful jaws and cracked it open with his teeth, but his teeth were just square, blunt pegs, useless for anything like the rest of him – except for those hands. He placed the long bone on the flat stone, took the hammer stone in his fist and brought it down hard. The wet bone splintered with a delicious crunch! and he was rewarded with the ooze of sticky pink marrow. He dipped a fingertip in it and tasted, and his mouth came alive. He laughed and pounded again and again and again, pulverising the bone, crushing it to fragments, loving the sound and the force of his blows vibrating up through his arm.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">After the meal his family turned to the work that Father had said they had little time for. Three nights of the dead moon each month was not much with which to make progress on the large structure that they dragged out from the protective cover of leaves and bushes. It looked like a bundle of tree trunks tangled together with twisted vines and he couldn’t understand how such a thing had grown until he saw his family working on it and he realised that it had not grown this way but had been made with the cleverness of hands. Father called it "boat" and told him that when it was finished they would use it to cross the fast flowing river to the wider forest where they would be able to hunt whatever they wished and use their stones to smash the world into shapes that pleased them. They laughed and sang as they worked, and on the second night, when Youngest was feeling stronger and had got his balance, he joined them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">And the wolves of the deep forest, hearing their laughter, cowered deeper in their dens, afraid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9gR5CrwkOdDbmnlXJoZT77DRxkbqYcTb_eZXoH-LaSc3trUi9JvaK6g-IS_EtyEC5kKeytGd4kJigoL9x9BFvfC7rIvn2W8db0JTDFDhfGIsS1ZNRkPp46QdZHhpCmC6CG9sQFSr3mPY/s1200/9mxr1pdpt0u41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9gR5CrwkOdDbmnlXJoZT77DRxkbqYcTb_eZXoH-LaSc3trUi9JvaK6g-IS_EtyEC5kKeytGd4kJigoL9x9BFvfC7rIvn2W8db0JTDFDhfGIsS1ZNRkPp46QdZHhpCmC6CG9sQFSr3mPY/w400-h400/9mxr1pdpt0u41.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p></p><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-62951760565108334342020-10-13T17:56:00.000+01:002020-10-13T17:56:56.830+01:00Here's One I Prepared EarlierHello, what's this?<div><br /></div><div>(<i>Blows dust off lid, opens it. Hinges creak. Something falls off.</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div>Cripes, I haven't been in here for a while. Look at the state of this place.</div><div><br /></div><div>(<i>Clears cobwebs out of the corners. Something small and scuttery scuttles away.</i>)</div><div><br /></div><div>Sorry about that. Let me offer you something by way of apology for keeping this blog so badly. How about a free scary story for the Hallowe'en season? Here's one I prepared earlier.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWF3bbMNUhyfPut8XG41ctxy-R8otiJjXhmAxJXTXjhfgIrz0kMO0hCaYV2wFVjljBMrXy3gduwv_jSde_zs-1jbdTNz5bpSbbT9eRWUI2Jy8vSABbB6lqG4XTeRzBh8NPryCdb85t_E/s1024/eyes.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCWF3bbMNUhyfPut8XG41ctxy-R8otiJjXhmAxJXTXjhfgIrz0kMO0hCaYV2wFVjljBMrXy3gduwv_jSde_zs-1jbdTNz5bpSbbT9eRWUI2Jy8vSABbB6lqG4XTeRzBh8NPryCdb85t_E/s320/eyes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Taken from the
website: A Hundred Amazing Activities to Put a Spook in Your Hallowe’en!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">What you will
need: the cardboard tube from inside a toilet roll (microwave it for 30 seconds
for hygiene’s sake); a disposable glow stick, the kind you snap and shake to
activate; scissors; tape; somewhere to hide your fiendish creation!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">How to make
it: cut two spooky eye holes in the side of the cardboard tube. Activate a glow
stick and put it inside. Seal both ends with tape. Now place it somewhere it is
sure to be seen in the dark, such as beneath a bush or, if you don’t have an
outside space, under a bed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Take your
Hallowe’en party guests on a tour of your haunted house, telling them to beware
of the bloodthirsty creatures lurking in dark corners!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">*<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Mary shut the
back gate behind her and walked up the garden path towards the house, enjoying
the damp chill of the October night. Around her the silhouettes of trees and
bushes were dimly visible in the streetlight from the alleyway, and scattered
amongst them were dozens of slitted, glowing eyes. They gleamed at her from
behind the swing set, underneath the decking, and even halfway up the hedge. She
chuckled. Jon and the boys really had done an excellent job.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">She unlocked
the back door and stepped into the kitchen, then stopped, puzzled.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">‘Jon?’ she
called. ‘Why are all the lights off in here?’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">She flicked
the lights on, dumped her bag on the breakfast bar and crossed to the sink to
fill the kettle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">‘You guys are
amazing!’ she called. ‘It looks fantastic! Really spooky out there!’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">It had been a
late shift at the hospital so she’d left them to get on with it. As a
stay-at-home dad, Jon was always good with the boys when it came to craft
activities, but this year he had excelled himself. It was odd, though –
normally Ed and Tim were throwing themselves at her knees by now. Mary left the
kettle to boil and went through into the living room, expecting to find them
glued to Paw Patrol, father included.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">The lights
were off in here too.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Maybe they
were upstairs. Still, the standing lamp behind the settee should be on.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">‘John?’ she
called. ‘Timmy? Ed?’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">A small
whimpering noise came from the direction of the dining table.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">As her eyes
adjusted she saw the table covered in loo rolls, packets of glow sticks,
scissors and tape. Crouched underneath, safe behind a cage of chair legs, were
her husband and sons, their eyes wide with terror. It looked like Jon had a
hand clamped over each of their mouths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Mary laughed.
‘Oh sure, right, nice one. You almost scared me, you lot.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Jon shook his
head violently. ‘Shh!’ he hissed. ‘Keep your voice down! And turn the bloody
lights off!’ It was hard to tell, but it looked to her like little Ed was
actually crying.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">‘This isn’t
funny any more,’ she told her husband. ‘You’ve had your fun, made your spooky things,
now get out from under the table and stop sodding around.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">‘You don’t
understand,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘<i>We haven’t made them yet</i>.’<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">Mary ran back
into the kitchen and looked through the window again, but the bright glowing
eyes – the ones that she had walked straight past only a few moments ago – were
gone. The only thing she could see was the reflection of her own fear-stricken
face staring back at her, swimming in the dark. Then she heard the cat flap rattle and bang, and They
swarmed into the house.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 1cm;">***</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1.0cm;">PS: You can actually make these. <a href="https://www.coolartideas.com/project/freaky-toilet-paper-roll-eyes/" target="_blank">Here's the link.</a> It seems only fair since I nicked their picture.</p>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-90146808355493457562019-10-11T12:47:00.000+01:002019-10-11T13:17:23.499+01:00Beneath the Dragon's MoundI've just stumbled blinking into the light of October, having shut myself away all summer to finish the next book for Titan ('The Bone Harvest', out next May, kiddies!), and I've been able to enjoy a day out - which in my case means wandering about in some underground tunnels. Of course.<br />
<br />
About half an hour's drive from my place is a village called Drakelow, which is an Anglo Saxon name meaning the Hill of the Dragon. It's called that because, well, there's a hill there, and like a lot of the old hills around Worcestershire it carries the remains of an Iron Age settlement. I haven't been able to gather a lot about the local folklore, but the remains of the settlement walls are a long curving mound, so maybe the Anglo Saxon newcomers thought there was a dragon buried under it or something.<br />
<br />
I don't know about dragons, but there are a hell of a lot of tunnels. Three and a half miles of them.<br />
<br />
With the outbreak of World War 2 a series of underground 'Shadow' factories was built, and the complex at Drakelow was designated Rover 1D, the idea being that parts made there would be dispersed to other sites for assembly. The tunnels were dug into the soft sandstone underneath Drakelow hill - sandstone which had already provided natural caves in which people had been living for centuries already. After the war turned Cold it was re-tasked as Regional Seat of Government 9 in the event of a nuclear attack; the workshops were turned into dormitories, armed forces C&C, a hospital, a GPO exchange, and even a BBC broadcasting studio. It was mothballed in '79 and eventually sold off in '94, and in recent years a small group of quintessentially mad English enthusiasts have been volunteering their time and energy to renovate it into a Cold War museum. For this they need money, and for that they sell guided tours. Which is where I come in - my and my mate Dan, a fellow searcher of things under hedgerows and strange lumps in the landscape.<br />
<br />
Naturally there are all sorts of stories about paranormal phenomena in the tunnels - ghostly music, spectral monks and whatnot - and to be fair there were some pretty gruesome deaths involved in the construction, including three in a ceiling collapse and two factory workers who were killed when they decided to hitch a ride out of the tunnels on a conveyor belt but couldn't jump off in time and were dragged into the machinery and mangled. I'll be honest, I didn't see anything supernatural. The remnants of the complex's past lives were spooky enough for me. I'm just going to leave a bunch of photos here to speak for themselves.<br />
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AIKuQdjtU4m29LbCRWhVXid8QkksrulVb5QrQYHtvjTv-UNTMUAM5cpebIlKZPF8_bg0lkqfjupHRVx9QHDydMAO9xl9XrRnu1mQ7Q3L8kblKLX4bPSWBpHL6rR-Ye6Le1eH9FBFoKM/s1600/20191006_135204.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AIKuQdjtU4m29LbCRWhVXid8QkksrulVb5QrQYHtvjTv-UNTMUAM5cpebIlKZPF8_bg0lkqfjupHRVx9QHDydMAO9xl9XrRnu1mQ7Q3L8kblKLX4bPSWBpHL6rR-Ye6Le1eH9FBFoKM/s200/20191006_135204.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviCTqLcJ_QLhl7K6Mr_QdVGc7EcRoeNh9E6RsjEO36RfFGgn9HOOLGtLONjU5FI4FCCpwGvqLA4I7NZR-mmXvyRd_-qcIjzHLSPl7MgUa3GqFH1aCSHGbzYyQxn8mL5Z14UmDxcTsiD8/s1600/20191006_142121.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviCTqLcJ_QLhl7K6Mr_QdVGc7EcRoeNh9E6RsjEO36RfFGgn9HOOLGtLONjU5FI4FCCpwGvqLA4I7NZR-mmXvyRd_-qcIjzHLSPl7MgUa3GqFH1aCSHGbzYyQxn8mL5Z14UmDxcTsiD8/s200/20191006_142121.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjUWTxCWPwIROPk5pIFQoh657XJG92bGEaYgjg-VJ0OqfUtOtBN6f4JXtdNIx9-ghAssGwd0eUQpk_eDV63_QFU8LnYOh3xx5veRAs2NW1ET-7YX_jIuw0Wal796po3fb-qVnNFlDLJrA/s1600/20191006_142602.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjUWTxCWPwIROPk5pIFQoh657XJG92bGEaYgjg-VJ0OqfUtOtBN6f4JXtdNIx9-ghAssGwd0eUQpk_eDV63_QFU8LnYOh3xx5veRAs2NW1ET-7YX_jIuw0Wal796po3fb-qVnNFlDLJrA/s200/20191006_142602.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn3rcK0nP_iGqK1Ana5LAmOw0rFCG14if6cC44Te7SdDjh-elMcGqybU7TabHVgcOf7y_QYXuP5CJnQ-YOciPAI10zlPuQe1CfLXYunScDKAcnI15JH5d7d2LKCZYo_NTMu2vGQGSlj1o/s1600/20191006_142921.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn3rcK0nP_iGqK1Ana5LAmOw0rFCG14if6cC44Te7SdDjh-elMcGqybU7TabHVgcOf7y_QYXuP5CJnQ-YOciPAI10zlPuQe1CfLXYunScDKAcnI15JH5d7d2LKCZYo_NTMu2vGQGSlj1o/s200/20191006_142921.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_RaTg0HabawHop5QW47-w9ruXEyk95HsRdv4qRA58iRYxpG02w4jNtx464A4lahlqjdSyVk8hpJ5hiij-mxvTv6Xt-r13g4Rr2rm8AiLsw0LyueNuz_9_YD_kcA06tz0XuTQx5cF0vE/s1600/20191006_144235.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_RaTg0HabawHop5QW47-w9ruXEyk95HsRdv4qRA58iRYxpG02w4jNtx464A4lahlqjdSyVk8hpJ5hiij-mxvTv6Xt-r13g4Rr2rm8AiLsw0LyueNuz_9_YD_kcA06tz0XuTQx5cF0vE/s200/20191006_144235.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4CzLy7qGrKCfZ2pkC9BugoR2DjakfpLbchbRhg1jO2G1qUyrIo7EmxNapfdKzCbHwhyphenhyphenTQMLoQcu6soRjqZXSAK3VMYyiW4Ex5UCBFMffH9PQdoUZpOdac6dm35QLb6UTmDQXLKv_WVo/s1600/20191006_145037.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ4CzLy7qGrKCfZ2pkC9BugoR2DjakfpLbchbRhg1jO2G1qUyrIo7EmxNapfdKzCbHwhyphenhyphenTQMLoQcu6soRjqZXSAK3VMYyiW4Ex5UCBFMffH9PQdoUZpOdac6dm35QLb6UTmDQXLKv_WVo/s200/20191006_145037.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguL7n-afr3Xogt7lMrhGpYYXbvIUjav0wk2T36ml1nqb0PaFZcxCg-lOtSStqRURvVGGoyP-8q42ev16zrFicOBwdhj-5ko7wiliDte800CPcjWMQSLOXJy_hTCyptScdnkccgVwKWO44/s1600/20191006_153532.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguL7n-afr3Xogt7lMrhGpYYXbvIUjav0wk2T36ml1nqb0PaFZcxCg-lOtSStqRURvVGGoyP-8q42ev16zrFicOBwdhj-5ko7wiliDte800CPcjWMQSLOXJy_hTCyptScdnkccgVwKWO44/s200/20191006_153532.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-GK-nKK-jyoaCW9RcROkZFcRNoREZKNKT_4eTixTEwr1jcPDDNSfO35O6TrRO-dY3QhLY4fX7iofi8beBC3rqwE2MWxcR38XyF7hyphenhyphenHIaW0a8gcdbJ5PKGoE7_jb-RgCh9YRzhom4k3M/s1600/20191006_154014.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-GK-nKK-jyoaCW9RcROkZFcRNoREZKNKT_4eTixTEwr1jcPDDNSfO35O6TrRO-dY3QhLY4fX7iofi8beBC3rqwE2MWxcR38XyF7hyphenhyphenHIaW0a8gcdbJ5PKGoE7_jb-RgCh9YRzhom4k3M/s200/20191006_154014.jpg" width="150" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqAS0sZPrb-mLdPKnXFEmIjNM4YGyV34c_e27KHQdlV3mrZfMAu97nTWdzBM9rx0tsdx9PrdM-dNj5uJQ7jBxvxL_-cFIOK-mYNxGkCQ1AgmO7ktzLTTe9W17-AW7Np4GpwwZ7lwagAZE/s1600/20191006_161815.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqAS0sZPrb-mLdPKnXFEmIjNM4YGyV34c_e27KHQdlV3mrZfMAu97nTWdzBM9rx0tsdx9PrdM-dNj5uJQ7jBxvxL_-cFIOK-mYNxGkCQ1AgmO7ktzLTTe9W17-AW7Np4GpwwZ7lwagAZE/s200/20191006_161815.jpg" width="200" /></a> </td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfI3TPOdhZLdZ49SRyRW484MMXJ3cLIvGoVv3luyir3xX_bUvx1AbhwCvhNCQjoby1Y1TENsce3ohCtzhtAq30TVSVfCfQfpw_hgpSLimvTfoOa_tOxgi-UeE_QfEfd0B6zkbD8Kp5ttY/s1600/20191006_144345.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfI3TPOdhZLdZ49SRyRW484MMXJ3cLIvGoVv3luyir3xX_bUvx1AbhwCvhNCQjoby1Y1TENsce3ohCtzhtAq30TVSVfCfQfpw_hgpSLimvTfoOa_tOxgi-UeE_QfEfd0B6zkbD8Kp5ttY/s200/20191006_144345.jpg" width="150" height="200" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="1600" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoDenyNqTIb0AMApO_XYHSmL_g9cqg0W-VNqQDwbm5guRUIXSSTkUjPsu3EhcUdOUBdxO3fIYcsGFOCa_29HUNyQnyho-wY9-7WZ5O1AkmMv9-HQfHEIoHY9h_TCo-qLQIitsQi5RyEs/s1600/DSC_0035.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoDenyNqTIb0AMApO_XYHSmL_g9cqg0W-VNqQDwbm5guRUIXSSTkUjPsu3EhcUdOUBdxO3fIYcsGFOCa_29HUNyQnyho-wY9-7WZ5O1AkmMv9-HQfHEIoHY9h_TCo-qLQIitsQi5RyEs/s200/DSC_0035.JPG" width="200" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs0EBDd1AeWNXk7GR_HQzGW0qYSkZwZfqGlj9izDqkgvWHYTxIGoNSx8LpSWauctHOQvpxkvv8JH7eSYSMGgh2FUbWaMcBSswj20FizbDNIaDp-_UFCJl2t64smPt_GexHcL1tIyQGX2I/s1600/20191006_160136.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs0EBDd1AeWNXk7GR_HQzGW0qYSkZwZfqGlj9izDqkgvWHYTxIGoNSx8LpSWauctHOQvpxkvv8JH7eSYSMGgh2FUbWaMcBSswj20FizbDNIaDp-_UFCJl2t64smPt_GexHcL1tIyQGX2I/s200/20191006_160136.jpg" width="200" /></a> </td>
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FraDjGSlXMAOmTEYGdUu0tZSB6_8hj41LA9PT7u5qUBVSkJib8ZFT9ayJ8Qk65PH74SSZOR1ycgF-ti6HqTc8oAMMVMfFdWPsgvLyNWFkQ_jlPyaDaavhkN_t5CAS9DvmMWO8w9K4KQ/s1600/20191006_142921.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2FraDjGSlXMAOmTEYGdUu0tZSB6_8hj41LA9PT7u5qUBVSkJib8ZFT9ayJ8Qk65PH74SSZOR1ycgF-ti6HqTc8oAMMVMfFdWPsgvLyNWFkQ_jlPyaDaavhkN_t5CAS9DvmMWO8w9K4KQ/s200/20191006_142921.jpg" width="150" height="200" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="1600" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKC0DMza76VXOSo63ksSQkyOfyaWls9tYOXhvc3YpP_aGYDR9AeOjchsIRo1s2dR7yTsE0Yt2ZhRxk4CeAAiNkPKcNKlViigQgXREoiVsol13VCDpVT21RhH3NPdUGRhGZoimjpYEqnA/s1600/DSC_0060.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKC0DMza76VXOSo63ksSQkyOfyaWls9tYOXhvc3YpP_aGYDR9AeOjchsIRo1s2dR7yTsE0Yt2ZhRxk4CeAAiNkPKcNKlViigQgXREoiVsol13VCDpVT21RhH3NPdUGRhGZoimjpYEqnA/s200/DSC_0060.JPG" width="200" height="133" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1067" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0iNnedvmft31EEhSUHKSrvZ1wZcWWRp744Kvssb8SiIrvrkK1LWIcTWqtuF24y43-4cTCLBsH4uwiOUPsFw102wyguYYYIvi3iujpWIA4W5eVQb-GnfFsL0VHouExgrv0WLiKFizY9I/s1600/DSC_0086.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0iNnedvmft31EEhSUHKSrvZ1wZcWWRp744Kvssb8SiIrvrkK1LWIcTWqtuF24y43-4cTCLBsH4uwiOUPsFw102wyguYYYIvi3iujpWIA4W5eVQb-GnfFsL0VHouExgrv0WLiKFizY9I/s200/DSC_0086.JPG" width="200" height="133" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1067" /></a> </td>
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</table><table style="width:100%">
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<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixOUBjAQDjCPwRnLcjSJBOeIjs4V3svx13QbvoeWuLOWjYCKPhpdkY9ZIqlb1gNLg8eZcU33ZfPMtHW-OEYgmhk5BVzSEKOl2NUSa7wZ2mn5aDzcrn08Ee35N4H3qxLCMkG_nNkcZs14o/s1600/DSC_0116.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixOUBjAQDjCPwRnLcjSJBOeIjs4V3svx13QbvoeWuLOWjYCKPhpdkY9ZIqlb1gNLg8eZcU33ZfPMtHW-OEYgmhk5BVzSEKOl2NUSa7wZ2mn5aDzcrn08Ee35N4H3qxLCMkG_nNkcZs14o/s200/DSC_0116.JPG" width="200" height="133" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1067" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHcBIuzatb4PRDGwkOc-XLbchtpJTHNWAUq4gHwrkWcEi4GCYV8MFDSAOgUv-sC5rXrovaDmOuaD6wlQl17hTMHrMrV9vNlIpnWmgdOVLlz3lX8NkJ0kdYB1FY3IJoOatXVDZDH3HspTM/s1600/DSC_0118.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHcBIuzatb4PRDGwkOc-XLbchtpJTHNWAUq4gHwrkWcEi4GCYV8MFDSAOgUv-sC5rXrovaDmOuaD6wlQl17hTMHrMrV9vNlIpnWmgdOVLlz3lX8NkJ0kdYB1FY3IJoOatXVDZDH3HspTM/s200/DSC_0118.JPG" width="200" height="133" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1067" /></a> </td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWuKgIJbA2JAsLIVuix4M0hroO-dORwQxMawR1-3Tkbge1-UObGNFlisG-m0Xwt_sTAHHQoWwshDTfOxKOWNh9KTzc7FIbp9bwKqGuDhSlzyiRruBk09_qAlZLaK_jca97RFhET9zbi1c/s1600/DSC_0128+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWuKgIJbA2JAsLIVuix4M0hroO-dORwQxMawR1-3Tkbge1-UObGNFlisG-m0Xwt_sTAHHQoWwshDTfOxKOWNh9KTzc7FIbp9bwKqGuDhSlzyiRruBk09_qAlZLaK_jca97RFhET9zbi1c/s200/DSC_0128+%25282%2529.JPG" width="192" height="200" data-original-width="1535" data-original-height="1600" /></a> </td>
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</table>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-29472130829466221302019-07-11T12:31:00.000+01:002019-07-11T12:32:28.961+01:00Speaking Frankly<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t get out much. I’ve never been much of a gig-goer (gigger?
Giggist?) so when I do it’s a bit of an adventure for me. On Wednesday night I
was lucky enough to get to a book launch for an anthology of short stories
called ‘Ten-Word Tragedies’ inspired by the lyrics of a song by Frank Turner,
who was there to sing a few songs and sign copies of the book. It was a fun
event, quite a small audience, I bopped a bit, yelled the words (often wrong) to
the songs I knew, and got to meet an artist I admire who signed some of his
work for me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, the stories in the anthology are based on the lyrics
of a song called ‘Mittens’, in which the narrator discovers a box of old postcards
where he reads the stories of long-dead strangers and reflects on his own broken
love affair. So far, so break-up song. The twist here is that Turner did actually
have such a box of postcards and when he was approached about the anthology he
sent some of them to the editors who in turn sent them out to the writers for
inspiration for the stories.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now Turner’s latest project is an album called ‘No Man’s
Land’ on which the tracks are all true stories of historical women, and he’s
getting some grief about it (which you are more than welcome to read if you
want to delve into the cesspool of carefully curated outrage that is Twitter),
because how dare he, a white dude fronting a band made up of other white dudes,
presume to appropriate the stories of marginalised women? How dare he,
especially without having first apologised for writing break-up songs in which hurt
men say Hurtful Things, because of course we all know that everything a writer puts
down on the page is exactly and precisely what they really agree with, and the
only way forward is for everyone to continually apologise to each other for
having written Hurtful Things and abase ourselves until we’re all crawling
around in the mud like worms because then we’ll all be equal, just all in the
shit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And breathe.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It makes me question my own creative decisions – as it
should – because I wrote a book called The Hollow Tree (no, this isn’t a stealth
promo) about a murdered woman known only as Bella in the Wych Elm. I questioned
at the time, and still do now to an extent, what my position was as a white dude
trying to write the story of a female victim of male violence. Did I have that right?
In the end, the fact that my editor was woman who was not telling me ‘James, you’re
a misogynistic bastard, stop it’ made me think that it was probably okay.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because it’s about ownership. When you start to make pronouncements
about who has the ‘right’ to tell another person’s story, you’re making a
statement about ownership. You are saying ‘this subject’s story belongs not to
your group, but to our group’, and when you start to talk about people as
things to be owned you’re on very dodgy moral ground. Surely, isn’t the whole
purpose of what we’re trying to do here to stop treating people like objects? Cultural
territory to be fought over?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of my favourite Frank Turner songs is called ‘Rivers’.
It’s a lovely celebration of the beauty of the English countryside, but I must
confess that I have never once called into question his credentials as a
geographer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stories in ‘Ten-Word Tragedies’ are also based on fragments
of the lives of real people, taken from those postcards. I haven’t seen them, I
don’t know what they look like, but presumably there isn’t any information
about who the original owners were. What if one of the white male writers
inadvertently ended up basing his story on a postcard written by a black woman?
Should he have checked? Should a rigorous process of historical research been
undertaken to ascertain, as far as possible, the correct ‘ownership’ of that
story? If you’re going with the idea of ‘owning’ a story, why do any of those
writers have the right to appropriate the fragmentary detail of a real person’s
life?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s why.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My father-in-law died in March and I’ve been doing my best
to support my wife as she has dealt with not just the emotional fallout but
also the mountain of legal and bureaucratic practicalities surrounding his
death. I’ve only read the first story in the anthology so far, but it’s called ‘I
Am Here’, by Michael Marshall Smith, and it’s about a woman dealing with not
just the emotional fallout but also the mountain of legal and bureaucratic practicalities
surrounding the death of her mother. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s beautiful
and haunting, and it’s gone straight to the heart of a grief which has touched
my family closely. If anybody had said ‘No, Mr Marshall Smith, you may not
write that story for it does not belong to you’, then it wouldn’t exist, and that
small piece of haunting beauty would not be in my world, and my world would be
the lesser for it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I understand the imperative to give marginalised people
their voices, but at the end of the day a world with fewer stories in it cannot
be a good thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="633" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-l6-s_qPNvrzzaLu4RspxTr_Wev1Om5jcVl_VyeQUm4Sgez6sbm63cjRqEGGcIgbEr7aotRz6o4-AvkfyiiRxdMiivnAYARBk3cdc9BzWYC-ZxY7BWWqAaFiUFw-gydEpSFve1DWXJ0/s640/twt.jpg" width="404" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/ten-word-tragedies-hardcover-ed-by-tim-lebbon--christopher-golden-4839-p.asp" target="_blank">Buy a copy of 'Ten-Word Tragedies' here.</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(Honestly, I had nothing to do with this project, but it's really good!)</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-73960015411200582652019-06-15T12:34:00.002+01:002019-06-15T12:35:51.066+01:00Y Pestis Say Hi!<i>I wrote this for the blog tour of 'The Plague Stones' but I don't think it got used, and it's good not to waste things, isn't it?</i><br />
<br />
Greetings from your Friendly Neighbourhood Plague<br />
<br />
Hello. My name’s Yersinia Pestis and I’ll be your disease for the next few days. You know why they call me that? Well have yersinia doctor recently – because you really should!<br />
<br />
Just a little plague humour for you there to take the edge off. I mean if you haven’t got your sense of humour what have you got? I figured that since we’re going to be working very closely together – at least for a while - I’d start by telling you a little bit about myself while you’re still able to concentrate.<br />
<br />
I’m a simple, down-to-earth rod-shaped bacterium who likes spreading virulently, killing millions, and destabilising whole civilisations. I’d like to take this opportunity to say how great it is to be inside such a large organism for a change. I’ve been cooped up in that bastard flea for ages, stuck behind a plug of slime in its gut (which is exactly as much fun as it sounds) until it decided to take a bite out of you. Then because it was already full of me it – well, just look at the pavement outside a nightclub in the early hours of a Saturday morning and you’ll get the idea. I reckon that flea must have vomited somewhere between ten to twenty thousand of me into your bloodstream. That’s fleas for you. All class.<br />
<br />
Uh, nope, looks like I’m here for good now. Well, not good, obviously. Not unless you’ve got some antibiotics handy. You haven’t? Shame.<br />
<br />
And your immune system? I’m sorry but that’s just not going to happen this time. You know how normally when you get an infection you’ve got those immune cells, the macrophages, the ones that envelope and eat foreign organisms like me? Well, no – I’ve got me a type 3 secretion system to take care of them. And you know those other ones that burst open to alert the other immune cells and to stop me from having somewhere to spread, and that’s why you get all inflamed and puffy? I’ve got a hack for that too – a special protein I like to call Yop. All my little yoppies are going to disable your immune cells’ auto-destruct sequences, and they’re going to do precisely nothing except carry me straight to the lymph nodes in your throat, your armpits and your groin.<br />
<br />
Where we are going to par-tay.<br />
<br />
By the time your immune system has got it together those nodes are going to be up like fuckin' zeppelins. I’ll be in your spleen and liver and you’ll feel like you’ve got the worst case of flu in the world, and if I’m able to get into your bloodstream you can add septicemia, abdominal cramps, vomiting blood, and gangrene in your extremities. The presence of so much of me will cause your system to go batshit crazy, triggering septic shock where your veins and arteries haemorrhage, your blood pressure drops through the floor and your organs die quicker than the characters in A Game of Thrones.<br />
<br />
But hey, it’s not all about me. I’m a social animal, really; I just love getting out and meeting new people. I can’t wait to get into your lungs, because then I can go full-on pneumonic and spray myself all over your loved ones every time you cough. Hundred percent fatality rate, baby, that’s what I’m talking about.<br />
<br />
In the absence of antibiotics I suppose you could always try some of the old-fashioned remedies like eating crushed emeralds, drinking mercury, or covering yourself in human excrement. If you’re really desperate you could even try praying. Hahahahahaaa!<br />
<br />
No, seriously.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXv92UmnoVHiAwNsCVojwNPMqB0T7mMlaDDN55LDwCyOluL0Y9pn1AGIsGSVIWBCg5kYMoLwpZF6X4AqZbHulzLfrmeYJTPPeFMHhkuTIdxmf4KmNc3-oI7gJqT92-JWQ6WxuqGigIBw/s1600/yp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="740" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMXv92UmnoVHiAwNsCVojwNPMqB0T7mMlaDDN55LDwCyOluL0Y9pn1AGIsGSVIWBCg5kYMoLwpZF6X4AqZbHulzLfrmeYJTPPeFMHhkuTIdxmf4KmNc3-oI7gJqT92-JWQ6WxuqGigIBw/s400/yp.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-72220403175417834402019-05-19T18:10:00.002+01:002019-05-19T18:10:53.032+01:00Patient Zero<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
It's been a bit of a busy time recently but I thought I'd just check in to let you know what's happening, in case you're remotely interested.<br />
<br />
Obviously the main thing is that 'The Plague Stones' was published this week. It's the third book I've written for Titan, and my sixth over all, and is probably the only one one to date that I actually think of as a horror story. Leastways, nobody disappears into a parallel world this time, which I know some people find weird in a horror novel, but then the thing I find weird is that people think I write horror at all. I mean yes, that's how the other two have been marketed, but I honestly can't see any substantial difference between Hekla's Children and The Narrows, which has ley lines and magical acupuncture in it.<br />
<br />
Honestly I love those one- and two-star reviews on Goodreads where readers complain that they don't know what kind of story it's suppose to be. If you're one of those, please don't take this the wrong way, but good. If I wanted to give you everything you expected from to the same formula as everyone else I'd be flipping burgers not making up stories. Actually, take it the wrong way if you want. I'm not the boss of you. Read my stuff any way you like. The Plague Stones is also my most overtly political book so I'm basically asking for it anyway.<br />
<br />
It's also the fastest novel I've written. I don't know if that shows. I wouldn't exactly call myself prolific, as I'm currently juggling a day job and any number of work-avoidance hobbies, so my definition of 'quick' is anything less than a year. But my oldest daughter has left home to begin her adventures in software development and my youngest is off studying Eng Lit at university, and I've changed jobs after nearly two decades to work in an establishment where I get my weekends back and hence some semblance of a work-life balance, so there's been a lot more quiet time for writing this year. I thought I'd be a bit more disciplined about it, to be honest, but there you go.<br />
<br />
There was a launch party at Foyles in Grand Central, Birmingham, for which I baked biohazard biscuits. To my knowledge, everyone who attended has survived.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCPLW0sJn7VKw4k3HW4AbgdbZxE7CtIsiIX8S_Cbk92pwv0gHlREDnY6GLYsoHJnJ-f1I1rN0mqM_U7ZrhsZrKvcu1IfoYWJ8ARd9rYuQyhB1_f3wY-1Y09_tf66pW9zD7wmK3pzOUbg/s1600/Plague+Stones+Launch+2+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1438" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrCPLW0sJn7VKw4k3HW4AbgdbZxE7CtIsiIX8S_Cbk92pwv0gHlREDnY6GLYsoHJnJ-f1I1rN0mqM_U7ZrhsZrKvcu1IfoYWJ8ARd9rYuQyhB1_f3wY-1Y09_tf66pW9zD7wmK3pzOUbg/s400/Plague+Stones+Launch+2+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
So look, all of next week is a Blog Tour, in which different bits and pieces of me will be popping up and down on the 'tweb like a digital whack-a-mole, and I'll be physically hither and yon over the next couple of months, to whit:<br />
<br />
June 1st-2nd<br />
<a href="http://www.filmandcomicconbirmingham.com/index.php" target="_blank">Collectormania 26 (Birmingham Film and Comic Con, basically)</a>, where I'll be selling ma books.<br />
<br />
June 7th-9th<br />
<a href="https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/" target="_blank">Cymera, Scotland's Festival for Science-Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Writing</a>, where I'll be chatting to Big Jim 'Gingernuts of Horror' McLeod in the company of the awesomely talented Cassandra Khaw.<br />
<br />
June 29th<br />
With the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/Oxford-Writing-Circle/" target="_blank">Oxford Writing Circle</a>, talking all things bookly.<br />
<br />
July 13th<br />
<a href="https://www.derbyquad.co.uk/whats-on/events/edge-lit-8" target="_blank">Edge Lit 8</a>, just pretty much lurking.<br />
<br />
July 26th-28th<br />
<a href="https://www.londonfilmandcomiccon.com/" target="_blank">London Film and Comic Con.</a> Allegedly selling books, but probably stalking Gina Torres, if I'm honest.<br />
<br />
If you're around, say hi. I can't guarantee it, but there may be biscuits.<br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-56136592692460822462018-07-30T18:54:00.001+01:002018-07-30T18:54:58.500+01:00Drop The Wires<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Friday last week I finally got to meet my Doctor after nearly 40 years. No, this is not a reference to the grievous state of the NHS – although the way things are going it might not be very far off – just a lame way of saying that I met Tom Baker and got his autograph at London Film and Comic Con.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are some stories and images from your childhood that haunt you and never leave. Here are a few of mine from Baker’s tenure as Dr Who:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The jackal face of Sutekh the Destroyer glaring with glowing eyes through a space-time portal in an Egyptian sarcophagus from his prison on Mars.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr Sin, the psycopathic killer automaton created by Weng Chiang, lurching towards Leela with his knife upraised, unstoppable even when she buries her own dagger in his throat.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mucoid green mass of a Rutan stealthily sliming its way up the outside of a fog-bound lighthouse to murder everyone inside.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A golden goddess with burning eyes turns her cultist acolytes into the shuddering, serpentine beasts of the Fendahl.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An alien seed pod breaks open and tendrils whip out to infect a scientist who can do nothing to prevent himself being transformed into a tentacled vegetable monstrosity.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And all this before I was ten. Is it any wonder I write what I do?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think for me, though, and maybe for a lot of other people, the 4th Doctor’s greatest moment has to be when he is given the opportunity to wipe out the Daleks at the moment of their creation. He kneels with two bare wires in his hands – the fuse for an explosion – and hesitates, torn between his mission to destroy evil and his conscience which tells him that this act, however justified, is morally wrong. I think it’s worth copying in full here:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“Just touch these two strands together and the Daleks are finished. Have I that right? You see, some things could be better with the Daleks. Many future worlds will become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks. But the final responsibility is mine, and mine alone. Listen, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child? Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other and that's it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dalek. But if I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent lifeform, then I become like them. I'd be no better than the Daleks.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k3Ij61Bzn5VYI_KquPyI9dTxEEVr9jYa9JZVKulpzSXIoOkOfqFAXd2REIImAWV6dqi-xv72DwJg_9SNAzzOAP-OLmFPjwHaeAhLLpGZ6PPPEI2exsnvavV12L6WReFjVKSH4zARQqQ/s1600/drwhogenesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k3Ij61Bzn5VYI_KquPyI9dTxEEVr9jYa9JZVKulpzSXIoOkOfqFAXd2REIImAWV6dqi-xv72DwJg_9SNAzzOAP-OLmFPjwHaeAhLLpGZ6PPPEI2exsnvavV12L6WReFjVKSH4zARQqQ/s320/drwhogenesis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eventually he is spared from this dilemma by news that Davros has offered to make peace, so he drops the wires and moves on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The message is pretty obvious – unless you’re ten in which case it’s a mental tac-nuke. The idea that you can commit evil by destroying evil? Or that evil might create good? Or even that what you think is obviously evil might not be evil at all? The missiles are in the air, folks. Kaboom. It was the first time that I was really conscious of thinking (not that I put it in these terms, of course, I was a kid) that the greatest evil of all was not a monster but a sense of righteous absolutism, the idea that your cause is so right, your ideas so pure, so holy, that absolutely any act is justified and sanctified by it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I say this because for years at London Comic Con I’ve seen countless female Whovians cosplaying as their hitherto male heroes, but for the first time this weekend I saw loads of male fans dressed as Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor. And it was brilliant. She won’t be my Doctor, not like Tom Baker was, but for thousands of ten-year old boys and girls in 2018 she will be theirs, and they will want to emulate her, and that is a wonderful thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is that there is a vocal minority of dipshit male Whovians out there - a lot of them from my generation, sadly – who are absolutist in their conviction that a woman can never be the Doctor. If you’re one of them reading this, here’s my message to you: drop the wires, mate. Move on. You’re undermining everything that your Doctor, whoever he was, stood for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me, come October I’m going to watch the 13th Doctor and try to remember what it felt like to be ten again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AXoQ11Ozl6-AGtVYFuuAzJN4Ec7JiVHt-XDeELIMwBGJhmN2NAn-4_8ut_N4HHsDZztGoknaA7TV4S4B54kJgz6l_Fe5X7FkL4pYjEE2vX8DNtWwAVoHmK7jCD-J1DT9WGemnxeUDns/s1600/jodie-whittaker-doctor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="980" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AXoQ11Ozl6-AGtVYFuuAzJN4Ec7JiVHt-XDeELIMwBGJhmN2NAn-4_8ut_N4HHsDZztGoknaA7TV4S4B54kJgz6l_Fe5X7FkL4pYjEE2vX8DNtWwAVoHmK7jCD-J1DT9WGemnxeUDns/s400/jodie-whittaker-doctor.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-87489616632320547052018-02-22T16:51:00.001+00:002018-02-22T16:51:32.628+00:00Hollow Tree Party<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmdzHIHCG78BlIgs09q5-gb1l9TBeTj5fsqZEdqYxYbw2JYEi4jS7TsR7ciqRvoGZUIbfuuAEXuhElntPFMeuOI_6Z6Vx1fQ9HgFxpD1Ib4o8wgWHEy8CmZ7-Ca7vZkiakEJI9JInGjo/s1600/Stanley+Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1169" data-original-width="1600" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmdzHIHCG78BlIgs09q5-gb1l9TBeTj5fsqZEdqYxYbw2JYEi4jS7TsR7ciqRvoGZUIbfuuAEXuhElntPFMeuOI_6Z6Vx1fQ9HgFxpD1Ib4o8wgWHEy8CmZ7-Ca7vZkiakEJI9JInGjo/s400/Stanley+Tree.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at how much fun these chaps are having in their big old hollow tree party.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Well, Valentine's Day has been and gone, and Easter is just around the corner, which must mean that it's time for a bit of annual book-pimping.<br />
<br />
I've got a new book out, in other words, and this makes me a happy camper.<br />
<br />
It's called 'The Hollow Tree', and it's about a woman called Rachel who loses her left hand in an accident but discovers that her hand won't die that easily - despite the fact that it's amputated and incinerated, she can still feel things with it. Not things in the living world as we know it, but things in the shadow realm on the other side; the place where dead things go. More than that, she discovers that she can bring fragments of the umbra through into reality. Just scrap, really - bits of broken glass, dead leaves, insects and such.<br />
<br />
Then, one day while out for a walk with her husband Tom, she finds a large hollow tree in the umbra, and a human hand reaching out for help from the hollow - a hand which grabs onto hers and won't let go.<br />
<br />
It's based on a local unsolved murder case called the 'Bella in the Wych Elm' mystery which, if you haven't heard of it, I'll post in more detail about later. All I wanted to say for the moment is that the book's out from 13th March on <a href="http://amzn.eu/bai8QuS" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, or the 6th if you get it from <a href="http://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/the-hollow-tree,james-brogden-9781785654404" target="_blank">Foyles</a>, apparently, and that there's a launch party at the Birmingham Grand Central branch of Foyles on Saturday March 17th from 6:30 - 8:30; it's open to the public and you're all invited.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=3592" target="_blank">Here's the event link if you're interested.</a><br />
<br />
I guarantee it will be at least as much fun as those guys are having in the photo.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-57244626802479330002017-03-05T09:59:00.000+00:002017-03-05T17:43:14.565+00:00The Eternal Picnic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.visitmacedonranges.com/see-do/the-great-outdoors/hanging-rock/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDBrGzRpHhvbGndfR3TbEoKjISbg6D0Woe6HtESz-o1xoRSOdzX7mD0SFPHRSx_8IInWf5RUHabNIAInJxPWZw1T0a6es0lUW1PcNZi3sTH-OnhRv_JpAIbSgDXYrBAxGWVUwtGlu6oac/s400/Miranda-Hanging-Rock-2-1024x681.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Hekla’s Children</i> is released next Tuesday,
and I’ve already said a lot in various places about the kind of British
archaeo-fantasy-horror that has inspired it (Holdstock, Garner, etc), but less
about one particular Australian influence, which might seem a bit weird
considering how, well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">English</i> the
whole jolly thing is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And that’s <i>Picnic At Hanging Rock</i>, by
Joan Lindsay. It seems particularly appropriate given that it was published
exactly fifty years ago, and with a new TV miniseries currently in production. (Coincidences
are not allowed in fiction, despite the fact that they happen to me all the
time.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Bit of a warning here: this article
contains spoilers. If you haven’t read <i>Picnic</i>, do it. It’s fab. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For those unfamiliar with the tale, it
tells of three students from a well-to-do private girls’ school who disappear
whilst on a Valentine’s Day picnic in 1900. It’s fictional, but so compelling
is Lindsay’s storytelling that many readers remain convinced of its truth, and there
is an apocryphal account of staff at the State Library of Victoria having to
turn away amateur researchers looking for old newspaper clippings or records
about the incident which don’t exist. Lindsay herself doesn’t seem to have been
too interested in dispelling their illusions, and why not? That kind of thing
is a publicist’s wet dream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After her death in 1984, Lindsay’s estate
published a final chapter which had previously been edited out of the novel;
entitled <i>The Secret of Hanging Rock</i>, it tells <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i> of what happened to the three girls, but the dreamlike
and opalescent quality of her prose obscures as much as it reveals. To my mind,
the original decision to keep it out of <i>Picnic</i> was the right one – the dark
heart of the mystery remains more powerfully the unravelling of prejudice and
rationality following the disappearances, rather than where the girls actually
went to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is a truth here, but it’s deeper than
mere historical facts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is of course tremendously gothic – from
the labyrinthine corridors of Appleyard College, full of shadows and whispers,
to the looming volcanic crags and monoliths of the Hanging Rock itself,
towering over the plain. Like the Rock, with its craggy buttresses and hidden
caves which only reveal their secrets over time (if at all), there is a lot more
to this story than a simple gothic tale of mysterious disappearances and repressed
passion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Appleyard College is a place of enforced
silence and restriction – where the matriarchal Mrs Appleyard punishes the
young women under her care for speaking out of turn, enforces strict rules
about appropriate dress and deportment, and even goes so far as to have the
unfortunate Sara Wayborne physically strapped down to an exercise bench in the
College gymnasium as a remedy for having bad posture. Given the current
political climate in which the hard-won rights of anybody who isn’t a white,
middle class man are being eroded, <i>Picnic’s</i> continuing relevance cannot be
dismissed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Only one girl returns from the rock: Irma
Leopold, a rich heiress. She is rescued by a young and handsome English
aristocrat, Michael Fitzhubert, and his groom Albert Crundall. After this it is
assumed by everyone that the wealthy young lady and the dashing gentleman will
form a romantic liaison – indeed, in the fairy tale world of a gothic narrative
this would be the expected and satisfactory outcome. Accordingly, they are
thrown together for several weeks after her rescue as she convalesces in the
lodge on his parents’ estate, taking many boating trips on the lake, even
though she begins to tire of his frequent and fulsome praises of the
rough-as-guts Albert. There is an inescapably homoerotic substrata to the
relationship between Michael Fitzhubert, described as ‘a slender fair youth’
and Albert, with his thick mop of dark hair and his muscular, tattoed arms.
Albert is ultimately rewarded with a cheque for a thousand pounds from Irma’s
father – an unimaginable amount of money for a man in his position. He uses this
to follow Mike, and they both disappear into the deep north of Queensland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Irma Leopold’s rescue therefore seems to be
of more signficance for how it catalyses other relationships and reveals the
latent hysteria in the College. It seems as though once she has been reacted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to,</i> her usefulness ends, and she is duly
packed away in a carriage to be married off to an unnamed aristocrat and live
happily ever after in the margins of the text.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">One of the most significant
‘disappearances’ of the novel is that of the indigenous inhabitants of the
region - the Wurundjeri tribe of the Kulin nation. There is a handful of
references to a ‘black tracker’ assisting in the search for the girls, but
that’s about it. Nevertheless, the Wurundjeri dreaming is there, encoded
anonymously in the text. At the end, as Mrs Appleyard commits sucide by
throwing herself off the monolith and onto the jagged rocks below, she is
watched by an eagle and a black spider. The eagle is Bunjil, the Wurundjeri
creator spirit, watching over the final resolution of the great ‘pattern’ which
was set in motion by the girls’ disappearance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://amzn.eu/3Rm3nfx" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkuoIdMBsMBNQtnVhK_qRfdkdY92whm-sl9XEMxg7mxPoRHDGc5emdKsBvP6VzXfDJrAWukrXojBNuoQJmaHWRvPNVffOhoJIKQrKR3a0RYZQLVjYZfF68rHNxHClDh5Hk2AHVcE3eeg/s320/Picnicathangingrock.png" width="204" /></a><span lang="EN-US">I find it interesting, though not
unsurprising, that the only teacher to disappear is the one who insists most
steadfastly on logic, science and mathematics – the dry-as-dust middle-aged
Scottish spinster Miss Greta McCraw. She is last seen climbing the rock without
her skirt, clad only in her voluminous Victorian knickers, something so
scandalous that Edith Norton can only refer to it in shocked, giggling
whispers. In the Secret Chapter she changes into a crustacean-like animal in order
to better pass through into the Wurundjeri Dreaming – she is in fact the first
one to make the journey, with the girls following her lead. So rationality is
distorted, transformed, and eventually swallowed by the mystery of the Rock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Ultimately, everything disappears: truth, time,
youth, love, gender, class, race, and reason. All that remains is the power of the land,
and our bones in it, and its bones in us. <i>Picnic At Hanging Rock</i> remains for me
one of the most evocative explorations of this power, and well worth appreciating
anew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-2865261194269704232016-05-14T16:28:00.002+01:002016-05-14T16:28:46.117+01:00My Kids Are Time Travellers<div class="MsoNormal">
It was Eden’s seventeenth birthday today, which reminds me
of the time last spring when the ghost of her two-year old self appeared while
I was redecorating the floorboards in the downstairs hallway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The backstory is this: when we moved house in 2000, we
inherited carpet with a pattern so vile it looked like someone had thrown up a
Vienetta violently and repeatedly all over the floor, and so we ripped it all
up as soon as possible, revealing pine floorboards caked with thirty-odd years
of grime and covered in paint spatters from when the house was built. Conscious
to establish my credentials as Husband And Father Capable of Manly Labour, I
hired one of those big belt sanders and went to work on it – all rolled-up t-shirt
sleeves and grunting for tea. What they don’t tell you is that when the
sandpaper bites into the wood, the machine more or less pulls itself along by
its own power like a carnivorous vacuum cleaner, leaving you (okay, me) reduced
to simply hanging on and trying to guide it away from the walls and other
people’s feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
About five minutes in, the sandpaper belt made a horrible
noise and shredded apart, and I realised that I should have gone around with a
hammer and a nail punch beforehand and made sure that all the floorboard nails
were sunk out of harm’s way – so I went and did that. And in this I had a
little helper.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnoE_4Ljba0NuDPblXC3x_WeRKS4_vCmPjXXSsNPosQOEQnf9LryWT9e75qEQeBJQlZFHl8b6wLCSSyfD2xdloKqnnv10dDGv9_EFkJ1ZnCawkL4wSOI6POG0HmGq26gduEYBoD62ySDQ/s1600/20160514_115507-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnoE_4Ljba0NuDPblXC3x_WeRKS4_vCmPjXXSsNPosQOEQnf9LryWT9e75qEQeBJQlZFHl8b6wLCSSyfD2xdloKqnnv10dDGv9_EFkJ1ZnCawkL4wSOI6POG0HmGq26gduEYBoD62ySDQ/s320/20160514_115507-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePp5GprY7c2iYhc0Wd-g2OF30EhLxzIcHIiWKd7JOzmypLJJuKvS7wlAGODwKzIwueLJwGnS5x2uwL71nA94M9FDsW5W62p_mlzxMBhix9wHobVeH_6713y7X3LNTnHJQJwve-_5dlMY/s1600/20160514_115520-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePp5GprY7c2iYhc0Wd-g2OF30EhLxzIcHIiWKd7JOzmypLJJuKvS7wlAGODwKzIwueLJwGnS5x2uwL71nA94M9FDsW5W62p_mlzxMBhix9wHobVeH_6713y7X3LNTnHJQJwve-_5dlMY/s320/20160514_115520-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eden followed me with her Bob the Builder Hammer - its
handle had been full of sweets, but not for very long – and made sure that I
did the job properly. As anyone has seen my DIY will agree, to this day it continues
to display the quality control of a two-year old.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I skimped on the edges, basically. The big belt sander
wouldn’t go right to the skirting board and I couldn’t be arsed and you wouldn’t
have noticed it if you weren’t looking and it took me until last spring to finally
get around to doing it. So I waited until TC took the girls to her parents’,
cleared out the hall and tidied up the edges with a little detail-sander and
some left-over varnish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now I’m not going to say that what happened to me was an
actual hallucination, in the sense of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>any
weird or otherworldly apparition, but she was there. The intervening fourteen
years had folded in on themselves and become paper thin, and she was standing
right next to me, two years old, in her rainbow wellies, utterly absorbed in
the important task of Helping Daddy. We didn’t say anything to each other, just
got on with the work and then she went on her way back to whatever she’d been
doing in 2002.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The exact same thing had happened the summer before that
with Hope, when I took her for a hike up Mt Snowdon to help her complete an
objective for an internet scavenger hunt. At one point I looked at her, and she
wasn’t that long-legged teenager but the two-year old walking beside me along
Kurrawa Avenue in New South Wales on our way to the corner shop through the
tunnel under the road which made great echoes, with her hand gripped tightly to
my finger. Time folded in on itself, and we met each other in the margins.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t really believe in ghosts – not the supernatural
kind, anyway. But I do believe that we are always with each other in the
memories of the times we shared together, and that at the end of the day we’re
only haunting ourselves.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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What haunts me most about the photo of me and Eden is where
the fuck has all my hair gone?<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-24913012881504657402015-12-02T18:16:00.001+00:002015-12-02T18:16:17.463+00:00What Politicians Could Learn From Playing D&DHow to get on with others, for one thing, but more specifically, this little nasty with which my mate Mike likes to torment us from time to time:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Denebian Slime Devil</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPY-2I7AVKMfgaRDm4ei5oomVFxtEGwZJNDT7tdWemScsjeBQchSU-0JU7abCPloVMQLuw-sXTDOggZ8W3_1k3SFoBPMHT8bCGWeveCXVL7qz68D5NxTlatL-KNeCL0gIXdL0bbRNOdCw/s1600/slimedevil1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPY-2I7AVKMfgaRDm4ei5oomVFxtEGwZJNDT7tdWemScsjeBQchSU-0JU7abCPloVMQLuw-sXTDOggZ8W3_1k3SFoBPMHT8bCGWeveCXVL7qz68D5NxTlatL-KNeCL0gIXdL0bbRNOdCw/s320/slimedevil1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Image credit: http://s281.photobucket.com/user/okumarts/library/?sort=3&page=1)</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>"When encountered, a Denebian Slime Devil appears as a hideously grotesque thing, often culled from the deepest fears and anxieties of its preferred victim. However, this is a deception, for the creature’s true form is that of rancid, flowing anthropomorphic ooze composed of disgusting refuse gathered from the scum of the dankest swamp. Sages have been unable to identify a practical purpose or ecological service provided by a Denebian Slime Devil."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"If a Denebian Slime Devil is struck by a weapon it immediately splits into 1-4 identical copies of itself, each immediately attempting to locate its own victim. Each copy has the same abilities, and number of Hit Points as the original."*</i><br />
<br />
Now substitute for 'Denebian Slime Devil' the terrorist group known formerly as ISIS (but shall henceforth be known as the name they hate: Daesh); substitute 'struck by a weapon' with 'bombed', and you've pretty much got it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*<span style="font-size: x-small;">source: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=15646&start=15&hilit=Creature+Feature+II%3A+The+C%26amp%3Bamp%3BC+Files&sid=4dc99fa4d935e460821bb7701fb63083</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-23487550444199661812015-10-29T12:56:00.001+00:002015-10-29T12:56:41.730+00:00Your Hallowe'en Flash Freebie: Collection Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0fRzbiG-4UdNiXYikYN9q7h5b9PlSaC6G8Vjsjgm8TGn_DdjQEL2S8aDcxFUh9VVnBBNrnDypbQjstwzaHrRj215DejZc4Gg4U5KoycNmpWMU0R9Rd5MxGHaHXiDyco7F4FINnf_yDfc/s1600/bins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0fRzbiG-4UdNiXYikYN9q7h5b9PlSaC6G8Vjsjgm8TGn_DdjQEL2S8aDcxFUh9VVnBBNrnDypbQjstwzaHrRj215DejZc4Gg4U5KoycNmpWMU0R9Rd5MxGHaHXiDyco7F4FINnf_yDfc/s400/bins.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Morning, Mike.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Mike nodded. ‘Harjit.’ He lugged the wheelie bin up his driveway and
deposited it on the kerb with a grunt. It was full to capacity, and heavy as a
bastard. He straightened, knuckling the ache in his lower back, and looked around
at the Close. It was a crisp morning on the first of November, and the beech
trees along the close were sifting flakes of copper-gold onto the pavement and
the tidily trimmed lawn frontages of his neighbours’ houses. As an image of
suburban tranquility it was marred only by the smoke rising from the blackened
ruin of number twenty-one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">He caught Harjit’s eye and nodded at it. ‘Mrs Beauchamp had a busy
night of it, by the look of things.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Harjit, who was busy unfolding a large sheet of black plastic on his
drive next to the open hatch-back of his Corsa, shook his head and sighed. ‘She
should have known better than to try and see out Hallowe’en alone. Jaz spoke to
her on Wednesday; she said that her sons were supposed to be coming down from
Doncaster.’ He shrugged. ‘We offered to put her up, but you know what old
people are like.’ He pointed at Mike’s wheelie bin. ‘You get many Treaters last
night?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘No, just the one... hang on, wait.’ Mike peered at the label stuck
to its bright crimson lid. ‘Shit.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Harjit watched, amused, as he ran back into the house and returned a
moment later with a replacement label which he stuck over the old one.
‘Danielle’s been pestering me for months to get this renewed,’ Mike explained.
‘She’d have my guts for garters if I missed this year’s collection.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Something inside the blood-red bin moved with a slow, slithering
bump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Both men looked at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Borrow your shovel, mate?’ asked Mike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Sure.’ Harjit went into his open garage and came back with a
shovel. Its handle was stout hickory; its blade was wide, heavy steel. Mike
took it, opened the bin’s lid, and rammed the shovel-head hard into the
contents with several heavy, meaty thuds. The slithering stopped. He wiped the
shovel off on the grass and passed it back to Harjit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Cheers.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘No probs.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘But yeah, it managed to get one of the security shutters off the
kitchen window and had half the fridge on the floor before we knew what was
happening.’ Mike paused to rub at a bandage wrapped neatly around his left
forearm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘You want to get that looked at, mate.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Nah, be fine.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘You know the way those bites go septic.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Man, you’re worse than Danielle. If I want another wife I’ll join
your lot.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘Bugger off, Farage.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">They laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">‘More of them every year,’ Mike mused. Three doors down, a young
mother was hosing down the pavement outside her house. ‘Makes you wonder why
the government doesn’t do anything more than just help with the clean up.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘Yup.’ Harjit had finished unfolding the big sheet of black plastic
and laid out four bungee cords next to it. ‘Me, I’m taking mine down the tip.
Every year the council puts the collection charge up and for what – once a
year? I don’t think so.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘Still, nice that it’s a weekend for once, isn’t it? All of the
neighbours pitching in together. Like when we had that snow. And you - how was
your night? Jasmina and the girls okay? Any Treaters get through?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harjit made a face. ‘So you
know that hedge of hybrid blackthorn I had planted along my back fence? The
stuff with the two-inch spikes?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mike nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘Chainsaw,’ Harjit said grimly. ‘Fuckers had a chainsaw. I mean
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<span lang="EN-US">‘I thought I heard something. That’s a shame, man.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘I know – cost me an arm and a leg, that hedge.’ Then, realising
what he had just said, he broke into peals of laughter. ‘Still,’ he continued,
‘turns out that a chainsaw’s bugger all use for digging your way out of a punji
stake pit.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Distantly, they heard the hydraulic whine and reversing siren of a
collection truck from one of the other cul-de-sacs further around the estate.
The Close was busier now with residents coming out to inspect the damage to
their houses – the broken fence panels, the filth on the windows, the
scorch-marks – and to park their shiny red wheelie bins neatly by the side of
the road.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘You know what though?’ said Harjit. ‘You’re right about the weekend
thing. A bit of the old Blitz spirit, isn’t it? Want to help me with mine?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">‘Sure.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mike went to get his machete and together they went into Harjit’s
garage, where the Treater was waiting for them, tied by his wrists with a bit
of old nylon washing line looped over a ceiling beam. He couldn’t have been
more than fourteen years old – bloodstained and stinking and his eyes rolling
with terror above the gaffer-tape which muffled his screams as they moved
towards him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">(image credit: @jodievents)</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-47723405865019802822015-10-26T20:42:00.001+00:002015-10-26T20:42:22.473+00:00There's a Lot of Conning AboutDidn't anybody stay at home this weekend? There was FantasyCon2015 in Nottingham, MCM Comic Con in London, and Showmasters Film and Comic Con Cardiff, while at the NEC you had your choice of the BDIA Dental Showcase, the Dive Show, and the Supreme Cat Show... something for everyone, especially if you're one of those people who like to cosplay as a scuba-diving cat-dentist, and let's face it, who hasn't at one time or another?<br />
<br />
Me, I was at FantasyCon, and it was great. For most of the time I hung out with Iain Grant and Heide Goody (they of the fiendishly hilarious Clovenhoof series), but manage to catch up with some old friends and put flesh to some I've only met online ('put flesh to' is probably not the best choice of words, it wasn't <i>that</i> sort of con, but whatever). Jim 'Ginger Nuts of Horror' McLeod is exactly as lovely as he comes across on his blog. Jenny 'The Copper Promise' Williams looked slightly shell-shocked when I was wittering on about wanting to set up a franchise of the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club in the Midlands, but by that time I was on my second bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale to armour myself against a nightmare book-reading I'd foolishly signed up for. Sorry Ms Williams.<br />
<br />
Four people turned up to my reading - three of whom were Iain, Heide, and her husband Simon. The fourth was Cardinal Cox - poet-in-residence of the Dracula Society - who was a lovely man but really only in the room because he was on after me.<br />
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<i>"Don't look up at the empty room. Don't look up at the empty room. Don't..."</i></div>
<br />
I was on a panel about world-building, sat in on all the ones about the arcane secrets of marketing and how to get an agent and discovered that the answer was the same as it ever has been, which is to just bloody work your socks off, like <i>that</i> advice ever helped anybody. Sunday morning's panel on Religion in Fantasy was disturbingly well attended, but then given the prices of the drinks maybe not that many people could afford to be horribly hungover.<br />
<br />
Yeah, there was that thing with the food. Still, I had a great curry in Beeston and discovered the student union food outlets at Nottingham Uni are pretty good, so there was that.<br />
<br />
On Saturday evening there was a tribute to the late and very much missed Graham Joyce. It turned out that a number of folk had taken this off down to the pub, which is presumably what he would have wanted, and those of us who were left paid our respects in Conference Room 1. During the sombre and thoughtful proceedings, Joe 'Horns' Hill was passing by outside, saw what must have seemed to him a deeply introspective group therapy session and responded in the only appropriate way - by launching himself drooling at the window like something from the Walking Dead. We reckoned Graham would have approved of that too. When Lee Harris discovered that the 'official' event had taken itself off-piste, he very generously bought drinks for those of us left, of which I'm sure Mr Joyce would most <i>definitely</i> have approved.<br />
<br />
I didn't know him at all well, and it's only quite recently that I've got myself into this writing gang, but I thought that I'd have more time to get to know him better. That's the danger, isn't it - thinking that we've got all the time in the world, and we just don't.<br />
<br />
So I've booked a place for next year's con at Scarborough, and I've got my bucket and spade ready to build some sandcastles against the tide (you can see where this metaphor is going, can't you?) and even though I got a rejection from a publisher today, it doesn't matter because in the meantime I'm just going to write as many stories as I can. At the end of the day, it's all you can do, isn't it?<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-391496901961822062015-07-21T19:41:00.001+01:002015-07-21T19:41:31.973+01:00The Philosophy of the Shed: PerspectiveYou may be the biggest person in the shed, but there are always people smaller than you. Please be nice to them. Who knows what size you yourself might be when you step outside again?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-8928922079481103822015-07-20T12:47:00.000+01:002015-07-20T12:47:13.514+01:00London Film and Comic Con 2015The government's idea to ban all mind-altering substances is obviously one of their more outstandingly stupid ideas in a long winding queue of stupid ideas eagerly waiting to have their stupid arses autographed by King Stupid, but for all that I really don't like messing with my own brain too much, since it does a good enough job of messing itself up on its own. Nevertheless, yesterday was the first time in my life I have ever had a can of Red Bull to get me safely home on the motorway. That in itself will give you some idea of my sad, sheltered little life - but also how gloriously knackering this weekend was.<br />
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It got crowded. It was always going to get crowded. All the same, the queues for the lifts and stairs got so long that Olympia's staff opened the big freight elevators to ease the congestion (although they were probably already being used to get the wrestlers up to Level 3), one of which opened directly in front of us writers. Not the nice, well-behaved writers from YALC - the Young Adult Literary Convention just around the corner. Us lot. The fringe. The gin salesmen and Beano artists and teachers who were taking a break from being nice to teenagers for the summer holidays. I almost felt sorry for those con-goers as the big corrugated iron doors opened like the Atmosphere Processing Station delivering Ripley into the Aliens' nest, to be met by me waving my tez gun and Kit Cox hollering 'Welcome to the second floor! Fresh meat! Fresh meat! Fresh meat!'<br />
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Frankly, I'm amazed we sold anything.<br />
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No, I'm not. We're fucking awesome. Everybody is. Writing is the best job in the world - it's just that when you're cooped up in the shed, scribbling away and convinced that your writing sucks but driven to do it anyway because of Reasons, you forget that the only people more awesome than writers are readers, and every so often you get a chance to go into the real world and actually meet some of them. Someone tweeted me just today and said that she thought I was the 'most genuinely excited' person there. I joked that it was extreme fatigue and caffeine, but in retrospect I don't think so. It's like 'Holy shit, these people are actually REAL? You mean it's not all in my deranged attention-seeking imagination?' If you're lucky, they buy your book because they like your work. Or they just pity you. I'll take pity; I'm not proud.<br />
<br />
But yeah, basically my brain is fried. I wasn't even going to write this. Christ knows how many typos there are in it (please don't tell me). Still, I might take a wander down the shed in a bit and see what's going on.<br />
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Ooroo.<br />
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Buy my shiny word things.</div>
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Me standing in a queue for a really GOOD writer, trying to look all cool and nonchalant. First prize if you can work out who it is.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-58910011977685032582015-06-25T19:13:00.000+01:002015-06-25T19:13:16.836+01:00The Philosophy of the Shed: Fur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMVhmYhCvVVdak77ywW3R_ojFHL5iwlKWV2H2z3x22lgENS8y7cDbRHpdtHHMKkxPyMPClib4P6iVQTG8y9plUsYPuNZU_ApUae6UdrLF9CR68LfGalgCiGeYQV5JJ2F-eCYaUN9aKbY/s1600/PumpkinShed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMVhmYhCvVVdak77ywW3R_ojFHL5iwlKWV2H2z3x22lgENS8y7cDbRHpdtHHMKkxPyMPClib4P6iVQTG8y9plUsYPuNZU_ApUae6UdrLF9CR68LfGalgCiGeYQV5JJ2F-eCYaUN9aKbY/s400/PumpkinShed.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The shed doesn't care about your race, gender, age, or even species - just so long as you take pride in your fur, whatever its colour. Paradoxically, the grooming of one's fur is of almost no importance to the shed. It is merely enough that you have fur, not that you parade it around like some foppish mountebank. The shed scorns vanity, and will put spiders in your coiffure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-7785391414073880252015-06-19T18:12:00.000+01:002015-06-19T18:12:11.405+01:00The Philosophy of the Shed: Scheduling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The shed does not know that there is a certain order in which one 'should' do a thing. For example, if the shed has just been furnished with shelves, desk and chair, is now really a good time to decide to sand the floor? The shed does not know. Nor, one suspects, would it care. The shed only knows that the crucial thing is that no job should ever be continued for a second past the point where it ceases to be interesting. This means that a thing may comfortably be left unfinished while another thing is started or continued. The first thing may become interesting enough to continue in its own right later. Who knows? Certainly not the shed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-74550313080224657332015-06-08T21:30:00.002+01:002015-06-08T21:30:46.142+01:00Evocations<h2>
evocator(n.)</h2>
<i>[ev-uh-key-ter, ee-voh-] </i><br />
<br />
<i>a person who evokes, especially one who calls up spirits.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
On Saturday July 11th, at Edge Lit 4, I will very proudly be having my first collection of short stories - 'Evocations' - launched by the award-winning Alchemy Press. 'First' he says, like there's a whole string of them in the production line. But still. I am chuffed.<br />
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You can read a host of scholarly articles about the Art of the Short Form if you like, but for what it's worth here's what I think. Short stories - well, mine at least - are a mongrel breed. Orphans, half-fleshed things, like plants which should be out in the sun but have inexplicably found themselves stuck in perpetual shade, etiolated and wan. They wanted to be novels when they grew up but never really developed the right number of characters or the right kind of plot to feel comfortable in polite company.<br />
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Tufts of dream-wool snagged on the barbed-wire fence of consciousn...<br />
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Jeezus, will you listen to him.<br />
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I wrote some of them for competitions ('The Pigeon Bride'), some just because they made me giggle ('The Decorative Water Feature of Nameless Dread'), and some out of proper writerly outrage ('The Last Dance of Humphrey Bear'). The title of the collection comes from a story about a man with a gift for calling out the spirit of the occasion - and obviously it all goes horribly wrong - but which came out of the weird Aussie phenomenon of Christmas in July. Some of them found homes really quickly - like the one about the mummified cat under Curzon Street Station - while others like 'The Remover of Obstacles' hung around the place for years, whinging and stinking the office up and eating my pringles. Some of them got me into august company - the stories for Den of Geek were read aloud at an event where I got to hang out with terrifyingly talented people like Sarah Pinborough (yes, I'm name-dropping, but it's my blog, so deal). Some have never been seen before, and they're a bit nervous about all the attention. Please be nice to them, okay?<br />
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Orphans. By-blows. But I love the weird things which grow in places where they shouldn't. The ideas that leap out at me at the most inappropriate times, like when I'm trying to teach a bunch of teenagers about Shakespeare, and yell HEY WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF THIS ONE GUY HAD AN OCTOPUS BITE HIM ON THE NOB! They make me feel at home.<br />
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I'll put up some links to where you can get Evocations from as and when. Hopefully I'll see some of you at Edge Lit 4, too.<br />
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Ooroo.<br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-39120106077844327372015-04-15T16:20:00.000+01:002015-04-15T16:20:06.482+01:00A Walk with Wild Edric<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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At the start of the Easter break I went for a walk up a thing with my mate Dan, because that's what English teachers do when they're off duty. The particular thing in question was the Stiperstones - a ten-kay long ridge of granite outcroppings which look like the fossilised spine of some gigantic dinosaur.<br />
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It's quite, quite mad.<br />
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Each of the outcrops has a name, obviously - Shepherd's Rock, the Devil's Chair, Manstone Rock, Cranberry Rock, Nipstone Rock, and finally (and presumably because they'd run out names for rocks by then), just The Rock. That photo is of me on the Devil's Chair. Not so much Wild Edric as Reasonably-Mild-If-Placated-With-Doombar-And-Chocolate-Buttons Skippy. Sorry GoT fans, but it makes the Iron Throne look like the naughty chair we used to have at the bottom of the stairs when my girls were toddlers.<br />
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I've only got wikipedia to go on for this (I've tried to verify it, but don't have time to get a Geology degree), but apparently during the last Ice Age it was the only thing visible in the area which stood out above the glaciers. It's THAT hard. And even though the day we were there was uncharacteristically not pissing with rain, we could literally go from being completely sheltered to being in the teeth of a howling, bitter gale in the space of a single footstep. You can easily understand why the surrounding area is riddled with stone circles and burial mounds - it's an unearthly, inhuman place.<br />
<br />
But I love me a bit of local folklore, so my nerd-bone was tickled to find out that it is the haunt of Wild Edric - or Eadric Cild, or Eadric Silvaticus, depending on what you read. He was a rich and powerful Saxon thegn until the Normans kicked off; led a couple of unsuccessful rebellions and got himself a reputation for being a bit of a troublemaker. His 'wild' moniker came about either as a derivation of his status as a landowner and forester, or (and this is the more colourful version and thus almost certainly untrue), because he and his men preferred to sleep in tents rather than houses on the grounds that they didn't want to be softened up when it came to fighting them posh southern French bastards.<br />
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Frankly, I'm surprised Nigel Farage hasn't taken him up as poster boy for the glorious UKIP crusade. But then there was the whole surrendering thing and ending up helping William the Conqueror to invade Scotland, so maybe not.<br />
<br />
More interesting is Edric's mythogenesis into a proto-Robin Hood figurehead of rebellion centuries before the earliest iteration of that particular hero, even incorporating Arthurian elements in the stories which say how he took the Lady Godda as his Faerie wife, and how they led the Wild Hunt together until she left him for his crimes against her kin, and how he now wanders forever in the twilight realm between the Faerie world and our world, until such time as the land has need of him whereupon he will return to the Stiperstones.<br />
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Just like the land itself, legends are always much older than you think.<br />
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I am SO using this in the next book.<br />
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Couple of related links for you in case you're interested in following up any of the literary connections:<br />
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<a href="http://marywebb.org/synopses/the-golden-arrow/">Mary Webb's 'The Golden Arrow'</a><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/64579-lone-pine">Malcolm Saville's 'Lone Pine' series of children's stories.</a><br />
<a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/dh-lawrence-visits-stiperstones.html">A bit of D H Lawrence, just for laughs.</a><br />
<br />
Ooroo,<br />
<br />
JBUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493844697605428525.post-49307029911526439012014-09-17T23:08:00.002+01:002014-09-17T23:08:19.564+01:00Urban Mythic 2I think for me the highlight of FantasyCon 2014 was hearing that the Alchemy Press had won the BFS Award for Best Small Press. Pete Coleborn, Jan Edwards and their happy and slightly unhinged band of editors (including Jenny Barber, who co-edited Urban Mythics 1 & 2), have produced some brilliant work over the past decade and a half, and it was great to see that recognised. I'm proud to have had a few stories published by them, and so as part of the promotional shenanigans here's a mini-interview I did to try and explain what the feck was going through my head when I wrote 'How to Get Ahead in Avatising.'<br />
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<a href="http://alchemypress.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/james-brogden-interviewed-2/">http://alchemypress.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/james-brogden-interviewed-2/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0