Lookalike Companion

The tea leaves are dwindling without providing a rhyme.  A pigman with wasp features and a streak of enemy bacon starts to hassle at the painted-shut, knowing full well I'm vegetarian.  (I apologised to the fishes yesterday.)  I guess who he's come from.  The man, himself, won't waste time wearing down the discarded pavement gum.  I suspect he has greed-scopes aimed at his own coccyx.  No doubt the crane fly drone the other day was one of theirs.  I need a brain mirror to bounce off - the trampoline in the garden doesn't do justice.  Besides, outside is what is known as 'open space.'

Then it hits me with the grandmother of all smacks.  Like the sound of the morning newspaper slapped on to the table.

I'm a lookalike companion
A trick of time and space
I'm the double of your best friend
I'm a copy of my face

Lining up the Wallbangers

Bargain-basement wallbangers have made their presence known to my internal organs, but they may have raided a few neurons instead of the wished-for effect.  Gossip in the street is that the bailiffs have doorstepped me, the building is condemned and my house has become an outpost of huggermuggers and inarticulate bafflement.  I'm blank as a page, coiled in a corner, letting the rumours exaggerate exponentially in triplicate. Play for time.  Raid my stash of courgettes and nan bread.

Then it happens.  They send in the social media crane fly - nothing more than a thumbnail insect, but with a loud message:  'What in John's name is a Weather Baby?'  Hope is plummeting like a fat McDonald by the side of Loch Tummel.  Desperation reworks the last verse.  Maybe reconsider the chord sequence over a filled pitta.

I heard a husky saxophone

Between the street-talk and the drone

Mugged by a teacher – I’m a runner with no shoes

Crowbarred the whining window welcome city blues 

Brain Parked on the Double Yellows

The writing brain, which lies somewhere on a smogbound street-view between the left and right hemispheres, is parked beside a fish head on the double yellows and is being towed away by a man in a suit.  He leaves a postcard.  On the front, there is a framed Renoir with a speech bubble that says, 'Not to be turned over quite yet.'  So I top the blackcurrants.  They're so happy they do a little, healthy vitamin C number.  I airbrush the aubergines.  They're delighted and sing: 'I am the Eggplant... Coo Coo Ca Choo!'  It's no help to me, especially now I've run out of purple fruit.

On the back of the postcard, it says, 'I've come to collect.'  I hear the crunch of a snail on the doorstep.  I fumble the stash of papers.  There's something here somewhere:

Em, D, AM6

Mugged by a teacher, became a runner with no shoes
Crowbarred the open window city blues

The pinstripes trickles the keyhole.  'The man doesn't like concrete!  Do something!'

Word Franchise

The grim arm of the word-reaper carries a scythe for culling those who have not paid for the franchise. There's smog at the door and a picture in crayon is spooned underneath into the waiting embrace of my tinplate toy.  'Tell me the worst,' I say.  'Rent's spent!'

'Then it's plague-rats for you,' comes the voice as he hobbles off on his perky spine and dog boots.

I might as well try writing on washing-up water.  There won't be any more lyrics tonight.  I could play a fingerbone fanfare on the sax, try a few newspaper ladders, throw darts at magazines, but I can't see a sleeve trick that will do the job.  I have the next array of chords and even a suggestion of a riff, but there it ends. Mavericks and lookalike husks won't do.  Not from the heart.  Not from the collective soul.  Can only wait for the publishing boss to come pounding with his jemmy.  Let him do his worst.

A Fake Smile and Puberty Pills

A fake smile and a fin holding a skewer whine at the acrylic of the cat-flap.  'Let me in, you word breaker!' The big publisher man has his methods.  If it isn't an ex-wrestler with charity wristbands, then it's some kid on puberty pills and lawnmower blades.  The German Shepherds are never far away with their skinned raincoats and rifles stuffed with dummy bullets.  All this before lunchtime.  Nowhere to relax and few places to breathe now that they've nailed down the frames and gun-filled the floorboards.

'All right, all right,' I say, ' next verse or maybe the chorus.  Will that get you off my back, you leech with ocean-deep eyes?'

Bm, F sharp m7, GM7

Whether, Baby, you stay or leave
You're better by yourself
If you find somewhere to breathe
Don't tell nobody else

All through Bill Evans and beetroot and lemon zest, I'm tormented by the double negative.

Coffee, Personality-mime, Coffee

Coffee, personality-mime, coffee - complete the sequence.  Radioactivity floods the street so take a grin-break inside.  Too many hazards to the bedroom, with a beartrap on alternate steps; a bear on every other one.  Settle into the unravelling kitchen, harpoon another mug and rustle up the Les Paul.  Gotta a lyric to write or else slow death by quintet.  A swordfish kills cleanly, leaving no trace but a whiff of ozone.

So strum an A, G, D and back to G:

I left the boy of nineteen years
Melt the concrete shoes and chains with acid tears
Walked past the women buying bread and making tea
Brushing crumbs from their mouths and babies from their knee

Revelation Zone

A streak of Monday cracks the pain for the seconds it takes to rise. The pen is a fingertip away. Playful, it runs for the cliff edge of the table split by varnished years when tiny people couldn't reach for the crumbs and the later days of singalong champagne.  Brain smog baffles the words that queue to straddle the bone-white page.  An idea vaults the chasm, knuckles the page and its done.  Curtains hardly filter the seagulls so listening to the follow-up isn't easy.  There's a revelation close by, plastic-wrapped, unable to break out, calling to be scissored free.  A conversation or even an exclamation by an unknown character in headgear might crash-helmet out, it could be mugged, tricked into the open.  The ending is within reach but the ground to that outpost is protected by a burlesque of clicking spoonfuls, a mob of ringtones, the tongues of floorboards, the swish of buttonless clothing.  I need to find the silent zone.

Grammar Books

Being kept busy.   Not only exploring ways of publicising The Badgers of Beechen Cliff, recently out in paperback, but having completed the final drafts of four grammar books, for Years 3 -6, I'm working on some cover designs.  Not quite there yet, but on the right you'll see the sort of thing I'm working on.

Badgers at St. Marks

My route to and from a friend's house at the top of Beechen Cliff takes me up and down the steps depicted on the cover of The Badgers of Beechen Cliff.  Tonight, on the way there, the sun was setting, creating fiery red splashes on the trees and the ancient walls.  Coming home, I half expected to meet a badger on the path.  It's happened before.  But not tonight.  The route takes me down Holloway and eventually past St. Mark's Church.  The footpath passes between two graveyards no longer used or consecrated.  On the right, by the railing, there was a sudden scuffling among the leaves.  I froze.  I could see two badgers, one only a few feet away which was quickly reacting to my scent  - hopefully, my human scent, not just the cheap aftershave.

I stood stock still for about five minutes in the light of a waning moon as they snuffled among the leaves, grass and wild flowers, stopping every now and again to examine things more closely.  Eventually, one came within a metre of where I was standing, scrabbled around, stopped and peered up at me.  If, you could read my mind, I thought, you'd realise I've written a story about you.  But it scurried off and I left them to it.

Writing Time

Some of the decks are cleared.  The singing group won't meet until September; the cupboard under the stairs is not only tidied, I've re-plastered the walls and re-painted the shelves; the allotment is pretty much looking after itself now and is starting to bear fruit; the paperback version of The Badgers of Beechen Cliff will be available on Amazon any day now; and my four books on grammar have been written and are now with the publisher.

So, maybe now, at last, I can have some time dedicated to other writing projects - stories for children and adults - that have been haunting the pages of my notebooks and corners of my brain for some time now.  I am able to write anytime and anywhere, but what a luxury to be able to indulge completely in ideas and words.  It's not something I'm used to.  I'm sure I'll be able to cope.

The Badgers of Beechen Cliff - Proofs Arrived

It's always exciting when the proofs of a book arrive.  It's also a strange experience: here is a cover, font, layout and content that you know inside out.  You dug it out of your imagination, worried the sentences until the rhythm felt right, solved plot problems and imagined characters sufficiently to illustrate them, and enfold the whole thing inside sympathetic cover.  But when you sign for it at the front door, open the package, and hold the object in your hand, you realise it has left you (in a good way) and is ready to live in the world on its own.  It has an appealing unfamiliarity.

And I have to say it's a modest, little book, but perfectly formed.  So - not long now.

Tourists - Hidden Bath, UK.

There are many fascinating parts of Bath in England that the 1000s of visiting tourists never see.  There is Beechen Cliff, bombed during World War II, and, by the side of it, Holloway, the ancient Roman route into Bath, which continued as a main road during medieval times.  It explains why the pavement is built up so high above a road that would have been mud churned up by horses.  Up Prior Park Road, there is Abbey cemetery, the final resting place of many who fought in the Crimean and Boer Wars.  If you continue out the back gate of the cemetery, you will follow the favourite walk of the poet, Alexander Pope.  It takes you up Fox Lane until you reach Prior Park College, whose grounds are open to visitors.

So Bath is the Roman Baths, Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge, leading to the Holburne Museum.  But it is also much more.  Take a look.  Dare to wander off the beaten track.

USA and UK

How do USA and UK readers compare when it comes to attitudes to, and stories about, wild animals and the environment?  Disney, despite some of his dubious methods in the creation of wildlife films, turned a lot of people on to caring about animals.  He may have had a big hand in anthropomorphising them, but that process began a long time ago in the form of fairytales, myths and fables.

The Badgers of Beechen Cliff falls into the same tradition of animals chatting to each other, displaying human emotions and trying to get themselves out of impossible situations.  But it's not just a 'cuddly' story.  I hope it has a rawness and a reality to it at some level.

Badgers, here in the UK, are in the news because the government has made it legal, within some restrictions, to shoot them,  fearing that they spread TB to cattle.  Whether this is appropriate or effective, when there are other more humane solutions, remains to be seen scientifically.  My book, however, isn't a tirade against this particular stance.  First of all, I hope it is just an exciting and funny story.  But it also comes from a strongly-held belief that, when we treat other creatures in an offhand way, we diminish ourselves as human beings.

I know the UK is often portrayed, probably wrongly, as a nation of animal-lovers.  Is this true of the USA?

Wimbledon, Andy Murray and Xenophobia

Andy Murray is Scottish.  I am Scottish.  A mere coincidence.  An acquaintance, who happens to be English - let's call him Mr. X -  keeps referring to Andy Murray as 'your man.'  How is he 'my man?'  On Saturday, Mr. X said, 'I guess you'll be supporting your man, then.  I'll be supporting the other one, because Murray doesn't give good interviews.'  

I said, 'I hope he wins, but I'll be watching it on TV.  How is Andy Murray going to experience any support from me?  And I think you have to be a good tennis player to win the Wimbledon final - giving good interviews doesn't really come into it, does it?'  There was a lot more that was too boring to go into.

Today, Monday, after Murray's exciting win, I smiled and said to Mr. X, with obvious provocation, 'Your man lost then.'

'I couldn't really support a Serbian.'

'Why not?  He's an amazing player.'

'Well,... '

Physical Book

I've just started working on a paper version of The Badgers of Beechen Cliff.  I thought an ebook would have been enough, but perhaps not for children.  So, hopefully, within the next week or two, it will be available for sale alongside the digital version.