story five# privet, no peking

we ate roast chicken and drank red wine in bed. the meat pale and slippery, steaming hot, grease staining the duvet in irregular little islands. he wrote his name, drunk, on my arm and fashioned a nervous plait in my hair as i lay back on all the pillows, stacked beneath me imperiously. earlier, he’d claimed he didn’t need one and lay curled on the swell of my breasts instead. i taught him how to curse in spanish and he’d told me not to show off, then smiled, teeth stained claret.
as the night faded and the empty bottles rolled off the end of the bed whenever we’d moved our feet i’d asked him why he’d done it.
silent, for a moment, but he didn’t sigh as i’d expected.
he told me because he’d needed the money, that he’d been desperate.
my fingers smelt of roast chicken and his chest hair. i told him i’d have lent him the money if he’d been that desperate, that he’d just had to ask.
then he did sigh, and rolled over, snagging the covers.
in the morning his name had blurred and bled on my skin.

facial slot machine

….not, as you might expect, the kind of thing you find only in hardcore porn films or the fevered imaginations of teenage boys but a game on the irresistible ‘bishi-bashi special’ which i found myself playing on saturday morning, just as the beginnings of a hangover were gnawing at the edges of my fragile mind.
(a quick moment of thanks to my friend alex for meeting up with me at the weekend, laughing at my salary, letting me drink all his beer and allowing himself to be dragged by his girlfriend and i to an exhibition the next day even though he clearly suffered from the fear throughout.)
jack white once said that he didn’t trust anyone who didn’t like led zeppelin – i can appreciate this, and moreover said something very similar on friday – i don’t trust anyone who doesn’t find the adam & joe show funny.
moreover, i also don’t trust anyone who…
(1) …uses the word ‘eclectic’ to describe their bastard musical taste – ‘eclectic’ means diverse, so say diverse, or tell me it’s broad. don’t tell me it’s eclectic or i will wash your mouth and ears out for you with carbolic soap.
(2) …tells me that they think pornography is degrading to women – i say this mainly because i once had a boyfriend who said that with such weighted sincerity it was quite sinister – i later found his stash of jazz mags under the bed.
(3) …lists which countries they’ve done – “oh yeah, i’ve done burma, done vietnam, did norway in ninety-six.” did what to it exactly, you preening nomad ?
(4) ….des’ree. des’ree and all who sail on her. “oh life! oh life! oh life! doo,doot doot dooo...” goodbye, des’ree, turn the lights out on your way down.
(5) …tells me to grow up. i once had a friend who didn’t let the fact that he was seven years my junior stop him giving me measured advice on exactly which aspects of my life i needed to focus on, otherwise i’d never get a mortgage/learn to drive/see forty. reality is usually so far down my list of priorities it’s been squashed in at the bottom, in really cramped writing.
(6) …every single person on the sunday times rich list.
(7) … plays, or enjoys the sound of the jazz saxophone. ‘curtis stigers’. mention the name to me and i will visibly shudder right before your very eyes. do it twice and there may be a bit of sick.
there is more, but reading this back i’ve realised it looks like a self-indulgent exercise in ostracizing myself from all my family and most of my friends so i’d better end it there.
(8) …except for people with clammy hands. pasty, damp hands and chubby fingers, handshake like clutching the thoughts of a dying pituitary gland. don’t trust ‘em.

being under bella emberg

i went to the cinema on tuesday to watch ‘häxan – witchcraft through the ages’ - a danish black & white silent film made in 1922 which was, on it’s release, immediately banned. Accompanying the eerie images was geoff smith, who had composed an original soundtrack on the hammered dulcimer which he proceeded to perform flawlessly alongside the film.

bear with me.

i’d never heard of a dulcimer, hammered or otherwise, and was mildly surprised to discover it’s appearance is that of a horizontal harp, the strings of which are hit with small hammers, instead of being plucked. the resulting sound is a malefic resonance which, combined with the images of satan floating around on screen genuinely put the frighteners on me.
however, there is something intrinsically funny about silent movies, and a proportion of the audience were laughing when, for instance, the camera panned to a shuddering shot of the devil seemingly masturbating furiously. i practically scalded myself with hot coffee when a monk hoved into view who looked identical to david st hubbins from spinal tap…and i defy anyone to sit beyond the subtitle ‘satan penetrated every nun in the convent’ without a ribald laugh.
however the girl next to me (trendy haircut, oversized glasses) was huffing and puffing with indignation each time the audience was provoked into muffled sniggering, at one point turning to her boyfriend and saying ‘for god’s sake, this is an ARTHOUSE film.’ (it wasn’t). her boyfriend incidentally looked as though he’d rather by anywhere –anywhere else – on the playstation, in the pub, under bella emberg - anywhere. the worse she got, (“i really don’t see what’s so funny about this”) the more juvenile i became…
…with this in mind, imagine my unfathomable glee when i spotted the above sign in the hippy shop in kemptown – this is, i swear, is a very real request, so should anyone know an unemployed warlock, send them here. genius.

crushed underfoot

oh dear. on friday i went for a few pints with finch, rich and jason. casually over conversation the subject of my extended foray into singledom came up which prompted me to say;
"oh it's alright, in my head i'm having a fantastic relationship."
as a conversation killer you can't beat it. try it at dinner parties. i looked round at their aghast, frankly baffled faces.
"what ? does no-one else do that ?"
apparently not.
jason, very kindly, as if he was dealing with an incendiary device said,
"who with, hon ?"
i'm fairly well known for my delusional crushes on people, and even now at my age i still indulge these whimsical fantasies occasionally safe in the knowledge that it's harmless, and will frankly never happen - well, at least not yet, i'm still hanging on for brooker. here, in no particular order, and mainly for my own amusement, is the comprehensive list of my imaginary relationships:
(1) beck, i believe was the first. that lasted three years and was actually during a relationship with a very kind ex who tolerated it patiently, safe in the knowledge that i was mad for a five foot manchild whose head was too big for his body. my mum made birthday cards for me with cut and pasted pictures of his face and wrote sarcastic comments on the back. thanks mum. i nearly sat in on an interview with him once but spangled it, mainly because i knew i'd be a mess but partly because i heard he was a bit of a bellend. sadly the 'relationship' ended when i left him, homesick for england. this is true.
(2) julian barratt. brief fling. encouraged wildly by odge and sam barnett sending me photos of him in standard awkward poses with speech bubbles coming out of his mouth saying various dirty things. went to a gig once because i heard he may be there. he wasn't. ended abruptly when real life intervened and i found out his girlfriend (a real one, incredibly hot, talented and funny, unfortunately) was pregnant.
(3a) blink-and-you'll-miss-it non-action with cloud, the pixellated nancy boy from final fantasy vii. i am joking here....or am i ? or am i ? etc. (that is an in-joke from the game which will appeal to only one person i know, and he won't be reading this because he's playing final fantasy xii.)*
(4) frodo – not elijah wood who looks like the result of an unholy union between a frog and a startled husky but frodo, the hobbit. yes, i know. something in the homoerotic nature of his lingering glances at sam i think. i walked on this one when i realised in ‘real life’ he has hair like a studio line advert.*
(5) charlie brooker. slow burner this one, but i've just watched his television programme and was immediately so hot for him i disappeared into a weird fantasy of nonchalant canoodlings, idle stroking and witty asides. the man has the ability to make me laugh like no-one else - he described anne widecombe as 'having a face like a haunted cave in poland' and developed television gold such as 'indiana jones and the doomed office romance' and 'honey, i browndicked an acrobat' which i'm sniggering about even as i write this. plus he's childish, sulky and rude and has a strange fixation with the word guff. magic.
as i said, i'm still holding out for brooker.
having said that i'm aware that if i ever met the object of my affections i'd stumble over my words, crack lame jokes and stare bewildered at the floor, safe in the knowledge that yet another crush flickers out because i'm incapable of having an actual relationship....and frankly who wants one ? with the bickering, betraying and bodily fluids i'd rather strap my heart to the undercarriage of a jeep because sometimes that's how it feels. i'm delusional, almost certainly, but i can do without it now, thanks.
anyway in real life i'm off to the beach for a pint. because imagined relationships are all very well but the tight bastards never get a round in.
*i've just read this back....hobbits and computer characters ? what can i say, i'm a dick of the highest order.

story four# word war

He was a collector, he was a collector of words. The sound a penduluming drop of liquid makes as it hits the surface ? SplInk. The sound of wet glass being wiped by a dry hand ? Fweeeep. The brittle sound of ice cracking in a warm glass ? Frickle. Scrrrrrrip. Tethered not by dictionary, nor thesaurus ('those linear, insular, bound dungeons of language') he spurned the common language for sound and shape.
"You can't say that" they'd say, "they're not real words"
"According to who?" Mouldering Dave would ask.
They'd referred to a Rogets, an Oxford Concise, a Cambridge, the thick heavy tomes, and said "These are real words.""Ah yes," Mouldering Dave had nodded sincerely "The language police."
He'd seen the expression on their faces, the smooth sheen of pity, could read their thoughts as though their eyes were transparent, he's old, humour the demented old man, he's not long for this world anyhow.
Splam-dips he called them, or occasionally, a Nockle.
It was a shame then, that when crossing the road on shoes which made a dim fleep, fleep at the back of his head he did not hear the froooooooaaaaa of the oncoming car.
On his gravestone they had put; ' Mouldering Dave. Never at a loss for words.'

blissful astonishment

there are a few things, i noticed last week, which without fail are prefixed by 'the fucking'*.
'the fucking council tax bill.'
'turn off the radio...it's the fucking black eyed peas.'
''the fucking queue's massive.'
can't unfortunately do it with bono, doesn't work. you can however, do it with the fucking edge. who prefixes their name with a 'the' anyway ? idiot.
and so it occurred to me, on thursday at approximately half past four, when a face poked itself around the door of my office and said;
"coming to the pub ?"
"now ?"
"daisy. it's the easter weekend. week's over till tuesday"
the fucking bank holiday. i practically cartwheeled out of the office and into the pub, arriving at the bar with a terrifying vaudeville routine, a somersault and a 'taaaa-dah!!!'
look at the blissful astonishment on my face, lying in my garden. you can't see it, but just out of shot is a punnet of strawberries. there's practically a halo of joy over my head. ahhhhhhh.

*'the feckin' if you're lenny or teena, the irish types.

looks like we're in for nasty weather....

metallic clouds over brighton beach today. even the crazy golf looks washed out, garish colours slightly anaemic looking in the dimming light, as though the victim of electric shock therapy. not-quite-crazy golf. sane golf, lobotomised golf, maybe.
sorry, i’m tired.
stretching slightly to readjust my faculties – scattered to the four corners by the dark clouds blowing over the seas today - i’m planning a bracing walk along the seafront after work. although looking out the window now at the rapidly darkening sky, waves tossed about by a bitter atlantic breeze, and the threat of rain close enough to taste, i’m thinking that actually, and in all possibility almost definitely, i will probably end up huddled over a pint, a rollie and a crossword in the pub after work.

3 down; unit of liquid equivilant to 560 ml (4 letters)

1 across; polite request, anagram of 'asleep' (6 letters)

story three# meretricious mister marvellous

*i have edited this quite heavily, the original is a bit longer and will be included in some compilation or other at some point.*

It wasn't what any of them had expected, although they had talked of nothing else for weeks. In it's conception it had begun as the smallest thing, the embryo of an idea, taking shape and manifesting into cream teas and jumble, tombolas and raffles. No-one could have anticipated it. Least of all the Women of Perranarmykle, the closest thing the tiny town had to a village committee. Now they sat, the nine of them, heads lowered, wondering how to fix things. Sue spoke first, Sue, founder of the sponsored knit-a-thon and the primary school bring and buy.
"There must have been something we could have done."Margaret’s eyes had taken on a dull sheen of disbelief. A coil of hair hung, unchecked, across her lined brow.
"It's not as though we could have prepared for it."
"Perhaps," said Helen, her glasses reflecting the light, turning her eyes into blank, silver pennies, "Perhaps it'll blow over.""Blow over?" Clare's voice was guttural, she who orchestrated the Best Dressed Dog Contest.
"There's no need to shout." Sue said rudely, and took a pinch of the Finest Cake Winner.
In the village hall the light was dim and growing dimmer, the sun a dizzy red ball hanging low in the sky. Shadows slid easily down the walls as though greased, oily, slippery dark matter which congealed in corners. No-one noticed.
A small town, a nothing town, a small clench of houses surrounded by the looming spectre of a church, hedgerows trimmed within a pubic inch, manicured privet and fern. The sign which told you as you came in, ‘Welcome To Perranarmykle’, and was so scrapingly grateful as you left, ‘Thank You For Visiting Perranarmykle’, now hung, corners drooping in easy rust. The scandal of '84, when Sarah Thornbow had eloped with the Pastor Crane had sent a shudder through the village, but that, eerily like everything else, had been powdered and sugared, pinked and dusted down by the nine to nothing more then a fragrant memory. The sign in the muted church hall read "For We Alone Must Fight", but now in the dying light - the ochre and amber of a weary day - it looked like ancient parchment, something used up and dried out.
The darkness shadowed their faces further, made them look rangy, like kicked curs.
"He asked me," Helen said into the gulf of silence and heads turned, almost creaking on tired tendons.
The afternoon had begun with an un-forecast spring chill, a brisk April breeze, causing metallic clouds scutter across a drab sky. On that wind the scent of spring rain, and something darker, less fluid, the air had seemed to thicken and grew musty, like pulling canvas away from senescent, brittle furniture. Helen had been bent over the tub of money, a bright sign reading "50p All Ages" which shivered briskly in the breeze when the stranger had approached, his oilskin raincoat buttoned up to his nostrils and hanging down to his knees. He bent over, leaning in towards her and Helen instinctively drew back, recoiling so fast she stumbled back a step or two. His breath was warmed veal and low, greased spices.
"How much for a stall?" he'd asked.
"I - I -" Helen felt her hands flutter to the scrag of her throat and she forced an insipid smile "It's full. I'm afraid.""Don't be afraid." he'd said and tossed a coin into the pot. She couldn't be sure, but later, as she was counting them out, she found a coin of soft ruin, bruised and knuckled at the edges, and blamed him. It was Sandra who'd noticed the dark stall hung in fluttering canopies of greys, the colour of diseased oysters. As she watched Edward Pascoe, clutching his young daughter Posey by the hand, lifted the flap and ducked under the awning. Later, Clare said she'd touched one of the billowing dark curtains and said it felt wet, dense and moist,
"Like sealskin," she offered.
It had been a small tent, propped up on warped sticks of willow, with a clumsy entrance slit from top to bottom in jagged strokes, and a listless flag the colour of maudlin funerals. Despite it's height of merely six feet the top and edges of the flimsy roof were gilt with frost, as though at a mountain's peak. The shape was square but seemed to waver before the eye, growing and shrinking in equal measure until your perspective throbbed like a diseased tooth. Outside, no signage, just a steaming copper kettle hung over a slump of glowing coals.
It was Johannah who had noticed when the candy floss machine, unchecked, had begun to spew its cobwebby innards all across the counter and onto the grass where the wind blew it in gossamer strands across the near deserted field. In the distance the carousel ground it’s pirouetting horses to a slow, laboured halt, and the music ebbed into an uncomfortable stillness.
“There’s no-one manning the raff-” Johannah began and stopped at the flat, loose expression on Sue’s face.
She was stood three feet downwind of the black tent and as the flaps lifted daintily they caught a scent of exotic secrets, dusty spices and dark, obsidian runes. Johannah started forwards but Sue put a hand on her arm.
“Don’t.” she said firmly.
"Are they all gone ?" Marie asked listlessly, leaning forwards and scattering notes on Best Fern before her. A twitch had begun in the fleshy pouch beneath her eye, but she seemed not to notice.
The nine, adumbral in the gathering folds of the evening. Outside the hall a long stretch of silence. Even the twilight birds were still.
"All gone." chimed Alice, and turned her head to the dank orb of sun.
"They all went in. They didn't come out."

harbour of evil wind

falmouth, yesterday morning, six of the clock. me, stumbling about bleary-eyed and horrified by the hour of day. my hair, seemingly embracing the moist atmosphere, turned into an afro, my smart ‘ ideal for interview’ dress is revealing a lot more of my breasts then is mannerly and in reaction to the lack of sleep my tongue has turned into a bloated, slumbering beast and refuses to allow me to speak properly.
this was not the best start to an interview and it only went downhill from there – spangled the i.t test, told them my biggest weakness was ‘inability to make a decision’ and then laughed a little too brazenly at a weak joke one of the interviewers made.
i blame my naivety in these situations – it’s been several years since i’ve had a ‘proper’ job interview and the inexperience makes me nervous. that and the tiredness. oh, and the caffeine jitters.
it’s all very well moving back to cornwall to edit the novel, and make progress with the second (slow, laborious inching progress it may be, but it’s still progress) but without food, clothes, a house and booze money – not to mention the Mighty Fund for Fun Nice Things – it’ll never happen. ergo, (magnificent, poncey word which is underused, i feel) i need to find a job – because the booze money is really, really vital.

fry-day

the bloggers book is out - here is the link to the site, buy! buy! buy! pay top dollar, it’s all in a good cause....
http://troubled-diva.com/labels/rednoseday.html clearly it was a real struggle to get this book published in one night, so huge well done to all involved....
....great, now back to me.