The First Supper

Here’s a first.

As the more alert of you will be aware, last Friday was Burns’ Night and that was a good thing, not least because for the first time I gave a Burns’ Night Supper.  If you’re not aware of this tradition, and it’s one that I suspect Burns himself would have mercilessly mocked, it consists of Scottish people dining on haggis, neeps and tatties (swede and potatoes) while someone recites Burns poetry and someone else plays bagpipes unless forcibly restrained.

Actually I quite like the sound of bagpipes.  Or a solitary bagpipe to be precise.  Mass pipe bands, less so.  My late father who delighted in his Scottish heritage would occasionally give me a record of the Argyll Regiment Pipe Band or some such and this put me off that particular musical niche for life.  Though with the glorious lack of taste that only a small child can muster, I did adore Scotch on the Rocks.

But these days, I prefer the solitary pipe, preferably lamenting something.

So, at the request of an Eastern European of my acquaintance who is interested in the ethnography of her adopted country, I put together a rather scratch Burns Night Supper.  I gave the Selkirk Grace* and poured out some whisky while some cove in a kilt recited an appropriate poem.  We missed out on the appallingly winsome sounding ‘Toast to the Lassies’ and ‘The Lassies Reply’ though I did find a youtube clip of an arch middle aged gentlemen giving the toast but as he was so remarkably fat** I was obliged to drown him out with a rousing chorus of ‘Who Ate All the Haggis’.

*Some have meat but cannae eat

And some have none but want it.

But we have meat and we can eat,

So may the Lord be thankit

**And I’ll never be asked to pose for a campaign about the dangers of over-dieting

And then it settled to an evening of Corries and Silly Wizard CDs interspersed with a blast of Paul McCartney’s Mull of Kintyre which my dining companion had adored as a six year old.  I refer you to my above comments about music appreciation among the under-10s.  This led to quite a lot more whisky.

And so it ended.

What did I learn?  That obtaining a haggis in central Newcastle is surprisingly hard given we’re only about 100 miles away from the border.  I mean, I know the Scots besieged the city but that was coming on for four and a half centuries ago and there is such a thing as holding a grudge for too long.  I learned that it is possible to steam a haggis, boil potatoes and then suedes when only one ring on your cooker works.  You boil the veg in the boiling water that’s steaming the haggis of course.  I found out that Burns really should not be recited in an English accent and finally, according to the radio the next day, I found out that I probably got the grace wrong.

Still, the haggis was nice.

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas tale for you:

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT

AND so it was, that Christmas Eve, that he was visited by three spirits.

            The first showed him his past. Showed him how happy he had been before disappointment and circumstance had soured him.  Showed him how many of those who had clustered about his childhood and young adulthood had made his life the easy and content one it had been.  Showed him how misfortune had been arbitrary and his bitterness unfounded.  Showed him that his success was the result of all those who had helped him along his way and how he was linked with all those he had shared his youthful years with, how he had not stood aloof and alone above them all.  Showed him how much he owed their kindness.

            The second spirit showed him the present.  Showered him with images of small and great kindnesses from high to low.  Showed his loathed wastrel relatives and cheating employees as human figures, not the simplistic caricatures that he had moulded of them in his mind.  This spirit foretold of the death of a child and showed him the orphans his people had created, the mewling miserable Want and the vicious spitting Ignorance.

            The third spoke not a single word, but took him forwards and showed him a lonely death, unmourned by any who knew him with squabbles over his inheritance and finally a neglected grave in a municipal cemetery, it’s green gravel slimy and noisome, the name on the stone almost, but not quite, illegible.

AND then he woke up.

            And it was Christmas Morning!  He had not missed it.  The spirits had done their work in one night.  And he rejoiced and promised to mend his ways.  And he turned on his computer and searched for a site that could deliver a prize goose that very day.

            There wasn’t one.

            And the good will chilled within him.  And he reminded himself that these were hard times.  He spoke to himself to the need to be realistic, to face up to the mess the last lot had left and of the unfortunate fact that hard times required hard policy.  And he realised that throwing money at a problem solves nothing and it was time that people stood on their own feet.  The memory of those who had helped him to his success faded to be replaced by his comforting assurance that his wealth was solely down to his own hard work.

            And still the good will chilled within him as he considered the fecklessness of those who had children they could not afford.  He rehearsed half remembered rows with his relatives, and recast them with himself as the misunderstood but nobly realistic hero.  He wondered when other peoples’ want and ignorance had become his problem.

            And the good will finally bled away as he considered the inevitability of his end and he told himself that while he might not be remembered with affection, he would be remembered with respect.

            And so chilled had his good will become that it spread to his heart and froze it so that it never could beat again.  Not once.

CHRISTMAS, as a rule, is not observed in Hell.  For sure some of the demons might put on paper hats, but their intention is more satirical than festive.  Presents are not swapped and good wishes, for rather obvious reasons, are not offered.  That would make a mockery of the whole thing.

            So it was, on his obsidian throne, Lucifer Morningstar sat and pondered.  Once the most beloved of the angels, before his rebellion and fall, he often became melancholy at this time of year.  But then he would shake out his leathern wings, give an arrogant flick to his left horn, making it ting, and continue ruling in Hell.

            This Christmas, however, seemed different.  He was finding it difficult to shake off his heavy inertia and get on with the torturing and punishing of the damnéd souls.  It all seemed so pointless.

            And then came a small still voice that only he could hear.  And after that came a golden glow that shone before his throne which faded to reveal the soul of a rich human who had let his arrogance and greed chill his heart to an absolute stop this very Christmas morn.

            And Lucifer Morningstar looked up to see the Celestial City that he alone in Hell could still perceive and whispered:

            ‘Thank you, it’s just what I wanted.’

‘A Christmas Present’ copyright © 2012 Alastair Chadwin

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

William Blake and Me

As those who have the misfortune to have spoken or otherwise been in contact with me in the last twenty-four hours may be aware, I have published a book.  It’s called The Fernal Files and you can get it here. 

While this is all very gratifying, it is essentially a self-published book and as anyone knows who paddles in the puddles of the literary life will know, self-published authors are the lowest form of life there is.  Several commentators on The Guardian website book section hold us in the deepest contempt.  And they have their reasons.  As I have said before, there is an also lot of rubbish fiction on the internet, I know, I’ve read some of and, God forgive me, written some as well.  Some self-publishers try to avoid this censure by calling themselves 'independent publishers' and fooling nobody.  Independent publisher is a mealy mouthed phrase like graphic novel in the comics world, used by people trying to hold onto the respect of their peers.  It rarely works. 

The unhappy aura of vanity publishing hangs over the self-publishing world as well*.  My worst ever reading experience (and I’ve read DH Lawrence) occurred when I was asked to look over a couple of vanity published books.  One was just dull, while the other, a sprawling fantasy, had trundled along its weary way for about fifty pages before the author suddenly announced that the preceding section actually belonged in a later novel, yet to be written, and then started again.  I did not join him.  Another reason is that, filled with unwarranted confidence in their skills, many self-publishers eschew such things as proof-reading and independent editing, which can make for a memorable, if not enjoyable, reading experience.  I have endeavoured to avoid such traps and got others to proof-read and edit my meretricious effort before inflicting it onto the public.

*The difference is subtle.  Basically, self-publishing is when the author does it him/herself, vanity publishing is when you pay a company to print it for you.

Amazon claim that you can be published in five minutes.  Far be it for me to doubt their tax avoiding word, but I cannot say that I found this to be the case.  It took about three to four hours.  Admittedly this included a trip to the bank to obtain a couple of highly obscure account numbers amazon required in order to pay me any royalties from the USA, as if, and the previewing does take a while to do, especially as you can’t jump around in the text so you have to go through the whole thing page by page.  Luckily my little effort is a novella.

So why do I open myself up to the sneers of the Guardianistas and the glum realisation that no-one really wants to read the bloody thing?  Sheer bloody arrogance plays a part.  The fact that the book is a novella told in the epistolatory form which I suspect would be a hard sell to any grown-up publisher is another factor.  But mainly it was because I have plans to grow this into a publishing operation and, like the scientist in a ‘50s horror film, I though it best to experiment first on myself.  Next year we shall be publishing a novel not written by me and so, in one leap, move up a tiny step of respectability from self-publisher to small publisher, maybe even to sunny uplands of small press.  And once you get there you can point to such luminaries as JL Carr and William Blake.

Anyway, must be away as there’s an angel in the garden wants a word.

The Curious Incident of the End of Civilisation as We Know It

I was at a political meeting earlier this week.  The first one I’ve been to in years.  It was about the announcement by Newcastle Council that they are planning to close at least ten branch libraries over the next year.  David Almond and others spoke well about how these cuts are unnecessary, indeed how the vast majority of the austerity cuts are unnecessary but are ideologically driven, and the importance of easy access to libraries.  Furthermore, the council have announced that all arts funding is going to be cut entirely within the next few years.

It’s interesting what sets you off in the end.  As anyone unfortunate enough to be a facebook friend of mine will have been aware of the number of articles etc about ATOS I’ve been posting/sharing if they haven’t already hidden me.  But it is this one that has really bitten.  This time it’s personal.

I have a simple question.  The Government tells us: lose the libraries or lose care for children/elderly.  Is this really what we have come to?  Is this really the stark and only choice?  We could afford the Olympics, we can afford police commissioners, we can afford to keep our soldiers dying in an unnecessary and already lost war, we can afford to give tax breaks to the rich.  But we can’t afford libraries, or can only do so at the expense of the vulnerable.  Libraries as reckless luxuries? 

Of course this is nonsense.  The cuts are political, not economic.  This is an attempt to return us to a pre-War country, which, thanks to Evelyn Waugh and others, many Tories view as a lost paradise.  Coupled with this is the truly disgusting belief that our only purpose in this life is to make money for someone else.  Nothing else matters.  An entire country as a workhouse with overseers born to the purple stalking the land sneering at those who made the morally incorrect choice to be born poor.  It’s like a version of Mad Max written by Oscar Wilde, but not nearly as witty.

And just to add to the poisoned punch, we have a government made up of billionaires breathtakingly out of touch with anything outside their gilded circles.  This has been building for a while, from Thatcher’s adoration of the finance sector to the corruption of the Major years and finally the betrayal by Tony Blair and his crony capitalism.  Now we have people who appear to have no concept of what it is to live under a certain income level.  People who believe that poverty is a lifestyle choice and, because of their own diseased morality, believe that everyone must be on the fiddle, like them.  I really could weep.

So, do I exaggerate when I say that these cuts are the most destructive thing to happen to our culture since the Puritan destruction of mediaeval art in the 17^th century?  I truly hope so.  But I fear not.

Movember Woes

Well, I’m half way through the hirsute hullaballoo that is Movember.  If you’ve missed this annual event, it’s a fund/consciousness raiser for male health issues in which men volunteer to grow a moustache during the month of November, thus the name.  You can find details and so forth here.  You can also find me.  No photographs as my phone camera has broken (honest).  Not that I’m disappointed.  I’m more disappointed in my pathetic moustache.  I was hoping for a Zapata (one of those ‘60s droopy affairs) but fifteen days in and I’ve got something that barely registers.  Furthermore I’ve had to stop putting my hair into a ponytail because if I do it makes me look like one of those characters in 1950s British films that James Robertson Justice would shout at, and when I put my glasses on, then it’s a cuckolded husband played by a harassed Richard Attenborough. Which is worse.  

And I like my ponytail.  It keeps my hair out of the way and it irritates dedicated followers of fashion who, for some reason, seem to think they have a right to comment.  Movember irritates other people too.  I read one chap railing against it as being stupid and ineffective and, while he may be right, at least it’s fairly harmless and only effects the moustachioed and his immediate family, which is more than can be said for those prannets who announce that they’re going to cross some ocean on a space hopper and always seem to end up having to be rescued by the Australian Navy.

The other thing Movember does, it forces the men involved to face up to their facial hair growing abilities.  Women, and any bloke who’s never tried to grow a beard or moustache, will be happily unaware of the fraughtness that it creates in the rest of us.  In the ‘90s I shared lodgings with a bloke who had to shave twice a day and used to develop a five o’clock shadow á la Fred Flintstone or Homer Simpson and as a student I shared accommodation for two years with a bloke who, within about three days, could grow a beard that would have won warm applause from any member of Jethro Tull circa 1974.

I, on the other hand, had to suffer the sorrow that comes on a chap when his moustache does not connect with his beard.  A small, yet pungently shaming gap remained either side of the mouth to sneer at my pretentions to Hemingwayesqe machismo.

And then, a couple of years ago, I was on a fortnight long narrowboat holiday.  I don’t shave when I’m on a boat, officially to save water, unofficially because I’m on holiday, and about two thirds of the way through the trip it finally happened.  They joined up.  Houston, I had moustache/beard interface.  I felt as though a great burden had at last been passed from me.

But, Hirsutius, the god of facial hair, is a cruel and capricious god.  As I admired my fine piece of horticulture, I saw two patches, equidistantly astride my chin, of white hair.  My first.  Truly is it said that the gods are not mocked.  Things were not improved by my two and a bit year old niece who, whenever she was sitting on my knee, would gaze wide-eyed at my white patches, occasionally lifting a tremulous hand to touch one of them, before snatching it back with a look of unease and discomfort.  So you can see that I had some, albeit forlorn, but still some hopes for this moustache.  Alas it is not to be.

Still, only fifteen more days to go.

The Red and the White

I see that the white poppies for Remembrance Sunday are making a comeback.  Well, actually I don’t see that at all as I’ve not seen anyone wearing one.  In fact, now I think on it, I’ve never seen anyone wearing one and it’s not as if I move in particularly militaristic circles.

No, what I mean is that I’ve seen an advert for them and someone posting in The Guardian website mentioned them.  Apparently they were first put on sale in 1933.  I’d always thought of them as an ‘80s thing, along with ‘Nuklear Power nein danke’ window stickers.  A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that Margaret Thatcher disapproved of them which doubtless explains their sudden flurry of popularity.

The idea behind the white poppy is to show remembrance for war dead while making it clear that the wearer is against war and therein lies the problem.  I’m not sure that the red poppy does denote that the wearer is happy and comfortable about the prospect of people dying in war.  Rather the opposite I’d always thought.  Some white poppy supporters point to the fact that the red one is worn predominantly by Unionists in Northern Ireland in which case I would suggest that said Unionists be castigated for turning it into an overtly political symbol, just as the English fascist movements tried to co-opt the St George flag.  I loathe football, but I am pleased that assorted World Cups have won that back for us.

With the best will in the world, I find the white poppy uncomfortable.  It smells too strongly of the kind of sanctimoniousness that assumes a moral superiority to all around.  I always think of the lines in the Tom Lehrer song, The Folk Song Army:

                        We are the folk song army

                        Every one of us cares.

                        We all hate poverty, war and injustice

                        Unlike the rest of you squares.

And here in its entirety:

While the red poppy might (and I say might) have honoured only the Allied dead of the ’14-’18 war, it certainly does not now.  Furthermore as the appalling bullying that went on a couple of years back that demanded that everyone should wear one seems to have died down, I am wearing a red poppy this year.  And if anyone wishes to wear a white one, let them do so, but be aware that it may carry as many negative connotations as the red ones you abjure.

It's Hallowe'en!

Another Hallowe’en and another tale for you:

OSTENSION

 It begins with a competition.

This Halloween, create a new fear.  Major rewards.

Looks fun.

An old photograph, small part of background carefully distorted, just enough to cause discomfort, a sense of wrongness, a feel of the uncanny, the creepy.  Play with photoshop.  It’s a laugh.

An impression of hair with a glow or nimbus behind it.  Features and limbs unseen though there are hints against the dark of things that seem sharp-edged and bone-white.

Photograph not quite enough.  Needs more.  Needs a caption.

‘He said glory would be our reward.  All we had to do was give.  We gave all.  We received out reward.’

That should do it.

It’s spreading.

Some wannabe film students muck around with their mates and a digital camera camera.  Ten shaky, blurry seconds of something.  Something that gives an impression of hair and bone.

‘God, what’s that?  What is it?’

‘Get out.  Just get out.  I’m right behind you!’

Sudden blackout with electronic screech.

All very Blair Witch/Paranormal Activity.

‘Tonight we want your calls about your spooky experiences!’

‘It was like the thing in the photograph, you know, the famous one of the playground.  Well I was haunted by that thing all my childhood.  It’s real.’

Result!  Losers out there think it’s true.  Tossers.

The Website That Let’s You Tell Your True Life Paranormal stories

They’ve given it a name.  They’ve given it a gender!

gloryboy

Is it too late to copyright?

A flicker in the mirror.  That which makes you suddenly check that there’s nothing behind you.  The light patch in the dark of  the trees that is suddenly wrong.

you’ve got gloryboy on your trail

Houston we have a meme!

Pastor Caleb Gems performs exorcisms to rid you of evil

‘I know that gloryboy exists’

‘There he was, watching me from the woods, a darkness darker than that around.  A strange glow.  Hair and bone’

‘In my bedroom, in the corner, just there for a moment I saw him from the corner of my eye.  I see him still.’

‘Please God, save me from gloryboy.’

“gloryboy: He Exists” by Pastor Caleb Gems, $10 special price when you click here.

Coming through.  Coming through.

At gloryboy.com you can get your gloryboy mugs, tee shirts, mouse mats and badges.  gloryboy is here with your reward!

A focal point.  New bogeyman.  Something is hungry.  Something is ready to feed.

There’s glory for You!

Follow the new hilarious gloryboy web-strip!  You’ll get your reward!

Coming through. 

Coming through.

Reward.

Where did that come from?  Be seeing old glory himself if not careful:)

Photograph from 1912 shows that gloryboy has been with us a long time.

Oh give me strength!

Does this medieval woodcut show gloryboy?

No it doesn’t.  It can’t.  I created him, it, two years ago for a competition.

Never did get my reward.

Latest gloryboy footage and testimony.  Is he after our children?

They’ve added so much to him.  Not just a name and a gender.  They’ve given him a look, motives, an MO.

It was meant to be something odd, a bit creepy, unsettling.  Not some comic book villain with complete backstory.

It’s not mine anymore.

He’s not mine anymore.

gloryboy has escaped.

And I think he’s coming home.

Tonight’s discussion.

The unexplained disappearance of the self-proclaimed creator of gloryboy continues to cause controversy.

Did he get his reward?

With apologies to Victor Surge

‘Ostension’ copyright © 2012 Alastair Chadwin

 Or you can read it, along with some comments about the its writing, over at Spring Heeled Jack.

Meanwhile, in the run up to Samhain this year I’ve been reading up on my ghostly literature.  Best of the batch so far, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver which I read, liked, admired, but was not overly scared or unnerved by it until this morning when I was in the bath.  No I don’t know why either.  Baths don’t feature in the book at all, as far as I can recall and as I only read it a week back, if they did they weren’t major plot drivers.  Odd.

I’ve come across this delayed reaction to ghost stories before, noticeably with MR James.  A detail from the story will suddenly pop back into my mind at an unexpected moment.  It can be inconvenient.

Another read was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.  This was made into the famous 1963 film, The Haunting and the script there follows the novel very closely.  Interestingly though, the most famously scary sequence in the film is less so in the novel, while the novel’s most alarming scene comes across as somewhat melodramatic in the film. 

Disappointments have included a surprisingly clumsy and unsubtle effort by Henry James called The Romance of Certain Old Clothes.  I hope he gets his act together before I get to Turn of the Screw.

Finally, here’s a song from a film which, despite its title, has curiously little to do with Tim Burton:

And if you are out tonight, as always, be watchful for there may be things abroad which should not be.